The Elite Dangerous ingame reputation system thread

[Sgt Doom]

The real question surely is, why would you grind to be allied in the first place? It has next to no game-play impact

Missions for a while have been tied to your relations with a faction, and now it's even more important as there's some actually worthwhile missions for people in something larger than an Eagle behind that rep barrier. There's also now fuel, ammo and repair discounts iirc (especially important with the now-increased fuel prices).

is the decay for minor faction, major faction or both?

Both. Powers have their own, more brutal, decay system.

 

[Derath]

Ok Ok you guys are right, i'd forgotten you get missions at allied because I'm used to there not being any worth doing, I was genuinely struggling to remember what you actually got for it, as for roleplaying you can be a post-commander in the federation I think that's better rp than allied but I understand the point.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Two remarks...:

- As was mentioned, reputation is mainly needed to get better deals with minor factions, which are the mission-givers at the bulletin board. Increasing reputation with minor factions is way easier than gaining rep with the major factions. It should be easy and just a question of a few fulfilled missions to be 'allied' - especially, when the base reputation is 'friendly' and not 'neutral'. (= doable in a single play-session)

- Maybe, reputation-gain with the major factions could be faster now, reflecting the changes.


...and a question:

- When getting 'allied' with any faction and fulfilling additional missions / continuing whatever pleases them: is there an actual "reputation-cap", which limits tha maximal amount of "reputation points" you can gather, or is it possible to accumulate more and more of those after you reached the 'allied'-status?
Why I am asking this: If it is possible to gain (more or less) unlimited reputation with any faction, there would be quite a it of buffer until your reputation decays to 'friendly'. If, however, the reputation with a faction is capped somehow, further deeds would be in vain and you would lose your 'allied'-status way earlier.

If the later is the case, the rules should probably be changed to the former.

 

[Mephane]

...and a question:
- When getting 'allied' with any faction and fulfilling additional missions / continuing whatever pleases them: is there an actual "reputation-cap", which limits tha maximal amount of "reputation points" you can gather, or is it possible to accumulate more and more of those after you reachted the 'allied'-status?
Why I am asking this: If it is possible to gain (more or less) unlimited reputation with any faction, there would be quite a it of buffer until your reputation decays to 'freindly'. If, however, the reputation with a faction is capped somehow, further deeds would be in vain and you would lose your 'allied'-status way earlier.

If the later is the case, the rules should probably be changed to the former.

Such buffer exists, it has its own cap. Reputation won't stop once you reach allied, you can accrue quite a bit more until it eventually stops. I'd be okay with it all if the decay only attacked that buffer, but never the actual rank.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Such buffer exists, it has its own cap. Reputation won't stop once you reach allied, you can accrue quite a bit more until it eventually stops. I'd be okay with it all if the decay only attacked that buffer, but never the actual rank.

Thanks for the answer, Mephane!
I am glad, it is this way; it makes this issue a bit less severe, in my opinion.

Your proposal, however, would render the whole decay-idea marginal. How often would you be in danger to actually lose reputation and fall under your 'allied'-status? Okay, maybe, if you are cought smuggeling (wich is a danger for only a few players) or kill faction-ships as a bounty-hunter (which is rare, as your standing with a pirate-faction would be bad anyway).

 

[valleydweller]

Hi All,

I posted earlier in this thread but have had some thought to the whole matter. Whilst I don't oppose the idea of decaying rep the speed in which it was dropping was too fast. Adam has already told us that it has been tweaked (hopefully slow enough now), and it got me to thinking of when I played UO many moons ago. They had a Fame and Karma measurement that decayed after time (very similar to the idea being tested here) but Fame decayed quicker than Karma. Basically your actions added or subtracted to these values and your Char name reflected these titles. I've looked it up and pasted in the table below. Here's my 2 pence worth: If FD want a non-persistent rep system then try something similar. In terms of trade for instance, trading in slavery could lower your karma value slightly each time you smuggled them in (but would increase fame), whereas trading in legal or required commodities increase both. Exploring would increase both with bonuses in fame for 1st discoverer. Bounty hunting or general combat would contribute dependant on the type of action e.g. murdering a clean CMDR or NPC would lower Karma but potentially increase fame if they were higher in combat rank (no fame bonus for equal or lower rank but Karma could be affected). I suppose there's the additional factor of the factions but that's something that FD could work out (including the titles to replace those listed below). Thoughts anyone?

		Fame
		0 to 1249	1250 to 2499	2500 to 4999	5000 to 9999	10000 and above
Karma	10000 and above	Trustworthy	Estimable	Great	Glorious	Glorious Lord/Lady
	5000 to 9999	Honest	Commendable	Famed	Illustrious	Illustrious Lord/Lady
	2500 to 4999	Good	Honorable	Admirable	Noble	Noble Lord/Lady
	1250 to 2499	Kind	Respectable	Proper	Eminent	Eminent Lord/Lady
	1 to 1249	Fair	Upstanding	Reputable	Distinguished	Distinguished Lord/Lady
	Zero	No title	Notable	Prominent	Renowned	Lord/Lady
	minus 1 to minus 1249	Rude	Disreputable	Notorious	Infamous	Infamous Lord/Lady
	minus 1250 to minus 2499	Unsavoury	Dishonourable	Ignoble	Sinister	Sinister Lord/Lady
	minus 2500 to minus 4999	Scoundrel	Malicious	Vile	Villainous	Villainous Lord/Lady
	minus 5000 to minus 9999	Despicable	Dastardly	Wicked	Evil	Evil Lord/Lady
	minus 10000 and lower	Outcast	Wretched	Nefarious	Dread	Dread Lord/Lady

 

[Mephane]

Thanks for the answer, Mephane!
I am glad, it is this way; it makes this issue a bit less severe, in my opinion.

Your proposal, however, would render the whole decay-idea marginal. How often would you be in danger to actually lose reputation and fall under your 'allied'-status? Okay, maybe, if you are cought smuggeling (wich is a danger for only a few players) or kill faction-ships as a bounty-hunter (which is rare, as your standing with a pirate-faction would be bad anyway).

That's the idea - if you don't misbehave (or at least don't get caught), you won't lose your reputation level ever, but if you come back after long time, and the first thing they see of you now is a cargo hold full of illegal drugs, you would immediately drop down a reputation level.

 

[kris44dad]

My ultimate solution was to move out of Federation territory. But when I acquired another ship and started bounty hunting a little bit, my reputation with the Federation changed as I started collecting Federation bounties. I suspect that's some activities like bounty hunting carry more weight with a faction then does routine trading activities.

 

[Mysturji]

Supposedly, yes.
If your reputation decays, it should be because you've done something to upset or annoy that faction, not because you haven't been in that system in a long time. The old, "Oh, CMDR Moonshadow... Wow! We thought you were dead! Welcome back, respected ally. Haven't seen you in months, where have you been? Come aboard and tell us about your adventures over a bottle of Eranin Pearl Whisky." sort of thing.

Fixed that for you

I'm allied with most of the Alliance and a fair bit of the Empire. Why should they stop liking and trusting me just because I go off exploring for a few weeks or months? If I started shooting their cops or doing missions for their enemies in their territory sure, but just for being somewhere else for a while?

 

[Magic Man]

Slow faction reputation degradation does make sense, it just needs to be spread out over a logical time frame - I'm assuming, as said, that that time frame has been dramatically reduced in beta in order to simulate the effects.

Otherwise, as long as you keep your nose clean, you'd stay buddies for ever whereas, in reality, even the best of friends do drift apart given time.

If spread out over an appropriate time frame then it doesn't need to operate solely on game time then otherwise those with little play time will never see the effect.

 

[Hexen]

I get the chance to properly check beta on holidays but news regarding reputation decay made me sad and unhappy. Considering chores with bugged asassination missions (and plenty of others I guess) it's not something I can call fair to casual players like me.

 

[iroker]

i am assuming only "allied" and "hostile" status are decaying.
If that is true i think that is a good decision.
The rate of decay has to be in relation with the time played for every player.
You have to do something to preserve your status, doing nothing has to be punished.

 

[Ian Skippy]

It makes sense to me, assuming that it does not decay too rapidly. I never grinded for anything, yet due to my BH activities I am pretty much allied to every Fed system/faction I've come across. If I stop BH and go off on a pirate career in the Empire, I should be slowly forgotten by my former friends. Also, if you ever did something wrong and lost a lot of rep (and this happens all the time, espescially to new players) this would allow them to just play somewhere else and have time erase their (minor) transgressions.

AFAIK PowerPlay is at 3x the speed of how it is intended to work, I'd assume that the rep changes are also going way faster than it'll be things go live.

 

[Rubbernuke]

In the beta 3 patch notes the decay has been changed.

Server-side changelog:

- Decreased rate of reputation decay

 

[Luniticisi]

I'm not a fan of the idea of losing rep whilst I am not playing the game .. As others have said it wouldn't be that bad if you only lost rep to the lowest point of your current standing (so Allied stays Allied etc.) .. you should only lost your standing with a faction if you misbehave in that faction.

I would hate to have gotten myself allied, go on holiday and come back to just being friendly. maybe only allow the decay to happen whilst the player is active.

Just my thoughts

 

[CrazedHatter]

Hi all,

To let you know we have changed the rate of decay today to make it a bit slower. The effect may not become apparent instantly (as servers need to update etc) but hopefully over the next few days you will notice a difference. Also just to clarify, your reputation should never decay below friendly (or above unfriendly).

Adam

This is a relief, I'm good with reputation decay, but to think that I could fall all the way back to neutral simply through not having been in the system in a while was disturbing. Knowing that I will remain friendly is enough to calm my frayed nerves, thanks Adam!

 

[Opvernieuw]

I would hate to have gotten myself allied, go on holiday and come back to just being friendly. maybe only allow the decay to happen whilst the player is active.

I'm not against karma decay, I actually think it's a good insentive to make choices (instead of just being allied with the three factions), but I agree with you, it should only decay when active in the game. Why? Well, in that case your choices really matter, you are choosing your allies, and not life (work, family, study, procrastination etc).

 

[EUS]

I'm not a fan of the idea of losing rep whilst I am not playing the game .. As others have said it wouldn't be that bad if you only lost rep to the lowest point of your current standing (so Allied stays Allied etc.) .. you should only lost your standing with a faction if you misbehave in that faction.

I would hate to have gotten myself allied, go on holiday and come back to just being friendly. maybe only allow the decay to happen whilst the player is active.

Just my thoughts

Agreed, this is one aspect of the game where the timer should only be active while in game.

 

[Jognt]

If you are a hero to your faction now, why the hell would they forget about you a while later?
That's like saying WW2 veterans lost all their respect, appreciation, and ribbons because "it's been a while since they actually did something".

....

Actually NOT being there when you're needed, that should degrade rep though.

 

[Teldja]

I really don't like the idea of losing reputation over time.
I am all for a dynamic reputation system but only if it is based on actions and decisions made by the Cmdr.
You are now an ally to a faction ? OK, now you become neutral or unfriendly with the opposite faction.
You have committed a crime ? You'll be dealt with like a criminal, your allied status won't save you.

It is just a video game, don't punish thoses who, can't, don't want to, for whatever personal reasons or not, play 24/7.
You want to reward thoses who want to spend more time into this video game on top of their in-game achievements ?
Go for it, but don't remove what little things from less available gamers can achieve over a much higher period of time.

It is too much punishing for something that has nothing to do with the game itself, to my opinion.

If I have misunderstood how the game mechanics is working, please, feel free to correct me.