PvP: advanced colouring options for runners and factions

I often see people complaining on the forums or ingame that fighting greens isn't fun and teaming up with reds is usually problematic.
I believe that some clans even go to specific factions to have as many reds as possible but maybe not all of them are 100% happy with the faction they are in due to bad faction items or whatever.

Here are some suggestions that might make PvP more manageable, as well as remove the "need" for some clans to be in a specific faction just to have more reds.
The only downside I can think of that might happen is that more clans might go CA for the plasma wave.


1) Tickboxes to visually show runners of a certain faction as red.
If you tick the box behind the faction name, players from that faction will only visually (player / clan / faction names above toons) show as red. NPC's of that faction will not be affected by this tickbox.

This could be added on the factions window.
By default all tickboxes would be unticked.
It's the players choise to tick the boxes AND it's the players responsibility to remember which factions are actually allies / neutrals.
So if you tick all boxes and then kill some people in plaza 2, then you don't have any right to go whine to a GM that you lost a load of SL because you accidentally killed allies.

Possible "problems": Clans in the same faction might more easily turn on each other for OP fights, but this can happen now as well since there is no SL loss at OP fights, and is this really a bad thing? I think most people will encourage more PvP.


2) "Ally runner" list and "ally clan" list.
Just like the "friends" and "ignore" lists you can add names to them.
Any runner that you have put on your "ally runner" list will visually only (same as with the tickbox idea) show as green.
Same for the "ally clan" list but obviously for clan names. This will show every member of that clan as green.
This could be used to more easily form temporary (or long term) alliances between runners and/or clans for PvP purposes.
These could be added as new tabs on the factions window. (to prevent an overload on the hypercom window)

What do you think? Potentially interesting or utter crap?
Any additional pro's and/or con's that I overlooked?

Well for the first suggestion, there is such a function for clans, but it has no effect. You can declare war on other clans, I recall someone saying this was intended to mark the clans you declared war upon as enemy and therefor colored red.

To your second idea, I think forging alliances with enemies is ok to have that disadvantage.

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Originally Posted by Grogor

Well for the first suggestion, there is such a function for clans, but it has no effect. You can declare war on other clans, I recall someone saying this was intended to mark the clans you declared war upon as enemy and therefor colored red.

To your second idea, I think forging alliances with enemies is ok to have that disadvantage.

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There should be a mechanic where you can declare war, which has to be accepted by the other clan in order to reduce the loss of soullight for killing the clanmembers.

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Originally Posted by nabbl

There should be a mechanic where you can declare war, which has to be accepted by the other clan in order to reduce the loss of soullight for killing the clanmembers.

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Agreed!

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Originally Posted by nabbl

There should be a mechanic where you can declare war, which has to be accepted by the other clan in order to reduce the loss of soullight for killing the clanmembers.

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I partially disagree with this.
I love the idea that you can declare war on other clans and thus they become red and no longer give SL loss.
BUT, a declaration of war just has to happen. Even if the other side doesn't want to accept it. That's how war works.
Yes, this leaves the option open for a strong clan to pick on a weak clan (just like in real life ...) but the weak clan can always try to find allies.
If people want to behave like asshats and then get picked on by a stronger clan (or alliance of clans) then it's their own fault.

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Originally Posted by [F6]Knight

I partially disagree with this.
I love the idea that you can declare war on other clans and thus they become red and no longer give SL loss.
BUT, a declaration of war just has to happen. Even if the other side doesn't want to accept it. That's how war works.
Yes, this leaves the option open for a strong clan to pick on a weak clan (just like in real life ...) but the weak clan can always try to find allies.
If people want to behave like asshats and then get picked on by a stronger clan (or alliance of clans) then it's their own fault.

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That won't work. I can promise that !

Clan wars Nuff said. They need to be implemented correctly.

I had a similar idea about enabling a means to display different factions as red/green/yellow (that's for a different thread however), though Clan War are a lot simpler for a generic system.

I do think Clan Wars would need to be 'accepted' by those they are declared on. Otherwise many clans would simply declare war and every single clan listed.

But if they have to be accepted then it nullifies the point of having them. People could just decline it all day.


A better way might be to have to refresh the declaration after so many RL days. This way the war is only temporary and has to be re-declared by the rank 15.

Any re-declarations (and any principal declarations too possibly) would however be charged large amounts of cash - to avoid abuse of the system.

I dont get the problem? You just kill anybody who is not you (well, maybe you shouldnt kill your clan members as well or else you wont remain in your clan. consider some clans to be special where yo can really kill anybody you like).

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Originally Posted by lindian

I dont get the problem? You just kill anybody who is not you (well, maybe you shouldnt kill your clan members as well or else you wont remain in your clan. consider some clans to be special where yo can really kill anybody you like).

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The problem is that a lot of people want to PvP outside of battle zones and doing what you say will ruin their SL extremely quickly. Since there is no bonus for bad SL (like access to some "pirate" town or whatever), but only penalties (loss of safeslot, your location listed on the citycom to be hunted by others, ...), most people don't want bad SL.

Clanwars can give the PvP'ers their "fix" when their faction doesn't have many hostiles.
This off course comes with the risk of abuse towards weaker clans who might not be interested in PvP at all.
BUT NC is a brutal PvP game and there are several options (already done by so many other games) that might keep the abuse in check.
- Charging obscene amounts of money to start a clan war
- A 24h notification (ingame mail) to all the members of the affected clans that the war will go "live" in 24h.
- Limited clanwar duration (3 days for example)
- A "cooldown period" that prevents clan A to declare war on clan B within 3 (or 5 or whatever) days after the last war ended (if the last war was also declared by clan A on clan B). Clan B can immediately declare war on clan A after the previous war ends. This gives clans the option to stay at war with each other by alternating the war declarations. (and thus also sharing the money cost involved)

These are just some examples of how things could be kept in check. Many more options are available but I don't think that should be the core of this discussion.
We should further discuss wether or not it's a good idea to have more colouring options as described in my OP, or even straight out clan wars that actually change SL or sympathy loss/gain when fighting clans in neutral and/or allied factions.

Implement them and see how it goes. Anyone in a clan is generally here for pvp. A way to stop abuse of the system which you all missed completely was to LIMIT the amount of active clan wars a clan can declare.

DO NOT however limit the amount of wars a clan have declared on it. Let the players police themselves. ps. the money thing. dont see it as much of a deterrent. Smaller clans will have issues perhaps raising the money but the larger ones who cant let go of their ops will have a bank account with billions in it.