This was posted in the subreddit by Stelcio. It has 1,268 points (87% upvoted). I removed the swearing. 
---------
Here's the thing. Every patch some new high earning scheme emerges. People flock towards it like crazy, make hundreds of millions, sometimes billions and then FDev comes to save the day and nerf the thing to the ground.
Why do they do that?
ANSWER: So it's not too easy to earn money and progress throughout entire set of spaceships.
But why do people flock to these schemes in the first place?
ANSWER: BECAUSE EARNING MONEY IN ED IS TEDIOUS AND IT ONLY GETS WORSE THE FURTHER YOU GET.
There are loads of Elite CMDRs with Cutters, Corvettes and Condas with absolutely no reason to play the game at all except to play around with their spaceships. That said, around with any of Big 3 ships is goddamn expensive.
First of all - the rebuys are insane in those things. If you need to sit for a few hours doing mundane tasks just to break even after you die in your ship, you sure won't find it very appealing to do something fun, but risky in it. What's the point in getting those big toys if you can't play with them?!
Second - the prices of high end modules are insane as well. And not only you need to grind for several days to earn for them, you need to grind for weeks (unlocking engineers, finding materials, rolling) to achieve a good engineered version of the module.
Last thing - you're an Elite, you have a personal flagship, but you still feel like a beggar in a golden palace. Why? Because you only do the same mundane and repetitive things in your precious endgame ship and with your precious endgame rank that you were doing in a puny Eagle/Hauler/Type-Crap ranked as Mostly Worthless.
So yeah, when those schemes appear, everybody flocks towards them. EVERY-BODY! The recent passenger scheme has shown it more than anything ever before - people in Big-3 were invading the place like it was Christmas party with Warren Buffet as a Santa Claus. There were tens of thousands of endgame players rushing to Rhea to earn as much as possible before the nerf hammer gets down on it. People wasted their entire weekend just to avoid THE NUMBNESS™ of your regular payouts at least for some time and have some fun after that for a change.
That said, I understand the premise behind limiting the earnings so the progression proceeds more or less fluidly as you get yourself around the game. But why do the people who have achieved everything this game has to offer have to suffer through the grind even more instead of getting some high paying but highly challenging opportunities that wouldn't be otherwise available for less progressed players? Of course there are people in need of serious battleship firepower that won't hire some poor schmuck in a measly Vulture. Of course there are people in need of transporting a huge amount of cargo that will pay a serious price for service of bulk capable ship. Of course there are wealthy people in need of service of a discrete, highly skilled pilot proven by Elite rank of Pilots Federation. Of course both major and minor factions are able and willing to pay for services of the Elite pilots to achieve their political objectives. Why don't we see it?! Why don't we have a chance to WORK AND EARN adequately to our status?! Why the best metaphor of current earning possibilities is the fact that for quite some time one of the best ways to earn money was taking the most expensive, beautiful and luxurious ship in this game and haul literal %$#*?!
While the current mission system is more or less fine, this game desperately needs another, endgame mission system on top of it, so Big3/Elite players have a reliable way to finance their costly ships and below-Elite players have something to work towards. Could be called Elite Lounge or something - a place where Elite pilots can maintain their local connections and obtain high impact tasks. The missions themselves could be more elaborate, perhaps chained, certainly more demanding and challenging than regular, maybe designed for parties or requiring to switch between different ships to complete certain steps or even use a specific ship for a specific task. To avoid the grind, a mission limit per week could be set or a weekly earning limit (a planned sum for high impact freelance tasks in faction budget). If we could see the effects of our work (like some minor faction getting a huge increase in influence), it could only serve our immersion even further, but the mere fact that an Elite pilot is hired for important, challenging and profitable tasks instead of your regular mundane stuff would be already a huge improvement. And it would make earning actually fun!
Tl;dr GIB ENDGAME MISSIONS & PAYOUTS PLS
---------
Artess
"I am Commander Username, King of the Empire, Admiral of the Federal Navy, Elite member of the Pilots Federation, veteran of countless battles all across the galaxy. This is my Corvette, over there is my Cutter, and I have three different Anacondas somewhere, I think. Yes, I'll gladly haul your fourteen tons of biowaste two systems over."
Issues420916
"Late game money you say? How about player bases!
I want to get a mission when I hit Elite, I want that mission to send me to a base that can be attacked but requires help. I want that base to become mine when all defences are down and ownership is uploaded via link.
Aftet I get the base I want to pump metals and parts into it to gain access to things like personal ship yard, market, storage of all types.
I want to be able to load materials and resources into my base so NPC's can land and buy them from me.
I want to build defences, I want SRV/skimmer/ship/ alien attacks to defend against.
I want to believe any of that would ever happen..."
Akselmo
"I want to join a group of cmdrs who attack these bases, but instead of just taking it, I would have to fight in a bloody war against other players. That would be neat."
teeth_03
"Add 2x Credit Payout Weekends
You know how other games will give you a 2x XP Weekend periodically? Let's do that in Elite, double the pay of everything.
Then we should also have 2x Material/Data weekends where everything drops 6 instead of 3."
---------
Here's the thing. Every patch some new high earning scheme emerges. People flock towards it like crazy, make hundreds of millions, sometimes billions and then FDev comes to save the day and nerf the thing to the ground.
Why do they do that?
ANSWER: So it's not too easy to earn money and progress throughout entire set of spaceships.
But why do people flock to these schemes in the first place?
ANSWER: BECAUSE EARNING MONEY IN ED IS TEDIOUS AND IT ONLY GETS WORSE THE FURTHER YOU GET.
There are loads of Elite CMDRs with Cutters, Corvettes and Condas with absolutely no reason to play the game at all except to play around with their spaceships. That said, around with any of Big 3 ships is goddamn expensive.
First of all - the rebuys are insane in those things. If you need to sit for a few hours doing mundane tasks just to break even after you die in your ship, you sure won't find it very appealing to do something fun, but risky in it. What's the point in getting those big toys if you can't play with them?!
Second - the prices of high end modules are insane as well. And not only you need to grind for several days to earn for them, you need to grind for weeks (unlocking engineers, finding materials, rolling) to achieve a good engineered version of the module.
Last thing - you're an Elite, you have a personal flagship, but you still feel like a beggar in a golden palace. Why? Because you only do the same mundane and repetitive things in your precious endgame ship and with your precious endgame rank that you were doing in a puny Eagle/Hauler/Type-Crap ranked as Mostly Worthless.
So yeah, when those schemes appear, everybody flocks towards them. EVERY-BODY! The recent passenger scheme has shown it more than anything ever before - people in Big-3 were invading the place like it was Christmas party with Warren Buffet as a Santa Claus. There were tens of thousands of endgame players rushing to Rhea to earn as much as possible before the nerf hammer gets down on it. People wasted their entire weekend just to avoid THE NUMBNESS™ of your regular payouts at least for some time and have some fun after that for a change.
That said, I understand the premise behind limiting the earnings so the progression proceeds more or less fluidly as you get yourself around the game. But why do the people who have achieved everything this game has to offer have to suffer through the grind even more instead of getting some high paying but highly challenging opportunities that wouldn't be otherwise available for less progressed players? Of course there are people in need of serious battleship firepower that won't hire some poor schmuck in a measly Vulture. Of course there are people in need of transporting a huge amount of cargo that will pay a serious price for service of bulk capable ship. Of course there are wealthy people in need of service of a discrete, highly skilled pilot proven by Elite rank of Pilots Federation. Of course both major and minor factions are able and willing to pay for services of the Elite pilots to achieve their political objectives. Why don't we see it?! Why don't we have a chance to WORK AND EARN adequately to our status?! Why the best metaphor of current earning possibilities is the fact that for quite some time one of the best ways to earn money was taking the most expensive, beautiful and luxurious ship in this game and haul literal %$#*?!
While the current mission system is more or less fine, this game desperately needs another, endgame mission system on top of it, so Big3/Elite players have a reliable way to finance their costly ships and below-Elite players have something to work towards. Could be called Elite Lounge or something - a place where Elite pilots can maintain their local connections and obtain high impact tasks. The missions themselves could be more elaborate, perhaps chained, certainly more demanding and challenging than regular, maybe designed for parties or requiring to switch between different ships to complete certain steps or even use a specific ship for a specific task. To avoid the grind, a mission limit per week could be set or a weekly earning limit (a planned sum for high impact freelance tasks in faction budget). If we could see the effects of our work (like some minor faction getting a huge increase in influence), it could only serve our immersion even further, but the mere fact that an Elite pilot is hired for important, challenging and profitable tasks instead of your regular mundane stuff would be already a huge improvement. And it would make earning actually fun!
Tl;dr GIB ENDGAME MISSIONS & PAYOUTS PLS
---------
Artess
"I am Commander Username, King of the Empire, Admiral of the Federal Navy, Elite member of the Pilots Federation, veteran of countless battles all across the galaxy. This is my Corvette, over there is my Cutter, and I have three different Anacondas somewhere, I think. Yes, I'll gladly haul your fourteen tons of biowaste two systems over."
Issues420916
"Late game money you say? How about player bases!
I want to get a mission when I hit Elite, I want that mission to send me to a base that can be attacked but requires help. I want that base to become mine when all defences are down and ownership is uploaded via link.
Aftet I get the base I want to pump metals and parts into it to gain access to things like personal ship yard, market, storage of all types.
I want to be able to load materials and resources into my base so NPC's can land and buy them from me.
I want to build defences, I want SRV/skimmer/ship/ alien attacks to defend against.
I want to believe any of that would ever happen..."
Akselmo
"I want to join a group of cmdrs who attack these bases, but instead of just taking it, I would have to fight in a bloody war against other players. That would be neat."
teeth_03
"Add 2x Credit Payout Weekends
You know how other games will give you a 2x XP Weekend periodically? Let's do that in Elite, double the pay of everything.
Then we should also have 2x Material/Data weekends where everything drops 6 instead of 3."
Last edited:
