Community Goals as content delivery and story progression tools

[Muetdhiver]

Or maybe trying to make a massive game with 100's of different parts that the community wants improving is actually really hard and time consuming? #2020Vision

Sure. But OTOH, when someone introduces something iconic like the thargoids, one would hope that both the thargoids and the way to deliver them where prepared adequatly.

Alas, it seems that while the former has been perfectly done, the latter is a case of CG copy-paste-itis. Thargoids deserve much better than that in term of delivery IMO.

 

[sgurr]

Sure. But OTOH, when someone introduces something iconic like the thargoids, one would hope that both the thargoids and the way to deliver them where prepared adequatly.

Alas, it seems that while the former has been perfectly done, the latter is a case of CG copy-paste-itis. Thargoids deserve much better than that in term of delivery IMO.

^^ nods

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Community Goals as content delivery and story progression tools are not bad at all. However they need to be engaging and interesting to fulfil that role. And I think this is not the case anymore.


I remember the Cerberus Plague CG series. It was a whole little storyline based around the CG's. We had to stop the plague from spreading and it took us a while to do that! It was fun, the story was engaging and it took some effort to get rid of the plague. Look at the one from couple of weeks ago - the one where we had to collect escape capsules and black boxes - it had a lot of people signed up and it ended after 48 hours! It was something different and it was fun! This weeks CG are a joke in comparison, even though the activities themselves are quite fun as well.

So what's happened? Well personally I think people are just bored with what the CG's have to offer. I think there are a few aspects that need to be looked at in order to attract people to participate in the CG's that are meant to be main story progression tool.

In no particular order, I think they are all equally important for the CG's to be an effective content delivery tool.

There are a few things to consider here - first, and possibly most importantly, is ensuring content being delivered in this manner actually works. Engaging Thargoids in a wing does not. It is fraught with issues, be they instancing related, or other technical issues. Because this was omitted from the Beta test, it was not tested in a manner consistent with how people actually play. A wing of commanders engaging one of these will find that one or more people in their wing are simply not able to damage these ships. Commanders leaving and rejoining an instance will also find that the exerted heart they were able to damage is not being exerted again, and they are having to basically start over.

Only specifically built ships are able to engage these, and only those who have honed their combat skills to extreme levels are able to destroy them. Add to that the cost of engaging and destroying these is barely break-even most times, often a loss, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

1) Unrealistic tier goals - whether it is intentional or a bug, when you see the CG struggle to reach Tier 1 in the first 48 hrs it really discourages from signing up for it. Why bother signing up for a lost case?

::EDIT:: For this point - I don't mean that we should have easy-mode CG's, where they are guaranteed to be completed. A good challenge is needed too! What I meant was that CG's that are designed to fail (if that's the case at all) or that are bugged in a way that makes them impossible to be completed will not attract players. That's the context, hope it's more clear now.

See above.

2) Boring content - how many times can you haul some random trade goods for hundreds of LY's? It gets boring soon. We've had couple of interesting CG's lately, I mean the escape pod collecting was lots of fun, and this week's collecting tissue samples is something new and can also be quite fun. Give us something new, something unusual and interesting to do during the CG's and people will participate.

Purely subjective - what's boring to one person might be the greatest thing ever to another. I eschew PVP, others live for it.

3) Story progression speed - maybe if the effect of the completed CG was more significant, then more people would participate? You work your bottom off for a whole week and all you get is this lousy t-shirt a bigger missile pod, that is probably going to be nerfed in the next patch anyway... Make the result of the CG more BOOM and more BANG! Make it count, make us feel we are making a difference together, as the community!

Bold text is not related - to the text that follows. Yes, the story progression has certainly been slow, but that has nothing to do with the CG rewards. And the CG rewards themselves are not the story.

4) CG rewards - one of the benefits of participating in a CG are the monetary rewards. However they are laughingly low in comparison to some other methods of making money. And especially when it comes to activities like fighting Thargoids, that can be a significant cost in ship repair bills. You want to attract players to participate? Make it worth our while!

So what should they be? 100 million per tier? 1 billion per tier? 1 quintillion per tier? See, no matter how much you inflate the value, it doesn't do anything for the actual content.

5) Narrative presentation - it's poor. I mean it's all described in the CG text, but it's just not very engaging. I mean the whole Galnet needs a massive overhaul, but there is something about the wall of text in the CG description that is not very "catchy". Also, in the context of new anti-xeno weapons - pictures of the new gear are not even in game, we just get them through Twitter, Facebook etc. Really? C'mon, at least show us in game what we're fighting for! Make us WANT those new toys, make us WANT to shoot Thargoids or haul the explosives or acquire tissue samples or whatever else is needed. Players need to feel attached to the story.

Galnet Radio is coming. That's all I can say about this at this time.

6) Little details that don't make sense - so, there is this research group that wants to invent the new weapons to combat the most dangerous threat humanity has ever come across - an alien race. In order to do that, they need tissue samples delivered to their orbital starport. And yet they make the goods illegal in that starport... When the police scans you and find out you're hauling cargo that they owners of the station asked you for in a massive announcement, you get the fine that (to quote the classic) kills your credit balance? Really? It's little details like that, that make me go "meh". It makes the whole thing less realistic and, yes I am going to use that word, less immersive.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Yep, that's a poorly thought out concept. Not that it's hard to avoid being scanned, but the ban on this sort of stuff doesn't make sense in this context.

 

[Ozric]

Want an example, here we go ! :.

The only real issue I can see here is that you couldn't have parts of CGs that only last for a day. People would get too annoyed that they couldn't take part, because things move on too quickly (ironic really isn't it). But I certainly agree with the principle.

 

[Muetdhiver]

The only real issue I can see here is that you couldn't have parts of CGs that only last for a day. People would get too annoyed that they couldn't take part, because things move on too quickly (ironic really isn't it). But I certainly agree with the principle.

Yes, it's true that it would be fast paced. On the other hand, it's hard to convey a sense of urgency with stuff that spans weeks.

One thing that FD should try to do for such high priority stuff, is having a pilot federation audio emergency broadcast system.
E.g. If thargoids where to start an incursion in the bubble to destroy high value targets like Sirius shipyards, I expect such assault not to be
streched on weeks, but more like 2-3 days, and if in game, I would like to be notices in a dramatic fashion, because it would be a damn emergency !

It's a shame, because for all the technical and art stuff FD do a really good job. They really have talented people. What they really
lack is a story director and a few experienced game master type of persons with a set of internal Tools to setup such events and broadcast them.
If they had they would be in the very high-end of games.

 

[Ozric]

Yes, it's true that it would be fast paced. On the other hand, it's hard to convey a sense of urgency with stuff that spans weeks.

One thing that FD should try to do for such high priority stuff, is having a pilot federation audio emergency broadcast system.
E.g. If thargoids where to start an incursion in the bubble to destroy high value targets like Sirius shipyards, I expect such assault not to be
streched on weeks, but more like 2-3 days, and if in game, I would like to be notices in a dramatic fashion, because it would be a damn emergency !.

Yeah that would be great.

 

[Achibot]

...
1) Unrealistic tier goals - whether it is intentional or a bug, when you see the CG struggle to reach Tier 1 in the first 48 hrs it really discourages from signing up for it. Why bother signing up for a lost case?
...

The issue here is that most CG's "complete" at Tier 1 and the rest is just about bumping tiers for credits. This is not emergent, or even vaguely interesting, as the only effort that actually counts for anything was the effort put into that first Tier.

An example of this is the current combat CG. While it may (or may not - who knows?) advance "hidden narrative" there cannot be a concrete sense of achievement for the CG itself as no-one has a clue what effect, if any, it might have.

An example of what is much, much better - but still far from the best that can be done even within the current structure - was the Feeding California CG where each completed Tier actually added something to the game that people can see and visit and incomplete Tiers actually mattered because we didn't get those stations as a result.

An example of what would be genuinely emergent and consequential, possibly even revolutionary within this genre if you can truly pull it off, is something similar to what was outlined by Muetdhiver above. While hard to accomplish within the current structure it is surely not impossible and creative solutions likely do exist. While Muet's idea may be a little too ambitious and fast paced, it may well be possible to create visibly "chained CGs" whereby you group individual and complete, CGs together. You can still using the current structure, and only open the subsequent CG(s) if enough progress was made initially. The difficulty would be more in how to present that visually, in a meaningful way, rather than how to mechanically achieve it, I think.

Ultimately I feel that every CG starting on the same day every week and having the same duration, combined with the majority of them being inconsequential in emergent terms, has created a situation where a lot of players feel they are pouring effort into a black hole. It's stale, they've done it before, it didn't matter then and it won't matter now. FD should be looking to find a way to reverse this trend. This will take imagination and bravery, it won't be easy logistically or organisationally but if they're afraid to take a chance and perhaps make some mistakes then the increasing polarisation around this topic can only proceed in one direction.

 

[Ozric]

Is emergent going to be the word of the week or something?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Colonia, I think, actually provides a reasonable model for CGs done well - the evidence suggests a considerably higher fraction of Colonia residents take part in Colonia CGs than main bubble residents take part in main bubble CGs.

1) CGs are relatively rare: there's at most one a month, often less. There's no "CG fatigue" - instead, people mostly welcome the opportunity to team up and do something a bit different.
2) CGs all have some sort of concrete impact for completion that is, on the scale of the region, massively higher than any Sol bubble CG has given. For the last four:
- mining: significant outfitting improvements to several stations and systems
- bounty hunting: new orbital stations and systems colonised
- trade: new secondary outposts in major systems, noticeable population increase
- warzone: major potential threat to regional stability defeated. (Or could have been created, if people had chosen the other side...)
Usually the effects are reasonably well-signposted in advance, too, though the bounty hunting and trade ones were less so - that's more a guess based on what happened shortly after completion.

 

[Achibot]

Is emergent going to be the word of the week or something?

Did you not check the word calendar for today? I'm disappointed Oz, I would have expected more from an Elite Moderator......

 

[MadDogMurdock]

FD need to move on and come up with better ways to move the storylines along.

CGs should be rolled into the BGS and have a chance of being auto-generated based on the system state.

Lockdown > Bounty Hunting CG
Boom > Trade CG to build infrastructure / expand services in system
Expansion > Trade CG to build infrastructure in the new system
War > Combat Bond CG
etc.

Tiers and durations should vary a lot more so that there are slow burners, urgent ones, and a significant chance of outright failure.

 

[Factabulous]

The only real issue I can see here is that you couldn't have parts of CGs that only last for a day. People would get too annoyed that they couldn't take part, because things move on too quickly (ironic really isn't it). But I certainly agree with the principle.

But the principle really doesn't work for what FD need. They need 2.4 to end with the Thargoids in-game, a constant threat but manageable. Anyone who thinks we can end up either defeating or defeated by the thargoids is fooling themselves - FD want the game to end up like the original - thargoids out there and available for more content. No way did they do all that work on them just to allow us to finish them off and walk away.

So all these ideas of branching paths then need to be able to be brought together, and if we fail to complete a branch we would have to redo it (not got the weapons that can kill all thargoids - let's do another CG! how soon would that get old). And branching means that FD have to prepare multiple paths that will be thrown away, wasteful unless the choices are meaningful - and as we know the end-game they are not meaningful.

Of course now ppl are realising that this is the case they don't like it, but FD were upfront - they always said that 2.4 was a story, delivered over time. They never said it was an RPG with user input, which some comments seem to think, and even less was it an individual driven story as others want.

I still think the main failing by FD was previewing so much content: now the user-base is shouting for stuff they know is coming (damn T10) rather then enjoying stuff as it comes out (all the INRA bases / Jameson story etc). Bewildered why they did it as 2.4 wasn't even a paid upgrade...

 

[Naskoni]

For what's worth - my impression on the delivery of the so-called story in 2.4 exclusively through CGs - smacks of ultra-low effort, coupled with a total lack of imagination in that we get the new weapons on planetary bases only just so that players that don't have Horizons won't be able to land as to access them, as otherwise that aspect makes exactly zero sense. It also stinks of ultra laziness as the plan for delivery was basically the same bland "method" in a loop with N iterations where N is the number of anti-xeno weapons... Not to mention that the relevant materials for the CGs were combined with irrelevant, readily available commodities in industrial quantities where super exotic Thargoid tech would count 1:1 with say, a unit of Titanium... Yeah...

I'm pretty sure FD could have done better than that, only they either couldn't be bothered, or didn't think anybody would notice or care enough anyway.

Personally, I think I bothered with the first three CGs then didn't give a damn anymore.

 

[CMDR Minion Blob]

I'm pretty sure imagination isn't the biggest issue--afterall, many positively received assets and elements couldn't have been created in the first place--the issue is realizing those (design, artwork, coding, sound and the rest of the plumbing that goes with it).

I, too, had expected some kind of "gathering storm" call to arms, ID4-type of event if not on a Galactic "bubble" scale, but at least on a sector level. But aside from the single SAR CG--which was the most popular of the later ones to date--I've never seen a Thargoid vessel in the same instance as CMDRs and/or active human NPCs engaging one-another outside of USSes.

There could be simply no underlying mechanic that exists to support this type of scenario, or at least not one that is ready for live deployment.

We have seen:

• Static assets of capital ships with caustic and other damage floating in space with a few voice acted logs that described the events post-mortem
• Same thing with various mega-ships
• Smaller scale surface assets scattered around hidden away in plain sight such as Thargoid Scouts and INRA basis, ad nauseam
• Impressively complex Thargoid vessels engaging players in limited instances only---hence the USSes--because the game cannot support fleet mechanics beyond a few units, regardless of manned or unmanned. This is why we could only have 1 SLF per CMDR and no NPC copilots for hire.
• The limitations of the net code itself had become apparent not only with Wings but especially when 2.3 The Commanders bowed in with MultiCrew.

The "narrative" exists as a placeholder. It moves at a snails pace because you can't have the carriage moving faster than the horse ...well, not for too long anyway.

My 2 cents for what it's worth.

 

[sgurr]

@IndigoWyrd, Good post. I agree with most of what you've written...

Only specifically built ships are able to engage these,

whilst this is true it's not hard to do. One trip to your nearest well stocked shipyard and you can take part.

and only those who have honed their combat skills to extreme levels are able to destroy them.

however this is not. I am no extreme pilot, I am v.poor at PvP but can handle NPC's and I've been part of a wing that dealt with a Cyclops.
If anyone wants to try start with GluttonyFang's thread and discord group : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/390599-Anti-Xeno-Combat-Initiative-and-Ship-Outfit-Suggestions-for-All

Add to that the cost of engaging and destroying these is barely break-even most times, often a loss, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Finally, as you've already said people have different motivations, mine was to have fun and I did it in a ship where I didn't notice the rebuy or what happened to my balance.

o7

 

[IndigoWyrd]

@IndigoWyrd, Good post. I agree with most of what you've written...

whilst this is true it's not hard to do. One trip to your nearest well stocked shipyard and you can take part.

It's not about the availability of outfitting, but more that the outfitting required is very specific for the target. And while I don't actually have a problem with this, I can see how this may discourage some people.

however this is not. I am no extreme pilot, I am v.poor at PvP but can handle NPC's and I've been part of a wing that dealt with a Cyclops.
If anyone wants to try start with GluttonyFang's thread and discord group : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...nitiative-and-Ship-Outfit-Suggestions-for-All

I should have clarified this, perhaps, to read that only those well-versed in combat are able to take these on solo. I've squashed a few of these in a wing myself - in fact, my first kill was done in an orca that is designed as a support ship that just happens to have a pair of AX Multicannons on it.

Finally, as you've already said people have different motivations, mine was to have fun and I did it in a ship where I didn't notice the rebuy or what happened to my balance.

o7

They do, and I am a play-for-fun player. Though I was a play-for-profit player, and this is not exactly what I'd call a profitable enterprise.

 

[Lightspeed]

Have some rep OP for putting it succinctly and bringing up a much needed discussion

 

[Flimsey]

Put this up in the suggestion thread yesterday.

"To make one module (weapon, hull reinforcement or something other fun) divide it up in two CG:s to get a more natural approach, first develop then manufacture.

First. Science, where we get information to develop the module:
- Scan Thargoids for data
- Collect material from scavengers
- Kill flower ships for science hand in bounty's
- Probe flower ships for tissue
- Or something else...

Second. Trade CG to build and distribute the module.
- As it is now, state where you can buy the module
- Can be done in the bubble by non horizon


Only one tier to develop it or if several tiers put in different sizes or turreted/gimbal....

Tier 1 AX "Cannon" class 1
Tier 2 AX "Cannon" class 2
Tier 3 AX "Cannon" class 3
Tier 4 AX "Cannon" class 4

OR

Tier 1 AX "Cannon" class 2, Fixed
Tier 2 AX "Cannon" class 2, Turreted
Tier 3 AX "Cannon" class 2, Gimbal


First CG, when Tier 1, 2, 3... is ready the Second Trade CG start (in 24h or next thursday...) to develop that module.
Best would be if its not tied to a week, so if we not get to last Tier it will just go on until we get there. But we need info on the tiers.

We have to work if we want the best stuff!


https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/392487-Another-way-to-give-us-alien-modules

 

[Spacecat]

They at least should increase your trade rank. I did the last 2 rare trade CG's and earned 13 mil and didn't receive any rank increase at all. Lame.

 

[Falcon_D]

For some reason, the CGs that I like were the one for building Obsidian Orbital and the Hutton mug run. For me they seemed to serve a purpose. 1 for building a station in game and the other was a huge drag but we got a rare out of it and the community really seemed to be into it.
I also remember the CG for the Black Sun(?) those guys who were accused of murdering the emperor. Although in that chain of CGs, FDev did some god nerfing of the tiers cause some commanders were caught cheating.
These Thargoid CGs, to me, are a bit “meh...”. What’s the point? They only stay in their sector of space. Don’t seem to pose a threat to anyone except Agies, who seem to be expanding into their space. No involving story. No urgency.
I went to Electra, not to fight the Thargoids but just to check out if I could spot the new beastie. Went into a couple of NHSS, scanned a couple of scout ships and none of them attacked me. So why should I fight them?