A quick search implies it was last used in April this year on a bounty hunting CG.
Trailblazer Resupply | Community Goal Update
- Thread starter Phil W
- Start date
FDev sets an impossible target.
Player base "BOO You guys suck theres no way we can complete the CG" and no one turns up.
or
Player base "So you reckon we cant complete this? Hold my beer" and it's completed in 4 days..
It's an impossible position to be in. Personally I'd rather it ends when it's scheduled to but many other don't
And there have been a few CG's since...
Hence my point
I wasn't disagreeing
fairI wasn't disagreeing
As I say I (almost) sympathise with them when it comes to things like this... but they rather made a rod for their own back from the way they behave in general so it's hard to take their side...
That being said, it's easy to sit on the outside and say "they should do this" or "they should do that" when we don't really know how plausible those things might be or what other plans might be in the works. If they were a little (a lot) better at keeps the community informed about what was going on and explained why things were done the way they were, that might help.
But in general I think many people are sour towards the company based on past missteps and no longer inclined to give them the benefit of any doubt.
Or maybe its consumer feedback? Personally, I’m unaffected by this change and stand to profit significantly, but others who invested time in the initial CG are having their progress undermined and that's not cool. The developers do remarkable work with Elite Dangerous, but their quality control and planning often fall short. When criticized for these missteps, they sometimes deflect by using parts of the fanbase as a shield, because they know there will be those who dismiss compaints of others for them.
Edit- Perhaps, instead of extending a CG and shifting the goalposts, consider creating a new CG in a different system with similar objectives. That way there would not be an induced fear of losing progress because you can't keep up with the sweaty player base with unlimited time on their hands.
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I was quite surprised to see a one-week CG; but interestingly they set a goal that was not achieved by the end. I think each one ended at Tier 3 out of 8. If it had been a 2-week one, it would probably have got to 100%, or very close.
Inara is now estimating the current one will end at 82% when the time runs out, but that will change if more people join in.
Inara is now estimating the current one will end at 82% when the time runs out, but that will change if more people join in.
problem is in that case every participant in Top 75 would receive 4 times the 2x 5d and 2x 6d - so 8 of each total.... as the CG would repeat weekly in that 4 weeks.....I´d like that though - would get the Plipper to 1364 to capacity.....
Well, the rewards don't necessarily have to be identical. Perhaps offering access to a new engineer could be a viable alternative as a participation unlock? There are several directions they could go with this. I wonder if the developers might have underestimated the impact the Panther would have? They likely had an 'oh no' moment and decided to extend the current Community Goal as a result.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not advocating for a second chance, but rather opposing the practice of extending a "race" at the midpoint due to referees deciding to alter the rules mid-competition... for whatever rationale they might have.
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Because everyone in the playerbase has the same outlook and opinion as the rest of the playerbase right? This "can't win" argument is pretty silly given how opinions can change over time, and not one person speaks the opinion of the community as a whole.
"It's too short". Valid argument. Extensions are understandable, give a reason for it in-game to make it make sense.
"You're moving the posts too much/often." Valid argument. Sometimes a goal ought to fail or be completed. Let the playerbase make the decision based on contribution.
It's not an either or equation. It's about balance between these two extremes.
For my argument, this isn't just this specific CG, but the trend of always appearing to move goalposts, or making the CGs not completable.
"It's too short". Valid argument. Extensions are understandable, give a reason for it in-game to make it make sense.
"You're moving the posts too much/often." Valid argument. Sometimes a goal ought to fail or be completed. Let the playerbase make the decision based on contribution.
It's not an either or equation. It's about balance between these two extremes.
For my argument, this isn't just this specific CG, but the trend of always appearing to move goalposts, or making the CGs not completable.
I believe that's what I said.
There's always going to be someone (probably many someones) who are unhappy with any decision made. That's literally what "can't win" means.
Considering that FDev made a point of "player driven narrative" for most of the life of Elite: Dangerous, the second of your points has a LOT more cause behind it. If FDev are moving away from that to a more structured or "story-driven" approach, then they should be more transparent about it.
There's always going to be someone (probably many someones) who are unhappy with any decision made. That's literally what "can't win" means.
Considering that FDev made a point of "player driven narrative" for most of the life of Elite: Dangerous, the second of your points has a LOT more cause behind it. If FDev are moving away from that to a more structured or "story-driven" approach, then they should be more transparent about it.
Frontier don't really have enough consistency on that for there to be things to be transparent about, though I would read the "Olav Redcourt" Galnet articles back in 2018 as an acknowledgement of the conflict between the two and a note that a purist "player-driven" approach is never going to be practical or desirable.
There's also not necessarily an automatic conflict between the two of them, if different mechanisms are used for both.
Powerplay and Colonisation provide player-driven ways for the galaxy to be changed, within certain limits. They don't provide a narrative as such, of course. Even at the big picture statistical layer it's hard to describe much of a pattern of events. Players generally make pretty terrible protagonists.
CGs on the other hand provide a way for a more story-driven set of events to be delivered (though at the moment there isn't any particular underlying story going on with them either)
In this case it's neither, of course: the CG has no outcome other than personal rewards listed at all. See also the various Powerplay-themed CGs lately which have explicitly had no effect whatsoever on Powerplay itself (other than that caused indirectly by the CG bringing lots of players to particular systems)
Except that the contribution level submitted by players is extremely unpredictable. This CG is - with the first week still incomplete - at about double the previous record for any trade CG and approaching ten times a typical amount. There have been just three previous trade CGs ever where the weekly rate was high enough that a 500 MT target wouldn't comfortably last four weeks with plenty to spare.
Conversely there was one in 2023 which got just 6 million tonnes during the entire week - an amount this one clears in less than two hours at peak times and had beaten by 8pm on the Thursday - and which there were lots of people claiming at the time that despite it having a Tier 1 limit lower than any previous 2020-onwards trade CG's final outcome, Frontier must have "intended" it to fail.
Setting up CG tier limits which reasonably cover all cases between 10 million tonnes and 400 million tonnes per week is possible but makes actual success or failure almost impossible either way - the vast majority of CGs are going to fall in the bland "got about 50 million tonnes" region where neither failure nor full success was ever a plausible outcome.
(For non-trade CGs the complexity is greater: how much a bounty hunting CG gets not only depends on player interest but on the availability or otherwise of HazRES, megaship scenarios, etc. for the relevant factions. For unusual CG types there isn't a multi-year history of how previous ones went to draw on)
Frontier could perhaps be more clear that all CGs should unless otherwise stated be understood not to have an actual limit - the removal of the text suggesting early ends as a possibility on this year's CGs does that but is a bit subtle - but the interface certainly works better if they don't put an infinitely large tier on to start with and pack all eight of the actually reachable ones into the bottom few pixels of the display.
Its a CG reward..Do the CG.And here I thought, for a moment, that I had a secure spot above the 75% boundary...
@Phil W - you better think about making those engineered cargo racks available at one or the other tech broker. I wouldn't mind paying 5kt of CMMs for each (or jump through some REP hoop).
Simples.
It would be kinda cool if there was a combat element to this... Besides the normal pirates and what not. Not sure how it would look, but maybe hostile pickups or delivers... Delivering to mega ships and what not, that are under fire and leaving for resupply targets would be cool too. Just dreaming at this point lol. Too fun!
The situation may seem acceptable to some, but others are being unfairly disadvantaged. Picture a footrace: you're at the starting block, the gun fires, and you and the other runners take off. But one runner lags behind. Suddenly, the judge halts the race, seeing that the race will end too soon, and moves the finish line farther away. Is that fair? To be clear, these changes don’t impact me personally, as I’m in the top 25% of the CG. My concern isn’t about my own standing but the principle of fairness for others, especially those struggling to stay in the 75%. In my opinion, there are ethical problems when starting ANY contest then midway messing with the rules because the original end result is no longer desired. The devs deserve an F grade for this behavior.
Edit, Afterthought: I’m also wondering if the extension wasn’t just about the race ending too soon but was meant to drive Panther sales. I’ve heard from several players that they lost their 75% standing, and climbing back up without an optimized Panther is going to be a pain.
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The actual treshold for 75% is 3128t. That´s 4 loads with a Cutter/T9 or 3 loads with a PC. Where is the pain?