ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing

[szymciu07]

Shame trading only got a cursory mention at the start then totally forgotten about in the how changes are to be made. Not all of us want to go in guns or mining lasers blazing.

Those two are the most over paid and most underpaid two. Rebalance of the rest will come later on I'm sure.

 

[fus roh potato]

I think mining sorely needs its nerf, but I also think there are ways Frontier could mitigate the salt of it by addressing some QOL along the way. Just some ideas:

1. Perhaps, limpets that no longer physically collide with anything, they just phase through or bounce off. Would help address what appears to be an unfixable fragment-inside-of-rock bug. Would be less realistic to see a limpet fly through a rock, but I could live with that much better compared to the other issues. Could also bring the non existent planetary surface scavenging mechanic into play.
2. A better functioning Pulse Wave Analyzer that reveals cores through different colors or perhaps mineral types more clearly. This item needs bug fixing anyways.
3. Merging the function of the abrasion blaster into standard mining lasers (requires less complexity), and then re-purposing the abrasion blaster into a combat weapon.

 

[szymciu07]

I think mining sorely needs its nerf, but I also think there are ways Frontier could mitigate the salt of it by addressing some QOL along the way. Just some ideas:

1. Perhaps, limpets that no longer physically collide with anything, they just phase through or bounce off.
2. A better functioning Pulse Wave Analyzer that reveals cores through different colors or perhaps mineral types more clearly.
3. Merging the function of the abrasion blaster into standard mining lasers (requires less complexity), and then re-purposing the abrasion blaster into a combat weapon.

This! Limpets are dumb like leafs on the wind. Also more visually comprehensive pulse wave would be nice.

 

[Kyokushin]

Great, i have an idea for the good start!

1. Remove private/solo modes or give them different commander slot, not linked to open, and split galaxy.

And now you have game balanded. Hope i helped. Click upvote.

 

[Speedcuffs]

Great, i have an idea for the good start!

1. Remove private/solo modes or give them different commander slot, not linked to solo and split galaxy.

And now you have game balanded. Hope i helped. Click upvote.

Sorry, clicked ignore by accident!

 

[Kyokushin]

Sorry, clicked ignore by accident!

No worries, fly safe. o7.

 

[Justinian Octavius]

Nice! Will you be updating Powerplay rank bonuses and weekly rewards too? They have never been adjusted from 2015 levels.

I was going to go on a long rant about the hyperinflation this game suffers from (in many ways) and put it into the context of PowerPlay, but I'll settle for saying that when PowerPlay started, it would take you about 5 hours of game play to earn the 50 million credit reward at tier 5, and this was massively popular because it was the fastest way of doing so.

Now, if it can't hit around 100 million/hour, most reddit posts will be down voted. That's a 1,000% increase in income in about five and a half years or 52% a year. If you think graphics cards are expensive now ($500 for an RTX 3700), just know that at a similar inflation it'd be $760 12 months from now.

A big problem is that if your Power is attacked by both the enemy Powers & 5C, which in Torval's case is every cycle, you end up with Commanders regularly having to haul above the 5,333-ish number of Power Commodities that are covered by the Rating 5 50,000,000 salary bonus which results in people being penalised for playing Powerplay. Really players should always be rewarded for helping their Power in some form.

CMDR Justinian Octavius

 

[VirtueXOI]

Please dont forget that AX , combat and nearly all activities have some other point (rep /mission / adrenaline/achievement/curiosity ect), mining dont .
I understand the nerf , but please dont up others activities so much that it match mining / free-trading.
With current nerf number and actual bug/mining mech , if you buff other to the point it reach mining , mining will be nearly forgotten like early in the game.
I agree it should not be the top earning way by 150% more than the 2nd (hello passenger) but combat and every other stuffs should not be to the top (imo).
As current exploration rewards , that seems totaly fine. (and really low compared to mining) , because motivation is elsewhere.

Also dont forget that combat can be easely abused via mission pannel ( i'v seen some method giving you alot while in a wing with right condition).

More minning mission could also be looked at (bring XT of this + X t of this ect ect) including rare mining goods.

Lastly and i'm sure it have been raised before here , but please for the love of god , FIX mining. Fix the % for LTD , make the hotspot "hot" and FIX THAT PWA please.

Appart for that , than for listening to the community , and thank for making the effort of a re-balancing now.

o7

 

[yianniv]

Mining absolutely IS an issue. I want to mine, but I don't want to do it feeling like I'm ruining the game's progression for myself by making enough to buy a fleet of anacondas in a matter of days. And no, venting into space all my billions in profit is not an option.

You could control your progression by mining bromellite or not so expensive minerals.

 

[F4fred]

Does that mean you're also happy with the incorrect 25% penalty attached to selling stolen goods.

I have started to outline higher risk stakes in my thread, and many other people have done over the years. They would need to be done together ideally, but even if initially you remove the 25% penalty then it will be a start.

Again, while I'm happy that Frontier are looking at balancing things, balancing the same things that have already been balanced many times over the previous few years. Means that the ones that have been left, are still being ignored. Despite the fact that many of them (Smuggling, PP, CQC) are main components of the game.

Do you mean incorrect penalty to illegal goods? Stolen goods should fetch less.

 

[Darth Ender]

A big problem is that if your Power is attacked by both the enemy Powers & 5C, which in Torval's case is every cycle, you end up with Commanders regularly having to haul above the 5,333-ish number of Power Commodities that are covered by the Rating 5 50,000,000 salary bonus which results in people being penalised for playing Powerplay. Really players should always be rewarded for helping their Power in some form.

CMDR Justinian Octavius

The reward for powerplay is the tears of your enemies. Not credits.

 

[KKomrade Sylas]

Hey, I am very happy with these changes and I'll probably will be happy with the rest.

I have a pressing question though. Will the BGS effects of things like trading, handing in combat bonds/bounties/exploration data, etc... be adjusted to make up for the upcoming changes? Are you considering that, or leaving it for later, once the changes are settled in?

 

[amigacooke]

I'l just close this stable door as the occupant seems to be gone already.

 

[The Golden Knight]

Greetings Commanders!

Game balance has been at the heart of many discussions around Elite Dangerous, for a long time, and rightly so. At its core, Elite Dangerous is about blazing your own trail and we want all Commanders to feel fairly rewarded for whichever path they choose.

To this end, we have taken a close look at the current state of the game and where we would like it to be. Using our data combined with your feedback, we have created a plan of incremental changes we hope will bring the key gameplay mechanics more in line with each other.

What's Changing?

Elite Dangerous has seen a lot of changes since its release in 2014. Among many other aspects of the game, these changes have affected the core gameplay elements and how players earn credits. Over that time, while we have made some balancing adjustments, these elements have inevitably grown out of sync.

In response to your feedback, will bring a series of balancing adjustments to the rate at which credits are earned in each core gameplay mechanic: mining, trade, combat and exploration. Our goal is to have rewards better match the level of skill, effort, and risk each method requires. This means we'll see increased credit rates in some activities and reductions in others.

Crucially, this re-balancing will be an ongoing process where we spend time observing how the changes affect the game and how you, the community, respond both in-game and with your feedback. This may mean several adjustments are needed for each type of gameplay before settling on final values. Giving each method attention in isolation will allow us to more accurately see the results and tweak accordingly, hence the step by step approach, but ultimately they all need to work in the context of each other.

Mining and combat stand out from your feedback as needing the most attention with regards to balancing. As such, we will begin with mining, bring the top range down to a point we see as fair and look at which aspects of mining should offer the greatest rewards based on the skill required.

After this, we intend to look at increasing bounties and solo combat missions in the weeks that follow to meet expected levels. From there we can turn to the still important but less pressing elements such as other mission types and exploration.

These changes will be woven into Elite Dangerous lore and introduced through the narrative. The first can be expected early next week in the form of a GalNet article.

Mining and Trade

Mining has been the most lucrative role within Elite Dangerous for a long time. While this makes perfect sense as pilots find, extract, and transport huge quantities of precious minerals, the gap has become disproportional. This has allowed even brand new Commanders to become wealthy enough to buy the highest performing ships very quickly. For the health and longevity of Elite Dangerous, we're going to considerably reduce the payout of this activity so that it remains lucrative but players won't feel compelled to head out to the latest triple hotspot whenever they need credits.

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

To recognise and reward the extra effort and skill needed for core mining, the majority of minerals extracted this way will see an increase in price, barring Void Opals mentioned above. Several mining commodities which can be bought will have the range of their prices increased, resulting in a higher number of goods with strong profit margins (25,000+) when commodity markets are in suitable states.

To benefit trade, we'll also bring the following changes:

• Commodity markets will offer the average price rather than minimum price when selling in bulk. This will affect all commodities.
• The base prices of a number of general salvage items will be increased.

What's Next?

As above, these first changes will happen early next week. We'll spend time observing their effects and listening to your feedback before deciding whether further adjustments are needed.

Next, we intend to adjust combat rewards in the form of bounties and mission payouts. You can expect to hear the planned changes before the date is announced in a post similar to this one.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding that this isn't a fast process and it will take time for the effects to become clear.

We would also most importantly like to thank you for your continued constructive feedback on this topic, which will be invaluable during this process!

Thanks for your support,

o7

Thank you for listening...but just, address the Commanders in the Top 10 from about 2 weeks ago, who fought and won for the Federation that were ALREADY Admirals. Because to people like that (specifically speaking for myself as one of them), the promised promotion of Admiral is meaningless.

All it'd take is a GalNet article on the matter, and I'd be happy.
I even pitched the idea of some kind of "Medal Ceremony", and more specifically, I was aiming to roleplay Admiral/Commander Golden-Knight having won the Navy Cross (an American military decoration for valor) personally by President Hudson.

The sales pitch is "Blaze Your Own Trail," and I've been trying PARTICULARLY HARD in attempting that, ever since I joined last summer. All I want is that recognized AT LEAST a little!

 

[Edmund Black]

I'm pro Open-only Powerplay and BGS personally. I understand this is a long standing debate and know a few of the reasons it hasn't happened before. Maybe we'll be ready to have that conversation again sometime in the near future.

This is something I haven't heard in along time, but please don't get our hopes high like when Sandro got the Powerplay Focus Feedback on the forums, tons and I mean it, literally hundred of Powerplayers got back into the game only to realise that Sandro was moved from his post shortly after putting up the focus feedback and nothing, literally nothing, was done to change the stagnating powerplay, Powerplayers have been feeling like second class customers for ages, I hope you sir will be the change.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Hear! Hear! The rewards for wing missions should never have been a straight multiplier. Instead, wing missions should have the rewards divided amongst the participants. Extra rewards for actual presence of multiple commanders in a wing could be a small addition, such as +5% to each commander's share. Or there could be sub-goals that just cannot easily be completed by single players. These could include a bonus for expediency that gradually ticks down the longer it is taking the participant(s) to finish the job.

It will obviously be faster for 2 - whatever number of players to haul n thousands of tonnes of biowaste or destroy 70 or more pirates that it would be for a single player. Reward them for that, not for just being more than one.

S

Yeah, I'd go for a time bonus. The quicker you do it, the better the pay. But it shouldn't be 4 times the amount for people in a wing.

 

[Ozric]

Do you mean incorrect penalty to illegal goods? Stolen goods should fetch less.

Sorry yes I meant illegal goods. They currently have the 25% penalty that stolen goods have.

 

[Captain Rafix]

Bruce, hi have you think about making some anarchy system for pvp in a CQC fashion inside the main game? I mean systems for pvp with no bounties and no rebuys, just fun...with your own ships.

 

[Hans v Martell]

Thanks for the suggestion! For PvP payouts specifically, how would you account for players gaming the system with friends and alt accounts?

If I remember correctly, the cap on player bounty payouts was once introduced to avoid value transfer between players.
Since the advent of fleet carriers, this train of thought is completely moot - using the mechanics offered by carriers makes value transfer perfectly easy, quick and painless.

Now with this consideration out of the way, don't you think it is time to rethink this drastic cap? Look at the present state of Open play. With the exception of the known hot spots, it is a lifeless wasteland. We do play in open anyway, but sometimes roam the Old Worlds systems on BGS missions for literally days w/o seeing a single player ship. This can't be the way it is intended or desired to be.

Now, why is that? I believe the simple reason is, while flying in the open does add some danger, there is no incentive of any kind to balance the extra danger a CMDR takes upon himself. It is my belief that knowing they make a juicy target to any capable combat pilot would make one or another of those who mindlessly gank totally unrelated (and usually inferior) ships just for the giggles think again about what they are doing.

This is an opportunity to make Open play a far more lively place than it has been for a long time. Please consider if the cap on player bounties is still making any sense.

Fly safe CMDRs.
o7

 

[Spectre_n7]

I'm a bit disappointed. I thought that Bruce would hang around for more than 15 minutes to address things in this thread. Same old, same old I guess.

There have been a number of responses already.

I imagine there will be more tomorrow during working hours.