Community Goals as content delivery and story progression tools

[rootsrat]

So much this.
I'd take it s step further and say that they should also have the mission system make use of these assets.

Sounds like a no brained, no?

Yeah they do, it's called Jurassic Park.

LOL

One of this week's CGs is a good example of one where the gameplay hasn't been thought through very well.

CG Goods:

• Meta-alloys
• Platinum
• Building Fabricators

So that's two things that are hard to get - in fairly small quantities, and one that is very easy to buy in bulk. Guess which commodity 99% of CG participants will go for.

This CG would be far better if the building fabricators weren't one of the commodities. Platinum and meta-alloys are both involve very different gameplay to get, so would each appeal to different players. I suspect platinum would be much easier to get than the meta-alloys, so painite might be more balanced. If they wanted to add a trade good as well, then a very distant rare good would be better - so allowing a third type of gameplay.

There is also a concurrent bountyhunting CG, that I bet will complete in two days.

I don't want to knock the player who submitted these too much. It takes a fair bit of effort to put a CG together, so it's easy to overlook the gameplay side of things. This should be part of FD's role in approving CGs anyway.

Well, I guess on one hand when you're a player group submitting a CG, you do want people to participate, so you include a commodity that is easily available, so that people will sign up. On the other hand FDEV probably does not want to interfere too much with the player submitted CG's if they don't have to (i.e. if they adhere to all the rules). I think that's fair enough, that's on the submitting player group.

As a side note - as I mentioned in the OP, in our one we just had rare commodities to deliver and the target system was over 200 LY away from the source systems. No large pads, as it was an outpost too. So you could say it wasn't very "user friendly". And yet 2000 people signed up for it (where the other 2 CG's running had over 16000 people signed up for them!) and we actually completed the CG 1 day before the end date - because it had a (apparently!) good story behind it. That's the proof that even if the CG is not an easy one, people will get involved if the story is engaging.

My critique goes towards the CG's that are designed by FDEV, especially the ones that are supposed to be the narrative driven ones, especially the ones related to one of the main story arcs.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…
As a side note - as I mentioned in the OP, in our one we just had rare commodities to deliver and the target system was over 200 LY away from the source systems. …- because it had a (apparently!) good story behind it. …

Rare good CGs are usually well received.
I think that a lot of players like rare good CGs and consider them fun (I certainly think rare good CGs are fun). The low supply allows players to use small ships or allows players that don't have one of the big trading ships to participate and feel competitive. I think rare good CGs are very inclusive and allows even new players to make meaningful contributions to the goal.

Add a good story or some interesting goal and players will have even more fun and participate.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Rare good CGs are usually well received.
I think that a lot of players like rare good CGs and consider them fun (I certainly think rare good CGs are fun). The low supply allows players to use small ships or allows players that don't have one of the big trading ships to participate and feel competitive. I think rare good CGs are very inclusive and allows even new players to make meaningful contributions to the goal.

Add a good story or some interesting goal and players will have even more fun and participate.

I agree Rare goods CG's are the better ones. In fact I think rare goods deserve some more love with dedicated missions & stuff

 

[SciTrekker]

One of this week's CGs is a good example of one where the gameplay hasn't been thought through very well.

CG Goods:

• Meta-alloys
• Platinum
• Building Fabricators

So that's two things that are hard to get - in fairly small quantities, and one that is very easy to buy in bulk. Guess which commodity 99% of CG participants will go for.

This CG would be far better if the building fabricators weren't one of the commodities. Platinum and meta-alloys are both involve very different gameplay to get, so would each appeal to different players. I suspect platinum would be much easier to get than the meta-alloys, so painite might be more balanced. If they wanted to add a trade good as well, then a very distant rare good would be better - so allowing a third type of gameplay.

There is also a concurrent bountyhunting CG, that I bet will complete in two days.

I don't want to knock the player who submitted these too much. It takes a fair bit of effort to put a CG together, so it's easy to overlook the gameplay side of things. This should be part of FD's role in approving CGs anyway.

Instead of the usual 2 CG's for trading and bounty hunting, shouldn't there be a third CG for pirates/blockaders to deliver those same commodities but they'd need to be stolen?

 

[rootsrat]

Rare good CGs are usually well received.
I think that a lot of players like rare good CGs and consider them fun (I certainly think rare good CGs are fun). The low supply allows players to use small ships or allows players that don't have one of the big trading ships to participate and feel competitive. I think rare good CGs are very inclusive and allows even new players to make meaningful contributions to the goal.

Add a good story or some interesting goal and players will have even more fun and participate.

That only confirms that the players will participate and enjoy the CG's when there is something more to it than just hauling goods from A to B.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Instead of the usual 2 CG's for trading and bounty hunting, shouldn't there be a third CG for pirates/blockaders to deliver those same commodities but they'd need to be stolen?

This is a good concept, but too easy to exploit. All you need is a mate to jettison cargo for you and it's stolen.

There's one way I can see around this. If there were NPC traders that were generated carrying a specific CG cargo, then there could be a CG to pirate these goods.

 

[Louis Calvert]

5) Narrative presentation - it's poor. It's very poor. I mean it's all described in the CG text, but it's just not very engaging. It's not interesting. Just bland text that means nothing. "We need to develop new anti-Thargoid weapons". That's it really, in essence. Plain text, no images, no videos, no voice acting... It's just one big 'meh' to be honest.

Honestly, the whole Galnet needs a massive overhaul and I understand this isn't going to happen overnight, 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, and presenting it in the right way is one way to achieve that goal.

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.

This.

It's been stated over, and over, and over again by so, so many people. Fdev, please for the love of all things holy show some love to the narrative - after all, that's one of the major features of ED.

 

[SciTrekker]

This is a good concept, but too easy to exploit. All you need is a mate to jettison cargo for you and it's stolen.

There's one way I can see around this. If there were NPC traders that were generated carrying a specific CG cargo, then there could be a CG to pirate these goods.

It would still have to be certain commodities, probably the same as the trading CG would make the most sense. Thus, said friend would have to get them somewhere. If the commodities required weren't available too close, I don't think it'd matter - except we'd probably know how the top 10 got their wares seeing how difficult pirating can be to get anything from one's target.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I've tried designing counter CGs for some of teh ones I've submitted, but haven't come up with one that I like. It would be nice if bountyhunting could be used to counter a smuggling CG. But all the bountyhunters would do is find a RES in a system with the right faction.
The only ones that work are competitive trade CGs, as was done with the Dangerous Games; or combat CGs, which are directly competing in the same CZ.

 

[SciTrekker]

I've tried designing counter CGs for some of teh ones I've submitted, but haven't come up with one that I like. It would be nice if bountyhunting could be used to counter a smuggling CG. But all the bountyhunters would do is find a RES in a system with the right faction.
The only ones that work are competitive trade CGs, as was done with the Dangerous Games; or combat CGs, which are directly competing in the same CZ.

Maybe CGs will get some Beyond lovin'. Perhaps adding more activities to the core (1 of my wishes) will allow more types of CGs. They definitely need more parameters in the game to add more to CGs.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I'd like to see CGs use more of the ED mechanics.

So CGs could create CG specific versions of:

• missions - allows for assassination CGs
• passenger missions - could be used for scenarios like: colonisation, emergency aid, evacuations
• commodities
• USS
• POIs
• NPCs
• factions (usually for CG spacific personalities]
• faction states
• contacts
• RES

Combining the above could allow for some quite complex CGs to be designed, while still using the basic mechanics of the game.

For example, CG specific commodities.could be placed in CG USS, guarded by CG NPCs.

Detailed example:
CG system - Baltha'Sine
CG commodity 1 - Vacuum Krill (similar to the rare good, but this is getting them from the wild)
CG commodity 2 - Vacuum Krill (essentially the same as commodity 1, but only NPCs {see NPC 1, 2 & 3} have this)
CG RES - placed in the ice ring (b) around Balthah'Sine 4B (could have Low-Haz versions)
CG NPC 1 - ice pirates only to be found in the CG RES
CG NPC 2 - vacuum krill miners, only to be found in the CG RES
CG NPC 3 - vacuum krill miners, same as 2 but only to be found travelling from the mission RES to the destination station
CG USS 1 - megaship placed several ls out from the ring. This is the destination station for CGs 1 & 2.
CG USS 2 - asteroid base placed in the rocky ring of Balthah'Sine 4
CG faction 1 - created so that the usual methods of ruining CGs don't work
CG faction 2 - mystery pirate faction
Scenario - The specific faction has predicted that there will be a rare mass spawning of vacuum krill. Large quantities of live vacuum krill are wanted so that they can attempt to spread them to suitable ice rings in other systems
There would be 3 concurrent CGs: 1. Mining - for player mined vacuum krill; 2. Bountyhunting - only bounties for the NPC 1 pirates count.; 3. Pirating - only for NPC mined vacuum krill

These CGs could be designed so that the pirating CG could compete with the other two, or even just the mining one. Only PvE actions would count towards the bountyhunting and pirating CGs, but I expect that PvP would still occur.

There would be a fair bit of setup required for this example to work, but it uses mechanics that are all currently in the game.

edit - I've been mulling over this example for a while now, and have posted shorter variations in a couple of suggestion threads. I'll probably work on it a little and eventually make a more detailed suggestion thread at some stage. Maybe if there is a focused feedback for mining.

 

[rootsrat]

This is a good concept, but too easy to exploit. All you need is a mate to jettison cargo for you and it's stolen.

There's one way I can see around this. If there were NPC traders that were generated carrying a specific CG cargo, then there could be a CG to pirate these goods.

Maybe they could make it so that cargo originating from Cmdrs is not counted towards the CG - not sure if possible on their side though.

This.

It's been stated over, and over, and over again by so, so many people. Fdev, please for the love of all things holy show some love to the narrative - after all, that's one of the major features of ED.

+1 to your +1 to my post!

I'd like to see CGs use more of the ED mechanics.

So CGs could create CG specific versions of:

• missions - allows for assassination CGs
• passenger missions - could be used for scenarios like: colonisation, emergency aid, evacuations
• commodities
• USS
• POIs
• NPCs
• factions (usually for CG spacific personalities]
• faction states
• contacts
• RES

Combining the above could allow for some quite complex CGs to be designed, while still using the basic mechanics of the game.

For example, CG specific commodities.could be placed in CG USS, guarded by CG NPCs.

Detailed example:
CG system - Baltha'Sine
CG commodity 1 - Vacuum Krill (similar to the rare good, but this is getting them from the wild)
CG commodity 2 - Vacuum Krill (essentially the same as commodity 1, but only NPCs {see NPC 1, 2 & 3} have this)
CG RES - placed in the ice ring (b) around Balthah'Sine 4B (could have Low-Haz versions)
CG NPC 1 - ice pirates only to be found in the CG RES
CG NPC 2 - vacuum krill miners, only to be found in the CG RES
CG NPC 3 - vacuum krill miners, same as 2 but only to be found travelling from the mission RES to the destination station
CG USS 1 - megaship placed several ls out from the ring. This is the destination station for CGs 1 & 2.
CG USS 2 - asteroid base placed in the rocky ring of Balthah'Sine 4
CG faction 1 - created so that the usual methods of ruining CGs don't work
CG faction 2 - mystery pirate faction
Scenario - The specific faction has predicted that there will be a rare mass spawning of vacuum krill. Large quantities of live vacuum krill are wanted so that they can attempt to spread them to suitable ice rings in other systems
There would be 3 concurrent CGs: 1. Mining - for player mined vacuum krill; 2. Bountyhunting - only bounties for the NPC 1 pirates count.; 3. Pirating - only for NPC mined vacuum krill

These CGs could be designed so that the pirating CG could compete with the other two, or even just the mining one. Only PvE actions would count towards the bountyhunting and pirating CGs, but I expect that PvP would still occur.

There would be a fair bit of setup required for this example to work, but it uses mechanics that are all currently in the game.

edit - I've been mulling over this example for a while now, and have posted shorter variations in a couple of suggestion threads. I'll probably work on it a little and eventually make a more detailed suggestion thread at some stage. Maybe if there is a focused feedback for mining.

That would work. Seems pretty doable with the current game mechanics, but possible requires some additional coding around the CG rules. Even if if meant 1 set of CG's per month, I would happily sacrifice the CG frequency for quality and depth!

 

[SciTrekker]

Even if if meant 1 set of CG's per month, I would happily sacrifice the CG frequency for quality and depth!

Here! Here!
and
Hear! Hear!

 

[rootsrat]

I've tried designing counter CGs for some of teh ones I've submitted, but haven't come up with one that I like. It would be nice if bountyhunting could be used to counter a smuggling CG. But all the bountyhunters would do is find a RES in a system with the right faction.
The only ones that work are competitive trade CGs, as was done with the Dangerous Games; or combat CGs, which are directly competing in the same CZ.

There are also exploration CG's that can compete - again 2 mirrored exploration CG's, but for different factions. These were cool and quite popular as well. Sadly we didn't have one in a while...

 

[Rubbernuke]

FD should realise CGs are a tool and not something used all the time as a binary choice maker.

FD could monitor the BGS of systems and simply make plot choices from that, and simply flick switches for weapon availability.

Example: we have a semi-fluff story about security concerns at system x that might affect weapon shipments. Please keep faction y in power for 7 days so something z will happen.

The very worst thing that can be done is simply having CGs chained over and over as it simply burns people out. Use what they have and mix it up. Each update should be used as a vehicle to subtly change Thargoid patterns, make them invade more, retreat more.

 

[toyzruz]

Rootsrat, you speak from my heart. I'm very interested in games with an interesting story line but elite dangerous is so short of getting me interested in reading all these boring gal net news. It's 2018 "tomorrow"... We need a narrative-story-telling-style which suits our perception of today's media.

 

[SciTrekker]

Rootsrat, you speak from my heart. I'm very interested in games with an interesting story line but elite dangerous is so short of getting me interested in reading all these boring gal net news. It's 2018 "tomorrow"... We need a narrative-story-telling-style which suits our perception of today's media.

I don't think adding voice-to-text for reading GalNet news to me is the solution. Nice feature to be sure but not a solution to getting any story out to the masses.

 

[rootsrat]

I don't think adding voice-to-text for reading GalNet news to me is the solution. Nice feature to be sure but not a solution to getting any story out to the masses.

It's a small step in the right direction though

 

[toyzruz]

To put it in a nutshell.... I need a reason and a thriving storyline to motivate myself to participate and accomplish cg. Reading walls of text,Facebook posts and community exploration data isn't my favorite thing to do in a game. Imho

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I've just done a bunch of rescue missions from the damaged Oracle station to the rescue ship. This is the type of CG mechanic that I have been wanting for ages. Proof about 9 posts back. (edit - I don't care that it's not labelled as a CG either. Or rewards, the karma is enough reward)

I'm really impressed. This is fun, and there's a fair bit of risk involved too.

Well done FD.