Systems: General election and generals

[OutlawDr]

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.

[MCYRook]

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.

[Karrade]

Originally Posted by OutlawDr

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.

My reasons were on the macro level. So no, but we'll move into politics if I continue with your current line of reasoning, suffice to say (in the game, if we can keep the discussion there) it'll lend itself to he who has the biggest set of friends making the choices. Not the best commander, not the best at what he does.

This is an inferior way of running things, however you want to word it.

Originally Posted by OutlawDr

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.

Just because it may be a challenge to develop an intelligent way of tracking success rates, doesn't mean we, as a community, should run from it based on that alone.

[Baneblade]

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?

[Dropshockmedic]

As long as it doesnt make someone unbalanced and overpowered in combat, I dont care what the features are.

Globalchatfunctions never really convinced me.
The only time when I saw something like this, it was in old times of WorldofWarcraft and to announce ingame-weddings and such.

And I dont think that you can perfectly command
even the best of players, when they just arent avaible.
Or lets say alot of players from one faction are online and...
- 50 guilds/outfits with around 40 players each
(dont know yet how much players can join when its ready)

So you get your 2000 players.
As General you can make them listen to you through a global channel.
But for what reason? When they are online, I bet they will do good and valuabe fighting somewhere... and more strategy is not necessary.

Lets say another fraction is big in advantage at some sector.
So what? No one needs to stop them. Let them dig a tunnel in whatever terrain. Their superior forces are obivously concentrated where they advance, other sectors are weaker thanks to that.

The game is an everchanging MMO.
Skill is rendered useless to some extend, even a faction with "superior players" can have a bad day, misfortune and such and maybe lose 50% of a continent like noobs.
Strategy is nice, but I think every outfit/guild will got their masterplan at hand, to fight the best way possible in the place they are currently in.

Global commands are most likely to get ignored.

[SgtMAD]

NO !!

[OutlawDr]

Originally Posted by Karrade

My reasons were on the macro level. So no, but we'll move into politics if I continue with your current line of reasoning, suffice to say (in the game, if we can keep the discussion there) it'll lend itself to he who has the biggest set of friends making the choices. Not the best commander, not the best at what he does.

This is an inferior way of running things, however you want to word it.

Just because it may be a challenge to develop an intelligent way of tracking success rates, doesn't mean we, as a community, should run from it based on that alone.

Heres the thing, any kind of leader needs the legitimacy of those they order. Its all about politics in the end. This is not some RTS where you can just boil it down to stats. If no one is listening to you, doesn't matter how sound your tactics are. Any system based on formulas and absent of player input can be gamed, and that possibility alone is enough for people to just discredit anyone who is at the top. Especially when it determines who is 'boss'. In the end you get the same scenario as in PS1 where no one listens. Its just some stranger you can ignore barking orders at you.

[berzerkerking]

[Neurotoxin]

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.

[Karrade]

Originally Posted by OutlawDr

Heres the thing, any kind of leader needs the legitimacy of those they order. Its all about politics in the end. This is not some RTS where you can just boil it down to stats. If no one is listening to you, doesn't matter how sound your tactics are. Any system based on formulas and absent of player input can be gamed, and that possibility alone is enough for people to just discredit anyone who is at the top. Especially when it determines who is 'boss'. In the end you get the same scenario as in PS1 where no one listens. Its just some stranger you can ignore barking orders at you.

Well they only get that by being good at what they do from me, else I do ignore them. Many people I've played with ignore bad orders, so I don't see how a voting system stops people ignoring orders?

If stats are shown at the least, people can quickly see who is doing well, and that alone will generate credibility. In a purely neutral stats system, personal opinion doesn't matter as much - I guess this comes down to fundamentally different opinions on what makes a good leader .

In the world I live in, and the social circles i move in, leaders are only respected if they get the job done. Popularity among the groups I associate with doesn't go past the poster it was pinned on.

Give me practically over popularity any day. - If I see a CR5 really reacting well, I go back him up no matter what is going on, and no matter if he's 'disliked' by the guy next to me.

[OutlawDr]

We both live in the same world, and leadership incorporates all of it. You can't distill it. Good leaders should be competent at their job and are good at dealing with people. They are both intertwined. You can't just tell players, "hey guys our formula says this guy that you don't know and have no reason to listen to will now be you leader." This is especially true in a game where people are not being coerced, payed or have any obligations to listen to anyone. They have total freedom to listen to whoever the heck they want to. You can throw stats and formulas at people all day long, but at the end they are probably just going to listen to someone they trust and know.

Now Im not saying we should incorporate a simple 'do you like me: yes or no?' winner take all voting system, but I think completely ignoring input from players as to who leads will just lead to more of the same... players ignoring commanders and everyone resorting to simply following their friends and/or OL.

Frankly I wouldn't mind ditching the idea of commanders with global and cont chat. Just let the community organize itself. However the new mission creation system kinda forces the issue regardless.

[diLLa]

Maybe every outfit with a certain amount of players can promote a player to have privilidges in global chat and whatsoever. And make it like so that for every 100 members you have, you get 2 spots to elect your own generals for.

This way the organised groups have these players, and no one has to fight over them, as the choice is internally with the outfit.

This way all the significant outfits have someone to communicate with the masses.

[OutlawDr]

Originally Posted by diLLa

Maybe every outfit with a certain amount of players can promote a player to have privilidges in global chat and whatsoever. And make it like so that for every 100 members you have, you get 2 spots to elect your own generals for.

This way the organised groups have these players, and no one has to fight over them, as the choice is internally with the outfit.

This way all the significant outfits have someone to communicate with the masses.

I wouldn't restrict it to the large guilds. This is exactly what some people are worried about. I would allow anyone to promote a player. This is similar to what Neurotoxin posted. Basically anyone with a certain command rank can throw their hat into the ring and players can then place their bid on the player they want.

I wouldn't do it monthly though. A lot can happen in a month. Weekly or even daily...hell hourly...bi-hourly heh. All a player has to do is place a bid, and it stays there. They wouldn't have to continuously bid on someone, but if they need to change they can. Let players make a list of candidates, and in-case their top pick is offline, a run-off happens down the list (this is if its done daily or faster).

Anyway, this is a lot of details on a system that might not even be necessary. With so few details released on command rank and mission creation, we risk chasing our tails.

[TAA]

I would prefer a much simpler system.

1. Whoever attains max rank in leadership can elect to be put into a forthnightly pool.
2. Names are selected at random from that pool and ranked (eg. 1-100 if there are 100 players in the pool).
3. Whoever is #1 on the list is in charge for that 2 week period. If they are not logged in then command passes to whoever is #2. if #2 is not around then command passes to #3, and so on down the chain.

I would rather have an average leader for a couple of weeks than 20 know-it-all leaders giving conflicting orders all the time.

[OutlawDr]

That still has the same problem found in PS1. Some random stranger telling you what to do because he grinded his CR.