Newcomer / Intro Crumbs, Its has all got a bit easy, hasn't it?

HurstLlama

H
I have just started my fourth play through and I am stunned how easy the game has become. On the whole I do Trucking and Trading. In my first play through (2015) it took a long time and a lot of effort to get up to a T7, big ships required hardwork. Even getting enough cash together to buy a T6 was no mean feat.

Successive "rebalancing" has left us in the situation where new players seem to get the hump is they haven't got a full specced Anaconda after a week. I have continued to play in the manner that I find most enjoyable (thank goodness that is still possible) but even then a half hour's worth of trading around five system left me with a 6+million credit profit. It is daft, a evening's play got me a full specked Hauler, two or three days with that and I had an A rated T6 after tonight's session I fully expect to have a T7 in the garage. Yet I am still within a few light years of the starter systems and have done nothing other than some mission running and a bit of trading.

Frontier now seem to be running faster and faster just to keep up with the effects of the inflation they have introduced.
 

Northpin

Northpin
HurstLlama said:
I have just started my fourth play through and I am stunned how easy the game has become. On the whole I do Trucking and Trading. In my first play through (2015) it took a long time and a lot of effort to get up to a T7, big ships required hardwork. Even getting enough cash together to buy a T6 was no mean feat.

Successive "rebalancing" has left us in the situation where new players seem to get the hump is they haven't got a full specced Anaconda after a week. I have continued to play in the manner that I find most enjoyable (thank goodness that is still possible) but even then a half hour's worth of trading around five system left me with a 6+million credit profit. It is daft, a evening's play got me a full specked Hauler, two or three days with that and I had an A rated T6 after tonight's session I fully expect to have a T7 in the garage. Yet I am still within a few light years of the starter systems and have done nothing other than some mission running and a bit of trading.

Frontier now seem to be running faster and faster just to keep up with the effects of the inflation they have introduced.
Click to expand...

I guess it is nornal for a 6 years old game, isn't it?
I mean you cant really expect a new player to have to work 4 - 6 months for an Anaconda.

And looking from a different perspective, they have to put something on the table for the "i can barely play 2 hours per week" camp too.
Which means that whoever can invest more time in the game will get an even more return. Especially if they're focusing on making credits and following any and every YT influencer that is making a living out of movies like "from sidewinder to conda in xx minutes"

My first account had a slow start at the end of 2018.
My steam alt, did the same for about 2 months at the end of 2019 - but it was a waaaay nicer experience due to FD's changes aimed to improve the New Player Experience - then i went into mining (carriers were incoming). Still it had a nice slow start for the first couple of months.
My Epic alt faffed (*) a bit in the noob zone then i docked him to my steam alt's carrier (which was parked nearby, totally unintentional of course) and transferred him 1 billion.


In the end, with all the credits balances that happened in the last months, it is way harder to have a slow start now (it was easier one year ago - for a slow start to happen, you only had to avoid mining, now you basically have to avoid playing most of the game 😒)

*(for example it got a couple millions credits, in a sidewinder, leeching from fights in a res in the noob zone - well done FD, 4x bounty bonus is the way, by why stopping at 4x? why not going for 10x? or 25x?)
 

Decksmeck

D
You have to always be closing the gap between the oldest and the newest players. If they get too far apart, It turns into..."buy the new heroic starter ship pack and start with krait MKII with modding".
 

Yingnei Gasua

Yingnei Gasua
HurstLlama said:
I have just started my fourth play through and I am stunned how easy the game has become. On the whole I do Trucking and Trading. In my first play through (2015) it took a long time and a lot of effort to get up to a T7, big ships required hardwork. Even getting enough cash together to buy a T6 was no mean feat.

Successive "rebalancing" has left us in the situation where new players seem to get the hump is they haven't got a full specced Anaconda after a week. I have continued to play in the manner that I find most enjoyable (thank goodness that is still possible) but even then a half hour's worth of trading around five system left me with a 6+million credit profit. It is daft, a evening's play got me a full specked Hauler, two or three days with that and I had an A rated T6 after tonight's session I fully expect to have a T7 in the garage. Yet I am still within a few light years of the starter systems and have done nothing other than some mission running and a bit of trading.

Frontier now seem to be running faster and faster just to keep up with the effects of the inflation they have introduced.
Click to expand...

Game needs a NIGHTMARE mode for guys like you. Open only and any death is instant account wipe.
 

Simon Templar

Simon Templar
HurstLlama said:
I have just started my fourth play through and I am stunned how easy the game has become. On the whole I do Trucking and Trading. In my first play through (2015) it took a long time and a lot of effort to get up to a T7, big ships required hardwork. Even getting enough cash together to buy a T6 was no mean feat.

Successive "rebalancing" has left us in the situation where new players seem to get the hump is they haven't got a full specced Anaconda after a week. I have continued to play in the manner that I find most enjoyable (thank goodness that is still possible) but even then a half hour's worth of trading around five system left me with a 6+million credit profit. It is daft, a evening's play got me a full specked Hauler, two or three days with that and I had an A rated T6 after tonight's session I fully expect to have a T7 in the garage. Yet I am still within a few light years of the starter systems and have done nothing other than some mission running and a bit of trading.

Frontier now seem to be running faster and faster just to keep up with the effects of the inflation they have introduced.
Click to expand...
Yes agreed. Makes me sad when I think about it, tbh! It's still a great game, but not what it was. 'Progress'.
 

varonica

varonica
Decksmeck said:
You have to always be closing the gap between the oldest and the newest players. If they get too far apart, It turns into..."buy the new heroic starter ship pack and start with krait MKII with modding".
Click to expand...

Like "Gift of Valar" in LOTRO, you buy it and get instant lvl 100 with armor, weapons, point etc, oh well.
 

Para Handy

Para Handy
Yingnei Gasua said:
Game needs a NIGHTMARE mode for guys like you. Open only and any death is instant account wipe.
Click to expand...

Some of us do play iron-man mode like that. I have recently decided instead to play plastic-man mode where I select the freewinder on rebuy instead of doing a clear save - just because engineer qualification is such a bore on the tenth or twelfth time. ;) I might revert to iron-man as not giving up anything other than the ship and engineered modules fitted to it seems like a cheat. It keeps the insurance claims statistic at 0 but I am not sure I can justify plastic-man to myself for long.
 

ViMarV

V
I just started an alt account and was pretty surprised at how quickly the credits rolled in initially (there is a 10k 'travel from A to B' intro mission) however, I am all set up with a HOTAS and I am not trying to figure out which digits are fingers and which are thumbs when finding the controls, so it will be easier. I can say that combat rank progression is still slow, I have over 15 kills worth 2 million in bounty claims and an invite from Tod 'The blaster' and I am still harmless!
 

Kayvan

Kayvan
It's easy, yes. Some aspects of it are time consuming but still easy. The game may as well be called "Elite: Harmless" and yes, I know I'm not the first to make that joke.

But it is as one of the previous posters said: such is the way of MMOs. It must be possible for new players to catch up in a reasonable time frame or they'll lose interest. Suppose someone came here for PVP and had to realize it will take two years to even get a competitive ship, and until that time they're only fodder.
Or even when they aren't into PVP but just want to play with their buddies, it's pointless if they are prancing about in their Ferdies and Vettes while you just fly after them in your Adder and try not to get killed.

That said, looks like rn the only way to get a greater challenge / slower progression is to make one for yourself. Like that guy here who only allows himself to spend 10% of the credits he makes. And of course refrain from any fast tracks like road to riches and mining.

Hell, the game probably instantly becomes a whole lot harder (and definitely slower) if you just never use 3rd party tools and websites.

A friend of mine has started out around 5 weeks ago. Afaik she doesn't use 3P tools and doesn't use shortcuts. She flies a Cobra and has bought a Vulture for combat last week. So there's your slower progression right there.
 

HurstLlama

H
A Vulture in about five weeks? My point is made. When I kicked off my first playthrough it took me closer to five months before I could buy and outfit a Vulture. Mind you, in those days, pre-engineers, a well outfitted Vulture was pretty much the acme of fighter aircraft. A reasonably well flown vulture could take down anything & fear naught (save, maybe, a well equipped and well flown 'Conda).
 
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