Cyclic nerf of credit cash cows is actually a BGS

[Chaparral]

If we examine the history of credit cash cows within Elite, there seems to be a predictable 6 week to 9 week life cycle before nerf and emergence of a new money-maker.

Robigo
Skimmers
Passenger Intro
Massacre missions
Quince surface scan
Quince beacon scan
Smeaton passenger

To name a few (I'm sure there are more - I just haven't been paying attention.)

I am beginning to believe it is not FDEV's intention to simply nerf credit gathering vehicles to create gameplay equilibrium.

It's almost like a market manipulation to inspire game play interest. I wouldn't be surprised at all if basic medicine outbreak runs or something with the next Beyond chapter will pop, generate gameplay interest through a sudden cash cow, and then be nerfed again.

Let me go a step further with this tin foil hattery. I bet you could layer new ship offerings pretty close to that sine curve...

 

[Zebaoth]

If we examine the history of credit cash cows within Elite, there seems to be a predictable 6 week to 9 week life cycle before nerf and emergence of a new money-maker.

Robigo
Skimmers
Passenger Intro
Massacre missions
Quince surface scan
Quince beacon scan
Smeaton passenger

To name a few (I'm sure there are more - I just haven't been paying attention.)

I am beginning to believe it is not FDEV's intention to simply nerf credit gathering vehicles to create gameplay equilibrium.

It's almost like a market manipulation to inspire game play interest. I wouldn't be surprised at all if basic medicine outbreak runs or something with the next Beyond chapter will pop, generate gameplay interest through a sudden cash cow, and then be nerfed again.

Let me go a step further with this tin foil hattery. I bet you could layer new ship offerings pretty close to that sine curve...

It's not really a background simulation if it has to be constantly maintained and adjusted by the devs.

 

[kofeyh]

It's more a cycle of convenience. Initially, something will pay above the odds; this is stereotypically actual intentional outcomes from the developer, attempting to trigger interest in said mechanics. Appealing to commander's wallets, usually works well to inspire uptake.

There will be the initial complaints, of course; as folks are want to do. But since there are credits to be made, the initial complaint is intermittent. Over time, this becomes morally intolerable, perhaps as folks pad the wallet, and then suddenly object to it (not that many would of course admit to this) to the extent that repeated vocal complaint will lead to a massive nerf re-visit by the developer.

Each time it is, of course, something not doing what was intended, which is transparent to the fact it absolutely is intended, just a bit hilariously over-cooked. Yet it's absolutely clear these things occur, not due to pure accident or a bug (they are too deliberate and repeated to have this be a valid reason) rather, attributable to well intentioned excitement about new mechanics, and a developer that knows, categorically, that offers that are too good to be true, will have a high adoption rate.

It's cyclical, and won't ever stop. There will always be a new money making scam, because Frontier intentionally added them. Sometimes, this can be because the development team is still very disconnected from the experience they are crafting, but again one cannot logically state they've all been simple c*ck ups.

None the less, they are added, 'retired' over time, to be replaced with something else. The thing I've found increasingly hysterical, as that despite the massive weight of evidence that Frontier intend these things, virtually every single time, folks continue to be shocked and appalled that it happens at all. How very dare Frontier? Inconceivable!

Frontier still love developing the game, and they want us to love it too. Sometimes, mechanics really only have an adoption curve when their credit gain is sizable; to offset the 'dead time' spent completing (for example, an hour in supercruise with little interactive options available). But it does make me giggle a bit, when the developer back-peddles on the relative "intendedness" of a thing; they clearly intend when introducing, otherwise they'd not have done what they did.

Schrodinger's Intention; it simultaneously both is, and isn't, depending on observation. Frontier's very own paradox.

 

[Kayweg]

They plug a hole and somewhere else something gives.
Won't be long and a new way of making quick cash will emerge.
I'm really beginning to doubt that FD have full control or knowledge about what the game might cough up next.

 

[biohazard15]

Skimmers, massacre missions and Quince were there for far longer than 9 weeks.

 

[Raino]

I'm really beginning to doubt that FD have full control or knowledge about what the game might cough up next.

within a prozedural simulation nobody does

 

[kofeyh]

I'm really beginning to doubt that FD have full control or knowledge about what the game might cough up next.

No, they 100% know the input factors; because they've set them (or not, as is sometimes the case). That's what people can't grasp. It's intentional. It's always intentional. 100%. Until it suddenly isn't (ie after enough people complain enough). What will bake your noodle, is that they're doing this, almost entirely on purpose.

It's intentional. That's not to say they don't overcook the outcomes. Oh god yes of course. But it's still, entirely, 100%, intentional (until it isn't). I'm not talking about bugs, which is honestly a small percentage. The actual things people complain about? Totally intentional.

A procedural system runs on rules; Frontier are in control of those rules. That a very specific outcome may not alway be able to be predicted, and bugs may cause unexpected results, is a give in; but this is far from saying "they don't know". But this is the exception, not the rule.

I assure you though, they do and are aware. Whether they understand the end user experience, however? That's an entirely different and quite interesting question. As is whether a great many of the cash cows, are simply Frontier trying to encourage player engagement with things they've built, and being a bit out-of-touch.

Occam's Razor; it's happening often enough that the simple and most logical answer, is that it's almost always intentional.

 

[biohazard15]

No, they 100% know. That's what people can't grasp. It's intentional. It's always intentional. 100%. Until it suddenly isn't (ie after enough people complain enough). What will bake your noodle, is that they're doing this, almost entirely on purpose.

It's intentional. That's not to say they don't overcook the outcomes. Oh god yes of course. But it's still, entirely, 100%, intentional (until it isn't).

A procedural system runs on rules; Frontier are in control of those rules. That a very specific outcome may not alway be able to be predicted, is a give in; but this is far from saying "they don't know". They do. I assure you, they do. Whether they understand the end user experience, however? That's an entirely different and quite interesting question.

At the very start, FD made a huge mistake which I call "Python gap".

There is a nice progression ladder from Sidewinder to Python. Many ships that aren't too expensive to own and outfit, and rebuys aren't that expensive.

When you want to move to Big 3, however... Reactive armor for Anaconda costs 346 millions without discounts. 8A power plant costs 162 millions - more than the ship itself. Rebuys skyrocket.

However, FD always was reluctant to remove their mistakes from the game. Take mission commodities, for example: they are still there despite serving no purpose, and they are still annoying as hell. Hence, the cash cows, and FD's indifference towards them.

If not for cash cows, no one would be able to get and maintain end-game things in a reasonable amount of time, and certainly nobody would risk their prized ships in PVP combat (because no one wants to go grind for several hours after a couple of deaths in PVP session!).

 

[Aashenfox]

With the greatest of respect to what FD do well (many things), I honestly don't believe they have the nous (nor does it match with the perceived attitude of the development studio) to accomplish something so clandestinely clever as this. I don't believe any of these exploits were intentionally left to draw players in, because you need a month in game before you can really start to take advantage of credit gathering activities.

Let;s remember that ED is a procedurally generated game, the missions are based on a set of rules, which are complex and interact, then there's the constantly changing state of the BGS to compound the dificulty of making a reliable formula to cover all eventualities in an ever-changing galaxy. When a boom faction in a high tech system starts feeding high tech deliveries to an expanding nearby faction, the credits are falling from the sky, but it doesn't last long. Some states last longer or have longer lasting effects, and these get nerfed.

When you set off a procedure generation, you don't know what it's going to generate for sure, until it generates it, and if it generates millions of things per minute (such as missions for mission boards), then it becomes impossible to check every single output. This is FD's mistake, and it's hardly a mistake, it's something that will continue to require ongoing tweaking as peculiarities of the BGS and/or the formula itself throw out anomalously good runs, a side effect if you like, and welcome one, because every so often it will throw us a major credit gathering activity.

Occam's razor in this case says that FD's reaction to nerf them is evidence enough that it is not intended and never was, it also goes along with what they've consistently said since day 1.

 

[kofeyh]

At the very start, FD made a huge mistake which I call "Python gap".

There is a nice progression ladder from Sidewinder to Python. Many ships that aren't too expensive to own and outfit, and rebuys aren't that expensive.

When you want to move to Big 3, however... Reactive armor for Anaconda costs 346 millions without discounts. 8A power plant costs 162 millions - more than the ship itself. Rebuys skyrocket.

However, FD always was reluctant to remove their mistakes from the game. Take mission commodities, for example: they are still there despite serving no purpose, and they are still annoying as hell. Hence, the cash cows, and FD's indifference towards them.

If not for cash cows, no one would be able to get and maintain end-game things in a reasonable amount of time, and certainly nobody would risk their prized ships in PVP combat (because no one wants to go grind for several hours after a couple of deaths in PVP session!).

Frontier built the game as a time and credit sink. Large ships are ostensibly "late game" content. They've expensive, on purpose. Because the assumption is commanders will eventually amass billions, and credits would cease to be a determinant factor. Somewhere along the way, commanders have misconstrued this as purely time investment. Which does not adequately jibe with the gameplay elements.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Large ships and models are simple credit sinks. Most any game of this sort, has credit sinks. Materials, and engineering? That's the time sink. Ships and modules, are the credit sink. This is all fairly standard stuff, to be fair. Apparently it's just not well understood?

We're all supposed to gain considerable wealth over time. It's a credit and time sink game; making it purely a time-sink game, actually breaks the model.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

The upcoming Galmap CMDR trade data thing adds an interesting aspect.
That info has obviously been behind the scenes for a while.

 

[kofeyh]

With the greatest of respect to what FD do well (many things), I honestly don't believe they have the nous (nor does it match with the perceived attitude of the development studio) to accomplish something so clandestinely clever as this.

Clever as what? Almost all of these exploits can be traced back to Frontier making, actually, a very simple decision over how the game will reward activities. That Frontier are notoriously out of touch with what commanders do in game, has far far more relevance, than apparently being insufficiently talented.

It's not that they aren't super clever enough to do something; it's that they have very little understanding of the impact of their changes on the player base. It's literally as simple as it gets. It's a simple, basic, disconnect.

Occam's razor in this case says that FD's reaction to nerf them is evidence enough that it is not intended and never was, it also goes along with what they've consistently said since day 1.

It's more they add a thing, it has some distorted pay out because Frontier have limited understanding of player engagement, and react, eventually, to enough screaming.

You may find that intolerably hard to believe. I don't really care. It is, what it is. Frontier continue to work very hard, but actually understanding how their changes impact people, is neither well understood, nor do they really seem to actively chase that knowledge.

--

This isn't some crazy conspiracy. After a while, you come to understand how Frontier works, what they do, and why. Frontier work incredibly hard on the game, and the entire team is actually very very talented.

Frontier are also, sadly, a little out of touch with what their player base is doing, and more importantly, why. Because of this, we see well intentioned mechanics having hilariously inconsistent payouts. And it will forever keep happening, whilst the developer keeps the player base at arms length.

 

[AbsinthSvK]

i think they simply dont care, and after some time they reach schedule written somewhere in office and fix it.

something like every cycle they add new ship. Everything is planned months ahead.

 

[Aashenfox]

Clever as what? Almost all of these exploits can be traced back to Frontier making, actually, a very simple decision over how the game will reward activities. That Frontier are notoriously out of touch with what commanders do in game, has far far more relevance, than apparently being insufficiently talented.

It's not that they are super clever, it's that they have very little understanding of the impact of their changes on the player base. It's literally as simple as it gets. It's a simple, basic, disconnect.



It's more they add a thing, it has some distorted pay out because Frontier have limited understanding of player engagement, and react, eventually, to enough screaming.

You may find that intolerably hard to believe. I don't really care. It is, what it is. Frontier continue to work very hard, but actually understanding how their changes impact people, is neither well understood, nor do they really seem to actively chase that knowledge.

There's nothing you can say to make me believe that FD deliberately coded Robigo etc to get players in, then nerf it. It doesn't make any sense in any real situation. If you sit back and think about it, it sounds really silly. Honestly. I don't disagree with the other stuff you said that isn't relevant to this situation.

 

[Aashenfox]

i think they simply dont care

Ding, ding, ding, give this man a cigar. Pragmatists unite. Atually, it's not that they don't care, it's that they're doing their best and as kofeyh said, fail at anticipating all situations, I simply believe that all situations cannot be anticipated.

 

[Kayweg]

No, they 100% know the input factors; because they've set them (or not, as is sometimes the case). That's what people can't grasp. It's intentional. It's always intentional. 100%. Until it suddenly isn't (ie after enough people complain enough). What will bake your noodle, is that they're doing this, almost entirely on purpose.

It's intentional. That's not to say they don't overcook the outcomes. Oh god yes of course. But it's still, entirely, 100%, intentional (until it isn't). I'm not talking about bugs, which is honestly a small percentage. The actual things people complain about? Totally intentional.

A procedural system runs on rules; Frontier are in control of those rules. That a very specific outcome may not alway be able to be predicted, and bugs may cause unexpected results, is a give in; but this is far from saying "they don't know". But this is the exception, not the rule.

I assure you though, they do and are aware. Whether they understand the end user experience, however? That's an entirely different and quite interesting question. As is whether a great many of the cash cows, are simply Frontier trying to encourage player engagement with things they've built, and being a bit out-of-touch.

Occam's Razor; it's happening often enough that the simple and most logical answer, is that it's almost always intentional.

Alright, what but then what am i to make of that ?
That they simply throw balls into the air and see what sticks ?
Aka, what the player reactions are ?
That doesn't sound like much of a plan or strategy then, and more like trial and error.
This Smeaton thing for example, you mean the excessive travel distance vs. reward (in principle a logical concept) thing was intended ?
If so, and if perhaps the magnitude was just caused by a too high value, set due to human error, it does appear the one answer FD then has is to turn the whole thing off.
Is the only immediate solution to shut down the main valve, instead of adjusting the flow control ?
I'll openly admit, i'm not really tech savy, and i respect that this is not as easy as it might appear to the layman.
However, if i am to simply resign to that and accept "FD knows", it sure doesn't always come across that way.

 

[kofeyh]

There's nothing you can say to make me believe that FD deliberately coded...

Developer intentionally codes the entire game; that it sometimes bugs out, is a give in. That they also are their own worst enemy at times, and hilariously over-cook changes and new mechanics, is a very long standing thing.

It's not that they intentionally introduce exploits; it's that they intentionally add content, with laughable balance, and then seem surprised when players run with it. The majority of the causes of 'cows' is Frontier simply not comprehending the potential outcomes, or not understanding what players are doing.

Nothing I've said sounds silly. It's just the reality. It's always hard for a game developer to have their finger on the pulse of their development. Ask any developer and they will freely admit this. Frontier is simply a bit more of an extreme case of this.

They build stuff, and because they don't have a good read on how players are interacting with their code, they miss the mark. It's about as simple as it gets. It's a cop out to say they don't care. It's more they are disconnected from the end result.

 

[kofeyh]

This Smeaton thing for example, you mean the excessive travel distance vs. reward (in principle a logical concept) thing was intended ?

Yes.

Payouts were intended; that they were extreme to say the least, comes back to the developer being disconnected from the experience. They just assumed the amount, relatively speaking, was enough to attract interest. I don't think "balance" entered into it; it seldom ever does.

Honestly, most of what happens, is simply Frontier not properly comprehending consequences, until enough people force them to reconsider (when you look at how the game handles consequences, this suddenly seems less surprising).

Again; it's really just the developer not having a good read on outcomes. Essentially, they have less context to their decision making. If you take a step back and consider that for a moment, it sort of becomes obvious, really.

--

I can understand newer players not readily seeing this; but it's a thing that's happened on and off since alpha. Frontier, for whatever reason, just has never had a good read on player engagement, where and why. It's a shame, but that's just the reality.

I'm hoping at some point they'll work on ways to get a better reading (better telemetry, or at least something that can draw better connections and does better trend analysis) and as they, and the game, matures, it'll happen less. But it's pretty much the running joke are present.

You can see it whenever Ed (the infernally happy intern; nice bloke actually, just it's not normal to be that happy all the time I swear!) has a new thing to show on stream, for example; his reactions (given he's spent a lot more time in game, perhaps, relative to the dev team) are often priceless.

 

[AbsinthSvK]

it does not matter how it was or is.

Fixing is too slow. They dont listen players feedback and do things as they want.

Summary. Broken primary mechanics, broken money value .... This game would be more fun and gameplay would be more smooth when they starts listen feedback.

6-9 months cycle for fixing that big exploits? Shame.
Looks like they focusing on casual pve players and they dont care about exploits or overpowered things too, because they play as they want. Use exploits? Your choice. Use OP guns? Your choice.

 

[Kayweg]

Yes.

Payouts were intended; that they were extreme to say the least, comes back to the developer being disconnected from the experience. They just assumed the amount, relatively speaking, was enough to attract interest. I don't think "balance" entered into it; it seldom ever does.

Honestly, most of what happens, is simply Frontier not properly comprehending consequences, until enough people force them to reconsider (when you look at how the game handles consequences, this suddenly seems less surprising).

Again; it's really just the developer not having a good read on outcomes. Essentially, they have less context to their decision making. If you take a step back and consider that for a moment, it sort of becomes obvious, really.

--

I can understand newer players not readily seeing this; but it's a thing that's happened on and off since alpha. Frontier, for whatever reason, just has never had a good read on player engagement, where and why. It's a shame, but that's just the reality.

I'm hoping at some point they'll work on ways to get a better reading (better telemetry, or at least something that can draw better connections and does better trend analysis) and as they, and the game, matures, it'll happen less. But it's pretty much the running joke are present.

You can see it whenever Ed (the infernally happy intern; nice bloke actually, just it's not normal to be that happy all the time I swear!) has a new thing to show on stream, for example; his reactions (given he's spent a lot more time in game, perhaps, relative to the dev team) are often priceless.

Well, i tried a few times, but i'm afraid Mr. Lewis (as nice a guy as he may be) has the uncanny ability to fill up my cringe bar within a very short span of time.
I prefer reading the transcripts, and perhaps watch a few selected bits, referred to by somebody, when discussing a topic.
Other than that, much of this reply of your's does indeed sound familiar.