It's a bit frustrating that a CG can fail to give ANY rewards, at no fault to any individual player.

[DemiserofD]

I get that CGs are supposed to have consequences, but shouldn't those consequences be for the game as a whole, not the individual players?

As a player who wanted the Enzyme Missile Rack, I played quite hard over Easter week to get into the top 10%; just about as hard as I've played for previous CGs, all things considered. I was solidly in the top 10%, and actually contributed substantially MORE than most 10%ers from the opposing CG.

But because most players didn't want the missile rack, and because Fdev chose to set the goal very, very high, I'll most likely end up with no reward. Not because I did anything wrong, but simply because the design of the CG didn't allow me a chance at success. And that was with trying to get other players to contribute, propagandizing, etc. It just wasn't possible, not when most people were against them on a moral and practical level. Most people have no use for an Enzyme rack, I get that. But why should their choices mean I shouldn't get it?

Would anyone support changing the material rewards in the future, to eliminate the tier 1 requirement? It seems silly to require an arbitrary group achievement for personal investment to become worthwhile.

 

[sinkarma]

Sadly I wanted the enzyme rack too. But cause of work and irl stuff I only contributed a little to the cg :/
Its a bummer no one got it. But at the same time I hope at a later stage we will get the engineered enzyme rack as a techbroker unlock

 

[Bigmaec]

It's a community goal, and the community decided the Enzyme Rack isn't worth it.

Similar happened when we got the advanced missile rack / multicannon CG, but that was later redone by offering
the advanced rack via techbrokers. Maybe this will happen here too.

 

[DemiserofD]

It's a community goal, and the community decided the Enzyme Rack isn't worth it.

Similar happened when we got the advanced missile rack / multicannon CG, but that was later redone by offering
the advanced rack via techbrokers. Maybe this will happen here too.

That's a silly way to phrase it. If they have a CG where it offers a PA with +200% damage, Range, and -50% Capacitor Drain, but set the goal to be 2 trillion bonds for tier one, is it 'the community deciding' that they don't want it when they fail even with 35000 players contributing?

This is honestly even worse than that, though. Everyone could have predicted that the Imperials would have the advantage with this one, so the NMLA were already predisposed to lose...but because they set this CG up this way, it will have echoing effects for later CGs. Players are going to look at CGs where they might support the obvious losing side, and then look at this CG where the losers got absolutely nothing, and preemptively decide it's not worth participating.

By not rewarding players now, they're directly hurting later community goals. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the next time they do something similar they see dramatically lower participation already, because...why bother? It's just a waste of time.

How's that for a 'Community' goal? One where one side of the community doesn't even show up?

 

[Bigmaec]

That's a silly way to phrase it. If they have a CG where it offers a PA with +200% damage, Range, and -50% Capacitor Drain, but set the goal to be 2 trillion bonds for tier one, is it 'the community deciding' that they don't want it when they fail even with 35000 players contributing?

This is honestly even worse than that, though. Everyone could have predicted that the Imperials would have the advantage with this one, so the NMLA were already predisposed to lose...but because they set this CG up this way, it will have echoing effects for later CGs. Players are going to look at CGs where they might support the obvious losing side, and then look at this CG where the losers got absolutely nothing, and preemptively decide it's not worth participating.

By not rewarding players now, they're directly hurting later community goals. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the next time they do something similar they see dramatically lower participation already, because...why bother? It's just a waste of time.

Maybe, just maybe FD didn't want the terrorist side to win a CG?
Maybe a superpower should have an advantage?

Of course the CG was unfair. The numbers show that both could've reached tier 1 easily if the community had wanted that.
It didn't, and why should it though? So that you can have your enzyme rack? shrugs

 

[DemiserofD]

Maybe, just maybe FD didn't want the terrorist side to win a CG?
Maybe a superpower should have an advantage?

Of course the CG was unfair. The numbers show that both could've reached tier 1 easily if the community had wanted that.
It didn't, and why should it though? So that you can have your enzyme rack? shrugs

I don't think anyone ever expected them to win. But there's honor in a valiant losing fight.

But...it's about more than that. If you offer the option, you expect some players to participate. But why should players bother participating if they're not going to get anything? What I personally intend to do in the future is wait until about day 4, see if victory is possible, and then jump in to get to the prize level. Only, if everyone does that, that means the CG never, ever reaches that stage in the first place. NOBODY participates, and it becomes pointless to even have the losing side at all.

The LAST thing you want to be doing is enforcing a sort of 'prisoners dilemma' on your players, when the much easier choice is simply doing anything else. Community Goals aren't exactly huge money-earners, after all. I was making about 5 million credits per hour hunting bonds, and I'm in a fully engineered large ship.

It's simply bad game design to make the players best option not to play.

 

[zimms]

I don't see an issue with the outcome. Obviously the community wasn't interested enough in those missiles. If there was absolutely no chance for a CG to fail it would be pretty boring too.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Locking certain in-game items / equipments behind forced gameplay it's typical of MMOs and it's even more typical when lack of ideas cripple developers' brains.

In this specific case, FDEVs picked up one of the most powerful PvP tools in the game and they litterally pushed it beyond it's already OP'd baseline. Offering it to players siding for the Empire is even more trivial, as that means forcing many players to throw their ethos (who said role-play) out of the window to get that rail.

Personally, I made a decision which I will probably regret: I disdaine the Empire, I am an enemy for the Empire and so I didn't fight for the Empire, even if I know I could never have the OP double engineered railgun, unless they put it on sale tru Tech Brokers.

Consistency.

 

[Viscera]

I fought for the nmla side that offered the rack.

I got up into top 25% with my efforts over the weekend.

I looked at the figures and knew it was unlikely to make tier 1 after my first day.

I still fought on for the nmla.

I got to shoot lots of imperial supporting players, and had a whale of a time jumping into every cz knowing i would likely be outnumbered by players on the opposing force, but fighting on anyway.

I had a blast.

No material rewards, other than a bucket load of smiles.

After my few rebuys, I probably broke even for credit rewards, at about 15million in bonds.

Should I of gone and joined the imperials, to guarantee a pop gun? And missed out on those combat experiances... No sir.

I had fun.

My thanks to all the Imperials who died or fled before my guns. It was a blast.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Quite frankly the Marlinists don't deserve anything anyway if the numbers on Inara are correct.

29 billion in bonds over 2500 people is around 12 million each. That was never going to be enough over the course of a week. That's a couple of hours each.

It failed because not enough effort was put in (this isn't aimed at individual players- it needed a group effort and there was no group).

 

[DemiserofD]

Quite frankly the Marlinists don't deserve anything anyway if the numbers on Inara are correct.

29 billion in bonds over 2500 people is around 12 million each. That was never going to be enough over the course of a week. That's a couple of hours each.

It failed because not enough effort was put in.

Those numbers are because, during the last ~2 days, it became clear the CG was unwinnable, at which point, contribution stagnated. Before that point, they were actually substantially(~20%) above the imperials on a per-player level.

But why bother keeping going when you're at ~8% with only 2 days remaining?

Unfortunately, people are going to come to the same conclusion about entire CGs in the future. If you know your CG isn't going to draw enough support to get to tier one, why would you bother? Only, next time they'll start not bothering at day one, not day six.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Those numbers are because, during the last ~2 days, it became clear the CG was unwinnable, at which point, contribution stagnated. Before that point, they were actually substantially(~20%) above the imperials on a per-player level.

But why bother keeping going when you're at ~8% with only 2 days remaining?

Unfortunately, people are going to come to the same conclusion about entire CGs in the future. If you know your CG isn't going to draw enough support to get to tier one, why would you bother? Only, next time they'll start not bothering at day one, not day six.

Which means players deemed the enzyme missiles to not be worth the effort. It's not hard to get to tier 1 and this is the only CG I can ever remember failing due to not hitting it.

 

[DemiserofD]

Which means players deemed the enzyme missiles to not be worth the effort. It's not hard to get to tier 1 and this is the only CG I can ever remember failing due to not hitting it.

And that's a problem. If players come to the conclusion that there won't be enough players interested to get any reward at all, they won't bother to participate either.

Net result: Community goals with NO participants. Only, from day one, not from day 6.

It's FDev's responsibility to make community goals that are worth doing, even on the obvious losing side. If they don't do that, it means players stop playing their game. And who wants that?

 

[Dillon Fallon]

And that's a problem. If players come to the conclusion that there won't be enough players interested to get any reward at all, they won't bother to participate either.

Net result: Community goals with NO participants. Only, from day one, not from day 6.

It's FDev's responsibility to make community goals that are worth doing, even on the obvious losing side. If they don't do that, it means players stop playing their game. And who wants that?

Ok, so how does FDev stop players giving up as soon as they realise they won't win?

 

[Viscera]

Quite frankly the Marlinists don't deserve anything anyway if the numbers on Inara are correct.

29 billion in bonds over 2500 people is around 12 million each. That was never going to be enough over the course of a week. That's a couple of hours each.

It failed because not enough effort was put in.

Your deductions are a little off there chap.

Took me a lot of hours to get my 15mill bonds.

Because... I played in open.

This meant I was outnumbered 4 - 1 in nearly every instance by opposition players. This made the actual collection of bonds a very slow affair indeed.

I managed to get a wing of 2 a couple of times with a squadmate, and even a wing of 3 once, which increased collection slightly, but large portion of the time I was on me own.

I could of course of gone to solo and ground like a grindy thing, but where is the fun in that.

There was also the sheer quantity of broken combat zones to deal with... I could often spend 15 minutes just trying to get into one that had ships in it to shoot at. Probably a good hour of playtime spent doing this over the extended weekend I had..

 

[GroG79]

Top 10% was a clear writing on the wall

 

[metatheurgist]

We're missing a historic moment here guys! This is the first ever CG to fail! Let's take a second to appreciate that!

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Which means players deemed the enzyme missiles to not be worth the effort. It's not hard to get to tier 1 and this is the only CG I can ever remember failing due to not hitting it.

the CG also coincided alpha, i mean where are folk going to be spending their time? legs or enzime missiles?

so i don't think it was completely down the "players deciding" enzyme missiles were not worth the effort, there were just other priorities.

perhaps the tier level were optimistically set by frontier considering alpha release, also dont forget lockdown lifted (& Easter) so people probably wanted to escape the house.

 

[DemiserofD]

Ok, so how does FDev stop players giving up as soon as they realise they won't win?

They almost had a good idea this time; having it be for the top 10% was a pretty good idea, that encourages players to fight over the top spots and, ideally, drives participation much higher than normal. Top 10% works where top 10 does not, because top 10 quickly becomes out of reach for anyone but the players who have been playing since day one, while top 10% remains reachable by anyone with a reasonable amount of time left.

Unfortunately, it was hamstrung the instant players realized that, more than just not winning, they weren't going to even reach tier 1.

So the easiest change is just giving the module reward regardless of reaching tier 1 in the first place.

After that, if you really wanted to maximize participation, you should probably give a secondary, smaller reward for being at 50% as well, to give other players a chance to fight for something as well. That way you've got competition at both high and low skill levels, which should maximize overall participation. It would still need to be something reasonably valuable, or players just won't care enough to bother doing a relatively unprofitable activity just for the sake of acquiring it. 75% is just so easy it's really not going to drive any real competition.

Of course, you might not want to give away that much stuff, and you might not care about achieving that degree of participation, so that part might not be necessary.

Ideally, you're mainly encouraging the people who already like the side to fight for it, not drawing in people from the other side who are just in it for the rewards.

 

[Machnette]

I choose to take this with a little diginity. Been on open the whole time and made it to the top 10% for the NMLA. I really want that bomb!
That said, I am not going to take this like a sore loser. It's the second time I've lost out on a module by picking the losing side of the CG (I fought against Liz Ryder last year). It's not that unusual and I'm much much more interested in the new balance of power in the lore, presented by an undetectable WMD being introduced into the galaxy. Where is the tech going to end up after this and who can mass produce the bombs within the lore?
Unless for some reason the tech is lost to humanity entirely, the cat is out of the bag and the convential strength of the Superpowers has been utterly bypassed by this new weapon. I'm still excitied, even though I'm probably not getting a module.