The Thargoid War: System States Clarifications

[GainDamage]

No they didn't. They just underestimated the numbers and have now tweaked things.

Yeah, sure... That's why our progress is reset and thargoids won more systems. How did I miss that?
The problem is not solved by tweaking numbers, it's the reset mechanic itself that is the problem.

However it is, that doesn't change the fact they use what is left of the community, after splitting live and legacy, as beta testers either.
And it's not the first time they "underestimated" numbers, implemented completely broken mechanics, released what could barely be seen as alpha state of a game, dropped promised features, abandoned platforms, and so on.
It's beyond me how one can still defend this.

 

[Foxly]

They've already tweaked things. I'm sure they'll do so again.

I'm ready to give the benefit of the doubt, but I know my squadron is taking it pretty hard. Just been a kick in the head after a good week. Normally I'd say a small tweak isn't something to get steamed about, but this is the mechanic behind the entire war and it's pretty clear the reset took the wind out of a lot of sails. Maybe this should've been monitored and addressed before we got rug pulled. I personally believe they need to take the weekly timer back to the drawing board. Regardless of what's done, we'll rally, but this is really going to slow down efforts for awhile.
o7 CMDR

 

[[VR] SpaceGhostC2C]

Let the bubble burn, what happens in Legacy stays in Legacy. LOL
Let them know how we really feel, every1 start playing 3.8

 

[Kotoku]

Fdev embodies their game design ethos in "The beatings shall continue until morale improves".

I'm still inclined to let it burn all the way down, just to see what happens.
And I do mean "all the way", not "not like that". Lets see them do it, now they claimed they'll also destroy Colonia as well as a threat (literally, watch the video) if we don't respond.

Seems like way more fun.
There is no functionality like NMS to craft tech or build bases for refugees to escape into the wider galaxy and rebuild, so effectively they will kill their own game.
Maybe they'll come up with another PFM game mechanic to salvage it.

I'm also loving the attention to detail where you can rescue orders of magnitude more people than are actually in a system, destroy more thargoids than they have available, and then get progress reset like Edge of Tomorrow every thursday like clockwork. Maybe there's a mega thargoid brain bug controlling time out there somewhere?
The 8 week CG to drip feed new weapons out that got completed in a day was also great! No disconnect with the actual user base there.
And then the badly needed new weapons can't get released until the regular weekly server tick because that's how the game is designed.
EDO is actually a TBS, not a RTS game, did you know? It has the illusion of a RTS wrapped in an RPG, but it's hostage to the magic weekly server tick adjusting the BGS and releasing unlocks on schedule. Not to mention the new Thargoid War Edge of Tomorrow game mechanic!

Maybe we should call EDO a ROle Time Strategy game -> ROTS.

It's like someone story boarded a big timeline out and the pesky user base is not cooperating with the story beats that are marked out according to some mysterious design metric. Investor reporting maybe? I dunno!

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?
Then "The beatings shall continue until morale improves".

 

[Cosmic Drifter]

Maybe what needed here, instead of a 100% bar per week, is a who's winning the war bar. When the battle starts it's in the middle and it has to reach a part in each side which indicates the battle is over - this is digital tug of war after all why not display it that way?

 

[Screemonster]

For my own part, I'll keep playing the game as normal since I'm an independent pilot and it's giving me new types of gameplay as well as the ability to hone some flight and combat skills against Interceptors. And I still meet up with the lads in Discord and chat and fly in wings while doing it.

In other words, you play the game the way the vast majority of players play.

But with a weekly reset, if you don't do it in the same system the big groups have coordinated among themselves to defend, you won't make any difference. At all.

Without the reset, there was a reasonable chance that small groups might be able to defend a system within the six week timer, or at least set it up so the bar's almost full and give the big boys a chance to kick it over the line (especially once Inara and the like get better at showing the progress bars and times remaining, so people can see "this system's 90% done and it's on the last week, let's finish the job!")

But like this? Nah. Play with AXI or sod off.

I don't even have anything against AXI. I'm just annoyed to see yet another "what do you mean people exist that aren't part of the big squadrons" decision.

 

[Boston]

I don't know what's worse:

-The mechanic itself
-The fact that you only let us know after the first week of pushing
-The fact that it took you folks multiple attempts to explain a mechanic that you developed, correctly.

I don't mean to be harsh or antagonistic, but the lack of thoroughness and foresight is mind boggling.

 

[Boston]

In other words, you play the game the way the vast majority of players play.

But with a weekly reset, if you don't do it in the same system the big groups have coordinated among themselves to defend, you won't make any difference. At all.

Without the reset, there was a reasonable chance that small groups might be able to defend a system within the six week timer, or at least set it up so the bar's almost full and give the big boys a chance to kick it over the line (especially once Inara and the like get better at showing the progress bars and times remaining, so people can see "this system's 90% done and it's on the last week, let's finish the job!")

But like this? Nah. Play with AXI or sod off.

I don't even have anything against AXI. I'm just annoyed to see yet another "what do you mean people exist that aren't part of the big squadrons" decision.

I'm the leader of the largest fed clan in the game and I even agree with you. Nothing against AXI, great group of folks.

 

[RylaDarkstar]

Greetings Commanders,

We wanted to take this opportunity to clarify some details about system states within the Thargoid War:

• The UI provides time in weeks: this is how long the system will remain in a given state. If the state isn't pushed back it will progress (Alert to Invasion or Invasion to Controlled).
• If the progress bar is filled at the end of a week, the state will be pushed back and Thargoids will be defeated in that system. If not, the bar is reset for the next week. Players have as long as the time stated in the above to defeat the Thargoids.

With these points in mind, a number of systems are currently liable to remain under attack as progress resets with the weekly tick on Thursday. However there is still time to win them back!

O7

Congrats, your failure to release our AX Multicannons, this weekly "reset" of all progress toward war, and the fact that the actual battle instances are so buggy, and in most situations unplayable due to invisible/invincible enemies, i'm going to stop playing this game, just as fast as i came to help with the war, yet again you've succeeded in wasting my time. goodbye.

 

[Boston]

Congrats, your failure to release our AX Multicannons, this weekly "reset" of all progress toward war, and the fact that the actual battle instances are so buggy, and in most situations unplayable due to invisible/invincible enemies, i'm going to stop playing this game, just as fast as i came to help with the war, yet again you've succeeded in wasting my time. goodbye.

Yup, was so excited about the war. Been playing all week every night. Tonight, can't bring myself to fly.

 

[InertFurry]

They're not even going to learn anything from this; are they? They keep saying they want to learn better ways to do XYZ that they're horrendously deficient with but they never seem to actually put forth the effort; as if the intent matters when results are at stake.

 

[Boston]

They're not even going to learn anything from this; are they? They keep saying they want to learn better ways to do XYZ that they're horrendously deficient with but they never seem to actually put forth the effort; as if the intent matters when results are at stake.

Everything you need to know about FDevs ability to learn and retain what players actually want is in Odyssey engineering. They made some great changes to ship engineering and then completely reversed all that with on foot engineering.

 

[Mike Reacher]

Reading what players have written suggests ED has pulled the plug already, but too gutless to come out and say it.
I hope I'm wrong and the game has a lot of life left in it yet.

 

[Kotoku]

Congrats, your failure to release our AX Multicannons, this weekly "reset" of all progress toward war, and the fact that the actual battle instances are so buggy, and in most situations unplayable due to invisible/invincible enemies, i'm going to stop playing this game, just as fast as i came to help with the war, yet again you've succeeded in wasting my time. goodbye.

yet again you've succeeded in wasting my time.

And there we have it. The seed at the core of every naff FDev design decision.
How can we waste players time more effectively?

They know it, we know it, they know we don't like it (apart from a small very vocal group of WK's who'll shout you down every time the word grind is mentioned), yet they'll double down every time to implement something even more time wasting, as proven in the OP, without even blinking.

 

[Kotoku]

Reading what players have written suggests ED has pulled the plug already, but too gutless to come out and say it.
I hope I'm wrong and the game has a lot of life left in it yet.

I hope so too.
So much underutilised potential in what they have, but their focus on time wasting grind as the core progression mechanic inhibts their ability to innovate on it properly, to make it both emotionally engaging and above all FUN.

eg: ED/EDO SRV is a fantastic space Dirt Rally simulation that has so much potential to build on as a complete in game activity if they could round out the feature set around it.
The commuity did races, for sure, but very limited in what could be done.
When you don't have the modding capability to properly build that into an amazing experience in itself you're relient on FDev to do it.
Instead, crickets on that, lets build stuff that isn't fun but wastes peoples time instead, and invokes -ve loss not +ve reward emotions.
Lets have A BIG WAR, by clockwork, and janky af to boot. Slow hand clap.

Just one example.

So much wasted and lost potential in this game.

 

[AlienTR]

I did not understand how it would work, I had doubts, I am disappointed at the moment, I will struggle for a few more weeks, I will act according to new developments.

Edit: I'll try to study a little more this week and I'm curious about the results.

 

[Internaut]

I think I'll go back to my pre-update 14 gameplay. Do some rescues if I need cash.

 

[AceMcKool]

I think I'll go back to my pre-update 14 gameplay. Do some rescues if I need cash.

Yesterday was a holiday here. I spent 2/3 of my day at bugged instances either endlessly shooting rubberbanding scouts (with fixed weapons, how's that for a challenge?) or flying around trying to find an AXCZ instance that wasn't bugged. No luck.

So I spent the rest of my day doing what I love most about ED other than exploration: killing stuff at hazres or installations, and that's all I will be doing in the upcoming weeks.

Until they fix this weekly reset nonsense, the Bubble can burn to the ground for all I care.

 

[MVBanks]

I agree the whole idea of progress being reset and having to repeat the same thing over and over again seems typically grindy.

But it's not typical grind. "Usual" grind have some results at the end - materials, data, bgs state, pp weapons - something.
This reset is new, top-class grind - grind for nothing!
Here they try to introduce Religion of Grind. You should just believe, and continue to fight bugs (thargoids and game bugs) and to rescue people, and maybe one day
FDev Gods will reward your efforts. Maybe. Social engineering at its worst.

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

Even if I don't share those grim views, I can understand the debate about the reset. But this is not an Arcade game. It is a simulated galactic war with a long-time over-arching narrative. It makes no sense to start a galactic war with an overbearing overpowered alien entity, and then, on the next day, give out the "I win" toys and give the players the ability to win anything at all.

We are supposed to lose for a while. No sense getting butthurt about that. Again: Not an arcade game. Wrong genre.

You are so right its painfull.