ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing Pt.3

CMDR Yates

C
dj_wylie said:
Oh man, by nerfing the combat rank of scouts, the combat rank grind just got way harder!
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FDev, this is a positive IMO.

Rank should aspire to primarily be a reflection (to others) of a user's depth and breadth of experience and skill in the full gamut of the given gameplay area (combat, in this case), not just a trophy to be raced to for bragging rights.

If there are easy avenues to the latter, they mean people will just grind out those particular high-reward activity to get a shiny badge, not experiencing the full platter of gameplay, leading to much salt about the (self-imposed but can't see it) grind.

Perhaps a moderate diminishing return towards rank if you perform one activity for a very long time (at least in Combat, where there are enough gameplay options) would ensure a healthy breadth of experience at Elite, making the rank a true indication that someone is genuinely proficient in most areas, while discouraging painful repetition.
 

Bruce G

B
Zieman said:
Here's an idea for Odyssey launch: everyone's all Elite ranks are reset.
New levels for attaining Elite are set:
Exploration 10 billion Cr earnings, also exploration missions contribute to this
Trading 100 billion Cr earnings, missions & mining contribute to this
Combat as is
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Bold. I don't see this going down well with players who have spent many hours grinding the ranks. If we were to adjust rank gain, it should affect future commanders only, not diminish people's effort retroactively.
 

Welsh Wizard

Welsh Wizard
Mr Garrido- This post you highlighted is absolutely on the money. Open needs to be rewarded over solo/private. PvP needs attention in exactly the way described- it will solve a lot of problems. I am a ganker and player killer (doubtless you have tools to check my killcount if you need confirmation)- I want meaningful PvP, and incentives to risk my ship vs the best rather than boredom induced sealclubbing.
 

[VR] Orodruin

[VR] Orodruin
My reflection would be that this still does not accurately reflect the relative difficulties and time investments of taking on different types of Thargoid interceptors. While the 4x payout is welcome, a Hydra would pay 60M with these changes whereas a Medusa would pay 40M.

I can relatively easy take out a Medusa solo in under 20 minutes when speed running. Adding some time to hand in the bond and repair, this would end up somewhere around 80M/hour without the need for synthesis. A Hydra on the other hand still takes me around the hour with premium ammunition and one and a half with basic.

At the same time, you can still instagib a Cyclops - now for 8M a pop and that basically does not take much more time than it takes to find one. You can probably do at least 6 per hour without over exerting yourself, landing the payout at 48M/hour - clearly on par or even better than the gruesome task of taking on a Hydra.

Of course this changes a bit with a wing. So my three questions would be:
  • Are these changes final or can we expect revisions in the numbers, particularly the relative payouts between different interceptor types?
  • Would there be any plans or even the technical possibility to split combat bonds in a way similar to how xp for kills are split between commanders.
  • Is there any plans/work towards fixing the instagib exploit or decreasing the Cyclops payout to make it less lucrative?
Edit: The changes to combat experience are also reasonable - although I am still of the mindset that a solo kill of a Hydra should be instant combat elite.
 

T1m0thy001

T
Let me start say thanks to Bruce for listening and replying here.
My 2cents is that with current boost is ax and combat paying more then mining? For me I think that's a no for ax I think that madusa and hydra should pay more especially for solo (wing fights might be ok)
The goal here is to pay more for danger/ risk and if the riskiest stuff ax combat or cz are more risky then combat and paying less then I have to admit that the goal has not been reached and further balancing is needed. Hopefully you don't miss understand me and neft mining to get things in line
 

AlSki

AlSki
Bruce Garrido said:
You are, but because rank gain for Trade is based on credits earned, cashing in mining runs is going to be disproportionate to "standard" trading. I'd consider something like having credits from mined commodities contributing less to rank gain than credits earned by hauling.
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What if you only the rank was only gained for trading was relative to galactic prices?
  • When you are penniless you gain rank for any trade
  • When you are Merchant you only gain rank for trades above the galactic average
  • When you are Tycoon you only gain rank for every trade in the 95th percentile
In this way the rank would actually reflect the efforts involved
 

Grasher21

Grasher21
I was thinking a little about how this would work when it goes live and here is my opinion:
  • Cyclops usually takes around 5-ish minutes for killing one.
  • Time to travel to the NHSS from the FC / Space Station can be 1 - 5 minutes
  • You might have enough ammo (without synthesis) to kill around 3 (?) Cyclops
  • Go back to the FC / Space Station to repair, rearm etc should take 1 - 5 minutes more
  • Repeat

If we add all together in the best case scenario:
  • 1 minute travelling from the FC / Space Station
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel to the next NHSS
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel to the next NHSS
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel back to the FC / Space Station
  • Repeat

Let's say 20 minutes per 24 million Credits
So, in theory 1 Hour should provide 72 million Credits in the really best scenario

Was this the intended Credit per hour ratio?
 

Henan

H
Good news !

But as you are kinda balancing "up" all the payouts, do you plan to increase the price of the ships and the modules ?
I mean, it's the inflation rate. Because by upping all the payouts, new people will still have very quickly the bigger ships.
I'd like how you had to buy the medium ships at the beginning to get your way through the galaxy ! :)
 

szymciu07

S
Bruce Garrido said:
Hopefully! I found this post very interesting: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...nishment-a-proposed-holistic-approach.559839/
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A lot of ideas in this post have a very Elite Dangerous feel to it. If you implemented all of that as they are, the game would benefit incredibly. The PvP system is desperately needed and sealclubbing is something you HAVE to take care of if you want to keep the new players in game. Especially now that there's been an influx of new players from Epic and another to come with Odyssey.
 

Northpin

Northpin
Grasher21 said:
I was thinking a little about how this would work when it goes live and here is my opinion:
  • Cyclops usually takes around 5-ish minutes for killing one.
  • Time to travel to the NHSS from the FC / Space Station can be 1 - 5 minutes
  • You might have enough ammo (without synthesis) to kill around 3 (?) Cyclops
  • Go back to the FC / Space Station to repair, rearm etc should take 1 - 5 minutes more
  • Repeat

If we add all together in the best case scenario:
  • 1 minute travelling from the FC / Space Station
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel to the next NHSS
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel to the next NHSS
  • 5 minutes to kill the Cyclops (8 million)
  • 1 minute to travel back to the FC / Space Station
  • Repeat

Let's say 20 minutes per 24 million Credits
So, in theory 1 Hour should provide 72 million Credits in the really best scenario

Was this the intended Credit per hour ratio?
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it is more than enough i'd say
and if you optimize things a bit, specifically for Cyclops kills, you can do it in less than 2 minutes, adding more of those 8 millions to the hour.
 

CMDR Spacehunter72

CMDR Spacehunter72
Phoenix_Dfire said:
Whew!

Glad I got my 1600 scouts to get from Deadly to Elite out of the way first.

To be honest though, it's a good thing. Although taking out scouts is fun but, like anything in Elite, you do too much of it and the grind will get to you.
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I was killing scouts yesterday in an engineered Chief with turreted ax MC's and got from novice to competent in an hour or two.. and I'm RUBBISH at combat so yeah, this nerf seems sensible. I'm gonna need a bigger boat!!
 

Grasher21

Grasher21
Henan said:
Good news !

But as you are kinda balancing "up" all the payouts, do you plan to increase the price of the ships and the modules ?
I mean, it's the inflation rate. Because by upping all the payouts, new people will still have very quickly the bigger ships.
I'd like how you had to buy the medium ships at the beginning to get your way through the galaxy ! :)
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You're missing the whole point... these activities are being better paid because mining would give you the best ships in 1 day of playing. Combat wouldn't ... or it would consume WAY more hours of game play. How can you even say such thing I wonder.
 

szymciu07

S
Bruce Garrido said:
I agree with all of these points. On the Combat rank issue, people refer to it as a grind because they make it their mission to get it as soon as possible rather than passively through general play (which may be how it was designed, hence the high requirement). So the question is which method we should balance it around.

CQC Elite is unrealistic as it stands and the whole content probably needs a total revamp before the ranks are considered.
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CQC achievements on PlayStation are the only thing between me and Platinum, think about it when revamping the CQC :D
 
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