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MV Balance |
Coeus
Grand Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: March 22, 2006
Posts: 2815
From: Philly
|  Posted: 2010-07-31 11:39
Copypasta'd from a now-dead thread in release forums.
The MV has been LONG in need of a way to balance people jumping to the winning faction, or planning in advance to join one faction or another in order to swarm another faction out of a system or server (without having to join a fleet).
Is this right? Not really. Is this fair? Sure, to the people hopping on the winning side - it's always fair when you're winning. Does it fall in line with the "sportsmanship" and "no griefing" clauses of the RoC? Not in the least bit.
My thoughts on the matter are this.
So you don't want to be tied to a fleet because you're anti-establishment or anti-social or anti-matter - whatever you are... you want to be fleetless. However, you are fairly fond of your particular faction - be it ICC, K'Luth, or UGTO, so any sort of Scenario style "Balancing" ruins your whole methodology of playing. Why should you suffer because other people want to abuse and take advantage of a broken system? Answer: You shouldn't.
Alternative? An option in a player's profile to choose their home faction in the MV - similar to a Fleet's. Give this one maybe a 48 hour cooldown or something more reasonable than a week - or maybe not, maybe keep it at a week. After all, if the idea is to encourage factional loyalty rather than opportunism, you should have no problem sticking to K'Luth for a week at a time - you just don't like the idea of fleets.
And if you want to be non-aligned, you are entered into the points-pool ala Scenario style. All non-aligned unfleeted players who enter the MV have to go to the faction with the fewest players.
This way, everyone gets what they want - except faction hoppers who jump around in order to take advantage of a situation. Also helps deter sabotage and spying, because you're still going to be stuck on that weakest side unless a bunch of more people login to it, or a bunch log out of the others.
Everyone wins, except the exploiters.
[ This Message was edited by: Coeus on 2010-07-31 11:39 ]
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SpaceAdmiral
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 05, 2010
Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-07-31 11:44
as i stated earlier, honest nonfleeted wont be affected, spontaneous faction hoppers looking for an adventure wont have to wait that long, exploiters get hit hard, faction hoppers who go with the winning side are delayed from hopping too much
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MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2010-07-31 20:32
Things like this have been suggested for a very long time. I've never seen any yay or nay responses to them.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-07-31 20:44
Hmm. This doesn't sound like a bad idea. The one issue I have with it, however, is the fact that sometimes there are perfectly legitimate times when you'll want to switch faction at short notice. For example, events like tournaments, or you logged in/joined to play with a friend and someone's on the wrong faction.
Not sure whether this is sufficient to warrant a complete binning of this idea though. I shall cogitate on the matter.
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Coeus
Grand Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: March 22, 2006
Posts: 2815
From: Philly
| Posted: 2010-07-31 21:02
If you want to play with your friends, then you can all pick a faction in your profile beforehand (or form a fleet).
As for other "legitimate" reasons to switch factions - remember that it'd be just like a fleet, you could switch once the timer is up, so if you suddenly have a need to flip over to UGTO, go for it - just be prepared to fly that same ship for a number of days.
A side-thought would be for the switch to "Lowest Population Faction" could bypass the timer entirely.
Could this open the system up to exploitation? Remember these are DS-ers we're talking about... this lot could find a way to exploit toast. Is it less 'sploitable than the current system? Abso-frakking-lutely.
[Edit]For Tournies, admins could reset all factional timers (or turn the system off entirely) or just run on the event server. What I would MUCH rather see though is people sticking to one faction through events.
[ This Message was edited by: Coeus on 2010-07-31 21:03 ]
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2010-08-01 07:04
Even a 24 hours lock to a faction could do. As faction hoppers usually do it a a whim.
But I stand by my suggestion of subjecting unfleeted players to a Scen styled team balance. But based on player numbers. Not rank.
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Marius Falix
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 05, 2010
Posts: 268
From: Luyten
| Posted: 2010-08-01 10:02
whats stopping faction hoppers from just making a fleet and swapping around its faction?
or just making more random fleets?
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Forger of Destiny
Chief Marshal
We Kick Arse
Joined: October 10, 2009
Posts: 826
| Posted: 2010-08-01 10:25
How about a new system of loyalty points? You stay on a faction for a day, and get 10 points. You move to a different faction, and lose 25% of loyalty points on other factions every day while gaining 10 points on the current faction. What do loyalties do? They lock certain features of the game for you, and unlock as you progress. Below 10 points, your prestige losses are doubled. At 20, you get access to cruisers and dreads of the faction. 30 lets you fly stations. 50 opens the shop. At 200, it gives you 1 day on a different faction at a cost of 10% points, without loss of the further 15% loyalty points for that day. Nifty, huh?
Quote:
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On 2010-08-01 10:02, Damien Farbright wrote:
whats stopping faction hoppers from just making a fleet and swapping around its faction? or just making more random fleets?
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1) Fleets have 1-2 weeks of time period before they can change the faction. Thus, they can't hop at a whim.
2) Fleets require atleast 2 players to be functional, and admins have to give it the final approval to be set. Wouldn't it be funny if admin received requests for approving 28 fleets in 7 days?
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Bardiche
Chief Marshal
Joined: November 16, 2006
Posts: 1247
| Posted: 2010-08-02 08:57
Let's break the system.
I make an alt. This alt starts a fleet with Coeus' alt, and that fleet is ICC.
I join this fleet with my main and play ICC, but then I get the inexplicable urge to play UGTO. I leave the fleet and join UGTO.
What would stop me from re-joining the ICC fleet at a moment's notice to quickly seize any arising opportunities?
For that matter, what if a similar fleet is set up in all three factions so I could still swap at will, but it'd take a little more... now I have to invest about two minutes in leaving fleet, joining fleet and then approving the application?
Well, two minutes is just enough time... it'd certainly require more vigilance on the moderators' behalf, and I'm not sure if it's a fair imposition to make given how DarkSpace already is.
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Coeus
Grand Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: March 22, 2006
Posts: 2815
From: Philly
| Posted: 2010-08-08 11:00
Two things for that Bardi.
1) If someone really really wants to be a faction troll THAT badly and they want to put out that much effort... let 'em. Like I said - there is no perfect solution and the exploiters will always find a way. Staff have access to the /clone report which will tell them who has been logging into what accounts, so in the event that this is deemed an exploit they can slam-ban anyone reported for doing so (and they would be reported, eventually).
2) I believe the RoC states that you cannot use alts to maintain a fleet's existance (this may be why TB was deleted the last time - alts were used to keep the forums alive, but no real players). I'm not sure on that, but will check later.
Aside from those points - yes thats the big loophole that was playing out in my mind. I couldn't think of a solution for that particular 'sploit, and I can't think of one now. It's basically just one step shy of having friends in a fleet on every faction that can let you in as desired (that step being - anyone who does this clearly doesn't have any friends   ), which is NOT an exploit.
Anyone else have thoughts on Bardi's scenario?
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SpaceAdmiral
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 05, 2010
Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-08-08 16:29
this would spear alot of "fleet testers",
but how about you can only join a fleet once per day?
assuming the cooldown for changing home faction is 24 hours,
a once per day fleet joning rule would do the same
This would break that exploiting system, but makes it harder for new people to choose a fleet
you can leave a fleet anytime, but can only join a fleet once every 24 hours
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Lithium
Chief Marshal
Joined: June 29, 2003
Posts: 109
| Posted: 2010-08-08 22:53
Alt accounts kill most balancing ideas.
Only dynamic balancings (buff low populated faction, limit high populated faction) will work I think.
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Marius Falix
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 05, 2010
Posts: 268
From: Luyten
| Posted: 2010-08-10 10:15
Quote:
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On 2010-08-01 10:25, Dr. Michael Paradox wrote:
Quote:
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On 2010-08-01 10:02, Damien Farbright wrote:
whats stopping faction hoppers from just making a fleet and swapping around its faction? or just making more random fleets?
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1) Fleets have 1-2 weeks of time period before they can change the faction. Thus, they can't hop at a whim.
2) Fleets require atleast 2 players to be functional, and admins have to give it the final approval to be set. Wouldn't it be funny if admin received requests for approving 28 fleets in 7 days?
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itd only take 3. to allow them to jump between the factions.
Scratch that. only two. you could just apply for ICCU if (god forbid) you ever wanted in ICC
[ This Message was edited by: Marius Falix on 2010-08-10 10:16 ]
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