The Elite Dangerous ingame reputation system thread

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

And it will all over very soon as game will go into stability mode.

Do we really need to do this again and again? This fake outrage? Take a walk. Enjoy sunsets. For Christ sake.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Titus, I always take note of your posts.

My background is project management and production. About fifteen years of significant work. David is not alone in meeting the Royals.

I remember at the launch party being lucky enough to make a statement and ask a question of David. It was basically, is there someone trying to sabotage Elite Dangerous. I doubt you'll find that footage. (edit; perhaps the first question).

At the end of the evening, I was the last person in the autograph line. Rather than ask David for a signature, I found myself saying frankly words along the lines of watch your back and you're backers. I was rather tipsy and honest.

He was a true gent and apologized for not being able to answer the question directly (edit; when I asked it on camera.)

I've followed Elite Dangerous and Frontier for about a year now on a daily basis. I've got a considerable amount of money in shares and thirty years of good faith. So all with good intentions and good reason.

I still feel that someone is doing something wrong. Once is an accident, twice is careless, three times is deliberate.

And I'm very keen to learn a new trick and be proved wrong.

There's merit in the saying, Published and be damned.

(edit; On a lighter note, I've got 34 tonnes of fish to deliver in time for a party or I'll not make admiral!)

 

[highpsiturbo]

And it will all over very soon as game will go into stability mode.

Do we really need to do this again and again? This fake outrage? Take a walk. Enjoy sunsets. For Christ sake.

SUNSETS? how dare you? sometimes there are clouds in the way! or its raining and stuff -its just not good enough.
Indignation etc etc etc!

 

[n13L5]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=149489&p=2300935&viewfull=1#post2300935

Sandro:



This is NOT TRUE.

Your reputation decays with minor independent factions too.

Sadly, you are correct. I just logged in to a red down arrow next to "Empire Pact", a minor Empire aligned faction

After logging out from the game with a blue up arrow next to Empire Pact, after doing 2 donation missions for them (and nothing else after that, as I logged) I later logged back in to a red down arrow next to Empire Pact for no obvious reason. And my shield down

Either this is the buggy hell that it looks like, or someone is lying to us.

- - - Updated - - -

It just does not seem to add much to the game. I`m finding is bizarre that it decays while you are offline. Online would make more sense and would be fair towards both active players and more casual approach. It´s not like sitting idle at station, docked, is a good use of electricity and whatever meager server resources it takes. Especially if someone idles in open and reserves a docking port.

Oh this would make a good way to organize a protest. Everybody goes and docks in a station we pick as the protest location and everybody sits in their ships blocking all docking bays and we take a bunch of pictures... And title them like

"No penalizing players with a life, don't force everybody into wasting electricity by staying logged in and idling to prevent reputation decay"

 

[vitriol]

Agreed with the OP. Sometimes I don't want to play E. Hell, sometimes I don't want to do a specific activity in E to get me rep.

How long until daily login bonuses and stamina bars?

 

[althaz]

I... I kinda like this change.

It always felt weird to me that I could be allied to all three major factions, and basically need to do nothing to keep it that way.

It is said that the decrese will stop just below the friendly/allied border. So, really, you just have to log in, do one good thing for the faction, and you're back to allied. Not hard, not much time needed, and just makes the rep system still relevant in the "end-game".

If that's where it stops, I actually really like it. I'm mostly a casual player so I don't have time to combat reputation decay - but if doing one mission is enough to get back to allied, I think that's perfectly ok.

 

[Agarthan]

Since PowerPlay is seemingly being released with the stupid Reputation decay intact, and the thread discussing Rep decay has been archived along with the whole PowerPlay sub-forum, I'm starting this thread to continue discussion of this pretty unpopular change.

David Braben says he thinks Reputation decay is just fine, which is presumably why it's still included in PowerPlay:

Sadly they don't seem to understand that their "solution" is far worse than the problem(s) they are trying to solve.

As a reminder, here is Sandro's description of exactly how Reputation decay works:


My objections & suggested fixes follow:

First, if the main aim is to prevent permanent hostility trap with major factions, THEN DON'T DECAY NON-HOSTILE REPUTATION.

But if Frontier still need to decay non-hostile reputation (for some unstated reason), then please only decay it when I am ONLINE. Doing it offline just punishes casual players for having a life outside of Elite Dangerous (and for playing games other than ED). It also makes little sense for something to only happen when I'm not playing.

If you want to make it harder to be allied with multiple factions, offline rep decay is completely the wrong way to go about it (casual players have their positive rep punished, while hardcore players will hardly loose any negative rep). There have been suggestions of much better solutions, such as (say) 10% reputation gain in one major faction giving you a (say) 3% reputation reduction in all other major factions


I had hoped that PowerPlay would give me incentive to play ED more than I do, but with Rep decay it's going to do exactly the opposite: I'll know that it's pointless to work at increasing my Friendly status to Allied (because the game will automatically reduce it while I'm not playing), so I simply won't bother. i.e. One less reason to play ED, because it will steal any work I put into increasing my reputation above Friendly. Hard core players will probably be fine, because they'll be doing enough jobs to counteract the offline decay, but more "casual" players like me probably won't. It would be far fairer to decay only while I am online, although I think rep decay is the wrong tool for fixing the problems Frontier claim to be trying to fix.

This combined with the ship integrity costs I'm having to shelf this game until the devs can actually figure out what constitutes fun gameplay mechanics, because apparently they just circle jerk each other about what that would be but are listening very little to what the community thinks is fun gameplay mechanics.

Welp, it's been fun E: D. I've only owned you since march But I've already put over 300hr's in you, I'd like to put another 1k but the devs seem pretty intent on breaking this game for the sake of PR blitzes and other mindless activities .

 

[Ruskodisco]

i dont see whats the problem, ive been gone for months now. and once i have gotten back on i quickly filled my reputation back up in no time....
and its not like it makes much of a difference

 

[vjek]

Exactly. The problem that they are trying to solve should specifically target what they are trying to do. Rep "Decay" should only go one way: up. From hostile to neutral.

Correct. That's the publicly stated reason for it, and the only way it should be implemented.

Anything else (either the hidden actual reason or any other implementation) is just varying shades of maliciousness < - > incompetence < - > ignorance.

Evidently FDEV didn't think this through, or is trying to hide the real reason, or both, at this point.

 

[Sandmann]

Since PowerPlay is seemingly being released with the stupid Reputation decay intact, and the thread discussing Rep decay has been archived along with the whole PowerPlay sub-forum, I'm starting this thread to continue discussion of this pretty unpopular change.

[snip]

I had hoped that PowerPlay would give me incentive to play ED more than I do, but with Rep decay it's going to do exactly the opposite: I'll know that it's pointless to work at increasing my Friendly status to Allied (because the game will automatically reduce it while I'm not playing), so I simply won't bother. i.e. One less reason to play ED, because it will steal any work I put into increasing my reputation above Friendly. Hard core players will probably be fine, because they'll be doing enough jobs to counteract the offline decay, but more "casual" players like me probably won't. It would be far fairer to decay only while I am online, although I think rep decay is the wrong tool for fixing the problems Frontier claim to be trying to fix.

I feel that the idea behind reputation decay is solid, but I generally concur with your opinions about the current implementation of rep decays. You do need a way to "come back" from immense hostility, but this is something you should earn, not something you should achieve just by going on holiday. At the same time if you spend all your game time supporting a given faction or side then you deserve to keep what you've earned even if you can't play for a few weeks for whatever personal, real life reason you have. You've still devoted all the time you have for the game to that group and that deserves recognition. With the way it currently is I can build up a huge rep with a faction then completely ignore them and go support their enemies and as long as I keep playing I'll keep my positive reputation. Bizarre!

There's a simple change that would fix this - simply make the decay happen ONLY WHILE you are playing but NOT supporting/annoying that side. For instance if I've built up a huge positive rep with faction A and I'm hostile with faction B. I go play with faction C for a month and completely ignore A & B and they BOTH forget about me after a while... A drops down from allied to friendly, and B rises from hostile to unfriendly, and mean time C changes according to whatever I'm doing. If however I start doing missions for A and C at the same time while staying well away from B I'd maintain my allied status with A, and build up my reputation with C, meanwhile B would calm down coz I've stopped poking them with a stick. If however I went away for a 6 week holiday then came back, A would still love me, B would still hate me, and C wouldn't know me. No game play means you don't earn or lose anything.

 

[OldSalt]

Seems designed to encourage you to play on a regular basis. Sorry, but when games try to force me to play like this I play less and less.

Unfortunately I am of the same opinion.

 

[Sandmann]

Unfortunately I am of the same opinion.

Yup. Witcher 3 doesn't punish me if I don't play for a week. Guess which one I'm more inclined to go back to play after a week off?

 

[Captain Willard]

Decay dropping is a fine idea, it's a small drop. Overcome and adapt. Instant gratification just isn't fast enuff for some.

 

[Sandmann]

Decay dropping is a fine idea, it's a small drop. Overcome and adapt. Instant gratification just isn't fast enuff for some.

Not after instant anything. Just don't wanna lose what I've gained for no reason other than having a life. A good idea implemented badly doesn't help.

 

[Teldja]

Decay dropping is a fine idea, it's a small drop. Overcome and adapt. Instant gratification just isn't fast enuff for some.

Off topic: It has nothing to do with a so called instant gratification or whatever.
On the contrary, it is all about in game actions and consequences only.

 

[B33 ENN]

I'm sure I covered this in my previous comments in the beta thread, but I'll state my opinion here too:

1. I think a time based system for this is not the right approach. It should be based on activity. (So things you do in the game are calculated and the net result applied, more or less how I think it's worked before this update.)

2. I think that an activity for one Major Faction should inversely affect your influence of the other two. (So unlike before, you shouldn't be able to become Allied to all three simultaneously, but only one at a time.)

3. I think if there is a time based cooldown needed, it should only apply to the Hostile to Unfriendly. (Although, personally, I think it's more challenging if you have to work it off as well, just like before the update.)​

I think these time based cooldown mechanics are a simplistic answer to avoid creating a more sophisticated background simulation. However, I think that ED isn't going in that direction, like X3 or EVE, so I think it's just a case of make the best of it or ask for adjustments if it's not working well.

In that case, I think 20 days is far too short. It needs to be 30 at least, if not more.

 

[Captain Willard]

yeah yeah yeah whine and whine deal overcome and adapt. wow

 

[p.opus]

Can we all just take a breath before we light the torches and see how it plays out? Do you honestly believe the sky will fall if you go from allied to friendly? If you leave the game for 3 weeks, you haven't done anything to help your faction, so why should you have the same rep?

I think it should decay if you are not doing anything to actively promote it. I'm on an exploring CG right now and doing nothing for my rep. I think it should all decay because I've basically dropped off the grid and into the black.

If you want a casual game, play OOLITE. I mean I think there's a lot of chicken littles here telling everyone the sky is falling and talking about what will happen if they are gone for three weeks, and they are talking out their behind because the update has only been available for two days.

Let's give the update some time to breathe before we all start going bat guano crazy.

 

[Ervig]

Offline decay is a really, really stupid idea.

I don't care if it's for Powerplay merits or reputation, but punishing players for not being online does not make me look forward to another gaming session.

 

[Krait_79]

Can we all just take a breath before we light the torches and see how it plays out? Do you honestly believe the sky will fall if you go from allied to friendly? If you leave the game for 3 weeks, you haven't done anything to help your faction, so why should you have the same rep?

I think it should decay if you are not doing anything to actively promote it. I'm on an exploring CG right now and doing nothing for my rep. I think it should all decay because I've basically dropped off the grid and into the black.

If you want a casual game, play OOLITE. I mean I think there's a lot of chicken littles here telling everyone the sky is falling and talking about what will happen if they are gone for three weeks, and they are talking out their behind because the update has only been available for two days.

Let's give the update some time to breathe before we all start going bat guano crazy.

Right so if i spend hours building up my rep and then go on holiday for 2 weeks, or my daughter is taken ill, or I break my arm etc etc. Then i should be punished. Great idea. Really going to encourage the casual player base as well. It's not all about people who can play it 24/7 you know. Offline decay is a bad idea and needs changing.