Credits per hour, Then and Now

[kofeyh]

This again runs into the problem with the difference between an actual average player and the average forum poster.

This can be best summed up in that neither end of the credit curve is acceptable, and the middle is boring. Therefore it's an unsolvable riddle. Let us discuss!

(This accounts for maybe 98%* of the forums topics; the rest are neat screenshots and forum PVP).

 

[Mr Lindsay]

imo the launch progression rate was almost perfect.......... up until and probably including the Asp.

however due to how the prices of stuff increased vs how your earnings increased with larger ships, anything beyond an Asp became pretty grindy unless you used exploits.

Thankfully for me i was there for that early game and i genuinely would not changed any of my experience of those 1st 300 - 500 hrs or so getting to an Asp. That was my golden era of elite, where the future was exciting and everything in the DDF seemed possible. That was, and likely will always be by a country mile the most enjoyment i have had in any game.

I fondly remember all the planning I did, making notes while looking at lists of the prices of modules, thinking about how I was going to get the funds not only to get the Asp Explorer, but to A-rate it and have enough spare for (huge!!!) re-buys, running costs, etc.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

This again runs into the problem with the difference between an actual average player and the average forum poster.

• There need to be at least some activities where a beginner can both succeed and make a profit, or no-one gets out of the Freewinder.
• It seems common sense (players go on about "risk reward balance" all the time) that more difficult activities should result in a greater profit, if you succeed.
• So a skilled and experienced player (which includes everyone here) is going to be succeeding at the higher-end activities and regularly getting a substantial profit.
• (It's a multiplayer game, so they can also donate some of that surplus profit to their friend in the Freewinder anyway.)

The specific problem with introducing noticeable maintenance costs (beyond the current completely trivial ones) is that it leads to obligations to optimise.

If I do a bit of flying around, I'm probably earning 5-10% of the maximum possible credit rate for my ship. So if maintenance costs are high enough to matter at that level, they're not high enough to be noticeable to someone who's actually trying to maximise credit earnings. On the other hand, they're unrecoverable to someone who's earning much less than I am.

Elite Dangerous isn't really a game about trying to optimise things (there are plenty of things you can optimise, but you're not required to) so anything which requires that ... you need to do activities F, G or H - you can't do I or J because you'll fail too often to get a profit, and you can't do D or E because they won't cover your costs at this stage ... is going to be very unpopular

1 way around this would be to lean more on system states.
so if a player is just mooching about not trying to play optimally and just want an easy time of it then they stick in high or medium security systems but where earning potential is a little less.
those who want a bit of spice in their life can go to the risky areas and here they can also potentially make more profit.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Nostalgia is a powerful drug.

I do miss the 1980's.

 

[lysan]

I'd be very tempted to say, that for a new player, ship progression is not important, only as they can spend Arx and buy a ready-built ship to play, or jump out and scan salad for a goodly amount. Looking back to 2017 when I started, and the first ship purchased after the freewinder (which is still in my FC!) took months of play (it was a T-6) to pay for... Happy days!

Back then I was hauling slaves and drugs, it was hard in those days to be a criminal and make any serious money.

I do miss the 1980's.

Scotty beam be back

 

[Ian Doncaster]

1 way around this would be to lean more on system states.
so if a player is just mooching about not trying to play optimally and just want an easy time of it then they stick in high or medium security systems but where earning potential is a little less.
those who want a bit of spice in their life can go to the risky areas and here they can also potentially make more profit.

The problem is that this implies that the low security systems have sufficient threat that simply moving between POIs is going to involve combat - or there's no actual risk involved to trading/exploring in low security, and reshuffling the combat POIs so that all the HazRES are in the low security systems would make thematic sense but not really make all that much difference in practice.

That's a major change to how the game works.
- interdictions would probably need to auto-succeed (and have the long FSD cooldown, too)
- the average NPC would need to be able to catch a ship of a similar size class boosting away with engineered drives.
- interdictions would likely need much more generous facing and distance limits so that the NPC could attach it to someone using SCO in the first place

At that point it ends up needing quite a significant boost to trade profits to make it work.
Option 1: Type-8 in high security system delivers >350t of cargo
Option 2: Python or Krait or Corsair in low security system delivers ~120t of cargo (and also kills some pirates along the way)

So the trade profits in low security need to be 3x that of high security if not more like 4-5x.

But then...
- park Fleet Carrier next to station in low security system
- load Fleet Carrier (even with souped up interdiction, the NPCs are going to need more than five seconds to catch you)
- jump next to station in another low security system
- unload Fleet Carrier
... you've got the boosted trade profits but again, none of the actual risk justifying them.

So it needs further major changes restricting Fleet Carriers - perhaps forcing them to park on the outskirts of a system - so that they can't just bypass that.

None of these changes would be received cheerfully by many of the existing players who like combat being optional and confined to its own dedicated POIs.

 

[vuteq]

1 way around this would be to lean more on system states.
so if a player is just mooching about not trying to play optimally and just want an easy time of it then they stick in high or medium security systems but where earning potential is a little less.
those who want a bit of spice in their life can go to the risky areas and here they can also potentially make more profit.

Inteesting point, so u postulate if u are not in hi-sec space u mandatory should have at least 10 pirate interdictions u surivived so u should be able to jump to next system? How this should supose to look like in ED? I know how it look like in eve but ED is and always been diferent game. In my opinion credits are miningless at the sense that when u start u discover, u have most fun. If you start using 3-rd party tools, searching others experiances how to get shortcut to goal this fun do nat last long. You play until u reach it and then what? I try get my son to Elite, but it just not clicked hist 1st decision after learning how to fly where how he could get to anaconda. Well i helped him to get to mandalay 1st, then we take part in cg (the last one with pirate hunt last month i think). he get his anaconda, try it and lost interest. ED just not clicked with him. Credits are meaningless, amount of them earned do not determine in anyway yours fun or that u play this game or not in my opinion.

 

[kofeyh]

I am not a fan of pulling up the ladder after I climb it. Leave the ladder, and maybe hang an extra ladder for the ones coming up behind us.

Indeed. I have been instrumental in a few friends obtaining a carrier, and rapidly coming to understand their worth. Ladders exist to be used; otherwise they have no purpose.

Credits have long since stopped being a meter by which to measure progress. Experiences are what truly matter, because those are what we carry the memories of.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Inteesting point, so u postulate if u are not in hi-sec space u mandatory should have at least 10 pirate interdictions u surivived so u should be able to jump to next system? How this should supose to look like in ED? I know how it look like in eve but ED is and always been diferent game. In my opinion credits are miningless at the sense that when u start u discover, u have most fun. If you start using 3-rd party tools, searching others experiances how to get shortcut to goal this fun do nat last long. You play until u reach it and then what? I try get my son to Elite, but it just not clicked hist 1st decision after learning how to fly where how he could get to anaconda. Well i helped him to get to mandalay 1st, then we take part in cg (the last one with pirate hunt last month i think). he get his anaconda, try it and lost interest. ED just not clicked with him. Credits are meaningless, amount of them earned do not determine in anyway yours fun or that u play this game or not in my opinion.

I don't play eve it's not my bag but I would envisage it being more like the other elite games. not a minimum of x number of ships attack but just a higher chance of it happening, and if it does then the ships are more likely to be dangerous.

its too late now but imo the mistake was having massive credit inflation to fix the "end game" ships taking for ever to get.

imo i would rather FD not have inflated credits but instead reduced the cost of the bigger ships and gear - or alternatively tied ship / gear discounts into elite ratings, faction reps and what not.

think about what we have lost with the credit inflation. its totally gutted piracy, other than role play there is simply no point being a pirate or even scooping up the stuff that would be pirates dropped after making the mistake of attacking me.

this is a shame imo. indeed bounty hunter / stolen goods reclamation is how i made almost all my money in past elite games where as in ED its just not worth my time any more.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Indeed. I have been instrumental in a few friends obtaining a carrier, and rapidly coming to understand their worth. Ladders exist to be used; otherwise they have no purpose.

Credits have long since stopped being a meter by which to measure progress. Experiences are what truly matter, because those are what we carry the memories of.

The real currency of games is time.

 

[nemolomen]

I started an alt (Epic) recently, beginning of December 2024.

I got Horizons for free, loaded up the 4.0 game client, got through the training (Pilots License) and purchased Odyssey for about $10.00, got through that training (Ground Ops) and then started playing the game.

In about 35 days, "Carl" went from Sidey in the starting zone doing missions and trading

to Cobra Mk III

to A-Rated

to leaving the starter zone

to going on a short, week or so, exploration jaunt netting about 1 Bil CR, mostly from ExoBio

to purchasing a T-8 and starting to unlock engineers.

He hasn't played much since then...but apparently has somehow amassed 15,300 Arx (none were purchased),

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

Starting over from scratch in other games works quite well and is something I enjoy a lot, by perhaps taking a different approach compared to prior "playthroughs" (in inverted commas because I realise you don't really 'complete' Elite per se, but nevertheless you still progress through its gameplay restrictions, such as credit balance, engineer access and materials, rep, etc.).

Doesn't work any longer for Elite ever since Frontier decided to shoot to pieces any semblance of balancing particularly when it comes to credits (both earning and spending). It would be simple enough to address (adjusting this for all income sources and purchasable assets sensibly, and not in the usual Frontier-sledgehammer style - such as applying simple multiples x4, x8 etc., and only doing so for the income side of things - zero inflation for assets in the game since it released) but instead they doubled down by introducing ships for Arx. It's their vision of the game ultimately so not much we can do about it beyond feeling sad perhaps (if you're so inclined).

I'm grateful for being able to experience the earlier years of the game when this wasn't a problem yet (although, the extreme opposite applied back then - at least the ship progression made sense, unlike now). But the gameplay loop feels more like a sandbox now than ever before - i.e. if I want something I just buy it, the only restrictions are engineering access and to a much lesser degree now mats.

And because there's no need for me to work towards either credits or mats, I struggle to find reasons to play the game (no interest in BGS nor PP) as much as I used to.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

The real currency of games is time.

Or perhaps it's Arx after all - buy ship of choice in the store (some even pre-engineered to varying degrees of usefulness), done. Takes all but a few seconds depending on how quickly you have your credit card at hand.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Starting over from scratch in other games works quite well and is something I enjoy a lot, by perhaps taking a different approach compared to prior "playthroughs" (in inverted commas because I realise you don't really 'complete' Elite per se, but nevertheless you still progress through its gameplay restrictions, such as credit balance, engineer access and materials, rep, etc.).

Doesn't work any longer for Elite ever since Frontier decided to shoot to pieces any semblance of balancing particularly when it comes to credits (both earning and spending). It would be simple enough to address (adjusting this for all income sources and purchasable assets sensibly, and not in the usual Frontier-sledgehammer style - such as applying simple multiples x4, x8 etc., and only doing so for the income side of things - zero inflation for assets in the game since it released) but instead they doubled down by introducing ships for Arx. It's their vision of the game ultimately so not much we can do about it beyond feeling sad perhaps (if you're so inclined).

I'm grateful for being able to experience the earlier years of the game when this wasn't a problem yet (although, the extreme opposite applied back then - at least the ship progression made sense, unlike now). But the gameplay loop feels more like a sandbox now than ever before - i.e. if I want something I just buy it, the only restrictions are engineering access and to a much lesser degree now mats.

And because there's no need for me to work towards either credits or mats, I struggle to find reasons to play the game (no interest in BGS nor PP) as much as I used to.

I followed a similar track, after I clean saved my main account.

I now have over four billion, and a nice fleet. After the clean save, I no longer had half a dozen elite interdictions per run, but I lost the accumulated grind. Losing modules, engineers, and map data is no fun. Neither is having my time sucked by the game thinking I need combat immersion...it's almost a wash. Almost.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Or perhaps it's Arx after all - buy ship of choice in the store (some even pre-engineered to varying degrees of usefulness), done. Takes all but a few seconds depending on how quickly you have your credit card at hand.

ARX is like having a private jet, rather than going through TSA at Newark...

 

[kofeyh]

The real currency of games is time.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

I followed a similar track, after I clean saved my main account.

I now have over four billion, and a nice fleet. After the clean save, I no longer had half a dozen elite interdictions per run, but I lost the accumulated grind. Losing modules, engineers, and map data is no fun. Neither is having my time sucked by the game thinking I need combat immersion...it's almost a wash. Almost.

For my first wipe I ended up with largely the same assets, including FC. Took less time compared to the first time due to aforementioned balancing issues and also player experience, but the key difference was the early game experience which I flew past way too quickly. The grind towards Fed/Imp rank, engineers and mats (this was pre-engineer rework) and FC was still a slog.

My current save is different, because I no longer have the motivation to go through it all again. Reason was to change my CMDR name but also try to play the game "slowly" and and not to rely on engineering. This didn't last long as the self-gimping implications were just too severe, and funnily ran out of ideas what to actually play for.

Still - I didn't bother with Fed/Imp grind (Fed only to the extent to get access to Sol), I stuck to largely a handful of ships, and currently only own a Cobra 3 and 5. The 5 can do pretty much everything in the game (with a few outfitting tweaks). Have about 3bn in cash and a few stored modules. It's both liberating in a way to have so few assets to manage, but also comes with the big old "now what?" question, with the game feeling like a circular hamster wheel (do stuff to get stuff to do stuff a little better). I think the only thing that would change that for me would be additions to the game world (expand on landable planets, add new POIs, etc.) but Frontier seem too focused on Arx-funded ship development and grind loops with existing assets (PP and Colonisation) so I don't see much light at the end of 'my' tunnel.

ARX is like having a private jet, rather than going through TSA at Newark...

Oddly specific example yet as having personally experienced it previously (not the private jet bit unfortunately)... yeah.

 

[aRJay]

I fondly remember all the planning I did, making notes while looking at lists of the prices of modules, thinking about how I was going to get the funds not only to get the Asp Explorer, but to A-rate it and have enough spare for (huge!!!) re-buys, running costs, etc.

Back when the fastest way to get back into the free Sidewinder was to buy a Python when you only had 60-70 million credits.

And never fly without the rebuy was important.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Frontier has tried to strangle ship and material progression in the past. It didn't really work in a way that was constructive.

Yeah, I remember at one point they seemed to be squashing a new credit exploit every month (back when 150 million per hour was an exploit) Then realised that players kept finding these things and were all diving on them.

Then they went nuts with mining (my first ever attempt at core mining got me 100 million - in an AspX), but that was the point where they could turn the narrative stuff away from things that just earned credits- because it's much easier to get a player base interested in new content when they're not just focused on meeting the cost of their next rebuy.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

Yeah, I remember at one point they seemed to be squashing a new credit exploit every month (back when 150 million per hour was an exploit) Then realised that players kept finding these things and were all diving on them.

Then they went nuts with mining (my first ever attempt at core mining got me 100 million - in an AspX), but that was the point where they could turn the narrative stuff away from things that just earned credits- because it's much easier to get a player base interested in new content when they're not just focused on meeting the cost of their next rebuy.

I never understood why core mining commodities (but only some) fetched 6 digits per tonne - maybe to get people into the activity? But then it was a fresh new activity and a well designed one (imo) so what was the point of the needless price inflation? It made many other mining commodities completely pointless.

It was helpful in preparation for the release of FCs (fond memories of the Borann days, but for the wrong reasons i.e. credit grind required), which were initially outrageously overpriced in terms of weekly maintenance during the beta - and I still believe FCs should be cheaper by a couple of billion at least, as the gap between the most expensive A-rated ship and an FC is still too large. Same with salad hunting in Odyssey - it paid a pittance initially, then they went the other extreme and it pays way too much now... I keep thinking about all these decisions over the years and just can't see any real logic to it all unless it's driven by an RNG program.