Player Minor Faction Updates

[CMDR ToothedGreg43]

Hey folks,

I'm not sure how relevant this will be to you all but I just thought it might save someone else a headache. When you are creating a new PMF, or considering requesting for one, make sure you do your research! The most important thing I would say is to make sure that you understand Power Play, and how the background simulation affects that. The big factor is how government types either play well with or clash with various PP goals.

For example, if you install a PMF that conflicts with the surrounding PP, you will have a hard time ever expanding or achieving anything within the game. If your goal is to shake up the PP and you have the numbers and willpower, by all means have at it. In my case I wanted to actually help the local PP, but wound up choosing a government type that wasn't favorable. This means that other CMDRs working in the area that I would like to support and would have enjoyed their support, are forced to work against the PMF I created.

I have contacted Brett C. about this well over a year ago and he said any changes to PMF were not possible. I created a new support call with Frontier in hopes that perhaps the policy had changed, but it has not. I am curious if there are others who have had similar issues or would be in support of the ability to make these types of changes?

Safe travels,

CMDR ToothedGreg43

o7

More reading if you are inclined:

My question to Frontier support:​

​

Hi folks, ​

​

I couldn't find a way to contact anyone directly about a player minor faction so this seemed like the best option. I put in a request for a PMF and that was granted a while back, December 2017. The faction is Dheneb Dynasty in the Dheneb system. So the reason I write is that I was newer to the game then and as a result I made some mistakes in my faction request. The faction is located in Pranav Antal's space, and that was intentional. The faction was meant to support the Pranav BGS, and so I requested that it be independent, and a patronage. I have since come to learn that while patronage does not harm Pranav, it is also not considered as a favorable faction type. This has meant that the other players who would normally have helped grow the faction (Utopian overseers and enforcers) have instead worked against the faction since it does not benefit the PP. For that reason, and also because it actually fits better with the faction name, I want to request that the government type for Dheneb Dynasty be updated to a dictatorship.​

​

I know shortly after the PMF was made I was contacted by some folks active in the PP, and they explained my shortsight quite well: Frontier Forums. I had asked Brett C. at the time and he said he couldn't make the change, but ya it would really mean a lot since at this point it is a throw away faction getting no love. I do still support this faction myself, and have several friends doing the same, unfortunately the PP gets in the way and truthfully the faction was not built as intended (my mistake). ​

​

I have some other backup as well: an email from when I submitted the request for the player group Dheneb Dynasty, but not from requesting the PMF. I actually have a forum post from when it was introduced to the game asking about getting some sort of verification that I had requested the PMF but I never heard anything about that and I never did receive an email.​

​

Thanks,​

​

CMDR ToothedGreg43​

​

o7​

​

Frontier's response:​

​

Hey Christopher,​

​

Thanks for contacting Frontier Customer Support.​

​

Unfortunately, we are unable to make changes to Player Minor Factions after the PMF has been formed. ​

​

This was explained during the creation process, sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.​

​

I hope this information helps and if you have any further issues don't hesitate to contact us as we're happy to help.​

​

Kind Regards,​

​

Elite Dangerous Customer Support Wing​

​

My Response:​

​

CMDR Minotaur,​

​

Alright so no change from last time. That's disappointing but not a surprise I guess. Are there any plans to review that policy in the future? I know that I have read in the forums of other CMDRs with similar issues be it government type or typo's made in the request that they would like corrected. I have also read about the large number of basically abandoned PMFs so i know there are a variety of situations where people want/would be in support of these types of changes. ​

​

Do you have any suggestions for alternatives? For example as the original requester of this PMF, am I eligible to request a new faction? Could it be in the same system? Whats options do I have that in your mind would potentially improve the situation? ​

​

I'm open to getting creative but I have to say this has been a downer. Getting the PMF in the game in the first place was awesome, and it really renewed and reinvigorated mine and my squad's passion for the game, so I want to recapture that feeling.​

​

Thanks,​

​

CMDR ToothedGreg43​

​

o7 ​

​

Final Response from Frontier:​

​

Hey there Christopher,​

​

Thanks for getting back to us, unfortunately we have no no current plans to review this policy at the minute I am sorry to say. ​

​

As for any alternatives, we do not allow multiple PMF's from one player, and even if we did, two PMF's cannot have the same system as their home system, PMF's can only interact when they expand into other territories to give newer formed ones a fighting chance. ​

​

At this point there's not a huge amount we can do regarding this I am sorry. ​

​

If there's anything else we can do please let us know.​

​

Kind regards, ​

​

Elite Dangerous Customer Support Wing ​

Final Comment to Frontier:​

​

The support team got back to me both times within 24 hours, so that was good. They were unable to help with my request, saying essentially that it was not possible. I think that this issue should be re-examined and new solutions possibly put in place. I was told that the policy is currently that no updates to Minor factions will be allowed. This is not only unfortunate from the perspective of players like myself, it also hardly makes sense in the elite universe. If a faction was truly started by a group, then would they not have the ability to change the name of their group (not my request) or to change the government type (my request). Dictators are overthrown in real life and democracies installed, and sometimes the reverse happens. I understand that this could potentially create a lot more work, but I think it would fit in the Elite narrative. I would suggest that there be added to the game a way for players to have some control over those aspects of the PMF, since that would more closely align with the intended experience.​

 

[Dharrch Streynjer]

Hey folks,

I'm not sure how relevant this will be to you all but I just thought it might save someone else a headache. When you are creating a new PMF, or considering requesting for one, make sure you do your research! The most important thing I would say is to make sure that you understand Power Play, and how the background simulation affects that. The big factor is how government types either play well with or clash with various PP goals.

For example, if you install a PMF that conflicts with the surrounding PP, you will have a hard time ever expanding or achieving anything within the game. If your goal is to shake up the PP and you have the numbers and willpower, by all means have at it. In my case I wanted to actually help the local PP, but wound up choosing a government type that wasn't favorable. This means that other CMDRs working in the area that I would like to support and would have enjoyed their support, are forced to work against the PMF I created.

I have contacted Brett C. about this well over a year ago and he said any changes to PMF were not possible. I created a new support call with Frontier in hopes that perhaps the policy had changed, but it has not. I am curious if there are others who have had similar issues or would be in support of the ability to make these types of changes?

Safe travels,

We at the Alliance Rapid-reaction Corps have this exact problem, as I'm sure that many PMFs do.
It would seem that Frontier, having made some arbitrary decisions, are happy to "not" help should that help conflict with their obstinacy.
I say this because it was something they were able and willing to do in the past so it is eminently possible to continue to do it now. In fact this kind of amendment should be possible for the Player Faction to make itself, from within the game, if FDev don't want to make the effort.

o7

 

[CMDR ToothedGreg43]

We at the Alliance Rapid-reaction Corps have this exact problem, as I'm sure that many PMFs do.
It would seem that Frontier, having made some arbitrary decisions, are happy to "not" help should that help conflict with their obstinacy.
I say this because it was something they were able and willing to do in the past so it is eminently possible to continue to do it now. In fact this kind of amendment should be possible for the Player Faction to make itself, from within the game, if FDev don't want to make the effort.

o7

Ya pretty much sums it up, very annoying that there is no ability to change this. It seems to be an issue related to the workload on their staff, but I agree with you that adding the ability to make these types of edits in game would be ideal. A player faction should have a bit more control over themselves, perhaps the ability to submit an update request from in-game that would take effect on weekly Power Play cycle reset?

I'm curious how many others are affected by this issue and what kind of support there would be in the community for this change.

o7

 

[Ian Doncaster]

There was a proposal from Frontier a while back - which got reasonable support - to restrict the BGS government effects on Powerplay to control systems only, rather than the exploited ones as well. This would allow most factions to proceed regardless of government type without too many problems. I hope that Frontier can find time to make that change sooner rather than later, as I think that would mostly avoid the need for this sort of thing.


As far as post-insertion changes to PMFs go, I think this is a tricky one for Frontier. On the one hand, it's easy, especially for inexperienced groups, to make mistakes and pick an unsuitable government type, or otherwise make a terrible choice, and making it impossible to change later can put people in a difficult position.

On the other hand, if a group doesn't view the government type of a faction as crucial to its identity, what's to stop it submitting a change request every couple of months as the local exploiting Power changes, to make sure it stays on the "favourable" side? Or having picked Corporate in 2.4 to prevent UA bombing, now wanting to switch to Cooperative as that's no longer a risk, to get a better "legal goods" set? Or submitting requests each week to ensure that its next planned conflict will be of its favoured Election / War type? Or getting twenty systems as an easy-to-expand faction type, then switching to Anarchy only once it's there?

It would be incredibly tricky for Frontier to come up with a set of rules which allowed changes for people who'd genuinely made a mistake through being beginners but didn't allow exploits for BGS advantage. With 1800+ PMFs nowadays, Frontier can't look into each request as much as they could early on when it was just a couple of hundred (a lot of rules have been tightened up since the early days of PMFs in the interest of fairness - many of which Frontier probably regret not having in-place at the start)

 

[RamirezKurita]

As the saying goes: "the death of the author is the birth of the reader". The moment your fanfiction gets approved for implementation, it belongs to the game and the BGS, not the player/players that thought it up and they should have no further input beyond that of just being another player. Allowing player-submitted content to be retconned like that is asking for a bit much, as it would end up making PMFs quite different to deal with in practice as they would be the only factions that can change type.

What about instead asking for a CG for changing the government type of your PMF instead? Frontier have already shown themselves to be happy to tweak galactic variables by hand as a result of CGs. You could put in an application for a competitive CG that, depending on which goal succeeds the most, the faction could end up changing government type, while also giving your opposition the chance to fight back rather than see their efforts retconned.

 

[CMDR ToothedGreg43]

@Ian Doncaster, @RamirezKurita

You make good points about the ability to abuse such a system, I totally get that. I just wish there was some way to make this update. The idea to unlink BGS from PP could work, I think its interesting. On the other hand that does kind of defeat the purpose, in my case anyway, since part of my BGS idea was to play into PP. It would be good if they would at least consider update requests because in many cases the PMFs as inserted into the game don't make sense. Frontier says they check to make sure your PMF fits in the game when you submit the request, but if I say I'm making a faction to support a certain PP, why wouldn't they chime in with something like "That government type does not align with your stated Power Play goals." I know, asking a lot.

As far as the fanfiction belonging to the game, I get that and its why I made an initial request to have this corrected not long after it was implemented and as soon as the issue was brought to my attention, late 2017. I get that its in the game now and part of the universe, but I mean it's still a game right? In certain situations I think an update isn't going to break anything, maybe restrict update requests to factions less than a few months old, and/or restrict changes to factions present only in one system. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to abuse the system after spreading influence everywhere.

As far as requesting a CG, that's actually a cool idea, can you tell me more about how I would go about doing that? My only concern there is that I think I am not alone in having this problem and a CG for each and every PMF is unlikely, and doesn't really resolve the issue for the player-base generally.

o7