When is VOID OPAL nerf coming?

[CMDR Harada]

Yep, get mining. But there's nothing to spend those billions on.. I have all the ships I want, and all the modules.. just a number.. or a possible down payment on a fleet carrier.

I only started doing the deep core stuff for the credits, but I found I actually kind of liked it. It was relaxing with the scanner pings, FA-off moves checking out possible 'roids, etc. I could lose myself in it for an evening, especially in VR. Well done FD for making mining a thing I will actually do.

But it does need a nerf. I can make 200 million in a single evening run with my mining python.. that's a bit excessive. Billionaire in a weekend is silly. I don't like the thought that a new player can make a billion in a week. And how many void opals does the populace need ? Galactic prices have to start dropping...

Ready for the January 14th update, and the January 15th forum-storm of hate and dis-satisfaction.

 

[Fenwe]

Yep, get mining. But there's nothing to spend those billions on.. I have all the ships I want, and all the modules.. just a number.. or a possible down payment on a fleet carrier.

I only started doing the deep core stuff for the credits, but I found I actually kind of liked it. It was relaxing with the scanner pings, FA-off moves checking out possible 'roids, etc. I could lose myself in it for an evening, especially in VR. Well done FD for making mining a thing I will actually do.

But it does need a nerf. I can make 200 million in a single evening run with my mining python.. that's a bit excessive. Billionaire in a weekend is silly. I don't like the thought that a new player can make a billion in a week. And how many void opals does the populace need ? Galactic prices have to start dropping...

Ready for the January 14th update, and the January 15th forum-storm of hate and dis-satisfaction.

Funny how that works, isn't it? You got yours, right?

 

[Ezren]

Funny how that works, isn't it? You got yours, right?

A new player should not be skipping any hurdles and jumping into a ship that is so much more complicated with a method that is so very easy. Players need to learn how to play the game, beyond the one single path they will understand, which will be "void opals according to a youtube video".

 

[Jmanis]

Yep, get mining. But there's nothing to spend those billions on.

Statements like this should be the realisation that mining income is totally out of whack.

 

[Red Anders]

Funny how that works, isn't it? You got yours, right?

What would you prefer, that people offer an opinion on something without having actually tried it?

I might be missing what they mean by supply/demands. I know I've seen values on EDDB say something was 1.688m/t but when I get there it is 1.659m/t. The price may already fluctuate. That or EDDB was just delayed. Maybe I'm missing what it does now. I thought me selling hundreds of void opals dropped the price afterwords. I would assume like other minerals the amount needed to 0 them is in the 10's of thousands though. What exactly are they changing here. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

Is this just an extra limit so there is not always a max price. I assume it needs to be a certain state or something then. Or does it already do this? I never pay attention to the state. Is it changing so it has to be owned by certain groups so it's mining oriented after this?

Supply and demand means exactly what you think it does. What is going to change is that pricing will become more volatile because demand in-system for a particular item will reduce more quickly/dynamically as supply increases. Although there is an element of supply and demand in the game now, it doesn't have the effect you'd expect because it's not implemented as simply as 'if demand is 10 and you sell 10, demand drops to zero'. It's going to be closer to that after the update, based on what was in the beta.

What's really interesting about your post (and I'm not having a go at you here because you're far from alone in this) is that you said you never pay attention to states. I'm not sure if you know this but the thing that actually triggers these prices above the galactic average to begin with is exactly that - system states. Specifically in the case of the Painite/Void Opal gold rushes it's a combination of three states which a system must be in to attract the highest prices.

That isn't being changed at all and nor are the prices themselves, at least according to the beta. Literally the only change is that a system will no longer continue to offer those prices until its states change regardless of what is happening with the supply of the commodity in question.

This is why I said it's not a nerf in the classical sense. From any perspective based in logic, it's nuts that a system can switch into the required states and then sees hundreds of commanders flooding the station with Void Opals and Painite without that hugely excessive supply having any discernible effect on the price, despite the fact that demand for the commodity is being more than satisfied.

(Edited for typos only)

 

[Ezren]

What would you prefer, that people offer an opinion on something without having actually tried it?



Supply and demand means exactly what you think it does. What is going to change is that pricing will become more volatile because demand in-system for a particular item will reduce more quickly/dynamically as supply increases. Although there is an element of supply and demand in the game now, it doesn't have the effect you'd expect because it's not implemented as simply as 'if demand is 10 and you sell 10, demand drops to zero'. It's going to be closer to that after the update, based on what was in the beta.

What's really interesting about your post (and I'm not having a go at you here because you're far from alone in this) is that you said you never pay attention to states. I'm not sure if you know this but the thing that actually triggers these prices above the galactic average to begin with is exactly that - system states. Specifically in the case of the Painite/Void Opal gold rushes it's a combination of three states which a system must be in to attract the highest prices.

That isn't being changed at all and nor are the prices themselves, at least according to the beta. Literally the only change is that a system will no longer continue to offer those prices until its states change regardless of what is happening with the supply of the commodity in question.

This is why I said it's not a nerf in the classical sense. From any perspective based in logic, it's nuts that a system can switch into the required states and then sees hundreds of commanders flooding the station with Void Opals and Painite without that hugely excessive supply having any discernible effect on the price, despite the fact that demand for the commodity is being more than satisfied.

(Edited for typos only)

People call things a "nerf" just to attach a negative connotation to a change they don't like. When in reality, this change is a clear balancing.

FDLs were also once "nerfed" because they could pop Shield Cell Banks next to a star and not break 90% temp, without heat sinks. Any cry of "nerf" is usually somebody who wants to keep the thing that needs balancing the way it was.

 

[Fenwe]

A new player should not be skipping any hurdles and jumping into a ship that is so much more complicated with a method that is so very easy. Players need to learn how to play the game, beyond the one single path they will understand, which will be "void opals according to a youtube video".

I'm a new player. I ranked up with the empire to king. Did Feds to Vice Admiral. Along the way I messed up and had to restart from scratch.

Did all of that before I even knew about mining.

So did I 'earn' my right to make billions? What threshold does a new player need to cross? Be specific boss.. I'm curious.

 

[M00ka]

As soon as someone starts saying they have it all, or have done everything in the game I know for certainty they are lying.

 

[Red Anders]

I'm a new player. I ranked up with the empire to king. Did Feds to Vice Admiral. Along the way I messed up and had to restart from scratch.

Did all of that before I even knew about mining.

So did I 'earn' my right to make billions? What threshold does a new player need to cross? Be specific boss.. I'm curious.

You've got the same right to make billions as I have and you'll have the same rights as I'll have after the update too. If it means that much to you mate, I'd get off the forum and get cracking. You can easily clear a billion credits in a single day of gameplay at the moment. Personally I think that's insane but there you go.

But may I ask how you "messed up" so you had to restart from scratch? I ask because I highly doubt that's possible at all - unless you broke some self induced challenges...

Have to admit I wondered that myself, struggling to think of any game-imposed reasons for a restart if you'd played enough to hit those ranks.

 

[Speedcuffs]

As soon as someone starts saying they have it all, or have done everything in the game I know for certainty they are lying.

Because: CQC.
✌

 

[Fenwe]

The ranks are pretty much meaningless (besides unlocking some ships and places) and don't correspond to true experience. One of the most skilled and interesting players is notoricaly low on credits (I guess he doesn't care about rank as well) as he's flying in some sort of semi ironman style (rebuy screen means ship loss to him). You can be a veteran playing for over 9000 hours and 6 years and still feel you have not really understood this game (that's me in a way ).

But may I ask how you "messed up" so you had to restart from scratch? I ask because I highly doubt that's possible at all - unless you followed some self induced challenges that you broke, of course...

I hadn't learned the cardinal rule. Don't fly without rebuy.Learned that the hard way.

But what threshold does a 'new player' have to cross to earn the right to own a Cutter or Corvette? Assuming that is what they want to do? You very neatly avoided the question.

 

[Fenwe]

You've got the same right to make billions as I have and you'll have the same rights as I'll have after the update too. If it means that much to you mate, I'd get off the forum and get cracking. You can easily clear a billion credits in a single day of gameplay at the moment. Personally I think that's insane but there you go.

I have 9.7 billion credits chief. This isn't about me.

 

[TheSisko]

Yep, get mining. But there's nothing to spend those billions on.. I have all the ships I want, and all the modules.. just a number.. or a possible down payment on a fleet carrier.

I only started doing the deep core stuff for the credits, but I found I actually kind of liked it. It was relaxing with the scanner pings, FA-off moves checking out possible 'roids, etc. I could lose myself in it for an evening, especially in VR. Well done FD for making mining a thing I will actually do.

But it does need a nerf. I can make 200 million in a single evening run with my mining python.. that's a bit excessive. Billionaire in a weekend is silly. I don't like the thought that a new player can make a billion in a week. And how many void opals does the populace need ? Galactic prices have to start dropping...

Ready for the January 14th update, and the January 15th forum-storm of hate and dis-satisfaction.

I'm just thinking ahead. We don't know how much Fleet Carriers will cost (sure to be billions), plus if the The New Era does deliver space legs, then personal bases will surely follow and how much will they cost? Probably more billions.

Another 256 tons of Triple LTD hotspot mining should take me over 5B CR in cash, I hope that will be more than enough for anything New Era throws at me.

 

[Red Anders]

I have 9.7 billion credits chief. This isn't about me.

Fair enough. The short answer is they have to play the game and earn the credits, just like I did. Thing is, mining with these gold rushes has only been in the game for a short proportion of its overall life and if you've played as much as you say, you know full well that earning credits is trivial these days regardless of whether mining remains at this level or not.

People are going on as if altering this in any way will mean people are back to making 500k from a two hour play session, which it just won't. Ship progression is supposed to be one of the core aspcts of this game and it always has been since day one, it's far easier to make the credits for ships (or anything else) now than it has been at any point in the four years that I've played for (with the possible exception of the brief period when economy passenger missions were paying out insane amounts for dropoffs at distant stations) with or without exorbitant mining payouts.

I did a spot of painite mining before heading off on my latest exploration trip (I'm currently about 8k away from Beagle Point on the way back towards the core); here's what I made from a T-9 full of Painite

To put that in perspective a stock Cutter is about 210m without discounts, so that would buy you two with some cash left over for upgrades.

It took me about two and a half hours.

So you tell me - does that seem in any way sensible, or desirable? That a player can earn enough to buy two of the most expensive ships in the game in a little over two hours?

I also have plenty of credits but I had plenty of credits way before the current situation with mining was around. I mine because I enjoy it - I've always mined, back since the days of 3Ps mining when you were lucky to find 10 tons of painite whilst filling up 200 tons of cargo space and when 3Ps mining was the only game in town, making maybe 5-6m per load if you could find a station paying good prices.

As I said earlier in the thread, if the beta changes are what happens when the update goes live mining will STILL be one of the best credits per hour earners in the game. This whole drama thread is (as usual) a load of hot air about nothing in particular.

(Incidentally I've owned my Cutter, and Corvette and Anacondas (3) and my other 13 ships since before any of these mining payouts existed.)

 

[Fenwe]

Fair enough. The short answer is they have to play the game and earn the credits, just like I did. Thing is, mining with these gold rushes has only been in the game for a short proportion of its overall life and if you've played as much as you say, you know full well that earning credits is trivial these days regardless of whether mining remains at this level or not.

People are going on as if altering this in any way will mean people are back to making 500k from a two hour play session, which it just won't. Ship progression is supposed to be one of the core aspcts of this game and it always has been since day one, it's far easier to make the credits for ships (or anything else) now than it has been at any point in the four years that I've played for with the possible exception of the brief period when economy passenger missions were paying out insane amounts for dropoffs at distant stations, with or without exorbitant mining payouts.

I did a spot of painite mining before heading off on my latest exploration trip (I'm currently about 8k away from Beagle Point on the way back towards the core); here's what I made from a T-9 full of Painite

To put that in perspective a stock Cutter is about 210m without discounts, so that would buy you two with some cash left over for upgrades.

It took me about two and a half hours.

So you tell me - does that seem in any way sensible, or desirable? That a player can earn enough to buy two of the most expensive ships in the game in a little over two hours?

I also have plenty of credits but I had plenty of credits way before the current situation with mining was around. I mine because I enjoy it - I've always mined, back since the days of 3Ps mining when you were lucky to find 10 tons of painite whilst filling up 200 tons of cargo space and when 3Ps mining was the only game in town, making maybe 5-6m per load if you could find a station paying good prices.

As I said earlier in the thread, if the beta changes are what happens when the update goes live mining will STILL be one of the best credits per hour earners in the game. This whole drama thread is (as usual) a load of hot air about nothing in particular.

(Incidentally I've owned my Cutter, and Corvette and Anacondas (3) and my other 13 ships since before any of these mining payouts existed.)

Personally, no. It why I never made a peep about the potential nerf and why I have been preparing for it.

But when an 'established' player with tons of credits and all the ships they want says that the nerf will keep 'new players' from doing the same. It gets my goat.

 

[Red Anders]

Personally, no. It why I never made a peep about the potential nerf and why I have been preparing for it.

But when an 'established' player with tons of credits and all the ships they want says that the nerf will keep 'new players' from doing the same. It gets my goat.

I don't think his point was that he wants new players to not do it just out of spite, just that it's a bit daft to think being able to do it in a week is either a) intended or b) necessary.

The whole debate about how much is reasonable and 'what harm does it do if players can earn 10 billion a day?' has already been done so many times on here that I really don't want to have another run through it, but with a game like this it's certainly the case that situations like these payouts can do as much harm to player retention as some people think these changes will do.

If some one just jumps in and is sitting on billions and a cutter after a week:

1) They have a good chance of losing it and all their money because they won't have a clue how to use it, which leads to frustration and sometimes ragequits. (You don't need me to tell you that I guess if you did an account reset due to no insurance - I'm really not trying to bash you here so I hope you don't take it that way, but I can't even imagine how someone could play for long enough to hit King rank with the Empire but not know about something as basic as insurance/rebuys. For perspective, I'm one rank below that after four years...)

2) They have an equally good chance of getting bored and quitting because with unlimited funds, there's no real imperative to do anything in the game. So much of the early game is designed around acquiring credits to improve your ship and the gameplay has little to no structure without that.

3) The learning curve is actually steeper flying something like a Cutter than something more basic like an Asp or a Cobra because there's so much more to be aware of and understand.

I think most people who make comments like that about 'new players' do so motivated by the sheer number of posts on here over the years from players who've fallen foul of at least one of the above. Fact is, this is not and never has been a twenty hour game and because of that, having credits thrown at the player in the early stages of the game causes an imbalance because the gameplay experience cannot adapt to it. The greatest myth of this game is that credits matter. Truth is, as soon as you've made about 100m credits, they don't and these days anybody can do that within a couple of weeks if they want to, regardless of mining.

My opinion obviously, I accept that not everybody will agree.

 

[Red Anders]

In my case it's actually the other way around. It must be about 2 years ago where I wiped my commander and started from scratch, because credits mean something in the early stage of the game. I still remember how I enjoyed these 2 or 3 weeks but then had to realize that the fun was way too soon over again. Look where I'm now, already sitting on 3 billions again, 25 ships including the big three and all I can say is, that the 'progression' aspect of this game has been buffed way too carelessly up to shifting it into insignificance. Makes me sad when I imagine how rich the game could be if FD wouldn't have caved in so often to the casual players and mass grinders.

I'll never do an account reset but the reason you might have seen me going on about how lame it is to only have a single commander slot on our accounts (for at least two years now lol) is that I'd quite like to experience the early game as it is today, including working my way up from a basic ship. I started playing back when Robigo smuggling runs were a thing and although I really enjoyed the gameplay of those a lot, I made a point to not go mad with them and make hundreds of millions of credits precisely because I knew I'd probably ruin the game for myself in the process.

When I started, it took me a few days to get into a Cobra Mk3, then I worked my butt off and bought a Courier when the Imperial ships were temporarily unlocked for the emperor's coronation. A stock Courier is about 2.5m, I think I wanted to have about 4m so I could afford some upgrades for it - I spent all my time in the game for the best part of a week on it and made the credits with about an hour to spare. Now they've taken the rank lock off missions, I could do that by taking three or four surface scan missions and doing them in a Sidewinder in about an hour It's progress but I've never been convinced the direction of travel is the right one.

 

[Fenwe]

Frillop Freyraum , Red Anders

I have no problems with nerfs gentle-persons. I'm an old stubborn goat. I've been playing games for a while. I truly enjoyed the steep learning curve in ED. I play more than I should and the 'grind', even the engiering piece, grrr Marco Qwent, was just playing time.

But the sincere belief that the only way that ED can move forward held by the majority of it's elder players is if it punishes it's new players is a mistake.

That is what I responded to, not the specifics of what may or may not end up being a nerf.

I'm out and see you in the deep dark commanders.

 

[CMDR Harada]

Personally, no. It why I never made a peep about the potential nerf and why I have been preparing for it.

But when an 'established' player with tons of credits and all the ships they want says that the nerf will keep 'new players' from doing the same. It gets my goat.

Made my money long before mining, years in fact. Back when a mission offering 500k was earth shakingly huge, Anacondas were rare, and no-one had even heard of Cutters, Vettes, Engineers, or imperial/fed ranks. Landing on a planet meant crashing into the exclusion zone. Back then an A rated Annie was a thing to behold.. a unicorn, more of an ideal than a reality. It was something you aspired to. Back in the 'old days' with credits being hard to come by, you saved for weeks to upgrade one module on your current ship. You didn't keep fleets, you needed the credits that the ship represented to get your next ship. Multi-hop trading routes that generated a single million per circuit were freaking trade secrets ! It literally took me a YEAR to get my Python and A-rate it.

As it stands now, why the heck should I save for an ASP-X in my Cobra ? I can just make a few more VO runs and buy an Anaconda, fully outfitted ! That A rated Annie is now just another "Yeah, I got that too" .

I have nothing against anyone doing what they want, in game. My opinion that mining needs a nerf is based on the fact that billions of credits obscures a lot of what the game offers. The forums are rife with CMDRs getting shot out of the sky in their new Annie, and they complain "Why oh why !? My opponent must have cheated ! Or maybe I need a 'Vette ! ". But did they engineer it ? Get shield resistances right ? Balance module power and priority ? PIPs management ? FA Off maneuvering ? Most of the time, no. Or some of this, some of that. Like a trust-fund baby at a Lambo dealership, they bought the brightest, shiniest, best-est thing they could get without knowing how to operate it. With predictable results when they run into a CMDR who actually does know how to work their ship.

Mining, as it stands now, adds to this 'win it in a weekend' mentality that has seeped into the game. Credits are your score, and once you get a few billion, you get bored and move onto Mario Kart 17, after polluting the forums with ill-informed rants. Like someone who does a speed run of an RPG, without touching side quests, alternate characters, or character classes, they saw a youtube video and copied it move for move.. and got their billions.There is no progression. There is no accomplishment. DC mining enables that thought pattern, embeds it in the game so thoroughly that it can't be removed without total player revolt. Deep core mining is orders of magnitudes worse than the CEOS/SOTHIS poo runs, or any of the previous gold rushes.

That, my friend, is why mining needs a nerf.

 

[Jmanis]

I'm just thinking ahead. We don't know how much Fleet Carriers will cost (sure to be billions), plus if the The New Era does deliver space legs, then personal bases will surely follow and how much will they cost? Probably more billions.

^^ And this is the big, fat issue of mining being so imbalanced. Everything starts to become costed against a singular, excessively large income source activity, rather than the outputs of standard gameplay