Notice: Bretonia and Kusari factions

[beunt]

Well it's good to see this thread is going on with reasonable opinions. It's how the feedback thread should be but this thread is just as good.

Among the many replies posted here one from ElgatoDiablo caugt my attention so I'd like to start here. About base hugging :

This is nowhere near a new issue.

I consider here three types of base huging : using the base as a cover before the fight starts, using it as a weapon during the fight proper, and using it as a cover after retreat but not docking. The players who come to fight the BAF are aware of the three problems for long, but I realized that the first type of base huging is an issue to some only yesterday. That's why I said it's new - at least to me -, and that's also what I meant by cultural difference. In your case Elgato you said you don't mind, and in the case of the corsairs who raided Dublin yesterday they actually minded about it. In the end they raged and missile spammed the bretonian forces at the Essex because of that. But until we had a talk with Monte the BAF didn't percieved what went wrong with those particular corsairs, and if not for this talk it would still consider they had been ganked for free that night.

To extend the matter further here are a few common - although untold - principles among the BAF| proper - I can't talk for all independants yet, that's why I'd like them to talk here too :

• player A wants to pvp player B doesn't mean player B wants to pvp player A,
  
• a player who cheap shoot player while RPing will not be treated fairly in turn,
  
• if you can't match the ennemy force get more until you do
  

Of course those items are seen as valid for the BAF and may be seen as invalid by some other people. For instance the "in war time cheap shooting is RP" is also perfectly valid, though opposed to the BAF principles.

I stress again on the fact that those principles aren't written anywhere, and are just what I believe to be at the core of the behavior of the average BAF. A short story to illustrate that : recently Where did it ran ? payed a visit to Bretonia in a Kusari naval-force id'ed gunboat. The BAF RPed, in turn he cheap shoted two BAF, and in turn he got purposedly ganked. What happened there ? On the BAF side I've seen the application of the first guideline, then the second, and I assume Where did it ran ?'s guideline where "war time, cheap shot if necessary" and "war time, face the risk to be ganked" (I assume that because he didn't flame our feedback channel afterward).

Neither him, neither the BAF were going "olololol", however this contradiction among their respective guidelines could only lead the fight to a bitter end. Another example concerns the aforementioned corsairs : the corsairs think "come with what you have and we'll scale down the fight", while the BAF think "let's get more to scale the fight up". Both are aiming at the same goal but in opposite directions !

As long as those guidelines remain hidden, improvements in the interactions will be harder to achieve. I'm not saying it'll be the ultimate solution, but at least when another player did something you didn't appreciate, understanding the rationale behind his actions will ease the pain and dampen the rampant resents that grow between factions over the time. That's why I believe the posters in this thread should dump there here, and comparing them will help us to make progress.

To conclude, the following items are valid for me, but I can't tell for anyone else yet, and aren't guidelines but rather the product of my personal experience :

• Do not shoot the squad leader of the other time because he's the one who can adjust the balance if need be - like denying access to passing by allied ships who wants a share of an already unfair fight,
  
• Announce in local chat who is taking part to the battle is a good way to not interrupt RP with oorp pms and let the opponent know you're ready and what he'll be facing.
  

Those late items aren't guidelines specific to any faction, but they'd rather be related to the interactions between factions. These are just examples and might not be approved later on in favor of something else. But I find them useful because the original agreement only mentioned the contextual setup - place and ships -, while the items just above emphasize on mutual comprehension, and furthermore they also can be practised in training sessions since they are context-independant.

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Well of course the talks above are nice but the actual battleground is way more ugly. The ganks are an even more well known problem and is heavily addressed there. I had not intention to discuss it since it's already debatted pretty much everywhere but in case a reader is interested I'm opening this parenthesis.

The ganks are actually the biggest workout the BAF have on the go. I won't repeat here the measures Dieter recently established to forcibly kick the troublemakers in the balls since you must already be aware of them. I'd rather list here my view from inside Bretonia regarding what is wrong :

• currently the BAF roster is young and some aren't mature enough.Some can't analyse the fight, command and manage the stress of being shot at the same time. Some others can't accept to loose and the BAF being the less skilled military faction doesn't help.
  
• the BAF fights home only and is frequently offered help spontaneously by ships passing by, among them some are uncontrolable unfortunately. This is even more problematic when it stacks with the item just above.
  
• the BAF only fights home and can only recieve raids. Once I've seen 15 (real) BAF| online and the only thing we could do was to drop a few mortars at Stokes station. So much fun... Frustrated BAF is frustrated.
  
• Dublin turns people mad, for real. I had a few bret buddies (BAF and non BAFs) who in the end logged in not for fun but for revenge only - and in the end they burned out. No need to tell you more about that, you all know Dublin, just imagine how it is to live there and call this place "home".
  

All of these items lead to ganks, separatly or together, and hopefully not all apply to any member of the BAF/Armed Forces factions. The general picture is however a mix of inexperience, of being parasited and being aggressed in a narrowed ZOI. That's of course no excuses - playing the loosing side is a choice in the first place -, those are just the main challenges the BAF have to overcome. The current measures that Dieter established aim to remove the parasites - both in the BAF and more generally in the armed forces-based factions - and if some BAF or else whine at getting pwned well they'll have either to train either to grow up, and to stay cool even if we'll get sucked in Dublin days after days as usual, because it's a choice every member made. To help with that I'm interested to know the experience of various posters here if they had similar reccurent problems - keeping indies under controls for instance - and possibly tricks that work.


Now there is something the others factions can do to improve that too : stop flaming my faction damnit ! Like I said the BAF became touchy over the time because of the generally unhealthy environment - disrespect in RP and OORP - and flaming the BAF more will just bring more NO U pointless discussions. Like Elgato said the reputation grown out of proportion. There are ganks everywhere, the BAF know how it is to be ganked and humiliated on the top of that. Even if the problem is prominent in Bretonia, the BAF is not the whole Bretonia either. This reputation is highly toxic and contagious.

Once I've seen 2 BAF| vs 3 pirates. The BAF won. The pirates then went "BAF way : no gank, no win." Wtf seriously, this gank motto thing became a brainless and petty excuse to deny us our legit victories (yes, we have some). The BAF is filled with good fellows and for a large part they doesn't deserve that. So instead of flames, process feedbacks with names of the parasites, that in turn will earn them the taser flog. It's way more informative than infuriating posts aimed at the faction as a whole, which leave us no way to zero on who messed up.

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Now back to my main point. As I've said there are as many "untold" guidelines as there are players/factions : huging bases or not, sneaky engage or not etc. Although this discussion was originally intended to the Bret-Kusari engagement rules, the corsairs, SCRA, gaians and else protagonists of the Bretonian microcosm are welcomed to input here. I'm not looking for quantitatives rules of thumbs like how many ships class X you need to take on 1 ship class Y, I'm rather interested with the personal mindset about pvp that no one never state because they think they're obvious to anyone. What is okay, what would you agree on, what would you not do, what makes you rage etc, in the most basic form possible. Just to go further than the words and have a glimpse of what everyone have in mind when they fly the outer reach of the Essex, and see where tradeoffs can be mades.

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