Credits per hour, Then and Now

[ꝁestrel]

I actually think the balance we have now is pretty good.

Every game system (combat, mining, etc) has good rewards as a baseline. Whether it's materials or credits. You can hop on once or twice per week, do a few missions, make enough to pay your fleet carrier upkeep, and still increase your balance a little. Over time that adds up. But then if you want to create a massive credit buffer (for whatever reason) you can grind out some exobio, massacre missions, or whatever is the big credit earner.

Currently I have 16 ships all built for different tasks. All of them are fully G5 engineered. And my fleet carrier is covered for years. This keeps me coming back and having fun. I can just do whatever I'm in the mood for upon logging in.

Ships as progression always seemed weird to me. Back when I wanted an Anaconda (long time ago) I remember being annoyed at how long I needed to wait until I could earn enough for one. And by the time I earned enough to fully outfit it (plus rebuys) I was tired of the game and took a break. Then when I came back I wasn't as excited about flying an Anaconda anymore.

I think this is a common problem with games that lock gameplay behind "progression". Like those single player games where your character has a bunch of cool abilities. But you only unlock them all toward the end so you barely get to use them.

 

[LightningEffect]

and this is the challenge FD face. you want a sandbox game with toys given quickly. I want a start as a skint pilot with a handful of credits

Well both options are there. There is really nothing preventing you from not buying pre builts and advance naturally. I personally enjoy efficiency, and that's often in the "endgame" i don't really care too much about the journey i usually speedrun leveling.

Limiting one sides ability and forcing them to progress naturally has clearly not worked out for Fdev the last 8 years, the game was dying and has now been sort of revived, and in my opinion the pre builts have had an impact, a new player like me can jump straight into bulk hauling and learn on the fly.

Elite has an almost perfect blend for all people, it's not too p2w and people still have the option to grind naturally without being limited by the store.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Well both options are there. There is really nothing preventing you from not buying pre builts and advance naturally. I personally enjoy efficiency, and that's often in the "endgame" i don't really care too much about the journey i usually speedrun leveling.

Limiting one sides ability and forcing them to progress naturally has clearly not worked out for Fdev the last 8 years, the game was dying and has now been sort of revived, and in my opinion the pre builts have had an impact, a new player like me can jump straight into bulk hauling and learn on the fly.

Elite has an almost perfect blend for all people, it's not too p2w and people still have the option to grind naturally without being limited by the store.

I am not talking about the prebuilds. actually these days I am not that bothered if players want to splunk cash on ships so be it so long as earnable realistically in game. it's money for FD so..........
like you say it doesn't really effect me. not a huge fan of the free rebuy or the ability to fast travel one in when ever you want but maybe that is just my sense of fair play....even that does not really affect my game much.

but being able to run a handful of trivial data delivery missions or steal a single kill off an NPC in a haz res and instantly have enough cash for a cobra III and significant upgrades (this took me over 100hrs at launch).

THAT does effect my gameplay and there is no way I can escape that.

 

[angusmadmac1]

I've said in the past the game has been made easier , the credits are just an easy way to gauge. I took a trip back in 2017 to Beagle it took me 6 months and I made 400 million . That was in a Dolphin 44 lyr jump . Jump forward a few years and I was making 20 mil a night and beagle took a month and a bit. Fdev wanted folk to do exo and so the gave ridiculous rewards. The problem is they can't take it away now. Now we have fast travel in system . But these are just my own personal thoughts I have 21 billion thanks to boom states (50mil missions) and a good squadron who shared those missions . Whilst working on political bobble heads .

 

[Oh Seven Commander]

Cash gains had to increase if Frontier wanted people to be able to afford a fleet of blinged out ships, a carrier to haul them around in, ships for the Thargoid war, and the resources to colonize systems.

Keeping the cash flow at the release date crawl wouldn’t have done them any favors for keeping players around when there’s all this stuff to do in game.

Needing to play daily for a year just to get a good large ship wouldn’t be fun to most people. Myself included.

 

[Jmanis]

I actually think the balance we have now is pretty good.

Every game system (combat, mining, etc) has good rewards as a baseline. Whether it's materials or credits. You can hop on once or twice per week, do a few missions, make enough to pay your fleet carrier upkeep, and still increase your balance a little. Over time that adds up. But then if you want to create a massive credit buffer (for whatever reason) you can grind out some exobio, massacre missions, or whatever is the big credit earner.

Currently I have 16 ships all built for different tasks. All of them are fully G5 engineered. And my fleet carrier is covered for years. This keeps me coming back and having fun. I can just do whatever I'm in the mood for upon logging in.

Ships as progression always seemed weird to me. Back when I wanted an Anaconda (long time ago) I remember being annoyed at how long I needed to wait until I could earn enough for one. And by the time I earned enough to fully outfit it (plus rebuys) I was tired of the game and took a break. Then when I came back I wasn't as excited about flying an Anaconda anymore.

I think this is a common problem with games that lock gameplay behind "progression". Like those single player games where your character has a bunch of cool abilities. But you only unlock them all toward the end so you barely get to use them.

Comparing earn rates of a "profession" (i.e combat vs trade vs exploration) as represented by the highest of all available activities, yes, it's balanced.

Peer into any one of those "professions", the internal balance is a complete and utter shambles. No logic or sense whatsoever.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

Do people actually enjoy obsessing over money this much? We live in a world of political turmoil, economic depressions/recessions. Inflation and trade wars. Millions of people are in fear about their future, their economic situation, the stability of their currency and stock markets. Massive layoffs, rising unemployment etc etc etc. A lot of ELITE players are probably in a technical field, where we live under the threat of the looming AI boom replacing us with LLM's and chatbots etc etc.

And some of you want to log into a video game, and have us re-live all that. Can we not have a break from freaking economics and just have a virtual escape?? It's ridiculous!

 

[Jmanis]

Do people actually enjoy obsessing over money this much? We live in a world of political turmoil, economic depressions/recessions. Inflation and trade wars. Millions of people are in fear about their future, their economic situation, the stability of their currency and stock markets. Massive layoffs, rising unemployment etc etc etc. A lot of ELITE players are probably in a technical field, where we live under the threat of the looming AI boom replacing us with LLM's and chatbots etc etc.

And some of you want to log into a video game, and have us re-live all that. Can we not have a break from freaking economics and just have a virtual escape?? It's ridiculous!

Yes, I'd love a virtual escape.

Nonsense game design does not provide that.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

Do people actually enjoy obsessing over money this much? We live in a world of political turmoil, economic depressions/recessions. Inflation and trade wars. Millions of people are in fear about their future, their economic situation, the stability of their currency and stock markets. Massive layoffs, rising unemployment etc etc etc. A lot of ELITE players are probably in a technical field, where we live under the threat of the looming AI boom replacing us with LLM's and chatbots etc etc.

And some of you want to log into a video game, and have us re-live all that. Can we not have a break from freaking economics and just have a virtual escape?? It's ridiculous!

I hear you, however, in video games some people like myself enjoy engaging in interesting and complex systems.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

Yes, I'd love a virtual escape.

Nonsense game design does not provide that.

I don't even know what this means or what I'm supposed to do with this. You tend to just declare anything you don't like a "nonsense game design". If you can explain how struggling to earn a living in Elite is better "game design" or increases my enjoyment of the game, I would welcome the discussion.

I mean hey, it doesn't impact me. I now have "F U money" when it comes to credits in Elite. But by all means, totally ruin the new player experience even more by having them chase digital currency for months to upgrade a single ship. That is just great 'game design' there.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

I hear you, however, in video games some people like myself enjoy engaging in interesting and complex systems.

Uhhh I do too. Again how is this making those systems more interesting or complex? Like...come on with the slogans. Nobody seems to be actually explaining why the depreciation of credits to add struggle or scarcity does this.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

Uhhh I do too. Again how is this making those systems more interesting or complex? Like...come on with the slogans. Nobody seems to be actually explaining why the depreciation of credits to add struggle or scarcity does this.

How is what making things more interesting or complex?

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

How is what making things more interesting or complex?

Less credits per hour. You know, the topic of the thread?

 

[Cheese Helmet]

Less credits per hour. You know, the topic of the thread?

The topic of the thread was asking if credits/hr is even still a meaningful way to measure progression anymore like it was before, given the massive difference in credit earning avenues and the other progressions that we now have, and if it should be or not.

I didn't suggest anything, I asked a question and provided context to the question.

 

[Jmanis]

I don't even know what this means or what I'm supposed to do with this. You tend to just declare anything you don't like a "nonsense game design". If you can explain how struggling to earn a living in Elite is better "game design" or increases my enjoyment of the game, I would welcome the discussion.

Where did I say "struggling to earn" was better design?

OK, so here's a few for you.

Most games reward you more for beating tougher enemies. You know what doesn't? Elite Dangerous. A vanilla Elite Anaconda from a ubiquitously available assassination mission will net me ~6m credits

Seeking out a much less available Pirate Activity Threat 6 site and fighting an Elite-rank, fully engineered FDL which is a significantly harder enemy will reward... oh right... like... 500k.

Edit: And let's not go near earning 12m for a novice eagle kill from massacre stacking...

Nonsense.

You know how most games value hauling tasks? By the amount you deliver, and how far you take it, because that's what dictates the difficulty of the task. Depending on the game, other factors may play in... all of which are irrelevant to Elite... e.g because a pirate will attack you just as readily for 1t biowaste as they will for 1t void opals.

But getting away from the point. How does Elite value hauling? By the value of the cargo, almost exclusively.

Nonsense.

The price of an item is normally decided by it's scarcity, effort to obtain, and demand.

Methane clathrates are equal scarcity as gold, just as difficult to mine as gold, and have orders of magnitude more market demand. But what pays more? Gold, by a whole order of magnitude.

Nonsense.

This is trash design without a single thought into how the game's economy should work. There should be rewarding things, and that should follow a logic. I shouldn't get rewarded because I pet my cat on a Wednesday and wore a red t-shirt to the shops, which means the Federation gives me a billion credits.

If i fight a harder enemy, i should earn more than fighting an easier enemy.
If I haul something further than I haul something else, I should get paid more.
If I mine something that's harder to find and mine than something else, I should get paid more.
If i seek favourable conditions, i should be rewarded more than less favourable conditions.

Elite does none of these things consistently.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Do people actually enjoy obsessing over money this much? We live in a world of political turmoil, economic depressions/recessions. Inflation and trade wars. Millions of people are in fear about their future, their economic situation, the stability of their currency and stock markets. Massive layoffs, rising unemployment etc etc etc. A lot of ELITE players are probably in a technical field, where we live under the threat of the looming AI boom replacing us with LLM's and chatbots etc etc.

And some of you want to log into a video game, and have us re-live all that. Can we not have a break from freaking economics and just have a virtual escape?? It's ridiculous!

no it isn't. some people just like different types of games than you, no need to be a plonker about it .
I like a sense of progression in my games, and I want the game world to feel as plausible as possible. I play euro truck simulator in a similar way . am hoping farming simulator has something similar too - it's in my soon to play pile.
Microsoft flightsim 2020 however I struggled with. despite being a beautiful and detailed simulator there was no sense of progression in there ... until I got a mod for it.

apparently 2024 has a career so I may have to pick that up

 

[Oh Seven Commander]

am hoping farming simulator has something similar too - it's in my soon to play pile.

It's pretty good (FS 25 at least is the one I've played). They get the crop prices mostly right in terms of what's valuable and what's less valuable (canola being an easy point out for selling for less than corn or beets for instance). And the in game settings give you a lot of freedom in terms of grow times and other stuff.

But, anyway, I won't derail the thread

 

[Rubbernuke]

Do people actually enjoy obsessing over money this much? We live in a world of political turmoil, economic depressions/recessions. Inflation and trade wars. Millions of people are in fear about their future, their economic situation, the stability of their currency and stock markets. Massive layoffs, rising unemployment etc etc etc. A lot of ELITE players are probably in a technical field, where we live under the threat of the looming AI boom replacing us with LLM's and chatbots etc etc.

And some of you want to log into a video game, and have us re-live all that. Can we not have a break from freaking economics and just have a virtual escape?? It's ridiculous!

I want all of that. With spaceships. In fact I want it worse- more misery, more inequality, I want WH40K levels of damnation.

Through scarcity comes invention and opportunity. Having a fluffy, hold my hand lets all dance around game is a total no-no.

ED had a dystopian setting- a post AI, decaying society stuck in a technological plateau. Lets keep to that.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

no it isn't. some people just like different types of games than you, no need to be a plonker about it .
I like a sense of progression in my games, and I want the game world to feel as plausible as possible.

Making credits harder to achieve won't give you that sense. You'll still end up at the same place, it will just take a bit longer. I like a sense of progression too, I just don't feel chasing imaginary space-bucks is the only or best way to give us that sense.

Everyone is agreeing that 2024-2025 has been the best Elite has ever been. I'm not understanding where there's some great need to revert things back to the not-good era of Elite. Besides player nostalgia of course....

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

I want all of that. With spaceships. In fact I want it worse- more misery, more inequality, I want WH40 levels of damnation.

Through scarcity comes invention and opportunity. Having a fluffy, hold my hand lets all dance around game is a total no-no.

ED had a dystoian setting- a post AI, decaying society stuck in a technological plateau. Lets keep to that.

Cool then what you need from Elite is a perma-death mode. That's a totally reasonable request. That way you can leave me out of it.