Reinvigorating Group Play

[Walt Kerman]

Mercs of Mikunn: Reinvigorating Group Play
​

The Reinvigorating Group Play Series

The intent of this series is to create a discussion area to address some of the issues groups have been complaining about post 1.3 (groups dieing off), and to make suggestions on how to fix these issues using features and mechanics that are already implemented or partially implemented.


Background:
While the Mercs are getting a little bored at the lack of any means to progress our faction in the game at the moment, we have been doing pretty well considering … We’ve even added another player group who has pledged to support the same player power as us and are in the process of adding a third, potentially doubling our numbers towards one goal; however, I’m friends with a lot of different players from varying player groups and outside of the mercs my friends list is a little empty. Even the mercs spend more time in our internal forum now than playing the game. If things in game kick off again soon, I feel that we will be in a good position. If they do not, with nothing to do towards progressing our goals (unless we start claiming random factions with no CG’s to back it up), people will start to drop off.

Some other groups haven’t been so lucky and have already kicked the bucket. I've seen so many people complaining about this lately... and it probably stems from people's disappointment about Powerplay. I actually like PowerPlay, but I feel like it is missing important features. The overarching idea, however, is a good one. Regardless about how you feel about any one of these groups, like them or no, this is an unfortunate thing and should be a red flag for those managing the community. It does for me at least. I used to do a lot of writing about how to make the background sim better. A least it works now, though perhaps far too easily/loosely (balance definitely required).

This time around I think I will be writing about group play. As usual, hopefully Frontier at least reads it, if not oh well, at least I tried. And I would like to point out that I don’t think my opinion is that valuable here, but I’ve put some thought into it, and my immediate goal is to, at the very least, create an area for discussion of how to reinvigorate that part of the player base that seems to have fallen away since power play. In other words, I want to hear from you.

Why do I care? I only play once a week on Friday to be honest, but I truly believe this game has so much potential. Especially if they actually get to develop some of the features that have been advertised. If you read my first thread on the forum here, you will understand how much I was flipping out about this game.

All of these suggestion use features I feel aren't too far out of the realm of possibility using current mechanics.

The Suggestion Series:
Part 1: Reducing Grind through Segmented Campaigns
Part 2: How Group Associations Could Help Frontier Curate
Part 3: CG's that play to the fanbase- Developing the Frontier
Part 4: The Missing Powerplay Feature (coming soon)
Part 5: ....

Community Additions to the Suggestion Series:
Starschulz from Lugh : Friends List Improvements
_Flin_ from AEDC : Automatically generated CG's

Do you have any of your own ideas? What do you think would be a real boon to group play, using features or mechanics that are close to what currently exists? Ideally, it should also be beneficial for non-group players as well.

 

[IronGremlin]

I strongly support ideas 1 and 3.

I am not, nor am I likely to become, a member of a group, but both those suggestions encourage my investment in the game and make the universe seem more dynamic and alive.

I don't think that we need to or should specifically recognize the effort of player groups to affect the generation of interesting dynamic content.

It's enough to look at the patterns of the background simulation and the player affect on the background simulation to create interesting events.

However, I do see the value in name-dropping player groups in Galnet feeds, because this makes the universe seem more consistent, and rewards players for their efforts in a meaningful way.

I support the idea of social groups having meaningful ways to interact with the universe, and I like systems that enable players to join social groups, but I hate content that requires large groups to participate in, and I hope frontier continues in their philosophy of enabling meaningful group interaction without making group specific content.

 

[Bokugo]

Well I think first things first, fix instancing and stuttering.

 

[Ghostickles]

I'll just leave this here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8368&highlight=guilds

 

[Walt Kerman]

I'll just leave this here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8368&highlight=guilds

Ahhh that thread from two years ago... But we aren't even talking about guild support, not even something that could be called a lesser version of power play, but rather something equivalent to joining a group (same method as private play) as it exists already, but there is something that says you belong to that group under your name - with the main purpose of tracking what those groups are doing.

Thats far flung from guild support.

In fact for this to work there doesn't even need to be something under the name. If they had a feature like private play groups, where you could sign up, and see who was online in that group while everyone is in open play that would be AMAZING. Right now my players have to manually add 140 names to their friend list. It's a pain for groups to deal with, and would harm you in no way whatsoever. You wouldnt even notice if that feature existed or not, but it would be amazing for groups!

 

[CMDR Starschulz]

I had suggested a while ago an addition of some kind of friends list filter, or like a note you could write so you could know how they got on your list. i know there are a few i am not exactly sure about.

 

[Ghostickles]

Ahhh that thread from two years ago... But we aren't even talking about guild support, not even something that could be called a lesser version of power play, but rather something equivalent to joining a group (same method as private play) as it exists already, but there is something that says you belong to that group under your name - with the main purpose of tracking what those groups are doing.

Thats far flung from guild support.

In fact for this to work there doesn't even need to be something under the name. If they had a feature like private play groups, where you could sign up, and see who was online in that group while everyone is in open play that would be AMAZING. Right now my players have to manually add 140 names to their friend list. It's a pain for groups to deal with, and would harm you in no way whatsoever. You wouldnt even notice if that feature existed or not, but it would be amazing for groups!

Fine, painting the roses red. Whatever works, not here to argue semantics.

 

[cothek]

Hopefully without derailing the thread, the elephant in the room is the open/solo problem...but that is not in FDs budget to fix.

The next issue is in game tools to help organize players. Currently there are none.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Hopefully without derailing the thread ... open/solo problem...

What have you done! Lol

 

[IronGremlin]

Ahhh that thread from two years ago... But we aren't even talking about guild support, not even something that could be called a lesser version of power play, but rather something equivalent to joining a group (same method as private play) as it exists already, but there is something that says you belong to that group under your name - with the main purpose of tracking what those groups are doing.

Thats far flung from guild support.

In fact for this to work there doesn't even need to be something under the name. If they had a feature like private play groups, where you could sign up, and see who was online in that group while everyone is in open play that would be AMAZING. Right now my players have to manually add 140 names to their friend list. It's a pain for groups to deal with, and would harm you in no way whatsoever. You wouldnt even notice if that feature existed or not, but it would be amazing for groups!

I think it would be great to provide support for players socializing with one another in Open, but I'm wondering a little bit about the effect of this type of thinking governing what ends up as a community goal or a Galnet feed.

So, take this hypothetical-

System A has had a massive influx of smuggling activity because it's on the border between an Archon system and an un-aligned imperial system.

System B on the other hand was randomly chosen by the Knights Who Say "Frameshift Drive Charging," a player group dedicated to teh lulz. As a part of their ethos, KWSFSDC has decided to constantly buy out all of the fish from System B, which has incidentally generated a severe famine.

Does System B deserve to be 'curated' purely by the virtue of it being an event generated by the actions of a player group?

Or does System A deserve to be curated because it might be a more interesting story?

I think Frontier has deliberately opted for using a human hand to kick off community goals and content purely because of this sort of decision -

I'm not sure that your suggested change here is actually going to help the content of the game as a whole, so much as it might occasionally encourage people to sign up for these groups, which is a neutral change for the rest of us.

So, if you want to encourage player groups, I'd say, encourage player groups for the facilitation of players interacting socially, not for the facilitation of additional game mechanics.

Your other suggestions encourage using 'large scale' player activity as a way to facilitate story-telling, as opposed to using the potential of story-telling to facilitate large scale player interaction.

The difference between those two points is a fine line, but it's the difference between an awesome collaborative story engine, and, well, an MMO.

That's important because by emphasizing group play, you end up leaving a lot of players with the impression that in order to really experience what Elite is all about, they should join a group - and then you have people clamoring for something that they and their 40 friends can do together, and then you have content designed to entertain a group of 40 players for a weekend, and then you have WoW, and then I'm out somewhere around Coalsack thinking about whether or not I should head home, and Galnet starts telling me that I can get a new S rated FSD for a 50 LY jump range, but only if I join in on some capital ship raids with the 40 player group that I have no desire to join and no time for.

The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy here, and is invoked with tongue firmly in cheek, but, I do think it's valid to keep in mind that player perceptions are hard to manage. Right now the player base has a pretty hard time accepting that Elite isn't an MMORPG, and that could get even harder for people to digest when guild names start to dominate the Galnet page.

 

[deathmagnet]

Reinvigorating the player base is one of the main reasons I am trying to organize the M.E.R.C. Games 1. I am hoping to bring the community together just to have fun....The first tournament I held for just the Mercs of Mikunn turned out to be a great success and really improved the enjoyment level of those who participated. Many of us still have the combat eagles in storage...lol...and we did a bunch of other mach battles just for the hell of it. Was a great time for us.

 

[Walt Kerman]

player perceptions are hard to manage

Ain't that the truth.

I don't particularly disagree with anything you say, except I probably mind less if you have to join different factions to get certain modules. I am perfectly ok with whoever you join having an effect on what you can equip, as it gives a culture feel to different sides of the universe.

As to which player group should have their story curated in your example based on their actions, my hope would be both, if the feature I describe helps identify what is happening, hopefully time was saved allowing more to be allocated towards catering to an increased number of people.


Also I added Starschulz thread he mentioned to the OP, under community additions. Friends list improvements are an excellent example to reinvigorate groups without making drastic changes to the game, and also, like many of the suggestions I'm throwing out, helps non group players in some form or fashion as well.

 

[_Flin_]

What I'd like to see that could add to group play are a few things:

1. Fixing the Background Simulation (as always)
The current background simulation isn't nice. It was in it's best state before 1.2 hit. Currently there are a multitude of issues:
- Balance
Some types of actions are absolutely overpowered influence wise. They can be used to gain influence with 1 person that will set of the efforts of about 8 other players. This is not fun and creates onedimensional gameplay. Furthermore there are actions that hardly affect influence at all. Trading and bounty hunting have hardly any influence. Combat Bonds dont have any recognizable influence effect at all. This all forces players to play the BGS in a way that works best instead of a way that seems logical. And this makes playing the BGS unimmersive and hardly fun.
- States and Cooldowns
The introduction of the War and Election states, paired with 25 day cooldowns, made playing the BGS tedious. You cant play one system, but have to juggle cooldowns in multiple systems. Add to that the mechanism where the system inherits cooldowns from factions, and you end up in a game where the "rules" are hardly understandable, unintuitive and frustrating.
- Diminishing Returns
Since 1.3 diminishing returns seem a thing from the past. The result are influence swings on crack. One day its 20% this way, the next its 30 that way. Playing the BGS should make swing like that possible, but only with a large effort, like 20-30 people concentrating on one minor faction for a day. Now these things can be done by one person in two hours, if they know what they are doing.
- Bugs
I dont know for how long the "stuck influence bug" or the "single faction civil war that was triggered while the faction was in Boom" have been around. We communicated these over two months ago. Whats further a bit sad is that for every feature 2 new bugs are introduced. Some unit testing with simulation of player actions would go a long way.
- Update frequency
Do we really need one update per day? Why not every hour?
- Population
Population stays the same. If it stays the same, at least get rid of pseudo realistic detail. No, Holiacan does not have 119.999 inhabitans for half a year now. Someone was born, or died, or.moved. Immersion breaker.

2. Automated group content
Where are the goals for larger groups? I am not asking for exclusive content here, but stuff like
- Automated local community goals
Colonization, building space stations in systems, preventing a system from shrinking, creating new minor factions or forcing others out of a system would go a long way to create fun for groups.
- Group missions
Where are missions for more than one player? The capital ships were great, they are in game since at least 1.1, yet why arent there missions to hunt them? Or escort them? Ship defense missions of funeral barges. Attack waves on stations. Attacks on pirate bases. All that exists are strong signal sources, and they feel detached from the game.

3. Communications and Squadron mechanics
I wont elaborate further. But would ingame chat, member management and a squadron owned private group plus markers on the map really destroy the game for others?

4. Powerplay
Powerplay is a good start. I wont discuss it in detail. It lacks meaningful rewards, it lacks balance, it punishes players for taking part. It is a grind, the connection to the BGS doesnt work, it lacks ways to really play it. You cant attack. You can defend, but what for? If you play.good, you run into the overhead wall. You cant get rid of systems, you cant rid others of systems. What is the point? We have quite some grinders in our group, but many people already stopped, because they cant see the point and do not find it fun.
Edit: The rank 5 payment is strange. You get paid as much as you need to get to rank 5 again with a massive grind. Why not 5 million more, so you have at least the same reward as running a mediocre trade route? And no, other rank 5 bonusses are only good when you are Empire. As a Mahonnaise you get rare trading bonus. Which is for newbies.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

I agree with most of the OP's comments.

In my opinion, FD need to make social interaction much more flexible and intuitive, both from a UI useability perspective and to enable higher-order play styles within the game universe;

Federation Pilots Bulletin Board
- Pilot Looking for Wing (Name, Guild/Group, Ship, Pilot Rating "Looking for RES/CZ fun!")
- Pilot Looking for Guild (Name, Ship, Desired Activity)
- Pilot Looking for Escort (Name, Ship, Origin, Destination Minimum Pilot Rating Desired)

Simple combinations of activity and pilot info (Pilot Rating, with a "Look within x LY" filter (perhaps with a max of 100LY to speed processing). This could be a simple check-box items form; the game knows where you are - you're simply making yourself known to other players who may be looking at the pilots bulletin board.

The logic is relatively simple, and implementation into the Ship UI, or the Station UI fairly straightforward.
The game would gain a few metrics by which FD can keep tabs on playstyle trends "Lots of escort missions today during community goal x", which in turn helps the hand-curation (if needed)

Edit: @ _Flin_ "Mahonnaise" that's gold. Repped.

 

[_Flin_]

One more thing regarding the BGS:

The box is too black. So we have standard of living, wealth, development level in a station / system / minor faction. Why dont we see it? This makes no sense. If we know it, we can play it. If we dont know it, it is some mysterious thing happening.
Same goes for production values. I heard a rumor that you can influence production values by delivering certain goods. We tested this and couldnt confirm it.

Give us a garden we can grow and foster.
Let us change station types, build stations, change the economy, fine tune production, expand and colonize. Give us sand. I am not saying make it easy. But make it visible!
Show us cooldowns so we dont dump 10s of hours into a goal impossible to reach.
Show us techlevel, production values.

Let us play with the sand. Dont give us a bucket to play with, and then let us figure out its a hollow cylinder. Thats not playing, its bullsitting.

 

[Globusdiablo]

...Do you have any of your own ideas? What do you think would be a real boon to group play, using features or mechanics that are close to what currently exists? Ideally, it should also be beneficial for non-group players as well.

Excellent post Mom...

I wish you luck in your endeavours. Fly safe Commander.

 

[Jane Turner]

One thing I'd really like to see is a closer link between power Play, the Background Simulation and Community Goals. PP currently feels like a veneer laid over the top. Imagine if you you use power play to trigger CGs.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Expand on that, how would it work etc. Or more accurately, how would you like it to work?

 

[_Flin_]

One thing I'd really like to see is a closer link between power Play, the Background Simulation and Community Goals. PP currently feels like a veneer laid over the top. Imagine if you you use power play to trigger CGs.

Yes, indeed.

Basically we have 5 systems that are very basic.
1. Missions
2. Background Simulation influence wise
3. Background Simulation economy wise
4. Community Goals
5. Powerplay

1 does offer hardly any group content. With the exception of high value assasination missions they are completely for single-player. I think it is o.k. that the main focus is on single players. But something like... 10-20% for groups wouldn't be bad at all.
2, 4 and 5 are targeted at groups. These are things one can hardly play alone. But all three are lacking. I'd wish for a lot of polishing and reengineering. Automating the content.

Especially community goals... These are the perfect vehicle for adding group content, when they are automated. The current efforts to provide group content with local community goals is great. But this needs to be automated, and not hand-crafted by the development team. We are all thankful for their efforts. In the end, however, the manual creation and implementation of a community goal is nice, but wasted time. It creates one-time content. Which is good for story purposes, but does add less lasting to the enjoyment of the game than trying to automate the process.

Point 2, the economic situation, does not exist. Maybe it does exist, but you cant figure out production values, there is no tech-tree, no crafting system (as in: Import Bertrandite to increase Beryllium production). You don't see development levels, ( and neither do you see standard of living, famine levels, criminal activity, etc.).
I'd really wish for a way to change that.
- Build up your home system to be the main producer of Marine Equipment.
- Increase the production levels of Progenitor Cells and Performance Enhancers to make the system more attractive for traders.
- Trigger an in-system expansion to build another station closer to the star.

Stuff like that would be neat.

 

[_Flin_]

How I'd like local community goals to work:

There are trigger levels that are shown somewhere inside the station screens. These trigger different types of local community goals

- local expansion: Local expansion is a local community goal. It requires to bring in raw materials, power generators and water purifiers to enlarge a station, or build a new one in case the existing station is already large. The trigger is to keep supply of export goods below a certain threshold for a consecutive number of days. And to keep the demand for raw materials at Low or Medium for a number of consecutive days. The bigger the combined number of stations in the system get, the harder it gets to trigger. (e.g. it should be rather easy for 20 people to build a 1 Coriolis, 2 Outpost system, but very hard to impossible to build a 2 Coriolis 3 Orbis system).
Timeframe: 1 week to trigger.

- local shrinkage: Shrinkage will trigger a community goal if there is high demand and no triggering of low supply thresholds for a number of consecutive days. Shrinkage will trigger a small local community goal that needs to reach Tier 1 to prevent the station from shrinking. This is the opposite of an expansion cg. Each day either the expansion or the shrinkage counter goes up. The timeframe should be about 2 months to trigger. Small player activity should be enough to reset the timer.

- Expansion: When a minor faction triggers expansion, three local community goals are created.
One is for the standard expansion (enter an inhabited system with 4 or less minor factions). Higher levels mean better systems (not the usual 1 outpost extraction systems, but the good ones). The systems for the different levels are known up front (so you can expand in a wanted direction)
One is for colonization of new systems. These are harder than the standard expansion. Higher levels mean better systems (more metal rich planets, better rings, Earth like planets, water worlds)
One is for "conquering" another minor faction. Succeeding here will kick out a low influence (< 5%) minor faction from another system. This is a combat or bounty hunting goal. The higher the level, the better the target system.