Have your say on this Smuggling Nerf : should it be reversed?

[JoeShmo]

I was making 90 million a run and the trip was 2 hours including picking up the missions, that's 45 million an hour. Not in Sothis of course though.

And I was making about ...6-10 mil an hour, with a Merchant / Broker rank in a Cobra. That includes one trip where I spent at least an hour one run trying out the "log in / log out" mechanic to reset missions. You needed to be either super lucky and/or super high rank for you to get high paying missions that spawned frequently; otherwise you spent half your time on the trip just getting what missions you could.

That is probably one of the most egregious issues I have with the discussion, that people are framing their love/hate of what happened based on extremes they perceive as "the most realistic way of it working". We just don't have the sample size to tell whether this was really breaking the game or not. In hindsight though, we can tell that on a personal level...not many people were running around with condas ( let alone fully kitted out ) after a day or 2 on the weekend. And with the hyperjump issues ( that are still going on ) ...I'm sure many people gave up after the first run or two.

To insinuate that it was super profitable and/or wide spread ( anyone saying it ) ...is misleading.


I believe, that it averaged out to be not much better than a really good trade route. I don't reasonably see why it did/would need to be altered/nerfed so much. Other than the vocal minority struck again.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

I mainly play in the area around Kamadhenu and I've noticed tonight a lot less smuggling missions this evening and those that have cropped up are paying around 100k cr max. Between those and the trading missions I picked up I managed to make just shy of 350k cr, which is pretty poor compared to, say, bounty hunting or trading.

Yesterday the same areas were giving quite a few smuggling missions and quite of number were between 200k-500k cr. The only thing wrong with them was the quantities to deliver were quite low and some of the routes should have been a bit longer imo.

I think FD really need to look at the numbers and figure out where they feel comfortable in terms of cr/hour they want players to earn on average and balance out the rewards for all the activies and mission types around that so there is more parity between the various ways of making money and maybe make things such as CGs the main events that can bring in an above average amount of cr.

 

[salad]

Key word there is "boring". So many people using the "long term" argument as an excuse to have things nerfed. Guess what? How many other MMO's reduced fun/held back releases to keep things "long term". How many of those are still mass played today? Wildstar is a classic example. Let's make it hard to provide longevity, no compromises, etc etc. Playerbase soared & then plummeted even faster. Maybe not a perfect example, but there are many more. If a game loses its fun element & becomes totally grindy, it soon dies a death. At least long range smuggling was fun. As others have said, instead of responding to whiners & nerfing to oblivion, why not simply tweak it without losing its essence.

I think smuggling is still fun regardless of the rewards, I've been doing 500k-1million smuggling missions inside the bubble since 1.4 came out, pretty much every station is giving those now, its really cool to do those in between whatever you're doing, It's also much more risky since sometimes the smuggling mission takes you to a system that you are unfriendly and everyone tries to scan you

Combat is also really fun, my favorite part of the game.

But relogging to make more profit and fighting dead AI is hella boring.

 

[JoeShmo]

His poor time keeping skills aside, 120m over 3 hours or 40m per hour is not at all off the mark on what players were able to achieve - which was the crux of the post.

Able is a very dangerous term/word to use in statistics. Anyone can use a word like able, and throw off a discussion altogether. It should not be what someone was able to do..but what they could sustain.

 

[Garbarrage]

Not really sure what you are getting at with your response about 'treating them like adults' and 'making their own narrative' did you misquote?

I commented on the customer service rep's verbose explanation of it not being an exploit, being a funny contradiction of the definition of what constitutes an exploit. They basically said it was an exploit, while saying it is not an exploit.

I didn't misquote you. My point is that they seem to acknowledge the varying degrees of "offence". In a competitive PvP game, which models itself as such, exploits undermine the basic premise of the game, and so enforcing rules regarding exploits is important. Exploits in these games are (as far as a game will allow), heinous, for want of a better word. The only effective deterrent is usually a ban of some description. This game on the other hand, is all about the immersive nature of being able to write your own narrative, and this is (I believe) what they refer to as "the spirit of the game".

I think what the rep was alluding to, is that "the spirit of the game" is that narrative, and if a player chooses to use an "exploit" (which must be acknowledged as different from an exploit in a more competitive game, as it impacts directly on other players enjoyment), then they are only ruining the narrative for themselves.

I see where you are coming from, but I think we need to allow the use of a term define the meaning. If you do that, then the apparent contradiction becomes less so. Not all exploits are equal, in the eyes of FD apparently.

I could probably explain it better, but I poisoned myself with alcohol at the weekend, and I don't recover from debauchery as well as I used to. The brain is still a bit spongey. =)

 

[xondk]

...

Wow, it did not occur to you in any way that the devs heard what people said and decided that they think it was unbalanced themselves?

And maybe just 'maybe' your opinion might not be correct in the eyes of the developers? especially since you say it happens in 'almost every MMO'?

I don't know what to say other then this to something like this.
Game devs make choices, they feel are best for the game, "whiny minorities" hardly if ever actually get any real changes in, because the game devs are listening to a lot more then just them, from a game dev point of view, unless they themselves see something as a bug or unbalanced, changing it because a minority wants something is a bad move.
And you would much rather want to believe that Frontier is listening to 'whiny minority' then that Frontier looked at it and found it unbalanced? Because it is ruining your 'fun'?

Isn't it just possible that you finding being able to get to endgame very fast, is not the intend of the game, and that you might have fun if you changed your approach and look at the game to what game devs intended?

 

[vitriol]

It sucks that Frontier considers being able to have fun and make money simultaneously a priority bug.

 

[cameirus]

Just saying, it took me an hour to get the amount of missions i wanted and to stock my cargo in my python. Most of the missions were almost always Broker and the really good paying ones i couldn't touch were Either Entrepreneur, Tycoon or Elite.

It took me roughly forty-five minutes to fly to the first station. This Included interdictions and other annoyances.
And 2 hours to actually finish the 20+ missions I had. Oh and the average pay of those missions were like 2,300,000-4,000,000 cr missions.

P-fair to me. I'm enjoying my loot that's for sure.

2.3-4mill per mission, lets say 3 on average for ease.
20missions time 3million payout = 60million.

Now, 45mins to fly out there.
1 hour to get missions.
45mins to station hand in.
2 hours to finish all missions.
so.....4h30.

So, 60million credits over 4h30 = about 13million an hour. Seams fair, or a bit low to me to be honest.

- - - Updated - - -

That's not really fair, because he didn't say anything about his will to ignore. He said why should he choose any other career for making credits when one of them trivialises their incomes.

well it is fair, the only reason he'd do a profitable non-immersive (in his view) activity over an immersive less profitable one, is entirely down to will power, as no one is forcing him.

 

[cameirus]

And I was making about ...6-10 mil an hour, with a Merchant / Broker rank in a Cobra. That includes one trip where I spent at least an hour one run trying out the "log in / log out" mechanic to reset missions. You needed to be either super lucky and/or super high rank for you to get high paying missions that spawned frequently; otherwise you spent half your time on the trip just getting what missions you could.

That is probably one of the most egregious issues I have with the discussion, that people are framing their love/hate of what happened based on extremes they perceive as "the most realistic way of it working". We just don't have the sample size to tell whether this was really breaking the game or not. In hindsight though, we can tell that on a personal level...not many people were running around with condas ( let alone fully kitted out ) after a day or 2 on the weekend. And with the hyperjump issues ( that are still going on ) ...I'm sure many people gave up after the first run or two.

To insinuate that it was super profitable and/or wide spread ( anyone saying it ) ...is misleading.


I believe, that it averaged out to be not much better than a really good trade route. I don't reasonably see why it did/would need to be altered/nerfed so much. Other than the vocal minority struck again.

well we know that about 4k asps (asp being by far the most common ship to visit sothis) visited sothis per day. Note, thats not players, that includes multiple trips at least 8 of which were me today as I did a few rep missions to CEOs and surrounding stars whilst I was in the region.

I dont know how many people are playing, but even if every asp were a unique player....if 4k players per day is the majority of the playerbase, this game has more issues than the payout of these missions.....

 

[Ozram]

Looks like the long range smuggling missions have been removed
Can't complain I got one run netting 50mill and was fun being chased every jump I made bringing the contraband back to inhabited space

I hope this won't be the end of lrs missions even with a lesser reward and no way to stack the missions would work nice as its great fun getting back with goods

Bulleting boards need to be tied to the server side, and refreshing them artificially has to be made impossible. It's been with us for way too long.

Completely agree. BTW, how's it going? I can't get into the forums for a month now because I dared to criticise Ben "Twoface" Lesnick so will only be able to know what's going on with the Katamari Group from within the game. Feel free to keep me posted over Comms. I did enjoy the smuggling while it lasted, but now I'm back in Caucuma and my T6 is back in dock. Time for some High Res Hunting again. Really would like if they stopped the exploits rather than the opportunities, but it's not a game breaker (though it was a hell of a time fighting interdictions and scans to get the deliveries in on schedule and safely).

 

[Jukelo]

If you were making that much, which I have doubts about, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, then yes, it needs cutting back a bit to be in line with other credit activities, 20mil an hour is reasonable. They can do that in numerous ways.

You people are nuts. 20mil an hour is reasonable? Divide that figure by five or ten and we're talking. With that rate of progression you're advocating, you'd be in an decently fitted anaconda in twenty hours.
Meanwhile piracy and exploration are still struggling to make one tenth of what trading used to make for most... and I certainly don't want either of them to get to a point where you make 20 mil an hour, that would completely kill the game. And yes, Cr/hour is as important as the rest.

 

[xondk]

.

See here's the thing I'm wondering about, you say it seems a bit low. Compared to?
What is your trade rank? what ship are you flying?

Should someone flying an asp with limited cargo hold be able to make that much compared to say someone trading constantly in a T9?

 

[Vasious]

If it was fun as you call say, why stop doing it just because you don't make tens of millions at a time?

 

[MrChipper]

Not sure how the ED economy works, but could this nerf have been deliberate skulduggery by FD? Think about it. They say that Sirius Corp want to expand there...OK?

I'd love to think that FD did this deliberately and inject some quick cash into the economy - maybe a timed event where there's $$$$ on offer, or missions only available for a short amount of time. People ask for more content in ED and these types of events could be a fun way of providing activities in a gold rush sorta way. However my guess is that it was (sadly) a miscalculation in some code and they've done a quick server-side fix to stop the missions spawning. A more gentle set of missions will likely appear soon once they've taken care to apply a better fix. FD should take note though of the way the community have jumped on this. Seems popular (and fun) for a lot of people.

Enjoyed my few runs - managed 30m Cr earlier in one run before the missions disappeared and have gone from 20m Cr to 80m Cr and ditched my DBX for a fully equipped Asp in the last couple of days. Don't play much (in fact not at all for the last 3 months) so having something to focus on has been fun. Have absolutely no idea what i'll do with the money as I'm feeling like I'll go exploring again - but this time in the Asp.....

Got my Elite itch back

 

[salad]

If it was fun as you call say, why stop doing it just because you don't make tens of millions at a time?

Fun is seeing the credits go up for the candy crush generation

 

[Dominatus01]

Wow, it did not occur to you in any way that the devs heard what people said and decided that they think it was unbalanced themselves?

And maybe just 'maybe' your opinion might not be correct in the eyes of the developers? especially since you say it happens in 'almost every MMO'?

I don't know what to say other then this to something like this.
Game devs make choices, they feel are best for the game, "whiny minorities" hardly if ever actually get any real changes in, because the game devs are listening to a lot more then just them, from a game dev point of view, unless they themselves see something as a bug or unbalanced, changing it because a minority wants something is a bad move.
And you would much rather want to believe that Frontier is listening to 'whiny minority' then that Frontier looked at it and found it unbalanced? Because it is ruining your 'fun'?

Isn't it just possible that you finding being able to get to endgame very fast, is not the intend of the game, and that you might have fun if you changed your approach and look at the game to what game devs intended?

You obviously didn't read my long post very carefully, which is hardly surprising.
I shall elaborate further. Firstly, getting the end game, as you put it. I don't see that there is an "end game" as you term it, nor is it my desire to get wherever you seem to think that is.
I already had prior to the smuggling runs the 3 ships I was basing my 3 primary activites on, the enjoyment of the long range smuggling missions didn't change that. I had a large cargo equipped ship for trading, and my own lucrative trading route - however bouncing backwards & forwards endlessly was about the most boring thing I've ground out for days in many years of playing MMO's. I had a nicely equipped Vulture for bounty hunting, which I still use for that purpose in Haz Res zones. I've tried a Python, and I personally prefer the Vulture, so I stick with that. I have a well equipped Asp that I use for exploration excursions, which I had to put on hold during the unfortunate exploration breakage recently.

So, aside from those, perhaps you see "end game" differently than me. I don't see a definitive end game. I have no interest in a Conda, flying heavily armed bricks aren't my scene.

If you had read my long post rather than skimmed it, you would have seen & inferred that I was enjoying the large number of jumps in the smuggling runs, the avoiding interdictions, fuel scooping speed practice to avoid npcs without crashing into Stars, and speed docking to avoid fines (not due to cred loss, but simply as a matter of principle). These activities were encouraging me to play for far longer each day than simply "rinse & repeat" trading shuttle runs, haz Res bh'ing, or exploring in the vast unknown. IT's not about the creds, but the activities & the encouragement daily for me to log in & play for longer stretches. It's about finding something that captivates, not that becomes a grinding chore.

In future, if you are going to critique one of my lengthy posts, please do me the courtesy of at least reading it properly. That would make reading your replies interesting, and at least entertaining.
Fly safe & enjoy your "End Game".

 

[Ozram]

You people are nuts. 20mil an hour is reasonable?

Yeah these numbers people are talking about are big. I made 15 million over the weekend in my cobra (6 hrs of play) and felt pretty awesome about it. Then I decided to try bulletin hoarding in a T6 and went on a four hour delivery trek that netted me about 10 million. It was awesome and didn't feel OP for the effort (guess I didn't exploit the board) but now that's over. It isn't a big deal. Far more annoying was all the moaning on the forums that brought us this current change.

 

[xondk]

.

Uh, you lost me? my point is that you seem to be blaming the 'whiny' people and developers for listening to the whiny people, because what you see as improving the game is not what the Developers see as improving the game? so has very little to do with endgame at all? you seem to say I didn't read your post but all you got from mine was that I mentioned end game as a reference to people in this thread pointing out that they want to earn money fast so they can get whatever they want, never once defined what end game actually is to anyone?

 

[JimSpitfire]

So they took out long range missions because people were exploiting? great...

Why can't they just balance the payouts better for the super long range ones where people were exploiting instead of removing all long range missions and ruining it for the rest of us.

 

[Midnight Sun]

You people are nuts. 20mil an hour is reasonable? Divide that figure by five or ten and we're talking. With that rate of progression you're advocating, you'd be in an decently fitted anaconda in twenty hours.

Given the trend in shorter and shorter games (like triple-A titles that last 10 hours if you're lucky) I don't see what's inherently wrong with getting an Anaconda in a reasonable timeframe. The biggest criticism of this game is that its grindy, so anything that alleviates that perception seems like a good idea to me.

Besides, getting bigger ships shouldn't be the only point to this game. If it's going to last long-term then the gameplay itself needs to be fun. Dodging cops and robbers while pretending to be Han Solo WAS fun, for the little time it lasted.