Lordy.
Charged CG results?
- Thread starter norlin
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I think this is the thing to remember - CGs are all incredibly biased in various directions by a huge number of quantitative and qualitative factors. No matter how Frontier set it up, the losing side will always be able to point to something to say that this was a bias against them which caused them to lose.
Frontier should try to balance out all of those factors so that the final result is as even as possible, or what tends to happen is one side takes an early lead due to those factors ... and then all the people who don't really care join the winning team because it gives a higher payout, and while the CG might last seven days, the outcome is clear about six hours in and the rest is just busywork until it happens. That means that some of the more obvious quantitative factors will need to be more in favour of one side or another, to balance out the less obvious quantitative factors and the various qualitative factors.
So for this recent CG:
Marlinist advantages:
- lore advantage, more people hate the Empire than like it
- friendly indestructible megaships in many CZs
- can get partial victory even if the Empire reaches Tier 5 before the deadline by reaching Tier 3 before that happens
Empire advantages:
- lower Tier 5 target
- much lower mid-tier targets so more potential to attract mercenaries later in the week by reaching Tier 3
The overall effect was the closest competitive CG in terms of percentage completion ever. (I'm not saying Frontier got it perfect - cutting the tiers on both sides to 1/2 or even 1/3 what they were would with 100% hindsight been better, but they couldn't have known that to start with)
Neo-Marlinist Liberation Army advantages:
- they aren't trying to escape on the megaships in the first place, and probably left the moment the first Navy ship showed up, so they're safe regardless of the CG result
- the treatment of the people who don't escape will radicalise some of the more peaceful Marlinists towards Neo-Marlinism so they have more recruits either way
(note therefore, based on the most recent Galnet article, that all possible CG results give the same major plot direction, just the minor details along the way are different - Frontier has no need to bias CGs to ensure a particular result because they determine what results are possible at all)
Right, and others would say (as they did, loudly, last week!) "it doesn't matter if the tiers are the same if one side has a better reward"
And if the tiers and rewards are the same, they'll point to the difference (measurable, quantitative) in distance between the CZs and each side's station. [1]
And if both CGs are absolutely identical and hosted at the same neutral station, they'll point to one side having a more favourable timezone relative to the BGS tick. [2]
And if both CGs are absolutely identical and hosted at the same neutral station and not at all affected by timezones or the tick, they'll point to the fundamental type of the CG being favourable to one side or another. [3]
There is no such thing as a "fair" CG - the game is so complex that factors even Frontier might not anticipate will give the advantage to one side or another. If you expect CGs to be fair, none of them are (ever!). If you only consider some forms of unfairness to be unfair, then you'll be happy with some CGs by luck, but it doesn't make them actually fair.
But I think expecting a CG to be "fair" misses the point. Why should it be? The point of a CG is to allow players to interact with the storyline. That won't always be "fair", because the story doesn't consist of a series of exactly even matchups between identical groups.
[1] Bridging the Gap
[2] Dangerous Games Wildcard Round 1
[3] Dangerous Games Finale Round 3 ... or to a lesser extent every single Fed-Imp warzone CG [4] there's ever been.
[4] There was once, based on that somewhat valid point, a competitive Fed/Imp CG where the Fed CG was bounty hunting and the Imp CG was trade. That went pretty well, even though "tonnes cargo" and "credits bounty" can't possibly be equal CG targets!
Arguably, depending on what you consider the status quo to be, though the trade CG a couple of weeks before those was massively rigged in favour of changing the status quo, so I'm not sure you can say that there's a pattern there either.
I think you (and probably many others) may have missed the point.
The outcome was decided beforehand: the Empire would steamroller the system (that makes sense as it's a military superpower vs one systems defense force plus PF mercs).
But that was not what this was about. What was to be decided was getting megaships out: how many escape before the inevitable defeat. The Empire side almost didn't matter (although if they'd not made tier 1 then I'm not sure what FDev would have done) other than probably ending the CG early if tier 5 was reached.
In the end, no mega ships escaped due to lower participation than last week - for reasons that have been discussed at length elsewhere. Although FDev have given NMLA an out by having some smaller ships escape - which seems overly generous given the stated objectives at the start of the CG.
As I've mentioned in more than one similar thread: I'm sorry didn't like it. You may want to skip future CGs you consider to be unfair and meaningless.
Well...under normal circumstances it would be uncouth to say so, but I'm a bit glum ATM due to real-world events so here goes. As a veteran, all I can say is "Yeah...would be nice."
Human conflict isn't fair. It isn't nice, it's not like the movies, and when the 'plucky upstarts' rise against the 'evil Empire' in 99% of the cases they DON'T blow up the Death Star - they wind up as sad grease spots on the floor.
The Marlinists were doomed from the start. Even a casual glance could see that. I suppose that if every player joined their cause, if there was a VAST unified and singular support for them, there could conceivably have been a different outcome - but I doubt it.
War is NEVER fair; nor is it balanced. It felt right to me and I had no qualms flying for the winning side, in this case. God knows I've been on the losing side before.
I understand where the OP is coming from but...no. Make every CG 'balanced'; you get an unrealistic situation where the CG's themselves either become meaningless in terms of the larger story, or the story begins ping-ponging back and forth depending on weekly events.
Trust me - speaking as a vet, no matter what you do you rarely get a chance to change history. That's for the movies. You can merely do your best no MATTER what side you're on - take pride in that.
Don't cheapen it by complaining that your side didn't 'get to win'. Your only answer from ME would be "Hmph. Welcome to my world."
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If it had truly been plucky rebels standing up against evil, players would have flocked behind them. But it wasn't, it was more ambiguous than that.
Yep. Sounds kinda familiar, TBH.
That was a figure of speech on my part; intended to illustrate a point, not describe the situation.
No, this CG was fine.
You want clear win or loose - play BGS wars.
This was a story CG, everyone had their own goals and even if this was a war (which suggests competition), those goals were not necessarily excluding eachother.
For Marlinists there was no win other than reaching highest tier possible. Their "victory" would remain the same no matter how Empie players would fare.
Your problem is that one side had higher threshold to reach the same tier. So what? It made sense story-wise.
If we would've reached Tier 3 it would've been glorious. I'm disappointed we didn't, but not because I think the event was badly designed.
I really enjoyed this CG. More like this please.
Why should it have been equal?
A whole superpower vs a comparatively small group should have the odds stacked in favour of the larger force.
It was rigged when only one side had a reward.
I did not talked about "everything", just about Community Goals in ED. They should be symmetrical unless it's backed by plot/lore somehow.
I've heard about that but did not seen and definitely did not felt any megaships support. In fact, I was sure it's just a decorations.
Though disbalanced CZ may justify the disbalanced goals, but maybe it should be more straightforward or, better, to be made via higher bond rewards instead of the lower overall goal.
What's wrong with it, considering that most of the participating players were supporting that option? That's the purpose of CGs - to allow players to meaningfully participate in plot building. At least, as I understand it. And it does not make any sense to me to participate if it's not like that.
In both Liz CG and this one the actual war was between local minor factions, not between a minor faction and superpower.
I guarantee it was very real. I accidentally started by fighting for the "wrong" side, during which time the megaships were a great help to me. If I ever got into trouble, I'd dive and weave through the megaship, putting it between me and my enemy, allowing it to target my enemy and shield me. This was great fun! Then I realized I was on the wrong side, and the megaship became my enemy, something to be avoided. Any time I got too close, it targeted me (even though I was in a stealth ship), doing way more damage than other ships, including capital ships!
And then there's the home court advantage of having a shipyard and outfitting in your home station, something we did not have on our support ship, forcing me to go one place to hand in bonds and a different place to swap out ships or weapons.
And the biggest home court advantage is when a player becomes hostile to the controlling faction, at which point we are hunted down in supercruise and automatically fired upon by any faction-controlled station.
So yeah, quit your belly-aching
That is literally the reason this latest CG was balanced in the way that it was, so you've just negated your own argument.
The full force of one of the Imperial Leaders barged into a Minor Factions system with no warning.
Obviously the Minor Faction are going to have to put in twice as much effort to fight back against the better equiped and well prepared invaders whilst also attempting a mass evacuation.
And as has been stated before, if the two side had equal goals then it would have been a landslide for the Marlinists within the first day.
If you actually followed any of the stats for that CG you'd have noticed it was neck & neck in terms of overall percentage completion the entire time, at most there was only 1-2% difference.
Weeell.. in this case, we had a small, but existing chance to doubly give the middle finger to the empire. This would've required just a little more work. I get that equal goal posts should be optimal, when it comes to a videogame design with opposing player parties, but this was more about routing a giant in this story.
I don't think the Marlinists "lost" in this scenario. Seeing how much they contributed in the end, compared to the imperial numbers, I'd much rather compare this to the glorious death of the 300 against the horde. Reminds me how Lorens Reapers held off hundreds of dedicated attackers for weeks in Carcosa, just recently.
Because that wasn't a defeat. That's just the beginning.