Fixing mission(and careear balance) the CAPITALIST way, what do you think?

[CMDR GTR2014]

Ok guys, so we have problems with payments all OVER the place, be it the new low pays for mission or the 2.2 low cargo values... or 2.1 Sothis the Grind...

I will put the TLDR first so its easiest to people get my IDEA.

TLDR: Missions payouts are balanced BY THE SERVER, by seeing which missions are ACCEPTED/FINISHED GALAXY WIDE, with this data the server once a week do a slight re-balance on the values (BETWEEN -5% - 5%) depending on the popularity of each kind of mission.Basically Supply x Demand.


Now lets explain this...

First mission should not be treated as cargo > passengers > bounty hunting > mining... but for each kind of mission, so for example:

Passengers:
-Long range Missions
-Multi destination missions
-single hop mission
-VIP missions

Trade:
-short range trading
-long range trading
-seek and deliver

and so on...

The idea here is use the old capitalist SUPPLY x DEMAND...

So if everyone is doing Short Trading missions then it might get a slight decrease on the base value, but not much people is doing Long range trading... so increase in the payout.. since labor is short in this area...

This will generate better values about payout, since i believe not many people since 2.2 is doing trade missions, right? they are paying too little, so they changed for passengers... The situation would fix itself in sometime.

This would ALSO help balancing careers , since if not many people are mining then mining would become more and more in DEMAND , making prices sky high!

This would benefit ALL areas of the game with the exception of the GRIND exploit... Because then things like Sothis/Robigo would be slowly going down because the Supply of labor would be gigantic... and lowering the prices since this would create competition!

So what do you guys think?

Should the Missions have some Supply x Demand flow or not?


--- added content ---

missions will not compete against each other , but have a value goal... three examples:

1°
Short range trading:

Goal is to have 10 Millions missions done per week. (pulling numbers from the a** )

but in the end the missions were done like 12 Millions missions so they will readjusted by -0.2%

2°
Mining:

Goal is to have 5M missions done per week.

In the end only 3M were done , so the missions will go up by 3% this week.

3°
Long range smuggling (aka sothis exploit 2.1)

Missions have a goal of 7M missions per week.

In the end there where 100M missions done , so the prices will go down by 5%.

Now... if you think a mission that pays 2M with 5% change up or down is 100k.... so this is an effect that will grow over time. and not a sudden change.

 

[Tony.W]

I support this idea it would also have a by product of a slightly more 'alive' galaxy especially if this system was linked to system state.

ie: War would generate suitable missions like kill and supply meds etc
Famine would generate bring food and take people away etc. etc

 

[gazzareth]

I don't think it is a bad idea, but the way missions pay at the moment you would not notice a 5% change in the slightest, and the idea of reducing any mission payments at the moment seems a bit counter productive. My suggestion would be to have a "base" range for each type of mission (ie as it would be if there was no system in place), and then the least popular type of each mission style (ie combat, trade, passengers etc) gets a 20% boost, then a week later the least popular gets a 20% boost (could be the same one taking it to 40%) and the most popular gets a 20% reduction, but cannot go below the base range ie negative....

Still going by demand, but not nerfing anything.....

G

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

I don't think it is a bad idea, but the way missions pay at the moment you would not notice a 5% change in the slightest, and the idea of reducing any mission payments at the moment seems a bit counter productive. My suggestion would be to have a "base" range for each type of mission (ie as it would be if there was no system in place), and then the least popular type of each mission style (ie combat, trade, passengers etc) gets a 20% boost, then a week later the least popular gets a 20% boost (could be the same one taking it to 40%) and the most popular gets a 20% reduction, but cannot go below the base range ie negative....

Still going by demand, but not nerfing anything.....

G

Well this depends on HOW they do it... because as i said, its demand x supply.... when the price is way good people will do it, when price is too low they will move away, BUT when price is just right they will mantain...

its not that EVERY mission competes against each other, BUT there should be a middle number, that might be higher base for more used missions... lets say...

Trading short range (the second most used mission) should have something like 10M missions per week. IF the value is lower than it then the payouts go high... if they have 10M missions per week the values the same. BUT if they have 20M missions of this kind its because something is wrong... or is paying WAY to high...

 

[Adhock]

5% is not that noticeable. 5% of a million is 50K. Barely a drop in the bucket compared to what it would be potentially offering.

This is the same problem we have with Trade Vouchers for Trader Escorts. 5% is too small.

Make it 15 or 20% and you'd have a much more noticeable and therefore dynamic system.

 

[Oguska]

As @Adhock says, values are needs to be higher then system seems good.

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

5% is not that noticeable. 5% of a million is 50K. Barely a drop in the bucket compared to what it would be potentially offering.

This is the same problem we have with Trade Vouchers for Trader Escorts. 5% is too small.

Make it 15 or 20% and you'd have a much more noticeable and therefore dynamic system.

5% is a conservative Value i don't want to scare people with my idea

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I'd rather see a station/faction budget for missions. So a station that had 100s of CMDRs doing missions would quickly dry up. Other than CGs, there is little need for everyone to be at the same systems. Wealthy, high population systems would be offering more missions at better prices, low populations systems not so much.

 

[Maelkhor]

There are currently a dozen different mission type, half once you realize they duplicate in term of gameplay (fedex(data/goods/people)/kill someone/ kill many in CZ/mine) and the flavor is just white noise, and the game still fails to balance those? -_-

2 years after release, it is maybe time to add proper balance & content, you could add a hundred new ships, multicrew, capital atmospheric landing, etc. without really player created content or scenarized content, the game will have the depth of a 198X game, only with a shiny procedurally generated galaxy.

The only game drive currently is $ grinding for ships and ships outfitting, which helps to grind faster,
Funnily I just realised as I wrote this last phrase that it is the same drive as a mere cookie clicker clone, only in ED you can play in multiplayer grief mode if you want so.

So 1. fix current placeholder quick, 2. add proper sandbox element/scenarized element.

 

[Sopel3pl]

Both ideas are good. That means idea to balancing by serwers and budget for faction.

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

There are currently a dozen different mission type, half once you realize they duplicate in term of gameplay (fedex(data/goods/people)/kill someone/ kill many in CZ/mine) and the flavor is just white noise, and the game still fails to balance those? -_-

2 years after release, it is maybe time to add proper balance & content, you could add a hundred new ships, multicrew, capital atmospheric landing, etc. without really player created content or scenarized content, the game will have the depth of a 198X game, only with a shiny procedurally generated galaxy.

The only game drive currently is $ grinding for ships and ships outfitting, which helps to grind faster,
Funnily I just realised as I wrote this last phrase that it is the same drive as a mere cookie clicker clone, only in ED you can play in multiplayer grief mode if you want so.

So 1. fix current placeholder quick, 2. add proper sandbox element/scenarized element.

Well I don't think Elite is all about Grind... I myself don't care MUCH about money. and don't have the most expensive ship as a goal, but to be an Ace on the ships I like (Cobra for now ).

Even though missions like Fedex are pretty much the same they have different assets, Since data is not valuable(for us), cargo is a piratable stuff, and people may have some hidden agendas... So in the end the method might be the same but they can have different weights.

I also think they should have more missions kinds... some missions have gone missing, either because many people haven't done then because they pay low (like the multi ferry missions of 2.0) or they are just niche stuff (like pirating missions or mining)

Another NICHE mission is long range transport missions... even with a great payout, not everybody will do those... Ideas for mission have plenty, the fact is how much missions FD is whiling to put on the game, maybe there's is a cap on the amount of missions they can put on the server? if so I'm sad... because i think the number of missions should be near 100 kinds, and there's no way in hell you can balance that amount one by one... so you need an automatic method...

 

[Maelkhor]

Well I don't think Elite is all about Grind... I myself don't care MUCH about money. and don't have the most expensive ship as a goal, but to be an Ace on the ships I like (Cobra for now ).

Even though missions like Fedex are pretty much the same they have different assets, Since data is not valuable(for us), cargo is a piratable stuff, and people may have some hidden agendas... So in the end the method might be the same but they can have different weights.

I also think they should have more missions kinds... some missions have gone missing, either because many people haven't done then because they pay low (like the multi ferry missions of 2.0) or they are just niche stuff (like pirating missions or mining)

Another NICHE mission is long range transport missions... even with a great payout, not everybody will do those... Ideas for mission have plenty, the fact is how much missions FD is whiling to put on the game, maybe there's is a cap on the amount of missions they can put on the server? if so I'm sad... because i think the number of missions should be near 100 kinds, and there's no way in hell you can balance that amount one by one... so you need an automatic method...

I get what you mean and I hope you won't get bored too soon. I'm enjoying the game myself by periods just because I like how FD implemented their space engine.
Some players enjoy doing the same thing again and again once they have found a mechanism that suit them (for you it is space combat isn't it?), for the same reason one enjoy playing a moba/multiplayer fps etc. But is it really what ED is meant to be? ie. A game only driven by its mechanics, is it feature complete because you can trade/mine/pew pew, but doing so as meaninglessly as in any multiplayer deathmatch game?

So I wouldn't recommend this game to my gaming friend, enen the ones who often enjoy grinding in korean rpg when they have nothing better, as they are not space sim hardcore fan like I am, as a general game, ED current gameplay focus is totally anachronistic/outdated, at least korean rpg offers a main scenario to follow between grind quests.

Some would argue that ED is meant to be sandboxy and player driven, but in this case, where is the player driven content?

As it is ED is for me a very promising game engine for what could be the best space sim game ever (although it needs a proper UI for its market, totally refactor the whole outfitting concept which is laughable in a modern game, and I'm sure computers in 3300 can do better than that, it seems ship and station interface in ED are 486 cpu). I'm so impatient they add the "game" on top of the engine.

 

[Momoka Azuka]

I don't think it's a bad idea. Problem is this would require yet another full mission overhaul. And with missions in the state they're in right now, I don't even think I'll be playing the game by this time next week let alone by the time Frontier put this into play

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

I get what you mean and I hope you won't get bored too soon. I'm enjoying the game myself by periods just because I like how FD implemented their space engine.
Some players enjoy doing the same thing again and again once they have found a mechanism that suit them (for you it is space combat isn't it?), for the same reason one enjoy playing a moba/multiplayer fps etc. But is it really what ED is meant to be? ie. A game only driven by its mechanics, is it feature complete because you can trade/mine/pew pew, but doing so as meaninglessly as in any multiplayer deathmatch game?

So I wouldn't recommend this game to my gaming friend, enen the ones who often enjoy grinding in korean rpg when they have nothing better, as they are not space sim hardcore fan like I am, as a general game, ED current gameplay focus is totally anachronistic/outdated, at least korean rpg offers a main scenario to follow between grind quests.

Some would argue that ED is meant to be sandboxy and player driven, but in this case, where is the player driven content?

As it is ED is for me a very promising game engine for what could be the best space sim game ever (although it needs a proper UI for its market, totally refactor the whole outfitting concept which is laughable in a modern game, and I'm sure computers in 3300 can do better than that, it seems ship and station interface in ED are 486 cpu). I'm so impatient they add the "game" on top of the engine.

Well, TBH I think what makes Elite is the player, yes for me Fighting ad pirating is the best stuff is the part of the game that i do most and like most... But that being said... if i find attracting to do something else i will do. and that's what makes Elite different from other games, because you can use the same game for other purposes...

Well I'm sad, this topic was moved to the catacombs of the Suggestion Sub forum, it will die soon and many people will never even see this idea , while infantile topics can stay on the shinier and more visited dangerous discussion. But i will restrain my discontent since this is out of bounds by rules.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think it's a bad idea. Problem is this would require yet another full mission overhaul. And with missions in the state they're in right now, I don't even think I'll be playing the game by this time next week let alone by the time Frontier put this into play

Not really, they mostly like have this data gathering already. they just need to make the server side "bot" who fixes the prices.... since they can adjust the prices without releasing a patch , means that this idea is not that hard and don't need an overhaul about the missions.

 

[capt_sparks]

I concur with the OP and I highly recommend the game designers to move to the direction of this proposal.

 

[maxpayne]

really great idea. +rep +rep

The percentage / frequency of updating is other story. That is the technical staff.

Let's also think about how it links to the BGS.

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

anyway... since this is on the catacombs.... i posted on Reditt and people there made some insights and discussed a lot about it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange...ng_missionand_careear_balance_the_capitalist/

 

[maxpayne]

In addition to that, mode switching should be fixed too

 

[JimSan]

Passengers:
-Multi destination missions

Did make a suggestion about Multi destination passenger missions (Ferry routes) in this thread if that's the sort of thing you also had in mind for that type of mission.