the last change of standing affecting industry already made the mission running worse -

someone complained that he was "forced" to do combat missions to get max standing bonus on production -> which wasnt actually true.

the DEVs reacted to it - and now all my combat standing and logistic standing is nothing worth anymore - only a single spark to unlock for each profession. my Mission runner agent cannot boost my combat agents relations anymore -> squad shared mission button even more useless then before.

Actually, having investigated the test server I must disagree with OP. It's actually easier to get a high-end end efficiency with the new system. If you really hate grinding reputation, you can improve your extensions or use gamma facilities. The new system offers more flexibility, only extreme optimisers will want to aim to maximise every point-giving factor due to strong diminishing returns.

On the note of prices, this is purely a rebalancing and will just have some transitory effects. Also, it's really very difficult to say as the commodities have been recalibrated and the mining system altered.

Finally, raising reputation to a 'decent' level (around 3) only takes a day or two. The grind used to be long and unrelated to industry, but these days you can do it all mining away.

Your "argument" only strengthens mine if you think about it deeper.

As I wrote, missions should be rewarding for their own sake and not for their artificial and illogical side effects in area's that have by reasoning nothing to do with the missions and the objectives you achieve with them.

The standing gains you currently enjoy are nothing more then to control the rate at which level up in missions and control your access to sparks. As I see it, the tie to industry we currently know is to cover up the lack of real mission value.

Players that want to do missions do not get real rewards meaningful to their style of play. While those that have another style of play and aren't interested in missions are held back or forced to do them anyway.  How can holding on to the current use of the standing system benefit anyone in their quest for fun then?

I could accept current mechanics if they made any logical sense whatsoever, but they don't. And since the expansion is going to do a major overhaul of industry, it only makes sense to get rid of the industry side of the problem from the get go.

And I am all for challenging missions with meaningful rewards and more sparks for those that feel they haven't done enough missions in their life (like I did in EVE). But lets not have an immediate solution for missions stand in the way for a better version of industry.

The mentality of "if I got to burn, let everyone else burn too" only stands in the way of moving forward by doing the right things.

I support the diminishing returns approach to everything as it makes perfect sense. What does not make sense however is why this would validate for having standing affecting efficiency of installations in the first place, instead of just affecting costs of usage (be it time or volume, depending on the installation).

You could argue that since it then becomes diminishing return converted to points, used in a diminishing return point system, the effect of gaining more efficiency by working up standing to higher levels diminishes very fast. But that only means the the impact of an unsound mechanic/influence is lessened in practice and still forces everyone to participate in doing the missions up to a certain level to be economic. Whereas you have the chance to start with a pretty clean slate now and get rid of the mechanic and use standings it in a way that actually does make sense!

"Those who do the work reap the rewards." Thats as simple as that.

Franlky i would take your proposition more seriously if you had "at least" pushed 1 combat and 1 industrial relation up to more than 6.0

In that case your proposition would be more interesting, in the fact that you would be also impacted by the change.

Playing a game has absolutely nothing to do with being mistreated as a youth, its time investment versus reward ingame. Every mmo need a grind somewhere, or it would be instant gratification as i said earlier.  Here we have a grind, and the reward is better efficiency.

Now if the DEVs choose to dilute and dilute each time more the grind part out of the game, id prefer they tell it now so i wont bother:

-farming NIC
-farming research
-pushing up standings
-etc...

If all this become easier at a time or another because someone cant handle the grind, ill just "do nothing more" and wait until it becomes easier. My time is not less precious than any other one time.

There are boring things to do to build up your world, so you can enjoy other things, wich have much meaning BECAUSE it was tedious to get them....   See my point?

If we follow your reasoning of "dont wanna do the grind", lets just play all the time like its atm in the test server.

OMG, you again are sidestepping every argument I make by falling back on the "effort" card, which frankly means everything I wrote in my first reply to your initial response is spot on!

You are again display clinging to the idea that "effort" must have "reward", regardless of its intrinsic value or value to others. Things simply do not work that way, they never did and never will. Just trying hard at getting top notch grades in school, does not mean an employer 5 years down the road will pay you 20% more for doing the same thing as anyone else when you perform just the same! And being a genius does not mean you do not have to work for a living!

You are totally sidestepping the arguments and directly connect effort with better efficiency as if those two have a meaningful relationship or at least as meaningful as training up extensions to achieve the same.

You are mixing things here that make sense with those that do not, simply because you are blind sighted by the effort you already put in under the current system. Take your kernels argument from your first post You totally missed the reality that they can be bought from others whereas standing cannot. And now you are missing that gaining new research knowledge by analyzing leftovers from NPC makes perfect sense. It is not just some artificial "effort" and "reward" flow like standing is. You just perceive everything you mentioned as a grind and pile it onto one stack as if it is the same because it costs "effort", without looking deeper into meaning.

You also bring up the time based leveling up argument, neglecting that this game is fundamentally that, where it not that you have to decide where improve. Improving combat by spending EP does mean your industry does not. If you feel that just waiting to gain EP because that is lame, then you fundamentally disagree with this games core.

I get your point, but you are missing mine completely. Never did I argue that standing should have no effect on a players use of installations. I argued just that it is fundamentally incorrect to have it effect efficiency of installations and that we have prices that can be affected by them. I also proposed a more reasonable way of gaining standings, more akin to how you would get it in RL business interactions.

I offered constructive arguments and alternative use of standing in industry, all I got back is two versions of reply:

1) I did the effort under current rules and I want to keep the rewards I gained under current rules.
2) Missions are meaningless without the effects we have under current rules.

The first is downright being stuck/stubborn and not being open for change, based on you did the grind. Well you had the benefits too all that time since you did, so stop using it as an argument.

The second highlights there should be brought true rewards for missions, of all types, that go beyond the long lasting "side" effects. This would make missions stand o their own as an activity, instead only being done to get spark X and standing Y for industry. After which that career ends.

Right now, I can say nothing more then express my disappointment. And please know that if there is no other way, I will just like EVERY other gamer, do the grind. But that does not make it good game play, but just the opposite!

I must by typing in invisible letters somehow as arguments again, got ignored and nowhere did I wrote anything of the likes of "I want reward but no effort", nor anything that implied this. Nearly all the replies to my arguments where cry posts!

This is sickening!