ANNOUNCEMENT Game Balancing Pt.3

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Like I said. Read it again.

So you're saying that all these pvpers crying out for open-only are also in pg/solo hiding or what? You guys all only want people who don't want to pvp? I don't understand. Go fight each other. You all want to pvp, you all want to be in open, you're all on her talking about it. It has to be that its such an obvious solution that you folks just overlooked it.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

That's a bit different, no? It doesn't say they get let in with just the dangerous rank.

The original point was nothing to do with Founders world. We need threaded conversations here to stop this confusion:

This was the conversation:

Combat rank is the only one actually reflecting the Elite in it's name. You can get elite explorer and elite trader in a matter of a few days of playtime. My vote would be on increasing the amounts needed to achieve Elite in both of those, leaving Combat as it is.

No.
You should consider yourself an Elite member of the PIlots Federation Inner Circle - which opens its gates at the Dangerous Rank
Anything above Dangerous Rank is not a matter of skill, but a matter of perseverence

Wait what? Where did you get that from?

David Braben.

"It's essentially a time serving thing, rather than an ability test. So if you postulate that there were such a real thing; every El Presidente or whatever and he want's his daughter taken to somewhere dangerous. They are going to want her to be taken by a pilot who is an Elite pilot. So imagine there are masses of people with contracts going out for jobs to be done, where they want an Elite pilot, most of those Elite pilots know full well that people who have reached the ranks of Dangerous and Deadly are just as good as them at flying. They just haven't served the time."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYhoFYIWmw&feature=youtu.be&t=7m57s

The subject wasn't about Shinrata. It was about skill. David Braben stated that the Elite rank is not about skill, but time served.

 

[Andrix]

To be honest Bruce, I've hypothesised that as part of "Odyssey's Release" The Bank of Zaonce get's destroyed by the Thargoids, and EVERYONE goes back to 100cr and a Sidewinder - Well maybe not that extreme, but maybe a 'liveable' credit reset, maybe 100,000,000 or so for those with a balance > 1B

If credits are stolen, I will definitely delete my last account in the game.

 

[BODY_BAG]

I agree with all of these points. On the Combat rank issue, people refer to it as a grind because they make it their mission to get it as soon as possible rather than passively through general play (which may be how it was designed, hence the high requirement). So the question is which method we should balance it around.

CQC Elite is unrealistic as it stands and the whole content probably needs a total revamp before the ranks are considered.

bruh, I'm quad elite... you got an issue with me and some folks? Unrealistic? No, just takes time A LOT
if you decide to change the requirements for cqc elite, fine. It takes 3-4 months minimum if you really good at it doing hours everyday and for the less competent pilot's 6 months to a year or more and i can agree that's way to much in comparison to the others. however if you make it easy mode in comparison I really think the people that are elite in cqc should get some kind of palpable compensation. the time and effort spent should mean something. why cqc was made the way it was to begin with should never have been a thing. the people that made cqc obviously had some kind of issues and never played the mode to elite

 

[Rebel Yell]

Payouts for non gold/silver/palladium missions have dropped too...

 

[Deleted member 192138]

With this lively discussion about BGS as a result of combat, I'm wondering if CMs are able to provide insight as to whether or not the influence effect of bounty hunting has been balanced to reflect these new changes - especially considering the specific and targeted negative effect on anarchy factions, which get no similar buff in response. Which is to say, suddenly everyone is bounty hunting and taking massacre missions which attack anarchy factions and damage their influence. But anarchy factions (despite being naturally combative, as they always enter conflicts as war) do not get any similar benefits from the combat balance changes (except for reward on combat bonds). Certainly there's no incentive to do missions for anarchy factions, the big paying massacre missions target them, so all ambient activity is driven to attack them. If the influence per credit of bounties remains the same, given the current changes, that's a huge boon for non-anarchy factions and a huge disadvantage for anarchies.

@Bruce Garrido any insight?

 

[JonSatriani]

I think the best example was when I was flipping hip 14211 to anarchy and saw a damaged anaconda flying around the system a few times during the wars - someone kept spamming bountyhunting for the third-place faction and triggering constant wars with the anarchists (in second place) to stall them, then bountyhunting for the controlling faction when the anarchists were inf-locked.

One day on my way from the station to a CZ (I was still allied with the controlling faction as all the wars hade been for 2nd place) I saw that conda in supercruise. They dropped into the nav. I followed them. Found them fighting pirates. LUCKY ME, I HAPPEN TO BE FLYING A WARSHIP RIGHT NOW. Blew them out of the sky and the bountyhunting stopped. After that I suddenly had less resistance on my next shot for control. Odd, that.

I sure as hell wasn't there to gank, it was a purely opportunistic "hang on a minute, that guy's opposing me and I'm kitted out to deal with that".

If I heard more stories like this, and read the local chat in Deciat less, I'd probably play in open a lot more.

 

[Deleted member 192138]

Certainly agreed there - and a lot of the rebalancing of the BGS that goes on has been to nerf things which were absolutely fine (beneficial, even!) to the passing traffic background part of it, but could easily be abused by players specifically setting out to do them.

On the other hand, that background passing player traffic does itself play a crucial role in balancing the political conflict wargame side of the BGS. In a system with no other player traffic, a lone player can "win" a BGS war against another faction with very little effort. In a system with heavy player traffic, that traffic provides an equilibrium which players making intentional changes (on attack, defense, retreat and expansion) have to actively work against even if no-one else particularly cares about the system.

So pushing it more towards a pure wargame would I think lose a lot of the existing depth and manipulation of that inertia that "neutral" passing traffic provides, and end up making more systems easier to control - which is hardly what a wargame should be: in the absence of coordinated player opposition, you need a bit of background "terrain" to work with, and it may as well be generated by other players than by hand-of-FDev.

I probably wouldn't object to some arrangement where Open got a bonus during War and Election states only, where the passing traffic effect is already much less significant anyway - though even then I think it's a case of "be careful what you wish for": pad-blocking, healing beams, short carrier-station supercruise hops, carefully combining mode-switching with the exact definition of "a BGS transaction" ... it could easily end up being incredibly unfun to fight against a group that would rather be in PG, even if you can see them.

I generally think the passing traffic effecting background status is a good thing about BGS, which is why I'd much rather see open weighted than open only. The intensity of effect that passing traffic has can be very significant in player hotspot regions - especially near to Shinrarta.

Like I said. Read it again.

Ah, so you re-wrote it entirely. Maybe you could have said so, instead of pretending you hadn't. Which is generally considered a disingenuous way to engage in a discussion.

 

[Screemonster]

If I heard more stories like this, and read the local chat in Deciat less, I'd probably play in open a lot more.

Once you step outside of Deciat and Shinrarta, all the boogyman stories about open and the need for extremely heavy-handed measures to curb ganking just seem a little silly. Everyone rages about people ganking in "high sec" because the two most notable ganking hotspots happen to be high-sec systems. The only other places that regularly pop up are... well, places that always feature highly on the traffic report.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Certainly agreed there - and a lot of the rebalancing of the BGS that goes on has been to nerf things which were absolutely fine (beneficial, even!) to the passing traffic background part of it, but could easily be abused by players specifically setting out to do them.

On the other hand, that background passing player traffic does itself play a crucial role in balancing the political conflict wargame side of the BGS. In a system with no other player traffic, a lone player can "win" a BGS war against another faction with very little effort. In a system with heavy player traffic, that traffic provides an equilibrium which players making intentional changes (on attack, defense, retreat and expansion) have to actively work against even if no-one else particularly cares about the system.

So pushing it more towards a pure wargame would I think lose a lot of the existing depth and manipulation of that inertia that "neutral" passing traffic provides, and end up making more systems easier to control - which is hardly what a wargame should be: in the absence of coordinated player opposition, you need a bit of background "terrain" to work with, and it may as well be generated by other players than by hand-of-FDev.

I probably wouldn't object to some arrangement where Open got a bonus during War and Election states only, where the passing traffic effect is already much less significant anyway - though even then I think it's a case of "be careful what you wish for": pad-blocking, healing beams, short carrier-station supercruise hops, carefully combining mode-switching with the exact definition of "a BGS transaction" ... it could easily end up being incredibly unfun to fight against a group that would rather be in PG, even if you can see them.

There is no need to change the BGS, just utilize Powerplay better so they sit as complimentary opposites.

 

[Dr. Nagi]

The original point was nothing to do with Founders world. We need threaded conversations here to stop this confusion:

This was the conversation:









The subject wasn't about Shinrata. It was about skill. David Braben stated that the Elite rank is not about skill, but time served.

Ah, well. Derailed that a bit. I was mainly about the "inner circle opens it's gates at the dangerous rank" which I thought not to be true, as the elite rank is what gives access to shinrarta (where the inner circle resides), not the dangerous rank (which would exclude explorers and traders, for that matter).
On the note of Elite not being representative for skill... now with the changeit is a bit more equalized: High skill gets rewarded more, but you can still obtain it via "serving a long time". It's just being more time now since the fastest method becomes slower, so it'll be as fast as it was before thargoid scouts got introduced.

 

[CMDR HollowPointPC]

Hopefully! I found this post very interesting: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...nishment-a-proposed-holistic-approach.559839/

The post is interesting and I haven't read the entire thread yet, but ultimately I'd suggest the proposed methods are a bit too 'in-depth' and complicated for my liking. I'd simplify as follows:

CMDRs who gank another CMDR, should receive noteriety that doesn't go away and bounties on those CMDRs should be unlimited, making them a bigger and bigger target the more they gank.
Once a CMDR ganks someone, their bounty goes up on a new 'PVP Mission Board' (Or gets added to the standard mission board, but is clearly marked as a PVP mission). The payouts need to be high, because the difficulty is very high, but it would provide a rewarding gameplay loop for all concerned. Gankers gonna gank, they're not just bored, they're arseholes and that isn't going to change, so we may as well make a play loop out of it. This way, they get to choose their 'criminal' gameplay path and others who want to 'avenge the fallen' get to kill them and get rewarded heftily. The player has an 'all points bulletin' placed on them by the mission, so their location is constantly updated whenever a CMDR or NPC is in the same space as them, so regardless of where they jump to or hide, other players can find them. The higher the noteriety and bounty, the more NPCs they meet and the closer they are tracked.

This doesn't require an 'opt in' system, or for the mechanics of the existing game to be massively overhauled, the opt-in system is already there with 'report crimes against me'. For BGS and Powerplay, there can be a simple opt in here too, to prevent players getting massive bounties or noteriety when they are actually engaging in powerplay or BGS, rather than just ganking. If the CMDR doing the attacking has signed up to a PVP mission to 'Massacre Squadron Pilots' in the name of BGS, they can do so inside CZ's (Which really should be open only anyway, it's a ridiculous notion that you should be able to drop to Solo and just grind CZ's to undermine a squadron in a MMP game...), because entering the CZ means you've consented to that play type.

Ultimately, to sum up:
1. Gankers (Easily identified by killing a player who has crimes turned on AND is outside a CZ) get persistent (until death) noteriety and ever increasing bounties, all of which is claimable by any player who kills them and both noteriety and bounty in this case, should be attached to the CMDR, not their ship)
2. PVP Missions to kill known 'Gankers' with high mission rewards (Plus the bounty payout) which should always be wing shareable.
3. Open ONLY CZ's where players can engage in PVP as much as they want, provided they have taken a mission and the player they're killing has the affiliated squadron tag (Although, this should probably only happen where it's squadron faction vs squadron faction and not squadron faction vs PVE faction, as gankers would just take a PVE faction mission just to kill CMDRs and annoy people, which defeats the point.)

I think this gives those who want to be outlaws and PVPers the opportunity to still gank, but have to pay the price for it, which is being hunted across the galaxy and the game helping their hunters to find them, while giving those who fancy avenging the fallen a chance to go kill the ganker and it gives squadrons the opportunity to actually duke it out over a system, rather than one or both squadrons fighting NPCs in Solo. All while leaving the existing BGS mechanics in place for wars where there's none, or only one player faction in the war.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

With this lively discussion about BGS as a result of combat, I'm wondering if CMs are able to provide insight as to whether or not the influence effect of bounty hunting has been balanced to reflect these new changes

My understanding from people who have tested is that the influence effect reflects the "kill message" number, still, not the actual payout.

However, the greater numbers of bounties being collected as a result are having very noticeable effects on influence levels ... and not just for crushing anarchies.

Definitely agreed that once the credit balancing pass has gone through and player activity has had a chance to settle into a new equilibrium, the BGS will need a bit of a tweak to the relative values of each activity: my impression at the moment is that bounties (and the related missions) are having slightly too much effect on it at the moment.

 

[Brrokk]

Greetings Commanders,

Welcome to the third and final set of game balancing changes this side of 2021. In the new year, we'll turn our attention to other aspects of the game that you've raised in your suggestions and feedback. As promised, we're making some further balancing changes to other elements of combat which can be expected alongside a GalNet article later today:

Combat Bonds
High-end NPC combat bonds will provide many more credits, seeing an increase from around 80,000Cr to 400,000Cr. Similar to the recently updated bounties values, the HUD will not reflect the new figure after a kill, but the transaction tab will. These may (rarely) appear to be issued by the Pilot's Federation.

Anti-Xeno Combat
Thargoid combat bonds will provide 4x as many credits as before.

The experience gained from Thargoids which contributes to Combat rank has been re-scaled. This means that Thargoid scouts will provide less than before, however each interceptor will offer more than the last, all the way up to Hydras. The exact amount earned will vary according to the number of pilots who contribute to the kill as well as their various combat ranks.

Delivery Missions
The increase in minable commodity prices has had an unexpectedly large effect on delivery missions due to compounding multipliers, allowing large numbers of credits to be earned with minimal risk and effort. To re-focus the earnings on the effort made, the rewards for these have been changed so that the distance travelled and quantity transported has a larger effect on the pay. Payouts remain relatively high and will be monitored for any further necessary adjustments.

Thank you as always for your replies and insights. Your feedback continues to be invaluable and will drive the further changes in the new year. In the meantime, let us know what you think about the adjustments above!

o7

All good, except that I think x4 for Thargoids is still on the low side.

 

[JonSatriani]

Once you step outside of Deciat and Shinrarta, all the boogyman stories about open and the need for extremely heavy-handed measures to curb ganking just seem a little silly. Everyone rages about people ganking in "high sec" because the two most notable ganking hotspots happen to be high-sec systems. The only other places that regularly pop up are... well, places that always feature highly on the traffic report.

It's a shame the conversation is so often dominated by extreme positions. "Gankers ruin everything, ban them all" vs "It's a game, will gank noobs if I want, git gud or play in open" is of no interest to me, but stories like yours fit in nicely with my idea of how real people exist and interact in the ED galaxy. Thanks for sharing

 

[Sardoc]

BGS is already PvP.. it is the exact definition of PvP where two or more opposing players are involved.
It provides fantastic opportunity for intrigue, diplomacy, aggression etc. But it does need a balance, not everyone is scared of open. Let players choose and reward these that choose a more dangerous path!

But again that would only work if the xbox, ps4 and pc bgs was kept separate as they are already invisible. thats why its absurd to force people to open for more reward etc, ESPECIALLY in bgs.

 

[EidLeWeise]

The experience gained from Thargoids which contributes to Combat rank has been re-scaled. This means that Thargoid scouts will provide less than before, however each interceptor will offer more than the last, all the way up to Hydras. The exact amount earned will vary according to the number of pilots who contribute to the kill as well as their various combat ranks.

I think that a large part of the reason why people farmed scouts is that they were a reliable location to be able to actually rank Combat once you get to deadly. How feasible would some 'Extreme Haz Res' be, where we can find Deadly and Elite Pirates trying to steal our Painite / Void Opals etc? That was there's still places to go, but we're not just killing Scout after Scout.

Eid

 

[Adalphage]

You dont understand how simple it would be. Just make the solo / pg actions have 0,1 modifier for BGS. How does it changes other game modes? Everything is the same but states are not modified by those missions.

@Adalphage it's nice to hear your measured response and I think that would be a start. I however disagree that BGS for solo and PG would be 'killed off' by a balance pass. A small but significant gain for an open only option would most likely not be taken up by the majority of cmdrs. But it would make the game fairer.

Good points. But what will prevent people to just add to the block list those who kill them and contuinuing making BGS, now in open, but without any enemy on their sight? It is not a "just do that" thing, it is a major overhaul of some game mechanics and tools.

 

[CMDR Yates]

In terms of AX rewards, it's a great step. Though I think a bit more nuance in the AX bounties might be even better to represent the time and difficulty investment in fighting each of the different types.

Perhaps...

Cyclops: 5m (2.5 times previous)

Basilisk: 20m (three-and-a-bit times)

Medusa: 50m (five times)

Hydra: 100-150m (6.66-10x)

...would be a better curve?

 

[Souvarine]

Great work Frontier! It's so, so good to see feedback taken on board and quickly actioned. Bravo