480 replies to this topic

[Davers]

Everyone has already accepted that no one can control where pugs drop. Why can't we accept that units will do the same? "Join a unit so you can be told what to do" doesn't have a catchy sound to it.

[N0MAD]

So you guys dont see it as a problem?
Back to POTBS, Port Battles (the final phase of a battle to capture a port) would be initiated after a Port was flipped (this could also be exploited by alt teams) these battles were 24vs24, an alt team fielding bad unmoded boats with bad ammo and deliberately playing bad would lose that battle, simple.
Way to stop it make it against the CoC, if you dont know that a gaming company can monitor it in very simple ways just as an eg IPS then you are very naive in the ways of the inter webs, and yes i know there are ways to manipulate IPs etc but thats for the dedicated trolls and cheats..and even then there are ways..
But then if PGI doesnt see it as a problem what can you do?.. well apart from not playing and that may be just the solution some will use, those that see it as a problem i mean guess time and numbers will tell if its a problem or not.

Edited by N0MAD, 21 January 2015 - 05:23 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 04:46 PM, said:

It evidently does not function well. You're also only describing Davion.

So you're saying Kurita, Liao, Marik, Steiner aren't doing this as well?

[RG Notch]

N0MAD, on 21 January 2015 - 05:11 PM, said:

So you guys dont see it as a problem?
Back to POTBS, Port Battles (the final phase of a battle to capture a port) would be initiated after a Port was flipped (this could also be exploited by alt teams) these battles were 24vs24, an alt team fielding bad unmoded boats with bad ammo and deliberately playing bad would lose that battle, simple.
Way to stop it make it against the CoC, if you dont know that a gaming company can monitor it in very simple ways just as an eg IPS then you are very naive in the ways of the inter webs, and yes i know there are ways to manipulate IPs etc but thats for the dedicated trolls and cheats..and even then there are ways..
But then if PGI doesnt see it as a problem what can you do?.. well apart from not playing and that may be just the solution some will use, those that see it as a problem i mean guess time and numbers will tell if its a problem or not.

So PGI, which we are being told all the time by it's defenders is a small shop and they are going to hire more staff or reassign the few people they do have to monitoring IPs and such, which I hate to tell you is a lot easier to swap or disguise than you are making it. Plus does that mean all alt accounts? Or again we need monitoring to find the alts and find them violating some new CoC addition? For something that doesn't seem to be an issue and certainly one that PGI shouldn't be spending it's limited resources on fixing. All so that some people can tell others how they can play? PGI is going to go to trouble and also cost themselves accounts and possible sales for this? It seems like it's a lot of work and risk for little gain. But whatever, good luck trying to convince PGI to spend time and money on this.

[Alexander Steel]

Dimento Graven, on 21 January 2015 - 04:14 PM, said:

No, I'm pretty sure some of the people posting in this very thread own those throw away accounts, hence the self-serving nature of a lot of the arguments.

You sound abit paranoid..... but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

[Alexander Steel]

RG Notch, on 21 January 2015 - 04:21 PM, said:

There have been a number of important questions asked but few answers provided by those who want more control over other players actions. In addition to how to stop alts, how to choose who's in charge, how to sanction people who don't go along, etc. It's all well and good to identify the problem from your perspective but without concrete ideas to deal with these issues it's not very useful.

If you've ever played Eve Online you don't have to wait long to see all sorts of bad things that happen once you give players the ability to control things and punish other players for not acting the way they want. Faction splintering with a faction leadership position up for grabs that can forcibly eject anybody that they want or punish those people in other ways is a terrible thing.

The internet brings out the most abusive/petty/spiteful/childish/angry natures in people. Heck just look at the lengths players will go to rise in the ranks of a corp in Eve just to disband/rob/awox it. I'd rather not give anybody the power to do that in this game.

[Davers]

Alexander Steel, on 21 January 2015 - 05:32 PM, said:

If you've ever played Eve Online you don't have to wait long to see all sorts of bad things that happen once you give players the ability to control things and punish other players for not acting the way they want. Faction splintering with a faction leadership position up for grabs that can forcibly eject anybody that they want or punish those people in other ways is a terrible thing.

The internet brings out the most abusive/petty/spiteful/childish/angry natures in people. Heck just look at the lengths players will go to rise in the ranks of a corp in Eve just to disband/rob/awox it. I'd rather not give anybody the power to do that in this game.

And this seems to be exactly the kind of power that Clan Wolf and Davion seem to want- the ability to ostracize individuals and units out of CW entirely. That's a lot of power to hand people who are the self proclaimed Faction Leaders simply because they set up a TS server first.

[RG Notch]

Alexander Steel, on 21 January 2015 - 05:32 PM, said:

If you've ever played Eve Online you don't have to wait long to see all sorts of bad things that happen once you give players the ability to control things and punish other players for not acting the way they want. Faction splintering with a faction leadership position up for grabs that can forcibly eject anybody that they want or punish those people in other ways is a terrible thing.

The internet brings out the most abusive/petty/spiteful/childish/angry natures in people. Heck just look at the lengths players will go to rise in the ranks of a corp in Eve just to disband/rob/awox it. I'd rather not give anybody the power to do that in this game.

I don't need to play Eve to know letting players, especially some of the samples here in, run things is an awful idea. I'm all for them having their own politics and agreements and what have you, I'm against them imposing them on non parties to said agreements.

[Krivvan]

Dimento Graven, on 21 January 2015 - 05:14 PM, said:

So you're saying Kurita, Liao, Marik, Steiner aren't doing this as well?

Liao has nothing. I don't think Kurita has anything. Also didn't see anything when on FRR. Jade Falcon does not have any kind of faction leadership. Smoke Jaguar doesn't either. I am unsure about Ghost Bear. Wolf does (but they're not doing so hot right now).

The factions without any sort of self-appointed faction leadership also seem to be the ones attracting the good merc units right now. Lords, SJR, 228, etc. all really don't care for joining with Davion, and when it comes down to defending against Clans, I don't think Davion would stand much of a chance.

Edited by Krivvan, 21 January 2015 - 05:39 PM.

[Alexander Steel]

That said, I'm sort of amused at how fast people dive into trying to get their inner authoritative on. "What, these people aren't doing what I want them to do?!?!?! GIVE ME TOOLS TO PUNISH THEM!!!!"

I like the idea of units being able to pony up their own money and loyalty to encourage mercs to work for them. Putting bounties on planets and the like that for every win, a merc gets if the planet is won is divided up among the mercs that fought for the planet.

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 05:38 PM, said:

Liao has nothing. I don't think Kurita has anything. Also didn't see anything when on FRR. Jade Falcon does not have any kind of faction leadership. Smoke Jaguar doesn't either. I am unsure about Ghost Bear. Wolf does (but they're not doing so hot right now).

The factions without any sort of self-appointed faction leadership also seem to be the ones attracting the good merc units right now. Lords, SJR, 228, etc. all really don't care for joining with Davion, and when it comes down to defending against Clans, I don't think Davion would stand much of a chance.

Of course. The idea of "Come join us, we bad mouth those who don't do exactly as we say and are lobbying the game devs to give us ways to punish you if you ever don't follow our rules. Oh and you will have no say in our grand vision, only loyalists have votes!" is not a good recruitment slogan.

Edited by Alexander Steel, 21 January 2015 - 05:40 PM.

[Vlad Ward]

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 05:38 PM, said:

Liao has nothing. I don't think Kurita has anything. Also didn't see anything when on FRR. Jade Falcon does not have any kind of faction leadership. Smoke Jaguar doesn't either. I am unsure about Ghost Bear. Wolf does (but they're not doing so hot right now).

The factions without any sort of self-appointed faction leadership also seem to be the ones attracting the good merc units right now. Lords, SJR, 228, etc. all really don't care for joining with Davion, and when it comes down to defending against Clans, I don't think Davion would stand much of a chance.

Kurita recently formed a "High Council" to try and organize their 12-mans. CSJ has the Smoke Alliance, but their leadership is relatively tolerant of Mercs. The same can't always be said for some of their members, but in the current state of the game I think it's hard to completely avoid this issue.

[N0MAD]

RG Notch, on 21 January 2015 - 05:18 PM, said:

So PGI, which we are being told all the time by it's defenders is a small shop and they are going to hire more staff or reassign the few people they do have to monitoring IPs and such, which I hate to tell you is a lot easier to swap or disguise than you are making it. Plus does that mean all alt accounts? Or again we need monitoring to find the alts and find them violating some new CoC addition? For something that doesn't seem to be an issue and certainly one that PGI shouldn't be spending it's limited resources on fixing. All so that some people can tell others how they can play? PGI is going to go to trouble and also cost themselves accounts and possible sales for this? It seems like it's a lot of work and risk for little gain. But whatever, good luck trying to convince PGI to spend time and money on this.

Im not trying to convince any one of anything, think ive made it clear i dont do CW, was just commenting on a situation ive seen before, just adding another view on the subject, but for me its just another reason not to play CW.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 05:38 PM, said:

Liao has nothing. I don't think Kurita has anything. Also didn't see anything when on FRR. Jade Falcon does not have any kind of faction leadership. Smoke Jaguar doesn't either. I am unsure about Ghost Bear. Wolf does (but they're not doing so hot right now).

The factions without any sort of self-appointed faction leadership also seem to be the ones attracting the good merc units right now. Lords, SJR, 228, etc. all really don't care for joining with Davion, and when it comes down to defending against Clans, I don't think Davion would stand much of a chance.

The Smoke Alliance does not try to run the faction (although some unit members have implied otherwise). We are a loose confederation of units that comprises almost every known CSJ aligned, long term or permcon unit.

The difference between us and some of the posters here is we do not think we can tell people how to play the game. Admittedly we have had some outliers speak otherwise, but as we have repeatedly pointed out, they do not speak for the alliance.

We build a consensus and move on to play the game. We arent in search of the ability to sanction players for disagreeing with us. We just dont support their agendas and let their efforts die on the vine.

The sense of entitlement that some have here, expecting the mechanical ability to punish other players for playing againt their personal intent for the game is just self-serving.

If someones way is the "right way" folks will gravitate to it naturally in an environment like this. For those that dont, you marginalize them and move on. Why some people think they deserve to be the ones determining the pathway of the community without actuay influencing others is boggling.

[jackal40]

RG Notch, on 21 January 2015 - 04:21 PM, said:

There have been a number of important questions asked but few answers provided by those who want more control over other players actions. In addition to how to stop alts, how to choose who's in charge, how to sanction people who don't go along, etc. It's all well and good to identify the problem from your perspective but without concrete ideas to deal with these issues it's not very useful.

And there in lies the rub - I vaguely recall and have not expended the effort to find it, a statement by either Russ or Paul which paraphrased; There will never be players in control of any House or faction.

This was my issue with the player negotiated ceasefires. The fact that they were able to get others to go along with the ceasefires had a large effect on those of us who were able to play over the holidays.

Fine - it's your football, take it home if you want, but please stop complaining that others aren't following your rules and dictates. That's not part of the MWO ToS.

[Hell in a Helmet]

{Begin Encryption}
To: Codename Hauptmann Pain-in-the-Butt
Operation: Sidestep

Lyran High Command commends your leadership in the Donegal Guards for their resent incursions into Davion space. You are hereby field promoted to Kommandant. By using the Rangers of Coventry's unit colors to capture GrahamIV, Command has been able to blame the separatist movement, that regular House units had nothing to do with it, and through diplomatic channels it appears they are none the wiser. Steiner feigns that bringing "you" inline is of high priority but that with the Clan incursion going on, top line units cannot be dispatched to reign "you" in and it may take a few years due to jumpship priorities elsewhere. Command has agreed that your recommendation of an all out 2 week campaign followed by a lull to rearm will likely keep Davion guessing and prevent them from learning the true main objective. INTEL also predicts that anything over 2 weeks will likely cause a disruption or even collapse of the current cease-fire agreement. All Comms to and from your unit are hereby severed till 2 weeks from today. You are on your own Kommandant. Good Luck and Good Hunting!

{End Encryption}

Edited by LCPL 4, 21 January 2015 - 08:26 PM.

[RG Notch]

N0MAD, on 21 January 2015 - 05:46 PM, said:

Im not trying to convince any one of anything, think ive made it clear i dont do CW, was just commenting on a situation ive seen before, just adding another view on the subject, but for me its just another reason not to play CW.

I wasn't really speaking to you about the convincing, that's on the folks that find this a problem and want to make PGI do something about it. There's been a lot of complaining re: alts but not a lot of viable solutions proffered.

[Dimento Graven]

Alexander Steel, on 21 January 2015 - 05:26 PM, said:

You sound abit paranoid..... but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

Brother, you ain't just whistlin' Dixie there!

[MischiefSC]

Lukoi Banacek, on 21 January 2015 - 04:40 PM, said:

DG

If units can self-police and organically grow in influence as you suggest, then there's literally not a problem here.

Frankly I agree, units who band together under a common "policy" do have the ability to influence others via their support or lack thereof.

That does not mean they deserve the right or ability to sanction those that fall out of line. That's also, as others have noted, probably not necessary anyway. False-flag operations are more likely to die on the vine due to a lack of support and no one elected or appointed anyone to be the faction police.

So...influence people as you can, but to lobby for police powers is simply conceited and self-serving in the extreme.

There's no social contract in this game. If players disagree with your outlook on where they should fight, YOU don't get to tell them where to go. We had the same misstep in CSJ. People telling or implying that Mercs could not play the way they wanted. That's BS. No one had that right within the faction.

We made our case as to why we would not support their various agendas. They were largely unmoved. There ya go. So they do what they want and we will endeavor to hold the faction together when they leave (which I believe all three will eventually).

Why is it any different for people who want to play alternate accounts, potentially because of RP reasons, or tech reasons or whatever else?

Personally, I think "voting" Mercs out of contract via an MRBC tool makes alot of sense, but not House/loyalist units, but that's a discussion for another time. Until then, folks should stop trying to tell people how to play the game.

If you cannot co-opt people into your way of thinking via influence, discussion, camaraderie etc then you just have to deal with the fact that some people want to play the game differently than you do.

FFS this is like bad balance discussions all over again.

It works with a carrot but not a stick. Right now we have neither.

The concept as it was discussed at one point was that House Units could pay/recruit/compensate Merc units to bolster them for attacks and events. So House units sign on with a house, Merc units sign on with a house or with a House Unit for a bonus paid from unit coffers, ideally with LP as well.

So good, trusted, worthwhile merc units would get additional compensation from House units. This gives House Units a carrot to offer.

I'm against giving players any sort of stick.

We're probably pretty spoiled in Davion; we have an excellent inter-faction communication. Right now I'm queued up for WPs brilliant Wednesday Night Warfare. Any FS player drops into faction TS, gets broken into a unit with a drop caller, they coordinate the tactics for the match and dropdecks then drop into matches. This has helped us be very, very successful. At times we've been fighting and winning on 3 fronts at once without having some of the massive, uber-successful CI/228/MS merc units with us. It's why everyone thinks Davion has such a massive population - in total players we're not measurably bigger than any other of the bigger factions, we're just almost universally stacking in specific queues and specific tactics.

Fair to say it works very well for us and we're pretty happy with it. It's also helped Davion weather the ebb and flow of CW population, especially since the last patch where we can backfill units with spare folks from other units, all of whom have probably dropped together and use the same tactics.

Not a fan of voting folks out of anything. Carrots, not sticks.

[Lukoi Banacek]

We do have a carrot.

Offering deliberate, organized play with options that let players buy in on ceasefires, the politics etc and not trying to boss around those who do not agree. The latter just have to be left to their own devices.

As for the MRBC concept I mention, there are a myriad of ways to make it all carrot and no stick as well, but again, topic for a different thread.

[MischiefSC]

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 05:38 PM, said:

Liao has nothing. I don't think Kurita has anything. Also didn't see anything when on FRR. Jade Falcon does not have any kind of faction leadership. Smoke Jaguar doesn't either. I am unsure about Ghost Bear. Wolf does (but they're not doing so hot right now).

The factions without any sort of self-appointed faction leadership also seem to be the ones attracting the good merc units right now. Lords, SJR, 228, etc. all really don't care for joining with Davion, and when it comes down to defending against Clans, I don't think Davion would stand much of a chance.

The big units move for reasons that have nothing to do with faction leadership or lack of it - certain units like to fight certain people and they also like having a mixed IS/Clan front. In many ways it was more about kicking Wolves than anything else and some units wanted to NOT fight against CGB.

We have good relationships with the majority of comp units. Right now though they're not interested in fighting Liao or Marik, which is what we've got going.

Pugging on the Clan border is always a bad experience but when we've rolled full units or even large groups we've won consistently. Generally though we're busy fighting each other.