If factions want to influence a story in some regard, they can post a request. They can also ask story devs whether A or B makes sense or not. I am willing to listen and take players opinions into a consideration, and I am sure that other story devs are willing to do as well if the way of communication is reasonable enough.
Such proposals in order to succeed must, however, fit the setting and the narrative of the NPC factions - for example, LPI won't stop being a private company by just deciding so one day, the Order won't cease hunting aliens because player Order 1iC befriended some nomad faction and so on. Respect the faction you are supposed to be representing.
There is a possibility that something will be denied or not implemented because it stands in a way of another plans. It's disappointing, I know, but if we would be spoiling story several patches ahead, it would be disappointing even more.
For OF s to matter you need a FORMAL and DEFINED system of how they can influence story and how exactly their right to do so differs from non OF s and individuals.
You work on a buddy system now, doesn't matter if someone is OF or not to influence you. "I am willing to listen" is not a system. It provides zero incentive to become OF.
Did you actually try to talk to story and not cook up some conspiracies? I'm pretty sure we already all went through this in the patch thread where you accused Markam of upholding "Devtonia". They're (the story devs) also a lot more open and even if you're not on best terms with i.e. Wesker or Reeves they do take all input and feedback into consideration. In the end, this is a multiplayer roleplay mod, so everything must fit the narrative and as a result not all submissions will go/can go in and become story, otherwise we'd have House Auxesia by now.
What does that have to do with being an OF or not and getting an incentive to becoming OF?
(06-02-2022, 05:34 AM)DariusCiprian Wrote: Did you actually try to talk to story and not cook up some conspiracies? I'm pretty sure we already all went through this in the patch thread where you accused Markam of upholding "Devtonia". They're (the story devs) also a lot more open and even if you're not on best terms with i.e. Wesker or Reeves they do take all input and feedback into consideration. In the end, this is a multiplayer roleplay mod, so everything must fit the narrative and as a result not all submissions will go/can go in and become story, otherwise we'd have House Auxesia by now.
Story having too much control has ruined this place for years. It's obviously the main issue behind lack of long term interest. It should also be obvious it is what caps player involvement and meaningful (time worthy) activity. There is a way to have a reasonable medium. The only reason to keep it as is, is personal desire for unfair control. What happened with Gaia proved the story devs are indeed biased and all but snicker while they manipulate the game to favor their RP buddies. No conspiracy there right? They aren't saving this place from chaos, they're choking off it's true potential. If story really wants to help, they should want to get serious about this place's health, and give up the unchecked control.
In regards to the OP, I think the motivation to help struggling OF's is admirable and I'm glad to see it. I like most people here do not enjoy seeing once great factions die off due to inactivity. It is not only sad, but it is bad for the morale of the server in general. That being said, I do not believe the idea put forth in the OP is the right solution; as it runs the risk of lowering server activity even more.
I think we can all agree that the real issue is the incentive to be OF in the first place. So how do we fix this? Do we make it even harder to keep OFdom as some have suggested? No, absolutely not.
Lemon had a good idea, he said and I quote -
"One idea to make events matter is e.g. 1.5X Rewards during them on official participating Id(s).
E.g. Omega 3/7 event. Indies get 10 mill for a kill - official factions get 15 - positive ways like this that don't take away things from others."
What is one thing that every single player in this game wants and wants in abundance? Sirus Credits that's what. Lemon's idea is sound and if technically possible, it should be taken even further. I think giving a permanent yet meaningful bonus on all OF IDs for NPC bounties would be a good place to start.
But as I said, I don't know if such a thing is even possible to implement. But if it is, it should be done in my humble opinion. This one thing coupled with Lemon's idea for the event payouts will raise incentives quite a bit. However, the difference in pay overall would need to be significant enough to cause people to say "Hey, I want in on that!"
Edit: I do not mean to suggest this is the only thing that should happen.
Yeah I mean take an example of Ageira - I cannot in my right mind find a reason for them to struggle to stay OF. And they didn't - they can do exactly the same thing as before on indie ID - shipping bonuses are the same, they can do the same stuff. Now imagine they'd actually have a bigger bonus on White Boxes than indies, comparable to Ores - that's one incentive for them to keep going. An actual tangible OF benefit they get to see day to day and gives them reason to log. They make more money on their RP commodity on OF ID so they have a reason to log to make that cash, and then have further reason to keep logging and keep OF to keep it. They make good amounts of credits, near ore level instead of being forced to farm time while losing a bunch of money in opportunity costs.
It would need some creativity for different factions, and might face resistance from the community too "oh noes OF has more shiny stuff and makes more cash" but mining factions have that - why not others?
Now returning to OP
Quote:3. What efforts can the staff make to help you remain official?
I think it should be the duty of staff if a faction fails OF check for the first time to contact them and ask them this + provide it, and try to think of creative solutions, rather than trying to lower the bar.
I do not think Sirius Credits can be a sole incentive. Many people here are veterans with multiple fully kitted caps and a dozen of 5kers all around Sirius. St.Denis alone can rival houses in GDP. When you have billions of SC on your account I doubt that earning a few millions more from an event (which might not be enticing to you in the first place) can be called a sufficient motivation. I have enough credits and I simply avoid events that do not catch my eye. There must be other incentives in addition to or instead of credits if we want this to work.
(06-02-2022, 09:51 AM)Shimamori Wrote: I do not think Sirius Credits can be a sole incentive. Many people here are veterans with multiple fully kitted caps and a dozen of 5kers all around Sirius. At.Denis alone can rival houses in GDP. When you have billions of SC on your account I doubt that earning a few millions more from an event (which might not be enticing to you in the first place) can be called a sufficient motivation. I have enough credits and I simply avoid events that do not catch my eye. There must be other incentives in addition to or instead of credits if we want this to work.
Yes, it needs to be creative buffs of all kinds - credits buff for OF shipping factions and extra bounties in events for OF combat factions is a no brainer though.
Also credits are not important to vets, sure, but it WILL give incentive for newer players to join Official factions and help it with tracker. If I am an Ageira indie now it's like "meh whatever" but if I saw an OF player run the same route and make 40% more money it'd give me a strong urge to consider joining and get it too. Much like miners join OF s to get their mining bonuses.
Same with an event and Ofs getting more cash - every event would have "Official ID players get 50% more rewards on kills" - would be there in every event and make OF seem to matter way more. Even if the actual money is hardly signifficant at all.
@Shimamori Forgive me for being a bit vague perhaps, but what I'm getting at is as Lemon just said, buffs of all kinds to OF are needed. SC is a very big part of this. No offense to your argument against SC buffs, but a lot of players, and all newbies for that matter are not wealthy like you or St.Denis.
Quote:Yes, it needs to be creative buffs of all kinds - credits buff for OF shipping factions and extra bounties in events for OF combat factions is a no brainer though.
Also credits are not important to vets, sure, but it WILL give incentive for newer players to join Official factions and help it with tracker. If I am an Ageira indie now it's like "meh whatever" but if I saw an OF player run the same route and make 40% more money it'd give me a strong urge to consider joining and get it too. Much like miners join OF s to get their mining bonuses.
Same with an event and Ofs getting more cash - every event would have "Official ID players get 50% more rewards on kills" - would be there in every event and make OF seem to matter way more. Even if the actual money is hardly signifficant at all.
In my opinion, this is a rather shortsighted solution.
You now get people to join OFs so they achieve 50% more credits for doing the the same thing an Indy can.
And that last for 5 minutes because now the 'new' guy has so many credits, in such a short time, he doesn't need to do anything else.
Take the last 2 Events in which some people made literally billions. If they had been in an OF they would have instead of making 4 billion in one Event, made 6.
I see my name being mentioned as being rich. The reason I am rich is because I find nothing to actually spend my credits on.
I have 4 Caps, which spend most of the time collecting dust. I have upgraded my my 3 POBs with custom models, bought 3 Barges (1 of which I gave as a present to someone) and still have a stupid amount of credits.
The credits I make, which is just a by-product of me Trading, just go and sit in Bank Ships.
I know someone who has every Cap, fully kitted out, and now his credits are just building up. Having so many ships just ends up like owning 10 cars, you can only drive one at a time.
As for OFs and retaining them, at the minute with 3 Members you need to log 16 minutes a day, each Member, to achieve the bare minimum time to remain active. 4 Members is only 12 minutes.
It isn't hard to achive but the problem comes is that there are a lot of the 'same' people in a lot of OFs and so it is difficult for them to 'do' their 16 minutes because they will need to do it for 5, 6, 7, 8 etc times a day, depending on how many they are in.
DTR, like/dislike them, had a very aggressive recruitment drive and managed to 'snap up' a lot of Indies. The 'old' OFs just think that sitting back, logging once in a while, that people will 'flock' to them. It isn't going to happen. Maybe a lot of these need to stop being 'elitist', actively open up their recruitment, show the flag and inspire people to want to join them.
Most people like to be a 'part' of something, show them that being a part of your OF is something they want.
Effectively OFs have 6 months in which to lose Officialdom, not the 3 that people keep mentioning. So, having a bad 3 months, just means have a better 6 months, afterwards, to retain Officialdom.
'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
@St.Denis not talking about trading events, but about
10m/kill => 15m/kill in counted events. That literally doesn't matter at all. If someone has 30 kills in a counted event he is a god, and he'd get 150 mill extra for that
Trading bonus would be for OF RP commodities, permanently so the money nears Ores.
Also, Denis - I mean cmon, you are THE poster child for Ofs not being important to get - you should be the first one explaining what is missing from making you want to go Official - fact is, you just don't need it to play the game right?