FDev: Credit rebalancing incoming, "more reward for higher risk" activities

[redthorne]

I would like to know


Tell me: How many hours of gameplay you feel is fair in order to acquire, say, an endgame item like a carrier.
Then tell me: How many dollars per hour that works out to be, and what activities for every playstyle you can do in order to achieve that. Please remember that you should not have to play every single playstyle in the game to achieve endgame.

Finally tell me: Do you feel that the two above is achievable for your customers who can only play a few hours a week? How many months of play would that take that person, concentrating on that one and only one endgame goal?

 

[here_it_comes]

If true, this has the potential to be an absolute Godsend for Combat CMDRs. Just imagining not having to suffer mining to make credits nearly brings a tear to my eyes!

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

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Quick summary:

• Aware that balancing isn't right
• Done in stages, continuous
• Mining first, start next week
• Combat next, start two weeks later
• "How much earned per hour, different loops, what risk, what reward, skill required"
• Core mining should be higher paying than laser mining, as more skilful
• Mining heavily linked to economy via commodities
• Galnet narrative driven
• Combat needs to be buffed, better rewards
• Wing missions not a focus yet
• Combat missions, bounties, bonds
• Conflict zones last
• Won't be a quick fix, will tweak and check data/feedback
• It feeling right to the player is what matters
• Been seeing all the existing feedback, videos etc
• Balancing is super important, on the agenda and a priority
• Incremental changes
• Discussions have been ongoing since after Arthur & Bruce joined FDev
• Skill and risk more rewarded
• Bulk sale to change to be fairer, average not minimum
• Rebalancing will be tied with the ongoing storylines
• Forum post later this week, roadmapping the rebalancing
• Implementation over the next weeks

I'm not much of an AX guy - but I reckon interceptor kills should be amped by an order of magnitude as part of this process.

 

[Speedcuffs]

I would like to know


Tell me: How many hours of gameplay you feel is fair in order to acquire, say, an endgame item like a carrier.
Then tell me: How many dollars per hour that works out to be, and what activities for every playstyle you can do in order to achieve that. Please remember that you should not have to play every single playstyle in the game to achieve endgame.

Finally tell me: Do you feel that the two above is achievable for your customers who can only play a few hours a week? How many months of play would that take that person, concentrating on that one and only one endgame goal?

Dollars per hour?

 

[Maymo]

I would like to know


Tell me: How many hours of gameplay you feel is fair in order to acquire, say, an endgame item like a carrier.
Then tell me: How many dollars per hour that works out to be, and what activities for every playstyle you can do in order to achieve that. Please remember that you should not have to play every single playstyle in the game to achieve endgame.

Finally tell me: Do you feel that the two above is achievable for your customers who can only play a few hours a week? How many months of play would that take that person, concentrating on that one and only one endgame goal?

Why would FD balance the game around people who don’t have the time or commitment to play the game?

 

[Quantis Trap]

I'm not much of an AX guy - but I reckon interceptor kills should be amped by an order of magnitude as part of this process.

Yep. Up the payouts for AX combat by order of magnitude and more players might hopefully come for the money and stay for the challenge!
The Thargoid hive wants humans to get better! It's not worried the economics or how many drones are killed for the mysterious cause.

 

[redthorne]

Dollars per hour?

Typically when you have in game items with an ingame economy, the devs figure out how many hours of playtime it takes to keep you playing in order to get the item. Too little playtime, and it loses its luster as endgame. Too much playtime, customers think it is unobtainable and either quit or resort to exploits if available. That's basic customer retention and engagement.

For our purposes, we buy things with credits. Therefore you have to figure out how many credits (dollars) per hour can be reasonably achieved, then apply that figure to the cost to purchase an ingame item. Let's say that works out to...16 months of playtime if someone can play 5 hours per week. Would that be a reasonable figure? I'm interested in what they think is reasonable, so we can then task them with "how do you expect us to get there with the popular playstyles" as well as (if applicable) "so you think playing 3 hours a day every day 6 days a week is reasonable? No!" or whatnot.

 

[redthorne]

Why would FD balance the game around people who don’t have the time or commitment to play the game?

I'm not commenting on what they should balance it around.
However, I will add that there is a large segment of players of all genres that can only play 3-6 hours per week, and it is not unreasonable to offer those people a sense of value and making the endgame achievable in a reasonable way. Just because I play 4 hours a day 5 days a week doesn't mean I don't feel for those who cannot put those hours in.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

Ugh. They're both terrible. YouTube is a sea of unskipple ads and conspiracy theory vids nowadays. Not to mention the horrible algorithms that put vids I've already seen a dozen times in my suggested feed.

I use an adblocker and it works fine. I find the best way to keep the conspiracy their videos out of my suggestions list is a periodic purge of my play history.

 

[here_it_comes]

I'm not commenting on what they should balance it around.
However, I will add that there is a large segment of players of all genres that can only play 3-6 hours per week, and it is not unreasonable to offer those people a sense of value and making the endgame achievable in a reasonable way. Just because I play 4 hours a day 5 days a week doesn't mean I don't feel for those who cannot put those hours in.

+1 Ideally things are balance so that stuff like FCs would take casuals quite a while to eventually acquire, while things like ships are more reasonably obtained without being required to be a miner.

 

[Morbad]

I'd rather the game didn't have an 'endgame'.

 

[redthorne]

+1 Ideally things are balance so that stuff like FCs would take casuals quite a while to eventually acquire, while things like ships are more reasonably obtained without being required to be a miner.

Yep exactly

If they are thinking that way, we may see the prices of some things bounce around a little, particularly carriers. Probably only in the long run however.

I love to mine but I'd gladly take a hit if they also buff things for say you combat folks, a sort of 'meet in the middle' type thing.

 

[Speedcuffs]

I'd rather the game didn't have an 'endgame'.

It doesn't.

 

[Oytis57]

I've just made up an SRV for Pirating,I expect a notable payout!!

 

[redthorne]

I'd rather the game didn't have an 'endgame'.

It is a figure of speech. In any game that has a sense of progression, there by definition has to be an ultimate goal, or traditionally your majority players don't have anything to work for. Players with nothing to work for, that 'big thing,' put the game down. That's bad retention. Sure, there are plenty of us who will always find something to do, but we are not the majority. Currently, a Carrier is pretty much endgame content, which is why I used it as an evaluation.

The only other way to add continuous sense of new-goal-progression is frequent new content. Like how when WoW comes out with an expansion, buffs levels, etc etc.
No offence to FDev, but adding valuable content has not been one of their strengths in the past.

 

[here_it_comes]

I'd rather the game didn't have an 'endgame'.

The overwhelming majority of people are goal oriented in games. You can argue games shouldn't be designed to suit human nature, or you can accept you are the outlier. If you want a game catered to outliers, don't expect AA quality games like ED to be made for you. Just the way the cookie crumbles.

So long as end-game content doesn't fence the open-ended minded players from playing their way, it's all good.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Yep. Up the payouts for AX combat by order of magnitude and more players might hopefully come for the money and stay for the challenge!
The Thargoid hive wants humans to get better! It's not worried the economics or how many drones are killed for the mysterious cause.

Being mildly autistic I don't know if you are being serious or not? But yeah, AX is the most challenging and least rewarding of the play styles, especially after you factor in the time it takes to get the materials for the ammo synthesis.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

The overwhelming majority of people are goal oriented in games. You can argue games shouldn't be designed to suit human nature, or you can accept you are the outlier. If you want a game catered to outliers, don't expect AA quality games like ED to be made for you. Just the way the cookie crumbles.

How do you play elite then? Is the community pulling you along? The game itself without social media promotes absolutely nothing, no goals, absense, void. You in a ship in a station, thats it.

 

[Morbad]

The overwhelming majority of people are goal oriented in games.

This doesn't mandate an endgame.

So long as end-game content doesn't fence the open-ended minded players from playing their way, it's all good.

I think this is what constant inflation has done.

 

[redthorne]

Being mildly autistic I don't know if you are being serious or not? But yeah, AX is the most challenging and least rewarding of the play styles, especially after you factor in the time it takes to get the materials for the ammo synthesis.

Honestly this is the exact reason I've never even tried. Combat isn't my fave, but I do it from time to time....saw what AX took in order to be fun and said NUPE