Factions

Imho the way to do it is not to set impossible limits, but encourage teamplay. Although i agree that creating a faction just by pressing F is kinda… well … too little, i think the land control system needs a complete overhaul from what is now.

First, the factions should need active players to be able to control the land. A bastion shouldn’t give automatic control over a cell. A bastion should give control to a small range, like 100m near it, from which control should be possible to expand only if single accounts build a house. If you build a house for an alt, doesn’t count to the range expansion. So if you are a solo player you would need like 10 (or more) high level chars to control a single cell.

Second, I respectfully disagree with the “pain” idea. The game – any game for that matter – should be about fun. I agree the satisfaction comes from a bit of work, but making a player work as hard as in real life is a sure recipe for failure. This is not what games are for. Encourage cooperative efforts, yes, that’s right. But not through massive grinds. Getting 10 people bored at the same time or 10 people bored separately will ultimately result in the same fail result.

My suggestion is having decent requirements for basic buildings, but making those buildings interact in such a way that only if you can form an active group of 5-10 people you can succeed. And I am totally against factions building bot-farms. Instead there should be a system where the faction can and must build the building, but it should be “manned’ by a player. If you want a mining shack, fine. Build a GS miner char and let him take charge of the mining shack and ONLY then the shack would function. And allow a player control over 1 business at a time, so the factions would feel the need to get more people in, with various jobs.

Thats the way i see factions and players working together.

PS: As an additional perk to functioning based on player input, the business buildings could only produce stuff if and when their “master” is logged on. This way it’s even more difficult to have a fully functional 1 man faction, because unless you use 10 computers at once to play DT, you can’t have so many chars logged in.

Having been in one of the bigger factions, played solo and run a faction I have a pretty broad point of view on the subject of groups of players vs the solo. While I feel factions should be available to all I think there needs to be perhaps levels to faction which opens options over time. I will give an “example” of how I think things should operate.

Solo player – can place 1 house anywhere in game, if in a factions land they are liable for land tax to the faction, if uncontrolled no fees.

Small Faction – requires 5 characters and 25g to set up, allows for ownership of 1 cell and unlimited buildings within that cell, monthly “faction tax” equal to 5g per player that is active that month.

Medium Faction – requires small faction status, via upgrade with 50 character and an additional fee of 10g per character in faction so 500g for 50characters but more if upgrading with more players. Allows for control of up to 3 cells all adjacent to each other, this would allow for larger property developments but all in the same location, and a certain amount of free space to sublet for housing etc.

Nation – required medium faction status, via upgrade with 100+ characters and an additional fee of 25g per character or 2500g total but additional 25g per character over 100. This allows for building in 3 separate 3 cell groups anywhere in the game with a max of 9 cells of control. At least one MUST contain a keep/capital building.

All buildings will be liable to maintenance at a basic level, small factions will be on a standard basis, medium factions on a 2x multiplier per building, nations on a 3x multiplier per building. This will discourage larger factions from over building unnecessary structures end expanding beyond what they need.

This system was already on paper in a personal file and was due some adjustments before posting in suggestions/ideas with reference to the changes with siege mechanics. Main adjustment is since the money changes, so all of the money values requires multiplying by 100, so small faction would be 2500g to set up + 500g per month tax (money sink). Expanding from small to medium would cost 50k gold as well as the monthly tax and the player requirement and similar for nation factions.

By having this rule-set it also prevents factions growing too large, each faction would be capped at 9 cells regardless of size, and at that point conquest would have no object as they would be unable to CAPTURE land only destroy buildings and create havoc for enemies. There is no real reason a faction should ever need more than 9 cells, that is ample for 3 very large cities, it is also a very large area of any one continent. Factions should be obligated to upgrade from on size should they surpass the next tier, so a small faction can remain small until they have 100 characters then they would HAVE to upgrade to medium faction size as a minimum regardless of whether they choose to claim additional land.

Please bear in mind all numbers are examples and just pulled out of the air with no ballancing put into play. Obviously all numbers/sizes require a little scrutiny and negotiation, there could even be more than 3 tiers to faction sizes maybe up to 5. By having variable faction “rankings” modifiers could be used within the siege mechanics to make wars more balanced between different sized factions.

On the subject of materials cost per building I am sort of inclined to believe there is no need to increase materials costs significantly, although a small upward adjustment for control buildings may be required, or even a set rule that a Keep is the initial building of control rather than a bastion.

This was all brought forward due to this thread but has been a work in progress for the last few weeks, so feel free to pull it apart, flame it, add BBQsauce and a touch of troll…its far from a finished plan/idea

My issue is not with scaling of maintenance more that a building has a player requirement. I think that should you have the manpower to build and maintain and defend a building you should not need to manually operate it. If you only have 4 players and 100 buildings you would not be able to cover the maintenance for that many buildings, however you could happily have 10 building running 24/7 regardless of who is online. Gather rates can be altered to make the benefits pretty minimal once maintenance has been paid. Asking players to forgo play time to man a building is going to lower some players enjoyment, perhaps if you required a 1 grandmaster of a gather profession to place a building type but that would cause issues when players leave factions and the limit is already reached.

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i am going to keep it simple. Not saying there are not some good ideas posted above , but try not to over think it. It is meant to be enjoyable.
Everyone wants to control everyone else , its a game lighten up.

I am semi retired , owned and operated two successful business in my time. If I want such headaches again , then I would create another company in RL. I want to play/enjoy the game. I want some challenge to it but do not want to have to live here to meet these demands.

There really is nothing wrong with the current system , it may need a little tweaking and of course the content that has not yet been brought into the game , but dang just keep it simple..
ok just my opinion
thanks..

Shanga while I respect the principle of what your method is trying to achieve I fear it is just encouraging people to duel client/multibox. If a player wants more resource capability and it costs him another monthly sub, well someone will do it. Making things player or account based makes this game closer to the pay to win model seen in F2P or cash shop games. In EVE people have LOTS of accounts for similar reasons, be it mining vessels or hauler/cargo ships or even just for manufacturing. While it is good for “numbers” those numbers are artificial and inflated and the only winners are the Dev’s collecting the sub’s not the players.

If I can have 5 accounts to run 5 mining shacks or one of every type of farm then if i cant afford it, someone can and will. I cannot compete due to financial restraints like any cash shop game. I am not a fan of any resource gathering rate being linked to activity for this reason alone. Not saying it wont work I just dont think it adds anything to the game.

I also dont think encouraging factions beyond a certain size is beneficial either unless you want to severally penalize them in some way at the same time. The hard part of this is encouraging people to group but discouraging the zerg/BoB effect. There is a reason I am not a Dev, this is it (and the lack of technical skills) :D If they get the maths/equations correct then we will all have loot envy.

We want a free economy, generated by players, right? For an economy to work, you need a few basic steps. One of the steps is called “supply and demand”. Another motor is employment and consumption.

Now if I want to run a solo 1 man operation, i can so so quite well. It surely takes me more time than a 5 man faction, but in the end I can have a faction with huge control zone and a lot of production. I have no interest in sharing my wealth with anyone, since they are basically built-in bots. My only selfish interest could be of keeping other people off my resources, thus making the life of new players miserable. And if I amass enough fortune, i can build enough military buildings and hire a “bodyguard” faction to defend me. So much for the mmo factor.

In the system I’ve proposed, if you’re a small enterprise, like a 1-2 man faction, you can do very well on 1-2-3-4 industries and you need to BUY the rest of the resources, creating DEMAND. If I want to create a SUPPLY, i hire more people (salaries for the shift boss is an idea to increase maintenance) and I produce more. The people I hire get payed and CONSUME items the economy produces.

The current system encourages hording your own little treasure, stashing away all the materials you need, in general making sure you don’t need anything else but what you can produce yourself. This way the economy will never get off the ground. And even war will be useless because why have more resources if nobody buys them? Look at the veterans players today, yourself included. You guys have huge fortunes compared to a new player. What good does it do to you, except the fun of counting ingots and pennies each night? Do you have anything to invest those money in? Anything somebody else produced and you need? Nope. And it will stay this way.

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Shanga while I respect the principle of what your method is trying to achieve I fear it is just encouraging people to duel client/multibox.
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When the game goes P2P, if someone wants to solo so bad as he is ready to pay for 5 accounts and use 2-3 computers at the same time, so be it. No system in the world will stop that. In the end he pays the same ammount as 5 normal players and it’s his right to do so. He’ll never be as efficient as a 10-man or 50-man faction anyway. Which he can do, if system stays as we have it now – and excuse me, but that’s absurd.

In the end, it’s about deciding on the balance between singleplayer and multiplayer game inside any MMO. I hate multiplayer unbalanced games as much as any other guy with a job and a family. I do not want a 2nd job online. But on the other hand, making a mmo singleplayer has less enticing results too. Because you see, in a properly balanced game, you can rely on your faction mates to help and make up for your lack of time or whatever. If you’re completely on your own, you’ll be the last on the foodchain, because any 10 year old with plenty of time on his hands will do more than you can. Nvm the botters.