Should Massacre Mission Stacking be Nerfed?

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Oh, just nerf everything.
1 Cr per mission, 1 point of damage per weapon, 1 mission at a time, and then everyone can be miserable all at once.

not at all... balance the game such that mode switching to stack missions, and completing 10 missions all in 1 go is not needed.

or as my dad would say, before he retired, all he expected was a "Fair days pay for a fair days work".

1 mission board, shared between all modes, but have decent pay on them and make sure that at least 1 of each mission type applicable for that system is available for the player.

should a player get lucky and get 2 missions of the same type offered at the same area to be completed at the same place, then fantastic, that is the bonus.

we also need far FAR better tools to make use of the ships we have that DONT involve faffing around refreshing.

if i am doing 1 mission taking me to a certain area, there needs to be a quick filter to show other missions i may be interested in..... hell, this could be actually something FD could implement if we had npc multicrew and i employed a specialist crew member who could give me more options for sourcing missions.

i dont want FD to nerf nerf nerf, i want realistic and believable mechancis... and what we had in 2.2.2 was none of that.

is 2.2.3 any better.... i need to try it.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Personally I think if someone wants to nolife this game for a week and earn a billion credits then more power to them. No nerf needed. Players with the most time on their hands will always earn the most money. If you nerf that, then all you're really doing is applying a heavier nerf to those with almost no time to play.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Ive seen people produce FD saying that they wouldn't punish anyone for board hopping, which is correct then?

FD have rarely - if ever - punished players for abusing exploits.

a group of players used exploits to millions of credits back at laucnh (back then before the mega inflation 1 million was an insane amount of money. FD said no punishments BUT it excluded them from the triple elite competition, so they had to wipe if they wanted to win that.

 

[Erika]

FD have rarely - if ever - punished players for abusing exploits.

a group of players used exploits to millions of credits back at laucnh (back then before the mega inflation 1 million was an insane amount of money. FD said no punishments BUT it excluded them from the triple elite competition, so they had to wipe if they wanted to win that.

But the de facto difference between an exploit and an 'unintended/unforeseen mechanic' is whether or not the developers intend to punish people for it or not. The reason the distinction is important is because players are always going to figure out ways to do stuff with game mechanics that developers did not consider/intend. Most developers set out to create mechanics that facilitate their vision of what players will do in their game, and do not set out to simply make a solid set of mechanics in their own right (this is also the reason developers are not the most qualified people for judging a games mechanics, the people who actually game games are). The result is that intended gameplay is never analogous to allowed gameplay or people would be getting in trouble left and right - rather when a developer makes a distinction between intended and unintended gameplay, the implication is that intended gameplay aligns with their vision of the game, and unintended things may be subject to change, so dont start depending on them. Unintended then is a nebulous and neutral middle ground of things the developers did not intend but which they are also not punishing (which is the same as allowing). When something moves to the title of 'exploit' however, that then signifies to players that this is something that players are not supposed to do and which they can get in trouble for doing. Muddying the distinction here is not good practice.

 

[Ddraig]

I do not think we are to blame because bad planning or lack of understanding of human nature.
There is a limit of 20 missions at a time now. Mode switch or not. As long you do not hinder another player progress I do not see the issue.

 

[SilentCartographer]

People who want massacre mission stacking (MMS) be nerfed, have you ever tried to use this type of grind.... in a viper or cobra partily suited for combat? I don't think so. This way of farming is only effective if you have at least vulture or something close to it. This method is realy time and energy consuming(not to mension that you need a proper ship).
You need to spend almost an hour to find a proper system and chek if it in a cease-fire mode or not. (Depends on your luck)
You need to spend another half hour to grind reputation for a faction.
You need to spend another hour to get your contract list filled and then.... (Depends on your luck)
You need to spend from 1 to 4 hours (depends on your skill, ship and outfitting) to finish those sweet 96 kills missions. 2 hours of continius space fighting at least for me is a bit overkill.
The fatter you are then more profit you will make but you need money to buy some and that is almost 6mil. Could be less of course.
These timings are very rougth and not very accurate becouse there are a lot other factors you need to consider calculating this.
I did all the grind without engineer upgrades.
Anyway you need 1billion for combat fited cutter and about 750mil for corvette. Also you want an exploration ship and then comes conda for just another 200mil. Pfff easy. Just a year of continuous grind without using sweet relogging and mission staking. Mining is boring and payment for delivery missions is ridiculous (takeing this kind of contract means that you will be chased by pirate regadless if it is biowaste or not).
There is compromise solution from our side...
The person who gives us contracts is an broker\agent who only retranslate contracts to us from our actual employers. Telling to 20 different customers that 96 ships of сertan faction was destroyed is not a big deal for an agents. Maximum profit and minimum destruction. Bingo!
Insane idea? Yep!
Immersion? Check! (coz sometimes this realy works in real life)
Fast, but still hard way to grind out ships you want? Yep, since we dont have adequate payment for most of the missions.
Unintended gameplay mechanic? Technecly speaking, yes.
Exploit? Yes but hotfix will make things worse. Nice featue though, need more.
ED have more important problems than MMS like PVP and NPC AI (it does not know how pilot big ships properly). Also loadout generation for NPC, the lack of various gameplay wich leads us to exessive grind...
1billion a week? Possible.
3 hours of sleep in a day? Check!
Headacke? Check!
Anyway, grammar police is on it's way to me, GTG. Good luck and GitGut.
PS You are paying too much attention to minor problems ingoring major ones.

 

[ColtPeacemaker]

Personally I think if someone wants to nolife this game for a week and earn a billion credits then more power to them. No nerf needed. Players with the most time on their hands will always earn the most money. If you nerf that, then all you're really doing is applying a heavier nerf to those with almost no time to play.

Exactly, this. I watch the video by the op, what he fails to mention is the time he dedicated to this endeavour. 1bn credits fair enough, however my observations and experience of this particular gameplay mechanic are vastly different. From the new year I have targeted systems that were military and in civil war, or war with close by stations. Not only is that task tedious and time consuming (although a little easier if you use the eddb api and script some of it) but the time taken to get allied with a particular faction in those systems before the war ends is huge, added to that when you are allied the amount of these missions varies and even with the time spent board flipping (exploit or not this is still tedious and a chore) you are never really able to stack 20 of these unless you spent the whole day building them up.

Then comes the time to implement these kills, the time span for these missions is usually 19-20h, now say you have a job earning real credits (not the space kind) and you spend an evening doing this stacking you don't have enough time to come back the next evening to kill them, the mission would have failed...which leaves these things to public holidays or weekends where other real life commitments take priority. The only system I have seen where you can stack 20 of these quite quickly (but still have to board flip) is 17 draconis.

Now once you have these stacked you had to have a fair amount of skill to stay in the CZ to plough through the amount of kills in that time. Many times I have not even made it to the CZ in my modified vulture due to interdictions, I have also only killed 2 ships in a vulture before having to limp back to the station. I am rated Master so have a bit of CZ experience, but am willing to accept I could be a better pilot, but even in my A rated heavily engineered conda it is an effort to stay out there marking off those kills. RARELY you get with the pack and things flow, but this is probably 1 in every 10 drop ins, and I am finding as soon as it starts to flow nicely I am experiencing network drop outs and having to build up the pack again - annoying. It is a little easier if you wing up with someone, however again time and coordination are a factor.

ok, so the OP made a billion in a week - he fails to say how much sleep he got.... this may be possible for students or kids locked in their bedroom without sunlight for a week solid, but some of the talk on here about 1/2 bn in an hour is absolute .

Half the fan bois on these sites moaning about exploits or noobs in condas are people that more than likely farmed the earlier exploits anyway - ex poop or robigo slave smugglers, no crying ....."don't break OUR game, or MY immersion" fk off!


So nerf the stacking of massacre missions counting for all stacked missions... hmmm then how will people with limited time earn any credits to enjoy playing the game for the small time slots they have? Just let people play the game however they want, I don't give a how many space billionaires are out there or what ships they fly as I never run into them anyway.


1/2bn an hour ....please ....

 

[Kosmetas]

Don't nerf us man!

 

[BL1P]

Any mission type which is exploitable by stacking should be stopped.

 

[kofeyh]

"No."

Why? Because frontier is incapable of a measured approach to change. The last time "helpful" people decided how others should play, the entire missions system was completely and utterly destroyed.

It's still very unwell. I am tired of people wreaking the joint. Stop it. Find a constructive hobby. Bury yourself in it.

- - - Updated - - -

Any mission type which is exploitable by stacking should be stopped.

Any person who overstates the outcomes with zero understanding of the mechanics involved, should be stopped. Because they are a danger to themselves and the entire community.