Fdev ! stop the 1 billion a day shared wing pirate massacres bonanza
- Thread starter Dragsham
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Deleted member 182079
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Thanks for this summary, I thought I may have missed something and was getting the ould FOMO -I'm one of those who did the massacre thing with some squad mates and it's not as simple as OP made it out to be.
There's a considerable amount of prep work to be done before you can start farming (same as most activities in ED in general).
So yeah, not as straight forward, but it does get considerably easier once you get the ball rolling.
- You have to identify a system which offers massacre missions that only targets 1 pirate faction in a neighboring system
- Target system should have a hazres nearby
- Must get to allied with all the factions to get the best rewards (can be done by taking rep rewards when turning in massacre missions)
- Your ships should be decently engineered for long session bounty hunting
- You have to sit in a station for about an hour to stack missions (longer if you really want to score the juiciest missions, but that will also take longer to complete)
- Alternatively, you can jump around different systems to stack missions from more than 5 factions targeting the same pirate faction but I prefer to stick with 1 spot for easier turning in
- Use a spreadsheet to manage your stack to keep the kills balanced
- Have friends (might be the hardest part for some people
)
- Prepare to spend up to 2 hours pew-pewing
Tried stacking massacres on my own a few weeks ago, and the above is very much my experience, although there's a website to identify suitable systems at least so that one's easy.
Ended up abandoning this approach, hauling bulk has turned out to be the best money maker for me unfortunately (as it's very boring).
3bn left until I get my FC back. A few weeks or months at my current rate of making credits, because doing something continuously is killing the fun of playing the game so I only do it in short bursts.
Don't see the problem myself, having tonnes of money in the game does not really -advance- you other than getting your desired ship or carrier faster. Either way it's aquisition is still more "hollow". You still need engineering, knowledge and skill, which takes ages. People can make several billion a day solo doing Robigo taxi service, if you want to turn your brain into soup.. or a billion in a couple of days still by mining too. People like making money. Also any novice can climb in a brand new A rate anaconda or FDL but does not mean they would survive long against seasoned players or advanced NPCs.
Why do YOU really care anyway? How does it effect YOUR game? If you want to make money slowly and alone then do that, but you said you have already made your billions so.. I don't get it.
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Well, FDev "fixed" mining, so they might as well "fix" stacking massacre missions as well.
After all, you not only get the money, but also engineering mats on top of it. Nerf it double, I say 
I know I shouldn't be suggesting this since I've benefitted immensely from massacre stacking. (I can literally buy & outfit any ship I want now and I'm still playing actively)
But if they followed EDO's style where you can no longer share on-foot missions after you completed them before turning in, then the whole thing will crumble.
Edit: You can still earn a lot from it, but it's 75% less effective than what it is currently.
But if they followed EDO's style where you can no longer share on-foot missions after you completed them before turning in, then the whole thing will crumble.
Edit: You can still earn a lot from it, but it's 75% less effective than what it is currently.
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It doesn't matter that a wing of 4 players makes a billion credits a day playing the game.
What matters is the cognitive dissonance that is created by having a billion credits a day paid out for squashing the space equivalent of "common street thugs", while the premier targets in Wing Assassinations and Threat 6 & 7 Pirate Attacks pay out pennies[1]. A universe that fails to maintain internal consistency is not engaging.
That said, Massacre missions shouldn't be arbitrary kill quotas. Rather, they should be USS-based mission scenarios where you fight through waves of lower tier enemies[2]... clearing the scenario cleares the related mission.
EDIT: Corollary, I have no problem with a wing of 4 ganking Hydras for billions a day. I would equally have no problem if it was a billion a day doing this massacre stacking, but they were having to fight those harder targets noted above. Again, it's not about the credits, it's about the method and how patently out of place it is in relation to comparable activities.
[1] IMO, this is a bug. A fully engineered Elite FDL from a T6 PA site will pay the same as a vanilla Elite-ranked FDL, despite posing a dramatically less significant threat.
[2] As a contrast to assassinations, which are single, strong targets.
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So you want it stopped but, at the same time, you draw more attention to it and go on to explain, in detail, how others can do it.
You might want to re-read that
I think you mean the opposite.Deleted member 182079
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When I played in a squadron, my squad mates would often invite me to cash in on wing missions - I'd never complete any of them, but would benefit from the windfall in credits, despite not actually needing them at the time (already had billions). I felt rude for turning them down on the offer so made a ton, but it felt wrong - so I went and destroyed credits again by shipping my Vette/Cutter to Colonia and back. But I don't mind if others engage in this as it doesn't affect my game - "no skin off my nose" as the bartender says.
And the solution to this would be what? Make mission stacking consecutive? So that if you have a mission to kill 60 pirates and another to kill 50 pirates of the same faction then you should have to kill 110 instead of 60 to complete both? That would be the answer but, on the other hand, once you kill 60 you are essentially fulfilling the requirements of both missions. I guess it's a decision to be made in the name of gameplay.
I think we have enough time-sinks in this game already so maybe another nerf isn't what we need. How much credits others have doesn't affect me though because I'm either in Solo or PG.
I think we have enough time-sinks in this game already so maybe another nerf isn't what we need. How much credits others have doesn't affect me though because I'm either in Solo or PG.
It is the way the game is designed... We don't get paid equally selling 10 tons of water we have mined as we do 10 tons of platinum, but it requires the same equipment and player time, nor get paid the same to deliver data to another station as we would to deliver cargo...
Each of us have our 'favourite' activity, no doubt, in comparison to other 'easier' activities, payout will pale in comparison.
Like I suggested above, it shouldn't even be an arbitrary kill count. The mission type should be completely overhauled to better fit the typical mission mould.
It should be "We're aware of a pirate gang operating in this system, fly to their rendevous point and wipe them out", with the mission comprising of flying to a USS where the wave-based scenario mechanics kick in and 2-4 waves of 3-6 (weaker) ships, dependent on mission rank, spawn. Wing missions could spawn engineered targets. That would bring it inline with the rest of the mission moulds taking roughly 15 minutes (with one or two notable exceptions).
The mining example is another example of gross oversight and design failure of the game, which came to a head with tritium and FCs, but I digress. The data/cargo station is comparing apples and oranges, and isn't really relevant (One is rewarding movement to a location, the other rewarding movement plus utilisation of limited cargo space, and rightly rewards more, notwithstanding issues of the reward mechanisms of cargo deliveries)
The problem is, it's one thing for different activities to pay out differently, especially to compare your favourite activity you're good at to your non-preferred activity you suck at. FD have actually balanced the major activity categories of activity pretty well, with one activity in each category paying our roughly similar to an activity in another.
But the internal consistency is shot to pieces. FD clearly does care about this sort of thing though, otherwise they wouldn't have nerfed post-rebalance cargo hauling rewards (for the worse...).
It's interesting to note the inconsistency in OD missions too. FD have gone to great lengths to prevent mission stacking in Odyssey. Take a mission to one settlement, literally every other mission offered to that settlement will disappear. The exception to this the OD massacre analog, which can be stacked. It's pretty half-baked.
I also noticed that you can no longer stack election courier missions to the same destination. They will only give you 1 single mission to a single destination.
What's massacre analog btw?
Exertmination, or something like that? The skinny of it is "go to a settlement owned by the appropriate faction, let rip". The normal (non-OD) stacking rules apply.
Deleted member 182079
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I can't even face the idea of having to kill 60 ships, let alone 110... My personal threshold is around 35-40 and even that is a real challenge... for my patience. So without stacking I just wouldn't touch those at all.
The crux of the debate is that the game is exactly what it is: what it might, or should, be is interpreted by many players in differing ways - this forum is a perfect example of such thinking. Many ideas offered up, most contradicting the others as preference is expressed.
Allegedly (permitting the efforts being put into EDO to make it viable for most players) Frontier are on a continuing 'balance pass' for many things, maybe they will consider stacking to be an exploit and put a stop to it in the base game also, it would certainly cause the salt to flow for a while, but make the game 'better' for some over time. (As you may gather, to me it is just a game and is what it is - I don't expect anything different to what it is, when 'new' bits are added, they are welcome) As I don't bother with stacking timesinks - I have more fun things to do - apart from in wing CZs (very profitable, but obviously regarded as an exploit by some) in the past, I just play being a criminal scum and chuckle my socks off doing stuff I find amusing.
As, very apparently (also in this thread), most players don't care about such balance either.
This can be the case, because there is no perfect way, but a way that needs to be followed, design principles if you will. Most of the contradictions posted in this forums stems from people, who don't care and just want to shoot down critique, people who only follow their own agenda, and people, who see the game as a whole and provide well reasoned arguments.
So far, there was not one single hard fact argued against Jmanis' logical explanations, but instead straw mens were put up. And what for? Wouldn't all players benefit from well balanced missions, that would allow an elaborate choice from the players? No, but not in here, it is mostly about the next half-baked feature - sadly.
If OP doesn’t think that fdev are fully aware of this, due to the sheer amount of guides and posts about it then he needs to go outside and give his head a damn good shake 
True enough, perhaps as most of the debate revolves around playing a game, and different personalities perceive 'play' individually?
Whenever the logic of "wouldn't all players..." is brought up, it reeks of "I would" rather than the intention, surely?
You may consider any disagreement with what you consider is 'right' a straw man, that is common enough here too, had you noticed? What it comes down to, when all is said and done, is the amount of effort Frontier are prepared to make to change the existing system, which, in al truth, is likely to be very little or none. It is just wait until EDO's woes are not occupying the majority of the Dev team assigned to ED and time might be given to the 'balance pass' promised last year.
Be honest, do you think much will be done to change things? Would it ever be enough?
Deleted member 182079
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Have to say, I used to, but nowadays I treat Elite just like any other game now as opposed to trying to feel I'm immersed in a realistic enough world. It was difficult enough to suspend disbelief pre-Odyssey but it's just gotten worse with that added and how the mechanics work (or not) so I gave up trying altogether now. Flying spaceships and sightseeing is still fun though.