Should the coming Armada system allow cross-faction groupings of fleets?

protogoth · July 2015

Should it be possible in the upcoming Armada system for fleets to group together in spite of faction/alliance?
How about fleets which have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank?

[Deleted User] · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

Quite frankly the Starfleet/KDF divide has been meaningless in this game since the Klingon War arc ended. Barring "The Tribble with Klingons", literally ever single time after that where the two sides meet, they're working together against common foes.

angrytarg · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

As for if they should - I think yes, it makes little sense according to in-game lore and the alliance otherwise. Then again, player fleets really don't exist as far as the story/lore is concerned, nothing of fleet nature has any meaning in the game.

I don't understand what you mean by "only if a RRF character is amongst the top fleet ranks". Why should this have any impact?

As far as wether we'll see it, though, it is unlikely. On STOs reddit it was stated by a dev (not sure who) that cross-faction armadas aren't possible the way the game is coded and they probably won't revisit that state. Also, fleet store access is not being worked on (which would have been important for fed characters wanting to use kdf stores).

EDIT: Forgot a word

chipg7 · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

Definitely needed for Romulan fleets. The Republic is allied with both the Feds and the KDF, so keeping two sets of Republic Romulans locked out from each other is pointless.

StarSword-C wrote: »

Quite frankly the Starfleet/KDF divide has been meaningless in this game since the Klingon War arc ended. Barring "The Tribble with Klingons", literally ever single time after that where the two sides meet, they're working together against common foes.

We're all officially under the same banner as the Delta Alliance, so the old divide is completely gone.

protogoth · July 2015

Yes! But only if all fleets involved in an Armada have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank.

angrytarg wrote: »

As for if they should - I think yes, it makes little sense according to in-game lore and the alliance otherwise. Then again, player fleets really don't exist as far as the story/lore is concerned, nothing of fleet nature has any meaning in the game.

I don't understand what you mean by "only if a RRF character is amongst the top fleet ranks". Why should this have any impact?

As far as wether we'll see it, though, it is unlikely. On STOs reddit it was stated by a dev (not sure who) that cross-faction armadas aren't possible the way the game is coded and they probably won't revisit that state. Also, fleet store access is not being worked on (which would have been important for fed characters wanting to use kdf stores).

EDIT: Forgot a word

If you've been keeping up with the discussion in this thread, you'll know that some of us in Romulan fleets (yes, there is such a thing, game mechanic stupidity notwithstanding) have fleets of both alliances and would like to be able to hold meetings of all our fleets regardless of alliance. At the moment, the only way we can do that is to go to someone's warbird, which is far from ideal. We would also like to bring our members from both sides closer together and have some means of interaction beyond private channels. And we have an unique situation; not only can an RRF character who is KDF-allied not even team with another RRF character if that one is Fed-allied, but we're forced into this artificial division by the unwillingness (not inability) of the Devs to give us a full faction in the first place. There are several other considerations involved, but you can read them for yourself in the thread I linked.

lordinsane · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

In truth I wouldn't necessarily use as strong a word as 'should' can be for the question, but I do think that at the very least it should be something Cryptic should spend some effort looking into whether they can make possible. Obviously the Romulan issue makes it higher priority.

baddmoonrizin · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

angrytarg wrote: »

As far as wether we'll see it, though, it is unlikely. On STOs reddit it was stated by a dev (not sure who) that cross-faction armadas aren't possible the way the game is coded and they probably won't revisit that state. Also, fleet store access is not being worked on (which would have been important for fed characters wanting to use kdf stores).

The way I understood it was that cross-faction would not go live with the Armada system, but they would still be looking at how they might do it given certain limitations.

protogoth · July 2015

Yes! But only if all fleets involved in an Armada have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank.

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

As far as wether we'll see it, though, it is unlikely. On STOs reddit it was stated by a dev (not sure who) that cross-faction armadas aren't possible the way the game is coded and they probably won't revisit that state. Also, fleet store access is not being worked on (which would have been important for fed characters wanting to use kdf stores).

The way I understood it was that cross-faction would not go live with the Armada system, but they would still be looking at how they might do it given certain limitations.

That's what the article said, yes.

protogoth · July 2015

Yes! But only if all fleets involved in an Armada have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank.

Anyway, RRF players with fleets of both alliances would benefit from such a thing significantly.

leviathan99 · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

I think this and cross faction teaming for missions ought to be priorities at the very least if another faction gets added. Because if you're going to go "under the hood" to add another faction, you might as well improve faction functionality.

I think many fleets are small BECAUSE they're Klingon fleets so it undercuts the point of helping out small fleets if you can't have a larger Fed fleet mentor them.

angrytarg · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

protogoth wrote: »

If you've been keeping up with the discussion in this thread, you'll know that some of us in Romulan fleets (yes, there is such a thing, game mechanic stupidity notwithstanding) have fleets of both alliances and would like to be able to hold meetings of all our fleets regardless of alliance. At the moment, the only way we can do that is to go to someone's warbird, which is far from ideal. We would also like to bring our members from both sides closer together and have some means of interaction beyond private channels. And we have an unique situation; not only can an RRF character who is KDF-allied not even team with another RRF character if that one is Fed-allied, but we're forced into this artificial division by the unwillingness (not inability) of the Devs to give us a full faction in the first place. There are several other considerations involved, but you can read them for yourself in the thread I linked.

I see, I wasn't thinking in Romulan exclusive terms here because cross-faction Armada would also make sense and benefit "regular" fleets. I know there are Romulan RP fleets out there (I was looking for one for my Garidian but the RP ones would probably not acknowledge my non-canon character background so I ended up in a default open for all casual fleet) but unfortunately I think we'll never see a "promotion" of Romulans over the current state of merely being a cross-faction character choice. In-lore it is actually quite shameful that Romulans will without a second thought fight amongst themselves over the "allegiance" one chose but as far as the game is concerned there are only Red and Blue players.

The faction debate is as old as STO is, last info I recognized was a very, very definite stance that STO will never, ever get a third faction. Maybe we'll see a kind of STO II one day which will rectify a lot of the mistakes the original game made...

protogoth · July 2015

Yes! But only if all fleets involved in an Armada have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank.

angrytarg wrote: »

last info I recognized was a very, very definite stance that STO will never, ever get a third faction.

Devs have said no to things in the past and we later got them anyway. It's not impossible; it would require a lot of work, but it's not impossible. I've presented a number of ways to facilitate it; this is another, but even if they're not willing to do all that work, at least this would ameliorate the RRF situation to some extent and give us more of a sense of being an actual faction.

sennahcherib · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

yes, of course yes.

duncanidaho11 · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

Yes and here are the reasons why.

1. Practicality. You only limit the field of candidates for any given armada by splitting the population. Nothing is gained.
2. Story telling. We are all allied now.
3. Story telling (again.) Even from the point of view of a new player contributing to an enemy faction's starbase can simply be viewed as politics.

tehbubbaloo · July 2015

No! Separatism all the way!

no. i strongly believe that you dont deserve to level a starbase in a faction you dont even play.
want a t5 kdf starbase? log in and play kdf. its that simple.

duncanidaho11 · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

repetitiveepic wrote: »

No, no, a thousand times no.

They've done far too much to erase diversity of play and experience in this game.

This far, no further.

It's not meant to be "welcome to space. You are a space captain, choose anything you like, it's all the same."

It's supposed to be Star Trek.

That's total TRIBBLE. You don't loose diversity just by having FED characters supply dilithium to a KDF starbase. They don't get KDF content. They just share resources.

How can mutual cooperation be against the principles of TRIBBLE Star Trek?

protogoth · July 2015

Yes! But only if all fleets involved in an Armada have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank.

tehbubbaloo wrote: »

no. i strongly believe that you dont deserve to level a starbase in a faction you dont even play.
want a t5 kdf starbase? log in and play kdf. its that simple.

Stop assuming that people don't actually play on both sides. We do. You do as well, or at least you have a Fed-side fleet which you were hawking along with your KDF-side fleet in the thread about lining up for armada alliances. Yeah, they're both T5 Starbases. That's not relevant. Apparently even in your own experience there are other people who actually play on both sides. THE WHOLE POINT OF THE ARMADA SYSTEM is to help other fleets, not to insulate elite fleets.

duncanidaho11 · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

tehbubbaloo wrote: »

no. i strongly believe that you dont deserve to level a starbase in a faction you dont even play.
want a t5 kdf starbase? log in and play kdf. its that simple.

Which is an attitude that you can apply reflexively to anything you didn't "earn".

Take weapons. No, you can't have mutually provisioned Mk XII fleet weapons. Go grind Starbase 24 until you've "earned" them! No, you can't have a XII tactical console from a shared fleet spire. Go infuse alien artifacts until you get yours the "right" way!

Basically what you have there is a tautology, no one should have anything unless they have it. It means NOTHING to how the game might be better designed.

tehbubbaloo · July 2015

No! Separatism all the way!

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

That's total TRIBBLE. You don't loose diversity just by having FED characters supply dilithium to a KDF starbase. They don't get KDF content. They just share resources.

How can mutual cooperation be against the principles of TRIBBLE Star Trek?

a t5 kdf starbase is the very essence of kdf content. its the fruit of an active kdf fleet

tehbubbaloo · July 2015

No! Separatism all the way!

protogoth wrote: »

Stop assuming that people don't actually play on both sides. We do. You do as well, or at least you have a Fed-side fleet which you were hawking along with your KDF-side fleet in the thread about lining up for armada alliances. Yeah, they're both T5 Starbases. That's not relevant. Apparently even in your own experience there are other people who actually play on both sides. THE WHOLE POINT OF THE ARMADA SYSTEM is to help other fleets, not to insulate elite fleets.

the difference is that i am willing to login fedside and do what i need to do to get the fleet to progress, even though i dont enjoy fed. what im not doing is demanding some sort of mechanism that will allow me a t5 fed starbase without logging in fed-side.

protogoth · July 2015

Yes! But only if all fleets involved in an Armada have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank.

tehbubbaloo wrote: »

protogoth wrote: »

Stop assuming that people don't actually play on both sides. We do. You do as well, or at least you have a Fed-side fleet which you were hawking along with your KDF-side fleet in the thread about lining up for armada alliances. Yeah, they're both T5 Starbases. That's not relevant. Apparently even in your own experience there are other people who actually play on both sides. THE WHOLE POINT OF THE ARMADA SYSTEM is to help other fleets, not to insulate elite fleets.

the difference is that i am willing to login fedside and do what i need to do to get the fleet to progress, even though i dont enjoy fed. what im not doing is demanding some sort of mechanism that will allow me a t5 fed strbase without logging in fed-side.

Are you accusing me of that? Best reevaluate things before you continue down this path.

I now suspect:
Your issue isn't so much hysterical panic as it is the desire to maintain your elite status by keeping others down as much as possible. You don't want the competition. You don't want other fleets to share in the limelight of Fleet Eliteness.

duncanidaho11 · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

tehbubbaloo wrote: »

a t5 kdf starbase is the very essence of kdf content.

Under no circumstances is that true and let me illustrate that for you with a very simple point.

How does a T5 KDF starbase factor into the KDF story arc?

It doesn't, its just something you can earn on the side with a lot of shared effort. In no way is it required or even made (through definite development decisions) to be a significant focus of the game at any level. Its just nice to have, and its a shame right now that because of the relatively low population of the KDF faction that not all that many people have access to one (without the NoP help channel.)

Armadas are almost explicitly designed to help overcome that problem but only by dealing with it at the level of big fleets and small fleets. There's still the higher-order population bias, which will still make KDF starbases arbitrarily more difficult to level even with this new system. Cross-faction armadas would easily eliminate that (while providing FED fleets with more potential armada candidates), thus making the game work better.

protogoth · July 2015

Yes! But only if all fleets involved in an Armada have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank.

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

Its just nice to have, and its a shame right now that because of the relatively low population of the KDF faction that not all that many people have access to one (without the NoP help channel.)

Could be also that one of the reasons few fleets KDF-side have a T5 starbase is precisely because of those "Free T5 Starbase access for all!" things ...

tehbubbaloo · July 2015

No! Separatism all the way!

protogoth wrote: »

Are you accusing me of that? Best reevaluate things before you continue down this path.

I now suspect:
Your issue isn't so much hysterical panic as it is the desire to maintain your elite status by keeping others down as much as possible. You don't want the competition. You don't want other fleets to share in the limelight of Fleet Eliteness.

youre accusing me of that?
for two years i have been inviting members of small fleets to t5 holdings and giving them free fleet ship access. i do this for the good of the faction. i do this to keep small fleets viable, rather than poaching all their members and trying to operate some sort multi-fleet fiefdom. lots of people will talk about how helping smaller fleets is such a noble duty, yet i am one of the few people that has actually gone out of my way to do much about it.

chipg7 · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

tehbubbaloo wrote: »

the difference is that i am willing to login fedside and do what i need to do to get the fleet to progress, even though i dont enjoy fed. what im not doing is demanding some sort of mechanism that will allow me a t5 fed starbase without logging in fed-side.

I have no idea how cross-faction equipment would work.

My thinking is more that, for fleets with separare KDF and Fed wings (be they big open fleets, cross-faction gaming networks, Romulan fleets, or whatever), being able to at least be connected under the same armada banner would be nice.

[Deleted User] · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

chipg7 wrote: »

I have no idea how cross-faction equipment would work.

My thinking is more that, for fleets with separare KDF and Fed wings (be they big open fleets, cross-faction gaming networks, Romulan fleets, or whatever), being able to at least be connected under the same armada banner would be nice.

My Fed fleet Strike Team Alpha already does cross-faction partnerships unofficially: we share membership and a private chat channel with House of Tlhap-Jen (KDF), Gar'fon's Renegades (Fed), Vice Squad (Fed), and I think Vice Squad has a KDF counterpart called House of Vice, and STA just started its own KDF counterpart fleet, House of Alphas, that I moved both my KDF toons to from Tlhap-Jen.

So guess what, tehbubbaloo? Multifaction fleet networks are already a thing. Cross-faction armadas would just give us an extra feature to use. My Feds and Fed Rom in Strike Team Alpha have all kinds of stuff they could donate to House of Alphas to help the currently T1 fleet make rent, stuff I can barely use in STA because we've got 400-some-odd members all competing to earn fleet credits.

What are you afraid is going to happen? It's not like we're asking to put elite fleet disruptors on our Feds.

baddmoonrizin · July 2015

Yes! We're all allied now anyway!

Perhaps Cryptic could make cross-faction Armadas feasible with new holdings designed to accept contributions from all factions. One holding could be a FED-KDF Embassy located on Earth and Qo'nos (contributions build both simultaneously), another could be (finally) a Romulan Starbase. Both maps would be cross-faction, so Armadas could actually meet and interact.

Additionally, if possible, I think it might be a good idea to make the Romulan Embassy, Spire, and Dilithium Mine maps cross-faction as well, while leaving the FED and KDF Starbase maps and equipment faction specific.

protogoth · July 2015

Yes! But only if all fleets involved in an Armada have a single RRF character in the top fleet rank.

tehbubbaloo wrote: »

protogoth wrote: »

Are you accusing me of that? Best reevaluate things before you continue down this path.

I now suspect:
Your issue isn't so much hysterical panic as it is the desire to maintain your elite status by keeping others down as much as possible. You don't want the competition. You don't want other fleets to share in the limelight of Fleet Eliteness.

youre accusing me of that?
for two years i have been inviting members of small fleets to t5 holdings and giving them free fleet ship access. i do this for the good of the faction. i do this to keep small fleets viable, rather than poaching all their members and trying to operate some sort multi-fleet fiefdom. lots of people will talk about how helping smaller fleets is such a noble duty, yet i am one of the few people that has actually gone out of my way to do much about it.

How, exactly, does that help small fleets? It helps members of small fleets, yes (I myself have benefitted from personal friendship with members of maxed-out fleets, not the "Free T5 Starbase access for all!" fleets). But if they don't have to work to help build their own fleets, and can simply go to someone in a maxed-out fleet to get the stuff they want, what incentive do they have to contribute to their own fleet?

virusdancer · July 2015

No! Separatism all the way!

Just because the game has folks allied, doesn't mean it has folks united.

tehbubbaloo · July 2015

No! Separatism all the way!

StarSword-C wrote: »

So guess what, tehbubbaloo? Multifaction fleet networks are already a thing. Cross-faction armadas would just give us an extra feature to use. My Feds and Fed Rom in Strike Team Alpha have all kinds of stuff they could donate to House of Alphas to help the currently T1 fleet make rent, stuff I can barely use in STA because we've got 400-some-odd members all competing to earn fleet credits.

What are you afraid is going to happen? It's not like we're asking to put elite fleet disruptors on our Feds.

obviously cross-faction multifleet networks already exist. beautiful is one in itself. what we arent demanding is the ability to play one faction while nation-building the other.

protogoth wrote: »

How, exactly, does that help small fleets? It helps members of small fleets, yes (I myself have benefitted from personal friendship with members of maxed-out fleets, not the "Free T5 Starbase access for all!" fleets). But if they don't have to work to help build their own fleets, and can simply go to someone in a maxed-out fleet to get the stuff they want, what incentive do they have to contribute to their own fleet?

it helps small fleets by disincentivizing their members from leaving the fleet. small fleet members are able to kit themselves out without needing to abandon the fleet in search of higher tiered holdings. they contribute to their own small fleet in order to generate fleet credit to be spent in higher tiered stores. its a huge win for small fleets.

Should the coming Armada system allow cross-faction groupings of fleets?

Should the coming Armada system allow cross-faction groupings of fleets? 291 votes

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