The Elite Dangerous ingame reputation system thread

[BoldyBald]

I have adjusted to being "Lawn Mulch" as my reputation.

It's appropriate, once you look at the time, money, and effort some people put into the lawn...

It's a deliberate credit and time sink. Treat it appropriately, as you would with any RL obsession. Just Walk Away. And, use meds.

But the early-birds had a easy time.. Now you need a certain rank to get Empire permits. I did Fed ranking before and that was much easier. Now while I'm trying to grind to count (to get all system permits) I find myself doing the same over-and-over without making any progress. If it weren't for the permits I would be ignoring the mechanic totally.

 

[Eli Jack]

I think FD got the whole reputation thing wrong from the start. It shouldn't be possible to be allied with more than one
of the major factions at any given point. That said, the reputation decay they've introduced is not a good way of making
the game better.

When you start the game at neutral with all major factions your actions should be the arbiter of all reputation standings not
a timer decay. So, for instance, you're neutral with all MFs when you start and you want to buy 'n' fly the Imperial Clipper.
You do missions to enhance your rep with the Empire but as you do your rep with the Feds and the Alliance drops (I'd cap it at
Unfriendly and not go as low as outright Hostile but that's just me).

Once you've attained Allied rep and Baron rank with the Empire you can buy the Clipper. Your rank with the Feds/Alliance is
Unfriendly.

Then you decide you want to buy the Dropship So you start doing missions for the Feds. As you do your rep with the
Empire starts to drop (and if FD really want to make it 'real' so does your ranking). You make it to Ensign in the FN and can
now buy the Dropship but now your rep with the Empire is Unfriendly and your rank has dropped back to Serf (or whatever
the starting Empire rank is).

This is how rep/rank should decay not by timers. FD could also have made it so that you cannot own ships from the major
factions at the same time. So for instance owning the Clipper precludes you from also owning the Dropship. To own/fly one of them
means you'll have to sell the other.

Whilst I am not bothered by reputation stuff I appreciate many are and the timed rep decay is just wrong. Everything in the game
should be a consequence of your own actions and choices. Timed rep decay just seems a lazy and unfair solution especially for
those who cannot log-in to the game for a variety of reasons.

 

[DjordjeDtW]

Reputation decay prevents player to get a maximum on positive reputation. It's good because, obtained by feeling a person who changes his mind, fractions are the ones who changing their minds about friendship with You. And you work so hard to keep good reputation of yours with that fraction or more of them.


You can affect the reputation through donations. That affects the economy. I'm not sure but in that way, you could create a few Conflict zones in that system where you are or system next door.

 

[tasev1]

=
I can confirm it. I decided to go for Elite in Exploration. Started as allied in FED and Empire. Haven't run into one ship (player or NPC), so why the frack is my rep going down? Explorers are going to be punished now? Is the guy who dreamed this up still getting paid?

Think I will finish what I started and make Elite in exploration, take a screen shot, then play something else. Doesn't make sense to loose rep unless you do something to lose it. If Explorers are going to be punished for having fun exploring, well not too many other reasons for me to keep playing. I could give 2 shakes of a lamb's tail about the silly power play. What's the point of knocking explorers? Basically says "we don't really care how hard players worked to get their rep, we are just going to, ,them out if it if they explore.

Reputation at Start of run to SAG A:

http://i.imgur.com/IRXPuuo.jpg


Current Reputation (halfway to SAG A):

http://i.imgur.com/xmfiLPE.jpg


What a load of compost. I'll be Neutral by the time I get back. Don't care to grind that stuff again.

Why doesn't it make sense? Rep is based on a relationship. If you go buying at the same store and spend $1000 a month, you will build good rep and have discounts, etc.... But if you disappear for a year and stop shopping there, do you think your rep will be the same? Especially if there are new people there that don't know you? Of course not! So losing rep is a very realistic deal - reputation needs to be maintained! HOw do you expect good rep if you do nothing to keep it?

 

[Mephane]

Why doesn't it make sense? Rep is based on a relationship. If you go buying at the same store and spend $1000 a month, you will build good rep and have discounts, etc.... But if you disappear for a year and stop shopping there, do you think your rep will be the same? Especially if there are new people there that don't know you? Of course not! So losing rep is a very realistic deal - reputation needs to be maintained! HOw do you expect good rep if you do nothing to keep it?

I don't understand how anyone can defend reputation decay the way it is currently implement with arguments "if you stay away from XYZ for a year and them come back...".

1. This is not real life, but a game. It is not fun going on a real life vacation, abroad job assignment etc. and then finding your ingame reputation changed in the meantime.
2. Still, if we were following your logic, then the speed of reputation decay is too fast by a factor of at least 10.
3. Again, it is simply not fun. Lots of things in this and other games are not as harsh or realistic as they could be for the sake of fun. Otherwise, there would only be permadeath, ship insurance would be prohibitively expensive etc.

 

[Eli Jack]

Why doesn't it make sense? Rep is based on a relationship. If you go buying at the same store and spend $1000 a month, you will build good rep and have discounts, etc.... But if you disappear for a year and stop shopping there, do you think your rep will be the same? Especially if there are new people there that don't know you? Of course not! So losing rep is a very realistic deal - reputation needs to be maintained! HOw do you expect good rep if you do nothing to keep it?

Ninja'd by Mephane

Another way of looking at it would be that you do work for a store and you do a very good job so your rep with the store increases.

After finishing the contracted job your rep is at a level. A year later the store requires more work to be done. Is your
rep diminished because you havn't done any work there for that period? Or is your rep remembered from the first job you did?

I'd suggest it's the latter and that the intervening time hasn't lowered your rep at all.

But this isn't real life we're talking about here, it's a game and as such should be fun to play. The timed rep decay decision
appears to have upset far more people than not. I'd like them to look at it again on that basis.

 

[Lima]

Every time I hear the words "immersion" or "in real life" I reach for my gun.

Elite is Frontier's first online game. They are amateurs at designing systems that makes sense in a persistent online world. Hopefully they'll get better with time.

 

[NapalmJunkie]

I'm getting a bit fed up of logging into the game (after less than 24 hours absence) just to see a downward red triangle next to my Alliance rep. As an Alliance-aligned CMDR there's no ranks, so rep is all I have. Fortunately I'm probably about to ditch PP so I guess I should be able to keep things up/blue by running missions.

 

[Monsoon]

Transaction Server Reputation

I would like to be able to grind some Transaction Server reputation...any chances?
Seems its down again...maybe with some rep we could lift it up a little so it wouldn t feel so down every day/
/end sarcasm

 

[Coolgroove]

Another option for you! Introduce thresholds.. The argument for the decay was when you get too much bad reputation with a faction.
What about creating border values at extremely unfriendly and barely allied? You can get unhostile and you won't drop below allied with a faction you done intensive work for.

Good idea! And it could be a part of any other option

In current system it seem like decay stops at level "a".
With your idea - it sould stop at level "c", right?

 

[Coolgroove]

Secondly, apart from mission availability (which is more of an afterthought than a direct benefit), what exactly is the benefit of being Allied to a superpower, as opposed to being Allied to a minor faction? Last month I became Allied to the Empire, but I didn't feel any different compared to being merely Friendly?

There is a few benefits:
- better missions from friendly/neural/unfriendly/hostile minor factions aligned to major faction you are allied with,
- smaller repair costs,
- less scans from security (it feels like less for me)
But I think there will be more in the future.

 

[Lewis N Clark]

Yet another option - Decay based on wall clock time but only after a delay

If the argument that rep decay is "real world", then it should be wall clock time just like missions are. Having decay depend on whether you're logged in or not makes absolutely no sense in the context of this argument. However, I think it would also be "real" that the decay not begin immediately but only start after a period of time like a week. As long as you're consistently doing rep-building activities for a faction on a weekly basis, you should not see any decay at all.

 

[Shaamaan]

The fact that reputation decays with real time (as opposed to game time) shows how lazy FDevs were in implementing it. It requires almost no work on their part (the trigger is the current time, which is available globally).

It's also why so many people oppose this as a mechanic - it's just bloody stupid to boot!

In-game timer seems a step in the right direction, but it's still "design stupid" (if not programming stupid) and needlessly punishing for explorers. (BTW: if you do that, then there's no reason why mission timers shouldn't be in-game only... just so you know, they're based on real time for the exact same reason - it's the simplest bloody thing to implement!)

The actual solution which every other sane game would use is to simply tie the reputations together to in-game mechanics and events. Earn rep with one faction? You should earn / loose rep with other factions depending on their standing with the faction for which you earned said rep. There, done. Optionally have globally good and globally bad triggers...

 

[Knot2clever]

I would just like to point out that it's not only rep loss by not playing, I have gone from allied to friendly as I am an explorer.

Also there is now a red down arrow against my friendly.

So much for PP won't affect you if you don't want to take part.

EDIT now due to double and triple scan issues I have stopped playing, 27 systems and 71 scans

 

[Cryptonomica]

5th option: "Everytime player gain reputation with one of the major factions, he/she will loose half of that reputation with each of other two major factions. But not to below friendly level" or similar system.

IMO rep loss should only be a consequence of your in-game choices, not a consequence of when/how often you play the game, or the consequence of an arbitrary timer ticking down.

 

[L@neWolf]

Regardless, of online or offline decay, why should my reputation decay across the board just because I'm off exploring. I fail to see the logic. I should only lose Rep if I undermine a faction via my actions, not because of any absence from grinding for any particular faction. What happened to our choice whether to participate in PP or not, without penalty? Seems FD is now trying to force our participation into a flawed game mechanic, where I really just want to play E-D on my own terms as RL permits and as suits my RP. There is enough grind as things stand without enforcing more. I just logged in to find I have gone from allied to friendly with all 3 factions since yesterday, noting I have been off exploring since June 6th, and not sure when I will be back to "civilized" space. How is this acceptable game mechanics?

 

[trollson]

Or scrap this approach to modelling "reputation" all together?

Personally, I'd reinvent "reputation" as a pseudo-currency which you earn through deeds, and redeem (spend) on faction interation.

 

[NapalmJunkie]

So I don't play for 4-5 days, log in today, unpledge from PP because it's a horrible grindfest and I find that my Allied status with the Alliance which took me *ages* to get has gone down to friendly. That is complete f'ing rubbish. I thought the reputation decay was meant to be if you're offline for weeks (which is still crap), not days!

I can understand FDev not wanting CMDRs to be Allied with more than one major faction, but this is f'ing stupid. I only do Alliance stuff (no ranks or special ships for us), so this is a real kick in the teeth. With this and PP, it makes me wonder why i still bother playing...

 

[Coolgroove]

Regardless, of online or offline decay, why should my reputation decay across the board just because I'm off exploring. I fail to see the logic. I should only lose Rep if I undermine a faction via my actions, not because of any absence from grinding for any particular faction. What happened to our choice whether to participate in PP or not, without penalty? Seems FD is now trying to force our participation into a flawed game mechanic, where I really just want to play E-D on my own terms as RL permits and as suits my RP. There is enough grind as things stand without enforcing more. I just logged in to find I have gone from allied to friendly with all 3 factions since yesterday, noting I have been off exploring since June 6th, and not sure when I will be back to "civilized" space. How is this acceptable game mechanics?

For similar reasons option 5 is my choice. I want that my actions in game cause reputation to change. I do not want reputation changes because I don't play or play as an explorer....

Or scrap this approach to modelling "reputation" all together?
Personally, I'd reinvent "reputation" as a pseudo-currency which you earn through deeds, and redeem (spend) on faction interation.

Great idea!
But I doubt FD will redo whole rep system

 

[Whiterose]

Option 3: I have no problem with rep decay per se. You should do stuff to keep your rep. However, I do have a problem if I lose rep when I sleep, when i have just spent the last couple of hours doing stuff. I also do not like losing rep for exploring. There should be a mechanic that gives you increased rep for selling data that negates all the rep you have lost, and gives you a rep increase based upon the data you are selling. After all you are handing in data for possible faction expansion.