Forums » General
Annual visit
Just checking into the forums for my annual check in to read some forums, changes and of course the Deneb Stats.
Looks like Deneb is about the same with the same outcomes as the past 3-4 years. Maybe even worse.
As of today Itani has player assisted wins of 26 vs Serco 8, However, Itani are still losing in Deneb 78 to 81.
I just don't understand why there will never be a weighted value that makes adjustments to the NPC and sector win/losses in Deneb. If there is player participation WINS that are defeating the opposing nation, why isn't there any real benefit or appearance of benefit for those participation wins ?
Those participation wins should not be separately calculated from the NPC wins/losses. Perhaps they should even be subtracted from the NPC wins as a loss. Or maybe something else. It is still pretty clear that participation wins mean little to nothing in Deneb.
Itani assisted or participation kills are in the thousands while serco is 128. There is literally no effect of winning anything or defeating anything in Deneb. At what point and how many kills do you need to actually win in Deneb ? How many Itani NPC's vs Serco NPC's are there in Deneb totals ? How many left to kill before you actually can win in Deneb ?
You see there just doesn't seem to be any way to strategize anything but to just go shoot and hope that you have some effect and then at the end of the week / month you realize it's a big waist of time; and there is no reason to be in Deneb.
There is NO reason to believe that player participation would EVER change anything in Deneb.
It's a complete coin toss no matter the participation. Just like Vegas. So why bother with stats at all ?
That's just aggravating the situation. To know that your nation out performed, out killed, and out participated in Deneb and still lost.
I thought by now something might have been considered in Deneb for repair but doesn't look like it from what I can tell.
Looks like Deneb is about the same with the same outcomes as the past 3-4 years. Maybe even worse.
As of today Itani has player assisted wins of 26 vs Serco 8, However, Itani are still losing in Deneb 78 to 81.
I just don't understand why there will never be a weighted value that makes adjustments to the NPC and sector win/losses in Deneb. If there is player participation WINS that are defeating the opposing nation, why isn't there any real benefit or appearance of benefit for those participation wins ?
Those participation wins should not be separately calculated from the NPC wins/losses. Perhaps they should even be subtracted from the NPC wins as a loss. Or maybe something else. It is still pretty clear that participation wins mean little to nothing in Deneb.
Itani assisted or participation kills are in the thousands while serco is 128. There is literally no effect of winning anything or defeating anything in Deneb. At what point and how many kills do you need to actually win in Deneb ? How many Itani NPC's vs Serco NPC's are there in Deneb totals ? How many left to kill before you actually can win in Deneb ?
You see there just doesn't seem to be any way to strategize anything but to just go shoot and hope that you have some effect and then at the end of the week / month you realize it's a big waist of time; and there is no reason to be in Deneb.
There is NO reason to believe that player participation would EVER change anything in Deneb.
It's a complete coin toss no matter the participation. Just like Vegas. So why bother with stats at all ?
That's just aggravating the situation. To know that your nation out performed, out killed, and out participated in Deneb and still lost.
I thought by now something might have been considered in Deneb for repair but doesn't look like it from what I can tell.
What do you suggest?
It also depends on what a "player assisted win" actually means. It can be pretty trivial.
Deneb battles have fairly simple rules based on casualty rates. If a given side experiences over X casualties, they retreat from that battle, etc. The highest casualties are caused by the loss of capital ships. Fighters count, but you have to chew up a lot of them to make a major impact, relative to the capships. (I would have to look up the values to remember exactly how it works, but that's what I recollect).
I'm not against tweaking things, but perhaps also players could also improve their strategies? These may also evolve as more anti-capship specific weaponry comes online.
I'm reluctant to simply bias the entire warfare system on "assists" when the relative triviality of those assists is pretty uncertain. That opens the door for exploiting the system.
Generally, Deneb is about 50/50 odds with NPCs, and the intent is for player involvement to swing the outcome of battles. But, if players only "assist" lightly, and don't have any real impact on the actual battles, then there isn't going to be much change due to participation?
If the players kill 1000 fighters over 100 battles, at 10 fighters per battle, that isn't really going to be meaningful for winning any given battle. That's also realistic. Actual warfare is based entirely on the damage you do a particular place and time, and how that bears on the dynamics of the greater conflict.
To use a WWII-style historical analogy: if you pick off 10 approaching infantry escorting a large column of tanks, that does have an impact on the strength of the opposing force. But, if the main goal of the enemy is a large-scale tank assault, then your reduction in their infantry may not be very meaningful to reducing their combat effectiveness, or changing the outcome of the battle.
It's entirely possible for players to have a major impact on Deneb, but it does require some degree of strategy, and it does benefit from collaboration.
Of course, I'm always open to tweaking Deneb, and changing the way success and failure are determined; I have a huge laundry list of changes to be made already. That would also probably be best suited to a Suggestions Forum thread.
Deneb battles have fairly simple rules based on casualty rates. If a given side experiences over X casualties, they retreat from that battle, etc. The highest casualties are caused by the loss of capital ships. Fighters count, but you have to chew up a lot of them to make a major impact, relative to the capships. (I would have to look up the values to remember exactly how it works, but that's what I recollect).
I'm not against tweaking things, but perhaps also players could also improve their strategies? These may also evolve as more anti-capship specific weaponry comes online.
I'm reluctant to simply bias the entire warfare system on "assists" when the relative triviality of those assists is pretty uncertain. That opens the door for exploiting the system.
Generally, Deneb is about 50/50 odds with NPCs, and the intent is for player involvement to swing the outcome of battles. But, if players only "assist" lightly, and don't have any real impact on the actual battles, then there isn't going to be much change due to participation?
If the players kill 1000 fighters over 100 battles, at 10 fighters per battle, that isn't really going to be meaningful for winning any given battle. That's also realistic. Actual warfare is based entirely on the damage you do a particular place and time, and how that bears on the dynamics of the greater conflict.
To use a WWII-style historical analogy: if you pick off 10 approaching infantry escorting a large column of tanks, that does have an impact on the strength of the opposing force. But, if the main goal of the enemy is a large-scale tank assault, then your reduction in their infantry may not be very meaningful to reducing their combat effectiveness, or changing the outcome of the battle.
It's entirely possible for players to have a major impact on Deneb, but it does require some degree of strategy, and it does benefit from collaboration.
Of course, I'm always open to tweaking Deneb, and changing the way success and failure are determined; I have a huge laundry list of changes to be made already. That would also probably be best suited to a Suggestions Forum thread.
I don't see how it matters if the "assist" was light or heavy. It's still a player assisted win. Which clearly shows that the unplayable, NPC battles are unbalanced. This has been stated before many many times over the past few months.
The "light" or "heavy" significance of the assist, in my post, is relevant in the context of what he was requesting: that we bias the value of player-assisted wins and make them somehow "special", instead of treating them like any other win. If this were added, it effectively creates a feature that can be trivially exploited, like by taking the mission, going into the sector, and then "spacing" your vessel (worse: on an automated, bot-driven basis), it could easily be used to influence the outcome of the overall conflict.
I would rather the outcome was simply based on you killing the enemy, and actually winning the battle.
Here's the thing, when the battles are automated "offline" (without players), there's a 50/50 chance of either side achieving success in a given battle, of which there are X number of battles per week to determine the outcome of a given week-long conflict. Say, for the sake of argument, that there were 100 battles per week. If you assist in 25 successes, does that mean your "side" should succeed? No, of course not, you may still lose 51 other battles. The successes of the battles you have won does not influence the 50/50 odds of success in the battles in which you do not participate.
I would rather the outcome was simply based on you killing the enemy, and actually winning the battle.
Here's the thing, when the battles are automated "offline" (without players), there's a 50/50 chance of either side achieving success in a given battle, of which there are X number of battles per week to determine the outcome of a given week-long conflict. Say, for the sake of argument, that there were 100 battles per week. If you assist in 25 successes, does that mean your "side" should succeed? No, of course not, you may still lose 51 other battles. The successes of the battles you have won does not influence the 50/50 odds of success in the battles in which you do not participate.
Is there no way to make sure those 51 battles don't ever take place unless a player is present in the sector? There's really no point in doing those 25 skirms if you still end up losing due to luck.
Is there no way to make sure those 51 battles don't ever take place unless a player is present in the sector?
That isn't really a good solution, for a wide variety of reasons.
There's really no point in doing those 25 skirms if you still end up losing due to luck.
Well, you're participating in something larger than yourself, with a chance at influencing an outcome that could have ramifications for people beyond your reach. There will always be a chance of "losing due to luck". We could certainly work on changing how that "chance" works, and how your impact influences the game, but this isn't likely to become a purely PvP concept.
The fact is, people have been most-definitely influencing the outcome of Deneb wars through their participation, and recently. We had to mitigate some player-capship tactics just recently, over the past Holidays, that resulted in successes. So, obviously people can greatly improve the odds of their side winning.
The one thing the OP definitely makes apparent to me, is that it may be unclear to people how Deneb works, and how to successfully win at it; and that's something we should definitely improve. Like I said earlier, we have a lot of plans to improve on Deneb in general, so hopefully that can all happen at the same time.
NPC battles are unbalanced. This has been stated before many many times over the past few months.
I'm not personally aware of issues in the statistical model, off-hand, or any recent discussion of it on Bugs or Suggestions? But it's possible I missed something, or forgot?
That is something we could potentially revisit when we look at the rest of Deneb; but as always, having clearer reports of the problem is helpful.
That isn't really a good solution, for a wide variety of reasons.
There's really no point in doing those 25 skirms if you still end up losing due to luck.
Well, you're participating in something larger than yourself, with a chance at influencing an outcome that could have ramifications for people beyond your reach. There will always be a chance of "losing due to luck". We could certainly work on changing how that "chance" works, and how your impact influences the game, but this isn't likely to become a purely PvP concept.
The fact is, people have been most-definitely influencing the outcome of Deneb wars through their participation, and recently. We had to mitigate some player-capship tactics just recently, over the past Holidays, that resulted in successes. So, obviously people can greatly improve the odds of their side winning.
The one thing the OP definitely makes apparent to me, is that it may be unclear to people how Deneb works, and how to successfully win at it; and that's something we should definitely improve. Like I said earlier, we have a lot of plans to improve on Deneb in general, so hopefully that can all happen at the same time.
NPC battles are unbalanced. This has been stated before many many times over the past few months.
I'm not personally aware of issues in the statistical model, off-hand, or any recent discussion of it on Bugs or Suggestions? But it's possible I missed something, or forgot?
That is something we could potentially revisit when we look at the rest of Deneb; but as always, having clearer reports of the problem is helpful.
"Well, you're participating in something larger than yourself, with a chance at influencing an outcome that could have ramifications for people beyond your reach."
What ramifications? Deneb has minimal rewards and it has no effect on the greater universe. I know you have plans, but what are some of the ideas you're looking to do? Deneb has always struck me as an area that could really boost the player interaction in meaningful ways if there was a "point" to it.
What ramifications? Deneb has minimal rewards and it has no effect on the greater universe. I know you have plans, but what are some of the ideas you're looking to do? Deneb has always struck me as an area that could really boost the player interaction in meaningful ways if there was a "point" to it.
What ramifications? Deneb has minimal rewards and it has no effect on the greater universe.
There's a big convoy blockade that is spawned against the loser of Deneb. Yes, I am aware the AI characteristics of the blockade have issues, among other things. But, that doesn't change the self-evident design goals, or the (hopefully obvious) fact that we've spent quite a bit of time on AI development over the past year, and this kind of thing is likely to improve.
Please keep this on-topic, the OP is about probabilities of success and failure. I only briefly mentioned ramifications while trying to respond to a question.
Although this also illustrates why this kind of thread is unwelcome on General.
On Suggestions we require that posts be specific in their goals, so the thread avoids getting bogged into 5,000 inter-linked topics, and we require that people approach said posts with an optimistic and productive attitude.
That's the only way the discussions stay useful. If threads devolve too far into "everything I think should be better about everything", they become super unproductive. Everyone has "General" ideas of how it could all be better, but "General" ideas are rarely helpful.
The same is true of Bugs, where if you're reporting a Bug, we need a lot of helpful specifics and back-and-forth to help track it down, but a minimum of other spurious data or opinions.
Bugs is for reporting content that is explicitly broken, with evidence and data to illustrate how.
Suggestions is for posting and discussing alternative ideas for how to evolve gameplay or improve content.
General is specifically not for discussion of either "fixing problems" or "improving the game", since those have dedicated forums and related processes, and get a lot of associated attention from the devs.
There's a big convoy blockade that is spawned against the loser of Deneb. Yes, I am aware the AI characteristics of the blockade have issues, among other things. But, that doesn't change the self-evident design goals, or the (hopefully obvious) fact that we've spent quite a bit of time on AI development over the past year, and this kind of thing is likely to improve.
Please keep this on-topic, the OP is about probabilities of success and failure. I only briefly mentioned ramifications while trying to respond to a question.
Although this also illustrates why this kind of thread is unwelcome on General.
On Suggestions we require that posts be specific in their goals, so the thread avoids getting bogged into 5,000 inter-linked topics, and we require that people approach said posts with an optimistic and productive attitude.
That's the only way the discussions stay useful. If threads devolve too far into "everything I think should be better about everything", they become super unproductive. Everyone has "General" ideas of how it could all be better, but "General" ideas are rarely helpful.
The same is true of Bugs, where if you're reporting a Bug, we need a lot of helpful specifics and back-and-forth to help track it down, but a minimum of other spurious data or opinions.
Bugs is for reporting content that is explicitly broken, with evidence and data to illustrate how.
Suggestions is for posting and discussing alternative ideas for how to evolve gameplay or improve content.
General is specifically not for discussion of either "fixing problems" or "improving the game", since those have dedicated forums and related processes, and get a lot of associated attention from the devs.