ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing

[skananote]

I think engineering has been changed for the better over time. What things would you change? I have my own ideas, but genuinely interested to hear what other people think.

I am fine with manufactured materials, there are good sources of Grade 1-4. But sheer lack of Grade 5 mats is one of the things. Yes, you can get them but it is a bit of an issue (systems in special state, timeout on items when you fly around etc.) This is also true for a encoded materials. Traders do help a bit but again it takes way too much time to collect enough to have 10 rounds of engineering (10 is a max so I always have enough mats for 10 rounds). Biggest issue here is raw materials. I actually like driving SRV and collecting those but the drop rate for less common materials is very low, so again, you need to spend ages chasing what you need and have some spares. Yes you can fly to shard sites but 1500ly is not something every person will be able to do comfortably...

The other thing is stuff like modular terminals. There is another discussion somewhere here where OP argues that putting those behind RNG is a bad thing - I second that. I ended up buying those from FC as drop rate from the missions on the day I was trying to unlock Qwent was very, very bad. After few hours I had very small amount of those. Another thing is those things take cargo space so you need to have available storage on your ship and in consequence that limits the amount of stuff you can take with you for missions. For ships like Python with 200 tonnes+ of cargo space it is not an issue but for something smaller it is a concern...

 

[skananote]

What "disandvantage"?
If you play Elite for competitive PvP, than maybe, but you would be better off choosing CQC for that.
Otherwise, you can play how you want and the game will more or less let you be, adapting to your level. It's not like you'll encounter some high level boss that will block your progress. There are enemies that might be difficult for you to tackle in the beginning, but you must actively look for them.
There's no need to grind anything before enjoying the game - people who say otherwise are too much in a hurry to get somewhere where gameplay is pretty much the same, only details change, like ship, improved equipment, etc. There's no need to skip through all that, because the only reason those things exist, is to provide players with something that will be changing their game as they play (and the games like that are supposed to be designed to provide enjoyment for long time, not AC:Valhalla 50 hours gameplay and you're through), because after all, you are repeating the same game loops here.
From my own experience I'm telling you: if you enjoy Elite, you should avoid rushing through it. When you have everything, the game starts to get little bit boring and you start considering starting over.

And you see, that is your point of view. However if you read in other posts in this very forum it is concern of more casual players that is very often brought forward. Wouldn't that indicate an issue?? I am also not sure if game gets boring when you have everything, I see this as the beginning of fun-fun instead of grind-fun...

 

[oztrich]

Player interaction? Player interaction means that I will be shot down by some player who is years ahead of me, probably has a better internet connection than I have and thus has lower ping times so that I won't even see him coming, has engineered his ship to the point that he can basically take me out with a single shot or two and has so much experience that I will never stand a chance. Or it means that I'm asking questions and get stupid answers because poeple are making fun of me. Or, if you want to call it player interaction, it means reading and writing forum posts because I'm not getting anywhere in the game because it's so badly made, rather playing the game.

There have been exceptions. Last time it meant that I had to take the risk of getting into open play (which I don't want to do at all because it's too dangerous) because we couldn't get into the same place otherwise. Apparently, it usually doesn't work to get multiple players into the same instance, especially when they want to use a private group, and definitely, the interface for doing things with other players other than being shot down by them is so badly made and miserable that nobody has figured out how to use it.

And I really hate wearing headphones. Why is there no hands-free microphone for computers and for consoles? That technology works fine in the phone on my desk and it works even in cars. You can't even get a table microphone with a button you can press to speak. And who is recording what, and who has access to the recordings?

Have you tried joining one of the PvE private groups? I started out in open, spent a lot of time in solo, and now I'm mostly in the Mobius PvE group. No PvP, and a chance of some player interaction if you want it.

 

[skananote]

Have you tried joining one of the PvE private groups? I started out in open, spent a lot of time in solo, and now I'm mostly in the Mobius PvE group. No PvP, and a chance of some player interaction if you want it.

I second that, Mobius is the right solution here. I am yet to however meet someone in Mobius - I mean real CMDR...

 

[Florenus]

And you see, that is your point of view. However if you read in other posts in this very forum it is concern of more casual players that is very often brought forward. Wouldn't that indicate an issue?? I am also not sure if game gets boring when you have everything, I see this as the beginning of fun-fun instead of grind-fun...

For me the issue is that a lot of people have weird expectations when it comes to Elite.

How do you imagine that fun-fun?
Just imagine that there's no other ship in game, but sidewinder. There's no engineering, no guardian stuff, nothing like that. What would you do?
And after a while of doing that, when it becomes somewhat boring, wouldn't you like to have something else to do? Maybe improve your ship agility a little? Maybe get another ship?
You just need to do something else, like doing some missions or gathering some stuff and you can do your fun activity with something changed.
And repeat.

When you want to skip all the middle steps, grinding towards some mystical point when game magically becomes more fun, you're just... avoiding playing the game, making it smaller and less fun. You're doing that to yourself.

 

[oztrich]

I second that, Mobius is the right solution here. I am yet to however meet someone in Mobius - I mean real CMDR...

Yeah, it's a big universe out there, tricky to accidentally bump in to someone.

There are usually a lot of people around the community goal locations. So that provides an opportunity just to say "o7" or try winging up and making friends. Or not. Each to their own. But it's a decent option if you don't want to enjoy your own company all the time and don't want to be fodder for gankers.

 

[skananote]

For me the issue is that a lot of people have weird expectations when it comes to Elite.

How do you imagine that fun-fun?
Just imagine that there's no other ship in game, but sidewinder. There's no engineering, no guardian stuff, nothing like that. What would you do?
And after a while of doing that, when it becomes somewhat boring, wouldn't you like to have something else to do? Maybe improve your ship agility a little? Maybe get another ship?
You just need to do something else, like doing some missions or gathering some stuff and you can do your fun activity with something changed.
And repeat.

When you want to skip all the middle steps, grinding towards some mystical point when game magically becomes more fun, you're just... avoiding playing the game, making it smaller and less fun. You're doing that to yourself.

And we're back to square one. What makes you think I skip anything in the game?? OK, I do as certain things are of no interest to me, PvP being one of them. If there was no other ship but Sidewinder only - it is irrelevant speculation as we have other ships - I would probably fly Sidewinder as there wouldn't be any choice... But that would be entirely different game...

 

[muhhy]

So was there any changes made today? I still see painite being sold well over 900,000 when I check in INARA.

 

[Maymo]

So was there any changes made today? I still see painite being sold well over 900,000 when I check in INARA.

Not yet.

It's a shame, my eggs could have used more salt this morning...

 

[EliminatorII]

I think the LTD could use a slightly larger price gap from Panite but lower than the other core mined commodity's that are core only like Alexandrite, Benitoite, Grandidierite, etc.. (I might be wrong I cant remember if these are core mined only been so long since I have done it). But still excited to see how the changes correspond to the gameplay.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

How strange. It's Monday Morning, and despite this thread, I'm pretty much OK...

 

[Factabulous]

It begins...

 

[GraphiteGB]

first new price is live others may follow... edit = and its gone again..

 

[Razzerman]

first new price is live others may follow...

Good stuff - it's about time the other core-mined 'ites' got a look in, otherwise their existence would be pointless.

 

[Scoob101]

For me the issue is that a lot of people have weird expectations when it comes to Elite.

And the award for understatement of the century goes to....

 

[Bramshevik]

Please for the love of Raxxla tell us that a patch is coming for the pulse wave analyser soon. I'm all for balancing so that more skilful mining is worth more rewards, but what's the point if it's fundamentally broken?

 

[Florenus]

And we're back to square one. What makes you think I skip anything in the game?? OK, I do as certain things are of no interest to me, PvP being one of them. If there was no other ship but Sidewinder only - it is irrelevant speculation as we have other ships - I would probably fly Sidewinder as there wouldn't be any choice... But that would be entirely different game...

It's not speculation - it's a way to look at this game.
At start there was way fewer ships than now.
Tomorrow there might be more.
Imagine there's an update with 100k new ships, each more expensive than the last.
With your approach, the game would become unplayable, because the amount of time needed to reach "the end" would be unimagineable. With approach I'm representing , the game would simply offer ulimited rewards and you could play this way as long as you would find the gameplay engaging.

Also, I'm not assuming anything about you, it's just a fugure of speach when I say when you do this, and the effect is such.

 

[Zoky]

I wonder what will happen with piracy. It wasn't in good place to begin with and nerf to mineral prices is definitely not going to help it.

 

[CMDR_M_Veidt]

I was forced to read and write a lot of forum posts, wiki pages and the like and had to search for information because there is a total lack of information in the game. I expect the information required to play a game to be found within the game and/or to be provided with good documentation. It's one of the very big issues with ED that it's effectively unplayable due to a lack of information. I didn't want to spend time on trying to find and read information, I just wanted to play.

I actually much prefer the game this way. Not because it might drive away some; it certainly does and that's a downside to be sure. But there's enough text in the game, and the game seems to consider us sufficiently capable of helping eachother educate ourselves - which makes a lot of sense from an immersion or realism perspective, and I find that important.

 

[Maymo]

View attachment 196490
View attachment 196491

...the treasurer of the Bank of Zaonce confirmed that many corporations in the galaxy are now fundamentally bust as huge stockpiles of their commodities become worthless overnight.

An unconfirmed source within the Pilots Federation believes that starship insurance could be increased by as much as 500% in a bid to repair the tattered economy...

CMDR Bottom Hat is disgusted by the situation.

“The price of tea has nearly tripled in my star system, if it gets much worse I’ll have to sell all my slaves”