Are all your income balancing need satisfied until Odysee?

[EWanderer]

Good morning.
As you all know we just got a bunch balances passes in the last year for money. Now FDev said, those might not be the final numbers and that further tweaks might be coming. But since we haven't heard so far any news on that front, I thought we could get the ball rolling again.

So I think my question has two sides:
a) Do you think the previous number changes feel good and if not what would you change?
b) Are there any aspects of the game where the monetary rewards could use some tweaking?

In my case I would say the following to a:
The buff to combat really made a difference. Like I got a real combat Anaconda for the first time and pushed "my" faction into expansion and through a war just by shooting at things. Especially on my new CMDR experience did a pure focus on the bounty hunter in res sites put me on a nice progression curve. Not in a whooo rollercoaster to the top, but feeling like earned progress sort of way. So thank you for that FDev. Yet I must also say that as soon as I switched to mining on that fresh account, all hell broke loose as I basicially trippled my assets gained over 2 weeks or so within a matter of 1 hour and 2 cracked motherloads. I mean I am a veteran miner especially for core mining, but the primary skill (finding them damn rocks) isn't that hard. Sadly I don't have a real solution since simply pushing Combat Rewards would just straigth up ruin the new nice early game and rewarding feeling. While further pulling down mining would probably burn forums to the ground. The only compromise I could imagine, but which would be hard to implement with a simple number tweak would be exchange the credit rewards for another currency: Materials aka reduce the overall price, but increase mining mission payout for materials a bunch.

And for b:
I mean really I would love for Tip Off and Salvage Missions to get just a tad bit more. Especially if you are tasked with salvaging things only to be ambushed by a wing of anacondas.

What are your thoughts?

 

[CaptainPugwash]

I would:
1) increase the timer for the respawn of surface mining rocks (if technically possible): those mapped runs can be too op
2) increase the value of core materials by about 10-20% (especially the ice ring ones)
3) increase passenger mission payouts for the long distance ones, and reduce the short distance sight seeing ones
4) significantly increase the demand and price offered for commodities at anarch systems, while also increasing pirate attacks, so those that want to can experiment high profit/high risk trade routes

I’m sure there is more but ...

 

[goemon]

a) overall income is too high for my liking.

b) i would reduce payouts for bounties, exploration, mining, reduce maximum profit of commodities and reduce all non-criminal mission payouts to levels, where doing the sandbox activities can pay more than missions. AX bonds payout feels right now, smuggling needs a buff. reduce purchase cost of FCs to take away the carrot of "i need 5 billion". game felt better to me, when earning rate was somewhere between 2 mio per hour with 10 mio per hour highly optimized top. generally income rate should be balanced in relation to ship prices, not FC prices, - it's just crazy that you can refinance a python in a single session. e.g. you should need several hours play time to refinance an a rated cobra, and 10 times of that for a python.

i know that is highly unpopular and won't happen.

 

[Factabulous]

Bit strange that they're "we'll continue rebalancing in the new year" has translated as "nothing to see here". Ah well, fdev

Things that need balancing ... everything apart from mining / combat (incl AX) / mining missions / source & return missions needs bringing up to the same level. Then increase cost of ships (not FC) / modules to match.

Most in-need of a boost:

• CZ Wrinkles - 50k for a Spec Ops wing
• S&R mission payouts
• Mega-ship / installation scenario payouts
• 'Cargo Delivery' missions (to match Source & Return)

 

[Jmanis]

Not even remotely.

• Smuggling
• megaship looting
• Sol->Colonia passenger missions
• threat 5&6 pirate activity sites and other engineered targets
• mining missions
• Alien biopsies (notwithstanding the recent cg)

... and a bunch of other things are still woefully underpaid, and some other things are quite overpaid still, like massacre missions/stacking

 

[Morbad]

What are your thoughts?

Well, you asked for it...

I'd have a glitch in the Bank of Zaonce blockchain's consensus algorithm force the galaxy back to some physical commodity standard. So, rewards can stay the same in credit value, but I'd have them only be payable in fish.

Want a new Anaconda? You have to haul a million tons of fish to the dealer before they'll release the ship. Get shot down? You have 24 hours to cover the insurance excess with cans of fish or they send repo-men (ATR) to hound you everywhere you go. Cash in bounties or vouchers? Better hope you have a big cargo rack, cause you're getting fish. Sell exploration data to UC? Fish. Get fined? It's either fish or straight to some gulag on a water world farming fish.

All fish, all the time...no money orders, credit cards, personal checks, jewelry, gold, Confederate Dollars, or Dogecoin accepted.

 

[BL1P]

I would like to see balances to the costs of running a ship and the rebuy being increased to match the 1-2000% increases to earnings.

 

[Urbanski101]

I'd like them to look at haulage missions again...they were not supposed to be part of the balance pass anyway but got mangled in the mineral/metal price changes. Follow on missions are utterly worthless (around 90-99% reduction in payout) with average haulage missions around 50-60% reduction. Nobody was getting rich doing these (edge cases excepted) but I doubt many bother with them at all now.

The other thing I'd really like to see is a much wider variety of material rewards for missions. Ideally I'd like to see a selection of all mats available and all G4/5 as a possibility on high ranking missions.

PAX missions need a look as the reward for taking passengers long distance (i.e. to Colonia) is peanuts compared to taking a tourist on a 10 min whizz around the block (comparatively).

Mining got a triple nerf with availability of some minerals, a price drop and a demand drop. So although it's still highly profitable it's nowhere near the crazy levels it once was.

Combat feels about right now, yes it is possible to earn a lot with stacked massacre missions however, that requires a lot of RNG, a decent ship and some level of skill (all points are debatable of course).

Seems as though many of the other activities like piracy, mega ships, smuggling have been left out of the balance pass and need some attention.

 

[Bottom Hat]

Well, you asked for it...

I'd have a glitch in the Bank of Zaonce blockchain's consensus algorithm force the galaxy back to some physical commodity standard. So, rewards can stay the same in credit value, but I'd have them only be payable in fish.

Want a new Anaconda? You have to haul a million tons of fish to the dealer before they'll release the ship. Get shot down? You have 24 hours to cover the insurance excess with cans of fish or they send repo-men (ATR) to hound you everywhere you go. Cash in bounties or vouchers? Better hope you have a big cargo rack, cause you're getting fish. Sell exploration data to UC? Fish. Get fined? It's either fish or straight to some gulag on a water world farming fish.

All fish, all the time...no money orders, credit cards, personal checks, jewelry, gold, Confederate Dollars, or Dogecoin accepted.

I love this idea!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The big problem at the moment I think is trade balance.

Silver and Gold pay out 10-20k/tonne profits, the other Extraction goods pay out 2-4k/tonne, just in basic BGS states, and Gold can go up to over 60k/tonne in ideal BGS conditions.

Those are necessary numbers for bulk trade to be balanced with other earning methods (and for things like Bertrandite to be even somewhat worth mining) ... but only apply to Extraction (and to an extent Refinery) economies.

Other trade goods are still at the pre-rebalance state of ~1k/tonne profit normally, with a few giving 4-5k/tonne in common BGS states, and one or two capable of equalling the basic profitability of Gold in exceptionally rare state combinations.

This is very distorting - I can trade out of an Extraction to most economies or a Refinery to slightly fewer and make 10k/tonne even on a bad day ... or I can be sat at an Industrial in a mildly unfavourable common state combination and have trouble finding a commodity that will actually make a profit at all.

I fly a Krait II with a 120t hold. If a pirate attacks me on a trade run, I'll get 500-1000k for the bounty. I need to make about 5-10k/tonne for the trade profit to be comparable to the combat profit, which is trivial exporting from Extraction and almost impossible exporting from most other economies.

For the immersionists, it's also incredibly silly that:
- Bertrandite is bought for around 20k/tonne
- refined Beryllium ore is sold for around 7k/tonne
- high-tech Progenitor Cells, which the lore hints at being a luxury good for the rich, sell for around 6k/tonne
- rares trading, which hasn't really been touched since the beginning, is unlikely to make much more than 20k/tonne

It wouldn't change any of the "how fast can you make money" to reprice the rest of the trade goods in line with the Extraction ones but it would be a bit more consistent.



(Then after that mission balance as others have mentioned above - mission pay is all over the place with some missions capable of paying out top money, while most types pay much much less)

 

[here_it_comes]

Yes, and beyond.

I spend my credits min-max tweaking mostly small ships, I could make 2 million/session and watch my account grow.

 

[Misty_Dark]

What am I supposed to spend all those credits on? with just lazy bounty hunting and stacking massacre mission, me and my friends have gathered between 2-5 billion in two weeks, depending on how much time we have played... We are not even really trying to maximize our profits, just the basics of how stacking massacre missions works is just about what we have done to optimize, pick as many wing massacre, get 6 days to complete, and go and do massacre to the pirates.. and you share this with your friends, and they do the same, so the payout is overall better than doing the solo missions! so easy credits doing what we like todo, massacre pirates...


But once we all have our maxed out fleet carriers and a few billions to pay for the upkeep for a year or two, then what? most of us already have all the ships we want...so credits will be totally worthless in a few weeks for us.. and since we do losts of missions, we get plenty of grade data and manufactured materials, so that covers most engineering needs for that... the only thing we need to pay special attention to is raw material...


I like that FDev are fixing the how different activities had disparity with their earning potentials....but with nothing to spend it on, then what is the use for credits?

 

[Factabulous]

I like that FDev are fixing the how different activities had disparity with their earning potentials....but with nothing to spend it on, then what is the use for credits?

Same as for the last year or so .. nothing at all

Some seem to like hoarding CR, so they carry on regardless accruing pointless wealth - I'll carry on burning credits on long distance FC resupply missions, that seems to keep me poor

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Same as for the last year or so .. nothing at all

Some seem to like hoarding CR, so they carry on regardless accruing pointless wealth - I'll carry on burning credits on long distance FC resupply missions, that seems to keep me poor

Yeah, I don't get why people do that (beyond a certain number fetish perhaps), I highly doubt that any gear in Odyssey will be in the billions, doesn't make any sense.

 

[EWanderer]

Well, you asked for it...

I'd have a glitch in the Bank of Zaonce blockchain's consensus algorithm force the galaxy back to some physical commodity standard. So, rewards can stay the same in credit value, but I'd have them only be payable in fish.

Want a new Anaconda? You have to haul a million tons of fish to the dealer before they'll release the ship. Get shot down? You have 24 hours to cover the insurance excess with cans of fish or they send repo-men (ATR) to hound you everywhere you go. Cash in bounties or vouchers? Better hope you have a big cargo rack, cause you're getting fish. Sell exploration data to UC? Fish. Get fined? It's either fish or straight to some gulag on a water world farming fish.

All fish, all the time...no money orders, credit cards, personal checks, jewelry, gold, Confederate Dollars, or Dogecoin accepted.

I like your thinking

What am I supposed to spend all those credits on? with just lazy bounty hunting and stacking massacre mission, me and my friends have gathered between 2-5 billion in two weeks, depending on how much time we have played... We are not even really trying to maximize our profits, just the basics of how stacking massacre missions works is just about what we have done to optimize, pick as many wing massacre, get 6 days to complete, and go and do massacre to the pirates.. and you share this with your friends, and they do the same, so the payout is overall better than doing the solo missions! so easy credits doing what we like todo, massacre pirates...


But once we all have our maxed out fleet carriers and a few billions to pay for the upkeep for a year or two, then what? most of us already have all the ships we want...so credits will be totally worthless in a few weeks for us.. and since we do losts of missions, we get plenty of grade data and manufactured materials, so that covers most engineering needs for that... the only thing we need to pay special attention to is raw material...


I like that FDev are fixing the how different activities had disparity with their earning potentials....but with nothing to spend it on, then what is the use for credits?

I agree it appears credits have so far outlived their usefulness / there is a severe lack of methods to use them as part of frictoned interactions. Be that a player backed bounty system with fees, a general credit transfer with fees or markets for other currencies like materials. But that is unfortunately not the scope of what fdev would be willing to do at this point.

 

[Jmanis]

Main thing for me isn't really the accrual of wealth, but rather internal consistency of rewards and incentives in the game.

I couldn't care less if an hour of game time earned me 100 credits or 100 million credits.... rather if a ship is measurably and substantially more difficult than another, then the incentives need to match. It's what I hate most about things like massacre stacking; it overly incentivises seeking out combat with weak ships and throws suspension of disbelief in the bin, so much so that it makes seeking out harder combat activities neither fun, interesting or desirable.

 

[Factabulous]

Main thing for me isn't really the accrual of wealth, but rather internal consistency of rewards and incentives in the game.

Yeah, from my POV I don't want to do something - look at the reward and see it was basically zero - which is the case for many things like S&R USS, m/s scenarios, smuggling etc. I don't need hundreds of millions every hour, but 20k for rescuing an NPC by refuelling them ...

(Though really for S&R scenarios then adding mat rewards onto them would make more sense - if the ships being rescued dropped high level encoded mats that would be better, but then fdev would also need to stop them being farmable, as some players can't control themselves.)

 

[Deleted member 182079]

To reply to the OP, I do think that the core activities are in a decent place (combat, exploration, trade).

Salvage/piracy can pay well, but the effort is a lot higher, and certain mechanics (25% discount on stolen goods, bugs around megaship looting) don't make this a feasible alternative to the rest which is a shame, because it's fun (when it works).

The biggest balance problem for me is the cost side of things - ships and outfitting, and fuel. FC weekly cost are on the low end for me personally (given the above earnings potential now) but it doesn't bother me either way.

 

[Factabulous]

The biggest problem for me is the cost side of things - ships and outfitting, and fuel. FC weekly cost are on the low end for me personally (given the above earnings potential now) but it doesn't bother me either way.

I'm hoping once they 'balance' income they will then 'balance' costs. Doesn't make a lot of sense to increase costs while (some) professions are not getting the megabucks. But I'm sure the #easymode CMDRs will complain, so that may never happen.

 

[EWanderer]

To reply to the OP, I do think that the core activities are in a decent place (combat, exploration, trade).

Salvage/piracy can pay well, but the effort is a lot higher, and certain mechanics (25% discount on stolen goods, bugs around megaship looting) don't make this a feasible alternative to the rest which is a shame, because it's fun (when it works).

The biggest balance problem for me is the cost side of things - ships and outfitting, and fuel. FC weekly cost are on the low end for me personally (given the above earnings potential now) but it doesn't bother me either way.

Prices are a good point, but then again what about all the legacy assets? Will new player just be out of luck, will there be a version 2.0 of every ship with a new price tag and better stats? I think fixing the economy requires a long term effort slowly draining excessive wealth by some means.