Outfit Specialisations

[Soothsayer]

I would feel uneasy about artificially limiting outfit progression on an arbitrary number.

Whats the matter with large outfits that they need to be limited in such a way?

I would go as far as to say that quite a few believe that larger outfit = zerg. If zerg outfits are terrible, they won't produce as many resources per member and will have slower per member advancement.

What about large outfits comprised of skilled members?

Who is being held back here, and what are the reasons for holding them back?

If an outfit can bring in disproportionate gains compared to the rest, then let them keep their gains. If its just numbers and minimal skill, what difference does it make? All that would mean is that the biggest outfit with the lowest skilled players have a higher level outfit.

Doesn't mean that their members will get respect on the field.

That said, I think that in either case, if a cap system is put in place it should focus on active players. When I take a break from PS, its always nice to still have an outfit that I'm a part of when I get back...

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Edit: regarding small outfits earning specialisations as quickly as larger ones. Its a tricky thing, and perhaps there should be no system which penalises larger outfits; what would happen if there was a small outfit that unlocked all the specialisations they wanted, and then massively recruited?

The idea is that the experience needed to gain whatever experience-based advancement there is would scale to the number of people in it, so this doesn't happen.

Small outfits don't level faster. They just require less experience because there are fewer people in it to earn the experience.

Thus, an outfit that starts small, advances a lot, and then goes on a recruiting spree has the same level (or whatever) as the outfit that immediately recruited a ton of people and then worked on its advances -- providing that the average amount of experience earned per player is similar between the two.

So advance and then recruit doesn't "get you ahead."

Now, I have a feeling that outfit advancement will be based on a time component, as well, so such a mechanic might not be necessary -- as time is not something that can be cumulatively gained. 5 players will offer their outfit as much time (that is 1x however long the outfit's been around) as 500 players (also 1x however long the outfit's been around).

Now, if, like players, there's an acceleration factor for time spent playing, that may have to scale -- say, the average amount of time played across all players for the last week, or whatever; rather than saying "so long as somebody's logged in, the outfit counts as getting the played time bonus," which would penalize small groups that all play at the same time vs. large groups with playtimes spread throughout the day to maintain a constant presence.

[kaffis]

As for enabling people to take breaks from the game without penalizing their outfit or forcing their outfit to kick them out to avoid a penalty, I'd suggest a "reserve" status, where a reserve member doesn't count towards the active player metrics, but can't earn progress for them, either.

That way, if your buddy Joe just had a kid and hasn't logged in for 2 weeks, you can just have an officer bump him down to reserve status. He gets a chance to log in on a day when his wife took the kid to visit her parents? He can play, with his outfit, no hassles. When things settle down and he gets regular game time again, to whatever standard the outfit wants to encourage, he says "hey guys, I'm available again" and gets taken off reserve status.

I'd even allow a member to voluntarily put themselves on reserve.

[Soothsayer]

Originally Posted by kaffis

As for enabling people to take breaks from the game without penalizing their outfit or forcing their outfit to kick them out to avoid a penalty, I'd suggest a "reserve" status, where a reserve member doesn't count towards the active player metrics, but can't earn progress for them, either.

That way, if your buddy Joe just had a kid and hasn't logged in for 2 weeks, you can just have an officer bump him down to reserve status. He gets a chance to log in on a day when his wife took the kid to visit her parents? He can play, with his outfit, no hassles. When things settle down and he gets regular game time again, to whatever standard the outfit wants to encourage, he says "hey guys, I'm available again" and gets taken off reserve status.

I'd even allow a member to voluntarily put themselves on reserve.

Good call, that addresses one of my primary concerns.

[Sovereign]

Indeed, reserve settings should be designated to outfits so they can have proper administration.