Have FDev shot themselves in the foot with the changes to mining?

[Stealthie]

To be clear, speaking as somebody who's spent years wailing about how too many credits undermines progression in ED and how more dangerous activities should yield higher rewards, and how escalation of reards, in general, has all but rendered credits redundant, I'm quite happy with the changes (and looking forward to see what else gets revised).

I do wonder, though, if FDev are suffering as a result of the changes.

Seems like mining has been something of a perpetual gold-rush for the last couple of years.
At first people went mining cos of all the cool new toys, then they went mining to earn giant heaps of credits, then they went mining to bankroll FCs, then they went mining in case FDev decided to nerf it.

I'm thinking that, for a lot of players, mining has become their go-to thing in ED, just to earn ever larger heaps of credits so they can, presumably, wallow in them like Scrooge McDuck.
With the perceived "worthlessness" of mining, now, I wonder if those players will continue to play or whether FDev will see reduced numbers of players logged-in?

Again, good on FDev for doing what (IMO) the game needed but I wonder if it's driven some players away from the game.

 

[Vandaahl]

If you liked mining because it payed well, then there are other things to do. If you like mining regardless, then there's no problem.

 

[Factabulous]

Been out mining today for the first time in ages. Fun times - mining missions seem to pay well. Had enough of it now, so on to other things.

I guess it's not as fun for grinding billions, but ... I really don't care

 

[Jmanis]

To be clear, speaking as somebody who's spent years wailing about how too many credits undermines progression in ED and how more dangerous activities should yield higher rewards, and how escalation of reards, in general, has all but rendered credits redundant, I'm quite happy with the changes (and looking forward to see what else gets revised).

I do wonder, though, if FDev are suffering as a result of the changes.

Seems like mining has been something of a perpetual gold-rush for the last couple of years.
At first people went mining cos of all the cool new toys, then they went mining to earn giant heaps of credits, then they went mining to bankroll FCs, then they went mining in case FDev decided to nerf it.

I'm thinking that, for a lot of players, mining has become their go-to thing in ED, just to earn ever larger heaps of credits so they can, presumably, wallow in them like Scrooge McDuck.
With the perceived "worthlessness" of mining, now, I wonder if those players will continue to play or whether FDev will see reduced numbers of players logged-in?

Again, good on FDev for doing what (IMO) the game needed but I wonder if it's driven some players away from the game.

The only reason FD are suffering for the changes is because they took too long to do them.

That time allowed too many people take those earn rates as status-quo income for the game, and so the changes are now seen as a naive "making the game harder" rather than the actual rebalance it was.

Not that they've really rebalanced the game, only shifted the imbalance even more in favour of massacre stacking.

There's no painless way out when you simply take too long to acknowledge and fix an issue like balance. If massacre stacking is left to stew as it currently is, that too will suffer the same problem.

 

[Stealthie]

The only reason FD are suffering for the changes is because they took too long to do them.

That time allowed too many people take those earn rates as status-quo income for the game, and so the changes are now seen as a naive "making the game harder" rather than the actual rebalance it was.

Not that they've really rebalanced the game, only shifted the imbalance even more in favour of massacre stacking.

There's no painless way out when you simply take too long to acknowledge and fix an issue like balance.

Fair point.

Once something becomes "the new normal", people get upset when it changes again.

Kind of like when Passenger missions were the current gold-rush.
It was blatantly obvious that it was unintended for players to continually "flush" the mission server, to generate more lucrative missions, to the point where the server had a meltdown and FDev had to redesign it.

Even so, we still had people wailing that "there's nothing worth doing in ED now!!!!" after the changes were made.

 

[Stealthie]

Been out mining today for the first time in ages. Fun times - mining missions seem to pay well. Had enough of it now, so on to other things.

That's the way to do it, IMO.

Until they fix the PWA, my DC Pythons are out of action but, honestly, I don't always feel like having a "proper" session of mining so the Krait I recently built fits the bill nicely.
Half hour session, dump 128t of stuff aboard my FC and move on to other things.
Once I've accumulated 1000t of an ore, I'll go look for somewhere to sell it.

 

[Codger]

I don't care that much about the 'nerf' or 'rebalance', whatever you want to call it. What I care about is that they broke the PWA and can't seem to fix it, they made SSDs no longer worth going after, and they borked overlapping hotspots so that they don't mean anything.

Those 3 things have reduced the fun of mining, for me anyway.

There was one shining moment during all of this when all 3 methods of mining were viable and lucrative, and it was fun to take all of the mining tools with you because they'd all be useful. At the time I was thinking, "Yay, they got it right, mining is perfect now!" DSSA was excited about searching the galaxy for tritium hotspots, people were engaged.

But then came the nerfs and "fixes" that actually broke stuff, and now we're back to having only laser mining still working correctly, but the hotspots are all the same -- search for overlaps hardly matters -- there's just no incentive.

Mining has become boring again, like it was originally, good for a bit of relaxation but not much more.

That's what bothers me.

 

[BL1P]

While waiting for the PWA fix, Ive found that Belts are a good source of constant easy to find cores.
If it has 6 roids no core just a surface glower. If it has 10 roids there is a core and a surface glower.
That makes it easier to find the core
And the constant entering of the Belts adds some excitement, as there are almost always some pirates spawning who want to tango for your cargo.
A little planning using a spreadsheet and your local area belts will be a nice source of cores which replenish after a few days.
The CR per hour sucks to be honest (if your slow like me). but its something different that pays for a sleeping pod at a local outpost station for the night.

Also found my first ICE belts the other day, only had LTDs but im sure the Void and Tritium Belts will be on my list soon enough


Edit: Pfff... Rings are so 3305

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I don't think so.

1) The next gold rushes already exist, for those who need a hundred billion credits by the fastest possible route.
2) Squadron trade leaderboards are looking barely down on the previous season so the money is still rolling in somehow
3) Combat leaderboards, on the other hand, are significantly up
4) Exploration leaderboards (the control?) are already way up on the final total of last season and it's only half way through
5) AX leaderboards also way up on last season, and that buff was only a few days ago...
6) Overall EDDN activity has been on a significant upward trend since the return of CGs, even ignoring the giant Epic-giveaway spike

In balance it seems like they've made a net gain in the short term, and in the long-term there'll always be a better earning method next year anyway.

 

[WaveRider]

When I first started out it was the trading and the earning to buy bigger and better ships. During this time I also tracked down the Engineer for the FSD and then the PD.

I then took the next step (for me anyway) which was mining. My next step was to go exploring but I remember wanting to get the Iridescent Twilight paint job on my Phantom and just waited for a bit, then waited longer and then left the game for a year and a half.

I decided to jump back on and for the first time, am taking part in the CG which is a combat/bounty hunting one. This is now indicating which my next steps will be - more Engineering!

This game just seems to have so many things to do - the only down side is that in this Universe of possibilities, it seems like getting the paint job you want isn't as possible as one may hope lol.

 

[pnellesen]

I'd be happier with mining (core mining, specifically) if:

1. PWA worked like it did when first introduced - as in, worked in front of the ship as well as behind. How the heck did they manage to screw that up??
2. Hotspots in rings actually contained the mineral they were labelled for. Too many times I have dropped into a hotspot and literally find every type of core except what I was looking for.

It's not about the credits/[time period of choice here] for me.

 

[VirtueXOI]

I don't care that much about the 'nerf' or 'rebalance', whatever you want to call it. What I care about is that they broke the PWA and can't seem to fix it, they made SSDs no longer worth going after, and they borked overlapping hotspots so that they don't mean anything.

Those 3 things have reduced the fun of mining, for me anyway.

There was one shining moment during all of this when all 3 methods of mining were viable and lucrative, and it was fun to take all of the mining tools with you because they'd all be useful. At the time I was thinking, "Yay, they got it right, mining is perfect now!" DSSA was excited about searching the galaxy for tritium hotspots, people were engaged.

But then came the nerfs and "fixes" that actually broke stuff, and now we're back to having only laser mining still working correctly, but the hotspots are all the same -- search for overlaps hardly matters -- there's just no incentive.

Mining has become boring again, like it was originally, good for a bit of relaxation but not much more.

That's what bothers me.

+1 on this .

To add little , what bother me the most is the "new" demand system, this totaly break any way of having fun selling things. Not really because the system is bad , but numbers are just too low.

Atm best painite price are 357.000 out of 600.000 max with 1K6 demand. It mean that 2 or 3 cmdr with a large ship can fufill it. While where'r not 12K cmdr mining and looking for this , we are way past the 2 or 3.

To add to this topic , during the "eggxploit" appart for the egg mining was imho perfect . Not in term of income because it was obviously to hight (well now looking at combat stacking) but in term of gaming loop.
One or 2/3 system were blessed with the 3 LTD hotspot , and this way where gathering many people in it. For loners , core mining was still really great.

But with that we had some mine/trade (and a bit of piracy) loop with carrier that was perfect.

Combat stacking do not do that and sorry but classic combat itself is not entertaining itself for me to be pleased.

They also destroyed cargo mission a bit to much so now it's ridiculous.

So i dont think FDev shoot themselves in the foot , but they were fooled by the risk reward guys.
risk reward model does not fit in elite , at least not for trade / exploration / minning ect.

It could fit well with combat and smuggling tho .

I'd rather have smuggling buff and leave mining as it was with just a slight price nerf.

o7