Wouldn't 20 minor factions with a lot of depth, make more sense than thousands with no depth

[Deleted member 147460]

Who thought it was a good idea to have thousands of minor factions that have virtually no depth? It is very hard to distinguish one faction from another. I have tried to get back into the game recently but I find this to be quite bothersome once again. Why would I help a faction than only has two to three sentences for a description. Wouldn't it make more sense to have fewer minor factions that have in depth descriptions, giving one motivation to support one or the other. Take Democratic government minor factions for example. There are so many different types of democratic governments. How do I know which type of democratic government that faction has? Personally, I think this is Another example of a mile wide, inch deep. Why do I keep trying to give this game another chance one might ask. I don't really know. I LOVE space games but this is the strangest space game I have ever played and I don't mean that as a compliment.

EDIT: It has occurred to me that what I may really want is just a bunch of major factions and to do away with the minor factions. Of course, the Devs can't even be bothered to provide a detailed description of the major factions in the game either.

 

[Jmanis]

That's what the Empire, Alliance and Federation are; the three major factions overarching the universe. There's even an extra layer with the 11 Powerplay Powers.

Personally, 20 minor factions representing across the rest of the tens of thousands of systems would be homogenous and bland.

 

[Arthur Shappey]

Probably. But lack of cultural depth in a species starting to spread amongst 400 million stars is probably inevitable... Let's face it: the behaviours we see in many players are:

1) Financial Greed
2) Violence
3) Selfishness
4) Materialism
5) Quick to war and to capital sanction

Very few appear to be spending time in the arts, creating, educating, settling down, raising families, enjoying the scenery etc.

So perhaps a lack of depth is appropriate...

 

[Shiro Akai]

Simple, if we had 20 minor factions across the bubble:
- people would complain about lack of variety. "I visited 20 different stations, ALL had the same faction"
- with low faction variety gaining rep with one would take ages - since one would be present in hundreds of stations, rep income must be very low to make them last.

Current system may be more tedious but at least gives much more variety. Not the perfect one (quality lacking) but you can't please everyone.

 

[Vandaahl]

So 20 factions ruling hundreds of star systems would be so called "Minor" factions?
Anyway, what you want is already there and called Power Play.

 

[xondk]

Who thought it was a good idea to have thousands of minor factions that have virtually no depth? It is very hard to distinguish one faction from another. I have tried to get back into the game recently but I find this to be quite bothersome once again. Why would I help a faction than only has two to three sentences for a description. Wouldn't it make more sense to have fewer minor factions that have in depth descriptions, giving one motivation to support one or the other. Take Democratic government minor factions for example. There are so many different types of democratic governments. How do I know which type of democratic government that faction has? Personally, I think this is Another example of a mile wide, inch deep. Why do I keep trying to give this game another chance one might ask. I don't really know. I LOVE space games but this is the strangest space game I have ever played and I don't mean that as a compliment.

spread out amongst what 19k if not more now civilised systems? you have to remember each system has billions of actual people, so at least from my view is just fine, though could be more dynamic.

 

[xondk]

So 20 factions ruling hundreds of star systems would be so called "Minor" factions?
Anyway, what you want is already there and called Power Play.

Basically this.

 

[DeathStroke]

'Mile wide, inch deep' is a common theme in elite. Procedural generation allows them to create many (dozens to billions) of entities quickly and efficiently. Procedural generation is what FD is REALLY good at, unfortunately it's one of very few things that they are good at (sound is amazing), and they rely on it too much.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

They wouldn't be particularly 'minor' if the spanned hundreds of systems.

 

[JonSnowman]

Yes, yes it would.

 

[Schlack]

you'll have to give us BGS players a little more time to reduce the number of ruling factions to a minimum.

 

[Deareim]

FD and story telling....

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Nope. I like the range of factions.

Also allows every little player group to adopt/have their own faction.

There are also players who think the game would be better if there were a lot less systems as well.

 

[lokvette]

With the vastness that is space haveing mankind spread over all but a small bit of it, and that being broken down into various factions and differnt goverment and political types for me at least is somthing FD have got right, imagine if we did discover the FTL drive over the coming weekend, fast forward a 1000 years and see how many factions of mankind would be out there.

Ohh I do agree with the lack of depth tho, but that goes for the big 3 also. They still feel like place holders even tho its 4 years on.

 

[xondk]

'Mile wide, inch deep' is a common theme in elite. Procedural generation allows them to create many (dozens to billions) of entities quickly and efficiently. Procedural generation is what FD is REALLY good at, unfortunately it's one of very few things that they are good at (sound is amazing), and they rely on it too much.

Well yeah, but it is also about perspective.

the minor factions represent bilions of lives, to reduce it to 20, would make it seem quite odd given the size of the galaxy. And it wouldn't really 'add' anything to the game last I checked.

What more when eventually time comes and we become able to walk around, and eventually land on planets with people, it will make more sense, rather then seeing 20 factions and that's it, we'd get a lot more variety, so having it like this allows for much more sensible expansion as time passes.

Add that there's both powerplay AND the three (four) major factions as well, I do not see how changing the number of minor factions would actually do anything useful to the game, for some it may 'feel' more sensible, but that from my view is because they view the game top down.
Its a game, they play it, it should make sense from that perspective

Rather then viewing it as a game, with lives in it, sure it is still a game, but it is meant to represent something to give meaning to what happens in game, but yeah, that depends on what type of person you are.

 

[RamirezKurita]

When it comes to procedural generation, it's just as easy to have 20,000 factions than it is to have 20. That being said, I've repeated many times over that the BGS needs far more depth adding in order to give the different factions their own personalities, cultures and motivations, but so far FD have made no hints about revamping the BGS.

 

[Iskariot]

That's what the Empire, Alliance and Federation are; the three major factions overarching the universe. There's even an extra layer with the 11 Powerplay Powers.

Personally, 20 minor factions representing across the rest of the tens of thousands of systems would be homogenous and bland.

I agree.
And... what is 'minor' about 20 factions spreading out all over the bubble and the galaxy in general, controlling hundreds of systems each?
The current way of doing things does make more sense to me.

This is a huge procedurally generated universe and because of that FDev needs to use PG systems to make this work without too much developer interference.
Perhaps they plan to add on to that to give it a bit more depth in the future.

Personally I would love it if the Powerplay Powers would play a bigger role in general gameplay, outside of the Powerplay mechanic.
This could be done by involving them in piracy and bounty hunt mechanics for example.

Powers might issue Letters of Marque to pirates, or they might issue bounty hunt licenses to bounty hunters.
I made proposal for both mechanisms elsewhere.

 

[DeathStroke]

the minor factions represent billions of lives, to reduce it to 20, would make it seem quite odd given the size of the galaxy. And it wouldn't really 'add' anything to the game last I checked.

In the USA, ~300 million people are represented by two 'factions'. Billions of people represented by ~20 factions thousands of years in the future doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

What more when eventually time comes and we become able to walk around, and eventually land on planets with people, it will make more sense, rather then seeing 20 factions and that's it, we'd get a lot more variety, so having it like this allows for much more sensible expansion as time passes.

Again, ~20 factions would not be unreasonable. There's also the fact that there's no evidence to support the claim that FD is even capable of 'walking around' and 'landing on planets with people'. If they were capable of that, then we would have atmospheric planets.

I do not see how changing the number of minor factions would actually do anything useful to the game

It would allow them to create more detailed missions, we're talking actual plot here, voice acting too. Try writing plot scripts for thousands of factions and getting voice talent for tens of thousands of characters.

Rather then viewing it as a game, with lives in it, sure it is still a game, but it is meant to represent something to give meaning to what happens in game, but yeah, that depends on what type of person you are.

That was completely incoherent. If you're trying to make a point for keeping the factions the same, my counter point is that less factions would give FD an opportunity to have scripted plot driven missions with voice acting, which I would like FD to do someday, but know better than to hold expectations about it actually happening.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Couldn't the same thing be said about 400 Billion Star Systems?

 

[Iskariot]

In the USA, ~300 million people are represented by two 'factions'. Billions of people represented by ~20 factions thousands of years in the future doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

It does to me, considering the interstellar scale we are speaking of in ED.

I think the current system is fine as it is. It feels more realistic to me.
But my view is of no consequence. FD is not going to change it. That is a given.

When they do have a second look at the Powerplay Powers, it might be much more reasonable for them to give the Powers more meaning for general gameplay, outside of Powerplay. These Powers already have more character and personality. I think that would work very well and might give you and op what you want. I would love that. It would be great to do some missions directly for my Power without having to struggle with the current uninteresting PP gameplay and the demotivating PP ranking decay system.