Staff Feedback Thread

[aerelm]

During my time in RHA, I made the mistake of pushing the faction towards a "Has everything, does everything and wants more" type of group, to the point where it made every other Rheinland unlawful faction completely irrelevant. If anyone wanted to fly an unlawful in Rheinland, there was no reason to fly anything other than Hessian, because whatever one might've wanted to do, Hessians could do it and then some, with better gear, in a larger ZoI. RHA branching out in every direction might've been quite beneficial to the faction, but it was sucking the life out of every other faction around it until they started losing their official factions and then unofficial groups one by one, and that was back in the good old 225/225 days. That I'd say has been my biggest mistake in Disco, and something I still feel guilty about and would've changed if I could go back in time, but well... what's happened happened and I didn't know any better at the time.

But now that we have the benefit of hindsight and have seen exactly where that leads (LWB might've not been removed had it not been completely overshadowed by Hessian ID), imho we should be learning from those mistakes moving forward, rather than repeating them just for the sake of maintaining consistency. Anyone's "main" faction might be the most important thing in Disco to them, and that's perfectly fine, but it doesn't make it the most important thing in Disco, so that dedication shouldn't come at a cost to other factions. Especially given the current server population, it should be players that are branching out, not factions.

I had loads of fun during my time in RHA, but I admittedly could've had the same fun on multiple IDs instead and that might've not cost Rheinland its other unlawful groups. I made literal billions mining (with a 2.0 bonus btw), smuggling, pirating, bounty hunting even. But every hour I was spending on RHA was an hour I wasn't spending on another character, and that was activity that another faction/region could've but wasn't getting. Now imagine a world where I didn't make the horrible mistake of turning Hessians into a faction that can do literally everything just because I was being selfish and wanted to have all my fun on one character... There might've been some incentive to fly some non-hessian unlawful in Rheinland that could do something, anything, that Hessians couldn't. That unfortunately isn't the case today, and that's a problem.

For the sake of transparency and all that, this was my vote on Aux's mining bonus request:

Spoiler

No.

If the faction is requesting these bonuses because they need these materials InRp, then they should do what every other faction would, and y'know... contact a mining faction and collaborate with them to get their hands on these, or if they are only requesting this because their members fancy the occasional mining when bored, then they can do what any normal player would and make a separate character and join a separate mining faction with it, instead of cramming a mining bonus on top of every other bonus their faction already has.

Aux already have more things they can do than most other factions in the game. These "Has everything, does everything, and wants more" factions just suck the life out of every other faction around them, which is more harmful to the general health of the server now than ever before.

The Molly 2.5 Gold Request:

Spoiler

3.0 is the bonus indie IDs of lawful mining corps get to their main ores, so 2.0 isn't all that bad for an unlawful group's side activity. Hessians also have a 2.0 bonus despite being unlawfuls with mining background, so this is not much of an oversight or discrepancy, just a restriction enforced on the basis of gameplay balance. They can request a 3.0 bonus like RHA when/if they're official and have their own ID, but given how many things Mollys can already do (fight, raid, pirate, mine, smuggle, RP) giving their indie ID a mining bonus that competes with BMM's would just turn them into yet another one of those "has everything, does everything and wants more" factions.

There's already hardly any reason or insentive to play a Bretonian unlawful that's not a Molly, so I'd say let's not make it even worse.

No from me.

and Maquis 2.0 Salvage request:

Spoiler

Maquis were already given more than enough love with recent Gallia changes, so I'm not too keen on giving them even more toys.

Now with gallic Junkers gone, If wreckage salvage is going to be a little icing on top for one of the gallic unlawfuls, wouldn't it be more balanced gameplay-wise to reserve it for some other faction instead? It might be too late to fix the one main unlawful of other houses each overshadowing every other faction in their region, but could still be prevented in Gallia.

This is a No from me.

So my issue at least, and the reason for my No vote, was not with any of the specifics of each request, but rather an overarching concern regarding the current state of faction balance (or lack, thereof), with one faction being allowed to grow unchecked to the point of not just overshadowing, but completely obviating any other faction around them. This, admittedly, is a much bigger issue that extends well beyond the handful of factions that recently had some request denied, and so warrants a more thorough look.