Does retreat work then?

[Dommarraa]

Or your observations are not what others are seeing.
Meta data means jack.
'it worked for me' means jack.

When things are not working as expected, report it and be ignored, or just walk away. Both leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

 

[lollo1572]

Well Gemai, I'd like to trust you.... but for two times didn't work the same. Before 3.3 retreat worked. I'll Call and pay you to help !!!! [big grin]

 

[Gemai]

Again if you do not brutally murder your target faction - which we deny by principle - you need to permanently do over 95% of daily work. Since the new % lock system you can actually reduce that strain on you by locking all factions aside of 2 in conflict. Then you can drain more % than normal from the others.

I personally do not engage in criminal acts to reduce influence. So our retreats are done by influence flooding over the week and hoping randoms don't do more than X +inf actions. Otherwise a retreat is a luxury. It still works.

 

[Borg184]

I'm not inclined to believe Gemai for one simple reason. I've seen the same thing happen with 2 different factions in 2 different systems, one faction being a player faction which very likely had player support behind it, and another being an NPC faction that only exists in 2 systems, that very obviously nobody supports. I can ensure you that nobody supports said faction, as said faction has been in retreat twice since 3.3 hit. Asides from the spikes after entering a retreat, the faction seems to just bleed influence, until it eventually falls to retreat levels, spikes again, and then starts the slow trickle down. Nobody supports the faction in wars or similar.

But Dommarraa is right. It very obviously is not working as expected, so this argument is pointless either way.

 

[Gemai]

"Nobody supports that faction" is wrong. Any mission done FROM or TO a faction gives +inf. You effectively say "no one can do missions for or towards them". Which is obviously a false statement.

 

[BaddMongo]

I tested retreat in 2 systems during last week with the same result. Factions with about 5% at start. My approach is dirty - I destroy their ships - interdicting their non-wanted ships at supercruise and destroying or killing authority ships in their jurisdiction. I was successful with pushing them to influence 1.0% and retreat. I did it in past before 3.3 regularly without any problems and it is the same in 3.3. But then it is interesting. I'm quite sure there is only low activity of other commanders. When the retreat state is active it looks that any support for other factions and even killing ships of the faction in retreat state do the same thing - it increases influence of the faction in retreat state. It is huge swing up of the influence.

Need to be aware other groups with a PMF in your area are likely going to have an interest and be monitoring which factions are in danger of retreating around them and may have their own motives for not wanting another faction to retreat, for reasons which might not be obvious to you.

If there is already a PMF in the system you are trying to force a NPC faction out of, they may wish to protect the NPC faction in order to block the slot for any other PMF (ie yours) from expanding to their system, as NPC faction is going to give them less trouble

Or if they have their own expansion lined up they might want to keep that NPC faction in place to keep that system full so their own faction doesnt expand there if they would prefer to leapfrog over it to a better one.

Or they might just be aware that you are close to expanding and trying to block you from going to that system, who knows.

Influence of any faction PMF or NPC can only change with interaction from other players so has to have been some going on.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Retreat threshold is 2.5%, and you need 5 clear ticks to retreat a faction.

 

[Kietrax]

How certain are you that there is no one pushing the faction to stay in the system though? Are there player factions in the system already for example? If so, it is possible they are doing something to keep the system full - as has been pointed out, it doesn't take much to raise a faction a few percent in a low pop. system, especially when starting from 1%.

Edit: note to self, read all posts before commenting to avoid repeating stuff from 2 posts previous ...

 

[MrMarkusCZ]

I checked many systems from time I wrote my first post about it here and I see influence swing of factions in retreat state often. For example I saw this in system (7 million of people) with medium traffic for non-player faction:

3305-02-02,2.3,RETREAT
3305-02-03,9.6,RETREAT
3305-02-04,14.8,RETREAT
3305-02-05,20.7,RETREAT
3305-02-06,25.4,RETREAT
3305-02-07,26.4,RETREAT

or low population system:
3305-02-07,13.3,RETREAT,WAR
3305-02-06,13.3,RETREAT
3305-02-05,5.4,RETREAT
3305-02-04,1,RETREAT

I think you are right. It can be work of independent commanders or (who know) really some organized hostile activity from another PMF. What I see important is big number of generated escape missions for the faction in retreat state. These mission are often to the same stations and with 5-plus INF. It is easy to stack them so these missions can be interesting for ranking too. This is not bug just feature of mission generator in ED 3.3. It is so easy help the faction in retreat state now that it makes securing of their retreat very difficult when you are not alone doing BGS work there.

P.S. This can be problem for factions with big number of systems with high influence so there are factions with low influence and not home there. Such retreatable factions can be pushed to retreat and then easily used as torpedo against control faction. Easily stackable 5-plus INF missions are dangerous I think ...

 

[Dommarraa]

I dont think there is anything particularly special about the state of Retreat to make them hard/impossible, its just the new "balancing" changes that FD have implemented to make it "harder" for a large faction with little support.

My observations are:
If a faction is very low, you only have to fart in their general direction for them to get a massive UP swing, pretty much regardless of the work done for other factions. Just 1 data delivery to them is enough to outway genuine effort put in by a CMDR working for a larger faction.
If a faction has a high influence, their actions seem to have little effect
Controlling a station or system, seems to give you very little benefit as far as gaining or keeping Influence. Trade and Bounties now seem to do virtually nothing to your influence.

The old "wine" analogy that was pretty good IMHO of balancing in favor of weak factions is gone (or at least a secondary effect). Now it looks more like :

EffectiveEffort = ActualEffort / CurrentInf

 

[Dommarraa]

I dont think there is anything particularly special about the state of Retreat to make them hard/impossible, its just the new "balancing" changes that FD have implemented to make it "harder" for a large faction with little support.

My observations are:
If a faction is very low, you only have to fart in their general direction for them to get a massive UP swing, pretty much regardless of the work done for other factions. Just 1 data delivery to them is enough to outway genuine effort put in by a CMDR working for a larger faction.
If a faction has a high influence, their actions seem to have little effect
Controlling a station or system, seems to give you very little benefit as far as gaining or keeping Influence. Trade and Bounties now seem to do virtually nothing to your influence.

The old "wine" analogy that was pretty good IMHO of balancing in favor of weak factions is gone (or at least a secondary effect). Now it looks more like :

EffectiveEffort = ActualEffort / CurrentInf

Oh, missed the doozy....
I am convinced that Effort is still not being allocated to the correct Faction in some cases. So in theory, even if its only you working, some of your actions can end up being given to others.
Cant prove it, but enough inexplicable madness is happening in enough conflicts to be able to justify a belief in the theory.

 

[Gemai]

I disagree with the notion trade was nerfed too hard. It and data drops work fine for us to conter basic BGS work. It really is just if you are above 50%... you work against the mountain. The more % you have, the more work you do to keep it.

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

I disagree with the notion trade was nerfed too hard. It and data drops work fine for us to conter basic BGS work. It really is just if you are above 50%... you work against the mountain. The more % you have, the more work you do to keep it.

That may be so, but there are some Systems where the controlling MF sits at around 80-90% INF and seemingly can't be dragged down. Constant Expansion Mode enabled!

 

[Gemai]

Yes. Often common in big groups with zergs that randomly trade, drop data or mission for their faction without any idea for BGS. Or in systems with missions that hurt others (distant colony systems or small systems with 2 factions, one anarchy shot to 1%).

 

[MrMarkusCZ]

Just another set of failed retreats. I see mission generator as key factor. It still generates many escape missions for the faction in retreat state. But there is another thing -mission generator in neighbouring systems often generate delivery missions with targeting that faction in retreat state. I think it is enough for independent traffic to cause the problem. These factions near of Sol (I selected this space for higher independent traffic) went with active retreat state to this in few days:

LHS 2459 Advanced Corp. 13.7% War
LFT 142 Liberals 15.2% Election
Eme for Equality 9.9%
New LHS 355 Revolutionary Party 9.0%
Marduk United Industries 11.0% War
LTT 198 Patrons of Law 8.1% War
Confederacy of Cochipati 10.4% War pending
LTT 4772 Alliance Mandate 8.6% War pending

I still talk about it because I'm convinced that this is causing problem and I'm not talking about organized activities of big player groups - just mission generator problem + independent traffic. There are more successfull expansions than retreats. I think this is not good system and it will cause lack of systems where to expand soon. I think we need neutral environment where independent commander has neutral offer of missions. It depends only on commander if he stay neutral or start pushing some faction and start manipulate BGS this way.

 

[lollo1572]

Just another set of failed retreats. I see mission generator as key factor. It still generates many escape missions for the faction in retreat state. But there is another thing -mission generator in neighbouring systems often generate delivery missions with targeting that faction in retreat state. I think it is enough for independent traffic to cause the problem. These factions near of Sol (I selected this space for higher independent traffic) went with active retreat state to this in few days:

LHS 2459 Advanced Corp. 13.7% War
LFT 142 Liberals 15.2% Election
Eme for Equality 9.9%
New LHS 355 Revolutionary Party 9.0%
Marduk United Industries 11.0% War
LTT 198 Patrons of Law 8.1% War
Confederacy of Cochipati 10.4% War pending
LTT 4772 Alliance Mandate 8.6% War pending

I still talk about it because I'm convinced that this is causing problem and I'm not talking about organized activities of big player groups - just mission generator problem + independent traffic. There are more successfull expansions than retreats. I think this is not good system and it will cause lack of systems where to expand soon. I think we need neutral environment where independent commander has neutral offer of missions. It depends only on commander if he stay neutral or start pushing some faction and start manipulate BGS this way.

Thanks for your feedback!
In few days me and my group we'll try to force another npc faction to retreat. If will not work...... IMO retreat is really impossible now!!!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I still talk about it because I'm convinced that this is causing problem and I'm not talking about organized activities of big player groups - just mission generator problem + independent traffic.

Yes. It's always been somewhat easy for a faction on 1% to gain influence from passing traffic - the mission generator gave them a lot even in 3.2 - but it's harder to specifically target them with negative actions now, so passing traffic is tough to counter.

Out in Colonia the effect is that retreats are going through much faster in low-traffic systems and less often in high-traffic systems (though they were rare in high traffic systems before 3.3 as well, as people were rarely actively trying to make a retreat stick).

There are more successfull expansions than retreats. I think this is not good system and it will cause lack of systems where to expand soon.

That there is a safety valve for, in the invasion mechanic. It allows expansion into a system which already has 7 factions, if there's no better alternative, by fighting to kick out an existing non-native faction.

(There was a bug in that where the losing faction didn't retreat, so you were left with 8 in the system, but that may have been fixed now - we haven't had one since the end of January out here to check)

 

[MrMarkusCZ]

Thank you for info. I never saw expansion by invasion yet in area where I do BGS work. Looking forward to see it more often and be able ... manipulate more

 

[Rubbernuke]

Yes. It's always been somewhat easy for a faction on 1% to gain influence from passing traffic - the mission generator gave them a lot even in 3.2 - but it's harder to specifically target them with negative actions now, so passing traffic is tough to counter.

Out in Colonia the effect is that retreats are going through much faster in low-traffic systems and less often in high-traffic systems (though they were rare in high traffic systems before 3.3 as well, as people were rarely actively trying to make a retreat stick).


That there is a safety valve for, in the invasion mechanic. It allows expansion into a system which already has 7 factions, if there's no better alternative, by fighting to kick out an existing non-native faction.

(There was a bug in that where the losing faction didn't retreat, so you were left with 8 in the system, but that may have been fixed now - we haven't had one since the end of January out here to check)

If you want to retreat a faction, its easiest when they control the system or an asset. Then the truly evil fun can begin! I don't envy anyone who has to retreat a faction that has no assets in a busy system.