Where is the exploration buff?

[marx]

Exploration already go overbuffed around the time of the introduction of the FSS.

Keep in mind that we're talking about 10-15 million Cr/h, or thrice that if you do the LYR grind. (Which, to be frank, in my opinion shouldn't be a thing.)

Regardless of any arguments about "skill" and whatnot, there is the element of risk that you go many hours without selling your data, and thus, if you do lose it, you lose many more hours of progress than any other career would.
For example, combat is high risk, high reward, small punishment if you fail. Exploration is low risk, tiny reward, and the harshest punishment if you fail.


Personally, what I would do for a more comprehensive rebalance would be:
1. Change the LYR bonus to something else, since as long as it's there, it'll unbalance exploration regardless of what you do. The PowerPlay folks could probably prefer a bonus more useful for PowerPlay too.
2. Make the "first discovered / mapped by" tags instant, like they already are with Codex tags, and turn the scan's credit value into vouchers, to be redeemed when docked, and lost on ship destruction. Alternatively, make Codex tags not instant instead.
3. Rebalance payout values, right now they are quite all over the place; see rarities, for example.
4. Boost first discovery bonuses, to encourage doing that instead of farming already-known bodies over and over. (See the recent CG.)
5. Adjust DSS payouts, players should not feel compelled to waste time flying to planets not to explore them, but only to squeeze more credits out of a planet. Players should want to DSS a planet to reveal the POIs there to explore.
6. Increase the exploration rank requirements, because it's too quick to Elite already.
7. Change Prof. Palin's 5,000 ly requirement to something else, because a combat-based engineer shouldn't have a travel(!) requirement, and all it does is just make combat pilots dislike exploration.

Well hey, I don't expect Frontier to give much thought to rebalancing exploration, but at least I've made my suggestions.

 

[shreddog]

sigh I don't care about more credits. I want more substance/stuff in the exploration gameplay.
It already pays well.

 

[Jukelo]

Where is the rule that profit must be tied to risk or skill?

You tie reward to skill because you generally want to encourage the player to improve, which allows the player to beat harder challenges and feel good about themselves and the game. If you don't, then the player will just do whatver they know they can do, and this will quickly lead to boredom.

As for risk, although taking a risk isn't worthy of a reward in itself, being able to evaluate risk with regards to the potential reward is most definitely a skill, so you need to give the player a range of risky options, whose net reward will depend on how good the player is and what the cost of failure is.

While I'm not arguing that there is little risk, that certainly isn't any reason not to increase payouts as they have for other trades.

Frontier definitely seem intent on upping every reward across the board, which is a silly move IMO, but they have also said they want to look at better balancing skill/risk and reward, which I can get behind.

None of which make any logical sense if you start analysing them. It's a game. Increasing rewards is a good thing.

I don't see any logical link between the two. Rewards are given out in a game to shape the player's behaviour, it's not a simple matter of more reward = double plus good.

 

[eqinox]

At least reward for every generation ship, thargoid structure, crashed ship and other interesting stuff we can find in the galaxy.

 

[K Olley]

IMO First discoveries of anything should be quadrupled (at least) in payout and already discovered objects / planets, stars or whatever should be nerfed. That way as I see it, would give Explorers (new and old) a valid reason to go out exploring or keep on exploring if already out doing so.

Go into some area's and its hard to find a discovered system, The only thing that slows me down is all these hotspots that have to be checked out with lasers blazing

 

[Dragsham]

Welcome to the third and final set of game balancing changes this side of 2021.

^^^^^
Combat
Says it all.. we're getting nowt till odyssey?

 

[Afterglow]

Exploration is a reward in itself. Is it not????

Just like combat was a reward in itself but all of the youtubers got together and cried about it so here we are.

 

[3navis]

That's another way of saying "it's boring so it needs to pay more for players to engage with it".

I assure you that not for me, after 4 years I have just come out of exploration and I enjoy it like the first day.
are different professions and should not be compared with each other, each has its difficulty, but I do not try to say how they should reward the combat, maybe I should do it.

 

[RicoMJ]

I thought the idea of the balance pass was that so each "profession" would earn the same amount of credits for the same amount of time invested, it's not a matter of skill at all.

They never said anything about time. They said increased "risk" would pay increased "reward".

 

[varonica]

With time being the only metric, you encourage the grind mentality.

There are endless complaints about grind in the game, most of them from non-explorers. Miners, combat flyers, traders and etc all complain about grind, I have never once, it's peaceful out here away from all the whining!

 

[varonica]

They never said anything about time. They said increased "risk" would pay increased "reward".

So you don't think the risk of losing a billion credits in one hit after 6 months plat is the same as losing a few thousand and recovering that with a few minutes play? Tell me how risk works again because you obviously don't understand it. Any gameplay loop that lets you recover a loss with a few minutes play isn't based on risk at all, it's based on time, the more time you put in the more money you earn, that's the only valid basis for calculating earnings. I mean even traders face more loss than combat players due to loss of cargo, and explorers in the past routinely lost billions due to attacks by gankers, badly judged landings and dangerous stars, which I might point out weren't nerfed because of explorers complaints but non-explorers out for a quick jaunt.

 

[Dragsham]

Well for fc owners it's all about offsetting costs per tick. So yes unless your out there in just a ship credits do matter. credits arnt relevant once your a billionaire.
But for those who are not rich. Credits are everything.
But l agree content should take priority

 

[Dragsham]

Risk isn't a factor anynore thanks to having a fc out here.
Wouldn't mind meeting a fellow explorer out here to duel with hehe.
Got a railer fdl needs it's legs stretching.
Non lethal of course.
Share the exploration 2 cmdrs better than 1

 

[Dragsham]

Being poor means you can't buy a ship that you can solo pirate massacres with or high cz's. I refer of course to a cutter or vette. The latter can hold its own versus a dozen opponents (npc) I know I do it all the time.
But! I also solo the above in a railer fdl. So yeah perhaps credits arnt as important as I said.
Doesn't every aspiring cmdr want a vette? Know I did.

 

[varonica]

Risk isn't a factor anynore thanks to having a fc out here.

That's very much the case now, that's why I said int he past, however the point still stands, a loss you can recover in a few minutes of play can't be used to judge risk.

I wonder why an exploration buff should be so important. I for one would much rather ask for more exploration content.
What's so exciting about making virtual money? Also remember that it's the laziest form of development you ask for: all they have to do is fiddle with a few numbers to make you happy.

I would consider adding a lot of extra content for explorers to be a buff in a way, I would be happy if the rewards were low enough in all professions to allow a more linear progression of player development from small ships to large, but the other day we had a new player saying they managed to buy a Conda after 4 days play, that's...well it's really silly. Of course one of the developments of that would be that Fleet Carriers weren't gated by money but some other method, maybe rank on profession, you reach Elite in any profession you get to rent a Fleet Carrier for 10m a week maybe.

Lots that could be done to turn ED away from the money grind to a player progression ladder.

 

[gorankar]

Risk? Are we pretending NPC's outside of Thargoids and whole Elite SpecOp teams pose an actual risk to players not in completely paper hulled ships? May as well buff exploration. It's no less risky in an exploration ship, than bumping into an asteroid while in a mining ship, or hitting up a haz res in a combat ship.
PvP generally pays nothing, or next to it, yet offers the most actual risk. If we are to balance based on actual risk, using how little that pays on average, no jobs would pay anything.

I think we should give up the pretense that Fdev is balancing based on actual risk, and instead balancing on perceived risk.

 

[Flossy]

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.

 

[varonica]

500ly from the bubble, and 20,000ly from me, so if I hang around in the bubble waiting for payout buffs I'm not going to get much exploring done. It's likely if I follow my current exploration path I won't be back in the bubble until sometime in January. If they are going to give exploration payouts a buff it needs to be done galaxy wide, not at 1 station which is effectively in the bubble, 500ly is now 1 jump!

 

[aRJay]

Every other part of the games been buffed or nerfed are we explorers included if so what?

Mega increase in scanning ringed planets.
Mega increase in elws, terraformables, waterworlds, ammonia worlds, gas giants with life, weird stars, black holes, Stella phenomena, biologicals.
Bonus for detailed surface scan of ALL bodies in a system.
Bonus for efficiency increased.

And a bridge!!!

o7

It is here for just under two weeks.
Betancourt Base Musca Dark Region PJ-P B6-1
Everything pays three times the price elsewhere.

 

[WR3ND]

Been out for a couple years. I'll probably have to park for a few months to milk arx and the BGS. Don't make that take any longer than it needs to...

I probably should try to make it back before Odyssey.