Then people started playing CW and learned quickly gamers were not as cool as lore was. As Joe pointed out, they were there to grab easy planets and make a rep. Then they learned how fast you can lose those planets and how much effort it took to hold on to territory. And then Ghost Dropping was exposed, and Davion was a leader in that tactic claiming it was fair. (Even more irritating than the Marik Light Rush that drove everyone crazy for most of CW1) Fixes came and were mixed results.
Then Wazan/Old Kentucky/Phact happened thanks to a broken algorhythm. All three worlds are now infested with Pandas and Arby's. Nobody knows where the Space Bacon and Bourbon vanished to. And during that word leaked out that PGI was giggling to themselves over what was going on between Marik and Davion players not realizing how it was cool on one level but harming the players of those factions.
Then the achievements started running out so the gamers, thanks to bad design, went off to unlock the rest of the 'achievements' on every other faction including clans and scattered to the winds. (This also happened in every single other faction) If planets were hard to take to pad stats, players went elsewhere. Just like quirks shoved around the meta, so did the quality of opponents from 'l33t' players claiming they weren't out to seal club. HAH!
Then Beta 2 happened, and everybody was struck down with severe apathy, plus other community disillusionments occurred (New Star League, Roadbeer's Island, NVKA forum trollfailpocalypse, Sealclubbing in extremis) Then Tukayyid 1. and a map reset.
If you're coming in, there is a long history of burnout (thanks to the 3 daily ceasefires rendering achievements moot unless you live on game or have a massive population) 2 hours of valid attack windows a day rendering 6 hours worthless and other horrifying development decisions and population shenanigans.
So Davion doesn't really have a bad reputation. Some of the people still there do, just as many units all about the game do. How does it get fixed? Nothing gets fixed till PGI rebuilds CW pretty much from the ground up with a complete and total logistics overlay strategy game on top Faction Warfare battles. That means you, and your unit are assets in game like a piece on the board. Planets have real reasons to be taken economically because they will affect things like mech prices, equipment prices, rearm and repair and more. WHen the players have more direct control over who fights where and who is an ally, we got a joke of diplomacy (See the current attempt to start a war between Marik and Liao by bored mercs).
Till then, all fixes are going to be no better than window dressing and at worse, burn out even more players on the edge of leaving the game for good.
Edited by Kjudoon, 22 December 2015 - 06:04 AM.