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Game-supported player conflict
Guilds are too big in Vendetta Online.
This statement in isolation to the average player probably sounds absurd. "What do you mean 'too big'? There's no such thing as 'too big' we don't have enough players as it is you crazy [noun]". I think it becomes apparent that proportionality is the most important thing to occur with the population of players, if you have too many players skewing towards one aspect of the game, the other aspects lose appeal and you start losing players that are unwilling to adapt to whatever the new trend in gameplay happens to be.
To achieve this, I think we need more guilds, and guilds need to be something not supported purely by exceptional individuals or groups of individuals that donate resources (such as web space, bots, development time for plugins) but by the actual game mechanisms themselves through artificial scarcity and a dynamic economy. We have a number of active guilds at the moment: Itan, RED, BR1, TGFT, ORE, TRI, FAMY, LAW. The problem is that they don't always operate, nor are they in any way incentivised to operate, uniquely within any specific role framework in the universe. The only conflict there is between these guilds is fuelled mostly by out-of-game ideology about consensual combat or access to resources which are completely unlimited anyway (thus the burdern on artifical combat is placed on the player, intead of correctly handled by the game engine). Aside from the relatively poor gameplay this produces, it also has the nasty side effect of personalising in-game conflicts because they aren't just about winning a competition anymore, people begin to associate it with ruining their gameplay experience (instead of adding to it, which is infact what is happening, interaction vs no interaction). They then go and remove the third wall of roleplay and make extra-character accusations, attacks and hold prejudice against the player, rather than correctly against the character. I think I have been able to demonstrate this on a number of occasions.
Ryan made a post not long ago suggesting 'meta-guilds' features to help larger groups of players to communicate on a grander scale and as was correctly identified we already have these features in practice today. Even before we had these however, I think it stands true that regardless of the individuality of the guild, there's a polarization of purpose towards 4 major points of concern:
Serco Nationalists - For serco in competitions
Itani Nationalists - For itani in competitions
Traders - firmly against non-consensual combat (to protect their members)
Pirates - firmly for non-consensual combat (to provide entertainment for members)
With very little room for anything in between, most guilds are polarized towards one of those four above categories. The problem with this is invariably that it sucks all the interesting roleplay out of the game; 4 groups become 2 groups because why suffer alone when you can band together with the lesser of two evils and soon enough you have either pirates and allies vs traders and allies or Serco and allies vs Itani and allies.
From my perspective, I entered the game at a point where Pirates vs Traders was the major source of conflict, and it has since shifted towards the later nationalistic conflict. But in each case there is a large lack of game-driven conflict and the system relies almost entirely on player-driven conflict in order to succeed.
I propose this needs to change in order for Vendetta to become more widely appealing. Guilds need to become smaller and more defined towards niche minor faction roleplay. Conflict and competition needs to be supported by game driven scarcity in resources and mutually exclusive outcomes for financial prosperity, access to weapons and ships so the emphasis is on working together as a team to bring your faction success and then be rewarded for that success with something beyond bragging rights.
So for instance, instead of just having one or two larger trade guilds that have no incentive to conflict, you have a guild that fights for Axia, one that fights for Valent, one for TPG etc.. and they are competing to ensure their stations are the most well supplied, their weapons are sold to the Serco and Itani for the best price and they are able to construct and purchase the best spacecraft at any given time. This would mean that the amount of trade done at certain stations would increase the output and increase the benefit for players that are affiliated with that faction. However it should be limited in such a way that not everybody can just retain the benefits for that faction, there needs to be a level of scacity that scales to the population of the game so people have market based incentives to spread out evenly amongst factions and adopt interesting roles. Similarly for the greyspace factions.
The only place this conflict philosophy is currently implemented in the game is in Capture the Cargo, but the incentive to compete in it is so weak it doesn't matter at all. I'm suggesting we use this type of exclusivity and scacity on a much larger scale, which I realise is not a new concept, I just wanted to have a more analytical discussion about it than has occured in the past.
I'm quite sick of working towards driving player driven conflict like walking the wrong way on a travelator, I know ARF, Spence and Itan is sick of it and wel. Ecka is not sick of it, he's more of a player conflict opportunist despite what his guild members think. He totally and entirely stands for bringing TGFT into conflict whenever possible, and to his credit he is reponsible for creating some great inter-guild conflict, even if I don't agree with the basis for that conflict which is almost always based on real-world ideology rather than in-game roleplay reasons. That is really the central reason I propose this type of reform; the name of the game is Vendetta, it promises conflict is built-in to the fabric of the game, but that is not the case, yet.
Tl;dr? This thread is not for you find another one :)
This statement in isolation to the average player probably sounds absurd. "What do you mean 'too big'? There's no such thing as 'too big' we don't have enough players as it is you crazy [noun]". I think it becomes apparent that proportionality is the most important thing to occur with the population of players, if you have too many players skewing towards one aspect of the game, the other aspects lose appeal and you start losing players that are unwilling to adapt to whatever the new trend in gameplay happens to be.
To achieve this, I think we need more guilds, and guilds need to be something not supported purely by exceptional individuals or groups of individuals that donate resources (such as web space, bots, development time for plugins) but by the actual game mechanisms themselves through artificial scarcity and a dynamic economy. We have a number of active guilds at the moment: Itan, RED, BR1, TGFT, ORE, TRI, FAMY, LAW. The problem is that they don't always operate, nor are they in any way incentivised to operate, uniquely within any specific role framework in the universe. The only conflict there is between these guilds is fuelled mostly by out-of-game ideology about consensual combat or access to resources which are completely unlimited anyway (thus the burdern on artifical combat is placed on the player, intead of correctly handled by the game engine). Aside from the relatively poor gameplay this produces, it also has the nasty side effect of personalising in-game conflicts because they aren't just about winning a competition anymore, people begin to associate it with ruining their gameplay experience (instead of adding to it, which is infact what is happening, interaction vs no interaction). They then go and remove the third wall of roleplay and make extra-character accusations, attacks and hold prejudice against the player, rather than correctly against the character. I think I have been able to demonstrate this on a number of occasions.
Ryan made a post not long ago suggesting 'meta-guilds' features to help larger groups of players to communicate on a grander scale and as was correctly identified we already have these features in practice today. Even before we had these however, I think it stands true that regardless of the individuality of the guild, there's a polarization of purpose towards 4 major points of concern:
Serco Nationalists - For serco in competitions
Itani Nationalists - For itani in competitions
Traders - firmly against non-consensual combat (to protect their members)
Pirates - firmly for non-consensual combat (to provide entertainment for members)
With very little room for anything in between, most guilds are polarized towards one of those four above categories. The problem with this is invariably that it sucks all the interesting roleplay out of the game; 4 groups become 2 groups because why suffer alone when you can band together with the lesser of two evils and soon enough you have either pirates and allies vs traders and allies or Serco and allies vs Itani and allies.
From my perspective, I entered the game at a point where Pirates vs Traders was the major source of conflict, and it has since shifted towards the later nationalistic conflict. But in each case there is a large lack of game-driven conflict and the system relies almost entirely on player-driven conflict in order to succeed.
I propose this needs to change in order for Vendetta to become more widely appealing. Guilds need to become smaller and more defined towards niche minor faction roleplay. Conflict and competition needs to be supported by game driven scarcity in resources and mutually exclusive outcomes for financial prosperity, access to weapons and ships so the emphasis is on working together as a team to bring your faction success and then be rewarded for that success with something beyond bragging rights.
So for instance, instead of just having one or two larger trade guilds that have no incentive to conflict, you have a guild that fights for Axia, one that fights for Valent, one for TPG etc.. and they are competing to ensure their stations are the most well supplied, their weapons are sold to the Serco and Itani for the best price and they are able to construct and purchase the best spacecraft at any given time. This would mean that the amount of trade done at certain stations would increase the output and increase the benefit for players that are affiliated with that faction. However it should be limited in such a way that not everybody can just retain the benefits for that faction, there needs to be a level of scacity that scales to the population of the game so people have market based incentives to spread out evenly amongst factions and adopt interesting roles. Similarly for the greyspace factions.
The only place this conflict philosophy is currently implemented in the game is in Capture the Cargo, but the incentive to compete in it is so weak it doesn't matter at all. I'm suggesting we use this type of exclusivity and scacity on a much larger scale, which I realise is not a new concept, I just wanted to have a more analytical discussion about it than has occured in the past.
I'm quite sick of working towards driving player driven conflict like walking the wrong way on a travelator, I know ARF, Spence and Itan is sick of it and wel. Ecka is not sick of it, he's more of a player conflict opportunist despite what his guild members think. He totally and entirely stands for bringing TGFT into conflict whenever possible, and to his credit he is reponsible for creating some great inter-guild conflict, even if I don't agree with the basis for that conflict which is almost always based on real-world ideology rather than in-game roleplay reasons. That is really the central reason I propose this type of reform; the name of the game is Vendetta, it promises conflict is built-in to the fabric of the game, but that is not the case, yet.
Tl;dr? This thread is not for you find another one :)
ok is new to the game (5th DAY) but idk if this is good or bad, death and destruction mean nothing in game to me except lost time and some credits. I am going the trading or mining route (no idea which) not the combat route ( I wont actively go looking for it) I use the game to relax not get keyed up after a day at work so idk. will leave that for players with more time on, just wanted to say how I feel the game is so far. For trading or mining this idea may make sense.
go for it
go for it
Traders aren't against consensual combat, they're against non-consensual combat, and pirates encourage non-consensual combat.
Other than that, I agree with most of what you have here.
This is a massive undertaking and will require significant thought and dev time. More incentive for CtC and contests between the factions are first steps. Currently, factions don't provide any unique advantages; you can easily get admire with all of them, except Valent/Axia. I'd like to see more inter-faction competition and more unique benefits and drawbacks for being an ally of a faction.
There could be special advantages for being devoted to a single faction.
As far as guild size, capping size is going to do little. You'll end up with a mess of sub-guilds and complicating coalitions. Provide different areas of gameplay that are best done as a team; TRI has capitalized on the manufacturing aspect. Specific factions could provide that, so long as there are certain things best done in teams (escorting convoys of expensive goods, raiding other factions' convoys, delivering large quantities of goods, mining ore).
Other than that, I agree with most of what you have here.
This is a massive undertaking and will require significant thought and dev time. More incentive for CtC and contests between the factions are first steps. Currently, factions don't provide any unique advantages; you can easily get admire with all of them, except Valent/Axia. I'd like to see more inter-faction competition and more unique benefits and drawbacks for being an ally of a faction.
There could be special advantages for being devoted to a single faction.
As far as guild size, capping size is going to do little. You'll end up with a mess of sub-guilds and complicating coalitions. Provide different areas of gameplay that are best done as a team; TRI has capitalized on the manufacturing aspect. Specific factions could provide that, so long as there are certain things best done in teams (escorting convoys of expensive goods, raiding other factions' convoys, delivering large quantities of goods, mining ore).
Yeah I meant that tarenty it was a typo, fixed.
As for capping sizes, I don't suggest that the sizes should be capped at all. I'm suggesting market based mechanisms for controlling the proportionality of players across the different roles in the verse. So everybody can theoretically be in a guild dedicated to Axia, but at some point the people at the bottom are going to realise the can get better ships and better weapons if they go fight for Valent or Xiang Xi because there will only be so many resources that Axia can possibly give out at one time.
The best example I can think of is to imagine that conquerable stations only allowed a fixed limit of FCP's and FFSA's to be made across the entire verse. If too many people have control over it, it's going to create internal conflict for those limited resources, so people are going to be naturally incentivised to seek out a better deal at another conq station with another group.
As for capping sizes, I don't suggest that the sizes should be capped at all. I'm suggesting market based mechanisms for controlling the proportionality of players across the different roles in the verse. So everybody can theoretically be in a guild dedicated to Axia, but at some point the people at the bottom are going to realise the can get better ships and better weapons if they go fight for Valent or Xiang Xi because there will only be so many resources that Axia can possibly give out at one time.
The best example I can think of is to imagine that conquerable stations only allowed a fixed limit of FCP's and FFSA's to be made across the entire verse. If too many people have control over it, it's going to create internal conflict for those limited resources, so people are going to be naturally incentivised to seek out a better deal at another conq station with another group.
Guilds should not be tied directly to a given faction; that would exclude players who aren't in a guild. Allowing players to ally themselves with one of the minor factions is an interesting idea, but guilds are not the correct mechanism to go about implementing it.
That isn't to say you couldn't have a guild who's objective is devoted to a given minor faction and only accepts members allied with it (much like nationalistic guilds), but being a member of a guild shouldn't be a requisite for allying with a minor faction.
Likewise, there should be provisions for exclusive communication among minor factions allies (a dedicated chat channel like nation chat?), as well as sharing resources or whatever else.
That isn't to say you couldn't have a guild who's objective is devoted to a given minor faction and only accepts members allied with it (much like nationalistic guilds), but being a member of a guild shouldn't be a requisite for allying with a minor faction.
Likewise, there should be provisions for exclusive communication among minor factions allies (a dedicated chat channel like nation chat?), as well as sharing resources or whatever else.
Valid points TRS, I would agree with the longer term development of much of what you propose. Historically VO has been poor at creating gameplay, as you correctly point out a few active players have tried to use the few mechanisms available to them in order to create somewhat artificial conflicts just to give the playerbase some objectives and activities in game.
Most Guild commanders will recognise the dilemma. How do we promote the interests of our respective guilds while ensuring that VO as a whole remains interesting enough for people to log in and play ?
Your argument that guilds are too big or generalised should be valid in VO. Long term I hope that is how VO turns out. However, for now, it is the tail wagging the dog. Resources, goods, ships, weps are in infinite supply. The war zones and ctc have no meaning since winning in there has no practical economic or military advantage. Both dynamic economies and meaningful war zones have been discussed at length elsewhere.
Now if we want to see a greater number of guilds with more tightly focussed objectives there needs to be objectives to focus on. The ones available in game are far too vague and they will remain so until the availability of everything is linked to supply of everything to the stations. Simply there will be no specialisation of guilds until VO has a true dynamic economy.
Let me try an example. A small itani military guild wants to take some stations in deneb to prevent serco border raiding, for which the itani guild will be well paid. To do this they need swarms. o 3 says, nope, none available till we get this much goods and that much ore. The itani guild subcontracts those tasks to two small guilds who specialise in sourcing goods and ore. Some of the goods are faction specific; the trade guild has to buy them from a guild in favour with that faction. The serco get wind of this, they start attacking the trade and mining guilds. Those guilds then get a merc guild to defend them. A rival merc guild wh defends pro serco miners and traders takes umbridge and attacks the first lot. o3 shouts out , ye are getting nothing till we get aquan ore, we are thirsty.... Bang, resource limitation and a 6 guild conflict, lots of good gameplay.
I would like to see VO being like that. The mechanism is the economy though, just limiting guild size is not going to make it happen. Tying a guild to a particular faction won't make it happen either.
I do appreciate that this would not suit the players that just log in and want the top ships cheaply and readily available to just go and pewpew. How VO balances the interests of those that want a long term involving game and those who just want a bit of a fight is difficult. Perhaps VO cannot manage both.
We shall see.
Most Guild commanders will recognise the dilemma. How do we promote the interests of our respective guilds while ensuring that VO as a whole remains interesting enough for people to log in and play ?
Your argument that guilds are too big or generalised should be valid in VO. Long term I hope that is how VO turns out. However, for now, it is the tail wagging the dog. Resources, goods, ships, weps are in infinite supply. The war zones and ctc have no meaning since winning in there has no practical economic or military advantage. Both dynamic economies and meaningful war zones have been discussed at length elsewhere.
Now if we want to see a greater number of guilds with more tightly focussed objectives there needs to be objectives to focus on. The ones available in game are far too vague and they will remain so until the availability of everything is linked to supply of everything to the stations. Simply there will be no specialisation of guilds until VO has a true dynamic economy.
Let me try an example. A small itani military guild wants to take some stations in deneb to prevent serco border raiding, for which the itani guild will be well paid. To do this they need swarms. o 3 says, nope, none available till we get this much goods and that much ore. The itani guild subcontracts those tasks to two small guilds who specialise in sourcing goods and ore. Some of the goods are faction specific; the trade guild has to buy them from a guild in favour with that faction. The serco get wind of this, they start attacking the trade and mining guilds. Those guilds then get a merc guild to defend them. A rival merc guild wh defends pro serco miners and traders takes umbridge and attacks the first lot. o3 shouts out , ye are getting nothing till we get aquan ore, we are thirsty.... Bang, resource limitation and a 6 guild conflict, lots of good gameplay.
I would like to see VO being like that. The mechanism is the economy though, just limiting guild size is not going to make it happen. Tying a guild to a particular faction won't make it happen either.
I do appreciate that this would not suit the players that just log in and want the top ships cheaply and readily available to just go and pewpew. How VO balances the interests of those that want a long term involving game and those who just want a bit of a fight is difficult. Perhaps VO cannot manage both.
We shall see.
To clarify, I agree that guilds shouldn't specifically be tied to a given faction, but I don't think it's at all a new idea that individuals are tied to a given faction with their standings to that faction. If we have proper dynamic standing exclusivity with other factions and have a sense of scarcity to standing with a faction (for instance, the faction only needs a certain number of POS people, but they need to keep a basic level of upkeep to maintain their position) then people will naturally organise guilds around groups of people that have the best availability of resources at that specific faction and/or are aligned in their goals of working towards that faction's success.
In addition to the suggestion about communications in your last paragraph meridian, I think there needs to be some sort of global or recognised indicator to show people which faction you are most aligned with in the verse *including* minor factions. My ideal implementation for this would be to have text colour change on standing, but there are other ways you could do this.
In addition to the suggestion about communications in your last paragraph meridian, I think there needs to be some sort of global or recognised indicator to show people which faction you are most aligned with in the verse *including* minor factions. My ideal implementation for this would be to have text colour change on standing, but there are other ways you could do this.
I have addressed that many times before...
We need to
1. Improve IFF, making it aware of Guilds.
2. Assign standings to Guilds, regarding each faction. Guild's standings are combined with user's standings
3. Allow Guilds to declare status on other Guilds and Factions. (Friend,Neutral,Foe)
Like that a trade Guild can declare Peace with everybody, and a troll Guild can declare war on anyone but corvus/pirates, and IFF properly reflects that for everybody. And Guilds behaviour, despite what was declared, would also be considered... all covered.
We need to
1. Improve IFF, making it aware of Guilds.
2. Assign standings to Guilds, regarding each faction. Guild's standings are combined with user's standings
3. Allow Guilds to declare status on other Guilds and Factions. (Friend,Neutral,Foe)
Like that a trade Guild can declare Peace with everybody, and a troll Guild can declare war on anyone but corvus/pirates, and IFF properly reflects that for everybody. And Guilds behaviour, despite what was declared, would also be considered... all covered.
Sorry if this thread is too old to be ressurected.
But would like to say that, the Guilds, to have success in their objectives (whatever objectives gets implemented), to need players to cover every aspect of the game.
Today, I see trade guilds, combat guilds, and so on. And I'd prefer that the Guilds are not focused on a single aspect of the game. Instead, that all of them do need players to do everything. They would need minners, traders, botters, pirates, even racers. Everyone would be needed to achieve whatever objective they happen to have.
If I'm a minner, I don't want to enter a Guild where everyone is a minner. I want to enter one where a minner is needed. And when I get tired of heating rocks, all other available activities can be done in order to help the Guild.
But would like to say that, the Guilds, to have success in their objectives (whatever objectives gets implemented), to need players to cover every aspect of the game.
Today, I see trade guilds, combat guilds, and so on. And I'd prefer that the Guilds are not focused on a single aspect of the game. Instead, that all of them do need players to do everything. They would need minners, traders, botters, pirates, even racers. Everyone would be needed to achieve whatever objective they happen to have.
If I'm a minner, I don't want to enter a Guild where everyone is a minner. I want to enter one where a minner is needed. And when I get tired of heating rocks, all other available activities can be done in order to help the Guild.
You can already make a guild like that. Just get 9 other people to join up and viola.
Of course a Guild can be made like that.
But I'm saying to give Guilds some goals, where diversifying the player-base is the best way to achieve them. Where everyone cooperate to reach the objective.
I'm too new to the game, don't know what could be these objectives. But they should incentive Guilds competition, and diversification within the Guilds players.
But I'm saying to give Guilds some goals, where diversifying the player-base is the best way to achieve them. Where everyone cooperate to reach the objective.
I'm too new to the game, don't know what could be these objectives. But they should incentive Guilds competition, and diversification within the Guilds players.
Guilds make their own objectives. We've got nationalist guilds, mercenary guilds, pirate guilds, anti-pirate guilds, a guild dedicated to helping and healing everyone, a guild dedicated to liberating Bractus, you name it.
Hell, there's a guild dedicated to nothing but crafting Tridents.
If someone thinks something is worthwhile, and then convinces other people that it's worthwhile enough to join them, then that is that guild's goal.
Guilds are nothing but groups of players. Those players make their own goals.
Hell, there's a guild dedicated to nothing but crafting Tridents.
If someone thinks something is worthwhile, and then convinces other people that it's worthwhile enough to join them, then that is that guild's goal.
Guilds are nothing but groups of players. Those players make their own goals.
@terranAmbassador
Understood you very well. But don't agree that these self-created imaginary goals are good enough for the Guilds to compete each other, as if there were built-in Guild oriented objectives. Where every aspect of the game must be covered by its members.
But I agree that the game can't become something where players are forced to enter a Guild in order to play the way they want. It can't be all that hard to have both.
Understood you very well. But don't agree that these self-created imaginary goals are good enough for the Guilds to compete each other, as if there were built-in Guild oriented objectives. Where every aspect of the game must be covered by its members.
But I agree that the game can't become something where players are forced to enter a Guild in order to play the way they want. It can't be all that hard to have both.
If they're imaginary, then why are there several wars going on right now? I know I've participated in several skirmishes myself because of these 'imaginary' goals. Trust me, the competition is there. And it's fierce. Nothing needs to be built in because we are already providing that mechanism.
Part of the appeal of this game is the sandbox nature of it. If the developers start dictating what a guild should and should not do, they are taking away a very large part of that sandbox. If they even start dictating what group of guild members does what and where, that's taking away a large part of the sandbox.
I hate to make a comparison like this, but guilds here are a lot like EVE's corporations. A mechanism for creating them is provided, a basic hierarchy is built in to make them easier for the members to run, and then they're let loose into the wild. And it works.
Part of the appeal of this game is the sandbox nature of it. If the developers start dictating what a guild should and should not do, they are taking away a very large part of that sandbox. If they even start dictating what group of guild members does what and where, that's taking away a large part of the sandbox.
I hate to make a comparison like this, but guilds here are a lot like EVE's corporations. A mechanism for creating them is provided, a basic hierarchy is built in to make them easier for the members to run, and then they're let loose into the wild. And it works.
No it doesn't work at all. You're so obviously a TGFT it isn't funny. The implemented guild model works perfectly for TGFT but it works terribly for everybody else except pirates who really don't need it.
This is very easy to demonstrate: create a custom guild hierarchy framework for VO and watch as every guild except TGFT modifies the existing hierarchy into something else.
The reason there are conflicts at the moment is because people look beyond the veil of roleplay at the person playing the character and dislike them for their purported real-world values and opinions.
Kabuloso is entirely correct in my view. The conflict framework should be built outside of guilds as people like meridian have pointed out, but pretending it's sufficient is laughable.
This is very easy to demonstrate: create a custom guild hierarchy framework for VO and watch as every guild except TGFT modifies the existing hierarchy into something else.
The reason there are conflicts at the moment is because people look beyond the veil of roleplay at the person playing the character and dislike them for their purported real-world values and opinions.
Kabuloso is entirely correct in my view. The conflict framework should be built outside of guilds as people like meridian have pointed out, but pretending it's sufficient is laughable.
Yeah, there isn't really enough to fight over. The game lacks objectives and suitable rewards/consequences. TerranAmbassador just had the typical vet response to newbie criticisms of the game: set phasers to "Positive Spin" and pretend nothing is wrong. Sure there is competition and conflict, but it is certainly not "fierce". Some of the individual fights are, but the overall conflict is not. Nobody really has anything to lose or gain.