FDev, Have You Lost Control of Your Game?

[Winterwalker]

This is not the nerf you're looking for ..
Changes were made to the fall off rate in hotspots, making double and triple hotspots (a) less common or (b) less OP.
Prices weren't changed, diamonds can still go for high prices, depending on the state of the market as usual.
Of course we'd all know this if we'd read the patch notes, right? Right? ;p

 

[and_ft]

I saw mining as a stepping stone to actually play the fun parts of the game, and now I am. Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone has to have been a kickstarter donor to have an opinion on the game.

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

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Actually, I fully expected FD to do whatever they did for VO's back in January to LTDs this time around. Whatever happened to that? Or did FD change their mind because they need to sell FC cosmetics?

 

[Dillon Fallon]

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'd agree that a massive influx of credits very quickly would skip over a part of the game that I found a lot of fun.

However, how many players accidentally stumble across LTD 2 or 3s? I'd guess the vast majority have watched max credit per hour videos on youtube. If you're the sort of player who has done that, you've already made the conscious decision to skip to the 'more credits than you know what to do with' part of the game.

 

[jacozilla]

I'd agree that a massive influx of credits very quickly would skip over a part of the game that I found a lot of fun.

However, how many players accidentally stumble across LTD 2 or 3s? I'd guess the vast majority have watched max credit per hour videos on youtube. If you're the sort of player who has done that, you've already made the conscious decision to skip to the 'more credits than you know what to do with' part of the game.

Even if you stumble across a super hot LTD3 spot, that hypothetical would still need to be in an optimized mining ship with lots of collectors, limpets in cargo, do all the mining, then wait for it.....willingly take the extra time and effort to go cash in.

Even if you love the activity of mining, and that's a really fair argument to make - you love mining but don't want the sense of progression ruined by instant goldrush bank balance - you can mine to hearts content and not have the progression ruined unless you go cash in.

It's like alcohol - if you've got some weird body chemistry, you can blame getting drunk and doing something stupid on that first and only drink. But if you drank 12 cans and then went on a bender, you made a number of unwise decisions with no one else to blame but yourself by time you hit that 12th can.

TLDR - it is pretty unfair to tell someone just don't do the activity if you dont want the goldrush - a lot of players could make legit argument they love the activity itself, not the actual cr/hour - but someone made a choice to take the extra time and effort to go sell that loot bonanza somewhere and cash in.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Actually, I fully expected FD to do whatever they did for VO's back in January to LTDs this time around. Whatever happened to that? Or did FD change their mind because they need to sell FC cosmetics?

They changed Void Opals (and Painite, and the other gems) to match LTDs, so they now near-instantly regenerate back to full demand.

Effect on demand: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/reserves/256/history
Effect on price: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/reserves/256/pricehistory

 

[Deleted member 182079]

They changed Void Opals (and Painite, and the other gems) to match LTDs, so they now near-instantly regenerate back to full demand.

Effect on demand: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/reserves/256/history
Effect on price: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/reserves/256/pricehistory

Oh. I thought they in effect nerfed VOs and Painite as their prices dropped significantly after the January patch? I'm confused now... Or is there something with LTDs specifically that sets them apart from the others?

 

[Defacto]

Even if you stumble across a super hot LTD3 spot, that hypothetical would still need to be in an optimized mining ship with lots of collectors, limpets in cargo, do all the mining, then wait for it.....willingly take the extra time and effort to go cash in.

Even if you love the activity of mining, and that's a really fair argument to make - you love mining but don't want the sense of progression ruined by instant goldrush bank balance - you can mine to hearts content and not have the progression ruined unless you go cash in.

It's like alcohol - if you've got some weird body chemistry, you can blame getting drunk and doing something stupid on that first and only drink. But if you drank 12 cans and then went on a bender, you made a number of unwise decisions with no one else to blame but yourself by time you hit that 12th can.

TLDR - it is pretty unfair to tell someone just don't do the activity if you dont want the goldrush - a lot of players could make legit argument they love the activity itself, not the actual cr/hour - but someone made a choice to take the extra time and effort to go sell that loot bonanza somewhere and cash in.

While I think everyone would and does favour the playstyle they prefer, I think many find it hard to justify doing it when they get in contact with other players, getting ganked by the perfectly outfitted 5-engineered FdL wing who didn't care about your valuable smuggled cargo and did it out of boredom, or when they hear about a month-old player in an Imperial Cutter asking ''I'm just earning 100 MCr/h mining, am I doing something wrong'' ''Yes, sounds like it, drop by my personal fleet carrier and I'll show you how to minmax''

It's all just numbers, you can do what you want, their playstyle doesn't have to affect y- first of all, of course it does affect me, especially when the mining income is used to pay for ganksquads. And when it's all numbers with pretty pixels attached, this game or any other falls apart. No one cares about dull numbers, it's the meaning that is attached that matters.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Oh. I thought they in effect nerfed VOs and Painite as their prices dropped significantly after the January patch? I'm confused now... Or is there something with LTDs specifically that sets them apart from the others?

In 3.6 they made supply and demand pricing rules apply to all gems - VOs, Painite, LTDs and the rest. This caused a significant drop in prices, which you can see around January on the pricing graph, as well as making bulk sales tax apply, causing a further drop in in-practice prices. However, for LTDs they gave them - accidentally or otherwise, who knows - infinite demand regeneration, so they were never very heavily affected by supply and demand other than by the bulk tax.

In 3.7 they gave VOs and Painite (and the rest) infinite demand regeneration like LTDs. This caused a significant rise in prices, though the introduction of extra BGS states in 3.6 and the restriction of VOs and Painite to a smaller number of economies means that they're not reliably back as high as they were in 3.5. Bulk sales tax still applies in theory but in practice the demand levels at most stations will now be too high to notice.

Tritium also has infinite demand (and supply) regeneration.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

In 3.6 they made supply and demand pricing rules apply to all gems - VOs, Painite, LTDs and the rest. This caused a significant drop in prices, which you can see around January on the pricing graph, as well as making bulk sales tax apply, causing a further drop in in-practice prices. However, for LTDs they gave them - accidentally or otherwise, who knows - infinite demand regeneration, so they were never very heavily affected by supply and demand other than by the bulk tax.

In 3.7 they gave VOs and Painite (and the rest) infinite demand regeneration like LTDs. This caused a significant rise in prices, though the introduction of extra BGS states in 3.6 and the restriction of VOs and Painite to a smaller number of economies means that they're not reliably back as high as they were in 3.5. Bulk sales tax still applies in theory but in practice the demand levels at most stations will now be too high to notice.

Tritium also has infinite demand (and supply) regeneration.

Ah ok got it now. Thanks for explaining.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

While I think everyone would and does favour the playstyle they prefer, I think many find it hard to justify doing it when they get in contact with other players, getting ganked by the perfectly outfitted 5-engineered FdL wing who didn't care about your valuable smuggled cargo and did it out of boredom, or when they hear about a month-old player in an Imperial Cutter asking ''I'm just earning 100 MCr/h mining, am I doing something wrong'' ''Yes, sounds like it, drop by my personal fleet carrier and I'll show you how to minmax''

FDL in full combat fit is about 185MCr with the 15% LYR discount, slightly cheaper if you can be bothered to really optimise the discounts.
(Taking off the bits that you don't need if you're attacking unarmed ships, you could get it below 80MCr)

No plausible earning rate that allows people to buy Fleet Carriers (or even Cutters) at all is going to stop people obtaining FDLs.

Conversely, it doesn't matter how fast you can mine LTDs and how much they sell for, you're still not getting a fully-engineered ship that way.

 

[Northpin]

They changed Void Opals (and Painite, and the other gems) to match LTDs, so they now near-instantly regenerate back to full demand.

Effect on demand: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/reserves/256/history
Effect on price: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/reserves/256/pricehistory

Thanks for confirming - i noticed post patch better prices for both VO and Painite than before.
And i may say that i like it that LTD monopoly is not that absolute as it was in 3.6

 

[Jukelo]

I'd agree that a massive influx of credits very quickly would skip over a part of the game that I found a lot of fun.

However, how many players accidentally stumble across LTD 2 or 3s? I'd guess the vast majority have watched max credit per hour videos on youtube. If you're the sort of player who has done that, you've already made the conscious decision to skip to the 'more credits than you know what to do with' part of the game.

But you don't even need to mine in LTD 2 or 3s. The payout for most activities in the game is way out of whack with the ship prices, mining LTDs is only the most eggregious and contentious case, and at the core of the problem is the fact payouts scale so poorly from beginner to veterans.

 

[Defacto]

FDL in full combat fit is about 185MCr with the 15% LYR discount, slightly more if you can be bothered to really optimise the discounts.

No plausible earning rate that allows people to buy Fleet Carriers (or even Cutters) at all is going to stop people obtaining FDLs.

Conversely, it doesn't matter how fast you can mine LTDs and how much they sell for, you're still not getting a fully-engineered ship that way.

And the natural follow up question is: why did fleet carriers have to be priced that way?
(Well, that and why are they expected to be single player-oriented content, like an enormous RC-Anaconda)

You are right that there is no link between credits and materials (which is strange, but probably sensible). You'll have to take the mining attitude to mob grinding instead.

 

[Jukelo]

And the natural follow up question is: why did fleet carriers have to be priced that way?
(Well, that and why are they expected to be single player-oriented content, like an enormous RC-Anaconda)

You are right that there is no link between credits and materials (which is strange, but probably sensible). You'll have to take the mining attitude to mob grinding instead.

It is a common practice in MMOs to introduce entirely new currencies to sidestep the inevitable issue of inflation.

 

[Robert Maynard]

It is a common practice in MMOs to introduce entirely new currencies to sidestep the inevitable issue of inflation.

Hence materials being the currency of Engineering and them not being able to be bought.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

If your having fun doing combat, trading or exploration then its not a waste of time.

Yeah true, I meant mining commodities other than LTDs. My main account is doing exactly that now, because I can stock up on even the worthless stuff on my FC to be potentially used for missions instead.

On my alt I don't have that option so mining in a ring other than an icy one seems to have little point other than the change in scenery. If credits are what you're after (which my alt was, to get their Crusader A rated).

Mind you, I avoided mining in New Borann and came across both a decent selling market (900k/t) and a single LTD hotspot, in the same system (sheer luck, no ext tools used), and finding a core let alone surface deposits above 10% were really quite tricky.

 

[CMDR Tony]

@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?

FWIW, the screenshot is not mine. But I know the CMDR who made it and I know he did not lie as I was there.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

But you don't even need to mine in LTD 2 or 3s. The payout for most activities in the game is way out of whack with the ship prices, mining LTDs is only the most eggregious and contentious case, and at the core of the problem is the fact payouts scale so poorly from beginner to veterans.

I agree- see post#35.

I imagine the problem is how would you scale it though. I've never had a problem making credits without chasing the latest exploit. However, if a player is going to focus their gameplay around making the most credits, how do FDev balance a system that makes it rewarding for players doing their own thing just playing the game and while accounting for those beating the credit piñata?

 

[Dutchman141]

Let me just say... I've never mined anything in this game.

With few exceptions, I play the game I want to play. This clashes with things here and there, but I wouldn't still be playing the game otherwise.

This.
I just got back from a long break and the first thing I did was get my Exploring Phantom and head out.
I've never mined and never will, if that means that it'll take longer to acquire something then so be it.
I do think that Fdev should do a balancing pass all across the board when it comes to earning credits though, it's ridiculously off the charts at the moment.