Well if thats the case, they should redesign it like its meant to be played then. Either way, this post is needed.
Mercs of Mikunn - 3 Year report: The Once Secret BGS mechanics and how to figure out exploits
- Thread starter Walt Kerman
- Start date
Well if thats the case, they should redesign it like its meant to be played then. Either way, this post is needed.
what i don't understand about your argument is this...
you can STILL group to collect the most bonds/bounties in an evening. but when you collect, instead of JUST turning in your big bounty, turn in some small ones along with it to keep the transaction count high. you don't need to turn in your big bounty immediately, as long as you don't die you can still collect. and the tick is once a day so you have time to some extra work.
all i'm saying is the mechanic works just fine. it feels like youre artificially restricting yourself when you don't need to.
also, a single big payout has other valuable benefits. while it doesn't affect influence that dramatically it greatly affects reputation. use that single big bounty and group play to quickly give your team ally status with an opposing faction without raising their influence. or with opposition factions to the faction you are attacking.
Transaction x Value, Transaction =1 Value = 0.00 to 1.00
small transactions have a value closer to 0.00, larger have a value closer to 1.00
you choose whats small and large now
I think that may already be in the system, just not set well.Transaction x Value, Transaction =1 Value = 0.00 to 1.00
small transactions have a value closer to 0.00, larger have a value closer to 1.00
you choose whats small and large now
So the transaction effect is 1, the value can be 1 but it caps at 1. So no matter the work your transaction is 2, where a guy doing smaller amounts of work several times just handed in half a dozen for a value of at least 6.
If it exists in-game and suffers a population modifier, then the max modifier can be as small as 0.3, for a total 1.3 cap when you gotta do 3x the work to hit that cap for the population size.
All the while, that smaller effort handed in several times still counts as 6.
That's what needs to change if its in the game and not just my imagination. Make that modifier go much higher and you can reward the effort and still allow those making smaller amounts contribute.
Still boils down to the existing issue of the transaction-based mechanic being out of whack and misleading at times.
A Civil War occurs, and the guy that kills 108 ships for the MM mission just handed in 1 transaction.
While somebody just hopping in for one ship kill, returning and repeating half a dozen times did 6.
That is a bit of the current problem where the knowledgeable have such a huge head start against those that just play the game and think they are helping.
Transaction x Value, Transaction =1 Value = 0.00 to 1.00
small transactions have a value closer to 0.00, larger have a value closer to 1.00
you choose whats small and large now
The moment you multiply transaction by value, its a value based system. Its like if you multiply potato sacks by how many potatoes are in them. You no longer are counting sacks but have the exact number of potatoes even though the number of sacks is in the equation. This transfers it from a sack based system to a potato based system.
That not keeping the transaction count high is described as "artificially restricting yourself when you don't need to." is really the crux of my argument
Would not selling cargo one tonne at a time be artificially restricting oneself when one doesn't need to?
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In my opinion, the BGS is more meant to be played by the bigger groups than small 3/4 man/woman shows. Kind of a reflection of what other games and real life. In other games and RL, small groups are forced to ally with others, make pacts and agreements in order to compete (that is actually part of the fun in these other MMO games.) Does not seem that way in ED. Small groups being able to produce an effective opposition to big groups seems fun but in a sense is highly ED gamey.
I suppose there are similarities to this state in the real world as current events have shown. But the mechanics used by the small groups to take on the big boys in the real world are not exactly above board.
But in the end, ED is a game. And the devs are trying to make everyone happy (and not necessarily succeeding.)
To me, the current state of the BGS would be perfect if this was a solo game.
Except its the rule of the system (well, larger than one ton now). But those are the rules, the mechanics of how the game is designed.
What I'm referring to when i speak of artificial restriction is knowing what the rules are and rather following them arguing against them.
I'm all for challenging broken mechanics but what is broken here? What is the scenario people are trying to fix? What is the problem?
I saw your point but we´ve discussed that to death years ago already. There´s no solution for it until you have a single instance where everyone is participating, and that is technically impossible to do.
That was the argument before 1t trading got fixed. Then FD, well, fixed it.
Handing in 250k worth of bounties twice shouldn't be more influential than handing in 1m worth of bounties once.
If everyone just "played the game normally"... that is, sold their 50t of narcotics in one batch, rather than in 50 x 1t batches, and bounty-hunted to their limit (of ammo/hull damage/time/whatever measure) before handing it in, then the system would kinda work, but when you understand the "rules" as you put them, you need to harness significant levels of cognitive dissonance to say that's "working as expected".
This is where I'd throw out my usual "However, FD's lack of fixing transactional effects, or rather, intitially designing the BGS to function per-transaction, is just a further reminder that the BGS is *primarily* designed to simulate a living, breathing, malleable galaxy, and a strategy game secondarily, but not at the expense of the primary goal". But that always upsets people
(The transactional-based model makes a lot of sense if you want a living, breathing universe and don't anticipate people to do things like hand in bounties one at a time, or trade 50t of silver 1t at a time)
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WorldsGreatestForumDad
Banned
why?
Isn't the problem rather with "bulk" influence gained from endless horde activities? They can all be cheesed, whether it's doing the clicky thing or collecting huge bounty sums with the stupidly OP engineered ships. E.g. limiting the most influential impact to mission running and putting a cap on endless rewards - wouldn't that be rather the way to address cheese?
more for a fun perspective.
Why shouldn't it? There's no rational logic to back up 2 x 250k bounty bundles being more influential than a single hand-in of 1m credits worth of bounties.
A bounty is a measure of significance of the target(s). 1m worth of bounties is therefore a more significant collection of kills (regardless of if it's comprised of 1 or 100 kills) than two collections of 250k worth of bounties again, regardless of if it's comprised of 2, or 100 kills, minimum two as it's handed in separately).... for a system where handing in bounties affects influence positively for the faction which issued it.
Bit of a tangent... if you really want to fix it, bounties shouldn't count for anything (and the kill should affect influence more). Only the kill (and the rank of the kill) should count (noting a kill results in a reduction of that faction's influence). Remember that that effect is already taken into account *before* you hand in bounties, which is why 2 x 250k bounty hand-ins shouldn't have more influence than 1 x 1m hand-in.
Let me put it this way.
If you go out and kill four pirates, go home and get your 1m credit reward, why on earth would *less* influence than killing one pirate, going home and getting the 250k reward, then going out and killing another pirate, and going home to get the 250k reward.
In the first case, four pirates dead, 1m credits earned. In the second case, 2 pirates dead, 500k earned, noting influence *gains* are a (transactional) function of handing bounties in, influence loss is based on number of kills. The latter scenario having more impact than the former makes no sense at all, no matter what way you look at it.
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WorldsGreatestForumDad
Banned
Okay so If I go buy a bicycle at wallmart for $100. Should I pay in a $100 Bill, Or will Paying with $1 at a time lower the price?
In this case, were getting paid per transaction. Instead of what the valued amount is. But its not cash were getting in payment. Its BGS numbers per transaction.
This is dumb.
You should get what you pay for. Not how many times you paid for the same item that was same amount in the end.
In this case, were getting paid per transaction. Instead of what the valued amount is. But its not cash were getting in payment. Its BGS numbers per transaction.
This is dumb.
You should get what you pay for. Not how many times you paid for the same item that was same amount in the end.
Even better, if you pay $1 at a time, Walmart's stock prices go through the roof compared to paying with a $100 bill XD
WorldsGreatestForumDad
Banned
Much better way of looking at this. Yep!
Probably the best question in this thread yet
When you think about it a little longer things like "balancing", "equal chances" etc. come into play. When you have a Corvette-pilot cleaning up a HAZRES for 1 hour he probably has 10 million worth of bounties and killed 40 ships, while the Cobra-Pilot just manages to make 2 million and also 40 ships, but only sideys and eagles. When both guys turn their bounties in, the BGS will treat both as equal.
Question here is: Do you want the corvette-pilot to have more influence on the BGS or do you want players being treated equally? I have honestly no answer on that. The only answer I have is that transaction based calculating of the BGS is probably not the best design decision they made, but the "correction" will lead to tremendous problems (weighting/importance of an individual, of targets, of missions etcpp) - I don´t see a solution that will not require a big rework of almost everything in that game.