Discussion Let's talk about fleeting objectives

[Dasmi Lindervale]

Acaadi
Nobody is throwing around 40,000 meters of ships.

And, actually, there are plenty of ways to create objectives that involve even the largest bulk of ships just like there are for all the ground NPC people (which involves infinitely more units than fifteen ships). Factions have no incentive to do so because either a) their own faction have no members that care about fleeting or b) their opponent's faction has no members that care about fleeting and to make something more interesting is to present themselves with opposition in an objective that would otherwise more or less guarantee them an invasion win without contest.

Would you like the link to the Eternal Empire Invasion of Byss?

 

[Ellie Mors]

Acaadi
There is a difference between the writers of the past who would frame their posts in ways that are daunting to approach and hoard their knowledge of how the factory & ships "work" and the writers of today that actively attempt to make their fleeting engagements more interesting. I never had Ayden Cater go over his faction admin/owner's head to try to collaborate a storyline between two faction's fleets despite not being a faction admin, which Cyrus and (clearly right now) Carlyle has.

On the other hand, in the past faction admins didn't have to do anything for fleeting because 7 years ago in 2014 factions decided their own rules for how invasions would be determined, and usually it was by duel wins and/or objectives secured. It was incentivized to let their fleeting members do things that way because they would be secured a win in those areas, and creating interesting objectives/storylines really wasn't a thing major factions even did. sort of the point of creating the new invasion rules in the first place.

Fleeting writers/enthusiasts/whatever these days try to get engagement where their faction does not. There is a significantly lowered barrier to entry that is only maintained by faction teams trying to game the negotiation system to create objectives that are advantageous to them, coupled with the fact that there are rarely faction staff teams that have people who actually care about fleeting on them so they are coming from a starting point of not even knowing what would be interesting for that kind of niche. Ground warfare (as in the 100k troops sort of deal) has largely replaced what fleeting used to be, a niche that requires inside-out knowledge of units on the ground to do anything and hoarding of those things by a few dozen members - the difference is most major faction staff teams have a member or two that have a vested interest in that niche and will work tirelessly to make those objectives fun for themselves.

I would sooner attribute ignorance to what would constitute an interesting naval engagement than malice, but I can't say there isn't any intentional stifling of creativity there either.

 

[Acaadi]

So basically you're saying that fleet battles have little to no barrier to entry now and you're laying the entirety of the blame at the feet of Faction Admins for not catering to these members more?

It's a bold position, I'll give you that.

How much do people enjoy writing fleet battles on the site outside of invasions?

Link me some recent examples.

 

[Acaadi]

Nobody is throwing around 40,000 meters of ships.

And, actually, there are plenty of ways to create objectives that involve even the largest bulk of ships just like there are for all the ground NPC people (which involves infinitely more units than fifteen ships). Factions have no incentive to do so because either a) their own faction have no members that care about fleeting or b) their opponent's faction has no members that care about fleeting and to make something more interesting is to present themselves with opposition in an objective that would otherwise more or less guarantee them an invasion win without contest.

Fleet Composition:
1x Secutor-class Star Destroyer "Hand of Thrawn" = 2200m
6x Imperial II-class Star Destroyer = 9600m
15x Victory II-class Star Destroyer = 13500m
2x Immobilizer 418 Cruiser = 1200m
4x Ton Falk-class escort carrier = 2000m

All ships together = 28500m

That nobody comment doesn't seem to track. Apologies to the author for the quote notification.

 

[Dasmi Lindervale]

Acaadi
For The Gallactic Alliance, in defense of Byss with links to the appropriate posts and having done all the math.
Marlon Sularen of the Galactic Alliance - 29,920 meters
Grand Moff Vel'Ari of the Galactic Alliance - 28,500 meters
Gat Tambor for the Galactic Alliance - 15,930 meters
Fiolleta Fortan on her flagship - 5,000 meters
Constantine Oliva - 4,980 meters
Aerarii Tithe of the Galactic Alliance on a singular ship with b-wing escorts(not included in the total)- 2,000 meters

86,330 total meters not including the orbital stations that are inherent to the planet, which total up to around 7-9 or so, nor does this include starfighter squadrons.

Now the Flip side.
My own Fleet - 30,000 meters altogether as both writer for the Eternal Empire and Agents of Chaos
Bella, the pilot mentioned in my post - Pilot of a singular starfighter engaged in nearly every invasion because they are masochistic the best and have a pilot in near to every “Bad Guy” Faction around. Wouldn't write an invasion without them.

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

My first experience was of sneering attitude of superiority from Jend-Ro Quill and Ayden Cater in a CIS, Omega invasion. Not only were they factory judges with the insider knowledge at the time who had gamed the objectives to give themselves a massive advantage but they enjoyed the insider knowledge too. I'm glad that at least the factory is more approachable for starships now. I persisted, but very nearly didn't.

While I don't remember what you're talking about, I'm sorry for whatever part I played in giving you such an offputting experience. I definitely enjoyed knowing ships better than the other guy, and fleeting rarely brought out my best side.

I've got no intention of wading into this thread, just wanted to apologize. Carry on.

 

[Arage Bao]

Speaking as someone who isn't a fleeter, I think a lot of it is also the technical-heavy side that fleeting brings out with ship submissions in the Factory. Compare the level of detail an average ship submission has to the average wikia article on a canon ship.

It's literally day and night.

I think if people approached fleeting less like details-first hard sci fi and more like drama-first space magic the way Star Wars was made in the first place, things might not seem so daunting towards new people coming in.

 

[Rynn Vizsla]

Such is the nature of gamified components. Everyone's gotta have a system that's functionally no different from their canon counterpart(s), but is better in everyway. Or branded with their company name(s) so they can boost their fictional sales by taking advantage of people that don't scroll through Wookieepedia.

Maybe one day they'll become a thing of the past, with only the most obscure items being fleshed out so people know how they work, or how the game mechanics are translated.

 

[Ren-Hua Mant]

Acaadi

The rules have been updated over the years, including the invasion criteria change in 2018, and writer mentality still hasn't caught up with it. I can understand where some people may feel like smaller fleets may allow for more intimate engagements, but smaller fleet sizes are not mutually exclusive with those kinds of stories. You can still write a meaningful storyline within the context of a larger battle without limiting your fleet sizes; as it's been said, just turn it into background noise. Imposing meterage limits or a cap on ships is an arcane rule from years ago that we scrapped for the very reason that they were no longer compatible with the updated rulesets. The game has changed. The rules have updated. Factions have SSDs now. There are ICly power disparities between factions that deserve to be reflected in fleet sizes, whether they are used in practice or just background noise. Frankly, I'm baffled why the leading solution to repetitive space battle slugfest objectives is a reversion to the good old days which would completely redefine what fleeting actually is.

Still, none of this addresses the inherent problem that currently exists in invasions:

...the most popular major factions still press for fleeting inclusion in invasions, they just refuse to have creative objectives that go beyond two fleets arrive in system and are fighting in space while the invasion plays out.

Factory subs are virtually immaterial to the creation of invasion objectives. Hell, maybe I'm out of touch, but based upon my personal experience, I'd go as far to say that Factory subs are far less of a problem in practice than people are making them out to be. Do they have the potential to be metagame-y and overly technical? Yes, and one paradigm shift I profoundly appreciate in Factory and Codex is a cognizance that subs don't metagame, writers do. Not to say it doesn't or hasn't happened historically, but I can't recall any instance that I've personally encountered where people have tried to be overly technical or metagame-y when fleeting. The most that has happened is I didn't understand what they did or what something was, so I either asked them to clarify or I just looked at the Factory sub for reference. Hell, for a while I used only canon ships because I didn't want to deal with the technicalities of the Factory. That worry turned out for naught, because it had no impact on how I roleplayed fleeting. If ships are overly technical, that's not a fleeting problem - it's a Factory problem.

And do you think this is a lack of creative vision, or similar to what I've experienced in the past where Faction staff want to push what they perceive as an advantage in factory load out and members willing to go all out on fleeting?

Seeing how vigorously some factions coordinate invasion strategy internally, pre-write invasion posts, and limited narrative coordination with their opposition, all of which is extraneous from fleeting, I'd go as far as to assert the former is the case, consistent with what Ellie Mors said here:

If you want factions to open up RP to people they don't already take into consideration then you need to change the culture of faction teams trying to withhold what is essentially useless information from the opposition in a petty attempt to gain an advantage that might last all of 10 minutes.

No one seems to ask, "well, we have 100K+ ground troops, heavy armor, etc., what can we do for an objective besides meet in an open field and duke it out?" Personal opinion: because army/troop sizes don't impose creative limits on what those objectives can be. Those armies can be relegated to be background noise, or they can provide "off-screen" support to smaller scale interactions. The same can and does happen in fleeting, but the objectives remain the same. What appeal is there for existing writers to continue or new writers to join fleeting objectives when they are all by and large generic and directionless?

So as far as what can some creative objectives be? Literally anything. It doesn't has to be much, but it should be something. Seize a space station - you can do something that impacts players on the ground, or maybe the battle started en media res and one side needs to disable some gravity well generators in order to retreat, or there's some other technology which prevents reinforcements from arriving. You can merge fleeting with other objectives so they can support boarding efforts, starfighter dogfights, or even have a completely intra-ship objective on an SSD or other flagship. Maybe there's an asteroid field, maybe solar radiation interferes with ship systems, maybe there's some other unique feature which drastically affects how fleeting can be done. Maybe there is some other strategic objective altogether. Are there limits as to what can be done in space? Sure, I won't pretend there aren't. I'll be damned if the only thing to do is duel an opponent though.

 

[Acaadi]

"Frankly, I'm baffled why the leading solution to repetitive space battle slugfest objectives is a reversion to the good old days which would completely redefine what fleeting actually is."



Who said this?

If the fleet battles in invasions are boring, is that entirely down to the initial setup by faction staff?

When you say reduce the large fleet to background noise that's consistent with my opinion. Stop tracking and defining large fleets as it takes time to do that instead of write, focus on something smaller. People still try and do this and I can't see how it's the fault of the initial setup?



People who write fleet battles will have to be the change they want to see here. There are just a handful who do it, so faction staff are going to focus on the needs of other writers.

 

[Caarlyle Rausgeber]

Another sleep deprived two cents dropping in regards to some of your criticisms, Acaadi .

I sit as apart of the group who believes that the fleeting length is largely irrelevant. I think there are still a great many character stories to be broached and that the size of a fleet is immaterial to that. For example, in the NIO as its go to guy on the subject, I try to foster a group teamwork thing. I’ll roll up as head of the Navy, with my subordinates, and while I pack some heat, I have them arrive as apart of the that fleet in smaller squadrons. And work with them IC and OOC to work with them to secure the objective and react accordingly to whatever the hell plays out.

I don’t think length is the issue. I think the factory and the nature of guys subbing ships plays into that. And some people get off on writing hugely complicated subs, which is their right mind you. Who am I to judge what other people do. But I go k yeah. It’s important to maybe write easier subs and not force a guy to read X, Y and Z sub to get an idea of what a ship does. Or at least provide a neat little summary. Which I was free try to do.

on the whole I think Ellie Mors is dead on the money. Fleeting has stagnated as sort of this sideshow of j invasions. You’ve got the obligatory FU fight. Maybe some ground pounding. Some espionage perhaps. And then some duels between heavy honchos of a faction. And then fleeting on its lonesome.

Make fleeting more interesting, and the way I see that is having it become apart of like the broader ground pound agenda. Take some risks. Have a low flying battle, and have the fleeters run support and he supported by ground elements. But as I alluded to earlier, right now the sort of meta in regards to invasions sort of has guys whinging about war crimes and how dozens of imaginary, nameless civilian NPC’s lives are in peril. And it such a pervasive thing, this whole hand wringing, that I doubt it’ll be realised proper.

In any case yeah. I feel that fleeting objectives need to be more than just “Blow X thing up, we’re in space nao!” And also maybe see about making factory subs a little less daunting to read.

 

[Ren-Hua Mant]

Who said this?

Less ships.

Try a 2-5 km limit for all fleeters (good idea Acaadi). Try one fleeter one ship.

I'd love to see more emphasis on starfighters over capital ships in some way, and I think that could be accomplished with his presented ideas, including...limiting fleet sizes (one PC per ship)...

What's the solution? What are better objectives? I'm firmly convinced as Acaadi says that smaller fleets are key.

We need smaller fleet engagements!

​

Fleet size is a mechanical aspect of fleeting that has little to no bearing on determining the narrative direction of fleeting objectives before any fleeting ever takes place.

​

If the fleet battles in invasions are boring, is that entirely down to the initial setup by faction staff?

When you say reduce the large fleet to background noise that's consistent with my opinion. Stop tracking and defining large fleets as it takes time to do that instead of write, focus on something smaller. People still try and do this and I can't see how it's the fault of the initial setup?

As it's been pointed out before, that would seem to be the case, at least in no insubstantial part. Fleeters can take all the initiative they want to try and spice things up, but as Ellie Mors said here and again here, in reality they have very little say in determining what the stage looks like or what the objective is. Could fleeters stand to engage a little more in organizing stuff? Sure, but by the time comes when its actually feasible to do so, faction staff has already put out objectives, likely developed behind closed doors, without much input from its stakeholders. Suggestions like Gunnar Madine's here, and the relegation of large fleets to the background are all great suggestions about what fleeters can do to to make things more personally interesting, but do not address the fundamental problem that such suggestions would take place in that directionless space objective. Suggesting that fleeters should have to routinely circumvent faction staff to create their own solutions is remarkably ignorant of this problem. Faction staff should strive to create objectives that get people hyped to participate in, that get people to say something akin to "This sounds cool, I want to find a way to get involved in it." That doesn't happen often in space objectives. Fleeting can be fun, and it really sucks to read that you think that fleeting deserves next to no attention, because that makes it all the more difficult in making it a meaningful, consequential experience that people would want to be a part of.

 

[Acaadi]

Another sleep deprived two cents dropping in regards to some of your criticisms, Acaadi .
In any case yeah. I feel that fleeting objectives need to be more than just “Blow X thing up, we’re in space nao!” And also maybe see about making factory subs a little less daunting to read.

I agree with this but it still isn't enough.

People will still be intimidated by joining fleet battles. I agree with you that relegated most of the large scale stuff to background noise instead of trying to track it will help lower the barrier to entry.

I do not believe that making the objectives in invasions will increase participation. I think you'll just have slightly more interesting objectives for the same sized minority.

I could be wrong. I guess perhaps if I saw anyone writing any fleet stories outside of invasions ever I'd feel more inclined to believe it. Maybe you have some suggestions for setups that would be more appealing to people? I don't see being able to influence other people's stories with spaceships as a solid answer there.



Ren-Hua Mant I don't understand how you're equating "Good old days" to my suggestion that getting people to track tens of factory subs and huge quantities of ships is a barrier to entry. If anything this was worse in the past.

 

[Caarlyle Rausgeber]

Acaadi

I think it works quite well for establishing team work. It gets and allows for branches of the military which would normally not fight together to be able to coordinate. I think if fleeting with ground pounders in mind, would open a new meta for fascinating codex subs. It would be aesthetically gorgeous. Like a writhing fight below, eclipsed in the shadow of an SSD.

Terrain could become important. Having soldiers using jetpacks and leaping from shearface cliffs unto the decks of a frigate, to board an attack it. Fighters sweeping over vistas and having to dive through valleys and canyons to avoid the wrath of a Star Destroyer. It in my view, brings everyone together. And in invasions where teamwork is critical. Especially when that critical hit occurs. That moment when a vessel is dragged to earth, and the roaring of its detonating engines can be heard everywhere. And every writer on either side has to account for that in their own way.

Beautiful.

 

[Ren-Hua Mant]

Acaadi

In my previous posts, I stated that I don't think that imposing meterage restrictions is the solution. I also said that Factory subs have no bearing on determining objectives. Any intimidation that arises from Factory subs is a Factory problem, not a fleeting one.

As for the rest of your questions, I don't know how to more clearly articulate to you what others and I have already said.

 

[Errix Feh'room]

How does a fleet size of 10k plus not affect your narrative or objective matter in regards to space battles? It makes the destruction of one ship meaningless in the larger scope of the battle.

I'm not going to bring my ships down to the surface when I know I will have to deal with another four star destroyers waiting for me to turn my back and send some colliding into the ground.

Aside from that. Starfighters are the meta as far as the movies are concerned as was stated in the previous posts. Large scale battles seldom occurred save for movie flair/theatrics and had become the staple of what was meta when I started fleeting last year.

And the fleeting I have noticed tends to be one sided in regards to the number of writers. We have 3+ writers for some groups while other groups maybe have a starfighter pilot because the people do not want to be charged with keeping track of large fleets and trying to navigate the factory submission system and having to work around making the story something worth more than I blow this up and move on to blowing something else up.

Yes, the objectives would be more interesting if things were added to ground pounding. But when you have unlimited meters in regard to fleet sizes, that means you are pulling ships defending your borders away from the borders and should suffer for such an action.

But it doesn't happen because the flex isn't nearly as imposing when your favorite weapon of mass destruction which detracts from writing anything more than I blow up enemy spaceships is removed.

Fleet limits aren't meant to remove the fun. Fleet limits are meant to make it easier to navigate your own and other fleeter posts. You aren't spending half a day dedicated to dissecting an enemy post, figuring out which of your ships took damage or keeping track of where every single enemy ship went.

What is the point in making a naval system with ranks and crew members if everyone has to be a grand moff in order to even remotely stand a chance against 10k or more fleets.

Please explain how a new writer with no experience in fleeting would find suddenly having to compete with an experienced fleeter any fun? How would someone wanting to start off with a small fleet say under 3k, would find fighting against 10k worth of star destroyers and custom ships and super star destroyers any fun?

"Well they can just ask to limit the other fleeter."

Why would the other fleeter want to remove their favorite toy from battle? Its not a friendly environment to just jump into if you are not part of the good guy factions. Name the number of unique writers for bad guy faction fleeters versus the number of unique writers for good guy faction fleeters.

 

[Acaadi]

Acaadi

In my previous posts, I stated that I don't think that imposing meterage restrictions is the solution. I also said that Factory subs have no bearing on determining objectives. Any intimidation that arises from Factory subs is a Factory problem, not a fleeting one.

As for the rest of your questions, I don't know how to more clearly articulate to you what others and I have already said.

Let me reword then.

"Make the objectives smaller, more intimate and story driven and maybe they will be more accessible to new writers."

"Old school" meterage restrictions were not put in place to make small stories. They were typically just to keep two huge navies on equal footing. You've misrepresenting me entirely by starting that I want things taken back as they were.

Fleet battles are currently niche done by a small fraction of writers. Many people have mentioned and agreed on the bar to entry in this very thread. New members and old ones.

Make that bar lower, get more people involved and maybe then faction staff will take more time considering fleet stuff in invasions.

 

[Acaadi]

Ask your faction staff to work out the plan for the story with the people writing navies on the other side.

They'll probably say "we don't mind what all three of you out of fifty participants do in your little sandbox" and maybe you can showcase something that will entice more people?

 

[Rynn Vizsla]

Smaller and more intimate objectives would be more engaging and realistic, as I'm more fond of the Battle of Scarif, than Geonosis. Both are visual spectacles in their own right and I've enjoyed them in the past, but I prefer the former as I've connected with the characters - rather than LOOK AT THIS BATTLE, ISN'T IT AMAZING? The latter seems to be a constant in every space battle I've participated in, or have read through - as people are more interested in copy-pasting their fleet numbers and status, rather than giving any meaningful content to their posts. Those that do give content to their posts often emulate canon characters, as I can't tell you how many Thrawn's or Thrawn-like characters I've seen on Chaos.

Now, before someone cherry-picks my words, I know there's a SELECT few that eschew what I've said before. They're interesting to read because they aren't a mish-mosh of canon character concepts, nor do they offer the same, bland, I take damage and dish damage narrative. I could open a whole can of worms about my thoughts on submissions, be they codex or factory - but my commentary would be the same in the end. They're nothing more than flavour, people trying to game the system are simply going to end up disappointed when they lose an Invasion, despite having their Not!Eclipse.

I also recognize the partial irony and hypocrisy by stating those words, but I like adding flavour and fluff to my narratives. Helps me craft unique and hopefully engaging narratives. shrug

Anyways, stories are what win invasions, and in turn, accomplish objectives. I think that an ideological shift needs to take place in the minds of a faction's staff, where they focus less on crafting cookie-cutter objectives, and more on crafting the setting for their writers to engage with. That shift could also be pushed by a faction's member base, as the Staff are nothing without their fellow writers to back them up. RolePlaying is a creative sandbox, and Invasion threads are no different, so why should they be treated that way? There are no rules saying that Invasions need three objectives, let alone have them all broken down into different categories to appease their member base.

That's just something we use to shepherd the sheeple, rather than letting them have free reign over how they approach their stories.

So, I'm all for the smaller and more intimate setting - and it's my hope that the majors are taking note of this. While my faction's activity's dipped recently thanks to these sprees of invasions, most of the threads that I've started with my minor faction have been small scale. A handful of starfighters, a corvette, and a space station raid. Or a raid on a Jedi temple. Two sides meet, and bam - folks take the actions into their own hands and approach the scenario in their own way. To me, I enjoy that - it makes the thread seem less cookie-cuter and more engaging. True, you could argue that since I'm a minor faction owner, I've got no say in how things unfold in the greater community, ala majors, but - uh - if things are working great on my level, imagine how amazing they'd be on the majors?

I could cite a dozen different examples, but I think the one that Caarlyle Rausgeber presented is the best for this discussion. A combination of spaceships and ground troops in a single setting, scenario - or objective for comparison's sake. Not only do you get to have that small-scale and more engaging Roleplay, but everyone plays a part in crafting the overall shape of the narrative. There's no narrative disconnect in having objective 3 be detailing the random space battle happening overhead that everyone's treating as background noise anyways. Now you've got starfighter pilots dogfighting with one another as soldiers try to board a frigate in the atmosphere. There are a plethora of opportunities for tension, drama, and an engaging narrative to unfold - all while our characters bash butts.

To me, all of that's lost when you have the traditional meterage limits and Thrawn A fight against Thrawn B, and cite how amazing their Not!Eclipse is.

To summarize, make Scarif - not Geonosis. That's literally the most TL;DR sentence I can make to sum my thoughts up in regards to fleeting objectives and, I suppose, any faction thread in general where combat's involved. As to me, the problem lies with the Faction Staff of any Faction unwilling to go against the established status quo when crafting their Invasions, Skirmishes, or even Rebellions. That goes for their member base who blindly support that mistaken ideology without reservation or question as well.

Thus, my plan is to keep carrying on with what works for me, and when and if my faction eventually goes major - who knows? That status quo might be a thing of the past, and everyone - be they space writers or ground battle aficionados - would have their time in the sun, without having to make up their opposition, or act like they were never there to begin with due to lack of PC participation.

#BeTheChangeIWannaSee

 

[Mellifluous Magenta]

To bounce off Caarlyle Rausgeber and Rynn Vizsla , One of my most memorable dogfights was during as Ellie Mors mentioned earlier, the Borosk invasion. That was largely because the outcome of the dogfight had a significant stake in the form of a potential bombing run on the ground troops. That interplay between space and ground units made it feel like what my partner and I were doing was having a tangible impact and I would love to see more of it. To that end, I would suggest that fleet battles should not always be set in space. In fact, I prefer dogfighting in atmosphere as it’s more familiar to me and you get other technical factors (Energy management, altitude, Etc.) introduced that aren’t really as prevalent when fighting in a vacuum.