Smuggling missions now pointless.

[LeetNoob]

Hi there. Which game are you talking about? This is the Elite: Dangerous forums. You should give it a try sometime

Actually, within the wider gaming community, this view of the game is quite common. I've tried to convince people otherwise. Just because you love the game, it doesn't mean his opinion is invalid, although a bit ranty, they are valid points.
Any video game that you watch TV or read while playing has something fundamentally wrong.

 

[SkipRat]

This game is , broken piece of space game. The only thing devs want us to do is mindless trading where you just mash jump button and watch tv.
Smuggling where you actually use stealth and need to be alert to not mess up? Pays less.
Fighting in asteroid belts in the night? They barely pay you for new paint job.
Harder things you do, less you get paid. In what game you have that? Elite:Upsidedown

In diablo 3 you get more rewards each time you chose higher difficulty. Imagine playing diablo on normal and getting drops and gold higher than torment 10 difficulty. Stupid right? So you'd get all gear and gold for upgrades to play highest tier that loses money.

Nobody would play diablo if you had less reward for doing harder difficulties. E: D is just meh.

You play diablo on normal to get shiny gear and some cash, you raise the difficulty to get better gear and more cash reward so you can move to harder stuff to hone your skill.
In elite you do boring easy trading while watching TV and not giving a damn about game, you earn credits buy new ship. You start bounty hunting and you realize that to progress to next ship you don't fight or smuggle or increase your skill in any way, you have to FALL BACK to mindless trade grind while watching TV. Might as well just watch TV or play another game instead. There is REVERSE progress mechanics in elite dangerous! That's why it's so bad. You trade yourself to death and get conda and realize that god damn trading is stupid endgame.

TRADING is god damn end game. GG, this is such hard fail game design i don't even have enough palms to facepalm this.

Ummmm.... This game will hopefully be developed for 10 years... Which means, you need to be patient and wait for the game to actually be finished before you really start complaining.

Yes there are issues with the game, but it is a 10 year project and all professions require a lot of love attentions right now.

I just hope the developers don't forget about all the little things that make a good game, rather than just concentrating on the big stuff.

So please, if you still want to face palm yourself, just do it a little harder than normal and hopefully knock a little bit of common sense and patience into yourself.

 

[anikaiful]

Any video game that you watch TV or read while playing has something fundamentally wrong.

Wrong how? If something isn't a 150% adrenaline rush 200% of the time and requiring more attention span than anyone's brain can ever deliver, it's somehow fundamentally flawed?

 

[Lupin]

Well burning a trade route has been in ED for a while, maybe finally FD have pushed players to move around a bit more to find better trade then running backwards and forward in the same place.
Boring staying in one place time to move on.

You are welcome to my old trade route in the Empire (And outside Powerplay areas) which has 1,000+ per ton both ways with 18+ly between them.

 

[rucky]

No, I am talking per ton it should be worth more than trading, but to be honest I'm not comfortable with being able to haul 200 tons of narcotics around willy nilly. So, per ton you should make more than a trader does per ton, but you shouldn't be able to haul hundreds of tones of illegal goods around, just like a trader does with legit goods, with impunity for a much higher return.

I'm with you here. As I wrote above, I would like to restrict these HOT smuggling runs to just ONE HOT MISSION at a time
High Risk, High Payout, High Fun!

1) super high paid (15-30 mill cr - to get 15+ mill per hour for high ranked pilots)
2) seldom (and restricted to ONE per load)
3) very short delivery time requirements (not these 14 hours+ for 10 mill and only 2 poops)
4) "not existing" special delivery warez (like Obiwan and Luke, passengers, whatever - so there's no way to dumb that cargo and buy it again at the target station !!! ;-)
5) higher fines (1/3 of payment) PER SCAN
6) same chasing as of now with 20+ missions
7) long range 300 ly++

 

[PiLhEaD]

...Unfortunately some of us don't get to spend their lives on games so this was nice for us "time-restricted" folk. The game is a bloody grind fest as it is already without making it flipping worse...

Right here, here's the point of well paid, long range missions. It gives those of us, with limited time, the chance to settle back and enjoy a bit of meaningfully profitable ED-play that also feels like it has a story (albeit only a courier's story) behind it.

I'm now seeing some 400+Ly missions for 200-300K. Well, I can make that easily enough on normal dull-as-dishwater trading in half the time it would take to travel 400Ly.

...It's just sad that a DEV can't seem to make a balanced judgement on these things, ok nerf it fair enough but don't destroy it...

For me around the 3M mark makes the long range jobs tempting, anything less really doesn't.

TL/DR- Please don't cripple these long range missions, they are great for helping you explore, as well as allowing you to make progress, which in turn has encouraged me to play more. Whereas the previous amount of effort required to see my balance improve was proving a major turn-off to playing the game.

 

[Naithe]

No, I am talking per ton it should be worth more than trading, but to be honest I'm not comfortable with being able to haul 200 tons of narcotics around willy nilly. So, per ton you should make more than a trader does per ton, but you shouldn't be able to haul hundreds of tones of illegal goods around, just like a trader does with legit goods, with impunity for a much higher return.

This is true, its surprising how often i hear people talk about using anacondas or type 7, when talking of smugling, the only time that would make sense is if you where to hide say 4-8 tons of illegal goods amongst 2-400 tons of regular goods.

 

[Ekar]

Wrong how? If something isn't a 150% adrenaline rush 200% of the time and requiring more attention span than anyone's brain can ever deliver, it's somehow fundamentally flawed?

If you watch a movie, and you're not engaged with it so you start reading a book, can you claim it's still a good movie?

Do you watch movies while reading books?

For something which has been designed with VR in mind, it's an unsettling trend that people end up doing something else while playing the game. People on this thread are spending more time in menus than playing the game. To me it's just weird.

 

[Crazy Jedi]

Smugglers and illegal goods don't exist because it's fun to traffic them. It's because of the profit.

I'm not sure about that. I have always smuggled illicit stuff. When I first started, the money was proper pants. I did it for the fun. It was good fun trying to slip past the authorities and play a sneaky game-style. The payments were pitiful back then but I still did it as it was more entertaining than trading and because Han Solo is the coolest guy in the 'verse. I took myself off on an ill-timed long range exploration trip just before 1.4 dropped and missed out on all the craziness of the smuggling mission adjustments and re-adjustments (nerfing if you must). I am looking forward to taking up smuggling again when I get back, whatever the size of the pay packet.

 

[Jet Fusion]

But even though we're playing a game, you don't feel fun should be a factor?

But when talking about trading, it should?

I'm not talking about fun. Smugglers are into smuggling, because it makes more money than legal trade of what is within their grasp. A game that does not facilitate this principle is doing it wrong. The fun factor is secondary that is dancing a tango with 'interesting', 'less boring' and 'intuitive'. The entire system is fully procedural and player/corporation/faction successfulness has nothing to do with it. You can make a slight dent with massive numbers, but when you leave it alone everything goes back towards a perfect balance. Politics, storylines and role playing with influence is what makes the whole system fun and interesting.
Currently allot of people are putting allot of time and energy in creating this game towards something the masses will like, but it might all be meaningless due to too much procedural generation with too much balance.

 

[anikaiful]

If you watch a movie, and you're not engaged with it so you start reading a book, can you claim it's still a good movie?

Do you watch movies while reading books?

Well, yes and no. Yes, I've not met a movie yet which'd captivate me so much that I'd not be doing something else while *also* watching it.

Books however... I've met a great many books which catch my attention to level that I can't stop reading them (even to switch lights on when it gets dark - can do that while reading, anyhow).

 

[tough boy]

What I don't get is this: if money is pointless by some people, why the same people get upset if someone makes it, and call for nerfs, which Frontier duly apply?
"play any way you want, as long as is the way that we say it's right"

 

[SkipRat]

If you watch a movie, and you're not engaged with it so you start reading a book, can you claim it's still a good movie?

Do you watch movies while reading books?

For something which has been designed with VR in mind, it's an unsettling trend that people end up doing something else while playing the game. People on this thread are spending more time in menus than playing the game. To me it's just weird.

Sometimes people like to sit back, chill and relax, not everything has to be done at a million miles an hour.

I like slow methodological exploring or trading, just taking my time, other times I like to go do CQC and go hell for leather. What is so hard to understand?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I'm not talking about fun.

In post #171 you were. So that's where my confusion stems from.

Smugglers are into smuggling, because it makes more money than legal trade of what is within their grasp. A game that does not facilitate this principle is doing it wrong.

When smugglers get caught they spend a lot of time in jail. Do you want to incorporate this as well in the game?

You're dealing with gameplay mechanics. You're not going to put a player in jail for years, just because there's a real life precedent. There are different rules in the game than there are in real life. When arguing about a feature within that gameplay mechanic it's not really relevant how the real life situation deals with it, but how it is dealt with within the game. It's a matter of effort vs reward.

You cannot disregard fun in a gameplay equation. An activity like smuggling has 2 rewards. It's a fun activity, and you gain some credits. Trading doesn't have that fun activity (opinions vary of course)

The fun factor is secondary that is dancing a tango with 'interesting', 'less boring' and 'intuitive'.

Completely disagree here. In a game the fun factor is the most important factor to consider.

The entire system is fully procedural and player/corporation/faction successfulness has nothing to do with it. You can make a slight dent with massive numbers, but when you leave it alone everything goes back towards a perfect balance. Politics, storylines and role playing with influence is what makes the whole system fun and interesting.
Currently allot of people are putting allot of time and energy in creating this game towards something the masses will like, but it might all be meaningless due to too much procedural generation with too much balance.

Sorry if I don't address this, but this seems to be a different discussion. I'm confused enough already as it is

What I don't get is this: if money is pointless by some people, why the same people get upset if someone makes it, and call for nerfs, which Frontier duly apply?

Could it be that FD applied the nerf because they themselves deemed the activity overpaid?

 

[Sim Maker]

What I don't get is this: if money is pointless by some people, why the same people get upset if someone makes it, and call for nerfs, which Frontier duly apply?
"play any way you want, as long as is the way that we say it's right"

"What I don't get is this:" Then you must try thinking more. Maybe try and put yourself in another persons position.
.
Lets say we have a "sort of" balanced Galaxy. Some old timers and OCD Grinders have the really nice toys, most people are mid range stuff, and the newbies are in the Startwinders.........and then "a bug" shows up, where everyone gets a billion in the bank........and now everyone is flying around the Galaxy in Anacondas............now can you see a problem?
.
Oh, and this games development is supposed to run for 10 years.......if everyone is "Elite" in one year and have all the ships that are every going to be released......well.......can you see that being a problem for the next 9 years?

 

[Flea King]

If it's not fun, it's probably work.

Sure, folks want to get paid more - for work.

Me? I want more fun.

 

[Brienne]

More money, more fun ? Really ?

Results are more important than gameplay ? You should try Truck Simulator.
Joking.

 

[LeetNoob]

Wrong how? If something isn't a 150% adrenaline rush 200% of the time and requiring more attention span than anyone's brain can ever deliver, it's somehow fundamentally flawed?

Wrong as in a game that requires little interaction or thought, or even watching the screen is a time sink and a poor game design.
And I don’t need “150% adrenaline rush 200% of the time and requiring more attention span than anyone's brain can ever deliver” with your ridiculous hyperbole. Really, go back and read what you just said there, you think any game that you can’t read a book while playing needs 200% of someone’s time? What does 150% adrenaline even mean?

- - - Updated - - -

Sometimes people like to sit back, chill and relax, not everything has to be done at a million miles an hour.

I like slow methodological exploring or trading, just taking my time, other times I like to go do CQC and go hell for leather. What is so hard to understand?

Then read a book and don't play the game. If your reading a book while playing the game your passing the time while you're grinding credits, if you admit that or not.

 

[777Driver]

Sometimes people like to sit back, chill and relax, not everything has to be done at a million miles an hour.

I like slow methodological exploring or trading, just taking my time, other times I like to go do CQC and go hell for leather. What is so hard to understand?

Exactly.... Also have no idea what that guy is saying about VR :/ I'd like the find one person that plays ED in VR and does something else at the same time (except music)

 

[Vandaahl]

What's wrong with stacking 15 low rank missions around the 1 million range? You are still making more money than a bulk trader in a T9

Are you sure about that?
It took me 3 to 3.5 hours to deliver the stack (19) of missions I took, earning me 118 million (average of 6.2 mil per mission or so), well worth the 3.5 hours. But when I do the same with 1.5 mil missions, I get 28 mill for 3.5 hours which is .... 8.14 per hour, which is ... actually ...pretty erm good. Not awesome, but still quite ok...

*Cough*

Never mind. Carry on