ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing
And? Do we need to adjust the game balance every time someone is wrong online? Do you think they'll somehow complain less when they lose their first anaconda if it took them months to earn instead of weeks?
It only breaks the "game" because at its core the game is nothing but a giant treadmill you run on to earn stuff. Changing the speed of the treadmill will never change the fact that once you've earned all the stuff there's nothing to do but keep running.
You're literally describing the same problem with the game that I am - the game must always strive to keep player progression as slow as possible because people leave once they realise there's not much of a game at all beyond grinding for stuff. The only difference is you see it as fundamentally unchangeable for some reason.
You're missing the point, obviously the game world doesn't exist when players aren't around, the point is that it doesn't even try to pretend that isn't the case. The world of Elite: Dangerous has zero internal consistency because it's all built around "keeping pilot's federation pilots away from being rich for as long as possible". It's the Truman Show in space. Everything is implemented with the barest minimum of effort and it's a large part of what makes the game get boring quickly. As an example of what I'm talking about, the first time you're hauling cargo and an NPC turns up saying "there's the ship with the big haul I heard about", you might think "oh wow, word got out about what I'm doing and pirates tracked me down, maybe next time I can be sneakier and avoid detection" but by the tenth time that happens you've worked out that it's literally just a trigger that goes "IF cargo THEN pirate" and it doesn't matter who you are or what you're hauling. The whole game is like this and it doesn't need to be.
Have you genuinely never stopped to consider that maybe the game being boring once you take away the gear treadmill is the problem that should be addressed?
Well, you can see how cheerful an experience trying to play ED is.
Can you show me in the codex where you get meta alloys?
I tried my best to stick to the 35k transport missions, 800k disable facility missions. On the way to unlock the Gauss cannons I managed to scan a few water worlds, terra-formable worlds etc. similar to road to riches. a bit of trade, bit of CG a tad of cz a bit of mining but not too much and also haz res, also some thargoid scouts for Elite rank I'm still not there in combat or exploration. A bit of Ceos but again a small bit, not hours of endless carting whinging muppets around.
I am not doing 12 weeks of gameplay in a post. but you get the point.
Right, especially when everyone tells you it's the activitiy you need to do to make money, misleading as it is.
But have you found any other ways? I have experimented and I didn't find any.
Take Massacre Missions with you into combat zones and you'll make money pretty fast (as long as you don't die).
Just do Robigo PAX runs... decent Python can do 25m in 12 mins if your reputation is good.
OK, that is fine, but there must be something that influenced your opinion?? I may be missing something here but I do not see any reason why. Your opinion is your opinion but every opinion have some background...
No, I don't get the point. I don't know what you mean by 35k transport missions and 800k disable facility missions. If you're being payed 800k for a mission, you'll have to do 7000 of them, ignoring expenses, to get 5.6 billion. How long do these missions take?
Surface scans can yeild some money, usually not much. Combat in in res doesn't give much money, either. And combat is not affordable at all unless you have made more progress with engineering than I have. I don't know about Thargoids, they seem to be too far away to go there, even if there are any where they might be, and I guess I'll never get the weapons with which to shoot them because you need to unlock them which is apparently a horrible grind because you need so many of these stupid obelisk emissions.
So no, after a year of playing and quitting and playing and quitting and playing and quitting, even with a focus on mining to make money, I'm nowhere even near the kind of money you have made. I'm actually running out of money because equipping and running the few ships I have decided to keep is expensive and I'm not making any money.
I'm talking about information in the game. I've said more about that in some other posts.
Wow. Some of the price changes have appeared on my carrier, but most have not. I will be adjusting my market a lot over the next few days...
From this thread, I can tell something is wrong with the internet...
Realizing this is a bit of a long shot, but here are a few of my initial thoughts to resolve a number of issues, not just pay (but very much attached to it).
TL;DR: Change the way rank is obtained, make payout and rank increases mostly tied to missions as opposed to raw value and reward the player based on their time invested as opposed to the value of the thing they were doing.
Ranks and Rank Points:
Ranks would be changed to no longer be based on funds earned (for trade) or only ships destroyed (rank vs. rank), and would be heavily influenced by mission completions.
Ex: Harmless -> Mostly Harmless would be 50 rank points. Completing a Harmless mission would provide money from the faction, faction reputation increases, and now rank increase of (maybe 10 points). Mostly Harmless mission would give 15 Rank points, etc. Deadly->Elite would maybe take several thousand rank points, but Elite missions would give a hundred or so, etc. There would be a monetary conversion of rank to pay in the event the player can no longer obtain any additional rank. Ex: 50 rank points would be worth 5M or something like that.
Optionally, but recommended: Make this change retroactive, so (for example) those who effectively exploited via Fleet Carrier trading and are currently Elite in trade with zero work would be knocked back down to their ACTUAL rank based on the new system. Unlocked permits would probably have to persist though, due to current player locations, but if possible to kick them (and all stored ships/modules) out of the system to a nearby station then probably better also.
Missions and Pay:
Missions would be locked based on player rank, but are now the most effective way of increasing rank. Mostly Harmless pilot could not take on an Elite mission (but maybe allow +1-2 ranks above). Payouts should be a combination of their current payout + Rank increase. Rank increase would be a set amount based on the mission's rank for that category. Mission pay would be effectively flat based on the mission rank, but in general would be increased by a lot more than what missions pay now. As stated above, if the player is already Elite and doing an Elite mission, they'd get the maximum payout. The goal is to reward the player for time spend, as opposed to what they were actually doing.
Combat Ranking and Pay:
Get rid of the Rank vs. Rank increase system (and tone it down, jeez - it's a slog right now).
Rank increases from destroying enemy vessels would be subject to the target's rank, and would have nothing to do with the winning pilot's rank, subject to diminishing returns against the same player (for PvP anti-exploit purposes, reset over time).
Bounty Hunting Pay would involve a scaling based on Base Amount * Rank Modifier.
Ex: Your base bounty hunting value from a trip to a belt was 2M Credits. If you are Mostly Harmless, you're going to get maybe 2M from that. If you are Elite you're going to get 50M+. Thus being rewarded for spending the time to rank up, and also balancing new player payout so they don't qualify for Elite-like payouts.
As a new player, you still get rewarded for destroying Elite-class vessels by the faster increase in rank, and of course Elite class vessels would naturally have a higher base pay as well.
That said, mission stacking 5 missions for "Destroy 10 ships" should go into an accumulated destroyed count.
Ex: Player picks up 5 missions to destroy 10 ships each. They now have a destroyed ship count of 0/50. If they destroy 10/50, they can fly back to the station and turn in one of the missions, and now have 0/40... etc
Again, the best way to get rank would be missions, however.
Naturally, Xeno missions and NPCs should have the highest value for payout. I can't imagine obtaining 2M (base) + Large Rank increase for a Cyclops kill as being out of the realm of possibility, and of course when a player hits Elite, that Rank increase would instead translate to additional bounty pay (10M+).
Trade Ranking and Pay:
No longer based on credits earned. Ranking would be based on mainly mission rewards, and items handled.
Ex: Mining Painite would give the same per-item rank increase as mining Oxygen.
As for monetary compensation, the mission payout should scale based on the item mined and the rank, where the rank would determine the number of items required for the fulfillment.
Profits from items sold without missions would work the way they do now (of course with adjusted values, and heavily reduced values for the bigger items), but doing a mission would work similarly toward greatly increased pay involved by the faction, and rank increase.
Mission pay should be increased by quite a bit (no more of these "Deliver 5000 <item> for 3M credits). This would keep people who just want to casually mine and sell happy, but with reduced rates. However if they obtain a mission to mine 500 <item>, the mission pay itself should compensate for the time it takes to mine that item. So those who want to basically make money doing missions would feel justified in mining 500 <item> as opposed to simply dropping into a belt and mining the hottest thing. Base value of mined materials in general would be severely reduced, and instead the player would want to fulfill a mining mission for maximum payout. That said, the mining and trading missions should be generated more plentifully based on market demand, so someone who has spent 2 hours mining blindly would still be able to turn in all the stuff they have because there are enough missions to compensate for the demand. If the player sells the items without obtaining a mission, their payout is drastically reduced in comparison. This scales the payout for the demand being more focused on the mission payout as opposed to the raw item dump. And of course, fulfilling these missions would update the demand, however if the player picks up a mission before demand is 0, and demand drops to 0, they still get paid the appropriate value based on the demand at the time of mission acceptance.
Ranking would still affect what missions the player can obtain, and the higher ranked missions would of course pay the most and require the most materials to fulfill.
Ex: A Penniless player would only be able to obtain missions with a certain cap in payout due to their rank, but if they spent a bunch of time mining and wanted to just straight sell the materials they could - but the materials themselves wouldn't be worth it to them as much as if they fulfilled a mission.
Exploration Ranking and Pay:
No longer based on credits earned. Ranking would be based mainly on mission rewards as well as the count, depth, and distance from the system entry point of planetary bodies scanned. New surveillance and exploration missions would be introduced for scanning systems (Ex: Obtain 5 complete system scans in <certain sector or location>). Possibly even introduce hostile missions where the player is required to survey a hostile system, thus increasing the chance for getting attacked. Payout for exploration missions would be very good. As for explorers who just want to fly out and explore (and basically never come back), their rank increase could still be obtained by the count and depth of the scans they do. When they get back to a station, they'd be able to sell their data as they have now, or see if there are any missions to fulfill first for the maximum payout. Let certain factions be interested in different types of systems (enemy, nearby, long range / across the galaxy) based on their state for the purposes of mission generation. A Mostly Aimless pilot would have access to smaller requirements for their missions (fully system scan 1 system within 5 LY), and an Elite pilot would have access to larger or more complex missions (Scan 20 systems nearby, Fully Detail Scan 10 systems 1k LY away, etc). Of course, this would go with the same kind of count scaling as combat (picking up 5 of the same mission type to scan 10 systems would mean the player would start at 0/50 systems scanned, and every 10 systems they'd be able to turn one in if they wanted). For a new player, that means they would have to hunt for more missions of smaller types. Just make these missions more plentiful. Mission payout needs to be reasonable though. Get rid of the 50M mission cap, especially for the missions that take literal weeks to complete. If I'm going to spend 6 days flying across the galaxy non-stop for someone, it better be worth it. Also, if I spend the time to fly out and do a full detailed surface scan on a planetary body 2M Ls out, rank and pay should increase for that as well. ALSO, for individual planet scans, let us know at the time of the scan what the base value is worth (similar to as if you had just destroyed a ship and seen what kind of base bounty it was worth).
Naturally, all subject to adjustment. But I think utilizing the mission system for primary rank increase and pay would do a lot toward balancing everything out.
TL;DR: Change the way rank is obtained, make payout and rank increases mostly tied to missions as opposed to raw value and reward the player based on their time invested as opposed to the value of the thing they were doing.
Ranks and Rank Points:
Ranks would be changed to no longer be based on funds earned (for trade) or only ships destroyed (rank vs. rank), and would be heavily influenced by mission completions.
Ex: Harmless -> Mostly Harmless would be 50 rank points. Completing a Harmless mission would provide money from the faction, faction reputation increases, and now rank increase of (maybe 10 points). Mostly Harmless mission would give 15 Rank points, etc. Deadly->Elite would maybe take several thousand rank points, but Elite missions would give a hundred or so, etc. There would be a monetary conversion of rank to pay in the event the player can no longer obtain any additional rank. Ex: 50 rank points would be worth 5M or something like that.
Optionally, but recommended: Make this change retroactive, so (for example) those who effectively exploited via Fleet Carrier trading and are currently Elite in trade with zero work would be knocked back down to their ACTUAL rank based on the new system. Unlocked permits would probably have to persist though, due to current player locations, but if possible to kick them (and all stored ships/modules) out of the system to a nearby station then probably better also.
Missions and Pay:
Missions would be locked based on player rank, but are now the most effective way of increasing rank. Mostly Harmless pilot could not take on an Elite mission (but maybe allow +1-2 ranks above). Payouts should be a combination of their current payout + Rank increase. Rank increase would be a set amount based on the mission's rank for that category. Mission pay would be effectively flat based on the mission rank, but in general would be increased by a lot more than what missions pay now. As stated above, if the player is already Elite and doing an Elite mission, they'd get the maximum payout. The goal is to reward the player for time spend, as opposed to what they were actually doing.
Combat Ranking and Pay:
Get rid of the Rank vs. Rank increase system (and tone it down, jeez - it's a slog right now).
Rank increases from destroying enemy vessels would be subject to the target's rank, and would have nothing to do with the winning pilot's rank, subject to diminishing returns against the same player (for PvP anti-exploit purposes, reset over time).
Bounty Hunting Pay would involve a scaling based on Base Amount * Rank Modifier.
Ex: Your base bounty hunting value from a trip to a belt was 2M Credits. If you are Mostly Harmless, you're going to get maybe 2M from that. If you are Elite you're going to get 50M+. Thus being rewarded for spending the time to rank up, and also balancing new player payout so they don't qualify for Elite-like payouts.
As a new player, you still get rewarded for destroying Elite-class vessels by the faster increase in rank, and of course Elite class vessels would naturally have a higher base pay as well.
That said, mission stacking 5 missions for "Destroy 10 ships" should go into an accumulated destroyed count.
Ex: Player picks up 5 missions to destroy 10 ships each. They now have a destroyed ship count of 0/50. If they destroy 10/50, they can fly back to the station and turn in one of the missions, and now have 0/40... etc
Again, the best way to get rank would be missions, however.
Naturally, Xeno missions and NPCs should have the highest value for payout. I can't imagine obtaining 2M (base) + Large Rank increase for a Cyclops kill as being out of the realm of possibility, and of course when a player hits Elite, that Rank increase would instead translate to additional bounty pay (10M+).
Trade Ranking and Pay:
No longer based on credits earned. Ranking would be based on mainly mission rewards, and items handled.
Ex: Mining Painite would give the same per-item rank increase as mining Oxygen.
As for monetary compensation, the mission payout should scale based on the item mined and the rank, where the rank would determine the number of items required for the fulfillment.
Profits from items sold without missions would work the way they do now (of course with adjusted values, and heavily reduced values for the bigger items), but doing a mission would work similarly toward greatly increased pay involved by the faction, and rank increase.
Mission pay should be increased by quite a bit (no more of these "Deliver 5000 <item> for 3M credits). This would keep people who just want to casually mine and sell happy, but with reduced rates. However if they obtain a mission to mine 500 <item>, the mission pay itself should compensate for the time it takes to mine that item. So those who want to basically make money doing missions would feel justified in mining 500 <item> as opposed to simply dropping into a belt and mining the hottest thing. Base value of mined materials in general would be severely reduced, and instead the player would want to fulfill a mining mission for maximum payout. That said, the mining and trading missions should be generated more plentifully based on market demand, so someone who has spent 2 hours mining blindly would still be able to turn in all the stuff they have because there are enough missions to compensate for the demand. If the player sells the items without obtaining a mission, their payout is drastically reduced in comparison. This scales the payout for the demand being more focused on the mission payout as opposed to the raw item dump. And of course, fulfilling these missions would update the demand, however if the player picks up a mission before demand is 0, and demand drops to 0, they still get paid the appropriate value based on the demand at the time of mission acceptance.
Ranking would still affect what missions the player can obtain, and the higher ranked missions would of course pay the most and require the most materials to fulfill.
Ex: A Penniless player would only be able to obtain missions with a certain cap in payout due to their rank, but if they spent a bunch of time mining and wanted to just straight sell the materials they could - but the materials themselves wouldn't be worth it to them as much as if they fulfilled a mission.
Exploration Ranking and Pay:
No longer based on credits earned. Ranking would be based mainly on mission rewards as well as the count, depth, and distance from the system entry point of planetary bodies scanned. New surveillance and exploration missions would be introduced for scanning systems (Ex: Obtain 5 complete system scans in <certain sector or location>). Possibly even introduce hostile missions where the player is required to survey a hostile system, thus increasing the chance for getting attacked. Payout for exploration missions would be very good. As for explorers who just want to fly out and explore (and basically never come back), their rank increase could still be obtained by the count and depth of the scans they do. When they get back to a station, they'd be able to sell their data as they have now, or see if there are any missions to fulfill first for the maximum payout. Let certain factions be interested in different types of systems (enemy, nearby, long range / across the galaxy) based on their state for the purposes of mission generation. A Mostly Aimless pilot would have access to smaller requirements for their missions (fully system scan 1 system within 5 LY), and an Elite pilot would have access to larger or more complex missions (Scan 20 systems nearby, Fully Detail Scan 10 systems 1k LY away, etc). Of course, this would go with the same kind of count scaling as combat (picking up 5 of the same mission type to scan 10 systems would mean the player would start at 0/50 systems scanned, and every 10 systems they'd be able to turn one in if they wanted). For a new player, that means they would have to hunt for more missions of smaller types. Just make these missions more plentiful. Mission payout needs to be reasonable though. Get rid of the 50M mission cap, especially for the missions that take literal weeks to complete. If I'm going to spend 6 days flying across the galaxy non-stop for someone, it better be worth it. Also, if I spend the time to fly out and do a full detailed surface scan on a planetary body 2M Ls out, rank and pay should increase for that as well. ALSO, for individual planet scans, let us know at the time of the scan what the base value is worth (similar to as if you had just destroyed a ship and seen what kind of base bounty it was worth).
Naturally, all subject to adjustment. But I think utilizing the mission system for primary rank increase and pay would do a lot toward balancing everything out.
I tried that with my Beluga and I ended up in detention. Now I can't be bothered anymore to go over 300LY from my home base to Robigo to do some grinding and back because each trip still takes 2 jumps even with a Guardian FSD. It doesn't pay well enough, and I don't play grinding games. I'm not doing some stuid repetitive task over and over again. I program computers to do such tasks for me, and I think it's not something that humans should do (though I know that some people seem to like it).
Why can't I program my Beluga to do it for me?
I became Elite about 30 years ago. It doesn't matter to me what ED dangerous thinks my rank is.
I flew an airplane by myself more than sixty years ago, and I still suck...