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This really needs to be looked at from whoever develops/programs this game. |
Grimith
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: August 09, 2003
Posts: 836
From: Your local future farm.
|  Posted: 2004-07-11 09:00
One thing that I have noticed here is the suggestions, like those made by Gaderath, to use the scenario servers to try out other factions. As far as I know, the only really active scenario server to test the other factions out is the newbie server (and I don't feel that prestige gain should be activated in there for Admirals and Fleet Admirals that go in there, but that's a whole new story that I'm not going to even go into because that would spawn new debates). I personally haven't gone into the Newbie server in a while, but, for some reason, I tend to think that it would be exceptionally hard to see how a new faction goes when it's just a challenge to get a shipyard up (once again, speaking from assumption and what I've heard).
I'll concede that a timer or something should be put on the shifts (come to think of it, I'm making a lot of posts on this subject... I'm bored and I don't feel like reading my AD&D books yet, so I'll be a post whore!)... or at least some form of tiny control. Still, though, players on large should be able to shift factions without much penalty.
...And I'll definitely agree on wanting to be outnumbered instead of having no enemy in sight, Gaderath. At least you have a chance to do something when you're outnumbered... but when you are on the side that has the overwhelming numbers, you're presented with whole new sets of problems...
*personally rips himself away from this forum topic so he doesn't make another huge post about bla-bla-bla that people won't read*
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.spaivxx.
Grand Admiral
Joined: November 10, 2002
Posts: 381
| Posted: 2004-07-11 10:19
I also like seperate profiles per faction, it is flexible yet encourages a player to favor his "real" faction.
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Drafell
Grand Admiral
Mythica
Joined: May 30, 2003
Posts: 2449
From: United Kingdom
| Posted: 2004-07-11 10:39
The other option, of course, is for when the influence/command stats get implemented. Switching sides would totally wipe these stats so you would have to start gaining trust again for that faction. It also allows some interesting possibilities for extending the planet control interface to stop people from sabotaging planets etc.
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Fornax
Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: April 30, 2002
Posts: 906
From: Jacksonville, FL
| Posted: 2004-07-11 10:48
While I don' t love it when I'm fighting the same guy I was helping (in the MV) about 5 minutes ago, I'm not that worried about faction hopping. They're just trying the game out well within the rules. They're supposed to be able to do that if they want.
I kinda like the idea of separate profiles for each faction...but dear lord, I can't imagine having to re-earn all those badges! Guess I'm spoiled.
Nax
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Smith
Fleet Admiral
Joined: October 13, 2002
Posts: 320
From: Pittsburgh
| Posted: 2004-07-11 11:23
being locked to one faction permanently would suck and ultimatly cause people to leave. i mean c'mon whos gonna want to Have to ask a admin to change sides that would be retarded.
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[ This Message was edited by: Smith on 2004-07-11 11:24 ]
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TheBumble
Cadet
Joined: June 24, 2002
Posts: 962
From: PALESTAR
| Posted: 2004-07-11 11:24
it is indeed a situation with some "stress-potential" in it - we know that
we discuss this topic since a long time; we are still thinking about it
untill now, we did not find the "holy grail", so, be patient
there will be a solution/decission in the future - but, we need some (additional) time
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Banzi
Cadet
Joined: July 01, 2004
Posts: 31
From: Ohio
| Posted: 2004-07-11 14:23
Quote:
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On 2004-07-11 03:33, NovaPhoenix wrote:
Problem is, that there are a lot of new players that will subscribe to the game instantly and will join in on the MV fun. They will normally try all 3 factions. Other people like a change of scenery. If we lock everyone to one side that they pick (like it use to be I think) the game got boring a lot quicker, because you have to reset your profile, and thus go through all the ranks again just to see if you like the other faction.
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Well when I first joined i went straight to newbie server. I mean anyone with common sense of the word "Newbie" would head there too. And from there I did play on all sides, And I got too see all the advantages of each side. I didnt pick UGTO because of whatever. I picked the fleet and went with them to UGTO side. If they were on ICC. then I too would be ICC.
Dont lock anyone besay. But make it so they get some sort of lose in pres.
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Banzi
Cadet
Joined: July 01, 2004
Posts: 31
From: Ohio
| Posted: 2004-07-11 14:27
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On 2004-07-11 04:35, Wyke wrote:
I agree with most of what's been said.
I offer the solution I've offered before. Any player swapping factions, suffer a prestige penalty which reduces them by one rank. This is balanced and proportionate response, any defector is not going to receive the same prestige that a indigenous officer is.
The weight of the penalty is relatively low for low ranking players. A set back of a few hours for Ensign or Lieutenant, a few days for ranks upto Captain, but becomes increasing sever for higher ranks, so it would be weeks for Admirals and months for the FA/GA.
Any player who wishes to get a feel for the factions can do this in Newbie or fancies a change can do this in the Admiral server without penalty.
A good side effect of this would be a significant of reduction of the tech smuggling by faction hoping, which just devalues legitimately captured tech.
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I totally agree.
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Banzi
Cadet
Joined: July 01, 2004
Posts: 31
From: Ohio
| Posted: 2004-07-11 14:31
Quote:
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On 2004-07-11 04:45, BackSlash wrote:
I should change it so after a week the prestege loss is added on again..
this means that after a week if someone doesnt like what they swaped too they can swap back
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Nah..
So your saying I could swap back and forth several times in a nite. And lose all my pres. And then within a week all be back having all my press again? The entire game is based on sides. Everyone here that has been playing has been playing for atleast 1 year. They know what side they are. They have been playing that side. If they really want to switch it should be a more permanet thing with some penilty.
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Banzi
Cadet
Joined: July 01, 2004
Posts: 31
From: Ohio
| Posted: 2004-07-11 14:49
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On 2004-07-11 04:45, Tzunamii {Cmdr} wrote:
Well, I agree on the faction-hopping thing and it has to be somewhat harder to do that, but then again - if we lock it down too hard (as Nova said) the game will be boring and we will start loosing even more of the playerbase.
My humble suggestion is as follows, do _not_ let any player who hasn't a fleet logon to the MV.
What will we gain with this? Well, a couple of things really. A player who is thinking about switching factions mid-battle has to go to lobby to leave the fleet (if he leaves his fleet in MV he should automatically be booted from MV) and then he has to get a new fleet to accept his recruitment. Also, fleet-joining would also be restricted to the lobby.
Of course, this is not a perfect solution as a rival faction/fleet may already be standing by to welcome the "traitor" with open arms, but atleast it will be more difficult and can't be done in the MV.
It will also stop or atleast minimize the faction hopping to just get enemy build modules and Larvae-hunting, for instance. Then maybe it can be a little more as the Devs thought it should be from the beginning.
If we add a timer to the whole thing we could make it even more intresting. Let's play around with the thought of having a 6 hour faction hopping timeout, i e when you've changed faction once the timer will begin to count down and then you can't change fleet for the next 6 hours. Just a thought.
Thoughts and suggestions are welcome.
Regards,
/Tzunamii.
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What can you say?? Another WELL thought out idea..
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Grimith
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: August 09, 2003
Posts: 836
From: Your local future farm.
| Posted: 2004-07-11 19:28
...Got to love those people that, instead of making big posts, make quotes of posts that aren't theirs and then post a few lines of commentary about them. 
As for any other ideas? No, not really. This post isn't productive. I just had to say something at the moment.
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Banzi
Cadet
Joined: July 01, 2004
Posts: 31
From: Ohio
| Posted: 2004-07-11 19:32
Quote:
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On 2004-07-11 19:28, Grimith J. Reaper wrote:
...Got to love those people that, instead of making big posts, make quotes of posts that aren't theirs and then post a few lines of commentary about them.
As for any other ideas? No, not really. This post isn't productive. I just had to say something at the moment.
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Reaper.
your pressive post was quite well written and some of it was nice and correct. But since it was soo long and I wanted to play I havent found the time to correct you on a few issues.
Peace
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Grimith
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: August 09, 2003
Posts: 836
From: Your local future farm.
| Posted: 2004-07-12 03:24
I wasn't telling you to correct me. I was merely wondering why you quote whole posts and then write four lines of commentary about them. I want to know what compels people to do that because it honestly confuses me. Can't you just address what they had written at least partially... or... just make a note to their name without using a quote?
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Banzi
Cadet
Joined: July 01, 2004
Posts: 31
From: Ohio
| Posted: 2004-07-12 03:30
I assume your speaking about Tzu's post correct??
I thought the post was for now the best answer to the problem at hand. thou it does have a couple small problems. It really is the best sollution at hand.
Also I think the entire reply is good.. theres nothing i can really leave out? is there? And yes i get your point
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[ This Message was edited by: Bomber on 2004-07-12 03:32 ]
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2004-07-12 12:22
Tip: Copy the posts you like to Notepad (or some other such text editor), and then select [b]passages[/b] that you find particularly poignant. Then, copy them into the post message box, add a [quote] above it, and a [/quote] below it, and then type your response below it.
Continue on with other important passages, or parts from other posts. And it needn't be formal: just do [quote]Grimith said: blah blah[/quote]. Or even paraphrase a post.
Please don't quote an entire post, and then respond with a line or only a couple lines. Generally try not to quote more than a few lines, or else the larger font size of the quote will make the quote look huge.
If you can consolidate multiple responses into one post, its kinda nice for organization, though it can sometimes dissuade some of the more lazy folk from reading everything.
General rule of thumb: Add more than you quote. Your own text should be at least as large as what you're quoting, at least in terms of lines (the font size differences can throw this off, but multi-paragraph posts vs 2 lines is ridiculous).
The same holds for your signature: if your image is going to be larger than your textual contribution, disable your sig. Just uncheck that last box before submitting. (Unfortunately un-)Common courtesy, folks.
Anyway, now that we have that bit of Netiquette out of the way..
We have, as a Dev team, discussed this issue in the past, as Bumble said. And we have considered most of what has been discussed so far - seperate faction profiles, penalties for changing, timers on changing, or factional lockins.
Generally, we don't like the idea of factional lockins. While nobody particularly likes those who skip around the factions, we also don't want to lack people into a particular faction for their entire DS career. There are people who enjoy helping out the underdog or like all the factions and spread their time among all three. We have to be, of course, vigilant against sabotage, but generally its not much of a problem, and its punished fairly well.
Seperate faction profiles are appealing in a way, but also would be rather complicated. Plus, after working for months on one faction, it doesn't seem quite right to not be afforded any rights by any other faction for your accomplishment.
... which makes the idea of penalties from changing somewhat appealing. Say you're an ICC Fleet Admiral, and you decide that those backwater revolutionaries are just too poor at accepting authority and following orders, so you court the UGTO for a job. They would likely be willing to have your experience and skills, yet would be somewhat reluctant to accept you fully into their ranks, considering your recent seccessionist exploits. So, they give you an Admiral Commission and keep an eye on you; if you manage to do well for a while, you can be promoted again (well, work your way back up; I'm just giving a fictional explanation. But theoretically promotions are given from Factional HQ, so it works).
This would allow those who want to change factions the ability to do so, but they'd also suffer a loyalty penalty for doing so. However, this makes it difficult to hop over to a faction easily to assist in dire circumstances - say Kluth were down to just Sirius and you wanted to prevent their elimination. Changing to them would hurt you a bit, and it would make it more difficult for players to help balance out player numbers when they get out of whack.
I personally am a fan of timers on chaging, and I seem to remember this being somewhat favorably thought of by the Devs (though obviously no decision was made). This would allow those who want to change for the benefit of the game to do so, without a powerful penalty like a rank loss, yet would help prevent sabotage and gadget grabbing. I say put it at about a week, and if someone wants to change factions, they'll be forced to stay on it for that week until they can make another change. It won't eliminate the problems - sabotage and gadgets - but it will make it much slower and less profitable. This option seems more balanced, to me.
Anyway, like Bumble said, this has been in and out of dev meetings for a while now; perhaps with this recent public exposure it will get a bit more attention and we'll see some sort of resolution. We shall see.
To finish: Does anyone have any other brilliant ideas for a solution? I am certainly not closed to argument on any of these options, nor on a new one, though I have revealed my biases. But since the issue is by no means closed (yet), feel free to keep suggesting and debating. A good game is founded on a strong, open and involved community.
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