Well, there are players with number in 4000+ so I am defo new...500h is not what I'd define as 'new'.
FDev: Credit rebalancing incoming, "more reward for higher risk" activities
- Thread starter StuartGT
- Start date
In a well curated universe, I might agree, but in a game where people have, for all intents and purposes, an infinite field of play with few constraints in place, this simply isn't true. I would argue that, barring gankers, not one single player has had any significant impact on any other player. Detail a single way that I or the way I play the game has impacted YOU in-game.
Why would any of the activities you list cause you to lose interest in the game? That's ridiculous. If you don't like those activities, then DON'T DO THEM. You can continue to play the game exactly the way you enjoy by simply not engaging in those activities. You can choose to struggle through upgrades and keeping your ship fuelled or whatever it is you prefer to do in-game. If others choose to engage in those other activities, so what???? How does it impact YOU? How does it stop you from enjoying what it is about the game that YOU like? What you're really saying here is that everyone should be forced to play YOUR preferred game. I disagree.
Truer words were never said.
First you say that the grind and progression through ships was the game for you and then you cry that you are at a disadvantage? So which one is it? Do you play competitive or do you play your own way? Cause you can't have both
I lost interest because the plausible fiction of the game world was lost to me - why should vast profits from mining raw resources exist, when nothing is then done with those raw resources? Economies generally work by adding value to raw materials, through the manufacturing of goods. Why should mining pay much, other than for time, when there are, as you say infinite resources out there. A previous game-breaker, to me was, why should millions be paid for hauling bio-waste? Why should missions pay so much more than the commodities or trade goods they were based on. Why are people paying for passenger transport with money they could actually buy their own (small) ships with?
Compare to Frontier or FFE, where 'goods wanted' missions generally paid only 2x more that the trading profits. I preferred that system. The market in void opals, or LTDs should have collapsed by now (or at least be more dynamic) etc. etc. Google "verissimilitude", then Google "immersion".
The real issue remains the economy just doesn't make sense to me.'Aside from gankers' - sigh. What enabled the gankers in the first place? wealth, and low ship rebuy costs, enabling the game to be played in a more arcade style that seemed to be originally intended.
Finally, the argument 'everyone should be forced to play YOUR preferred game' cuts both ways. Are you not also trying to force your vision on others here as well, albeit a vision with no constraints. Firstly, that, to me smacks of just trying to appease everyone, with no real clear direction, or purpose. But that's a distracting, side argument. The real argument is that only works if one activity isn't really dominant above all others, and, with Elite, seemingly with Frontier's... erm... ineptitude, there always seems to be something that's left in, unbalanced, for far too long, that people will exploit.
Dude....go play the X games from egosoft if you want such things. You'll never see this sort of things in elite.I lost interest because the plausible fiction of the game world was lost to me - why should vast profits from mining raw resources exist, when nothing is then done with those raw resources? Economies generally work by adding value to raw materials, through the manufacturing of goods. Why should mining pay much, other than for time, when there are, as you say infinite resources out there. A previous game-breaker, to me was, why should millions be paid for hauling bio-waste? Why should missions pay so much more than the commodities or trade goods they were based on. Why are people paying for passenger transport with money they could actually buy their own (small) ships with?
Compare to Frontier or FFE, where 'goods wanted' missions generally paid only 2x more that the trading profits. I preferred that system. The market in void opals, or LTDs should have collapsed by now (or at least be more dynamic) etc. etc. Google "verissimilitude", then Google "immersion".
No. Gankers exist because of one singular thing. No endgame perpetual conflict for combat oriented players. No "clan wars' or squadrons fighting for control of systems instead of the power play factions that almost no one cares about.
Exactly. You can't be competitive if you play your own way - playing 'your own way' puts you at a disadvantage in a multiplayer environment. Why should everyone be forced into mining (or whatever the latest exploit is) for a living?
That's a shame, because that's why I backed Elite.
But it, and I , have gone in different directions. And yeah, I never got on with the X games, because they weren't Elite. Elite was meant to be about doing your thing in a cold, hard universe. Not one where everyone rolls around on beds of money made from mining. And ramping up the amount of credits earned from other things isn't the answer - it just makes the problem worse.
I agree that all professions should pay more or less the same but there's always the question of risk vs reward and the 2 concepts are not compatible with eachother. Rish/reward and equality in proffesions that is.
Or at least i'm unable to see how one could balance between the two.
The balance is mining should generally be low risk, low reward - so becomes a slow, but steady earner. Combat should be high reward, but with the risk of a major setback if things go wrong. Now how you make both pay roughly the same amount over the same, lengthy period of time is the real kicker.
And perhaps with skill you would surpass the setbacks and end up netting higher than mining. But a simple buff to NPC shields/armor will not cut it...there has to be other ways that don't involve major re-write for the AI.
There was not nearly as much grind, because there were no engineers. It actually made combat much more of an even playing field and you could lose easily to anyone, including NPC's. No one could go buff their ship at an engineer. You had to make strategic power, hull and weapons decisions based on the ship you bought, no engineering, and be careful about what you spent. It was dangerous that you could run out of money and not afford a rebuy, even after playing for many hours.
Now, you go out and mine for a few hours and that is it. You have more than enough money to compete in the universe and the engineer grind can begin, no worries about not making a rebuy. Combined with the credit explosion, the engineers were the start of the grind cycle and the complete demise of 75% of the ships in Elite. Now, no one progresses through the smaller ships. It is usually sidey --> cobra --> AspX or DBX --> python or krait (mining) --> Annie/FDL --> FC. It has completely dumbed down the game and made it easy mode all of the time.
Do you not see the conflict in your statement? On the one hand, you say, "Elite was meant to be about doing your thing in a cold, hard universe", while on the other you say, "Not one where everyone rolls around on beds of money made from mining." -- "doing your thing" is, for some people, "rolling around on beds of money made from mining".
This is the wrong game for you. You clearly need something with more structure and less freedom to "do your thing" - as others have pointed out, the X games seem like they would be more compatible with your preferred style of play.
I lost interest because the plausible fiction of the game world was lost to me - why should vast profits from mining raw resources exist, when nothing is then done with those raw resources? Economies generally work by adding value to raw materials, through the manufacturing of goods. Why should mining pay much, other than for time, when there are, as you say infinite resources out there. A previous game-breaker, to me was, why should millions be paid for hauling bio-waste? Why should missions pay so much more than the commodities or trade goods they were based on. Why are people paying for passenger transport with money they could actually buy their own (small) ships with?
Compare to Frontier or FFE, where 'goods wanted' missions generally paid only 2x more that the trading profits. I preferred that system. The market in void opals, or LTDs should have collapsed by now (or at least be more dynamic) etc. etc. Google "verissimilitude", then Google "immersion".
'Aside from gankers' - sigh. What enabled the gankers in the first place? wealth, and low ship rebuy costs, enabling the game to be played in a more arcade style that seemed to be originally intended.
Finally, the argument 'everyone should be forced to play YOUR preferred game' cuts both ways. Are you not also trying to force your vision on others here as well, albeit a vision with no constraints. Firstly, that, to me smacks of just trying to appease everyone, with no real clear direction, or purpose. But that's a distracting, side argument. The real argument is that only works if one activity isn't really dominant above all others, and, with Elite, seemingly with Frontier's... erm... ineptitude, there always seems to be something that's left in, unbalanced, for far too long, that people will exploit.
"Plausible fiction" - you're flying ships at thousands of times the speed of light across the galaxy. Even if mining paid only 1% of what it currently pays, it wouldn't change anything - ELITE has NEVER had an economy modelled on real economies. All those goods you ship back and forth through trade don't make one iota of difference to anything, all those combat kills make ZERO difference - territory doesn't change hands, planets don't fall, all those mined goods never become manufactured items, all those stations you rebuild, all those passengers you rescue, none of it impacts the larger game in any way. Literally NOTHING you do in-game makes a bit of difference to any other part of the game, and never has, so I don't buy the argument that the career path imbalance and the inherent profitability of mining is what led you to this epiphany - the game has NEVER been what you thought it was.
I'm not arguing that ANYONE should be forced to play the game as I see fit. I don't care who plays or how they play. I don't care if they stick with a Sidewinder or have a carrier stuffed to the gills with every A-rated ship in the game. I don't care if you only engage in combat or you sit on the surface of planets 20K ly from the bubble doing nothing but SRV races. It makes ZERO difference to me. You should take note that it's FDEV that market ELITE as an open-ended, essentially infinite universe where you are free to play how you see fit. That IS the game in its current form and that's the game I'm playing. It has never been the game you seem to think it was.
Lol
You acknowledge that warning was sent and received - that a price reduction would be imminent. You then made a conscious choice to not sell even a fraction your mining stockpile at the guaranteed highest price you would be able to get for the foreseeable future. You could have hedged, you chose not to. Accept the consequence. It's a videogame.
My point is that you have billions in excess that you will never spend. Yet, you are fuming over how you choose to play the game no longer grants you the same outrageous arbitrary increase in net worth (++150-250MCr/hour), while simultaneously poopooing on pilots who prefer combat that could never come close to 5% of that economic productivity per hour played.
If you're familiar with the stock market at all you've likely heard the phrase, "Bulls made money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered." Frontier gave you over a year of mining being the principle credit generating activity by a minimum factor of 5. Many people who find mining boring or other activities more enjoyable, have been vocal for quite literally one year of the income inequality. You're active on the forums, you should have seen this coming. When Frontier announced a nerf to mining prices exactly what did you think would happen lol?
Slaughter.
You acknowledge that warning was sent and received - that a price reduction would be imminent. You then made a conscious choice to not sell even a fraction your mining stockpile at the guaranteed highest price you would be able to get for the foreseeable future. You could have hedged, you chose not to. Accept the consequence. It's a videogame.
My point is that you have billions in excess that you will never spend. Yet, you are fuming over how you choose to play the game no longer grants you the same outrageous arbitrary increase in net worth (++150-250MCr/hour), while simultaneously poopooing on pilots who prefer combat that could never come close to 5% of that economic productivity per hour played.
If you're familiar with the stock market at all you've likely heard the phrase, "Bulls made money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered." Frontier gave you over a year of mining being the principle credit generating activity by a minimum factor of 5. Many people who find mining boring or other activities more enjoyable, have been vocal for quite literally one year of the income inequality. You're active on the forums, you should have seen this coming. When Frontier announced a nerf to mining prices exactly what did you think would happen lol?
Slaughter.
Maybe I want to buy a Fleet Carrier to journey out on an deep space expedition with all my new friends that just got the game. Maybe I hate mining and have only generated 1.3BCr in 1800 hours of gameplay because I HATE mining. There only way one could afford to buy a Fleet Carrier in 2020 - was to have started mining or have mined for several years. What do you suppose is the amount of Fleet Carrier owners that never touched an asteroid? I'd wager its less than you can count on both hands.
To own a Fleet Carrier, FDev forced me to play a game I did not prefer. That is wrong. And while it has not been equalized, I much look forward to having fun destroying spaceships with my spaceship and earning +60-80MCr/ hour to do so - compared to the 5-10MCr I was getting previously
NO, that's NOT what I said. READ WHAT I WROTE. I'm not talking about THIS nerf. I'm talking about PRIOR nerfs where there wasn't a single mention of changes to prices. I didn't get dinged on THIS nerf, that was another player/commenter. I made it back and sold up for around 5B in profit before THIS nerf hit because I wasn't that far outside the bubble (~7K ly). My point is that FDEV makes these decisions arbitrarily and, barring last week's changes, have never communicated what those changes would be. Even this last change was given with insufficient notice for players who are too far out to make it back in time to avoid significant losses. That's not how you keep your player base happy.
How have I s**t on combat players? I have no issue with combat players - I believe they're underpaid, yes, but this continual push by them to nerf mining has more to do with trying to punish miners because they don't like the fact that mining is lucrative than it has to do with actually fixing combat. I fail to see how you improve the game for combat pilots by pushing to continually cripple miners. You fix combat by making changes to combat.
How do you know I have billions more than I will ever spend? I don't know that. People likely said the same thing when they had a couple of billion then, a year or two later, along come fleet carriers where you need close to 6B just to buy and outfit one - that 2B didn't look half as plentiful at that point, did it? At some point, base-building (or some other expensive feature) will be added and that's certain to cost billions, so my accumulation of wealth now is simply a way of ensuring that I have the resources (assuming I stick with the game) to be ready for that when it arrives in the game.
Again... I point out that I am an advocate for increasing payouts for other career paths AND that I am not talking about THIS nerf. I'm talking about the larger problem of FDEV arbitrarily messing with the game. I wasn't affected by this nerf. I was affected by a prior nerf, months ago, where LTDs, completely without warning, dropped by around 60% overnight.
I'm not sure what your point is. I agree with FDEVs "open world" approach to the galaxy and to career paths. I agree that mining is, by far, the most lucrative and that other careers should be buffed to be competitive. No one is forcing you to mine - you could put in 5-10x the number of hours engaging in trade or combat to get that FC if you want (I've read posts by two players in the last week who claim they earned their carriers without touching a single asteroid. I completely agree it's far more likely that miners are the ones who can afford to buy carriers, though). Realistically, if you want to really go DEEP into space, then you're going to need to mine tritium at some point. That's just a fact of life owning a carrier.
So, again, I'm not sure what your point is. Do you agree with me that other career paths need buffing? If not, then do you think carriers should be cheaper? After all, if every career path is reduced to the levels of combat, then, in your own words, no one can afford FCs. What is it you want to change, exactly?
My way of playing is Combat. As a completionist, I want to earn everything there is the earn and become one of the top endgame players, own all of the ships, and have a fleet carrier so I can travel the galaxy with all of my friends - Just like in the trailer!!!!!!
I've played 1,800 hours. FDev's marketing of Elite was a farce because the only way for me to do all of that, is to mine for hours on end in order to roll around in a bed of money.
To get to the point where I can play the game I want to, they are forcing me to play the game the way I do not want to. That is wrong.