Welp, we just got ANOTHER big nerf to piracy... When will the least profitable profession get love?

[Alexander the Grape]

"- Rare goods now remember how far they've travelled from home when scooped from space"

Now the only 2 anarchy rare goods trade route systems are worthless to pirate. The Lave area will turn from a fun mishmash of pirates, traders and bounty hunters to just traders. Furthermore, pirates will be forced to camp single star systems rather than jumping between Lave, leesti, orrere, diso, etc. Worst of all, this is coming with the introduction of "marking" goods, so rather than getting you a nice fat bounty to encourage interaction and conflict, pirates now have their goods magically unsellable.

"Nah mate", the black market dealer frowns as his thugs carry stolen slaves to their sorting pens. "We can't buy this gold off you for half price. An eagle belonging to an independent system 100ly away once scanned it from 2KM".

When will frontier stop hurting the most interesting career in the game?! It's already incredibly unprofitable and dangerous, now they want to make it even more so, as well as being harder for new players to start trying it? I despair

/rant

EDIT 9/03/15 So it was just announced the marked cargo change isn't coming in 1.2. My faith in Frontier is restored somewhat. In light of this, the other fix isn't too bad. My piratical ire has been quenched

 

[Ozric]

You can't call this a nerf as you well know and have already admitted.

 

[EddyRockSteady]

So what you are trying to say is that a Pirate is too lazy to travel for maximum profit? Traders must - why not pirates?

 

[Ari Ben Zayn]

Just because the pirates have to travel the 160ly too it's a nerf? And not a bug fix? Uhm. x)

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but it seems to me that before it was "ok i'll scoop that recently dropped rare and sell it right here to get max profits" and weren't people already using that as some kind of exploit? Buy it, undock, drop it, dock, sell?

 

[Alexander the Grape]

It technically a bugfix, but it is effectively a nerf. Also, I tend to use emotive language when I rant, don't mind me

 

[Quineloe]

You can't call this a nerf as you well know and have already admitted.

That bug however is the main reason piracy isn't a complete joke profession today. If they're fixing that, they should really add something else in return. They're only nerfing incomes on all professions right now. They're doing nothing else but nerf incomes.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

I don't mind the change itself, I do mind the fact that all the changes are negative towards that career that's got the worst risk-reward ratio in the entire game. If it came with, say, making pirating NPCs viable, making black market goods sell for more with pirate rep, or increasing trade good prices so that goods that aren't palladium or rares are worthwhile to scoop then it'd be fine. But frontier seem to be completely ignoring the pirate playerbase, and making no effort to expand our paltry ranks.

It's a vicious circle: not profitable=few players=no voice=stays unprofitable

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That bug however is the main reason piracy isn't a complete joke profession today. If they're fixing that, they should really add something else in return. They're only nerfing incomes on all professions right now. They're doing nothing else but nerf incomes.

traders just got a flat 5% bump to profits in a wing...

 

[Ozric]

That bug however is the main reason piracy isn't a complete joke profession today. If they're fixing that, they should really add something else in return. They're only nerfing incomes on all professions right now. They're doing nothing else but nerf incomes.

I didn't disagree with that at all. What I disagree with is the usage of it in the title of a thread, just to try and get more impact.

 

[Hitsuke]

I find this hilarious personally. So you can't camp the same trade lanes all day now, poaching rare goods a system away from their drop off... such a shame

 

[Huita]

>"Nah mate", the black market dealer frowns as his thugs carry stolen slaves to their sorting pens. "We can't buy this gold off you for half price. An eagle once scanned it from 2KM away".

Tell me more.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

I find this hilarious personally. So you can't camp the same trade lanes all day now, poaching rare goods a system away from their drop off... such a shame

I admit it was a sad situation, but it speaks volumes that it was one of the only ways to make money...

This change will mean more camping, because rather than pirating a network in the Lave area, we have to stick to single isolated systems. Hell, if it's got a black market outpost, we wouldn't even need a jump drive...

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>"Nah mate", the black market dealer frowns as his thugs carry stolen slaves to their sorting pens. "We can't buy this gold off you for half price. An eagle once scanned it from 2KM away".

Tell me more.

In 1.2, if your illicit cargo is scanned by the authorities, you get a lower fine than before but it becomes unsellable. So pirates like myself who laughed at bounties and looked forward to bounty hunter attacks will instead have our cargo made magically worthless

 

[Gogster]

That bug however is the main reason piracy isn't a complete joke profession today. If they're fixing that, they should really add something else in return. They're only nerfing incomes on all professions right now. They're doing nothing else but nerf incomes.

Kind of after the horse has bolted.

Those who have millions, are already lording it, part time players will find find it ever tougher to reach the dizzy heights of an Anaconda or Python.

 

[Tinman]

That bug however is the main reason piracy isn't a complete joke profession today. If they're fixing that, they should really add something else in return. They're only nerfing incomes on all professions right now. They're doing nothing else but nerf incomes.

From just the latest beta patch notes:

- Increased bounties for strong signal source targets that were too low
- Allow stolen Limpets to be sold
- Trade dividend vouchers are now awarded to Wing members in the same starsystem, but not necessarily docked at the same station as the Commander selling commodities
- More sensible values for wear and tear costs

So that isn't true.

 

[RipperJack]

The reason they're introducing this nerf isnt because of "pirating" as so many people assume but because if someone wants an easy 300k, they just ask a friend to fetch the goods from another area while they wait 10 or so minutes (and lets face it, in an adder weighted down jumping a good 16+LY per jump with 24? or so cargo or better yet an asp or above).

So it cost the person a few tens of thousands to give a friend hundreds of thousands instead of 8k a ton in platinum.

While in this sense it IS a good idea, pirates suffer and this isnt fair, sadly theres no real workaround as people will black market it regardless and the only real workaround i can think of is if it didnt apply to cargo from an exploded ship but that just makes it worse.

 

[Yank31]

Not sure I understand your rant correctly.

As I understand the situation : there was an issue where a scooped rare merchandise would automatically yell maximum profit, regardless of the travel distance. Hence an exploit consisting in having 2 people, one buying and jettisoning, and the other one scooping and immediately selling in the SAME system, for maximum profit.

Now, if each container retains its own travel value, it would mean that :
a) you can't exploit that anymore ;
b) you need to pirate people that actually traveled with their merchandise in order to sell them for maximum profit (which makes perfect sense, considering the "rare" nature of said commodities).

So, not sure what's the problem? I find recent solution to be perfectly fine, on all accounts.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

That bug however is the main reason piracy isn't a complete joke profession today. If they're fixing that, they should really add something else in return. They're only nerfing incomes on all professions right now. They're doing nothing else but nerf incomes.

And improving AI.

And new flyable ships.

And the aqueduct.

 

[Huita]

In 1.2, if your illicit cargo is scanned by the authorities, you get a lower fine than before but it becomes unsellable. So pirates like myself who laughed at bounties and looked forward to bounty hunter attacks will instead have our cargo made magically worthless

Sounds like a bug. Better report it. I mean, i can't believe there's a mechanic to prevent selling stolen goods at black market. That's the point of black market to begin with.

 

[Quineloe]

I didn't disagree with that at all. What I disagree with is the usage of it in the title of a thread, just to try and get more impact.

Given how the devs haven't posted anything about player piracy at all in the weeks since the first announcement of marked cargo, title is still not flashy enough.

Sounds like a bug. Better report it. I mean, i can't believe there's a mechanic to prevent selling stolen goods at black market. That's the point of black market to begin with.

No, this is exactly as intended. FD wants to end player piracy. I can't really see any other motivation behind these changes.

 

[ianw]

And improving AI.

And new flyable ships.

And the aqueduct.

And let's not forget sanitation - and the roads..

And the debug camera.

 

[Quineloe]

And improving AI.

And new flyable ships.

And the aqueduct.

Nothing of that has to do with credit generation gaps between the current professions.

I am strictly talking about credit generation by players, and there hasn't been a single buff to any besides first discoveries.