Systems: General election and generals

[MightyMan]

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]

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

[Ohanka]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Gonefshn]

You never want a system in a game, especially an FPS where certain people can attain something unattainable by everyone else.

Sure you could say everyone could be voted for and strive to achieve that but honestly RPG elements and democracy in an FPS is not a good culture. All on an even competitive playing field and let me make my own decisions and follow who I want.

[Saifoda]

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.

[Purple]

Originally Posted by Gonefshn

You never want a system in a game, especially an FPS where certain people can attain something unattainable by everyone else.

Sure you could say everyone could be voted for and strive to achieve that but honestly RPG elements and democracy in an FPS is not a good culture. All on an even competitive playing field and let me make my own decisions and follow who I want.

agreed

[MedicDude]

Static commanders is a bad design decision, leadership should be dynamically tied to the squad system.

Public broadcasts is an even worse design decision, something I hated about PS1, and also completely contradicts military doctrine. Commanders should be working with each other and with squad leaders to complete objectives, not ordering the zerg around.

[Saifoda]

Fortunately or unfortunately, the zerg will always be a part of these massive-scaled FPS's (er....wait, Planetside is the only franchise to ever actually do massive shooters....thank God for SOE). Definitely agree that leadership needs to remain dynamic and also be on a voluntary basis (i.e. those being led give the leadership authority to the leader voluntarily, not by force). The /global/continent etc... broadcasts were kinda ok, if not just to help move the zerg in the direction needed, but I agree that more can be done on the tiered-leadership side of things to get people moving in the right direction; the broadcasts should only be used for general stuff and relatively infrequently. One of the most frustrating things was being a platoon leader or squad leader and trying to communicate with your guys and everything is just overpowered by broadcasters going "ATTACK GUNUKU" every 5 seconds.


EDIT: Once again, I'm hoping my article on leadership and outfits and missions and what not will provide a general solution to a lot of the problems we're seeing with this stuff.

[Obiyer]

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]

NO.

[Karrade]

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]

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.