Apparently, if you say such things, you are just a 'sploiter to whom no one should listen...
Mercs of Mikunn - 3 Year report: The Once Secret BGS mechanics and how to figure out exploits
- Thread starter Walt Kerman
- Start date
Eh... its a matter of perspective?
Its 'good enough' to work for those that understand it, but its broken enough that casual players thinking they are helping really aren't doing a damn thing.
The current system the only instance where casuals become an issue is in high-trafficked areas where the number of people make up for the effects caused.
Its 'good enough' to work for those that understand it, but its broken enough that casual players thinking they are helping really aren't doing a damn thing.
The current system the only instance where casuals become an issue is in high-trafficked areas where the number of people make up for the effects caused.
I mean, we're all just exploiters, right? I mean Walt really knows what he's talking about and isn't trading on (very long past) glories at all.
No, he's definitely not posting low quality bait and isn't a twit in any way, shape or form.
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_trent_
Volunteer Moderator
Apologies, for that. It made perfect sense in my head when I typed it, then when I read it back I realised it was not clear at all and edited it. You saw the original while I was doing the edit.
That happens quite a lot when I post things about the BGS. [haha]
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Missions are 100 times better in 3.0 imo. After having tested the new (old) mechanics of the destination faction and the increased variety in influence, I consider it as top notch (*). You can indeed hit the cap with 3x 5+ in a boom.
Missions have evolved in a way they do balance things in advance, which is not the case for other activities. There is no debate between transaction-based and value-based if the game provides consistent effects by design.
(*) : apart of very old bugs not being fixed as massacre missions and so on
Missions have evolved in a way they do balance things in advance, which is not the case for other activities. There is no debate between transaction-based and value-based if the game provides consistent effects by design.
(*) : apart of very old bugs not being fixed as massacre missions and so on
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Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Apart from anything else, think of all the extra data the serers would need to hold and crunch at tick time!
Not if pre-processed Jane. I have some professional IT skills and no idea of how ED does work but there is no reason the local software (game install) could not pre-process data derived from current actions of the player using environment (state, influences...) data from the last tick. In my example noone quoted about a possible relative impact in combat, there is no extra calculation required form the server. And it is not because noone quoted it that it is not valid.
to be honest the data storage shouldn't be that much of a problem as setting up the server. storage is cheap. commissioning a new server is a pain in the .
Alright, I've been sitting on and thinking about this for a bit now. Everyone's talking about the current transactional system vs a value-based system.... reality is, if you really, really, wanted to fix the BGS in a sane way, credits earned by a commander during an activity would have absolutely no effect on the BGS.
Why?
Firstly, let's just agree on this. A faction losing money, in isolation from anything else, would not be of benefit. With money, factions can do stuff (buy goods, reward missions, hand over bounties). Those activities have effect, but losing money is generally no good.
The current mission system supports this concept with it's alternate reward options... opting for less credits (can) translate to an increase in influence (presumably, the forfeited credits go towards another activity to increase influence)
So with that premise, lets fix stuff.
Missions
Frankly, they stay as is.
Exploration Data
This is also easy, but needs a fix. It should be a combined measure of # of reports and value of those reports *purely from a body type perspective^*. Luckily, this translates to the credit value (with ELWs being most valuable), so we can actually take that on face value. But selling 50 reports at once should result in the same influence gain as selling 1 report 50 times; currently that doesn't happen (pretty much the theme of this post)
^ In a better system, different economies would value planets differently. An agricultural world would value ELW/Ocean/Other worlds with natural life higher than others. Meanwhile Extraction/Refinery economies may value reports of metal-rich worlds as high as ELWs are currently valued. High Terraforming economies would obviously value reports of terraforming candidates, while High Tech economies would value reports with Black Holes, White Dwarves etc.. These are the measures that could be used to determine influence gain (and monetary reward)
Bounties/Combat Bonds
Current system operates as follows:
- Kill a ship, causes -ve influence to the faction which owns that ship
- Hand in a bond/bounty, that faction gains +ve influence
This is easy. For a naive solution, handing in bounties and bonds should have nothing to do with influence gain or losses... the *only* thing that should matter is the kill... specifically the rank of the pilot and the size of the ship. This means that such activities only have a -ve effect on other factions, resulting in indirect gains for unaffected factions.
If you want to go one step further, make *forfeiting* the bounties and bonds could increase that specific faction's influence. This brings the remuneration function inline with how mission rewards function a-la sacrificing monetary rewards, for effects.
Trading
This is the one which needs most work, although again the fix is simple. I don't claim to have any knowledge in economics... but I know that a business isn't successful by purchasing items with the highest markup... but that's the current setup. Influence (transactional effects aside) is a function of total profit earned by the commander. In other words, influence gained through commodity trading is a function of how much third parties exploit that faction for profit. This is kinda dumb as a base principal. It does translate in some cases, but largely, it's pretty dumb.
Here's how it should work instead.
Influence gains from trading should be based primarily on demand for a good, regardless of profit/loss margin.
My argument based on the initial principle of losing credits = bad for a faction... a 3rd party trading for a loss to a faction for an *in demand* item (i.e something that faction needs) should result in *more* influence gain than paying a premium on that item and the 3rd party gaining a profit... but it should still result in an increase in influence.
But under the current system, gaining profit on an item that isn't in demand (and may even be in high supply) causes that faction to gain influence. That's really backwards.
It's easiest to just throw away the effects profit has on influence gains and have it based purely on the demand of goods being traded (and for the love of god, make it by tonnage, not by number of transactions).
Somewhere someone is saying "Oh, but if businesses and individuals thrive in an economy and make profits, that's good for the economy, so why shouldn't that increase influence?". Well... because KISS. We have economic states of Boom and Bust.... so make the Boom state continue to occur where profits are made, and Bust state occur where losses are made. Let's keep influence reserved for trading to the items in demand, and the economic states be influenced by whether that trade is for profit or loss. There's *plenty* of places out there where you can trade high-demand items for loss (I find progenitor cells to be particularly susceptible to this in my area, for example). This introduces a new complexity of meeting a faction's demands and continuing to turn a profit.
So yeah,,, that covers off the main Trading/Combat/Exploration activities. I'm not gonna bother with things like smuggling/crime and it's effects at the moment... just wanted to put out there that yes, the transactional nature of the BGS sucks^, but turning it over to base influence gains on profit/value earned by the commander is not the solution.... instead a tradeoff for commanders of credits earned vs influence effects achieved should be pursued.
^ without consideration that the primary purpose of the BGS is just to provide a malleable universe... balance is not an objective in that.
Why?
Firstly, let's just agree on this. A faction losing money, in isolation from anything else, would not be of benefit. With money, factions can do stuff (buy goods, reward missions, hand over bounties). Those activities have effect, but losing money is generally no good.
The current mission system supports this concept with it's alternate reward options... opting for less credits (can) translate to an increase in influence (presumably, the forfeited credits go towards another activity to increase influence)
So with that premise, lets fix stuff.
Missions
Frankly, they stay as is.
Exploration Data
This is also easy, but needs a fix. It should be a combined measure of # of reports and value of those reports *purely from a body type perspective^*. Luckily, this translates to the credit value (with ELWs being most valuable), so we can actually take that on face value. But selling 50 reports at once should result in the same influence gain as selling 1 report 50 times; currently that doesn't happen (pretty much the theme of this post)
^ In a better system, different economies would value planets differently. An agricultural world would value ELW/Ocean/Other worlds with natural life higher than others. Meanwhile Extraction/Refinery economies may value reports of metal-rich worlds as high as ELWs are currently valued. High Terraforming economies would obviously value reports of terraforming candidates, while High Tech economies would value reports with Black Holes, White Dwarves etc.. These are the measures that could be used to determine influence gain (and monetary reward)
Bounties/Combat Bonds
Current system operates as follows:
- Kill a ship, causes -ve influence to the faction which owns that ship
- Hand in a bond/bounty, that faction gains +ve influence
This is easy. For a naive solution, handing in bounties and bonds should have nothing to do with influence gain or losses... the *only* thing that should matter is the kill... specifically the rank of the pilot and the size of the ship. This means that such activities only have a -ve effect on other factions, resulting in indirect gains for unaffected factions.
If you want to go one step further, make *forfeiting* the bounties and bonds could increase that specific faction's influence. This brings the remuneration function inline with how mission rewards function a-la sacrificing monetary rewards, for effects.
Trading
This is the one which needs most work, although again the fix is simple. I don't claim to have any knowledge in economics... but I know that a business isn't successful by purchasing items with the highest markup... but that's the current setup. Influence (transactional effects aside) is a function of total profit earned by the commander. In other words, influence gained through commodity trading is a function of how much third parties exploit that faction for profit. This is kinda dumb as a base principal. It does translate in some cases, but largely, it's pretty dumb.
Here's how it should work instead.
Influence gains from trading should be based primarily on demand for a good, regardless of profit/loss margin.
My argument based on the initial principle of losing credits = bad for a faction... a 3rd party trading for a loss to a faction for an *in demand* item (i.e something that faction needs) should result in *more* influence gain than paying a premium on that item and the 3rd party gaining a profit... but it should still result in an increase in influence.
But under the current system, gaining profit on an item that isn't in demand (and may even be in high supply) causes that faction to gain influence. That's really backwards.
It's easiest to just throw away the effects profit has on influence gains and have it based purely on the demand of goods being traded (and for the love of god, make it by tonnage, not by number of transactions).
Somewhere someone is saying "Oh, but if businesses and individuals thrive in an economy and make profits, that's good for the economy, so why shouldn't that increase influence?". Well... because KISS. We have economic states of Boom and Bust.... so make the Boom state continue to occur where profits are made, and Bust state occur where losses are made. Let's keep influence reserved for trading to the items in demand, and the economic states be influenced by whether that trade is for profit or loss. There's *plenty* of places out there where you can trade high-demand items for loss (I find progenitor cells to be particularly susceptible to this in my area, for example). This introduces a new complexity of meeting a faction's demands and continuing to turn a profit.
So yeah,,, that covers off the main Trading/Combat/Exploration activities. I'm not gonna bother with things like smuggling/crime and it's effects at the moment... just wanted to put out there that yes, the transactional nature of the BGS sucks^, but turning it over to base influence gains on profit/value earned by the commander is not the solution.... instead a tradeoff for commanders of credits earned vs influence effects achieved should be pursued.
^ without consideration that the primary purpose of the BGS is just to provide a malleable universe... balance is not an objective in that.
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I think most do understand. I think there are a few understandably passionate people who have really benefited from it who want to keep it.
May the rest of your day be as pleasant as you are.[heart]
The only reason we stopped being so public on the BGS is mostly for the sake of your group (you are CI right?). There were also complaints about me posting the BGS guide originally too.
So lets say you theoretically attack a player group, and remove them from systems one by one using using micro transactions, while they try to defend their systems not knowing about it with lump sum bounties. Yes its exploity, by definition, and entirely unfair to the target.
I do not understand, how you don't understand, nuking a system to 0 by selling goods at a loss one by one with trip is not an exploit. Added the definition of an exploit to the OP at the bottom.
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I think you might have overestimated the communities response to the problem. This is a well known issue..that very few people that have BGS concerns, haven't thought about and discussed. Again, the years changes will see what happens.
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I was in a voice chat with about 15 different groups this month and last and the transactional nature of the BGS and the problems it causes were one of the number one complaints. Its definitely well known I agree, as i stated in OP. I was supposed to compile that with the intent of sending it to Frontier... I just thought it would be better to include more groups that might want to have a word in.... and its certainly happening
I bet it gets worse as the use of bots goes up.
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The transactional nature can lead to boring gameplay, during crunch times. But it also allows players making gains in an area that is heavily trafficked by all kinds of CMDRs. We shouldn't think of it only as something between BGS players. Change to a value based system, and busier areas will become entirely uncontrollable.
Without major changes, I prefer the current system, where the individual knowledgeable BGS CMDR can decide for themselves how often they return to port, or whether to stay longer in a res or CZ, depending on anticipated traffic/other activity.
Without major changes, I prefer the current system, where the individual knowledgeable BGS CMDR can decide for themselves how often they return to port, or whether to stay longer in a res or CZ, depending on anticipated traffic/other activity.
I was in a voice chat with about 15 different groups this month and last and the transactional nature of the BGS and the problems it causes were one of the number one complaints. Its definitely well known I agree, as i stated in OP. I was supposed to compile that with the intent of sending it to Frontier... I just thought it would be better to include more groups that might want to have a word in.... and its certainly happening
I bet it gets worse as the use of bots goes up.
Ye, well, but if you look at your OP you come up with an idea that can potentially be exploited even more easily and that's what the vibe of this thread turned out to be.
Doing it by value can not be exploited more easily. Name me an exploit easier than pushing a button over and over again. I think most agree that its odd, but I understand that changing it would make high traffic systems more difficult to move, which terrifies some groups. But that would also be realistic, and what the devs intended.
People should be awarded per the effort they put in.
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I would imagine parking a godship in a hazres or CZ with cargo and turrets is a lot easier to generate high values, than the current system where the CMDR has to return to port, frequently, to have a stronger effect on influence.
And the current system protects BGS players from combat and bounty credit farmers
They are. With credits.
Creating change in influence levels is it's own reward, and per my suggestion before, does not necessarily equate to credits earned.
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