Livestream Discovery Scanner 6 - Reshaping the Simulation

UP THE BGS! 😁
DOWN WITH POWER PLAY! 😠

140073


Get out.
 
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Here's a some questions about the much-maligned Hostile rep state.

Are there any plans to create incentives for players to become Hostile to a faction? Such incentives could include missions/other opportunities/abilities to target negative-state effects at that faction.

Why does Hostile superpower reputation have virtually no impact on interactions with factions aligned to that superpower?

Why can't commanders with Hostile reputation to a faction dock at their facilities under Anonymity Protocols, like criminals can?


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Just as a discussion point... I don't think anyone is looking for a "free pass" when it comes to becoming hostile with a faction. If you're hostile, that faction should shoot you on sight, pursue you relentlessly and deny you their facilities (excluding that point I made about Anonymity Protocols). The problem is that pursuing antagonism towards a faction does nothing but hinder that process. With only punitive outcomes and no benefits when becoming Hostile with a faction, the optimal route to bringing down your enemy sees everywhere welcoming you with open arms (Elite: Best Friends if you will), rather than encouraging an environment where you're safe in allied territory, and facing very real risk in hostile turf, but with lucrative (BGS/Influence) incentives to match the risk.
 
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UP THE BGS! 😁
DOWN WITH POWER PLAY! 😠

That quote would make sense if they were actually ignoring BGS over Powerplay.. but its virtually the opposite.

Related to Powerplay though.. are there any changes in the pipeline considering implementing some of Sandro's BGS proposals to Powerplay? (changing it that specific Power allegiance would help your Powerplay BGS (for getting half fortification triggers) rather then specific government types was the most prominent of those discussions).
 
That quote would make sense if they were actually ignoring BGS over Powerplay.. but its virtually the opposite.

Related to Powerplay though.. are there any changes in the pipeline considering implementing some of Sandro's BGS proposals to Powerplay? (changing it that specific Power allegiance would help your Powerplay BGS (for getting half fortification triggers) rather then specific government types was the most prominent of those discussions).

That would be great, and make sense for Hudson and Princess Cobalt.
 
Fun popcorn question!

Which is more complicated: Powerplay or the BGS?

Does FD see Powerplay as an extension / evolution of the BGS or something different?

Did the BGS designers also design Powerplay?
 
Question: The number of factions inserted due to player request has highly increased in recent months and the BGS is getting crowded. Will there be a point when you're going to stop new insertions? If not, how do you intend to tackle the implications of such a crowded BGS? From a player perspective, it'd noticeably lessen the fun everybody has with the BGS if the current pace continues for a few more months.

Cheers!
 
1. What is the timeline for happiness-based expansions?
2. Are slow security shifts that prevent civil unrest and lockdown states from occurring intentional?
3. Is the rarity of outbreak and famine states intentional?
4. Are there any plans to rebalance the efficacy of non-combat actions (missions, trade, data)?
5. Do you intend to add mechanics that can be used to curtail or shorten movement states like expansions and retreats?
6. Installation scenarios do not consistently spawn. Is this intentional? What factors control whether or not installations spawn scenarios?
7. Scenario givers at installations do not match the installation owner: the listed faction is always the controlling faction of the system, but the allied ships spawned match the controller of the installation specifically. Will this be fixed?
8. Will ongoing CZ bugs related to cap ship aggro and impossible kill counts (not enough ships spawning when in wing) be fixed?
9. Will conflict statuses ever be visible in the system map or otherwise remotely if the conflict factions are not supported by the commander's squadron?
10. Are there any plans to expand journal support to include all faction data for easy export to external tools? For example: I open my squadron allegiance tab and it sends updates for all our systems to EDDN.
11. Are there plans to revisit data presented on the squadron allegiance panel to allow expanded views for systems, so that we don't need to back out and refer to system maps for everything?

ALSO:

You added static capital ship installations based on the default owner of a system rather than the current owner, and they don't seem to transfer ownership ever. This means that we have multiple Federal cap ships stationed in our systems and we can't take them. Halp. :(
 
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No offence but FD communication around BGS always been biased or mysterious.. If you are expecting big news or revelations, you are day dreaming. They didn t even answer questions during "beta" bgs.... It will be flat as always... And there is no serious BGS group that would ask specific question in the risk of other knowing or FD fixing / solving what could be a bug/exploit-


If FD would be transparent, maybe players would be also.
 
Related to Powerplay though.. are there any changes in the pipeline considering implementing some of Sandro's BGS proposals to Powerplay? (changing it that specific Power allegiance would help your Powerplay BGS (for getting half fortification triggers) rather then specific government types was the most prominent of those discussions).

Sandro's BGS proposals were too freaky for me 😧
The more Powerplay has nothing to do with the BGS the better I say...
 
1. Are you happy with the changes w/ Ch.4? Did they do what you expected? Was it intended to help large player groups get even bigger, or was there another design goal?
2. Are you happy with having removed all advanced strategy from the BGS (i.e. blocking wars, multi-system strategies), and turning into a straight up farm-fest of who can do the most per tick? Do you feel you have "leveled the playing field" or just empowered those with the biggest ships and the biggest CMDR numbers?
3. Now that Grom has actually left PP over bots, while BGS groups are still seeing bots, are there any plans for Frontier to take botting and cheating seriously? Is someone at Frontier now willing to listen to a pro-active data analysis approach? Frankly, all public statements by Frontier on this topic, as well as private, have been deeply disappointing. Bots and cheats break PP, BGS and PvP, and probably more. Why is FD so reluctant to do anything about this, and especially why are you so dead scared to talk to those affected and have offered their help?
4. Mission re-balance when? Or is it intentional that you want CMDRs to do basically anything other than missions to support their faction, given their effect is minimal compared to everything else, and mission board flipping no longer works?
5. Did the design philosophy change radically? From "balanced around a single CMDR in a Cobra", is it now balanced around veteran CMDRs with top engineered ships tailored to the job, and maximizing total value? That is, is BGS now considered "end game" activity, vs "everything all CMDRs do collectively where each can have an impact"?

Bonus Question: can you let the guys writing Galnet stories going forward have a look at the charts in my sig, and use those as background for their stories rather than some imagined parallel universe in which the Federation is still powerful, the Alliance is still small and insignificant, and there aren't 15 big large factions controlling 50+ systems, and nearly a 100 factions controlling 20 systems or more? Please acknowledge your players' contributions to the galaxy as it is by at least accepting its reality.

Whether answered or not, though, a Dav livestream on BGS is always a treat. :)
 
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Hi Dav. Super thrilled about the livestream. I only have a few very important questions:
How often does the BGS hamster misbehave? What treats do you feed him when he's been a good little BGS hamster? Can said treats be used to influence him in to increase the impact of trade in the BGS?
 
1. Given the lack of "negative" states currently in the universe, do you think there should be more/better access to targeted BGS actions where "Player Success" results in negative effects? Currently targetable activities are limited to Black Market trading, Trading for a deliberate loss and random murder.

2. Would it be feasible to create a secondary mission board where, instead of missions supporting a faction are offered, missions targeting a faction are offered, via "anonymous contacts"... a criminal mission board if you will? Noting this isn't really what an Anarchy faction offers, which is "criminal" actions which support themselves.


At 22:55 in the below video (the first stream about the BGS) there's a discussion between Dav and Adam about buckets and player contributions. Without quoting verbatim the entire discussion, it's basically talking about how contributions to (influence) buckets are generally positive, because players try to be successful; players don't go out failing missions that often.

The corollary here is that positive effects are a result of player success, and negative effects are the result of player failure. If this is the approach used for the current BGS, it's pretty apparent how there can be so few negative states out there, if Player Success is considered an event which results in positive effects, then it's no wonder there's minimal negative states. A better approach would be player success should result in either positive or negative states, based on the activity the player chooses., and either should be reliably accessible.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5DGyG6Qwvk
 
1. Are you happy with the changes w/ Ch.4? Did they do what you expected? Was it intended to help large player groups get even bigger, or was there another design goal?
2. Are you happy with having removed all advanced strategy from the BGS (i.e. blocking wars, multi-system strategies), and turning into a straight up farm-fest of who can do the most per tick? Do you feel you have "leveled the playing field" or just empowered those with the biggest ships and the biggest CMDR numbers?
3. Now that Grom has actually left PP over bots, while BGS groups are still seeing bots, are there any plans for Frontier to take botting and cheating seriously? Is someone at Frontier now willing to listen to a pro-active data analysis approach? Frankly, all public statements by Frontier on this topic, as well as private, have been deeply disappointing. Bots and cheats break PP, BGS and PvP, and probably more. Why is FD so reluctant to do anything about this, and especially why are you so dead scared to talk to those affected and have offered their help?
4. Mission re-balance when? Or is it intentional that you want CMDRs to do basically anything other than missions to support their faction, given their effect is minimal compared to everything else, and mission board flipping no longer works?
5. Did the design philosophy change radically? From "balanced around a single CMDR in a Cobra", is it now balanced around veteran CMDRs with top engineered ships tailored to the job, and maximizing total value? That is, is BGS now considered "end game" activity, vs "everything all CMDRs do collectively where each can have an impact"?

Bonus Question: can you let the guys writing Galnet stories going forward have a look at the charts in my sig, and use those as background for their stories rather than some imagined parallel universe in which the Federation is still powerful, the Alliance is still small and insignificant, and there aren't 15 big large factions controlling 50+ systems, and nearly a 100 factions controlling 20 systems or more? Please acknowledge your players' contributions to the galaxy as it is by at least accepting its reality.

Whether answered or not, though, a Dav livestream on BGS is always a treat. :)

I am feeling some sarcasm and irony here... I like it even more.
 
Will powerplay be more integrated into the BGS and make it a more PvE with optional PvP experience (my preference) or will it likely be detached for the BGS entirely and become PvP only.
 
Looking forward to watching this one.

- what's your aim when it comes to balancing the desire of "people playing the BGS" to have a reasonably predictable and controllable system, with the desire of "people living in the BGS" to have interesting things happen around them?

- is happiness going to be used for anything in future?

- will all BGS properties detectable in game be available through the journal as well in future? (e.g. local news articles, traffic reports) Or is there a reason that they're not beyond "we haven't implemented it yet"? (Fine, if so - I'll stop asking...)

- the original pre-release design envisaged a larger role for the BGS in terms of events like station construction, population movements, etc. Is this still on the roadmap somewhere?
 
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