Balancing the difficulty of this game

[SlackR]

I recently started over with a second commander (wanted to take a different path in the game) and was surprised how much things have changed since my last restart...


It took less an hour to amass enough credits to buy a viper and less than three after that before it was monstrous enough to rake in around one million per hour.

Obviously my skills as a pilot are greater than if I were new to the game, but the higher bounties being paid out have certainly changed the dynamic of the game (at least for me).

I will restart this character again when the new patch hits, but I do wonder if the ability to earn a large amount of credits quickly has made things too easy? Certainly anyone with even half decent combat skills should forget trading if they want to make a lucrative start to the game.

I realise that having more credits doesn't mean you are any closer to completing anything, but I do feel like it should be intitially trickier to make your way in the galaxy armed with only a few creds and some loaned pulse lasers...

In any case it was totally awesome starting over and the sidewinder will always feel like home

 

[jpaulwilson1982]

I think the higher payouts improved the game, especially for beginners. For me, Elite Dangerous was very difficult starting out, especially given the lack of a game manual. I searched the forums often, and honestly it felt like too much effort just to get the bare basics (not taking advanced strategies and such into account). But now there's a game manual and information seems to be better organized on these forums, and with the higher payouts combined with all that, I'm sure the game is actually easier. But you have to take into account that I felt for a long time that Elite was too difficult (unnecessarily so in some aspects), so I've supported many of Frontier's efforts to make the game easier or "more accessible" to average players.

Really though I think all the experience you've acquired in learning the rules of the game is what's really making a restart seem so easy. You can make a ton of credits, but it won't mean much if you're constantly violating a law you don't understand or didn't know was in the game, and if you're getting crushed in combat a lot. So the higher payouts do make the game easier, but I still feel Elite is an extremely challenging game.

 

[Twelvefield]

It's difficult to balance the game not just because of the skill level, but also the amount of time a player can devote to it. For example, I play an hour every other day or so. The higher payouts give me a chance to get at least C and B upgrades, maybe an A at the end of the week. You can easily condense my playtime into a one day binge session and likely achieve more - in the game. Maybe not so much AFK.

You mention accesibility and balance in one breath, but that's two different topics. Even so, both you posters make good points.

 

[bamber]

Thing is you clear save but don't clear skill
.
What you need to remember is you have amassed a lot of experience and fight better and trade better and upgrade better than you did before
.
Im about to clear save for 1.3 and I am a much better player than I was on first start and will progress quicker because of it - the fact that they have also improved various career paths will enhance this

 

[Riedquat]

I agree with you OP, certainly since they upped the bounties you can earn ridiculous amounts very easily in a stock sidewinder in a RES, no skill required.

However, the powerplay update should change that for the better.

 

[mrspoonsi]

Lets say you have a well spec fdl with a rebuy of 6M...and you get killed, how long to earn that back with NIC bounty hunting in res? 2 hours? it is still a grind, a real incentive not to get killed.

I know if I get killed in my Clipper it has a 3.4M rebuy and switching the clipper to trading (gives a break from pew pew), it would take 1 hour of grind to get that back.

 

[ToniB]

elite difficulty/challenge is being dumbed down with each patch actually. i dont think you will see a reverse of that.

Im looking forward to the AI improvements, but dont have high hopes on it with only one single dev working on it to be honest.

 

[Tuub t Tute]

Eeee, when I were a lad, we 'ad to get up 3 hours before we went to bed... Fly to Hutton Orbital, both ways, uphill, in the snow... then we'd get home to Eravate and Dad would gank us mercilessly for the lulz.

You try telling that to the kids of today!

 

[Midian Cabal]

Eeee, when I were a lad, we 'ad to get up 3 hours before we went to bed... Fly to Hutton Orbital, both ways, uphill, in the snow... then we'd get home to Eravate and Dad would gank us mercilessly for the lulz.

You try telling that to the kids of today!

Bed? You were lucky to have a BED! We used to live on the outer side of the station, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. We were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

 

[requ1em]

Bed? You were lucky to have a BED! We used to live on the outer side of the station, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. We were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

Station?....Luxury....we lived in a cardboard box tethered to the back end of a Hauler and had to cook using the jet from a steering thruster while holding our breath for a 20LY round trading trip.

 

[DangerousLarry]

Starting out this game is pretty bad. It's not due to balance but due to not having any of the basic information save for basic flight controls explained to you in in-game tutorials(Which they managed to make confusing in some parts).

When you start out you have NO idea about RES sites, Nav Beacons or how signal sources work. You could go to your first USS and see a wedding barge then surmise that USS' are for pirates to attack these barges or they're just useless "fillers" for the universe altogether. Then you're left with trading... Trading isn't explained, the UI in the navigation planner is hardly explained nor is how the whole import/export feature explained adequately. Once you realise how these things work you're definitely going to come out on top. Even before, on release, if I knew how Nav beacons worked I would have made 1k more Credits for a sidewinder kill that would have taken me an hour to do while trading for the first time or hoping to just discover how to get a bounty.

This game needs some serious tutorials dedicated to each role. As far as i'm aware exploration is NEVER explained nor is mining. It might be in the manual but may I remind you all it's 2015. People haven't used manuals since the early 2000s. Expecting people to take exception for Elite and read through the manual to find out basic information is simply not on. I mean, how much of a pain would it be for Frontier to add an in-game tutorial that sets you up with a basic ship to touch on mining(Laser miner, refinery and the location to do it in) and tell you the basics? Or set you up in supercruise and task you to jump from one sytem to the next and use the different types of scanners. It would take, what, five minutes for people to run through and then they're set, fully aware of what they need to do for these roles. This kind of stuff should have been added long ago...

 

[fergal]

Lets say you have a well spec fdl with a rebuy of 6M...and you get killed, how long to earn that back with NIC bounty hunting in res? 2 hours? it is still a grind, a real incentive not to get killed.

I know if I get killed in my Clipper it has a 3.4M rebuy and switching the clipper to trading (gives a break from pew pew), it would take 1 hour of grind to get that back.

I'm guessing you don't own an FDL
Its actually a cheaper ship than the clipper. My rebuy is usually around 2.8 mill.

Felt like quite a while before I was able to buy a viper. After that I had no real incentive to get more money because the only other ship that I might want to try was a python, and there was no way I could earn enough money without trading, and the running costs of the ship would mean I would need to keep trading just to use it.

The massive increase to bounties has changed this, but I don't like trading because it feels like a grind to me. Res "farming" isn't really that different. Its a task that you need to do to earn money, sounds a bit like a job

 

[PhazonAran]

I'm guessing you don't own an FDL
Its actually a cheaper ship than the clipper. My rebuy is usually around 2.8 mill.

Felt like quite a while before I was able to buy a viper. After that I had no real incentive to get more money because the only other ship that I might want to try was a python, and there was no way I could earn enough money without trading, and the running costs of the ship would mean I would need to keep trading just to use it.

The massive increase to bounties has changed this, but I don't like trading because it feels like a grind to me. Res "farming" isn't really that different. Its a task that you need to do to earn money, sounds a bit like a job

2.8 mil ?

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=60O,7RL4yH7OX7OX4yH01Q3wU0_g0_g0__,2-7_7_6Q6u9Y6u5A,7Sk7go7gompT2Uc

 

[fergal]

2.8 mil ?

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=60O,7RL4yH7OX7OX4yH01Q3wU0_g0_g0__,2-7_7_6Q6u9Y6u5A,7Sk7go7gompT2Uc

This is close to what I was running before I stripped out some stuff for piracy:
http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=60O,7RL4yG4yG5Rr5Rr01Q3wU0_g0-80-80-8,2-7_7_6Q6u9Y6Q5A,7Sk4_w0729pC2UI

Which is much more expensive than I thought, then I remembered the benefits I get

 

[Troa Barton]

I'm guessing you don't own an FDL
Its actually a cheaper ship than the clipper. My rebuy is usually around 2.8 mill.

Felt like quite a while before I was able to buy a viper. After that I had no real incentive to get more money because the only other ship that I might want to try was a python, and there was no way I could earn enough money without trading, and the running costs of the ship would mean I would need to keep trading just to use it.

The massive increase to bounties has changed this, but I don't like trading because it feels like a grind to me. Res "farming" isn't really that different. Its a task that you need to do to earn money, sounds a bit like a job

Welcome to a space simulator!
if it feels like a job then they're doing it right.

problem is after you see all the patterns it feels more like a game than a simulator.
trading is one dimensional and follows few rules of economics. Yes it is boring because it's non engaging, this is why I'm an advocate for smuggling being a higher tier version of trading with a real black market. So there's a real risk and reward to trading.

supply and demand should be influenced in both areas. Supply a station with more basic materials like say gold and the production of consumer tech goes up.
also supply and demand seems to have upper and lower limits on them, these need to be removed.
again following real economics if a station needs millions of tons of food but only a few thousand tons of gold then it should then be more profitable to trade food rather than gold. There is no market change, basic a-b routes that never change..

AI PVE combat is laughably predictable and completely non challenging. This should change depending on your rank and how many players there are in an instance. System security should not have any handicaps and fly bigger scarier ships. Oh noes its a gaggle of Eagles that can't shoot straight whatever will I do?
even PvP has a predictable ebb and flow.

Bounty hunting players is fun but the system in place to do so is broken imo. Not to mention that player bounties are pretty low for the most part. Why would I spend a couple hours looking for the bigger ones that are probably in solo, risk death to bring them down, to only make a million credits? I can make that in less than 10 minutes trading why would I ever do that for any reason other than to fight a player?

pirating is the most diverse form of income in this game, your targets are in different ships with different cargo and different play styles. Too bad they can't really make any money again smuggling would change that.

 

[Ydiss]

Indeed, playing a game for a few months does tend to make starting it again easier

Replace bounty hunting with "rares". That was how I made millions very quickly first time around.

I started playing the game in October. It took me at least a few days of play to fully understand what trading, bounty hunting, mining etc actually accrued. I read up everything I could about the game yet I didn't load up on my first session and start amassing bounties in a sidewinder.

All that is different is you can make reasonable money doing something other than trade. This hasn't made the game easier for new players. It's just made the game better full stop.

I'm on my second commander and sure, it's been a breeze this time around. I know dozens of systems, I know how to fight, where to fight, exactly what ships I want and how to outfit them. I know to look out for CGs.

A new player has none of that.

 

[Drelthar]

The only problem isn't the cash for killing wanted ships, that scales fine, it's that it's too easy to kill big game in cheap low end ships. I personally think you should 100% of the time get utterly crushed by a python, clipper, drop ship or anaconda if you are in a viper solo. A wing of them should have a chance, but there should be a good chance someone's gonna die. But... You can nail anacondas solo in a viper, so...

Game progression should in my eyes involve some small time bounty hunts, with risk, some low cargo trades, lots of opportunistic bulletin board missions, and you should climb into higher and higher levels of these as you upgrade.

Part of that problem is the lack of bulletin board mission scaling. Part is npcs are easy to kill.