Eduard Teach wrote:DeMichael Crimson wrote:Hello,
My question - what is your viewpoint regarding Faction standings and as a CSM member, what changes would you propose to CCP pertaining to game mechanics for Faction standings ?
Good luck to you in the upcoming CSM election.
DMC
Hi DeMichael Crimson.
Regarding faction standings I think its covered good by the social skills. HJowever I would say that just with sec standings where you can find/buy tags and hand those in to improve your standings. Something similar should arise for faction standings.
However I do not know how feasible that plan would be for CCP. For that I would need to open that discussion and see how its received.
I hope this answers your question.
Kind regards,
Eduard Teach
Thanks for the reply,
I agree, turning in Tags for Standings is definitely an option. However in my opinion Social skills just barely keep the effects of negative Faction standings in check. And that's only if players keep watch on their standings and adjust their gameplay accordingly.
I think Faction standings should have a more positive impact on game play, especially since Eve Online is based on having a balance in 'Risk vs Reward' and 'Actions vs Consequences'. That's what makes this game great. In the past characters were accountable for their actions, now most everything is being dumbed down and turned into easy mode for the instant gratification crowd. That's something I don't want to see happen to Faction standings.
Currently the in-game aspects of Faction standings :
Positive Faction standings are the only way to access Cosmos Agents (one time access).
Positive Faction and Corporation standings are needed to access Research Agents.
All other Agents only require minimal amount of Faction standing for access (-2.00 or higher standing).
High Faction standings reduce Market Broker fees and Reprocessing fees in NPC stations.
At -5.00 or lower Faction standing, Empire NPC's will attack when in their space.
In my opinion CCP made a big mistake when they removed the need to have positive Faction standings to anchor POS in high sec space. Having that requirement made Faction standings more meaningful instead of just being a way to access Agents or to get lower Broker fees. Now I would love to see more content pertaining to positive Faction standings be added to the game. However at this time my inquiry is based more on the negative effects of Faction standings to the playerbase. Since it takes time for players to ruin their Faction standings then it should also take some time to repair those standings. Unfortunately that info is basically nonexistent in-game when it should actually be readily available and easily understood by players.
I created and shared the '
Faction Standing Repair Plan' with the playerbase on the forums back in 2010. Over the past 7 years it has helped countless amount of players to rectify what seemed like an unsolvable issue. In my opinion players need more options available to repair negative Faction standings then what I've listed in that guide. In fact most of those Event Agents can only be accessed once in the characters life.
There's a lot of players in-game who don't read the forums and don't know that guide exists. They've basically accepted the fact they're cut off from engaging in available content due to negative Faction standings. Repairing negative standings is a big task even for experienced players who are familiar with 'The Plan'. New players who haven't learned the game yet can easily mess up their Faction standings without even knowing it right from the start, resulting in no access to half of Empire space.
Anyway, after 7 years of helping players in the forums to repair negative Faction standings, I just wanted to provide some feedback through the CSM for CCP to consider. I believe these options would definitely help players in-game.
Faction standing repair process be implemented in-game and be very intuitive, not obscure (tutorial perhaps).
Changes to Faction standings will notify players with on screen pop up message (option to deactivate).
Actions that would cause negative Faction standing trigger on screen pop up warning (option to deactivate).
All Anti-Empire mission briefings have a warning informing players those missions will incur negative Faction standings.
Implement Tags for Standings in-game based on similar game mechanics as Tags for Security.
Add NPC Agents to in-game Agent Finder for Faction standing repair (similar to proposal in my forum signature).
Once again good luck with the upcoming election.
DMC