A commanders view on the CGs

[timbero]

I'm gonna use "Expanding the Federal Fleet" as an example as this was my first CG.



1. Scale rewards vs profit

I used a Cutter with 720 cargo space and made about 70k profit selling computer components each time, in comparison I can make about 2.15 million profit selling Palladium with 720 cargo (takes me about 5-10 minutes).

I realised during that first evening that the only reason for me to participate when there was little to no profit or incentive, was to get top 1 commander. Not because of the credit reward mind you, but because the top player got to name the ship (as I understood it). It was the ONLY interesting reward. However this would probably require an insane grind to achieve, and I had no idea how much the top player had collected.

I did one night of runs (16 x 720) and got top 10%, which got me 2.4 million credits as a reward. And I earned about 1.5 million in trade profits, this leaves me with about 4 million credits for a couple hours grind.

Now you tell me why I should spend 5-6 hours grinding for 4 million, when I can trade for 10-20 minutes to get the same 4 million.

If I would have spent the same time doing my normal trade route, I would have made:

6 x 3 = 18 trips
2.15 * 18 = 38.7 million

This is 10x more.

And this is a very conservative estimate.

If you make pretty much 0 from trading for 50 hours, the top commander at tier 8 should be rewarded 150 million, and the top 5% around 50 million. If the grind is WORSE then getting to rank 5 in powerplay, it ought to pay a little better then it does now.

However if you make boat loads of money on trading off the CG, maybe the rewards can be more modest and looked upon as a bonus at the end.



2. More interesting rewards

If you want people to invest xx amount of hours in a CG, you need to make the top tier rewards much more interesting. Ideas for more interesting top tier rewards I can think of are:

Ships
Paintjobs
In game extras (bobbleheads, alphabet)
Modules

For example, a bounty hunting CG which has reached tier 8 might award the top player a Fer De Lance (or other combat ship of your choosing).

A trade CG might award the top 3 players a nice trading ship each.

An exploration CG might award the top 5 an exploration ship each.

If you want to add really interesting awards, add unique rewards. You don't have to do this for every CG, but the bigger ones.

Maybe the top commander gets rewarded with a ship that has a unique, one of a kind paint job at tier 8.

Another idea is to reward players with unique modules, an example is at tier 8 the top commander reward for a exploration CG is a FSD with 7% extra jump range (or an exploration ship with 7% extra jump range).

A bounty hunting CG might reward a player with a power distributor that recharges weapons 5% faster.

Custom ship names, what smuggler wouldn't want to win an asp explorer named The Millennium Falcon? (Jokes aside, you can probably think of some interesting names for ships).



3. More global rewards

For example, reward the top 50%, 75%, or ALL players with a cobra paint job when the CG reaches max tier. Reward EVERYONE with a bonus 5 million if they reach the max tier, the aim is to attract more players, work together and complete the CG.



4. Rankings

Show us a list of rankings, either during or after. How much did the top commander collect, how much did I collect and what was my place? 2nd, 52nd? All I know is I'm in the top 5%.



5. Tier reward previews

I'm not sure how this works now, but if you want people to join and contribute to the CG, tempt them with sneak peaks of higher tier rewards. If you get a glimpse of the next tier reward and find it interesting, you get curious as to what the next tier reward preview will show. This will incentivise people to push for the next tier.



EDIT: formatting errors from copy paste

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

The CGs as they stand right now are definitely glorified grinding. Varying the rewards like you've suggested would certainly help make them worth it.

 

[timbero]

Yes, I hope they do something to change this. I really got my hopes up for an interesting activity in the Elite Dangerous Universe when I first heard about CGs, sadly this excitement was gone after 1 night of trading computer components.

The very least they can do is increase tier rewards when the CG activity itself is low profit.

 

[DHMeyer]

It would be great if CG could be made a viable alternative to regular trading. But that would have to mean profit per trip somewhere in the range of 10mil + or really awesome rewards for the effort. Not sure if a paintjob would be enough, I think I still rather keep trading and just spend those 5 quid or so on livery instead. Some 6-7 A module might be more convincing to me. Or access to PP weapons as a reward.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

1. Scale rewards vs profit

You've gotta be kidding me.

Here's something you should have learned when you were in a sidewinder or freegle: not all is equal and fair in the galaxy. Not everything is a point on an immutable graph that is cr/hr. Believe it or not, someone in a cutter might have a different experience than someone in a hauler. And believe it or not, someone in a hauler may have a different experience than someone else in a hauler. Mind blown? Guess what: this is perfectly fine. If everything's result is the same, why bother doing any one thing over another? If everything's not the same, then the player has to choose what thing they want to do. And we have a few (not enough) external factors that tend to influence this choice. This is good.

2. More interesting rewards

Honestly I think it's good enough. Sure there can be more variety of things. However I see no reason why the reward needs to be something in the magnitude of paint jobs. The CG you use as an example is a bit mundane. We've gotten some permanent ship discounts, a bunch of BGS/galnet stuff, and these kinds of rewards are interesting, just probably not interesting to you. You, someone who might not enjoy the BGS or anything on galnet and just cares about cr/hr.

3. More global rewards

I think this is neat.

4. Rankings

I think this is fantastic, but should definitely be published after the fact.

5. Tier reward previews

I think this undermines the tier concept to a degree. Part of the appeal is the unknown. Those who want to know can look it up on the google.

 

[DocLooshkin]

I've no strong view on the monetary rewards, but I would definitely like to see more alternatives, such as paint jobs. A wireframe Asp would be nice. It would be good to see rankings for each contribution layer, either live (or at least live-ish) or at the end of the CG.

As a side-note, it would be good to fix the bug where players are counted even if they make no contribution. In a recent CG, my first ever attempt at mining put me in the top 66% with just 2 tonnes of palladium delivered - presumably, lots of players thought it was another trade mission and simply left once they realised their mistake. I can see a potential exploit where loads of players are encouraged to sign up for CGs, but not do anything - pushing everyone who does contribute up towards the higher rewards.

 

[timbero]

You've gotta be kidding me.

Nope.

I'm willing to bet that the majority of players need an incentive other then "roleplaying" to merit a 40h grind. It's fine to say that some CGs are gonna be less successful then others, but I would rather see an increase in player participation then a decrease.

Believe it or not, someone in a cutter might have a different experience than someone in a hauler. And believe it or not, someone in a hauler may have a different experience than someone else in a hauler. Mind blown?

Maybe you're right, maybe some people like pointless grinds without any purpose. My mind is indeed blown.

We've gotten some permanent ship discounts, a bunch of BGS/galnet stuff, and these kinds of rewards are interesting, just probably not interesting to you. You, someone who might not enjoy the BGS or anything on galnet and just cares about cr/hr.

Oh, we got permanent ship discounts, a bunch of BGS / galnet stuff as a reward for this CG? Well gee golly I must have missed that.

However I see no reason why the reward needs to be something in the magnitude of paint jobs.

Lets say this is part of a reward for a 2 week CG for the top 10 players. They all put in 50+ hours each, it costs FD zero, and you think this is way too good of a reward? Are you joking?




I'll concede:

Some CGs will be more or less successful then others, this is fine.

Not everything is about credits. (However in a trade CG with little to nothing else going for it...)

Permanent ship discounts, a bunch of BGS / galnet stuff are interesting rewards.