ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing

[The Golden Knight]

What is happening regarding the combat balancing? Has it already happened yet or still to come?

Still on the horizon, as far as I'm aware. Don't have a specific date or time for when it'll actually arrive.

But you're also right: the developers need to be thick-skinned, at all the mean words slung around. No profanity filter in the world can help. I mean it's not the NASTIEST thing I've ever seen, but still...that's gotta hurt someone in there.

 

[Random Player]

The Robigo passenger missions is another one aspect of this game that I have mentioned earlier that is long overdue for nerfing. The pay out should be at least halved for these risk-free short missions.

Robigo is here because it serves a need. A way for players, any players, to make some cash, and in Robigo's case, G5 MATS. It's a good thing. It's like Dav's Hope, or "The Crashed Anaconda", or any of the farming sites. Anyway, whatever... the game is what it is, and the way it is. I still love it, very addicting game! Not sure I would dig into it if I were just starting out, I would probably not waste the time, but since I have already... they haven't forced me out yet!

 

[Maymo]

I've been following and a bit participating in the debate. There is one thing I fail to understand. When I got wind of ED I read you can pick any role you want: the bane of the galaxy notorious pirate, the hero of the Empire, make Columbus feel like a toddler with toy boats. So I want to be a disgusting filthy rich Scrooge. Why is that bad for the game? I'm not bothering anyone with that, am I? Having sick loads of credits is not very useful anyway: there are not so much things to buy with them. Is the "hatred" because of rushing the ship tiers? Again: so what? I'm fairly new (started in june) and I already have 12.5B I'm pretty sure I can by now buy all the ships with all the state of the art hardware on them. And yet again: so what? Who am I bothering with that? Or why is that a bad thing for the game? With my experience in ED I'm finding it often hard to see the difference between making things a bit tough and plain trolling players. And the nerfing of the mining is such an issue for me. Could someone help me see the point?

Nobody cares what you’re doing. It’s not a personal attack.

The options available to you in the game are available to all of us. A significant number of people feel that mining has got well out of hand (understatement of the year).

Yes, ED is meant to be about ‘blazing your own trail’ but unfortunately its become more like ‘blaze the only logical trail’ and go mine painite.

Also, understand that mining is just the tip of the iceberg here, many other activities need a significant buff to become rewarding and enjoyable again. I scream buff just as loudly as I scream nerf...

 

[Ferry_25]

I have always dreamed of a game where you are rewarded with a really stunning treasure after an extremely hard fight. And not just money/gold/credits, but stuff that is really useful for your further progress in the game. I have finally found it: A single player game, the PC conversion of an old hardcore Pen & Paper RPG (who would have thought it ). And now think for yourself why something like that is hardly possible in a sandbox MMO, or MMOs in general. The answer to it could possibly also be the answer to your question and also why ED is the polar opposite of such a game...

Good point. You're saying exactly what I mean: in this game or any other "like minded" play the role you want. Though I don't like the combat in ED I do agree the rewards for it are in dire need of a buff. But I don't get the argument "mining is too profitable and that's bad for the game."

 

[Zieman]

But I don't get the argument "mining is too profitable and that's bad for the game."

You must be new with the game then.
Ships & parts costs are in line with E: D 1.0 earnings, when credits had some meaning and took some effort to amass.
FDEV even came down on exploits and took ill-gained credits away on occasion.

Somehow the earning potential of a couple of activities creeped upwards, and eventually some others got buffs in patches.
Last year the situation was bad enough, but it seemed to be controllable, only a couple of exploits (like Robigo runs) gave ludicrous money, but you still needed only a few hours to get enough Cr to buy & equip the 'next ship'.

Come on Fleet Carriers and endless whining that "everyone" "must" get one immediately.
That's whe it all went full poopoo, and obnoxious exploit levels suddenly became the 'norm' folk became to expect and even to demand.

Now that FDEV, all too late, tries to bring some sort of semblance of balance back, the cattle react with autistic "!! NERF!! BOOHOO!!" without even trying to look around and appreciate other possibilities that may have suddenly become 'viable*'.

*they were always there, but the sheep just wants to exploit and get everything NOW

 

[Ian Doncaster]

But I don't get the argument "mining is too profitable and that's bad for the game."

I don't think Frontier thinks that, either - from what I'm hearing from serious miners (i.e. the ones who like mining, not the ones who do it while hating it because they can't bear the thought that they might only be doing the second most profitable activity) the overall profit from skilled mining hasn't really changed with this update and is still very high - it's just that what you mine, how you mine it, how you go about selling it is slightly different now.

What Frontier does seem to think is that mining being much more profitable than anything else is a problem - perhaps because it gets "must make all the money now" players stuck doing one thing which they might not even particularly enjoy, because they read somewhere that it was the best - so this update massively increased payouts for bulk trade and missions to get them into (and sometimes above) the mining profit region. Combat is next on their list for the same sort of treatment.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I'm not much of a trader or miner (I'm more the stabby boom boom type) but could you balance mining output via local market saturation and eventual market price crashes? I know you have bulk sales tax, but could you attenuate mining income by making dumping in the same spot generate a BGS 'crash' effect- so, you can still make bazillions of credits but you have to work to find better places to sell? You could link it to population size, so you can't unload huge amounts on small markets and make selling a bit more realistic (and less push button wealthy).

 

[Florenus]

I guess my final question, before I go back into ED and shot something, is... why does anyone care? What were wrong with "prices" in the first place? Who's complaining? I know who is complaining ... the guy that already used ALL the exploits himself, got rich, has every ship and ENG, $50B in the bank, and now thinks that HE should be the one to say that "THIS IS PAYING TOO MUCH! GOOD THING FDEV NERFED THAT!" Pff!

I started alt account recently and I'm complaining. Game throws too much money at you too fast.
I'm enjoying this new account exactly because I have reasons to earn credits, plan my actions, plan my expenses. It could be more demanding, but it's still better than what's coming next. Most of that gameplay and excitement is loooong gone on my main account. Game is still fun, but I miss that part where earning credits made sense.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I started alt account recently and I'm complaining. Game throws too much money at you too fast.
I'm enjoying this new account exactly because I have reasons to earn credits, plan my actions, plan my expenses. It could be more demanding, but it's still better than what's coming next. Most of that gameplay and excitement is loooong gone on my main account. Game is still fun, but I miss that part where earning credits made sense.

The sad part is the early game is the best really, because you have constraints and you make mistakes.

 

[F4fred]

I would be fine if they just sold credits. Just sell them as they sell ship kits. Who cares. $1B for $25 real US bucks! I am fine with that. I think, nearly, everyone could afford what they thought they needed to get and what they want. The REAL game here should be the BGS and MMO, not how to buy your first Anaconda, and trust me, you'd be happier with the Krait MKII anyway. Let people get into the real deal of the game, the simulation, the Wings, the exploration and the engineering. Who cares about the paltry pick of ships and modules in this game, that should be the least of the concerns. Give everyone the keys to the Ferrari and let's see what they can do with it!

$25 for a billion credits? Where have you been for the last 5 years?! Any significant amount of resources would likely set you back $99.99 and the game set up so you use them up very quickly and need to buy more. It wouldn’t just be credits either. Engineering materials, special modules or weapons, access to unique ships or NPC crew. As you can tell not a big fan of the micro purchase funding method. First because it leads to a pay to win environment and secondly while all these games are technically free to play any progress you can make is with the sort of grind that would make anything you find in ED trivial in comparison. I would prefer a subscription model. That gives the devs the incentive to keep all the players happy, not just the big spenders. Not that ED will ever change of course.

 

[Florenus]

The sad part is the early game is the best really, because you have constraints and you make mistakes.

Sometimes I hope this game will just die and Frontier releases offline early version, or version that we might be able to mod...

Well... ok, I don't really wish it dead, but it saddens me that it strayed from that design.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'm not much of a trader or miner (I'm more the stabby boom boom type) but could you balance mining output via local market saturation and eventual market price crashes? I know you have bulk sales tax, but could you attenuate mining income by making dumping in the same spot generate a BGS 'crash' effect- so, you can still make bazillions of credits but you have to work to find better places to sell? You could link it to population size, so you can't unload huge amounts on small markets and make selling a bit more realistic (and less push button wealthy).

This is basically how it already works (now they've fixed the bug) - https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/7/trade/252?minrange=3306-11-25&maxrange=3306-11-30 for example

Across the galaxy as a whole demand seems relatively stable (so far, it's only been a week, of course) ... but any individual station can be saturated very quickly, especially the low-population ones.

 

[CMDR RuIncognito]

Hello Do you know why this is not balancing but a dumb nerf? easy answer:

Greetings Commanders!
The following changes will be implemented early next week as a starting point:
These approximate maximum prices offered by markets for the following commodities will be introduced:

• Painite - 600,000
• Low Temperature Diamonds - 700,000
• Void Opals - 1,300,000

These are the declared values that are 30% less than those that were
now check prices :
Painite = 200,000
Void Opals = 500,000
LTD = 350,000
it's not like a balance
it's worse than what the state is doing in my country
Dear fdev, do not kill the game ahead of time ... with such an attitude towards the players you only repel this game

 

[RoDRiX]

Hello Do you know why this is not balancing but a dumb nerf? easy answer:
These are the declared values that are 30% less than those that were
now check prices :
Painite = 200,000
Void Opals = 500,000
LTD = 350,000
it's not like a balance
it's worse than what the state is doing in my country
Dear fdev, do not kill the game ahead of time ... with such an attitude towards the players you only repel this game

I say this before:

As I imagined, the nerf in mineral prices, in practice, was going to be higher than advertised. Today just by taking a look at the price list in Inara, we can see that:

• The Painite has dropped to a price of around 240,000 - 250,000 Cr.
• The LTDs are down to about 470,000 - 480,000.
• The void opals are also below 600,000, although the maximum price is at 800,000.

As you can see, they are prices that are very far from what was promised in this thread.

When I started playing, no one mined because it was neither fun nor profitable. Then new mining was introduced which made it both fun and profitable. Now we have returned to the beginning again. Not many people will continue to mine now.

Why has the nerf been so huge with mining? They could have lowered prices just a bit and given a nice boost to income from trade, combat, and exploration.

If mining prices were, on a scale of 0 to 10, at number 10, exploration at number 2, combat at number 3, and trade at number 4, they could have equaled them all at number 7. But they are going to do it in number 4.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

My question will be this : Do you have ANY plan increasing numbers for commodities in station because atm they are set for max 10 or 20 players at the same time. We'r 13000 just on steam. please fdev , you wanted to balance thing , but please take the number of player in consideration. Atm it is not fun , unless you have 24/7 eyes on the market.

Steam Numbers Do Not Count!

 

[Old Duck]

71 pages later - what's the verdict?

 

[livijambo]

After the draconian nerf to mining what has happened to the balance ? seems the scales have went heavy in one direction with zero work being done else where .....
you take away and give nothing back doesn't seem like a fair balance for your customers ...

 

[Robert Maynard]

The Game Balancing Pt.2 thread has just been posted: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/game-balancing-pt-2.559734/

 

[orange_apecs]

After the draconian nerf to mining what has happened to the balance ? seems the scales have went heavy in one direction with zero work being done else where .....
you take away and give nothing back doent seem like a fair balance for your customers ...

Oh there has been balancing. People just too lazy to look for it.

 

[The Golden Knight]

Sheeple scream "!!! NERF!!".
Anyone who can pause for a second and think, will notice that there are lots of ways to earn ludicrous amounts of Cr quickly, instead of the one and only way which has been brought in line with the others.
And some os us oldtimers still think the earnings are 10x too high.

And once you get to that point where credits DON'T matter, the sandbox truly opens up and you can then focus on what you WANT to do, instead of what you NEED to do to cover the bills. As for those who WANT to buy carriers AND maintain their upkeep...well, you brought that onto yourselves.

The Game Balancing Pt.2 thread has just been posted: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/game-balancing-pt-2.559734/

Thanks. I'll be diverting my attention there and ignoring this GOD-AWFUL whining about mining.