Shouldn't the "Bar" start in the middle for the invasion, and move toward repelling the invasion as the players kill goids and evac, and say if it's supposed to complete the invasion in 4 weeks if we do nothing then every Thursday the bar moves 1/8th toward the Goid controlled state? that way efforts are not lost but are at least delaying the system falling under targoid control?
The Thargoid War: System States Clarifications
- Thread starter Bruce G
- Start date
I mean, if there were at least some reward system to the Thargoid War that makes participating worthwhile, even if you lose the systems. Like earning "war bonds" (or some other ingame "currency") by participating in missions and the like, that can be spent in a "Thargoid War shop" for pre-engineered weapons, modules, cosmetics etc.
Appreciated. If I've got your attention for a sec, can I also provide the feedback that maybe instead of totally wiping out progress for the week, maybe have the Thargoids push existing progress in a system backward by a set amount as stations go offline and the 'Goids move to their next target in-system? That way it still feels like an uphill battle but we get a little serotonin from knowing that we made a dent?
Because I guarantee you that if the community gets a system above 90%, and then it gets reset all the way back to 0%, people are understandably going to give up.
This war system has a lot of potential (sigh so much "potential" in Elite) for a variety of NPC conflicts but my impression is it isn't balanced properly. Maybe if the few million people who own copies of the game were actually active players, it would be fine. But only a fraction play; with the Live playerbase we actually have (Steam numbers, while not a complete picture, are relatively low), it seems like the thargoids are guaranteed to win. And there are 5 more stargoids on the way! (Maybe an early defeat is the story being developed. If so, great. If not....)
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In order to win the war we need to engage it with a long view.
Early on (first 3 to 5 months?), we will suffer many losses. It will be difficult and grueling. We're not meant to win the war in a day, a week, a month or even a year...
As time passes, we will:
There will be waves of setbacks, advances, setbacks, advances, etc...
This is a grand story, years in the making...it won't be over any time soon...
I'm looking forward to all of it...
Early on (first 3 to 5 months?), we will suffer many losses. It will be difficult and grueling. We're not meant to win the war in a day, a week, a month or even a year...
As time passes, we will:
- learn more about the enemy
- have opportunities to make and acquire better stuff
- change our tactics and strategies
There will be waves of setbacks, advances, setbacks, advances, etc...
This is a grand story, years in the making...it won't be over any time soon...
I'm looking forward to all of it...
This would be much better. Makes realistic sense and feels far more satisfying than getting clean slated.
Not that I care, I'm just flying & shooting here, but the way I see it - it wont work. Maybe (with very capital "M") if all the community treated Elite as full time job, and focused on a single system, then that would do something. But Elite is not our job, community wont focus entirely on single system, and if it did - I seriously doubt FDev's servers would cope with that amount of players in single system.
So I will just continue to cash bonds in fewer and fewer stations that will still be working, and watch the galaxy merrily burn.
So I will just continue to cash bonds in fewer and fewer stations that will still be working, and watch the galaxy merrily burn.
This sounds like a MUCH better idea. So its like a tug of war over many weeks
Weekly cycle would make sense if there follows lowering of "success" treshold based on a previous week. Imo there is put really impressive devs effort into Update13, so I hope there is possibility to sensible adjust war algoritmus. Losing weekly progress completelly (i.e. start from a point zero vs unchageable treshold) do not makes much sense to me.
I'd say that just like in the real world it's highly unlikely that the effort of one single commander could have any perceivable impact on the war.
Ozric
Volunteer Moderator
Yes that could indeed work...
With literally no ingame way of organising, relying on those who use Discord or the forums to muster enough force is... well, the above video
I can tell you right now that this will especially discourage newer and more casual players. The experienced players are already all in wings fighting in the target systems, and they've been playing for years, and aren't likely to stop now. The newbies though, they're going to look at that map, pick a random system with no real rhyme or reason, and go defend it for a few days before looking to see if they've made a difference.
If they get positive feedback, they could become permanent members of the community! But if their work is thrown away every week, they'll become frustrated and quit. This is the exact same problem we've seen with Powerplay, where players try to expand to a random system but because it doesn't work with the bizarre and arbitrary rules of Powerplay, it never works, they fail, give up, and quit.
What you might consider is maybe a global war total, one that counts ALL thargoid kills and war efforts, and universally impacts the effect of the invasion, or more ideally, across each maelstrom mini-bubble. If someone kills a single cyclops, it could count towards that and help everyone, even if it doesn't directly help that system in particular. That way everything MATTERS, even if not done quite optimally.
Except, we can't. If the timer for a system is at six weeks, the system will be Thargoid controlled after six weeks. It doesn't matter if for the entire duration of those six weeks no CMDR had even entered the system or if 1000 CMDR pushed the bar to 99% five weeks in a row. Unless you hit 100% within one week, all effort had been wasted.
I mean, I get it. It's supposed to be this dramatic struggle for survival and the war is supposed to last months (years?). But this mechanic is just completely demotivating.
Not true. If a random ukranian goes out and blows up a russian tank with homemade explosives, that's one less tank that they can send against other areas. Everything counts in a war.
There's a difference between strategic and tactical objectives, though, I'll grant you that. If a force is just totally outnumbered it doesn't matter how many tanks they blow up, they'll still be overrun. But that's not a very compelling war narrative, is it?
Ozric
Volunteer Moderator
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Perhaps it is meant as a Galnet war. I'm sure we can count on some Galnet Professor discovering the Thargoids are allergic to baked beans in due course.
And just like in real world you don't start any operations mid-week, because you have less time before all your progress gets reset.
And dont start evacuating any civilians midweek, because if you dont secure your territory by the end of the week they have to return back. Just like the real world, of course.