Fair enough. I don't think you understand that it *doesn't matter*. In terms of risk assessment, whatever the arbitrary difficulty (never mind that the comfort level will be different for all players), if a player is choosing to do a given bounty, it's because they have already determined they can do it with minimal losses--hence, very little risk. Nobody chooses to run a bounty where they're likely to suffer unacceptable losses, especially when there are profitable alternatives available. If they feel there aren't alternatives without unacceptable losses available, they come on the forum make a thread about it.
I do take risks with bounties because it's fun.
You're complaining about the current selection of bounties being too risky to undertake, and petitioning for more bounties to be scaled to your ability. Just a reminder. If you seriously want to make the case that you ever do a bounty that you dont believe you can probably win just for the sake of having your entire fleet destroyed, then I would have a difficult time taking you seriously. At the very least, you must acknowledge that this is not something *most* players would do. Certainly not anyone playing without save scumming.
The best way to incentivize risk taking is to make the rewards worth the risk. Trying to incentivize risk taking by removing non-risky options and then reducing the rewards (as you have suggested) will just cause people to not do the activity. People make decisions based on risk/reward. If someone chooses to do a bounty, it's because they have assessed that the likely reward is greater than the likely loss. That doesn't equate with no risk.
I never argued for removing risk. You're the one who has the problem with the appearance of bounties you perceive as too difficult for your relative ability. I did say that I would like to see bounties take longer OR be more difficult OR pay out less, in order to slow down the returns from them, and make them less clearly superior to most other mission types.
I've never said bounties have zero risk, only minimal in most cases. I've said there's little reason to think they risk any more than a minimally defended trade fleet in a hostile universe that, unlike a bounty, does not know what kind of threats they might face and will be targeted by every potentially hostile fleet in sight, and so risk vs reward is not a compelling argument for EXP payout.
If you are complaining that players only do activities that will benefit them, then I'm not really sure what to say...
I'm acknowledging a fact. If you are suggesting that most players *dont* only do things in their self interest, I'm not sure what to say. We live on different planets I guess.
It seems to me like the player should be given the choice of high risk or low risk (relative to the players fleet).
I agree, except for the second part, and said so earlier in the thread. I dislike time based scaling, and would ideally prefer no scaling at all. But the rewards have to be commensurate with the difficulty. Making 200k and a boatload of EXP for a bounty mission easily within your ability to complete is not a significant downgrade to a bounty that pays 300k, and will cost your fleet heavily. There must be some level of combat that a combat spec is rewarded by being able to handle, that a non combat spec could not, with appropriate rewards.
The system as it is now at least has the merit of giving players of range of opportunities to choose from, allowing them to find their own comfort level. Scaling all of them to your relative ability, which YOU have argued for, would remove that.
TL;DR : Scaling bounties to current player ability makes combat spec meaningless. Industry focus can then do anything combat spec can do, but combat spec can not do what industry spec can do.
This would be true if:
1) the only combat in the game was bounty combat
2) the scaling system attempted to account for combat skills
1 is patently false
It's definitely false, which is why Ive been saying it every other post in this thread when people argue bounties are the only way to engage in combat or progress in the game. Like here:
(never mind that combat is a part of many other activities in the game)
Who are you arguing with?
and 2 can be easily circumvented. If the scaling is based only on fleet size/composition, then combat skills would not affect the scaling and thus taking them would make the bounties easier. Idk how it is implemented but I imagine alex didn't bother to attempt scaling based on skills, given his affinity for simplicity. Even if the scaling system did take combat skills into account, they would still be valuable for fighting remnant and raids which are now the major combat challenges along with bounties.
Please make a compelling argument as to what an Industry specced character is giving up if bounties scale to their level without consideration for combat ability, which I'd have no idea how to pull off either--I just assumed you did because you suggested setting difficulty for all bounties relative to the player. A combat specced character cant get the same bonuses from doing exploration/salvage/trade, but if bounties were scaled to their level, an industry specced character can complete bounties with the same degree of efficiency a combat spec can. What tangible reward does a combat spec gain over an industry spec, that doesn't ultimately prove superficial in terms of the broader campaign? Remember, you're on the side arguing that bounties at times are too difficult and provide no alternatives, but my lowly D fleets haven't struggled with this. So what have I given up? A trivial amount of a non scarce resource like supply? Why should anyone spec for combat if they can't get rewards from it that I can't, while I have benefits *they* cant replicate?
I don't particularly like any form of scaling, but I like your suggestion much less than I do the current system, which at least provides a range of opportunities for a player to find their own comfort level, and over-achieve at if they have the mind to do it. As you have already agreed with me, rewarding combat activities are ubiquitous, bounties are not the only way to progress through combat, and bounty mission choices should provide a range of options, which is already happening.
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