Forums » Suggestions
Faction Penalties
Okay, so, after the long and arduous reading about "we need more severe faction penalties" threads, bring all of your suggestions here.
My suggestion is a progressive system, where if you are a repeat offender, the faction penalties get harsher and harsher.
Maybe it could reset after a long period of non-aggression?
My suggestion is a progressive system, where if you are a repeat offender, the faction penalties get harsher and harsher.
Maybe it could reset after a long period of non-aggression?
Include tempKOS as a minor offense recorded on your record in such a progressive system. Instead of having it reset, give it a delay before the penalties start to slowly decrease, day by day, until you're as normal.
Perhaps damaging other non-hated people outside of a duel in nation space should have consequences of some kind, regardless of who started what and whether anybody dies. Call it disorderly conduct. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a faction penalty either, could just add to a "disorderliness" stat which could influence punishments for committing other crimes.
How exactly would the faction penalties get harsher and harsher? Once you hit rock bottom there is no realistic way to make it harder and harder without breaching the fundamental tenants of the system. The only thing I could think of is the faction deploying tougher strikeforce, perhaps a trident or connie with a full fleet eventually starts coming after you straight away. It just strikes me that the whole idea is that a faction is only really willing to dedicate minor forces to take care of a single pilot nuisance.
It can be harsher in the sense of larger standing drops and more difficult repairs. For example, if I have frequently killed within UIT space and repaired my faction, it should drop faster the next time, and be harder to fix.
Once you make it remember past offenses like that, you can also decrease the initial punishments so that the system is more lenient to newbs and accidents. Maybe the very first time you kill somebody in UIT you just get a slap on the wrist and a stern warning. The second time would be closer to the current penalty for killing somebody in a minor faction. The third time would be how it is now. That would make it a bit harder to trick newbs who just don't know any better into tanking their standing, since they'd get more opportunity to learn that they're going to be penalized.
It would remember crimes for at least three months, possibly a year, so that people like me couldn't just avoid the UIT for a while and then come back and only get minor penalties for the first couple kills.
There should also be more perks and penalties at the various levels. Like maybe a faction differentiates between ships with weapons and ships without, so that disliked people can only fly unarmed ships in their space, while neutral people can continue flying anything. Maybe capship regulations are even more strict, requiring neutral to fly at all, and respected to be armed. (Possibly only apply that to the larger capships.)
The idea there is to abolish the goofy three-stage faction system we have now. Currently we effectively only have Hated, Neutral, and Admired. The rest are just superficial distinctions with only minor differences.
Then add smuggling as a minor offense, and make it possible to sell ships and cargo to other players through some sort of shop. That opens up a black market to compensate outlaw-types for the overall harsher faction system. Rather than trying to maintain high Itani standings to buy valks, they could get them on the black market for a high price (I'm talking at least 200k) and lower availability (no infinite sales like stations have - there would be a finite smuggler-created supply that could be exhausted). Getting caught flying black market ships you lack the authorization for would also have faction penalties and make you temp-kos with that faction. Having this option will result in fewer pirates who bother to maintain high standings.
And yeah, the economy might have to be fixed before some people considered the black market prices high enough.
Then by making smuggling a more important game role, you could also make it possible for players to identify smugglers (scan their cargo in a wormhole sector). Bounty hunters could be authorized to destroy smugglers for a monetary reward (send an NPC ship to retrieve the cargo however - if the hunter takes the cargo, he becomes a smuggler himself). Bounty hunting should also bestow small faction bonuses on the hunter.
Also, once crimes are being tracked, killing people who are Hated and have criminal records within monitored space should result in automatic (but minor) rewards regardless of bounty hunter status (bounty hunters are authorized to kill non-hated smugglers who are caught in the act, and are rewarded large sums for killing people with bounties even in unmonitored space).
Once you make it remember past offenses like that, you can also decrease the initial punishments so that the system is more lenient to newbs and accidents. Maybe the very first time you kill somebody in UIT you just get a slap on the wrist and a stern warning. The second time would be closer to the current penalty for killing somebody in a minor faction. The third time would be how it is now. That would make it a bit harder to trick newbs who just don't know any better into tanking their standing, since they'd get more opportunity to learn that they're going to be penalized.
It would remember crimes for at least three months, possibly a year, so that people like me couldn't just avoid the UIT for a while and then come back and only get minor penalties for the first couple kills.
There should also be more perks and penalties at the various levels. Like maybe a faction differentiates between ships with weapons and ships without, so that disliked people can only fly unarmed ships in their space, while neutral people can continue flying anything. Maybe capship regulations are even more strict, requiring neutral to fly at all, and respected to be armed. (Possibly only apply that to the larger capships.)
The idea there is to abolish the goofy three-stage faction system we have now. Currently we effectively only have Hated, Neutral, and Admired. The rest are just superficial distinctions with only minor differences.
Then add smuggling as a minor offense, and make it possible to sell ships and cargo to other players through some sort of shop. That opens up a black market to compensate outlaw-types for the overall harsher faction system. Rather than trying to maintain high Itani standings to buy valks, they could get them on the black market for a high price (I'm talking at least 200k) and lower availability (no infinite sales like stations have - there would be a finite smuggler-created supply that could be exhausted). Getting caught flying black market ships you lack the authorization for would also have faction penalties and make you temp-kos with that faction. Having this option will result in fewer pirates who bother to maintain high standings.
And yeah, the economy might have to be fixed before some people considered the black market prices high enough.
Then by making smuggling a more important game role, you could also make it possible for players to identify smugglers (scan their cargo in a wormhole sector). Bounty hunters could be authorized to destroy smugglers for a monetary reward (send an NPC ship to retrieve the cargo however - if the hunter takes the cargo, he becomes a smuggler himself). Bounty hunting should also bestow small faction bonuses on the hunter.
Also, once crimes are being tracked, killing people who are Hated and have criminal records within monitored space should result in automatic (but minor) rewards regardless of bounty hunter status (bounty hunters are authorized to kill non-hated smugglers who are caught in the act, and are rewarded large sums for killing people with bounties even in unmonitored space).
+1 Pizzasgood
+everything Rin
What I'm not seeing in Pizzasgood's post is anything about faction recovery.
1) While 'crimes' are remembered, it should not be possible to recover standing.
2) Continued criminal activity should progressively reduce the maximum standing that can be recovered.
Otherwise, I fully agree.
1) While 'crimes' are remembered, it should not be possible to recover standing.
2) Continued criminal activity should progressively reduce the maximum standing that can be recovered.
Otherwise, I fully agree.
Yeah, though you should be able to recover some of the penalty, just not the full penalty while the crime is remembered. And maybe doing community service type things could reduce the duration it is remembered somewhat. Maybe 20-40% reduction, revocable on bad behavior. (To encourage people to be productive rather than just abandon that faction until the crime expires - we want to encourage people to play, not discourage them).
And of course, the suggestions others have made in the past about requiring multiple types of activity to raise standing also should be implemented. The game should track various types of actions, so that you basically have multiple sub-standings with each nation (might be excessive to do this with the minor factions). Military, commercial, industrial, and civic standings. Then the overall faction level as we currently know it would be computed from those as a simple average.
The UIT could have some "militia" type missions vs. bandits and hive to cover their military requirement. I figure militia would be the way to go since they don't have a standing military you can join. These would just be fighter skirm type deals - don't want to harm Deneb's specialness. You want big capship battles, go join a real military.
A consequence of sub-standings is people who don't join the Itani's or Serco's military cannot fill that nation's military meter, automatically capping their max standing with that nation (regardless of whether it's the native faction). It would still allow anybody to be UIT POS though, since anybody could take the militia missions, but then maybe that is okay. (Of course that should have minor negative consequences to their home nation's standings).
And of course, the suggestions others have made in the past about requiring multiple types of activity to raise standing also should be implemented. The game should track various types of actions, so that you basically have multiple sub-standings with each nation (might be excessive to do this with the minor factions). Military, commercial, industrial, and civic standings. Then the overall faction level as we currently know it would be computed from those as a simple average.
The UIT could have some "militia" type missions vs. bandits and hive to cover their military requirement. I figure militia would be the way to go since they don't have a standing military you can join. These would just be fighter skirm type deals - don't want to harm Deneb's specialness. You want big capship battles, go join a real military.
A consequence of sub-standings is people who don't join the Itani's or Serco's military cannot fill that nation's military meter, automatically capping their max standing with that nation (regardless of whether it's the native faction). It would still allow anybody to be UIT POS though, since anybody could take the militia missions, but then maybe that is okay. (Of course that should have minor negative consequences to their home nation's standings).