Looking at the latest shutdown of missions I feel the strong urge to finally articulate my feelings about this issue. I am well aware, that this is a controversial and emotional topic, and I will try to keep my view in balance.
To me Elite Dangerous is about making Credits.
Credits have always been the center of all my activities. I tried out all possible careers, with always having an eye on my most important KPI: "Credits per Hour" (Cr/h)
Since there is no leveling system, apart from my personal skill as a pilot and my knowledge about the galaxy and the game mechanics, Credits are what in other games is called "Experience Points".
Credits enable me to buy all ships and fit them with the modules I want to further earn even more Credits in even less time to proceed to the next level of ships.
Credits are the key to progress in Elite, we all have started in a Sidewinder, and hour for hour all we did was giving us Credits to buy better modules or finally reach the next progressions step a new ship, with this new ship we could do things better and more efficient, or we could do completely different things which my old ship was not suitable to do.
All the other stuff like Ranks, Faction Reputation, Powerplay, Engineers and Materieals are side effects supporting me in making more Cr/h. I was passionate in every thing I did, every profession I had like miner, trader, bounty hunter, explorer, mission runner, long distance hauler, smuggler, donator, powerplayer, skimmer hunter, generator blowupper, sneaky scanner, rescuer, murder, soldier, mercenary and community goaler, I was it all and I loved it all. I've even been a victim to a Player-Pirate and enjoyed the extra thrill although PvP was never my thing. What a glorious game where one can have such a vast variety of playstyles in an open world.
It was a rewarding and great experience to make triple Elite and rank up Feds and Empire or hitting R5 in Powerplay. But I always always always had an eye on my Cr/h rate!
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always about 100% efficiency or making the best Cr/h it’s more like the game challenging me to find ways to either spice up the grind or find the next level of more income. I often spend hours to find stations or systems with perfect conditions for missioning, trading or mining, without any result – but then when I finally make a catch I want to profit on it. I want to ‘exploit’ the gold mine I have just found, and I want to make a fortune within no time, maximum efficient – rince and repeat. Until after a while I get bored and go to look out for some new stuff.
Let's please be honest: Bumming around in the Galaxy staring at abandoned ruins, crashed ships, interacting with a Thrargoid probe, solving Guardian riddles are nice things, but the can't really keep you busy for many hours. They are like Story-Quests in other games, once you've got the lore and background, you go back to your daily business and that's improving your "character", in Elite Dangerous: "your ships".
And here is my critique: Every single time, players have found a good opportunity to make better money than doing random missions to random systems or mining random stuff the reaction of Frontier was to eradicate the opportunity out of the game.
· Long Range Smugling Missions (Robingo, New Yembo) gone
· Long Range Tradning Missions (Sothis, Ceos) gone
· Passenger Hauling gone
· CG worth a fortune gone
· Massacre mission stacking gone
· Scanning Missions gone
· Generator assault gone
· Skimmers gone
· Mining gone
· Courier(?) maybe gone soon
I do admit, some of this stuff was way over the top like the latest Skimmer hype with up to 400MCR/h and Mining Mission Design Fail with 1200MCr/h but I don’t see where any of the Long Distance Missions where too much! People made up to 60MCR/h but only in the very best ships like Cutter and Anaconda, fitted and tuned towards the job and with quite some experience in the job and only if you don’t count in ramp up times or flying empty. It took 80 to 120 minutes to load my Cutter in Sothis and deliver everything to the bubble and then return to the far site for the next missions. You had to plot a perfect route regarding your delivering targets, since they where all across the bubble. There was no reason to completely obliterate these types of missions, and of course their smuggling pendant aswell. You could have put in a few more NPC interceptions or a wider range of mission targets so on. Or maybe even lower the payout by a marginal amount of money or maybe re-design those transport missions to a flexible volume depending on the cargo hold of the pilot. So many reasonable tweaks I could think of and all you did was deleting them from the mission boards.
Let me tell you: these things were fun and entertaining, it was great to make some more money than just bulk trading in an A-B-A endless loop. (Benchmark: 15MCr/h in the biggest trading ships)
I don’t understand why you guys are so utterly bad at balancing things. This should be your bread and butter as game developers.
Why is it so difficult to set a benchmark for a players income depending on the ship he’s in and then work and balance towards that?
You did a perfect job with Exploring, after having bought a detailled suface scanner every beginner can fly out, and plot a round trip near the bubble to scan ELW WW and HMC to cash in some decent money and progress from Sidewinder to a decently fitted midrange ship within a reasonable amount of playtime, and on a side effect have a brilliant gaming experience. Some of you might remember my Reddit Guide (link below), that helps new commanders to get 12 MCr in 4 hrs.
I wish I had that when I started, I remember days or even weeks of struggling from Sidewinder to a Cobra until I discovered my very first personal goldmine Missioning in Diabingo to Hip105408 (link below) these days I was enthusiastic to make 1.5MCr/h - imagine that!
Now here is my plea: Please have a serious look at balancing the game’s income possibilities!
Fix and bring back all the entertaining mission types, especially the profitable "long distance" missions. Stop putting efforts in content that only 0.5% of the player base is interested in and where all others just wait for the first guide to re-enact the story plot without wasting much time in solving the unsolvable riddles with the poor keys given. (Another topic, your silly hints that don’t help to solve missions, but that’s another thread)
Thanks for listening
Fly safe!
o7
Madouc out.
Links:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteTraders/comments/3m2drr/guide_beginner_trading_missioning_your_first/
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6jx3ag/ps4_commanders_madoucs_welcome_pack_fun_riches/
To me Elite Dangerous is about making Credits.
Credits have always been the center of all my activities. I tried out all possible careers, with always having an eye on my most important KPI: "Credits per Hour" (Cr/h)
Since there is no leveling system, apart from my personal skill as a pilot and my knowledge about the galaxy and the game mechanics, Credits are what in other games is called "Experience Points".
Credits enable me to buy all ships and fit them with the modules I want to further earn even more Credits in even less time to proceed to the next level of ships.
Credits are the key to progress in Elite, we all have started in a Sidewinder, and hour for hour all we did was giving us Credits to buy better modules or finally reach the next progressions step a new ship, with this new ship we could do things better and more efficient, or we could do completely different things which my old ship was not suitable to do.
All the other stuff like Ranks, Faction Reputation, Powerplay, Engineers and Materieals are side effects supporting me in making more Cr/h. I was passionate in every thing I did, every profession I had like miner, trader, bounty hunter, explorer, mission runner, long distance hauler, smuggler, donator, powerplayer, skimmer hunter, generator blowupper, sneaky scanner, rescuer, murder, soldier, mercenary and community goaler, I was it all and I loved it all. I've even been a victim to a Player-Pirate and enjoyed the extra thrill although PvP was never my thing. What a glorious game where one can have such a vast variety of playstyles in an open world.
It was a rewarding and great experience to make triple Elite and rank up Feds and Empire or hitting R5 in Powerplay. But I always always always had an eye on my Cr/h rate!
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always about 100% efficiency or making the best Cr/h it’s more like the game challenging me to find ways to either spice up the grind or find the next level of more income. I often spend hours to find stations or systems with perfect conditions for missioning, trading or mining, without any result – but then when I finally make a catch I want to profit on it. I want to ‘exploit’ the gold mine I have just found, and I want to make a fortune within no time, maximum efficient – rince and repeat. Until after a while I get bored and go to look out for some new stuff.
Let's please be honest: Bumming around in the Galaxy staring at abandoned ruins, crashed ships, interacting with a Thrargoid probe, solving Guardian riddles are nice things, but the can't really keep you busy for many hours. They are like Story-Quests in other games, once you've got the lore and background, you go back to your daily business and that's improving your "character", in Elite Dangerous: "your ships".
And here is my critique: Every single time, players have found a good opportunity to make better money than doing random missions to random systems or mining random stuff the reaction of Frontier was to eradicate the opportunity out of the game.
· Long Range Smugling Missions (Robingo, New Yembo) gone
· Long Range Tradning Missions (Sothis, Ceos) gone
· Passenger Hauling gone
· CG worth a fortune gone
· Massacre mission stacking gone
· Scanning Missions gone
· Generator assault gone
· Skimmers gone
· Mining gone
· Courier(?) maybe gone soon
I do admit, some of this stuff was way over the top like the latest Skimmer hype with up to 400MCR/h and Mining Mission Design Fail with 1200MCr/h but I don’t see where any of the Long Distance Missions where too much! People made up to 60MCR/h but only in the very best ships like Cutter and Anaconda, fitted and tuned towards the job and with quite some experience in the job and only if you don’t count in ramp up times or flying empty. It took 80 to 120 minutes to load my Cutter in Sothis and deliver everything to the bubble and then return to the far site for the next missions. You had to plot a perfect route regarding your delivering targets, since they where all across the bubble. There was no reason to completely obliterate these types of missions, and of course their smuggling pendant aswell. You could have put in a few more NPC interceptions or a wider range of mission targets so on. Or maybe even lower the payout by a marginal amount of money or maybe re-design those transport missions to a flexible volume depending on the cargo hold of the pilot. So many reasonable tweaks I could think of and all you did was deleting them from the mission boards.
Let me tell you: these things were fun and entertaining, it was great to make some more money than just bulk trading in an A-B-A endless loop. (Benchmark: 15MCr/h in the biggest trading ships)
I don’t understand why you guys are so utterly bad at balancing things. This should be your bread and butter as game developers.
Why is it so difficult to set a benchmark for a players income depending on the ship he’s in and then work and balance towards that?
You did a perfect job with Exploring, after having bought a detailled suface scanner every beginner can fly out, and plot a round trip near the bubble to scan ELW WW and HMC to cash in some decent money and progress from Sidewinder to a decently fitted midrange ship within a reasonable amount of playtime, and on a side effect have a brilliant gaming experience. Some of you might remember my Reddit Guide (link below), that helps new commanders to get 12 MCr in 4 hrs.
I wish I had that when I started, I remember days or even weeks of struggling from Sidewinder to a Cobra until I discovered my very first personal goldmine Missioning in Diabingo to Hip105408 (link below) these days I was enthusiastic to make 1.5MCr/h - imagine that!
Now here is my plea: Please have a serious look at balancing the game’s income possibilities!
Fix and bring back all the entertaining mission types, especially the profitable "long distance" missions. Stop putting efforts in content that only 0.5% of the player base is interested in and where all others just wait for the first guide to re-enact the story plot without wasting much time in solving the unsolvable riddles with the poor keys given. (Another topic, your silly hints that don’t help to solve missions, but that’s another thread)
Thanks for listening
Fly safe!
o7
Madouc out.
Links:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteTraders/comments/3m2drr/guide_beginner_trading_missioning_your_first/
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6jx3ag/ps4_commanders_madoucs_welcome_pack_fun_riches/
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