So let me get this straight:
- FD make changes that make the BGS deeper and more responsive - by fleshing out the Lockdown State to cause Market Shutdowns, which opens up the door for emergent gameplay such as blockade & resource denial, in a way that actually preserves the sanctity of the Game Modes. Quite elegant really.
- Players quite rightly make use of allowed game mechanics in order to make an impact across Modes, to further legitimate in-setting goals (Empire players opposing Federation expansion with a Lockdown Blockade of the CG Market)...
- CG Market is successfully closed down, halting the CG progress temporarily.
What should have happened next:
- Federation bounty hunters are deployed to reverse the Lockdown, by seeking out local RES, camping out the Nav Beacon, and enforcing an Interdiction Zone in Supercruise, to eliminate criminal elements.*
- The CG is extended for some arbitrary amount of time to give everyone a good chance to win or to lose properly, according to the basic rules of gameplay mechanics. A nice and proportionate DM response, that respects both the rules of the game, and the actions of all the players involved.
*Traders don't have to go out hunting themselves, silly! They could actually call on player bounty hunters to come in to help, or hire one of the Mercenary player groups to bounty hunt on their behalf. An FD-injected BH CG would certainly facilitate this, yes, however that sort of handholding isn't entirely needed really.
What actually happened:
- Before counter actions to the Lockdown can even begin, before the players can even really begin to work out whats happening or what to do, the DM comes along and lifts the Lockdown. Facepalm. As if FD don't even want players to explore the ramifications of their own darn game systems!? Seriously.
- FD promise to "fix it" so this sort of thing can't derail CGs ever again...
ED is often accused of having shallow gameplay; on a level this was an opportunity to see what happens when two of ED's game systems interact with each other, and how players could interact with that as well. Not dissimilar to how I believe a Boom BGS state allowed a quick victory in one of the Rounds of the Dangerous Games, recently? How come that wasn't God Modded too?
It seems so bizarre that you are actively trying to compartmentalize the different game mechanics in your game FD. Don't you get it that the magic starts happening when the different elements of the gameplay loops feed into and interact with each other? But you actually want to ensure that can't happen by locking out certain bits from other bits that suit you, but in an inconsistent way (see Boom effecting the Dangerous Games) that makes zero sense and annoys the people that you are modding over?
"Commending" the actions that sparked this, and then God Modding over them, even promising to make sure this never happens again by decoupling Lockdown from future CGs, is insanely baffling to the emergent mindset that YOU SELL TO PEOPLE, and is utterly failing to see the deeper point here: that formulaic & sterile Community Goals are boring, and if you want to use them to progress a story you sell to people as being player driven, then you need to allow things to go astray, and give control to players to decide how something is won or lost - by the most skillful use of your own game rules.
Thinking about it, it really shows something, that so many CG players actually thought what was happening was a bug (with all the "game is broken" type comments): CG players are so used to not needing to muster up any problem-solving skills when engaging with FD's CGs, that they couldn't even respond to a run-of-the-mill BGS situation like Lockdown. And worse still,
FD actually support this dumbed-downed attitude by activating God Mode in order to preserve those CG player's entitlement.
It is hurting my brain trying to work it out, this isn't a random derp-de-derp trade goal, it's a story arc, which FD purports that player actions matter to the outcomes.. But then they go ahead and preserve the entitlement of the very players who couldn't even name the Emperor or the President, let alone actually care about whether or not the Feds expand to the Pleiades, players who just want to grind grind grind for endless credits, that don't really bring anything to the game's community other than fill up a bar at a CG for credits. And FD side with them over the sorts of players who really do care about the storylines and the plot and the wider success of the game. Agghhh!!
FD you should just allow CGs to act as "scaffolding" for player decisions: Just having a story move based on player actions filling up a meter does not constitute "player-driven" content. You need to actually respond to real player decisions and intentions, in the manner of a thoughtful and light-handed Dungeon Master.
Please Stop God Modding.
If the only reason you are disfiguring the normal BGS operation interaction with CGs is to appease players who don't want their playstyle infringed upon, then you need to de-couple progress contribution (not rewards gained) from Solo and PG, just as Sandro proposed happen to Powerplay, the same should be for CGs.
Having FD mutilate the game for people in Open (by cutting out interesting parts of the BGS) just to appease players in Solo is intolerable. Just cut them out of contributing and be done with it. This is now causing harm to your game and limiting the scope for player action.
There's some feedback for you Zac / Brett.
