That's the problem when folk start throwing around names claiming others are scared or psycho , griefer or carebear etc , whats good for the goose ... Didn't see you stepping in when it was 'cowardly carebears' under attack earlier but whatever ...
Terra EX (DTEA's Squadron) vs The Code BGS War
That's the problem when folk start throwing around names claiming others are scared or psycho , griefer or carebear etc , whats good for the goose ... Didn't see you stepping in when it was 'cowardly carebears' under attack earlier but whatever ...
No, I'm pointing out the near hysterical post before and being a grown up. Most PvP guys I know want to test themselves against others, especially if it is for a set goal. In a BGS context I can see why PvP players would want to have less abstraction and more direct interaction but I don't support the BGS being Open only because its not set up that way. However I do think Powerplay is a better fit, but you already knew that, right?
"I'm pointing out the near hysterical post before " so you're quite capable of demonizing the Other yourself, then. Hurrah!
Try more jaded and cynical.
PvP most fun gonna win!! Oh where have all the players gone?
Yes, there's more to ED than zipping about shooting stuff.
The way I'd like ED to be is made nearly impossible because of people going around randomly killing other CMDRs. Guess I just have to bear that burden. One thing I know is that the PvP crowd don't give a tinkers cuss.
The dejavu is indeed strong with this thread. Been here before.
Try more jaded and cynical.
PvP most fun gonna win!! Oh where have all the players gone?
Yes, there's more to ED than zipping about shooting stuff.
The way I'd like ED to be is made nearly impossible because of people going around randomly killing other CMDRs. Guess I just have to bear that burden. One thing I know is that the PvP crowd don't give a tinkers cuss.
The dejavu is indeed strong with this thread. Been here before.
Open is pretty lively, more so than Mobius etc. It's a great fun to fly there.
I know, I almost always fly in Open myself and much prefer it to PG groups which tend to annodisation!
I do like a good story though and also fleshed out and interesting CMDRs as Characters. For my money (I backed the Kickstarter) the random "murder-hobo" has a less credible existence in the ED universe than battles that are bigger than small groups of individuals. That is to say that I appreciate that the way the game is set up means that no player is going to accomplish some sort of omnipresent omnipotent omniscience. Obviously this is a little off-topic but still pertinent and to drag it back to the thread....
there is never likely to be established rules of engagement in direct CMDR-CMDR fighting - it's a blood bath. Therefore there must be ways of abstracting it a bit, certainly when it comes to stations, influence in systems etc. which require far more activity (background simulation wise) than any player is ever going to be able to take a direct part in.
That's the point I was making - putting the open-only argument aside for a moment, deliberately going out of your way to mess with someone (individually or a group) using the mechanics of the game. Doing it in a way that leverages game mechanics so they're at a disadvantage (modes, engineering, whatever) might be "part of the game" - but don't act like you've got the moral high ground when you do it and still lose, like some of the people in this thread have doing.
“Quixotic”There is very little rock-paper-scissors in PvP, my friend. Some luck, yes. But in general, PvP is mostly skill based. There is a reason why the most powerful weapons are fixed and difficult to use. There is a reason why the most maneuverable ship is the most difficult to control. The early designers of the flight model were geniuses.
The subtlety never ceases to astound me.
I am a former classical musician who was/is very intimate in the Quixotian quest for technical perfection. PvP in Elite Dangerous mimics that challenge quite significantly.
High level PvPers are not gamblers, they are extremely deliberate and hard-working technicians.
o7
There's way too much shotgun argument to go point by point and refute, which I'm sure was Robert the troll's original intent. The cries of tradition in the face of superior design and logic are hilarious. This is a game, not a religion. Meaningful PVP makes games better. There's a reason Fortnite has better numbers than Elite. The longer Frontier listen to sycophants who barely know how to play the game, the longer they'll be limiting their success, and the more they'll be mired in the terrible decision making that got us to this point. It took the entire community rising up against their devotion to these forum trolls to get their attention and force some acknowledgement that the quality of their game was suffering. Hopefully, after the fixes to many technically broken features, they'll fix these broken design features. The argument has gone very well for the PVP community in this thread, since we've proven to be the more knowledgeable and skilled group of players, and therefore the players with a more informed opinion. We've also demonstrated repeatedly why the mechanic as it exists leads only to frustration with no chance for entertaining gameplay when players are allowed to take an unfair advantage by choosing a more boring option.
There was a huge one with the Turks and Polish on one side and the American/Brit/Aussie PVPers, lawful and outlaw on the other a few months ago. No need to puff it up on the forums because it was already fun in game. More recently there was The Scourge. Sadly, FDev's wisdom led them to incentivize only one side of the conflict, leading to anyone taking up the side of the freedom fighters to be labeled a greifer, ganker scum, etc. That was the CG where one player earned his ban from the game by spending hours in system chat every night calling for pvpers to kill themselves and offering a cash reward for the home address of one player. He got support from some of the others who were hiding in solo mode. Obviously, this all was purely a failing of game moderation and game design, as incentivizing only one side means that players who oppose that side are purely doing it for the fun of meeting other players in combat, and are therefore fully prepared to do so. The other side was mainly PVE fit, so of course they felt bullied. In any case, FDev godhanded the result of the CG so any BGS interaction didn't matter anyhow. Working as intended, so let's all agree that was clearly the best possible way to design that event! /s
This feels kinda typical really given the BGS balance when it comes to anarchy factions and them being the default target for every lawful faction - the "default" gameplay loop seems stacked against them unless you deliberately go out of your way to do crimes, which frequently don't pay as well as lawful jobs and can't be stacked as well as lawful missions since you rarely have multiple anarchy factions to take jobs from.
I'd say I'm shocked, but I'm not.
Don't confuse a hardline stance which considers a point of view invalid, with an inability to comprehend.
Funnily enough, I have the same view of "the other side" of this; Open-only BGS advocates seem totally unable to comprehend that the ability to affect the BGS from all modes and platforms is explicit and deliberate.
However, I'm entirely understanding of the PoV of people advocating open-only BGS. There is a logic to their wont for the BGS, it's just explicitly contrary to the intent of the system, and therefore is totally incompatible with it.
Take gambling on the outcome of an election. The design intent of an election is to determine the next leading representative of a given entity (Country, state, local knitting club). Parallel to that (and that's a critical word here), people may gamble on the outcome of that election; this is absolutely fine. People may also want to change those gambling mechanics to create a better experience; of course, this is fine too. But should, say, a state election, allow total circumvention of systems put in place to facilitate that election, in order to make a better gambling experience? Of course not, that would be absurd. Open-only BGS advocation is equally absurd, in my opinion, because it would totally circumvent the design intent of the BGS (to have all modes and platforms contribute to the BGS), which is a fact.
But hey... I sound like a "broken record" still not comprehending hey? So let's come at this from a different angle. What's the primary complaint here from open-only advocates? Influencing the BGS safe and sound in solo/private groups is "unfair"? So basically they're advocating for a "fair fight" in the BGS right? Well frankly, an open-only background sim is just a trickle in the river in terms of what's "unfair" about the BGS, because absolutely nothing is "fair" about it[1].
- Community Goals and Interstellar Initiatives cannot exist in an open-only BGS; such events are an abberation of the activities in the BGS, and ultimately is a "who's in FD's back pocket" as to who reaps the rewards, and would be blatant favouritism.
- Government ethos are totally imbalanced[2]. As it stands, Authoritarian ethos are objectively easier than any other ethos (with Dictatorships sitting at the peak of that hierarchy)... Corporates run a close second, Social (democratic, cooperative etc) are well behind in third, and Criminal (Anarchy) are in the trash-bin.
- Action types are totally imbalanced, demonstrated by the continued absence of negative states and overwhelming presence of positive states. Coincidentally, when negative states occur, it's almost always Anarchy factions suffering them, because as explained, they're bottom-of-the-barrel as far as government ethos balance goes.
- The mission generation system needs a total rework. Abberations which occur in more isolated systems (which does occur naturally in the bubble) such as Robigo/Sothis or the handful of ones I've personally identified which allow major effects which are otherwise unachievable elsewhere, to be caused in a non-exploitative manner. The common example of this issue is how you can go to a distant nebula station, and get nothing but donation missions for lawful factions, and often no missions for anarchy factions.
- Direct control of factions needs to be afforded to players. But this runs contrary to yet another thing; players are (Independent) Pilot's Federation commanders and form squadrons; factions are made up exclusively of NPCs; players currently are not "members of", nor do they represent factions or their interests in any form.
- Random Thargoid attacks against systems need to be stopped, as do the state effects which are coming in the January update which are, for the most part, random in nature. That such a random event could potentially jeopardise your control of a system (and let's face it, this is what Open-Only advocates want; control over what happens "in their systems") is not conducive to that.
- The entire peer-to-peer instancing model needs to be ditched, in favour of a centralised EVE-like universe where all players are visible to each other, and crossplay facilitated between platform. Sure, let's get FD to change the fundamental networking model five years into the game's release...
- All PMFs must be removed from the game, and all permit locks must be removed.
- Government ethos are totally imbalanced[2]. As it stands, Authoritarian ethos are objectively easier than any other ethos (with Dictatorships sitting at the peak of that hierarchy)... Corporates run a close second, Social (democratic, cooperative etc) are well behind in third, and Criminal (Anarchy) are in the trash-bin.
- Action types are totally imbalanced, demonstrated by the continued absence of negative states and overwhelming presence of positive states. Coincidentally, when negative states occur, it's almost always Anarchy factions suffering them, because as explained, they're bottom-of-the-barrel as far as government ethos balance goes.
- The mission generation system needs a total rework. Abberations which occur in more isolated systems (which does occur naturally in the bubble) such as Robigo/Sothis or the handful of ones I've personally identified which allow major effects which are otherwise unachievable elsewhere, to be caused in a non-exploitative manner. The common example of this issue is how you can go to a distant nebula station, and get nothing but donation missions for lawful factions, and often no missions for anarchy factions.
- Direct control of factions needs to be afforded to players. But this runs contrary to yet another thing; players are (Independent) Pilot's Federation commanders and form squadrons; factions are made up exclusively of NPCs; players currently are not "members of", nor do they represent factions or their interests in any form.
- Random Thargoid attacks against systems need to be stopped, as do the state effects which are coming in the January update which are, for the most part, random in nature. That such a random event could potentially jeopardise your control of a system (and let's face it, this is what Open-Only advocates want; control over what happens "in their systems") is not conducive to that.
- The entire peer-to-peer instancing model needs to be ditched, in favour of a centralised EVE-like universe where all players are visible to each other, and crossplay facilitated between platform. Sure, let's get FD to change the fundamental networking model five years into the game's release...
- All PMFs must be removed from the game, and all permit locks must be removed.
I've never seen Open-Only BGS advocates complain about any of this, only that they can't "pew pew" the opposing players, and that this is somehow unfair, and I can only attribute this to a complete lack of understanding of the BGS and it's purpose, because anyone with a lick of understanding of the BGS should already know all these things. By FD going "all in" with it being simply a malleable world environment for players, in all modes to engage with, and not some system for competitive group-vs-group play:
- FD can create dynamic occurrences, no matter how much they may destabilise an affected faction
- FD don't need to resolve crossplay/centralised networking
- FD can (try to) make Thargoids more front-and-center in the universe
- Abberations such as mission boards and random events/states can be sustained as "unique edge-cases"
- Imbalances in state effects from player activity and the governments can just be put down to "not everything is good"
That understanding can really only come about from a hardline interpretation of FD's vision for the BGS being, using FD's own words here, for players to:
I'm not going to dig out the original quote, but there's another quote in one of those videos I linked before, which is words to the effect of "The background sim is meant to be in the background; it's not meant to be at the forefront of players minds when playing the game. That would be a "foreground sim", and if that is the case it means we've done it wrong".
Players seeking to engage other players directly for reasons of "The Background Sim" would mean FD have done it wrong. In fairness, solo/PG players also undertake activities with direct outcomes on the BGS in mind, and equally this implies FD have done the BGS wrong, based on their original design intention. I'll come back to this towards the end.
A quote I've occasionally cited, but don't often use because I can't find the source of it, I only know it happened (@Rubbernuke ?) is that FD did not expect players to take such an empassioned view of the minor factions... rather they expected players to develop personal connections with the Superpowers (Empire, Federation, Alliance, Independent). To contextualise that, FD expected players not to care whether it was the Facece Empire League or the Nobles of HIP 2270 you were supporting, only that you were supporting the Empire.
Going to deviate here with some chatter about open-only Powerplay. If you can take some things I'm about to say at face-value, skip this.
Powerplay was FD's attempt to implement a group-vs-group game mechanic when they realised that players cared about this sort of thing. The intention was that minor factions would rise and fall from the status of powers and there would be direct connection to the BGS in that regard. Obviously that never happened, with the core reason I suspect being the innate imbalances of the BGS, as previously discussed. So instead, we got this strange secondary game mechanic that sits over the top of everything and is loosely connected to the BGS where different government types help or hinder a given Power.
I raise this because I'm totally for an Open-Only Powerplay (aka Sandro's proposal), as Powerplay was intended as that group-vs-group territorial conquest mechanic, and it doesn't make sense for that to occur from solo/PG. That Powerplay does tie-in to the BGS loosely I believe is a hangover from the original design intent to have factions rise and fall from power, but for whatever reason, it got abandoned, and those mechanics are the leftovers of that original intention. Given how "bolt-on" Powerplay is, I consider any ties it has to the BGS through Powerplay to be a design flaw in the context of the current intent of Powerplay, and should be removed.
I raise this because I'm totally for an Open-Only Powerplay (aka Sandro's proposal), as Powerplay was intended as that group-vs-group territorial conquest mechanic, and it doesn't make sense for that to occur from solo/PG. That Powerplay does tie-in to the BGS loosely I believe is a hangover from the original design intent to have factions rise and fall from power, but for whatever reason, it got abandoned, and those mechanics are the leftovers of that original intention. Given how "bolt-on" Powerplay is, I consider any ties it has to the BGS through Powerplay to be a design flaw in the context of the current intent of Powerplay, and should be removed.
Two critical points of the original design of Powerplay were:
- It was designed to be a group-vs-group territorial control game layer; and
- Minor factions were meant to rise and fall from the status of "Powers"
That first point implies an open-only construct; anything else doesn't make sense. So Open-Only Powerplay makes total sense. And if they went through with Minor Factions rising and falling from power status, an Open-only BGS model would make complete sense too. But I get the feeling FD realised all those dags I mentioned before, and abandoned that, so we now have Powerplay, a bolt-on game layer with problematic ties to the BGS.
The reason I mention this, and coming back to my point about the Foreground/Background Sim concept, I do think there's totally valid discussions to be had around the BGS' implementation, such as:
- Were FD naive to think players wouldn't get attracted to the minor factions and make them central to their gaming experience, given how they function? Absolutely
- Were FD also naive to also think that allowing players to request minor faction's to be added to the game would not be used by players to form the core of a "group vs group" experience? Definitely
- Should FD have leaned harder into the concept of minor factions being the focal point of group-vs-group game mechanics when the popularity of that became apparent? Sure
- Should FD have tied the BGS harder to Powerplay and cleaned up the BGS' imbalances to create that group-vs-group system? Or should Powerplay have functioned more like the BGS?
- Should FD change their stance on the BGS being "the background sim" and acknowledge it's primary purpose being group-vs-group territorial gameplay? Sure, but that totally dethrones that being the role of Powerplay.
I think there's a whole bunch of speculative discussion that can be had around this. But Open-Only BGS is a third or fourth-iteration discussion to be had, and is totally non-sensical as a first-tier discussion given the current BGS state and the intent behind it.
You want to talk Open-Only BGS because the current system is "unfair"? Let's come back to that when all those points I flagged above have been resolved first, because only then an Open-Only BGS starts to make sense. Until then, it's a pointless discussion.
[1] which, coincidentally, is why there's such emphasis on the BGS being just a "background" sim
[2] It would need a totally separate post to explain why this is the case, but for anyone who knows a grain about the BGS, it should be obvious.
Is there a link to this reiteration, no one should be able to freely destroy someone bgs and be able to hide away from the defenders in a different mode at the same time.
All the options?
Except killing the players who decide to do it in solo or private so they dont get killed or spotted.
Regarding your claim of 'hiding' - this very thread proves that a better coordinated PMF can win any conflict WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT AGAINST ANOTHER COMMANDER (yes I am shouting because it seems some here are having trouble understanding what the OP described - even the OP is confused on the matter lol).
Also, how do you propose to combat players on other platforms - they might be in Open but you will never see them? Should Open only be available to PC users or X-Box users or the sole domain of PS users? What about time zones, should everyone be forced to play during certain time zones even though that would inconvenience the majority of players?
Bgs should be an open only thing, you may not be able to solve the pc/xbox/ps4 issue but you can certainly make it that influence can only be achieved in open only.
And for people that run BGS to support an ethos rather than a particular faction, this is really apparent.
I'd like to see if anyone has any figures from EDDB or the like on the current distributions of controlling factions in the game, PMF or otherwise. Until I started stirring the pot, in every system within 50ly of the place I started looking, most government types were either corporate or fed democracies, and where an anarchy faction was present, the vast majority of the time they were in dead last place.
Why, what would having the BGS available in Open only solve? You would just complain that someone on another platform is cheating because you can't kill them. Or whine that those terrible people in other countries play when you are at school/work and that's not fair.
You purchased this game (hopefully) knowing that FD designed it that the BGS is the same for every mode. If you didn't know that, and didn't find out until you knew enough to play the BGS then you deserve everything you get - simple as that!
And yet they would not be able to use mechanics such as:
-initiating conflicts in various systems controlled by the enemy faction... one strategy for taking on a larger faction with more human resources would be to force a war on several fronts, so the opposing faction doesn't know where to devote resources. Strategy goes out the window when you have no idea who your opponent is.
-buffing minor factions that may draw support from more players (Federation or Imperial aligned minor factions for example) in systems surrounding their enemy's home in order to destabilize their faction by offering missions going into their system that lower their influence
-attempting diplomatic resolutions to the conflicts with their enemy faction.
Why? Because unless the faction reaches out or plays in good faith (Open Play), they would have no idea who is even attacking them.
Recruit across platforms. My squadron is mainly present on PC but has a growing and active presence on PS4 and Xbox. These options are open to everyone, there's nothing unfair about them.
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This is a quality post. For one thing, while open only BGS makes good sense in the name of fairness, I can understand that players who don't want to engage in player combat (while I insist that they really owe it to themselves to give it an earnest try) should have some ability to do BGS play from the safety of solo mode. I don't see a problem with trade, exploration data, etc. counting toward BGS calculations from solo mode, as long as the influence of such actions in open mode are buffed to reflect the difficulty and risks undertaken in the full game. We all know that FDev would implement this by applying the buff to the transactions when they occur at stations, so to be clear, the way to make this work would be for data, cargo, vouchers etc. that are acquired in-game to be flagged with the game mode tag when it is acquired, and pass a check when changing instance and when docking is complete to make sure open mode data was brought to the station in open mode. There should also be a market report for each station reporting who is turning in what data, vouchers, imports, etc. Leave off anything that goes to the black market, but openly traded gameplay tokens should be noted. This gives players the agency to see who their friends and enemies really are.
To your other points, many of them are regularly voiced by people who advocate for open-biased BGS. I don't understand why CGs or Interstellar Initiatives would be any less viable than they are currently. They'd be more fair, and more players would understand that they are inherently end-game activities, but how would anyone need to be in FDev's back pocket to win those?
Government types are unbalanced... yes, you're right.
System states are unbalanced... right again.
I wasn't aware of the weird mission dynamics in remote stations, but it sounds plausible. We've definitely noticed some strange RNG regarding mission generation our very busy systems. What this game needs more than anything except technical updates to its networking structure are balance passes, so I see nothing wrong with asking for a pass to missions.
Direct control to player factions: yes! We've been saying this since day one. What is the point of having a player faction if you don't have any actual control over anything?
On random thargoid attacks, I disagree with you. As long as they're RNG within areas that support the devs' storyline for them, alien attacks are a fact of life in this game. I have yet to build an AX ship because I don't want to do anything but PVP, but if they attacked our system, I would get to the unlocks, learn an entirely new style of gameplay and take the fight to them as well as I could. Win or lose, it's part of living in an exciting and dynamic galaxy. In fact, short of an attack on my squadron's home, I will never feel any urgency to fight AX. The best thing FDev can do is promote player ownership in-game and then threaten that ownership with dynamic and engaging gameplay. AX or player faction... as long as you know who your enemy is, it can be fun!
The peer to peer instancing model is by far the most frequent and biggest complaint in the pvp community. I'm naive, so I am holding out hope that the new networking compression in the upcoming patch will help with the horrible desync and instancing issues which have gotten worse since the September update. Ideally, they do need to rewrite the entire networking code, and I've seen some folks even more naive than me taking a throwaway comment about "rewriting" code for the paid 2020 update and daring to hope for hosted instances. They absolutely can work, and work well. The Infinity: Battlescape alpha launched with 150 players in a single system-wide instance and it was honestly breathtaking. Elite is a better game, full-stop, but Battlescape with its 5-man dev team (two of which are full time) is better executed even this far before release.
The point about BGS not being in the foreground loses its entire footing as soon as players get to choose a system and name a faction after their group. Right out the window. Now they are directly working to manipulate it, and as any group that works to control their BGS from open or solo well knows, figuring out how it works is in the foreground of their minds whether the developers intended this or not. They can tell kids to wait in a room filled with toys for 6 hours until they come back, but saying that playing with the toys was not their original intent is just being intellectually dishonest. Whether they realized it or not, the kids were going to play with the toys, and the devs should have known that.
As for power play being bolted on, it quite obviously is. Anyone using it as an in-game roleplay justification for shooting at hostile players is immediately branded a ganker and griefer, and I'm sure many of the combat loggers will immediately block them despite their cries for roleplay. When Dangerous.com tells you "you're Kumo Crew or your nothing," he gets responses like the following from CMDR Evolution: "Scum. You must have a seriously small to be that pathetic. Do you think you're a big man. Hahaha. Jokes on you. You're either ashamed of your manhood or you're a kid, in which case, grow up." This is not a roleplay response and has nothing to do with the powerplay mechanic. As you've assessed, the current adoption of player minor factions IS what powerplay was meant to be. Power play as it is currently exists for wing fights between small pvp groups (though power play groups wind up wing fighting with unafilliated pvpers as often as not, from what I can tell) and module unlocks. I agree they should abandon it.
While we're at it, engineered modules are the rule across the galaxy: they should be purchasable for everyone without a grind at this point. There's nothing experimental about them anymore. We know how they work. FDev needs something new to replace that grind gate, but I am entirely sympathetic to the bears who cry "you're so over engineered there's nothing anyone can do." I mean... they're wrong, but I can see why they think that. They'd get dunked just as hard with G5 loadouts, but at least we'd stop hearing how it's only because we have access to better ships. Most importantly, since it's obvious to everyone that having access to a competitive build is a required first step toward attempting competitive pvp, easier access to competitive ships means more people would be able to get into it. More players trying it means more players getting good, and that means more, better fights.
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LOL who bought this game thinking about BGS? It's a game where you fly space ships. People buy it to... fly space ships. BGS manipulation is as endgame as pvp.
For you the BGS and PvP is end game, but not for everyone - one day you will realise this little fact and probably enjoy the game a whole lot more