Maximum outposts / clan

Hello there,

I find the idea of a maximum outpost limit per clan of interest. Most outposts are usually held by 3 clans.

How about a fixed limit of max 3 outposts per clan? This would lead to a little split up between the factions too, rather than creating even bigger clans, we would have like 20 smaller ones trying to compete with each other.

If now a smaller clan (let's say 5+ people) was trying to get one outpost, the big clans will roll over within seconds. With smaller clans, fights would be more worthwhile.

What's your opinion on that?

You're not the first to ask for it, and you probably wont be the last but it is one of the best ideas that still needs to happen to NC.

It is a good idea although I'm more in favour of a softer approach, instead of a hard limit on how many outposts a clan can own I think there should be progressively harsher penalties for owning more than a certain amount.

For example your outposts would become easier for people to hack this could be done by a combination of reducing hack difficulty and even reducing the amount of layers that would need to be taken. If turrets eventually get fixed another penalty could be a reduction in the amount of turrets you're allowed to place per outpost.

Like I said these penalties would get worse and worse the more outposts you have until it gets extremely difficult to hold them all, like only 2 layers needing to be hacked and no need for the attackers to enter hacknet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hatmankh

It is a good idea although I'm more in favour of a softer approach, instead of a hard limit on how many outposts a clan can own I think there should be progressively harsher penalties for owning more than a certain amount[...]

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Agreed.

My suggestion would be that the owning clan has to pay an upkeep for the OP, starting with the second OP. The first OP should be free, however, to have more diversity on the map.

The upkeep cost should get higher for every OP.
It should be a lot of money but the exact numbers are up for discussion.

This could act as a good money sink too. It could also make clans have more traders so that they can earn money, thus making traders more valuable to them.

I've suggested this exact idea multiple times. My thoughts were to have a maximum number any one clan can own say like 5 then when they want to attack another op, if they take it then one of there other ops revert to a neutral state.

We took 1 op the other day in a hope that we might get to fight with one of the smaller clans after we owned it, (we only had a few members online). The clan that owned the OP said we could have it and didnt show up to defend it. Instead, not ten minutes later, we get zerged by the clan that owns 20 op's already. They show up with more than double our numbers barreling the UG lol. It was clear they didnt want a fight they only wanted to take the OP, spouting some nonsense about how only German clans can own ops in neocron. So instead of playing NC and maybe having some fun fights, we all logged off to play other games. Kinda sad really that greedy people in greedy clans control the flow of the endgame, but it's always been that way.

I guess this will continue to be the normal for this game until the devs decide to do something about it... or do nothing at all.

one simple idea about outpost , you need to pay a fee for each outpost you have each day , more outpost you have the fee growing fast ( take this like paid the merchant , maintain the equipment of the outpost).

maybe like 100k per day for one , 250 k for 2, 500 k for 3 , 1 million for 4 , 2 million for 5 , ect ...

this make money more usefull and limit one clan to take all the map.

The following is my opinion only and may not represent the opinion of the team as a whole!

I do not like the idea of a strict maximum number of outposts a clan is allowed to capture, because once they have captured these, the only thing they can basically do is wait for people to attack or attack without being able to win. Not a good option in my opinion.

Introducing a soft cap, like e.g. having to pay for each outpost instead of receiving money for it has the downside that people would be forced to do PvE or something else to earn money and it would render fortresses seemingly useless. They have nothing to offer except a rather small defensive bonus. Nevertheless, I like this option far more, because a clan will at no point be taken the opportunity to capture further outposts. (Just thinking about an idea RogerRamjet posted a while ago [and probably also others]: one could modify the penalty such that it would be beneficial for clans to keep their outposts close together, maybe let the penalty grow with the distance between the outposts)
If ever an upkeep for outposts is introduced, I aggree with others that it should scale non linear.

The following is my opinion only and may not represent the opinion of the team as a whole!

I quite like this approach with the idea that security is somewhat finite.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hatmankh

It is a good idea although I'm more in favour of a softer approach, instead of a hard limit on how many outposts a clan can own I think there should be progressively harsher penalties for owning more than a certain amount.

For example your outposts would become easier for people to hack this could be done by a combination of reducing hack difficulty and even reducing the amount of layers that would need to be taken. If turrets eventually get fixed another penalty could be a reduction in the amount of turrets you're allowed to place per outpost.

Like I said these penalties would get worse and worse the more outposts you have until it gets extremely difficult to hold them all, like only 2 layers needing to be hacked and no need for the attackers to enter hacknet.

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An issue that remains with limiting OPs per clan is it would be easy enough for a big clan to simply fragment into subclans, to continue holding the entire map as one faction. Perhaps a limit (or a scaling system as above/suggested elsewhere) on OPs per faction would be required? This would hopefully also see players and clans utilise more than one or two factions?

For what its worth i agree with the soft cap approach. Punish the big clans for owning too many and it will take away the monopoly they have over the outpost scene.

This is in support of faids post about the clan that states that only certain people should be allowed to own ops in nc. Its the small minded attitude of a couple of morons that makes these giant alliances want to take control of the entire map to essentially fuel their own egos.

By implementing a soft cap every dog has its day in a sense. I do think the penalties should be severe enough to make it tough without being overly tough to try and control the entire map.

On the flip side comes the fact that some amazing people in this community will still flock to the biggest faction to win all the time and we will still see these superpower clans that feel the need to control the map but it will not be without consequence.

It also facilitates a much wider increase (potentially and hopefully) of smaller clans holding ops and more the point a few different factions making a patchwork map rather than it being one colour or two.

I personally feel a hard cap is absolutely appropriate in this scheme to totally eradicate this "we own the entire map" mentality as I personally believe that its more fun to fight than to really worry about territory and if the clan isnt a total bunch of tools they can easily find plenty of opposition to fight should the need be there. If they truly feel the need to take a certain op but are at their hard coded limit of ops then they must choose to make that sacrifice and relinquish control of a specific op. In economics this is the opportunity cost and i think from a strategic point of view this should be taken in to account at a very basic level.

I do however realise people will make alt clans to circumvent this ruling also but i think thats an issue that can only be controlled by the players themselves to police this and not something you guys as the designers etc can truly eradicate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alduin

The following is my opinion only and may not represent the opinion of the team as a whole!

(Just thinking about an idea RogerRamjet posted a while ago [and probably also others]: one could modify the penalty such that it would be beneficial for clans to keep their outposts close together, maybe let the penalty grow with the distance between the outposts)

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Glad you noticed it despite it being in the wrong thread!

I don´t share the opinion that the number of OPs per Clan should be limited by a fixed number. Paying money for outposts really defeats their original purpose, too. Altough the economic factor is usually of lesser importance compared to the prestige and the actual fun of fighting, the bonusses are still tangible and should stay unaltered,maybe even increased to make PVE-LE players think about getting into fights, too :P

I really like the idea that the more you have, the harder it gets to defend. The ease of taking them should be adjusted accordingly.

Lore-compliant explanation:
Every clan has outpost security. It defends the terminals the clan owns. When more OPs are owned, security resources have to be stretched thinner and thinner, reducing the hack requirements and at certain intervals even take one needed hack away.
This way, if youre dedicated and have lots of manpower, you can still control the whole map, altough your empire will be more easily taken apart.

But of course, the easiest solution would be to have more players, therefore more competition, over different clans.

Addendum:
I think in optimizing the framework of opfighting we should always keep principle#1 in mind:
It´s good if it makes more competition, draws more people in and creates more fights.

I also do not share the opinions/ideas given here. I do OP fighting on a daily basis with my clan, and having an outpost cap feels like a solution for the current amount of players we do have. And it's not even a solution, people will just hack different outposts and basically this will just ultimately serve one purpose, having different clans owning outposts bonuses.


Paying for more outpost doesn't work either. I know for instance my clan doesn't PvE, why should we be punish on a game aspect we don't even want to approach. We got our characters, we do the occasional PvE or tradeskilling to gain money for the character maintenance (drugs, kits, stams, boosters) and then we are good to go.


As for the last solution, having a harder time to defend because you own a lot of outposts, well this system is also trying to deal with the low amount we seem to have at the moment. This system is already in place, if a clan owns a lot of outposts and there are other active clans, that clan will have its outposts attacked constantly or even at the same time. So I don't see a reason why it should get even harder outside of fighting.