actually he was in a medium conflict zone. so we now have 3 levels of CZ's
News Content Recap: Beyond - Chapter Four Livestream - Background Simulation and Scenarios
actually he was in a medium conflict zone. so we now have 3 levels of CZ's
Assuming there isn't a Hazardous CZ as well.
The guy on the left.. when did he join the team? This guy is good. I'm glad you hired him. Things are going in the right direction now. A lot of time dedicated toward adding life to a lifeless galaxy.
Really nice work, Will Flanagan. Very much appreciate your professionalism and overall delightful demeanor.
Some thoughts:
1. Megaships should be an incredible boon to the system in which they appear. Somehow or another the control of said ship should be lucrative and decided on a fairly frequent tick, that is far more often than once a week.
2. Can the appearance of Megaships in highly contested systems spur a mini Community Goal type event? Affected systems factions could advertise on Galnet for mercenary Commanders. Rewards for participation could be for example raw materials which are found in that particular system. That way combat pilots could use their preferred play style to get vital engineering mats. Or even a choice of grade 5 mats for that matter.
3. We really need to know the nitty gritty of the dialectic between the BGS and Squadrons. I imagine most Squadrons would prefer to be independent rather than be associated with a particular faction. If they are associated with a particular faction, there should be significant advantages. In that light, BGS factions would profit from being able to give associated Squadrons highly sought for perks, e.g. like paying for all rebuys.
Some thoughts:
1. Megaships should be an incredible boon to the system in which they appear. Somehow or another the control of said ship should be lucrative and decided on a fairly frequent tick, that is far more often than once a week.
2. Can the appearance of Megaships in highly contested systems spur a mini Community Goal type event? Affected systems factions could advertise on Galnet for mercenary Commanders. Rewards for participation could be for example raw materials which are found in that particular system. That way combat pilots could use their preferred play style to get vital engineering mats. Or even a choice of grade 5 mats for that matter.
3. We really need to know the nitty gritty of the dialectic between the BGS and Squadrons. I imagine most Squadrons would prefer to be independent rather than be associated with a particular faction. If they are associated with a particular faction, there should be significant advantages. In that light, BGS factions would profit from being able to give associated Squadrons highly sought for perks, e.g. like paying for all rebuys.
Watching the recorded stream right now. There is one of my oldest gripes resurfacing in a new piece of UI:
I want to know what kind of people these factions are. Do they belong to a superpower? What type of organization are they (e.g. a corportation or a political party)? What is their ethos? Are they law-abiding or criminals?
This UI is fine if you know beforehand who to support. But when moving around and coming across a situation between factions I don't know, this information is crucial for the decision. For example, I'd always help a law-abiding faction against criminals, that's a no-brainer for me. But if two extremist political parties are duking it out, I might stay away because I want to help neither. Can't make that decision without juggling the right hand panels to check them out first.
It doesn't have to be too technical, even. That text is so generic, "hostile forces attacking", why not write something like "we are under pirate attack" - essentially some piece of text that conveys what kind of battle this is, not just an abstract "faction X is fighting against faction Y, now choose".
I want to know what kind of people these factions are. Do they belong to a superpower? What type of organization are they (e.g. a corportation or a political party)? What is their ethos? Are they law-abiding or criminals?
This UI is fine if you know beforehand who to support. But when moving around and coming across a situation between factions I don't know, this information is crucial for the decision. For example, I'd always help a law-abiding faction against criminals, that's a no-brainer for me. But if two extremist political parties are duking it out, I might stay away because I want to help neither. Can't make that decision without juggling the right hand panels to check them out first.
It doesn't have to be too technical, even. That text is so generic, "hostile forces attacking", why not write something like "we are under pirate attack" - essentially some piece of text that conveys what kind of battle this is, not just an abstract "faction X is fighting against faction Y, now choose".
Last edited:
I watched the stream live. Now to be clear I am a fanboy, ED is by far (so far) the best galaxy wide, interactive game I can find that has multi-role objectives.
However the stream was not well delivered, it appeared confused (except for middle Adam), left hand side Adam did not give me a sense of security, namely on 2 counts. If you have developed a part of the game over 12 months, why do you need (and I mean need) notes to remind you what the hell you have been doing? It's not like its been part of your life delivering this massive change (at the expense of other elements) over the past year. If that had been me, I would have just stated it having been so immersed in its lore. Secondly why was LHS Adam so unsure of exactly what he could disclose? I found this very weird, considering ED already know what's coming out. Some might argue that he didn't want to infringe on future episodes, but this just goes to show the lack of coordination around the making of the streams. Not professional at all. Its like the streams are being led by what the content of the UI is. Don't show, don't tell. Happiness, need I say more....
I found the changes to USS / combat zones to be superficial. Some background chat and a progress bar?? Come on guys, it took you 12 months? Introducing the voices from multicrew NPC's is a tweak, not a revelation.
Bleating for fuel or food? Get a grip, 99% of players will just jump out because it means nothing, I mean nothing to their gameplay. This is kindergarten stuff and was frankly embarrassing.
Nothing in the changes to the BGS states said anything about change, it was just a regrading of states, if you like an addition to the number of states without further influencing what was happening. Worse it seems that groups trying to hold a number of systems are about to become so stretched that there reason for existence becomes null. Why continually attempt to retain control of your 10 systems if the groups are constantly attempting to reverse BGS states imposed by events that happen at one outlying system? This does not make good gameplay.
The BGS update smacks of badly drawn up solutions to invisible issues not raised by the player-base. Badly thought out and ill-designed with that rider that it may be tweaked / changed in the future, well we have all been down that road before with ED.
Sorry but I'm not impressed, BGS looks to be even more susceptible to abuse and manipulation than it is now and the other changes looked to be superficial at best. As for knocking out power capacitors on a mega-ship? Jeez if you can fly that badly in solo and still get 6 where is the challenge? It is extremely basic play that most will ignore. It was interesting to note the number of comments in the sidebar saying "BGS open only?" when the disclosures were made, speaks volumes.
All in all, sorry guys but that was embarrassing tonight.
However the stream was not well delivered, it appeared confused (except for middle Adam), left hand side Adam did not give me a sense of security, namely on 2 counts. If you have developed a part of the game over 12 months, why do you need (and I mean need) notes to remind you what the hell you have been doing? It's not like its been part of your life delivering this massive change (at the expense of other elements) over the past year. If that had been me, I would have just stated it having been so immersed in its lore. Secondly why was LHS Adam so unsure of exactly what he could disclose? I found this very weird, considering ED already know what's coming out. Some might argue that he didn't want to infringe on future episodes, but this just goes to show the lack of coordination around the making of the streams. Not professional at all. Its like the streams are being led by what the content of the UI is. Don't show, don't tell. Happiness, need I say more....
I found the changes to USS / combat zones to be superficial. Some background chat and a progress bar?? Come on guys, it took you 12 months? Introducing the voices from multicrew NPC's is a tweak, not a revelation.
Bleating for fuel or food? Get a grip, 99% of players will just jump out because it means nothing, I mean nothing to their gameplay. This is kindergarten stuff and was frankly embarrassing.
Nothing in the changes to the BGS states said anything about change, it was just a regrading of states, if you like an addition to the number of states without further influencing what was happening. Worse it seems that groups trying to hold a number of systems are about to become so stretched that there reason for existence becomes null. Why continually attempt to retain control of your 10 systems if the groups are constantly attempting to reverse BGS states imposed by events that happen at one outlying system? This does not make good gameplay.
The BGS update smacks of badly drawn up solutions to invisible issues not raised by the player-base. Badly thought out and ill-designed with that rider that it may be tweaked / changed in the future, well we have all been down that road before with ED.
Sorry but I'm not impressed, BGS looks to be even more susceptible to abuse and manipulation than it is now and the other changes looked to be superficial at best. As for knocking out power capacitors on a mega-ship? Jeez if you can fly that badly in solo and still get 6 where is the challenge? It is extremely basic play that most will ignore. It was interesting to note the number of comments in the sidebar saying "BGS open only?" when the disclosures were made, speaks volumes.
All in all, sorry guys but that was embarrassing tonight.
Adam Bourke-Waite has been at FDev since 2009, and a Senior Designer on Elite Dangerous throughout its development.
Last edited:
Good stream. Lots of stuff here that looks like a fantastic step forward!
Some questions I had that I didn't see covered:
* Will there be more pronounced reputation consequences for taking sides in scenarios & conflict zones? e.g. right now, you can shoot ships in a CZ all day without the other side considering you an enemy. It would be fantastic if choosing sides made you enemies. And if you turn against your allies, the betrayal should cost your reputation dearly. Likewise, raiding a megaship should make you immediately unfriendly / hostile with the megaship's faction.
* If you donate food, do you drop it for them or does it just teleport out of your hold?
* Are there any missions leading to the cool new scenarios, or do you still need to just stumble across megaships & installations? I'd love to see a mission of "help protect / attack X megaship" that you could follow.
Some questions I had that I didn't see covered:
* Will there be more pronounced reputation consequences for taking sides in scenarios & conflict zones? e.g. right now, you can shoot ships in a CZ all day without the other side considering you an enemy. It would be fantastic if choosing sides made you enemies. And if you turn against your allies, the betrayal should cost your reputation dearly. Likewise, raiding a megaship should make you immediately unfriendly / hostile with the megaship's faction.
* If you donate food, do you drop it for them or does it just teleport out of your hold?
* Are there any missions leading to the cool new scenarios, or do you still need to just stumble across megaships & installations? I'd love to see a mission of "help protect / attack X megaship" that you could follow.
Would be even better if you'd get to protect bomber wings, that carry nothing BUT torpedoes and it would be up to you that they
a) make it into launch range
b) survive that long
c) the torpedoes make it to their target
Would be even more interesting to see if what happens to the destroyed mega ship after the next weekly tic. I know I'd be either flying a bomber or would escort them, because I can.
I'm late to this thread but ....... scenarios across the galaxy ! Does this mean explorers should be wary of these now?
Or indeed that explorers will come across these scenarios on occasions where no USSs existed at all before?
Or indeed that explorers will come across these scenarios on occasions where no USSs existed at all before?
Last edited:
oh, come'on, Adam Waite was probably busy working on the game and took time out to do the stream and probably had to look at notes to make sure he covered the right things that were supposed to be presented in the stream.
The new vo's and scenarios could look superficial, but I think overall it's just the start of a fleshing out of the placeholders of npc interaction. They'll probably adjust the rewards for the scenarios such as rare mats or +rep or + inf, and it looks like they'll make more of them with plenty of different scenarios we probably haven't heard of yet. I'm glad it's coming, rather nothing at all. Leave the 'content'-scripted campaigns or such for paid dlc (and free for LEP cmdrs) down the road in the next half-decade.
I like the new BGS changes. Now more people can easier participate and it's streamlined to easily see what's going on with states and wars where before one had to often go outside the game to see the graphs and stats on factions and systems on inara.cz More info readily available in-game the better. It's been too easy for a pf to hold on to multiple systems and use a war state to block out challenges by other interlopers on multiple systems even when it doesn't make sense. And I think it makes more sense there can be multiple states and wars on multiple fronts of systems. In the case if most don't like it ingame for a while, I'm sure FD will notice and modify it.
Last edited:
I can explain that, having been in a similar situation: what they talked about today was stuff he worked on weeks ago, today he's working on something else (probably the next stage of the BGS) that's not supposed to be public yet. The notes are both a reminder of what to say and what not to say
On a different note, thanks FDev for the new bobbleheads. Love that skull. It's going in all my combat ships.
Yeah that skull... that might actually be my first purchase from the frontier store in months!
I can explain that, having been in a similar situation: what they talked about today was stuff he worked on weeks ago, today he's working on something else (probably the next stage of the BGS) that's not supposed to be public yet. The notes are both a reminder of what to say and what not to say
He probably has a big note at the top of the page that says .... DON'T MENTION LEGS !
Greetings FDev,
Kudos to the entire team for another huge chunk of feature updates coming our way soon. I'm not hugely invested in the BGS but have dabbled FOR THE MUG!!! so can't comment in too much detail, but it sounds like a huge step forward!
Some pertinent points :
* it'd be nice if you could run an offline give-away for those of us in other timezones (or otherwise) unable to watch the livestream live. Combine it with collating some questions in a special forum thread prior to the livestream and it would help to involve the rest of us a bit more as well.
* The new comms chatter sounds really good, but I hope it has more variety than the current crop. One idea is farming this sort of background content out to the community who, I'm sure, could put together quite a significant amount of varied and quality Content in short order. Make it an optional download if there are concerns over data sizes.
- along with this I hope there's been a review pass over the existing comms chatter. Nobody is really interested in hearing about internal ship comms while in supercruise. What would be more appropriate is, for example, a mayday as you pass a USS, or miners chatting amongst each other when in a RES.
* Having the new faction information available with sliders showing where on the scale you are is awesome, especially for the more casual BGS players.
- but why restrict the graphics to only Economy and Security and leave the rest (Reputation, Happiness, ...) text-based? Seems with the rest of the GUI rework, more emphasis on icons and graphs would make it more consistent?
Cheers, and keep up the awesome work. I hope there's a big holiday in store for the team!
- Micha.
Thanks for the summary. For the most part it all looks splendid.
I do have one concern though regarding multiple states per faction. Currently the faction missions generated on the boards are governed by the faction state. One positive of this is that it makes it intuitive to seek out specific mission types simply by hunting for factions in specific states. If factions can now be in multiple states then they will also be able to generate missions influenced by multiple states. If the number of missions per board are not being increased then this will result in making it much harder to seek out specific mission types due to the pool being diluted by many various mission types at once. This will only be exaggerated negatively by board flipping also being removed in 3.3.
I like the multiple states per faction but I fear it will negatively impact mission selection on the boards.
I do have one concern though regarding multiple states per faction. Currently the faction missions generated on the boards are governed by the faction state. One positive of this is that it makes it intuitive to seek out specific mission types simply by hunting for factions in specific states. If factions can now be in multiple states then they will also be able to generate missions influenced by multiple states. If the number of missions per board are not being increased then this will result in making it much harder to seek out specific mission types due to the pool being diluted by many various mission types at once. This will only be exaggerated negatively by board flipping also being removed in 3.3.
I like the multiple states per faction but I fear it will negatively impact mission selection on the boards.
Actually, since the USS's are advertised as 'not temporary'and 'there until the timer ends' means that a refuse is temporary and means you CAN get what you need to assuage the NPC's needs.
Yeah, but 5 minutes? That was the time I saw remaining on the USS. You have to fly there, drop in, find out what they want, fly out, get it from somewhere, and get back in 5 minutes? I could see that existing as a tick-over rate before it disappears and a new one appears, but not for figuring out what they want and coming back.
If they had a third option like the "I'll be right back" I mentioned, that could maybe trigger a timer extension that would allow you to leave and come back in time.