As promised by the Elite: Dangerous Community Team earlier this week, several rebalancing of the game will take place over the next few weeks.
If you followed our information on Discord Community Remlok, Twitter RemlokEN or maybe my Twitter, you might have noticed that Frontier Developments seems very committed to balancing the game’s careers to provide a smoother experience before the release of the next expansion, « Odyssey« .
Fanart – Miguel Iglesias
First, Mining will be enhanced, then Combat for the second week of December. Other ways to earn Credits will also be reviewed later.
These changes will be implemented in-game and refined thanks to the community’s feedback.
Frontier seems to have adopted a direct and honest approach, telling us what they want to do with the game. And for once, this one sparks joy.
Mining has been the most lucrative role within Elite Dangerous for a long time. While this makes perfect sense as pilots find, extract, and transport huge quantities of precious minerals, the gap has become disproportional. This has allowed even brand new Commanders to become wealthy enough to buy the highest performing ships very quickly. For the health and longevity of Elite Dangerous, we’re going to considerably reduce the payout of this activity so that it remains lucrative but players won’t feel compelled to head out to the latest triple hotspot whenever they need credits.
These approximate maximum prices offered by markets for the following commodities will be introduced
- Painite – 600 000 Cr
- Low Temperature Diamonds – 700 000 Cr
- Void Opals – 1 300 000 Cr
To recognise and reward the extra effort and skill needed for core mining, the majority of minerals extracted this way will see an increase in price, barring Void Opals mentioned above. Several mining commodities which can be bought will have the range of their prices increased, resulting in a higher number of goods with strong profit margins (25,000+) when commodity markets are in suitable states.
To benefit trade, we’ll also bring the following changes:
- Commodity markets will offer the average price rather than minimum price when selling in bulk. This will affect all commodities.
- The base prices of a number of general salvage items will be increased.
It’s a very good thing to bring Deep Core Mining back. I am a bit reserved because these minerals can also be mined with just mining lasers, but we’ll have to wait for the changes to be implemented in-game first, to test it.
The Combat will then be reviewed by Frontier and they will see how to rebalance the bounty and mission payments as well.
Xmosmos
Community Manager Bruce Garrido then continued the discussion with the community.
A few points are worth noting:
- They are also listening to PvP players (possible diminishing returns), in relation to the amount of credits recoverable on the Wanted players; In order not to game the system and « give » credits easily between cooperating players. Interested in bounties created by the players, against other players, even if it could be dangerous.
- The Combat AX payout will also be under consideration.
- Credits earned in CQC are something Frontier would also like to study.
- Bruce is pro Open-only Powerplay & BGS. This is a common discussion at Frontier as well.
- Nothing on Smuggling at this time, as Frontier would first like to review the fines that the authority issues if you are caught in the act.
