FDev - Please Buff Combat instead of Nerfing Mining!

[Gavin786]

BACKGROUND: For those who dont know, large-scale mining nerfs will be coming in the January 2020 update, with sell prices being decimated. We just dont know how bad the Nerf will be yet, but most likely it will be BAD. Watch DTEA's video :

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rs2qmeawFY
for more info.

This is a decision I think we need a unified voice to say "No" to. A lot of people are enjoying mining now and it is a fantastic, profitable activity, there are no calls for Nerfs, even though salty veterans like me complain how hard it was in the day to get a Conda and how easy it is now. Its not a serious call to bring in a Nerf. These type of comments(from me at least) were light-hearted and meant to show newcomers how relatively easy they have it. It is NOT A CALL TO NERF!!!

There was once a day when Combat was the money META. And it was fantastic. Combat pilots from all over the galaxy would go to the most remote star system: 17 Draconis to participate in the civil wars there. I met more random CMDRs and winged up with ppl I did not know there than I ever have before or since. For those who dont know or dont remember, Massacre Missions could be stacked upto the full 20 and each kill counted in parallel; that is when 1 ship was destroyed it counted against ALL missions. And if you winged up with others then any kill you made together counted against ALL of your missions. Fantastic, fun, social, combat META. So naturally it gets nerfed. By the dev team who never plays their own game and didnt hire anybody who seriously does to come on and advise them(one person in particular I think should have).

Now, and since then, there have been no viable methods of getting(decent) money through combat(skimmer missions dont count in my book).

I propose that there are some combat "hotspots" that are chosen, much like 17D, that are active for several weeks, that there are conflicts of some kind and BIG PAYOUTS same as 17D, like 1M per ship. Good payouts for PvP also so there is some extra incentive there. System can maybe flip a status in some meaningful way based upon outcome of the conflict. This can go on in parallel to interstellar initiatives. Basically an alternative to mining using combat as a money-making method. And just 1 hotspot at a time so it gathers players there. Having combat hotspots all over minimizes player interaction which is not what is needed for combat-oriented play. 1 hotspot active at a time, for several weeks, situation resolved, another chosen, repeat. And not much is needed changed to make it happen, either, massively increasing combat bonds for 1 system and keeping civil war or war state going would do it for a quick-and-dirty method of getting this done. Programming this should be quick and easy. Lets have it, FDev!

But mining, as it stands, works very well. People are happy with it. People do it. We need to maybe diversify money-making play but NERFS ARE NOT THE WAY!!! Many engineered, custom-built mining ships now, and I was about to make one myself are going to the scrap heap with this nerf. Dont do it, FDev!

Lets get some more money-making metas(dont know if you can have more than 1 meta lol but you know what I mean), keep money nice and easy. Money farming is just a pita, and another "grind drag". Lets have activities we all enjoy for a good payout.

So, basically :

1. PLEASE DO NOT NERF OUR MINING!
2. PLEASE GIVE US SOME OTHER MONEY-MAKING OPTIONS, especially COMBAT!

Signing off,

CMDG Gavin786

 

[M00ka]

How about the players start running around like headless chooks when the community actually finds out how much, or if at all, mining is nerfed. So far after looking at the video there is a big IF at the beginning and never really addressed again.

As for the OP's umm requests, lets look at these with a little detail. Firstly, as stated, it is not confirmed (by FD, they are the only one's who count). Yes there might be a more rigorous supply and demand structure for high value commodities but is that a bad thing? The high prices might still be there, the player will just have to use a few grey cells (i.e. think) before they go to sell their ship full of Void Opals or Painite. To be brutal, even if FD do nerf mining to bring it back to pre VO days, would that be a bad thing? Already it is widely agreed upon that credits are basically worthless now, and if mining goes I am sure someone will find another 'get quick rich' scheme before the day is over.

Secondly, has combat payouts been reduced? From my experience, they have been steadily rising like just about every other credit making mechanic in the game. FD don't really need to make bounty farming more profitable, FD needs to make it more enjoyable and interesting - which doesn't equate to MOAR CREDITS.

So for those that only read the OP's first couple of sentences, all I can recommend is don't panic. At this stage everything is just guesswork and a lot of doomsday prophecies.

 

[Jmanis]

Have you actually gone and checked out the change? There's not a single shot of the actual changes in that video, and if you actually go check the changes, it's not that bad. I mean hell, the title is even has "Mining MAY have been nerfed".

You can still get out there and make the same amount of money you always have mining... you just can't do it when 12412587324598t of voipals have been dumped on the market, which makes sense.

To be a little less hyperbolic, the demand for Voipals in one of the test systems was 14,000. That's several thousand tonnes of Voipals which need to be shipped before the price would start to wane. And that's what this change is about; you can still make z0mguber credits like before, but as you'd expect, that gold-rush will only last while demand is high. If you're late to the party, there'll still be dozens of other systems you can take your voipals. And this is how it should be... making these things a gold rush, not a gold-casual-stroll-in-the-park.

EDIT: To prove my point, this is the current live-universe value for Voipals in a Civil Liberty, Investment state (no pirate attack)

Same combination nets this price in the current Beta, noting it's high demand:

That's the same price range for Beta as current live. And look at that demand for Serendibite... it'll take numerous of miners doing a lot of mining to tank that. Combined with the fact there's literal dozens of systems meeting the perfect CL/Inv/PA state right now, you're looking at a few thousand miners constantly going at it to trash all available sources of "good profit" from core mining.

tl;dr these "mining is nerfed" claims are totally baseless.

 

[Riverside]

I have yet to make a single credit from the 3.3 mining changes, I wasn't interested in mining before & still am not.

Yet still since 3.3 my total assets have more than doubled over the past year or so just from playing the game. Quite a bit of that has come from mapping earth-likes & other high value bodies in the bubble which is an incredibly easy and low risk way to earn money now (I do it for the inf).

I'm not particularly in favour of (or against) removing the massive potential earnings of mining but why do other activities need to be changed?

 

[yminale]

Op your memory is off. People went to 17 Draconis BECAUSE of those stupid skimmer missions. I remember those day and remember stupid care bears rising up because new players were getting Anaconda in days. Honestly making billions is not a big deal. Why are some people and Fdev so freaked out about it.

 

[M00ka]

This thread raises another problem (as I see it) that is far greater than the possible mining nerf. That problem is the game's Influencers and the sheeple who blindly follow them. Do people actually realise that except for one or two (thinking of OA here mainly), the average Influencer has no more insight, no more access to the game than you or me. Yet because they record a clip and post it on You Tube, suddenly they are all knowledgeable, and whatever they say is treated like it is an official FD release directly from DBOBE himself.

I have no problem with Influencers, heck some of them are pretty damn good at what they do, but I also don't blindly accept what they say as 100 truthful. But I am beginning to suspect that some here do exactly that, then jump on the forums or reddit or whatever and start quoting the clip as being 100% accurate. It would stop a lot of the blind, rabid speculation and mis-information that crops up in the forum time to time.

 

[CMDR Mayhem]

Didn't DB say at the start of development, that he never wanted to see one type of earning credits method being better then the rest? And then literally quoted "mining" as a example.

 

[Konan]

Personally, I think it's great if they make you have to search for better buyers. Markets SHOULD be more diverse. Let's hope they keep using that mentality and make ALL commodities more susceptible (though some already are) to market changes.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Yeah when I started you were directed to go do some combat as the first thing.

Sure that means no hand holding but it definitely beats the mission board.

If we’re coming up with wacky suggestions I’d still say delete the mission board for anything apart from rep.

Or roll it back to the state where stacking was permitted but tied to the bgs (eg only profitable during boom or in extreme outlier cases worth hunting for).

 

[Konan]

Do you honestly want it to be too easy? Is that the state we want the game to swerve too?

 

[Riverside]

Do you honestly want it to be too easy? Is that the state we want the game to swerve too?

Too easy is a relative term. Part of the game designer's job is to set the level of the challenge appropriately to the target audience, and we don't know which part of the target audience for this PEGI 7 game FDev are aiming for

 

[Captain Willard]

Mining is boring. Tried it twice. Nerf it.

 

[Faxboo]

Try Nerf mining and you soon find out what happends.

 

[Gut Rumble]

Too much money in the game already and nothing to buy with it .

 

[Cmdr Aeries Hunter]

The game was originally designed to have gold rushes. It was always meant to have them. However every gold rush has to end at some point......then the next one pops up.

 

[Morbad]

I struggle to think of any activity that doesn't make absurdly large amounts of credits, relative to costs.

Most of my CMDR's credit come from combat he doesn't do for credits, and his assets have been increasing a rate I find comical (despite losing 30% off the top to three Elite NPC crew on retainer that cannot currently be used to their effects on instances). He can throw away money, taking every donation mission he comes across to raise local rep and barely put a dent in the profits he gets from CZs.

There is almost no way to lose money unless all one does is fight other CMDRs and refuse to run away when they're losing.

Of course, the game's money supply has been out of whack for so long that it's hard to think of any change that could likely come to pass as being especially relevant.

Honestly making billions is not a big deal. Why are some people and Fdev so freaked out about it.

At one point it was a big deal, because it radically changed the ship demographics of the game, and what people were able to do, which in turn accelerated the transformation of the BGS and had numerous other side effects. CMDRs do not exist in a vacuum and what other CMDRs have influences what your CMDR encounters, irrespective of mode.

Of course, those days are long gone. The most common ship you'll see on most traffic reports is the Anaconda and a majority of active CMDRs have essentially been maxed out their ability to influence the game via credit related contributions for quite some time.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Mining is boring. Tried it twice. Nerf it.

Mining is relaxing. Tried it countless times and still enjoy it greatly. Nerf it.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Reminder to all thread participants: everyone is entitled to express their opinion on the topic discussed in the OP. Please remain respectful to those whose opinions may differ from your own. Those who break forum rules (including off-topic, harassment or flaming) will receive a reply ban and/or other moderation action, at the discretion of the moderator team. Thank you for your co-operation, and fly safe!

 

[thistle]

BACKGROUND: For those who dont know, large-scale mining nerfs will be coming in the January 2020 update, with sell prices being decimated. We just dont know how bad the Nerf will be yet, but most likely it will be BAD. Watch DTEA's video :

No, I won't watch. But don't worry, you'll be fine, our valiant youtube heroes will have new 'how to earn 100 billion in 10 minutes without playing the game' videos once the January update is live.

 

[Vasious]

And the idea of that the over supply of a consumer luxury good that exceeds demand resulting in a decrease in offered purchase price being decried as a nerf is one reason why we will never have a semi realistic economy in this game, especially when one can just move on to a different system with unfulfilled demand to obtain the offered purchase price you are after again.