I don't think that even remotely. But I can still blame the players for cheesing the game. Give players the chance to cheese, and they will do it, and nothing will prevent them from doing it. But I can still criticize it as lame.Blame the players?
"Everybody, stop playing until I've had a chance to get my playtime in!" Does anybody really think that would work in an MMO?
Current state of the Thargoid war
- Thread starter Shadowsnog
- Start date
I still wonder why anyone expects to win the war..
But player actions reducing the richness of gameplay can also be seen in regards to anarchy factions.
But player actions reducing the richness of gameplay can also be seen in regards to anarchy factions.
I am guessing Frontier is stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Story wise, it would be much more interesting if we lost the war. But imagine the outcry if, after all the work (i.e. all the tissue sampling), we still lost the war. Ever heard the phrase "Frontier isn't respecting the players' time"?
.I'm not sure that Frontier cares all that much about forum/steam/reddit whining..
Though I think in this case the onus is probably on Frontier to rebalance the game play, not on the players doing what is most efficient.
My thought are that these Maelstrom are a new permanent feature in the ED amusement park. So the players aren't supposed to win and at some point a balance will be reached. Still (even though I haven't tried), it seems like sampling the thargoids and reaching the week's goal in a few days, instead of having combat zones lasting all week is somewhat unfortunate, and can hopefully be rebalanced at some point.
Though I think in this case the onus is probably on Frontier to rebalance the game play, not on the players doing what is most efficient.
My thought are that these Maelstrom are a new permanent feature in the ED amusement park. So the players aren't supposed to win and at some point a balance will be reached. Still (even though I haven't tried), it seems like sampling the thargoids and reaching the week's goal in a few days, instead of having combat zones lasting all week is somewhat unfortunate, and can hopefully be rebalanced at some point.
I think it's not possible. Even if we agree here in forums to stop tissue sampling until monday, and all big squadrons accept that - there are still individuals and small groups which can continue to do it, because they don't know about agreement, or they don't care. And when Alerts are so weak as it is now, then it's possible to clean it by small numbers of players, even without tissue sampling, by killing Orthruses, for example.
I tried tissue sampling for the first time, couple of days before U16, to be ready in case of CG, and I had chosen an easy target, uninhabited control system HIP 22203, 24LY from Maelstrom, and with my T10 I cleaned the system in half a day. By scalping 6 scouts at 30 FPS. Six scouts, because I visited system 6 times and it was finished. There's no sense.
One average AX pilot was able to clean the whole system alone? System full of strong enemies, Hydras, Medusas, Glaives, Scythes, thousands of Scouts? What kind of war is this?
Just to be clear; while I am salty at the players using and abusing the cheese mechanic, I am much more salty at Frontier for allowing this to continue for so long and throwing things so much out of balance.
(Oh no, there goes my reputation as White Knight (TM) )
(Oh no, there goes my reputation as White Knight (TM) )
Don't worry, it's easily regained!
But... but... the Thargoids could attack Colonia, guys!
Whew, good thing I'm not on video, I couldn't have said that with a straight face.
Anyway, I was wondering about something, so here's a question to @Ian Doncaster and anyone else who has done the math: in a hypothetical scenario, under the current system, how long would it take for the Thargoids to take over the bubble if there was absolutely no player opposition? Not just "all the squadrons agreed to cease all operations", but a theoretical scenario where somehow every player decided to drop the war. Which will of course never happen, you can't get every single player to do that - I'm just curious about what the shortest time to the Thargoids burning the bubble would be.
Also, from then on, would it be faster for the Thargoids to "climb" the Colonia Bridge to Colonia in a decent amount of time, or would they have to expand through uninhabited systems and take practically forever to get there?
Whew, good thing I'm not on video, I couldn't have said that with a straight face.
Anyway, I was wondering about something, so here's a question to @Ian Doncaster and anyone else who has done the math: in a hypothetical scenario, under the current system, how long would it take for the Thargoids to take over the bubble if there was absolutely no player opposition? Not just "all the squadrons agreed to cease all operations", but a theoretical scenario where somehow every player decided to drop the war. Which will of course never happen, you can't get every single player to do that - I'm just curious about what the shortest time to the Thargoids burning the bubble would be.
Also, from then on, would it be faster for the Thargoids to "climb" the Colonia Bridge to Colonia in a decent amount of time, or would they have to expand through uninhabited systems and take practically forever to get there?
Sure, to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that it would be simple. However, maybe if some streamer/yt folks like Buur, Galnet News, D2EA, OA, Loot & Grind etc.. got on board maybe it would be interesting to see the result of that? For science.
How do you know it was just you though?
Doesn't the cheese mechanic of sampling require more effort/skill than actually fighting the thargoids (if done solo)?
I think the sampling as a way to win the war would be a very interesting subversion story wise. The issue isn't sampling but how the phases of the war don't work as intended if we can actually fight back effectively by any means which makes it hard to fix by just tweaking the numbers to force us to always lose.
I think the sampling as a way to win the war would be a very interesting subversion story wise. The issue isn't sampling but how the phases of the war don't work as intended if we can actually fight back effectively by any means which makes it hard to fix by just tweaking the numbers to force us to always lose.
Basically forever just for the bubble, there should be systems they can't reach at all due to being further than 10Ly from anything else.
I was surprised that it didn't get balanced/nerfed with U16. To be fair, I do agree that the ultimate answer is for Frontier to implement but I don't know that they actually changed anything from the beginning, rather than it was a discovered trick that's become something more like a speedrun strat. Up till that point, the chorus was that it was an impossible task so I wonder how aware Frontier are about this? I know the forum hasn't been silent but maybe it hasn't filtered through yet?
My suggestion was as an interim measure and I think that could be a cool player base led initiative, especially seeing as the organization of the war response has been so effective, and also player base led. Maybe the response could also include some PVP efforts.. ducks for cover..
correct me if I am wrong; but my understanding is that most of it is done by sampling Scouts, not Interceptors. Much less dangerous.
I was in open all the time, but alone. I checked progress bar before I started, and also during my work. And I delivered little bit more tissue samples then is predicted in spreadsheet made by cmdr Phill P., "Thargoid tissue sampling in alert and control systems.pdf"
That's fine, but there's also private & solo to take into account, plus if you have a block list open could leave you on your own with other instances being active.
Yeah I forgot about that, I think that was changed shortly after we discovered sampling but it's a weird decision to make it work like that and not based on sample value.
Yes I know, it's possible that other players were there in solo or PG, but to avoid that I chose a system that was completely uninteresting at that moment. And when I delivered enough samples, I think it was about 480, then the system was complete. I think I can be pretty sure I was alone, although I can't prove it. My block list is empty.
Wait a minute... You mean tissue sampling the goids to death is cheesy?
I suggested something similar to this, but folks much more active in the community have stated that they tried to ask for some restraint and received very little response.
This situation reminds me of the idea of the 'tragedy of the commons'-
"According to the concept, if numerous independent individuals should enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource e.g. a pasture, they will tend to over-use it, and may end up destroying its value altogether. To exercise voluntary restraint is not a rational choice for any one individual - if he did, the others would merely supplant him - yet the predictable result is a tragedy for all."
Not sure the metaphor holds strictly true for Elite or indeed MMO's in general, but there are some similarities.
It became a genuinely different Interceptor encounter, at least! This is what I said about it at the time:
Not much time after that, I was able to fill all 64 corrosive cargo, and occasionally allowed it to overflow into the regular cargo and take 68–72. I then stopped summoning Interceptors via Hyperspace though; all of that jumping back and forth became quite intolerable! Since then, by which I mean around week 18–19 where this week is 36, I have not used a single Research limpet within an Alert system.
If it is of any consolation to know, I have kept my use of it entirely away from Alert and Invasion systems, as above—the INIV mission log contains something like 300 Control systems and no others. It is indeed very much upon Frontier to make other actions more meaningful, such that a wing dropping in a Control system to destroy Thargoids can be at least as effective!
Actually this is an excellent question; does Frontier consider Research limpets to be too poor, balanced, or too good? Well—
The first major uses of them started around weeks 16–17, and by weeks 19–20 we were no longer losing anything. Update 15 then arrived just before week 24, which contained an unannounced Research change: the class 1 Research limpets were changed to harvest twice as quickly. They still do.
At this point if we were not intended to identify Research as an overt Thargoid weakness to which they are overwhelmingly vulnerable, and not to build wing-specific vessels to make as much use of said vulnerability as possible, that will be one of the biggest surprise upsets of probability estimation I have ever had!