Nah, I wouldnt worry too much. It is supposed to be 'hopeless' until new gear arrives. But it also means doing anti-xeno stuff is pointless until Thursday next week.
I mean, that's actually the majority of the problem right now, I think - if they'd, say, set the thresholds at 10% of their current value ... we'd have won HIP 23716, maybe got another one or two, been mildly annoyed with this announcement because it stops us getting a fourth, and had another go next week.
We'd still have lost tens of systems, had another five Maelstroms incoming, and been nowhere near doing anything sufficient to hold them back.
The reset is mostly a problem because on the basis of HIP 23716 this week, we could throw a record-sized CG's worth of effort into one system next week and still stand a good chance of outright failure.
Frontier have said they're aware the thresholds need balancing (the chances of getting lucky and guessing right first time were nil, it's fine!) but hopefully they can get that done quickly so that next week sees some minor victory in the face of hundreds of lost systems.
There's also the feeling that winning CZs should count for a lot (100% agree) and that the CZ victories aren't happening/counting because of bugs with CZs getting stuck or surface CZs having no clear end notification.
Depending on how true that is and what the intended balance of those things is a lot of work could simply be not counted. Pretty sure it wouldn't be the same as reducing the goals by 90%, but if everything worked perfectly it could be a serious balance change.
That said, if they based the initial goals on the Azimuth finale CGs then the data from that should've had that already factored in.
I don't think the threshold itself is the problem, but the binary character of the mechanic: You either win or you face a reset. I wouldn't even mind a higher threshold, if progress is transfered into the next week. Transfer of progress allows for so many more strategies, "emergent content" and motivating gameplay.
Right now players face two choices: Run with the Zerg and fight in the ONE system the majority of CMDRs is fighting in*, so you MAY have a chance to achieve ONE victory. Or don't participate in the Thargoid War at all, because no matter how many Thargoid you kill, how many deliveries you make and how many refugees you evacuate: Your participation will mean nothing and you're not even earning any meaningful rewards.
*) assuming the player uses internet communities like the forums, reddit or discord AND assuming there is a clearly defined majority of CMDRs active at some location AND assuming the CMDR is even interested in joining this effort instead of "blazing his own trail"
Oh absolutely. If my read is right (I'm heading to work, so can't check) I'm hearing the progress against the invasion systems which still have time on the clock got reset in the weekly tick. That's pretty dumb tbh.
I'm pretty sure that is the intent: we are facing an enemy that was more than able to fight the Guardians to more than a standstill. I'm just as surprised by the speed at which players already appear to have given up though. This is not a CG that will be over in a week with nice new shiny pre-engineered bumper sticker.
Power play is a game that has been going on for years, with no means to win it, yet folks still participate and play. The BGS took a long time for the players to work out the finer points. Another game of cat and mouse that has no means to win, yet folks actively participate and build communities around it. Both of these have an element of "if you don't win then you might as well not turn up". Yet folks still turn up.
The mindset yet to be adopted is that of Power play and the BGS: in it for the long term.
There is much uncertainty here and much still to learn: how to contain the expansion (the Orthrus would appear to be the key), how to reclaim lost systems that are unpopulated, and how to defend systems that are under invasion. If it's all done by next Tuesday then it'll be back to "Booring! When are you going to give us new content?"
The war has been a long time coming to the bubble (I remember someone demanding this on day 1 launch back in 2014) and I take on board that FDev are learning and responding to what we do. Trust that the Dungeon Master wants to bring a game that leads to triumph through adversity, and not a cake and slippers yawnfest where it is all far too easy.
I'd agree that letting it carry-over would allow for more interesting strategies, especially for weaker groups, but equally with a more reasonable threshold it wouldn't be anywhere near as big a problem and with the current thresholds it only makes an extremely marginal difference to the outcome in terms of systems saved (we could save 1 rather than 0, which I agree is still important for symbolism and morale!)
Powerplay doesn't have carry-over for failed fortification/undermining attempts or preparations below the budget+consolidation threshold and works out fine ... the BGS doesn't let the losing side in a war or election carry over the points they earned to make a win the next day a bit more likely. (They could, and it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if they did, but it's workable either way)
For the war effort sure, but there are still reasons to do it:
- For those if us who do not have billions of credits in the bank yet
- For those of us who have not yet reached Elite rank in Combat
- For those of us who think fighting Thargoids is fun
- For those of us who, still, need lots of practice
- I'm sure there are others...
At least we've completed the CG in good time. Might not be a great achievement, but at the very least a small victory, hopefully commanders will have better weapons tomorrow or shortly.
It did say "the following Thursday" but tomorrow might be, just, a bit too soon...
BGS does have the total defeat / defeat / minor defeat thing for winning conflict days that I mentioned earlier, but since it doesn't actually matter for game play and is easily overlooked I associated it with another game rather than Elite. It does help morale in the sense of "at least we took a day off them" in addition to delaying the resolution of the conflict.
Damm it, knocked out of the top 10 on the last run.
That's why I wrote shortly! But in any case it will be one week earlier..It did say "the following Thursday" but tomorrow might be, just, a bit too soon...
I just spent probably 6 or 7 hours this week running emergency deliveries, and killing thargoids. I probably killed countless scouts, and 8 or 9 interceptors (it would have been more if Wolf Orbital wasn't bugged and spawning only scouts that one time).
I frankly don't care what the threshold is, how many need to be killed, or how long it takes. As long as I what I'm doing actually counts, and helps the overall effort.
If all my time literally counted for nothing, I don't know if I'm going to keep doing it...
I frankly don't care what the threshold is, how many need to be killed, or how long it takes. As long as I what I'm doing actually counts, and helps the overall effort.
If all my time literally counted for nothing, I don't know if I'm going to keep doing it...
Yes, though that's slightly different in that you do still need to win a day somewhere.
If your daily results are 10-8, 10-9, 10-7, 10-6 you lose 4-0. If your daily results are 10-7, 10-11, 10-6, 10-6 then you put in exactly the same total effort but the score is 3-1.
With carry over for the losing side it would be more like 10-8 (1-0), 10-17 (1-1), 20-7 (2-1), 10-13 (2-2) which would be a more proportional representation of the effort being put in on each side but also very different to how it currently works. (Somewhat similar to the old influence-based war resolution pre-3.3, which had carry-over for both sides)
I think the main difference is that there's state changes which occur on those things which don't carry over.
This is more like, say, the current CG, which iirc goes till 1 Feb, having its progress reset each week.
Please dont let that be true. Dont equal the Tharg war mechanics with the Powerplay BGS, the single most (anecdotally) despised system in the game. Even hard core Powerplay acolytes might agree it needs some degree of overhaul. If the Tharg war system adepted the PP mechanics, and not the other way around, we really are doomed. Pointless activities with no beginning or end. Ouroboros they are spelled i think?
Imagine if a week-long CG had it's progress in number of tons delivered reset to zero each day if a certain arbitrary daily threshold wasn't reached...
Imagine spending all day delivering 10000 tons of commodities, only for it to count the same as zero, because not enough other players delivered enough.
That's not how it works...thankfully. Instead, we have a certain number of days to deliver X number of goods.
So does that mean that 18,000% of Matshiru's population has been rescued?
That's actually kinda happened in competitive CGs with module rewards sometimes and it was not the best then either.