Expose more info about solo/pg player actions in station info

[Greasetrap42]

Is there any form of communication that you don't consider harrassment?

If a message is intended to cause unwanted pressure or intimidation it can be considered harassment. That's what the word means.
-> it can also mean repetitive annoyance, but not in this context.

The form of communication is irrelevant. Its the content that matters.

Edit: In your example an unsolicited message is being sent to a stranger asking (warning? threatening? dunno.) them from doing their normal gaming activity. Obviously easily ignored. If the intent is to cause unwanted pressure or intimidation against a targeted individual or group it would be considered harassment and is against Frontier's Code of Conduct.

 

[Rubbernuke]

PP is way more complex than unlocking a fort trigger and then watching every power shrinking into a 100 ly bubble (less if those bubbles are unfavorable/neutral PMF governments) because unlocked triggers would be very unreasonable to maintain against last night UM wings you can't respond to unless you 1000% overfort against something that may or may not happen.

You can expand a system to hurt another power's income. The only problem right now is that the turmoil order does not favor towards dropping low income spheres, so most of the time it just weakens you more than it weakens your opponent power.

On the BGS side I do not understand this thread. You already get information on what your opposition has done every day, when the BGS ticks and you see the influence changes. Though I understand that ever since conflicts were changed into influence locks it has become hard to gauge enemy effort, which I do agree could have at least some vague way of knowing by how hard you win/lost a day. But to make it mode-exclusive is frankly ridiculous.

Unlocked triggers are not 1:1 though. You forget (unless they are still bugged) you have the shipping loss to gauge from, and what was proposed was that fortifying would be OK if within a certain % of the UM. So for tight systems with even triggers thats a hotspot, but for a lot of places the triggers are so skewed you are talking nearly 9:1 in your favour. If every trigger was low (like it was early in Powerplays life where it was in the 1000 range) then I'd agree, but its not. Add to that consolidation as well.

You can expand a system to hurt another power's income.

Indeed you can, but its frankly an absurd way to 'win' since it sacrifices part of your own powers health (i.e. wrecking your own economy in a feature supposedly about gaining good systems).

I would agree on turmoil order, but, it should be that where you attack the turmoil is treated locally. Then strategic combat makes sense where important places are attacked when combined with things like uncapped UM.

But to make it mode-exclusive is frankly ridiculous.

I don't know if this is a response to me, but I would prefer information to be the same across all modes.

 

[Rubbernuke]

And my question here is, how do you intend to provide payback in a way that isn't already facilitated by the game (to which this suggestion is excess to)?

I'm going to ramble on a lot away from your actual comment here, so 90% of this is actually not in reply to your comment... but if your target is the supported faction, you can see that already; daily tick represents the changes to the BGS, so go forth and provide "payback" in a way that undoes whatever changes you didn't like.

If your target is an individual or group of players, as most seem to want here, you're out of luck, as that simply doesn't work the way you think it will.

Firstly, instancing, secondly, no cross-platform, thirdly, solo/PG. Even if you luck out and happen upon the person causing you grievance, killing them doesn't change much, and in fact, there's a high chance, particularly if you're a defender, that it works against you, rather than for you... plus all the time invested in trying to hunt down an individual player... you could've done a range of way more effective actions to push the BGS in the direction you want anyway. Remember; the intent of the BGS was for players to interact indirectly, via interactions with the NPC factions. Not directly player-to-player.

This video, while tipping 6 years old now, is still relevant and has only been reinforced by FD over years. It makes the claim that the BGS is all about indirect activities, and they actually call out that it's not about players pulling out the lasers and shooting each other. But let's unpick this, and then you'll come to understand why players are against anything moving towards this end.

As soon as FD makes a change which supports an overall direction or design philosophy, they need to approach that as a wholistic, functional aspect of the game. To just do small things like this is wasted effort trying to boil the ocean.

Take a look at Powerplay. It's original implementation was meant to be much more closely coupled to the BGS, with factions rising and falling from Power status. This route was abandoned, and for pretty obvious reasons.
Powerplay was meant to be a balanced, group-vs-group, strategic game activity, allowing players to interact directly for or against a group's collective goals.
The BGS is almost completely opposed to this, as the BGS:

• Is fundamentally unbalanced (in so many ways)
• Is not group-vs-group, instead representing the actions of anyone regardless of allegience
• Prefers indirect interaction between players

Many BGS players, myself included, were excited about Powerplay, because it seemed like that aspect of the BGS was being uplifted into that group-vs-group activity, and indeed, with the original intent of Powerplay, that's how it seemed pitched. But FD backed away from that, very clearly delineating Powerplay as that group-vs-group activity on it's own, and leaving Factions the "flavoured backdrop" that we play against.

And that's the clincher here.

Suggestions like this lean in to the "directed player-vs-player" component... which is Powerplay. Suggestions like those of @Rubbernuke I won't fundamentally disagree with, because it's approaching it from a wholistic, functional approach. Players approach suggestions of the OP as isolated cases... but people push back against it because, as far as anyone knows, FD's position is still that BGS = background flavour, Powerplay = group vs group. To make a "small" suggestion better suited to Powerplay, which affects the BGS, is either:

• A waste of time, because for obvious reasons it's not something the BGS needs; or
• A broader suggestion to fundamentally shift a core aspect of the whole game, which many players have built their playstyle around.

You can then of course, suggest that "Well, maybe the entire core concept of the game should shift"... which as a theoretical idea, sure, I can't disagree with that. But in practical terms, have fun with that.... you'd have better luck suggesting Call of Duty should be rewritten to be more like Mario Kart.

Re more info on the BGS- for me the extra info is for payback- but its more about knowing (or giving enough information) as to who is doing the work against you. This is important as quite often wrecking their sandcastle (and not PvP) is enough to divert them away rather than simply hunker down and take it until they get bored. I've fought in PMF wars that have gone on for months where we hardly knew who was fighting, and the only option was defence.

Really all this requires is FD polishing and greatly augmenting what exists now (i.e. the reports) and that (just like the top 10 CGs) the real BGS movers (across all roles in ED) are highlighted so you know who is working against you (and how hard)- so randos don't feature at all since its low level activity but those doing lots of work become noticed. That, and having better transit logs (for me at least, since a lot of troublemakers are known by name).

If Powerplay is to remain mode agnostic, at the very least (when 5C is gone) all UM activity in your power is broken down by power. That, and stopping weaponised expansion gameplay (since its stupid) and get back to direct attacks (as it was intended). But, because Powerplay does a better job of identifying pilots by pledge (something almost impossible in the BGS currently since many are unaffiliated), you can use that to break down who transits your space (which is also defined better). So you could have "35 Aisling Pilots have been spotted in Harma today" and link that with the shipping loss report, and works better than a top 5 UM score which is easily gamed.

 

[Rubbernuke]

If you don't want people affecting your game secretly, maybe don't play an MMO(ish)

But thats the contradiction since the BGS is shared by everyone.

 

[Arioch]

Slightly off-topic maybe, but in my opinion there's no way Elite is an MMO. There's nothing "massive" about the number of players you can instance with simultaneously. If FD have described it as an MMO in the past, they simply misrepresented it.

What we have here is a very good single-player game with a 1:1 galaxy and great ships, a shared BGS and some optional multi-player features.

If my slightly hazy memory is correct, FDev originally didn’t consider ED as an MMO - at least in the early Kickstarter days. It wasn’t until some backers gave it a bit of “well actually…” in the comments regarding the shared Galaxy that FDev picked up on it.

 

[ethelred]

A rudimentary comms system could work without harassment - simply make it a set list of comms you choose from a drop down.

Each CMDR could then have an inbox that flashes direct or local messages of set text only. Ofc if someone was spamming the local broadcast chat you could mute them for 24 hrs or so.

Comms hot keys could also be used then so you don't have to painfully type out messages in VR or when your trying to manoeuvre.

Should have been in from the start, so it's very unlikely just one of the many neat ideas from the community

 

[Jmanis]

Re more info on the BGS- for me the extra info is for payback- but its more about knowing (or giving enough information) as to who is doing the work against you. This is important as quite often wrecking their sandcastle (and not PvP) is enough to divert them away rather than simply hunker down and take it until they get bored. I've fought in PMF wars that have gone on for months where we hardly knew who was fighting, and the only option was defence.

Like I said earlier in the piece...

Good thing the BGS is just the malleable background we play against, and not a competitive group vs group mechanic

I understand exactly what you're saying, but that's simply not what the BGS is for.

Picture this scenario. You support "Bob's Gold Group"... but lo... in the last tick they went into economic bust and are now pending war with Jim's Silver Group, who came from neighbouring system Someplacium.

What's meant to happen is you go "Well damn, we're at war and our economy is trash. I gotta fight that war and improve the economy, and maybe take some vengeance on Jim's Silver Group, maybe even mess up their home system of Someplacium"... i.e an indirect interaction with other players via the background environment.

What you're not meant to be doing is going "Well, Jim's Silver Group got up because it looks like CMDR Someguy took advantage of Jim's economic boom. CMDR Someguy is part of Squadron Blah pledged to faction 'Foo' in the MehMeh system... I'm gonna go mess up them up to teach them not to do that again, or at the very least, keep them out of my hair"... i.e a direct action against the actions of another player, driven by that player.

That second example is fundamentally against the principles of the BGS. FD themselves go as far as to say that, paraphrasing... if players are coming on and playing with the BGS consciously in their mind, they've done the BGS wrong and created a 'Foreground Sim' instead.

That players do that anyway is of no consequence to that position; it's no different to people gambling on the results of political elections... that people do gamble on the outcome of elections is no reason to change the way an election is run, in order to better facilitate gambling... the election exists only to elect government officials for that nation and facilitate the transfer of power, not for gambling.

It's worth noting the quote I paraphrase above was in a video released after Powerplay was put in the game.... so that was always the intent even when releasing Powerplay, as fundamentally, Powerplay is mechanically no different save for some balancing mechanics than what it was back then. It's a tired old legacy of a flawed design premise, but one that's never been updated.

Either Powerplay needs to be completely divorced from the BGS, or FD need to completely overhaul the BGS in acknowledgement that it's the premier group-vs-group activity that the game offers, and it's tie-ins with Powerplay. But right now, that's not what it is.

EDIT: If you look close, you'll see lots of contradictions, but that's an artefact of the game's design. It is what it is, and the intended purposes of it's various mechanics are still there. Was Dav's Hope put in with the express purpose of facilitating a material grind? Of course not, even though that's exactly what it does... but it doesn't stop people doing it, nor from believing that's exactly what it's for.

 

[Darrack]

Is there any form of communication that you don't consider harrassment?

I was going to put my conflict management teaching hat on but

If a message is intended to cause unwanted pressure or intimidation it can be considered harassment. That's what the word means.
-> it can also mean repetitive annoyance, but not in this context.

The form of communication is irrelevant. Its the content that matters.

Edit: In your example an unsolicited message is being sent to a stranger asking (warning? threatening? dunno.) them from doing their normal gaming activity. Obviously easily ignored. If the intent is to cause unwanted pressure or intimidation against a targeted individual or group it would be considered harassment and is against Frontier's Code of Conduct.

This is way better than anything i could have come up with

O7

 

[Robert Maynard]

Well people have said a lot about mode choice not mattering in BGS because it's asynchronous (or words to that effect). Contacting people that you can't instance with in a different time zone (i.e. when you are in bed) using sys chat might be a tough ask? Also, it's directed - your message is getting to someone you really want to contact, not bothering everyone in system. It's a smidge like you're asking why I use email instead of walking outside with a loudhailer.

The BGS is 24/7 and does not require players to instance together to be in indirect competition with each other (knowingly or unknowingly) even when they play in the same mode and platform.

Contacting people not in the same instance in-game is a privilege, not a right as Frontier don't choose to even let players message players currently playing who are not in the same instance without the explicit consent of the recipient, i.e. having accepted a friend request or wing invitation.

 

[Robert Maynard]

But thats the contradiction since the BGS is shared by everyone.

It's not a contradiction - it's a simple statement, similar to "if you don't like being shot at by players, don't play in Open". The mode shared BGS, the ability to shoot at anything one instances with, the block feature, and the choice of which game mode to play in each session are all parts of the same game - selective acceptance of one or more of the aspects does not make the rest any less part of the game.

Just because the BGS is affected by all players does not mean that any player is entitled to know who did what and when in relation to the BGS.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Like I said earlier in the piece...

I understand exactly what you're saying, but that's simply not what the BGS is for.

Picture this scenario. You support "Bob's Gold Group"... but lo... in the last tick they went into economic bust and are now pending war with Jim's Silver Group, who came from neighbouring system Someplacium.

What's meant to happen is you go "Well damn, we're at war and our economy is trash. I gotta fight that war and improve the economy, and maybe take some vengeance on Jim's Silver Group, maybe even mess up their home system of Someplacium"... i.e an indirect interaction with other players via the background environment.

What you're not meant to be doing is going "Well, Jim's Silver Group got up because it looks like CMDR Someguy took advantage of Jim's economic boom. CMDR Someguy is part of Squadron Blah pledged to faction 'Foo' in the MehMeh system... I'm gonna go mess up them up to teach them not to do that again, or at the very least, keep them out of my hair"... i.e a direct action against the actions of another player, driven by that player.

That second example is fundamentally against the principles of the BGS. FD themselves go as far as to say that, paraphrasing... if players are coming on and playing with the BGS consciously in their mind, they've done the BGS wrong and created a 'Foreground Sim' instead.

That players do that anyway is of no consequence to that position; it's no different to people gambling on the results of political elections... that people do gamble on the outcome of elections is no reason to change the way an election is run, in order to better facilitate gambling... the election exists only to elect government officials for that nation and facilitate the transfer of power, not for gambling.

It's worth noting the quote I paraphrase above was in a video released after Powerplay was put in the game.... so that was always the intent even when releasing Powerplay, as fundamentally, Powerplay is mechanically no different save for some balancing mechanics than what it was back then. It's a tired old legacy of a flawed design premise, but one that's never been updated.

Either Powerplay needs to be completely divorced from the BGS, or FD need to completely overhaul the BGS in acknowledgement that it's the premier group-vs-group activity that the game offers, and it's tie-ins with Powerplay. But right now, that's not what it is.

EDIT: If you look close, you'll see lots of contradictions, but that's an artefact of the game's design. It is what it is, and the intended purposes of it's various mechanics are still there. Was Dav's Hope put in with the express purpose of facilitating a material grind? Of course not, even though that's exactly what it does... but it doesn't stop people doing it, nor from believing that's exactly what it's for.

I get exactly what you mean, but whats happened (especially with Powerplay and its use of the BGS - which is FD legitimising BGS play since its such an important factor in defence via lowering triggers) is exactly that: they are playing the BGS. For a Powerplay group its more about maintaining control over territory far far greater than PMF backed factions ever get to, and doing it as efficiently as possible. I expect the largest PMFs would behave in a similar way, and that what you describe holds true really for small to medium sized groups in the BGS (if that sounds condescending its not meant to be- its just at the larger end of the scale for the BGS and Powerplay you are dealing with multiple PMFs, factions, powers each and every day with more and more added all the time).

FD themselves seem confused too, since the 'black box' of 2015 was opened up and devs have told us INF values of actions, what causes what, and so on ever since. More and more UI feedback as been added over time, as well as making us aware of things like expansions and retreats. If FD wanted the BGS to remain in the background, surely they'd have kept a lid on the black box?

 

[TiberiusDuval]

You could of course cut out the middleman and create an asynchronous comms system. You can broadcast a message (lets say using dropdowns so that fewer expletives get spammed). This reveals your CMDR name with a message "please contact if you are running missions in this system" etc. in someone's in-box when they land at the station. The NPC idea just has more flavour .

Well this one has some merits. I usually do not want knowingly do any harm towards any PMF faction, but on other hand I also do not bother to seek out info about if there is some stuff going on, getting that kind of notice may change my actions.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Just because the BGS is affected by all players does not mean that any player is entitled to know who did what and when in relation to the BGS.

I'd very much like to know who wrecks the local BGS situation, over and over. If someone does something of a significant magnitude they should make waves so I know who they are.

Otherwise you cut away the possibility of wrecking their BGS in return to dissuade them, and instead be locked into defence (that or talking, although that rarely works).

By knowing nothing your only course of action is to keep pumping up your area and hope they get bored, which, is dull in itself.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

But thats the contradiction since the BGS is shared by everyone.

Right - so claiming that you have the right to see who is 'affecting your game' shows a misunderstanding of what the BGS is. People aren't doing anything to YOUR game - they're simply playing THEIR game, and how, when and where they're playing it is nobody's business but their own.

As long as everything about PMFs and the BGS is purely cosmetic, complaints about damage to your pretend space empire are as meaningful as NPCs moaning the 'you scratched their paint'.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I'd very much like to know who wrecks the local BGS situation, over and over. If someone does something of a significant magnitude they should make waves so I know who they are.

Knowing "who" affected all the factions in one system does not improve the situation much - as they neither need to play or communicate with any other player.

Otherwise you cut away the possibility of wrecking their BGS in return to dissuade them, and instead be locked into defence (that or talking, although that rarely works).

The existence of altCMDRs and the ability for each CMDR to be allied with a number of Factions that is only limited by the number of Factions would make identifying which Faction to punish rather challenging, if not impossible - and delightfully vulnerable to 5th column actions if such information were to be made available - which I doubt it would be.

By knowing nothing your only course of action is to keep pumping up your area and hope they get bored, which, is dull in itself.

What is dull for some is not dull for all.

 

[Darrack]

Right - so claiming that you have the right to see who is 'affecting your game' shows a misunderstanding of what the BGS is. People aren't doing anything to YOUR game - they're simply playing THEIR game, and how, when and where they're playing it is nobody's business but their own.

As long as everything about PMFs and the BGS is purely cosmetic, complaints about damage to your pretend space empire are as meaningful as NPCs moaning the 'you scratched their paint'.

If i could up-vote this 10 times it wouldn't be enough

I don't care about the pride of PMFs, i don't go out of my way to harm them but likewise don't give two hoots if i do, they can live with it.
After-all isn't that what some of these folks say when they gank your trade ship?
They dont OWN the system let alone the galaxy.

O7

 

[varonica]

I'd very much like to know who wrecks the local BGS situation, over and over. If someone does something of a significant magnitude they should make waves so I know who they are.

You mean like the time I smuggled 14,000 land mines into a system because they were paying good money for "fetch land mines" missions, and there I was just making good money! Didn't realise someone had the right to know I was smuggling land mines in, I mean the very point of smuggling is that no-one knows you are doing it, right, it's like, a big secret, I'm smuggling, I'm a criminal, how on earth is that supposed to suddenly appear in the system reports? What's the point of even having a smuggling mechanic if the moment it affects your favourite part of the game my name gets posted up for all to see?

Didn't know the state of the BGS, who was the minor factions being affected by my nefarious deeds, I'm just making money, in secret, because I'm smuggling, unless I get scanned carrying illegal goods no-one should know who it is smuggling the land mines in.

 

[varonica]

Otherwise you cut away the possibility of wrecking their BGS in return to dissuade them, and instead be locked into defence (that or talking, although that rarely works).

Good job wrecking my BGS, I don't have one lol, be a lot of running around for nothing, I could care less who runs the galaxy, I just do my own thing!

 

[Jmanis]

I get exactly what you mean, but whats happened (especially with Powerplay and its use of the BGS - which is FD legitimising BGS play since its such an important factor in defence via lowering triggers) is exactly that: they are playing the BGS. For a Powerplay group its more about maintaining control over territory far far greater than PMF backed factions ever get to, and doing it as efficiently as possible. I expect the largest PMFs would behave in a similar way, and that what you describe holds true really for small to medium sized groups in the BGS (if that sounds condescending its not meant to be- its just at the larger end of the scale for the BGS and Powerplay you are dealing with multiple PMFs, factions, powers each and every day with more and more added all the time).

FD themselves seem confused too, since the 'black box' of 2015 was opened up and devs have told us INF values of actions, what causes what, and so on ever since. More and more UI feedback as been added over time, as well as making us aware of things like expansions and retreats. If FD wanted the BGS to remain in the background, surely they'd have kept a lid on the black box?

Not at all.

I do think FD have definitely confused the issue for players, as a byproduct of their original naivety that players would care about superpower allegience before factional allegience. I think their lack of firm language and evasiveness around the general BGS has also contributed to a substantial amount of further confusion. And don't forget the lunacy of PMFs, which FD thought was just giving players the chance to add a lick of flavour to the galaxy, not a flag to rally behind.

But none of the gradual release of information is necessarily outlandish or incongruent to the BGS being that background flavour, and facilitating indirect interaction between players.

It's still to this day not clear exactly what contributes to war & election success. Sure, the big ticket items are known. But it's only natural for a player to see a war, and want to help one side win... or see an economic boom and take advantage of it for profit.... or how to help an outbreak... and as you get more understanding, you'll notice you can spin profit in medicines during outbreak, so you start to want to increase the chances of that state occurring.

Of course, some of the mechanisms there aren't straightforward, and i think that's a failing of the BGS, but i digress... more information about how the bgs reacts fits right in with an awareness of how your actions can affect the game world.

And sure, that can be seen through the lens of encouraging direct interactions.... but that doesn't mean it's no longer just background flair either. I think what FD has done is increased information for players as much as they can while both staying in the remit of the BGS being the backdrop we play against... but given the ways people play, there is always overlap with that competitive aspect.

Some firm, direct language would clear that up, but when players can't even understand that Squadron allegience does not mean you "own" a faction... i think FD is quite aware that such language would just alienate some players.

So, no, i don't think FD needs to keep a tight lid on the black box even if this is just background flair, if only so players can have more meaningful interactions with it. There will be overlaps with group vs group activity, but that's secondary in nature. But i do agree it's become confused as time goes on.

 

[Greasetrap42]

What's the point of even having a smuggling mechanic if the moment it affects your favourite part of the game my name gets posted up for all to see?

In fairness to the posted idea (which I don't agree with) smuggled cargo would not be reported in the detailed info made available to the player base. Only stuff if your ship was scanned. Of course 50 runs with smuggled landmines and you accidentally got scanned 2 or 3 times, given "detailed system data" its not hard to figure out @varonica is a smuggler. So c'mon boys lets go get her! Lets teach her to stay out of our system! With the new cmdr info we can see @varonica is at a mining location today, only two systems away. Easy kill! Ya!