Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Can't tell yet.
BGS changes: Learnings/Issues/comments
- Thread starter Jane Turner
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Can't tell yet.
Interesting question, specially when you have takeover conflicts. Wonder how much of a change we'll see then.
Well had a war end unexpectedly on last nights tick. Influence had been showing at 10.3 each. was now at 54 vs 25. It wasnt clear who won (im assuming the 54%). influence is moving in the background but not showing on any screen until the conclusion. Not sure if this is just an edge case caused by an existing war continuing into the beta. My belief is that the new CZ mechanics have not yet been plugged in to the bgs - which is a crying shame, and little else has changed regarding war.
That's a major flaw, IMO.
It takes away what little control we have over the outcome of a conflict. Currently, one of the benefits of conflicts with factions with no assets is to end up in the right place to cause the next conflict to be with the faction you really want. The other benefit, blocking potential conflicts in other systems, has been lost with 3.3 as well. So pointless conflicts are now completely pointless, as well as being twice as long.
If the influence of both factions increased, then that's a huge change to how conflicts work.
I think that should be logged as a bug.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Precisely
I am not totally sure how its intended to work! It may be that all influence changes accrued during wartime are applied upon conclusion of the conflict. So positive actions for both sides would raise both factions. I suspect that two things are happening in this particular example. The new mechanics are not fully plugged in and this was an edge case transitioning from old system to new and the influence changes from live were masked by the new inf lock mechanic.
Either way we are not wasting any more time testing this version of the beta.
hi Jane, i keep seeing mentions of happiness states, but cant find what the states are. could you fill me in please? *flutters eyelashes* lol
Nobody knows... they're all "TODO" in beta atm.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
best guess is that it is some sort of multiplier or security/prosperity and infleunce, but we don't have a handle on it yet
So, with Squadrons in place, I checked out the Squadron Allegience page... seems as useful as how it looked in the livestream.
Big problem I can see though... the state of a conflict isn't listed on the summary page. That's almost critical information, imo.
EDIT: Actually, something's completely messed. All the wars my faction was involved in are now "None" states, but the war tracking bar is still present.
2nd EDIT: Bugreported here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ence-page-all-messed-up?p=7152625#post7152625
But now looking like it's the "last day" of war; no conflict zones, assets have exchanged where necessary, but None state, yet conflict status bar is still active. So weird.
Also, very weird feeling to gain an asset when having lower influence in a war outcome
Big problem I can see though... the state of a conflict isn't listed on the summary page. That's almost critical information, imo.
EDIT: Actually, something's completely messed. All the wars my faction was involved in are now "None" states, but the war tracking bar is still present.
2nd EDIT: Bugreported here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ence-page-all-messed-up?p=7152625#post7152625
But now looking like it's the "last day" of war; no conflict zones, assets have exchanged where necessary, but None state, yet conflict status bar is still active. So weird.
Also, very weird feeling to gain an asset when having lower influence in a war outcome
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Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
welcome to black box warfare!
I still have the feeling that the new stuff hasn't been properly connected to the BGS yet. It doesn't really make any sense now.
If it is, well, then it's going to be real chaos in the first weeks after live...
We've stopped all BGS Beta testing.
If it is, well, then it's going to be real chaos in the first weeks after live...
We've stopped all BGS Beta testing.
In what way? Not arguing, just curious.
For my own experience above, while I think there's problems with some of the implementation details about the war, it's generally functional.
Way war has worked is:
1. War commences (didn't see it go pending, coz the snapshot had my faction already at war)
2. For duration of war, influence levels between the two factions are locked.
3. Whoever "wins" a day gets a notch up/downon the conflict status.
4. End of 7 days, whoever had the most notches up wins the asset being contested (or it's a draw)
As a general workflow, that's fine and fairly sensible, but...
Problems:
- Only combat bonds count towards the success/failure of the war. Resolving a CZ has no effect. This feels back to front, and "winning" should be all about the number of zones completed, with bonds the tie-breaker.
- Influence levels at least between the factions fighting should exchange, if not all factions (i.e continue leeching effects). It's still fine that a higher-influence faction can lose an asset, kinda like a modified Pyhrric victory. As it stands, influence only seems to change on the final day.
- The final day of war in current live is: War is still ongoing/conflict zones can be engaged, but assets have already exchanged, the war result is already locked in. In Beta, the war is "over", but it's still "registered" despite the None state, and markers, particularly on the Squadrons interface, still show a war state.
The whole multi-state wars in multiple systems and ability to prop up other systems not in war I'm actually finding to be pretty good, and less detrimental than I initially thought. We'd still struggle against a sustained multi-front attack, but we're expecting that.
Beyond war, I haven't done too much, but security state and economy seem to tick, and happiness is still TODO, so not much to report there.
Short version, I haven't found much to be outside the bounds of expected changes yet which can't be explained as bugs, so I'd be curious to see what observations are different for you.
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Also, very weird feeling to gain an asset when having lower influence in a war outcome
A hypothesis:
Bonds decide the victor and allocated the asset
CZ battles decide the post-conflict influence change
If that's the case, one could win the war with bonds, and yet come out the loser in influence from the war because they won fewer CZ battles.
Could be, but considering :
The years of dedication it took to suss out BGS 1.0
How short the window of opportunity is before this all goes live
The level of testing being done on the Beta
The weight FD will give the few BGS bugs within all the Mining EE
The reliability of that testing when things like the Tick stop
Our total lack of any guidance on how it is SUPPOSED to work now
It somehow feels like a total waste of time.
The years of dedication it took to suss out BGS 1.0
How short the window of opportunity is before this all goes live
The level of testing being done on the Beta
The weight FD will give the few BGS bugs within all the Mining EE
The reliability of that testing when things like the Tick stop
Our total lack of any guidance on how it is SUPPOSED to work now
It somehow feels like a total waste of time.
In my limited testing experience there is also:
5. Accrued influence changes generated during the conflict are applied at the end. (or counted in the background with no daily changes visible in UI).
As to your question, the war mechanics are not quite working as described! Alternatively, the descriptions of the new mechanics do not adequately explain them.
Wars last 7 days? they effectively dont if day 7 occurs after asset transfer. We have one data point of a war ending after 4 days. (day 3 was close victory i believe) Does the pending period count?
Influence locked for duration of conflict? That isnt clear, see 5 above.
CZ victories and objectives, certain missions, bounties and bonds should all contribute to war victory? Testing suggests strongly that only bounties and bonds do.
What is influence effective during conflict? Frankly impossible to test properly in a controlled fashion. We will have to wait a week for results of a test hoping noone takes any action in the system for the whole period.
Unfortunately for me the new system increases rather than decreases the opacity of the BGS.
Testing issues are compounded by the Beta BGS going boink on Saturday - we don't know what was counted and what wasn't (we dont even know what should have been counted) . I believe testing may be contaminated by a legacy issue of existing wars transferring from live to beta - leading to some weird hybrid mechanics. Certain aspects also don't seem to have been plugged in yet (CZ actions) perhaps to test specific aspects of the new mechanics.
That feels back to front for me. Bonds would be the influence decider for me, and CZ battles the war winners.
Bonds = Number of enemies destroyed (enemy casualties)
Resolved CZs = Number of decisive victories.
Dead enemies are just that; dead enemies. Decisive victories are strategic point, territory gained (for a land battle)
Thus, my comment about a pyhrric victory;
Lets say two factions went to war, each had 20% influence
- Faction A gets 10m in bonds submitted, wins 5 conflict zones
- Faction B gets 100m in bonds submitted, wins no conflict zones.
Faction A clearly suffered way more losses, and will come out on the bottom of the influence stakes due to those losses, but they still managed to hold key and decisive fronts in the war. Faction B managed to contain it's losses, but still failed to secure it's assets. Increased influence as their forces are comparatively untouched, but still didn't get the asset.
And anyway, having conflict zones resolved be the key determination would be the game-changer for me; it would mean you could still help win a war even when you are hostile to the faction holding all assets in the system. You can't win under those circumstances if Bonds are the determining factor.