It would seem to me that a whole bunch of things are thrown in together here.
Suppose I can drop my two cents of experience as a faction lead for a quite some time around. Granted my case might be more of an exception than the rest considering the type of faction and historical reasons. The only faction right I think of ever using was fourth one in the current list, basically moderation of in-game events to ensure trolls wouldn't crash it, but that's about it really.
As I'm trying to remember I think one of the reasons ppl actively wanted their factions to become official was to have a guard system and kinda set their little paradise there. Granted it did result in some seriously botched stuff that is still giving plenty headache to fix it, but you know, there was a certain sense to that, in a way it was a showcase and factions sure loved that kind of involvement, even though those were typically dead end systems, so function-wise those were superficial things. That makes me thinking now... If there was more advanced POB system with branching types and such, like say you could upgrade into a mining type POB, or a research type POB, or a military POB, and so on, each with own type of benefits, then I'd say suppose it might have brought that sense of, you know, tangible accomplishment and visible thing around, a continued presence of sorts. But then there are people who keep telling POBs should be removed as a whole. Me, I don't even have any stakes in either way, can't build POBs as nomnom anyway. :-)
As for the rift, I think it's already visible just by looking at the "player faction"-specific IDs. As I remember at first back in old days those were scooped up, leaving only a very few mostly due to technical constraints and not for reasons of separation between a player faction and their indies. But what you see more around now are more examples of separation away from generics. After several notable examples in the past when officials got wrist-slapped when they tried to make gradual change say in diplomacy with another faction, but indies would simply ignore that process, not necessarily out of ill intent but simply because they were unaware. However the problem began when say they were made aware of the process in diplomatic shift some would just ignore that on purpose. As expected that can quickly spiral out of control. And as a faction there really ain't much you could do about that. But if you try you'd likely get slapped by admins as it were before. So I don't know, to me personally, unless there is a technical necessity to separate between indies and faction, there shouldn't really be this growing apart process going on now. Keep in mind, in this case I'm more of an observer really, having talking to other faction leads, hearing them out, what problems and difficulties they are facing, talking to indies who have their own frustrations, desires and such. But given that nomnom stuff in that regard is completely different I think other experienced leads may provide better insight into the subject of why there is a growing number of faction-specific IDs.
(01-04-2014, 11:59 PM)Croft Wrote: Discussion is all fine and well but I for one would like to know what limits the dev team would be go to in terms of ships and resources (cloaks, removing stuff, PoBS etc.) If we have an idea about what changes would be acceptable things would be much easier.
Why are you so hell-bent on making these limitations? What are they really good for? Also I find it so fucking ridiculous that players keep saying "lets limit battleships to official factions" when 9/10 of the official factions have no interest in capital ships and capital ship combat but solely want to use them as talky-talky platforms. Why do you want to take something away from other players that you don't even want yourselves? Something that devs and balance monkeys spent hours on developing and fine-tuning, even adding new mechanics to make capital ships shine. What is that going to fix?
I'm fairly sure the dev stance is: We spent a long time creating this crap and if you are too useless to play with our stuff, that's your problem. At least that would be the stance I would take towards the extremely conservative "let's bring back 4.83" players. Factions could have embraced the "new reality" of the mod after each update, rather than whine and cry for a rollback to glory days (that weren't really that glorious), it's your own fault people don't want to play with you. For instance I have a Legate I would like to play in groups, but there's no official faction to park it in - why not? Because there are some old fart snubwhores who would prefer we were all playing 4.83 - but we are not, so it is your job to embrace it*, really, rather than whine and wanting to limit other people's fun. You should channel that energy into making yourselves attractive rather than take the lazy approach and asking devs/admins to push people into your arms. If your faction consists of old, negative naysayers, kick them out to get with the times - or just let the faction die and let more progressive people take over. I don't get how you can become so extremely narrow-minded, it is really not healthy on any level.
It is no use that faction players sit around and come up with solutions to all the world's problem in a narrow circle of totally like-minded people. They've done that as long as I have played, and will continue no matter what limitations you put on indies/battleships/cloaks. I'm pretty sure admins and devs are fully aware of this, which makes it all the more pointless. It seems to be a way of life for some faction players to constantly moan about how hard they've got it - when no one is forcing them to play in a faction this is so incredibly childish it is not even funny.
Tl:dr: It is your own fault you are unpopular and if you are in doubt why, take a quick peek at your own suggestions in this thread and the other.
*Some factions do this and tend to be more popular
As of idea of tweaking POBs. Well. The pob mechanism itself can be used in the way to give factions a way to go. I'm for removing them for now simply because, basically, every granny can build a base at any desired location with any IFF pleased, supplied by god know who no matter the affiliations and break the place into a mess.
Now let's see. Treewyrm pushed out an interesting idea thro. So let's take POBs away from anyone and reward the possibility of building one to the official factions only with following limitations:
1. One (1) player owned (controlled) base per official faction.
2. Base will be placed by administration at chosen location with limitations.
3. Base must be inside the faction's ZOI
4. Depends on base's affiliation it must be not less then 20 or more klicks away from any lawful base or 15 klicks away from any lane if unlawful IFF or around the lanes\gates network or another friendly lawful base if it's a lawful base.
5. Can't be placed closer then 5k to any other base or lane.
6. Can't be placed closer then 10k to any solar object (hole, sun, planet).
7. Can't be placed inside the asteroid field (especially a mining field, any base (lawful or unlawful) can't be closer then 40k from the edge of any mineable area).
8. Administration reserves the right to deny building a base at specific location in order to protect the gameplay of the area (building a base at pirate spot, building base at mining area, at war zone).
9. Base that is built is indestructible itself, it's modules can be destroyed though by the enemy.
10. Once faction loose the official status their base becomes destruct-able and can't be further upgraded.
11. Bases needs supplies as if now - but for official faction, that will just keep the processes going inside for 100% speed, shield generator work to prevent module damage, repairs. Base can't die if run out of repairs if the faction is official, but without personal and materials on board it's manufacturing capacities will get lowered to the point of 0 income.
12. Bases must be given an IFF of the faction owning it with reputation applied according to the NPC faction's diplomacy sheet. Owners can have a black and white lists for individuals.
13. Base can't have a weapon platforms or any other sorts of automatic defense.
14. To get a base faction have to apply an SRP request.
15. Generic IDed factions must have a way harder time of getting their base over regular factions. The chance must be tho. But it's more complicated since those factions are basically very different and thus their SRP must have a specific conditions.
16. Any granted POB SRP can be revoked at any time by the administration or the location changed if there are gameplay reasons for it.
17. Base can't be built near the Gates if there are no NPC bases around it already. In that case base can't be placed closer then 40k to that gate.
With those terms I'll, perhaps, stop suggesting removing POBs completely.
1. Organize ingame events. Base the lore on these events. Allow only the official factions to attend to these events. This way, factions would have something to work for. Trading, mining and whatever events can be invented for commercial factions and battles for the fighting factions. All shown on updated influence or territorial maps.
2. Give POBs to official factions only. Allow them to build stations with no limitations. The equipment they produce can only be sold on RP basis, not on the open market and the faction decides who may get it. If they want all their indies to fly with their jump cloaks, it's their problem.
3. I'd suggest restricting caps but since that will never happen, how about restricting equipment? Restrict capital armor upgrades. Only official factions can mount them. I'm an indie, I want that ship. If I want a CAU, I'd have to enter a faction and work my way up the ranks. And this brings me to the following point...
4. Don't allow the same person to be the leader of a faction for more than a year. Each year, the factions would have to elect a new leader (ooRP or inRP, that's their business). That way, a simple indie could work one year to gain influence within an official faction so that he is allowed to participate and maybe become the new leader, so he can have his CAU 8 BS firing lazors!
Dacul you have valid points. But it is counterproductive to deny individuals to have pobs. For instance i have RP pob and work with one partner no more.
Much more ellegant is that POBS become SRP requested and one who wanna has Pob should propose some RP ideas how to manage it toward rest of society.
Wipe out POBs who are hoarding stuff for self sufficient individuals, regardless of is it founded by official faction or individual and you made a good thingie.
For instance exorbitant amount of pobs in omicron 74. They are founded by very active group, but do they need 4 bases in system ? IT is to much waste of energy to supply something that stucked up doesnt give 4x times bigger impact on rest of community.
Well i started to write, i erased. Will give some good ideas how to organize RP of bases in other thread.
(01-05-2014, 09:18 AM)Dacul Wrote: 1. Organize ingame events. Base the lore on these events. Allow only the official factions to attend to these events. This way, factions would have something to work for. Trading, mining and whatever events can be invented for commercial factions and battles for the fighting factions. All shown on updated influence or territorial maps.
Sure..in theory i like it and i want that players should have at least a small impact like this on the RP otherwise it's not really a RP server ,however the reality is:
a. in-game numbers/lore doesn't match the player base of a faction
b. PVP skills,do you really want a good player solo the enemies side by itself ?Cause i saw a few won 5 v 1 very 'easy'
^ one single event should not determinate the faith of the server
(01-05-2014, 09:18 AM)Dacul Wrote: 2. Give POBs to official factions only. Allow them to build stations with no limitations. The equipment they produce can only be sold on RP basis, not on the open market and the faction decides who may get it. If they want all their indies to fly with their jump cloaks, it's their problem.
What about those who already spend months and countless of billions in building and maintaining one?
Not gonna happen..same problem as capital ships(it already been covered better this topic,no need to go into details again..)
^Besides POBs & Caps requires money&commodity which means they have to get they're 5Ks out of dust and actually do some trading and not only fly combat ships,which means for those who like to fly unlawful chars something to do too,etc..
(01-05-2014, 09:18 AM)Dacul Wrote: 3. I'd suggest restricting caps but since that will never happen, how about restricting equipment? Restrict capital armor upgrades. Only official factions can mount them. I'm an indie, I want that ship. If I want a CAU, I'd have to enter a faction and work my way up the ranks. And this brings me to the following point...
I would be ok with that,some wont and then admins will have to:
a.retrieve every cap armor who has been bought on previous years,recompense the players for their value
b.keep watching every transfer of cap armor since these rule have been instated
c. sanction every player who have/transfer a cap armor outside of factions
(01-05-2014, 09:18 AM)Dacul Wrote: 4. Don't allow the same person to be the leader of a faction for more than a year. Each year, the factions would have to elect a new leader (ooRP or inRP, that's their business). That way, a simple indie could work one year to gain influence within an official faction so that he is allowed to participate and maybe become the new leader, so he can have his CAU 8 BS firing lazors!
1 year? that's a long time to go through the ranks,something that wont motivate players enough,maybe 1 month should be more fitted..
I guess Mimir broke it down pretty well..so..for those who wants more limitations added for indies and not improvements for official factions..then read his comment
People want to believe that God has a plan for them.
They don't wanna believe that anyone else does..
Mimir you need to take a deep breath, seriously a bit of fresh air would do wonders. Things are obviously not working in Disco as it stands so something must be changed and if we're going to rearrange the chess board it'd be nice to know what pieces we can move.
Also attacking me isn't going to stop people making suggestions, you can either help fix the problem or stand at the back and scream like a small child whose had his toys taken away, your call.
The bottom line, which has been made several times already, is that factions need something, a hook, a bonus, some incentive for people to join and stay. It's only logical to look at the most popular attraction (capital ships) and think "Hmm I wonder..."
I know its a little annoying.. The endless talks about.. talks, but why fixing something that isnt broken. Its all about the attitude really, theres always an attempt to stamp one feature of this mod when it is the the "thing" that makes this mod.. A mod. Infact we.just boost many aspects of the game to encourage people, not to duck the issue and remove things in the.hopes of making it easier and better.
(01-05-2014, 11:22 AM)Croft Wrote: The bottom line, which has been made several times already, is that factions need something, a hook, a bonus, some incentive for people to join and stay. It's only logical to look at the most popular attraction (capital ships) and think "Hmm I wonder..."
And what of those Factions that don't have/require Capital Ships? Not everybody is interested in running around, all day, in one of these. It is rather small minded to believe that people only play this game so they can have big toys.
As for POBs I disagree that 90% (and I know Croft that you didn't say this) of them block/command strategic positions. I know quite a few that either don't have Weapon Platforms or those that do are generally away from important areas. Granted that there are some that command strategic areas but so do NPC Bases/Battleships/Weapon Platforms.
You learn to live with it by adapting.
'I would like to be half as clever as some people like to believe they are' Life is full of disappointments, it is how we handle them that helps to define us, as a person
(01-05-2014, 07:50 AM)Remilia Scarlet Wrote: Now let's see. Treewyrm pushed out an interesting idea thro. So let's take POBs away from anyone and reward the possibility of building one to the official factions only with following limitations
Uh, nope, what I meant was that specialized upgrades, based on faction profile, i.e. navies get military/research base upgrade paths, mining corporations get miner/refinery upgrade paths, trading factions get upgrade path with benefits related to trading I suppose. And a generic base would be still available to everyone.
edit: as to what difference to be between them? Well, for example it's just military type can have advanced weapon platforms as well as rather thick armor. A mining base could be placed in mining field and provide say automatic harvesting at a certain rate, but wouldn't have any significant military class defenses. Refineries act as processing facilities: dump in one type of raw mineral and receive a product commodity item which would sell for larger profit margin than if you'd just sell raw materials instead. Research base could be focusing on producing advanced equipment, i.e. cloaks and jumpdrives, probably some other interesting tech too. Trade outpost could store large amount of commodities, probably also generating them at a certain rate, and based on what commodities are available at NPC bases around. Just a few ideas I could think of about POBs.