Mercs of Mikunn - 3 Year report: The Once Secret BGS mechanics and how to figure out exploits
- Thread starter Walt Kerman
- Start date
In order to add drama to the discussion use the "Exploit" word because that's worked on FDev before.
Personally I don't think they will fall for it again.
Personally I don't think they will fall for it again.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Bonds count in the system they are gained in, Bounties count in the system they are dropped in, I strongly suspect that they have different minimum transaction thresholds, otherwise they are similar
Ok. I thought there was something else. Thanks.
yes they are treated largely the same as regard transactions.
The reason why i separated them is because they are different things! Bonds of course only appear in wartime. Bounties are available all the time. Bounties are also more complicated due to the KWS. Also credit values are quite different. Its far easier to rack up millions of bounties than bonds or indeed kill a much larger number of ships.
Also Bounties were subject to a balance pass. A BGS based balance pass ..... not a cmdr based balance pass. The overall effect of bounties on the BGS was reviewed rather than any individuals max level contribution. This is FD's perspective of the BGS and therefore the vital one from any redesign perspective.
A lot of this discussion has occured from a cmdr perspective giving rise to perceptions of unfairness (on cmdr activity). FD's interest is how it all fits together and balances out.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/221826-Dev-Update-(07-01-2016)
its no secret, despite how it has been presented in this thread. It has been subject of much discussion. That thread is dated and values have been amended somewhat, but the BGS is essentially transactional, always has been.
That said the BGS has evolved significantly over the past few years. The biggest change has been to missions in 3.0 with the separation of credit/rep/influence rewards and mission target system influence effects.
Thank you for detailed answer. But shouldn’t you care about the amount/credits since it doesn’t come into the picture from a BGS perspective, no ?
Then, KWS, i see it as a good thing since - if i am not wrong - it allows to create multiple transactions for multiple factions in same system in one shot.
For me main difference is that a value of bounty - transaction - is changing depending of state.
You have touched on something very important here ignored in op and in the general discussion and its related to the general balance question. A focus on the transactional in isolation leaves out so many other apsects of the BGS and gives a very misleading picture. The impact of faction states, system geography, relative influence values, the multi-system nature of factions, traffic levels, in game events, non influence balancing factors, the effort of doing something .... All of these apsects have to be taken together to provide an overall balanced picture. Not all mechanics need to be homogoneous or equivalent, they have to be viewed in the round - both individually and in context of other mechanics.
Take explo for instance. Single selling is a quick hit to the BGS, yes, viewed in isolation but look at it in context: It has to be gathered which can be time consuming; Storing it can be risky and put a crimp on other activities (dont die). One needs an asset to cash it. It doesn't work in wartime. It also had a reduction in effectiveness recently. See how much is missed when focusing solely on transactions? The same goes for every other damn activity. Having a discussion based on transactions alone is meaningless.
put another way
this is the how frontier designed this thing. before i say what is right and what is wrong with it let me figure it out.
So when I sit in a CZ for 2hrs getting 5 mill of combat bonds ...I'd have been better off getting 1 kill going back handing it in, going back kill another go back hand in the second ALL IN 10 MINS AND HAVING TWICE THE EFFECT?
This turns a pmf war from something fun into something more repetitive than the guardian weapons!!!
Essentially yes. (I'm not sure but there may be a min threshold per cashing)
If you were fighting in CZs you would likely lose anyway irrespective of the bond cashing frequency. There are more effective and efficient means than single ship kill cashing. CZs are largely irrelevant when in a life or death struggle with another PMF. PMF wars are unpleasant grindfests that lead primarily to burnout. The only real fun in it is in the tactical/strategic aspect.
Edit:
oh and the wartime massacre missions are still as misleading as hell to the casual player. (0 inf effect)
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From what I noticed in Colonia, in low pop, high cash bonds makes a differece.
I agree there are different factors to take into consideration but It would be nice at least to know the value net of each actions we do in BGS. After if the external factor, it is not I don t care but it could be common sense.
Yes, that does work to maximise result/time but is a miserable experience if you force yourself to do it. Which is why almost nobody bothers to try and min/max to that extent.
Somebody doing things they enjoy in the game, in order to manipulate the BGS, will usually spend longer at it than somebody 'grinding' at something they dislike. It provides a natural balance.
Like continuing murdering system authority ship and/or civilian ships ?
There is a cap on those activities - or at least there was once.
Pretty much, which is of course silly as it cuts out the actual war fighting! or you can make sure the war is won before hostilities break out.
It's not a balancing problem of specific activities in relation to other aspects of the BGS. The way transactions are counted is a systemic problem not touching the balancing aspects you mention.
It's a fundamental flaw of how the BGS counts and rewards specific activities. The same action gets rewarded differently in a way that is not based on the activity. In essence the system doesn't reward the activity that results in an interaction with the faction, but the simple interaction.
How those activities affect the BGS can be balanced independently from the system being based on transactions or "value".
It doesn't have to get changed to a value (what ever is used to define value of an activity - doesn't have to be credits), it can be transactions.
For example a player destroys 2 wanted NPC ships and cashes in the bounties. This is currently on transaction, with the problematic effects the OP mentioned.
It could be seen as two transactions as two wanted NPCs got destroyed and in essence two bounties got cashed in at once. The later would make more sense.
As I've said, I'm an advocate for balance rather than any particular mechanism for achieving it. Any system can be gamed and any redesign will be gamed.
Transactions are fine for missions, fine for murder (now!) fine for explo (yes - because of the externalities mentioned earlier), probably fine for bounties because of their ubiquity. Transactions are probably fine for bonds considering how easy they are to wrack up and probably fine for trade now that were are bot infested. Transactions may not accurately reflect cmdr effort but I am more concerned with having an understandable, working, reasonably balanced, effective BGS. I have been round long enough to suffer from it when it wasn't as have many others.
And in some ways this whole argument is a little silly in the context of system influence caps which are relatively easily reached In a pure PvE no traffic situation. It is only really of relevance where 2 pmfs are bashing each other or when dealing with significant levels of traffic. To be honest, I dont really see a huge difference between maxing transactions and any other form of min maxing (no ships killed, credits earned etc etc).
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Just to underscore that last, point - here is the transaction points to influence gain in a large 7 faction system with no other activity... a couple of high influence missions to a low influence faction (scenario 1) and the equivalent of 10 points to all the other factions - to simulate a medium traffic system, on a controlling faction with a starting influence of 60%
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/215554088820015104/438218998669377546/unknown.png
I agree wholeheartedly with every other point too.
Also if anyone needs to know more about the BGS, there is a rather fine index to questions
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/408768-Index-to-The-BGS-Previously-on-the-forum
as well as a whole sub-forum dedicated to discussing it.