test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Influence system
anazonda
Member Posts: 8,399 Arc User
Stupid idea (and kinda a wall of text - No TLDR; possible) upcoming:
So... We are entering a period of peace and quiet... Cool stuff. We need to rebuild, and we need to work together... Even cooler.
Now... We have quite a few factions in-game... (counting technical stand-alone factions... allied or not, hence why the Orions, who are technically just strongly allied with, and not annexed by the KDF are listed, but I would not mind seeing the nausicans ).
Federation
Romulans
Klingons
Ferengi
Cardassians
Mirrors
Orions
Benthans
Breen
And so on...
What if we, could have a meter for each notable faction, going from -100 to +100.
So depending on what you do, you gain a reasonable amount of influence with a certain faction a small amount of influence with their allies and negative influence with their direct opposed factions.
Next up, based on your influence level, with a given faction, you get access certain resources for EC/Dil/Latinum (depending on the factions preference and/or rarity of the items)
Ok, I am a federation captain and let's say, I have a certain amount of contraband in my inventory, and I don't really want the dilithium I can get from the security officer... Instead of letting it take up space in my inventory, I fly to the orion system, and deliver them there. Or... perhaps I deliver a shipment of MK 2 Disruptor cannons to help them rebuild their armada.
Could also be that I beat a deep-space encounter with a faction that the Orions aren't too fond of (rouges or whatever).
Basically anything we have in the current game, and a few new ones.
For this, I get maybe +1.5 point, with the Orions and +0.5 point with the Klingons, but I get -0.5 with the federation (because I let contraband slip away.
Once I hit 10 points with a given faction, I am granted access to for example certain simple items that relates to that faction, say, for example special clothes and things like that... Once I hit 50, I get a little more special items like Orion Vixen pheromones as a consumable, and finally at 100 a Unique type of Orion fighter for my carrier with 50 or so uses (basically all at 100 should somehow be consumable... the reason why is in the next paragraph).
Now... Yes... I have gained that influence, but over time, if not maintained, it will reduce gradually over time and eventually, if I don't do anything to offend them will simply balance out at 0, losing access to those items I've gained access to.
Now... if you've offended a faction, and you happen to fly through a sector where that faction is dominant, you risk being attacked. The negative value would effect the chance of you being attacked as well as what type of ship you encounter in this attack.
This may add a certain level of depth to the missions you can pick up, add EC/Latinum/Dil sinks and reduce the amount of vendor trash and finally give us something to do with all of this.
It would add depth to sector space, as you will need to consider the risk/reward of taking the direct route to your destination.
It would also fit perfectly into the whole "Rebuild and recover" model, as you chose who you personally think should benefit from your hard work.
It can be monetized by adding boosters and the obvious Dil-sink (You should love this one Druk).
Ask away... I may have forgotten some details...
What do you think?
So... We are entering a period of peace and quiet... Cool stuff. We need to rebuild, and we need to work together... Even cooler.
Now... We have quite a few factions in-game... (counting technical stand-alone factions... allied or not, hence why the Orions, who are technically just strongly allied with, and not annexed by the KDF are listed, but I would not mind seeing the nausicans ).
Federation
Romulans
Klingons
Ferengi
Cardassians
Mirrors
Orions
Benthans
Breen
And so on...
What if we, could have a meter for each notable faction, going from -100 to +100.
So depending on what you do, you gain a reasonable amount of influence with a certain faction a small amount of influence with their allies and negative influence with their direct opposed factions.
Next up, based on your influence level, with a given faction, you get access certain resources for EC/Dil/Latinum (depending on the factions preference and/or rarity of the items)
Ok, I am a federation captain and let's say, I have a certain amount of contraband in my inventory, and I don't really want the dilithium I can get from the security officer... Instead of letting it take up space in my inventory, I fly to the orion system, and deliver them there. Or... perhaps I deliver a shipment of MK 2 Disruptor cannons to help them rebuild their armada.
Could also be that I beat a deep-space encounter with a faction that the Orions aren't too fond of (rouges or whatever).
Basically anything we have in the current game, and a few new ones.
For this, I get maybe +1.5 point, with the Orions and +0.5 point with the Klingons, but I get -0.5 with the federation (because I let contraband slip away.
Once I hit 10 points with a given faction, I am granted access to for example certain simple items that relates to that faction, say, for example special clothes and things like that... Once I hit 50, I get a little more special items like Orion Vixen pheromones as a consumable, and finally at 100 a Unique type of Orion fighter for my carrier with 50 or so uses (basically all at 100 should somehow be consumable... the reason why is in the next paragraph).
Now... Yes... I have gained that influence, but over time, if not maintained, it will reduce gradually over time and eventually, if I don't do anything to offend them will simply balance out at 0, losing access to those items I've gained access to.
Now... if you've offended a faction, and you happen to fly through a sector where that faction is dominant, you risk being attacked. The negative value would effect the chance of you being attacked as well as what type of ship you encounter in this attack.
This may add a certain level of depth to the missions you can pick up, add EC/Latinum/Dil sinks and reduce the amount of vendor trash and finally give us something to do with all of this.
It would add depth to sector space, as you will need to consider the risk/reward of taking the direct route to your destination.
It would also fit perfectly into the whole "Rebuild and recover" model, as you chose who you personally think should benefit from your hard work.
It can be monetized by adding boosters and the obvious Dil-sink (You should love this one Druk).
Ask away... I may have forgotten some details...
What do you think?
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Like Duty Officers? Support effords to gather ideaspwebranflakes wrote: »Let me put the rumors to rest: it's definitely still the C-Store (Cryptic Store) It just takes ZEN.
0
Comments
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Inspired by... I will admit that... But I tend to think of it more like the similar rep system in Darkstar One where you can't just sneak by and still dock, but are attacked on sight, when entering a given system.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Ideally, provided the developers are creative enough, they could add any species to the system, or even have a "Major faction" and "Minor faction" system, that grants access to different subgroup of things / Expenses... Minor factions could for example accept things like reputation marks for consumables.
I think my primary goal here, is to finally address the emptiness / uselessness of sector space, as well as add sinks for items and currencies we have in game, while adding a certain choice of consequence factor to the game.
well, that's how it works in freelancer too; you can't dock with any station, warship or planet belonging to a faction you're hostile towards, and if you enter a system that's primarily controlled by someone you've pissed off via an 'official' route, you're going to get fired on by everything near the jumpgate at the time of entering the system - including the jumpgate itself
(as an aside, i had darkstar one at one time, but i never actually got to play it; my copy was bugged because i was never able to leave the starting system, so i had to get rid of it - now it would probably be impossible to find a cheap copy of it anywhere)
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I will take your word for it... Havn't played Freelancer since before STO was released.
Then obviously, certain details would need to be adjusted, to not be a ripoff...
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Try to look into "The next generation" mod... I've completed the campaign with that one... Not as visually refined, and no mission beyond the official campaign, but very enjoyable.
So basically a more complex reputation system. I mean, in the reputation system you give a "faction" stuff and they reward you with access to gear.
So it seems you want to expand this with maintenance, negative reputation, and having reputation be effected by more than simply donating marks and vendor trash.
That... seems like more work than Cryptic is looking to do in order to alter a grind that Cryptic already seems pretty happy with, and it also seems like something Cryptic would mess up and eventually abandon. I mean, adding reputation increases and decreases to in-game actions not associated with the rep stores? Remember when we were going to get Commendation XP for stuff done in missions, and DOffing Commendations were going to be included more in game (like the Diplomacy dialogue options)? Remember when they were going to flesh out the DOff rewards to bring the other categories up to speed with Diplomacy/Marauding? Remember how they've done, uh, basically none of that and have actually made several of the Diplomacy/Marauding rewards worthless, and how one of the major rewards for it released broken and was never, ever fixed?
I don't think Cryptic is looking to expand nor improve old systems. When was the last time something new was added to the actual DOffing system? Forget the rewards for gaining Commendation levels, I mean... when was the last time we saw a new DOffing chain to run? How about a new DOff mission even? They released some with the Delta quadrant... or did they? Because not really when you stop and think about it. They weren't new missions, but old missions that were literally copy/pasted with just the names changed... as you can see due to the whole "12 Hour DOff Mission" fiasco.
They don't seem to want to develop new things, just spam stuff around based on old templates. They add more reps copy/pasted from old reps. And the rep projects and rep stores seem pretty copy pasted from the Fleet projects and Fleet Stores. They're adding Admiralty which seems to have a lot of copy/paste from the DOff system.
STO is pretty ROI-focused. Developing new stuff is work and resource intensive. Why do that when you can reuse what you have to create something "newish" then use the time and effort that wasn't spent making something innovative on creating a new lockbox?
Also...
...DSE 2.0? Really? 0_o ... What's next, bring back "Badgey"?
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
First off... Who is Badgey?
But no... I am not talking about the reputation system or even a variant of it... The reputation system is a one way system that eventually runs out of options.
This system is expandable and flexible, dosen't produce static rewards and can be adjusted to fit whatever changes the game receives... It can even be used as a method of leveling while you are at low level, and this will always be flowing with the current state of the game.
And while yes, you could argue that the negative impact returns a sort of "Return of the DSE's", we aren't talking a full fleet attacking you, that others can join at will, but single instances, adapted to YOU and your current level, and would be much simpler to avoid, simply because the operational influence of your enemies would be confined to the main area of the factions you've pissed off... So only around 25 - 30% of the map would be a risk area, where the entire sector space would be a risk area before they were removed.
On a side note: I completely agree on the whole "Cryptic does the copy-paste-jobs"... But one can hope, right?
http://www.starfyrestudios.com/
Almost makes you miss google+ xD
You don't remember Badgey, the STO version of MS Word's Clippy? At launch, and for quite a while afterward, there were these "help tooltip" popups that triggered with a badge on them. They got nicknamed Badgey after Clippy from Word. They popped up when you walked close to just about any service or vendor in ESD. There was no way to turn them off. They showed up even if you were at level cap and had seen them 10,000 times already. It was... beyond intrusive.
Which is nice. I'd like to see systems that can grow as the game does. We actually have systems like that. DOffing was supposed to be like that. That's desirable to us, while the static nature of the rep system seems desirable to the devs.
Continued investment into a system, it's something I think we'd all want but something Cryptic doesn't seem to do. I mean, I'd be thrilled to see some proper DOffing expansions. New trees. New commendations. New rewards. New commendation levels. But... I don't think that's going to happen. Something tells me that if anything is done to the DOffing system, it won't be an expansion or an addition... it'll be a revamp, likely one that won't work in the players' favor and lets them put more stuff in lockboxes.
Cryptic seems obsessed with the idea of delivering "new" things. Stuff they don't have to add to, that is based on an older template so it requires much less work, but which they can drop on us fresh, essentially forcing everyone to restart their grind.
The entire game is based on this at this point. Insert materials, wait out a timer, get rewards plus tiered progression with multiple different "areas" to advance through, with progress in one not affecting the others in any substantial way. Fleets do this. Reputation does this. DOffing does this. Crafting does this. Admiralty will do this.
Your system doesn't fit the mold sadly.
Thing is, I don't think the major objection to the DSEs were that they were hard to avoid, but instead that people couldn't AFK their way to their goals. A lot of people use sector space as a bathroom break, or as time to alt-tab and check social media. Anything that impedes progress while off to the loo is probably going to strike a nerve with some people.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator
"bIghojchugh DaneH, Dumev pagh. bIghojqangbe'chugh, DuQaHlaH pagh."
"Learn lots. Don't judge. Laugh for no reason. Be nice. Seek happiness." ~Day[9]
"Your fun isn't wrong." ~LaughingTrendy
Find me on Twitterverse - @jodarkrider
The big thing (and time consuming part) is:
What are the rewards?
I'd like rewards to be stable supplies of higher quality BOffs for dilithium, improved vendor prices, and some cosmetics.
free jkname
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
This is probably going to be the one great "economic" drawback for Cryptic.
For each faction, they would need be a reward tree, where certain items can only obtained by being on good terms with the faction, hence cutting you off from the gear (Lets say the ferengi Snail snack). Other items could be allowed across the board (like Phasers)...
But it would take some time to build... And plan.
You need to think beyond the initial "zomg... Tey are takingz myz stuffz" reaction you are having here... No one is trying to take your half-naked orion from you...
What I gave above was an example that moves beyond the current items. If some digital clothes mean that much to you, replace the world "clothes" with something else that seems less saddening to you.
Also, these items would have the same accessability levels for the feds as they would for the KDF (except, KDF's would have a basic "constant positive rep", as they are allied with the Orions, to use my example above).
And it will work both ways... After all, it would make very little sense to allow this for the federation, and not for the KDF or Romulans, and the rewards would to some degree have to be unique to the Influence system.
Unfortunately, I don't see that as workable in the game as it stands. You would need mission content that leverages Influence to make the system meaningful and I don't see that happening across all of the existing content. Without branching objectives, there's no if-then-else logic in the mission that gives you a real choice to increase influence positively or negatively. All of the post-introductory content Cryptic has given us to this point involves a relentless drive toward a single outcome regardless of faction, race, or career. At best, they fiddle with the dialog a bit and bypass some minor combat encounters. There's no overall mechanism in place to substantially change any NPC's reaction to you on the basis of any prior encounters.
I would love to see that, mind you. I just don't see them going in that direction.
oh, really? well, maybe i'll pick up a copy from GOG, try it again and hope i don't get a broken copy this time
just wish i could get other old games that i used to enjoy off there as well; like armada, bridge commander, starfleet command, stuff like that
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I know... It's running very smoothly on Windows 7 and 10