Increased volatility in the BGS -runaway leaders many retreats

[Alshain]

These changes can and have been made server-side. Post 3.3 FD were forever tinkering with the equations.

I'm aware. Doesn't change what I said though. Factions are either retreating or expanding uncontrollably, undoing years of work by some of them. Even if they fix the cause, unless they roll back, the damage is done. All of this after they promised to beta test new changes after the last few disasters. They failed.

 

[Riverside]

So does anyone prefer this? I think amplifying player influence seems okay in contested systems (where more than one faction is being worked) in theory, everything would progress more quickly which is in line with the diminishing challenge of other achievements in the game.

But it also seems like change in an area that wasn't crying out for change. I'd be interested to know FDevs reasoning on this change (regardless of whether it's bugged or not). It's currently making a mockery of years of interactions both positive & negative between players.

I don't think this is attracting more players to try out faction support, and may well put a lot of existing people off supporting factions. Some of the systems I have an interest in are spiralling out of control (mainly controlling factions that dominate), others are behaving almost as expected with some ups & downs.

I think I preferred the pre-patch behaviour where (significant) diminishing returns applied to gaining higher & higher inf.

 

[Vingtetun]

I know of at least one location where a huge amount of player effort was done and the leading faction still accelerated away.

 

[CunningStunt]

Our home system (Saisiyat) was 55.8% influence before the update, since then it has spiked to 76.1%, but we don't have an expansion state pending, which is preferable as this unwanted expansion puts us into an allies system.

We've also seen massive movements in multiple other system, mostly our low population system, but now we'll have to put a lot of effort into bgs to reverse this rather than playing with our shiny new carriers

 

[Jane Turner]

So does anyone prefer this? I think amplifying player influence seems okay in contested systems (where more than one faction is being worked) in theory, everything would progress more quickly which is in line with the diminishing challenge of other achievements in the game.

But it also seems like change in an area that wasn't crying out for change. I'd be interested to know FDevs reasoning on this change (regardless of whether it's bugged or not). It's currently making a mockery of years of interactions both positive & negative between players.

I don't think this is attracting more players to try out faction support, and may well put a lot of existing people off supporting factions. Some of the systems I have an interest in are spiralling out of control (mainly controlling factions that dominate), others are behaving almost as expected with some ups & downs.

I think I preferred the pre-patch behaviour where (significant) diminishing returns applied to gaining higher & higher inf.

The BGS was this responsive in the past, but the effect was tempered by faction-wide states, so random retreat/expansion and war wasn't an issue. For one I always preferred the complexity of state management as the means to limit the size of factions - we'll have our 100th system shortly (for one of our factions) and that would have been completely impossible if we had needed to keep all the others out of trouble while trying to get an expansion.


As far as we can tell the diminishing returns are still there... its just the normalisation that is affected when a single faction moves.

 

[Jane Turner]

I know of at least one location where a huge amount of player effort was done and the leading faction still accelerated away.

Which system (DM is its secret)

 

[FrogsFriend]

but now we'll have to put a lot of effort into bgs to reverse this rather than playing with our shiny new carriers

Probably better to play with your Carriers for now, wait for the house to stop burning, then come back and repair it.

 

[Alshain]

The BGS was this responsive in the past, but the effect was tempered by faction-wide states, so random retreat/expansion and war wasn't an issue. For one I always preferred the complexity of state management as the means to limit the size of factions - we'll have our 100th system shortly (for one of our factions) and that would have been completely impossible if we had needed to keep all the others out of trouble while trying to get an expansion.


As far as we can tell the diminishing returns are still there... its just the normalisation that is affected when a single faction moves.

truth be told, I did too. I will say the current (post 3.3, pre.fleet carrier) system has some advantages and LL has benefited from them, but there is also less strategy which was my original draw to BGS. It used to be a game of chess and now it's a game of checkers.

 

[Screemonster]

Yeah, there used to be an actual reason to want to retreat yourselves from unwanted systems as they'd clog your states up, but now if you expand somewhere random it's just "meh, ignore it, if we retreat we retreat".

If expansion was based upon overall faction happiness like the original plan for the update, instead of the old trigger where just hitting 75% in any system means expanding from that system, things would be a lot different as you'd want to get rid of systems where you're in constant conflict.

 

[FrogsFriend]

If expansion was based upon overall faction happiness like the original plan for the update, instead of the old trigger where just hitting 75% in any system means expanding from that system, things would be a lot different as you'd want to get rid of systems where you're in constant conflict.

I wonder what happened to that?

 

[Alshain]

Yeah, there used to be an actual reason to want to retreat yourselves from unwanted systems as they'd clog your states up, but now if you expand somewhere random it's just "meh, ignore it, if we retreat we retreat".

If expansion was based upon overall faction happiness like the original plan for the update, instead of the old trigger where just hitting 75% in any system means expanding from that system, things would be a lot different as you'd want to get rid of systems where you're in constant conflict.

Thats true, but it would also make it hard to grab stations in your existing systems. of course maybe that would be a good thing. I'm not sure.

These days it's difficult to expand at all when you dont control every little settlement and non dockables orbital due to influence lock. If you are constantly in war to grab those, it would be that much more difficult were it based on happiness. I feel like that would be more tedium than strategy.

 

[Jane Turner]

truth be told, I did too. I will say the current (post 3.3, pre.fleet carrier) system has some advantages and LL has benefited from them, but there is also less strategy which was my original draw to BGS. It used to be a game of chess and now it's a game of checkers.

My thoughts exactly.... 3 d chess to tug of war

 

[Vingtetun]

Which system (DM is its secret)

Yhm

 

[Riverside]

The BGS was this responsive in the past, but the effect was tempered by faction-wide states, so random retreat/expansion and war wasn't an issue. For one I always preferred the complexity of state management as the means to limit the size of factions - we'll have our 100th system shortly (for one of our factions) and that would have been completely impossible if we had needed to keep all the others out of trouble while trying to get an expansion.


As far as we can tell the diminishing returns are still there... its just the normalisation that is affected when a single faction moves.

I don't take notes or use anything other than a few screenshots but perhaps a public example would help:

Ross 490 is a system I have an interest in, it is controlled by a faction I oppose but I cannot flip it (my own rules) because it is a Hudson system that needs a Feudal or a Patronage, and there is no Feudal in the system. If the controlling faction goes above 55% a single player will work all the other factions until it is back below 55%, but if it goes too low we will push it back up (not required in this particular system, it has high ambient traffic, little focused activity other than our own).

Yesterday a single player did 12 4/5+inf missions, spread amongst all the other factions (I don't know the exact details but no trade, bounties or exploration data). Normally that would be more than enough to bring this system's controlling faction back down, it is more than would normally be done on any single system by a single player.

I think the effect of ambient player traffic (ie players taking the cash or +rep rewards, or doing activities where there is no choice of reward) has been increased, or that's the net effect; regular player traffic seems to be having more of an effect (on the controlling faction obviously), perhaps in a similar way to NPC population does (or did pre-patch if it has changed).

I don't have an example system that doesn't fit my theory, but it is early days

 

[Ethaidan]

There are definitely strange things afoot. We jumped 12.0% in one day, in a system with someone working against us, which brought us to within 1.5% of them. Today, they've jumped 12.0% ahead, and all the other factions have been demolished.

In another system, three groups have been pushed down to 1%.

 

[Walter2]

If this takes too long to resolve, the less likely it will be that a Divine Intervention can restore the previous positions.
I've ordered extra dustpans and brushes.

 

[_trent_]

The current volatility is quite unusual this time as normally our factions infomancers are able to spot common themes in systems where factions surge or collapse. This time it hasn't worked out like that so far. We've seen almost all of our systems surge ahead regardless of if we put in any effort or had much random traffic. In one or two other systems we control, our influence collapsed just as dramatically.

Hopefully it'll get sorted out before too much damage is done. Not sure I support the idea of a roll-back even though we've had our share of problems caused by the past couple of ticks which have undone a lot of hard work over a good period of time.

 

[Tim Smith]

Hi everyone!

We wanted to address a few concerns here about the BGS, explain why some things have happened and what is going to happen, buckle up!

So as you all know, the BGS tick happens once a day, representing 24h of activity. Due to the server downtime, yesterday we had a tick that represented more like 36-40h of activity, which therefore created bigger changes than usual (and noticeably!). While some adaptations were made to create SOME impact, it will not be as much as you've recently seen.

This morning represented the 1st full 24h cycle for the BGS since the Fleet Carrier update, which means that we are able to inspect and evaluate if it is working as intended. This also means that for any concerns about the BGS, please disregard current behaviour, with today forward being more stable.

Now that the cycle is behaving as expected after having a proper 24h running, the team have already been monitoring and evaluating if any changes are needed, and will be making some as a result. The key part of this will be changes to a few factions influence as they changed more than intended.

Hopefully this helps give some insight into the last few days, as well as an idea of a few more things coming to expect!

We also want to take this opportunity to give some advice on how to report concerns about the BGS in the future.

If you see something you think needs investigating, you can help the development team by including the following details in your feedback:

• The faction
• The star system
• The date
• What you think is wrong

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!

o7 Commanders

 

[Vingtetun]

Thanks for the update.
Anecdotally, whilst the first "megatick" after the update hit everyone hard, that doesn't explain why leading factions gained so much relative to the other factions in the system across the board.
With the next genuine 24hr tick, these meteoric rises appear to have continued, despite normal gaming activity.
Take for example
Hutton Orbital Truckers
PSPF-LF 2
This morning's tick
Rise of 8% over the previous day
Whilst there is minor amount of casual traffic, the input stats from our internal tracker, give following:
10 missions (4x + and 6x ++)
Mission_Collect_Investment - 4
Mission_Delivery_Cooperative - 3
Mission_Hack_BLOPS_Investment - 1
Chain_HelpFinishTheOrder - 1
Mission_Generic - 1
0 data drops
0 bounties handed in
0 trade sold

However. Will keep an eye on the next "tick" and compare.

 

[Riverside]

Hi everyone!

We wanted to address a few concerns here about the BGS, explain why some things have happened and what is going to happen, buckle up!

So as you all know, the BGS tick happens once a day, representing 24h of activity. Due to the server downtime, yesterday we had a tick that represented more like 36-40h of activity, which therefore created bigger changes than usual (and noticeably!). While some adaptations were made to create SOME impact, it will not be as much as you've recently seen.

This morning represented the 1st full 24h cycle for the BGS since the Fleet Carrier update, which means that we are able to inspect and evaluate if it is working as intended. This also means that for any concerns about the BGS, please disregard current behaviour, with today forward being more stable.

Now that the cycle is behaving as expected after having a proper 24h running, the team have already been monitoring and evaluating if any changes are needed, and will be making some as a result. The key part of this will be changes to a few factions influence as they changed more than intended.

Hopefully this helps give some insight into the last few days, as well as an idea of a few more things coming to expect!

We also want to take this opportunity to give some advice on how to report concerns about the BGS in the future.

If you see something you think needs investigating, you can help the development team by including the following details in your feedback:

• The faction
• The star system
• The date
• What you think is wrong

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!

o7 Commanders

This is not only the result of an extended tick, this is a change that is in the patch notes, but it's description is too vague.

Please flesh out the patch notes, explaining in more detail the intended changes so that contributors feedback (if they are happy to reveal systems they have an interest in, as I have) can be directed more usefully. Alternatively simply reverting to the previous behaviour to allow players to stabilise their factions would be most welcome if this issue cannot be quickly resolved.

Thanks for reading, looking forward to seeing what FDev can provide over & above the existing information!