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Deep Space Serfdom (Armada System)
therumancer23
Member Posts: 53 Arc User
Okay, I doubt anyone important will read this due to the title, but I figured I'd make some comments here.
As a sneering imperialist with delusions of worshipful serfs singing my praises from fear wracked voices, I just have to wonder exactly how this system is going to wind up benefitting us aspiring Space Tyrants out there. I mean the real benefits of assuming the role of a well respected hero like Ming The Merciless or Kim Jong Un is to inflict pain, fear, and terror on people who have no choice in the matter, forcing marriages, taking harems of sex slaves, poisoning the atmosphere of planets for lulz, and of course walking around as a tubby TRIBBLE and eating elaborate meals while partying with celebrities in front of your starving people (who don't need money or food, after all that can all go into buying yourself giant hats and gold braid, or building huge golden thrones and space barges). Being a mere video game the benefits of being in an alpha fleet, or leading one, are minimal, I mean heck joining your budding empire is voluntary for starters? Planet Mongo did not ask for servitude, it demanded!
Given the limitations of the medium I think some adjustments need to be made. As things stand now the big problem with this "humanitarian virtual simulation" is that there is little equity in the relationship. The basic idea is that a large and powerful fleet, presumably one that is maxxed out, will build an umbrella of smaller fleets under them, to which it will give large amounts of resources in exchange for a skill point bonus which will presumably allow the more rapid accumulation of skill points allowing for these well established players to build up their specializations (likely on alts) a little more rapidly. In comparison those lower on the totem pole will be receiving dil discounts, dil having an indirect real world value especially given the cap, taking a decent amount of effort to earn, with alpha fleets largely just getting a luxury boost. Already I see people talking about wanting to link to well known, established, fleets (such as Nerds Of Prey on KDF side) for an influx of resources, which from what I've seen they might be more than willing to provide as they run one of the most awesome helper channels in the game.
The problem as I see things is that the population of the game is limited, and this system will at it's best boost a lot of fleets to top tier, at the expense of the most experienced and dedicated players. People getting stuff without having paid the dues of those same players. What's more as trivial as it is for the current very experienced players, that skill point boost is going to be more valuable to the more casual players whose fleets benefit most from this as well. Once they max out these subordinate fleets will increasingly see little benefit to remaining serfs (
) and thus want to depart to become Alphas themselves, taking all the resources and time invested in them, and depriving those who donated from the benefits.
What's more I'll be honest in saying that the system as it stands now mostly seems to hit it's speed bump in terms of the donation of Doffs in large quantities, and sometimes EC-based commodities than Dil or Fleet Marks. Namely because it can take more work to obtain those as well as having the slots to hold the doffs your donating along with what you use for your own assignments. There is a daily cap, but in the endgame you get handed Dil for breathing it seems as it's awarded for most things, and grinding fleet marks is fairly easy so typically you see people waiting for projects to time out just do they can dump their surplus, even with the reduced-benefit assignments specifically for that. Dil being something that will likely be donated and is valuable due to the refinement cap, but the real work coming down to the donation of other resources which amounts to an investment of time more than anything, time being put into other people's fleets rather than your own personal projects.
Now I wouldn't be much of a prospective member of the godlike ruling class if I didn't also have solutions to these problems. The most effective solution would be to provide rewards to Alpha fleets based on the amount contributed to other fleets. With say the biggest rewards coming from a subordinate fleet in any slot eventually hitting top level under
their supreme leadership. Perhaps with an additional payoff based on overall investment when a fleet leaves, meaning that some fleet with ambitions of leadership itself that pulls off still contributes just by leaving. Of course this needs to be linked to contribution so people won't just game the system by creating fleets to join and leave. As far as rewards go they can vary, perhaps a new "Alpha" star ship made available to fleets who help a few others get going. Sort of like how in the old "Trade Wars 2002" BBS game there was a special flagship just for corporate CEOs. It would be a fleet wide unlock rather than personal but it would inspire people to "generosity", along the way other unlocks like say proper tyrannical apparel, large military hats, gold braided uniforms, and perhaps full monarchs regalia that would make Ming grin... or something a bit more appropriate to this (sighs) benevolent, humanitarian universe. A percentage tax, something like 5% on earned ECs and/or Dil might also be appropriate in general, especially the former as it would help Alpha fleets offset some of what they are presumably going to be investing, as well as the likely time, trouble, and headache of keeping all these fleets together.
One other thing to consider is a mechanism by which Alpha fleets can be empowered to protect their investments. Basically lower ranking fleets being unable to leave once they receive so many resources unless approved by the leadership of an Alpha Fleet. The same could also be applied to requests to leave subordinate fleets, with an officer needing to approve the request, perhaps with a timer allowing it to automatically happen in a few days if nobody stamps the application. This being so that fleets won't "grab and run", or see members quick to abandon a fleet if they don't like overall administrative decisions, politics, or drama which can influence everyone, it might be cruel but given the investment of time and effort it's perhaps politic to lock people into their alliances when there are tangible benefits, having to abandon entire characters, accounts, or the game in general to get out of such an arrangement. Perhaps a system could be implemented where a fleet could however pay off a substantial percentage of what was invested in it to bypass such things however. Basically you don't want to see a fleet leaving the Armada because some ERP drama went bad with the leaders of another fleet or something like that, and as messed up as that sounds, I've seen TRIBBLE like that in many MMOs.
Just some thoughts, sadly I doubt STO will be quick to implement nympheriums, agonization chambers, or RL policies requiring the members of subordinate fleets to wear shock collars (which they would of course pay for themselves) to force compliance to the alphas.... very sad because I've been practicing my evil laugh, it might disturb the neighbors, but it would be nice to have a RL application for it.... and yes, for those who might have been getting excited it means no mass shaving of Catians and Ferasans to stuff matresses and pillows, Gorn egg omelettes, or using live Ferengi as reactor shielding. The Iconians will sadly remain the dominant evil empire, as sad as that might be. I mean they can't even grow properly satanic-looking beards and mustaches.
Disclaimer: In all seriousness I don't run a fleet, and have no idea if mine would be acting as an Alpha to begin with. But hey "The Malevolent Space Tyrant Therumancer" sounds like it would fit right in in a 1950s space drama, not even Captain Proton could stop me with that name.
As a sneering imperialist with delusions of worshipful serfs singing my praises from fear wracked voices, I just have to wonder exactly how this system is going to wind up benefitting us aspiring Space Tyrants out there. I mean the real benefits of assuming the role of a well respected hero like Ming The Merciless or Kim Jong Un is to inflict pain, fear, and terror on people who have no choice in the matter, forcing marriages, taking harems of sex slaves, poisoning the atmosphere of planets for lulz, and of course walking around as a tubby TRIBBLE and eating elaborate meals while partying with celebrities in front of your starving people (who don't need money or food, after all that can all go into buying yourself giant hats and gold braid, or building huge golden thrones and space barges). Being a mere video game the benefits of being in an alpha fleet, or leading one, are minimal, I mean heck joining your budding empire is voluntary for starters? Planet Mongo did not ask for servitude, it demanded!
Given the limitations of the medium I think some adjustments need to be made. As things stand now the big problem with this "humanitarian virtual simulation" is that there is little equity in the relationship. The basic idea is that a large and powerful fleet, presumably one that is maxxed out, will build an umbrella of smaller fleets under them, to which it will give large amounts of resources in exchange for a skill point bonus which will presumably allow the more rapid accumulation of skill points allowing for these well established players to build up their specializations (likely on alts) a little more rapidly. In comparison those lower on the totem pole will be receiving dil discounts, dil having an indirect real world value especially given the cap, taking a decent amount of effort to earn, with alpha fleets largely just getting a luxury boost. Already I see people talking about wanting to link to well known, established, fleets (such as Nerds Of Prey on KDF side) for an influx of resources, which from what I've seen they might be more than willing to provide as they run one of the most awesome helper channels in the game.
The problem as I see things is that the population of the game is limited, and this system will at it's best boost a lot of fleets to top tier, at the expense of the most experienced and dedicated players. People getting stuff without having paid the dues of those same players. What's more as trivial as it is for the current very experienced players, that skill point boost is going to be more valuable to the more casual players whose fleets benefit most from this as well. Once they max out these subordinate fleets will increasingly see little benefit to remaining serfs (
) and thus want to depart to become Alphas themselves, taking all the resources and time invested in them, and depriving those who donated from the benefits.What's more I'll be honest in saying that the system as it stands now mostly seems to hit it's speed bump in terms of the donation of Doffs in large quantities, and sometimes EC-based commodities than Dil or Fleet Marks. Namely because it can take more work to obtain those as well as having the slots to hold the doffs your donating along with what you use for your own assignments. There is a daily cap, but in the endgame you get handed Dil for breathing it seems as it's awarded for most things, and grinding fleet marks is fairly easy so typically you see people waiting for projects to time out just do they can dump their surplus, even with the reduced-benefit assignments specifically for that. Dil being something that will likely be donated and is valuable due to the refinement cap, but the real work coming down to the donation of other resources which amounts to an investment of time more than anything, time being put into other people's fleets rather than your own personal projects.
Now I wouldn't be much of a prospective member of the godlike ruling class if I didn't also have solutions to these problems. The most effective solution would be to provide rewards to Alpha fleets based on the amount contributed to other fleets. With say the biggest rewards coming from a subordinate fleet in any slot eventually hitting top level under
their supreme leadership. Perhaps with an additional payoff based on overall investment when a fleet leaves, meaning that some fleet with ambitions of leadership itself that pulls off still contributes just by leaving. Of course this needs to be linked to contribution so people won't just game the system by creating fleets to join and leave. As far as rewards go they can vary, perhaps a new "Alpha" star ship made available to fleets who help a few others get going. Sort of like how in the old "Trade Wars 2002" BBS game there was a special flagship just for corporate CEOs. It would be a fleet wide unlock rather than personal but it would inspire people to "generosity", along the way other unlocks like say proper tyrannical apparel, large military hats, gold braided uniforms, and perhaps full monarchs regalia that would make Ming grin... or something a bit more appropriate to this (sighs) benevolent, humanitarian universe. A percentage tax, something like 5% on earned ECs and/or Dil might also be appropriate in general, especially the former as it would help Alpha fleets offset some of what they are presumably going to be investing, as well as the likely time, trouble, and headache of keeping all these fleets together.
One other thing to consider is a mechanism by which Alpha fleets can be empowered to protect their investments. Basically lower ranking fleets being unable to leave once they receive so many resources unless approved by the leadership of an Alpha Fleet. The same could also be applied to requests to leave subordinate fleets, with an officer needing to approve the request, perhaps with a timer allowing it to automatically happen in a few days if nobody stamps the application. This being so that fleets won't "grab and run", or see members quick to abandon a fleet if they don't like overall administrative decisions, politics, or drama which can influence everyone, it might be cruel but given the investment of time and effort it's perhaps politic to lock people into their alliances when there are tangible benefits, having to abandon entire characters, accounts, or the game in general to get out of such an arrangement. Perhaps a system could be implemented where a fleet could however pay off a substantial percentage of what was invested in it to bypass such things however. Basically you don't want to see a fleet leaving the Armada because some ERP drama went bad with the leaders of another fleet or something like that, and as messed up as that sounds, I've seen TRIBBLE like that in many MMOs.
Just some thoughts, sadly I doubt STO will be quick to implement nympheriums, agonization chambers, or RL policies requiring the members of subordinate fleets to wear shock collars (which they would of course pay for themselves) to force compliance to the alphas.... very sad because I've been practicing my evil laugh, it might disturb the neighbors, but it would be nice to have a RL application for it.... and yes, for those who might have been getting excited it means no mass shaving of Catians and Ferasans to stuff matresses and pillows, Gorn egg omelettes, or using live Ferengi as reactor shielding. The Iconians will sadly remain the dominant evil empire, as sad as that might be. I mean they can't even grow properly satanic-looking beards and mustaches.
Disclaimer: In all seriousness I don't run a fleet, and have no idea if mine would be acting as an Alpha to begin with. But hey "The Malevolent Space Tyrant Therumancer" sounds like it would fit right in in a 1950s space drama, not even Captain Proton could stop me with that name.
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Comments
Fleet leaders will need to use their brains when deciding to join an Armada, a simple cost benefit analysis will help determine if it will be worth it in the long run. As a fleet leader of a T5 max holding fleet, the advantage for myself and my fleetmates is the access to open projects in smaller fleets, we want those sweet, sweet fleet credits. To gain access to those projects means a smaller fleet can use our provisions, that is fine with us, we already give them away free, no questions asked. If we help a fleet get to T5, we do not give a flip if they leave to start their own Armada, those fleets who wish to stay in our Armada are going to be long term friends, not just a exchange of resources.
Now, you mention cracking the whip, Orion Slave traders, etc. I can tell you this now, I will not join up with a smaller fleet if their own fleet goals are obtainable, for example, a fleet of 2 ppl with a T1 is not going to be carried by us. I meet up with a small fleet that has clear goals in mind, and just needs some help, we will be there.
Donations, (i.e. Doffs, Dil, FMs, etc). I cannot fathom the ability not to acquire these items in large quantities. Players are under selling Uncommon, Rare, and VR doffs all the time, all it takes is a bit of grinding down the doffs and you will have hundreds, if not thousands (depends on how many toons, and doff roster space) of doffs ready to donate. My fleet has been stocking fleet marks for since we completed T5, because we had a strong hunch that a new holding is coming out. My ten toon alone have over 500k in Fleet Marks ready for donation.
It takes work, and planning to level a fleet. My fleet has five people, we have earn donation tallies into the millions. We move a couple of our alts around helping fleets, and you know what we see? Fleet leaders with ZERO donations, Dil heavy projects with a T zero dil mine, and my personal favorite, fleets with 200 members, but they average 20k in donations, but TRIBBLE in the fleet chat they can't buy anything from the fleet store.
Fleets that are already recruiting, these are mega fleets, they already have hundreds, if not a thousand members spread over 3 or 4 fleets, that are maxed. The fleet leaders in these fleets are doing something right to keep that many players happy, and proud to be in that fleet. They will have no issues running a Armada, they have kind of being doing it for years.
I like my small fleet, we like helping other fleets, but we are not going to jump into this whole Armada business with our eyes closed just because it is new. We are going to use the same level headed thinking that got us here now. Your ERP drama comment, I know we will push very hard to stay away from it.
Rant, off
In large fleets projects are filled so quickly on resources like fleet marks, meaning many players (myself included) have a huge surplus of marks which we cant turn into fleet credits. Smaller fleets have trouble filling these projects. If done right itll be win-win.
If done right (and thats the key phrase here) the fleet credits we earn by donating to smaller fleets will be incredibly useful. Its not as if we're donating with no reward.
And I dont think smaller fleets should have to pay a tax - that would negate any incentive to join. I reckon youre right about large fleets needing to be careful about protecting investments though.
Then please fill out my dissertation survey on feline attachment, it'd be a massive help (-:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/87XKSGH
I'm one of those weird people who like walls of text.
This is very valuable feedback. The Armada system should come with a Police State option that allows you to tax individual members so whenever they play, a portion of everything they earn is leeched off and goes to your own characters regardless of whether or not you're playing. If the players opt out of the Police State mechanic, they should be killed and reduced to level 1 and start the game over again. All their belongings subsequently become property of the Alpha Fleet and can't be reclaimed even if the fleet members get back to level 50/60.
If you feed a horse enough oats, some of them will fall down for the sparrows. Trickle Down economics is a flawless method of employing the Beta and Gamma fleets under the leadership of the Alpha fleet. But, there most definitely needs to be more control in the hands of the Alpha Fleet so they can more effectively flaunt their elite status and rub others noses in it at will with no repercussions to themselves.
I agree entirely. This is why Tier 5 Alpha Fleets who choose to allow lazy fleets to mooch off of them should have all of their earnings taken away and forced back to square one with level 0 in every holding and fleet base. Alpha Fleets simply need to get it through their head that they can not be generous and give the filthy beggars in STO a helping hand. By punishing Alpha Fleets by taking away their progress they've already earned months or years ago, you send a very powerful message that nobody gets a free ride. People who have already gotten to T5 are clearly unworthy of holding onto their accomplishments if they are so whimsically willing to offer assistance to less fortunate fleets. Even though they already have everything and receive a tiny luxury benefit, there should also come a very punishing cost for recklessly assisting other fleets and giving them benefits.
This way, only the top T5 fleets in the game will refuse to participate in the Armada system as they are the only ones who know how success really works. If lesser fleets want to get to their level, they simply need to acquire their courageous aspect and peerless STO playing ability. If they can do it, anyone can do it!
You have to have skin in the game. If you want your fleet to progress, you need to get a job and spend a bunch of zen on doff packs for your fleet. Fleets unwilling to fork over part of their RL paycheck for fleet progression are simply unworthy of that progression!
All good ideas. However, there should also be early termination fees, enforcable contracts, and the ability to repo a fleet's progression if they have not given you the respect you so rightly deserve as an STO despot, or if you think they are not working hard enough. If they fail to meet your demands, you simply get to take away their fleet XP and holdings and liquidate it for your own fleet's benefit.
If they want to appeal, they should similarly be willing to fork over at least a non-refundable dilithium fee. This will separate the hustlers and scam artists from the real STO players.
Also a great idea. There should be performance reviews and Alpha coaching. If someone does not ERP good enough, they should be fired and a portion of their earnings returned to the fleet. If someone starts drama, they should be able to have a probationary tax levy inflicted upon them that will exist for as long as the Alpha fleet desires. Alpha fleets are naturally the ones with the best judgement calls so their decision making on who meets their expectations should be respected game-wide. Even if that fleet or person in that fleet leaves the Armada, they must continue to make payments on the investments you put into them.
Alpha fleets should be given permission to use shock collars and override systems on other fleets and their members. Instead of using "Fleet Support" someone in the Alpha fleet should be given the ability to pluck any Beta or Gamma fleet member from whatever they were currently doing in game and force them to help you -- with all benefits of said help going directly to you. The fleet member who was summoned will then be judged afterwards on his build, DPS, and playstyle. If summoning a Fleet Member ends with your disappointment in their gameplay performance, then it would be time to consider another performance review. This ensures a steady and reliable quality of players in your armada. Players who fail to perform to the Alpha Fleet's expectations will simply be fined or given a heavy penalty tax for squandering investments put into them and their fleet.
As leaders, you are entitled to have Beta and Gamma Fleets truly serving you in whatever manner you deem fit. You are the dominant fleet and you set the rules other fleets must function by.
In all seriousness, I do run a fleet. But both your ideas and mine are horrible, but very amusing.
Well, all exaggeration and satire aside (even in my solutions) I'll be brutally honest, this isn't a new idea. A couple of other MMOs have tried similar things over the years a few different MMOS have come up with the idea of formal guild alliances and vassalage systems like what's mentioned here, as a way of formalizing an arrangement between multiple guilds oftentimes with an eye towards common holdings. This is to say nothing of games like World Of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies that had such things going on without any kind of formal system declaring them. While a bit different both "Elder Scrolls Online" and "Guild Wars 2" are experimenting with odd systems where people can belong
to more than one guild simultaneously. My experience in things like Star Wars Galaxies where you'd see multiple guilds sometimes working together to develop cities and things like that is that at the end of the day there is always going to be drama and management disputes, and like it or not the in-game mechanisms including voting systems just never really panned out, as a result the most successful cities were ultimately those run and understood to be administrated by ONE particular group of people, even if they allowed players from outside the guild to build there. In other situations such as where you'd have multiple guilds cooperating for raids and PVP in other games, drama always starts to unfold. Believe it or not this is one of the reasons why I MMO in a fairly anti-social fashion right now, I mean I joke around a bit, but I'm pretty quiet and mostly play alone. I'm simply tired of MMO Drama, I might get involved in some bigger time stuff in some game some day, but ever after years I'm a bit frayed. That said I have a good amount of experience to go on.
The way I see it is that the promise of fleet credits isn't going to work too well, simply because those dreaming of being able to dump tens or hundreds of thousands of fleet marks are probably going to be disappointed since I'd imagine that's something most players are going to accumulate, much like surplus Dil if you've finished all your upgrading and stuff, people have that. White Doffs are obtainable but take work, and of course commodities usually need to be bought with ECs which comes from selling salvage. Those are the commodities people will likely need help with the most. Sure, a lot of people might help out in general, but charity has it's limits and I'm not sure if the entire system can function based entirely on that. This seems to be why Cryptic decided the Alpha fleet will get a skill bonus, which seems to be dependent on the number of Beta and Gamma fleets under them, or at least that's my understanding from reading it. That's not much of a reward to begin with mind you, but it's dependent on the other fleets remaining involved.
Even with fleet leaders being able to control donations somewhat I can also just see in my mind the fights over who donated to what over FC. Worse yet, it seems inevitable that even the most generous will find themselves in a position where they are donating to two fleets. At some point a big donation is made to one, and others hanging out with him feel betrayed, especially if they feel there was an implicit promise somehow to help fill a project for them first. If your sitting there for hours going through alts to farm common Doffs for donation, which is going to be exhausting to begin with, throwing this drama on top of it is going to be a headache. Not to mention that if either fleet leaves with them goes not only the resources you donated, but a portion of your skill bonus.
All joking aside, and yes a lot of my ideas were terrible (intentionally) the point is that I think more thought needs to be put into this before it's ready for prime time. Not to mention that I'm not sure how big the player base is to begin with, but I'd imagine STO's base isn't huge so I'm not sure how well this will work for the long term. I mean eventually you'll wind up with tons more maxxed fleets, and then what?
In all seriousness, I think the devs need to put some thought into the administration systems, and how to make it fair to everyone involved without resorting to comic-book tyranny.
Some people probably just don't see it this way, and of course I could be overreacting, I'm just of the opinion in general that multi-guild (or in this case fleet) alliances tend to turn into headache inducing nightmares especially when stuff is involved. Perhaps some kind of metacontext to the entire thing could help, such as say Armada-wide projects and such that benefit everyone involved. I guess my big concern is that as simple and well intentioned as it seems, I seriously fear what affect this is going to have on the game, I'll weather it any way it goes, I'm heavily invested in STO (which is why I bother to write long posts like this).
Hate to cherry pick but seems to be a large part of the basis of some of your complaints.
So could you cite examples of how this would happen?
Curious what you think of as paying the dues?