Exploits - Good for PvP , PvE & FD

[Rubbernuke]

People have become allergic to actually playing the game it seems. People complain of the grind by actually grinding these exploits and edge cases- where is the logic in that? There is none.

ED is about living and making your way in the galaxy. Every credit should be precious and not be thrown at you. Fuel, repairs, ammo, it should all cost and make you think about what you do.

Sadly FD caved into the easy crowd, and now everything is cheap and disposable. People have billions so quickly it ruins all progression and all consequence in the game. Death has no meaning, mistakes have no meaning, nothing. People are adverse to fear, of actual failure.

Back in the early days of ED money was tight, fuel was expensive and repairs costly. You had to engage your brain and really think about each mission, which if messed up could ruin you. Today each mission has no intrinsic value- by failing it you have no consequence and simply clickety click 10 more.

But, when you got it right it was amazing- you actually felt achievement because you beat the odds.

 

[Aashenfox]

People have become allergic to actually playing the game it seems. People complain of the grind by actually grinding these exploits and edge cases- where is the logic in that? There is none.

ED is about living and making your way in the galaxy. Every credit should be precious and not be thrown at you. Fuel, repairs, ammo, it should all cost and make you think about what you do.

Sadly FD caved into the easy crowd, and now everything is cheap and disposable. People have billions so quickly it ruins all progression and all consequence in the game. Death has no meaning, mistakes have no meaning, nothing. People are adverse to fear, of actual failure.

Back in the early days of ED money was tight, fuel was expensive and repairs costly. You had to engage your brain and really think about each mission, which if messed up could ruin you. Today each mission has no intrinsic value- by failing it you have no consequence and simply clickety click 10 more.

But, when you got it right it was amazing- you actually felt achievement because you beat the odds.

I agree with all of that, and I'm speaking as someone who never ground credits, except that my conclusion is that in the beginning it was too harsh, and I don't see any evidence that FD is caving to people who want to play in an exploity way. The problems started when they realised they needed to let people make more money faster to increase the popularity of the game. After that, it was a case of closing the cases where doing that had allowed players to make 'too much' money, which is something FD are continually patching against.

It's all rather moot when things like the 'road to riches' exist anyway.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The competition for money should drive you to become ruthless or desperate, to actually drive the game. Having money flow like water bypasses the whole spirit of Elite.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Hmmmmm, no.

Credit exploits mean people just grind one part of the game, then can't cope when the exploit is fixed, and complain they can't make money.
Plus you get rookie CMDRs flying ships they don't really know how to fly, then lose them, a lot, then complain that, without the exploits, they can't afford to fly them.

Then all these people leave negative reviews about ED.

It's actually really bad for the game.

 

[Aashenfox]

The competition for money should drive you to become ruthless or desperate, to actually drive the game. Having money flow like water bypasses the whole spirit of Elite.

Yeh, but since the spirit of elite was incepted, they have introduced 2 of the big 3 ships that cost nearly a billion to outfit compared to the old days when it was just the Anaconda (and there were no reactive bulks - or at least nobody bought them, because no engineering), and a whole load of other marge and medium ships. If people were supposed to ever own a fully outfitted Anaconda, Cutter AND Corvette (completion goal for many people), let alone also the majority of other ships, then rewards needed adjusting up. Since then, it's been a game of whack a mole, where the new values have caused anomalies. I'd be all for reducing money making, as long as the cost of living (sic: Cost of ships) were also reduced appropriately. And once again, this is from someone who has 300m, not 300bn. I've never found it easy to make money in Elite, because I never ground for it. I don't consider last night on the skimmer missions grinding either, because I really enjoyed it. I died a couple of times figuring out how to disable certain base defenses, until I had it down pat, and then it was party time, I admit I made a LOT of money very quickly, but 'a lot' is all relative. 150m in an entire evening is the most I've ever made, others would laugh at that, but they have a whole different grind philosophy to me. I learned a hell of a lot about assaulting bases last night, such that in case I ever don't care about a bounty, i could easily assault and annihilate a high security base in a single medium ship now, no matter what its escort is. That was valuable gameplay to me, and I'll keep reaping the rewards of that learning, til either I get bored of it, or FD nerf it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'm going to prefix my comment by saying: I doesn't matter at all to me if someone else wants to use exploits to earn billions overnight. It's their game, their time, and as it doesn't really impact me, its not my business to other people what how to play.

That said, I think there has been always one main thing, at the root of all these exploits - the fact that re-logging can give you another set of missions on the mission board. Most (every?) get rich quick scheme at some point takes advantage of this at some point. Keep relogging until you've stacked the missions you need. I guess most player resort to re-logging to get the missions they need - maybe not to make billions, but to get missions for rank, for reputation, and even for materials. People also re-log at Dav's Hope, and people re-log doing Ram-Tah missions.

My point being: As long as the game provides RNG based access to the activites we need to meet our in game goals, players will feel compelled and/or justified in making use of re-logging. If FDev had some way to prevent re-logging working, player progress would essentially grind to a halt. Is it good for the game? No, today, its necessary.

Beyond that, its just a matter of individual taste, and perhaps restraint, but really, its just a game and I whilst its my opinion that some self imposed rules make the game a whole lot more satisfying, people can play how they want. (Use of the term "exploit" for this seems quite judgmental to me, btw).

 

[Rubbernuke]

Yeh, but since the spirit of elite was incepted, they have introduced 2 of the big 3 ships that cost nearly a billion to outfit compared to the old days when it was just the Anaconda (and there were no reactive bulks - or at least nobody bought them, because no engineering), and a whole load of other marge and medium ships. If people were supposed to ever own a fully outfitted Anaconda, Cutter AND Corvette (completion goal for many people), let alone also the majority of other ships, then rewards needed adjusting up. Since then, it's been a game of whack a mole, where the new values have caused anomalies. I'd be all for reducing money making, as long as the cost of living (sic: Cost of ships) were also reduced appropriately. And once again, this is from someone who has 300m, not 300bn. I've never found it easy to make money in Elite, because I never ground for it. I don't consider last night on the skimmer missions grinding either, because I really enjoyed it. I died a couple of times figuring out how to disable certain base defenses, until I had it down pat, and then it was party time, I admit I made a LOT of money very quickly, but 'a lot' is all relative. 150m in an entire evening is the most I've ever made, others would laugh at that, but they have a whole different grind philosophy to me. I learned a hell of a lot about assaulting bases last night, such that in case I ever don't care about a bounty, i could easily assault and annihilate a high security base in a single medium ship now, no matter what its escort is. That was valuable gameplay to me, and I'll keep reaping the rewards of that learning, til either I get bored of it, or FD nerf it.

The thing is this is not done sensibly- it should be that illegal activity should be the main driver for credit gain, so you then weigh your ethics with getting that shiny new module. In this way ED would gain a moral dimension that forces players to choose, and involve them more in C + P.

Personally, I'd love to see module prices come down drastically but repair costs should be much higher. So, if you have an advanced A grade shiny engineered thruster the repair bill should reflect that, just as an E grade Tesco Value sensor should cost peanuts to fix.

 

[TheSynopticVision]

I agree with Cosmicspacehead and Rubbernuke above.

The problem is: this conversation is always derailed by "don't tell me how to play my game!". That's a legitimate complaint, and everyone can do whatever they want especially when it comes to something like earning money, which doesn't influence anyone else's game. But this discussion should not be around the question "is it good or bad for us gamers?" or "what should gamers do"?

I think that it should rather be "is this good game design?" and "what should a game designer do?" That is to say: if we weren't Elite players, but amateur game designers or even random gamers, and someone tells us the story of a sandbox game -- where the only measure of progression is money and the goods you can purchase with this money -- where there are borderline exploity methods to bypass every other designed money-making activity would we think "oh that's good" or maybe "that sounds like a poor choice"?

These aren't opinions, but facts: money fountains make all these activities irrelevant (when it comes to the criterion of money-earning, which -- again -- is the only true mark of in-game progress): trading, mining, piracy, bounty hunting, exploration... "But there is an intrinsic fun in doing all of these things, besides money!" Yes, that's true (kinda). But every gameplay mechanics needs two elements: the intrinsic fun of doing it, and some form of enduring reward for having done it. Right now, we only have the first for most of these activities (the megaship piracy mechanic is the latest addition to this list). And that makes these activities fun a handful of time, only to then be completely abandoned.

A game that is explicitly designed as a slow upward progression towards ever more powerful ships (as it clearly was since day one) but ends up giving players ways of bypassing the progression curve and get everything in a week or two might be "fun" (but personally I am not sure where the fun is without challenge and progression), but it is certainly not good in terms of design, as it betrays its own principles.



P.S. - I said that money is the only measure of progress. But what about rank? Well, that's been completely deflated too, by -- you guessed it -- money inflation. Exploration rank? Takes a week to get to Elite, following RtR. Poor design choice: why would an explorer's prowess be judged according to the amount of money he cashed in? And why would Universal Cargographics pay you to tell them about ELWs they've known for centuries? Trading rank? Made it trivial too by the high pay of passenger missions counting towards it. Why do they pay so much, and why ferrying passengers would count as "trading"? Combat Rank? that's probably the only one that cannot be exploited away, even though every PvPer will tell you that it means nothing if all you've done is blow up NPCs in hazres.

 

[Aashenfox]

I'm going to prefix my comment by saying: I doesn't matter at all to me if someone else wants to use exploits to earn billions overnight. It's their game, their time, and as it doesn't really impact me, its not my business to other people what how to play.

That said, I think there has been always one main thing, at the root of all these exploits - the fact that re-logging can give you another set of missions on the mission board. Most (every?) get rich quick scheme at some point takes advantage of this at some point. Keep relogging until you've stacked the missions you need. I guess most player resort to re-logging to get the missions they need - maybe not to make billions, but to get missions for rank, for reputation, and even for materials. People also re-log at Dav's Hope, and people re-log doing Ram-Tah missions.

My point being: As long as the game provides RNG based access to the activites we need to meet our in game goals, players will feel compelled and/or justified in making use of re-logging. If FDev had some way to prevent re-logging working, player progress would essentially grind to a halt. Is it good for the game? No, today, its necessary.

Beyond that, its just a matter of individual taste, and perhaps restraint, but really, its just a game and I whilst its my opinion that some self imposed rules make the game a whole lot more satisfying, people can play how they want. (Use of the term "exploit" for this seems quite judgmental to me, btw).

I think you are exactly right regarding previous exploits. Not so much this latest one. I am able to stack 15 skimmer missions to three nearby bases from each board spawn, which is enough. You also do not need to relog to get more skimmers to spawn any more.

As I said in another thread, it would seem the solution is to scale the reward with the target base security level and we're done on this particular 'exploit'.

Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but relogging does not have the same effect on the mission board that it had before 3.0.

 

[Aashenfox]

I agree with Cosmicspacehead and Rubbernuke above.

The problem is: this conversation is always derailed by "don't tell me how to play my game!". That's a legitimate complaint, and everyone can do whatever they want especially when it comes to something like earning money, which doesn't influence anyone else's game. But this discussion should not be around the question "is it good or bad for us gamers?" or "what should gamers do"?

I think that it should rather be "is this good game design?" and "what should a game designer do?" That is to say: if we weren't Elite players, but amateur game designers or even random gamers, and someone tells us the story of a sandbox game -- where the only measure of progression is money and the goods you can purchase with this money -- where there are borderline exploity methods to bypass every other designed money-making activity would we think "oh that's good" or maybe "that sounds like a poor choice"?

These aren't opinions, but facts: money fountains make all these activities irrelevant (when it comes to the criterion of money-earning, which -- again -- is the only true mark of in-game progress): trading, mining, piracy, bounty hunting, exploration... "But there is an intrinsic fun in doing all of these things, besides money!" Yes, that's true (kinda). But every gameplay mechanics needs two elements: the intrinsic fun of doing it, and some form of enduring reward for having done it. Right now, we only have the first for most of these activities (the megaship piracy mechanic is the latest addition to this list). And that makes these activities fun a handful of time, only to then be completely abandoned.

A game that is explicitly designed as a slow upward progression towards ever more powerful ships (as it clearly was since day one) but ends up giving players ways of bypassing the progression curve and get everything in a week or two might be "fun" (but personally I am not sure where the fun is without challenge and progression), but it is certainly not good in terms of design, as it betrays its own principles.



P.S. - I said that money is the only measure of progress. But what about rank? Well, that's been completely deflated too, by -- you guessed it -- money inflation. Exploration rank? Takes a week to get to Elite, following RtR. Poor design choice: why would an explorer's prowess be judged according to the amount of money he cashed in? And why would Universal Cargographics pay you to tell them about ELWs they've known for centuries? Trading rank? Made it trivial too by the high pay of passenger missions counting towards it. Why do they pay so much, and why ferrying passengers would count as "trading"? Combat Rank? that's probably the only one that cannot be exploited away, even though every PvPer will tell you that it means nothing if all you've done is blow up NPCs in hazres.

This is a fair point. If I ask myself "is this good design", the way I doubled my cash reserves last night...I find myself thinking...

"Hm...well it's not BAD design. Perhaps the reward should scale with base response so that you can't et 100m an hour for just shooting fish in a barrel?"...the funny thing is though, for two out of my three bases of choice, because they are high security, I would expect rewards to stay as they are now. Not many people have the nous and piloting ability to hang around at a high sec base, shooting skimmers AND keeping the base defenses under control.

In other words, it's not so much bad design or even failing at good design, it's a matter of something needing a tweak.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Just my opinions,feel free to post yours

i am putting the above quote in because last time i responded to a post which ASKED for my opinion i got called all manner of names for sticking my nose in... but you asked.....

i cant say with authority that it is good for the game (though my gut feeling is it absolutely isnt)...... however the fact that credits are now officially worthless, and materials is the new currency which takes time is certainly detrimental to the game for me. and i am less and less feeling the urge to play.

perhaps the next X game will be a better fit for me, which is a shame as i have been an Elite fanboy for over 30 years but i had high hopes for a great economy and plausible BGS in this game...... in truth it (the Economy and BGS) has never been great, but at launch i figured MVP and it will get better and more complex in time... where as imo it has actually gotten worse and more "silly" imo.

and for me, having an economy based around getting lumps of iron and arsenic and storing them in our magic pockets is NOT the economy i was hoping for.

anyone remember David Braben saying his goal for the game was for there to be no consistent standout ways of making money which would completely usurp other methods...... if we go on david brabens statement then i would also suggest that as usual things with the economy are not working as intended.

 

[Jukelo]

No, it's not good. There is an intended pace of progression, a way the game is meant ot be played, and exploits are obiously way off. If only the reward was justified by the skill required and the effort deployed to earn it. But there is nothing about those skimmer missions or all the past exploits that explain why they would pay so much more than any other activity.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I agree with Cosmicspacehead and Rubbernuke above.

The problem is: this conversation is always derailed by "don't tell me how to play my game!". That's a legitimate complaint, and everyone can do whatever they want especially when it comes to something like earning money, which doesn't influence anyone else's game. But this discussion should not be around the question "is it good or bad for us gamers?" or "what should gamers do"?

I think that it should rather be "is this good game design?" and "what should a game designer do?" That is to say: if we weren't Elite players, but amateur game designers or even random gamers, and someone tells us the story of a sandbox game -- where the only measure of progression is money and the goods you can purchase with this money -- where there are borderline exploity methods to bypass every other designed money-making activity would we think "oh that's good" or maybe "that sounds like a poor choice"?

These aren't opinions, but facts: money fountains make all these activities irrelevant (when it comes to the criterion of money-earning, which -- again -- is the only true mark of in-game progress): trading, mining, piracy, bounty hunting, exploration... "But there is an intrinsic fun in doing all of these things, besides money!" Yes, that's true (kinda). But every gameplay mechanics needs two elements: the intrinsic fun of doing it, and some form of enduring reward for having done it. Right now, we only have the first for most of these activities (the megaship piracy mechanic is the latest addition to this list). And that makes these activities fun a handful of time, only to then be completely abandoned.

A game that is explicitly designed as a slow upward progression towards ever more powerful ships (as it clearly was since day one) but ends up giving players ways of bypassing the progression curve and get everything in a week or two might be "fun" (but personally I am not sure where the fun is without challenge and progression), but it is certainly not good in terms of design, as it betrays its own principles.



P.S. - I said that money is the only measure of progress. But what about rank? Well, that's been completely deflated too, by -- you guessed it -- money inflation. Exploration rank? Takes a week to get to Elite, following RtR. Poor design choice: why would an explorer's prowess be judged according to the amount of money he cashed in? And why would Universal Cargographics pay you to tell them about ELWs they've known for centuries? Trading rank? Made it trivial too by the high pay of passenger missions counting towards it. Why do they pay so much, and why ferrying passengers would count as "trading"? Combat Rank? that's probably the only one that cannot be exploited away, even though every PvPer will tell you that it means nothing if all you've done is blow up NPCs in hazres.

very well said.

 

[signal11th]

No, Elite Dangerous was originally an always online game. During the Kickstarter people asked about an offline mode and Frontier said they would think about it. They thought about it and decided it wasn't possible.

Unfortunately, those players who wanted offline mode interpreted Frontiers "think about it" as "we will do it" and got salty when it didn't happen. They're still salty and try to rewrite history at every opportunity.

Source?? Otherwise some people might think you are trying to rewrite history....

 

[V'larr]

I don't understand this thread...you might as well suggest Fdev just remove credits and price requirements altogether.

And by the way, no, having unlimited credits does absolutely nothing to fix the *balance* issues that keep me from even considering touching Open mode.

 

[Aashenfox]

No, it's not good. There is an intended pace of progression, a way the game is meant ot be played, and exploits are obiously way off. If only the reward was justified by the skill required and the effort deployed to earn it. But there is nothing about those skimmer missions or all the past exploits that explain why they would pay so much more than any other activity.

I agree in principle, but we mustn't look at skimmer missions the way we did at Ceos/Robigo/Smeaton, we have to appreciate that within this particular GRQ scheme, there are degrees. Where previously it was one thing, you took passengers from robigo, or whatever, now there is just a bucket called 'skimmer missions'. In this bucket of skimmer missions are a good range, from very, very hard, to ridiculously easy. What FD needs to watch out for (as usual) is that the reward scales better with the difficulty of the task. Nerfing skimmer missions across the board, will just ensure that everyone stops doing them again, as they are risky at a base with defenses. I don't have any bases as easy as the one in yamiks vid near my home, I have one that's nearly as easy, but two others that usually mean I'll leave with 'some' hull damage. These are worthy opponents and I'm glad of the action and the commensurate reward.

I'd hope the solution to this is to simply stop skimmer missions to undefended bases, while keeping rewards (or maybe nerfing them a tad), for missions to high sec bases.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I agree in principle, but we mustn't look at skimmer missions the way we did at Ceos/Robigo/Smeaton, we have to appreciate that within this particular GRQ scheme, there are degrees. Where previously it was one thing, you took passengers from robigo, or whatever, now there is just a bucket called 'skimmer missions'. In this bucket of skimmer missions are a good range, from very, very hard, to ridiculously easy. What FD needs to watch out for (as usual) is that the reward scales better with the difficulty of the task. Nerfing skimmer missions across the board, will just ensure that everyone stops doing them again, as they are risky at a base with defenses. I don't have any bases as easy as the one in yamiks vid near my home, I have one that's nearly as easy, but two others that usually mean I'll leave with 'some' hull damage. These are worthy opponents and I'm glad of the action and the commensurate reward.

I'd hope the solution to this is to simply stop skimmer missions to undefended bases, while keeping rewards (or maybe nerfing them a tad), for missions to high sec bases.

this is true for most the past "exploits" tho.

the Robigo mission in and off itself was not an exploit (aside from the ability to sell the cargo and buy again next door to the delivery spot, OR the ability to continually take on the missions, fail them and sell the loot - they were exploits)

but long range smuggling was not an exploity mission and was actually pretty fun... it could (should) have been tweaked, not spanked completely........ there are a number of ways to do this, either by increasing the number of destinations of hte missions, so you will only get 1 going to the same place and if you are very lucky another going closeish.... but better yet,.. make it possible for a "rare" robigo like mission to pop up anywhere... not just robigo.... so if i am perusing any board there is maybe a 0.5% chance every time i look at the board for there to be some form of high paying - but risky mission. this could be smuggling, delivery, assassination or what ever, but a hardcore variation of what we have now but that pay 3 times as much as the average, but is much harder to do.

the long range passenger missions and amplified payment from the star, was not a bad idea in principle, just poorly implemented (and FD have said the pay boost will come back after more work (maybe back already i dunno).

 

[JohnRoberts]

I think you are exactly right regarding previous exploits. Not so much this latest one. I am able to stack 15 skimmer missions to three nearby bases from each board spawn, which is enough. You also do not need to relog to get more skimmers to spawn any more.

If you can collect all the missions you want by flying around various stations without any re logging, are constrained to a 20 mission limit, and one kill counts for only one mission (not all of them), then how can anyone reasonably claim this is an exploit? You are playing the game exactly as the "don't spoil my game" crowd would demand you do. (Perhaps you would care to share your location in a PM? )

IAlso, I don't know if you've noticed, but relogging does not have the same effect on the mission board that it had before 3.0.

There's nothing about that in the patch notes, and nor does not seem to be the case for this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtIetvdtMAI , but its not something I am deeply familar with.

 

[Aashenfox]

If you can collect all the missions you want by flying around various stations without any re logging, are constrained to a 20 mission limit, and one kill counts for only one mission (not all of them), then how can anyone reasonably claim this is an exploit? You are playing the game exactly as the "don't spoil my game" crowd would demand you do. (Perhaps you would care to share your location in a PM? )




There's nothing about that in the patch notes, and nor does not seem to be the case for this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtIetvdtMAI , but its not something I am deeply familar with.

I am able to do as your first paragraph states, only occasionally needing perhaps a single flip to get to the magic 1number of 14 or 15 that I consider worthwhile, and as I say, these are likely to be split amongst three locations of varying difficulty.

Regarding the mission board, I noticed the following last night.

1) Load a board in Open, take all missions you want.
2) Save and Exit, log into PG, the mission board is the same.
3) Save and exit, log into Solo, the mission board is different.
4) Until the next quarter of the hour (00:15, 00:30, 00:45, 01:00), those boards will stay the same.

Many people spend 7 or 8 minutes looking at the boards each time, so do that twice and you have sat for 15 minutes and will see the board change anyway, so perhaps some don't realise that passing the quarter of the hour is what made the board change, not relogging (I believe). I need to do more experimenting myself to be sure if I'm honest, but it definitely is less effective as a strategy than in 2.4, or so it seems.

I'll shoot you a PM. Please nobody else ask, as I don't want people descending on this system, I won't be sharing with anyone else. Besides, I doubt it is particularly special as a place anyway, it is only the second place I looked for, for these types of misisons, and was happy with the results, so I haven't looked further, I'm sure there are better places.

 

[verminstar]

So two years down the road and 3.5k hours or thereabouts later...still going strong, still playing every day. Ive never used a credit exploit in all that time, although I have used, and still use other exploits like mode flipping...I call them exploits because thats what they are but the thing is, I dont really care if anyone else likes it or not...not gonna stop me doing it so why stress out out trying to call it something else.

Ive suicided back from colonia to the bubble a couple times...people called that an exploit...I called it a shortcut...same thing I suppose.

So now that its been established Im a dirty exploiter gamer, maybe someone can produce a theory as to why I still enjoying the game? Listening to others who claim players like me get bored easily if they use shortcuts and exploits...am I just the exception to the rule?

Whatever...we now exist in a game where when or if we do find an exploit, the advice is not to tell anyone about it because some snowflakes will demand its nerfed into oblivion because it messes with how they think the game should be played. Personally, I dont think thats a healthy attitude fer a community to have, but thats what the snowflakes have done...thats the environment they helped create.

Whatever happened to play and let play? Every single aspect of this game is just over analyzed to the point of absurdity...makes this place boring as hell ^