Each CG less relevant than the last?

Achibot

A
Ok, so after the post 2.4 launch we have had 4 weeks of "Thargoid CGs" in which the only viable playstyle was completely un-Thargoid related. Participation plummeted week-on-week until in week 4 an interrupted Rares CG, operating for only 4 of the 7 days finished higher than the final Thargoid CG. Then the Colonia CGs which somehow managed to upset half the population of Colonia while presumably trying to show them some love.

And now this week it's supplies for a Halloween party where a fully loaded Cutter makes ~200k credits a run for dropping Fruits & Vegetables ~35,000ls. So people can do apple bobbing.

I mean, I just don't know what to say really. Do FD actively want people to hate Community Goals or something? It's just bizarre from my perspective. Can anyone posit a different explanation?
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
I've skipped the last two weeks CGs, but I'm enjoying this week's. I am stocking up on goods, then visiting a Hi-Res in the system before heading out to hand over both bounty vouchers and cargo. Taking cargo into the res ensures I don't get bored. No money in the cargo, but there's good money in the bounty hunting. Though I must remember to wait for my scan to finish before I start shooting... Twice I've picked up a small bounty for attacking a wanted ship. :)
 

Achibot

A
Lightspeed said:
Hopefully, we will have one Christmas time to deliver presents for Santa :) But I think there's no need to take these too seriously ;)
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I think it's fair to say they are making that impossible.

sleutelbos said:
Yes, they are very mean people. Where is my cr/hr! :)
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It's primarily not about that, although if something is going to be entirely irrelevant to anything remotely of any consequence *at all* then you would think it might at least represent an opportunity to earn something rather than be a way for people to waste their time achieving precisely nothing. There isn't even a story here or a notional concept of doing something that remotely impacts anything. Other than the vital supply of strategic bobbing apples of course. At least in the Thargoid CGs there is some RP potential, not my cup of tea, but it's not nothing either. This is just vacuous and inane nothingness. For possibly the least amount of money that could possibly be made trading unless the player was deliberately trying to lose money.

Chris Simon said:
What do you mean by "relevant"?
CGs are simple occasions to haul stuff for extra credits. Nobody hates anybody. :)
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I would disagree that this represents the potential of CG's but, as above, even by that very simple metric this is a failure. It is an ingame event that is good for literally nothing, unless wasting people's time counts. And it comes after 5 weeks of similar events that were good for *almost* nothing, but at least had some story to them. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I am 100% failing to see how that is a positive direction. It's just awfulness trailing in the shadow of mediocrity.
 
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Enderby

E
I didn't think, when they first introduced them, that they'd use CGs as a means to propel the 'narrative'. I mean its just delivering stuff places mostly. I thought they were a harmless enough, though dull, novelty to earn a few extra credits.

That someone at FD made the decision to use this really rather flimsy 'group activity' as a mainstay of their 'narrative' I find quite astonishing. But, that's what happened.

It's almost as if they aren't able to add anything more engaging/clever/fun to their computer program. But I am sure that that cannot be the case.
 
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Cmdr Tel

Cmdr Tel
Achibot said:
Ok, so after the post 2.4 launch we have had 4 weeks of "Thargoid CGs" in which the only viable playstyle was completely un-Thargoid related. Participation plummeted week-on-week until in week 4 an interrupted Rares CG, operating for only 4 of the 7 days finished higher than the final Thargoid CG. Then the Colonia CGs which somehow managed to upset half the population of Colonia while presumably trying to show them some love.

And now this week it's supplies for a Halloween party where a fully loaded Cutter makes ~200k credits a run for dropping Fruits & Vegetables ~35,000ls. So people can do apple bobbing.

I mean, I just don't know what to say really. Do FD actively want people to hate Community Goals or something? It's just bizarre from my perspective. Can anyone posit a different explanation?
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If you read the description carefully on this week's CG it could be interpreted to suggest that it maybe going to be interrupted by Thargoids.....perhaps the invasion is about to begin.
"The party is over here"

I hope so! After all it is halloween and a few monsters would liven up the party.
 
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Arkadi

Arkadi
I expected a littel bit more innovation for the Thargoid CG's. I participated in the first two, but only becouse of a stupid feeling of obligation. Since however it doesn't really matter which tiers beyont t1 have been reached, it's all just ... a littel bit ... vain and uninspired. The most innovative thing I have seen with those CG's were the graphical adverts on twitter. Strange and a littel bit sad.
 

hobblygobbly

hobblygobbly
I hope Frontier develops tools so that their designers and writers can script events/missions for community CGs very easily and quickly (and maybe even real-time for special events?) so that they are more unique than what they are now, tie the narrative/text along with with more unique objectives and events. It doesn't need to be for every CG but the game could use some more hand-crafted design now and then with its narratives while still allowing player freedom.

If you have played ArmA 3 think in terms of the Eden Editor. Something like it that they could use internally, to design things statically and also to do things real-time. For example the real-time part could be useful for events that last a few hours.

Of course I have no idea how their game architecture works so it may be unfeasible to implement without early consideration but it would be something great for this game in my opinion.
 
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Achibot

A
Cmdr Tel said:
If you read the description carefully on this week's CG it could be interpreted to suggest that it maybe going to be interrupted by Thargoids.....perhaps the invasion is about to begin.
"The party is over here"

I hope so! After all it is halloween and a few monsters would liven up the party.
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I would be delighted for you to be proved correct. It would be the most interesting thing to happen to a CG in my short career. Ever, as far as I know or have heard but open to correction on that. But that's not really what the description says, it's not what Frontier has ever done before and it's quite likely not what they are doing this time. I do like your optimism though, even if I do not share it.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Achibot said:
It's primarily not about that, although if something is going to be entirely irrelevant to anything remotely of any consequence *at all* then you would think it might at least represent an opportunity to earn something rather than be a way for people to waste their time achieving precisely nothing. There isn't even a story here or a notional concept of doing something that remotely impacts anything. Other than the vital supply of strategic bobbing apples of course. At least in the Thargoid CGs there is some RP potential, not my cup of tea, but it's not nothing either. This is just vacuous and inane nothingness. For possibly the least amount of money that could possibly be made trading unless the player was deliberately trying to lose money.
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I dont know if you read the description, but its just for a lark. Its super non-serious, no massive nothing, just dork around a bit. If you're in it to Save The World or Cr/Hr, we;ve plenty of those. No need to take everything so seriously in the game, this is one of those non-serious things. :)
 
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BostromNZ

BostromNZ
I think the main point of a CG is to get players in the same systems so there is at least some interaction. Of course, (I'm assuming here) the majority of players don't want that interaction and so therefore play in solo or private groups so that diminishes the effect of the CG in that regard.

I called it before 2.4 went live - there will be CGs that unlock thargoid related content. That is what has happened and in my view is a bad call. All it does is muddy the excitement of thargoids with the dullness of CGs, especially ones where as OP says, you barely cover costs.

Whether FDev likes to acknowledge it or not, Players have always flocked to the money making systems. If you must use CGs to progress the 'narrative' and they story you're telling is supposed to be the headline feature of the last patch and the climatic event that the previous three years have been leading up to, why not set it up so that players make a conda full of credits by taking part? Credits aren't even that important anymore since FDev failed at creating any kind of balance.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Cmdr Tel said:
If you read the description carefully on this week's CG it could be interpreted to suggest that it maybe going to be interrupted by Thargoids.....perhaps the invasion is about to begin.
"The party is over here"

I hope so! After all it is halloween and a few monsters would liven up the party.
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Not how I read it myself, but we'll see. Sounds more like some harmless fun.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
BostromNZ said:
I think the main point of a CG is to get players in the same systems so there is at least some interaction. Of course, (I'm assuming here) the majority of players don't want that interaction and so therefore play in solo or private groups so that diminishes the effect of the CG in that regard.

I called it before 2.4 went live - there will be CGs that unlock thargoid related content. That is what has happened and in my view is a bad call. All it does is muddy the excitement of thargoids with the dullness of CGs, especially ones where as OP says, you barely cover costs.

Whether FDev likes to acknowledge it or not, Players have always flocked to the money making systems. If you must use CGs to progress the 'narrative' and they story you're telling is supposed to be the headline feature of the last patch and the climatic event that the previous three years have been leading up to, why not set it up so that players make a conda full of credits by taking part? Credits aren't even that important anymore since FDev failed at creating any kind of balance.
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Probably because as with previous CGs, the community needs to invest 'for the good of all'. For the community, if you will. And if we dont because we can get more cr/hr at Rhea, then we'll suffer at some point. Being a mercenary has its costs down the line... And yeah, doing CGs in Solo seems common, and super odd to me. Its just numb A->B schlepping, but to each his own of course.
 

RidingTheFlow

RidingTheFlow
Its because they never change and for all intents and purposes, all the same.
"Bring some commodity" or "Blow some ships up" - "who does more, wins". This ought to get stale real fast.
 

Achibot

A
sleutelbos said:
Probably because as with previous CGs, the community needs to invest 'for the good of all'. For the community, if you will. And if we dont because we can get more cr/hr at Rhea, then we'll suffer at some point. Being a mercenary has its costs down the line... And yeah, doing CGs in Solo seems common, and super odd to me. Its just numb A->B schlepping, but to each his own of course.
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But this is exactly my point, that these CGs should matter, somehow, in at least some way. Be is sometimes subtle, sometimes expansive, sometimes mysterious, but it should always mean something.

Can you honestly make the case that hauling bobbing apples for pennies to a party that no actual player gets to experience is even the smallest bit analogous to the spirit of what you describe in your post? As far as I'm concerned this sort of nonsense diminishes "community goals" themselves (in a literal sense) and, even more importantly, diminishes the idea of what community goals *should be* as a facet of gameplay. And I don't understand why that should be the case.
 

5 Puppis

5
Achibot said:
But this is exactly my point, that these CGs should matter, somehow, in at least some way. Be is sometimes subtle, sometimes expansive, sometimes mysterious, but it should always mean something.

Can you honestly make the case that hauling bobbing apples for pennies to a party that no actual player gets to experience is even the smallest bit analogous to the spirit of what you describe in your post? As far as I'm concerned this sort of nonsense diminishes "community goals" themselves (in a literal sense) and, even more importantly, diminishes the idea of what community goals *should be* as a facet of gameplay. And I don't understand why that should be the case.
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The Aegis weapon CGs at least had that going for them, things were unlocked for the good of the community. That partly motivate me to chip in on a couple of them. What puzzles me about this week's CG is that it sets up an objectively worse experience than players just doing their own things. I could trade normally, or I could grind a trade route where every loop ends in a 35,000 Ls supercruise. There's no story significance for this. There's no long term benefit/consequence to the community. Even the money is not that good. Unless someone *really* enjoys Open play shenanigans, I can't really see a point to participating.

It's not something I'd get salty over, but it's just... odd. It's like no one play tests these CGs, but then again you don't even need to play test to see the problem with a lot of the recent ones.
 
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