concerning factions and their influence

[Jinx]

because some people like to focus much on available tech/toys and their scaling - there are a few things to remember.

long explanation coming - lazy people skip it.... :

i can only assume that the desire for "harder to get" tech comes from a competitive nature where the more determined or more skilled players are rewarded with the more powerful toys. ( raid gear, mini-transaction gear, grinding gear ... popular examples are games like Everquest with their huge gap between casual gear and raid gear, most F2P games that are slightly P2W with mini transactions that usually mark down the more determined players from the casuals - and in the same category grind gear that puts the player into ... well - a grind. usually collecting some kind of currency to be exchanged for mini-transaction currency or gear... by dedicating long playtimes to a specific game )

the bad examples of such games usually have a rather poor balance when it comes to "hard to get gear" - in older games ( like everquest ) it was intended that someone with raid gear would simply have the edge over a casual gamer.

in newer games the balance is often kept a bit more even - and much of the hard-to-get gear is more cosmetical or "special" - for the lower motive of "showing off"

what all those games require to work ( again ) is a pyramid structure. - you need a large mass of players who do not or do not want to dedicate that much time / money to a game. - that sets the more dedicated players above those casual gamers. - if they had the top gear just as easily available for everyone, there d be no reason and also no WAY to be special.



now lets take a look at disco.



the balance makes it so that [for the most part] ships and gear is balanced ( yes, we have a group of players who laugh at that and call it a lie - but either way, thats what the mod is mostly about )

that means - the liberty navys' gear is not exactly better than the Xenos gear, the Zoner gear is not really worse than the corsairs, the gallic stuff can actually be countered well by in-RP inferior stuff like centuries old dunkirks etc.

also - the pinnacle of craftmanship, the battlecruisers and battleships are not exactly powerful. - they are powerful enough, but hardly inRP concerning the in-RP efford it would take to build and deploy them.

so disco has very little escalation in terms of tiers of toys. - in World of Tanks, you aspire a tier 10 or at least you aspire something nicer than a tier 1.

in disco however - there is a strange consent that players think that tier 1 is the best to show off. so there is little incentive to aspire more. as a matter of fact, when you ascend the tiers ( if you think of shipsizes = tiers ) - you ll notice that the community is a lot less forgiving and a lot less happy with you having aquired the top toys ( battleships )

same goes for hard to get equipment up to a point. PoBs, cloaks, jumps etc. they are neutered down not to matter just too much in actually winning the direct competitive game ( blue message ) - they sometimes enable to prevent becoming a blue message though - and PoBs, while possibly the hardest to get and maintain "toys" in the mod - are regarded as harmful by some.

for me the question is - are they really harmful? or are they just harmful because in a world of easy to get toys, they are the only stuff that is more similar to normal F2P games ( grinding gear )

and there we are at factions vs. non factions. - grinding is something everyone can do. you do not need status, special rights or approval. - all you need is time and dedication. - if you apply the work, you get the reward, no matter who you are. this was done intentionally - because it was agreed on that not status should determine your freedom of choice but your dedication to the game.

that is also why things like PoBs are not restricted to official factions but free for all those who have the dedication regardless of origin. - however it is a concept that causes dislike even in professional games - especially ones that were monthly payed and go free to play. - paying customers suddenly realize that someone who has not payed ANY real life money can get the same stuff.

what people need to realize is that : "when players are equal and the only thing that counts is what you put into the game ( as in time equals currency ) - then one simply has no more right to complain but just a choice to dedicate as much if not more time to get ahead of the crowd."


that is - if players want everyone to be equal. - of course there might be players who do not want that; who do want some players to be - to put it in terms of the classic "animal farm" .... more equal than others. such an attitude does not necessarily need to be negative. - but to be more equal - one has to give something back of equal value - thats where things become a bit fuzzy, cause not everyone agrees on whats given back is of equal value - or even good.




now lets get down to how the server might be if we limited stuff



if we look at official factions after they become fully established, - MANY ( not all ) those factions consist of around a dozen active members - often less. ( i am talking about factions that are around a year old )
out of the dozen - half of them can be identified by their INGAME roleplay ( if you hid their tag ) - half of them could be anyone ingame if they had no tag,

that leaves something around 5-6 players who reflect their official faction in terms of actual ingame roleplay that can be recognized.

that is not too much. there are of course factions that are different to that - thats factions that by nature must appear different ( nomads for example or wild or AI ) but i would not claim that they have - after some time significantly more active members .. on a normal non-event peak day.

so that leaves us with roughly half a dozen players who activly RP their factions - and half a dozen players who fly a tag but are otherwise fairly generic in terms of behaviour.

and those players claim the rights to decide

- who can fly anything bigger than a gunboat ( often suggested )
- "if", "why", "where" to build a PoB ( just suggested )
- who to be allowed to use PoB gear ( also just suggested )
- who to be allowed the biggest transports ( some time ago suggested )
- who to be allowed the sweetest traderoutes ( also some time ago suggested )

leaving all others in small to medium tradeships or small-ish combat ships.

what is MY opinion about it?

- yes, it will make players join factions ... for the gear.
- it will significantly increase the number of tagged players who are not really recognizable by their behaviour but only by their tag
- it will also ( i do think that opportunity causes it ) increase the number of players who do recognizably RP their faction - but the number of generic and tagged faction players would be much greater.

would it help factions? with the current activity system - yeah - most certainly. hardly any faction ( any main faction that is - not counting factions like bundschuh ) would suffer from the 30 hours or 5 minimum different player issue.

will it improve RP? - hard to say, although i am personally against such restrictions i wager that it might.

but it would also make the server even less accessible - less newbie friendly. - and then there is a strange / funny social dilemma.

the dilemma of being different / special.

if everyone is in a faction, bound by faction limitations of the hierachy - then the "special players" will search for a new "vent" to set themselves apart...

and you can be sure they ll go for "lets make special stuff for SRP only" - just to add another tier of "hard to get stuff" - or maybe it might even be a renaissance of the indie movement - when suddenly "being indie, and limiting yourself to only small and medium tradeships and smaller combat crafts is suddenly considered "amazing RP" in contrast to the RP you do in factions where all you really do is just dully follow the letter without much creativity and progression.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC