Player Minor Factions (or Guilds) - How they could work
This is not a thread asking whether player-factions/guilds should be implemented, but one exploring how it could be implemented.
I was originally reluctant to post this as I’m sure there will be plenty of negative responses, but with the Lavecon admission that something to do with player groups is in the works - I propose the idea of player-controlled minor factions (aka Guilds).
I understand the reasons for opposition to this concept, responses we often read are;
I think those concerns can be dealt with and avoided if the system is implemented very carefully. My idea here is to encourage player factions to work with non-aligned players to increase their local influence, not to grief them and block access to specific areas of the galaxy. The main competitors to player factions would be other competing minor factions (AI & player) who are based in the same star-systems.
So, here is my take on it all;
The Rules
Faction Administration
Player Faction Influence
Player-factions can increase their influence in local stations/outposts/colonies to become the dominant local minor faction. Influence is a system that is already in place for AI minor factions, so these mechanisms would simply be an extension to that:
Faction Benefits
For a player, the benefits of being in a player-faction are;
Allegiance & Aims
Each player-faction would be encouraged to operate on an ethos and support superpowers and powers, so there would be mechanisms in place to facilitate this;
Posting Bulletin Board Missions
Faction Founders and Leaders can post items on station bulletin boards on behalf of their faction in the same way that the current AI minor faction’s do (these posts would probably have to be in template-form to avoid profanity or griefing). Non-aligned players undertaking these missions would be essential for the faction to expand beyond 12.5% influence.
Faction Treasury
Player-factions have a central treasury which is managed by faction founders & leaders.
Please let me know your thoughts… *hides in bomb shelter*
This is not a thread asking whether player-factions/guilds should be implemented, but one exploring how it could be implemented.
I was originally reluctant to post this as I’m sure there will be plenty of negative responses, but with the Lavecon admission that something to do with player groups is in the works - I propose the idea of player-controlled minor factions (aka Guilds).
I understand the reasons for opposition to this concept, responses we often read are;
- “It’s not ‘Elite’, play Eve or wait for Star Citizen if you want Guilds”
- “It would ruin the ‘lone-wolf’ style of play”
- “It would encourage griefing and/or blockading of star-systems”
- “We would end up with anti-social mega-factions”
I think those concerns can be dealt with and avoided if the system is implemented very carefully. My idea here is to encourage player factions to work with non-aligned players to increase their local influence, not to grief them and block access to specific areas of the galaxy. The main competitors to player factions would be other competing minor factions (AI & player) who are based in the same star-systems.
So, here is my take on it all;
The Rules
- A player-faction has a minimum player count of 4 (faction can be set up with 1 member but will not activate until there are at least 4) and a maximum count of 16 (so two complete factions can operate in the same instance at once).
- If a faction drops below 4 members it goes into liquidation (1 week). If it has not regained at least 4 members in this time it is deactivated (faction treasury is frozen until reactivation – Faction Treasury section).
- A player can only belong to one player-faction at a time.
- A player can leave a faction at any time.
- If a player leaves a faction, there is a cool-down period of one week before they can join another faction.
however they can re-join their previous faction (if faction-admins allow) without a cool-down - UPDATE: cool-down period would also apply to rejoining previous faction to prevent exploitation. - Well spotted Cmdr Hagglebeard...
Faction Administration
- Player-factions have 3 tiers of membership; Founder, Leader and Member;
- The Founders of a faction can promote any member to leader and has all admin-rights available.
- Leaders have increased admin-rights within the faction (can post missions, see ‘posting bulletin board missons’ section).
- Members have little faction admin rights if any.
- Founders create the faction, choose its name and set its home system.
- Factions can be disbanded; however all founders and leaders must agree via a vote.
Player Faction Influence
Player-factions can increase their influence in local stations/outposts/colonies to become the dominant local minor faction. Influence is a system that is already in place for AI minor factions, so these mechanisms would simply be an extension to that:
- Station control: If a player-faction has the most overall influence in a system, they are labelled as in control of the system (permit systems are not controllable however). This obviously is fluid and can change between different factions (like the current AI ones), so a player faction would never ‘own’ a station, just control it.
- Influence spread: Player factions can only spread to other systems once their influence has surpassed a certain level in its home system and this is always limited by a certain light-year radius (dependent on total influence). This would be capped at 25ly maximum so we don’t end up with super-factions (like in Eve).
- Influence gain: Initial faction Influence can be attained by the following actions (influence cap depends on task popularity – e.g. trade is more popular than mining, so mining has a slightly higher cap);
- Performing high volumes of trade at a particular station based on commodity demand (influence capped at 10%).
- Smuggling large amounts of illicit cargo into a particular stations’ black-market based on commodity demand (influence capped at 10%).
- Collecting high-value system bounties at a particular station (influence capped at 10%).
- Smuggling large amounts of stolen cargo (from piracy) into a particular stations’ black-market based on commodity demand (influence capped at 12.5%).
- Selling large amounts of exploration data at a particular station (influence capped at 12.5%).
- Selling large amounts of mined minerals and metals at a particular station (influence capped at 12.5%).
- If your faction enters into a civil war with another faction, gaining combat-bonds from rival faction kills provides influence (Influence swing +-15% max). Kills can be made anywhere, not just conflict zones – has to be in a state of war though. (Killing rivals in peace time will have a negative effect on your factions’ influence and would be a crime punishable by bounty).
- Surpassing a specific number of power-merits at the nearest control system provides a limited-time influence boost in all stations where your factions’ influence is already over 10% (This makes it very difficult for rival power-supporting factions to exert influence in foreign controlled/exploited power systems).
- Having non-affiliated players complete your bulletin board missions at a particular station (this method of influence gain is not capped, see posting missions section).
- Flipping players who are on missions for rival factions through bribery (this method of influence gain is not capped, see posting missions section).
- Undermining rival minor faction influence: Rival Faction Influence can be reduced in a system by;
- Pirating rival faction ships (there is an influence penalty for murdering allied, friendly or neutral faction ships in your territory however, see below).
- Flipping players who are on missions for rival factions through bribery.
- Kills made against rival faction ships during war time (through combat bonds).
- Losing influence: Influence can be lost in a system with the following actions;
- Murdering clean, allied, friendly or neutral faction ships in territory where your faction holds influence (assaulting them would not incur a penalty).
- Attempting and failing to flip a player on a mission for another faction (you give them the offer, they reject it).
- Station ramming would incur a large influence penalty at any station where your faction holds influence (we need to make sure that the player faction system does not encourage griefing).
Faction Benefits
For a player, the benefits of being in a player-faction are;
- Protection: Someone’s got your back.
- Profit margin: Better trade profit margins at faction controlled stations (see influence section).
- Smuggling rates: If controlled station has a black market, increased smuggling profit rates for members.
- Ship servicing costs: Lower fuel/repair/ammo costs at controlled stations.
- Ship purchase & outfitting discount: 10% outfitting/shipyard discount for members at controlled stations.
- Relaxed laws: Factions members would not be fined for having illicit cargo or interdicting clean ships within controlled space. Assault and murder would still be crimes however.
- Powerplay commodity bonus: They would be available in larger free quantities from any control system where your faction has over 10% in influence. The quantity available will also scale with influence (5 per extra 5% of influence). Your player faction must be pledged to the controlling power to get the bonus.
- Faction chat channel (green text): You could message everyone currently online in your faction in a similar way to friends, wings and local. This would be useful for coordinating multiple wings and/or faction objectives. Useful for requesting backup when under attack.
- Faction internal message feed: Members can post notes like a news feed that are only available to faction members to see. Can be filtered by time and author. This would help keep members up-to-date with events when they have been offline.
- Faction Beacon: A beacon mode that would work in the same way as the wing one currently does, but would be visible to everyone in your player faction.
Allegiance & Aims
Each player-faction would be encouraged to operate on an ethos and support superpowers and powers, so there would be mechanisms in place to facilitate this;
- Faction alignment: A player-faction can choose to align itself with either;
- A superpower only
- A power (and by extension its’ parent superpower).
- An independent power
- Be completely independent
- Allegiance rewards: Influence/Merit bonus rewards are given to player factions that align with superpowers/powers respectively so being completely independent would be slightly tougher (I think it would be important to encourage player factions to get involved with the greater political dynamics helping to boost Power-play participation).
- Faction professions: A player faction would have to state a primary profession, a secondary profession and a tertiary profession to give them some flavour. The profession-labels available would be;
- Assassinations
- Bounty Hunting
- Counter-Terrorism
- Exploration
- Intelligence
- Mercenary
- Military
- Mining
- Piracy
- Privateering
- Salvaging
- Security
- Service (The ‘Fuel Rats’ are a good example)
- Smuggling
- Terrorism
- Trade
- Travel (when passenger update arrives)
- Sphere of influence: Like Powerplay - your factions’ active areas of influence would be visible on the galaxy map, with the HQ system highlighted.
- Rival minor factions: Any minor faction that is competing for influence in the same system(s) as the faction.
Posting Bulletin Board Missions
Faction Founders and Leaders can post items on station bulletin boards on behalf of their faction in the same way that the current AI minor faction’s do (these posts would probably have to be in template-form to avoid profanity or griefing). Non-aligned players undertaking these missions would be essential for the faction to expand beyond 12.5% influence.
- Available missions to post: These missions can be commodity delivery (traded, smuggled or mined), exploration, ship-escort, pirating rivals, combat against rivals or assassinating specific players.
- Minimum faction influence: The player-faction must have an influence level of 5% or more at a station/outpost to post a mission (starting at two missions at a time). Then one more for every 2.5% of influence on top of the initial 5%.
- The total amount of missions a player faction can post at any one time is capped at 10 for all stations they control (so if they control lots of stations it is more difficult to maintain influence – they would have to focus).
- Influence yield: The amount of faction-influence a bulletin board mission generates is dependent on:
- Assassination/Bounty Hunting/Combat: Combat rank of target(s) + total bounty value + minor faction allegiance of victim(s).
- Escort: Value of cargo safely escorted.
- Exploration: Value of data + rarity of discoveries (earth-like world’s etc).
- Piracy: Cargo stolen (value) + trade rank of victim + item rarity + minor faction allegiance of victim.
- Salvage: Type of salvage (what items generate most influence depends on the stated professions of posting faction) + item rarity + item credit value.
- Trade/Smuggling/Mining: Cargo delivered (value) + item rarity (Osmium for example would generate more than gold).
- Rules for player assassination missions: Posting player assassination missions would have stringent conditions to avoid griefing - players available to put a hit on would be from a list of players who meet specific criteria;
- Faction can put a hit out on a player who has attacked a faction member (and was the aggressor).
- After the hit has been completed the player is removed from the list until they repeat the offense.
- Faction can also put a hit on a player if they are a member of a rival faction that is currently in a state of war with the posting faction (only one hit allowed per rival faction member during war duration).
- Only one player-hit post is allowed at any one time.
- Mission commodities: Any commodities (or items) gained via fetch missions would be stored in the station where the mission was posted. These stored commodities would be available via a ‘stored faction commodities’ screen for the posting faction member to withdraw them from (for free). These commodities could then be sold to a normal commodities market or black markets at the players’ leisure. The money from the sale would then be split among all faction members. This would be the only direct way faction members receive money from their faction.
- Player mission history: All faction members can see player by player statistics on what bulletin missions each non-affiliated player has attempted for your faction and whether they succeeded, failed, abandoned it or were flipped.
- Non-member player alignment: Non-faction player alignment (Allied, Friendly, Neutral, Unfriendly, Hostile) towards your faction is automatically adjusted depending on these mission outcomes, and any previous hostility to faction members.
- Players on rival faction missions: If an unaffiliated player is on a mission for a rival faction (faction contesting influence in the same system(s) as your faction) then this will be displayed on their information when you passively scan them (normal space or super cruise).
- You can request they abandon this mission by offering the player a bribe. Both players must be together in normal space for this option to appear. (This works in the same way as when AI’s try to ‘flip’ your mission).
- Bribe-money comes from the faction treasury, not personal credit balance (see faction treasury section below).
- The mission flip call-to-action button only appears in the mission panel when the recipient of the offer next docks (so a wing cannot pull-over players and force them to flip under duress).
- Which players cannot accept faction missions: These would show up in the ‘unavailable missions’ section where it usually tells us the AI faction doesn’t trust us enough.
- Faction members cannot undertake missions their own faction has posted.
- Same rules apply to ex-faction members who are in their week long cool-down period.
- Faction members also cannot undertake missions posted by rival factions (so they cannot tactically abandon them).
- Same rules apply to ex-faction members who are in their week long cool-down period.
- When posting a bulletin board mission, the posting faction member can decide what level of rank/alignment is required by the player to undertake the mission (exactly how the AI missions are setup).
Faction Treasury
Player-factions have a central treasury which is managed by faction founders & leaders.
- Paying in: Any faction member can pay into the treasury at any time to keep the balance up.
- Treasury usage: The balance is required to pay bulletin board mission rewards, bribes and other potential future costs. Can also be used for paying for trade/exploration data on the galaxy map which would then be available to all faction members.
- No withdrawals: Money cannot be withdrawn from the treasury like a bank-account by players. Once it is paid in or earned, it can only be spent on faction specific concerns.
- If a faction is disbanded, the credits are lost (to stop exploitation).
- Station profits: A percentage of credits from all commodity sales at any station where your faction is the top influencer is paid directly into the faction treasury (this would have to be a low percentage, something like 1% or less to stop factions getting too wealthy).
- This would make wealthy and/or high-population stations the prime targets for dominating, but would also be the most difficult.
- Usage restrictions: Faction treasury credits cannot be used for purchasing/outfitting individual players’ ships, this still has to be done with players’ own money.
Please let me know your thoughts… *hides in bomb shelter*
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I'm hoping with all these ideas threads that frontier might at the very least cherry-pick some of the better ones.
