Factions

[Gobblu]

I used to have a faction chart from live (excel spreadsheet I believe it was), that listed killing x mob made x y z faction increase/decrease. does anyone still have a copy of this?

[Terrell [BT]]

I used to have a faction chart from live (excel spreadsheet I believe it was), that listed killing x mob made x y z faction increase/decrease. does anyone still have a copy of this?

Yeah, you can find it here. It doesn't list the amounts of the adjustments, only whether it's positive, negative, or no change.

Edited May 12, 2010 by Terrell

[Gobblu]

Yes, exactly what I was looking for.

[seekeronos]

Yes, the grind for RD faction (or bogerils if you wanted access to Der Tod) is supposed to be annoying and gruesome. But I don't remember the starting faction being so deep in the hole (-9k RD for TT and TS and -7k for my PW) as compared to Live™.

I could swear that I remember starting factions for RD in particular as being -5k, with the yellow zone (non-aggro, but still no gate access) falling in between -1000 to +1000 and the green zone being above +2000.

But... that's just my vague fuzzy memory.

Anyone got any screenshots of the starting factions from a new character from Live™ ?

As we all know, Screenshots™ from Live™ are EnB Gospel™.

[pull4rise]

it should be like in live....and like some ppl mentioned it is easy....lol i had to make my pw around 170 for max shield inversion to have the benefit which as pw had in live and i hope it will be here aswell else u will ruin this game....i saw some posts either ppl too lazy or dont have the persistance to do it but in live i did it on several chars and yes when ur pw was high with max shield inversion it was alot easier....then dont whine and make a pw .mission crap and higher lvl mobs crap is far from a good idea since then another class will have a major advantage....1 suggestion and shieldnova is already wasted....i dont hope it goes with all stuff like that.........all i can say is let the whiners have wot they want and u will end up with whiners only.

[Yuritau]

Or we could even the playing field and put in diminishing returns based on CL.

That way you'd only get faction for killing mobs that still give you combat XP.

[seekeronos]

not a Screenshot™, but an archive and possibly authoritative source:

http://home.swipnet.se/Hubba/factions.htm[/b]"]http://home.swipnet.se/Hubba/factions.htm

Factions in Earth and Beyond

There are many factions in the game and the players can choose who they want to be their allies, neutral or enemies through the actions or missions of the players. Depending on how the faction values are the player will see different parts of the game, some areas might not be open and certain missions not available due to the current faction standings of the player.

The faction values that a player can have with different groups in the game range as follows and depend on the way you are affiliated, example is: if you have EarthCorp affiliation you can't get better than "neutral" with Bogeril because of your affiliation. Affiliation means what faction you belong to. You can loose the affiliation if you loose too much of your faction values with your affiliated faction. When you loose affiliation your values can drop significantly with your affiliation and some other faction values can also be affected.

Enemy: -15,000 to -2,001

Neutral: -2,000 to +1,999

Allied: +2,000 to +11,000 (+12000 for affiliated faction)

Notes for Devs:

- Please don't overly nerf PW sheild nova; it is a class-distinct ability that has very few uses beyond faction farming. The 15-30sec recast timer is a bit excessive, although if the matter is to address PWs potentially camping a Chavez trash mob spawn or faction-mob (e.g. Jenquai pilgrims at that shrine in Jupiter)... then please consider allowing faction to shared among members of a group.

Otherwise, if the intent is to "level the playing field" by removing any possible utility that the skill might otherwise have to compel high level PWs to level it - then just remove the final level of the skill from the game altogether.

- OR, tweak the faction bands a bit to make them more like live. As I said up thread - perhaps a bit too charitably - starting faction for many classes at -9k (in the red) and making the bar of entry for RD "good faction" to be +3k (in the green) makes for excessive grindwork. Read that carefully again - that's over 12,000 dead Chavez (or other trash faction mobs) under the current valuation.

- OR, tweak faction so that it scales based upon the level: killing Miguel Chavez or the Lv. 40+ mobs gives more than just a measly +1 RD faction point.

I personally think that starting RD faction should be in the neighbourhood of -5k and we get green gates and bases from +2k (total grind of 7k trash mobs to kill)

Many of us (like some of you devs) are no long powergamers in the same manner (many of us) were 10 years ago during Live. Some of us can't afford to be on here 5+ hours a day and 15+ hours a weekend day jabbing a button to kill mobs pointlessly.

If this game were a pay-for-play MMO, or run by a corporation out for the $$$, then yes - the grind is there to keep the people playing, and paying.

But on the other hand, if this game is to be released without a pay-to-play for profit scheme - then please consider those of us who might not have such a large amount of free time.

I'm not asking for an "I WIN!11!" button, neither am I asking for an extremely easy ride, nor am I asking you devs to make this an exact clone of Live™.

I'm just saying, use Live™ as the benchmark, and adjust EMU accordingly....

In short, don't set the bar for faction grinding so ridiculously high that people won't even bother to do it.

[Yuritau]

Having thought about this issue a little more, if I was to have my way with the inner workings of faction, I would introduce level-based faction. But not how some of you might think. I would make only NEGATIVE faction from killing level-based, while the positive gains remained static. Thus, if a CL 50 character kills very low level mobs to farm faction, they still only get 1 or 2 positive faction. But since they are killing the young & inexperienced members of a particular faction, that faction hates them even more, so they'd get about 10 or so negative faction per kill.

Wouldn't make RD faction any harder to get. But you would have to consider the consequences, or find an alternate route.

[seekeronos]

Having thought about this issue a little more, if I was to have my way with the inner workings of faction, I would introduce level-based faction. But not how some of you might think. I would make only NEGATIVE faction from killing level-based, while the positive gains remained static. Thus, if a CL 50 character kills very low level mobs to farm faction, they still only get 1 or 2 positive faction. But since they are killing the young & inexperienced members of a particular faction, that faction hates them even more, so they'd get about 10 or so negative faction per kill.

Wouldn't make RD faction any harder to get. But you would have to consider the consequences, or find an alternate route.

This would be an interesting way of handling faction - though it actually would make RD faction grinding much much harder:

Assuming the DEVs see no reason to change the current 12k mob death grind (at 1 faction point per mob killed)...

... shield nova-ing the cloud of Shinwa/Shahadem pilgrims at the Mourning Circle in Jupiter could be done over period of several days, with horrific hits to the faction killed (imagin having -120k Shinwa/Shahadem faction!)

Barring any drastic changes to the gate gun/station AI (a guildmate has -25k Jenquai faction yet still can get in Jenquai zones without being denied access or instantly immolated by gate guns)...

...or some other drastic thing like having random spawns of Jenquai bounty hunters (... *snort* ... *guffaw*...) tracking you down wherever you go.

Otherwise, still not much encouragement to farm higher anti-RD mobs.

If it takes me 24-36 game hours to shield-nova 12,000 trash mobs... it would take me at least 180 game hours to kill 12,000 L50+ anti-RD mobs.

Although to be honest, if I want to really impress Shou Tzu, I'll get the job done quickly.

ANNNNNND:

While the RD's (based upon the historical docs published by Westwood, linked to elsewhere on these forums) may not be too concerned for the well-being of their noobs (NPCs that is) --- it is not unreasonable to presume that competing pirate groups (Chavez, Talons, Rogues, Wandering Pirates, etc) feel much differently about their would-be recruits.

Pirate recruits are still very much outside the "circle of trust" of the core leadership (Tongs for RDs, and "Blood Circles" for Chavez) of these gangs.

Circumstances might be different for the three main factions (Progen, Terran, and Jenquai) although the "indifference" shown thus far suggests that the views of these governments might not be willing to shed too many tears of their dead.

Progens would simply be called forward.

Jenquai would just accept it as the "Way of the Circle of Life" or some other such Zen-like rationalization.

And Terrans would only care if the burial costs touched their accounts (which after being shield nova'ed into intergalactic goofer dust, wouldn't be an issue at all).

Edited May 17, 2010 by -Seeker-

[seekeronos]

To come back to the main point - I'd hate to see the PW Shield Nova skill nerfed for the sake of "balance" ala World of Warcraft© or Star Wars Galaxies© (oh, that horrible abortion of a game done wrong by its devs...)

Fact: A PW has to get to a pretty high level of both that skill, and overall skill to gain access to it (my OL150 PW still doesn't have Shield Flare, much less Nova).

Fact: A JW with all 5 beams could actually farm as fast or possibly faster than the PW/SHield Nova if he's handy with switching targets and has a medium output beam and a turbo beams/turbo weapons device. (Source: Pulverize, who posted above and was one of the first toons - ahead of the bulk of PW toons... with positive RD faction on Galileo in Live)

Fact: I myself had a OL150 JE in live that grunted out the faction grind in about two weeks with L8 and L9 beams (a bit excessive to the task, but they killed mobs one beam/one shot.

Edited May 17, 2010 by -Seeker-

[Terrell [BT]]

To come back to the main point - I'd hate to see the PW Shield Nova skill nerfed for the sake of "balance" ala World of Warcraft© or Star Wars Galaxies© (oh, that horrible abortion of a game done wrong by its devs...)

Fact: A PW has to get to a pretty high level of both that skill, and overall skill to gain access to it (my OL150 PW still doesn't have Shield Flare, much less Nova).

Fact: A JW with all 5 beams could actually farm as fast or possibly faster than the PW/SHield Nova if he's handy with switching targets and has a medium output beam and a turbo beams/turbo weapons device. (Source: Pulverize, who posted above and was one of the first toons - ahead of the bulk of PW toons... with positive RD faction on Galileo in Live)

Fact: I myself had a OL150 JE in live that grunted out the faction grind in about two weeks with L8 and L9 beams (a bit excessive to the task, but they killed mobs one beam/one shot.

I have to agree, did RD on a JE, JW, and PE in Live, and you could kill mobs quickly. Usually most of the mobs hunted for faction were below L10, most of those mobs are going to be 1 shotted regardless of class unless you start faction farming really early. My PE was the lowest in terms of CL that I did this with, she had no real problems getting RD faction (JE and JW were much higher when I farmed faction with them). She did do a few PE/PW jobs to not get kicked out of the Sabine along the way, but it got her positive V'rix and Positive RD, using vendor ammo and vendor weapons for the job. I don't think PW/PT should have their Shield Inversion nerfed in any way.

[mywher]

as matter of fact my jd was around OL 60 with no shinwa affilition in live and it took my jd about 2 hours to be green to rds my pw was around OL 180 be4 i could use shield nova and started to farm for rd faction at a way better spot then my jd in primus and it took about the same amount of time to get my pw to green faction but the biggest difference is it took me about 120 lvls more to achieve it.

[Yuritau]

This would be an interesting way of handling faction - though it actually would make RD faction grinding much much harder:

As I said, it wouldn't make faction grinding any harder at all. You could still do it in the exact same number of kills. You would have other consequences, but if you chose not to care, then you'd be just fine.

Another suggestion I'd like, is instead of heavy heavy negative faction (or, better yet, ON TOP OF it), make it so that grinding can only ever get you to halfway through yellow faction with them. Then if you want to get green faction and be able to use their gates and station, you have to do a lengthy series of recruitment type missions.

[seekeronos]

The heavy negative faction idea would only work if the (player factioned) gate guns and station guns nuked RD-positive players with with extreme prejudice upon getting within 20km of them

Edited May 18, 2010 by -Seeker-

[pull4rise]

in live the terrans who made their rdfaction on centuriatias had 2 downsides 1st they could dock on any centuriata station and the 2nd was they got atked by gsps in grissom when gating to or from cooper a pw could still dock at mars and the others since when he had no affiliation the color didnt go red to them yellow at worst since for them there was a mission added to regain their affiliation.

[Kherana]

I hear what you're saying - but not sure what we can do -

getting RD faction should take quite a while and should be something special when it finally comes, but on the other hand, we do need to schedule when the next stress test/beta phase is to start so everyone knows. Rock and hard place really ... that's why the RD gates are open, however how about we faction Queen Anne's so the people who actually got their RD faction have something at least. Does this sound like a fair compromise?

I understand the game is changing and with it comes the faction changes, but must they be so radical and seemingly done on a whim? Some of my factions started at negative to the point of "you're the enemy" which is not how I remember live being. Will the factions be so split apart I won't be able to use certain sectors of space because of it? If I remember right(I could be mistaken here) all factions were neutral except your own which started out green, you had the choice with the others to make them positive/negative based on who you killed, missions, jobs. You had to be friendly to red dragons to use their gates/QAR not just neutral.

will there be a graph available at some point (live had one) to show us which factions affect which?

I do understand wanting to make some changes to advance storyline, but for me it's at the expense of how I like to play. will Shou Tzu's mission to gain red faction be put back in (not sure if it is there can't get it at same levels as I did in st3)?

To be honest I am not looking forward to endless grinding to get factions, nor am I at this point interested in joining the "draft"; I like to explore, and prospect mostly, but with these changes will I be forced to go grind rep over and over due to the multi-faction hate to start with, join the draft, or grind a maze of missions to get to the same place I was in live without them?

I currently do not play my progen due to some the missions, factions at start, changes at random, requirements to put points in skills I don't want to train up (build components), and having to train skills I don't want to be able to complete bonus missions for items that were race rewards or mob drops that are now race/class specific. Please don't make me stop playing the class I love for the sake of "advancement" in a direction that makes me play by someone elses playstyle and not my own.

[Jamosite]

I hear what you're saying - but not sure what we can do -

getting RD faction should take quite a while and should be something special when it finally comes, but on the other hand, we do need to schedule when the next stress test/beta phase is to start so everyone knows. Rock and hard place really ... that's why the RD gates are open, however how about we faction Queen Anne's so the people who actually got their RD faction have something at least. Does this sound like a fair compromise?

I think this is a great idea. leave BBW open but fight to get dock access.

it depends if we are going to present this as a democracy, if you let people vote then so be it. some people don't realize that the whole

factioning process was a Money/time sink (As I stated in previous posts)

The Emulator is not driven by money but more for the love of the game so lets keep it sort of the way it is. BBW open but you need to fight your

way through to gain access to the docks. I vote to keep BBW open but may be add some risk to keep it interesting. some kind of random encounter

every now and then as you gate in.