Elite Dangerous | Powerplay 2.0 Update

[pFVD]

Maybe point to where you predicted any of those before they happened? Otherwise it looks like you're just being wise in hindsight.

People are already grinding for credits in preparation for colonization because they think it will cost a lot. Is it honestly so difficult for you to believe that folks were not collecting/hoarding rares, escape pods, bounties and exploration data before Ascendancy because they didn't post about? Because apparently FDEV did find it difficult.

I'm sorry, but even to me, some of things they've nerfed/disabled were obvious from the very start and for all intents and purposes an expected and previously used gameplay mechanic. And I really am (truly) stupid oblivious about these kinds of things.

 

[DemiserofD]

Lets use the Clipper and Python build over on https://cmdrs-toolbox.com/ship-builds/mining
Python: https://s.orbis.zone/qElI
Clipper: https://s.orbis.zone/qElK
Hate to say it but the Python wins, in almost every aspect. the Clipper has 140 more speed while at 500 the Python is still more then capable. And these builds are sort of out dated, I'm sure I could push things further on both but the Python will still win.

You've got a python build that is mediocre at laser mining and a full 25% slower at core mining. Sometimes, being a jack of all trades really isn't worth the effort. Sometimes, being really good at one important thing is best.

In this case, the python might manage 3000 merits per hour, but the clipper will pull 4000. That seems clear enough to me.

 

[galahad2069]

And yet he's expecting fdev to be able to find bugs that they couldn't find (because they didn't). He's had weeks with the code now, so he should have predicted all the bugs other than the initial trade bugs. So he can link to all those reveals. Unless he's a chump and didn't see any of them coming, ofc

So you suggest it was impossible to predict that 'dozens of cargo allocated per 1/2 hour' which 'counts for 1.5 merits' was going to be utterly useless when you need hundreds of thousands of merits? I don't think you'd even need a pocket calculator to predict that.

 

[galahad2069]

and never touch what PP2.0 was meant to be.

At this point it's not even clear what it was meant to be.

 

[DemiserofD]

Anyway, it must have been the donation missions then (I did not try those), since I doubt you can hack 5000 merits' worth of holograms an hour.

You are massively overestimating where the "average" player is here.

Getting a module in 5 weeks would require 50,000 merits a week, which would put someone into the top 10% of their Power's leaderboard.

At 3k merits/hour, which is a decent rate for most non-rares activities if you're not doing very specific things or optimising a lot (which the average player, by definition, isn't), that would be about 17 hours committed to Powerplay each week, so 2-3 hours a day just playing Elite Dangerous.

You can get more than you might think. Some stations have 8, and you can hack them all, in and out, with an ops controller. That's 144 per, and if you can find 8 on both sides that's something like 1728 per hour right there. Add donation missions(say an average of 5 per landing, I've seen between 10 and 2) and you've got an extra 1728 from that, as well. That's 3500 per hour without doing anything else. Add to that 200/trip for normal trading, and you're up to 6000/hour just from trading, which is one of the worst ways to earn merits.

Conveniently, the donation missions counteract the rep loss from the hacking.

I don't think it's wise to use the leaderboards as guidance; many players are likely inactive, having pledged and logged off for one reason or another. Others aren't too worried about it.

By 'average', I mean 'the average player who is intentionally increasing their rank'.

Because if you don't care about doing that, then it doesn't really matter if it takes 8 weeks or 16; you'll unlock it eventually, and then have it forever!

 

[Kira Mikamy]

We aren't even asking them to buff everything else beyond where it was. Just undo their nerfs. I understand and agree that actual bugs and exploits should be patched, but that does not mean that they should nerf legitimate methods that people are using.

they doesnt nerf nothing atm, they just suspended some kind of activities, activities that can be heavy exploited ot generate value of merit that cannot be counter with other activities.
you cant pretend all people interested in powerplay start to make hauling rares to win a conflict zone.

 

[Asmara]

It's all about unlocking those Modules,.....

 

[galahad2069]

You can get more than you might think. Some stations have 8, and you can hack them all, in and out, with an ops controller. That's 144 per, and if you can find 8 on both sides that's something like 1728 per hour right there. Add donation missions(say an average of 5 per landing, I've seen between 10 and 2) and you've got an extra 1728 from that, as well. That's 3500 per hour without doing anything else. Add to that 200/trip for normal trading, and you're up to 6000/hour just from trading, which is one of the worst ways to earn merits.

Sure, if you can find a station that sells the crap you can sell elsewhere for the required profit, AND the station happens to have 8 hackable holograms AND it happens to offer donation missions as well. That sounds a bit too many IFs, I guess it takes a while to find such a place and then you'll still need time to do all the busywork within the same hour.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Roughly:
- signature module first, of course
- modules from the same superpower (if any, "independent" doesn't count) next
- the rest in a fairly arbitrary order though Fed and Imp powers tend to get each others' modules last or nearly so, and the Cytoscrambler is always in the second half (and often last) for everyone else

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...joRUgECLIyMw/edit?gid=868561511#gid=868561511 has the full orders in the various tabs.

As my Alt is only interested in the Cytos it effectively leaves me a single option...
But then I'm not starting all that till after Cocijo so time for stuff to get reasonably sorted.

 

[Greasetrap42]

It's all about unlocking those Modules,.....

The modules that most players already have? Or had pretty easy access to for the last couple years? Oh, the new shock canon, which I believe is bugged?

Sure there are some brand new players that never had the opportunity. But they will be in the huge minority.

 

[Maebius]

How could a team of people working on this project not know what activities are going to be the most rewarding? I don't get it.

It's not very unusual tbh.... it happens in all industries.
The game concept peeps come up with a vision for a feature.... oh, let's do that, people will love it!
That vision is sometimes narrow on "how the user will do things" and the actual developer (programmer) is usually unable to foresee all the cheezy/exploity thing the end user will do.
These things are also compounded by small actual testing windows.

 

[galahad2069]

they doesnt nerf nothing atm, they just suspended some kind of activities, activities that can be heavy exploited ot generate value of merit that cannot be counter with other activities.
you cant pretend all people interested in powerplay start to make hauling rares to win a conflict zone.

They did NOT suspend Taipan farming, neither did they suspend escape pod farming, they literally just nerfed the merit reward per Taipans and pods, the last time I checked.

 

[zimms]

[...]

By 'average', I mean 'the average player who is intentionally increasing their rank'.

Because if you don't care about doing that, then it doesn't really matter if it takes 8 weeks or 16; you'll unlock it eventually, and then have it forever!

I'm with Ian on this. In an earlier post in this thread you detailed your average week which was about 20h and called yourself "a BIT over average".

I think that playtime is far above average.

 

[Cmdr Hbomb]

My hopes:

Rares Trading is nerfed to be slightly worse than normal trading, but without requiring specific system states to achieve it.

Normal trading - fix the 1 ton trade exploit

Normal trading: gives 1/3rd for raw tonnage and 2/3rds for profit. Ideally around ~400 merits per trip.

Mining changed to give diminishing returns depending on how far away the minerals were mined, inverse to rare goods. You should want to mine nearby, but you shouldn't have to necessarily mine in-system, like right now.

Stronghold Carriers should only be attackable in Open. Attacking them in solo should give significantly lower merit rewards.

Uploading Power Malware should give 2x the merits and take half the time.

That's all I can think of, for now. Overall, things aren't too far off now that fighter merits have been nerfed.

Due to the lack of a dislike button, "Dislike"

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

The modules that most players already have? Or had pretty easy access to for the last couple years? Oh, the new shock canon, which I believe is bugged?

I'll repeat myself here: There's new ships, and I ran out of some modules that I thought I was done with. And there is a completely new (though currently bugged) module.

 

[Greasetrap42]

That vision is sometimes narrow on "how the user will do things" and the actual developer (programmer) is usually unable to foresee all the cheezy/exploity thing the end user will do.

Are you trying to tell me hauling rares and collecting escape pods are cheezy/exploity unexpected activities? My first weekly tasks literally had me do these two activities.

 

[Greasetrap42]

I'll repeat myself here: There's new ships, and I ran out of some modules that I thought I was done with. And there is a completely new (though currently bugged) module.

If i was doing powerplay just for the modules.... hmmm let me think:

I could grind away 34+ levels to get lets say prismatic shields to try on my new ship. Or I can simply transfer them from storage. Or from one of my other ships.

Cytoscramblers? People unlocked these before but didn't keep any? They just tossed them away?

All I'm saying is cmdrs are ranking up powerplay for reasons other than getting a module they could have gotten a couple months ago.

 

[Maebius]

Are you trying to tell me hauling rares and collecting escape pods are cheezy/exploity unexpected activities? My first weekly tasks literally had me do these two activities.

Reloging to get right back into the signal and keep getting pods from the same signal, yes, that's cheezy/exploity.
The data hack thing, too.

Too many merits from SLFs, that's just bad balance... if you consider how few merits an actual ship kill gives. (by bad balance I actually think they should give a bit less but the ship kills should give a lot more)

Hoarding rares to the carrier, dumping months of exploration/exobiology data isn't a problem in my book. (and I don't even have a carrier!)

 

[Greasetrap42]

Reloging to get right back into the signal and keep getting pods from the same signal, yes, that's cheezy/exploity.
The data hack thing, too.

The data hack thing was a bug exploit.

I don't know anything about relogging for escape pods. My first 2 weeks I visited vast numbers of Power Wreckage Sites. I never needed to relog to get more. They just kept appearing. And I am describing several systems I visited.

But lets say worst case scenario... I ran out of Power Wreckage Sites. Why would I relog vs just travel to the neighboring system? Especially when logging in takes ridiculous time now.

Additional point: Frontier knows relogging is a concept that players are aware of. Its not new. It is part of some gameplay loops that they placed in the game.

 

[Kira Mikamy]

They did NOT suspend Taipan farming, neither did they suspend escape pod farming, they literally just nerfed the merit reward per Taipans and pods, the last time I checked.

they had to reduce the merit income from slf due to the cause\effect of interrupting the rares merit: no way to counter the high merit yeld with slf without rares. now they give a little ammount of merit and you can counter it with other fortification activities. its ok in my opinion. it may can be for a closed time untill they fix the rares.
Escape pod exploit in anarchy system is viable, i see it as a part of the background simulation of the game, if some crazy tourist had to go in anarchy visitor beacon well...its anarchy. Otherwise you have to counter with police and notoriety.

Rares is really really easy to do and give the most insane count of merit out there, i feel nothing strange in a balancing.

EDIT: also, not all stronghold have the carrier, and not all tourist system with visitor beacon are in a strategic position in therms of powerplay. so...
meanwhile the rares can snipe every system for fortification, and also win the power conflict zone by simply delivering it to the system.

a little too much.