Pirate MM's post balance test

[ADAMtheWELSHMANz]

I just did a quick test run from LHS 54 BH'ing pirates in Parutis for Fed CG.

I'm allied with all 8 factions and was getting offers in the region of 20 mil for 15 kills.

That's 1.3 million per kill, stackable upto 8 times. As LHS only spawns these missions for Parutis that was easy to do.

So now I'm dropping into threat 3 and 4 pirate activity signal sources where my opponents are NOT engineered and am getting 10.6 million PER KILL NOT INCLUDING THE BOUNTIES!!!

Travel time between signal sources is only a few minutes and a lot of the signal sources contain Eagles and other small ships that melt in literally seconds.

Seems a little on the high side to me as CZ's and Thargoids are much harder and a fair balance pass should put them in a higher earning bracket that what I'm doing.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

And the few nerf the many.

 

[ADAMtheWELSHMANz]

I have no issue with the bounty increase side of the balance.

However been able to stack theae missions, as well as the buff they also received is just too much.

Hopefully FDev see this as I feel it's very unbalanced during this iteration of their changes.

 

[Jmanis]

Yeah, it's crazy.

It's like FD thought that Wing Massacre Missions were the meta for Massacres, which is why they didn't touch them (in fairness, I have no problems with incentivising group play)... but on the other side of the coin they completely forgot cross-faction stacking still exists and was already in need of a nerf... boosting solo massacre payouts is just ludicrous.

Boosting Solo CZ Massacre payouts on the other hand, totally fine.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Are you sure those missions are stacking? I have two missions, one is 0/3 kills, one is 5/10 completed. Mission giver is the same and pirate targets are the same faction.

 

[MintyBiscuits]

If the mission giver is the same, the missions won't stack. Same targets, different mission giver will stack.

 

[Jmanis]

If the mission giver is the same, the missions won't stack. Same targets, different mission giver will stack.

This one. Two jumps away from me I have two systems, each <10Ly away from the same, single Anarchy faction in one system. This means it's very easy to stack up to 10 missions, nearly 14 if I try hard enough. I was fetching 17m for an allied mission for 12 kills, so that would resolve to over 200m, just for 12 kills, if I got an optimal stack. Throw in some assassinations at 4m a pop (which also count towards massacres, if the faction is of the same type) and it's pretty insane.

When a fully engineered pirate NPC is lucky to issue a 1m credit bounty now... it's well out of whack.

Ideally, they need to remove cross-faction stacking, though this was my proposal without doing that... https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/game-balancing-pt-2.559734/post-8824834

 

[STARFIRE REVMEUP]

This one. Two jumps away from me I have two systems, each <10Ly away from the same, single Anarchy faction in one system. This means it's very easy to stack up to 10 missions, nearly 14 if I try hard enough. I was fetching 17m for an allied mission for 12 kills, so that would resolve to over 200m, just for 12 kills, if I got an optimal stack. Throw in some assassinations at 4m a pop (which also count towards massacres, if the faction is of the same type) and it's pretty insane.

Ideally, they need to remove cross-faction stacking.

But here is the rub... that seems like a alot of money... but it can be frustrating refreshing the menu... or station hopping... it takes TIME to set up those stacks... and in the end... its BORING

 

[Commander Biscuit]

But here is the rub... that seems like a alot of money... but it can be frustrating refreshing the menu... or station hopping... it takes TIME to set up those stacks... and in the end... its BORING

I feel like not many people play that way. Hopefully FD doesn't balance bounty hunting catering to the few lunatics earning gigatons of credits. An easy fix would be removing mission stacking entirely, but predictably, those benefiting from it are against it.

 

[Jmanis]

But here is the rub... that seems like a alot of money... but it can be frustrating refreshing the menu... or station hopping... it takes TIME to set up those stacks... and in the end... its BORING

Nowhere near as frustrating as getting the shaft in PA Threat 5 & 6 missions, or smuggling being busted, or research limpets being busted, or megaship looting being broken, or the litany of other legit game activities that don't spin anywhere near as much.

And as I said, no board refreshing needed if you get a place where one anarchy is within 10Ly; all massacres target that one faction, and all factions usually offer at least one MM. I filled up 20 missions today in like, 10 minutes. That's not worth 200m in another 30 minutes.

This concept that "frustrating, boring" mechanics need big rewards needs to die fast. "frustrating, boring" mechanics need to be replaced with engaging and interesting mechanics, not rewarded best in the game. It's a kludge that kills off satisfaction and interest in the actual interesting mechanics.

 

[ADAMtheWELSHMANz]

Are you sure those missions are stacking? I have two missions, one is 0/3 kills, one is 5/10 completed. Mission giver is the same and pirate targets are the same faction.

100% sure. As others have said as long as the missions are from different factions.

But here is the rub... that seems like a alot of money... but it can be frustrating refreshing the menu... or station hopping... it takes TIME to set up those stacks... and in the end... its BORING

I try and get Elite loaded up and be ingame halfway through the mission refresh timer. This means I can grab a load, wait literally a few moments and there may (not guaranteed) be even more.

I also end my session at the station so if I know I'll be on again within 24 hours I can queue some up before I come off. That's 3 boards worth of missions to pick from with minimal effort or downtime.

As @Jmanis mentions above it's easy to find a suitable system once you know what to look for, hell there's even a tool for it.

PVE

edtools.cc

Try it for yourself and see just how easy it is.

 

[Jmanis]

I try and get Elite loaded up and be ingame halfway through the mission refresh timer. This means I can grab a load, wait literally a few moments and there may (not guaranteed) be even more.

I stack while i cook dinner... since thats 30-odd minutes usually, thats more than enough refreshes,

 

[STARFIRE REVMEUP]

I stack while i cook dinner... since thats 30-odd minutes usually, thats more than enough refreshes,

Many of us have done this, and a few times i even set up like 16 factions... was cool a few times, finding efficient ways to use my time... collecting missions while doing deliveries and such... I get it. but for me it got old... it becomes almost obsessive. No longer about the fun of combat.

There is just something about just spontaneously going into a haz red and finding nice targets. to me thats fun... I would prefer to strike it rich finding ships radonmly with HUGE Bounties... almost RNG/SLOT machine like. but thats me

 

[Wrecked]

I wish credits per hour was irrelevant and we did things in this game because they were fun...

 

[CMDR DragonHorn]

Been stacking massacres to see for myself. Indeed, it is quite profitable, and convenient dropping signals with all pirates inside. Thing is, though, after you destroy few stacks of same pirates, they start to hate you and as soon as you enter next signal, they all gang up on you.

I run G5 Krait II, it's pretty much unbeatable, I can clear High CZ easy solo, but even in Threat 4 I have to use up all my storage of cell banks and heatsinks to kill them all. So it's not exactly fast, as ALL targets I've seen there (~200 pirates killed total) were either Dangerous or above, which made them quite noticeably tougher than your regular pirate, say, in HazRes. I mean, 8+ Deadly ships firing on at you at the same time can chew up shield and hull rather quickly even on stronger ships, I reckon.

Considering that, I still don't see Massacres vastly winning over Mining yet in terms of profits. Mission stacking can be reliable, but still RNG, and re-arming after every engagement, which adds to travel time, makes it slower. But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying targets should be easier, because I still find it very stupid that as sole CMDR you are able to take out 10+ ships alone, without even letting your shield drop.

Also would like to add that Wing Massacres aren't exactly harder to do, while they do pay more than regular ones, which is ridiculous, unlike, say Assassinations, where you have to fight up to 3 engineered targets in Wings, which is considerably tougher than ~10 regular pirates in one signal. Should be some kind of balance here.

 

[KW001]

Been stacking massacres to see for myself. Indeed, it is quite profitable, and convenient dropping signals with all pirates inside. Thing is, though, after you destroy few stacks of same pirates, they start to hate you and as soon as you enter next signal, they all gang up on you.

I run G5 Krait II, it's pretty much unbeatable, I can clear High CZ easy solo, but even in Threat 4 I have to use up all my storage of cell banks and heatsinks to kill them all. So it's not exactly fast, as ALL targets I've seen there (~200 pirates killed total) were either Dangerous or above, which made them quite noticeably tougher than your regular pirate, say, in HazRes. I mean, 8+ Deadly ships firing on at you at the same time can chew up shield and hull rather quickly even on stronger ships, I reckon.

Considering that, I still don't see Massacres vastly winning over Mining yet in terms of profits. Mission stacking can be reliable, but still RNG, and re-arming after every engagement, which adds to travel time, makes it slower. But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying targets should be easier, because I still find it very stupid that as sole CMDR you are able to take out 10+ ships alone, without even letting your shield drop.

Also would like to add that Wing Massacres aren't exactly harder to do, while they do pay more than regular ones, which is ridiculous, unlike, say Assassinations, where you have to fight up to 3 engineered targets in Wings, which is considerably tougher than ~10 regular pirates in one signal. Should be some kind of balance here.

Make sure the target system for the massacres has a haz. Rearm with basic synth mats.

Go check out Rowley Port in LHS 277, Jahn Dock in Momoirent, and Lind Terminal in Varaya (They're all about 30'ish LY from Jameson Memorial). Pirate massacres targetting Mbutsi Jet Syndicate in Mbutsi, which has maybe 5 or 6 haz to choose from. Rowley Port has been a bit skint with massacre contracts the last week or so, with factions more concerned with wars, but its usually pretty easy to get 15-20 missions in the stack with just one quick stop per station and not waiting for a mission board refresh.

 

[Ydiss]

I agree CZ missions need a review. But the problem is kill counters. Remove the kill counter, make them based on battle wins and intensity (equivalent 40m pay out buffed to 100m and require 3x high intensity wins with a bonus 10m for objective competition - scale down for easier, shorter iterations).

Then, I'd happily queue up a load of massacre missions and go have fun

The problem is kill counters. There's no logical way to cap them. Cargo stacking is hard capped by your cargo hold (and that's capped by outposts). It'd be stupid if fdev went and said you couldn't take 2 concurrent cargo missions from different factions. If you've got the cargo space, you can do it.

There's no such logic with two different factions wanting to pay you to kill a number of enemies of the same type. It makes total sense that they'd both happily pay you for the same number of kills. It actually makes very little sense that they'd just want you to kill x number without direction though. Same in CZs.

There are other ways to do it. Deleting massacre missions and replacing them with kill lists would be one. A list of up to 20 generated npc names. You can stack as many as you like and the per kill value can be buffed. Then mission USS points have a purpose (higher chance they'll appear). But otherwise, they'll appear as you start murdering their fellow pirates in the target system over time (and the dialogue could fully support this, as you kill "non mission" targets, they warn you you're going to pay, any that escape will call in extra threat targets, the named targets - not all from your list - will get tougher as you remain in place for longer). Stacking them just results in more concurrent enemies dropping in at a time. This will increase the threat (they'll always attack you) in line with increasing the rate you gain credits.

Wing missions should have higher volumes of "adds" per iteration.

 

[Jmanis]

I agree CZ missions need a review. But the problem is kill counters. Remove the kill counter, make them based on battle wins and intensity (equivalent 40m pay out buffed to 100m and require 3x high intensity wins with a bonus 10m for objective competition - scale down for easier, shorter iterations).

Then, I'd happily queue up a load of massacre missions and go have fun

The problem is kill counters. There's no logical way to cap them. Cargo stacking is hard capped by your cargo hold (and that's capped by outposts). It'd be stupid if fdev went and said you couldn't take 2 concurrent cargo missions from different factions. If you've got the cargo space, you can do it.

There's no such logic with two different factions wanting to pay you to kill a number of enemies of the same type. It makes total sense that they'd both happily pay you for the same number of kills. It actually makes very little sense that they'd just want you to kill x number without direction though. Same in CZs.

There are other ways to do it. Deleting massacre missions and replacing them with kill lists would be one. A list of up to 20 generated npc names. You can stack as many as you like and the per kill value can be buffed. Then mission USS points have a purpose (higher chance they'll appear). But otherwise, they'll appear as you start murdering their fellow pirates in the target system over time (and the dialogue could fully support this, as you kill "non mission" targets, they warn you you're going to pay, any that escape will call in extra threat targets, the named targets - not all from your list - will get tougher as you remain in place for longer). Stacking them just results in more concurrent enemies dropping in at a time. This will increase the threat (they'll always attack you) in line with increasing the rate you gain credits.

Wing missions should have higher volumes of "adds" per iteration.

This is why my own take has been a wont for massacres to function more like assassinations.

A massacre drops a USS which you go to, which triggers a USS scenario with wave-based combat like you currently get at megaships or space installations. Finishing the mission requires clearing all waves. Leaving and re- entering the uss without clearing all waves , it resets the instance, just like a normal poi would function

Massacres have vanilla targets, wing massacres have engineered targets. Reward is based on number of waves, and rank/ship of enemies

 

[Ydiss]

This is why my own take has been a wont for massacres to function more like assassinations.

A massacre drops a USS which you go to, which triggers a USS scenario with wave-based combat like you currently get at megaships or space installations. Finishing the mission requires clearing all waves. Leaving and re- entering the uss without clearing all waves , it resets the instance, just like a normal poi would function

Massacres have vanilla targets, wing massacres have engineered targets. Reward is based on number of waves, and rank/ship of enemies

Yeh stuff like this is better than kill 10 rats.

 

[ADAMtheWELSHMANz]

I feel like not many people play that way. Hopefully FD doesn't balance bounty hunting catering to the few lunatics earning gigatons of credits. An easy fix would be removing mission stacking entirely, but predictably, those benefiting from it are against it.

Not many people used to mine until payouts went through the roof.

I've been posting my results far and wide (God bless copy/paste) in order to highlight the issue in the hopes it gets in FDevs radar.

This is the first balance pass we've had to credits since I joined at PS4 launch and I want them to get it as right as is possible to do.

What we have atm isn't right.

• Thargoids should pay most (and please fix ability to insta-kill them).
• CZ's next as the TTK is much higher
• Assasination and pirate MM's should be nearer the bottom of the combat pay table