Elite Dangerous Exobiology Rank Threshold Rebalance Information

[Jabo Zerstorer]

Yea, about that.
I'm not really concerned about people getting Elite rank in 10-20h (i would get the elite rank in exo bio if it would take me 10-20h because that's what i feel it's worthy, but i wont invest my time in it if it takes me 200-300h - it;s not worth my time, i'd rather do other things)

I will say it again, i dont care if people get their ranks in 10h - the elite rank in exobio does not affect in any way the game balance, it's just a tag holding a very personal value
It is progress, but it's personal progress and it does not affect any other ingame metric. you get a tag and some colored suits out of it.

But the huge payouts increases? Those are affecting the entire game balance and are sort of uncalled for.
And one toon, in the starter sidewinder, with a g1 artemis, following the new spansh plotter for exo-bio road-to-riches- can get billions easily, with 0 character progress needed

***

So, to be honest, they should have left the ranking as it is.
440 millions for Elite is quite enough tbh (exploration is 300 millions, trading is 1bn - so quite in the ballpark)

They should have left the payouts the same.
But increase the first discovery bonus to like 500x the bio value. So a first discovery plant, worth of 20,000 credits, will get a 10 millions bonus.
That at least would have incentivized people to get out and EXPLORE new stuff, not to tag the same bubble plants following a get-rich guided tour around the bubble

Got to concur. I'm glad they've fixed the Rank Progression but payouts are ridiculous. I can make 20 million from just one planet (not including first discovery bonus) and that's more than any other activity I do in game (I don't do mining or ship combat). It's virtually risk free and doesn't take all that long if you know what you're looking for.

I was in a System yesterday with 3 Waterworlds and a few HMCWs and although it's not a first discovery, that System is only worth about 4 million. I also visited another with mostly HMCWs and that's about 6 million.

I can make more from Exobiology in a much quicker time. Finding ELWs and Waterworlds isn't really worth much in regard to credits now.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Does this take into account how many plants were sampled prior to update 14?

Ie I was Taxonomist before. I'd sampled approximately 200 bios for approx 100m credits reward. If the scales for rank have now been changed, is my progress up to update 14 measured simply as 100m credits vs a scale of credits for rank (which now makes my overall progress quite meagre and I'll have to sample a further 200 bios to even catch up to the rank I currently have)? Or is my progress of sampling 200 bios now rebased to what they are now worth vs a scale of credits for rank?

OR (fairer) Are the bios allocated a points system and rank judged according to points gained. This would avoid scaling issues with credits pre and post update 14.

 

[Northpin]

Considering I went from 30% of Geneticist to Elite plus 25% in three hours, they had to do something. The advancement was absolutely ridiculous.

Yea, but all that ridiculous advancement had not a single ingame repercussion

And it is no slower than doing certain activities in the bubble and getting Elite in trading in 10-12h
So why getting Exobio Elite in 10-20h is ridiculous when getting Elite Trade in 10-20h is perfectly normal?

Got to concur. I'm glad they've fixed the Rank Progression but payouts are ridiculous. I can make 20 million from just one planet

I did exobio, out in the black, for 2 days.
I got a system that payed 234 millions without first discovery bonus

One nearby system, completely untagged, had an elw and 2x hmc - system value: 6 millions
But, in that system there was a moon with 8 bio - 54 millions + 54 millions first discovery, 108 millions.

However, no one needs to go out in the black, just to check spansh exobio route plotter.
One single example:
Hilla - 6d, 6e, 6f - each with 8 bio signals, each probably worth about 60 millions, and then in the same system there are 3 more bodies totaling another 14 bios signals
so that system alone would be worth 300+ millions

 

[Northpin]

As far as I'm aware, the first scan bonus is still bugged, but nobody is talking about it / acknowledging it? Why is that?

if by bugged you mean it's a display issue, then yes, it is bugged
the first discovery bonus is 1x not 4x as displayed by VG screen

as i said in another post, i would have left the base values as they were, leave the ranking thresholds as they were, but make the first discovery bonus 500x (or whatever value they deem appropriate to increase the payouts according to their plans)
this way players would be encouraged to explore, not to take bubble guided tours for road-to-riches

 

[Zandhond]

we don't need planets to relocate to, we need Bio weapons to fight the Thargoid threat; that's why the Exobio data is so valuable at the moment. But that's just my idea

 

[HeatherG]

Thanks for the information Sally

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

One nearby system, completely untagged, had an elw and 2x hmc - system value: 6 millions
But, in that system there was a moon with 8 bio - 54 millions + 54 millions first discovery, 108 millions.

The payouts should aim for about 100m an hour if you're efficient, including travel time, as that's what can be earned everywhere else. Exploration combined with exobiology is now hitting that. I was thinking that exploration ought to be buffed similarly but in reality the two activities complement each other so this isn't needed.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Yea, but all that ridiculous advancement had not a single ingame repercussion

It did for me. It was cheap. It made the whole thing cheap. Here's what I said about it:

OK guys, update on the Exobiology:

They DID NOT rescale the levels. I just logged in to check and those 4 little samples I got yesterday took me from 35% to 74% of Ecologist Rank. It's going to be ridiculously easy for everybody to max the levels out now.

It took me DOZENS of samples to get to 35% of that level. Now, in just 4, I've more than doubled it.

FDev really dropped the ball on this. Big time.

Maybe you like getting months of work for free, but I don't. It pretty much ruined exobiology for me. Completely.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

as i said in another post, i would have left the base values as they were, leave the ranking thresholds as they were, but make the first discovery bonus 500x (or whatever value they deem appropriate to increase the payouts according to their plans)
this way players would be encouraged to explore, not to take bubble guided tours for road-to-riches

This bit is an important tweek though. At current rates you can still earn at least 50m in the Odyssey starter system without ever making an FSD jump to another star in your base sidewinder.

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

It would of been better to set players xp points to the base xp required for their current ranks and move on from there, instead of playing a game of catch up first.

 

[TheTechnobear]

I think Fdev just wanted to get more players to 'have a go' at exobiology... without insisting they go on long exploration trips.
perhaps considers it more as 'trading' special biologicals, rather than discovery - that certainly ties in with VG and the war effort tag line.
I think a general buff was required for this.


of course, some CMDRs may disagree with that.. we all play the game differently, some are very focused on exo, some its only a small part.

what Ive seen, having less experience in this area, is exo is not paying that much more than other actives, once I factor in travel, finding plants etc, getting back to sell it.
(and other forum topics about this , has shown there's alot of variability on earnings, some are making very large amounts, many are not)

for sure, if I used 3rd party websites like road to riches I could no doubt make a ton, but that would be a choice - and I see thats as ok.
(personally, I dont want to go down that route, but its ok if others do )

I also can see that to balance for casual players (of exo) plus those dedicated to it, is always going to be problematic.
perhaps there is an over-correction, perhaps temporary... to encourage new players to do exo.....
mining also was at some point ridiculously over paying, later it was brought in a bit.
anyway, lets see... I think we are all going to need more credits for the war effort. blowing up expensive ships , involves expensive re-buys

 

[Mika L]

Developer Note:
In 14.01 we altered the thresholds for each rank along the Exobiology progression scale.

Effectively, we've moved the markers along the progression scale that denote where the start and end points of each rank are, in order to bring more harmony between the increase made to biological payouts vs how they were then affecting original rank progression.

Now that these thresholds have moved upwards to match the new payouts, your current rank may be above what you would have earned with the new thresholds.

• This means that the UI will display your rank as being 0% through your current rank.

If you are seeing your rank sat at 0%, this means that your progression behind the scenes is still catching up to the new thresholds.

• This will remain the case until you've made enough hand-ins to catch up with the new start point for your current rank.

Please rest assured that earning progression itself hasn't changed, but we'd like to apologise that the visual side of things is a little confusing whilst everything catches up.

So does this mean that if the new rank thresholds are say 20 x higher than the old ones, an equal increase with the payouts, it made my rank progress go backwards 95%, because my total earnings from exobio make only 5% of the progress I had made before the U 14.01? I had sold about 700 samples before U14. Theoretically, if I were to collect the same samples again, would I now need to sell 665 more samples to get my pre-U14 rank progress back? Well, the change of the multiplier for first logging from 2x to 4x helps to reduce that work, but I would not like to do a large part of the collecting work again.

 

[Northpin]

It would of been better to set players xp points to the base xp required for their current ranks and move on from there, instead of playing a game of catch up first.

Best (imo) would have been to leave the ranking as it was (it wasnt any faster than trading or exploration when doing vip missions)]

The next best thing would have been to apply the same multiplier they applied to ranking, to the experience points each players had gained towards their exobio ranking
So, if i was 50% towards Elite pre U14.1, i would still be 50% towards Elite post U14.1

 

[CMDR KCalo]

They should have left the payouts the same.
But increase the first discovery bonus to like 500x the bio value. So a first discovery plant, worth of 20,000 credits, will get a 10 millions bonus.
That at least would have incentivized people to get out and EXPLORE new stuff, not to tag the same bubble plants following a get-rich guided tour around the bubble

I'm with you on this! What's more valuable to VG? A plant they get handed in that they have warehouses full of or a new plant from a previously unknown planet to study? Just makes more sense that the discovery bonus would be much higher than a normal payout.

 

[Zieman]

So why getting Exobio Elite in 10-20h is ridiculous when getting Elite Trade in 10-20h is perfectly normal?

Lol, they're both completely ridiculous!

 

[Zandhond]

It still boggles my mind why, in more than a thousand years from now, I can't sample more than 1 biological; when I can easily fit more samplers in my backpack. imo this design decision makes the Exobiology very frustrating given the tools we have.
Give us better tools to make it more fun, instead of just increasing the payout.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

It still boggles my mind why, in more than a thousand years from now, I can't sample more than 1 biological; when I can easily fit more samplers in my backpack. imo this design decision makes the Exobiology very frustrating given the tools we have.
Give us better tools to make it more fun, instead of just increasing the payout.

I'm of the opinion that they'll be going that way with engineering the scanner in the future to where you can upgrade it to hold multiple samples.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

It still boggles my mind why, in more than a thousand years from now, I can't sample more than 1 biological; when I can easily fit more samplers in my backpack. imo this design decision makes the Exobiology very frustrating given the tools we have.
Give us better tools to make it more fun, instead of just increasing the payout.

Maybe a new engi - or an existing one - will come up with a sampler mod that does this. Among other things...

 

[Northpin]

Lol, they're both completely ridiculous!

Add Exploration to the list too (Vip missions)

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Add Exploration to the list too (Vip missions)

Yeah. I think I made the first three levels of exploration just doing Robigo mine runs.