ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing Pt.3

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


When I bought the game for steam and for ps4, I knew for sure that it was possible to earn enough virtual credits in it. At the moment, you are destroying the gameplay for which I paid money. Although you have not stated anywhere that this is the essence of the game, but at the time of purchase it was so, so in my opinion it is a consumer deception. Then enter some difficulty levels that affect the rewards and prices, which the player himself will choose, at will.

You say that each player chooses his own path, then I choose the path to quickly earn credits for ships and then experiment with them and fight with them, maybe explore the galaxy, then how to realize this path in the face of decreasing profitability everywhere I do did, i.e. there was the maximum earnings at the LTD - they removed, was at the VO - they removed, there was a penalty - they removed, in fact, the earnings in the Elite were reduced.
 
I disagree - a Cyclops can be killed in 3 minutes. (no insta-shard-gibbing)
And i've seen movies with Hydra kills in 15 minutes.

I'd say it seems decent enough - Hydra kills takes 5 times more time, pays 7.5 times more.
I have killed a Cyclops in under 2 minutes (no gibbing).
I have not killed a Hydra in 15 minutes.
I consider myself an above average to high-end AX pilot.
I hope you are not seriously suggesting that killing a Hydra in 15 mins is as easy as killing a clops in 3 mins (it isn't). If you are going to look at kill times, at least look at the kill times of the same people. The fastest Cyclops kill without gibbing that I have seen is just above the minute. Hydra takes 15 times as long -> 15 times the pay and that is still not enough because it is based on kill times of the absolute top of AX pilots. For most people, it would be "Kill clops: 10 minutes, kill hydra: infinite time".
 
Are aware that iirc five people in the entire game did 15 minutes Hydra? Average time is 1 hour.

You are not balancing for those five people who used extremely specialized builds and have no problem doing 10 goid simultaneous fights. You are balancing for the average.
"Can be" doesn't mean "everyone will be able to". Take a look at the data from our survey of solo kill times.
View attachment 198779

The most common TTK for variants is as follows:
Cyclops - 15min
Basilisk - 20min
Medusa - 40min
Hydra - 60min

If you take a look at actual speedrun kills, Cyclops can be killed under 90 seconds (not instagib), while Hydra takes at least 15 minutes. These are however absolute world-record times, with only a few players in the world capable of achieving, and they should not be taken as a basis for balance that will affect everyone.

Yes so FDev should greatly reward the incompetence, right?

Hydra kills are simply not worth it with how much more risky and expensive they are, and people will ever attempt them for the challenge.

yes, they should be attempted for the challenge, not as gold diggers
60 millions for a hydra kill seems decent for me.

The next improvement should be the removal of premium ammo and adjusting the Thargoid combat accordingly (lower their hitpoints pool by 30% maybe?)
 
Yes so FDev should greatly reward the incompetence, right?



yes, they should be attempted for the challenge, not as gold diggers
60 millions for a hydra kill seems decent for me.

The next improvement should be the removal of premium ammo and adjusting the Thargoid combat accordingly (lower their hitpoints pool by 30% maybe?)
So let me ask you this: How much AX combat have you done?
 
Granted. Although the ranks aren't dependent on each other, so I don't consider it a "balance" issue. I understand that trade especially seems far to quick and easy - that's not to say Combat should be made faster. It's "Elite" after all. Happy to receive feedback on this, as with everything else.
If you're going to say rank is not balance, why change it in a re-balancing lol?

I agree ranks wouldn't be a balance, however, when trying to unlock combat engineers such as Lori Jameson getting to dangerous is very difficult, meaning it's pretty difficult to get to the point where you can start engineering for combat to begin with.

As of before the changes getting to deadly meant you were essentially halfway to elite. I'm not saying that gaining combat elite should be easy. I think it should reflect the player's actual skill, my only suggested changes would be to either;

1) Lower the combat rank requirement for Lori Jameson
or
2) instead of NPCs of a lower rank providing 0 pts, maybe they could provide from harmless-rank 0.25-0.75 pts so that at no point do you earn absolute 0 for a kill. Even if it's insignificant, it means that any kill at least somewhat moved you forward

other than that I'm very happy to see the credit balance going in the right direction! keep up the good work!
 
Yes so FDev should greatly reward the incompetence, right?

I hope you are just being facetious, and dont seriously suggest ignoring experience of wast majority of the community in favor of your personal belief.

they should be attempted for the challenge, not as gold diggers
60 millions for a hydra kill seems decent for me.

The problem here is that the payout effectiveness peaks between Basi and Dusa, making it not worth it to progress further if you are after the cash. In my opinion there should be an incentive to get better and take on harder challenges if you want to earn more credits. A non-AX analogy for your argument would be if farming harmless eagles would yield better payouts than taking on elite engineered pirates. In this case you would be defending it by claiming that pirates "should be attempted for the challenge, not as gold diggers".

60 millions for a hydra kill seems decent for me.

The next improvement should be the removal of premium ammo and adjusting the Thargoid combat accordingly (lower their hitpoints pool by 30% maybe?)

Here is something I can more-or-less agree with. 60 million per hydra is more than I expected from Frontier, but I am very skeptical of them lately. And again, the issue is not the value, but the scaling.

As for premium, I hate all synthesys with a passion and would like to see it completely removed, but it will necessitate reworks of several areas of the game, and is very unlikely to happen.
 
When I bought the game for steam and for ps4, I knew for sure that it was possible to earn enough virtual credits in it. At the moment, you are destroying the gameplay for which I paid money. Although you have not stated anywhere that this is the essence of the game, but at the time of purchase it was so, so in my opinion it is a consumer deception. Then enter some difficulty levels that affect the rewards and prices, which the player himself will choose, at will.

You say that each player chooses his own path, then I choose the path to quickly earn credits for ships and then experiment with them and fight with them, maybe explore the galaxy, then how to realize this path in the face of decreasing profitability everywhere I do did, i.e. there was the maximum earnings at the LTD - they removed, was at the VO - they removed, there was a penalty - they removed, in fact, the earnings in the Elite were reduced.

Yes, you should be able to earn fortune doing the lowest skill missions possible :rolleyes: /s "You say that each player chooses his own path" - Yes and if that path is the lowest risk possible you accept consequences going with it (lower payout so more time for money grin needed).

The "I paid so everything should be like I want it to be" attitude doesnt work when there are other players you know. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either invest more time or start doing high risk activities.

Mining and trading are zero risk activities.
 
Yes, you should be able to earn fortune doing the lowest skill missions possible :rolleyes: /s "You say that each player chooses his own path" - Yes and if that path is the lowest risk possible you accept consequences going with it (lower payout so more time for money grin needed).

The "I paid so everything should be like I want it to be" attitude doesnt work when there are other players you know. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either invest more time or start doing high risk activities.

The product is a product, if you bought a car with an engine with a capacity of, for example, 450 hp, after planned maintenance they made it to you 250 hp, having said that there are other users, so now it is
 
The product is a product, if you bought a car with an engine with a capacity of, for example, 450 hp, after planned maintenance they made it to you 250 hp, having said that there are other users, so now it is

And in case of the game you are buying a license to play it with the caveat that changes might be introduced at any time. Not really a good analogy.
 
Interestingly, I had a few follow-on delivery missions left over from yesterday. Today they pay 90% less than yesterday. Seems a bit of a steep nerf, eh?
 
And in case of the game you are buying a license to play it with the caveat that changes might be introduced at any time. Not really a good analogy.
as I wrote, in the first post, I understand that this is so, but I think this is a deception of the buyer
 
I agree ranks wouldn't be a balance, however, when trying to unlock combat engineers such as Lori Jameson getting to dangerous is very difficult, meaning it's pretty difficult to get to the point where you can start engineering for combat to begin with.
Lori Jameson doesn't provide any blueprints which aren't available elsewhere without the combat rank, though.

Her best blueprints are Sensors and DSS 5 (which lots of other engineers provide, including Lei Cheung who can be unlocked without firing a shot) ... everything else she does there's at least one other engineer who does it better and requires no or minimal combat to unlock.

Now, if you don't want to get Dangerous rank and you don't want to take a side-trip to Colonia, you're stuck with Martuuk's G1 SCBs, sure - but even the SCB blueprints aren't that much extra power on most builds compared with the massive increase in shield strength that Cheung or Vatermann can give.

(Is it slightly strange that the most difficult engineer to unlock in the game mostly has a bunch of fairly niche blueprints? I assume it's intentional.)

2) instead of NPCs of a lower rank providing 0 pts, maybe they could provide from harmless-rank 0.25-0.75 pts so that at no point do you earn absolute 0 for a kill. Even if it's insignificant, it means that any kill at least somewhat moved you forward
I'm pretty sure they already did this years ago. It'll be in one of the patch notes somewhere but I can't even remember if it was in 2.x or 3.x
 
Before each balancing, you have to think first! Apparently this is not the strongest side ... Now on business, I ask not the players, but the developers to think and write ... I don't need to answer anywhere ... think about what the game should be like. I see that this is not a simulator, but just after such corrections an incomprehensible thing in which the player has to buy a game, install, enter, buy an average ship, drain it and without money, or start everything from scratch, or delete the ing miracle of the game. The second option is real balancing, according to a certain template, and after that it will be, as it should be, a single game with multiplayer + community goals from the developers' servers. Without arranging such a stupid attempt to manage player accounts. What is the purpose of this all. Too much money is not a definition for a game.
 
The product is a product, if you bought a car with an engine with a capacity of, for example, 450 hp, after planned maintenance they made it to you 250 hp, having said that there are other users, so now it is
No, you payed for a live service product, that has been up to and under change since launch. The general playerbase have been crying out for a more reasonable risk-reward system, but you choose to whine against it when it doesn't turn out in your favor?

You mentioned that you get money to get ships, so you can do combat, so perhaps you should give the combat a go, make money AND have fun?

Opinions aside, this is in no conceivable way deception.
 
PVE combat is also zero risk but hey we would expect this attitude and cluelessness from a ganker.

First off, I consider myself an AX pilot and gank on the side very ocassionaly. Secondly, how many Hydra's you have soloed? AX is PvE combat too. If it is so easy then maybe you can link your vids or screenshots here :) You can check my vid and see if it is zero risk. Granted normal combat is easier but it gives low money too - like 40-60 mil /h - similar to mining now so I dont see a problem. Also, it is for sure more risky than shooting at a rock. The rock doesnt shoot back.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NePjcbY0t5U

You are trying awfully hard to insult me by calling me a ganker. Is it because you lack arguments and have to resort to attempted insults? Look in the mirror.
 
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First off, I consider myself an AX pilot and gank on the side very ocassionaly. Secondly, how many Hydra's you have soloed? AX is PvE combat too. If it is so easy then maybe you can link your vids or screenshots here :) You can check my vid and see if it is zero risk. Granted normal combat is easier but it gives low money too - like 40-60 mil /h - similar to mining now so I dont see a problem. Also, it is for sure more risky than shooting at a rock. The rock doesnt shoot back.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NePjcbY0t5U
I like how he implies that gankers don't need to be aware of game mechanics, both minimising TTK (to be effective in a gank) and earning credits (to build gankboats and pay for the rebuys when you inevitably screw up or get ganked yourself)

I might not see the fun in ganking but I definitely wouldn't dismiss them as clueless.
 
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