Conflict Zones and Wars: some ideas.

[Bard Voronwe]

Ok first of all: I like the idea behind the new conflicts. The conflict zones managed as battles are a huge step forward and, most importantly, very funny and satisfying to do, but there's a lot of issus in how players' actions are counted, both in the conflict itself and in the war during the 7 days of conflict.

Why redeeming combat bonds still count for the conflict?

Ok this is the first problem. Why, again, why FDev didn't get rid of that. If you keep making them count, people will try to exploit this thing. First things first, before even trying to discuss seriously about how wars should be balanced, this thing gotta go: if a player redeem his combat bonds, they must just give the player money, no toher effect required, nor for the battleitself, nor in security (yep, they increase secuirty, during a ' war).

Every kill is the same... even fighters (MORE exploits)

This is simply wrong. You could win a battle just aiming for smaller ships, ignoring the big ones while they fight each other and most importantly fighters DO COUNT the same too, opening up for an exploit opportunity: how? Simply making your friend pledge for the enemy faction and making you kill his fighters to win the Conflict Zone in no time. So please give different "weight" to killed ships considering the ship itself and their combat rank possibly.

Battles are not the same, ok, but it's still not enough

Ok I'm not sure about this, but apparently to complete a high intensity conflict zone has got more wait than to do a medium or a low intensity. Problem is: high intensity are very time spending (and hard), this way players will may chose to do medium or even low intensity conflict zones instead. So, why don't we count the high/medium/low intensity zones as medals are counted in the Olympic Games for the overall rating for nations? Basically the High Intensity zones have got the priority over anything else, in case of a draw you count the medium ones and, if it's a draw again, finally you count the low intensity ones. Why should you do that? First of all this will make people wing up and play together to try and win an high intensity conflict zones (or a medium), secondarly this seems more fair to me, an high intensity conflict zone, again, is really slower than a medium to complete, they must be the decisive factor in a conflict.

Ok and what about missions?

I would personally treat missions as medium or low intensity conflict zones, depending on the mission itself. Again: High Intensity conflict zones should be the decisive factor.

But this way people will only make High Intensity Conflict Zones!

Ok, that's a problem so... let's make High Intensity Conflict Zones even harder, with more objectives, even more Capital Ships maybe, they should be a challenge, something that would make even most experienced CMDRs require a good wing to prevail.

Some more adjustments - make previous economy/security states relevant

As I said before, right now we've got many things that are not logical: for example redeeming combat bonds that increase security (reason should make you think that security is lower during a conflict, not as high to trigger a civil liberty state) and another thing is that the economy of a faction doesn't mean a thing during conflicts. A boom (or even investment) faction should be able to bring the best ships into a conflict, the best weapons, and have a great advantage against a much poorer faction. So... how I think this should be considered? To make it simple, a faction with a booming economy during a conflict should be able to spawn more spec-ops by its side than usual, an investment economy faction even more, same goes for capital ships (which reasonably need a lot of money for maintenance) or captains; other side-objectives should be triggered the same, considering the economy and security of the faction during the conflict. Missions, by the way, should be the only way to affect economy and security during conflicts, to gain a tactical advantage in the conflict zones.

Some more adjustments 2 - Alliance and Independent Capital Ships

Ok I know that Federal and Imperial Capital Ships were already in game, but considering that only Federal and Imperial factions apparently have Capital Ships by their sides, this is a little bit unfair, especially for Alliance factions (they are a Superpower theoretically ), but I think that even Independent factions should have them, at least the ones in Investment state! So I hope to see some new fancy Capital Ships in the future (would be lovely to see a Lakon Capital Ship ).

Some more adjustments 3 - Conflict Zones as USS

I'm sorry, but even if I understand that it must be easier to manage permanent conflict zones, I think that's kinda stupid, especially when you end a conflict, pop out from there, turn your ship and get back in there for a new fight as if never happened before. Conflict Zones should "spawn" all around the system for some minutes before somebody drops in and activate it. It would be awesome to be able to see if somebody is already in there and how the battle's going (basically to see the bars while you are in Supercruise as we can see the factions partecipating to the conflict), making the conflict itself even a PvP opportunity.

The last three ideas are not exactly "problems", more "proposals" to make conflicts even more solid. The previous points are in my opinion real issues that should be dealt with by the developers as soon as they can, to make people "fight" in the conflicts instead than grind specific actions to increase their efficiency instead than chosing the most challenging way to fight.

I hope to read your opinions too. Thanks for reading.

 

[Mangal Oemie]

Excellent post, CMDR. Don't agree with everything, but certainly with a lot:

1. Why redeeming combat bonds still count for the conflict? - fully agreed. Just give out the cash, but let battle victories be what counts for the war

2. Every kill is the same... even fighters (MORE exploits) - fully agreed. Just make it count 1 for a small ship, 2 for a medium, and 3 for a big one.

3. make previous economy/security states relevant - I agree: factions that are wealthy and have a lot of resources should have an edge over ones that just come out of a bad economic state or civil unrest. You can calculate it on a per-system basis like the states themselves, so that you don't get a cascade effect for large factions and keep the playing field even.

4. Alliance and Independent Capital Ships - Heck yes.

5. Conflict Zones as USS - interesting idea. That could be quite epic

The one I probably have most reservations about is making the High CZ only doable by a wing of accomplished fighters. The BGS belongs to everybody, including lone wolves pushing their factions, PMF or NPC. Making high CZs only for well equipped wings seems to me to throws the balance off.

 

[Jmanis]

Why redeeming combat bonds still count for the conflict?

Ok this is the first problem. Why, again, why FDev didn't get rid of that. If you keep making them count, people will try to exploit this thing. First things first, before even trying to discuss seriously about how wars should be balanced, this thing gotta go: if a player redeem his combat bonds, they must just give the player money, no toher effect required, nor for the battleitself, nor in security (yep, they increase secuirty, during a ' war).

1. Why redeeming combat bonds still count for the conflict? - fully agreed. Just give out the cash, but let battle victories be what counts for the war

I made quite a few posts about this during Beta... . Bonds are, in my opinion, a good measure of how much damage has been done to a faction, but I totally agree that bonds shouldn't count towards the outcome of a war.

So, what should happen in a war is that influence *between the warring factions* should be locked, just like it used to be. That is, influence exchanges can occur, but only between the two factions involved. , i.e two factions going to war with 15% influence, the extreme end result would be 1 vs 29%. Towards that end, handing in bonds *should* have a +ve influence effect for the issuing faction, but no effect on the war outcome. The war outcome should be affected only by conflict zones resolved (though I'd also argue missions should count to the war outcome too), though nowhere near as much as resolving CZs).

Influence is, basically, a measure of the political strength of that faction... and military might is most definitely a component of political strength. By separating influence gains through war bonds, from war success via CZs (+ missions), you redefine influence as the relative military might, and war progress as the ability to achieve strategic objectives which win the war. With that, you have four meta-outcomes
1. A faction gains influence and wins the war, which translates to total domination of the opposition.
2. Conversely, you lose influence and the war... The faction's military is utterly destroyed and they suffer complete capitulation
3. A faction loses influence and wins the war, which translates to a Pyrrhic Victory (They may have won the war, but the cost was so great they're actually in a worse position than they were before)
4. A faction gains influence, and loses the war... They obliterated the enemy forces, but failed to secure key strategic positions or goals, and are ultimately forced to withdraw.

That would be much more interesting and useful.... you could ostensibly have sensible reasons to cause a war with no intent to win them, rather to simply decimate the opposition (especially where Coups are concerned)

Every kill is the same... even fighters (MORE exploits)

Totally agree. I never target anything but the smallest ships because they make just as much difference as the big ships. A master eagle should be worth, like, 1/5th of an Elite Cutter.

Ok and what about missions?

So at the moment there's no Massacre Missions, which I can't help but think is because of the issues that missions were made to have no effect in the first place; cashing bonds and doing massacre missions was essentially double-dipping. With my suggestion about missions counting to the outcome, that legitimises the idea that bonds represent "damage done" to a faction in terms of influence, where the massacre mission actually represents a strategic outcome (e.g a necessary thinning of the enemy forces)... and it's doubly better now that stacking is fixed.

Shipping war supplies and all that sort of thing should count though, and I'm not sure if it currently does.

The CZ's as USS is a good thing too... although they need to fix the "no ships spawning" bug first; that would be a killer. But also some of these USS like military convoys and the like need to help the war too... I'd love to go toe-to-toe with those wings of 2 x elite Conda and 1 x T9 Heavy w/ Hafnium if I knew that it actually affected the war outcome (which it doesn't seem to either).

I'm siding with Mangal around the wing stuff though... I don't agree that high-CZs should become a mandatory wing affair. I do get what you're saying, I just think it excludes people from being able to meaningfully support their faction. Wings should make doing these things easier, not the barrier to stop their achievement. You could then propose an argument that a simple wing mission to deliver Battle Weapons should count as much as resolving a high-CZ, only it's very achievable by a single commander. It just doesn't weigh up imo.

One more thing I want to see though.

Outposts. There needs to be CZs centered around an Outpost Defence/Attack, using CQC assets as the centerpiece (much like the new undockable space ports we have). In a war, factions would set up small supply ports/repair/refuel docks, listening posts etc.. These should feature in the war as an alternate Capital Ship CZ.

 

[glojo]

Excellent post, CMDR. Don't agree with everything, but certainly with a lot:

1. Why redeeming combat bonds still count for the conflict? - fully agreed. Just give out the cash, but let battle victories be what counts for the war

2. Every kill is the same... even fighters (MORE exploits) - fully agreed. Just make it count 1 for a small ship, 2 for a medium, and 3 for a big one.

3. make previous economy/security states relevant - I agree: factions that are wealthy and have a lot of resources should have an edge over ones that just come out of a bad economic state or civil unrest. You can calculate it on a per-system basis like the states themselves, so that you don't get a cascade effect for large factions and keep the playing field even.

4. Alliance and Independent Capital Ships - Heck yes.

5. Conflict Zones as USS - interesting idea. That could be quite epic

The one I probably have most reservations about is making the High CZ only doable by a wing of accomplished fighters. The BGS belongs to everybody, including lone wolves pushing their factions, PMF or NPC. Making high CZs only for well equipped wings seems to me to throws the balance off.

I go along with mangal to a great degree and i tend to possibly disagree with a few points. first off, the Conflict Zones are terribly bug ridden and that cannot be emphasised enough.

My experience of these zones is yes, the Low conflict Zones are usually and I must emphasis usually easier than the other two but......

If you just want to shoot eagles and asp type ships in the Low cz you run the very real risk of being outpaced by your opposition. By outpaced I mean the opposition will shoot higher value targets as quick as you or I might shoot the lower value ones. They win, we lose?? (sometimes)

Combat Bonds
Do they really have any influence on the result or are we applying the logic of pre this update? I am asking this for a number of reasons, first being folks were always saying handing in small amounts rather than larger amounts is the best way of getting a result. now it looks like we have to wait for the battle to end as the game before handing in our bonds as for us the game will not allow a wing member to jump out and then rejoin this battle (I am only talking about my experiences)

Combat Bonds have NO effect on the end result of a battle. We get the message stating how our faction reputation goes up, then we get the message the opposition reputation has had a significant decrease and that word significant for us appears at every level.

My experience is the bonds are really irrelevant and have now simply become a financial bonus. Winning the cz is all about getting as much faction reputation as possible. If we lose a battle then there is that significant drop in that faction reputation.

I have absolutely 100% zero knowledge of what faction reputation is and by 'faction', I am hoping we all know what that specific term means, if you don't then what are you doing here? (humour)

Last night for the first time, the first bonus message that is shown for winning a battle was new?? The first part mentioned, an increase in INFLUENCE!! It still goes on to give us that reputation increase and the significant decrease in reputation for the losing side.

Capital Ships
again how much experimentation has the author done? I am politely asking this question because now they appear to have less bite!! In one battle I deliberately went onto the side of the 'enemy'. Shot at an opposition target, but did not kill that ship and then I sat back and watched the fireworks. A capital ship had entered the conflict, fighting for the 'enemy' but that green slider bar gradually made its way to the far side and we.... The NPC side won that battle!! 'We' (I fear this is the royal 'we' as I did NOTHING to contribute) won fighting against the side with the capital ship. and yes these ships are still relatively easy to drive away.

Do we need to make any type of CZ harder to win?? I think I go along with what Mangal has so eloquently said.

MISSIONS
I personally do not have a clue what missions to take, NOT a clue. I defy anyone to tell me what wins these daily wars. Is it INFLUENCE orientated missions or REPUTATION based missions? I am not for one minute suggesting either option, as I have NO idea .

before jumping in to answer this question... has ANYONE seen ANY mission that only offers just the one type of skillset? Influence OR Reputation because if they offer both, how can we make any type of educated jugement?

The developers have ALWAYS resisted explaining how anything works in this game, instead, they believe we have to 'evolve' just like the human race first did. I guess Adam and Eve did not require counselling on how to procreate or a book of instructions on how to hunt, keep warm or build a house. Do we have to advance by trial and error?

Trying to figure out a ridiculously, terribly bugged part of the game is both daft and crazy, having said that I am definitely guilty of being both daft and crazy.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

I'm siding with Mangal around the wing stuff though... I don't agree that high-CZs should become a mandatory wing affair. I do get what you're saying, I just think it excludes people from being able to meaningfully support their faction. Wings should make doing these things easier, not the barrier to stop their achievement.

I will explain myself better. Think about wing assassination missions: they are missions doable by yourself, but they are really hard, so it's better to wing up to complete them. Same should be for High Intensity Conflict Zones: you should be able to complete them, but just being in there shouldn't be enough to "complete" them. You can help of course, but obvoiusly, being the player trying to make a difference, you should face a challenge. For example: when a capital ship drops in your favour it usually means the end of the fight in your favour. That same event should be counter-balanced by something else, a spec-ops wing with a good enough AI to target the Capital Ship in a proficient way. All of this is basically to improve the feeling of a real decisive battle.

Anyway: all I want from these new conflicts is to avoid any kind of exploiting behaviour, the hardest tasks should be the most decisive ones, or the players will just go " it, it's better to do easier tasks many times, they weight more", and people trying to make the difference the hardest way (and succeding in that), will find their efforts useless.

 

[Jmanis]

I will explain myself better. Think about wing assassination missions: they are missions doable by yourself, but they are really hard, so it's better to wing up to complete them. Same should be for High Intensity Conflict Zones: you should be able to complete them, but just being in there shouldn't be enough to "complete" them. You can help of course, but obvoiusly, being the player trying to make a difference, you should face a challenge. For example: when a capital ship drops in your favour it usually means the end of the fight in your favour. That same event should be counter-balanced by something else, a spec-ops wing with a good enough AI to target the Capital Ship in a proficient way. All of this is basically to improve the feeling of a real decisive battle.

Anyway: all I want from these new conflicts is to avoid any kind of exploiting behaviour, the hardest tasks should be the most decisive ones, or the players will just go " it, it's better to do easier tasks many times, they weight more", and people trying to make the difference the hardest way (and succeding in that), will find their efforts useless.

That makes much more sense now. I definitely agree, the RNG around the events can be quite unbalanced. I strap in for a cruisy run when it's an allied capital plus enemy correspondents... but flip that around and I can win, with some effort.

 

[glojo]

I will explain myself better. Think about wing assassination missions: they are missions doable by yourself, but they are really hard, so it's better to wing up to complete them. Same should be for High Intensity Conflict Zones: you should be able to complete them, but just being in there shouldn't be enough to "complete" them. You can help of course, but obvoiusly, being the player trying to make a difference, you should face a challenge. For example: when a capital ship drops in your favour it usually means the end of the fight in your favour. That same event should be counter-balanced by something else, a spec-ops wing with a good enough AI to target the Capital Ship in a proficient way. All of this is basically to improve the feeling of a real decisive battle.

Anyway: all I want from these new conflicts is to avoid any kind of exploiting behaviour, the hardest tasks should be the most decisive ones, or the players will just go " it, it's better to do easier tasks many times, they weight more", and people trying to make the difference the hardest way (and succeding in that), will find their efforts useless.

I certainly do not disagree with that sentiment but how on earth do we stop any good idea from being exploited. Trogg has tactfully suggested the most obvious way of exploiting a CZ and is the only answer to stop using this way of sorting out a war between two factions?

I am trying to sort things out before an enforced break, the safest and easiest way for mein these last few hours is to go into a Low CZ, but just now in a Low CZ I was fighting two Elite anacondas, but engineered with prismatic shields? I might have been lucky on previous occasions but my experience of engineered enemy ships is in the higher CZ's, but I wish you well and happy hunting

John

 

[Bard Voronwe]

The only way to stop any kind of exploit is to make only positive actions matter, and make the most time spending and difficult ones decisive. This way people will finally play together to achieve difficult goals, they will not repeat easy tasks in great numbers, grinding their way out and basically "ruining" the gameplay environment.

No negative effect for any kind of failure, because people will seek for failure to help the other faction.
A difficult task has much more weight than a great number of easy ones, if people will wing up to complete many difficult tasks it's even better.

That's the way I'd love for this game to be balanced.

More experienced CMDRs will be more decisive than newbies? Yeah. Is that a problem? Or it's just that more experienced CMDR should be reasonably more decisive than newbies?

 

[glojo]

The only way to stop any kind of exploit is to make only positive actions matter, and make the most time spending and difficult ones decisive. This way people will finally play together to achieve difficult goals, they will not repeat easy tasks in great numbers, grinding their way out and basically "ruining" the gameplay environment.

No negative effect for any kind of failure, because people will seek for failure to help the other faction.
A difficult task has much more weight than a great number of easy ones, if people will wing up to complete many difficult tasks it's even better.

That's the way I'd love for this game to be balanced.

More experienced CMDRs will be more decisive than newbies? Yeah. Is that a problem? Or it's just that more experienced CMDR should be reasonably more decisive than newbies?

I am only referring to conflict zones and none of your well-considered words do not prevent the most simple, most basic of exploits. Sad but very true. I am perhaps one of those daft souls that try to not take advantage of exploits but if I put my hand on my heart.... guilty as charged!! We used to get 'X' amount for killing 20 enemy ships and perhaps 'Y' amount for killing 30 ships. As you are no doubt aware, we used to kill the first twenty, then kill just another ten to collect both rewards.. was it an exploit??

I digress,
I still cannot think of a way of stopping folks from exploiting these conflict zones. it is just way too easy to do.

 

[dm06]

Some more adjustments 3 - Conflict Zones as USS

I do not agree with that. My process is:
1. goto CZ
2. pew-pew/collect mats
3. win and collect remained mats or go for restock
4. go to 1.

I do not much care about BGS when looking for CZs, my criteria is closest distance to restock point (couple of Ls is ok for me) which minimizes travel time, my goals are pew pews and mats and satisfaction from understanding that I managed to build and pilot the ship which survived/won.
And suggested random spawning CZs will break my experience.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

I am only referring to conflict zones and none of your well-considered words do not prevent the most simple, most basic of exploits. Sad but very true. I am perhaps one of those daft souls that try to not take advantage of exploits but if I put my hand on my heart.... guilty as charged!! We used to get 'X' amount for killing 20 enemy ships and perhaps 'Y' amount for killing 30 ships. As you are no doubt aware, we used to kill the first twenty, then kill just another ten to collect both rewards.. was it an exploit??

I digress,
I still cannot think of a way of stopping folks from exploiting these conflict zones. it is just way too easy to do.

Ok I'll be honest with you: what? XD Are you talking about redeeming bonds as many times as possible to win conflicts?

 

[Rubbernuke]

You know what I'd love?

When war is declared two megaships pop up and each side has even amounts of POIs like fuel dumps, comms relays etc that have to be defended (and are defended by NPCs) and you have to inflict as much damage on each other as possible, while at the same time you have missions to repair various POI assets. You get morale points for rescuing pilots, and each POI / asset has a difficulty value so killing small ships and weak assets counts less than if you did an assault on a megaship.

 

[glojo]

Ok I'll be honest with you: what? XD Are you talking about redeeming bonds as many times as possible to win conflicts?

Just caught this post before I am off..

I'll have to be honest with the author and say I have absolutely NO idea what XD means. Surely it is good manners not to use acronyms when we communicate with each other??

Yes, we tend to use the likes of 'cz' but hopefully I use the full words in any message I write in the hope a reader connects the two, but PLEASE... We have new players that might log onto this excellent location in the hope they might learn something and just maybe, they might just not be as streetwise as some of our members who enjoy abbreviating terms.

If you care to explain your question in words that I might understand, then when I next log on, I will do my best to answer any questions you might have.





best wishes and happy flying or should that be bwahf baa-wah f. I like it

Bye again
John

 

[Bard Voronwe]

XD was meant to be just an emoticon, as X-D. Anyway: I did the same of course, sadly you must adapt, I consider it a lousy game mechanic to fix anyway.