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..........but doesnt one clan non-stop recruiting and owning all the ops kill the game slightly?
I mean when i started 3 months ago twas fun something new :) but now u log on i just think ffs where the crap do u pk when most of the map is anti? I know u gonna say go Pro and yes that is the obvious answer But surley there must be some balance to the game else noobs like me aint gonna last long because of the boredom. I probably will end up going Pro wiv most of me chars if i stay but this isnt the answer, Surley the leaders of the clan should beable to c that world domination wiv 100s of members isnt the way forward :confused: Or maybe for the egos invovled it is o_O
Sadly its true, but what can be done about it if you whack down a clan size limit you just get the clan splitting up into multiple clans of smaller size, n00bs and people see the map and just end up going anti city to get around the restrictions it implies. and with the way the patchs keep throwing it in favour of DoY its more likely to get worse before it gets better.
thats why you make alliances..
Joint Strike Force can outnumber and possibly thereby gain an advantage over a possibly more skilled but smaller clan.
Taking an op is easy... holding it, takes manhours.
thats why you make alliances..
Joint Strike Force can outnumber and possibly thereby gain an advantage over a possibly more skilled but smaller clan.
Taking an op is easy... holding it, takes manhours.
or waiting till everyone is logged off and then just sending a hacker squad to reclaim the prize.
My answer to the original question: yes.
On the other hand, it's also inevitable.
Most MMO players want to be on the winning side, or at least on a side that wins a lot of the time. As a result, every MMO I've played or seen had 2 huge clans that everybody wanted to get into, and a bunch of smaller clans for the roleplayers and the other unpopular kids. I call it the Bandwagon Effect.
My answer to the original question: yes.
On the other hand, it's also inevitable.
Most MMO players want to be on the winning side, or at least on a side that wins a lot of the time. As a result, every MMO I've played or seen had 2 huge clans that everybody wanted to get into, and a bunch of smaller clans for the roleplayers and the other unpopular kids. I call it the Bandwagon Effect.
Let down the tyres. Reduce clan sizes pls.
Let down the tyres. Reduce clan sizes pls.
Although this won't help anything. All the clan will have to do is only recruit people's primary fighter's, and then make another clan with a similar name for alts etc. So instead of have 180+ [insert clan here] characters, you could potentially have 180+ [insert clan here] players on their best characters.
And regardless of clan size, you only need 4 hackers to piss people off. Nowadays it doesn't seem to matter how you obtain an OP, its just the fact that most clan leaders think that the more OPs they get the more superior their clan is (I don't even need to name them, most people know who they are). I know my clan would rather fight for OPs, because thats why we play NC, and I hope its the same for others. But all you need is some prick (and I've got a chat log to prove it) to come along and make is painstakingly obvious that they only want to hold OPs, not fight for them fairly, to ruin the game for others.
And saying "if you can't defend an OP, you don't deserve to own it" is bullshit, because 90% of clans that own OPs could probably hold them when their fighters are online, but are shafted when they aren't (this applies to everyone). The only clan I have known to be able to hold their OPs 24/7 were Cartel, but thats because they had many people from different timezones that didn't believe in sleep :rolleyes:
Clan sizes won't help anything, as stated you'll just get clans like "Once Huge Clan part 1, One Huge Clan part 2, ect.."
Restrictions on faction sizes would do more good then clan sizes. Something like this really.. This is all out of one of my reworks I wrote about 1.5yrs ago, and part of a 15 page Balance of Power system, Extremely complex tho :p
Faction Membership System:
Cost and Sympathy required to join a faction is dependant on various other factors instead of one set price.
Factions strength on the stock market
i. Number of members already in faction based against members in other factions of the same city
ii. Profession of the player
iii. Number of offences against the faction the player has been convicted of.
The cost and sympathy to join would be on a sliding scale, with the extreme ends being the easiest, to almost impossible.
Tolerance of members who have low sympathy for their faction and go against their faction’s allies diminishes as the faction’s membership grows.
Membership system breakdown:
1.Cost & sympathy:
a.Factions strength on the stock market would be the major factor in the admission of new members, a larger stronger faction wouldn’t have much need for just anyone and as such would seek out the nest of the best in terms of faction sympathy and net worth, since they can afford to reject more people then the other lesser factions and as such would be broken down into 3 areas.
i. The number of members the faction vs. the other factions in the same city would be in a way of the faction attempting to make their city a better place overall by limiting the number of members in an attempt to get the player to join on of the lesser factions, while still accepting those who meet the stricter guidelines.
ii. The profession of the player would also play a role in the admission into a prospective faction. A faction with a strong military backing but is lacking in tradeskillers would be more likely to admit a tradeskiller then they would another combat oriented player as they already have enough in their ranks already.
iii. A player with a low sympathy rating or a number of previous offences against the faction would have a harder time joining then others with a better standing in times when the faction is one of the strongest in the city.
b.For the weakest faction in the city it could be set so that they would take just about anyone, and if their in a profession that the faction is lacking in the player would receive a signing bonus rather then having to pay a fee as the faction is desperate for players in their field.
For the strongest faction it could be set so that they would reject most players, and those who are truly set in joining the faction would have to pay a higher fee, have lower offences against he faction, and possibly undertake a few missions to be accepted.
Hrrm - although I only skimmed it, what about new players? Would it be fair to restrict them to an empty faction, purely because the others are full?
Rogue Arson
26-06-05, 23:25
Actually... does anyone know for sure which side has the most runners right now? I'd love to see a census done based on pro/anti active logins over a week and see what the numbers are like.
Actually... does anyone know for sure which side has the most runners right now? I'd love to see a census done based on pro/anti active logins over a week and see what the numbers are like.
I'd be interested in seeing that too, because as far as I know the numbers on the CC are based on characters created, because in NC1 on Saturn it said there were thousands of accounts created to fit all the characters the CC listed under Population that weren't possible based on the number of accounts someone from KK said had been registered since NC Beta.
I'm all for a census being taken, and I'd even offer to help sort the data.
Hrrm - although I only skimmed it, what about new players? Would it be fair to restrict them to an empty faction, purely because the others are full?New players wouldnt be restricted. Something like that tho would most likely be handled deeper at an account level. Fresh accounts would be able to go anywhere, while those that have been active for a while and have characters already in other factions could be restricted at the character creation stage. It doesn't harm new players, and it keeps the existing from trying to exploit the loophole. Keep in mind tho, the whole thing wouldnt outright block people from joining the factions, it'd just make it harder to join them.
Well eventualy those big clans brake up from internal friction. Then the real fun begins. You have all these poeple how used to be friends taht now hate each other. Makes for tons of chaotic fights, betrayals, and more entertainment than you can shake a stick at.
:)
or waiting till everyone is logged off and then just sending a hacker squad to reclaim the prize.
Yea, ninjahacking is an option, but you will then return to the last thing i wrote in my last post..
Taking an op is easy, holding it takes manhours.
New players wouldnt be restricted. Something like that tho would most likely be handled deeper at an account level. Fresh accounts would be able to go anywhere, while those that have been active for a while and have characters already in other factions could be restricted at the character creation stage. It doesn't harm new players, and it keeps the existing from trying to exploit the loophole. Keep in mind tho, the whole thing wouldnt outright block people from joining the factions, it'd just make it harder to join them.
Cool - sounds a heck of a lot better than what we got now!
Can't see this happening any time soon.
There has always been dominating clans/factions in the game since its inception, when you play you are either the underdog or the glory hunter it seems. But that is Neocron, and the unfairness of it gives people motivation to rectify it, and to fight on.
That is the challenge of being Pro City, and I woudn't have it any other way.
If you are TG and you look at the map, what motivation is there to level up, to try harder, to work with your allies? Compare this with Pro-City, we have everything to gain, and nothing to lose :)
Asurmen Spec Op
27-06-05, 13:08
Can't see this happening any time soon.
There has always been dominating clans/factions in the game since its inception, when you play you are either the underdog or the glory hunter it seems. But that is Neocron, and the unfairness of it gives people motivation to rectify it, and to fight on.
That is the challenge of being Pro City, and I woudn't have it any other way.
If you are TG and you look at the map, what motivation is there to level up, to try harder, to work with your allies? Compare this with Pro-City, we have everything to gain, and nothing to lose :) I left pro because of all the allied ganking, Im sure many others did too
and no way in hell am I going back its still the same
I left pro because of all the allied ganking, Im sure many others did too
and no way in hell am I going back its still the same
Actually, its not. Theres the occasional big-clan squabble, and there are a bunch of anti-cities with proicty alts 9mostly under the NEG32 banner, so easy to spot0 that kill pro-cities, but as a whole, there are very few out there who regualry ally gank.
Asurmen Spec Op
27-06-05, 13:34
Actually, its not. Theres the occasional big-clan squabble, and there are a bunch of anti-cities with proicty alts 9mostly under the NEG32 banner, so easy to spot0 that kill pro-cities, but as a whole, there are very few out there who regualry ally gank. to bad the first time I log in my rc pe in a few months I found one of em
Rather to have people in your city than a ghost city that is DoY.
And while TG is traditionally strong, nothing stays the same forever, I would say that at the moment (city-wide zergs notwithstanding) the two cities are quite evenly balanced.
Asurmen Spec Op
27-06-05, 13:59
Rather to have people in your city than a ghost city that is DoY.
And while TG is traditionally strong, nothing stays the same forever, I would say that at the moment (city-wide zergs notwithstanding) the two cities are quite evenly balanced. atleast no one bugs me when im alone :)
and Im BD, I have rp issues with TG
OK, I'm loving Lupus' idea of making it harder to join the already huge factions. Lupus, you talk about tying it to StockX - does StockX even work at the moment? Are those prices anything other than random? I don't expect you tell me the rules for them, just tell me whether or not stock prices are actually responding to anything that happens in game?
We absolutely do need better stats than we've got. I had some time to kill with an EGM the other day as we were waiting for an event to start, and they agreed with my latest speculation about why the numbers blow. Yes, they count every character created on 10-day trial ... and because the login screens say that anti-city is only for experienced players, all the 10-day-trial accounts that never come back count towards the city factions' numbers.
For stats purposes, a character should only count as "current" if their last-logged-on date and time is within the last two weeks and if it's tied to a currently active account. And if you have a field in the character info that tells you whether or not a character is current, I'd also love it if when you look at a clan's member list, in addition to being able to filter by rank or online status you could also filter by whether or not they were current. When doing search by faction under info > runner, same filter. Also, characters who aren't current shouldn't be eligible to run for faction rep, nor should they be counted in the part of that screen that says what percentage of the faction are dissatisfied and which percentage have voted for which candidate.
Before you could give signing bonuses based on profession, you'd have to have some way in a world of LOMs to know what the heck a character's profession currently is. Personally, I'd love to see it so that whenever one of the relevant skills becomes the new highest skill (counting implants), that became your profession: assassin R-C, driver VHC, engineer CST, field medic PPU, hacker HCK, infiltrator P-C, inquisitor APU, rigger RCL, scientist RES, soldier H-C, street samurai M-C. Although that algorithm isn't complicated enough to detect preachers, may not be terribly accurate for PE/tank drivers, and there maybe be Engineers and Scientists who have more points in P-C than they do in P-C. Hmm. My point still stands: algorithmically determining somebody's profession is non-trivial in Neocron.
Jesterthegreat
27-06-05, 18:47
some pro city runners seem to be adressing the clan size balance issue atm from what i heard.
some pro city runners seem to be adressing the clan size balance issue atm from what i heard.
who??
Jesterthegreat
27-06-05, 19:30
large clans. i won't chat away about it as i am in neither clan and i dunno how public anyone wants anything to be...
:p
:edit: not you afaik :p
OK, I'm loving Lupus' idea of making it harder to join the already huge factions. Lupus, you talk about tying it to StockX - does StockX even work at the moment? Are those prices anything other than random? I don't expect you tell me the rules for them, just tell me whether or not stock prices are actually responding to anything that happens in game?
Reguarding StockX I'm not sure exactly how it works since parts of it were basically rewritten, and I only knew how the old system worked.
On the issue of the faction system.. As I said the whole thing was something I wrote up back when NC1 was still active, and NC2 was still in development. It was more of an idea on how to create a Balance of Power system ingame based on whats ingame already. I never did finish the complete break down of everything, and stopped working on it at 15 pages. It would have required a complete rewrite of the StockX system, along with stats tracking on alot of the things players did ingame, and seperate currencies for NC & DoY with exchange rates based on StockX strength of the cities. Theres way too much to list here but basically the faction admission stuff relied on StockX values, which relied on everyting from the number of Op's a faction held, to how many missions the factions runners did, to how many items were researched/constructed ect, and were broken into Military & Economic factors..
I'll send you a copy if you want, but I wouldnt expect any of it to show up in NC2, as I'm sure the Guys at the office ran in fear when they saw the length of it, and the amount of changes it'd require :p Who knows.. maybe for NC3 or 4 :p
Well... it's thought that counts...
I guess.
But people running in fear at propositions is erm... scary. What do they do when thier clients Fatal? Explode? :eek:
Well... it's thought that counts...
I guess.
But people running in fear at propositions is erm... scary. What do they do when thier clients Fatal? Explode? :eek:
Lol no, my stuff would have been ontop of the regular work, hence the fear :p
Lupus for president! :p
Damn man i just wish KK had the man power to make things like that a reality.
Lifewaster
28-06-05, 03:19
The idea of varying dificulty to join factions depending on how "successful" they are sounds very good but I dont see it improving things in a short term.
My ideal solution is rather to implement a game balancing system allowing the player choices for faction sizes to remain one-sided if they wish but to enable those one-sided battles to be fulfilling for all.
For example :
Lets say we have 100 anti-city players looking for a fight.
We have 20 city players looking for a fight.
We need to provide a fun fight for 120 players.
We cant simply enforce a 60 vs 60 fight due to player faction choices.Nor do we really have time to wait for factions to balance out into these numbers.
So how do we make a 100 vs 20 fight fulfilling ?
There are several possibilities:
(1)Location bonuses;
....give combat bonus to pro-city at city-adjacent ops and vice versa
(2)GR/Synap/Implant drop modifications;
....modify the implant drop/synap loss for warzone death by distance from home city, with effect that these are virtually nil when fighting at a home city adjacent OP, while maximal when fighting at longest frontlines...
(3) Alliance settings for GRs;
....small thing but really needs to be implemented , currently the OPs can be set to friend which still prevents half of the alliance (neutral status) from using it , these can only use if it is set to All. I suspect part of the issue on Terra is that the pro city OP fighting factions are not all allied whilst most of the anti-city are with FA+TG.
(4) Hackers required modifications;
....perhaps adjust the hacks needed by requiring additional hacks when hacking ops at long frontline from home city.
(5) Backpack recovery fees;
....modify these by distance from home city with a reduction to costs when dying close to home.
Overall , I think the Gr/Synap/implant drop modifications would have the biggest impact. Its no fun turning up to fight a lost battle only to be rewarded with backpack recovery costs ,popped implants and repoking and repair costs.
Coming back to the 100 vs 20 scenario , if we imagine those 100 need 8 hacks instead of 4 , whilst the 20 lose less money/synap/implants when dying...then we could create a fight which takes longer to win, lasts longer , has several more waves of defenders due to shorter recovery times, and in general turns out to be more fun for everyone involved.
Nice ideas. But something really has to be done to attempt to balance up the game. I logged on today to find the whole map Anti :confused: The population isnt big enough for this, Wot on earth is the point in it?
A month back was the best i had in Neo, everyone seemed to have piece of the cake, So there was always something to do :) Why not own the ops u need then more clans own ops thus giving us more pking.
At the current rate i feel u aint gonna keep new players as wot is there to do compared to other mmorgs? Pking is wot makes this game rock, take that away or the potential to log on c some enemy ops go hack a layer drag a few out for some fun, this isnt happening any more all we are cing is big egos trying to rule a 100/150 people server.
Im of to play BF2, i need my dose of death n punishment :D
Lol no, my stuff would have been ontop of the regular work, hence the fear :p
Coolies, now THAT'S effort!
well lets see, head 2 zones south of DoY and you'll find the place swamped with DoY bots... head 2 zones north of Neocron and you'll find... well a lone (statonary) stormbot in B06, 2 stationary Stormbots at the ASG in jeriko and 1 stationary Stormbot by a pylon near the traders in Jeriko... and thats about it.... lets have the swarms of stormbots 2 zones north of NC as Doy has south of their city... that'll do for starters.
Lose the Johnny 5's... They're kinda pointless.
Lose the Johnny 5's... They're kinda pointless.
I wouldn't say lose them, but just confine them to a few small locations in half the zones you find them in now.
The point has been made time and time again, you don't get op wars in the North East of the map. Thats not by accident, it is a pain for Pro City to fight there. Hence we fight for a much smaller pool of ops while those ones remain a constant cash cow for DoY clans.
And its a shame, because some of the ops are really nice up there for battles.
RogerRamjet
28-06-05, 17:27
Huge clans have been around since NC1, the only difference then was that the faction system was different (and better) which meant that one whole side wouldnt be fucked over, instead perhaps 1 or 2 factions, but these factions were usually allied to the next biggest clan who owned outposts so it didnt matter anyway.
However in NC2 the faction system has effectively been turned black and white this isnt the case, and the larger city with larger clans (which was anti-city even back in NC1) have been more succesful in taking OPs, making it super fun for DoY but generally making the game extremely hard for Neocroners. Also, because now youre either on the winning or losing side, the band wagon effect comes into play heavily.
Personally, the one thing i looked forward to more than anything was running around as Tangent and killing biotech and fallen angels runners in Plaza, and to be honest i was disapointed with what happened.
Basically what im getting at is that the old faction system is better.
Basically what im getting at is that the old faction system is better in my opinion.
I'll second that.
Jesterthegreat
28-06-05, 17:55
I'll second that.
i'll third it then.
i'll third it then.
to an extent i'll 4th that, i can see why BT and TT would patch things up (daddy calling off the competition due to reeza breathing down his neck) and PP and next getting more friendly, this all makes sence, however
Crahn and Fallen angels? Black Dragon and Tsunami Syndicate? because TG said so? Black dragon wanted to distroy TG and CS (religion) and FA (science - oh and may i point out that FA were the ONLY true good guys in this game... not they are just evil bastard scientists with bad hair) crahn would be turning in his grave if he knew this was the case, espically when the crahn epic is about screwing FA over and one contradicts the other... these are the faction alliances i dont understand,
and CM? heh they are the most screwed faction of them all
I'll 5th it, because the population isn't big enough to support two cities with allied factions, rather we were all in the same city occupying different adjacent zones.
RogerRamjet
28-06-05, 18:45
Think its time for a petition guys :cool:
Indeedy - the old faction setups were a lot better - and to behonest - storyline wise it's doable - Whose not to say that now everyones settled in there is no friction in the dome OR the city? Sounds like a good way to return to form really
For example Biotech realised a noted lack in implant quality and sales since thier partnership with FA ended etc etc...
It'd make a lotta people happy - and maybe break the map up a bit?
I'll 5th it, because the population isn't big enough to support two cities with allied factions, rather we were all in the same city occupying different adjacent zones.
yes i miss everyone in the city badly, pepper park and so on... :( guess ill go back to whoring the MB sync line now :rolleyes:
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