Frontier - Enough Shoulder Shrugging - Get Tough on Exploits and Exploiters.

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Of course, the average play time will drop to a few hours at most for non-explorers and traders, it would take around 6.3 years to make enough rank in any navy to get the first system unlock, and we can pretty much forget ever seeing another Corvette or Cutter, but hey, at least no one will have to loose any sleep over what other people are doing again, and we won't have any more threads about how some other game I've never heard of does things so much better that we wonder why folks like the OP even bother to come here in the first place again.

or you know, with no simple exploits in place FD can sit down and think about balancing the game properly, and creating cool opportunities for sneaky big money making.

but no..... you are right, it is clearly impossible to make a game without exploits that is still possible to advance in the game , exploits or nothing.. its the only way

 

[through the hole backwards]

Funny how you were totally comfortable with it though when you thought it was me and not you that Deadspin was referring to, thus your reply then :-

No , grasp the tricky thorn of irony , I was referring to valuable discourse.

 

[Theodrid]

No , grasp the tricky thorn of irony , I was referring to valuable discourse.

Of course you were, how convenient.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Or, you know, revamp the mission system, lots more missions on the boards for all play styles in all modes, remove the need as well as the desire to switch modes, but hey why do that when we can erect an enormous man made of straw instead.

lol I am sorry to say Theodrid we must have brains wired the same way as we wrote almost the exact same thing. Be afraid mate.... it aint good to have a brain like mine

 

[through the hole backwards]

I described you as a troll due to the method you used, the way you wrote your replies out, the tone they had.

So because you don't like what I say and the way that I say it then that somehow makes me a troll , and yet you actually then rep me for what I said? Please explain, while I have a tiny shred of interest left in any of this?

 

[Theodrid]

lol I am sorry to say Theodrid we must have brains wired the same way as we wrote almost the exact same thing. Be afraid mate.... it aint good to have a brain like mine

Hehe, I think I'll take my chances on having a brain like yours Mike over some of the alternatives available in this thread! :O

 

[kinglemo2000]

I didn't realise I was cheating until I had accumulated 34 billion credits... It was only then someone called me out on it.

I honestly thought I was simply 'playing the game'.

(a bit like sleeping your way to the top in real life lol).

My bad... obviously.

Boo Hoo that's not fair I only have 12 and half billion credits [cry]

 

[Cosmos]

In total agreement with you here Cosmos, (makes a nice change! ), virtually everything that should be an achievement in this game has been rendered meaningless as you say. You are more than welcome to bring up combat logging, (was mentioned earlier in the thread), there is sooo much collateral damage from Frontier's attitude it is unreal, PVP piracy and bounty hunting being right at the top of the list with the BGS, missions and more.

While I agree it is too late to roll back those who exploited long ago I do hope, (probably in vain but hey), that Frontier could start to adopt the, in my opinion, right approach from here on in.

Despite obvious differences of opinion its clear we have common ground too. Oddly enough we all do considering we like flying spaceships..

 

[Theodrid]

Despite obvious differences of opinion its clear we have common ground too. Oddly enough we all do considering we like flying spaceships..

Nah, can't be having that buddy........I dislike your views on PVP and your shameless posting/promotion of videos with unsuitable music of barely shielded anacondas getting popped


aaaaaaaah, that's better.

 

[Deadspin]

So because you don't like what I say and the way that I say it then that somehow makes me a troll , and yet you actually then rep me for what I said? Please explain, while I have a tiny shred of interest left in any of this?

I had no issue with what you said, nor did I have an issue with how you said it. I was merely pointing it out to you as the basis for my reasoning. You were just kind of leading OP on with little sarcastic jabs which did nothing to further the discussion going on in the thread. Basic trolling 101 right there. Come out swinging, wait for OP to react, keep taking jabs while playing innocent when you get called out on it. That's so 2002.

Rep keeps you coming back to see if you're supported or not, thus increasing my entertainment.

or you know, with no simple exploits in place FD can sit down and think about balancing the game properly, and creating cool opportunities for sneaky big money making.

Knowing reddit and other forums, nothing is sneaky for long. How do you think most of us found out about Sothis/Ceos? God, those were the days, taking an AspE out to Sothis and loading up on 35t of cargo for a 65 million credit payout without having to scum the boards or jump through any hoops to get the mission board filled up.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I had no issue with what you said, nor did I have an issue with how you said it. I was merely pointing it out to you as the basis for my reasoning. You were just kind of leading OP on with little sarcastic jabs which did nothing to further the discussion going on in the thread. Basic trolling 101 right there. Come out swinging, wait for OP to react, keep taking jabs while playing innocent when you get called out on it. That's so 2002.

Rep keeps you coming back to see if you're supported or not, thus increasing my entertainment.



Knowing reddit and other forums, nothing is sneaky for long. How do you think most of us found out about Sothis/Ceos? God, those were the days, taking an AspE out to Sothis and loading up on 35t of cargo for a 65 million credit payout without having to scum the boards or jump through any hoops to get the mission board filled up.

but if only a handful of missions were spawned and once they were fullfilled that was that, and then the same thing happened somewhere else in space, i think we may find people woould be a little more protective of their lucrative find, after all it may be the difference between getting 1 profitable run in, or 3.

the ever lasting credit farms, i just cant see any reason to have them in the game tbh.. imo they negate the point of doing just about anything else from a roleplay POV.
(why would i work hard doing anything for a job when i can do some of those insane paying jobs, with no risk and ever lasting supply)

but i know some disagree.

When i find a 7-10million credit mission i want to feel chuffed that i either got lucky OR perhaps i carried out a bunch of lower paid missions to get me to that place to get the super high payer.

 

[Deadspin]

but if only a handful of missions were spawned and once they were fullfilled that was that, and then the same thing happened somewhere else in space, i think we may find people woould be a little more protective of their lucrative find, after all it may be the difference between getting 1 profitable run in, or 3.

the ever lasting credit farms, i just cant see any reason to have them in the game tbh.. imo they negate the point of doing just about anything else from a roleplay POV.
(why would i work hard doing anything for a job when i can do some of those insane paying jobs, with no risk and ever lasting supply)

but i know some disagree.

When i find a 7-10million credit mission i want to feel chuffed that i either got lucky OR perhaps i carried out a bunch of lower paid missions to get me to that place to get the super high payer.

See, the whole Sothis thing fit the game in my eyes. Payouts might have been a bit much but that's on Frontier for how their system models missions and their respective payouts. In reality it was the same system used to determine payouts for trade hauls within the bubble. So someone needing something moved 390 LY back into the bubble was going to pay a lot of money to do it because, lets face it, back then 390ly was a hell of a long haul.

Now, if the BGS actually did it's job properly simulating supply and demand vice the never-ending pool of biowaste that was on hand at either of those stations, it would have been different, more acceptable I'd imagine. Again, it goes back to the way Frontier designed the BGS and commodities mechanics. Trying to patch those get-rich-quick schemes has broken the game three times over already.

IMO, people need to just stop worrying about how other people play the game.

Some people have spent the last two years in nothing but a Cobra MkIII because they love that ship and that's fine.
Others have pursued the biggest, fastest, most powerful ships possible in the least amount of time possible, that's fine too.

I do agree on the last point though. There's no real sense of accomplishment to any mechanic within the game outside of PvP (opinion). PvP is the only area where your outfitting, engineering and piloting skills are put to the ultimate test against a (sometimes) worthy adversary.

I look forward to the day when Frontier successfully adds a sense of accomplishment back into the game. Give me a reason not to need people to interact with, give me a story to pursue that doesn't rely on college level math or encryption that I can lose myself in. I think that's the biggest problem here. We have this huge sandbox but no toys to make it fun for very long.

 

[Omega Fighter]

Similar thread from 1.5 year ago https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/173800-Force-ban-exploiters-into-solo-play

FD did nothing then, and it will do nothing now.

 

[Chrysophylax]

I've often posted about how these exploits (term used as a reference only) are de facto if not de jure condoned by Frontier given that they often last longer than not - Sothis worked in the game for longer than since launch til Sothis.

I take this as FDev at the very least allowing this sort of gameplay in order to entertain the segment of their players that is entertained by this - either because they like to see large numbers or because it enables some other activity.

OP, you post 'Enough Shoulder Shrugging', but in my opinion it you should instead be thinking to yourself 'maybe it's I that is viewing this through the wrong lens'.

On that note some posts come awfully close to sounding like 'I want my ideal gameplay to be enforced officially by FDev' instead of 'FDev, you've talked the talk now walk the walk.' Their talk has been awfully mute on what gets passed for 'exploits' around here, however. Food for thought.

Lets have a quick simple look at how this could be handled for mode swapping...

CMDR 1 starts game in open - Creates instance A - Looks at mission board - Insert check for CMDR1 mission list - If no list found create mission list CMDR1A.
CMDR 1 logs out and re-enters in solo mode - Looks at mission board - Insert check for CMDR1 mission list - If list exist then show CMDR1A.
CMDR 1 leaves system - Check for CMDR1A mission list - if exists then delete.

Obviously the above is very simplified and would need at least one other variable to be taken into account (Transaction server) but it is not impossible if planned correctly and implemented by competent developers.

I agree that the number of missions available and of which type would solve a fair bit of the issue - perhaps the ability to select the type of mission you would like - Trade, Combat, Mining, Other and of course Uber driver.

I hate defending Frontier here, and this here would fix the issue, but it seems clear to me that the entire infrastructure, at least behind missions, is as close to stateless as it can be, on purpose - I'm going by Stott's stream here. Your proposal would require quite a bit of heavy lifting in the innards to fix something they don't even feel is worth the effort.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

They're already cutting back the number of certain types of missions that can be accepted - 3 War-time Planetary Scan missions, 3 Massacre missions (ship and skimmer).

This effectively kills these as a means of making money and Navy Rank.

Where the issue lies though, is in that only 20 missions are sent each Mission Board update, which did wonders for problems like:

1. Mission board time out - when previous a vast number of missions were sent at one time, but could not load in a timely manner. We'd sit and watch the mission board try to load, and it would eventually fail.
2. Mission board takes forever to load - again, like the above, except it would load, eventually.

Now I know just about as much as everyone else here about the Cobra engine, and the inner workings of the mission board, perhaps one or two things more, but the basics go something like this:

[Mission Type Variable] to [Location Variable] with [Cargo Variable] in [Time Variable] for [Payout Variable]

So the system has to run each of these variables, ensure the destination is valid, supply a cargo type if the mission type calls for it, call a time frame to complete, and calculate the payoff - 20 times per mission board.

And we have no real idea how many values exist for each of these variables - could be hundreds, could be thousands, could be more. For each mission, it has to do this, so multiple that by 40 (20 regular missions, 20 passenger missions), and that's a lot of data sifting to go through.

Elite isn't like other games.

There is no real progression, because there's no end to reach.
Sure, you gain ranks in various areas based on what you do, but these are little more a basic label based on the number of times you've done things in a particular field.

And yes, you earn credits to buy other ships - but again, this is not progress, as there's nothing to progress towards.

The closest thing to any sort of progression of any sort might be the Alien Ruins puzzle - though it's also buggy, flaky and does whatever it feels like some times.

The only real "exploit" I can think of is the one that involves other players worrying about what other people are doing.

If everybody simply would mind their own business and stop worrying about what someone else is doing, things would be 1000% better for everyone.
And this isn't just true for Elite, but for life as well.

 

[Cosmos]

Nah, can't be having that buddy........I dislike your views on PVP and your shameless posting/promotion of videos with unsuitable music of barely shielded anacondas getting popped


aaaaaaaah, that's better.

I object over your criticism over my music choices.. thats low bro.

 

[Vorxian]

Combat logging is not an exploit, it is more of an annoyance. It really does not harm anyone.

This is how I feel when I stand back and look at the whole clogging thing.

I personally feel clogging is just a natural symptom of the victim being punished universes more than the perp. I feel sorry for true and 'honorable' pirates.. pirates being of the opinion that income is contingent of players / traders / prey being important parts of the game. The problem is non honorable players, simply extracting pain of players for the lol's or 'salt'.. The game allows it, so be it. But you know what they say about over-poaching. It's only been detrimental to OPEN. These players are to blame, not the cloggers. When punishment is evened out, and shooting a net insurance ship loss of 65m credits to the victim is not desirable at all.. then we may see clogging fizzle out to odd instances of humble pie eating combat ships.

We'll see.

 

[Theodrid]

Right, I'm performing a shameless, semi necro bump of my own thread.

Frontier, stating 'we will close <insert latest exploit here> as soon as possible' isn't good enough, it wasn't when the first major exploits appeared, it wasn't when I made this thread and it sure as hell isn't now.

Please, for god's sake, for the sake of your players, for the sake of your game, for the sake of your reputation, do something more meaningful than just fixing the latest exploit with a rushed patch and basically telling the serial exploiters 'closing this one guys but fill yer boots when you discover the next one'.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

If FD can identify the exploiters who have been exploiting without reporting this exploit I propose the GTA V solution and have all their space ships sport the dunce cap

 

[GreyAreaUK]

If FD can identify the exploiters who have been exploiting without reporting this exploit I propose the GTA V solution and have all their space ships sport the dunce cap

http://i.imgur.com/TXnms2j.png

And Westworld Weapons for...let's say a month?