I think the main question is asking why people want to turn official in first place. The reward in itself is the ability to have a say in Discovery's general development regarding represented factions. And faction rights and Core 5 PoBs and a little bit of other fluffs. If you take these things away, official factions don't differ from unofficial ones. I do think, unpopular opinion, that having these things is already rewarding enough. I'm more concernced about things that are punishing official factions for being what they are - Feedback Threads, for example. Positive things rarely end up there but instead in the Kudos thread or generally remain unvoiced while anything elses either ends up as reports or drama in such threads since everyone, related or unrelated, voices their opinion on unwritten rules and norms. Yesterday, an MRG Valor in Manchester was chased by three Dunkirks and decided to go for the system wall. I think if the BAF/MRG playerbase wasn't the same, that would have had such drama potential. One side asking why the Valor was outnumbered 3:1, the other why that Valor dared to reach for the system wall. And etc.
My suggestions would be the following:
- Bring back monthly faction check-ins
- Remove the forced Feedback Threads
- Don't reward people in Sci-Data because they managed to log their ships
- Remind people of what official factions stand for and what they can do - we're lacking a general overview
- A permanent counter of the faction activity would be nice - one showing the amount of month of a faction being official and one showing their time ingame
- Remind people of what official factions are supposed to do and what not do
