FDev: Credit rebalancing incoming, "more reward for higher risk" activities
- Thread starter StuartGT
- Start date
I wasn't aware that you and I were talking. It seems an odd thing to start a conversation just to tell someone to stop a conversation. Do you see the flaw in your cunning plan?
I thought this was supposed to be a game?
Good job some people didn't play back on release when you were lucky to get 2000Cr for a bounty and mining scanners didn't even exist.
Now with very little effort (and this excludes mining) you can get an Anaconda in a couple of days (took me at least a couple of years).
Good job some people didn't play back on release when you were lucky to get 2000Cr for a bounty and mining scanners didn't even exist.
Now with very little effort (and this excludes mining) you can get an Anaconda in a couple of days (took me at least a couple of years).
I agree completely; the other career-paths have been horrendously underpaid for far too long. 10K to kill a thargoid is a joke and a complete waste of player time. But you fix the other career paths by fixing them, not by simply nerfing, nerfing, nerfing mining. I even agree that mining had some serious problems (the respawning egg, the multi-fragment abrasion blaster bug, etc.) that, absolutely, needed to be fixed. I'm not even averse to prices being dropped. My complaint is more around the extremely poor communication from FDEV around the changes they make and the fact that they are seemingly incapable of making even the slightest change without introducing more bugs than they fix.
I agree that THIS time they did give advance warning of price changes -- I'm fine with that, though I think giving a bit more time for players to prepare for the changes would be beneficial. But this was really the first time - the prior, more serious nerfs to mining prices came completely without warning and with no way for players to prepare. In my case, it cost me a couple of billion, but there were players mining way out in the black who had been buying commodities knowing that they could make a small profit based on well established prices only to take horrendous losses because FDEV swooped in without warning.
Same here, BUT, this is not the same game it was 5 years ago. There are lots of ways to make far more money than back then, far more opportunities to earn cash. Why is it such a big issue for you that people playing today can get ahead much faster than the early days of the game when it was little more than a modern port of the original 80's game? It had to change and improve or it wouldn't survive; that original game was very shallow.
What difference does it make to you or me or anyone else how or how quickly someone today earns their ships? Does it make ANY difference to your game (or mine) that they can do in a couple of weeks what took us months? Not one bit. The chances of you even encountering such a player are so remote. Why are you so concerned with how others choose to play the game? This is an open-ended game precisely so people CAN play the way they choose. If you don't like that, perhaps you need to find a game that's more structured.
The problem is that the economy isn't realistic, like at all. The prices are fixed for the most part, it doesn't generally respond to "events", even the BGS has a certain level of predictability to it. Fdev hadn't fixed the demand bug, or alot of bugs apparently, and basically engaged in price controls and market fixing/rigging. (That would be the real world description of what has happened.) The fact that Painite prices are falling when technically according to their own in game lore, prices should be sky rocketting right now due to the Federation and Empire placing buy orders on everything in preparation for war. It makes ZERO sense.
While your statement is technically correct, people have lost no actual credits in their accounts, they have lost value, specifically the value of their time. The reason I use that term is because Fdev has said it on multiple occasions "We value the players time." In other words Time is a commodity in this case just like any other, and what Fdev has done is essentially devalue the player's time by 60% or to put it another way, it now takes 60% MORE effort and time to earn the same amount of credits as they did last week. This is a pretty steep devaluing to do at once.
And I feel I should point out, this doesn't make combat players any LESS poor right now, this doesn't made traders any more efficient right now. All those other professions who's pay was a joke last week, is still a joke this week.
And since the PWA is still broken, one has to wonder how Fdev will get the data to show how core mining is balanced with respect to these new changes since no one can do core mining.
What I along with other people are wondering is why did they start with mining, why not the other professions that clearly needed a buff, that is completely obvious and irrefutable, yet they are speculating on mining. Even the announcement said they are "messing with the numbers over the next few weeks". Why? If Fdev knows how mining needs to be balanced why do they need to "Mess with the numbers", shouldn't they already know by now? Shoudn't they have already crunched these numbers and concluded, "Yep we need a 60% nerf", what is the need to "Mess with things". And more to the point, if they have to "mess with things" then perhaps they should have left it alone till they were more certain and perhaps, again, buffed the other professions with more solid numbers FIRST and THEN looked at mining.
Fdev speculating at their own game, is honestly painful to watch.
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Nope, no flaw... It's not a cunning plan.
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Fdev will undoubtedly screw this balance pass up.
They aren't fixing the problem. They're just shifting rewards around and not completing or improving the game mechanics involved in getting them.
For mining:
The solution is not to reduce laser mining and increase the reward for core mining because core mining takes longer. This institutes a time sink barrier where the player is rewarded with nothing for long swaths of time.
The solution is to add environmental dangers to mining in general. Make it actually more risky to core mine (not so much more rarer to find cores and those few cores more rewarding). The rate of your income should be in how you manage to avoid death/damage doing either activity. That risk would be the primary barrier to balance the income rates for different mining commodities.
For trade:
This just needs to be changed entirely. It makes zero sense why anyone makes a profit trucking anything in this game. But to make trade better, you need to make travelling require skill and risk to players. Because trade is all about transporting/travelling. And it need to be done in a much better way than their stupid interdiction bots that are 100% predictable.
Again, the solution here is not just using npcs to create risk for traders. But to add environmental hazards to systems and leverage those hazards to scale profits.
Combat:
This really just needs more different ai routines so that npcs aren't so predictable. That and we need to get rid of magic engineering effects in weapons. engineers should have been limited to realistic one-off mods to modules. Drastic changes to ships should be accomplished by aftermarket variants you can purchase. That would fit better with the lore and allow the npcs to utilize the same setups as players have in situations to make them more difficult without resorting to "cheating npcs" again.
we need many types of pirates. Many types of anarchist psychos. many types of good samaritans. Many types of patriotic guys who hate certain other factions or powers. etc. So that it feels more like the npc is reacting to our personal character based on what's going on at the time and perhaps even data pulled from scans and physical location.
Zones where ships are being farmed need to dry up faster or the response needs to more quickly adapt to a player who is farming by attacking with ever increasing numbers of ships until they are driven off. Respawns (reconnecting to the game) need to have a longer cool down period so that you can't just re-roll an instance. You should get the same instance if you leave and come back within 10 minutes.
That and like any other role, environmental hazards should be added to make it more or less risky within a given combat scenario. Allowing the use of both of these risks to scale profits and be barriers to rates of profit.
Exploration:
This really should be all leveraged by environmental hazards that are added to systems and travel thru hyperspace. Exploration in many parts of the galaxy should be extremely dangerous. This would explain why humanity has not spread out as crowded politics make life more difficult in the bubble over the last few centuries. Exploring really should be a role for players who live on the edge. Risking certain death with no way to run to a station to repair or have help a jump away. Explorers who make it back from the other side of the galaxy should be rare enough to know their names.
But i also wouldn't be opposed to introducing the AI race as shepherding-like drones that exist in various distance systems all around the galaxy that attack players the further they get from the bubble.
Without some (maybe the above) changes to the underlying mechanics involved, playing with the numbers you get rewarded with isn't going to solve the balance issue in this game. It's just going to shift it around like it's always done every other time they've done it. You have to get off the time sinks as barriers to profit. The mechanics as they currently exist are too boring for players to accept doing anything but what nets them the most profit with the least amount of work. Even if that means repeating uninteresting actions over and over. Then when they're rich enough so that money doesn't matter anymore...they either tire of the game or do whatever and the gameplay /narrative is ignored or abused.
They aren't fixing the problem. They're just shifting rewards around and not completing or improving the game mechanics involved in getting them.
For mining:
The solution is not to reduce laser mining and increase the reward for core mining because core mining takes longer. This institutes a time sink barrier where the player is rewarded with nothing for long swaths of time.
The solution is to add environmental dangers to mining in general. Make it actually more risky to core mine (not so much more rarer to find cores and those few cores more rewarding). The rate of your income should be in how you manage to avoid death/damage doing either activity. That risk would be the primary barrier to balance the income rates for different mining commodities.
For trade:
This just needs to be changed entirely. It makes zero sense why anyone makes a profit trucking anything in this game. But to make trade better, you need to make travelling require skill and risk to players. Because trade is all about transporting/travelling. And it need to be done in a much better way than their stupid interdiction bots that are 100% predictable.
Again, the solution here is not just using npcs to create risk for traders. But to add environmental hazards to systems and leverage those hazards to scale profits.
Combat:
This really just needs more different ai routines so that npcs aren't so predictable. That and we need to get rid of magic engineering effects in weapons. engineers should have been limited to realistic one-off mods to modules. Drastic changes to ships should be accomplished by aftermarket variants you can purchase. That would fit better with the lore and allow the npcs to utilize the same setups as players have in situations to make them more difficult without resorting to "cheating npcs" again.
we need many types of pirates. Many types of anarchist psychos. many types of good samaritans. Many types of patriotic guys who hate certain other factions or powers. etc. So that it feels more like the npc is reacting to our personal character based on what's going on at the time and perhaps even data pulled from scans and physical location.
Zones where ships are being farmed need to dry up faster or the response needs to more quickly adapt to a player who is farming by attacking with ever increasing numbers of ships until they are driven off. Respawns (reconnecting to the game) need to have a longer cool down period so that you can't just re-roll an instance. You should get the same instance if you leave and come back within 10 minutes.
That and like any other role, environmental hazards should be added to make it more or less risky within a given combat scenario. Allowing the use of both of these risks to scale profits and be barriers to rates of profit.
Exploration:
This really should be all leveraged by environmental hazards that are added to systems and travel thru hyperspace. Exploration in many parts of the galaxy should be extremely dangerous. This would explain why humanity has not spread out as crowded politics make life more difficult in the bubble over the last few centuries. Exploring really should be a role for players who live on the edge. Risking certain death with no way to run to a station to repair or have help a jump away. Explorers who make it back from the other side of the galaxy should be rare enough to know their names.
But i also wouldn't be opposed to introducing the AI race as shepherding-like drones that exist in various distance systems all around the galaxy that attack players the further they get from the bubble.
Without some (maybe the above) changes to the underlying mechanics involved, playing with the numbers you get rewarded with isn't going to solve the balance issue in this game. It's just going to shift it around like it's always done every other time they've done it. You have to get off the time sinks as barriers to profit. The mechanics as they currently exist are too boring for players to accept doing anything but what nets them the most profit with the least amount of work. Even if that means repeating uninteresting actions over and over. Then when they're rich enough so that money doesn't matter anymore...they either tire of the game or do whatever and the gameplay /narrative is ignored or abused.
BINGO. Nailed it.
My Dream:
Less:
time sinks built upon foundations of boring game loops.
More:
Tests of skill and risk taking determining the rate of rewards. You know. Game stuff.
Less:
time sinks built upon foundations of boring game loops.
More:
Tests of skill and risk taking determining the rate of rewards. You know. Game stuff.
I tip my hat to you, sir! Points very well made. Were it possible, I’d rep you twice for not needing a wall of text to make them.
o7
Why are you moaning in this thread about FDev not communicating previous nerfs? Surely you should be happy that FDev now communicate balancing changes in advance, thereby giving CMDRs warning?
1 data point does not establish a trend. Your optimism is naive. Also, a few days notice is not enough notice for many commanders who are way out in the black offering mining trading services. They just took one hell of a hit, very likely significant losses (and I mean actual losses, not simply a lower return) because there was no time for them to get back. These kinds of changes should be communicated well ahead of time (at least 3-4 weeks)Why are you moaning in this thread about FDev not communicating previous nerfs? Surely you should be happy that FDev now communicate balancing changes in advance, thereby giving CMDRs warning?
Less:
things that do not involve Flimley
More:
things that DO involve Flimley.
\o/
Two data points, with more to come:
ANNOUNCEMENT - Game Balancing
Greetings Commanders! Game balance has been at the heart of many discussions around Elite Dangerous, for a long time, and rightly so. At its core, Elite Dangerous is about blazing your own trail and we want all Commanders to feel fairly rewarded for whichever path they choose. To this end, we...
ANNOUNCEMENT - Game Balancing Pt.2
Greetings Commanders, Last week we posted this announcement about our plans for game balancing. Make sure to give it a read for information on the changes that were implemented last week and an overview of our plans. A lot has happened in the short amount of time since then. We've collected...
I disagree with your moaning. Carrier pricing can be changed remotely, so distance isn't an issue.
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Wah wah. It wasn't done out of the blue, they gave ample notice a week+ in advance.
Secondly, you have a Fleet Carrier, and therefore likely have a comfortable credit balance. And those 2100tn were still worth 1,680,000,000Cr. Speaking of time investment, think of how much time it will take all of those new Epic Games CMDRs to get anywhere close to your current net worth? EASILY, will be triple the amount of gameplay time you've put in so far.
You were able to take advantage of a completely broken reward system (you didn't earn that Fleet Carrier exclusively doing combat, trade or exploration). Be thankful for what you have and move on.
Is my net worth $5,000,000? Do I have a paid off 5 bedroom house, with three car garage, and have the financial freedom to secure my family's future and easily afford any expense I could ever want? Because then yes, I could not care less about that $400/hr pay cut.
You know, for someone who's gone on a tear of whining the last hour of how their precious time investment has been wasted thanks to the mining nerf, you've shown yourself to be a biggest pot calling the little kettles black.
I have 11 weeks of gameplay time. I did a little VO mining in Dec 2019 to afford my A-rated Corvette (Unconventional but I love her: https://s.orbis.zone/9xk-) and a nice $380MCr cushion. Haven't significantly mined since and my balance is now ~$550MCr. I don't care that combat hasn't paid out comparatively to mining. I play the game for fun, not to make the maximum amount of some arbitrary video game currency that I will never fully utilize. My time on this earth is worth much more to me than that.
You're the one that brought the real world into it in the post I quoted. You don't get to declare that mixing real world and game examples is off limits just because your attempt to use it failed.
Oh no, you don't get to worm your way out of this. You don't get to make comments about crayons and act like you're the smart one after being shown to be wrong. You can eat your goddamn humble pie and like it.
If you're prepared to discuss without being a condescending jerk about it, then I'm all ears, but you are not getting away with acting like the wounded party when you're the one starting with the insults.