Vettie or Bust

Discuss anything relating to Elite: Dangerous
User avatar
Hrdina
Expert
Expert
Posts: 316
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2015 5:27 am
CMDR: Hrdina
CMDR_Platform: PC-MAC
Contact:

Re: Vettie or Bust

Postby Hrdina » Mon Jan 15, 2018 6:20 am

Deal wrote:But the practical equation is fairly simple since there are more missions available if you take the 1M donations, you will rank faster if you take them, even if they grant the same amount, and if they don't grant the same amount, it is far from being a proportional difference, so it's always more cost effective to take the cheaper ones.

I will agree with this: taking more Donation missions means ranking faster. I haven't seen any numbers to support anything beyond that, though.

Deal wrote:If you exploit the board, time taken should fall dramatically and it's only sensible to line up some cheaper ones. (though I suppose you'd have to do this several times given the innate board refresh even if you don't flip)

I'm one of those weirdos that won't use the board-flipping exploit.

Deal wrote:There's so much money to be made now that it's not really an issue anyway. I'd much rather have a balanced progression system with engaging content than inane get rich/rank schemes, but since E:D doesn't seem to have the former to any degree, I'd rather be able to get into some cool ships and try different things than grind out some mercilessly dreary low effort game design to get there.

I agree that credits flow like water these days. That aside, I've never been in a hurry to get to an "end-game" ship, so I haven't gotten myself involved with any of those get-rich quick schemes. That's more of a gray area, though. I have done some passenger missions and a few CGs, which can sometimes result in quick influx of credits. I've been taking the game as it comes, enjoying being part of the universe rather than running a race. I did finally get a big ship (Corvette), but that was after about 3 years of playing. Still, I didn't really consider much of that time to be "grinding" (except when I was involved with PP). I did spend a bit of time a couple of months ago working on increasing my Fed rank, but even that was mostly me doing whatever I would have been doing anyway, but making sure I do it in Fed systems. I even took time out in the middle of that to hop down to Exioce, Cardea, & Azrael to help out when John Luke sent up the alarm.

Deal wrote:If I'd done this the hard way after months of grindy grind and now witnessed clowns like me walking into the game and tooling around in multiple vettes and cutters within a week or so of hard lazyness, I'd probably be spitting vitriol though.

I did do this the hard way, and it only bothers me a little. :D One particular example of this is that I took a couple of long exploration trips, and finally earned my Elite Explorer rank. Not too long after that, FD buffed the payouts for exploration data.

If I were involved in PvP this easy money might bother me a lot more, I guess. But, I'm essentially playing this game like a solo game, which probably isn't surprising since I've been playing Elite that way for 30+ years now.
Jameson & Son are my copilots
Image

User avatar
Deal
Novice
Novice
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:36 pm
CMDR: Deal
CMDR_Platform: None Specified
Contact:

Re: Vettie or Bust

Postby Deal » Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:41 pm

Hrdina wrote:I will agree with this: taking more Donation missions means ranking faster. I haven't seen any numbers to support anything beyond that, though.

If I rank the Alliance or push up my other ranks a bit, I'll take some notes. I'm quite confident that a 1M donation doesn't grant you anything even remotely close to 3.3x the rank gain though.
Hrdina wrote:I'm one of those weirdos that won't use the board-flipping exploit.

As is your right, and I respect that. I do think that board flipping is daft, a lazy solution from the devs and craps on the owd immurshion. It's just that I care for the alternatives even less.

Personally, I feel that something stops being an exploit the moment that the developers sanction it. The semantics may differ depending on the context though and how you feel about the situation is up to the individual.


Hrdina wrote:I agree that credits flow like water these days. That aside, I've never been in a hurry to get to an "end-game" ship, so I haven't gotten myself involved with any of those get-rich quick schemes. That's more of a gray area, though. I have done some passenger missions and a few CGs, which can sometimes result in quick influx of credits. I've been taking the game as it comes, enjoying being part of the universe rather than running a race. I did finally get a big ship (Corvette), but that was after about 3 years of playing. Still, I didn't really consider much of that time to be "grinding" (except when I was involved with PP). I did spend a bit of time a couple of months ago working on increasing my Fed rank, but even that was mostly me doing whatever I would have been doing anyway, but making sure I do it in Fed systems. I even took time out in the middle of that to hop down to Exioce, Cardea, & Azrael to help out when John Luke sent up the alarm.


Yep. These are very much relative considerations. I'm not interested in cheating, but if the gameplay that I'm bypassing by optimising my approach isn't interesting to me and the mechanics involved are sanctioned by the devs, I'm happy with that. If I accidentally miss out on a valuable experience then I only have myself to blame. Ultimately, it's the job of the developers to design the game systems (although it's a rare event indeed that their motivations align with ours).

Hrdina wrote:I did do this the hard way, and it only bothers me a little. :D One particular example of this is that I took a couple of long exploration trips, and finally earned my Elite Explorer rank. Not too long after that, FD buffed the payouts for exploration data.

If I were involved in PvP this easy money might bother me a lot more, I guess. But, I'm essentially playing this game like a solo game, which probably isn't surprising since I've been playing Elite that way for 30+ years now.


Ostensibly, If it's available to one, it's available to all and since you probably won't fare very well in pvp unless you learn how to fit/fly and grind out the engineering, it doesn't really bother me much. Looking at it retrospectively, I think one problem is that E:D is an ongoing game based on a buy to own + expansions profit model + cosmetic stuff. FDev have negligible financial incentives to improve the base game, or even maintain a playerbase. You would predict then that they would be loathe to spend much money on stuff that doesn't make them any, and duely, this seems to be the case.
They probably looked at the metrics after each gold rush and noticed that people buy new ships and hit the shop to buy shiny stuff for them. E:D is an unforgiving, niche game and I suspect that many people just don't get on with it. If people make bank fast then the chances of them buying some micro-transaction goodies before hitting the exit ramp is dramatically increased.
The alternative - adding deep and engaging gameplay mechanics that are somewhat balanced with respect to one another - is hard, expensive and doesn't make them any money. More's the pity. :(

Anyway, If it cheers you up at all, I just ate 2 rebuys of my combat fit vette inside of 10 minutes. I spent many hours in a res when I started playing so I figured I'd just take it slow and get a feel for the larger ship. Sadly, I think I dinged a security ship with my frags and popped like a balloon before I understood what was happening. (the second rebuy happened because I forgot about the bounty and went back to the same system immediately only for the same to happen. At least I think so. If not then I have no clue what went on).

Bit disappointed how quickly my mostly A rated vette bought the farm though, I must admit.

The price of recklessness? 50m.
The gift of schadenfreude? Priceless. Enjoy! :oops:
Image

User avatar
Hrdina
Expert
Expert
Posts: 316
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2015 5:27 am
CMDR: Hrdina
CMDR_Platform: PC-MAC
Contact:

Re: Vettie or Bust

Postby Hrdina » Tue Jan 16, 2018 4:33 am

Deal wrote:Anyway, If it cheers you up at all, I just ate 2 rebuys of my combat fit vette inside of 10 minutes. I spent many hours in a res when I started playing so I figured I'd just take it slow and get a feel for the larger ship. Sadly, I think I dinged a security ship with my frags and popped like a balloon before I understood what was happening. (the second rebuy happened because I forgot about the bounty and went back to the same system immediately only for the same to happen. At least I think so. If not then I have no clue what went on).

Bit disappointed how quickly my mostly A rated vette bought the farm though, I must admit.

The price of recklessness? 50m.
The gift of schadenfreude? Priceless. Enjoy! :oops:

Nah, that doesn't cheer me up at all.

If you don't mind, I'll return the schadenfreude for a bottle of something good, and hoist a glass to your fallen Vettes. May the next one fare better. o7
Jameson & Son are my copilots
Image

User avatar
Deal
Novice
Novice
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:36 pm
CMDR: Deal
CMDR_Platform: None Specified
Contact:

Re: Vettie or Bust

Postby Deal » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:37 pm

Hrdina wrote:Nah, that doesn't cheer me up at all.

It tickled me a bit. Some of my favourite gaming moments are drawn from the epic failures.
Hrdina wrote:If you don't mind, I'll return the schadenfreude for a bottle of something good, and hoist a glass to your fallen Vettes. May the next one fare better. o7

I'll see what I can do.. and thanks.
/tiphat
Image


Return to “General Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Majestic-12 [Bot] and 57 guests

i