Community Event / Creation My poor experience with Community Goals and how to resolve it very simply!

[Coanunn]

Ok, so this week had a community goal that was apparently very very popular, delivering slaves to the new emperor. The email stated you could deliver slaves to the emperor all week. Now I'm not much of a forum junkie but when a game go to the extent of sending me an email every week with how I can be more involved and what is going on with the game I will occasionally take the time to read that information. Now even if I had logged in the goal was stated that you could deliver slaves to the destination until Oct 22nd. So I loaded my hold up with slaves on the 17th, spent about 6 hours that day getting about half way there from the starter system via the station I chose to buy slaves from and then logged out. I logged in the 18th and spend another 8 hours flying to Achenar. Frameshift and fuel tank being what they are on the Sidewinder I'm shocked I could even make it. Now the email said nothing about having to accept a mission on the bulletin board, just that you could sell the slaves so I sold them. At a loss because they weren't in demand (I imagine from the million tons or so of them that have been delivered it drove the price down).

So let us assume for a moment that as a new player I stopped there, logged out and waited till the 23rd, logged in and found no reward. How would I justifiably feel? I'll tell you I would feel like it wasn't worth my time to read those damn emails and spend my time trying to be part of the community goal events. Now I went the extra step, looked into it, realized I needed to take the Bulletin Board task, realized as well that I was over a day late because the event had ended prematurely due to how popular it was, and that I was going to be getting no reward at all. Is this my fault? Perhaps some of you can argue that it was because that information is available here on the forums but I would say it isn't as nothing official in the game, in my email nor in the launcher discussed the steps to get involved other than "deliver slaves to Achenar". I can go so far as to paste the text of the email that says "deliver slaves to Achenar" and nothing else but we all got the same email and FD knows what their email said.

So my suggestion to fix this issue? Communicate more clearly in the email every week. State that Community Goal events are available in game from the Bulletin Board. State that while there is a "time limit" there is also a participation limit and that which ever limit is hit first the goal ends. I'm not even asking that the events be changed to be easier to participate only that we be informed of the true requirements and restrictions up front so those of us who don't spend our time on the forums aren't left out in the cold wondering if the event is even going on any more.

Look, these events could be very new player friendly. They could go until the stated time limit without having the cut off based on participation and the events wouldn't suffer at all. That said, if you just communicate to all players that the events have the extra restriction of a first come first served participation limit they can prioritize the Community Goal with the best return on investment for a new player. Trust me the minimum goal of 10 million credits to everyone who delivered even 1 cargo load of slaves would be a huge boon for most new players but many of them weren't even aware that the reward existed much less that they had to be one of the first X tons worth of slaves delivered. This can all be solved by wording the email that informs players about the Community Goal to include that extremely pertinent information.

I don't want this to be a rant about how I'm not getting the rewards, because frankly I don't care about the reward. I care that my very first experience with Community Goals made me have no interest in them in the future. That isn't good for me as a player of the game long term and it isn't good for the game.

 

[DrToxic]

Maybe this will help.

The goal did finish earlier than expected which was a bit of a con.. I agree. What would be nice is if you could partake in the goal from the Galnet News, and reserve your tonnage delivery.

Maybe a couple of wheels and a button along the lines of "I have [X] tonnes of [Y] cargo [RESERVE]"; so when you get there, even if everyone has done their bit and the goal is "finished" and/or you get pirated en-route, there will still be space for your cargo to go in. Everyone's a winner. From there on in, it would be "first come, first serve"you can only reserve the first delivery, and of upto a limited tonnage. This will stop people in Type-9's from reserving several hauls of 400 tonnes each.

This will see more people getting in on the CG's, and still the interesting scrap to see who gets in the top % of commanders to deliver.

One thing I did notice about the CG's is that the price for selling fluctuated with the market. surely if they gifts,
A: they wouldn't be paying you for the cargo, or
B: If they were paying for the cargo, it would have been a fixed (probably reduced) price for everyone.

Hint: If you do go in for a CG, Don't skimp on armorments. There are pirates out there willing to stop you from doing what you are doing. I've lost the best part of about 6 million due to wanting to get the tonnage done quicker. I've come across some who want to take your cargo and deliver it as if it was their own (sub-hint: it's not worth spiking the cargo by not abandoning it, they'll kill you for it), or just kill you outright. Sometimes you can get away with telling them that you're on their side, but they'll see through it if they scan you and find you have a well packed cargo hold of the CG Cargo

 

[Doktor Smyth]

I agree that the CG events and mechanics should be explained better. I just searched the game manual, and it does not even contain the word 'community' !
On a separate note: I'm not sure of the details of the particular CG that you spent time on, but it sounds like you are doing things the hard way, if it took you that long to travel. For example, in the starport metals delivery CG that just ended (my first ever CG), here's how I handled it: I read about how the CG's work, and then about the specific CG, in the CG thread in the forum. Then I got in a Hauler rigged for distance (27 ly jump range) to head to the system/port (Kaushpoos) first - make sure the map mode is set to 'fastest routes before plotting route, or it'll take forever. Then grabbed the mission from the station bulletin board. Then bought a bigger ship for hauling. Checked the Kaushpoos market for which metals are being bought. Then went to Thrudds website to search for the systems with the closest metals (all withing 30 ly) - make sure they have reasonable station distance from their star. Then haul round-trip repeatedly.

 

[Coanunn]

While I don't dispute what either of you said, in both cases it requires either additional code work on the part of Frontier which may be better spent on the upcoming expansion or for players to come to the forums. Now many will say if you can't come to the forums you don't deserve to know but with the game opening to the console crowd the percentage of players (which I guarantee is already not 100% even on PC) which come to the forums is going to drop drastically as some of those players have no clue what a game forum even is, and if you think that is hyperbole I can round up half a dozen or so the next time I go to my brothers to play cards. Simply changing the wording of the email that goes out, perhaps even adding a couple pages to the manual that discusses how these events work solves the issue. Everyone says "RTFM" when it comes to Elite, but frankly there are a lot of fairly basic and important things that aren't covered in the manual, and community events are certainly on the list of things that simply aren't covered.

The forums threads dedicated to this issue are there because players have tried to fix a problem, that this information in part or whole is not available anywhere inside the game. The same is true of websites that have aggregated data regarding prices and locations of goods, ships, hardpoints, and equipment. Third party solutions are ok for those things that would encompass databases worth of additional information though I assert it should also be available in game in some form due to the fact I can grab my cell phone even now and punch up Tokyo Stock Exchange from the United States at any time day or night and see the prices, in a game where we have "GalNet" I'm supposed to believe they wouldn't have a ticker or some other method of looking up prices or even locations of goods and services? We all accept it because we know the level of coding necessary and it's not "important" it's a quality of life improvement. The community goals information is not quality of life though, it is actual functionality that has some esoteric requirements (Again, I can jump on craigslist and see what odd jobs need done anywhere in the world but in game I have to fly to the system to see who is hiring for what, much less to each station in a system). Just communicating that functionality's existence in the manual would be an improvement over the current situation.

 

[CyberOcelot]

I'm going to post this here because I have just logged out in frustration due to a community event that was poorly communicated to me as well. In fact, as I post this, the launcher for Elite: Dangerous still displays that Exploration Data is needed at Lave Station. Don't bother. It's already over. But, that's not the extent of my issue with that community event...

I started just as the OP did. Not knowing I needed to accept anything in the Bulletin Board, I explored all the systems on the way to Lave Station and then simply sold my data at the station. That didn't frustrate me as it was my fault for missing the "Sign Up" button at the bottom of the screen. But, seeing the reward amounts of "Top 100% = 300K, I figured it was worth going out and exploring again and come back with some more data.

Here's where it gets really frustrating though...

I turn in enough to now become the Top 70%. Apparently, the reward for Top 70% was only $150k (as opposed to turning in less and getting 300K). I figured this was a bug. But, I decided that I can do even more and wanted to go for the top 40% (which would net a reward of 2.5 Million Cr!!! - I have never made that much at once!!)

So, I set aside time everyday. Checking my "Transactions in my ship, it said I had 1 week and 3 days remaining. I assumed that would be accurate, but being that the event ends Dec 10th, I wanted to make sure it wasn't a mistake, so I planned to turn in all the data I accumulated (which is A LOT) tonight. Well...

I just logged off in frustration because I have a TON of data that would certainly have gotten me in the Top 40%, but the event is over before BOTH notifications!!!

This turned me off so badly, that I just logged off tonight. Grinding is only fun if there's a reward at the end for all your hard work. To learn that miscommunication and not my lack of effort caused me to lose so many hours for nothing makes me not want to log back in. It just outright killed the fun for me.