BGS

[derekajpayne]

BGS - it's quite frustrating to be working on ones own in system influence, and against another player Faction who we never meet as they choose to stick in Solo or Private Groups and/or are also cross Platform.

Would it be possible to nerf Influence so that one gains much more ( say 50%) if the mission task is taken and completed in Open, and/or much less ( ie half) if the mission is taken and completed in Solo or Private?

Perhaps like with bounties collected when your ship is killed, If you take a mission in open if you then try to log out and back into Solo or private it wipes the mission.

That way it would encourage players factions to come out and interact, which in a BGS contest is entirely appropriate.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

There are a lot of mission types where being in Open really doesn't make them any harder.
1) Donation and source cargo missions, you can fly to the station in Solo/PG, then do the mission in Open from the safety of the landing pad. Wing source missions are even worse.
2) Cargo delivery missions mainly grant their influence outbound, so they can dock with your station in Solo/PG, switch to Open to take the mission, and you still don't have much chance of intercepting them.
3) Data courier and most exploration/combat missions don't fail on ship loss, so they can just fly in and if you kill them you're helping them hand in the mission faster
4) Odyssey's Apex travel will make it even easier to move from system to system safely - so long as you don't need to bring cargo with you.
5) Taking passenger missions for your faction and then encouraging you to open fire on them so that they insta-fail would be a neat option for them, too.

You'd also find that the sort of player group which doesn't want to interact with you already won't be at all inclined to make the interactions fun if they have to - do you have any systems which only have outposts? Expect to see a rival medium ship AFKing on those pads 24/7, if so. You could of course go to PG briefly to dock ...


On the other hand, you'd also be giving up a lot of potentially beneficial effects from passing traffic. All else equal, unaligned players in a system strongly benefit the system controller. If you say "sorry, you can't accidentally help us, you're in the wrong mode" ... then all of your systems will suddenly become a lot less stable and prone to both deliberate attack and wild swings in influence the rest of the time.


(Still, there are plenty of BGS groups who advocate open-only play ... why not go fight one of them instead?)

 

[derekajpayne]

All good points . On the accidental help, I'd suggest leaving all those kinds of effects on faction influence turned "on" in solo - so I mean for things like trade or handing in bounties etc. But what i meant was to just restrict the specific Influence option for Missions Rewards to Open. To act as encouragement/reward for playing in a way that may bring you in contact with opposing CMdrs, for those deliberately and specifically seeking Influnce reward missions.

Also I'm not a fan of the PP pledge system that is set up with only one week out of 4 being necessary to really do Merits to get the special weapons/equipment. If it was down to me I'd make it that you had to have the level of Merits for all four weeks consecutively. And if you blow up/attack any ship that is pledged to your Glaslctic Power during that time it knocks back the merits each time. So if you want those P Shileds, all Empire ships are off limits for a month , Wanted or not. And I'd raise the Level 3 to 5000 merits . So if you really want to get the special weapon/equipment, you really have to commit to the "cause" for a month.

Annnd, last point a bit more controversially - I'd also have it so that if one Cmdr is pledged to a Power, and he destroys the Ship of a Cmdr that is pledged to an opposing Power , you get double merits for that . The point perhaps is to make Cmdrs think twice before randomly pledge shopping.

 

[Robert Maynard]

But what i meant was to just restrict the specific Influence option for Missions Rewards to Open. To act as encouragement/reward for playing in a way that may bring you in contact with opposing CMdrs, for those deliberately and specifically seeking Influnce reward missions.

While all players enjoy the privilege of affecting the game equally, regardless of game mode, there's no requirement to play among other players to do so, which means that there's no requirement to engage in PvP to engage in any game feature (except CQC, of course). Some players, over the years, have tried to persuade Frontier to penalise those who play in Solo and Private Groups, with an apparent disregard for those who choose not to engage in PvP in a game that does not require players to engage in PvP when affecting the shared galaxy.

Annnd, last point a bit more controversially - I'd also have it so that if one Cmdr is pledged to a Power, and he destroys the Ship of a Cmdr that is pledged to an opposing Power , you get double merits for that . The point perhaps is to make Cmdrs think twice before randomly pledge shopping.

.... which would be trivially exploited - as it is easier for players to collude than to oppose when seeking rewards for PvP encounters. Plus the fact that players can engage in Powerplay from any game mode - so module shopping wouldn't be stopped by other players.

 

[Brrokk]

 

[Achtung-Goomba]

View attachment 224703

Are we going for a new record this week?

 

[Rubbernuke]

The BGS is not set up for Open style conflicts, mainly because most of its actions are hidden from other players*- the only way to ensure no-one else tampers with your faction is to destroy them outright.

*By hidden, I mean other people can't scan your ship for missions, know who you dropped data for, if you failed missions, who you did them for and so on.

 

[Brrokk]

Are we going for a new record this week?

It seems like it. Threads have started going around in pairs now.

 

[gorankar]

Well, to be fair we do only have 2 Open only/bonus/weighted threads on the first page right now.

As always, I am going to argue that there should be a bonus for me to play in solo or PG over open because I think everyone should play the way I want them to. /s

Yes, that is how silly open only/bonus/weighted suggestions sound to some of us.

I will admit that crossplay would be interesting. Or it would be if ED did not have such shoddy p2p networking.