New PMF's have been stopped since patch 14

[Lex Rottie]

I am unsure if this has been officially posted anywhere as I can't find anything on the subject. The only thing I can see is a post from Fdev back in 2021 regarding PMF's and them being on hold. I have just received an email saying they are again on hold due to some internal problem. They also said we have no time scale on when this will be fixed due to it being a low priority (insert Thargoid war). I just thought it would be good for all to know this info. What does concern me is why not tell us? Is it because they don't intend to fix the problem and was hoping people did not notice? I don't know maybe I'm just getting carried away. The big issue I have with all this is that my squad and I have rebranded recently and wanted to form a new faction with a new mindset. We would not have done this if we knew via public post that fdev have stopped the applications. I don't know if this was announced on a stream at some point but I rarely watch those due to IRL commitments. Anyway, the purpose of this is just to highlight the issue to anyone else that didn't know. If there is a post knocking about I will eat my hat but like I said I can not find a single thing regarding it.

o7

all the best.

 

[Boone Lockley]

The main problem is probably linked to oversaturation of player factions. They are all over, and once they're in, they're in. There are a lot of dead factions (I'm guilty of this) who get a system, the group doesn't work out, and now you have locked up real estate.

One solution would be to email previous faction starters and ask if they can remove it, but that probably would take some man hours.

On another note, it's hard to find a group to join that "clicks" and often leads people to starting their own. I'm considering starting another one, but just using an NPC faction to side step the whole process. Yeah, I didn't make it, but making one hardly feels like owning it either compared to a game like Eve where the players really do run the show.

 

[Lex Rottie]

The main problem is probably linked to oversaturation of player factions. They are all over, and once they're in, they're in. There are a lot of dead factions (I'm guilty of this) who get a system, the group doesn't work out, and now you have locked up real estate.

One solution would be to email previous faction starters and ask if they can remove it, but that probably would take some man hours.

On another note, it's hard to find a group to join that "clicks" and often leads people to starting their own. I'm considering starting another one, but just using an NPC faction to side step the whole process. Yeah, I didn't make it, but making one hardly feels like owning it either compared to a game like Eve where the players really do run the show.

Going off my correspondence as I mentioned above it is due to an internal error of some kind that came about with patch 14. If you were not successful after patch 14 this is why. I agree the bubble is over saturated and that is solely due to not being able to expand into systems outside the bubble or systems in the bubble that ate not yet populated. That is just by design though. Either way my post is purely just to let people know before they waste time prepping systems to call their home.

 

[nemolomen]

With U14 there is a split now between "Legacy Horizons" (client v3.8) and "Live" (client v4.0 for both Horizons and Odyssey) where there are now two separate galaxies. This may be the technical issue...

 

[Lex Rottie]

With U14 there is a split now between "Legacy Horizons" (client v3.8) and "Live" (client v4.0 for both Horizons and Odyssey) where there are now two separate galaxies. This may be the technical issue...

Possibly. They could just add to one and not the other.

 

[Vardaugas]

Considering the complete lack of quality control, I must say there is very little of value lost with PMFs being no longer seeded.

 

[Lex Rottie]

Considering the complete lack of quality control, I must say there is very little of value lost with PMFs being no longer seeded.

i agree on that. Although surely it would be a better option to expand on the PMF gameplay side rather than abandon it

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If there is a post knocking about I will eat my hat but like I said I can not find a single thing regarding it.

I've seen other people receive the same confirmation you had by asking directly ... and we'd been assuming before that something like this was the case when we noticed last month that the last new faction had been added in mid-November ... but no, no public announcements that I've seen.

(It affects few enough people at any time that I wouldn't have expected a public announcement as such, but they could have stuck a note on the application form)

The main problem is probably linked to oversaturation of player factions. They are all over, and once they're in, they're in. There are a lot of dead factions (I'm guilty of this) who get a system, the group doesn't work out, and now you have locked up real estate.

Still a couple of thousand spare systems on paper, though between the Thargoids reducing the number available and the continuing expansion of the existing factions, it wasn't going to be long before it did run out. I expect this is going to be the point it gets dropped rather than fixed.

That said, the dead factions aren't really the issue. If you say a faction is dead if it doesn't control any systems (as one of the strongest quantifiable definitions of "dead") then removing all of those factions would only free up another 700 systems or so - because most of the dead ones have already had their space taken over by a more active and expansionist one anyway.

 

[metatheurgist]

Considering the complete lack of quality control, I must say there is very little of value lost with PMFs being no longer seeded.

I'm all for bundling all PMFs into Legacy.

 

[IstvaanDCIV]

I don't get the dislike towards player factions. As far as I can tell, the only difference between them and the FDev-generated ones is that they are labelled as such on sites like Inara. Even if they are "abandoned", aren't they still subject to the all the usual BGS stuff?

 

[SteveWW57]

There are probably quite a few PMFs that are no longer active, and who control significant real estate. This can be taken from them quite easily.

There is no reason a squadron cannot find a suitable faction and support them anyway. At least then, the squadron gets to pick the most suitable system, unlike recently when new pmfs are dropped into a crowded space.

Steve

 

[Rat Catcher]

I don't get the dislike towards player factions.

I do. they get plonked ner another active PF, have the urge to expand and make their own little 'empire' and the brown stuff hits the fan...
IMO the game wouldn't be any worse off if they never existed.

 

[IstvaanDCIV]

I do. they get plonked ner another active PF, have the urge to expand and make their own little 'empire' and the brown stuff hits the fan...
IMO the game wouldn't be any worse off if they never existed.

I mean, the whole idea of having player factions would seem to inevitably lead to conflicts between them. I hazard to guess that NPC factions can't fight back as effectively against a player faction expanding into their territory?

 

[SteveWW57]

I do. they get plonked ner another active PF, have the urge to expand and make their own little 'empire' and the brown stuff hits the fan...
IMO the game wouldn't be any worse off if they never existed.

There is still a lot of real estate not claimed by the older factions, or controlled by dormant ones. If pmfs play nice and avoid wars, then everyone benefits as playing time is not wasted. Only if they have a large player base will a new expansionist pmf be able to make headway against an older one. But they will have shown their colours and are likely to find them up against multiple pmfs, and not trusted.

Steve

 

[rootsrat]

I do. they get plonked ner another active PF, have the urge to expand and make their own little 'empire' and the brown stuff hits the fan...
IMO the game wouldn't be any worse off if they never existed.

It doesn't matter if it's a PMF or not. Any player group can claim "This faction is now 'ours' and we're gonna make it expand". That's how BGS works. All you really get with PMF is to choose the name and home system. That's it.

And if you have a Squadron, you can link it to ANY faction, PMF or not. Multiple Squadrons can be linked to the same faction too, so it's not like that part is exclusive either. And all it really does is listing of all the systems the faction is in. Nothing that's not available publically either on sites like EDDB or Inara.

IMO the dislike towards the player factions indicates a bit of lack of understaing what they really are - a custom-named NPC factions that are no different whatsoever to any other minor faction in the game (and all are governed by the BGS rules, rather than players directly) that can be "claimed" or "owned" by anybody, be it a single player or a group of players.

The PMF we've created controls 4th biggest territory in the game. Would it matter if it was named differently? Not at all, we'd still have the very same motivation and engagement to expand "our" faction regardless if it's called The Winged Hussars or Joe's Little Helpers or The Vindictive Party of Bubblegum Makers of HR 8444.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I hazard to guess that NPC factions can't fight back as effectively against a player faction expanding into their territory?

No, no difference at all between NPC and player factions in that respect - the outcome will depend solely on the player actions carried out for each side, and the PMF has no intrinsic bonus. On average a PMF is likely to have more deliberate player support than an NPC faction, but that's only a likelihood and every player can support whoever they want.

A PMF gets exactly one quantitative bonus that other factions don't, and it's a meta-game one not a direct BGS manipulation one: Frontier won't add a new PMF to a system which already has at least one PMF in it. So, given that the average PMF is backed by players who want to capture systems and expand, you get a minor benefit as a backer of a PMF yourself in that new hostile groups are less likely to suddenly appear inside your space (as opposed to right next to it). Since PMF addition has been suspended for the last three months and quite possibly is never coming back, even that bonus isn't worth much nowadays.

That rule was in general more for the benefit of the new PMF anyway to give them at least a chance of starting in a system no-one was going to object to them capturing; naturally a bunch then started in areas Powerplay groups had carefully curated their preferred NPC factions into power and got stomped anyway, but it at least reduced the amount that happened.

The line between NPC and PMF isn't even that strong - the 6th and 7th largest factions in the game are NPC factions that were adopted by player groups long before PMF addition was possible at all. When Frontier added PMFs, they gave those factions (and a few others) the "PMF" benefit, for much the same reason.

 

[Rat Catcher]

The Vindictive Party of Bubblegum Makers of HR 8444.

Now there is a faction I could get behind!

My little gang adopts factions for our own purposes, then leaves them when mission accomplished.

 

[IstvaanDCIV]

No, no difference at all between NPC and player factions in that respect - the outcome will depend solely on the player actions carried out for each side, and the PMF has no intrinsic bonus. On average a PMF is likely to have more deliberate player support than an NPC faction, but that's only a likelihood and every player can support whoever they want.

A PMF gets exactly one quantitative bonus that other factions don't, and it's a meta-game one not a direct BGS manipulation one: Frontier won't add a new PMF to a system which already has at least one PMF in it. So, given that the average PMF is backed by players who want to capture systems and expand, you get a minor benefit as a backer of a PMF yourself in that new hostile groups are less likely to suddenly appear inside your space (as opposed to right next to it). Since PMF addition has been suspended for the last three months and quite possibly is never coming back, even that bonus isn't worth much nowadays.

That rule was in general more for the benefit of the new PMF anyway to give them at least a chance of starting in a system no-one was going to object to them capturing; naturally a bunch then started in areas Powerplay groups had carefully curated their preferred NPC factions into power and got stomped anyway, but it at least reduced the amount that happened.

The line between NPC and PMF isn't even that strong - the 6th and 7th largest factions in the game are NPC factions that were adopted by player groups long before PMF addition was possible at all. When Frontier added PMFs, they gave those factions (and a few others) the "PMF" benefit, for much the same reason.

What I meant by saying that NPC factions "can't fight back as effectively" is that they can't coordinate amongst themselves to attempt to manipulate the BGS in their favour. the NPC factions can only react in pre-determined ways when another faction tries edging in on their turf. Whereas I assume player factions (and likewise NPC factions being supported by players) have a significant advantage due to CMDRs acting on their behalf.

 

[Shabine]

Yeah, I didn't make it, but making one hardly feels like owning it either compared to a game like Eve where the players really do run the show.

To be frank, there is nothing they can do to the current system that would make it anything more than crude version of what exists in EVE. That game was designed from the ground up as an almost entirely player-driven socioeconomic environment that is inescapable by switching modes. There's only one mode, and who you know and how they operate within the single shard affect literally everything. Control. Access. Exploitability. Profitability. All of it. Elite doesn't allow its players to impose restrictions on one another or force us into situations that we need to be creative in order to escape or capitalize on in terms of factions, player controlled or otherwise. In this regard, it is far more casual, flexible and forgiving, but all of that comes at the cost of the things we do having little to no weight or meaning practically speaking.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

What I meant by saying that NPC factions "can't fight back as effectively" is that they can't coordinate amongst themselves to attempt to manipulate the BGS in their favour. the NPC factions can only react in pre-determined ways when another faction tries edging in on their turf. Whereas I assume player factions (and likewise NPC factions being supported by players) have a significant advantage due to CMDRs acting on their behalf.

Ah. In that sense, never mind "effectively", factions not supported by players can't fight back at all. No influence or state movements take place - ignoring Frontier's extremely rare changes around major plot events - except as a direct or indirect result of player activity.

In a system with no other players, a single player with fairly minimal effort can rearrange the factions into any order they want. Wars could be (and have been) won by destroying a single ship from the other side and cashing in the bond.

("Supported by players" doesn't necessarily imply intent here; hundreds of uncoordinated players trading, bounty hunting and running missions can in aggregate create an equilibrium state that's tough for a smaller intentional group to move away from - but it's always other players providing the opposition)