Every update simply makes progression more tedious, past exploiters have found religion.
- Thread starter ManRightChea
- Start date
I guess it's not really as simple as fast vs slow progression. It's more about rate of progression at different stages.
Currently, the lower ⅓ tier of ships are irrelevant. You can skip straight from sidewinder to anything under 1million, without having to spend any time with multiple ships along the way. Earning potential, proportional to cost, is way too fast in the early game.
Later in the game, progression slows down. This is because the larger and more expensive ships do not have a force multiplier effect that is at all proportional to their relative cost. A large ship tends to be more versatile, and it tends to bring *slightly* improved potential for faster earnings rate, but nothing in line with the progressively higher purchase and outfitting cost.
Yes, you can kill higher value targets faster with an FDL. Yes, you can haul more cargo and make a greater profit per trip, in a T9 or Cutter. But not to such a degree that you're going to make money twice as fast with a ship that costs twice as much.
Instead, what the late game ships bring is *security*. You're less likely to be shot down in an FDL. You can take more hits and escape mass lock in a Cutter. You have to do a ton more of the same activity in order to progress, but at the same time you're way less likely to fail.
This is seems like a perfect formula for boredom. Take the most experienced players, who have seen and done it all, and make them do the most repetitive tasks the most number of times with the lowest sense of danger and the proportionally lowest rewards.
Others have said this before: Elite needs some adjustments to introduce activities which don't just warrant but *demand* the higher capacities of advanced ships *as well as * the higher capacities of more experienced CMDRs, with the attendant payouts to match.
You should be able to take your Cutter in a mission where you're just as scared of failing it as you were when you were in your sidewinder; and the potential reward should be just as much of a relative boon, proportionally, as it would have been back then. I'm thinking VIP assassination missions against engineered targets who frequently highwake and regroup. I'm talking about 400 ton haulage missions which attract a space pirate wing equivalent to Vin Diesel's crew in Fast and Furious. Smuggling missions where the authorities are already waiting for you at the gate and you *really* have to know how to use silent running.
All of these should not come to the exclusion of what we have now; big ships should still be free to grind in peace. But there needs to be an order of challenge, with potential gains *and* losses, for the later game vessels.
Currently, the lower ⅓ tier of ships are irrelevant. You can skip straight from sidewinder to anything under 1million, without having to spend any time with multiple ships along the way. Earning potential, proportional to cost, is way too fast in the early game.
Later in the game, progression slows down. This is because the larger and more expensive ships do not have a force multiplier effect that is at all proportional to their relative cost. A large ship tends to be more versatile, and it tends to bring *slightly* improved potential for faster earnings rate, but nothing in line with the progressively higher purchase and outfitting cost.
Yes, you can kill higher value targets faster with an FDL. Yes, you can haul more cargo and make a greater profit per trip, in a T9 or Cutter. But not to such a degree that you're going to make money twice as fast with a ship that costs twice as much.
Instead, what the late game ships bring is *security*. You're less likely to be shot down in an FDL. You can take more hits and escape mass lock in a Cutter. You have to do a ton more of the same activity in order to progress, but at the same time you're way less likely to fail.
This is seems like a perfect formula for boredom. Take the most experienced players, who have seen and done it all, and make them do the most repetitive tasks the most number of times with the lowest sense of danger and the proportionally lowest rewards.
Others have said this before: Elite needs some adjustments to introduce activities which don't just warrant but *demand* the higher capacities of advanced ships *as well as * the higher capacities of more experienced CMDRs, with the attendant payouts to match.
You should be able to take your Cutter in a mission where you're just as scared of failing it as you were when you were in your sidewinder; and the potential reward should be just as much of a relative boon, proportionally, as it would have been back then. I'm thinking VIP assassination missions against engineered targets who frequently highwake and regroup. I'm talking about 400 ton haulage missions which attract a space pirate wing equivalent to Vin Diesel's crew in Fast and Furious. Smuggling missions where the authorities are already waiting for you at the gate and you *really* have to know how to use silent running.
All of these should not come to the exclusion of what we have now; big ships should still be free to grind in peace. But there needs to be an order of challenge, with potential gains *and* losses, for the later game vessels.
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