Time to remove BGS exploits

[kofeyh]

Yes it is predictable, due to the built in gates, so one can know how much so-and-so action will produce; however this is offset by other's actions, which aren't always clearly apparent (until, it's too late to offset and the house of cards comes down). I sense there is a desire the BGS should reward effort based on merit alone; that sounds pretty broken thinking, even if well intentioned.

I also think there's this undercurrent that we have some implicit right to manipulate the BGS, but others can't because their playstyle is irrelevant, or not as important. Which is also, fundamentally, broken thinking. The more I understand of the BGS, the less I realise I understand. I am by no means really very knowledgeable.

But I can recognise bias when I see it; with respect to gaming the BGS, though. And "it should be x, but y is super unfair" doesn't automatically mean there's a problem; rather there is a difference of opinion of the relative value of x over y. Various mechanics have wildly different risk vectors, in the same way the can have wildly different times invested; you can't make them comparable in influence, if they are fundamentally different in time/ risk.

The "everything should be comparable" argument assumes all mechanics have the same time/ risk. They don't. Sure, everything could have relative value, but that's not the same thing.

 

[Jeffrey31]

duplicate deleted

 

[Mindphaser]

I'd argue its time to get of the BGS altogether.

 

[_Flin_]

Yes it is predictable, due to the built in gates, so one can know how much so-and-so action will produce; however this is offset by other's actions, which aren't always clearly apparent (until, it's too late to offset and the house of cards comes down). I sense there is a desire the BGS should reward effort based on merit alone; that sounds pretty broken thinking, even if well intentioned.

Currently it more or less rewards on transactions alone. That's worse than merit alone. But what we want to have is a balanced approach with falling effectiveness per action type per player. So that 1 player can maybe move a system 5% with trade alone. And everything together max 20%, or 15%.

I also think there's this undercurrent that we have some implicit right to manipulate the BGS, but others can't because their playstyle is irrelevant, or not as important.

Quite the opposite. Every playstyle matters, that is the nice thong about the BGS and what wd - as AEDC - want more of. Having murder being unbalanced means 2 things:
- one playstyle favored abova all others.
- favoring certain ships and superpowers (e.g. Corvette > all; Fed and Empire > Alliance and Independents, because better police ships)
- punishing factions for system rule (because murder is effective against system ruler)

Various mechanics have wildly different risk vectors, in the same way the can have wildly different times invested; you can't make them comparable in influence, if they are fundamentally different in time/ risk.

That is another problem.
We think that with murder the transaction gets counted immediately.
Therefore your risk is way less than doing other things. Plus... flying a PvE engineered Corvette/Anaconda is hardly any risk.

Theoretically this sounds good, but realtiy is that BGS currently consists of murder + 1click exploration, which is neither fun nor probably intended that way.

The "everything should be comparable" argument assumes all mechanics have the same time/ risk. They don't. Sure, everything could have relative value, but that's not the same thing.

Taken literally it might, but it doesnt.
Because basically almost everything in BGS is risk = zero.
Experienced player + exactly the right ship for the cause = hardly any risk.

It'd be a nice argument if it were true (e.g. pirate missions & smuggling missions bringing more influence; murder being comparable to Combat bonds and Bounty hunting), but the thing is... it doesnt work that way. If it werd that'd be okay, but it doesnt.

 

[Jmanis]

The thing isnt that one is able to
- sell s systems one at a time

Yes it is. People are saying "Selling one report at a time is an exploit, in regards to the influence gained compared to selling a page at a time". This is incorrect.

We've always been able to sell one report at a time, and indeed, it was the only way for a long time. Selling up to a page of 50 at a time only came in sometime after Powerplay iirc.

What are people trying to say? That everyone before this change was exploiting? Obviously not. That if you continue to sell single reports of exploration data when you have the option to sell 50 at a time that you're exploiting? Wrong again, because there's no option to sell an arbitrary amount, in the case I want to split where I hand them in to.

In the case of 1t trading, the influence gain from selling 100t of an item for profit was correct, but the influence gain from selling 1t a hundred times was incorrect.

The same is not the case for handing in exploration data, but some people think it is. The 50 per page sale option is simply not accounting for the number of reports correctly.

<everything else>

I think there's plenty of debate to be had around what the correct valuation of exploration data/combat bonds should be.

I disagree that value of combat bonds == value of influence. Are 20 Eagle kills really worth 1 Anaconda kill? I'd disagree... my python can take down an Anaconda one on one, but my python can't take down 20 eagles all at once.

But a single anaconda kill should be worth more than a single eagle kill.

Likewise, a full-scan system worth 2m credits should have more influence worth more than a partial scan system worth 50k credits.

But is 200 partial scans at 1,000cr each ( Average equivalent of honk without scanning) worth more than one full scan worth 2m? I would argue the 200 scans are definitely worth more, but what matters is context. A militant cares about strategic positioning for bases. A research faction would care about pulsars and black holes. A mining corporation would care about ore surveys in asteroid belts. Conversely, a mining company wouldn't care jack for information about star types or black holes or non-mineable bodies. So why should that increase their influence when it's not even pertinent to their activities?

Again, not saying everything in the current implementation of the BGS is correct. Just that anyone who thinks selling reports one at a time is an exploit is not correct.

Oh,, and...

2. The time spent for influence activities should have comparable rewards

Actually, consistently, everything in the BGS is a trade-off between credits and influence.

- Trading 200t of an item for 1400cr profit can have equal to or less impact than trading 100t of two different items at 1000cr profit (ref)
- Exploration is the question of number of reports vs value of reports
- Bounties/bonds is number of bounties/bond transactions versus value
- Mission wrinkles which offer bonus credits don't offer bonus rewards.
- If you're running missions for credits, you'll steer clear of donation missions I guess?

There isn't much that actually rewards you based on number of credits earned by the activity.

I'd make changes to the BGS for sure, were it's primary goal to be the strategic power game some (myself included) want it to be. Powerplay by necessity had to be divorced from the BGS *because* it's unbalanced. And it's unbalanced because the strategic BGS influence game we play is *not* the primary purpose of the BGS; instead, simply to create a living, breathing galaxy.

Even when things make zero sense when something that is down to player mismanagement. or lack of care is rewarded?

Yes, even then. I would point to many of the common farm systems (Robigo, Quince etc.) that are in a constant state of being essentially BGS-inaccessible because of anomalies in the BGS. But it unarguably creates unique pockets of space with interesting effects, i.e a living, breathing universe.

 

[ManRightChea]

Leave it to the cheaters to always want Frontier to step in and nerf something. Even though I'm not talking about you directly necessarily, I find it rich how people like yourself always want more nerfs for the game and what you view as exploits. People like yourself made billions of credits using exploits in the past, skimmer missions, massacre missions etc.

I would go so far as to say that most PC players didn't even earn their ships legitimately especially not the biggest ships like the Cutter. Yet it's so common to see PC players with fully ranked up Cutters and 5 billion credits in the bank. It's so obvious that many people in this community did not earn their ships legitimately, but you always are in support of nerfing any potential currency for Elite Dangerous players that begin playing after you.

It's as if a portion of this community is so hateful that they want future players that begin playing after them to have no means to earn currency and earn the top ships in the game like the Corvette. From somebody that has earned the ranks and the currency to purchase the Corvette, this game is frustrating enough for modern players without people like you seeking to remove any form of somewhat rewarding currency acquisition in the game. Many of these hypocritical players want to impose tedium and frustration on future gamers when many of you all did everything in your power to avoid such things for yourselves.

And no I am not saying this because I am an exploiter, matter of fact console players tend to be the most legitimate since most every exploit disappeared by the time our games came out.

I just find it funny how what's good for the goose is no longer good for the gander. Many of the older PC community on this forum had no problem with cheating and exploiting when it was good for them, but now that they have what they want they are so hateful that they rather no one else have access to the same.

Perhaps Frontier should fix every single "exploit"in the game, while retroactively also removing every fraudulently purchased and exploit driven ship and modification from anyone that accessed any of them. The ironic thing is I would be fine with this, because I earned my ships.

Not just a hypocrite like many of you all.

 

[lokvette]

Better
Get
Stoned

Because that's the only time playing Space Politics is actually fun.

Its true I gave up the herb and somking almost a year to the day (13th Oct 16) and not touched the BGS since.

 

[Rubbernuke]

As far as exploration data is concerned, FD signalled that one data drop is not an exploit, and while its not capped it has diminishing returns beyond a certain point. I do agree though that the value of the data should count for its influence also since currently it does not.

If you plan how you approach the BGS then most of it is a zero risk. The most dangerous activity is attacking security, especially in either Fed / Imperial high security systems in lockdown- and panda car Eagles should count less than killing Federal Corvette security.

Saying that, fighting off BGS attacks and using other means is great fun, and there are lots of tactics to outwit your opponents if you experiment.

 

[_Flin_]

Yes it is. People are saying "Selling one report at a time is an exploit, in regards to the influence gained compared to selling a page at a time". This is incorrect.

Well, what is an exploit is defined by Frontier, not by forum warriors.

Selling data one at a time is not the issue.

The issue is that the exact same data sold one by one generates more influence than selling it per page.

It has been balanced with trade.
It still needs to be balanced for
- explo
- Bountyhunting
- Combat Bonds
- Murder

And it is not about "are 100 systems more worth than 1 big system" but about "are 100 systems sold one by one singleclicking mire worth than 100 systems sold by page". And in the end this is a game. You'd need some obscure reasoning that totally ignores the fun aspect (is it more fun?) To say it should be this way.

 

[_Flin_]

Key issue, however, is balancing murder, not explo.

Explo is
- positive
- available for all ships
- needs to have a station (= play the bgs) before you can use it

Murder
- is negative
- is unbalanced in regards to ships and superpowers
- punishes the system ruler (= playing the BGS)

 

[Kerrash]

Its a shame, if player groups could learn to work together; we could effectively steer the game as one.

 

[DNA-Decay]

The BGS was designed at its core from transactions.

When it was concieved, the idea was that we would not have a very good understanding of it, but that if a CMDR settled in a small system their actions would have a noticible effect.

After it was noticed, it was analysed, and a lot of effort was put in to experiment and investigation. Frontier responded and we have seen much improvement to the BGS. Stability and predictability and uh - Flow. Yeah there's a kind of rythm spread over time to the way operations work in sequence.

But some things work well - so we all do that.
And some things that you would thing should work - don't really do much.

Missions are the base line. - One mission one plop of influence.
Except that mission availability and effectiveness is hugely dependednt on the states of the factions.
The effectiveness of a mission type might be halved or doubled.

But the effect of Trade and Exploration and Crime need to be counted as well.
And all these things can me measured in hundreds, thousands or millions of credits.

Those who advocate for value based influence change are saying that end-game CMDRs should have more clout. Ten trips in a Cutter should outweigh ten trips in a Cobra. Seems fair enough.
But it also means that one CMDR in a Cutter can outweight ten CMDRs in Cobras - and that seems unfair as well.

That's why I advocate for the log of the value.
Transaction has value 10Cr = 1 influence plop.
Transaction has value 100Cr = 2 influence polp
transaction has 10,000 Cr = 4 influence plop
Transaction has value 1,000,000Cr = 6 inlfuence plop

Obviously you can still game this with single transactions, but that gearing is what I am advocating.

A one million credit transaction should have more worth than a ten credit transaction.
Maybe not 100,000 times more, and maybe not as low as six times more, but something more.

 

[kofeyh]

Its a shame, if player groups could learn to work together; we could effectively steer the game as one.

Sort of. As long as it's steered in the direction the hand of the maker (developer) deems valid. It took them a very long time to get over the spanking the Emperor's Dawn received at the hand of commanders (it went entirely in the opposite direction they expected) -- which no doubt undid a ton of stuff they potentially had planned -- and I think that feed the resistance to a lot of grassroots work a number of groups did trying to kick-start Colonia, as a consequence. Instead it sort of happened after a bunch of unrelated but highly predictable CGs instead.

Which was all a bit of an unmitigated disaster (and the follow-on CGs low turnout for player group additions illustrated that rather well).

Frontier has come a long way since then I think; FX17 sort of hints they are pondering core changes that might give us a bit more leeway again. Frontier struggles at times, I think, from a tendency to wave the hand of god a little too soon, rather than letting things develop a little more dynamically (I can't blame them, though, it's impossible to plan if you essentially hand more control over to the player base).

But their biggest struggle, will be the balance between developer versus player control of in game outcomes. They are going to want to shepard, because this means it's predictable and definable and makes delivery dates plausible and so on, and we are going to resist all of that and want more dynamic outcomes where we have greater ownership of influence and so forth, which can toss entire development cycles out the window.

It's a tough ask, for any team. Things like guilds and so on, suggest there's a broader acceptance of groups-of-groups doing things. That's a pretty big departure. Good signs.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Key issue, however, is balancing murder, not explo.

Explo is
- positive
- available for all ships
- needs to have a station (= play the bgs) before you can use it

Murder
- is negative
- is unbalanced in regards to ships and superpowers
- punishes the system ruler (= playing the BGS)

Exploration data can be used as a weapon just as any laser can.

Murder is fine as it is. If you are defending, seeing lockdown or unrest states is a clear signal whats going on giving you time to mount a defence, and then it becomes a numbers game. Being Fed or Imp aligned only really becomes a minor issue in CZs, Fed /Imp (soonish Alliance) hardware only comes out when lockdowns pop up making gov adjustment more fun / challenging for the attacker.

Since the ruling faction is in charge, why is it wrong to see the people in charge suffer a penalty when they can't contain the situation?

Plus, since influence is mainly modified by population, low pop systems generally have low security allowing smaller ships to fight, meaning it does scale (to an extent). A low pop system only needs one or two security killed, and most often these are puny Eagles with horrifically bad response times.

 

[DNA-Decay]

You need to seperate plot development - which happens via CGs with territorial development which happens via BGS activity.

There have been very few territorial challenges to lore or plot development.
Well, actually that's not true, but where territorial events have challenged lore, Frontier have just ignored it.

I'm not just thinking here of Ross 128 nor of the Alliance's continued domination of PowerPlay. There are other events like the Pegasi war or the UA bombing of Harma. Things that were Player initiated, and emergent, made a difference and should have had some plot or story response.

Not like just a paragraph in GalNet, but Archon Delaine calling on the Kumo crew and sympathisers to exact some form of vengeance on the White Templars or the Empire. A couple of CGs worth of change.

 

[Rubbernuke]

You need to seperate plot development - which happens via CGs with territorial development which happens via BGS activity.

There have been very few territorial challenges to lore or plot development.
Well, actually that's not true, but where territorial events have challenged lore, Frontier have just ignored it.

I'm not just thinking here of Ross 128 nor of the Alliance's continued domination of PowerPlay. There are other events like the Pegasi war or the UA bombing of Harma. Things that were Player initiated, and emergent, made a difference and should have had some plot or story response.

Not like just a paragraph in GalNet, but Archon Delaine calling on the Kumo crew and sympathisers to exact some form of vengeance on the White Templars or the Empire. A couple of CGs worth of change.

This was tried by FD very early on in Powerplay, but it simply caused confusion as people thought it was an 'order' or mission objective. The story was late as well, which added to the fun.

 

[_Flin_]

Exploration data can be used as a weapon just as any laser can.

That is a blank statement that sounds good but is untrue. Tell me: How do you use exploration as a weapon where the faction you want to attack owns all stations with landing pads? Well... you don't.

Murder is fine as it is. If you are defending, seeing lockdown or unrest states is a clear signal whats going on giving you time to mount a defence, and then it becomes a numbers game. Being Fed or Imp aligned only really becomes a minor issue in CZs, Fed /Imp (soonish Alliance) hardware only comes out when lockdowns pop up making gov adjustment more fun / challenging for the attacker.

#

These sentences show you have not really grasped the extent of the effectiveness of murder. One person in a low pop system can tank the ruler by 30% influence loss in one hour. So in two or three days, the ruler is at 1%, triggering retreat. That will probably happen before any lockdown or civil unrest ever happens (because cooldowns).

You can only fight this by investing about 5 times as much time into exploration as the attacker does into murder.

And the Fed/Imp hardware comes as a response to a crime. Which then gets killed, and then spawns more waves in response. It really is a difference to fight FAS, FDS and Corvettes than Vipers, Anacondas and Pythons.

Since the ruling faction is in charge, why is it wrong to see the people in charge suffer a penalty when they can't contain the situation?

Well, you can always invent some arguments that match your narrative to the mechanics.

Counterquestion: Why is it right, that you can only retreat a faction when it rules? Why is it not able to attack a minor faction that has neither a station nor does it rule the system?
Shouldn't this actually be easier?

I am not against negative actions in the BGS. I am very much for them, they need to exist. There should to be ways to reliably attack factions' influence.

BUT:
1. Actions should be comparable. 1 hour of perfect gameplay in any area should - generally speaking - be comparable to another. There should be ways to tweak this (and there are), like no missions in war, or double trade effect in Boom, etc. But basically there should not be one unbalanced "I WIN" button. Which is murder at the moment.
2. You should be able to use actions against anyone. Different ones, o.k. ... You should be able to attack factions without stations. Factions with stations. Ruling factions. e.g..... why isn't there a way to install a blackmarket in a station and then use that to hurt the owning faction?

At the moment you can smuggle (against certain government types only), you can do targeted missions (unreliable, needs mode switching, does not work against all factions), or you can kill. And killing works mainly against the ruler, not the killed ship.

So... it works somehow... and you could invent some story to fit it... but it neither makes sense nor does it promote interesting gameplay.

Plus, since influence is mainly modified by population, low pop systems generally have low security allowing smaller ships to fight, meaning it does scale (to an extent). A low pop system only needs one or two security killed, and most often these are puny Eagles with horrifically bad response times.

Go to a low population (like 2000, or maybe 60.000) system and generate 100.000 bounty. Look at the influence values and wait for tick. Be aware that you will get better at that (like 1 million bounty on your head in an hour).

It is utterly unbalanced and does not make for interesting gameplay.

(PLUS: The amount of time it takes to counter this kind of action is usually way higher).

Quick fix: Cap murder at 2% per player per day. Or 15% total. Or whatever. As it is right now, it is a nuclear option.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

A one million credit transaction should have more worth than a ten credit transaction.
Maybe not 100,000 times more, and maybe not as low as six times more, but something more.

I'm happy with 6 times. Logarithmic progression sounds better than the flat per transaction system that we have now. It would also minimise the effect of random players just doing what's currently profitable.

 

[iFred]

I honestly have no idea why the BGS is soooo important for players. You have no advantage or disadvantage (as you can simply jump into a system that fits your needs). As long as players are not physically linked to their factions the BGS is nothing more than a life-simulation running in the background with almost no impact to the players (from a blaze.your-own-trail-point of view). It may look different if you want a Home-System or settle down for a while.

 

[_Flin_]

I honestly have no idea why the BGS is soooo important for players. You have no advantage or disadvantage (as you can simply jump into a system that fits your needs). As long as players are not physically linked to their factions the BGS is nothing more than a life-simulation running in the background with almost no impact to the players (from a blaze.your-own-trail-point of view). It may look different if you want a Home-System or settle down for a while.

It is not important. It is just a way of playing the game that is very engaging and long term fun.