I work for years earning 250 million credits when

[Modgier]

The crux is if this is going to happen regularly or if it was a very occasional or one off.

I suppose time will tell.

Until I know trade runs are seeming less motivating than they used to.

Trading has not been anywhere near as profitable compared to missions since the 2.1 mission system revamp.

 

[JacoTheBad]

Keep your eyes open for those golden opportunities. If you fancy to take advantage of them, do them, and if not, do whatever else you want to do while waiting for the next one.

Sometimes people do what they feel like doing, even when the payout is less then something else, sometimes the reward takes a different form. Some people only grind what makes the most credits, or the most reputation, like they are racing to achieve something without ever stoping to actually enjoy what they are doing; the only reward being that they hit that goal. Some people do a bit of both.... But everyone has the opportunity to keep an ear to the ground for that lucrative deal, and choose if it's either something they want to do, or not.. More will come.

If someone makes a years worth of credits in 2 hours, good for them. You have the same opportunities; just keep an ear to the ground, and if its something you want to do, enjoy! Hopefully more opportunities like it will get peppered in throughout the life of the game, and when they do, try to be ready for them... If you want

 

[Devari]

You're argument is really all over the map, isn't it? The only thing I can tell for certain from what you're saying is that a break from playing ED might be in order.

It's not just an issue of taking a break, in fact I've already sort of "stopped" playing Elite other than some PP activities this month and I don't really plan on doing much again until after 2.2 has launched and finished its "public beta" which should take 1-2 months at least (if the mess we got with 2.1 is any indication it will take at least a couple of months to balance a new expansion properly). The point here is that I have no reason to eventually get back to Sothis runs if I can make 10X the money doing a few hours of ludicrous CG participation instead. FD has basically given me every reason to play the game as little as possible at this point, whereas before I would have probably logged in for a few Sothis runs just to keep playing as I still would have had a sense of gradual progression. They've managed to devalue their own game by taking the sense of slow progression away, and the reality is that the game mechanics themselves are not sufficiently engaging to be motivating on their own. That is terrible game design and quite frankly I'm amazed that FD didn't realize how badly it would disrupt game immersion and balance.

In other words, exactly what I've been saying?

Average players are bad at this game, do not understand how this game works and are awful at making money and are right here complaining on the forums because some people made a ton of money.

There is no excuse for not doing research on how to play this game. There are countless guides and tutorials to every single aspect of this game. If they have refused to use the vast sources of information easily available and have failed to earn a reasonable income, that's their fault. Such is life.

The income in this game scales exponentially. It's hardly FD's fault that some players have failed to ride the curve. You can "blaze your own path" - but if your path is to fly around in a sidewinder for 2,000 hours you can't be upset if someone whose goal from the very start was to get stupidly rich is in fact stupidly rich.

Like I said, the issue here is that the CGs with ludicrous payouts are not balanced or consistent. Even if they occurred regularly, there's still the issue that the regular boring gameplay activities are not sufficiently interesting to keep players playing without a commensurate reward for their time. After players realize they can jump from a T6 all the way to a shiny new A-grade Python by doing a CG for 1-2 hours, they will expect similar progression in the future. They will want another 100-200 mil CG payout to get to an Anaconda, and so on. FD has created an expectation where 100-200 million for 1-2 hours work is "reasonable" by setting the bar that high on the recent CG.

Now that FD has gotten themselves into this mess, they have to figure out how to fix it. Either they can go full speed ahead and make these CGs regular occurrences, in which case they are going to lose players quickly who realize that regular gameplay for combat/trading/exploration really doesn't get any "better" with an Anaconda, and as a result they will have few players interested in playing the game long-term. Alternatively, they can stop with the ridiculous CGs and simply increase the income from combat/trading/exploration by a factor of 2X or 3X to make them more rewarding but not ludicrous payouts. Players will still see better progression from playing the game but they won't have to rely on random lucrative CGs and will still have a sense of gradual progression. You can probably guess which solution I would prefer.

 

[Ozram]

I enjoyed trading, like many and your comment is childish.

No seriously (ignoring your insult and reminding you I didn't call you any names), you can still trade. You still can find excellent routs, fly your ships, risk access, plan... In short, those elements have not been remotely taken from you and can still earn you a pretty penny so I find your reasoning somewhat baffling. I do a mix of things, but won't trade in slaves, assassinate innocents, or do sothis style LRMs (each for its own reason) and all these earn more money than "honest trading" or mining, or supporting my favourite minor faction, or exploring and yet none of them seem to have lost any value to me on account of the more profitable credit bags out there. So, again, why does it affect you?

 

[Modgier]

Like I said, the issue here is that the CGs with ludicrous payouts are not balanced or consistent. Even if they occurred regularly, there's still the issue that the regular boring gameplay activities are not sufficiently interesting to keep players playing without a commensurate reward for their time. After players realize they can jump from a T6 all the way to a shiny new A-grade Python by doing a CG for 1-2 hours, they will expect similar progression in the future. They will want another 100-200 mil CG payout to get to an Anaconda, and so on. FD has created an expectation where 100-200 million for 1-2 hours work is "reasonable" by setting the bar that high on the recent CG.

Now that FD has gotten themselves into this mess, they have to figure out how to fix it. Either they can go full speed ahead and make these CGs regular occurrences, in which case they are going to lose players quickly who realize that combat/trading/exploration really don't get any "better" with an Anaconda, and they have few players interested in playing the game long-term. Alternatively, they can stop with the ridiculous CGs and simply increase the income from combat/trading/exploration by a factor of 2X or 3X to make them more rewarding but not ludicrous payouts. Players will still see better progression from playing the game but they won't have to rely on random lucrative CGs and will still have a sense of gradual progression. You can probably guess which solution I would prefer.

I would totally agree that many other things in the ED world still pay very poorly.

I really really enjoy combat in ED but it's simply not been the way I've earned my money as it's just not the best way to do it. When I first got my Asp E I went out of the bubble, scanned a few things, landed on some planets and got less than 2 mil for a night of flying around - I enjoyed it but I sure as hell wouldn't use it as a way to wealth.

I was going to do what I enjoy the most, I'd be trolling around res sites in an FDL - but first I want to build up a massive bank account so I never again need to worry about earning an income in ED - which is why right now I'm flying the fat pig that is the cutter. Sure I wish I could make as much money doing res hunting as I could doing Ceos runs, but that doesn't stop me from taking breaks from Ceos and killing some random pirates.

Earning money in ED should never be the reason to play. It hasn't been for me. It's a means to an end.

 

[Jason S]

There are still many fun things in the game like Elite Racers, just some things are now rendered entirely pointless.

 

[GraXXoR]

You're argument is really all over the map, isn't it? The only thing I can tell for certain from what you're saying is that a break from playing ED might be in order.

Jason, don't bother..... This guy is on my ignore list of one. I'm amazed he still plays.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

The crux is if this is going to happen regularly or if it was a very occasional or one off.

I suppose time will tell.

Until I know trade runs are seeming less motivating than they used to.

Yesterday I found a single jump AB loop trade route over 5000 per tonne. L pads and less than 100 LS combined distance from main stars. I ran that route for a couple of hours until they ran out of goods and profit dropped to less than 4K, my "cutoff point" that netted me nearly 50M. Suweeet.

Don't need the money as such, but as Descarte once said, "I ain't never 'eard of 'avin' too much money."

 

[Robbie84]

Maybe Frontier should put it like this so players are rewarded on how much they actually participate:

From 90% to 10% (So, Contributions: 0%, 90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50%, 40%, 30%, 20%, 10% and Top X). Maybe remove some and put a tier every 20% but make it so if you want that sweet millz, you cannot simply be in top 75% or 50% to grab them.

If you just want fun and some credits with few runs, you get the rewards according to that. If you want to contribute harder and make your way to top ones then some effort will be required but payouts would be much higher for those in first 30% than for those in 50%-70%...

Currently the reward tiers are small and in some cases even being in 75% nets millions. Brandy was the best example but I guess those kinds of CGs are rare.

EDIT: Percentile could change depending on what CG it is. If it is bulk Trade then put big % margins. If it is something harder put smaller ones.

Just an idea.

 

[Ozram]

Maybe Frontier should put it like this so players are rewarded on how much they actually participate:

From 90% to 10% (So, Contributions: 0%, 90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50%, 40%, 30%, 20%, 10% and Top X). Maybe remove some and put a tier every 20% but make it so if you want that sweet millz, you cannot simply be in top 75% or 50% to grab them.

If you just want fun and some credits with few runs, you get the rewards according to that. If you want to contribute harder and make your way to top ones then some effort will be required but payouts would be much higher for those in first 30% than for those in 50%-70%...

Currently the reward tiers are small and in some cases even being in 75% nets millions. Brandy was the best example but I guess those kinds of CGs are rare.

EDIT: Percentile could change depending on what CG it is. If it is bulk Trade then put big % margins. If it is something harder put smaller ones.

Just an idea.

Thing is, without those small time contributors in large numbers we wouldn't get to the top tier. They make an impact.

 

[smartroad]

I missed out on this. Still am I bothered? Not really. I have been playing since the Kickstarter days and it has taken time but I have a healthy bank balance and a nice range of ships. It has taken me time and effort to get all of those and certainly some of those ships (my Python for example) I have an affection for as I worked to get all the money to kit it out. Well done to all those who did take part and earned loads of money.

 

[Devari]

Sure, but that's pretty much exactly what you are saying. The "amount" is unacceptable because of <insert my arbitrary take on how much is too much, here>.

No, you still don't understand my argument. At all. After 39 pages in a separate thread and now 23 pages in this thread. I get the sense that you simply aren't capable of understanding the basis of my argument which involves numbers, averages and the use of basic math.

The entirety of your posts, frankly, are a rambling juxtaposition of various hot takes of how your understanding of credit value, and acceptable income per hour, is somehow more correct than anyone else.

The difference is that I can explain my reasoning about why the ludicrous CG payouts are a problem for game balance. I provide references for where I get my numbers and have made several comparisons about average player hours, prior CG payouts and average income per hour doing other game activities. If you can't follow the numbers or basic math involved (and it seems that for most players on these forums, basic math is hard) then you are simply not going to understand anything I've been saying. Your individual "perspective" doesn't change any of those numbers or invalidate any of the comparisons that I've been making.

Since others are simply providing responses such as "I like getting lots of easy credits" (which is really the only "justification" I'm hearing from proponents of the ludicrous CG payouts) then yes, my perspective on "acceptable credits per hours" is much more valid and "correct" that the other nonsense I've been reading in these threads.

 

[Ozram]

No, you still don't understand my argument. At all. After 39 pages in a separate thread and now 23 pages in this thread. I get the sense that you simply aren't capable of understanding the basis of my argument which involves numbers, averages and the use of basic math.



The difference is that I can explain my reasoning about why the ludicrous CG payouts are a problem for game balance. I provide references for where I get my numbers and have made several comparisons about average player hours, prior CG payouts and average income per hour doing other game activities. If you can't follow the numbers or basic math involved (and it seems that for most players on these forums, basic math is hard) then you are simply not going to understand anything I've been saying. Your individual "perspective" doesn't change any of those numbers or invalidate any of the comparisons that I've been making.

Since others are simply providing responses such as "I like getting lots of easy credits" (which is really the only "justification" I'm hearing from proponents of the ludicrous CG payouts) then yes, my perspective on "acceptable credits per hours" is much more valid and "correct" that the other nonsense I've been reading in these threads.

I think the trouble is you find it difficult to accept that we simply disagree with you.

 

[Jason S]

Probably it is time to close the thread.

Irreconcilable view points and all that.

 

[Ian Phillips]

Thead closed, as requested by OP.