FD - nice balance on the Passenger mission payouts - please, don't nerf them.

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
I think the passenger mission payouts are actually quite nice, without being insane.

I'm currently on one, ill get 20 million for it, total time will be about 3 hours, maybe a little more. I'm allied and in an engineered Orca (so it took me some decent time to get this in the first place). I think its not strange to expect a decent payout from missions with this sort of thing. Risk is minimal on this trip, because i carefully selected which mission i would take. Of course, it might take a bit longer if there is a wrinkle, but the client is meant to be not demanding... again, careful selection of mission.

Perhaps what you can do now is use passenger missions as a yardstick for other missions and ways of making money, and balanced for risk/reward, bring things into line with them.
 
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CMDR Beltane

CMDR Beltane
Tend to agree to OP. Did quite some passenger missions the past days and they seem to be pretty mixed. Some are really good paying, some make you laugh. But most times there is always something thats worth my while, even if it isn't the big jackpot. Enjoyed it so far, short trips as well as the big ones.
 

Devari

D
Agony_Aunt said:
Perhaps what you can do now is use passenger missions as a yardstick for other missions and ways of making money, and balanced for risk/reward, bring things into line with them.
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You realize that Sothis was at a similar level of earning potential, prior to the 2.2 nerf?

A Python could make around 8 mil/hr on a Sothis run on average, assuming 200 tons cargo and being allied with at least one faction, for around 24 mil for a 3 hour Sothis run. That's very close to the 6-7 mil/hr you earned for that passenger mission.

What FD did with 2.2 was obliterate the earning potential of the other missions and then put passenger hauling as the "new Sothis". FD could have just as easily left the other activities alone and introduced passenger missions at their current level of income so all the missions remained as a viable choice for income. The imbalance between all the other activities, and passenger hauling, is intentional. It's how FD wants to "encourage" us to use the "new content".

Which is of course terrible game design, but it's what I've come to expect with the new expansions at this point.
 
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_Fissure

_Fissure
Just wait. After certain people make their fortune, they will be right back at it, calling for nerfs, calling passenger missions "exploits," etc, just like they did for Sothis/Ceos, and Robigo before that.

Funny how that works.
 
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AutoMechancal

A
Devari said:
You realize that Sothis was at a similar level of earning potential, prior to the 2.2 nerf?

A Python could make around 8 mil/hr on a Sothis run on average, assuming 200 tons cargo and being allied with at least one faction, for around 24 mil for a 3 hour Sothis run. That's very close to the 6-7 mil/hr you earned for that passenger mission.

What FD did with 2.2 was obliterate the earning potential of the other missions and then put passenger hauling as the "new Sothis". FD could have just as easily left the other activities alone and introduced passenger missions at their current level of income so all the missions remained as a viable choice for income. The imbalance between all the other activities, and passenger hauling, is intentional. It's how FD wants to "encourage" us to use the "new content".

Which is of course terrible game design, but it's what I've come to expect with the new expansions at this point.
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They nerfed long range smuggling and long range trade missions because the community cried enough about them. Like most things now days if it'll win over the community FDev will cave.
 

Sathayorn

S
AutoMechancal said:
They nerfed long range smuggling and long range trade missions because the community cried enough about them. Like most things now days if it'll win over the community FDev will cave.
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I think what a lot of people love to overlook about the ceos/sothis "legitimate poop runs" is that leaving the game 15 times at a station is obviously not intended gameplay.
 

Fishy

Fishy
Sathayorn said:
I think what a lot of people love to overlook about the ceos/sothis "legitimate poop runs" is that leaving the game 15 times at a station is obviously not intended gameplay.
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Which makes passenger mission payments even more out of scale. Also they're immune to piracy since hatchbreakers won't steal passengers so they're also even more low risk.
 

iFred

I
At least a balance pass is required due to a occurance where you can make up 80 million an hour (with some preparation work in advance). On the other hand.. who cares...
 

_Fissure

_Fissure
Sathayorn said:
Except... He didn't have to exit the game 15 times at the station to do his mission.
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You didn't have to exit the game 15 times to fill a ship at Sothis either. People did, just as people will re-log to maximize passenger missions, but you didn't have to.

Mark my words, the nerf crew will return, but only after they've made their millions.
 
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CMDR Delts

C
Doing passenger missions requires an investment of a lot of credits so they better not nerf it. The best ships to do it in requires millions and some cabins are expensive.
 

ShimEnki

ShimEnki
Agony_Aunt said:
Perhaps what you can do now is use passenger missions as a yardstick for other missions
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Well this is a pretty darn optimistic suggestion cmdr.

If they had any clue whatsoever about what a yardstick is or any other measuring device for that matter you'd not see the insane game killing nerfs to missions and just about anything else that can be adjusted!
 

Sathayorn

S
Fishy said:
Which makes passenger mission payments even more out of scale. Also they're immune to piracy since hatchbreakers won't steal passengers so they're also even more low risk.
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As a sidenote, I love that pirates will make attempts to steal your biowaste.

However, passenger missions leave you with the risk of being insta-gibbed as you leave the station, providing you pick up someone who's wanted.
 

Devari

D
CMDR Delts said:
Doing passenger missions requires an investment of a lot of credits so they better not nerf it. The best ships to do it in requires millions and some cabins are expensive.
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The same was true of Sothis. My Python, which made 8 mil/hr, was a 180 mil build to be viable in surviving interdictions by Elite NPCs. My Anaconda, which made around 12 mil/hr, was a 400 mil build for the same reason. They were not even full combat builds, more a multipurpose setup to maintain moderate cargo space, and could have easily cost me more but I kept them as lean as possible (undersized power plant, balanced selection of Engineering mods and so on). Claims of players earning 25 mil/hr in a Cutter required around 600 mil or more for ship cost plus the massive Imperial rank grind to get the ship in the first place.

The issue at present is that losing a larger ship has a corresponding rebuy, around 7.5 mil for my Python or 20 mil for my Anaconda, and at present there are no ways for me to make that back in a reasonable amount of time. Prior to 2.2, I could make my rebuy back in around 1 hour of Sothis runs in my Python or 2 hours in my Anaconda, which meant I could engage in combat or other activities at a reasonable risk/reward balance.

Now, there is no way I am going to risk my larger ships in combat because it will take far too long to earn the lost credits back. I went back to Sothis in my Anaconda yesterday and my 3 hour run earned me 5 million, which is about 1.5 mil/hr. That would take me 12 hours to rebuy my Anaconda. Not to mention that a newer player is now going to have to work much harder to even afford the Anaconda in the first place.

I could go back to bulk trading at around 4 mil/hr in my Python, but the entire point of moving to a larger ship was to have a wider range of activities available. The game simply doesn't have any activities that pay enough to be worth the risk of using larger ships, which means that there is really nothing to hold my interest in the game at present. Given that I have over 1200 hours into the game and over a dozen Engineered ships in my fleet to choose from that is really disappointing when a new expansion actually removes prior activities or options that were enjoyable, instead of giving me more options to enjoy.
 
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BigZiggyHD

BigZiggyHD
_Fissure said:
Just wait. After certain people make their fortune, they will be right back at it, calling for nerfs, calling passenger missions "exploits," etc, just like they did for Sothis/Ceos, and Robigo before that.

Funny how that works.
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PREACH! It's a disgusting pattern. Rare trading, slaves, mining, combat, smuggling (Robigo/Sothis/Ceos), Piracy/Salvaging and soon to be added space buses. (I'm pretty sure I have the chronological order down)
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
I bunged a passenger thing into my d-rated exploration asp and I can breeze 30 million an hour by selecting short range tourist tours, 15 million (ish) payout for about 20-25 jumps total with 2 or 3 stops along the way.

When they don't show up there's 2 to 4 million a time transport missions within 30 ly's of the system I'm operating out of, they are about a 10 minute turnaround.

(deadly combat rank and allied station for access to best tourist missions)
 
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_Fissure

_Fissure
CMDR Delts said:
Doing passenger missions requires an investment of a lot of credits so they better not nerf it. The best ships to do it in requires millions and some cabins are expensive.
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You mean like doing Sothis in a Python, Conda, or Cutter?

Oh yea, I'm sure they won't nerf passenger missions in the future.
 
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