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Why Singularity is NOT on a Fake Timer

Why Singularity is NOT on a Fake Timer

Background

For many years Hello Games have run community rewards. The most prominent being the Quicksilver rewards. They work by linking your efforts towards the community goal to their server. This makes the missions available, monitors our completion of any missions and adds to a global counter.

As a pacing mechanism, the speed at which things progress is set by HG manually, to make more desirable items slower or make single items in a set faster. They either do this by setting the number of required contributions or by using a contribution modifier. (I am not sure which but they would be functionally the same.)

They sometimes adjust the contribution during the progress. Usually when they have other plans, like a specific update that includes themed items. The most notorious time was during the first expedition that used a community reward, which had to have a cut-off to approximately meet a specific deadline when an interview would be published. Unfortunately this may have led to the perception we have today, where some assume this is always the case.

They will also change the overall count occasionally. If the servers get overloaded and no contributions are registered for a period then they extrapolate the progress and adjust things. If they have an update ready to roll on a specific date and the current item hasn’t quite reached the goal they will either increase the multiplier or just set it to done. They occasionally do this when they just want to speed the progress of individual parts of grouped items. This may be timer related but it has never been egregious. Just the last few percentage points to better pace when the new rewards arrive. We have also seen them just give up when things are badly bugged, and make the item available as part of a patch.

Leviathan

The second expedition to use a community counter was Leviathan, and it serves as a clear example of how it works and what happens when things go awry.

Leviathan had a four part goal. We started the expedition with C-Class modules and each goal increased these, B through S then X.

HG capped individual contributions without making that information public, this gets into data mining territory which is not really appropriate in this sub but it stands to reason HG would take action against manipulation by players to break their counters. At the time some players complained that it was obviously fake but we know exactly what happened because it was tracked and recorded.

Things began OK but something went wrong with the B-Class counter. It even began to drop. HG fixed this and just gave us the Bs and set the A counter going.

That counter went without a hitch quickly reaching the goal. As did S. This probably surprised HG because a great many users were saying they didn’t want to do that expedition. And yet it was very successful and the counters went fast.

HG clearly decided that they needed to pace out the X-Class reward they seemed to set it far too slow. We can see some evidence of a form of intervention, but notably not based on a timer artificially increasing the numbers. It was either manual or algorithmic.

In summary, first it was bugged, then it was OK for two stages, then it was obviously manipulated for the last stage.

Singularity

HG had a specific date in mind for Singularity. It was timed to coincide with the Apple developer’s conference. They needed to switch their community server over to the expedition but the QS cloak wasn’t quite finished naturally. So they appeared to increase the multiplier dramatically or reduce the number of contributions required, giving it a huge boost on the last day.

They were then free to set the counter for the expedition. If the count was fake they wouldn’t have bothered. They could just have left the cloak to finish naturally and put the next quicksilver item up. Leaving the expedition pretending to act like a second counter. This is perhaps the most compelling reason to not believe the rumours about a counter. Fake counters don’t need this much effort and wouldn’t need manipulating.

Now, perhaps predictably, given the slower pace of updates this year, the Singularity expedition has proved popular, but unfortunately it has also confused a lot of players who didn’t grasp how it worked. The upshot of this is some thought it was bugged and wondered why they couldn’t finish the expedition and some wanted to test the system and hand in several hundred seeds (even thousands) by duplication and presumably a macro.

As we learned in Leviathan, that experiment was doomed. HG know some players will try this. A thousand contributions wouldn’t move the counter significantly enough to be visible because they know it isn’t feasible and have stopped that happening. I will include the graphs from that time. It is technically a form of data mining but it is not spoiling anything so I hope it is seen as appropriate.

Leviathan Misson Progress

Conclusion

Overall this isn’t fakery, this is pragmatism and a sense of fairness. And, in the unlikely event that progress slows down enough that we look like failing the last goal, HG may aid the speed of progress. Yes, that is manipulation, but that isn’t the same as a fake timer.

Now, I can already tell by the cry of cheating by many on social media, that the received wisdom that there is a timer will probably stick for a while. It has stuck before. Any “evidence” that supports this received wisdom will be probably believed by those predisposed to. If the counter needs adjusting or we have more bugs, then it will only add to this perception.

Eventually, when the community that monitors the counters switch their systems to allow monitoring of this expedition, we will hopefully be able to see real time progress information. Then we will be able to judge what really happened. But that data is best left to the areas of the internet where it is appropriate to discuss data mining in more detail.

Suffice to say, if you are worried or concerned that HG are only pretending there is a community counter for the goals the actual evidence doesn’t support this. They have haver used timers to directly manipulate the numbers in that way, or to pretend our efforts are meaningful when they are not. They have sometime changed things for good reason but never in a way that seeks to pull the wool over our eyes. The counters are real and we are watching closely.

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Hello Games really, really needs to slow down and fix the game

As much as all the Cool New Stuff is nice, it’s getting really frustrating that the devs refuse to slow down and fix any old systems, they’re just throwing new stuff on top of a broken foundation and it’s getting more and more clunky. From basic quality of life stuff like being able to turn off the useless auto-Pin feature that literally only ever hinders getting things done, to desperately needed bugfixes (I haven’t been able to rely on any base or freighter based refiners since they were introduced b/c they delete their contents regularly), to dozens and dozens of visual errors with bases and ships, it’s all just building up into a constant frustration. It’s like Factorio’s most recent friday facts (# 374) said – doing that kind of underlying foundation repair and QOL gives more mental space to enjoy New Stuff, and NMS’s refusal to do so keeps me, and I imagine others, returning for new features and almost instantly leaving again. What’s the fun of a new race when fundamental issues with the character customization haven’t been fixed in the entire time it’s existed (like the presets being useless because they only save to the save game they’re made on). What’s the fun of the new inventory setup when half the things you can put in the technology slots are broken/useless/not worth the space and have been since they were introduced? etc etc.

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Community

I love the new added depth to standing, frigates and trading!

I know the space stations and ship building are the highlights and everyone is talking about them, but I just wanted to share my love for some features that I seriously appreciate but aren’t really talked about:

First, I’ve always complained about the standing system being completely pointless. Even when Outlaws came out and gave us the ability to reset our standing, I kept thinking there was no point for it, apart from like one mission being locked off, it genuinely felt like the numbers you saw in your catalogue were completely detached from the actual gameplay. So I’m finally overjoyed that it has a genuine purpose now with discounts! Prices in station shops reflect your standing with the race and it tells you by how much! It’s a start I’d say, but a really impactful one too!

The guild now also has a physical presence and no longer feels like some imaginary concept that was also entirely detached from the game and only existed as a number in your catalogue. Now they’re actually in the game (I still haven’t figured out what determines which one of the 3 appear in stations) and raising standing with them is actually really encouraging since they give you some really useful items either for free or at a discount. Increasing standing with them is also much easier now with the new donation mechanic rather than doing missions.

Next, the frigate expeditions once again always felt like an imaginary thing; you sent them out on expeditions, waited a few hours, and they’d say what happened and you had to pretend it was true while they gave you the loot. Now there’s an actual consequence that you get to be involved in. Instead of the whole thing being a passive money making thing, they occasionally ask you for advice or help protect them from enemies. One time I was asked to warp to their location and land on a frigate so I could read a message they found and they asked me what to do… turns out the language I knew directly affected how much of the text was readable and I could make an informed decision, so knowing the language has more meaning as well!

And lastly, the trading. It was something I knew existed but 100% ignored. But now the economy scanner has a new function where you can choose to detect economy surges and it’ll tell you which system to invest what in, and it’s on a timer so it’s like a little mini game to get rich. Trading is actually kinda fun now that there’s an actual guided mechanic around it.

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THIS IS UNEXPECTABLE

I paid $20 of my hard earned dollars on this game 6 years ago on sale and grew up with this game watching the devs put I’m so much time, given so many updates for free and having a vibrant community to play with and I have to wait a whole extra few days to play this orbit update??! I’m selling my xbox, PC, house, and am moving on to be a nomad, maybe that’ll teach those lazy devs a lesson and they’ll get their updates pushed out faster, irregardless of Microsoft having to approve and push the update themselves, and also irregardless that HG has zero point zero to do with that

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