It's languishing with all the other activities which missed the balance pass.
Where is the exploration buff?
- Thread starter Dragsham
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Only about 10K away for me with a ~34Ly jump range, Maybe I'll make a visit. Might as well. Cheers.For 2 weeks from 11 December, you will receive 3x the normal payouts for exploration at Betancourt Base in the Musca Dark Region PJ-P b6-1 system, thanks to the participants of the recent CG who submitted enough Ammonia world data to pass Tier 4.OK it's about 500 LYs from the bubble, but well-worth it for the extra credits.
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At least selling the same data to the same local faction maybe. But then maybe Frontier prefers the lower database overhead.
Playing since day 1 & from the start Exploration was waaaaay down on the improvements list. Update after update was pewpew, pewpew, pewpew.
We got the 'occassional mini improvement' but only when it also benefitted other area's - like upping plotting from 100 to 1000 LYR's.
It was what? 4 years before Exploration got a decent revamp............it'll probably be 4 more if Oddyssey reveals are anything to go by
Buffing of payouts, not just in Exploration, is just a short term remedy that eases but not cure's the illness. There will always come a point of playing when credit earning is meaningless........I'm well past that point.For 2 weeks from 11 December, you will receive 3x the normal payouts for exploration at Betancourt Base in the Musca Dark Region PJ-P b6-1 system, thanks to the participants of the recent CG who submitted enough Ammonia world data to pass Tier 4.
The game needs more content........a lot more!
Hopefully Oddyssey will bring along that content for all playing styles, rather than just appeasing the pewpew kiddies.
Please don’t forget that the Road to Riches still exists, and any exploration buff would need to be balanced against that fact.
Currently with the R2R a newbie in a sidewinder with an A-rated FSD and DSS can make money comparable to stacking Elite assassination missions, with zero risk, negligible investment, and without having to even leave the Bubble.
Personally, as someone who plays combat, exploration, and trade pretty equally... I think exploration payouts are fine as-is.
Currently with the R2R a newbie in a sidewinder with an A-rated FSD and DSS can make money comparable to stacking Elite assassination missions, with zero risk, negligible investment, and without having to even leave the Bubble.
Personally, as someone who plays combat, exploration, and trade pretty equally... I think exploration payouts are fine as-is.
I don't recall them saying they want credits earned at the same rate over time. Can you find a quote, I may have missed it.
Because that's an impossible task. So if they're aiming for that... Good luck to them.
They did say more rewards for more risk/skill I'm sure (when referring to mining skills), though I think it's entirely up to them to decide what part of their game requires more or less skill, not us.
The risk cap is no greater than with exploration, of course. Sure, you might only stand to lose 100m credits but it takes quite a while to get it. Much less than launch of course. But I'd call that effort, not time. Not skill.
Trying to balance against risk or skill is really hard. Making all activities equal? No chance.
I thought this balance pass was just an attempt at approaching parity. Fdev did say they're going to look at other activities (think it was in a thread about the recent one) and maybe they'll buff exploration.
I personally think the only change needed is to add a distance scale from Sol and the distance in ls. I think the payouts in isolation are great (you can get 10 to 20m for just a few minutes scanning and the road to riches thing is a rapid method of earning millions) but it's the often vast time spent in between just getting to those locations that renders exploration less pay per effort. And the bonus for first discovery is really tame.
I'd rather base it on effort, not time. The effort getting 20kly away these days? 3-4 hours maybe. Actually doing that and scanning systems though? That's a lot more. Mapping should massively boost all data and the further you travel, the more it boosts it. Including ls ranges. And finding systems first requires a bit more thought these days, even though there still remains billions yet to discover. I'm up for that all being buffed but we're kidding ourselves if we think that's what exploration really needs.
I mean, it's had lots of new stuff introduced right? Think about all the stuff you can find now compared to launch. Loads more. But explorers are still bored. I imagine Odyssey will help add new stuff (I don't buy the complaint that it's all fps and just scanning plants...). And I'm up for the reward to be less binary.
But it'll never be equal credits per time.
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But that's not exploration is it, the same as I don't consider people sitting there and mining endlessly until they have billions of credits as mining, none of that is actually the profession of exploring or mining, it's just a way you make quick money and often abandoned once it's no longer useful, and that's a pity because what that means is that there are actually no professions, everything we actually do in the game that's called a "profession" it's actually just a hobby.
Given the option what I would have implemented is a profession "path" for the professions. For instance mining, a new player joins and they get the option of taking on mining as a profession, or if they don't want to make the decision right away they could freelance so they could just explore the game and decide what they like. If they did select mining then or later they would get a number of tutorials on mining that filled them in on what sort of ship they would need, the equipment and how to mine. Once they were proficient they would get job offers from corporations to work for them with various missions of different difficulty or size, payment for working for a corporation would always be better than payment from freelance mining and many of the mining missions would be follow on missions.
In other word implementing actual game play progression that increases payout and job offers as your skill as a miner increases...so job offers not limited to your reputation with a faction but limited by your reputation as a miner, so a freelance miner, as long as he hasn't worked for any corporation and built up his reputation, would always receive the lowest possible payment for jobs and cargo.
A much more complex thing altogether compared to what we have now. The fact that RtR and endless mining for billions exists is a factor of the simplified game play loops FDEV has used instead of putting in some real effort to include "profession" progression and should basically be ignored when discussing nerfs or buffs on payouts.
But then that's my opinion, others may disagree.
Quite!
Wouldn't mind more money as well though
Between the two though more stuff wins.
Just think how much you'd need to pay per system to make exploration = everything else per hour.
Then imagine how much road to riches would net.
It's not possible to balance everything by time. But it is possible to fairly reward more based on effort; Road to riches should pay less than scanning the same volume of data on the other side of the galaxy, for example. Hopefully fdev will go for something like that because I think it's possible for exploration.
You could just reduce the payout on already explored systems and already mapped bodies, I've never run the RtR meta so I don't know how that would work, someone who has done it will have to fill me in!
Ah but now we're no longer just talking about buffing exploration then, adding conditions to when and if that buffs applies becomes a rework.
I for on am not opposed to exploration being brought in line with the other activities if/when the range in payouts across activities become much tighter, but it would have to be justified in some manner, not just because every activity is expected to pay the same regardless of merit (it shouldn't).
Certainly a rework, but then most everything could do with a rework.
Varonica touched on a fab idea concerning gameplay with mining. So why not have the same thing for exploration. Missions to map certain regions that involve risk....namely thargoid space or some other 3rd party who would perhaps hassle the cmdr in one way or another. Combined with actual events in space like previously posted attacks on the ship from parasites or failures mechanically etc whilst actually in sc. Make exploration risky for these missions IF the cmdr chooses to take em on.
All I want is more credits for each scan.
A bonus for scanning an entire system. I recently mapped a huge system of over 80 bodies and I only was interested in key ones plus ringed planets/moons etc. Ignoring the vast majority of moons that have virtually zero credits to scan.
It's a question for me of costs against actual time spent.
So l want to at least break even.
Currently I map about 200 mill a week so I'm not too worried.
Alot about carrier costs. I think they keep me working. Which I know is the devs intent but I wont stop for that reason hehe.
All I want is more credits for each scan.
A bonus for scanning an entire system. I recently mapped a huge system of over 80 bodies and I only was interested in key ones plus ringed planets/moons etc. Ignoring the vast majority of moons that have virtually zero credits to scan.
It's a question for me of costs against actual time spent.
So l want to at least break even.
Currently I map about 200 mill a week so I'm not too worried.
Alot about carrier costs. I think they keep me working. Which I know is the devs intent but I wont stop for that reason hehe.
I'm still in Hawkings Gap, Exploring.
What am I expecting to find that's unique in terms of gameplay?.......well nothing!
Same old Systems, Planets, Rings. No new 'species' to discover, no new lore out there.
Yeah, I'm hitting virgin Systems & leaving my 'doggie scent' everywhere. Though I stopped chasing those goals years ago in-game, Now I'm only checking where I am on EDSM's 'Flight log' & 'First Discovered' Top 100 lists.....both 3rd party acheivements! & just for curiosity.
Yeah, I'm doing a bit of Mining Rings, but that's just to partly offset the cost of filling up my Carrier for my next trip or a little Tritium for the hold. But my billions of credits renders that meaningless atm.
But really, the only benefit I can see out of my Exploration is I can guarantee that after 3 sessions per week, I've got my 400 free ARX each week to add to the pot........should I want to purchase any cosmetics in the future.
Will things change in Oddyssey
What am I expecting to find that's unique in terms of gameplay?.......well nothing!
Same old Systems, Planets, Rings. No new 'species' to discover, no new lore out there.
Yeah, I'm hitting virgin Systems & leaving my 'doggie scent' everywhere. Though I stopped chasing those goals years ago in-game, Now I'm only checking where I am on EDSM's 'Flight log' & 'First Discovered' Top 100 lists.....both 3rd party acheivements! & just for curiosity.
Yeah, I'm doing a bit of Mining Rings, but that's just to partly offset the cost of filling up my Carrier for my next trip or a little Tritium for the hold. But my billions of credits renders that meaningless atm.
But really, the only benefit I can see out of my Exploration is I can guarantee that after 3 sessions per week, I've got my 400 free ARX each week to add to the pot........should I want to purchase any cosmetics in the future.
Will things change in Oddyssey
Maybe the Codex should be utilised better, giving clues of interest in the region of Space you are currently in, when Oddyssey falls it's an opportunity in spawn randomly a decent amount of POI's......though sadly I fear, if these are implemented it'll be bubble only stuff......& for pewpew only.