So the "Thargoid War" is just an endless series of CG "upgrades"?
- Thread starter Kotoku
- Start date
Probably not if you are a student of warfare.
Jus' sayin'...
Jus' sayin'...
Where were you when all the other rewards like ships, pre-engineered FSDs and thrusters etc were part of the (usually hauling) CGs? You could say that the armaments rewards have been neglected.
Oh, and this could be a way of getting more CMDRs into fighting thargoids relatively easily.
Steve
Oh, and this could be a way of getting more CMDRs into fighting thargoids relatively easily.
Steve
I'd suggest they were playing Scam Citizen?
In maximum reductionism, almost everything in Elite Dangerous that's formal gameplay is one or more of "haul something", "scan something", or "shoot something".
The main differences I'd say it had from CGs:
- multiple activity types count towards most progress bars
- smaller local goals rather than a single "lasts all week and you still aren't expected to finish the top tier"
- success or failure in one week directly determines what the goals are the following week
- success or failure has persistent consequences for the bubble which are generally more noticeable than the average CG
- wider range of possible outcomes
"Powerplay but better designed and with a non-player opponent" is probably a closer comparison.
The main differences I'd say it had from CGs:
- multiple activity types count towards most progress bars
- smaller local goals rather than a single "lasts all week and you still aren't expected to finish the top tier"
- success or failure in one week directly determines what the goals are the following week
- success or failure has persistent consequences for the bubble which are generally more noticeable than the average CG
- wider range of possible outcomes
"Powerplay but better designed and with a non-player opponent" is probably a closer comparison.
Space rambo
Just because weapons go "pew pew" "fzzzzzt" "brrrrrrrrp" "[insert here]" in a magical space fantasy doesn't make it so.
If you're a real "Student of warfare" you'd know there's very little, in anything, in ED/EDO that's remotely related to how warfare is actually conducted, tactically or strategically.
Even people ganging up to instagib a cyclops (aka converging fire) is an emergent response to the constraints imposed by bad design, not a genuine example of technical innovation under pressure driving new tactics/strategy.
Being spoonfed new weapons/enablers to storyboard checkpoints is totally not how wars are fought.
In real world warfare Innovation happens at all levels, it wouldn't just be done at Azimuth Biotech or "official" engineers dripfed by CG's.
Yes, I'm driving a truck through the gaping holes in this engineered war arc.
I know it's the way it is because that's the mechanics of the game which constrain it, but it makes it well nigh impossible to suspend disbelief if you're actually a student of real warfare.
Just because weapons go "pew pew" "fzzzzzt" "brrrrrrrrp" "[insert here]" in a magical space fantasy doesn't make it so.
If you're a real "Student of warfare" you'd know there's very little, in anything, in ED/EDO that's remotely related to how warfare is actually conducted, tactically or strategically.
Even people ganging up to instagib a cyclops (aka converging fire) is an emergent response to the constraints imposed by bad design, not a genuine example of technical innovation under pressure driving new tactics/strategy.
Being spoonfed new weapons/enablers to storyboard checkpoints is totally not how wars are fought.
In real world warfare Innovation happens at all levels, it wouldn't just be done at Azimuth Biotech or "official" engineers dripfed by CG's.
Yes, I'm driving a truck through the gaping holes in this engineered war arc.
I know it's the way it is because that's the mechanics of the game which constrain it, but it makes it well nigh impossible to suspend disbelief if you're actually a student of real warfare.
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Ubi are upgrading the bad AX weapons to make it easier for commanders to engage with AX combat (and thereby the Thargoid War II story arc).
The meta weapon is still the Gauss for those who have already unlocked and become proficient with it. There are just more and better choices available for those that either struggle with railguns or just fancy a change. I don't think that's a bad thing, at least you can opt out of the CGs and still unlock the upgraded weapons later if you want.
I just wish they'd upgrade the underlying code to make the actual gameplay experience more reliable, especially in multiplayer. Let's hope they have some improvements coming with the next Update.
The meta weapon is still the Gauss for those who have already unlocked and become proficient with it. There are just more and better choices available for those that either struggle with railguns or just fancy a change. I don't think that's a bad thing, at least you can opt out of the CGs and still unlock the upgraded weapons later if you want.
I just wish they'd upgrade the underlying code to make the actual gameplay experience more reliable, especially in multiplayer. Let's hope they have some improvements coming with the next Update.
To be fair since the thargoid war there has been almost 0 CGs...which I've found a bit odd.
We finished the weapon upgrades early. Their deadline was early February iirc.
Yea, but we could have had random "kill thargoid, earn bonds" CGs when there was no weapon CGs.
Well, the CG has been and is the tool that FD uses to make story-related injections. You don't have to partake in the CG to watch the story, however. I don't see anything wrong having an event-based mechanic to drive narration and gameplay.
That'd either take away forces from the Alert/Invasion/Control systems which already have that objective (if placed somewhere like Coalsack) ... or have the effect of Frontier picking the target system for the week (if one of the existing ones) ... or people would just get the bonds anyway in the normal war fights and then hand them in for the CG (not that the CG bonus payout would make much difference)
The AX CG type seems superfluous given the normal war mechanism - still plenty of room for trade, bounty, human war, exploration, etc. of course.
I wonder if they're more cautious about doing "filler" CGs which don't really affect much nowadays, because of the risk of taking people away from the war with nothing important to show for it / the risk that no-one would show up because the war seemed higher priority, whereas previously "here's a plot event going on offscreen, haul some cargo for a week so you feel involved" would have been fine.
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Are you asking or announcing?
Don't you mean "driving a SRV" as there are no trucks in this game?
Sorry a game doesn't make war real enough for you, it must be such a dismal feeling that there is no real suffering and death going on.
Refering to the title, as the body, beats repeating it...there's enough of that already
That's hilarious, considering the gold standard reply of WK's to any critical analysis is "it's a simulation, based on REALITY, that's why it's called DANGEROUS silly".
Not to mention, which should be apparent to anyone who paused to actually read what I wrote, that what I'm talking about is not wanting/needing more "real suffering and death going on" but simulation (see above) of how real wars impact the technical innovation pipeline in response to threats in order to end them faster, resulting in (hopefully & ultimately) LESS "real suffering and death going on". Any real student of war would know this. Trying to invert this by implying I want to see more death and destruction is a little lame tbh.
Still, a war is a war, and somebody is going to die, so better it's the enemy:
"I want you to remember that no poor '[redacted] ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb son-of-a-complaining die for his country. Remember that." Gen George Patton (jfc the swear filter has totally mangled GP's fantastic assessment of war)
On December 7, 1964 the Japanese government conferred on Curtis Le May the First Order of Merit with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun , ostensibly for rebuilding their air force but I suspect also because he showed them that brutality begats brutality - as GP implies. Whatever it takes. War makes strange bedfellows afterwards, which is a good thing, actually.
Considering Jameson, however, we should still ask ourselves:
To summarise: the clockwork dripfeed of technical improvements is not how wars progress. Seems a little janky in that regard, and hard to believe.
SRV's are a mini-truck, so that's aok, and @Montague nailed it there too!
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rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Or istead of passive-aggressive thread title, you could provide some actual constructive criticism in the recent official feedback request thread.Refering to the title, as the body, beats repeating it...there's enough of that already
Oddly, that is exactly what I thought, so replied in kind!