Elite Dangerous Exobiology Rank Threshold Rebalance Information

[sallymorganmoore]

Greetings Commanders.

To update futher on yesterday's acknowledgement of concerns over the recent changes brought to Exobiology rank progression:

Following the deployment of Update 14.01 there have been reports of Exobiologists having their rank progress prior to the release reverting to 0%.
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Developer Note:
In 14.01 we altered the thresholds for each rank along the Exobiology progression scale.

Effectively, we've moved the markers along the progression scale that denote where the start and end points of each rank are, in order to bring more harmony between the increase made to biological payouts vs how they were then affecting original rank progression.

Now that these thresholds have moved upwards to match the new payouts, your current rank may be above what you would have earned with the new thresholds.

• This means that the UI will display your rank as being 0% through your current rank.

If you are seeing your rank sat at 0%, this means that your progression behind the scenes is still catching up to the new thresholds.

• This will remain the case until you've made enough hand-ins to catch up with the new start point for your current rank.

Please rest assured that earning progression itself hasn't changed, but we'd like to apologise that the visual side of things is a little confusing whilst everything catches up.

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I really hope this adds some clarity to the current situation for those of you seeing some unexpected behaviour with your Exobiology rank progress.

As always, thank you for sharing your thoughts and being so patient with us whilst we dig deeper into clarity for you.

o7

 

[[VR] Chris]

thanks sally

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

So is the rate of progression back to what it was originally or a little more accelerated now?

 

[sallymorganmoore]

So is the rate of progression back to what it was originally or a little more accelerated now?

It's more reflective of the original way rank progression works as oppose to the dramatically amplified experience many were having since the payout increases o7

 

[Northpin]

Effectively, we've moved the markers along the progression scale that denote where the start and end points of each rank are, in order to bring more harmony between the increase made to biological payouts vs how they were then affecting original rank progression.

Hi Sally,
the big issue with this approach is that you erased any intermediary progress, which can mean a very significantly setback / progress removal

For example:

• if i was Geneticist, 430 millions contributed out of the 440 millions required to reach Elite
• so i was 97% towards Elite rank
• with the way you guys implemented the balance you erased all that big progress i was making towards the Elite rank
• to keep the progress, after this harmony (sorry ) i should have been given the "expericence" points required to maintain my 97% towards the Elite rank
• else, based on new ranking system, now i'm technically below Geneticist (in terms of points gained) and now i have to put a looooot more effort to recover the lost points and to get back to 97% progress towards Elite

 

[vanFace]

So it actually IS a rank reset, just not displayed as such, right? Not seeing the bar move while doing hand-ins is not encouraging game-play.

 

[sallymorganmoore]

Hi Sally,
the big issue with this approach is that you erased any intermediary progress, which can mean a very significantly setback / progress removal

Taking this all onboard.

For example:

• if i was Geneticist, 430 millions contributed out of the 440 millions required to reach Elite
• so i was 97% towards Elite rank
• with the way you guys implemented the balance you erased all that big progress i was making towards the Elite rank
• to keep the progress, after this harmony (sorry ) i should have been given the "expericence" points required to maintain my 97% towards the Elite rank
• else, based on new ranking system, now i'm technically below Geneticist (in terms of points gained) and now i have to put a looooot more effort to recover the lost points and to get back to 97% progress towards Elite

To be clear, I worded the harmony bit. Also to be clear, I'm not intending laughs out of it - I'm taking it as seriously as possible for you all because I can see it's an issue.

 

[Northpin]

So it actually IS a rank reset, just not displayed as such, right? Not seeing the bar move while doing hand-ins is not encouraging game-play.

indeed, and if you were not already Elite (or Elite V fwiw), now you have to do a lot of exobio to regain all the "lost" ranks since the goalposts were moved, but your progress was not kept in line with the move.

 

[Northpin]

To be clear, I worded the harmony bit. Also to be clear, I'm not intending laughs out of it - I'm taking it as seriously as possible for you all because I can see it's an issue.

sorry Sally, that was just me making a joke about the issue (at least now i can make jokes about it - so i'm making progress)

 

[Zieman]

So it actually IS a rank reset, just not displayed as such, right? Not seeing the bar move while doing hand-ins is not encouraging game-play.

So, seeing the actual rank one is at (with the associated progress bar behaving as expected) would be the preferred option, even if it meant going back a rank or two?
I could get behind that.
But the whining of those who just don't get it would be epic!
"Bwaahaa, I lost my bug exploited ranks, why FDEV, why!?! "

 

[vanFace]

indeed, and if you were not already Elite (or Elite V fwiw), now you have to do a lot of exobio to regain all the "lost" ranks since the goalposts were moved, but your progress was not kept in line with the move.

I see. Now I regret doing any exo-bio during the initial pay-out increase because it means my 2 rank increases due to it (fortunately lower ranks) will stick seemingly forever at 0%. Well, it wasn't a very interesting activity to begin with, anyway. Back to my usual Odyssey routine it is, then.

 

[Jabo Zerstorer]

I see. Now I regret doing any exo-bio during the initial pay-out increase because it means my 2 rank increases due to it (fortunately lower ranks) will stick seemingly forever at 0%. Well, it wasn't a very interesting activity to begin with, anyway. Back to my usual Odyssey routine it is, then.

Exobiology payouts are still the same and still the most profitable way of earning credits. You'll soon get those rank gains..

 

[vanFace]

So, seeing the actual rank one is at (with the associated progress bar behaving as expected) would be the preferred option, even if it meant going back a rank or two?
I could get behind that.
But the whining of those who just don't get it would be epic!
"Bwaahaa, I lost my bug exploited ranks, why FDEV, why!?! "

I could imagine other options than pure rank reset as well, like e.g. spreading the progress from your "virtual" reset rank to your next "display" rank on the bar, so it will move, although very slowly. Better than just keeping it at zero until the "virtual" rank catches up.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

This is just my personal feeling on this so I don't expect others to agree:

Exo progress always felt/feels very slow and now we won't see any progress until "catch up" has been achieved * This doesn't make me want to pursue the exobiology discipline anymore I'm afraid. There are more fun things to do elsewhere in the game.

* I hope my understanding is correct here.

 

[Northpin]

I see. Now I regret doing any exo-bio during the initial pay-out increase because it means my 2 rank increases due to it (fortunately lower ranks) will stick seemingly forever at 0%. Well, it wasn't a very interesting activity to begin with, anyway. Back to my usual Odyssey routine it is, then.

yeap, same here.
just that in my case was a 2 times loss - last weekend instead of doing exobio and getting all my toons to Elite, i did AX combat in the invasion zone.
So, i lost twice, both the potential ranks increase and the tharg war (well, the week actually not the entire war) since our efforts were not enough to win that system back.

 

[aRJay]

Thank you for the clarification as to what has happened to my progress.

It is mildly annoying that I have lost the ~71% progress I had made through my current rank by the alterations.
What is more annoying is that while I still have my rank of Taxonomist my actual progression through that rank won’t start until I have earned enough credits to reach the Taxonomist threshold again which I had reached on the 15th of November which is before the payouts were boosted.

What would be fairer at least to those of us who didn’t get the huge rank boost would be setting our progression to the rank we have been awarded, suggestions of having everyone’s exobiology ranks and progression reset to where they were immediately prior to the update are withdrawn.

 

[TheTechnobear]

@sallymorganmoore

could you tell us the new ranking levels?


we already knew this before

Exobiologist

Exobiologist is a role recognized by the Pilots Federation that involves On Foot scientific activities. In order to advance in rank, Exobiologists must use the Genetic Sampler, which is included with the Artemis Suit, to collect samples of alien life forms and then sell them at Vista Genomics...

elite-dangerous.fandom.com

it seems to me, if you published the new levels, then players would be able to (much more) easily be understand whats going on.
i.e. they can see what credits they have earned via exo via stats, and see they are not below the now levels required...
and thus also see, how much they need to do before they see the % start rising gain.

also, as a community, once we know the levels, we will also be able to post screenshots of our stats as examples, so show those the are confused.
at the moment thats tricky, since we have to talk about 'theoretical new levels', so the examples are a bit unclear.

 

[sallymorganmoore]

Exobiology payouts are still the same and still the most profitable way of earning credits. You'll soon get those rank gains..

I'd like to echo this one too, but please do note that your frustrations are absolutely heard and understood.

 

[vanFace]

Exobiology payouts are still the same and still the most profitable way of earning credits. You'll soon get those rank gains..

Wasn't in for the credits, they are actually of least interest to me. It was a) for the war narrative and b) to increase rank. Both was practically ruined by FDev. What a pity, but no real big loss for me, anyway. Move along, nothing to see here .

 

[Coehoorn]

As far as I'm aware, the first scan bonus is still bugged, but nobody is talking about it / acknowledging it? Why is that?