ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing

[F4fred]

My favourite thing about this absolutely asinine argument is that the game isn't called "Elite: Dangerous" because it's supposed to just randomly delete player accounts every so often or whatever ludicrous idea you have that you think equates to difficulty, it's actually named after a feature that Braben talked about adding but which actually got cut or never existed.

This is absolutely laughable - they can add an entirely new first person mode to the game but changing anything else other than player incomes is beyond them? Don't be ridiculous.

So the game is bad, will never be good and the best we can hope for is to trick players into buying it? You sound like a real fan of both Elite and Frontier Developments lol. Dare to dream a little mate, it won't kill you.

Laughable? Well we will see who has the last laugh. Yes of course they can do it, thing is they won’t! Why? Cos it won’t make commercial sense. Adding new content will attract new players and will bring some old hands back. Can probably do that without breaking too much of the old code. A major rewrite of the core game will be a massive undertaking and unlikely to make any big splash. So dream on, but don’t hold your breath!
Not a fan of ED or FDev, no that would be you. I am happy playing the game as it is and not holding out for some future nirvana.

 

[Acatalepsy]

This is absolutely laughable - they can add an entirely new first person mode to the game but changing anything else other than player incomes is beyond them? Don't be ridiculous.

There is quite a bit that could be done in principle, but is almost never done in practice. Doing major overhauls of existing systems is one of them. The tendency has more often than not been to release a feature in a somewhat half-baked state and then move on to the next.

CQB, Multicrew, and Powerplay all fall into this category, as, I would argue, does a lot of the SRV-centric gameplay of Horizons. Engineers is probably the only major counterexample I can think of, and that took a while for anything to be done about a far more obviously broken system. They aren't doing to spend time and energy to deal with a problem that mostly bothers some people who have already decided to stick around.

I'd love to see major overhauls in the basic simulation. It drives me nuts that loading in to a system - even a super heavily populated one like Sol - is completely empty when you first arrive, because the server hasn't populated it with NPCs yet. I'd love more ability to communicate with NPCs via comm panel, more opportunities for there to be meaningful missions and rival NPCs and so on. It's just...much like with Powerplay, it's not a feature FDev is super interested in spending real developer time on, so it's not going to get fixed and that's that.

 

[limpetdwarf]

And the core of the game is Trade, combat and exploration.

I never really thought about this:

Missions are there since Elite, mining is there since Frontier. I haven't played FE, were there missions and mining in it?

In any case, mining and missions are core in ED together with trade, combat and exploration. Mining even is the most developed part of the game-framework after substantial basics like the universe (providing asteroids to mine) and the flight model (making ships fly about a universe so they can mine said asteroids).

Trade, exploration and missions are only there and not developed. Combat is somewhat developed but not really.

Why would you not consider mining as a core element and only the elements that aren't developed all that much?

Why not develop these elements further instead of diminishing the most developed core element? To make the others appear more developed than they are? That isn't gona work.

 

[Sebastian Rooks]

Might have been sensible to cash out before the changes. FDev have said that will continue to monitor it and makes changes with feedback so if you hold your nerve things might get better.

Yep, that's what I did Sunday, 214 tons at a time. Took darn near all day to get full price with no penalty. While it was really meh doing that, it was still better than losing a billion credits. As far as things getting better, I'm skeptical. I would much rather do combat related activities. So, I really want to believe that combat payout will be worth as much as the fun. But, we shall see...

SR o7

 

[This Forum Sucks]

Laughable? Well we will see who has the last laugh. Yes of course they can do it, thing is they won’t! Why? Cos it won’t make commercial sense. Adding new content will attract new players and will bring some old hands back. Can probably do that without breaking too much of the old code. A major rewrite of the core game will be a massive undertaking and unlikely to make any big splash. So dream on, but don’t hold your breath!

It wouldn't take a "major rewrite of the core game" to adjust the cost of stuff so it made any kind of internal sense or to make NPC spawning seem more believable or to add player to player trading or any one of a hundred other things that would do more than just endlessly messing around with how much things cost. Has tweaking incomes solved all of the games problems on any of the countless occasions it's been done before?

Not a fan of ED or FDev, no that would be you. I am happy playing the game as it is and not holding out for some future nirvana.

I hate to break it to you but people are always going to have complaints about the game and no amount of crying from you is going to stop that :V

 

[limpetdwarf]

[...]
However, I'd have placed such ores into Deep Space and make them a Resource that actually can be depleted, i.e. via shrinking Hotspot size for ease of purpose.
Thus, requiring Exploration, Mining and increasingly some logistical effort to be a successful Deep Space miner hauling in various types of very valuable "Unobtanium".
Carriers then later would have nicely complemented the logistic part.
[...]
I'd prefer to scan some Asteroid Ring 30000LY out and maybe suddenly see Hotspot labels I've never even heard of, making it very valuable Discovery and Information I can decide to share or exploit myself.
[...]

That puts everyone who doesn't have a carrier out of business.

Or you come up with sources of income that don't involve mining and let players buy and keep a carrier easily enough so that they can go mining. Or you make carriers --- or mining exploration ships and the like --- cheap enough.

If you can make this interesting and fun, some people will probably do it.

Can you jump a carrier into deep space, i. e. outside of any star system?

 

[CMDRFenwe]

They already have in one of the live streams. They do know about and are working on a fix, but said it wouldn’t be ready for the changes to pricing.

Thanks, I was unaware of this.

I like the game play involved in core mining, especially the Icy. Making credits is secondary. Having to use the camera or stop and flip is more than a little PITA. First world problem, but still.

 

[alexzk]

Can you jump a carrier into deep space, i. e. outside of any star system?

No

 

[F4fred]

It wouldn't take a "major rewrite of the core game" to adjust the cost of stuff so it made any kind of internal sense or to make NPC spawning seem more believable or to add player to player trading or any one of a hundred other things that would do more than just endlessly messing around with how much things cost. Has tweaking incomes solved all of the games problems on any of the countless occasions it's been done before?

I hate to break it to you but people are always going to have complaints about the game and no amount of crying from you is going to stop that :V

Oh my god you are so naive! Wouldn’t take a major rewrite? Just change a hundred things easy eh!? How many goes did it take to fix the eggsploit and when they did finally achieve it broke the PWA and made one part of the game unplayable. Looks like they are still trying to figure out how to unbreak it without making the eggsploit viable again. And only a hundred things to change? Thought you were the guy with the big dreams. I have a list of things as long as your arm that would make this game a better sim. No the sensible thing for FDev to do if they were contemplating something like this would be start again with a new game. Hence why I mentioned Elite 5. Get things like multi crew and wings properly working from the start. Resolve a lot of long standing issues. Worried about people hiding in solo or private influencing BGS and Powerplay? Sorted, Elite 5 is open only. Put in some new ships and new gameplay. Fund it by everyone stumping up for a new game or change the funding method altogether, make it subscription like Eve so you have ongoing income to develop the game and keep players happy with new content. Makes much more financial sense than setting a bunch of devs ferreting through legacy code written by people that no longer for FDev. If you are going to dream, dream BIG!

 

[F4fred]

Thanks, I was unaware of this.

I like the game play involved in core mining, especially the Icy. Making credits is secondary. Having to use the camera or stop and flip is more than a little PITA. First world problem, but still.

Complete agree. I like core mining too, so hope they fix it soon.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

That puts everyone who doesn't have a carrier out of business.

Or you come up with sources of income that don't involve mining and let players buy and keep a carrier easily enough so that they can go mining. Or you make carriers --- or mining exploration ships and the like --- cheap enough.

If you can make this interesting and fun, some people will probably do it.

Can you jump a carrier into deep space, i. e. outside of any star system?

No, as people can sell to Merchant Carriers on location. Or they can fill up and hitch a ride. Or fly there & back with an equipped Fuel Scoop, if the range is feasible.

There's no point in placing a Carrier far away from Systems, even if that was possible. "Deep Space" in that regard was meant as : outside of civilization and outside the bubble.

 

[limpetdwarf]

I believe the idea was that Frontier is attempting to create more balance between different activities to better reflect the relative skill and risks involved in each respective activity.

You get whatever size ship you want, no one's going to judge you for it ;-)

It's an idea I appreciate and I'm saying they are doing it wrong if they want to improve the game. It's not about which size ship I want, and it doesn't matter wheather someone judges me for it or not.

How do they intend to quantify the skills and risks? They haven't provided any numbers on that, have they?

Quantifying the skills and risks would be the first step. Where is the table showing the numbers they have come up with?

Once they have that table, they need a couple more numbers, like for the amount of time they expect a player having average skills and average riskyness to need doing an even mix of activities before being able to buy and equip an average ship. That would give an average number for the number of credits per hour required, and they only need to divide that number by the sum of the quantifying numbers of all activities and, taking into consideration how long it takes for a particulary activitiy to yield income, they have figured out how much income an activity should yield. Something like that, it's really easy even for me who totally sucks at math.

It's probably not so easy when it comes to details, like missions having been designated for a given rank and thus requiring to get more detailed numbers, and they might find that this easy system is gona blow up rather quickly --- or they could do away with the influence of ranks on missions to get it balanced. It won't matter if it's all average anyway. Who needs a challenge anyway?

Why are they not telling us how they came up with the numbers for the new maximum prices? They are asking for feedback. How are we supposed to give qualified feedback when we can't even know how they came up with the numbers?

Anyway, I'm saying if they want to improve the game, they are doing it wrong --- not because this balancing is a bad idea, but because there are so many other issues that need work which are far more important than balancing and because with every change they might make --- and hopefully they will make the relevant changes --- they will have to do all the balancing again.

It may not even be a bad idea to do the balancing on a regular basis, like once a year. They could program it so it can be done easily, with reproducible results and with forewarning. Some maintenance of such a program would be needed, depending on what changes have been made in the meantime, and the results won't be entirely predictable. It could be done right.

Pulling a couple new maximum prices out of their sleeves and throwing them into the mix in order to see what might happen means they are doing it wrong. It's maybe not obvious that it is wrong, but they are getting very good feedback if they only care to read it.

 

[limpetdwarf]

Yea that's what I meant. Its the credit rewards amounts for the various activities which will change, nothing else.

Which is why all this off-topic discussion is rather frustrating because the same people complaining about off-topic issues in the game will be the same people complaining that they were not "listened to".

You can see that this discussion is not off-topic when you go back and read the first post that started this thread.

If nothing but the credit reward amounts for various activities will change, your frustration will go away quickly because people will not continue to play ED.

 

[This Forum Sucks]

Just change a hundred things easy eh!?

You need to work on your reading comprehension lol

 

[F4fred]

You need to work on your reading comprehension lol

Yeah and you need to get a firmer grip on reality! Lol!

 

[This Forum Sucks]

Yeah and you need to get a firmer grip on reality! Lol!

Mate, I said "any one of a hundred other things". You do know what "one" means, right? :V

 

[Speedcuffs]

balancing adjustments to the rate at which credits are earned in each core gameplay mechanic: mining, trade, combat and exploration.

Twiddling a few credit earning dials.
Not rebuilding the game engine from scratch.
Seems very positive to me.

ALL HAIL THE ARCHNOM!

 

[Maymo]

Complete agree. I like core mining too, so hope they fix it soon.

Do you happen to know what the difference is between a core asteroid that’s detonated without optimum yield and one that is?

I’ve never had a core roid detonate out of the blue zone.

I think FD may be grossly overestimating the amount of ‘skill’ that’s really involved in blowing these things up...

Surface mapping is another example. It’s apparently skilful to probe a planet with less probes.....yet the difference in credits is pitiful...so you can just give a planet a ‘mass probing’ if you want to and the result is almost the same.

 

[F4fred]

Mate, I said "any one of a hundred other things". You do know what "one" means, right? :V

No I got what you meant as you keep saying you have a dream of what the game could be. Changing one thing is not a dream, come to that it is not even an aspiration. Hence the comment on getting a grip on reality!

 

[aRJay]

....

Quantifying the skills and risks would be the first step. Where is the table showing the numbers they have come up with?

....

Why are they not telling us how they came up with the numbers for the new maximum prices? They are asking for feedback. How are we supposed to give qualified feedback when we can't even know how they came up with the numbers?

....

A table of skills and risks should it exist will be in their office and not where we can see it and use it to come up with an exploit.

We are supposed to be giving them feedback on the results in the game as it is played not on their coding and algorithms.