Better player faction integration between outside and inside the game

[goemon]

For those with benign intent it's not an issue to request access from the Player Faction "Creator".

it is more the opposite. it might be a huge workload for the player faction "creator", as we can see from those managing large private groups. it is a bottleneck, which can get a problem with RL from hollidays to people burning out, as we can also see from larger private groups. it isn't even a way against misuse, whether with intend or not, see private groups. and it is creating a powergap between a single individual and a group, with all its potential drama.

nothing of the above would be the case with a mechanic tied to ingame "values" like only being able to pledge for exampel to 1 faction at a time, only when you are allied, only as long as you have at least friendly/cordial reputation etc. etc.

 

[smiths121]

What a much nicer post than the parrallel thread going, a small set of features that does not radically change the game for everyone, but is QOL fo Player groups. One advatnage of the proposal is we can do away with (xxx) in player's name, understand it is needed for member recognition but it is horrible to see.

I very much think that players should be able to associate with a NPC minor faction when allied. In many ways, it word lessen the impact of player group tags if everyone could tag themselves with their (current) favourite minor faction - obvioulsy need to be allied and stay allied, tag removed if not allied.

Should tagging be added, I think gating of the tag for the player groups (and any associated minor faction) along the lines proposed by the OP would be required, getting allied can be a simple as a few hours in a RES site so not an proper gating mechanism. On another note, handing over admin control, and reversal of a player group back to an NPC minor faction, needs to be added to the proposal. Space Poultry and "Aulin War Eagles" (sorry to either if it is not the case), but as it stands through the proposal, no-one could adopt them, or join them. Whilst hardly the most meaningful of content, witout this aspect of management, we risk "content" being behind a wall, with no gatekeeper, from a player group non-fan point of view. In other worrds, I hope this is not a stepping stone, and you are not going to ask for group decals and other walled of content once you get the wall. I have already seen the slippery slope, originally "no" to player groups, then they got given control of controlling faction (I still have not forgiven FD from placing Contrail in Anlave), and they have the ear of the community team - a link into FD that other players do not have. This slippery slope, really concerns me, made even worst as I techincally paid for "god like powers", which I percieved to be ability to feedback to FD, in the Kickstarter, being replaced by Player Groups is probably part of the reason I am so anti them.

Once you get your feedback, you should post in the suggestions area, perhaps this should have been there to begin with as, community feedback to a proposal from a community member is the purpose of that area.

Simon

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I like the idea - coming from the perspective of a semi-explorer with (for the most part) fairly loose affiliations, I think a flexible implementation where someone can be part of multiple groups and switch allegiance using the (currently only in CZ) faction menu might be better for many.

Might also be useful for faction leaders to be able to nominate "faction assistants" who can also process membership requests - rather than have it forever and always one player's responsibility.

 

[Han_Zen]

That would be, in my opinion, how it could work for non-Player Factions, i.e. the BGS permits / denies the "flying of a Faction's colours".

For Player Factions I can accept the desire of those who have taken the time involved in creating the lore, requesting the injection of the Player Faction and then working in that Faction's out-of-game reputation to control who can (and can't) fly the colours. For those with benign intent it's not an issue to request access from the Player Faction "Creator".

I have to say I agree with goemon. Keep it fully in-game.

Make it a bit of work to be accepted after joining(a few missions or something) and have a long cool down(1 month?) for switching factions. If anyone is prepared to put in that kind of effort to go false flag, it's legitimate game play.

Other than this, I agree with rootsrat's suggestion.

- - - Updated - - -

I would wish that you had avoided using the term guild in your proposal as it is counter productive.
The fact that you write it in quotes shows you are aware of this, so why try to trigger people?

Elite is a social game and has lots of opportunity to engage in both competitive and cooperative activity within the established PG system.
Talk of guilds, with all the associated anti-socialism, negative attitudes, immersion breaking regimes and above all insidious desire for player ownership, will only alienate people.

For the record. I support the idea of an optional player faction tag being available in game.

There is only one guild in ED. The Merchants Guild.

 

[Ouberos]

As you can guess we would be right up for it in - though we'd not be in favour of anything that required a judgement call by any individual. We'd much prefer a situation where you need to be allied, and perhaps allied for a considerable time to a faction to pledge to it and there to be a strict limit on the number of factions you can pledge to.


Yes of course this is open to abuse, and if someone took the time to become pledged to a faction then went and caused trouble in their name, that would be part of the game, akin to 5th columning in PP. It would have to be managed in PR.

Inter group conflict shouldn't be limited to direct conflict after all. There should always be a place for under cover work.

I wonder if it would be possible to have system security attack pledged members of hostile groups? Probably reaching with that one.

 

[Robert Maynard]

it is more the opposite. it might be a huge workload for the player faction "creator", as we can see from those managing large private groups. it is a bottleneck, which can get a problem with RL from hollidays to people burning out, as we can also see from larger private groups. it isn't even a way against misuse, whether with intend or not, see private groups. and it is creating a powergap between a single individual and a group, with all its potential drama.

nothing of the above would be the case with a mechanic tied to ingame "values" like only being able to pledge for exampel to 1 faction at a time, only when you are allied, only as long as you have at least friendly/cordial reputation etc. etc.

I understand the concern regarding Player Faction management - I would hope that such a feature would coincide with the release of a web-based Faction management tool that would offer significantly more functionality than the existing game client interface and to multiple managers.

I would agree that a player's pledge should only be considered for membership if they are at the pinnacle of Allied with the relevant Faction (and unpledged to any other Faction).

 

[rootsrat]

I wouldn't mind the auto-pledge mechanics, as long as it'd actually require reasonable and balanced effort to put in. As it currently stands, it's way to easy to become Allied with a minor faction to be able to use that as a gating factor.

Also, I would like some tools to be able to counter the false flag. I like the idea of espionage, spies and so on. However if someone is working undercover to negatively influence my group's reputation within the community (fair enough!) and I find out, but have no tools to make him leave the faction and stopped being recognised as a member... Nah, that's no go for me personally. So maybe the ability to kick a player from the faction that then prevents them from pledging again for certain amount of time?

Then again, that leaves the potential to abuse power...

There are pros and cons to everything. I am not forcing for my proposal, I just want some way to integrate outside and inside factors of players groups. Maybe we as a community can come up with a reasonable proposal and present it officially to Frontier?

 

[Fenyl]

What some of the people here seems to not understand is that there is a huge difference between being allied to a faction and being a member of one. Those are not the same things and they shouldn't be perceived as such.

What it takes to be allied with a faction is to do several missions, sell some cartography, maybe shoot some NPCs. That can be done in one evening.
Being a member of faction requires much more time and effort. It's a lasting process, not a one-time action.

For those worried about extra work for group founder, who would have to accept new members - believe me, when you manage 250 players group, accepting them into in game faction would be nothing less then a delight

 

[Jane Turner]

In game gating, beyond simply reaching allied has to be possible. I get the impression that the reputation scale goes a long way past the limit that you can see. e.g I've abandoned 7 missions in one go for CIU and still been allied.

Even if it didn't there could easily be a time gate added. 2 months would be appropriate

 

[FrogsFriend]

.....
However if someone is working undercover to negatively influence my group's reputation within the community (fair enough!) and I find out, but have no tools to make him leave the faction and stopped being recognised as a member... Nah, that's no go for me personally. So maybe the ability to kick a player from the faction that then prevents them from pledging again for certain amount of time?
......

I think that's the core of the question. Do you personally own and control that in-game Faction? As it stands, no you don't. You may be personally responsible for requesting that the Faction be added to the game but you're still just a 'supporter' of it. For me, that's still the way I prefer it to be.

 

[BL1P]

I support this suggestion !

 

[goemon]

For those worried about extra work for group founder, who would have to accept new members - believe me, when you manage 250 players group, accepting them into in game faction would be nothing less then a delight

it's great if it works out, but we already have several exampels since player backed minor factions became a thing, where it didn't work out (from faction creators stopping to play the game ... to faction creators not being reachable at all... to conflicts between the majority of members of a group (up to all members of a group -1) and the faction creator.

It is not as if those who are talking about the problem of bottlenecks/ single point of failure/ power gap in this thread don't have experience of playing as part of a group, or even running a group.

(I personally work with several groups in elite, mainly doing BGS work, which includes being part of the BGS core team of a group with several hundred players ... and have managed groups in other games with online events up to 8000 players... i just come to different conclusions from my experiences, which are overwhelming positive in the majority though)

I watch closely what might come from the very interesting and different "pretty inclusive" design of player backed minor factions in e: d. and i simply think that any "pledge to a minor faction"-system should build on the design and mechanics of minor factions ingame, and not on a hybrid/"hack" like private groups acting as servers for play styles (and all the problems coming from it).

but i generally share the intend of that it should be able to "join" a faction, not even speaking about that it needs better ingame tools to manage group efforts and goals ingame.

 

[rootsrat]

I think that's the core of the question. Do you personally own and control that in-game Faction? As it stands, no you don't. You may be personally responsible for requesting that the Faction be added to the game but you're still just a 'supporter' of it. For me, that's still the way I prefer it to be.

I don't want to OWN it. But since I have CREATED the entity, it is MY faction (not in the sense of ownership, but affiliation and effort). I gave it name, I gave it lore, I gave it description and 250 members of MY group worked hard together to bring it to the point it's in now. I am not "a supporter". I am a creator of the faction and everything it stands for in game.

And so I want to be able to present myself flying under the banner of MY faction. I'd also like to have some control over who is flying my colours.

Please try to be objective. If you look at my proposal - you'd still be able to support any faction in game, so you won't lose your way. It won't affect your game at all, apart from the fact that you will see faction name under some players' name, just like you see it under the NPC names - that's all there is to it.

I (and other people) would like the ability to proudly present what we've achieved together for the last 2 years. Again - this won't affect your game at all - while greatly improving the game for many groups out there.

 

[Demascus]

I would agree to this under certain conditions. Mainly for the ability for player factions to be defeated/removed from the game. Mainly back when FD was handing out player factions, systems and stations like candy. There are lot of dead factions out there from players or groups that no longer play the game. I think a clean up is needed. Also FD gave my home system away to a bunch of nobs..... still bitter about that.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Even if not being too much faction affiliated I support the request to open up
the possibility to join (pledge) a faction and give faction leader the opportunity
to accept / deny this request.

On ther other hand players are to be able to drop the pledge at any point in time
just because they feel like this. Faction leader is to be informed about a leave event.

(Players should be able to also access any NPC faction if they like to. Just some
auto accept function is to be created here.)

Taking into account all the pro's and con's that arise from a pledge. Maybe you get
haunted just because of being a Winged Hussar. This can happen in unstable systems
quite easy.

Regards,
Miklos

That's the thing though, there's no real difference between a player faction and a regular minor faction. The special player involvement ended the moment their suggestion of a name and home system was sent off to FD. The leaders of player factions are the NPCs, just like the regular minor factions. The players that like to claim ownership of a faction are actually just a band of mercenaries that have a preferred employer, not any kind of actually important figures for the faction.

 

[Fenyl]

I think that's the core of the question. Do you personally own and control that in-game Faction? As it stands, no you don't. You may be personally responsible for requesting that the Faction be added to the game but you're still just a 'supporter' of it. For me, that's still the way I prefer it to be.

Could you elaborate? What is the the problem with giving players control over in-game factions that they created, manage and support? As stated in OP, in most cases in-game factions are just a tip of the iceberg of extarnal forums, discord servers and so on. You can't be member of majority of them due to their internal rules, but you can still support their factions in-game. That wouldn't change.

 

[DaveB]

Unlike the other proposals we've seen for allowing players to "fly the flag" of a faction, this is one I can support. The only thing that stops me saying "wholeheartedly support" is that I share the misgivings goemon posted above. I've moderated online communities, helped organize player groups within multiplayer environments and I can honestly say nobody is immune. No matter how cohesive and collegial the group may be at its inception, sooner or later the drama will hit the fan. Unmanaged, this does make an environment pretty toxic pretty quickly. At best you get "group churn" where the drama bomb lands and the group splinters into several successor groups, at worst you get an ongoing slime-fest with the potential to stink up significant areas of the game for other players over an extended period.

However, as rootsrat and others have pointed out, these concerns are already being addressed by player groups organizers, they just aren't doing it within the game. Allowing them to somehow fly their flag in-game without impacting any other aspect of gameplay for anyone, as rootsrat has proposed, is probably the best of both worlds, because it keeps the drama in the out-of-band group management.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Having control over who gets to fly the colours of a Faction created at the request of a Player Group (who have made the effort to do so) would not give the person control over anything else with regard to the Faction - just who gets to pledge to a Player Faction.

There are a vast number of factions - I'd expect that Player Factions are a tiny percentage of all Factions in the game - why would gating access to a cosmetic change to player identification be an issue?

 

[Goose4291]

Having control over who gets to fly the colours of a Faction created at the request of a Player Group (who have made the effort to do so) would not give the person control over anything else with regard to the Faction - just who gets to pledge to a Player Faction.

There are a vast number of factions - I'd expect that Player Factions are a tiny percentage of all Factions in the game - why would gating access to a cosmetic change to player identification be an issue?

In a word

Eve-Fear

 

[rootsrat]

That's the thing though, there's no real difference between a player faction and a regular minor faction. The special player involvement ended the moment their suggestion of a name and home system was sent off to FD.

You couldn't be more wrong. In fact it's 100% opposite.

The special involvement only truly begins when the entity you have created appears in the system of your choice. Only then the true support begins. The main people working for a faction's success are not random players that happen to pass the given system. It's the people who have banded together that make the faction's success or failure. It requires a lot of effort, work and dedication to direct your expansions where you want them, to maintain diplomatic relations with your neighbours, to organise CG's and other events for your faction and so on.

And how do you know that the guy who gives you missions isn't actually working for me?

And like I said - I do not want to OWN my faction. I want to be able to display it's name under my name on the HUD to show my allegiance with it. Where do you see a problem with that?