Mercs of Mikunn - 3 Year report: The Once Secret BGS mechanics and how to figure out exploits

[Ryan Murdoc]

That's more than two years, not almost.

Yep, my bad. Bit late here and I've read it like MM/DD/YY instead of DD/MM/YY.

It's certainly clear that the devs put a lot more thought into their decisions than Walt has (which is basically none at all. I'm surprised he can breathe and walk at the same time, to be honest.)

Can we lay off the personal attacks? It doesn't get anything solved except reducing us back in time to poop throwing monkeys.

 

[Starwolfe]

I think some of the more keen BGS groups figured it out earlier as you could expect, but its become more of a popular knowledge for most BGS teams since that 2016 time or so.

More or less, its been 'known' to be an issue for most of its tenure now and we've managed so far with it.
While I am not trying to downplay it much, it remains a problem for the misinformed masses but manageable for the knowledgeable groups that make use of it.

 

[Kaocraft]

The transactional nature can lead to boring gameplay, during crunch times. But it also allows players making gains in an area that is heavily trafficked by all kinds of CMDRs. We shouldn't think of it only as something between BGS players. Change to a value based system, and busier areas will become entirely uncontrollable.

Without major changes, I prefer the current system, where the individual knowledgeable BGS CMDR can decide for themselves how often they return to port, or whether to stay longer in a res or CZ, depending on anticipated traffic/other activity.

Dont we WANT busier areas to be uncontrollable?

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

Dont we WANT busier areas to be uncontrollable?

BFN (Big Fat Negative)

 

[Roybe]

Dont we WANT busier areas to be uncontrollable?

Ask the player groups affected during the time that PP was tied into the BGS. In many situations the BGS just flogged the system and the factions simply rotated randomly through each system. Destroyed BGS play for them. I would warrant that the same would happen if value play became the norm.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Although it hasn't been brought up in the context, IMHO one Detail might be a key culprit, since it affects everything BGS. The Daily BGS cycles and their fixed duration of ~24hrs.

I often wondered how much more transparent the BGS work would become, IF
- multiple BGS cycles per day happened
- alternatively (if more than 1x full BGS processing is technically unfeasible), imagine having something comparable to the "PowerPlay Hourly Update"

All it'd need to give would be "latest available" Data 1x per hour. How the Factions in any given System would approximately do, if the cycle was to happen at this hour.
Just like a poll analysis that keeps counting all the votes casted throughout the cycle in order to present an educated guess/estimation of how things roughly look.

I think that'd give a whole lot more "control" over Factions, since it'd allow to interpret and react to given intraday Data.
Most importantly, regardless of BGS mechanics and models used.

 

[Jane Turner]

Ask the player groups affected during the time that PP was tied into the BGS. In many situations the BGS just flogged the system and the factions simply rotated randomly through each system. Destroyed BGS play for them. I would warrant that the same would happen if value play became the norm.

In a sense value is in the game - but its binary. if the transaction is below it you score 0 if its above it you score 1 for a trade unless in boom when its a 2, its 2 for a bounty drop unless its CU in which case its 4, if its a bond its 2 etc

 

[Jane Turner]

I think some of the more keen BGS groups figured it out earlier as you could expect, but its become more of a popular knowledge for most BGS teams since that 2016 time or so.

More or less, its been 'known' to be an issue for most of its tenure now and we've managed so far with it.
While I am not trying to downplay it much, it remains a problem for the misinformed masses but manageable for the knowledgeable groups that make use of it.

We had it just about bang on, through careful experimentation sometime before Fdev confirmed it, but it took till last summer to deconvolute the full calculation of influence

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Dont we WANT busier areas to be uncontrollable?

I do. Busier areas should be uncontrollable, big systems should be uncontrollable.

It is probably not what player groups using the BGS as their personal playground would want thought. But if the intended use of the BGS is to provide the impression of a living and breathing galaxy, then a few players shouldn't be able to affect big system - and in the context of the inhabited space all players together are just a few.

Changing this would now create a lot of problems as FDev gave systems to player factions without any thought about lore, the rest of the player base and any other consideration beside pleasing player groups.

 

[Roybe]

I do. Busier areas should be uncontrollable, big systems should be uncontrollable.

It is probably not what player groups using the BGS as their personal playground would want thought. But if the intended use of the BGS is to provide the impression of a living and breathing galaxy, then a few players shouldn't be able to affect big system - and in the context of the inhabited space all players together are just a few.

Changing this would now create a lot of problems as FDev gave systems to player factions without any thought about lore, the rest of the player base and any other consideration beside pleasing player groups.

Glad the devs feel differently! If, your desire was the way the devs saw the game, all they had to do was set up RNG for all aspects of the game and that would have been that!

 

[rekurzion]

I think some of the more keen BGS groups figured it out earlier as you could expect, but its become more of a popular knowledge for most BGS teams since that 2016 time or so.

More or less, its been 'known' to be an issue for most of its tenure now and we've managed so far with it.
While I am not trying to downplay it much, it remains a problem for the misinformed masses but manageable for the knowledgeable groups that make use of it.

doesn't this make it a tactic rather than an exploit?

I do. Busier areas should be uncontrollable, big systems should be uncontrollable.

It is probably not what player groups using the BGS as their personal playground would want thought. But if the intended use of the BGS is to provide the impression of a living and breathing galaxy, then a few players shouldn't be able to affect big system - and in the context of the inhabited space all players together are just a few.

Changing this would now create a lot of problems as FDev gave systems to player factions without any thought about lore, the rest of the player base and any other consideration beside pleasing player groups.

i'd argue that large player populated systems are already uncontrollable. take LHS 3447 for example.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Glad the devs feel differently! If, your desire was the way the devs saw the game, all they had to do was set up RNG for all aspects of the game and that would have been that!

No, the exact opposite would be required - a strict and logical system primarily driven by the BGS without any RNG* and player interaction. The effect of player actions in a large system would simply have not significant impact on the BGS. The smaller the population of a system gets and the larger the player group affecting the BGS in a system becomes the more noticeable the effect of player actions in the system would become.
Maybe I should have added "uncontrollable for player groups" to make it more clear what I meant.



*) Some random events could be incorporated to simulate unexpected global/galactic events, but the main BGS would be without RNG.

 

[Walt Kerman]

No you aren't.

"Refute" means to demonstrate that something isn't true, which you have failed to do. You might reject, or otherwise deny that fines would be a problem in the pie-in-the-sky system that you have as vague brushstrokes on an otherwise blank canvas, you utter charlatan.

With regard to the value that an action has for a faction, might you not be referring to the +, ++, +++, and +++++ suffixes on mission posts the clearly outline what completing the mission will do for your rep or the faction's influence?

In otherwords, you're suggesting what happens already.

I like how you conveniently clipped my explanation. And no im not suggesting that. Im talking about, for example, whenever security catches you doing something illegal it hurts them. Handing out a fine shouldn't hurt, a successful illegal action should. IRL London doesnt recoil in agony when it hands out a fine. The negative makes no sense. I already explained this though you just didnt read it.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Yep, my bad. Bit late here and I've read it like MM/DD/YY instead of DD/MM/YY.



Can we lay off the personal attacks? It doesn't get anything solved except reducing us back in time to poop throwing monkeys.

Nah thats just Monkey, I really don't care. Honestly it hurts his argument more than mine and reflects on him and his player group.

Yeah they showed that graph 2 years ago but most people did not realize it was transactional, they thought those numbers were multipliers. I posted all that in my BGS guide at the time to give it exposure.

 

[DNA-Decay]

I hear the arguments for value based influence change.

But I don’t buy them.

I do actually think that three dedicated folks in cobras should outweigh one in a cutter.
Not saying there aren’t problems with transaction based influence.

But I’ve always been a mid level player. I have always been able to contribute valuably to my team when I can play because my transactions count even if they aren’t huge.

Under a values based influence mechanic I am nobody.

Transactions based influence is a more level playing field.


Walt framing this as an exploit is disingenuous. It’s a “best effort” towards a system that can never be perfect for all edge cases.

 

[Walt Kerman]

I hear the arguments for value based influence change.

But I don’t buy them.

I do actually think that three dedicated folks in cobras should outweigh one in a cutter.
Not saying there aren’t problems with transaction based influence.

But I’ve always been a mid level player. I have always been able to contribute valuably to my team when I can play because my transactions count even if they aren’t huge.

Under a values based influence mechanic I am nobody.

Transactions based influence is a more level playing field.


Walt framing this as an exploit is disingenuous. It’s a “best effort” towards a system that can never be perfect for all edge cases.

In a value based system where value is utility provided to the faction 3 cobras absolutely could outweigh a cutter. I just wouldn't advise trying to outweigh it by trading.

A cutter should outweigh three cobras in certain but not all scenarios, wouldnt you agree?

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

I do. Busier areas should be uncontrollable, big systems should be uncontrollable.

It is probably not what player groups using the BGS as their personal playground would want thought. But if the intended use of the BGS is to provide the impression of a living and breathing galaxy, then a few players shouldn't be able to affect big system - and in the context of the inhabited space all players together are just a few.

Changing this would now create a lot of problems as FDev gave systems to player factions without any thought about lore, the rest of the player base and any other consideration beside pleasing player groups.

What do you define as big here? 10mil? 100mil? 1bil? 10bil or more?

At least when talking about the 10bil+ sized System you can pretty much forget that a few players can randomly affect them using the current BGS workings. It takes planning and strategy to move anything % related inside, even more so when you want to open up such Systems to expand in.

Speaking about peaceful actions mostly; in Wars / Civil Wars you can still move things quite a bit, yet never in ways you can in smaller populated Systems.

Personal playground is about right, I mean why else would you otherwise want to have your own Minor faction installed by FD if it wasn't for the sake of creating your own mark on the Galaxy? That a lot of them are poorly thought out by their Lore among other things finally was realised by FD (albeit too late perhaps, but better late then never) and they're rejecting to implement MF requests these days if they fail the criterias for insertion. One of them is conflicting or non-existant Lore in regard to the Elite Universe.

The only thing that personally irks me is that both in the past and present there are Players / Wings who expanded their PMF over and over without the intention to take these Systems as theirs. Or just because they thought it cool to see their MF in as many Systems as possible, thinking that would be the way to build an Empire of their own. Which it isn't, at least not if you plan to keep it a healthy one.

Nowadays these people either lost interest and stopped playing the BGS as a whole OR are unable to manage the mass of places they're in OR <fill in reason>. All these Systems are now considered Off limits to aspiring new PMF and the people behind them who really want to do things but can't. Just because their desired System they wanted to be in was taken over by another PMF in the meantime.

 

[Jane Turner]

Walt framing this as an exploit is disingenuous.

This is why I am so annoyed. There are other reasons too - but best to leave them out of this thread or it will get personal. The game originally required you to sell data a single system at a time - so suggesting that it is an exploit means that literally every player in the game was exploiting. When the ability to sell data 50 at a time came in, in response to requests to make the process quicker, anyone with a keen interest in the BGS and exploration saw that the effectiveness of selling exploration data on influence took a nose-dive, though the effect of selling that data on reputation was unchanged.

We already had a very strong view that all influence effects, including data selling on the BGS were transactional. We were not alone in this - the AEDC had and shared a similar view, though as recently as last summer, MoM were still expressing doubts about the effectiveness of data.

The benefit of selling data singly has been repeatedly revealed by a number of groups on this forum, to anyone who asks the question. Incidentally the transaction value of data was silently halved in 3.0 as far as we can tell, to the minumum value of 1.

 

[DNA-Decay]

A cutter should outweigh three cobras in certain but not all scenarios, wouldnt you agree?

No - I don’t agree.
One CMDR. One ship. One effort.

That at is at the core of the game.

Transactions are not some thoughtless add on- they are fundamental to the mechanics and philosophy of this game.

I am as virulently opposed to Value based influence as I am to Real World $ buying in-game advantage; and to in-game credit transfers between CMDRs.

It’s not an economical position: it’s ethical.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Its not disingenuous at all. Its literal fact.

You are trying to twist my words into saying BGS by transaction is an exploit. No that's game design. What I have said is that it is extremely eploit prone.

Straight from the original post:

Some people think that this design choice does not result in exploits.

Exploit: In video games, an exploit is the use of a bug or glitches, game system, rates, hit boxes, speed or level design etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers.

The designers did not intend for you to be selling goods one at a time to bomb a stations faction owner to zero influence. Its a design flaw that creates what are, by definition, exploits. I understand why the design was chosen. It doesn't make these techniques that result from it any less of an exploit.

By definition. And besides the designers have said they are exploits and have attempted to patch them out. The sky ain't pink.

---

No - I don’t agree.

One CMDR. One ship. One effort.

That at is at the core of the game.

Transactions are not some thoughtless add on- they are fundamental to the mechanics and philosophy of this game.

I am as virulently opposed to Value based influence as I am to Real World $ buying in-game advantage; and to in-game credit transfers between CMDRs.

It’s not an economical position: it’s ethical.

Its ethical by value too. Those cobras should get a trading ship. Tadah, three trading ships beat one. Get the right tool for the task. One CMDR, one ship, one effort. Play smarter not harder.

Its how the rest of the game works. Otherwise lets just make all ships equal for the sake of "ethics".