An Elite Trader way too fast?

I made Combat elite in about a year of bounty hunting and powerplay undermining and conflict zones. I then did my last bit of naval rank unlock for the empire running missions from cubeo, hip 10716 and for the feds donation missions at 17 draconis. Once I had unlocked the cutter and vette, that I couldn't really afford I made trade elite about 4 months later by moving millions of imperial slaves around zemina Torvals territory, chujohimba & pancienses. Then when passengers came in I went into exploring by proxy, ie ferrying "famous explorer's" to distant tourist beacons generating loads of cartography data as I j)onked (jump+honk) my way through half a million light years.

So all in all my triple elite status took me about three years, combat elite came naturally, trade elite took a lot of effort and I wasn't really enjoying it, so I bought myself a fer-de-lance, a specced and gold painted it, parked it at jameson memorial, and didn't let myself fly it until I was trade elite. During the trade elite campaign, I went through python --> conda --> type 9 --> cutter and innumerable hours of space trucking. The only redeeming feature was I was a very active powerplayer back then and would park up the current cargo barge near the end of the week to go spank out merits for the imperial powerplay faction(s) objectives. Exploration elite was a mixed bag, sure there was a heap of mindless jonking, but there was also some cool vistas, which in VR certainly made an impression on me. One such example is "red and green glory" which is a mountainous planet surface inside a red and green nebula, illuminated with a strange purple blue light from the systems neutron star all combining to create a very eerie feeling - utterly alien and haunting.

Nowadays, "Trade elite" be spanked out in 15hrs of void opal mining, exploration elite is just a few laps of the roadto riches and or a stack of passenger missions, whcih I seem to recall some youtuber posting something about sothis/robigo/some such exploit hub generating passenger missions paying millions for a 45min supercruise? And combat elite can be done by farming thargoid scouts which are all elite ranked. So in essence, in the game as it stands today, triple elite that used to take a couple of years of shrewdly aimed gameplay can now be punched in in about 40hrs.
 
Remember you didn't start a Noob?

My second account I got to Trader Elite in much the same time, but I knew what I was doing from 2 years of my first account!!

Still a S C A R Y galaxy for Noobs, I reckon!
That's a fair point. When I started my 2nd account I had 4 years experience from the 1st account. So I knew exactly what to do, where to go & how to get it, instead of bumbling around for weeks wondering what the hell was the game about!!
 
That's a fair point. When I started my 2nd account I had 4 years experience from the 1st account. So I knew exactly what to do, where to go & how to get it, instead of bumbling around for weeks wondering what the hell was the game about!!
Indeed. However the answer isn't to make the game spew.money out like confetti, it is to do much better hand holding at the start and implement scaled pay.
Funnily enough the game at launch had that with rank locked missions but these were removed due to complaints :(
FD are apparently improving the early game introduction which is great but it is all moot if they insist on making it possible to get to elite in single digit hrs imo
 
Saw a Mostly Harmless trader around the starter systems flying a Type-9. How's that song go?

That ain't working, that's the way you do it
Your credits for nothing and your ships for free!
 
Saw a Mostly Harmless trader around the starter systems flying a Type-9. How's that song go?

That ain't working, that's the way you do it
Your credits for nothing and your ships for free!
You know as soon as they get killed by another ship (NPC or Player) because they don't know how to keep a ship that big and slow alive they'll be straight on here to complain about how the games too hard.
 

Lestat

Banned
That's a fair point. When I started my 2nd account I had 4 years experience from the 1st account. So I knew exactly what to do, where to go & how to get it, instead of bumbling around for weeks wondering what the hell was the game about!!
Yet how hard is for a new player to use Youtube or websites and find the answer you are looking for. It doesn't matter if you played 5 years or a few weeks. It also doesn't take Rocket science to do.
So that bumbling around for a week wondering does not always work.
For me, Before I buy a new game or device I Research it before buying it. That why I did not buy the Oculus Rift due to the blurriness and stayed with TrackerIR or Tobi Eye tracker.
 
You know as soon as they get killed by another ship (NPC or Player) because they don't know how to keep a ship that big and slow alive they'll be straight on here to complain about how the games too hard.

There's a small part of me that wants to be the one to introduce them to the rebuy screen with a message, "You're not worthy." If I do it, it'll be in a Viper or other small, modestly-engineered ship that a truly experienced player would just laugh at.
 
Well, on my alt account I am almost to double elite (trading and exploration) in less than 1 month. Yes, I am not a noob, but man is it easy to rack up credits. Void opals and a couple of exploration trips is all it takes.
 
When everyone is Elite, then nobody is really "Elite" (except the old guard who earned it). It's like handing out the Silver Star to everyone who completes boot camp.

Whether "old guard" or not , if it says Elite in the badge then its elite. I earned it doing smuggling missions and trading imp slaves 3 years ago and with that said , my elite status is no more than anyone who takes 1 week to accomplish it. The only measure it holds is how many credits yoube earned doing that particular activity and nothing else.
 
Yet how hard is for a new player to use Youtube or websites and find the answer you are looking for. It doesn't matter if you played 5 years or a few weeks. It also doesn't take Rocket science to do.
So that bumbling around for a week wondering does not always work.
For me, Before I buy a new game or device I Research it before buying it. That why I did not buy the Oculus Rift due to the blurriness and stayed with TrackerIR or Tobi Eye tracker.
Every negative of the rift on paper is for nothing once you get to experience being IN your ship.
To each their own but the second I tried a DK1 there was no going back. DK2 was a huge improvement , CV1 a bit better again. IF VR happend to fail now I think racing games and flight games are done for me.
 

Lestat

Banned
Every negative of the rift on paper is for nothing once you get to experience being IN your ship.
To each their own but the second I tried a DK1 there was no going back. DK2 was a huge improvement , CV1 a bit better again. IF VR happend to fail now I think racing games and flight games are done for me.
Well I have been posting here https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/rift-s.481151/ Rift S. I also want to see Video and movement with Rift S first. Because of the Oculus Go more like Tobi Eye-tracker. Yes, it has VR but it limited and slow.
 
In reality trade is the fastest way to wealth. I don't understand the logic that combat skill must define what type of spacecraft you can afford and fly.
 
In reality trade is the fastest way to wealth. I don't understand the logic that combat skill must define what type of spacecraft you can afford and fly.

I agree, however the question is whether it should be possible to achieve it this quickly. Personally I don't really mind this long after release, many consider it to be unreasonably quick but it is a bargain bin game now & maybe it needs this to get new players to fully engage (and therefore buy cosmetics). That it is trading (mining in this case) that gets you the money quickest isn't really the issue under discussion.
 
Saw a Mostly Harmless trader around the starter systems flying a Type-9. How's that song go?

That ain't working, that's the way you do it
Your credits for nothing and your ships for free!

That might've been me. :oops:

Didn't keep it for long, though.
Sunk all the credits my alt had earned into the T9.
Took it mining, picked up 256t of Painite, flogged that then went straight to the nearest station that sold the T10 and chopped the T9 in for one.
 
Some went very wrong, FD lost the plot. Getting Elite status in any of the categories should take a long time. This was destroyed by the Opal mining for trading. Maybe ED should have added a mining category for ranking up?

The Elite ranks have very much been cheapened. The drive for money is strong with players. This opal gold mine rush went too far.
 
I do not know if or when FD have looked at their progress algorithms...however last time I actually looked at this, Elite "appeared" to be tied to credits for Exploration and Trading and kills for combat.

500MCr pretty much secured Elite for the two credit based ones and as the OP and many here have noted, this is now trivial to noobs who take up Void Opal mining.

I think it's about time to increase the CR thresholds AND....include things like diversity of trading, number of stations traded at, smuggling (perhaps) etc.

Clicker
 
Some went very wrong, FD lost the plot. Getting Elite status in any of the categories should take a long time. This was destroyed by the Opal mining for trading. Maybe ED should have added a mining category for ranking up?

The Elite ranks have very much been cheapened. The drive for money is strong with players. This opal gold mine rush went too far.
Cannot agree more.

Also as many have noted and mentioned, becoming a billionaire is trivial...FD MUST have something expensive in mind (think 100BCr)
Becoming Elite should not be about how rich you are but how you got there!

Example: Noob goes VOPAL mining and makes 2B ... buys and A-Rate a Cutter or Corvette, park up at a CZ and become Elite in Trader and Combat in no time and acquire ZERO skill.
Nothing at all speaks volumes louder than when this example commander then meets his very first real CMDR flying a Viper MkIII in Open and gets wasted in 2 minutes.
(then goes crying to everyone here in the forums)

Clicker
 
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I agree, however the question is whether it should be possible to achieve it this quickly. Personally I don't really mind this long after release, many consider it to be unreasonably quick but it is a bargain bin game now & maybe it needs this to get new players to fully engage (and therefore buy cosmetics). That it is trading (mining in this case) that gets you the money quickest isn't really the issue under discussion.

The main thing that bothers me is how quickly you achieve the Elite rank, rather than the wealth.

I mean, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the different ranks are a barometer of how well you're doing.
If a newbie starts playing and hits "Elite" after a dozen hours of play, I'm not sure that creates any incentive to keep playing.
Reaching "Elite" is telling the player they're done, they've done all there is to do and there's nothing else.

Personally, I think that FDev have slit their own throat by setting up the earnings in ED as they currently are.
They've spent lord knows how much time and effort designing different ships and different gameplay elements and now a player can bypass the vast majority of it without even knowing it exists.
Course, If that's what FDev want to do, fair enough.
Leaving the ranks as absurdly easy to achieve, though, would seem to be actively telling the player "You've finished the game".

Seems like it'd actually be more useful to simply increase the rank requirements, even if they don't adjust the rewards in any way.
At least, that way, a player might realise that even though they've got billions of credits, they still have a lot to see and do.
 
The main thing that bothers me is how quickly you achieve the Elite rank, rather than the wealth.

I mean, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the different ranks are a barometer of how well you're doing.
If a newbie starts playing and hits "Elite" after a dozen hours of play, I'm not sure that creates any incentive to keep playing.
Reaching "Elite" is telling the player they're done, they've done all there is to do and there's nothing else.

Personally, I think that FDev have slit their own throat by setting up the earnings in ED as they currently are.
They've spent lord knows how much time and effort designing different ships and different gameplay elements and now a player can bypass the vast majority of it without even knowing it exists.
Course, If that's what FDev want to do, fair enough.
Leaving the ranks as absurdly easy to achieve, though, would seem to be actively telling the player "You've finished the game".

Seems like it'd actually be more useful to simply increase the rank requirements, even if they don't adjust the rewards in any way.
At least, that way, a player might realise that even though they've got billions of credits, they still have a lot to see and do.

The very name of the game, Elite, implies it is a goal to be reached, a rank to be proud of, something that is achieved by striving, hard work and dedication. Elite players were respected because of their long-term experience. That is no longer the case 😞
 
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