Faction Loyalty. -Easy to implement

[bastuden]

I played MAG
Loved MAG
and I approve this message

[Stormchild]

The idea is interesting but it belong to the RPG genre. This is not WoW with horde against order or whatever it was. Plus, there are barely enough players in to start attaching them to a specific faction, especially in multiplayer.

Brink has already way too much from RPG’s in my opinion. If you crave faction-belonging feeling that much, why not join a clan ? After all, you said so yourself, you would play the affiliated faction unless “balance issues”, so what is the point in the end ?

I for one, value a nice struggle, fair matches where the outcome is never obvious until the very end. And for that, I throw away all allegiances, patriotistic bs, and preference between offense or defense. If one team seems to be overwhelmed, I’ll try to switch there all the time.

I feel we already have too much of this in real life, we have that also in MMO’s and such… why not leave FPS out of this frenzy of having to be in a faction of a “side” ? What’s wrong with being altogether and just having fair matches and mixing teams and putting only skill on the table and not some kind of phantasmed allegiance.

And I am not sure I understand the “egotistic middle american who doesn’t want to share” thing either. It is part of your role-playing, or is it an astonishingly discussable capitalistic and individualistic joke ?

Sorry if I didn’t get the point of the post, of if I missed some humor, but I genuinely felt a bit shocked at reading this request, especially when having one eye always on the news of the world and the damage “faction-belonging” spirit does in there.

/rant

[Smoochy]

[QUOTE=RabidAnubis;363068]Yes, Brink could use many things. Many more choices, more maps, more of everything, more kits.

But one thing that is missing, is loyalty. When I decided I was going to buy this game, I wanted to BE a security agent, not a resistance low life. And I don’t want to play as a resistance agent either. It makes the game worse for me, because as a middle class American who has invested a lot in many things, I don’t want to give them to others. So, this could cause loyalty so that we could eventually feel like a faction is OURS. This would even add to the game play’s story without any voice acting.

EXAMPLE OF IT BEING DONE CORRECTLY-

MAG. This game does it excellently. Any time there was a youtube video, people would post thing’s like SVER forever. Or Slaying Valor Eradicating Raven. Or Raven’s are the smartest. Why? Because we felt the faction was personal. That was the only faction we played for, and we KNEW our teammates well. We felt like we were fighting for our faction- not ourselves. They didn’t need it but they even included a bonus system for the factions that were winning a lot. This added to the story through mechanics, making the game MUCH better than it really was. No one didn’t use teamwork because no one wanted the loss to be their fault. (Happened to me. We lost a contract because I got greedy and didn’t repair the AA battery. Jesus)

HOW TO DO IT ON BRINK

First, Let us pick a faction at the start (You already did) and then let us play as that faction only in multiplayer, unless needed for balance reason. And the reward if your faction does well? The easy way to do it is keep track of the wins (YOU ALREADY DO) and simply give the winning side the advantage in the Ark. Example- if Resistance does really well, make the storyline seem like the resistance is winning. Make it so Resistance attacks the homes of the security. Revisit Security tower to capture it forever. Or something. Maybe even give the resistance a health buff. Maybe even kill the captain of the security. You don’t need cutscenes though. That cuts down on production times.

(If a faction wins three times though, that will signal a need for balance.)[/QUOTE]

thats silly. you realise that the USA was the resistance when warring with the UK?

the whole setup is that neither side are innocent, they both do bad things, much like the USA in real life. its not some global team police force. more like team america they cause plenty of harm as well as some good in looking after their countrymen (ask all the people who died due to USA overthrowing communist countries by putting violent army dictators into power)

why limit all your play to one side? if you want to just play security just play campaign online? im pretty sure my characters (3 res, 2 sec) go into their default side if teams are balanced.

i personally dont take it too seriously, its a game. i enjoy playing both sides (well, i prefer being on the attacking side)

[Smoochy]

[QUOTE=morguen87;363172]I think it’s because there are only 8 maps. At least now you can play 8 maps two different ways as one character. Only attacking/defending on certain maps would lower replay value even more. It would basically give us half the game we have now unless you wanted to spend the time making an identical character just to play the other side.

In my opinion they did it right, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice replay-ability for some end-of-the-day meaningless stats and I wouldn’t want to be forced to create another identical character. If we had more maps it’d be an interesting suggestion, but 8 is way too few for something like that.[/QUOTE]

plus, with the small community and low player count on maps its harder to even it out - MAG was a big game with large player counts wasnt it? i would have found it a ball ache to create 2 sets of identical characters to play on both sides.

[Exedore]

And I don’t want to play as a resistance agent either. It makes the game worse for me, because as a middle class American who has invested a lot in many things, I don’t want to give them to others.

This is something that is a current point of fascination for me. I’m a Canadian/American who’s been living and working in Europe for nearly 6 years now, so I’m a bit out of touch with some of the cultural sentiments.

It was a pet theory of mine that the polarizing nature of American culture would be at odds with how ‘grey’ and equal Brink is… it’s been an issue in previous projects as well. We had some ideas early on about a faction system, but we ultimately preferred balance, and wanted to make both factions attractive to players.

If anybody has anything thoughtful (and of course, respectful) to contribute, I’d love to hear it!.

[Zekariah]

[QUOTE=Exedore;363261]This is something that is a current point of fascination for me. I’m a Canadian/American who’s been living and working in Europe for nearly 6 years now, so I’m a bit out of touch with some of the cultural sentiments.

It was a pet theory of mine that the polarizing nature of American culture would be at odds with how ‘grey’ and equal Brink is… it’s been an issue in previous projects as well. We had some ideas early on about a faction system, but we ultimately preferred balance, and wanted to make both factions attractive to players.

If anybody has anything thoughtful (and of course, respectful) to contribute, I’d love to hear it!.[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure its culture that has as much to do with it as background, Exe.

My brother is in the defense forces of Australia and immediately felt drawn to creating mostly Security characters. Well, that just switched on the Resistance light bulb for me, as sibling rivalry is the REAL civil war starter!

Mind you, I’ve strayed to the Security way of fight since teaming up with a few forum dwellers, but we’ll just keep that one to ourselves.

[Stormchild]

Maybe something like having clan support attached to the territory domination in the Ark’s map on the stats site.

For example, there would be one “classic” view showing which of Resistance or Security is having the edge on each part of the Ark (ie each map).
But you could have another tab showing the same map, but for some kind of “war of the clans” feel to it, with complete different color schemes to indicate which clan/faction is dominating on which map. Associated with some kind of time limit, if would allow maybe some clan to eventually dominated the whole ark, independently of playing either resistance or security side.
This way you have the whole clan/faction domination stuff, without impairing local match balance.
Of course, for this to work it would mean this type of stats would only be tracked in special clan vs clan tournaments or on special servers with adapted mechanics… Because after all you need a way to know, after a match, which clan or faction is the winner… so it would be hard if not impossible to implement in pub games with sometimes a bunch of clan people in one team of the other. Maybe a basic faction for clanless people could help on this level, but that is only if this is to be working on pub games.

Might be hard to implement though, but that’s just a raw idea thrown out on the field. Completely unnecessary to me, as I am a pub player and don’t really care about clans or comp scene or RPG elements. I just want to be able to play each side when I want, to switch when balance calls for it, and make the matches have the most suspense as possible. That’s what I get a kick from : winning or losing in the last seconds. That’s, a GG.

[wolfnemesis75]

[QUOTE=Exedore;363261]This is something that is a current point of fascination for me. I’m a Canadian/American who’s been living and working in Europe for nearly 6 years now, so I’m a bit out of touch with some of the cultural sentiments.

It was a pet theory of mine that the polarizing nature of American culture would be at odds with how ‘grey’ and equal Brink is… it’s been an issue in previous projects as well. We had some ideas early on about a faction system, but we ultimately preferred balance, and wanted to make both factions attractive to players.

If anybody has anything thoughtful (and of course, respectful) to contribute, I’d love to hear it!.[/QUOTE]

I think that having both factions playable and attractive to players was the right way to go. There are possibly ways players could emphasize what Faction they prefer and also move up through the ranks of a faction. That’s why I thought it might be cool to have Badges and Insignia that players could obtain through reaching Exp milestones within each Faction, class, and through their play style and ability choices. Not sure if you saw that thread I made. Anyway, it could be one way to create a Faction loyalty or preferred faction without forcing players to only play as that faction. Just a thought.

[Exedore]

I’m not sure its culture that has as much to do with it as background, Exe.

I’m not suggesting it does; it’s normal in Western cultures for an individual’s values to be more pronounced cultural ones. I do think however, that cultural attitudes are another factor in the mix, and that’s what I’m curious about.

[wolfnemesis75]

I’m not suggesting it does; it’s normal in Western cultures for an individual’s values to be more pronounced cultural ones. I do think however, that cultural attitudes are another factor in the mix, and that’s what I’m curious about.

You just caused me to have a flashback to one of my Western Civics Honors class exams. Gee thanks. :eek:

[Apoc]

Would require at least a half decent population to impliment, + massive balancing issues, + too much codeing, + only lets you play the maps from one angle

[Verticae]

This is something that is a current point of fascination for me. I’m a Canadian/American who’s been living and working in Europe for nearly 6 years now, so I’m a bit out of touch with some of the cultural sentiments.

I’m a European about to move to the USA, I’ll get back to you.

[Spendlove]

Maybe it isn’t a culture thing but an age thing?

I am older, wiser and far more responsible than when I was a teenager. Then I would be rebelling against the system and be The Resistance. Now I AM the system, therefore Security.

[RabidAnubis]

[QUOTE=Smoochy;363247]thats silly. you realise that the USA was the resistance when warring with the UK?

the whole setup is that neither side are innocent, they both do bad things, much like the USA in real life. its not some global team police force. more like team america they cause plenty of harm as well as some good in looking after their countrymen (ask all the people who died due to USA overthrowing communist countries by putting violent army dictators into power)

why limit all your play to one side? if you want to just play security just play campaign online? im pretty sure my characters (3 res, 2 sec) go into their default side if teams are balanced.

i personally dont take it too seriously, its a game. i enjoy playing both sides (well, i prefer being on the attacking side)[/QUOTE]

Wait? What?

I didn’t say that either side was innocent. I was saying that I AM a security, and that is what I want to play as. It’s the side I feel sympathy for even though they aren’t perfect. I don’t want to contribute to the resistance winning on the stat site, I want to bring the security to victory.

[RabidAnubis]

plus, with the small community and low player count on maps its harder to even it out - MAG was a big game with large player counts wasnt it? i would have found it a ball ache to create 2 sets of identical characters to play on both sides.

XD.

Then maybe I’m shooting too high, but this should have been in at the beginning of the game when there were more players.

I was confused when one of my friends said the factions weren’t locked.

[RabidAnubis]

[QUOTE=Spendlove;363319]Maybe it isn’t a culture thing but an age thing?

I am older, wiser and far more responsible than when I was a teenager. Then I would be rebelling against the system and be The Resistance. Now I AM the system, therefore Security.[/QUOTE]

Actually, I am a teenager. I was discussing this from the perspective of what my parents have taught me and what I have seen myself. And when I grow up I know i will be in the same position.

But this isn’t about which side is right, it is about the fact that i really don’t want to play as resistance. And I’m sure many think the security is gay.

Also, I’m expecting a difference on the stat site with the balanced maps.

CC is prolly security favored now.

[RabidAnubis]

Would require at least a half decent population to impliment, + massive balancing issues, + too much codeing, + only lets you play the maps from one angle

Would It involve that much coding?

Maybe, but I said they already had a lot of the framework done, they would just have to make it so you could only play one side.

And I always switch over to the security. Even if there are 6 HUMANS on the other side.

[RabidAnubis]

I think that having both factions playable and attractive to players was the right way to go. There are possibly ways players could emphasize what Faction they prefer and also move up through the ranks of a faction. That’s why I thought it might be cool to have Badges and Insignia that players could obtain through reaching Exp milestones within each Faction, class, and through their play style and ability choices. Not sure if you saw that thread I made. Anyway, it could be one way to create a Faction loyalty or preferred faction without forcing players to only play as that faction. Just a thought.

A preffered faction switch would also be nice, infact, that is the easiest solution to this whole mess.

[MrFoxer]

No. Terrible terrible idea. There’s a reason almost no games have a system like that, it would be completely unbalanced. There’s really no difference between the two factions besides that their clothes look different.

[morguen87]

[QUOTE=RabidAnubis;363332]Would It involve that much coding?

Maybe, but I said they already had a lot of the framework done, they would just have to make it so you could only play one side.
…
[/QUOTE]
And exactly why would that be a good thing? With 8 maps it would mean 8 different ways to play the game instead of 16.