ED Background Simulation - Large Faction Influence Swing Mechanics
- Thread starter anonymousanarchist123
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Count the no of FD comments in the nearly 400 page bgs thread. They will not.comment here. The only times there have been such discussions were when Michael brookes used to post the dev updates. Even then his posts were often ambiguous. Our beat bet is submitting questions for a live stream
Yep, good call, assuming they take them on that is....
Failing that maybe just ruining systems that are near and dear to a lot of players so there is plenty of noise made by the player base about these issues...CG's / player faction's which are well liked / high profile systems...
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that
652 t palladium for 2.8 k loss, 1t selling - 57,7 % actual value. lets face the tick.
LOL. Sorry. I just saw your reply
I was testing right here (Somerset Station). My only problem was (I think) that I bought the commodities in the same system. I want to try it now by buying them elsewhere and sell with maximum loss - so if anyone has an idea what commodity suites best, please tell me.
I just did some tests with different commodities and profit level - there does not seem to be a difference. So apparently just profit/loss counts, not how much.
More important that you're buying from a different faction than from a different system. If you're buying from anyone you're boosting their influence, thus working against your own effort to lower them. They who control the market (starport/outpost) get all the effects of trade.
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Catching up on the last couple pages... it's worth noting (I don't have the link to the quote handy, unfortunately. Someone else might be able to help out here.)
...the design goal of the BGS is NOT to provide a fair competitive environment for players to engage against each other in. I hate to say it, but that's why Powerplay exists, and why it's implementation is *not* tied to any BGS mechanics; because BGS mechanics are not balanced.
The aim is to create a system which reacts and responds to player interaction. Balance isn't necessary with that objective in mind (if it's way easier to do positive than negative interactions, so be it). It just happens that a lot of players have latched onto the BGS because it *is* a good, fun system to try and interact in, with meaningful (capturing stations, systems) outcomes which have an impact in the universe (arguably, moreso than PP).
... and if you consider what I just wrote here, purely transaction-count-only mechanics are perfectly fine if your objective is just to create a malleable environment.
Especially if you're coding to give consideration to resource efficiency (counting the number of times profit/loss is made would be heaps quicker than inspecting each transaction and getting the volume, type of goods and amount of profit and working it out from there), just counting the number of transactions of a profit/loss type is a much better idea, again, if your goal is to create something malleable, not necessarily fair.
tl;dr if you remember the goal of the BGS is to create a malleable environment, not a fair, competitive one, some of the design choices make a lot more sense.
...the design goal of the BGS is NOT to provide a fair competitive environment for players to engage against each other in. I hate to say it, but that's why Powerplay exists, and why it's implementation is *not* tied to any BGS mechanics; because BGS mechanics are not balanced.
The aim is to create a system which reacts and responds to player interaction. Balance isn't necessary with that objective in mind (if it's way easier to do positive than negative interactions, so be it). It just happens that a lot of players have latched onto the BGS because it *is* a good, fun system to try and interact in, with meaningful (capturing stations, systems) outcomes which have an impact in the universe (arguably, moreso than PP).
... and if you consider what I just wrote here, purely transaction-count-only mechanics are perfectly fine if your objective is just to create a malleable environment.
Especially if you're coding to give consideration to resource efficiency (counting the number of times profit/loss is made would be heaps quicker than inspecting each transaction and getting the volume, type of goods and amount of profit and working it out from there), just counting the number of transactions of a profit/loss type is a much better idea, again, if your goal is to create something malleable, not necessarily fair.
tl;dr if you remember the goal of the BGS is to create a malleable environment, not a fair, competitive one, some of the design choices make a lot more sense.
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Give a human a taste of power and lots go a bit mental.
This explains why you aren't given free roam because you'd break things...or turn this game into a click simulator.
And to make matters worse it would be about how many humans you can get to click for your cause.
Quality gaming right there.
You only do it to yourselves...
This explains why you aren't given free roam because you'd break things...or turn this game into a click simulator.
And to make matters worse it would be about how many humans you can get to click for your cause.
Quality gaming right there.
You only do it to yourselves...
Where did you get that idea from?
If the devs said "we can add your faction into the game, but do not expect to be able to defend, expand or have any expectation of balance" i highly doubt most groups would have made the effort
**Rant incoming**
Truth to me is PP failed and groups started to leave the game in droves after experimenting and discovering its flawed implementation. FD panicked as it realised that the majority of the activity, emergent game play and interest in BGS/empire building elements were coming from player groups and so decided to give us something/anything to retain the player groups. In reality what they gave us was the opportunity to colour their stale BGS with the names of our groups. That's all we did, add colour...
Do we have control over the groups we added in? Nope. Is the BGS -even slightly- balanced and ready for groups to battle each other using it? Nope.
Will FD now go forward advertising a game filled with player groups battling it out in a kind of galactic game of risk where every player group has the opportunity to fight wars & expand their territory?...
Was the whole point in adding player groups to the BGS to promote group/clan/guild functionality in ED and convince those jaded group/clans and communities that it might be worth putting time into?
If so they injected PMF's into a bugged BGS that is not in any way balanced and so far have not been honest enough to admit it or are so lost they do not understand the problems with the BGS themselves.
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I find it disgraceful that people can argue for a unbalanced BGS, these mechanics and im sure others are available but are even more secretively held by groups, the way some groups are acting comes down to being as close to what SDC is viewed to do in their PvP.
We have groups which didn't use these mechanics or at least avoided using them for a long-time, now you aren't given a choice if someone uses these mechanics 1ting specifically if you don't respond with it you are dead, im sure those other major groups would start crying when they lose their systems, how many months of work groups like Dark Armada have put in only to be targeted by these forms of mechanics and lose nearly everything and only to be actively deceived by mechanical knowledge through smoke and mirrors.
You have people who call themselves members of the BGS community start crying when they lose their systems or systems they call their own (in the case of some people who just go claiming NPC groups and making them into some sort of fake "group") who then turn around and start crying that they have people using exploits on them, these mechanics need to go we need an open and friendly BGS community like we once did, these mechanics need to be revealed and counters discovered if they aren't removed asap, it seems FDev will only fix these things when their triple elite groups start crying to them by like 10 emails a day.
This has been seen in a number of occurrences such as the nuking of TIIQ's influence in Brestla being dropped to one percent every day for a number of days, as one of them.
While we allow this corruption to run rife it will only continue to become more cancerous, as of current anyone can eliminate all in-power anarchy factions and a good chunk of the communist systems with no issues through the black market, the others just require slightly more effort to eliminate through one ton tactics, once a war goes active it comes down to the one transaction war game but thats not hard, its all about whos either got the most time or the most jobless members.
I also strongly believe the non-player support minor factions or the AI ones need to be stronger this im sure can be worked at in terms of grading factions in terms of their "war" capability etc.
It seems that those who actively want things to remains as they are either use said mechanics for their own "fun", are members of triple elite groups that can cuddle up to FDev for perks, until the BGS is transparent within the player base, it will continue to breed corruption.
It seems to me, that some groups want to create a BGS so one sided one of the tactics to win it comes down to assassinating people in real life like some scum did in EvE.
We have groups which didn't use these mechanics or at least avoided using them for a long-time, now you aren't given a choice if someone uses these mechanics 1ting specifically if you don't respond with it you are dead, im sure those other major groups would start crying when they lose their systems, how many months of work groups like Dark Armada have put in only to be targeted by these forms of mechanics and lose nearly everything and only to be actively deceived by mechanical knowledge through smoke and mirrors.
You have people who call themselves members of the BGS community start crying when they lose their systems or systems they call their own (in the case of some people who just go claiming NPC groups and making them into some sort of fake "group") who then turn around and start crying that they have people using exploits on them, these mechanics need to go we need an open and friendly BGS community like we once did, these mechanics need to be revealed and counters discovered if they aren't removed asap, it seems FDev will only fix these things when their triple elite groups start crying to them by like 10 emails a day.
This has been seen in a number of occurrences such as the nuking of TIIQ's influence in Brestla being dropped to one percent every day for a number of days, as one of them.
While we allow this corruption to run rife it will only continue to become more cancerous, as of current anyone can eliminate all in-power anarchy factions and a good chunk of the communist systems with no issues through the black market, the others just require slightly more effort to eliminate through one ton tactics, once a war goes active it comes down to the one transaction war game but thats not hard, its all about whos either got the most time or the most jobless members.
I also strongly believe the non-player support minor factions or the AI ones need to be stronger this im sure can be worked at in terms of grading factions in terms of their "war" capability etc.
It seems that those who actively want things to remains as they are either use said mechanics for their own "fun", are members of triple elite groups that can cuddle up to FDev for perks, until the BGS is transparent within the player base, it will continue to breed corruption.
It seems to me, that some groups want to create a BGS so one sided one of the tactics to win it comes down to assassinating people in real life like some scum did in EvE.
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dynamicbob
Banned
Adjust to reality because guess what this is how Fdev have it working, and that is why they are being broadcast and taken nuclear so that the triple elite groups whinge and frontier actually put some time and effort into a balanced BGS not the rubbish we have currently - you have some valid and some plain wrong tactics but its out, either use it or oppose it or get out of the way, choas and winter are coming and frontier are going to have to finally make the BGS great again
Next step is to find out how the BGS works with instances. Tests would be something like:
Get a group of CMDR, let them sell their stuff seperately in a solo instance, wait 1 tick, next day do it in a group, wait 1 tick - see what happens. I´d like to see how the scaling is. There are lots of more steps after this of course.
Get a group of CMDR, let them sell their stuff seperately in a solo instance, wait 1 tick, next day do it in a group, wait 1 tick - see what happens. I´d like to see how the scaling is. There are lots of more steps after this of course.
Where did you get that idea from?
If the devs said "we can add your faction into the game, but do not expect to be able to defend, expand or have any expectation of balance" i highly doubt most groups would have made the effort
I probably got it from this video (April 2016):
[video=youtube;y5DGyG6Qwvk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5DGyG6Qwvk[/video]
(Note, some minor paraphrasing)
7:10
What is the background sim?
... To us, ... all the technical systems that can be branded "The Background Sim" is to try and bring the galaxy to life. It's a really big galaxy, and we need to make sure the galaxy tracks and responds to everything the players do.
26:17: ... is supposed to be kindof two things. We do want it to be a kindof boardgamey experience... that you guys can get together and try to manipulate the world... but it's also supposed to be there to simulate a working world.
This video is from back in April, so the specifics are a bit lost to me, but my notes are here. One of the things I wrote in that list (which IIRC was almost a full quote from that video, but I don't have time to find it right now), is "Background sim is a background sim, not a foreground sim.", implying it's role is supposed to be "in addition" to the players gameplay, not the direct purpose of it.
... so yeah. To me (my opinion only) based off those two quotes, FD's intent with the BGS is to create a living, breathing universe. They do touch on the "boardgamey" aspect, but they pretty quickly couple it to the fact it's meant to simulate a living, breathing universe.
FWIW, if you can show me where FD have actually said players can expect "...to be able to defend, expand and have any expectation of balance", feel free to let me know. I'm always receptive to new info.
Just in case my posts are sounding like I support an unbalanced BGS, lets just put it out there. I absolutely wish the BGS was a balanced, competitive gameplay experience. I was pretty dumbstruck when I found out Powerplay had almost nothing to do with the BGS. That's pretty much when I started realising some of the imbalances in the BGS, and how it wouldn't work if they just tied it straight into Powerplay.
I think that's a bad design choice outright, and should've been sought a lot more attention. But being a programmer who's also worked with "big data", I also know that once you've got a fundamental design choices implemented, depending on what those choices are, there's sometimes no turning back.
I genuinely don't think FD thought the BGS would draw as much popularity as it did. And now they're up the creek without a paddle on some issues that would be considered "unbalanced", such as 1t trading.
PS I encourage everyone to watch that video in entirety, it's pretty insightful
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funny. bit the same on my side.
i have played civilization and its opensource variants online in competitions for some years, and i expected the BGS to provide a bit the same while flying a spaceship. it doesn't.
today i look at it more as a simulation of a fictional world - and yes, that world isn't balanced or fair.
it provides an experience, though - even when you start out in an eagle (see transaction based influence changes).
it makes up great stories.
fighting a lost battle. "you can't take the sky from me!".
coming back after going into hiding.
working around several unbalances ... uh, this system does not have a RES, no BM, and its only station is 200k ls from entry point ... how do we approach this? ... there is literally no profitable trade around 60 ly, let's bring in the miners! etc.
still, i think a thing like 1T-trading isn't intended and needs to go - selling 1T at a time does not provide an experience, because you basically sit docked in a station.
that isn't about balance. i would rally for having it go even if it would be balanced (which it looks it is to some extend by postive and negative effects of 1t trading).
I'm shooting from the hip, from memory here.
But everything in the BGS (economy variation, states and influence) is based on the transaction.
That thing that happens when you get the spinny icon and you sell/buy/exchange/discard/pay-off your explo/bountyfinecommodity.
They're not going to make radical changes to the 'transaction'.
It's too core to player progress.
People feel too connected to their credits to have that system up-ended to ease a mechanism that you know - a) mostly works and b) is only really loved by the grognard boardgamers like us.
Like Schlack says: 'There have been worse Nukes"
My impression of Frontier's solution to other nukes has been to: gear the effect of the transaction to some other modifiers.
So for example how some transactions have no effect in certain states.
Or certain NPC types don't count towards the death toll.
How some transactions are more effective with a lot of traffic in system.
How the influence change is geared against population.
That sort of thing.
So I know I've broken my own rule and given this thread more oxygen, but I think the sabre rattling and the crying foul won't get us anywhere.
We need to come up with interesting and detailed questions for a live stream.
But everything in the BGS (economy variation, states and influence) is based on the transaction.
That thing that happens when you get the spinny icon and you sell/buy/exchange/discard/pay-off your explo/bountyfinecommodity.
They're not going to make radical changes to the 'transaction'.
It's too core to player progress.
People feel too connected to their credits to have that system up-ended to ease a mechanism that you know - a) mostly works and b) is only really loved by the grognard boardgamers like us.
Like Schlack says: 'There have been worse Nukes"
My impression of Frontier's solution to other nukes has been to: gear the effect of the transaction to some other modifiers.
So for example how some transactions have no effect in certain states.
Or certain NPC types don't count towards the death toll.
How some transactions are more effective with a lot of traffic in system.
How the influence change is geared against population.
That sort of thing.
So I know I've broken my own rule and given this thread more oxygen, but I think the sabre rattling and the crying foul won't get us anywhere.
We need to come up with interesting and detailed questions for a live stream.
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Yup. 1 Transaction pulls the trigger. The system is not able to distinguish between a 1T-trade and a 700-T trade. Both is 1 transaction and therefore it´s a bug, or better: bad luck during making the concept of the BGS-Architecture. But this should be "fixable".
iFred - you should watch that video under my first link.
the 'transaction' is not something bolted on to the game afterwards.
It is absolutely CORE to how Elite is built.
In your example, the 700T trade DOES count more than a 1T trade. It just doesn't count 700 times more. Profit is one of the gears I am talking about.
Maybe they can come up with better gears and "wheels within wheels", but the 'transaction' drives progress in all aspects of the game. All parts. What you are asking to change is maybe not on the scale of migrating to a new graphics engine.
But it's still a big change.
It's what they call "non-trivial".
Maybe you're not getting what I mean by 'transaction'.
I don't mean a 'sale of a commodity' - I mean 'an interaction with the server'.
the 'transaction' is not something bolted on to the game afterwards.
It is absolutely CORE to how Elite is built.
In your example, the 700T trade DOES count more than a 1T trade. It just doesn't count 700 times more. Profit is one of the gears I am talking about.
Maybe they can come up with better gears and "wheels within wheels", but the 'transaction' drives progress in all aspects of the game. All parts. What you are asking to change is maybe not on the scale of migrating to a new graphics engine.
But it's still a big change.
It's what they call "non-trivial".
Maybe you're not getting what I mean by 'transaction'.
I don't mean a 'sale of a commodity' - I mean 'an interaction with the server'.
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Pretty much this.
Simply doing a count of the number of profit (or loss) transactions is pocket change for a database query. Inspecting each entry for the profit (or loss) and multiplying it by the volume, and summing all that together... compared to a simple count is *massively* more resource intensive (orders of magnitude, even).
Compound that with the fact this is just one aspect of a system which (purportedly) tracks *everything* in the universe, you've got a big problem.
There are ways to fix this sort of thing, but none that I could think of that probably wouldn't involve taking the whole universe down for days at least, maybe even weeks (depending on how much data they track).
There's problems like this elsewhere too... trading isn't simply the only thing to suffer "transactional" issues
- Missions: Why does a "Donation" mission for 50,000cr give the same influence effect as a 1,000,000cr one? (A: Because it's the number of missions you do, not what they contain that matters)
- Destroying ships: Why does destroying a "Harmless" ship have the same impact (on the BGS) as destroying an Elite ship? (A: Number of ships you kill is what matters)
... and many more.