The miserable state of combat in the BGS and how NPC murder breaks the game and promotes the use of exploits
At the current state of the BGS, there's 4 actions that count as combat: Bounty Hunting, Combat Bonds, Murder, Assassination Missions
Assassination missions work just like any mission, so they will be no part of this feedback, apart from notifying that they should not be confused with Massacre missions, which currently do not count as combat actions. This is probably an oversight.
This is about how Bounty Hunting and Combat bonds, being functionally similar, fair against murder.
The BGS in its current state is heavily transaction based. This means that the number of transactions is more important than the strength of each individual transaction.
What counts an individual transaction for each action:
For bounty hunting, a single transaction is when you deliver the total sum of bounties from all the ships you have destroyed in a single session until delivery.
For combat bonds, a single transaction is the same. The total sum of combat bonds from all the ships you have destroyed in a single session until delivery.
For murder, on the other hand, a single transaction is registered when the bounty from a murder is placed upon you. Individually and repeatedly.
See the problem already? If not, then please allow me to elaborate.
Let's coompare Player X and Player Y supporting competing factions in a single system. Player X is supporting the ruler faction through bounty hunting and player Y is trying to hurt it through murder.
Player X stayed in a res site for a couple hours, delivered around 6 million worth of bounties in credits on his way back, more than 40-50 worth of pirates, and called it a day.
Player Y killed 10 security vessels within 20-25 minutes.
Who do you think the BGS will favor in terms of having their desired outcome? Sadly, if you thought it would be player X, you are in for a surprise. Because the ruling faction now has 1 transaction in its favor and 10 transactions against it.
This leads to a well known, but tedious, exploit of handing in bounties (and combat bonds) often. This means travelling, killing a single ship, handing in, repeat.
Obviously, not only is that the worst possible standard of gameplay possible for someone to stand up against murder (especially in a war where other methods like missions and exploration are disabled), but it's also not even remotely comparable still, since it involves a travel time, whereas a dedicated murderer can just stay on site and accumulate over a hundred transactions within a single sitting.
Murder shows that the technology to register BGS transactions upon a ship kill is there. This should be the standard on how combat bonds and bounties work as well, so that they can function in direct competition with each other. The strength of all should be diminished to accommodate for the large amounts of transactions involved.
If that would be too taxing on the simulator, then NPC murder should be once again removed from affecting the BGS until a proper solution is found. Because in its current state, even after it has been nerfed 3 times already, it keeps breaking the game due to still functioning within the numbers of transactions model.
At the current state of the BGS, there's 4 actions that count as combat: Bounty Hunting, Combat Bonds, Murder, Assassination Missions
Assassination missions work just like any mission, so they will be no part of this feedback, apart from notifying that they should not be confused with Massacre missions, which currently do not count as combat actions. This is probably an oversight.
This is about how Bounty Hunting and Combat bonds, being functionally similar, fair against murder.
The BGS in its current state is heavily transaction based. This means that the number of transactions is more important than the strength of each individual transaction.
What counts an individual transaction for each action:
For bounty hunting, a single transaction is when you deliver the total sum of bounties from all the ships you have destroyed in a single session until delivery.
For combat bonds, a single transaction is the same. The total sum of combat bonds from all the ships you have destroyed in a single session until delivery.
For murder, on the other hand, a single transaction is registered when the bounty from a murder is placed upon you. Individually and repeatedly.
See the problem already? If not, then please allow me to elaborate.
Let's coompare Player X and Player Y supporting competing factions in a single system. Player X is supporting the ruler faction through bounty hunting and player Y is trying to hurt it through murder.
Player X stayed in a res site for a couple hours, delivered around 6 million worth of bounties in credits on his way back, more than 40-50 worth of pirates, and called it a day.
Player Y killed 10 security vessels within 20-25 minutes.
Who do you think the BGS will favor in terms of having their desired outcome? Sadly, if you thought it would be player X, you are in for a surprise. Because the ruling faction now has 1 transaction in its favor and 10 transactions against it.
This leads to a well known, but tedious, exploit of handing in bounties (and combat bonds) often. This means travelling, killing a single ship, handing in, repeat.
Obviously, not only is that the worst possible standard of gameplay possible for someone to stand up against murder (especially in a war where other methods like missions and exploration are disabled), but it's also not even remotely comparable still, since it involves a travel time, whereas a dedicated murderer can just stay on site and accumulate over a hundred transactions within a single sitting.
Murder shows that the technology to register BGS transactions upon a ship kill is there. This should be the standard on how combat bonds and bounties work as well, so that they can function in direct competition with each other. The strength of all should be diminished to accommodate for the large amounts of transactions involved.
If that would be too taxing on the simulator, then NPC murder should be once again removed from affecting the BGS until a proper solution is found. Because in its current state, even after it has been nerfed 3 times already, it keeps breaking the game due to still functioning within the numbers of transactions model.
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