ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing Pt.3

@Sardoc If you saw me being rude, then please provide a screenshot or point out what I said. I pride myself on being pleasant and cordial and will gladly take any feedback. It seems like a wild accusation due to lack of arguments so far though. You are the one being rude so far.

I dont screenshot every rude at that I see talking in local. Yet it was there. I saw you being rude to someone you had ganked that yes he shouldnt have been in open. However player like you are the reason most dont watch local and stay in pg because you get your jollies off abusing other players.
 
Greetings Commanders,

Welcome to the third and final set of game balancing changes this side of 2021. In the new year, we'll turn our attention to other aspects of the game that you've raised in your suggestions and feedback. As promised, we're making some further balancing changes to other elements of combat which can be expected alongside a GalNet article later today:

Combat Bonds
High-end NPC combat bonds will provide many more credits, seeing an increase from around 80,000Cr to 400,000Cr. Similar to the recently updated bounties values, the HUD will not reflect the new figure after a kill, but the transaction tab will. These may (rarely) appear to be issued by the Pilot's Federation.

Anti-Xeno Combat
Thargoid combat bonds will provide 4x as many credits as before.

The experience gained from Thargoids which contributes to Combat rank has been re-scaled. This means that Thargoid scouts will provide less than before, however each interceptor will offer more than the last, all the way up to Hydras. The exact amount earned will vary according to the number of pilots who contribute to the kill as well as their various combat ranks.

Delivery Missions
The increase in minable commodity prices has had an unexpectedly large effect on delivery missions due to compounding multipliers, allowing large numbers of credits to be earned with minimal risk and effort. To re-focus the earnings on the effort made, the rewards for these have been changed so that the distance travelled and quantity transported has a larger effect on the pay. Payouts remain relatively high and will be monitored for any further necessary adjustments.

Thank you as always for your replies and insights. Your feedback continues to be invaluable and will drive the further changes in the new year. In the meantime, let us know what you think about the adjustments above!

o7
What is the earnings cap on missions? Previously it was/is 50,000,000. Has this changed?
And if it hasn't would this affect the increased payout on combat bonds for the Thargoid Hydra which is currently 15,000,000 set to increase to 60,000,000 this afternoon.
 
1. Gankers (Easily identified by killing a player who has crimes turned on AND is outside a CZ)
Pirates aren't gankers. Neither are soldiers.
Just because the mark chose option B of "your money or your life" doesn't make a pirate a ganker.
Just because the person opposing another person in a war fled the CZ and the soldier managed to chase them down and interdict them doesn't make a soldier a ganker.
 
In terms of AX rewards, it's a great step. Though I think a bit more nuance in the AX bounties might be even better to represent the time and difficulty investment in fighting each of the different types.

Perhaps...

Cyclops: 5m (2.5 times previous)

Basilisk: 20m (three-and-a-bit times)

Medusa: 50m (five times)

Hydra: 100-150m

...would be a better curve?

I agree a curve rather than linear progression would be fair. Having said that, 8m cr + better-than-Elite Combat rank gain + gameplay that is still quite new to me = me going to solo Cyclopses tonight.
 
I think that a large part of the reason why people farmed scouts is that they were a reliable location to be able to actually rank Combat once you get to deadly. How feasible would some 'Extreme Haz Res' be, where we can find Deadly and Elite Pirates trying to steal our Painite / Void Opals etc? That was there's still places to go, but we're not just killing Scout after Scout.
There's the "Pirate Activity Detected" signal sources - high-ranked and engineered pirate enemies. Needs a controlling faction in Civil Unrest or Lockdown, so they move around.

Also Combat Zones, of course.

The thing about scouts was that they were individually relatively easy kills compared with an engineered and tanked up NPC. But finding Deadly/Elite targets isn't a problem.
 
That would only work if ps4 xbox and pc had their own independant bgs and powerplay. Because it doesnt then you still have invisible enemies that you have zero chance of seeing.
The obvious answer is to have representatives on different platforms. For powerplay groups, this is invariably the case. In star trek discovery, they didn't stop bothering because they were in a parallel reality. Here those realities have direct impacts on each other via unified PP system. The argument is also garbage because it comes down to "if you can't interact with some people (on other platforms) you shouldn't be able to interact with anybody at all (even on our own platform)".
 
The thing about scouts was that they were individually relatively easy kills compared with an engineered and tanked up NPC. But finding Deadly/Elite targets isn't a problem.
Another reason scouts were popular was the bugged AX CZ that would give you a constant supply of scouts so you could almost AKF your way to Elite. Also one of the reasons there have been such plaintive cries about the AX CZ going missing ...
 
I was thinking a little about how this would work when it goes live and here is my opinion:
  • Cyclops usually takes around 5-ish minutes for killing one.
  • Time to travel to the NHSS from the FC / Space Station can be 1 - 5 minutes
  • You might have enough ammo (without synthesis) to kill around 3 (?) Cyclops
  • Go back to the FC / Space Station to repair, rearm etc should take 1 - 5 minutes more
  • Repeat

If we add all together in the best case scenario:
  • 1 minute travelling from the FC / Space Station
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel to the next NHSS
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel to the next NHSS
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel back to the FC / Space Station
  • Repeat

Let's say 20 minutes per 24 million Credits
So, in theory 1 Hour should provide 72 million Credits in the really best scenario

Was this the intended Credit per hour ratio?

More like 5 - 10 minutes to kill a Cyclops, then back to the FC/Station to repair, then go out again.
I can't think of a time where I have had enough hull left to risk a second kill before repairing.
 
To be honest Bruce, I've hypothesised that as part of "Odyssey's Release" The Bank of Zaonce get's destroyed by the Thargoids, and EVERYONE goes back to 100cr and a Sidewinder :D - Well maybe not that extreme, but maybe a 'liveable' credit reset, maybe 100,000,000 or so for those with a balance > 1B
After that, the game can be closed immediately
 
Nice 👌🏻
 

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I was thinking a little about how this would work when it goes live and here is my opinion:
  • Cyclops usually takes around 5-ish minutes for killing one.
  • Time to travel to the NHSS from the FC / Space Station can be 1 - 5 minutes
  • You might have enough ammo (without synthesis) to kill around 3 (?) Cyclops
  • Go back to the FC / Space Station to repair, rearm etc should take 1 - 5 minutes more
  • Repeat

If we add all together in the best case scenario:
  • 1 minute travelling from the FC / Space Station
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel to the next NHSS
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel to the next NHSS
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel back to the FC / Space Station
  • Repeat

Let's say 20 minutes per 24 million Credits
So, in theory 1 Hour should provide 72 million Credits in the really best scenario

Was this the intended Credit per hour ratio?
I don't think your average pilot is killing cyclops in 5 minutes.
 
This is one of the strangest and most disconnected parts of that proposal for me.

"Open is much riskier to BGS in, because of the other players, so it should be more effective"
...is combined with...
"Anyone attempting to PvP you over BGS matters, which 99% of the time outside CZs is going to involve attacking a locally-Clean ship, should be instantly killed by ATR and given a 100 million bounty"

Well, where's the extra risk for Open BGS (already largely non-existent outside special cases anyway) coming from, then? People sleeping on landing pads?
It's possible to find the proposal interesting while highlighting flaws! :)
It is flawed, but FDev have no reason to apply it wrote - I hope they don't. The thread overall presumably highlights the flaws (I noticed useful comments from yourself).
 
You know, in all the games in which I have met such a balancing of the economy, they ended in the collapse of projects within a year. I’ll be very sorry if ED dies. But nothing, we will add Fdev to the blacklist of developers and find other projects
 
Ref Kai's crime and punishment proposal: I don't think heavily disincentivising player killing and nerfed influence impact in private group/solo are incompatible. Yes, it'll be harder and more risky to hunt players supporting a faction in high and medium security systems, but arguably the outcomes of that won't be less desirable than what we have now. There are other ways to oppose a faction in Open than simply killing players who support it.

The status quo is unnopposable bots steamrolling players in solo mode. Pretty undesirable IMO.
 
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