Multi-Company Clans - What to do?

MCC is a problem of dead servers.
I m playing on De3. We have 50 active users per day. What you expect from them? They play together to build Hadesgroups, etc.

Maybe this problem would solve if servers are merged.

 

First I didn’t want to give my opinion on anything because I thought it wouldn’t count anyways. But the appeal of OP32 in discord kinda made me hope that you might care about it anyhow. Later on I noticed you already captured some things I thought about, but here we go with all So here is my my opinion about the topic which will lead into a longer discussion. I appreciate you taking your time reading it.

Whenever you want to understand a problem you need to think about why it’s existing and also keep its development in mind. Multi-company-clans (MCC) are often created because friends want to play with each other – this is also what the game should be about. If I get to know someone from another company and we play together, we can get into a clan – because why not? In my opinion there are a lot of structural problems in Darkorbit leading to the topic, which are harder to „fix“ than you might expect. If you want to solve the problem, you must keep track of those.

The huge decrement of players in darkorbit is one of these structural problems. With the amount of players decreasing also the amount of clans decrease. This is why a player has a much smaller selection nowadays. Taking my language/ nationality, the server, my character, skill, experience, level and many other parameters into consideration, there are only a few clans left for me on the market. Now the company is another 1/3 limitation of them, this might be one reason why many players and clans value personality of the players higher than their company.

• Idea 1: Listen to the community. Why did thousands of players quit the game over the years? I feel like you’re on a good way on this topic currently. Even though you’re getting a lot of hate from the community, keep it on, please!

The second structural problem is the waste of 50% honor for a company change. Especially for the good players with much honor this is the mainreason why they won’t ever switch to their prefered company. Those are the players we’re talking about causing the most problems with MCC.

• Idea 2: every half year (or so) there should be a possibility to pick a company to play on for the next quarter. Within this period you should only lose 1/3 or 1/4 of your honor for switching the company. For many players this will still be enough to hinder them, but for people who are flying with another company in an MCC anyways it’s the right choice to bring them together. Also this idea brings in more movement between the players on a server, which might be good for the game aswell. If you intend to close down MCC you should give players a fair chance to decide which side their on, this idea might help.

The third structural problems appears when you think about who the MCC have the most negative impact on: the small players. Yet still starting darkorbit as a new player is horrible, everyone says that and I recognize that a lot. The level of pilot-protection is a joke, every event favours the bigger players, too many botters everywhere and noobies die every 5 minutes playing… What I want to say: when thinking about Multi-Company-Clans, you also have to think about that. Currently you can’t start playing darkorbit as a new player without the help of a good clan. Small players are just meat for better ones, especially when MCC can shoot everyone in the game. So what can you do about it?

• Idea 3: The most important equipment (at least lf3, bo2, speedgens, drones, and a much bigger amount of Uridium) should be rewarded from quests. Actually PLAYING the game, exploring everything (all NPC, maps…), working on much different stuff should be the best way to get these. At the moment the best way for many players are bots. The amount of € you need to spend to get all that can’t be demanded by you. The level of medium good equipment should be reached much faster and easier, even though LF4, upgrades, pilot sheet, skylab, Zeus&Apis etc. still need a little longer.

• Idea 4: Protect small players. Increase level of pilot-protection/ add x-2 x-3 and x-4 to non-attack zones, too. As a new player I need to play the game for 10 minutes and I’m done with stuff on x-1 (and mostly x-2), I don’t have to play there anymore so I don’t benefit from the protection at all. Why didn’t you do that already? Probably because you have to expect a huge exploit of bots. And there we are again at a structural problem: get rid of those & you can make it possible. This will be much better for the bigpoint anyways because you increase the community (of actual players) and also the amount of € made with banking (I feel like I kinda have to argue with that aswell).

What’s the problem with MCC for bigger players? Sometimes I’m on a map, a player from my company spots me, waits for his clanmates to come, they attack me and he attacks me aswell getting no minushonor at all. Players know that only the first one shooting on you counts, so they exploit the system. This is why MCC can clean up everything just like a wave easily, as seen on demaner event, spaceball, Hitac and everyday on the maps. This makes them attractive for many players and takes out the fun for other players.

• Idea 5: Shooting / Killing the same company should be punished at all, no matter if you’re the first one shooting or another one. This will make them think twice (when doing often) about shooting on own company. But for that you have to decrease the amount of minushonor received. Suggestion: Set a maximum at a number of your choice (1.000.000?) with same system and reset period as the existing system for companykills. Why is it so important to be the first one? I’m sure you can get this done.

One of the biggest problems with MCC is that they are unfair. Problems I’ve already explained lead into a big disadvantage for single-company-clans. Its harder for them to get the same amount of good players on the map (exactly: 66% harder). MCC often lead into wars, where the small clans and players have the most problems with. MCC destroys the „natural ecosystem“ of the orbit. For many players they wipe out the fun in the game (see again on problem 1: less players…). That’s why this topic is very important.

• Idea 6: Support and boost non-MCC clans. How? Show some creativity :=)

Should you forbid MCC completely? -No, because you can’t. They could sneak around that rule, create different clans in an alliance etc. Also this would be a cut in the players freedom. The problem can only be solved with the kind of ideas I’ve written above.


All issues are kinda connected in Darkorbit, this is what I tried to explain.
Sorry for the german english & thank you for your attention

greetings skyline [GE1]

 

simpel idea:

make a pirate company which can shoot everyone and get +honor themself too.

if you just delete mcc's every clan needs player of other companys to shoot enemys going out of clan. that is the whole problem behind the mcc's that you can flee out of a war.

 

Okay so we are finally going to do something about this major problem.

First, as stated there are many ways around the elimination/disbanding of MCC's and as such the idea will not work.
Second, the appeal of MCC is the ability of having friends help you kill enemy players in your company.
Third, it is more fun playing with friends no matter what company they have joined.

I have made many suggestions about the issues and suggestions of correcting the issues.

First, no matter who has a lock on a player (or fired first) IF you attack (and they die) a player of your own company you LOSE HONOR just like you started the attack, this could be opened to anyone attacking a same company player who is not associated with an existing WAR.
Second, make all MCC's an "OUTLAW" in the sense that they show up as a RED dot no matter the Company affiliation, allowing the non MCC to see they are not a true friendly ship.
Third, remove these players from the Rank System so they do not affect the different company hierarchies.
Fourth, put a limit on the level player they can attack, IF they are level 22+ they can not attack any player lower then level 17 and continue this with all of the levels (this could be applied to ALL players also).

The issue I see with the offer of "jumping" company, many of these people have long standing missions open and they can not keep the stats if they change companies, so to make this appealing to anyone the missions need to be transferred with the current progress intact.

To make the MCC unappealing D O could change their platform to something like Galactica has where there is NO way to attack a same company player (this means removing WAR), but this does not deal with them working as SPIES leading enemy players to unsuspecting friendly players.

As far as the events being ruined by the MCC's this is going to be an ongoing problem as long as the balance of the game is so out of whack, the UFE will always dominate the event preventing the FE from touching anything that requires multiple players to kill it. A suggestion I would make is, to make these accessible by level (like Level Invasion Gates were) allowing people to enjoy the event without dealing with the UFE Bullies, these do not need to be Company specific, but need to be set so different level players can compete in the event, the adjustable HP for Demeanor was a great idea and would work great for this type of idea, for the lower level players the NPC's could have a Health for the number of people accessing the area as with the Invasion Gates you might have 2 people trying to kill the Kubi's and never even come close to surviving their attack, since the rewards were shared then rewards could be set according to what they would have received for damaging the stronger NPC's the UFE rule. Too many of the events have been aimed at the interest of the BULLIES of D O and as such the weak do not even bother getting excited about getting involved with them. I would have enjoyed the VoT but am fully aware I can not complete the Uber Sibs wave so did not even bother going into it at all. Future FREE gates need to have the same A.I. of the normal maps forcing us to search for them instead of them all massing together attacking you all at once.

 

What might be a good option is option 1, but I think We need to also eliminate the possibility of multicompany alliances or it would defeat the purpose of removing multicompany clans. The mods are correct in that removing MCC after a free company switch period will cause this, so why not require clans have the same company affiliation in order to form alliances?

To address the other problem of balance in servers, admins can look at clans that are currently multicompany, and randomly assign them to one company whilst leaving all player's honor in tact.

What next? Players may start complaining that there are not enough hitac, or demaner freighters, etc. For everyone, which is why I say we can change that as well. Add more maps while we're at it to make more room for more players.

We won't be able to stop at just removing MCC. I believe it is fair for me to say it should go further than that

 

1. Free company swap period followed up by removing MCC.
One of the ideas we've had is to have a period of time (e.g 1 week) where players can move company with no penalties. After this period of time is up, MCC will no longer be possible in the game and any clan members who are not the same company as the leader will be removed from the clan automatically.

The positives of this are that players can all join the same company and be with their friends without feeling like they are being punished (e.g honor lost) for doing so.

This would be the Best way to do it while keeping your Honor and Missions selected Intact! Hope the Dev's keep looking into this solution!

 

The key item to remember is there is no Cross Company Alliance in the Clan options these are Non Aggression Pacts and there is NO stopping them no matter what is done by D O. Many times you find you have to work together with enemy players to kill NPC's that you both need for completion of quests.

 

I believe option 1 is a good option but I don't believe we can stop there. Darkorbit originally set it up so that the game is in the fix it is in now so there are several things that have to be done. I think what we can do is randomly assign all the members of MCCs to 1 company. Mcc#1 to cry, 2 to eic, and 3 to MMO. That way the MCCs dont all go to 1 company and continue to dominate. If for some reasons someone happens to be not in a clan that this happens, we can still give certain times that people can switch for free or have the option of asking support to switch one's company for free since that person could not be on at the time. Another good point is alliances, so I suggest we just have more strict requirements on alliances. Currently in order for a clan to have an affiliation, all members must be of that company. We should expand this to alliances, that will solve the problem of MCCs getting bigger and allying their other clans in other companies. Company wars need to be either eliminated or debuffed in terms of ep and honor. If the issues on alliances and company wars are not also fixed then that would defeat the purpose of eliminating MCCs.

 

This problem is a lot more complicated than it may seem (as stated above). Personally I feel like every solution has both pros and cons but at the same time, making no choice is a bad choice itself. Here's what I think:

Before we come up with any solutions, let's take a step back and analyze the actual problem.

One of the main problems of MCC is that there are no penalties for assisting in killing a friendly player
As stated earlier, one of the problems of friends from different companies is that they can help each other out by being the first to shoot an enemy player. This by itself is a reason why MCC are so strong and annoying.

Simply removing MCC or applying a damage or shield penalty won't solve the problem; players can just form clans in their own company and then create alliances with the other clans, thereby bypassing the penalties.

So if we can't remove MCC because of alliances, what about banning alliances between clans of different companies in addition to removing MCC?

This may seem to solve the problem, after, this will force players to join the same company. However, this solution may also have a significant downside: one company can become to large. After all, all players will most likely want to join the company with the stronger clans so they are protected or so that they can join the strongest clans. This will limit the amount of people that can be shot for PVP, which will make the game boring for PVP'ers.

Adding a cap (for example: 33.33% of server population per company) is also ineffective, after all once a company gets full, all the clan members that are now left behind will feel cheated and will be forced to start over.

To make it even more complicated is the current war system. Some people want to have war (because they either hate each other or are just not friends). Removing wars could cause a situation where it becomes impossible to kill others because they are the same company as you are which destroys PVP.

It serves no purpose to terminate MCC, MCA (Multi Company Alliances) if clanwars are not banned!

Now when it comes to ranking, it is inevitable that ranks will change drastically with the server merge coming up. But if the ranks will change, we might as well make it so that they change only once (so after the server merge). Therefore, whatever the solution for MCC may be, it should be implemented alongside the servermerge.

In de end I feel confused by all the options and I have no idea what to do.

I do appreciate the discussion, I'm sure we will find a solution

 

Hi, first i totally agree with that.

I will try to not be boring andtry to explain the most.

You made many changes this days. That make the game easier to get UFE ship when you know the game and what to take. You will change meta-fight and that's really cool too.

You want make the game live ? That's so easy dude.

Problem with population ?

1. Start to Merge server, it will solve 90% of this problem

Problem with Noob getting rekt and leave the game before getting UFE ? (no new player on this game)

1. Add -no pvp zone- where a non-UFE can get 25/35k uri / hour. (and cancel acces when the player is full lf-4 for exemple or when he earn more than 3M uri, if the problem is money, just ask 25€/ month for get this acces)

So here we solve 2 big problem.

No def map / 4-x empty ?
Reason : - no need to protect a portal if nobody use it

1. Limit the CPU jump at 2 hours when you try to jump in an ennemy map
2. Limit the reasponning on place or at the nearest portal at 2 hours cooldown on ennemy map

This change on CPU will make people def maps (at portal) and help to return in "each firm protect their maps"
You know that this CPU destroy the entire game's logic ? And you never ask yourself something about this.

Just doing that + what @dsfsf said and the game will return -almost- as it was.

Just listen to this : Theses problems exist since 2014/2015. You need to fix it quick before all player stop this game. You can't make all happy.

hoshi from FR4

 

Do you seriously think people would want to wait 2 Hours to Jump to another map or for that matter, respawn on the Spot or Portal?
Some people only play for a few hours a night!

 

Unless you rework the entire game, getting rid of MCC's solves nothing. MCC's on my server are usually a group of friends, people who know each other and have been playing together for years. That been said.. you can disban our clan, we will still get in an outfit, and take you out. You gonna stop outfits? You gonna tell us who we can and can't fly with? Even if you did that, who's to say I can't pact with a clan from another company and have them help me out.

The only solution would be to get rid of companies shooting each other in their own maps, and if you did that, you would have to rework the honor system too. You'd have to rework diplomacies as well. How would wars work if you can't shoot your own company?

Let's face it, the people complaining about MCC's are the people who are in company clans, with people they can't work together with. Our MCC we work well with our friends, we know each other well, we have good chemistry fighting together, and that is why we dominate the fights. So the people who don't want this, are the people losing the fights.. you wanna award those people? That makes a lot of sense.

 

its a company based game , fight for your company ...

mcc --->> trashcan

 

Was*

It was a company based game at one time. Where are all the company competitions and events anymore??

When Dark Orbit decided to make every weekend about getting as much honor as you can, they through companies out the window. Gates, gates, gates. The main focus is gates and honor after building your ship to top level UFE status. Why would anyone care about their company when there's no company events, nor is there ever a company event that pays honor?

 

No matter what you do people will be mad that will be a given but it should be done to put balance back into the game i have a few ideas that could help but may also make people mad as well but will help smaller players and clans just trying to play the game

1 Take away the ability to shoot on your own company if you have MCCs IE take away same company wars
2 Do make it to where they can do a company change without getting hit with honor negativity but if they choose not to change companys and still have MCCs make it to where the clan gets a debuff IE negative honor for each kill and negative experiance
3 Give non MCCs a buff against MCCs IE stronger sheilds during battle with MCCs maybe stronger laser power also
4 Make it to where the same company MCCs IE EIC clans with other companys in that clan cant take out the bases
5 Make it to where you cant PVP in events if you have MCCs IE Hitac Demeaner ect ect


These might be already spoken about and they may be just suggestions but may also help in some way this also may get negative remarks but as stated they are just suggestions if you can help with some suggestions on these im open to them

Best Reguards

Capt. Dark

 

How did you play before CPU jump ? you just see your own use of it. But the game is based on portal and how you are able to def it.(and your map). If you can't def a portal, invasion can't be stopable. and low player just die over and over....

 

It was one of the 1st things I bought in the shop after getting weapons and shield and speed gens. It's a thing you need to get from point a to point b in 10 seconds, from going to hunt Battlerays for a quest, getting to a map an Event alien spawns to invading a map with an enemy base. 2 hour cool downs for jump cpu's and spawning at a port is absurd. Sorry if you think different.

 

So the game without def map and empty map-PVP is better because "you can jump for do what you want" your answer is a no sense.
I play this game since december 2007, i'm a man who play with statistics for learn every single detail of this game (because i like it -the game-).
Sorry to say you that but when i see the logic of many player... they do'nt even know the game, (for exemple they still think that helix lf4 increase number of chest you got in the map). After they talk here about solution but they don't know the game as i (and several people) know it.

I don't said i know everything, but i know a lot and your answer is a no sense and no helper to make the game great again.

For me your opinion is like : "don't change anything i can play". That's not my logic, i'm searching and using my head since 2 or 3 years to get solutions to make the game great again for UFE and non-UFE.

Just before today, nobody listened us. Now they start listen our opinion, so don't say what you are thinking without reflections.

Anyway i stop here to speak, i already said what i had to say.

Good nigth and i am hoping @OP32 and @Baracus will do their best for the game. (what ever you do, just DO IT)

 

i am always thinking of one thing. at the moment i am general on my server at EIC, there is a reason why i am general on my company, all generals are in our MCC. lets assume option 1 delete mcc's and make no - honor to change. in the end there would be 3 generals and we can only take one after all of us fighted for it.

also making a overall ranking is not fine, because if you fight for a rank and you get it you make a bit more that you have your rank save, making overall ranking would destroy this too. and every player say "would made the 2mio rp in past for this rank".

also you quite lose another point why people created alliances btw companys, because you are starting a war and people just leave clan and starting bullying you with it. MAYBE this is a problem too

for me best sollution is giving a rank for all what you have done, for example a sign that you had a high rank. than deleting the system and start of 0 again, maybe new system would be better. combining that with servermerge would be perfect i guess.

and please dont make option 3, you destroyed 1v1 system already with your bad uber-boosters

we all know mcc's are bad, but these sollutions seems to bad for me.

 

in terms of use for the game say you get ban for pushing MCC is a lop-pole for pushing allowing players to break the rule without getting ban. allowing clan to make a MCC should not be allowed because of the terms of use banning people for pushing