Smoothing out the Pendulum

[Chiangtao]

I think we've all seen how trends can affect a NWN2 server. There is no fault involved; we are dealing with limited population and varying player schedules due to things like school. Also, couples and friends creating characters to coop can amplify a trend. But, what I'm driving at is, the presence of one faction or side being too strong for several months. For example, the current trend of many Black Hand members.

Why is this bad? We always strive to have people group together. Having a lot of PCs online who are the same faction at the same time makes it easier for them to group. Heck, it makes it easier for DMs to run events, too.

Trends can detract from conflict though. In my eyes, a persistent world's drama shouldn't be dependent on DMs to be online. Players should be able to drive it on their own. But, this requires conflict - and you'll get a lot more of it when you have opposing forces online.

Additionally, trends lead to the perception of slanted DM events. I hope this doesn't sound like finger pointing. It's really just the DM team providing good customer service to the large current population. But, the amount of attention given to one side will alienate the other unless they are very mature about it. And that isn't always easy to do when we're just looking for fun!

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OK enough justification! What I wanted to suggest is, bumping XP rewards for unrepresented factions. For example, there could be a running weekly counter which looked at which PCs logged on and for how long. The hourly presence of each faction for the previous week would affect the current week's XP gains. For example, if very few Triad members logged on last week, offer an extra 5% XP to Triad members this week. You could take it even further, where a strong presence of an opposing faction (BH) would make the Triad gain even stronger.

Admittedly, this is hard to balance, and I don't have any equations worked out in my head for feasibility. But I believe the idea is sound. It would reward players for logging in "against the grain." And, it would help non-represented factions level up a little quicker so they could offer better conflict than a level 3 vs a level 20 (which can happen pretty easily in many evil (3) vs. good (20) interactions; good guys tend to keep their characters longer from what I've seen).

[roguethree]

(which can happen pretty easily in many evil (3) vs. good (20) interactions; good guys tend to keep their characters longer from what I've seen)

My interactions were always 1 (me) v. 8 (them). Fond memories of the Hand scouting me at a portal location, portalling back, telling their friends, and then 8 dudes coming through said portal, fully loaded. The tip-off was the "Player X does not like you!" "Player Y does not like you!" "Player Z does not like you!" Player Z's mom does not like you!" "You about to get got, fool!" "Prepare for pain!" "This is the paintrain, and you on it!"

Yeah, the server messages got pretty creative.

Trends can detract from conflict though. In my eyes, a persistent world's drama shouldn't be dependent on DMs to be online. Players should be able to drive it on their own. But, this requires conflict - and you'll get a lot more of it when you have opposing forces online.

Totes agree. Larger player population helps. As often as we've heard that Sundren isn't concerned with player numbers, we really do need numbers to have meaningful faction v. faction conflict.

[Chiangtao]

My interactions were always 1 (me) v. 8 (them). Fond memories of the Hand scouting me at a portal location, portalling back, telling their friends, and then 8 dudes coming through said portal, fully loaded. The tip-off was the "Player X does not like you!" "Player Y does not like you!" "Player Z does not like you!" Player Z's mom does not like you!" "You about to get got, fool!" "Prepare for pain!" "This is the paintrain, and you on it!"

Those numbers were meant to be levels, not quantity of people actually. I think in general, you'll find people who tend to be one character players also tend to be good aligned characters. That creates level disparity in a lot of conflict interactions. That's all I was getting at!

And I feel your pain, but if you're hanging out at a portal location, you're inviting it

[roguethree]

I miss Clive.

[Nwilmen]

As a player who has never played a PC in a faction, even I feel there is a strong need for more balance between factions.

I've only played on one other server for any length of time, and they were very successful when it came to drumming up and sustaining tension, conflict, or cooperation between factions. Granted that server enjoyed a higher average population than Sundren is right now, but even during slow months it always felt like factions were a more active presence and that there were more for guilded characters to do, with or against one another.

I'm going to throw out some opinions and observations here about Sundren's faction system that not everyone will dig or agree with, but I'm only speaking as someone who's never been in a faction and accept I could be totally off base. And even if these are some things people agree with, I'm not saying I have workable solutions. That being said...

Faction membership on Sundren strikes me as being a little cheap. And by cheap, I mean it seems to mean very little to be a member of a faction because anyone with a little money and/or grinding skill can complete an automated quest and join - regardless of whether they have a true RP reason to be a part of this group, or contribute to it in any meaningful way. No one else, besides class restrictions or a DM, can tell your character they aren't allowed to join if they aren't up to snuff. So when my PC meets someone that says they're in the Hand, in Exigo, or whatever, I as a player don't really feel the weight behind that character's authority as a group member - but I know my character ought to?

Most people (not everyone, but a lot) seem to join factions because it gives them access to exclusive equipment. They roll up a particular class, decide what gear they'll be needing, and then slap on worship to the appropriate god or adherence to a particular lifestyle to justify their character's membership. Again, not everyone does it, and I've met some really well thought out guilded PCs. But you can tell when someone says "Oh, yeah, I'm a member of the Whatever Club" and they don't actually do anything to promote it, just strutting around in awesome gear.

On past servers I've had PCs join a faction through role play only, but of course the problem with that is you need at least some DM involvement - but actually not that much. We took new members on a trial period to see if they were right for the faction (handy for weeding out spies or morons), a senior member decided if they were good to go, notified a DM, and usually tried to arrange an event for the player to do their first job or initiation. In times that we were short staffed, a senior PC would conduct the event instead of a DM (similar to how Dain Tornbook would some junior paladin PCs out on quests a while back). Completing that, they got their membership token. That system really seemed to produce dedicated members, and forged a meaningful relationship between senior and new members during the process.

Sundren's system is markedly different, which is beneficial in some ways (need less DM involvement, which can be sparse during certain slow times), but also weak in others. While a complete overhaul is probably not likely or even widely supported, I would really like to see more player-driven events and activity in and between the different factions.

[Chiangtao]

I miss Clive.

You miss beating on Clive.

[Kitsunestume]

On past servers I've had PCs join a faction through role play only, but of course the problem with that is you need at least some DM involvement - but actually not that much. We took new members on a trial period to see if they were right for the faction (handy for weeding out spies or morons), a senior member decided if they were good to go, notified a DM, and usually tried to arrange an event for the player to do their first job or initiation. In times that we were short staffed, a senior PC would conduct the event instead of a DM (similar to how Dain Tornbook would some junior paladin PCs out on quests a while back). Completing that, they got their membership token. That system really seemed to produce dedicated members, and forged a meaningful relationship between senior and new members during the process.

A few months ago us Black Tax players tried to implement just this sort of thing, so we could keep track of our numbers and, as you stated, "weeding out spies and morons". It was pretty brusquely denied, and while I've managed to RP one initiation, that same initiate had become a member of the faction before they had been introduced to its existence IC. As it stands, I only know one active Eboncoin member other than myself, but am aware that quite a few lurk on the server who I haven't met.

I suggested at the time that factions require a certain minimum rep to start the quests (presumably gained through events, or player-vouching), but it seems practically infeasible at times, especially if the player attempting to join is on at significantly different play-times than the active members of that faction, but it is doable.