I would get rid of the Official Factions altogether and made their "perks" accessible for all factions as rewards. There can be some "cooldown" on the demands for forum subsections, so whoever is organizing the forums won't get overwhelmed (like one organization request per three months/six months, unlocked by an initial payment of 1 or 2 billions to set some reasonable entry bar).
As a story dev - I am an advocate for the equality in this matter. Dev requests shouldn't be gatekeeped from players just because they aren't in an OF. Story influence requests should be judged based on the canon lore only, thus indies and factions are all equal.
As no faction speaks for the whole npc faction anymore, the word "official" is misleading by itself.
As for bounties, I'd get rid of the unlimited kills/blanket bounty system altogether. If you want to bounty someone, at least make some effort and make a wanted poster - either through plugin one day or on forums.
I agree with everything but the bounty stuff.
Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to struggle against entropy. - V. Havel
I started playing on the crossfire mod for a long time then moved to discovery 2 years ago and found that this version of the game is highly restrictive and lost the first part of the game, the "free" in freelancer. That being said I think the benefits of being part on an "official" faction vs indie is far more restrictive and RP wise forced into acting the way everyone else in said faction wants you to do (the death of any unique characters). I think the license system is interesting for official faction play but highly restrictive and anti-fun for those wanting to do there own thing a build an unique character (physically and in RP) that does not quite fit the mold but now is held back because 90% powerplant. SRP seems to be only way to make something strange but effective only if the admins allow it, no one should have to ask the admin for that is should just be part of the game. I guess it is nice to have a say in the general narrative but I do think that indies should have influence as well. Invite possibility and embrace the chaos of Freelancer.
This is a discussion that the staff team has been wanting to have for awhile now. Just as points of reference to frame the conversation, there's TheKusari's thread about overhauling activity checks, but also note how many OFs are either carried entirely by a few people, or how multiple are led by one person (eg Lemon and the multiple factions he runs). I'm not here to criticize anyone for the way they interact with official factions, and frankly I'm grateful that so many of us are putting in so much effort to keep things going. Yet, it's clear that OFs don't serve the same role that they used to. With that said, here's my perception of what OFs (nominally) do or should do, as well as what it looks like in practice:
How it "should" work
1) They provide legitimacy to those groups of players who want to represent their factions to the development and admin teams. By being active enough to pass checks, they have a valid claim to say "we're the group of players who care the most about faction X, therefore our suggestions to the dev team or faction requests for ID changes etc mean more than if they came from a random indy". 2) They provide an example to unofficial groups and independent players as to how the faction should be roleplayed. If someone wants to play an Order character, but isn't quite sure how to go about it or interact with other factions/groups as an Order pilot, they can look to the Order| OF and take heavy inspiration from the way Order| does it. After all, if that was the "wrong way to play" the faction, then surely they wouldn't be official, right? OFs also provide "plot hooks" for indy players and factions to take advantage of, and explore in different ways. They're able to do this because of their status as "standard-bearers" for the NPC faction, thus enriching the opportunities available to those who play that NPC IFF without being in the OF. 3) The time requirement helps keep players invested and gives them a goal to shoot for. By doing so it helps to generate activity, especially because without the minimum log hours, they would lose any OF perks they may have, and who doesn't like having special unique stuff?
How it actually works
1) This point mostly functions as it should, at least from what I see. Official faction leaders seem to, on the whole, have a decent and respectable relationship with the staff teams which essentially works as designed. However, my perception might be flawed here because I'm neither an OFL nor do I directly interact with them much in my capacities as a mod. 2) I'm not so sure about this one. For the most part, I feel like NPC groups which have OFs are either played mostly by people who are already in those OFs (as one example, how often do you see Crayter indies that aren't lolwuts or just farming missions in caps?), or by players who don't need guidance in how to do their RP, and are thus capable of forming their own unofficial groups that add constructively to the RP environment, yet at the same time their roleplay is essentially entirely independent of the OF and would be more or less the exact same even if the OF weren't around at all. I'm unsure if this is because of the population issue or because the system isn't working optimally here. 3) I think if this were true the player count would be higher. As it is, it feels like people are motivated to log not because of a constructive goal of "I wanna get more stuff"/"I wanna provide RP opportunities to others", but rather because they would take it as a personal failulre if their faction was de-OF'd and thus lost OF perks. In short, maximizing "pixel power" rather than out of a desire to contribute to the NPC faction as a whole beyond just their OF, or even improving the RP environment. I'm not sure if I'm being cynical here, if this is unavoidable given the current social dynamics that come with lowpop, or if this is a failure of the current system and the structural incentives logtime requirements introduce. However, the fact I have to ask this question in the first place is a big part of why I felt it necessary to make this thread.
Points which are essentially at the heart of the current issues I see with OFs:
1) What is the essential function of official player factions in 2023? If it's different than in years past, why and how? 2) Is the current official faction system good? If not, why is it bad? 3) What immediate practical steps could be taken to improve it? 4) Should we scrap "official faction status" entirely? 5) Do you have confidence in the staff to properly implement a better system? Why or why not?
You can consider giving more capital ships (options) to the Freelancers, let it be real Freelancer. They are now restricted to gunboats and a carrier which is not really much.
I would get rid of the Official Factions altogether and made their "perks" accessible for all factions as rewards. There can be some "cooldown" on the demands for forum subsections, so whoever is organizing the forums won't get overwhelmed (like one organization request per three months/six months, unlocked by an initial payment of 1 or 2 billions to set some reasonable entry bar).
As a story dev - I am an advocate for the equality in this matter. Dev requests shouldn't be gatekeeped from players just because they aren't in an OF. Story influence requests should be judged based on the canon lore only, thus indies and factions are all equal.
As no faction speaks for the whole npc faction anymore, the word "official" is misleading by itself.
As for bounties, I'd get rid of the unlimited kills/blanket bounty system altogether. If you want to bounty someone, at least make some effort and make a wanted poster - either through plugin one day or on forums.
Agreed with everything except bounties. Not a lot of people fiddle around with bounties nowadays, making them harder to get involved would be a major disservice for no real gain.
When I think of the game and its current state. Factions seem to mostly give the players indications on who to shoot at, who to tell to get off your lawn, and how you "should" act like when encountering players. Other then that the factions feel... too similar. for example, faction weapons are different from one another but in the drive to make the game wholly skill based there differences are so minor there is not much of a change. Ship can also fall into this category as most of the ships (mainly the caps) are very similar in stats with the only big differences being weapon placements.
The easiest way to fix this in my option would be to make the factions ships and weapons more state wise unique. Say Rheinlander ships are slower then most of the factions but they can tank very well. The Order can make use of more variety of faction weapons or are harder to track on radar. Liberty weapons hit really hard but draw a lot more power. So forth for each faction. I think it will give some real character to each faction outside of RP mannerism. As it stands the Nomads feel like they are the only ones who have faction character, all their ships and equipment are just better then everyone else. It make sense because they are far more advances then the rest of the factions. It gives their faction and ships character.
For the Official and non official factions.
I understand why in an RP setting have an non official faction would be best. You don't want some rando jumping into a House BB and start messing around in other houses triggering a war. Having the official faction prevents "troll Players" from effecting Faction relations, as one would have to move up in the official factions to effect relations in a official manner. At the same time, Official factions have a lot of pressure placed upon them with the main benefit being able to effect the RP and game to some minor degrees. Dropping the severity in the requirements to be a official faction might make more players willing to play an official faction or make one of their own.
The main thing for me would be to give the factions ships/weapons a more unique trait or state focus to really making them different from each other. rather then just an RP difference.
Only real upside of being official atm, is getting the faction perks. The rest really isnt that interesting. The perks however can aide in shaping or rewarding your factions roleplay, they are however not that instrumental. It depends however how administration deals when there is multiple player factions, player requesting for the same NPC faction.
If we abolish the official faction system as it stands, we should put down clear and concise guidelines for how to deal with conflicting player requests in an open and productive manner.
I do not think we need to "abolish" official factions per se, They have their place, despite certainly not being a perfect solution, it is likely one of the better compromises.
(09-08-2023, 02:56 PM)Tunicle Wrote: Putting together a small group (6ish) to try and rework this aspect of Discovery, a couple of "staff" plus community players who would like to get involved. If interested pm, and/or post below.
Unsure if this is still a discussion taking place, or if this small group is still running. Happy to join in and discuss this topic further.