ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing Pt.2

[Nugstar]

After testing the new credit balancing for Bounty Hunting, I still feel like it should be slightly higher - if the current mining tweaks are here to stay.

Imo Bounty Hunting should be up there with the highest rewards since the risk is one of the highest in the game.

I was using my fully engineered Vette, and Conda for my tests, And I earned just under 15million credits after about 1.5 hours (including time to fly to Haz-res, and to fly back to station to sell my vouchers.

If mining still makes significantly more money than Bounty Hunting, then it's NOT balanced.

I would suggest to bring both occupations down to around 20-25m per hour.

 

[CMDR BlackFyre]

Hi all,

I read the first post about balancing with some hope, but now I read only about increasing payouts, nothing about reducing them, "significant increases", "increasing the payouts", "improving the pay".... I don't want to spoil anyone's fun, I am definitely not a fun sponge, but Elite is meant to be hard, it was always hard, has always been hard, until the past few years, when it suddenly became incredibly easy to get mega rich super quick and buy the end-game ship with all mods in no time at all. Fine, there is some grinding, but that is only hard in terms of the time needed, not in terms of the thinking or the skill level.

I'm pretty sure I'll get flamed for posting this but since I won't read the replies due to lack of time it doesn't matter. IMO, balance will only be achieved when payouts for everything are reduced again, or cost of ships and parts are increased. Even that won't be a whole solution, as other parts of ED have already been made too easy with no way back, short of story-related changes. E.g. long-distance travel is now super easy compared to how it used to be; actually a nice way to balance this would be to increase the rate at which modules degrade, especially from supercharging FSDs.

I posted elsewhere about the possibility of finding Raxxla, i.e. Nirvana, in ED. I'm sure it's possible, but for me the possibility is becoming even harder to imagine.

Cheers

I still want to reply even though you said you wont read it,
the issue with decreasing payments is that the game need a lot of time i dont think many people want to spend years grinding just to get a Fleet Carrier or Some big ship, yes Elite Shouldnt be as easy as now but it shouldnt be dificulty in gettin money.

 

[Grasher21]

After testing the new credit balancing for Bounty Hunting, I still feel like it should be slightly higher - if the current mining tweaks are here to stay.

Imo Bounty Hunting should be up there with the highest rewards since the risk is one of the highest in the game.

I was using my fully engineered Vette, and Conda for my tests, And I earned just under 15million credits after about 1.5 hours (including time to fly to Haz-res, and to fly back to station to sell my vouchers.

If mining still makes significantly more money than Bounty Hunting, then it's NOT balanced.

I would suggest to bring both occupations down to around 20-25m per hour.

Your measures kinda suck tbh. Go to a compromised nav beacons, you will make 15 million within 10 minutes or so easily.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The other question is: what is 'balance'? You really can't make everything equal, and nor should it be.

Combat is harder, but its easier to hand in vouchers, mining is IMO easier but you can't slip that ore anywhere or quickly.

The biggest issue for me though is crime. Crime should pay - it should pay what mining is now but come with huge risks, tempting people into doing illegal activity which feeds into the BGS. I mean, how will FD set smuggling or piracy? Thats where the real danger money is (or should be) and yet its forgotten.

Otherwise what happens is crime becomes a hobby rather than a driver for gameplay. If anything you should be asking yourself "why am I not being a sneaky sod on the game?".

 

[Grasher21]

For Combat, Compromised Nav Beacons (CNB) are the way to go. You find 9 Wanted ships in 10, it's always "pew pew" and beaming them. I'm also enjoying it quite a lot to see my Corvette back in action. I can say that this combat buff is way better than it used to be. I wanted to compare with the mining but...

I'm not understanding one thing from the in-game market with their prices from other stations. For example, in the same system there were 2 stations. My friend went to station A and checked the price and Painite was 234k each. On the right side it was saying that the station B was paying 444k each. He went to station B and when he got there he was seeing the same price as station A ... why is the market displaying values that are not right?

 

[Kior]

When it was announced: "I can not wait."
Now: "Wait ... has something changed?"

Still low payouts for contracts, there is still a need to take on a solo wing mission
to sometimes get at least something, but it will take a lot of time.

Even so, the ratio of the cost of a top ship to a reward is not worth the strain.
I hope this is not the final version or nothing has changed so far and I am worried in vain. Because for me, a person who has played since 2014 and returned from time to time, the reward for a fresh look remains unchanged, then what was the rebalancing?

Right now i can trade for 60-70kk per hour in semi-afk mode, i can mine deep-core 150kk per 1.5hour and thats all what i can do, but i'm kinda tired from it. Well trading is a somekind "new" air after mining. But it was already at the game start, but bounty hunting never was good for making money. Bounty hunting can't even cover the costs of the time you spend. And the pleasure from fighting does not outweigh the scales when u need to buy something.

 

[CMDR BlackFyre]

When it was announced: "I can not wait."
Now: "Wait ... has something changed?"

yes bounty vouchers pay more even though the games menus only show it one you killed a wanted ship

 

[BL1P]

The other question is: what is 'balance'? You really can't make everything equal, and nor should it be.

Combat is harder, but its easier to hand in vouchers, mining is IMO easier but you can't slip that ore anywhere or quickly.

The biggest issue for me though is crime. Crime should pay - it should pay what mining is now but come with huge risks, tempting people into doing illegal activity which feeds into the BGS. I mean, how will FD set smuggling or piracy? Thats where the real danger money is (or should be) and yet its forgotten.

Otherwise what happens is crime becomes a hobby rather than a driver for gameplay. If anything you should be asking yourself "why am I not being a sneaky sod on the game?".

Risk is one thing but Punishment is another.
I would like to see more things like restrictions, placed on where you can go based on if you have been caught in the act.
Not just an easy to get around removal of some services but outright removal of access to a system, if you are caught in the act of killing in the system, too many times.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Risk is one thing but Punishment is another.
I would like to see more things like restrictions, placed on where you can go based on if you have been caught in the act.
Not just an easy to get around removal of some services but outright removal of access to system if you are caught in the act of killing in the system, too many times.

This too, but my observation was more general.

Legal money should be at least twice as slow to gain as illegal money.

You should have illegal mining spots that are plentiful but dodgy, piracy and smuggling should be a path to huge credits. It has to be high to be a temptation, otherwise whats the point?

What we have today is people following the money, which is mining and now bounty hunting. This is wrong- it should be criminal actions being the driver, not run of the mill legal actions.

 

[CMDR RuIncognito]

Painite only gave 200m per hour?

Don’t you think that’s a little odd in a game where the hull of the most expensive ship is just 209m?

Doesn’t anyone else?

(Sorry RuIncognito, I’m only really quoting you because you were the last to comment)

I’m just really starting to struggle to understand what’s going on here with this rebalance.

People are talking (and arguing) in the 100’s of millions per hour with absolutely no regard to the price of the games ships...

What the hell is the point in ever buying a Crusader when you can save up for just 15 more minutes and buy a Krait Mk2?

With the changes to BH you can now probably go from a Sidewinder to an A rated Vulture in just a few hours...throw in a rainy Sunday afternoon and you have a Python.

I just don’t get it.

If we’re going to continue to talk 50, 100, 200m per hour then I call for a total rebalance of every single ship in the game.

Keep module prices the same and whack up the value of every hull 10 fold...

what you are talking about is like a gap between newbies and oldies I do not see anything wrong with not making a difference, now you can easily buy any ship, but you still bump into the mechanics of engineers ... by itself, any ship does not give you anything ... it needs to be engineered and modified ... my miner the ship cost 500 million ..... now it's just a transport ship

It was still too high for activity without any risk.
Pirates? RANDOM PIRATES?!
This isn't any risk bro. Compare random pirates with pirates spawned by trade missions.

bro, when you carry 512 painites, the same anacondas fly after you

 

[Grasher21]

I agree with this completely. That's why the game has DANGEROUS in it's name. If illegal activities pay way less than normal ones, why do illegal at all?

This too, but my observation was more general.

Legal money should be at least twice as slow to gain as illegal money.

You should have illegal mining spots that are plentiful but dodgy, piracy and smuggling should be a path to huge credits. It has to be high to be a temptation, otherwise whats the point?

What we have today is people following the money, which is mining and now bounty hunting. This is wrong- it should be criminal actions being the driver, not run of the mill legal actions.

 

[The Berta]

Hi all,

I read the first post about balancing with some hope, but now I read only about increasing payouts, nothing about reducing them, "significant increases", "increasing the payouts", "improving the pay".... I don't want to spoil anyone's fun, I am definitely not a fun sponge, but Elite is meant to be hard, it was always hard, has always been hard, until the past few years, when it suddenly became incredibly easy to get mega rich super quick and buy the end-game ship with all mods in no time at all. Fine, there is some grinding, but that is only hard in terms of the time needed, not in terms of the thinking or the skill level.

I'm pretty sure I'll get flamed for posting this but since I won't read the replies due to lack of time it doesn't matter. IMO, balance will only be achieved when payouts for everything are reduced again, or cost of ships and parts are increased. Even that won't be a whole solution, as other parts of ED have already been made too easy with no way back, short of story-related changes. E.g. long-distance travel is now super easy compared to how it used to be; actually a nice way to balance this would be to increase the rate at which modules degrade, especially from supercharging FSDs.

I posted elsewhere about the possibility of finding Raxxla, i.e. Nirvana, in ED. I'm sure it's possible, but for me the possibility is becoming even harder to imagine.

Cheers

I am 100% with you. The increases are ridicoulus. I am playing the game since April a lot and realized all the small and big changes - but the last 2 are insane.
They decrease 5 things and increase 15 (Gold, Platin, Osmium, etc. 10 times) instead and that massiv. I dont know if they increase the speed of getting up the ranks, but i needed about 10.500 priates to get to elite.
The approach of a Space-Commodity-Shooter-Simulation is in my opinion completly gone. Its all about how to get rich in a second. Its all to arcade.
After 7 months of intensive play - with a bit of adiction ;-) - I still love the fights in an asteroid field at the pleiades and carry the harvest in the sluggish type-10 to the carrier.

 

[BL1P]

This too, but my observation was more general.

Legal money should be at least twice as slow to gain as illegal money.

You should have illegal mining spots that are plentiful but dodgy, piracy and smuggling should be a path to huge credits. It has to be high to be a temptation, otherwise whats the point?

What we have today is people following the money, which is mining and now bounty hunting. This is wrong- it should be criminal actions being the driver, not run of the mill legal actions.

I agree as long as there are heavy risks and much stronger punishments, than currently in the game.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I agree as long as there are heavy risks and much stronger punishments, than currently in the game.

Indeed, as it should be- risk v reward. Legal actions are slow but regular, illegal money is fast and easy but bars you from parts of the game, and you have to keep looking over your shoulder.

 

[Hellrider]

Not all people should has fleet carrier.
Just saying. You need 500 days? Good. Do it for 500 days, or find friend to making wing missions/wing mining/wing something.

 

[CMDR BlackFyre]

This too, but my observation was more general.

Legal money should be at least twice as slow to gain as illegal money.

You should have illegal mining spots that are plentiful but dodgy, piracy and smuggling should be a path to huge credits. It has to be high to be a temptation, otherwise whats the point?

What we have today is people following the money, which is mining and now bounty hunting. This is wrong- it should be criminal actions being the driver, not run of the mill legal actions.

I agree Crime in elite has very little temptaion other then boredom and unlocking an engineer.
But i am not so sure about the punishment, i agree it should be harder then being transported to some ship after paying your bounty and instantly being free to go but being banned from a system should be temporal in my opinion

 

[Screemonster]

You should have illegal mining spots that are plentiful but dodgy, piracy and smuggling should be a path to huge credits. It has to be high to be a temptation, otherwise whats the point?

Oh man. Imagine if res sites were something that the local authority / controlling faction had "claimed" or something, and were super lucrative at the cost that if they caught you in there then your entire haul would be marked as "stolen" on top of them, yanno, trying to shoot you for claim-jumping. You know, instead of being just a place to farm pirates.

Of course, the miners in there might have some TASTY CARGO too.

You want safe mining? Legal mining? There's plenty of uninhabited systems.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Oh man. Imagine if res sites were something that the local authority / controlling faction had "claimed" or something, and were super lucrative at the cost that if they caught you in there then your entire haul would be marked as "stolen" on top of them, yanno, trying to shoot you for claim-jumping. You know, instead of being just a place to farm pirates.

Of course, the miners in there might have some TASTY CARGO too.

You want safe mining? Legal mining? There's plenty of uninhabited systems.

This is what I mean, its adding a moral dimension and a place for physical roleplay.

What if you had a mining area that was stuffed to the balls with sparklies, but was a wildlife habitat? It was off limits but if you were quick you can get in and out before the patrols come by (or go stealth)- thats risk- thats danger and skill that needs to be rewarded. Its stacking complications that brings out gameplay and thats where the profit needs to be applied. OK you've just strip mined a space pandas home, but you are RICH!

 

[Screemonster]

This is what I mean, its adding a moral dimension and a place for physical roleplay.

What if you had a mining area that was stuffed to the balls with sparklies, but was a wildlife habitat? It was off limits but if you were quick you can get in and out before the patrols come by (or go stealth)- thats risk- thats danger and skill that needs to be rewarded. Its stacking complications that brings out gameplay and thats where the profit needs to be applied. OK you've just strip mined a space pandas home, but you are RICH!

R O C K
H E R M I T S

 

[Hellrider]

what you are talking about is like a gap between newbies and oldies I do not see anything wrong with not making a difference, now you can easily buy any ship, but you still bump into the mechanics of engineers ... by itself, any ship does not give you anything ... it needs to be engineered and modified ... my miner the ship cost 500 million ..... now it's just a transport ship


bro, when you carry 512 painites, the same anacondas fly after you

So we play in different games, because even with cargo full of diamonds I saw random pirates, sometimes conda, sometimes...vipers XD.
Trade? After some time you have 99,(9)% on deadly conda.