My take on community goals

[Phoenix]

I was pondering about the community goals. And in the current state I am not very happy with them, and I want to explain why:

They are nothing for new / casual gamers.

I count myself to the latter. I play two to three hours, two or three times a week. That is not a lot, and I got myself up to a pretty okay equipped Vulture, Cobra and trading ASP and about 13 million credits in cash so far.

The community goals are some sort of 'end game' right now. There are three types of community goals:

* Fight / Hand in vouchers.
For that you need a well equipped battle ship and a lot of practice. When you cannot fight well, you stand no chance. Especially not against other players with Anacondas with a lot of turrets on them, that park their ship in the conflict zones and have the voucher count increase whilst doing not a lot. When you are a new or only casual player and cannot affort a decent fighting ship, all other even less skilled players with enough credits will always advance further in the goal than you.

* Trade / Sell specific goods
For that you need a Type 9 or Anaconda and enough credits to fill your hold with the required goods. And spent hours carrying goods from A to B. Again, players without enough credits for a big cargo ship and/or time to grind don't stand a chance against competing players in anacondas that can do the grind for hours on a day to day basis.

* Sell Exploration Data
For this you need at least an okay equipped exploration ship. The first ship in which that is roughly possible is a Explo-Hauler, and with the required scanners and jump drive it already costs almost 3 million credits. Explo-goals are the only community goals you have a chance in advancing as a casual player, but these goals are extremely rare (only two so far, iirc.)

So my main critic is that these goals do not appeal to casual gamers like myself, because I know upfront that with the time I can dedicate to the game besides my real life, my max possible contribution to the goal will be absolutely worthless and dwarfed by what regular players achieve without a lot of effort.

I find that frustrating, and I would whish that there would be more goals that appeal to casual gamers too and give them an opportunity to stand out even if they cannot put so much time into the game as others.

 

[SteveLaw]

So, to summarise: Someone with more resources will tend to be in a stronger position than someone with fewer resources?

Community Goals are not designed for casual gamers as far as I can tell. I am only involved in the Volungu one because I was involved n Volungu before the CG. I'm in the top 15% for my first CG with a more or less B class Vulture and 3 mil change (when I started). I'll be pleased to be in the top 40% at the end. There is still many other things to do in Elite, none of them competitive.

 

[Talsin]

That's strange. I would have thought they were quite good for casuals.

Do stuff you're probably going to do anyway, get bonus credits, get involved in whatever storyline is happening at the time, meet up with other players to have some multiplayer fun.

Yeah you'll never get in the top 5 casually, but surely you only need to get into the top 70% for it to be worth it, and that's pretty easy.

 

[FederationNavyHQ]

Do not lose heart commander, if you manage to take down even one imperial ship and cash in that bond then that helps us to successfully defend the Federation against this Imperial attack. Then on the day that we invade Liaedin to wipe out this threat once and for all we will fly together as brothers in arms. Brothers of the Federation.

 

[EUS]

In the case of Volungu, anyone can go ahead and bring a 'conda, good luck turning in the bounties to the outpost....

 

[Dr Wookie]

I was pondering about the community goals. And in the current state I am not very happy with them, and I want to explain why:

They are nothing for new / casual gamers.

I count myself to the latter. I play two to three hours, two or three times a week. That is not a lot, and I got myself up to a pretty okay equipped Vulture, Cobra and trading ASP and about 13 million credits in cash so far.

The community goals are some sort of 'end game' right now. There are three types of community goals:

* Fight / Hand in vouchers.
For that you need a well equipped battle ship and a lot of practice. When you cannot fight well, you stand no chance. Especially not against other players with Anacondas with a lot of turrets on them, that park their ship in the conflict zones and have the voucher count increase whilst doing not a lot. When you are a new or only casual player and cannot affort a decent fighting ship, all other even less skilled players with enough credits will always advance further in the goal than you.

* Trade / Sell specific goods
For that you need a Type 9 or Anaconda and enough credits to fill your hold with the required goods. And spent hours carrying goods from A to B. Again, players without enough credits for a big cargo ship and/or time to grind don't stand a chance against competing players in anacondas that can do the grind for hours on a day to day basis.

* Sell Exploration Data
For this you need at least an okay equipped exploration ship. The first ship in which that is roughly possible is a Explo-Hauler, and with the required scanners and jump drive it already costs almost 3 million credits. Explo-goals are the only community goals you have a chance in advancing as a casual player, but these goals are extremely rare (only two so far, iirc.)

So my main critic is that these goals do not appeal to casual gamers like myself, because I know upfront that with the time I can dedicate to the game besides my real life, my max possible contribution to the goal will be absolutely worthless and dwarfed by what regular players achieve without a lot of effort.

I find that frustrating, and I would whish that there would be more goals that appeal to casual gamers too and give them an opportunity to stand out even if they cannot put so much time into the game as others.

I actually think they scale quite well. For example, trade CGs ask you for a particular type of goods (eg metals) and rank you by the ton; selling 10 tons of stuff at 100 credits each gives you the same rank for the CG as selling 10 tons at 10,000 credits. A new player might not reach the highest ranks, but would also benefit most from the lower rank rewards.

Exploration? Anyone can explore, even with a starter ship. Fighting? Gang up on someone with pcs or npcs and get reward

 

[Jpotter]

I was pondering about the community goals. And in the current state I am not very happy with them, and I want to explain why:

They are nothing for new / casual gamers.

I count myself to the latter. I play two to three hours, two or three times a week. That is not a lot, and I got myself up to a pretty okay equipped Vulture, Cobra and trading ASP and about 13 million credits in cash so far.

The community goals are some sort of 'end game' right now. There are three types of community goals:

* Trade / Sell specific goods
For that you need a Type 9 or Anaconda and enough credits to fill your hold with the required goods. And spent hours carrying goods from A to B. Again, players without enough credits for a big cargo ship and/or time to grind don't stand a chance against competing players in anacondas that can do the grind for hours on a day to day basis.

So my main critic is that these goals do not appeal to casual gamers like myself, because I know upfront that with the time I can dedicate to the game besides my real life, my max possible contribution to the goal will be absolutely worthless and dwarfed by what regular players achieve without a lot of effort.

I find that frustrating, and I would whish that there would be more goals that appeal to casual gamers too and give them an opportunity to stand out even if they cannot put so much time into the game as others.

Re: "Trade / Sell specific goods"

I just did my first community goal; had the game for just over 2 weeks. Playing about the similar amount as you; started the EOTIENSES community goal, 3 days late with an Adder which required selling high-tech materials at Parkinson's Dock. During the course of the goal, i did upgrade to a Cobra - but was also spending time doing bounty hunting/exploring as well. I wasn't just grinding the goal. At the goal's end, which was just about an hour ago - I finished in the top-70%; which is a $700,000 payout + all the money I made selling the items for good profit ~$25,000 (the most I've ever made in 1 mission, which was a length bounty hunt and got lucky with a big fish was $300,000 to this point). I found the CG a very good deal for working the goal part-time, in between other missions/explorations, in a ship that can't haul crap compared to the big-ships participating in it.

For my first one, it was quite satisfying. I can see if you want the big payouts..... you'd have to just grind. But for newcomers at least, I find them very fun.

I see your point that a casual gamer can't hit the high tier rewards - which, well, I agree. I know I never will.

 

[Kosmetas]

Casual players should not expect, nor do they deserve, they same experience/or resources as more dedicated players. This is equal to the world outside...

 

[Evil]

In the case of Volungu, anyone can go ahead and bring a 'conda, good luck turning in the bounties to the outpost....

Yeah because swaping ships is hard....

 

[Mikey2305]

You have a vulture so you can fight. You have a cobra so you can explore. You have a trading asp so you can trade. I fail to see the problem. I did several of the earlier CGs in cobra and asp and it wasnt an issue...

 

[EUS]

Yeah because swaping ships is hard....

Fair 'nuff.

 

[Jon Jaymes]

I agree with the OP to a certain extent. I just finished the Eotienses CG in the top 70% with 655t traded.

The way it works now is that players with oodles of credits and hence a big ship get even more oodles of credits.

It would be better if the CG goals took into account the size of the ship participating, so you have different reward tiers for small, medium and large ships. This way, people could be in the top 5% of small ships, and so on for medium and large. This would work for combat and trade CGs, not sure about exploration. As it stands, on the combat side, a conda just sitting in the middle of a battle zone and using turrets would automatically be getting more rewards than people flying a Cobra or Asp and really working hard to gain their rewards.

Jon Jaymes

 

[kirkkh]

I was pondering about the community goals. And in the current state I am not very happy with them, and I want to explain why:

They are nothing for new / casual gamers.

I count myself to the latter. I play two to three hours, two or three times a week. That is not a lot, and I got myself up to a pretty okay equipped Vulture, Cobra and trading ASP and about 13 million credits in cash so far.

The community goals are some sort of 'end game' right now. There are three types of community goals:

* Fight / Hand in vouchers.
For that you need a well equipped battle ship and a lot of practice. When you cannot fight well, you stand no chance. Especially not against other players with Anacondas with a lot of turrets on them, that park their ship in the conflict zones and have the voucher count increase whilst doing not a lot. When you are a new or only casual player and cannot affort a decent fighting ship, all other even less skilled players with enough credits will always advance further in the goal than you.

* Trade / Sell specific goods
For that you need a Type 9 or Anaconda and enough credits to fill your hold with the required goods. And spent hours carrying goods from A to B. Again, players without enough credits for a big cargo ship and/or time to grind don't stand a chance against competing players in anacondas that can do the grind for hours on a day to day basis.

* Sell Exploration Data
For this you need at least an okay equipped exploration ship. The first ship in which that is roughly possible is a Explo-Hauler, and with the required scanners and jump drive it already costs almost 3 million credits. Explo-goals are the only community goals you have a chance in advancing as a casual player, but these goals are extremely rare (only two so far, iirc.)

So my main critic is that these goals do not appeal to casual gamers like myself, because I know upfront that with the time I can dedicate to the game besides my real life, my max possible contribution to the goal will be absolutely worthless and dwarfed by what regular players achieve without a lot of effort.

I find that frustrating, and I would whish that there would be more goals that appeal to casual gamers too and give them an opportunity to stand out even if they cannot put so much time into the game as others.

Oh wow, I think only elitist read these forums. Unhappy inc.

 

[Backelaer]

In the last imperial CG, the one with the investigation, I would have managed to get top 15% in my Cobra, had I not taken off on an exploration trip. I fell just short of the 15% mark but still made 4 million being in the top 40%. Took me about 5 hours I recon (probably less even). Seems pretty casual to me..

 

[Smoon]

As a guy who plays around 3 hours a night I love CGs. It bought me my ASP and outfitted it as I did the exploring CG in a hauler, outfitted my Cobra and Viper from the Lugh CG. This CG should get me friendly with Feds and enough credits to buy and outfit my Vulture. This will leave me sitting pretty good when Powerplay comes out.

No sir, don't change a darn thing about CGs.

 

[Troa Barton]

That's strange. I would have thought they were quite good for casuals.

Do stuff you're probably going to do anyway, get bonus credits, get involved in whatever storyline is happening at the time, meet up with other players to have some multiplayer fun.

Yeah you'll never get in the top 5 casually, but surely you only need to get into the top 70% for it to be worth it, and that's pretty easy.

This covers what I was going to say about the topic.
the only thing to add is that lag needs to be addressed and that number of targets need to scale with how many commanders are present.
trade goals need to actually be in goods that are as or more profitable than regular routes.
exploration goals need to last longer and be more present.

 

[Zustiur]

I agree with the sentiment of the initial post, but not the reasoning. I am a casual gamer these days, though it seems I get to play a little more than the OP. My problem with the community goals is that they simply don't last long enough. Sure they have a timer of 2 weeks, which is plenty, but they typically get completed by the community in 2-3 days (or so it seems). Thus I rarely get to contribute more than an hour or two of play towards a goal before it has been completed.

Exploration goals are particularly tricky for that. I'm near Sag A* right now. If an exploration goal appears, I won't get back in time to contribute. It took me several weeks to get out here!

 

[smiths121]

Hi All,

Khaka is the only CG I have done. Finished top 15% in a type-6 playing open (had to actually beat the blockade or run and try again). Not as fun, but if I had had less time (played about 20 hours a week then), I would have performed the CG in solo to speed things up.

CGs pit player and against player as there is ranking. This mechanism will tend to reward those that put in more effort, assuming execution is not too difficult, or those starting with more resource. I am not sure this is a bad thing. Given most recent CGs have been contested by an opposing set of players, mode of play does affect your ranking position as well.

Not sure what can be done other than changing the allocation of global reward, but then who would bother past getting into the top 70%, would as many people bother ?

Simon

 

[Phoenix]

Hrm. I thought it would be unachievable to even reach the lower tiers, deeming it worthless to even participate.
I'll try to contribute to one of the goals and see how far it can take me then.

 

[Eagle Eye]

I always aim for the 70% bracket. That's like 30-60 min of break from my regular schedule to get some variety while still generating some credits. You don't need to aim for the top to benefit from CG. If you're casual the 70% reward should already be quite rewarding vs. the small amount of effort needed.