Passenger Missions Nurfed Again

[Cmdr Eratosthenes]

The problem is you weren't playing the game like other people around here think you should be playing the game.

So much this....

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Lol, I was being a little tongue in cheek there, my point being that the devs did make a "quick tweak" and people are a little unhappy. However, the point stands. FDev have have applied a change that kills a mission type dead. It is now a pointless mission that is wasting space on the mission board. No one is going to waste 40 minutes to an hour in SC for the current reward level...at least, I very much doubt it. If however they'd wrapped the whole equation in brackets, and popped a "/ 3" after it (simplification) the insane payouts would have been reduced a lot, but the missions would still potentially offer enough of a reward for players to consider it worth their time.

So yeah, "quick tweak" as in minimal code change, but obviously due diligence still applies - i.e. test it internally first - but if dividing a number by three for something that just a mission reward value after all, can lead to the developer breaking something, then perhaps they need to go on a refresher course lol.

At the end of the day, this is a game, not some critical software system controlling prioritisation of Emergency calls, making sure peoples pay cheques are correct or monitoring a the reactor in an NPP. The nerfing of these missions isn't hurting anyone, it's just that there were better "quick fix" options available to them in my opinion.

Scoob.

I think the problem is that they need to alter how the payout scales with distance, and it may not be a simple 'find the number to divide by' problem. I'm just speculating, but I think they'll need to look at some sort of inverse square type increase. The current temporary nerf is just temporary. Although you're right, it does have the appearance of a quick tweak.

 

[biot]

You should be thanking Fdev if you enjoy it so much - now you can do it longer!!

I'm showing my appreciation by nerfing the amount of time I play. It's the least I could do.

 

[Scoob]

I think the problem is that they need to alter how the payout scales with distance, and it may not be a simple 'find the number to divide by' problem. I'm just speculating, but I think they'll need to look at some sort of inverse square type increase. The current temporary nerf is just temporary. Although you're right, it does have the appearance of a quick tweak.

Yes, you're right. Though to be fair this has been an issue for several months now, so it's not like their response should have been a quick tweak, they've had a while to ponder this. I guess to me it seems an odd move to address it - even if temporarily - in this way when it's been such a long-standing "feature" of distant station missions.

From what I can see, these missions weren't "bad" or even particularly over-paid in their own right, it was when combined with "board flipping" that players could stack many of them in a short time. I've no problem with people doing that, what others' do in this regard doesn't affect my game. However, even the best passenger mission I took was for 49 million credits for 1 hour and 5 minutes in SC - minus the time taken to deal with interdictions - and a little over 40 million credits an hour doesn't seem like the headline figures many are quoting. Hell, I was making more than that a while ago doing Sothis / Ceos for Federal Rank - I simply took whatever cargo missions were on offer returning from Sothis Mining and made good money doing it. These only started being offered once I was allied though, so I called in my Python (I was in a DBX initially) and started doing them along with data and courier missions. As an aside, this area sucked for Fed Rank - my reason for going there originally - but I made good money. Ended up Fed Ranking elsewhere.

Scoob.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Yes, you're right. Though to be fair this has been an issue for several months now, so it's not like their response should have been a quick tweak, they've had a while to ponder this. I guess to me it seems an odd move to address it - even if temporarily - in this way when it's been such a long-standing "feature" of distant station missions.

From what I can see, these missions weren't "bad" or even particularly over-paid in their own right, it was when combined with "board flipping" that players could stack many of them in a short time. I've no problem with people doing that, what others' do in this regard doesn't affect my game. However, even the best passenger mission I took was for 49 million credits for 1 hour and 5 minutes in SC - minus the time taken to deal with interdictions - and a little over 40 million credits an hour doesn't seem like the headline figures many are quoting. Hell, I was making more than that a while ago doing Sothis / Ceos for Federal Rank - I simply took whatever cargo missions were on offer returning from Sothis Mining and made good money doing it. These only started being offered once I was allied though, so I called in my Python (I was in a DBX initially) and started doing them along with data and courier missions. As an aside, this area sucked for Fed Rank - my reason for going there originally - but I made good money. Ended up Fed Ranking elsewhere.

Scoob.

*nod* Yeah, I did a few Smeaton runs myself, although I never board-flipped - to me that always feels a bit 'gamey'. Instead I just flew around the local area until I had enough to make the trip worthwhile (or timers were starting to run down). I generally made 50-70Mcr per run. I think I once made 100Mcr on a single trip, but that was an outlier.

Smeaton never struck me as being an exploit, just an edge case where the payouts were a bit out of whack. Many people made billions out of it (and fair play to them) but this particular gold rush has dried up. No doubt there'll be another along shortly

 

[shadow133]

It is being rebalanced. They were worth too much. 200M an hour is just silly for low risk netflix runs. Now, I don't care of you are able to click a button for an instant billion, play how you want, but it most certainly is unbalanced with the rest of the game.

The problem with this “rebalance” that some here are talking about, is that historically Fdev have done a poor job in my opinion “balancing” stuff. Unless their true purpose is to make us suffer. I have not played a single: massacre mission, traded rares, killed skimmers or scanned data after they were nerfed. Doubt I will go through the hassle to carry any passengers after this nerf.

 

[Scoob]

*nod* Yeah, I did a few Smeaton runs myself, although I never board-flipped - to me that always feels a bit 'gamey'. Instead I just flew around the local area until I had enough to make the trip worthwhile (or timers were starting to run down). I generally made 50-70Mcr per run. I think I once made 100Mcr on a single trip, but that was an outlier.

Smeaton never struck me as being an exploit, just an edge case where the payouts were a bit out of whack. Many people made billions out of it (and fair play to them) but this particular gold rush has dried up. No doubt there'll be another along shortly

I only ever did the one Smeaton run myself, my long-distance station of choice was elsewhere. Tried Smeaton once just before the nerf, and made good money doing a few pick ups from surrounding systems. One thing I noticed about Smeaton was that mission to there didn't generate the broken (500 mil +) missions I got all the time at, what had been, my regular Passenger run haunt. Still, my location saw a station at 4,100,000 ls out, about 0.14 ly, Smeaton is a little closer.

Basically, it does seem that board flipping is a large part of the "these missions are OP" equation. I've no problem with it, people can play how they want - I'm in a private group FYI - I guess I'd just love the ability to fill up my Cabins / Cargo Hold without needing to hop various stations sometimes.

Scoob.