Gameplay: Question/Concern/Idea regarding outfit certification trees

[psychobilly]

In one of the interviews with Higby, he mentioned that outfits would gain experience and be able to spec into outfit-wide improvements. He said that an outfit commander could choose from either some very general buffs or very specific ones like focus on air, infantry, armor, etc. He qualified this by saying that you couldn't have both air AND armor buffs, for example. Has there been any recent information about this?

My concern is that a game mechanic like that might encourage multi-divisional outfits to break up the outfit to focus on a particular area. So instead of one outfit with air, armor, and infantry you would end up with three outfits focused on their individual area. To me that would be a bad mechanic.

I like the idea of earning outfit experience and having cert trees outside the purely personal character trees, however.

My idea is that outfit commanders should have access to a 'formation window'. In that window, the commanders could define an arbitrary number of divisions with a focus on particular outfit certification trees. The commanders could then drag and drop members of the outfit into those division sections as they saw fit. Members of those divisions would earn experience toward that particular division certification tree, rather than (or in addition to) the outfit as a whole. The commanders could have the choice of putting everyone into a single division, or breaking the outfit up as much as is needed.

The point of the idea is keeping multi-divisional outfits together, while still allowing access to specialization trees.

Then again, the outfit-wide buffs could be negligible making outfit break-up a non-issue. Just throwing it out there.

[Warborn]

But if every cert area could be developed within a single outfit, specialization is lost. The outfit specialization stuff is really a hell of a pickle. On the one hand, it's cool to have outfit specialization and letting outfits that do X become better at X and help to make a name for themselves in the process. On the other hand, what if you're in that outfit and today you want to do something besides X? Well, now are you disadvantaged significantly versus someone in an outfit which specializes in that other thing? So yeah, balancing the desire for outfits to have more panache and depth versus not wanting people to feel like they can't fly a plane or shoot a bazooka unless they're in a plane-flying/bazooka-shooting outfit is a legit issue.

However, I think you're on to something here, although I wonder if making outfits behave like mini-alliances on their own might not be the way to go. So, essentially, you'd have your ability to create separate divisions and be able to assign members to those divisions as you say, but the divisions would have leaders and their own chat channel in addition to the wider outfit chat channel an a more central outfit leader. From there, divisions would have their own name, prefixed/suffixed with an outfit tag.

[Machine]

sounds good but the divisions need to be able to break off and join other outfits. adds politics and forces main leaders to listen to subcommanders some.

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Machine

sounds good but the divisions need to be able to break off and join other outfits. adds politics and forces main leaders to listen to subcommanders some.

This doesn't seem appropriate to me at all. Whatever specializations are unlocked by an outfit should stay in the outfit. If members don't like the way the outfit is being run they should be able to leave at their discretion, but they should not be able to take the outfit's unlocks with them. Listening to members is the prerogative of an outfit leader. Game guilds are not democracies.

[psychobilly]

Originally Posted by Warborn

But if every cert area could be developed within a single outfit, specialization is lost.

However, I think you're on to something here, although I wonder if making outfits behave like mini-alliances on their own might not be the way to go.

Not really saying that outfits would behave as mini-alliances. Most people in a multi-divisional outfit would cross over to the different divisions as the situation called for. Everyone is still going to be on the same voice comms, and operating as one outfit.

But maybe a cap on the number of divisions you can unlock in your formation display. I think I would add to my idea that an outfit commander would start off with maybe two divisions and unlock more over time. This would limit the number of outfit specializations you can use at one time.

Originally Posted by Warborn

Whatever specializations are unlocked by an outfit should stay in the outfit. If members don't like the way the outfit is being run they should be able to leave at their discretion, but they should not be able to take the outfit's unlocks with them.

Agreed with this.

[Machine]

Originally Posted by Warborn

Game guilds are not democracies.

I giggled. I'm a 35 year old marine corps combat vet. Maybe ill start a democratic Outfit and keep it non serf and simple with effort put more into screening players by how much I enjoy playing the video game with them. That way if some of us disagree and part ways no one looses out.

Game guilds are anything we want them to be.

[Warborn]

Game guilds are anything we want them to be.

They're whatever the leader wants them to be. If der Fuhrer wants surrender power to the hoi polloi, that's his prerogative, but making a game system force that kind of leadership system lest a subordinate abscond with some of the outfit's capabilities doesn't seem appropriate.

Originally Posted by psychobilly

Not really saying that outfits would behave as mini-alliances. Most people in a multi-divisional outfit would cross over to the different divisions as the situation called for. Everyone is still going to be on the same voice comms, and operating as one outfit.

But maybe a cap on the number of divisions you can unlock in your formation display. I think I would add to my idea that an outfit commander would start off with maybe two divisions and unlock more over time. This would limit the number of outfit specializations you can use at one time.

I think having them function as mini-alliances might be the best way to do it to be honest. By that, though, I mean having the divisions have their own name and potentially other stuff like uniform patterns/emblem/chat channel (in addition to an outfit channel). The goal Higby talked about was to have people from X outfit be known for doing a particular thing well, and allow specialization to accentuate that. Well, what if every outfit had a division per specialization tree, and each division had its own name? So an outfit might have its full name, but also an outfit tag of 4 characters or so. Meanwhile, the divisions would have a full name as well. So if I were in an outfit called Warbon's Internet Assholes, my tag might be WASS. And if I were playing in the WASS division called "Infantry Bros", my name in game might be Warborn <Infantry Bros, WASS> or something.

So you let outfits offer the variety to its members without forcing numerous separate outfits with different comms to be created and coordinated. But you also limit the specialization that people within a particular outfit can take advantage of at the same time. Plus you satisfy the name recognition stuff, as people would know that the people in Infantry Bros of WASS are terrible at infantry and are super-easy to kill despite their specialization options.

[Machine]

I don't see the part where I suggested they take a perk with them

[Garem]

May I suggest a change in language?

Divisions seemed to be used as Outfits in this thread. If Divisions should have total control over their own administration, how is that any different than an outfit?
There are ways to make this whole idea work, but we'd need a new meta-structure to the mechanics behind Outfits, Divisions, and maybe other sorts of organization.

The old MMO idea of Alliances makes no sense as a name in the context of Planetside. Perhaps we want something like them though?

[psychobilly]

Originally Posted by Garem

Divisions seemed to be used as Outfits in this thread. If Divisions should have total control over their own administration, how is that any different than an outfit?

The old MMO idea of Alliances makes no sense as a name in the context of Planetside. Perhaps we want something like them though?

I didn't suggest divisions (or platoons or whatever you want to call it) would have total control over their own administration. What I suggested is that an outfit commander be able to define organizational units within the outfit structure. The outfit commander would have control and would define who is in what unit for a particular op. Instead of the outfit having only one certification tree, the organizational units would have their own tree.

All I am saying is this:

Either make sure that outfit certification trees provide negligible bonuses
OR
Allow for outfits to break up their internal organizational structure to pursue more than one cert tree. This will prevent large outfits from breaking up to specialize their internal units.

I don't really see the game needing an alliance system, as everyone in your faction is an ally. If you have some kind of nullsec continent, then an alliance system would get interesting.

[Warborn]

I referenced "alliances" as a way to easily understand how an idea like this could be implemented. Don't get hung up on the terminology, I'm just trying to frame my contribution to this idea effectively.

The point with the alliance reference was to illustrate the concept of having the divisions have different names and an internal channel/organization and yet be a part of a larger umbrella group: the outfit.

Either way I really do like this idea. I think it addresses the very real concern about how to cater to different playstyles within a single outfit very elegantly. Hopefully the intention of the developers is along these lines.

[Garem]

Ah, understood. I think you're both spot on that we want at LEAST two strata of organizations: Outfit and Divisions. I'm far more skeptical about an even larger tier, though, as it would be redundant.

If there WERE a third layer (Division -> Outfit -> Alliance) I'd strongly prefer to see the Outfit leader be given the power to dispense or spend points upwards or downwards, not the division/alliance leaders; or at the very least, let the outfit leader appropriate points for division leaders to spend. If the division leaders want extra perks, that should be an outfit level discussion. Separating cert trees would just cause redundancy- keep it simple.

On a tangential note, I do hope that larger organizations don't have their growth stymied by increasing cert cost. Flat rates are better, imo.

[Warborn]

Well, actual alliances is a whole 'nother topic. It'd be cool if there's in-game support for alliances, but they'll exist at least informally like the old ULTRA alliance for TR/Emerald.

As for point-spending, definitely I'd say it should be the prerogative of the actual outfit leader. Any division leadership would be, by default, more about housekeeping than anything. Internal permission-setting perhaps, that sort of thing. All substantial decisions should not be taken out of the hands of the outfit leader and any designated officers.

For separating cert trees though, what I meant and I think psychobilly meant is that an individual division could only take advantage of a single specialization tree at a time. The idea is to make a system which coincides with Higby's stated intent of not letting tanks and planes be specialized in simultaneously. A fair goal. So, if you limit divisions to either being an infantry division, or an armor division, you achieve that. Meanwhile, the "general" abilities that Higby mentioned could be developed which provide blanket bonuses that are good for everyone would be shared between all division, in effect being the "outfit tree" if you will.

[psychobilly]

Originally Posted by Warborn

For separating cert trees though, what I meant and I think psychobilly meant is that an individual division could only take advantage of a single specialization tree at a time. So, if you limit divisions to either being an infantry division, or an armor division, you achieve that. Meanwhile, the "general" abilities that Higby mentioned could be developed which provide blanket bonuses that are good for everyone would be shared between all division, in effect being the "outfit tree" if you will.

Well there's a few ways you could do it...

Personally I think the cert trees should only be at the division level. So an outfit would likely start out with a main division spec'd into general buffs. Then you might eventually add infantry, armor, air, max etc. specialized divisions.

My initial thought is that only people in the division contribute to the cert tree. So if you drag 20 people into a generic division for an op, and 8 people into an air division, the generic division is going to build up it's cert tree much more quickly for the duration of that op.

[Warborn]

That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach. Being able to pick a vehicle type that gets kills/exp very easily -- aircraft, lets say -- and use them to rack up points to add to an infantry specialization tree, for instance, doesn't seem very appropriate to me. Becoming specialized in a particular branch should demand people in a division associated with that branch be actively playing and advancing the specialization.