I understand that Frontier, you the developers, are trying to encourage players to explore other avenues, find some of the other things you've created in the galaxy to turn a profit. The problem is, none of them are very profitable. I'm an Elite trader, and at best I can find missions offering 1-1.2 million credits. I can make that faster, and more consistently through (grinding, repetitive) high volume trading.
This is especially a problem right now, as people are loosing money left and right to the new A.I.
The price of failure is high: It's not fun spending 3-5 hours or more to grind back up the cost of the ship you just lost. Not to mention any vouchers you have, or stellar data. Long Range smuggling offered a relief valve on that. It let people gain income again. There's a reason it was so popular.
I'm sure you meant this as a temporary fix, but honestly, if there are other good things in the galaxy, the player base will find them, and will tell others about them. But right now, it takes a long time to traverse the bubble just searching, hoping there are things worth finding. It's not rewarding enough.
I understand that you're trying your hardest to make a good game. The little details, (like the one, a few patches back, where dropping out of supercruise instantly freezes the screen and doesn't allow stations to go blasting past) show that you really do care, and really do love the game. It's a good game. It lets me pretend I'm flying spaceships in our real galaxy. No other game has this. Its wonderful, and I hope someday Elite is my favorite game. I know you're trying to get it there.
But this wasn't the way. Trying to encourage exploration by removing one of the few ways people had of making acceptable cr/hour returns isn't the way. It comes across as almost punitive. "Eat your vegetables, then maybe you can have desert!" I understand your dilemma, I understand that you're trying to accomplish wonders with extremely limited resources.
But not only is this not the way, with the current player struggles and fiscal loss, this isn't the time.
This is especially a problem right now, as people are loosing money left and right to the new A.I.
The price of failure is high: It's not fun spending 3-5 hours or more to grind back up the cost of the ship you just lost. Not to mention any vouchers you have, or stellar data. Long Range smuggling offered a relief valve on that. It let people gain income again. There's a reason it was so popular.
I'm sure you meant this as a temporary fix, but honestly, if there are other good things in the galaxy, the player base will find them, and will tell others about them. But right now, it takes a long time to traverse the bubble just searching, hoping there are things worth finding. It's not rewarding enough.
I understand that you're trying your hardest to make a good game. The little details, (like the one, a few patches back, where dropping out of supercruise instantly freezes the screen and doesn't allow stations to go blasting past) show that you really do care, and really do love the game. It's a good game. It lets me pretend I'm flying spaceships in our real galaxy. No other game has this. Its wonderful, and I hope someday Elite is my favorite game. I know you're trying to get it there.
But this wasn't the way. Trying to encourage exploration by removing one of the few ways people had of making acceptable cr/hour returns isn't the way. It comes across as almost punitive. "Eat your vegetables, then maybe you can have desert!" I understand your dilemma, I understand that you're trying to accomplish wonders with extremely limited resources.
But not only is this not the way, with the current player struggles and fiscal loss, this isn't the time.
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