The Dangerous Games - Wildcard Community Goals

[Zac Antonaci]

Hey guys,

It's exciting times at the moment with the Dangerous Games just finishing the wildcard votes. I just wanted to briefly lay out how the wildcard mini tournament of CGs will work and put the information out ahead of time so that we can get community feedback, questions and reaction before the events begins!

The Wildcard games will act as a qualifier and a test ground for the final games which will ultimately decide which faction becomes a power in the game.

The tournament of CG's are proposed to work as follows....

- There will be 3 weeks of Community Goals, aiming to start on the 2nd of June
- We will not be giving out any detail as to what the CG requirements are or their location before they are made live
- The five factions CGs will all run from the same location and a user will need to pick the faction/group they want to support
- The five CGs will all require the same commodity/bounty/or goal to be given in
- Each week, at the end of the CGs there will be a score given based on where that group finished (first group to complete the CG or the highest tier/collected/resource to those not completed) The highest group will get 5 points, second would get 4 and so on down to 1 for the lowest.
- After the three weeks the group/faction with the most points in the three CGs will go through to the final as the wildcard
- There will be no credit reward for the tiers in the CG. This is to avoid someone signing up for multiple CGs at the same station and raising both their score, which is possible
- The CGs will be set up in a way that tries to ensure a reasonable profit per run/commodity/bond etc for the Commanders taking part
- There will be an additional CG running seperately through these weeks for the people who would rather abstain from the the games and want a standard CG
- If there is a tie for points we will find a suitable tie break for those groups

I'd love to get your feedback on the proposed plan and field any questions you might have.

Thanks,

Zac

 

[Sir.Tj]

Looks a lot of fun.

It'll be interesting to see what people come up with.

 

[Luchslistig [UGC]]

On the first reading it sounds good...
We can't wait for this to start...

Further questions will come... ;-)

 

[fergal]

Hey guys,

It's exciting times at the moment with the Dangerous Games just finishing the wildcard votes. I just wanted to briefly lay out how the wildcard mini tournament of CGs will work and put the information out ahead of time so that we can get community feedback, questions and reaction before the events begins!

The Wildcard games will act as a qualifier and a test ground for the final games which will ultimately decide which faction becomes a power in the game.

The tournament of CG's are proposed to work as follows....

- There will be 3 weeks of Community Goals, aiming to start on the 2nd of June
- We will not be giving out any detail as to what the CG requirements are or their location before they are made live
- The five factions CGs will all run from the same location and a user will need to pick the faction/group they want to support
- The five CGs will all require the same commodity/bounty/or goal to be given in
- Each week, at the end of the CGs there will be a score given based on where that group finished (first group to complete the CG or the highest tier/collected/resource to those not completed) The highest group will get 5 points, second would get 4 and so on down to 1 for the lowest.
- After the three weeks the group/faction with the most points in the three CGs will go through to the final as the wildcard
- There will be no credit reward for the tiers in the CG. This is to avoid someone signing up for multiple CGs at the same station and raising both their score, which is possible
- The CGs will be set up in a way that tries to ensure a reasonable profit per run/commodity/bond etc for the Commanders taking part
- There will be an additional CG running seperately through these weeks for the people who would rather abstain from the the games and want a standard CG
- If there is a tie for points we will find a suitable tie break for those groups

I'd love to get your feedback on the proposed plan and field any questions you might have.

Thanks,

Zac

It all sounds good, this part is the only part that I think is a slight issue
"The CGs will be set up in a way that tries to ensure a reasonable profit per run/commodity/bond etc for the Commanders taking part"

What is meant by "reasonable"?

If its delivering goods for example, I think it should be for very little profit, if any at all.
That way you get the group with the most real support, not just random players participating for the cr.

I also hope if there is an exploration CG (I hope there won't be) it will somehow only use data collected for the time it starts, not allow people who are returning form their 9 month trip to hand in all that data.

Same goes for a BH CG, hopefully existing bounties can't be stored up and handed in, only ones earnt from the start of the CG.

 

[MUSKETEER]

Sounds good to me

 

[Zac Antonaci]

It all sounds good, this part is the only part that I think is a slight issue
"The CGs will be set up in a way that tries to ensure a reasonable profit per run/commodity/bond etc for the Commanders taking part"

What is meant by "reasonable"?

If its delivering goods for example, I think it should be for very little profit, if any at all.
That way you get the group with the most real support, not just random players participating for the cr.

I also hope if there is an exploration CG (I hope there won't be) it will somehow only use data collected for the time it starts, not allow people who are returning form their 9 month trip to hand in all that data.

Same goes for a BH CG, hopefully existing bounties can't be stored up and handed in, only ones earnt from the start of the CG.

The plan is that the CGs run in the same way they do now.

For the point on the reasonable profit. It's a balance. We want to ensure that pilots want to take part. Not just the die hard supporters but the more neutral players too. We want them to have the right balance between reward and being a part of something bigger. Making sure the games are inclusive is pretty important. However, without any rewards for the tiers it's important to have a fair profit to encourage participation.

Essentially the point is that it's not about credits (if that's what you want you should probably go to the other CG) it's about power. But we will try and make it so people are at least earning off a run to make it as inclusive as possible.

Valid points on the exploration data and ones that have been considered.

For the Bounty ones, how would anyone know what bounties to store or claim?

 

[Steve Kirby]

If its delivering goods for example, I think it should be for very little profit, if any at all.
That way you get the group with the most real support, not just random players participating for the cr.

We will be happy to make it for very low profit or none at all if you guys are happy with that.
We are simply planning to allow players to make profit during the CG to cover costs and rebuys etc and have little or no reward payments as this event is about support your chosen power candidate and not about credits.

Thanks and hope this helps clarify this point.

Steve K

 

[Baton]

If this will be after 2.1 kicks in, there will be some rebuy costs with new AI, so there should be some profit

 

[fergal]

For the Bounty ones, how would anyone know what bounties to store or claim?

You don't think the Alliance guys are running algorithms to calculate the most likely system you will select for the CGs?

Does that mean generic Federation, Imperial or Alliance bounties won't be able to be handed in, I'm sure I have several million of each right now.

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We will be happy to make it for very low profit or none at all if you guys are happy with that.
We are simply planning to allow players to make profit during the CG to cover costs and rebuys etc and have little or no reward payments as this event is about support your chosen power candidate and not about credits.

Thanks and hope this helps clarify this point.

Steve K

Exactly what I hoped for

 

[Zac Antonaci]

You don't think the Alliance guys are running algorithms to calculate the most likely place system you will select for the CGs?

Does that mean generic Federation, Imperial or Alliance bounties won't be able to be handed in, I'm sure I have several million of each right now.

Fair feedback. Will mention it to Steve. But I can neither confirm nor deny if a bounty CG will come up in the list....

 

[Elementical]

- The five factions CGs will all run from the same location and a user will need to pick the faction/group they want to support
....This is to avoid someone signing up for multiple CGs at the same station and raising both their score, which is possible

Clarification on these points please. Is it possible to sign up for multiple CGs at the same time and support more than 1 faction?
Or are you locked into supporting 1 faction for all CGs?
Or maybe it's 1 faction per CG?

If you can support multiple factions during a CG then a possible strategy would be as follows:
Theoretical example - You sign up to support faction A but you're losing, so you decide to switch your focus to faction B half way through the CG to ensure Faction C doesn't win.

 

[dukrous]

We will be happy to make it for very low profit or none at all if you guys are happy with that.

While some well-funded players would not mind, not all of us can afford to throw money into a pot for 4 weeks and come out ok. I'd like to at least cover costs.

 

[fergal]

While some well-funded players would not mind, not all of us can afford to throw money into a pot for 4 weeks and come out ok. I'd like to at least cover costs.

PP is a massive money sink where fortification goods cost 10000 cr/t.
Its just like selling Gold for 0 cr over and over again.

From what they said, the CGs sound like you will be able to cover costs with what they have planned.

 

[Martin Schou]

You don't think the Alliance guys are running algorithms to calculate the most likely system you will select for the CGs?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I've already managed to narrow the likely candidate list down to tiny fraction of the possible options.

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I realise you already have it planned out, but it would actually be kind of interesting to have it styled as a PowerPlay CG.

Sign up for whatever faction you want to support, and for the first week everyone counts as a rating 1 commander, complete with the ability to only pick up 10 tons for free every 30 minutes and spending 10,000 credits/ton to pick up additional units.

Have everyone truck their CG merits to designated locations at identical distances, throw in piracy as an ability to steal other people's hard earned CG merits etc. (but not something that counts towards their own faction's score). Basically make the CGs work like a miniature PowerPlay competition. I'm all for getting more people and powers into PowerPlay, but I have a sneaky suspicion that a LOT of the people itching to get in there just want to do undermining or combat expansions while completely neglecting the bread and butter of PowerPlay - fortifying and preparing systems.

 

[Penny Umbra]

I don't powerplay, so I don't know what you're talking about. Plenty of people in the independent player factions don't powerplay - these games may be an elaborate ploy to draw us in, to tame us and break our free spirts on the grindstone of community goals... Ahem. Sorry, got carried away there.

I'd rather stick to regular CGs, rather than learn all this PP merit rating thingies.

 

[captain slow]

For the love of all that is good, please do not make it powerplay prep based. Just about the worst idea since combing hair with a potato peeler!

 

[CMDRKNac]

I would like to suggest for the team to look at how the Lugh CG events were back in the day for ideas, as thatw s the most fun and well designed series of competitive CG's yet to date (although not completely balanced tbh).

 

[Maxmilian Czhilli]

Clarification on these points please. Is it possible to sign up for multiple CGs at the same time and support more than 1 faction?
Or are you locked into supporting 1 faction for all CGs?
Or maybe it's 1 faction per CG?

If you can support multiple factions during a CG then a possible strategy would be as follows:
Theoretical example - You sign up to support faction A but you're losing, so you decide to switch your focus to faction B half way through the CG to ensure Faction C doesn't win.

This is to avoid someone signing up for multiple CGs at the same station and raising both their score, which is possible

If signing up for more than one faction goal means that those factions all benefit from the delivery of one tonne of whateverum, then it could certainly be gamed. I'm sure some of the seeded groups will have a Faction C in mind that might be a threat to them in the final games. They could then sign up for groups A, B, D and E to try and prevent Faction C from getting through.

I hope it won't work like this. The wildcard games should be a measure of support. It would be sad to see it become an anybody but them contest.

 

[Martin Schou]

I don't powerplay, so I don't know what you're talking about. Plenty of people in the independent player factions don't powerplay - these games may be an elaborate ploy to draw us in, to tame us and break our free spirts on the grindstone of community goals... Ahem. Sorry, got carried away there.

I'd rather stick to regular CGs, rather than learn all this PP merit rating thingies.

Given that it's a set of CGs to make a new PowerPlay power, why is it such a bad idea to have it emulate PowerPlay?

 

[DNA-Decay]

I'm looking forward to the Wildcard games.

I love the notion of being able to switch which team you are pushing partway through the CG.
It gives leadership a lot of scope for negotiation and diplomacy to get their own or their preferred groups across the line.

Not just a raw numbers grind, but a finesse of who can call on what favours.

And it gives FDev a chance to tweak things or invent surprises for the Rise To Power Games.

Pumped! Hyped! Psyched! Let's do this!