Legacy of Romulus Dev Blog #41

pwebranflakes · September 2013

Lead Designer Al "CaptainGeko" Rivera shares more details about the recent fleet leader security updates in this entry of the Legacy of Romulus News Dev Blog series.

Link to the blog.

ashkrik23 · September 2013

Just curious why this wasn't put out before the new additions came.

pwebranflakes · September 2013

ashkrik23 wrote: »

Just curious why this wasn't put out before the new additions came.

Not all components of the system were live. Now that they have been, as of yesterday's patch (the UI updates), it's being posted. Additionally, putting it out before could have caused those who had malicious intentions to possibly to conduct them before the update was live. Since we were going to put it out after they went live, we wanted to wait until all components were live.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

snakeswar2 · September 2013

it says in the patch notes that installed the first part that the leader inactive has been extended to 180 days from 30 days and in this blog it says the 30 days one. care to explain?

edit: the patch notes i am refering to: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=825681

phyrexianhero · September 2013

snakeswar2 wrote: »

it says in the patch notes that installed the first part that the leader inactive has been extended to 180 days from 30 days and in this blog it says the 30 days one. care to explain?

edit: the patch notes i am refering to: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=825681

You beat me to it. August 15, 2013 release notes:

Fleet Leader Adjustments

If there is a Single Leader of a Fleet, and that Leader has not logged in for 180 days, that Leader is considered Inactive.

nalo · September 2013

Now make it so the fleet leader has to confirm if that a character that is to be deleted. If there is none to take there place. Or that they must first disband the fleet and yes I made this awful mistake when I lost track of one of my alts ....:(

wolfpacknz · September 2013

Although this is a good step in avoiding rogue takeovers of the fleets and will more then likely stop a lot of that from happening, unfortunately the one thing it won't be able to stop is the dishonesty and ill intent of some players who will no doubt still find ways to achieve their goals.

As for the fleet leader system its self, I like the changes and can see a lot of thought behind it...

peetapipmac · September 2013

nalo wrote: »

Now make it so the fleet leader has to confirm if that a character that is to be deleted. If there is none to take there place. Or that they must first disband the fleet and yes I made this awful mistake when I lost track of one of my alts ....:(

What does character deletion have to do with the fleet system?

jnohd · September 2013

Sounds good to me... Now then, how about a displayable Fleet Leader title?

spacegoatcx · September 2013

Wow, a LinaMia inspired patch. Let's give him a round of golfclaps.

vocmcp · September 2013

pwebranflakes wrote: »

Not all components of the system were live. Now that they have been, as of yesterday's patch (the UI updates), it's being posted. Additionally, putting it out before could have caused those who had malicious intentions to possibly to conduct them before the update was live. Since we were going to put it out after they went live, we wanted to wait until all components were live.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

You mean the fact that you could just demote all other leaders and nobody would be around to reinstate them other than you? Took you a bit to figure that one out didn't it?

But very glad you fixed it! Thanks!

EDIT: Can you please clarify if "Only one “Demote Pending” can be in progress at a time" refers to only one demote can be put on a single person at a time, or that overall only one demote pending can be active within the entire fleet? In case it refers to a single person you have not fixed the issue I have mentioned above.

futurepastnow · September 2013

Geko wrote:

No members can be promoted to Leader while a ?Demote Pending? is active.

Uh. Unless this was changed by the last patch, uh, that's not the way this works. When we screwed around with it - I mean tested it- in Reddit Alert we found that it prevents all members from being promoted, period. And not all of our fleet admirals had a "Rescue" button to hit... it took a while to figure out who did.

So did that change in the last patch, or not? We'd rather not test it again. Since we're not so sure you folks tested it.

derekslide · September 2013

Nothing more secure than having one benevolent dictator at the helm.

robdmc · September 2013

There is one flaw in this system. If you have more then one fleet leader and the fleet leaders have alts then it becomes imposible to remove anyone since the demotion is based on character name and not @Handle.

This means if a malicious person is in the leadership position with 2 captains on the same account even with other leaders you cannot remove him since he can remove the demotion tags from an alt.

If a person has a dozen toons in the fleet leadership position all on the same account and you legitimately need to remove him it will take 6 months with no fight back in this process.

Cryptic, please consider changing this system to work on @name and not the full captain@name.

phyrexianhero · September 2013

derekslide wrote: »

Nothing more secure than having one benevolent dictator at the helm.

I concur. As a Cryptic dev said, that was their original idea for fleet leader: a single benevolent dictator.

frtoaster · September 2013

snakeswar2 wrote: »

it says in the patch notes that installed the first part that the leader inactive has been extended to 180 days from 30 days and in this blog it says the 30 days one. care to explain?

edit: the patch notes i am refering to: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=825681

My interpretation is that there are actually two rules:

1. If all leaders are inactive for 30 days, then the next highest ranked player can claim leadership.

2. If all leaders are inactive for 180 days, then the system automatically promotes a member to leader.

But since the dev blog seems to imply otherwise, we will have to await clarification. The patch notes on August 15, 2013, are quite confusing. They refer to the "Demotion Pending" flag as a "Kick". I would also like to know whether all promotions and demotions are disabled during a "Demotion Pending" or just promotion to leader.

thlaylierah · September 2013

So sad. Retroactive rules to prop up the FAIL Fl337 system.

Better to just start over and make a real Fleet system.

cmdrscarlet · September 2013

Nah. Just get rid of fleets altogether. The galaxy would be a much better place if we all just stayed "one happy fleet".

dirlettia · September 2013

If I read this correctly then all I see is instead of somebody getting a shock after logging in to find the joint leader has 'stolen' the fleet by kicking all other members we now have a situation where the leader can actually stay in the fleet and watch it being stolen due to having no privs to reverse what the rogue has done.

So with this as others have said, fleet leaders now need to keep several alts in fleet leadership positions to be able to prevent their fleets being acquired by rogue individuals. Of course the rogue could invite their own alts into the fleet and then it becomes a stalemate until somebody has an unfortunately timed commitment which gives the opportunity for the other to click buttons first or install another alt in the fleet.

cocobaleadas · September 2013

Suddenly I feel the urge to kick some leader's butt!

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

robdmc · September 2013

@dirlettia
Adding an alt may not matter since they will be a provisional leader. The bigger concern is if an existing leader with alts goes batty.

Provisional Leaders:

New Leaders are considered ?Provisional? for 2 weeks after they are promoted to Leader.
Provisional Leaders have all Leader Powers except they cannot ?Demote? or ?Reinstate? another Leader.
Provisional Leaders can be kicked instantly by any Fleet Leader who is not flagged a ?Demote Pending? or ?Provisional?.

zeuxidemus001 · September 2013

Yeah even with these changes still very weary about being in a fleet much less donating to one.

iconians · September 2013

Malicious people will still be in the game. Malicious people who are highly adaptive and creative will also still be in the game. This system is (as Geko pointed out) mitigative, not a solution.

If someone is bound and determined enough to take over a fleet, they will find a way around this system. And Cryptic is not saying otherwise. This system is there to help, which on paper it does.

As always, the only surefire solution is to have (as has been mentioned before) a single benevolent dictator who is inherently trusted by all in the fleet. The only way to stop rogue takeovers is by using common sense with who you recruit, having good character judgment, and taking advantage of the fleet permissions system along with the fleet bank permissions system.

Unfortunately, there will be many fleets now and in the future, just as there are in the past... who do not use good judgment or well-informed discretion in regards to fleet promotions and demotions.

Cryptic can only help, but the true power is in the fleet's hands.

At the same time, I think Cryptic needs to heavily step up their arsenal in regards to policing the game. There needs to be better tools for players to use, and better tools for Cryptic's GM staff to use. More systems like this need to be implemented all around the game to discourage (or outright prevent) malicious player behavior.

Harsher penalties need to be given out in addition to new and better tools for the GMs to use to verify and confirm malicious behavior.

But if that can't be done, then systems like this are surely better than doing nothing at all.

ctubauer3 · September 2013

well i'm glad this has finally arrived but it's too late for me.
I got screwed out of my fleet.

wolfpack12c · September 2013

Well looks like I can't steal fleets anymore... That suck, thanks for putting me out of a job lol

zeuxidemus001 · September 2013

ctubauer3 wrote: »

well i'm glad this has finally arrived but it's too late for me.
I got screwed out of my fleet.

Yeah its sad because you can't trust anyone in this game but you have to work with a lot of people so its not falling upon one person to do it all. So either way you can't win

rahmkota19 · September 2013

Got 2 questions remaining:

If I were to "Demote" (Demote Pending) another leader, could I be the one to rescue them as well?
Me and my co-leader want to try this stuff, to test it. but not if it means loosing leadership for 2 weeks XD.

When me and my buddy formed the fleet, we were immediately intending to both be leaders. If we again form a fleet, will the one that is promoted also be provisional? Or could there be an exception for the first 5 minutes on promotion/demotion?

Looking forward to the answers.

robdmc · September 2013

rahmkota19 wrote: »

Got 2 questions remaining:

If I were to "Demote" (Demote Pending) another leader, could I be the one to rescue them as well?
Me and my co-leader want to try this stuff, to test it. but not if it means loosing leadership for 2 weeks XD.

When me and my buddy formed the fleet, we were immediately intending to both be leaders. If we again form a fleet, will the one that is promoted also be provisional? Or could there be an exception for the first 5 minutes on promotion/demotion?

Looking forward to the answers.

If fleet leader A demotes fleet leader B, fleet leader C can rescue fleet leader B. Fleet leader C cannot change the 2 week departure time even if he does agree with fleet leader A in removing fleet leader B.

If player D is to be promoted to Fleet leader he cannot be promoted while fleet leader B is in the 2 week demotion. Also if player D is promoted to fleet leader then he is considered provisional and cannot promote anyone else to fleet leader or demote anyone else from fleet leader status. He can also be kicked out of provisional leader status at any time by any other leader.

walt04 · September 2013

I do think this is a good idea. Some of us cant be on every day and its good to give everyone options to continue with there fleet projects. I do think they need to extend or give an option to extend the time before the inactive kicks in. for example, i had my hard drive crash. luckly it was under warintee. the bad thing was by the time i shipped it. they decided what to do, get the repairs done and i got it back. plus the 2 days to reinstall and patch it was about 65 days. Mabe if possable if we can log on to the forum or fleet mail from outside the game it could "reset " the inactive for these kind of situations. On another note----I do find it funny how people are trying to find legal ways around this as far as taking over/stealing another fleet....this was put into efect under the guise of far play...which i agree with...just seems that there are a lot of pirates out there always finding ways to rob you lol.

cyberpunkfalcon · September 2013

So if my PC breaks down and I can't play for a month I'll be demoted and loose all the hard work I've put in

There are trolls out there who would completely re-invent a fleet even though the Fleets community joined because of the old leaders preferences.

nierion · September 2013

I'm not sure I like this. What if Fleet Leader went on vacation for a month? Would you count logging into the Gateway as actually logging in?

I think this needs to be increased at the very least. Have it at 90 days to make it fair and have Gateway count towards logging in (if it does already, awesome).

Legacy of Romulus Dev Blog #41

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