Malachon Draco
eXceed Inc.
INVICTUS.
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Posted - 2007.09.14 18:45:00 -
[1] - Quote
Edited by: Malachon Draco on 14/09/2007 18:45:38
I am so going to laugh when the faction fighters in lowsec get ripped to shreds by a pirate in his mothership...
Maybe its because I've lived in 0.0 after being ingame 3 months and never really returning to Empire, but do people really care about faction warfare?
Anyway, one suggestion. The faction warfare reminds me a lot of how flagging went in SWG. Learning from the mistakes there, if you want to make faction warfare meaningful, you need 2 things.
1. Shiny rewards
2. Meaningful choices.
By shiny rewards I mean, that if people really choose a side, they need to be able to earn the shinyest toys. I think that if for example CVA aligns itself fully with the Amarr Empire, they should be able to get Imperial Apocs. Likewise, if Ushra'Khan aligns with the Minmatar Republic, they need to be able to earn Fleet Tempests and even Tribal Tempests. Should not be easy or cheap, but it should be inline with how valuable the ships are. The biggest mistake SWG made was that at the start the faction armor was pathetically poor quality and hideously expensive. So what you got was 2 sides in identical 'generic' composite armor.
2. Meaningful choices.
Also if you want faction warfare, everyone aligned with Minmatar should be flying a Minmatar ship. Everyone aligned with Amarr should be flying an Amarr ship. Then you get real faction warfare. And choices should be practically permanent. Also no switching sides, no choosing the easy route.
It would IMO be the death of factional warfare if you'd see a fleet of CVA squaring off against Ushra'Khan with a third of the CVA in Megathrons, 15% in Rokhs and 15% in Tempests, vs a UK fleet in 30% megathrons, 20% rokhs and 10% apocalypses. Make the choices tough, and make people stick to them.
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Murphy's Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
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Malachon Draco
eXceed Inc.
INVICTUS.
|
Posted - 2007.09.18 12:02:00 -
[2] - Quote
 Originally by: CCP Greyscale
On forcing people to fly the "right" ships: it's an appealing idea, but I think it ends up being counterproductively restrictive. As has been pointed out though, don't expect to get equipment for Minmatar ships from the Amarr! The biggest problem with this sort of approach though is just that balance work is done on the basis that gangs contain a mix of races, and rebalancing everything to accommodate single-race gangs would both be a massive workload and create undesirable knock-on effects for the game as a whole.
I don't think it needs to be that unbalanced if you work it out in concrete terms. I understand the point that a fleet consisting of just 1 race is somewhat unbalanced compared to fleets that combine various race ships, but on the other hand, if the rewards for restricting yourself are suitably high, it doesn't have to be unbalanced in the long run. If rewards include stuff like Tribal Tempests, or maybe new ships like faction Sleipnirs for Minmatar, or Rattlesnakes and Caldari State Ravens for the people who 'gimp' themselves initially a bit by only flying one race can later catch up by getting all the really cool faction toys.
And I wouldn't suggest that everyone who flies for a certain faction to be forced to fly only those faction ships, but I do think that you could introduce 'tiers' in faction involvement. From 'normal guys' who just go for helping the Minmatar in their spare time and fly whatever they like, to exclusively Minmatar corporations that work towards becoming the 'Pride of the Republic', flying exclusively Minmatar ships, with access to the finest and newest toys the Minmatar fleet has to offer.
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Murphy's Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
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