Scaling Faction Kill Awards

[seekeronos]

Would it be workable to scale the faction award based on level and "notoriety" of an enemy NPC?

For example, the current (and typical) formula for raising faction is to kill a mob that has enmity toward that particular faction.

The classic case would be killing Chavez to raise Red Dragon faction - which awards +1 RD faction and -2 Chavez.

In the past, this formula has resulted in folks farming the trash L5-L6 Chavez in certain parts of Freya, New Edinburgh, and Jotunheim for hours on end to get "gate access" (alternatively, some would kill their own faction lowbie mobs and then run jobs for their faction to maintain port access)

I'd like to propose that the faction awards be adjusted to reflect the difficulty of the kill - one-shotting a L5 mob might remain as is (+1 for each kill) but taking down one of the L28 Chavez in Glenn should be worth quite a bit more... and killing a named Chavez mob (such as the eponymous "Miguel Chavez" should get even more than that.

Flat Arithmetic Scale: Purely based upon the level of the mob -

L0 - L10: +1 for gaining faction, -2 for losing faction

L11 - L20: +3 for gaining faction, -6 for losing faction

L21 - L30: +5 for gaining faction, -10 for losing faction

L31 - L40: +10 for gaining faction, -20 for losing faction

L41 - L50: +15 for gaining faction, -30 for losing faction

L51+ : +20 for gaining faction, -40 for loosing faction

Killing a boss / named NPC mob doubles the faction award/loss, i.e. killing a L45 "Miguel Chavez" would net +30 RD faction and -60 Chavez.

This scenario would possibly entice higher level plays not to camp the trash mob spawns that might be the only way lower level players have of trying to gain faction.

Level Dependent Scale: relative to your combat level

Mobs less than 5 levels below you: +1 for gaining faction, -2 for losing faction

Mobs within four levels weaker or stronger than you: +2 for gaining faction, -4 for losing faction

Mobs greater than 5 levels above you: +4 for gaining faction, -8 for losing faction

Mobs greater than 10 levels above you: +10 for gaining faction, -20 for losing faction

Mobs greater than 15 levels above you: +20 for gaining faction, -40 for losing faction

As with the arithmetic scale above this, killing named bosses doubles the faction award/loss; the difference is in your CL relative to that of the mob.

Killing the L45 "Miguel Chavez" named mob would net you +40 RD faction and -80 Chavez faction if you (somehow) manage to kill him at CL25 (not an impossibility if you are running a 25/50/50 JE with triple Pitbull Sr. beams) ...

...but for a CL50 TW kiting him about , he's hardly worth the bother at only +2 RD faction for his kill.

This method probably would not encourage many folks to camp the higher level Chavez for more faction points at higher CLs.

[Terrell [BT]]

I don't think it should be tied to relative combat level, but I do see higher level mobs having larger faction adjustments as reasonable. In Live killing low level mobs resulted in an adjustment of around -6 for the faction they were a member of, -2 or -3 for factions allied with them, and +2 for their enemies. Chavez in live were not factioned but they raised RD by 0.5 per kill. Now that they are, I think it should be that killing a low level Chavez should be -6 Chavez, +2 RD. If Chavez have any other enemies their factions should also be adjusted by +2 for killing a low level Chavez.

Generally speaking, players kill low level things for faction, despite their CL, because they can get their faction raised quicker. When it comes to higher level mobs, that are factioned, I don't think people really hunt these to raise/lower faction, but instead for specific drops. It's likely faster to kill a few thousand mobs that you can 1 shot, than to maybe 1/3 as many, but take more than 3x the time to kill one.

Most NPC missions, should reward faction with the NPC's affiliation, that would help some with the issue here. NPC missions, could also give both positive faction & negative faction (the minority of the missions), if the mission requires you to do something that's directly harmful to their enemies (Those need to award more XP and + faction than the others IMO, to make them worthwhile). Most missions should just award + faction, but less than those that award both positive for 1 and negative for another.

I've noticed that the Ketsugo Outpost now gives positive Shinwa faction, just like it did in Live. (good work Devs) More missions from various NPCs some that are race or class specfic, others that are general, will help the faction problem some. Missions to retrieve things, clear nusiance mobs, and other thigs of a similiar nature, should award positive faction. When Jobs are ready, along with the positive faction awards they gave, people will be more able to manipulate their faction standings, to where they want them to be.

[seekeronos]

I'd totally love for someone to create a mission for a Sharim NPC to reduce my negative Sharime (JT) faction. Anytime my PW gates into Castor, it's "kill the stinky progen" time....

[Terrell [BT]]

I'd totally love for someone to create a mission for a Sharim NPC to reduce my negative Sharime (JT) faction. Anytime my PW gates into Castor, it's "kill the stinky progen" time....

Don't have a PW, but my PT has many of her factions in the red, and she hasn't been outside of Mars Gamma outside of missions to Arx Magister, in ST4.

I do think that the playable factions should be at least neutral at the start of a game. Then again, I don't think that Faction is up to what it was in Live yet. In Live to be kill on sight you had to have a faction of -2000 or worse, If your faction was between -2000 and +2000 then mobs of that specific faction showed yellow (neutral), and only shot you if you messed with them, +2000 or higher was green. Sometimes if your green faction was high enough mobs might intervene in combat on your behalf. Sharim mobs did this in Live, with Pop-rock mobs, but I'm not sure what the minimum Sharim required for them to do that was (my JE and JW in Live had Sharim maxed, my JE had most things maxed positive).

I don't know if PW needs to do this, but in training PT has to kill some RD mobs, and killing RD hurts your Sharim faction, along with RD, Psionics, and I think Alliance. Alliance was not to be confused with Terran Alliance. Alliance leader was Nostradamus Smythe in Live, if I recall correctly.

[irrelevant]

I like the scaling idea. Not necessarily the exact kind of scaling the OP mentioned, but the same general idea. Sounds very sensible.

[fuulishone]

Why are the players coming up with such ideas AFTER a forced implementation of a factioned gate? Why aren't the DEVs coming to the community and asking for thoughts on how to implement faction grinding? Why is this project not being handled like any other open source project? Why must the DEV team continue to treat their community as unimportant and unworthy of trust?

[garblesoup]

I'd MUCH rather see any effort around faction be focused on FIXING it for ALL of us before taking on any new projects to further enhance it for some.

[Tenkaris]

This is always something I felt should have come into play in live a lot more, and they never did it. I remember so many lowbie characters whining because PWs would camp the massive low-level non-aggro spawns with max shield inversion for fast faction.

But it seems like such an obvious idea that like higher level faction mobs and especially boss mob kills should bring with it great faction rewards. If I kill Miguel Chavez, shouldn't the RD really like that? If I kill the RD Base, shouldn't that tank my faction? They just never took it as far as they could have.