Explain the BGS

[Dommarraa]

...or at least how you think it should be working.

Pre 3.3, with a stable BGS process, and daily Influence updates it was just about reasonably possible to work out what did what.
Now with 3.3, the BGS has changed significantly in many unknown ways, there appear to be a good selection of bugs, and added to the fact that there is no longer a relative measure, just a binary Victory/Loss value, it is IMPOSSIBLE to work out how to play the BGS game that we knew(ish) and loved.

If you could tell us in more detail what actions and missions are supposed to work in what situations, and the supposed relative strength of these actions, it would remove the growing sense of despair among the active BGS participants. We might be able to stop reporting bugs which are in fact working-as-intended, and identify with evidence actual bugs without us being vague and confused.

No, not the general statements from the 3.3 Livestreams, some actual detail.
If you would like a list of questions, I can write a LONG list of Bugs, Suspected Bugs, Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns.

An engaged conversation on the BGS sub Forum, a dedicated Live Stream, or accepting a document to respond to would be just dandy.

Thankyou.

 

[Factabulous]

Yup - 100% agree. And if you can explain the status bar differences between systems (and the hatching!)

 

[Screemonster]

explain the status bar differences between systems (and the hatching!)

god, this. Giving us a nice fancy bar graph with sections on it is one thing, but not actually giving us any information on what these sections actually mean or why they might be different sizes in different systems makes the information... well, it's not really information at this point is it?

 

[Stigbob]

I think the shift away from giving us BGS guides is to prevent simplistic min-maxing. We need to work the new system out via trial and error, there's now a lot more info available via the allegiance tab of the squadron screen so its not like we are in the dark.

I'm sure there will be new guides up and running soon for those who want them.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Trouble is that the New BGS™ suffers from what the Powerplay system is afflicted with, that is overlapping complexity that is very hard to explain or conceptualise in a simple manner.

The old system, despite its simplistic flaws was about the right level of complexity to grasp and explain. The new one? Good luck. I have two systems I test BGS stuff on, one in the bubble (the 'live' one) and one totally isolated. Both are giving results that would give Schroedingers Cat a run for its money.

 

[Dommarraa]

I think the shift away from giving us BGS guides is to prevent simplistic min-maxing. We need to work the new system out via trial and error, there's now a lot more info available via the allegiance tab of the squadron screen so its not like we are in the dark.

I'm sure there will be new guides up and running soon for those who want them.

But the new system clearly doesnt work as intended, and we cant correctly report bugs without knowing how it is supposed to work.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I think the shift away from giving us BGS guides is to prevent simplistic min-maxing. We need to work the new system out via trial and error, there's now a lot more info available via the allegiance tab of the squadron screen so its not like we are in the dark.

I'm sure there will be new guides up and running soon for those who want them.

The trouble is we can't make guides as we don't know whats a bug, whats working and what is expected. Its like taking a beach and trying to reconstruct the rocks the sand came from.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I agree that giving out the exact numbers would be a bit too much.

But there's a lot of things at the moment where it's not at all clear how things are supposed to work at all.

Some things are clearly bugs: Ratraii has had locked influence for over a week despite the system having no conflicts at all and hundreds of player traffic.

Some things are almost certainly bugs: invasion wars don't seem to end properly

But a lot of things it's very hard to determine whether what's going on is a bug or an intended change: nothing in the livestreams or patch notes or other descriptions really seems to explain why Jaques' influence in Colonia has stabilised at a much lower level than in 3.2 ... but that doesn't mean it's a bug.
(If - as people have found in more controlled tests - exploration data is having no effect in some circumstances in 3.3, then that would be a plausible cause. Is that actually what's happening here? No idea.)

So I've bug reported the first two ... but in terms of *playing* the BGS (as opposed to *watching* it, which is what I do) the third is probably the most serious and where "bug or feature" is a very important question.

 

[Falco75]

In my opinion,
the main problem is that NOTHING works as expected.

The same actions in game bring different results with no reason.

Playing for other factions to give benefit to your faction? Thanks, I'm out of this for long now - until FDEV fixes the mess has made up. The best they can do is restoring the BGS to work as before the patch - the issues are affecting ALL the aspects of the new BGS and in my opinion will be unfixable.

 

[Rob At Work]

Ask Walt

 

[Schlack]

No need to explain it, squish the damn bugs. Then we can have the fun of figuring it out.

 

[m0rl0ck]

I think the shift away from giving us BGS guides is to prevent simplistic min-maxing.

My guess would be that everybody hates writing documentation. Its no fun and if everyone knows how its supposed to work, you just get more bug reports.

 

[_Flin_]

Complexity is hard.
Complex system with bugs is impossible.

 

[Jane Turner]

Complexity is hard.
Complex system with bugs is impossible.

I can model the BGS perfectly simply by a random number from -10 to 10 applied to each transaction from 3.2

 

[Sysmon]

The trouble is we can't make guides as we don't know whats a bug, whats working and what is expected. Its like taking a beach and trying to reconstruct the rocks the sand came from.

Ooooh provenance analysis. Try that!

S

 

[Riverside]

I'd like a key that tells me/reminds me what the coloured bars mean in the game, and I miss the system summary in local news. Generally I am interested in an overview of the system first, with detail on each faction (already supplied) very much a secondary priority.

While a FAQ would be helpful to distinguish bugs from intended features personally I'm happier for the working to remain inside the black box as long as they can be worked out with experience.

I'm also finding the lack of influence change during a war to be unintuitive. If I am familiar with the system & have a vested interest I can stay on top of it but if I am passing through it is no longer as obvious to me how the war is progressing.

I don't use external tools btw, only the information available in-game.

 

[Stigbob]

I'd like a key that tells me/reminds me what the coloured bars mean in the game, and I miss the system summary in local news. Generally I am interested in an overview of the system first, with detail on each faction (already supplied) very much a secondary priority.

While a FAQ would be helpful to distinguish bugs from intended features personally I'm happier for the working to remain inside the black box as long as they can be worked out with experience.

I'm also finding the lack of influence change during a war to be unintuitive. If I am familiar with the system & have a vested interest I can stay on top of it but if I am passing through it is no longer as obvious to me how the war is progressing.

I don't use external tools btw, only the information available in-game.

There's a big old progress bar in the squadron tab goes from total loss to total victory which shows you how wars are going. Also influence does change, its just hidden fog of war and all that.

 

[Schlack]

There's a big old progress bar in the squadron tab goes from total loss to total victory which shows you how wars are going. Also influence does change, its just hidden fog of war and all that.

Not all BGS work is directly related to the faction aligned to the squadron.

 

[Dommarraa]

No need to explain it, squish the damn bugs. Then we can have the fun of figuring it out.

While in principle, this is a worthy statement:
1) We cant work it out when it is bugged
2) They cant find the bugs without us knowing what to report
3) BGS isnt a pleasant intellectual aside any more like in the days of the Mercs. People are relying on it for their game play.
4) Maybe the fun should be in playing the game, not working out how to play the game

 

[Stigbob]

Not all BGS work is directly related to the faction aligned to the squadron.

I think there may also have been some limits imposed on players trying to kick over sandcastles without having their own, which seems very sensible to me.