Lawful IDs rework proposal

[Czechmate]

Serious question: does any of this 'lawfuls vs unlawfuls' gameplay actually happen anymore on the server? The place looks like it's on the same life support it's been on for years now. I kind of want to engage with the arguments here, but I genuinely can't tell if this is some kind of thought exercise or state of large-scale denial, because unless there's been a renaissance of sorts in the past two and a half years (and it doesn't look like there has been, but I'm happy to be proven wrong!), none of this stuff actually happens anymore. Right?

What really blows my mind, though, is seeing stuff like this said apparently in full seriousness:

... forcing a smuggler to log off before reaching their destination is a victory ...

Chasing and hunting and outwitting your adversary is part of the game (and, I think, a worthwhile beyond-visual-range interaction). Handing that to players robs them of this gameplay loop

Does anyone actually enjoy these aspects of trying to play the game? That's another serious question, because the one thing that felt like it had nailed the coffin of my time here on Discovery shut was that I literally could not find anyone to interact with for the majority of the day, multiple days in a row -- at least not in any organic sense, because I don't count marshalling up the boys for an off-plane closed clique 'roleplay' session about Nomads and jump drives and whatever else to be worth the time it takes to log on.

Searching through the player list for someone to encounter isn't gameplay. It's a hoop you have to jump through to find one of the last grains of rice left in the bowl, but there's nothing fun, engaging, or worthwhile about tabbing between the interactive nav-map and the player list to try and ambush someone. There never has been except in niche circumstances.

As for the idea that getting someone else to stop playing the game entirely constitutes 'winning' -- I don't know, man. The server looks like it's sputtering along at 20-30 players in peak hours, so I think it's pretty suspicious to claim that knocking another one off that number is in any way worth it.

I am THE undisputed authority on the server right now on this given I am 1 or 2iC of the most active house lawful of 3 houses. The simple answer is - only in Liberty it's worth organically logging in, playing the game, patrolling and knowing you will run into people smuggling/breaking the law to interact with that aren't just logging in, watching the player list, PVP, logging out the type of people.

The reasons are:
1) New players start in the house - the story will make Pennsylvania independent soon, but it will still be next to Liberty
=> You have a lot of players not used to player list metagaming yet in just flying about trying stuff out breaking laws you can hand small fines for + rp
2) Best smuggling routes end in Liberty - Artifacts + Cardamine. So do e.g. passengers people frequently haul in 5kers etc.

In Rheinland/Gallia it's really not worth it much, it's definitely NOT worth it without /net that at least allows you to find the few interactions (A fix was submitted to admins, Gallic Police is deleted, Gendarmerie is under navy IFF with /net, and we might see if getting dual ID will help or not after it's implemented where one faction will be able to have GBs and smaller with *net on sub-tag).

Judging by the activity and what I hear from people it's not worth it in Kusari or Bretonia either. I mean, in the end - maybe it's worth experimenting like in Gallia with deleting Police, and having dual ID under one IFF with /net on small ships, but perhaps it isn't the worst thing in the world that one hub for this sort of gameplay/interactions exists - Liberty...If you want to organically patrol and have frequent interactions just go there in peak times as many do. You also have the LPI = Corp/Corrupt/Greedy and Navy/LSF = House agencies extra roleplay flavour other houses are missing. (It's been already mentioned multiple times only people without even basic lore understanding could be proponents of taking away Navy/LSF Law Enforcement lines).


The player averages are low, and devs wanting to cut systems to force change won't work as they'd have to gut 80% of the mod and kill off what it is - having one or two systems in the game for certain gameplay style concentration is actually a reasonable concept
These days they generally are:

Code:

Omicron Xi=PvP
Lorraine = PvE
New York = Lawful/Unlawful/lawbreaker interaction

[Czechmate]

my brother in allah your and your goons entire activity is logging to do braindead PvE 20 times a week and to do god awful respawn events over and over

the reason the game is dead is because we're catering to idiots instead of simply banning the saronsens and lemons that boast about their mythical powers and the nyxes of the server that only sit to do roleplay off plane plus we have to finally understand that a good game needs a leadership that's responsible enough to take important decisions and because the only things to do in this game are PvE/trading when no roleplayers are around

said leadership here is composed of people who haven't played longer than 1 hour since 2020 if not before (3 years ago), they're all detached from reality bar Reeves and 50/50 on Haste

meanwhile this supposed gigabeast tier of activity that's making the game epic and fun for newbies is led by people who think they're playing Dota or some other memery that's revolving around quick logs to PvP

Well again - we can quantify the data for you if you want, but in Liberty around New York, you actually can have sustained activity based on patrolling (in peak times). There have been plenty of LPI Indies lately doing just that actually as @Shinju mentioned the synergy between Navy/LPI actually works well. It's more or less one system and systems around it, sure - but I ask you, is that a bad thing?

I can also tell you from my experience that this sort of thing is what newer players enjoy the most - flying about, interacting with law breakers while RPing, having stuff to do.


And I am not boasting - you can say whatever you want about me, but I know how to bring in activity and am one of the top people for understanding the game mechanics that bring the activity - that's a simple quantifiable fact, nothing more, nothing less.

[Darius]

peak time activity being used as the norm really just sucks because most people that join this game aren't going to look forward to stick around a dying community just to enjoy 20 minutes (if that) of pvp in New York. the real and actual reality of this whole system is that the game is far too dead by now to really have any incentive to logging (this is why i left, even) and so people start to drift away to other games

not everyone wants to play just to log into New York and shoot the local [R] or HS> as LN or the local 46th| or 1st| as Rogue/Outcast. It's not a way to show activity, you're just showing off how dead the whole mod is

[Darius]

And I am not boasting - you can say whatever you want about me, but I know how to bring in activity and am one of the top people for understanding the game mechanics that bring the activity - that's a simple quantifiable fact, nothing more, nothing less.

this is because our community is made up of either absolutely ignorant people or completely clueless individuals at this point in time, they'll trade anything just to get that dopamine hit out of shooting down the target they see on their scanners

i'm telling you as a former faction lead that tried various ways of incentivizing people to play (in bretonia) that the only thing that the remaining vast majority of the community is interested in is stupid, lore-breaking events or pve that prints out cash faster than the weimar republic did in the 1920s

meanwhile you got 5 vocal people using Weaponized Autism :tm: to convince the other half of the community to either not play or to rally around them against whatever it is that they hate at the time (conveniently, this happens to be more than often whatever faction is most active)

this superiority complex of yours isn't anything more than that, it's just a mirror for the modern discovery freelancer experience that we've fallen down to, absolutely subpar gameplay and horrible individuals to engage with in the community because of their attachment either to certain gameplay aspects or some pixels that get rebuilt anyways the next patch

[Czechmate]

You don't understand it seems - that's the issue with development not understanding local game mechanics yet making all decisions without consulting active players - it's not about PvP, it's about interaction with law-breakers and lawfuls. You were never good or enjoyed that playstyle, believe it or not, many people do, most of all new players.

Log, patrol, RP, chat about current developments, and interact with people organically, the PvP is actually something that makes the experience worse in many cases, especially for the RPers/new guys that get shot down by aces that log in kill and log off.

[Darius]

development cannot understand nor cope with "local game mechanics" when the staff have to talk to absolutely TERRIBLE individuals

just ask Markam how many times he tried to reason with LibGov because they just wouldn't accept what story/systems proposed

on that note also ask yourself how many times I and Erremnart struggled to explain to you that what YOU or other players want to do is not how the lore or game should work. the one thing that this current staff team knows to do well and i will praise them eternally for it is not listening to every other nobody in the community in similar fashion to how you won't see todd howard walk up to random gamers during game presentations and ask them about their opinions (aka how game development works, because apparently that's a foreign concept to many people here despite them playing a multitude of other games including AAA titles that are most known for their detachment from feedback these days)

[Czechmate]

Quantify that - the only metric that would matter as a developer would be if my development brings in activity or not, the end more or less. if AAA devs take over it'd be exactly the same since there are no in-game purchases. If a concept works and is bringing in numbers, you ignore the vocal minority. If it doesn't, you experiment and piss off the couple of people that use the concept. Haste thinks the mod doesn't work and he can bring in 150 averages, so he doesn't care about the existing player base much because he actually sees it as a minority of the future numbers - time and easily quantifiable data will tell if he was right or not.

This is a thread about Lawful lines. The Quantifiable data is simple. Navies are just barely hanging on everywhere but the Liberty Outlier. even they had 2 Failures of OF checks last 6 months.

Police and Intels are dead. You simply look at the data and create incentives to bring more people to Police and Intels, without bringing down the navies that as you well know are just about surviving in all houses but one.

[Darius]

the data says that the mod is more or less kaputt and the only faction worth logging organically is the outcasts because they all the active regions of the game in their ZOI. so, then, do you just pull the plug instead? it is always hilarious to see people arguing in favor of keeping the current system that'll ensure the mod is well dead by mid 2024 if not before then instead of *gasp* doing something that actually works

although it's whatever, thanks for the entertainment provided while i was having lunch by showing you once again don't actually care about the game itself but just about logging in to shoot npcs or whatever poor fella ends up near your ships. it is what it is.

[Czechmate]

Those ARE part of the game! Traders, PvEers, PvPers, Cap players, Snubbers, Casuals, tryhards, RPers, PoBers, Patrollers. Nobody is better or worse, they are all equally amazing and are using their precious time playing a mod of an ancient abandoned game. They should all try to understand and compromise with the other sides, making their time here better. Let's get more of these people in I say! That really should be the main metric of devs - how many people actually play. How can they get more people to actually play. The synergy of story, systems, econ, admins etc. should be there to work towards that main goal. I will never apologise for learning from the GMS and DTRs of the server.

[SnakThree]

just ask Markam how many times he tried to reason with LibGov because they just wouldn't accept what story/systems proposed

To my knowledge, not many. Maybe even never. Can't talk on behalf of other factions that play in Liberty.

---