Forums » Suggestions

Buying Back Standing

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Sep 20, 2008 incarnate link
This has been suggested a bunch of times before. I did a search and came up with a couple of threads, going back to at least 2005, but not the one I was thinking of. Anyway..

The basic idea being, via some mechanic (a mission, perhaps, at neutral stations like Corvus), a user might be able to pay a large sum of money to have their faction raised to Dislike or Neutral. I was thinking on the order of a two-use possibility (the mission may only be used by a given character twice). The first time costs 30 million credits, the second time costs 300 million credits.

This would be in addition to the existing methods of standing recovery, which are time consuming to neigh-impossible now that there are turrets preventing entrance to UIT territory. This would also be in addition to other, more elegant methods of standing recovery that I hope to develop as we integrate the "improved faction system", but would serve as both an immediate stopgap as well as a "fast" means of recovering at some expense.

Now, the obvious tradeoff here is that people could use this to further persecute newbies or whomever.. practice piracy within nation borders and so on. However, given the faction drops and such, they probably wouldn't be able to do a whole lot of it.

The issue becomes balancing the risk vs the monetary fine. My numbers are a general ballpark, I welcome feedback on all of this.
Sep 20, 2008 KennRNK link
There's a system like this in Freelancer. You could "hack" your reputation so it is favorable with one faction, but other factions will take a hit. It would probably work best with those who want to buy back Itani/Serco faction, but the consequence is that the opposing faction you have will take a major hit and there should be a limit on how often you can do this within a certain amount of time (doing this too often could result in diminishing returns).
Sep 20, 2008 incarnate link
Well, in the above case, it would only be possible twice for any given character. I imagine it would be most used on UIT, actually, which makes balancing it with another faction hit kind of.. problematic. Something like that might be interesting with Serco/Itani exclusion in the near future, but for the moment, I'm just thinking of literally "buying reputation" with a given faction. Essentially paying off a giant fine in order to not be killed when you try flying through their territory. But again, it's costly and you can only do it TWICE.

Of course, there are those who will re-create new characters to get around any limitation. I could actually make it account-wide, somehow, but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea.
Sep 20, 2008 Death Fluffy link
I'm getting that this is twice period and not per faction. I do like the idea, especially that it actually COSTS something, and is so restrictive. Heck. My trade character couldn't even afford the second fix.

Seriously though, if you do do this don't go below your current cost estimates. Things should be difficult to achieve- not impossible, but difficult.

Take static queen kills as an example. I don't know whats going on with this, but in my day (about 8 months ago) I had to work my butt off to kill the escort before they killed me just to get at the queen. Now, you can kill the escort without a scratch, and sometimes even take the queen without the escort responding. Thats just one example of things I used to do that took effort to achieve. I quit doing HS because it was usually won before I got there is another.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great game, but let challenges be challenges.

Personally, what I'd like would be something like a false ID that you could buy and keep in your cargo hold. If I'm serco KOS, and have one of them baby's, I can still fly in, buy my scp and n3's and leave no questions asked. If I do some damage while I'm in serco space, the illusion of my ID is broken and it is unusable again in any nation or faction space.

Or another idea I've toyed with is when you run a convoy, you assume its faction standing in monitored space, or they assume yours. I don't really care which way it goes.

EDIT:
Just a quick thank you to the Devs for fixing the static queen escorts. Not as vicious as they used to be(you have to hit one for them to attack instead of them all attacking as soon as you were within 2000m, and they are a bit inconsistent in attacking, but much much better!! Thanks :)
Sep 20, 2008 Nansens Cat link
I do not like the idea of making these limits account wide. It feels wrong to me to penalise an innocent trading alt's future because of the bad behaviour of it's evil twin. I do like the idea of giving an additional "path for redemption" & could see some of the role play characters, especially, finding use in this.

So, I would prefer to see this tied into a mission tree -- sort of like how, in Privateer, one character (Lynch) pays for your services in 3 missions with a one time "pull the records" on your faction standings (all factions that Lynch can access then reset to zero, but only if negative). However, having completed the mission, you may postpone the reset to some future time.

Presumably, then, to actually perform the 1st reset would open the 2nd, more costly/more difficult, mission sequence in this tree; eventually leading to another postponable status reset (possibly also not as inclusive or as effective).
Sep 20, 2008 Scuba Steve 9.0 link
Rather than straight buying back faction, I like the idea of selling transponders which only last for a limited time and fake the faction in question into thinking they like you. From then on, you can proceed to earn back faction normally and if you do not earn back your faction before the transponder runs out of batteries or explodes or whatever, you're left out in the cold. Even with such a high price it would seem like it would be just too easy to purchase back reputation, and on top of that, how would that weave into the storyline? Sure, you can bribe an official or two to get into space, or bribe someone to get the transponder to let you in nation space, but I don't see someone bribing, say, the entire UIT Senate or Serco Triumvirate.

However, I do agree with the limited use. Two or three times per faction that someone will sell you a transponder, but within a set amount of time(three months?), seems more reasonable than just two times ever. I agree with the price of 30m for the first and 300m for the second, those seem like pretty reasonable pricepoints given the economy now. They may need to be rebalanced in the future, though.

As the cat above said, working it into a mission tree would be awesome as well.
Sep 21, 2008 jborderman link
I have to first off say that I really think standing is abused.

Why not incorporate an elimination of standing with the new economy. For example standing to be used only as it regards trading and possibly purchase of standing to move goods to Grey Space. Standing would be better used to further trade to grey space (ie You need Valent standing to do the Valent convoys to trade for Valent in grey space which at the same time causes Axia standing to drop).

Also, why not instead add a Pirate starting point for players to choose when creating an alt or new character. It seems that the real problem with standing is it does not affect the real pirates anyway. But the ones who want the cheap kills associated with killing off new players or unarmed players simply for the sake player kills benefit from use of standing to tear apart only UIT space. The new turrets do not function to keep those kind of players out, since they stay in the UIT nation space by gaining standing at one faction.

Create letter of marque that permit a player to basically join a certain faction (gives you standing there) that allows only the killing of players working for or with letters of marque of the other faction. If a players kills a new person not aligned yet with a faction they lose their letter of marque and become KOS everywhere for at least, say, one month (this could be adjusted to fit the needs seen by the Devs.). This would correct the disparity between real pirates and those who only want to kill new players and create a real desire for people to become Pirates since there would be a safe area, like has been proposed for new players in Nation Spaces, for a new Pirate to be trained and developed.
Sep 21, 2008 Starpwn link
How about if you send a station guard 100mil, he will make up some bs about about your identifier being scrambled or something or other to the dockmaster, and you will get one time docking privilages, so take a big trade guild mission.
Sep 21, 2008 Yuutuu1 link
After much searching I managed to find the thread that I posted a while back about buying faction back.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/18589

I think this is a great way to make a credit sink in game as well as give a price to piracy in sensitive areas. I think that maybe limiting it to two uses might not be all that great but instead putting a high monetary cost (which would be capped but at something very high up) on doing such actions would deter people.

Currently there is only one very slow way of fixing a KOS status with a minor UIT faction and that is doing escort missions to those stations which give you +1,+2 in that faction. Thats a very very slow process and this could fix that.

I definitely think this should be an unlimited mission but have it start at or around 30mil and eventually make its way to a capped 500mil price tag.
Sep 21, 2008 vIsitor link
The only problem that I can see, insofar as to the two-time limit anyway, is that (as others have said) its too restrictive.

The fact of the matter is, accidents sometimes happen. Newbies accidentally shooting Station Guards, griefers provoking attack (and the responder getting a massive faction hit), etc etc. While the number of times such occurrences occur ought be few, the thought of two just isn't realistic.

Instead, lets compromise. Every time the faction-reset feature is used, double the cost--starting at 30M cr. Repeat offenders would rapidly find the cost spiraling beyond the ability to pay for it--and greatly limiting potential for abuse. Why, the fourth time alone would be well above the suggested 300M.

P.S. Also, instead of neutral, perhaps the "atonement fee" should only raise the standing back to a dockable Dislike, instead of all the way back to Neutral?
Sep 21, 2008 LeberMac link
F that. Botting your standing back up will be soooooo much easier, and won't cost a dime.

Oh, wait, you mean grayspace corporations? OK then, I like Scuba's and Starpwn's ideas.
Sep 21, 2008 Aramarth link
I don't think we need a fine possibility, Incarnate. The only way to lose the faction points to begin with is to destroy the pilots said faction cares about. I don't know of anywhere that punishes murder with a fine of *any* size.
Sep 22, 2008 Rejected link
I agree that two times is a bit restrictive

I think incorporating a system of forgiveness might foster a more feasible atmosphere.

Give offenders a rank that increases with higher consequences for repeat offences

i.e.

First Offence - 30 M credits, and a 3 month warning

If the player successfully goes three months without another offence, they are reduced one level, or a clean state, if they neutralizes their standing within that three month period, or do not ever pay to increase their standings (in which the station never forgives the offence) they are charged on their

Second Offence - 100 M credits, and a 6 month warning

Even after 6 months, the player is only reduced to First Offense status, thus if they tank their standings again , they must pay the Second Offence penalties again. Possible, after maybe 9 months of good behavior, the pilot might be able to recover his good name. Tanking the standings within the 6 month period or players who continue to kill newbies while not making amends for their bad behavior, increases the player to a

Third Offence - 200 M credits, and a 9 month warning

Same rules apply as above, and you can see a trend forming, maybe up a possible 10th Offence, in which you are no longer allowed to purchase standing back, unless the pattern of forgiveness be repeated

Again, these numbers are just suggestions, actual fines and forgiveness times could be tweaked as seen appropriate

Hopefully in this way, those one time mistakes can be forgotton by good behavior in the long run, and those who wish to hunt newbies quickly incur stiff penalties
Sep 22, 2008 zamzx zik link
Rejected, the main problem with 'time constraints' are that they are generally unfun.

Sure, okay. It is a consequence of killing people in the NFZ, but 3 months along with a 30m credit hit is a lot.

How about something more reasonable.

Make it 30m credits or a two-week warning. Give the player a choice, either pay up now or suffer. Both fields should get significantly longer after awhile (Time; 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 2 months, 3 months) and that's a bit longer then I really thought necessary.
Sep 22, 2008 IRS link
I think we're getting a bit far off topic. This is meant as a stopgap measure, as stated by Incarnate in the original post. Once the revised faction system comes into play, this will likely be rendered obsolete and be removed.
Sep 22, 2008 missioncreek2 link
30 m sounds too expensive. 300m is beyond consideration.
Sep 22, 2008 incarnate link
Considering we currently have no mechanic like this at all, I don't think limiting its use is that catastrophic. Any usage is an improvement of the current situation.

As IRS mentions, this may be phased out or replaced with the new faction system. But it might stick around, too, we'll see. It is mostly a stopgap measure for the moment, given all the guarding/turrets/docking-restriction stuff that I'm doing. I'm making fairly significant changes to the game landscape, and I don't want to leave unfortunate players out in the cold.

The new faction system already has mechanics for forgiveness and character deportation, and uses "Temporary KoS" as a punishment method rather than "permanent" standing decrease (up to a point). This buy-back system is not intended to impact any of that, it's just a short-term possibility.

This also has nothing to do with clandestine "transponders" to appear as members of another faction.. that's also great, and not the same thing. Again, trying to make something for people left out in the cold by other recent changes, not really a long-term, strategic gameplay construct (although, if it proves useful and not commonly exploited, it might stick around).
Sep 22, 2008 slime73 link
missioncreek: 30m can be made in a few hours, so it's really not that expensive for what you get.
Sep 23, 2008 toshiro link
Yea to Scuba's refined idea. Nay to overly easy ways of regaining factions.
Sep 23, 2008 Scuba Steve 9.0 link
Eh, the issue I have with it Incarnate is, essentially, what Slime posted just above. 30m really isn't that much, and balancing cost until it's just about right is very very tricky. It's shouldn't really be as easy to bring your standing up to dockable by just bribing station worker A with enough credits to have him run for an office in the UIT Senate. If the gain-from-bribery/buying-standing is temporary, then players are motivated to actually earn enough faction standing to repair their relations with the faction in question.

I'm just thinking that I, as a grayspace denizen with a taste for doing naughty things, would find this too much of a temptation to not take for granted. I would, pretty much, fork over my 30m during a prime time to exploit the faction system as a whole for my own benefit.