Invasion Suggestion

[Alric Kuhn]

Hello everyone.

I was just having a discussion with someone who, like me, are very big fans of invasions. Both this person and I have partaken in dozens of invasions and orchestrated more than a few of our own. We've also taken part in every single invasion under the new rule set and we've found one big glaring problem; People don't seem to be interacting with the enemy as much.

I'm not claiming that no one is doing it, but it is obvious to myself and others that it is happening more and more. Instead of focusing upon the actual conflict with the other faction people are more focusing on their own faction, interacting with their own members and the story their faction is trying to push rather than working with the enemy. I think this has happened all too often in invasions as of late, and honestly I understand why. It's often far easier to work with members of your own faction than it is the enemy, but in truth...that's not what invasions are about.

Invasions are meant to be about conflict, fighting with the enemy.

Below are the current rules for invasions;

Spoiler

• Teamwork. The amount of teamwork each faction exhibits over the course of the Invasion will contribute to victory, including its organization, cooperation with the faction's members, and how it executes its vision for the Invasion. This also includes members from opposing factions working with each other, rather than against each other, to provide entertaining role-play.
• Story. Does it make sense? How exciting is it? Are the factions trying to weave a purposeful story or put up points on a scoreboard? This should not include the reason for the Invasion, but rather the story that proceeds once the Invasion has begun.
• OOC Drama. Negative drama instigated by either side, publicly, can negatively impact a Faction’s chances for victory in an Invasion.
• Entertainment. The value of entertainment provided by Factions in an Invasion can positively impact a Faction’s chances for victory in an Invasion.
• Effort. The amount of effort put into the Invasion by each faction participating will positively impact that faction's chances for victory. This includes, but is not limited to - active writers participating, quality of writing, and responding to your writing partners in a reasonable time.

Nowhere in this does it qualify that either side should or has to work with the opposing faction, I think this is a glaring oversight in what is essentially a class of threads that is supposed to push interaction between factions.

My solution for this is simply, add a Sixth Qualifier within the rules; Interaction.

Factions would be judged, along with the other 5 factors, on whether or not they actively and effectively attempted to engage with the enemy. I think this could be really good for invasions as a whole, and in general would push people to actually work with enemy factions in Invasions.

The Rule could look something like this;

• Interaction. The amount of effort shown by each side in attempting to engage and write with the opposing faction. This includes, but is not limited to - engaging enemies IC, responding to opponents in a timely manner, working to craft a cooperative story.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="Alric Kuhn"]
This is something I have noticed a lot as well.

I will be watching this topic intently for ways we can improve the invasion system.

 

[Kenrath]

[member="Alric Kuhn"]

I would argue that engaging the enemy falls squarely in the realm of Story.

Specifically the very first question of "Does it make sense?"

That being said I fully support what you are trying to accomplish here.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

[member="Vengeance"]

I would think this as well, but speaking from a point where I've been given several judgments, it often has not.

 

[Loray Tares]

[member="Alric Kuhn"]

I agree with you. And while it is not explicitly stated in one of the current categories, I think it would be easier to integrate as such than to create a new judgment category outright. For simplicity sake.

Spoiler

• Story. Does it make sense? How exciting is it? Are the factions trying to weave a purposeful story or put up points on a scoreboard? This should not include the reason for the Invasion, but rather the story that proceeds once the Invasion has begun. Purposeful interaction, between factions, is considered a crucial component to any successful invasion story.

Or something like that...

 

[Alric Kuhn]

[member="Loray Tares"]

That could also work!

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Alric Kuhn"]

I definitely agree with you, to a point. However, Invasions tend to generate a lot of OOC salty goodness, and people often aren't willing to engage under certain conditions. Fleeting is particularly contentious: there are a very small handful of writers who simply insist on winning rather than writing, so everything you bring to the battle must be outmatched, even if there's no good justifiable reason for that to happen. Minor fringe planets having vast fleets that frankly ought to be elsewhere. Ground targets protected by a ridiculous number of troops that have absolutely no good IC reason to be there other than the fact that an Invasion just got launched.

Realistically, Invasions tend to work with "A group of us will take Objective A" and then the opposition notices this and says "Right, we'll go and take forces to protect Objective A". This does mean that opposition should take place, and you'd expect a lot of PvP once the battle is joined, but this also demands that you work with your own team first. Since that's a more common approach than just lining up an enemy, ultimately a lot of the focus is on the members of your own faction, and how they can scare off the opposition because "You guys are outnumbered, and we brought this guy...".

The days of person v person is often nudged aside by this, and factions don't tend to be quite so quick to engage groups of enemies, simply because the potential costs are far higher. People don't seem satisfied unless there's a clear advantage for their group, and obviously the "You may only kill someone with their consent rule" absolutely kills momentum at times. Plus there's always the "It's time for an orbital bombardment! LOLZ!" writers that just insist on screwing up the narrative for everyone else.

Makes it hard to see really well-written combat during an Invasion, unfortunately.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

[member="Tirdarius"]

I disagree on some of your points, though see where you're coming from.

I don't necessarily think that people aren't engaging one another because they're scared of losing or don't want to press against what is perceived as an enemy advantage. Those sorts of things have always been around since the dawn of invasions, even in PVP days people would still sometimes engage in 2v3 or 1v2 fights knowing that they could lose. I don't think that's really changed all that much.

To me what has changed, is that people have realized they don't need to engage the enemy to actually win. People can now write their own stories in their own little world without ever actually seeing an opponent and they can still get away with victory. Obviously this happened in the past as well without the current rules, but mostly in situations where there couldn't be interactions because one faction had more members than others. I think the trend has shifted more to working with your own faction, but to a degree that is unhealthy for invasions.

It feels as though Invasions have become Dominions with slightly more individuals involved.

 

[HK-36]

[member="Alric Kuhn"],

I think it's a good idea and I would love to see it implemented, I tried to interact with my enemies before in an ICly non-hostile manner during Invasion or Rebellion, such as trying to speak or negotiate or offer humanitarian aid to their NPCs, sometimes they interacted with me and it was pretty cool, often they would just ignore me even though my character would be in their proximity. Perhaps it was because their character was distracted ICly, perhaps it was their OOC opinion of me telling them that if they don't have to interact with me because I am not attacking them then they shouldn't.

Either way, I would love to see rules change to at least encourage such interactions alongside regular fighting.

 

[Kenrath]

[member="Vengeance"]

I would think this as well, but speaking from a point where I've been given several judgments, it often has not.

Don't get me wrong I am not disagreeing with your observations or your point. I have often read through an Invasion and wondered what I was reading or even worse having to read it multiple times to try and figure out what is going on.

However I think in terms of rules it is not something that needs a new rule so much as clarification on the application of the current rules in terms of Judging Invasion victory.


More specific to my point if you are invading a planet and are passively or actively refusing to engaged defenders for example then your side loses by virtue of lack of teamwork, poor story crafting, and less than required effort.

As I said I fully support what you are trying to accomplish. I am just not convinced adding to or modifying the rules is really what is needed to resolve the issue.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

[member="Vengeance"]

Fair enough, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Obviously I feel that there is need for a change, or at least clarification in the current ruleset.

 

[Popo]

I was under the assumption that PvP and meaningful conflict/combat in any way, PC or NPC, was under the concept of "Story". I can see putting emphasis on PC interactions, but I'd caution against sliding towards the PvP win/loss region. Some folks want to do invasions, but don't want to do PvP. Sometimes they wanna rescue civilians or heal troops... Stuff like that. In addition, when you start putting emphasis on player interactions such as PvP you get folks who tend to read that as "if I fight this dude and win, it counts more for us" which, when viewed black and white, does do that in a win/loss scenario. Thing is, there are situations like costly last stands, last minute counterattacks, defying all odds, or even killing/crippling/capturing the enemy general/commander/leader/vip/etc despite heavy losses should be counted just as much as Jedi Bob murder-hobo-ing the crap out of Sith Tim with his gang of Stabby Jedi.

I'd say just leave it as is, encourage PC interactions of course, but leave it as is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it and until there's an entire invasion with both sides doing nothing but avoiding the other faction and playing with legos/on their own in their respective corners (haven't been paying attention, so this could have happened despite my doubt of it)... I'd argue it ain't broke lol

 

[NightSister]

The only problem I've had with interacting with opposition is when there is very little in the way of member turnouts from one side. Unless I have a prearranged fight, I generally start with an objective I'm writing with one or two others and leave an opening for opposition to hit us up, and that generally works pretty well for me.

Encouraging interacting with opposition in invasions could definitely do a lot, though.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

[member="Popo"]

Just to be clear I'm not advocating a return to the PVP counting days of yore, I'm advocating for interaction between factions, it doesn't have to be fighting. There are plenty of different ways to interact with the opposing faction members without ever throwing a grenade/punch/rancor.

 

[Nima Tann]

I support this.

I started to dislike invasions for the reasons you stated in your original post, where I do things and those things just get ignored/handled in a single sentence without consequences. I believe if it's a rule it will encourage people to interact with the opposite side more.

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Alric Kuhn"]

Yeah, that's definitely true. This needs a shake-up of some sort.

That noted, I do worry that your rule change would mean that enthusiasm for engaging opposition would become more meaningful than the story. Means a quick fleet jump-in or NPC gank would rapidly turn into "But I brought my forces to fight them, and they didn't want to!", with the whining individual being the one 'demonstrating' more enthusiasm for the fight. This would invariably force people to write with some of those writers who have less interest in a well-crafted narrative, and far too much time and energy invested in beating the enemy to a pulp, justifiably or otherwise.

The rule change is needed, but I think some modification of your current suggestion would be in order first.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

[member="Tirdarius"]

I see where you're coming from, but in theory that would be countered by the other factors of invasion judgement.

OOC conduct and Story to be exact. One can entirely do as you just show up to try and 'force' a fight, but that doesn't mean a fight has to happen. The people who don't want to necessarily...say take on a fleet with a fleet can find a more creative and enjoyable way for them to counter the first writer(a good example of this was Velok on Dromund Kaas). Also, as I stated to Popo Im not advocating Fighting, I'm advocating interaction. I don't believe Invasions have to boil down to who can bash whom the best, but can also be filled with wonderful stories of rivalry and even cooperation.

Also, Loray's suggestion might be a better counter to this, as it pushes people more towards story than it does actual fighting, just would acknowledge that story that takes place with opponents is weighed heavily.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Note that if implemented this would only be 1 out of 6 criteria for deciding victory.

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

[member="Alric Kuhn"]

Alright, sounds good, dude. And, by the by, the fact that I initially disagreed with you doesn't diminish the fact that you're awesome to come out and say it. Some sort of addition on that score is definitely needed.

 

[Popo]

[member="Alric Kuhn"]
Oh aye, but much like politics in today's world, all it takes is one person to say "I advocate for more soy options on the restaurant menu" for others to take it and roll out a "kill the soybeans!" campaign with the same roots lol

I exaggerate but hopefully you see what I mean

Also, not a fan of soy.

This has nothing to do with the fact that I am on a diet.

Nothing at all.

help me