Considering how much some other, MUCH less risky and much less end-game activities pay, I would still expect much better Credits compensation. Again, considering the end-game nature of this, the skill required, the needed equipment and how much time it takes to complete the task.
There's an issue around the optics of the game activities that needs to be addressed (by FD).
Broadly, your suggestion here is a risk vs reward comparison, or more accurately an effort vs reward comparison, and broadly, I agree that that consideration is well under-baked. A problem arising from this is an argument that through that logic, a sidewinder with minimum armament destroying an Elite Anaconda pirate, should be rewarded more than the same player using a fully engineered Corvette to destroy the same target. That's obviously not right, in my opinion, but that gives pretext to the next piece
But there's a (in my opinion, reasonable) perception that Elite's game loops are not challenge->reward based, but optimisation->reward based. That is, to take two lenses on this:
- Taking 20 deliveries to a single station should, overall, reward better than taking a single delivery each to 20 different stations (rewarding optimisation of your trade route to minimise the amount of places you need to go to)
- Taking 7 massacre missions targeting a single faction, with the seven missions paying out from separate factions, and targeting weak ships, being more rewarding than taking 7 massacre missions offered by a single faction, targeting seven different groups of pirates... and potentially targeting tougher ships (rewarding optimisation by diversification of your mission source, and using least-effort to achieve the necessary outcomes)
There's a clear line of logic to both... and while I think they're valid, they're done in a way that
invalidates the challenge->reward balance, which is inherently tied to logical career progression within the game.. and that's where appropriate payouts are necessary.
To contrast against how mining in EVE Online works, there's two pathways within that career:
- Optimise your ship to mine the cheapest, easiest and safest materials, as fast as possible in the largest volumes, to turn a profit; or
- Embrace risk to endure dangerous conditions and hostile pilots (or expend significant effort in friends providing a defence fleet) to mine some of the most expensive items in the game, in small quantities.
Both are on average, equally rewarding, and conditions can mean things shift between one or the other being most rewarding.
Basically, this is where ED gets it wrong. Focusing on the Massacre mission piece, there is no context where targeting the high-risk (human) ship combat (whether that's high-intensity space CZs, or Threat 5/6 Pirate Attack sites in negative sec states) holds a flame against massacre stacking, which is best optimised by reducing effort and risk.
Translating this to the EVE mining example, there should be roughly equal reward considerations for:
- Optimising large-scale destruction of weak pirate ships in short order; and
- Seeking out single, high value, high risk targets such as Threat 5/6 and Wing Assassination (engineered) targets.
The naive answer is "Moar credits", but tying this back into my suggestions around non-monetary reward propositions... looking at, say, Assassinations, we have:
- Vanilla Assassinations being Anacondas/Corvettes paying out ~4m credits, maybe 5 materials and a chance for 0-2 * G5 mat drops (0-6 materials) and a bunch of G4, G3 etc (but let's ignore them), and a bounty payout of up to 1m depending on factors
- Wing Assassinations being Anaconda/Corvette with two vulture/FDL escorts, pays out ~4m credits and a chance for the same mat drops/rewards, and the same bounty payouts.
It's a no-brainer to work out what is better... so what if that value proposition changed?
- Thargoids combat issions now pay out up to 10 materials... I would argue that should be bumped to something higher, so that wing assassinations could have their mat rewards bumped to 10?
- What if Engineered ships dropped significantly more materials? Engineered Condas/Corvettes dropping 5+ G5 items (so 15-24 G5 materials), while vulture/viper escorts guaranteed dropping one or two G5s as well?
- Alternately, maybe rep can be cashed for Mats, and these missions offer significantly more rep gains?
So, instead of having two different lenses on a comparable problem, which provide similar (monetary) outcomes, there's actually a value proposition of "Do I want Materials? Then I need to focus on Wing Assassinations[1]. Want credits? Focus on the solo assassinations.
Paring it back to the subject at hand, this then tackles the issue of expectations for rewards. Of course, taking a mission to take down a pirate lord with a big bounty on their head, a substantial monetary reward makes sense. Protecting humanity against an existential alien threat through recovery of captives from the alien mothership? There's a strong argument that money should not be the motivator, but for a game's activities to make any sense, a reward of-sorts is needed. Thus, meaningful non-monetary rewards (using alien materials in experiemental engineering, commoditisation of reputation, other non-monetary value) shore up the absence of competitive credit rewards, where this makes no sense.
[1] Notwithstanding any concerns I have that all missions should be Wing missions, and that it should just be "Easy" and "Hard" missions, the wing aspect should be irrelevant.
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