Community Goal timers and reward structure.

[Farmboy]

I've been musing on how I'd change CGs for some time, so this may be long. I accept it's a personal vision which others may disagree with, but lets at least open the debate.

Things I'd like to see:

1. Permanent effect on the galaxy. The CG which reduced the quantity of onionhead you could pick up in Kappa was a good example of this sort of thing. You do a CG, and it has a lasting effect. That's worthwhile. Building a new station yes. Timed discounts on ship components? Meh. Make them permanent discounts - why not? There is precedent (Alioth, Founders World - probably others I don't know of). Shoot criminals? Change the security value of the system after.
2. Longer lived CGs. The CGs with month-long timers are I think a step in the right direction. It was a bit frustrating that I only got one session of play in for the last combat CG before it completed - i'd hope that all CGs would be expected to last a least a week, even if the final tier is actually reached early.
3. CGs to last until at least tier 1 completed. - This more for the trade/mining/exploration CGs than the combat ones, but I'd like these to run indefinately until at least tier 1 completed, and then for a timed period thereafter. An example might be the Yembo station build goal - having collected 95% of the material to build a station, stopping with a failure would be odd. Running till at least a minimal station can be completed is more logical, I'd think.
4. Rewards should come as you contribute. For collection type goals, this could be by giving a fixed credit bonus per ton delivered or report submitted, at the time you deliver or submit. This would mean the more you contribute, the more reward you get. I'm more likely to delivery relatively low profit goods (medicines, robotics) if I get paid 400cr/ton bonus on top of natural demand. For combat bonds or bounties a 10% bonus perhaps.
5. CG end tier individual rewards should be smaller - more a bonus for the tier completed - most of the reward should come through mechanism 4. At the moment it's a bit too easy to deliver just enough to get top 70% and get much more return/trip than someone who slogs their way into the top 15 or 5%. Yes, I think there should be diminishing returns, but they diminish a bit steeply at present.

Some of this can be dynamic too. If a CG is going too slowly (I'm looking at that mining one) you could bump the reward/ton (and have a galnet article tied to that) to speed it up and have it finish closer to the expected schedule. Though if the CG is en effect a cr bonus for delivery there isn't a great deal of harm in letting it run for several months if need be, since that's the main method of player reward, rather than the end of CG bonuses.

In short, I'd like more CGs to be longer term projects where the community by cumulative effort can effect a permanent beneficial change to the galaxy - i.e. a communal effort for a communal goal.

 

[Oliv74]

Hello,

I kind of agree with the ideas expressed in this article.

I think the main point there is to make the CGs really part of the economic system. As expressed, something that can last and have repercussions on the game itself.
For now, it is a great way of bringing players together and add some interest in the universe sandbox, but the way it is done looks like a "patch" over a great mechanics, but without really digging into it.

For example, the recent "hardcoding" of prices for the first mining CG is totally wrong. Demand should have been raised because the game actually consumes the ressource to build something, hence the price will go up naturally.

I already expressed my concerns about the economic balance of the game in the CG thread here https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=113495&p=2542918&viewfull=1#post2542918

Wish FD will listen and respond to all those concerns.

Cheers,
Oliv

- - - Updated - - -

and by the way.

The way the CG are done for now is only for money. There is no additional incentive (or discounts, but that's the same).
Hence the necessity to have permanent repercussion in the Universe, as stated by Farmboy.

Sorry for the reply to myself

 

[telperion]

1) I quite like this idea

2) Perhaps although I think a month might be a little too long in most cases. 14 days would be sufficient I think.

3) Agreed

4) Disagree entirely. You get rewards as you contribute already. YOu get bounties, money from selling things etc.

5) Wholeheartedly disagree. The potential for decent rewards is what gives me incentive to join in on CGs. Otherwise I'd just do the same stuff but in random systems.

 

[Farmboy]

4) Disagree entirely. You get rewards as you contribute already. YOu get bounties, money from selling things etc.

5) Wholeheartedly disagree. The potential for decent rewards is what gives me incentive to join in on CGs. Otherwise I'd just do the same stuff but in random systems.

If you want to think it terms of profit/ton having more of that be as you deliver it and less bonus at the end but the overall return being approximately the same, then you would still have the same incentive, but your rewards are more linearly scaled to your contribution rather than tier. It also matters a lot less if the CG does take a month to finish as its only that bonus payment which is delayed.

I don't think it needs to be better than doing random stuff. It needs to be comparable tho or people won't go out of their way to join in

If the prices for medicines were the best in the galaxy for the current CGs by some margin that would work. You lose on the return trip and sourcing them is harder because of higher competition so that's the balance financially.

 

[Vasious]

1) Agree
2) Depends on the CG, long enough for those whose who might only play weekends to have a go.
3) Failure needs to be an possible outcome, especially if it is supposed to effect permanent meaningful change on the Galaxy. The Osmium Mining one might have needed more realistic targets, but still you cannot have it so the CG will always succeed eventually.
4&5) I am happy with the reward structure currently used. Motive can come from effecting change vs Cr earned which is more a nice bonus

 

[Farmboy]

One of the problems with the current CGs running to ship medicines is that the Tier reward is unknown, and the profit/ton shipped isn't great. This gives no real incentive to complete the goal, or even to participate. If there profit/ton was high enough that people would opt to participate _even if no tier was ever reached_ then the lack of a tier reward structure would be less of an issue.

As is for goals like this the probability is that everyone writes it off as not worth their effort and participation remains low. But when there is a goal with a tier structure, it gets swamped and completed in less than a couple of days - which is frustrating if you can't play regularly. i.e. it makes judging the size of the community which might participate in the goal very hard as it is a bit feast or famine depending on perception of the first tier reward being reached.

I accept the idea that some goals should fail, but I think we can distinguish between 'fail to complete the overall goal' and 'fail to complete the first reward tier'. If a goal perhaps has 8 tiers and you need to complete all 8 for the goal to 'succeed' then the reward structure will entice people, but you can still have a 'failure'. Also if even once the top tier is reached the goal timer continues to the end, so that ok no more tiers can be achieved, but those in transit in the last few hours can still get their profit and possibly improve their %age contribution with a known end-point in time they can plan for.

I'd also like to see there being a 'consequence for failure' as well as a 'global reward' on the CG description. If we don't supply enough medicine for these CG, then perhaps they lose population, or stay in 'outbreak'. Indeed having the CG be more open ended and having 'outbreak' state persist until some threshold of medicine/pop is reached might be a workable mechanic for autogenerated CGs. (if pop goes down over time in outbreak, then the ratio will get met eventually - its just a question of how much people contribute to see how many people survive in those systems!).

 

[Ceannard]

Totally agree 100%