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+--- Thread: Official Faction rework and rules update (/showthread.php?tid=210533)
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Proselyte - 01-09-2026
(01-09-2026, 09:21 AM)Emperor Tekagi Wrote: I gave the Dead men rule some thoughts since yesterday and I'm not a fan either. It jeopardizes a lot of RP avenues. Why not just declare that stuff like FR5 isn't applicable if the one you want to FR5 successfully took you out in combat? This feels like the main idea behind it, to avoid the winner to still face the harshest RP consequences despite winning. Just make FR5 inapplicable then. Bounty hunting largely relied on attempted or even successful strikes against one another, so it would scale down to just smuggling and blanket bounty hunting now.. and it's already a dying gameplay niche as it is.
Yeah. It definitely feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I do appreciate the intent here, but the implications of this rule go a fair bit beyond just allowing the victors a reprieve from diplomatic vengeance for sweeping the field and leaving no witnesses. People do roleplay with hostiles, after all. It just occurred to me this very second even that doing respectful rivalries between opposing faction characters would be pretty damn hard if the rules assume you to be dead man/amnesiac every time. What do you get to remember about a supposed rival? As mentioned, what about the server's "disabled" assumption?
It'd be easier to argue for this rule if our characters literally physically die in the roleplay environment as a function of the game's mechanics, but they don't if we still care to make that assumption of a ship being "knocked out". I do think it's interesting to incentivize successful retreats over getting wiped out, since I'm sure characters would prefer to live, but that's its own conversation.
I think with how pervasive the implications are here, the rule definitely deserved its own post with a lot of clarifications accompanying, at minimum. I second the sentiment that this may not be the best way to solve the problem you want to solve. I appreciate that we took a stab at it, but there's gotta be a smarter way.
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Bussie - 01-09-2026
"The transport loses knowledge of their assailant upon being destroyed, however a 3rd party witness could contact them to provide copies of the message. The transport player can now roleplay based on provided 3rd party evidence (although the assailant will probably argue that this is circumstantial at best, unless the witness caught them red-handed)."
So third party people, after ending this encounter (continuing example with destroyed transport), can use not only their witnesses and logs from their own blackboxes but blackbox information and footages from destroyed ship?
Searching information like this ship is abandoned now.
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Darius - 01-09-2026
I'm gonna throw a hot take and say that if your entire premise here is to walk up to hostiles and expect to form some sort of connection with every second person you meet (which is apparently the case for a lot of folks in this thread), you should reconsider your approach to how you do roleplay. It is perfectly OK and fine to know and respect your enemy (and in this case their characters, especially if they're higher ranking ones and likely then known to the public also), but that regularly having field picnics with the enemy has become the norm speaks greatly about how much the roleplay quality has degraded in other areas.
I think the rule is fine. It is much needed in the current environment and, together with a plethora of other changes (most important rule amendment being the restoration of the BWs as semi-lawful -- 'I can report what I see' type of deal -- environments) will help a little bit with refreshing the atmosphere around.
The rule should, however, contain an asterisk pertaining to how it interacts with events (especially respawn ones) and should probably be just a bit more lax (ideally finding a middle ground but still leaning in favor of the winning side of the eventual PvP encounter).
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Sombs - 01-09-2026
After eeping over the DMTNT rule for a night, and partially eeping at work (important cat business), I think there are just too many cases of inconvenience, both rule-wise and roleplay-wise, to keep such a rule, at least with the current wording. It certainly stems from environments where people play just one character, not a ship full of crew, with blackboxes, and by all means, character armor that prevents everyone from dying... permanently.
Sure, I think this could result in a new line of gameplay, where you have combat reporters and what not, but I think we can have that without that rule, too.
My biggest concerns are honestly for the people who roleplay for hours and hours, indiscriminately with solid and throwaway characters alike, and then have to skim through DSACE to look up at what point they would need to forget what happened. While I don't know how many reports and requests for malevolent reputation changes are made every week, I do believe this rule causes actually more arguing and malevolence when people clash about what characters are supposed to remember from what point on, in the worst case resulting in even more, and more delicate work for the oranges and greens to look at.
I guess until the rule is changed/revoked, Fire & Forget has a new meaning.
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Lythrilux - 01-09-2026
(01-09-2026, 01:58 PM)Darius Wrote: I'm gonna throw a hot take and say that if your entire premise here is to walk up to hostiles and expect to form some sort of connection with every second person you meet (which is apparently the case for a lot of folks in this thread), you should reconsider your approach to how you do roleplay. It is perfectly OK and fine to know and respect your enemy (and in this case their characters, especially if they're higher ranking ones and likely then known to the public also), but that regularly having field picnics with the enemy has become the norm speaks greatly about how much the roleplay quality has degraded in other areas.
Whilst I would love to agree with this, I think this post changed my opinion a bit:
(01-09-2026, 12:24 PM)Traudel Habermeyer Wrote: Many points have been brought forward already by others, so i will limit myself to something that would have heavily applied to me if this would have been in effect during my most active time.
I'm a roleplayer, not a pvper. I was never particularly good at the latter and likely will never be. I still enjoyed my time for the most part, even when curbstomped. I could at least write an iRP report about it for my faction and get the ball rolling for more people.
Now when i get inevitably destroyed all i can write is "Yea i got shot down. Got nothing for you boss." ... that is beyond underwhelming and quite honestly feels like i am being punished by the game's rules for sucking at pvp because i died in an encounter.
Could i run? Sure, but depending on what you play it may appear dubious at best. Military constantly fleeing because they want to be able to report? It feels off and almost as if the weird iRP explanations as to why i had to watch that aforementioned transport of 5k slaves in Hudson barreling to Hamburg simply got shifted to another point. Now i got no blackbox, no FTL comms, no automated distress signals, constant whiplash from being ejected out of my craft and Nomad induced amnesia or something.
That would make me less likely to even go into encounters, which i very much doubt is the intention of this rule.
If it is to prevent abuse of FR5 or similar, why not adjust these or set a requirement of instances where something has to happen at least X times instead of a widescale amnesia/tech fault/imposed on everyone no matter what.
I think this is a fair point. Discovery PvP already has a steep learning curve that gets steeper the smaller your ship gets. Whilst I think consequences for not being able to recall an encounter will vary, there is a part of me that feels it's a bit crappy that a player's roleplay will be undermined by their ability to PvP.
Also in the context of fairplay rules - so if a ship or group has evidence of an encounter that would be damming for my character/group with heavy roleplay consequences, instead of prioritising roleplay I should be giving them a fair fight to the detriment of my own roleplay? I've always found the fairplay rules to be weird in a roleplay enviroment, but I think this makes things even stranger.
Whilst I appreciate the thought of where this rule comes from, and it is in line with other roleplay communities, I just don't think it works in Discovery. Discovery is such a unique beast and there's really nothing else like it, part of the reason why myself and many othes were here in the first place. I hate to be the person criticising and not offering an alternative solution, but honestly, I can't think of one.
Lowkey if such rules are implemented I think the bar and gameplay consequences for PvP need to be significantly reduced ie the game needs to become much easier, and much more arcadey.
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Proselyte - 01-09-2026
(01-09-2026, 01:58 PM)Darius Wrote: I'm gonna throw a hot take and say that if your entire premise here is to walk up to hostiles and expect to form some sort of connection with every second person you meet (which is apparently the case for a lot of folks in this thread), you should reconsider your approach to how you do roleplay.
Yeah, after I posted that, I had a feeling someone would take umbrage at the word "respectful". Fair enough. To be honest, I should have just said "rivalries", since you can ignore that one word and the substance of my post doesn't change at all.
Scale it down from factions to two freelancers on opposite sides of a job, and think about the aftermath of one shooting down the other. How are they gonna behave towards each other if the loser decided not to just kill his own character then and there?
I don't really care how the interactions themselves go. I only note that if any situation ends in a gunfight, the loser doesn't have much to roleplay with afterwards. Sounds kinda sucky.
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Haste - 01-09-2026
I think rule 2.3 is ultimately a litmus test for our community.
In a perfect, fantasy world Discovery Freelancer, where all of our players are trying to maximize both their own and other players' fun, and are always looking to create the most fun and memorable encounters, it's a very positive change. It raises the stakes of PvP a little: you've just made a major discovery about two factions plotting.. something, and you're on your way back home. Now, you're a little more cautious than usual, as getting blown up would have real consequences. So you're on your guard. You make sure to take routes with plenty of friendly dockables nearby as emergency landing spots, and keep a keen eye on the contact list for anything red and scary. Cool.
I'd like to live in this version of Discovery, and I do also go out of my way to try and create it when I log -- which recently hasn't been very often, admittedly. If I end up fighting someone who I know cares (deeply) about their character and their character's fate, I'm quite likely to give them an out -- if I can make it work in-roleplay. Which I often can. My characters aren't really murderhobos, so they might prefer letting someone lick their wounds and report back over blowing them up for no reason other than "they're my enemies". I'm also in a privileged position, being a snub player who's pretty good at the class: snubs are survivable, and can often just shieldrun to a base if you really have to, and I don't generally have to worry about other snub players shooting me down 1v1.
Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with raising the bar for our players a little. Yes, rule 2.3 basically enables people to deliberately "grief" other players by /l1 /l2ing them, constantly Men in Black-style flashing them effortlessly. Maybe that sort of approach to the game is incompatible with a healthy, fun roleplay environment to begin with, and a problem in and of itself. If you know blasting someone out of the sky "with minimal roleplay" isn't going to benefit you at all, and is going to actively make the other party have less fun, maybe you shouldn't do it.
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Darius - 01-09-2026
(01-09-2026, 02:23 PM)Lythrilux Wrote: Discovery PvP already has a steep learning curve that gets steeper the smaller your ship gets. Whilst I think consequences for not being able to recall an encounter will vary, there is a part of me that feels it's a bit crappy that a player's roleplay will be undermined by their ability to PvP.
Lowkey if such rules are implemented I think the bar and gameplay consequences for PvP need to be significantly reduced ie the game needs to become much easier, and much more arcadey.
The game already favors PvP and it always has. I know that it is a roleplay server (or so the title says), but roleplay does also include playing the role of the antagonist, and I do believe that many people have forgotten that you are meant to HAVE an actual enemy for story to be of any interest to outsiders and for it to retain momentum. The domination of PvP 'over RP' (is it? idk. It feels weird even uttering it as the concepts go hand in hand and aren't meant to be opposite each other) is a fact that is not changing, and I think it is disingenuous to come out and write about how the game should become more arcadey purely because there's a risk that not every interaction with end with your character making it back home safely and soundly.
I do think some faint memory recollection should happen, but at the very least dying in PvP should mean that you cannot enforce any sort of roleplay consequences. I want to be perfectly able to load up my BAF Cruiser and fly out to the Omegas, punch some RM and Daumann together with BMM, and then gamble (or if I am Good At The Game tm guarantee to win) on whether or not the enemy brings enough forces to stop me or let my cruiser get away. If I fuck up, I will suffer the consequences, and if they don't, I will get to engage in skirmishes without risking to throw all the diplomacy away for nothing. The same case can be adjusted for any BW, for a great many factions, even for characters. It is a welcomed change of pace to the usual 'if I can't beat you in PvP, I will beat you on the forums'.
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Chronicron - 01-09-2026
(01-09-2026, 02:35 PM)Haste Wrote: think there's nothing wrong with raising the bar for our players a little. Yes, rule 2.3 basically enables people to deliberately "grief" other players by /l1 /l2ing them, constantly Men in Black-style flashing them effortlessly. Maybe that sort of approach to the game is incompatible with a healthy, fun roleplay environment to begin with, and a problem in and of itself. If you know blasting someone out of the sky "with minimal roleplay" isn't going to benefit you at all, and is going to actively make the other party have less fun, maybe you shouldn't do it.
With all due respect, you are wrong to expect this. Practice over the last decade shows that if there is a way to abuse the rules one way or another, the players will do it. Not every single one, but the majority. And now with 2.3 in effect, there's even a bigger way for a person who cares nothing for roleplay to just grief a player that might be cooking something up with a character that is just slightly hostile on the rep sheet or has a bounty on them.
I realise that the intent of this rule was to cull counter-bountying, but instead of using an instrument of surgical precision, you opted in for a nuclear solution. Which has and will have much larger consequences.
RE: Official Faction rework and rules update - Darius - 01-09-2026
(01-09-2026, 02:57 PM)Chronicron Wrote: With all due respect, you are wrong to expect this. Practice over the last decade shows that if there is a way to abuse the rules one way or another, the players will do it. Not every single one, but the majority. And now with 2.3 in effect, there's even a bigger way for a person who cares nothing for roleplay to just grief a player that might be cooking something up with a character that is just slightly hostile on the rep sheet or has a bounty on them.
Just ban them if that's all they do. Easy. We lose nothing.