FDev, Have You Lost Control of Your Game?

[Darth Ender]

balancing a grind level mechanic that needs to be functional to new users with the needs of billionaire veteran users is a stupid, impossible thing in the current game.

Everything you can currently do in the game outside of certain specific missions should be low income. It's all safe, risk-less and easy to figure out and succeed in.

New things need to be addded to create a higher income path for players to choose to take if they dont want to spend weeks trying to make lots of credits doing the low income grind.

Fdev can reduce the work needed to create that path by creating real environmental hazards in certain places. These places would offer commodities that do not exist anywhere else and cannot be mindlessly farmed. Places with real risks of dying. Places where missions ask players to put up their own assets as collateral to risk great rewards to complete. Places where both ad-hoc activity and scripted activity can take place. These hazardous areas could take place in certain kinds of rings, certain stellar phenomena, and in supercruise. Testing flight skills, combat skills (against hostile space life forms), ship management strategy and problem solving by having the various natures of the hazards scale to some degree ...both universally (ad-hoc interactions) or directly with the player (missions).

Then no more do we need to be concerned with this impossible balancing of entry level grind with veteran needs since players can then choose. Low income rate but safe or high income rate and dangerous. Then the varying levels of danger can be scaled properly to limit the level of skill needed to succeed to the level fdev desires. Allowing easy control over income at all stages without forcing the game to be super boring and easy or ultra boring and tedious.

That would be a good first step that should have been taken about 4 years ago.

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

What if we stop talking about Nerfs and Gold Rushes , and start talking more about having all gameplay balanced. Surely that's the underlying problem and one that the player community should be most vocal about

 

[space voyager]

That’s the problem right now. Everyone’s mining for credits to get a FC and after that they park the FC in the same system and keep mining

What a vicious cycle of boredom.

I'm so not getting one.

 

[Xenowraith]

@OP - not bashing in any way, but ever heard expression 'the horse is already out of the barn'?

Your screenshot shows ~3/4 billion credits. From number of LTDs mined, you have a big ship and clearly not new at this, so safely assume not the first billion you've earned via 'out of control' mining.

Far as credit inflation being rampant, I 100% agree. But horse is already out of the barn on that. If FDEV shut the taps down now, severely reduce mining and/or other future 'next goldrush' opportunities, the game would explode from the rightful complaints of newer players who have not yet earned the billions you have clearly already gotten while complaining how overpowered it is.

As badly distorted as you may believe it to be now, the bottom line is all commanders have equal opportunity to take or pass on these gold rushes. But if FDEV completely shuts the taps down instead of minor nerf here and there, you will create a permanent class of haves vs have nots.

Don't you see the irony of the let them eat cake implication where you've clearly benefited from the mining but seem to be calling for even bigger nerf so others can't obtain what you already did?

Hey I’m a bit of a new player and I’m calling for buffs while also benefitting from mining. Does that make me a rare unicorn?

 

[ManlyVIK]

They should alternate between all metals and minerals for the highest buy prices. That way everything will get mined and not be totally pointless.

 

[MadSinUN]

It is necessary that the supply / demand system works realistically. Prices should depend on the needs of the population, industry, and economy of each sector or system. The bad thing is that Fdev understands all this very well and can probably do it, but for some reason does not want to change it(((

 

[Stellar Shepherd]

These places would offer commodities that do not exist anywhere else and cannot be mindlessly farmed. Places with real risks of dying. Places where missions ask players to put up their own assets as collateral to risk great rewards to complete. Places where both ad-hoc activity and scripted activity can take place.

Thargoids and pvp?

 

[MadSinUN]

You can implement that the developed asteroid disappears forever from the game.

 

[Nickolai]

We badly need a nerf to demand and pricing of LTDs and Painite. Demand for LTDs and Painite (and other high-value minerals) should be in the double-digits at commodity markets.

BUT, to balance it out and allow veteran players to continue making good money, there should be high-paying elite-ranked missions to mine LTDs and Painite. Taking a mission to mine 25 tons of LTD for 35 million credits...and each mission should send Elite wings of NPCs after the miner, following them as they travel and into the ring. Interdiction by Elite ranked NPCs should be as difficult to evade as player interdiction (it should scale with the rank of the NPC), forcing the player to submit.

This way, high payouts can still be achieved, but it's much harder, and requires some skill. Newer players won't be able to handle these, and will be forced to either A) take a lower price at the market, or B) take lower ranked, lower paying missions.

Problem solved....veteran players can still earn the same amount per ton (with some extra challenge), and newer players won't be able to bypass the entire game with 1 load of LTDs.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

You can implement that the developed asteroid disappears forever from the game.

Not sustainable. The area of the triple hotspot is enormous and a new one would be found very soon. The only sustainablr solution is changing respawn mechanics.

 

[Stellaris Ignis]

It is a fair point, and I don't necessarily disagree.

But how do you know whats the fun parts of the game, if you mine and then skip 9/10 of the ship progression and jump directly into an Anaconda.

I've had a lot of fun unlocking the engineers in my Asp X doing exploring and smuggling (Farseer, Elvira and the Dweller) and my Vulture doing bounty hunting and conflict zones (Todd and Jurii). I have learned valuable lessons on small/medium ship combat and exploration (by hunting down meta-alloys manually and financing the Vulture), that I am not sure I would have ever known would have been fun, if I had used a "Jump-a-Conda" to buy meta-alloys in Maya and a "battle-Conda" to unlock the rest

I fully understand where you are coming from I actually made a lot of my money from doing trade loops, massacre missions, and passenger quests until they announced the Fleet Carrier. I saw mining as a means to an end to get that quickly so that I could go back to the playstyle that I like with more efficiency now. I have not touched mining LTD's since I bought it because I want to experience the other aspects of the game at a certain pace. I just don't agree with the position that a fleet carrier should only be owned by an elite few who have thousands of hours in the game thus have the credits. I did learn the ropes on small ships and worked my way up to the bigger ones. I at one point owned most the ships in the game then I sold all but three to aid in getting the FC. I will slowing buy them back again as I earn money in unique ways using my Fleet Carrier now.

 

[MadSinUN]

Not sustainable. The area of the triple hotspot is enormous and a new one would be found very soon. The only sustainablr solution is changing respawn mechanics.

Yes, I agree. It's crazy when 2 or more players mine the same stone and because of this, x2 or more materials fall from the stone...is it magic? This can also apply to places such as the James Crash Site or Exploration camp. you can make a respawn of materials there once a week for each player.

 

[VirtueXOI]

After the so-called "nerf, 2-3 hours of mining:

This is just silly.

FDev, have you lost control of your game? Are you going to pull a Diablo III on us and inflate the heck out of in-game prices next?

Edit: FDev could avoid going the inflation route by adding supply\demand curves that squash prices for any item that commanders dump on to the market en mass and lift prices for those things that commanders are not mining. This would keep the apologists happy by keeping mining as-is and result in other minerals\metals\etc becoming valuable to mine, not just LTD.

Clearly demand is not working.
LTD price still skyrocketing.
And you'r really slow mining. With "totaly not an exploit i'm using intended games mech" people tend to approach 1billion/h.
Without i'm at 2hour for 512t. (in solo :/)

But hey FD launched 3 big patchs if i'm not mistaking since LTD farm begun. They do seems to keep it like that.
As usual they are not talking about it. If LTD were arx it may be fixed in 2 hours.

 

[Maolagin]

Clearly not the intended way to mine. I would not be surprised to see respawn mechanics on deposits changed in a future patch.

Certainly not intended, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if we get a patch soon that adds a cooldown for deposits to reset like laser and core mining have. Although I got curious. Naturally the glitch/exploit/whatever is already reported in the issue tracker, but for all the noise and fury, only a handful of people have commented. The issue hasn't even reached "confirmed" status yet, for whatever that's worth.

 

[VirtueXOI]

Certainly not intended, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if we get a patch soon that adds a cooldown for deposits to reset like laser and core mining have. Although I got curious. Naturally the glitch/exploit/whatever is already reported in the issue tracker, but for all the noise and fury, only a handful of people have commented. The issue hasn't even reached "confirmed" status yet, for whatever that's worth.

Or they could just read forums. from times to times. Or having someone doing it.
It's nearly impossible they did'nt see this. It's on reddit since 5 or more day , and many thread were posted about this.

Once again ,they dont like talking.

 

[iFred]

From earlier meetings I know that they are well aware of the state of this game. And they keep releasing stuff that is not working properly. On and on, with every patch. It´s annoying. They clearly target new customers and sales while kicking the backers and other veterans in the back.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Genuine question : Why is lots of Cmdrs mining a problem for you or anyone else NOT mining ?

To me it is like watching a movie or a tv-show with plotholes. I never played this like an arcade game, I always enjoyed the deep lore, which is in stark contrast of how the gold rushes shaped this game. Mind you, not too salty about it as the days I was deeply 'invested' in this game are long gone.

However, from a developer point of view, I don't think it is intentional to give means to players to hop through much of the progression ina few hours. So in that way, yes, Frontier lost control.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

The more money people make, the more ship carriers are in play, the more ship carriers in play, the more carrier microtransactions are sold. Mining is absolutely working as intended.

The idea that FD don't know what they're doing while they rake in a bunch of money tickles me very time.

 

[[VR] Goooost]

After the so-called "nerf, 2-3 hours of mining:

This is just silly.

FDev, have you lost control of your game? Are you going to pull a Diablo III on us and inflate the heck out of in-game prices next?

Edit: FDev could avoid going the inflation route by adding supply\demand curves that squash prices for any item that commanders dump on to the market en mass and lift prices for those things that commanders are not mining. This would keep the apologists happy by keeping mining as-is and result in other minerals\metals\etc becoming valuable to mine, not just LTD.

I've said it many times before but at this point Fdev needs to un-patch the previous gold rushes so people can return to doing the activites they like, be it long range hauling, data point scanning, CZ mission stacking, etc. Or deliberately create their own gold rush. MIGHT I SUGGEST INSANE CQC PAYOUTS?

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

Certainly not intended, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if we get a patch soon that adds a cooldown for deposits to reset like laser and core mining have. Although I got curious. Naturally the glitch/exploit/whatever is already reported in the issue tracker, but for all the noise and fury, only a handful of people have commented. The issue hasn't even reached "confirmed" status yet, for whatever that's worth.

It is not surprising. With half the community exploiting the respawn mechanics and the other half busy making forum posts, bug reports are not high priority for the people. Even when there are bugs affecting everyone, you will see more forum posts about it than actual confirmations of the bug reports. However, Frontier has people reading the forums whether this is visible outwards or not. They are certainly aware of this issue. It remains to see if something will be done.