Elite Dangerous - Thargoid Counterstrike Rebalance

[Paul_Crowther]

Greetings Commanders,

We have released a server side update today to address a balancing issues with the Thargoid war.

Previously, Thargoid pod rescues would pushback every Titan system marked as "Counterstrike" around the Titan that abducted them. This was intended as a highly powerful method of pushing back the Thargoids control of systems. However, due to the size of the Thargoid controlled regions around the remaining 2 Titans, the number of systems marked as "Counterstrikes" is abnormally high, resulting in pod rescues being more powerful than intended. This is effecting the balance of the Thargoid Titan war.

In order to bring this activity back in line with other Thargoid War activities, a deployment has been made server side which caps the number of counterstrike systems affected by this mechanic to 15; i.e. the furthest 15 counterstrike systems which have not already hit 100% score will be affected.

Thank you for your support, only two Titans remain and we look forward to your efforts to take them down!

 

[aymerix]

Thank you for this information, which we are sharing with Medicorp rescuers. o7
#ForTheMedic

 

[Luriant]

We have the same progression? around 50K pods to conquer 15 systems, because its a lot of work to obtain this numbers.

I have 166 trips doing this, and Im far from this target with 40 days working.

The whole Raijin's pods count are only 30K, in MULTIPLE weeks, so we lost 33% in thursday. Because part of those systems are outside from spire effect.

If we are Sisyphus rolling the boulder up, to have most of our progress deleted by the thursday maintenance, improve the pod effect in those systems to reach some decent number, so our work will be enough to have meaningful progress, even if one of the system is close to the titan. Now our only chance is work for 4 weeks to conquer 15 systems (if lucky, because AX players expect a 4-6 weeks for Raijin assault, thats only 1 attempt), or do other activity more focused in the current commuity plans.

And did you fix the problem with spires under counterstrike effect, that are safe from pod progression? I want that Spires can't be Counterstrike target, because have his own takeover mechanic, instead having 14 Counterstrikes and 1 immune Spire.

Another question: Max 15 CounterStrike systems? or Exactly 15 Counterstrike systems?, the second is useful in Cocijo, the closer spire is in 15th position, the final fight, unless we end our previous expansion in the 16th system, will be a cliff of pure combat without spire help. At least "exactly 15 CS" will give us the option to stockpile pods for a final rescue, if the only pod rescue we can have in the whole Cocijo campaign, having some moment that this activity could be a superior approach to normal AX combat.

 

[LadyLucida]

Operation Thunderstruck was too powerful it seems... No matter! We still will rescue every last person since it's the right thing to do. Almost reaching our new goal of 250,000 people rescued! We currently have rescued over 195,000 people since Taranis was vulnerable.
If you'd like to help feel free to reach out! O7

 

[CMDR_PeteJustice]

Anyone else unable to transfer items from carrier to ship since this update? I'm aware of the old bug where this happened and relogging made the cargo appear in the ship, but relogging now puts the cargo back in the carrier?

 

[Stukjes]

I'd love to be able to place a buy order for bio-storage pods at my carrier.

 

[Kira Goto]

Well, so I guess Raijin is getting another week or two more to live than it would have with all the counterstrikes affected at once.

Should still have a decent effect as the week rolls on anyway.

 

[DemiserofD]

Greetings Commanders,

We have released a server side update today to address a balancing issues with the Thargoid war.

Previously, Thargoid pod rescues would pushback every Titan system marked as "Counterstrike" around the Titan that abducted them. This was intended as a highly powerful method of pushing back the Thargoids control of systems. However, due to the size of the Thargoid controlled regions around the remaining 2 Titans, the number of systems marked as "Counterstrikes" is abnormally high, resulting in pod rescues being more powerful than intended. This is effecting the balance of the Thargoid Titan war.

In order to bring this activity back in line with other Thargoid War activities, a deployment has been made server side which caps the number of counterstrike systems affected by this mechanic to 15; i.e. the furthest 15 counterstrike systems which have not already hit 100% score will be affected.

Thank you for your support, only two Titans remain and we look forward to your efforts to take them down!

Seems like a bit of an overreaction tbh. Pod rescues are only really powerful on week 1, and maybe week 2. Even then though, there's a lot of inner system counterstrikes that are functionally impossible to complete.

If you want to slow us down, why not do it by having the Thargoids do something different, instead, rather than nerfing us directly? You know, increase the number of invasions, or add more alerts, or something like that. People would actually enjoy that more, as well, since that's the exact sort of content people like doing.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

increase the number of invasions, or add more alerts

At this stage in the war, that specifically probably would make very little difference - Raijin won't be maintaining a perimeter able to place any significant number for much longer and there's no point in having a budget for ten if there's only two targets ... and Cocijo can't sustainably place many more than it already is either even without further suppression of it.

I can only assume that they really need Raijin to survive one extra week for some reason.

 

[aRJay]

At this stage in the war, that specifically probably would make very little difference - Raijin won't be maintaining a perimeter able to place any significant number for much longer and there's no point in having a budget for ten if there's only two targets ... and Cocijo can't sustainably place many more than it already is either even without further suppression of it.

I can only assume that they really need Raijin to survive one extra week for some reason.

Well PP2 has been delayed...

 

[Neestar]

Anyone else unable to transfer items from carrier to ship since this update? I'm aware of the old bug where this happened and relogging made the cargo appear in the ship, but relogging now puts the cargo back in the carrier?

i had to relog not once but twice , and do the filter clicky trick, just to get my 'silver' and 'aluminium' amounts to transfer INTO my carrier ( from my ship's cargo )

However i just chalked it up to some type of standard de-sync situation , but i dunno why ship-to-carrier transfers are so wonky tbqh ( Would be very interested to hear a behind-the-code type 'Dev Diary' from official EliteD developer sometime about it )

 

[Kira Goto]

At this stage in the war, that specifically probably would make very little difference - Raijin won't be maintaining a perimeter able to place any significant number for much longer and there's no point in having a budget for ten if there's only two targets ... and Cocijo can't sustainably place many more than it already is either even without further suppression of it.

I can only assume that they really need Raijin to survive one extra week for some reason.

Maybe their “Thargoid retaliation” that was hinted at needs two Titans to be (kind of) alive and isn’t ready yet. Best reason I could imagine aside from the delayed Powerplay, unless the GalNet which said it was coming months ago when (after) Hadad exploded was just fluff.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

In order to bring this activity back in line with other Thargoid War activities, a deployment has been made server side which caps the number of counterstrike systems affected by this mechanic to 15; i.e. the furthest 15 counterstrike systems which have not already hit 100% score will be affected.

Following that change, then:

1. What is the purpose now of having empty Counterstrike systems within the outer 15?
2. In line with the new Spire efficacy at any time of the week since update 18.06, ought there to be 15 Counterstrikes at all times, with more appearing as present ones are completed?

 

[Stukjes]

In order to bring this activity back in line with other Thargoid War activities, a deployment has been made server side which caps the number of counterstrike systems affected by this mechanic to 15; i.e. the furthest 15 counterstrike systems which have not already hit 100% score will be affected.

With the new limit of 15 systems I feel like that people who only contribute through pod retrieval should also get the materials reward when the counter-strike system reaches 100%

 

[EdzUp]

I would simply cause the Thargoid activity to increase rather than nerfing the player base

 

[AlSki]

Sorry just reading this again, and although my first reaction was that this would slow down our efforts, I wonder if the intent here is actually to focus them.

caps the number of counterstrike systems affected by this mechanic to 15; i.e. the furthest 15 counterstrike systems which have not already hit 100% score will be affected.

which means that player actions will be focused into those 15 systems and avoid when the effects are simply spread out

so we lost 33% in thursday. Because part of those systems are outside from spire effect

???

 

[Luriant]

Sorry just reading this again, and although my first reaction was that this would slow down our efforts, I wonder if the intent here is actually to focus them.

which means that player actions will be focused into those 15 systems and avoid when the effects are simply spread out

???

We work, thousdand of pods, and reach 40%

AX Community don't go here for the remaining 60%.

Thursday, all the systems lose 33%, we are back to 7%, most of this work was useless. Same happened with tissues, and the community work hard, selling tissues to Fleet Carriers.... but pods can't be sold, so we are alone filling our fleet carriers. I gave 4B to another pod rescuer for his Fleet Carrier, because is a great pilot, but did big trips with a fuel scoop.

 

[DemiserofD]

Honestly, I'm really struggling to see this as anything close to a good approach. You design new content, leave it unused for months, finally change it to be something near useful, and when people finally start actually doing it on any sort of scale, you instantly Nerf it! I virtually guarantee this will kill the budding interest in this activity.

While at the same time you just keep on spawning new spires? The content people have been doing repetitively for like a year? If you really wanted to slow things down, why not just let the spires expire? Cocijo only has a handful of them, and they will be almost used up by the time we get there.

Honestly, the more I think about this, the more ed off I get. Someone needs to get f-dev a book on dming and how to avoid railroading your players.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

AX Community don't go here for the remaining 60%.

39 Control systems were cleared, of which 35 were around T. Raijin, 34 plus one Spire site—it was a quite strong week, and both Operation Thunderstruck and the AX community did much!

Now, not all of those cleared systems were Counterstrike systems, because not all of the outermost Spire-affected systems were Counterstrike, so there were some gaps to push through which were not supported by Titan rescues. Frontier also increased the Control strength twice during that, of which one increase was after all the Bio-storage was delivered.

If there is a point to be made, it could be that the Titan rescues affected many more systems than everyone else could possibly have completed and therefore a new 15-system limit may not be required, but I suggest not being so quick to blame purported inaction!

 

[DemiserofD]

The 'problem' is the wombo-combo of spires and counterstrike pod effect. Basically, the more systems you complete with the spires, the more systems pods effect, and the more systems pods effect, the more systems spires can complete. This continues in a recursive cycle; if you get 10% across all systems then you increase your number of completed systems by 11%, but if you get 20% you increase by 25%, and if you get 50% you increase by 100%.

This is a big part of why the spread effect is appealing in the first place, mind you; the idea that each additional pod is worth more than the last encourages players to really go after it, and is why last week was so crazy. Once we got past the 33% threshold there really was no reason to stop.

This change will likely return us back to pre-stocking as much as possible. The new ideal is basically to just crush the first 15 systems ASAP(to save the Spire crews as much effort as possible) and then stop and wait for the next week, as we can't do early work on the deeper systems anymore, they can't cross that 33% threshold, and so any effort will just be lost by the end of the week.

Unfortunately, this is much less accessible to the average player, as it requires a fleet carrier.