Systems: General election and generals

MightyMan · 2012-06-09, 12:11 PM

Basically, every month 100 commanders from each faction will be elected and become generals.
From what I know in the previous game, when you'r squad captured a base and you were a squad leader, you would gain command points which would allow you to get command ranks that would give you special abilities.
This system should stay for commanders, but generals would be like the 6th rank of commanders and will be the most important personalities of the faction.

Now the powers of the general are: Using global chat (commanders would get continental), orbital strikes, making command plans with other generals (idea was already discussed on this forums), in case any of those giant battleship ideas will be made in the game then they are the one who would be able to navigate them and a 30% buff to every stat to troops in the radius of 50 meters as a moral buff.
Of course there are many other abilities that can be given to them but I don't have any.

You can be elected when you have 3rd command rank or higher and play 8 hours a week or more (so that there are no inactive generals).
The 100 commanders who have the most votes become generals.
You can vote for somebody just by choosing the option of "vote for [name]"
(outfit members cannot vote for each other to avoid fixed votes).
This would show that the community trusts the elected players and would make sure that generals are not possible griefers or spies from other factions.
Please don't flame or anything, this idea is still under construction so feel free to add ideas expand and improve it.
Commanders in PS1 from wiki:
http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Command_Rank

Baneblade · 2012-06-09, 12:13 PM

Elections are a bad idea. Because then we get the effect of democracy, tyranny of the majority.

Ohanka · 2012-06-09, 12:27 PM

Elections don't make sense from a lore perspective.

Terran Republic: Oppressive Dictatorship
Vanu Sovereignty: View it as a form of the past.
NC: probably would be democratic, but in a time of war few rebel governments have elections, better to have strong leadership.

I'd prefer these "Generals" to be apointed based on command effectiveness, and not on a popularity contest. more often than not outfits would just blockvote their leader for General.

MightyMan · 2012-06-09, 12:44 PM

I guess what you said is true. Instead maybe have only commanders to be able to vote, this way there will be no harm to the lore. Also don't allow outfit members to vote for each other, in case there are two or more commanders in an outfit.
This would of course cause the possible general count to drop ~20 because getting votes would be harder.

New idea: Ability to vote on resource income bonus on 1 continent giving friendly soldiers who have been on the continent more then 30 minutes a bonus of 20% to all gained resources.

Note: I'l probably take the good ideas from this thread and post them together with my idea in a more finalized and organised not-as-half-baked thread.

OutlawDr · 2012-06-09, 01:19 PM

heh, if you want elections, you are going to have to accept who the players vote for. Of course outfits are going to vote for their leader....thats why they joined that outfit to begin with. Denying that would make the whole elections worthless imo. And I see nothing wrong with outfits voting for their leader. It the equivalent of a political party.

Purple · 2012-06-09, 01:22 PM

i dont want 100 people thinking their better then the rest of us.
i played in the blue lions and let me tell you the power went to the leaders head big time.

Saifoda · 2012-06-09, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

Elections are a bad idea. Because then we get the effect of democracy, tyranny of the majority.

I like your style.

Neurotoxin · 2012-07-04, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Elections are a bad idea. Because then we get the effect of democracy, tyranny of the majority.

Disagree. this is a video game, nothing is really at stake. 100 per faction selected month is fine, but if they are derelict of duty or just plain ineffective, they need to be able to be removed and replaced before the end of the month.

Bid System

I prefer a system where players can place their confidence in leaders by declaring a bid of support for the people they want to have as a leader. This wouldn't just determine generals, but the entire faction command structure. As players play on more, they are allowed to have more than 3 active bids at one time, and the weight of their bids is more significant than lower-level players. Leaders can't be double-bid, one bid per leader per account per server (which is why keeping bids at a lower value for less-played accounts is important to keeping alternate accounts from stealing the vote).

Anyone who has served as a leader of any type should have a service record to show their activity and achievements as a leader. Access to higher levels of leadership could be limited to Command Rank as well, so only someone who has unlocked CR5 can actually be a general. The ability to assign missions, decide on what mineral / alloy an area is producing, set up faction waypoints or battle plans, and probably other features, would go well with this.

Obiyer · 2012-07-02, 11:03 PM

I'm bumping this thread because I played a game called Shattered Galaxy that had an election system.

Here's a quote from the SG City Wiki:

Before SG version 1.73, there existed an in-depth political system within Shattered Galaxy. All paying players above a certain level could nominate, elect, and support or oppose a single player to be the Overlord for their faction. The Overlord managed the regiments, creating, deleting, and changing the leaders to his liking. He also had the power to turn on any players Team Kill? flag and restrict players from leaving the capital along with the Shout, health bonus, and map marker power regiment leaders possess.

If members of a faction disapproved of how the Overlord was running things, they could oppose him in the Faction Headquarters? and once the oppose rate reached a certain point, a new election would be called. Otherwise, the Overlord would serve out a set term of 3 weeks until the next election. There was no limit to the amount of times you could be Overlord and being one earned you a medal.

To balance the Tyranny of the Majority, I think that online Premium Users could vote, or those who paid the monthly premium fee. How long a person in power I think should vary. Maybe a couple months?

I want to come back to this topic once I have thought about it more. But I really want to see a leadership structure in the Factions, to where there's a CR somewhere out there who everyone sorta has to follow when making decisions.

Hosp · 2012-07-02, 11:40 PM

NO.

Karrade · 2012-07-03, 03:31 AM

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Elections are a bad idea. Because then we get the effect of democracy, tyranny of the majority.

This. Well put sir, few people can see it. No to herd mentality rule please, no popularity over practicality contests here.

Make it stat based if anything, but that will only work if these stats are intelligently taken from the game. If the commanders/generals are successful in their role (whatever that is) they move up a rank, if they fail then they move down a rank.

Baneblade · 2012-07-03, 08:19 AM

Make it based on mission acceptance rates if anything, but only count mission outside your outfit. If people already follow you more, for whatever reason, it stands to reason you should be representative of that inherited responsibility. Should have the ability to decline though.

MCYRook · 2012-07-04, 04:02 AM

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Make it based on mission acceptance rates if anything, but only count mission outside your outfit.

Still easily exploitable.

Whenever you let people vote on something like that, it'll always be the huge, mass-inviting outfits whose leaders get elected.

Baneblade · 2012-07-04, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by MCYRook

Still easily exploitable.

Whenever you let people vote on something like that, it'll always be the huge, mass-inviting outfits whose leaders get elected.

Umm, how is this related to what I said?

OutlawDr · 2012-07-04, 01:47 AM

Originally Posted by Karrade

This. Well put sir, few people can see it. No to herd mentality rule please, no popularity over practicality contests here.

Make it stat based if anything, but that will only work if these stats are intelligently taken from the game. If the commanders/generals are successful in their role (whatever that is) they move up a rank, if they fail then they move down a rank.

I think it will be incredibly hard coming up with algorithm to count a commanders "success rate" or "effectiveness". Way too many variables to leave it in the hands of some formula. Ideally the community itself should decide who are the effective commanders, and it all starts looking like a vote. Nothing stops posting the commanders stats for players to see (even if it doesn't necessarily prove anything).

This is not directed solely at you Karrade, but this line of "tyranny of the majority" just sounds like elitism and sour grapes about the possibility that one might find themselves in the minority. I think any commanders with "privileged" abilities such global chat, continent chat or mission creation has to have some legitimacy. PS1 grind to CR5 wasn't a good way to do it, and they usually garnered a good amount of contempt from players... since nobody approved of them being there (not too mention trolls). And stop...you can't dismiss outfit members voting or approving their own outfit leader. Of course they are biased, thats why they joined that outfit. The player pretty much made their vote by joining the outfit.

However, I think we need to first get a hint at the direction SOE is going with mission creation and command rank systems.