Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Merit Changes

[yianniv]

It's not an exploit but the formula is way too aggressive, my testing yesterday 1ton was 28 merits, but 10 tons 88 (so 3x less per ton), 100 tons 276 (10x less per ton). And 200 tons or more is less than 1 merit per ton. The implication is, you should sell in as small increments as you have the patience for, say 50 at a time and that's just bad design imo

It's not just diminishing returns. You get something like 58x the merits for selling one ton at a time. Trading at the maximum possible speed, you could, at best, hope to get about 20% as many merits as you could get 1-ton selling.

It's not an exploit, it's literally choosing between speed or efficiency. Let players have their fun or progress and please stop asking for constant nerfs for things that don't deserve them.

There's been enough masochism around, no need to drown in it.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Because a) its punished more severely and b) it better fits what the devs were talking about in the livestreams- its one power demonstrating that another can't protect them. Powers themselves expect losses, the local populations don't.

Exactly. A reign of terror should be both more dangerous and reward more merits.

 

[Factabulous]

Excellent - now all the people after the useless modules will be done with it by tomorrow and powerplay can go back to the sleepy few who actually play it

And now it is tomorrow

(Not that I want any of the modules, but I did want the boost to Medicine sales, even though fdev nerfed them into the ground on day one)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's not an exploit, it's literally choosing between speed or efficiency.

Not really - it's choosing between fun (flying the spaceship, playing the game) and effectiveness (sitting there in dock selling cargo one tonne at a time), which is not something Frontier should be setting up: the effective route should also be the fun one [1].

There is really no reason that selling 100t of cargo should give fewer merits than selling 1t of cargo ten times and dumping the other 90t out the airlock.

I agree it's not an "exploit" [2] - there's no obvious bug involved, just an odd design decision - but if 1t of cargo gives 28 merits then 100t of cargo should give 2800 merits. Why would you want selling 100t of cargo to give just 276 merits in that case?

[1] This matters more for system progress than for personal ranking; I don't care what personal rank anyone else has or how long it takes them - stick a button on the Power Contact that says "promote me one rank" that you can press as often as you want, for all I care - but system progress needs to be both sensibly balanced and encourage doing fun stuff rather than extremely repetitive and tedious things.
[2] Setting up an automation macro to handle the repeated 1t sales for you would be cheating, per Frontier's statements. You have to hand-click each one yourself. Again, more of an issue for system progress than personal progress.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Exactly. A reign of terror should be both more dangerous and reward more merits.

In another thread someone suggested using the notoriety multiplier for working out merits- this would also encourage players to do destabilizing actions.

Say, each notoriety point = x10. So at the top that paltry 40 merits becomes 4000, which to me is fair given that each kill at this level forces you to swallow 3.7 million in bounty, and that the longer it goes on you rack up billions in bounties.

 

[Rebel Yell]

It's not an exploit, it's literally choosing between speed or efficiency. Let players have their fun or progress and please stop asking for constant nerfs for things that don't deserve them.

There's been enough masochism around, no need to drown in it.

'nuff said.

This sub seems a kindergarden full of screaming toddlers!

 

[Darkfyre99]

Any thoughts on fixing the 1-ton trading exploit? It's very annoying to be able to get so many more merits for trading 1 ton at a time. I'm assuming that wasn't fixed because it wasn't mentioned.

Also, because I'd feel silly if I didn't mention it, Mining Lance Buff When?

Not everything is an exploit, please stop driving a bulldozer in the forums. Diminishing returns have a purpose, too. If a player has the patience to click "Sell" 792 times, let them grind their hearts out.
It doesn't affect Your ranks, especially now that Power progress has been balanced downwards.
Pitchforks are not the solution.

Ultimately, the question whether the "One Ton" method is an exploit or not is whether the "Bulk Sale" method is working as intended. By all rights, the two should produce the exact same results. So the question in my mind is: which is the broken mechanic? The "One Ton" method or the "Bulk Sale" method?" Especially when both methods produce the exact same profit.

I just tested both methods at two stations in a system that had the exact same demand and price for a commodity, and both were the same faction state. The "one ton method" produced ten times the amount of merits that the "bulk method," but is as tedious as crap, slow, and if I had a suitable trade route, I could make about six runs in the time it took to sell all that stuff one ton at a time. And I think that with a better assortment of commodities, I could actually improve the amount of merits I'd make over that same trade route, regardless of whether or not the "bulk sale" method is broken.

I now have something to test when I get back from work.

 

[Tifu]

I suspect that most PP freighters will unload their cargo in increments of 5 tons or 10 tons to get the additional (though lesser) merit boost without going crazy unloading 1 ton at a time.

Unloading a 400 ton capacity T8 just 40x (@10 tons/unload) is a hell lot better than having to do it 400x

 

[yianniv]

There is really no reason that selling 100t of cargo should give fewer merits than selling 1t of cargo ten times and dumping the other 90t out the airlock.

My justification is that if you sell something in fewer quantity, it appears more precious to the buyer and they're willing to pay more for it.

 

[yianniv]

I suspect that most PP freighters will unload their cargo in increments of 5 tons or 10 tons to get the additional (though lesser) merit boost without going crazy unloading 1 ton at a time.

Unloading a 400 ton capacity T8 just 40x (@10 tons/unload) is a hell lot better than having to do it 400x

.... and, a possible positive side effect is that while they're in the market selling in minuscule quantities, they're not jumping their FCs, so wait times might improve...

 

[Doctor Dread]

'nuff said.

This sub seems a kindergarden full of screaming toddlers!

No no, it's the other one, for this:

 

[BDelacroix]

anyone having issues selling rare goods at Acquiring systems???
just sold 18 tons of Soontill Relics got 3600 merits then i sold 600 tons and got 0 merits.
so the 3600 merits was just a weekly mission reward.

FDEV are the rare goods still off or did i run into a bug please reply?

I didn't notice. I sold 1 load of rares for the weekly and moved on.

What I am having trouble with is determining what Classified Data is that needs recovering. I went to two different acquisition systems, as the task says I need to, and went through all the bother to turn off alarms and download stuff from data pads. Then turned them in to a fortified or stronghold within range and nothing.

Next try I guess is to find one of the older horizons ground sites and scan towers there.

 

[BDelacroix]

'nuff said.

This sub seems a kindergarden full of screaming toddlers!

You are aware of humans, yes?

 

[aRJay]

Not really - it's choosing between fun (flying the spaceship, playing the game) and effectiveness (sitting there in dock selling cargo one tonne at a time), which is not something Frontier should be setting up: the effective route should also be the fun one [1].

There is really no reason that selling 100t of cargo should give fewer merits than selling 1t of cargo ten times and dumping the other 90t out the airlock.

I agree it's not an "exploit" [2] - there's no obvious bug involved, just an odd design decision - but if 1t of cargo gives 28 merits then 100t of cargo should give 2800 merits. Why would you want selling 100t of cargo to give just 276 merits in that case?

[1] This matters more for system progress than for personal ranking; I don't care what personal rank anyone else has or how long it takes them - stick a button on the Power Contact that says "promote me one rank" that you can press as often as you want, for all I care - but system progress needs to be both sensibly balanced and encourage doing fun stuff rather than extremely repetitive and tedious things.
[2] Setting up an automation macro to handle the repeated 1t sales for you would be cheating, per Frontier's statements. You have to hand-click each one yourself. Again, more of an issue for system progress than personal progress.

I like the idea of the promote me button however it could be made more fun by FDev wheeling out the old casino game code from engineering 1.0 push the button and the wheel spins the sliding things slide and when they stop you have your new rank.
Note ranks can go up as well as down and the more frequently you use it the more likely…

Of course the play the space game option should still be available.

 

[sacred aardvark]

Having the weeklies be a primary means (as in one of multiple primary means) of earning merits would make them “on a par with other efficient earners”.

The nature of the weeklies is self-limiting. It stops at 5ish missions or about 16K merits a week so it won’t ruin anything, outpace other means or force people to have to do only the weeklies. It just gives people an indication of what to do and an easy first set of steps.

So what would all the primary means be? I they were to make weeklies the primary means, what others would be set up as primaries? Do remember that not everything can be a primary mean.

Also, if the weeklies are just one primary method among others, then the 16k you can get from weeklies would be roughly equivalent to what you could get from other methods. However, the weeklies AFAIK are currently not the, or a, primary method for merits; so the current merit value for weeklies would likely change if they became the, or a, primary method.

 

[Scienti5t]

So what would all the primary means be? I they were to make weeklies the primary means, what others would be set up as primaries? Do remember that not everything can be a primary mean.

Also, if the weeklies are just one primary method among others, then the 16k you can get from weeklies would be roughly equivalent to what you could get from other methods. However, the weeklies AFAIK are currently not the, or a, primary method for merits; so the current merit value for weeklies would likely change if they became the, or a, primary method.

What the primary means are isn't for me to say but, as FDev have indicated, most things should be roughly equivalent. No doubt that should skew according to power, LYR gaining more from exploration than ADelaine, for instance. That may already be accounted for by multipliers though.
So, maybe it is all of them? I'm not sure why they can't all be primary means.

And yes, the weeklies, if they were another primary means, would earn as much as the other methods but when you've done 5 they run out. You can either wait till next week doing other stuff (or not) or you can explore the rest of the PP activities the same as people who don't use the weeklies.

5 weeklies being roughly equal to 5 fairly well done other activities sounds fine to me. I'd probably give them a little boost so they stay relevant and tempt people who otherwise wouldn't do any and don't want to figure the methods out but not everyone would agree.
The limit of 5 a week largely mitigates any unbalance you might find from weeklies being too generous.

It's kind of a pointless comparison though as the weeklies are finite missions where player led PP activities, say, bounty hunting end when you've had enough.

I think it's good that they 'pay' well though.

 

[Klearoflauge]

Thanks for the question. I can now confirm that settlement Data has now been enabled, however Rare Goods and Escape Pods remain temporarily disabled as investigate the issue.

Thank You for clarification!!

 

[sacred aardvark]

I'm not sure why they can't all be primary means.

Because if they all are primary, that actually means that none are primary. I can't fathom why this would be a source of confusion.

And yes, the weeklies, if they were another primary means, would earn as much as the other methods but when you've done 5 they run out. You can either wait till next week doing other stuff (or not) or you can explore the rest of the PP activities the same as people who don't use the weeklies.

5 weeklies being roughly equal to 5 fairly well done other activities sounds fine to me. I'd probably give them a little boost so they stay relevant and tempt people who otherwise wouldn't do any and don't want to figure the methods out but not everyone would agree.
The limit of 5 a week largely mitigates any unbalance you might find from weeklies being too generous.

No, if the weeklies were a primary mean, they wouldn't be worth 5 well done other activities, they'd be a weeks worth of well done other activities. Because if they were worth just five other missions they would not be a primary source of merits, since you could get much much more from all other activities over the week.

It's kind of a pointless comparison though as the weeklies are finite missions where player led PP activities, say, bounty hunting end when you've had enough.

I think it's good that they 'pay' well though.

Yeah the weeklies currently aren't a primary source, which is good; and they (in my opinion) should never be.

 

[Scienti5t]

Because if they all are primary, that actually means that none are primary. I can't fathom why this would be a source of confusion.




No, if the weeklies were a primary mean, they wouldn't be worth 5 well done other activities, they'd be a weeks worth of well done other activities. Because if they were worth just five other missions they would not be a primary source of merits, since you could get much much more from all other activities over the week.




Yeah the weeklies currently aren't a primary source, which is good; and they (in my opinion) should never be.

I think there are differing and shifting expectations of a primary means here.

I'm not sure why you would think for the weeklies to be equivalent to doing other activities they would need to be earning the same in 5 missions as a week's worth of the other options.

It's okay though. We should probably just move on.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I've got no weekly assignments. New bug?

EDIT: Oh, wait, they appeared now.