Player owned factions...discuss

I have two problems with PMFs:
..
2) They can spread rampantly over large areas monopolizing the BGS for themselves and pretty much destroy system diversity for other players to experience.
This is not a problem caused by PMFs though. Before they were introduced, my group supported a random NPC faction into about a dozen systems. We then abandoned that faction when we had our own put in.

But the fundamental ability to affect factions with our actions is a function of the entire BGS, not just PMFs. If it wasn't a PMF spreading around, it would just be another arbitrary BGS faction. It sounds like you're implying your problem is that the universe is dynamic and responsive to player action, rather than static, but i don't think you actually mean that so I'm curious if you'd clarify your specific issue here.

The biggest problem with PMFs is their pure existence gives rise to a false understanding of what a faction really is; a representation of NPCs which can be interacted with as readily as a player can shoot another ship, and a backdrop for the rest of the universe.

They are not a vehicle for player agency, but many players use them as such.
 
My issue with PMFs is that they tend to take over every station and outpost in a system.

I’d prefer to have the stations and outposts owned by different factions so the different states would come into play.

Station A in boom selling medicine and station B in outbreak as an example rather than all stations in boom.
 
My issue with PMFs is that they tend to take over every station and outpost in a system.
But again, how is that a problem caused by PMFs? That is caused by any arbitrary group of players supporting any arbitrary faction... even unwittingly (e.g farmers grinding a location mentioned in the latest "how to uppercut yourself" grind guide)

The only way to stop that is to remove any impact players have on the BGS and make the universe static.
 
This is not a problem caused by PMFs though. Before they were introduced, my group supported a random NPC faction into about a dozen systems. We then abandoned that faction when we had our own put in.

But the fundamental ability to affect factions with our actions is a function of the entire BGS, not just PMFs. If it wasn't a PMF spreading around, it would just be another arbitrary BGS faction. It sounds like you're implying your problem is that the universe is dynamic and responsive to player action, rather than static, but i don't think you actually mean that so I'm curious if you'd clarify your specific issue here.

The biggest problem with PMFs is their pure existence gives rise to a false understanding of what a faction really is; a representation of NPCs which can be interacted with as readily as a player can shoot another ship, and a backdrop for the rest of the universe.

They are not a vehicle for player agency, but many players use them as such.

I don't dispute what you describe is an issue but the biggest problem with any supported faction is that there are no diminishing returns for controlling more assets (as was the stated intent in 3.0 IIRC). As you say whether it's an NPC faction or PMF makes no difference in that regard.
 
I don't dispute what you describe is an issue but the biggest problem with any supported faction is that there are no diminishing returns for controlling more assets (as was the stated intent in 3.0 IIRC). As you say whether it's an NPC faction or PMF makes no difference in that regard.
Diminishing rewards isn't the issue imo, rather (broken record time) the lack of ability to target a faction with negative effects easily.

The only effective and rewarding way to fight against a faction is to help other factions, rather than hurt the target faction. In other words, to best a big group, the only effective option is "grow bigger", not "make them smaller".

When that's the landscape, it's no wonder the terrain becomes homogenised.
 
Diminishing rewards isn't the issue imo, rather (broken record time) the lack of ability to target a faction with negative effects easily.

The only effective and rewarding way to fight against a faction is to help other factions, rather than hurt the target faction. In other words, to best a big group, the only effective option is "grow bigger", not "make them smaller".

When that's the landscape, it's no wonder the terrain becomes homogenised.

If I am opposing a controlling faction even without negative inf tools I have (up to) 6x more buckets to fill by performing positive actions for the other factions in the system. With more effective negative inf choices that gives the defending faction (up to) 6x more buckets to fill to support their own faction. I get that more playstyle choices is good but what your suggestion wouldn't do is improve the situation where relatively few large factions/player groups tend to dominate.

Even unopposed if a diminishing returns effect is applied controlling great swathes of space becomes a genuine challenge and impressive achievement that would motivate player groups of any size to pay more attention to whether it's in their best interests to expand into that system or take over that asset.
 
Diminishing rewards isn't the issue imo, rather (broken record time) the lack of ability to target a faction with negative effects easily.

The only effective and rewarding way to fight against a faction is to help other factions, rather than hurt the target faction. In other words, to best a big group, the only effective option is "grow bigger", not "make them smaller".

When that's the landscape, it's no wonder the terrain becomes homogenised.
I’d of thought that all the new missions in Odessey for theft, heist, assassination and massacre would have negative effects.

I thought that was the issue with the anarchy factions at the moment.
 
We have already reached 55% of the bubble where PMFs are the controlling faction. That will eventually reach 100% saturation. Then what? The diversity of systems will be dictated by these groups and their chosen govt type (democracy, corporate, dictatorship etc.)
That's just the BGS being the BGS though. Fringe government types have been an endangered species since day 1, and the more central the location, the worse it is due to increased traffic. If PMF weren't there, the names would be different, but I doubt the galaxy map would be. See prison/theocracies for example. Milscothach, former prison system near Sol, now only has a station name and a <5% influence faction left from its origins. Van Maanen's Star, a permit system way too close to Sol, has turned from religious hardship isolationism into a trading cooperative.
 
That's just the BGS being the BGS though. Fringe government types have been an endangered species since day 1, and the more central the location, the worse it is due to increased traffic. If PMF weren't there, the names would be different, but I doubt the galaxy map would be. See prison/theocracies for example. Milscothach, former prison system near Sol, now only has a station name and a <5% influence faction left from its origins. Van Maanen's Star, a permit system way too close to Sol, has turned from religious hardship isolationism into a trading cooperative.
Yes, is that a good thing though?

I liked those nutty systems and rare theocracies, hey added some flavour to the bubble. Now it's going to end up a "Gold Tooth Toads" or "Pixel Weasels" or some other ridiculously named PMF controlling every system.

I know it's much ridiculed and maligned on these forums but for me, many of the PMFs really break the immersion and the 4th wall.

I just wonder if that was always the plan or is this just 'emergent'.
 
Yes, is that a good thing though?

I liked those nutty systems and rare theocracies, hey added some flavour to the bubble. Now it's going to end up a "Gold Tooth Toads" or "Pixel Weasels" or some other ridiculously named PMF controlling every system.

I know it's much ridiculed and maligned on these forums but for me, many of the PMFs really break the immersion and the 4th wall.

I just wonder if that was always the plan or is this just 'emergent'.
I don't think it's a good thing no, I like the crazy systems. Thankfully, the bubble is still wide enough that they're still there to be found, we just have to search for them instead of routinely encountering one. If EDDB is correct, there are still 307 theocracies and 106 prison colonies. If they have survived that long, they're either influential enough to survive inertia, or remote enough to likely remain quiet.
 
You are over thinking it. As a leader of a BGS group with 100+ systems there is only one reason why fdev have allowed player factions and supported their creation in the way they have. That reason is to allow players to have pointless daily grind that will never achieve anything other than keeping players playing and buying ARX. Everything else is irrelevant to keeping the players grinding a never ending cycle which in turn produces more income for the company.
 
You are over thinking it. As a leader of a BGS group with 100+ systems there is only one reason why fdev have allowed player factions and supported their creation in the way they have. That reason is to allow players to have pointless daily grind that will never achieve anything other than keeping players playing and buying ARX. Everything else is irrelevant to keeping the players grinding a never ending cycle which in turn produces more income for the company.
I always thought the developers considered it a background simulation rather than a game mode.

Players just preferred it to powerplay which was meant to be the game mode bit.
 
I don't think it's a good thing no, I like the crazy systems. Thankfully, the bubble is still wide enough that they're still there to be found, we just have to search for them instead of routinely encountering one. If EDDB is correct, there are still 307 theocracies and 106 prison colonies. If they have survived that long, they're either influential enough to survive inertia, or remote enough to likely remain quiet.
True, but at the current rate of expansion, most if not all of those systems will also be taken over by PMFs
 
You are over thinking it. As a leader of a BGS group with 100+ systems there is only one reason why fdev have allowed player factions and supported their creation in the way they have. That reason is to allow players to have pointless daily grind that will never achieve anything other than keeping players playing and buying ARX. Everything else is irrelevant to keeping the players grinding a never ending cycle which in turn produces more income for the company.
This is probably quite accurate.
 
I’d of thought that all the new missions in Odessey for theft, heist, assassination and massacre would have negative effects.

I thought that was the issue with the anarchy factions at the moment.
That's only part of the issue, and is frankly still an extant, unfixed issue in the original (space-based game). Even then, FD's fix for Odyssey is a kludge at best.

The issue is more specifically that, for any mission which requires spawning of enemies with a bounty (e.g the scavengers at powered down bases, enemies at a larceny pickup site etc), they would belong to an Anarchy faction.

FD's "fix" for this is to simply make those belong to a "generic" unattributed faction, rather than actually fix the imbalance of activities against anarchy factions, and this imbalance is still well and truly the case for the space-based game. Additonally, one of the bigger issues anarchies face still is that they're the FOTM grind spot for anyone after engineering materials, since they can do so freely, without earning a criminal record.

If I am opposing a controlling faction even without negative inf tools I have (up to) 6x more buckets to fill by performing positive actions for the other factions in the system. With more effective negative inf choices that gives the defending faction (up to) 6x more buckets to fill to support their own faction. I get that more playstyle choices is good but what your suggestion wouldn't do is improve the situation where relatively few large factions/player groups tend to dominate.
I really don't want to re-describe system which is missing right now sorr, but that's not how the system would or should. Under the current system, you can guarantee support for a specific faction, and potentially deliver a negative/positive effect against a target random faction. Targeted negative effects should work the opposite; they guarantee damage against a specific faction, and potentially deliver a negative/positive random effect for another random faction.

You've also applied a common misconception here; you are not opposing a controlling faction by working for the other six factions; you are simply helping six other factions grow bigger. This is everything that's currently wrong with the BGS and why I refer to ED as "Elite: Best Friends"; there is no destructive effect which can be applied readily, only additive. And that stunts things substantially. It's a major issue for the BGS. I know running missions for other factions may seem like that hurts the factions you aren't doing them for, but that's not what's happening at all.

If you've got
Faction A on 60% (120 points)
Faction B, C, D, E each on 10% (20 points each)

... earning 20 points each for factions B, C, D, E is an incredibly different normalised outcome to stripping 80 points off Faction A.

If you're opposing by running missions for other factions, and the enemy is running missions for their faction, the end state is everyone ends up in Boom/Investment and Civil Liberty, all of which have effects (as far as I understand) that promote growth of those factions. If a player is negatively targeting a faction, Bust/Famine, Civil Unrest/Lockdown should be the outcome, all of which have negative impacts on the ability of factions to grow. These conditions are virtually non-existent throughout the galaxy, except as a byproduct of the somewhat random states like Blight/Natural Disaster etc which FD put in, instead of actually balancing the ability to undertake targeted positive/negative effects.

If you're baking a cake, you can't just keep adding water/flour until you get the balance right, because you just drown out the other ingredients; at some point you have to remove some batter.
 
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You've also applied a common misconception here; you are not opposing a controlling faction by working for the other six factions; you are simply helping six other factions grow bigger.
It is an extremely effective strategy for pulling a well supported controlling faction back into conflict, whether they are booming or bust is of no concern particularly, they just make different buckets bigger or smaller which is secondary rather than a primary influence change.

I struggled for a long time with expansions & retreats though, those extremes required more than just helping the factions in a directed manner, and where actions like the ones you prefer (I am fairly familiar with your proposals from previous threads) would come in handy for a small player group (I am in a squadron that has only two effective BGSers most of the time and we usually apply a policy that any given system is worked by a single player per day apart from extreme situations like contested wars, targeted expansions & retreats). There's been the odd occasion where putting the controlling faction into lockdown has helped as a final push to start a conflict for system control but usually stuff like popping civvies is a far less effective use of my time.

To be clear I agree that the issues you describe are important, and only really differ in what I see as the most important fundamental issue with the BGS manipulation gameplay. I don't think I'm working under any misconception in that respect & am just using a different vernacular. If six factions have very low influence because the 7th is trying to expand I can prevent that expansion more or less no matter how hard my opposition works without needing any negative inf, it was my first line of defence for years and very effective. I only drop out of allied with an opposing faction during wars and carriers have more or less eliminated the consequence of being hostile now anyway.


I also broadly agree that changing hostiles to generic 'pirates' is a band-aid, but it should help & if we get nothing else it's a better situation (for Anarchy factions) than we had at the Odd launch.
 
You are over thinking it. As a leader of a BGS group with 100+ systems there is only one reason why fdev have allowed player factions and supported their creation in the way they have. That reason is to allow players to have pointless daily grind that will never achieve anything other than keeping players playing and buying ARX. Everything else is irrelevant to keeping the players grinding a never ending cycle which in turn produces more income for the company.
A bit like real life then.
:D
 
The only issue I have with player factions is the attitude some of them cop when it comes to adopted procgen factions and the default assumption that if a system doesn't have a PMF in it it's completely fair game to take over and you're somehow wronging them if you resist. I've seen repeated instances where a PMF will plop themselves down on top of an adopted faction's turf and get all colonial about it. As Eddie Izzard put it, "Have you got a flag?"

Personally I'm not a fan of the general homogenization of the bubble that's been going on since the 3.2 (i think?) BGS update that made faction states system-based instead of faction-based. Before that update, while it had its own problems, those universal states put an effective brake on factions being able to expand willy-nilly in a uncontrolled manner, and people managing factions had a good reason not to want to expand, as they'd end up with the faction snarled in conflicts in backwater after backwater and effectively logjammed from expanding further.
Now... there's no downside whatsoever to just spamming expansions from your lowest-population system until the whole bubble is clogged.
 
To be clear I agree that the issues you describe are important, and only really differ in what I see as the most important fundamental issue with the BGS manipulation gameplay. I don't think I'm working under any misconception in that respect & am just using a different vernacular. If six factions have very low influence because the 7th is trying to expand I can prevent that expansion more or less no matter how hard my opposition works without needing any negative inf, it was my first line of defence for years and very effective. I only drop out of allied with an opposing faction during wars and carriers have more or less eliminated the consequence of being hostile now anyway.
Right, but the issue persists; this is an additive activity. That's entirely the problem here with the galaxy becoming homogenous. It's just economic inflation, but with influence and expansion instead... in all games with a basic functioning economy, inflation is caused by a mismatch of, in an economic sense, "credit faucets" to "credit sinks". There are grossly inadequate levels of usable influence sinks.

Your actions may prevent an expansion, absolutely, but it's doing so in the wrong way, and the BGS is hurting for it. The lack of a proportionate amount of negative states is a major symptom of this.

The outcome of two factions duking it out on multiple fronts with positive actions is, ultimately, two factions ending up in expansion.
The outcome of two factions duking it out on multiple fronts with negative actions is, ultimately, two factions ending up in retreat.
 
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