Enable prestige but keep base items free

[Dryfter]

Would it be possible to enable prestige to count up when folks are playing in Super Group mode, BUT, before people start calling for my head, while keeping base items free at the same time? I'm thinking it could be used internally by SG's to see who's playing in SG mode which could be used for contests and such within the SG's.  I'm thinking it might make SG's talk internally a bit more and maybe make SG's matter just a tiny bit more than they do now.

[Koopak]

IF I was gonna do this id want to to involve some kinda SG badge equivalent to vet levels. The prestige doesn't help anything, doesn't unlock anything, just makes a public number go burr.

[Replacement]

I'm a fan.

It's pointless but it's fun. And it opens the door to finding a new purpose for prestige down the line.

[Greycat]

... not really a fan. "More prestige" does not equal "better supergroup," yet people tried on live to make it seem that way, and getting rid of the "You must run in SG mode" dictators was a big plus for actually *enjoying* SGs.

 

There are far more interesting ways to have SG contests and such than "go grind this." Personally, I'd rather have any and all references to prestige purged from the game. Yes, even in its current inactive state.

[kikyoku]

You could use prestige as an SG fund? Like half your inf goes to the group, and leaders can hand out rewards from it. No more money is being added to the game, but rich players can donate to support new players without effort.

 

Either way, no reason to not turn it on. Weren't there badges for that anyway? I know some people would murder for more badge opportunities.

[Zeraphia]

18 hours ago, Greycat said:

... not really a fan. "More prestige" does not equal "better supergroup," yet people tried on live to make it seem that way, and getting rid of the "You must run in SG mode" dictators was a big plus for actually *enjoying* SGs.

 

There are far more interesting ways to have SG contests and such than "go grind this." Personally, I'd rather have any and all references to prestige purged from the game. Yes, even in its current inactive state.

This is a rare incident, where I am actually in agreement with you. I still enjoy our disagreements though! However, in this case, I must say that I don't like the "penis measuring contests" that would result from "wow look at how much prestige my group has earned and yours hasn't!" and then force other people into going into purely SG mode. No thank you. I would like to have fun with my supergroups, and not have to deal with someone enforcing us to give up infamy/rewards or the senior members literally required to donate to make up for the loss. +1

[Freeblast]

Could earn Prestige with no loss of Influence/Infamy or XP, but playing in SG mode gives you Prestige. The Prestige does not negatively impact any current numbers, but would count for either Character Badges or SG Badges. 

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

This is a rare incident, where I am actually in agreement with you. I still enjoy our disagreements though!

No you aren't, and no you don't!  :)

 

4 hours ago, kikyoku said:

You could use prestige as an SG fund? Like half your inf goes to the group, and leaders can hand out rewards from it. No more money is being added to the game, but rich players can donate to support new players without effort.

 

This can ... already happen now? And what's more, players have more control over who they give INF to and when.  *And* can give it to non-SG players, too.

59 minutes ago, Freeblast said:

Could earn Prestige with no loss of Influence/Infamy or XP, but playing in SG mode gives you Prestige. The Prestige does not negatively impact any current numbers, but would count for either Character Badges or SG Badges.

 

... which basically... does nothing, so why enable the system (and the potential for some people to start in with "you're not doing anything for the SG, look at the prestige numbers!" arguments, even if they do mean nothing and there's no loss.)

 

Even ignoring that, say you have two members of an SG.

 

One is on for several hours a day. He farms, maybe, for his own build and INF. Or just solos, Doesn't really do anything much with the SG but show up for an hour a week and BSes with them. Has Prestige on, so while he's only with the SG an hour a week, with the rest of the time he plays he's the highest prestige earner in the group, has all the Prestige badges, etc.

 

The other is on a few hours a week, base builds and tweaks (which doesn't earn Prestige,) builds and tests AEs so the SG has a good, new, relevant arc to run every other week to once a month, crafts commons  and other IOs for general use, tosses extra salvage in the bin, but rarely if ever has Prestige on. Even if he *does* remember to turn it on, none of the things he does earns Prestige - there's no real way to have it affect Prestige earnings, after all.

 

Which one's doing more for the SG?

Which one shows more "prestige," and how does that relate at all to the SG?

 

This was one of the issues with the Prestige system even from the start. It didn't reflect anything except itself. Not how good a SG was, not how much a player contributed (aside from that number) to the SG itself. And yet it caused problems. "I earn X much prestige, I deserve to be promoted/leader/whatever else," even if there was no real contribution to the SG as a whole. Or even "you owe me."

 

Prestige is something best left dead and buried.  Just want new badges? "Distance traveled using Walk" is more interesting.

[Dryfter]

Holy cow are people making more of my suggestion than it needs to be. Each SG can do whatever they want to with it. Super Groups actually used to actually be a little different from each other and more than just a base.  If it was enabled, I'm sure many would do nothing at all with it, and that's fine. But the ones who do might actually have to TALK to their members. Maybe even have meetings like we used to do back in the old days. For those who chose to make it matter, the ranking system within the SG might actually mean something again. And if you don't like the way your SG is handling it, change to another. Everyone has a fully decked out base these days anyway. 

Lot of choices on how do handle prestige is it was enabled, including doing nothing with it at all, which is the only choice there is now at all.

 

Just trying to find an easy way to add a tiny bit of more fun to our already crazy fun game.

[Greycat]

16 minutes ago, Dryfter said:

Holy cow are people making more of my suggestion than it needs to be. Each SG can do whatever they want to with it. Super Groups actually used to actually be a little different from each other and more than just a base.  If it was enabled, I'm sure many would do nothing at all with it, and that's fine. But the ones who do might actually have to TALK to their members. Maybe even have meetings like we used to do back in the old days. For those who chose to make it matter, the ranking system within the SG might actually mean something again. And if you don't like the way your SG is handling it, change to another. Everyone has a fully decked out base these days anyway. 

Lot of choices on how do handle prestige is it was enabled, including doing nothing with it at all, which is the only choice there is now at all.

 

Just trying to find an easy way to add a tiny bit of more fun to our already crazy fun game.

 

Here's the thing. You don't need prestige to do any of that. That's the *point.*

 

SG doesn't talk? Start talking while they're on. Get people talking. No prestige needed. (You wouldn't earn prestige for typing in chat - or starting a discord channel or whatever and talking there - anyway.)

 

Have meetings? Say "Hey, guys, let's be more than a group sharing a base. How about every Thursday afternoon for the next few weeks we run a different TF?" No prestige needed to start doing that. And no pressure if someone can't join and isn't making that number bigger.

 

"Make the ranking system mean something?" It didn't really before when we did have prestige. But again, you can do that *now,* as limited and kind of pointless as the ranking system is. Heck, why *would* you want to tie prestige to it? See my previous example in the other post. One person does nothing for the SG, but farms 'til they have 2b prestige. The other builds AEs, builds bases, helps out in chat, works on builds, organizes events, etc... all things that generate zero prestige. Which should have any sort of recognition in the SG? How much impact would that number really have?

 

Make the game more fun? Find out what people like. Do costume contests. (again, not something that would generate prestige.) Have level 1 multi-zone races, or "run the rails." Have a PVP event. Have a level 1 PVP event. The only thing limiting you is your imagination and willingness to do something - not the existence or lack of a farmable number.

 

So far, there's just no good argument for bringing it back.

[Dryfter]

32 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Here's the thing. You don't need prestige to do any of that. That's the *point.*

 

SG doesn't talk? Start talking while they're on. Get people talking. No prestige needed. (You wouldn't earn prestige for typing in chat - or starting a discord channel or whatever and talking there - anyway.)

 

Have meetings? Say "Hey, guys, let's be more than a group sharing a base. How about every Thursday afternoon for the next few weeks we run a different TF?" No prestige needed to start doing that. And no pressure if someone can't join and isn't making that number bigger.

 

"Make the ranking system mean something?" It didn't really before when we did have prestige. But again, you can do that *now,* as limited and kind of pointless as the ranking system is. Heck, why *would* you want to tie prestige to it? See my previous example in the other post. One person does nothing for the SG, but farms 'til they have 2b prestige. The other builds AEs, builds bases, helps out in chat, works on builds, organizes events, etc... all things that generate zero prestige. Which should have any sort of recognition in the SG? How much impact would that number really have?

 

Make the game more fun? Find out what people like. Do costume contests. (again, not something that would generate prestige.) Have level 1 multi-zone races, or "run the rails." Have a PVP event. Have a level 1 PVP event. The only thing limiting you is your imagination and willingness to do something - not the existence or lack of a farmable number.

 

So far, there's just no good argument for bringing it back.

Thus far Greycat, the most compelling argument that you have made is that YOU don't want it. Ok. Very cool. Start or join a SG that doesn't use it. I suspect that many or even most won't. Don't take away the freedom from those who might enjoy having another option. 

[Greycat]

10 minutes ago, Dryfter said:

Thus far Greycat, the most compelling argument that you have made is that YOU don't want it. Ok. Very cool. Start or join a SG that doesn't use it. I suspect that many or even most won't. Don't take away the freedom from those who might enjoy having another option. 

 

If that's all you are getting from anything I'm saying, you're not reading.  As I said in response to your prior post, the things you listed for "and prestige can do this!" can be done *now,* without prestige being turned on. And *are* being done now, without prestige being turned on. And with no explanation or argument of just how prestige enables those things in any additional way.  The same is true for your original post. There's zero rationale for just how Prestige enables anything you listed or makes it easier.

 

What you list for reasons for it in your OP, and restate again later:

 

See who plays in SG mode? Why? To earn Prestige. Why earn Prestige? Because... you... get a bigger number that does nothing. Plus, *as I listed before but you apparently chose to ignore,* many activities that actively benefit the SG would do *zilch* for generating prestige.

 

Rewards for contests for the SG? You can do that now without (re)introducing another currency. SGs do that now. I've participated in them. Got some inf, got some super packs. That sort of thing.

 

"Make SGs talk internally." SGs do that now. If yours isn't, you can do that without Prestige. Just ... start talking.

 

And a vague "make SGs matter more." Again - you can do this for your SG without Prestige. When prestige was available on live, it had *zero* impact on which SGs "mattered." Hell, "mattering" is pretty subjective, not objective, and some number in the SG listing isn't going to make a whit of difference. It doesn't show how active an SG is - one member could churn all of it. It doesn't show how involved the SG is on the server, or how it treats its members, or how often it plays or anything else.

 

Oh, yeah, and "It can have badges tied to it" mentioned by others. So... yay, if you have a badger, you can have a few more? That's the closest thing to a positive, and at best it's a neutral argument.

 

None of that is "I don't want it." It's all "There's zero point to reenabling it, and reenabling it can, has, and given that history likely will cause conflict."

[Dryfter]

1 minute ago, Greycat said:

 

If that's all you are getting from anything I'm saying, you're not reading.  As I said in response to your prior post, the things you listed for "and prestige can do this!" can be done *now,* without prestige being turned on. And *are* being done now, without prestige being turned on. And with no explanation or argument of just how prestige enables those things in any additional way.  The same is true for your original post. There's zero rationale for just how Prestige enables anything you listed or makes it easier.

 

What you list for reasons for it in your OP, and restate again later:

 

See who plays in SG mode? Why? To earn Prestige. Why earn Prestige? Because... you... get a bigger number that does nothing. Plus, *as I listed before but you apparently chose to ignore,* many activities that actively benefit the SG would do *zilch* for generating prestige.

 

Rewards for contests for the SG? You can do that now without (re)introducing another currency. SGs do that now. I've participated in them. Got some inf, got some super packs. That sort of thing.

 

"Make SGs talk internally." SGs do that now. If yours isn't, you can do that without Prestige. Just ... start talking.

 

And a vague "make SGs matter more." Again - you can do this for your SG without Prestige. When prestige was available on live, it had *zero* impact on which SGs "mattered." Hell, "mattering" is pretty subjective, not objective, and some number in the SG listing isn't going to make a whit of difference. It doesn't show how active an SG is - one member could churn all of it. It doesn't show how involved the SG is on the server, or how it treats its members, or how often it plays or anything else.

 

Oh, yeah, and "It can have badges tied to it" mentioned by others. So... yay, if you have a badger, you can have a few more? That's the closest thing to a positive, and at best it's a neutral argument.

 

None of that is "I don't want it." It's all "There's zero point to reenabling it, and reenabling it can, has, and given that history likely will cause conflict."

(My you are an angry fellow...)

I am suggesting an additional choice. If you do not want the choice Greycat, that is fine. Perhaps others do.  Flavors are good things, most of the time at least. 

Take off your shirt and stomp out the fire under the collar. Sheesh.

[Greycat]

7 minutes ago, Dryfter said:

(My you are an angry fellow...)

I am suggesting an additional choice. If you do not want the choice Greycat, that is fine. Perhaps others do.  Flavors are good things, most of the time at least. 

Take off your shirt and stomp out the fire under the collar. Sheesh.

 

You're reading a lot of things that don't exist. There's no anger here. You just apparently do not get that you've given no good reason for turning this on. You deciding to deflect doesn't change that, and frankly only convinces me further that you have no good argument.

 

Everything you claim you want or need Prestige on to do, you can do now. You don't need prestige to do it.  (Other than, of course, making your prestige amount bigger.)

 

Here, let's start with one of your reasons. Why do you need prestige on for your SGs to talk? Why can't you just talk to the people in them now?

Edited June 23, 2021 by Greycat

[GraspingVileTerror]

Prestige generation is a vestigial social pressure activity implemented during a time in the game's development when it was thought that it would cause players to play more (and thus pay more over time, amoung other benefits which ultimately was hoped to result in fiscal growth).  It was also designed to be an Inf sink, quite likely due to the realization of the Devs just how skewed their in-game reward generation ultimately became.

It was also very poorly implemented for its express purpose, frankly.

 

I'm not against having Prestige do something interesting, but re-enabling it at this point (either with or without the Inf penalty) would ultimately just be an "e-peen."

Not that people aren't allowed to have e-peens, of course.  It's just . . . meh.

If Prestige could be used for something (NOT BASE BUILDING!  Keep that 100% free, thank you!), I would first want the Devs to very, VERY carefully re-examine the Prestige economy before they switch it back on.

 

As it stands, it's a bag of snakes, each with a can of worms inside of them.  There are more risks of social destabilization rather than social growth or interconnectivity in reactivating Prestige at this time.

 

That being said . . . more varied and robust tools built in to the game to enrich socialization through Groups, Coalitions, and (probably the smartest place to focus future efforts) Global Channels is something I wholeheartedly support!  A stronger sense of community is more conducive to City's survival at this point than competitive measures, in my opinion.

[Koopak]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

You're reading a lot of things that don't exist. There's no anger here. You just apparently do not get that you've given no good reason for turning this on. You deciding to deflect doesn't change that, and frankly only convinces me further that you have no good argument.

 

Everything you claim you want or need Prestige on to do, you can do now. You don't need prestige to do it.  (Other than, of course, making your prestige amount bigger.)

 

Here, let's start with one of your reasons. Why do you need prestige on for your SGs to talk? Why can't you just talk to the people in them now?

This doesn't feel like something that should need a "good argument" to enable for OP. That's the fundamental disconnect between you two. You see a possible issue without advantage, and they see and opportunity without drawback.

The core of any debate here begins and ends with "In live SOME supergroups ran by SOME people used prestige as an excuse to engage in toxic social pressure." and whether or not that would be true again in the modern era of the game with prestige having no tangible impact. I feel that it really wouldn't as without the value inherit in being able to spend that prestige (even if you already bought everything you want) it loses a lot of its meaning and the SGs that exhibit the behavior you fear will be few and far between. I'd suggest Vet levels as an example, iv yet to see anyone use their vet level as an excuse to be disrespectful or dismissive of anyone else.

However, I will add that if this is going to cause this aggressive a knee jerk reaction, then the fact that it provides minimal to no benefit to the community means its not worth getting people fired up over. Your view wins by the default of existing, even if it might be unfounded. The fact that you and others are so concerned with this possibility as to provide multiple multi paragraph posts in opposition suggests that its simply not worth the headache.

I for one wont care much either way, be fun to have another number to push up, but not enough to give a shit about it.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Koopak

[Ukase]

13 hours ago, kikyoku said:

You could use prestige as an SG fund? Like half your inf goes to the group, and leaders can hand out rewards from it. No more money is being added to the game, but rich players can donate to support new players without effort.

Not sure why us richer players can't just donate to an SG the way things are now. Oh..we do! Well, they do. I would, but my sg just likes to blow the money on contests - which I don't think are quite fair, as they rely on a good graphics card and not everyone has the same set up to see the same things. My purple might be your violet, etc. Something with cel shading might like quite good, but without it look pretty strange. Just doesn't seem fair to me. (and that's okay - that's just me)

The truth is there's a lot of in-game "currency" already. Losing prestige would be a plus. I do think it could have some value, but consider this:

Player A is a farmer. They enter the farm, exit, sell, reset, etc. All day. They earn tons of prestige. Meanwhile - three or more sg mates were forming up a team for some purpose or another. Player A is in the farm, not coming out. While it's certainly okay, let's look at Player B, who stops what they're doing to join the SG mates. 

Better is certainly a subjective term, and if Prestige had the utility from live, the farmer might be held in high esteem for the massive earning of it. But now...isn't it better to reward the sg folks that are teaming, preferably with SG folks? 

Shouldn't prestige be earned ONLY when teamed with sg folks of the same SG and their coalitions? This might be a more useful metric for an SG leader. 
Player A is on all the time, but has earned zero prestige. 
Player B is on sometimes, but seems to earn a decent amount each time they're on. 

How hard would something like that be to implement? I have no idea. I just think that metric would be more useful for an SG. 

[kikyoku]

Personally, if a SG advertised some kind of quota for prestige I would just not join. I've played lots of STO and that sort of thing is rampant there and I hate it, but that's because the game is built around encouraging that behavior, in a way that CoX doesn't anymore, though was headed towards on live.

 

My suggestion above wasn't that it could be a new activity that didn't exist, but that it's a new tool for doing something already done.

 

I think just turning it on without any function would be a neutral action, without any real consequences. People who want to could collect and compete, people who don't won't.

 

It is fundamentally a tool that can be used for good or ill, but I think the potential to help foster community is worth it, since without real money in the mix, there is very little risk associated.

[Greycat]

See, that's the thing I'm *still* not seeing an explanation for - how is turning this on "fostering community?" Or in the OP's words, "getting SGs to talk?"

 

Absolutely everything presented as a "we can do this with it" is something we can do *now* without it. What about turning Prestige back on magically makes SGs  able or willing do things they can do right now, but apparently some are not? I mean, sure, technically saying "hey guys, turn on prestige/SG mode" is taling "more" since it's a sentence that wouldn't be said otherwise...

 

(Well, if I'm being technical, not "everything." "We can turn on prestige, then earn badges for prestige" can't be done right now, but that's fairly... self-referential, I suppose.)

 

At its heart, my main reason for arguing against this is turning on a system that (a) does nothing, but (b) has frequently encouraged negative behaviour in the past and (c) - while it's likely a *very* tiny risk, may have unforseen interactions with the code we have now. (No, I haven't mentioned C in the past, and I don't think it's a real worry, but the game *has* changed and we don't know if the system is just off or actually excised from the code.) All for... what? Letting someone have a number they can point to?

 

So, again - what's the positive? How is this enabling anything that can't be done *right now* with existing systems and currencies? Or is this just "I want a big public number to show off?" If it's the last, the people who want it should just say that.

[Scarlet Shocker]

there are far too many currencies in this game as it stands.

 

In a way I have a certain sympathy for the OP's suggestion but put simply, no

 

Given a choice, I would reduce the game's currencies to 3, Inf, Shards & Merits, just let them buy more stuff and have done. There's no reason to add artificial gates to playing a game that is effectively free.

[RageusQuitus2]

On 6/22/2021 at 12:24 AM, Greycat said:

getting rid of the "You must run in SG mode" dictators was a big plus for actually *enjoying* SGs.

We are still here.  Despite prestige having no value i still warn my sg/vg to run in prestige mode.  Of course its only me and i dont listen....  One day im gonna boot myself for insubordination.

[kikyoku]

I completely agree with the currency issue, but I also wish we had something to make SGs valuable mechanically.

 

Prestige may not be the best option for that, but it is a very low effort one.

 

Having many currencies is frustrating, but I think we're also facing an issue of devaluing them, since even the rarest things are not hard to come by, making everything more a question of time investment than effort.

 

Prestige at least has social value, which inf does not, for better or worse.  Prestige is a public measure of group involvement, like vet levels are for single characters (displayed publicly on info screen).

 

I literally have an SG just for my alts with a fully functional base. I know that's me being antisocial, but if you have a code you can visit anybody anyway, they're basically just elaborate transit hubs.

 

I think there should be a mechanical reason to join a group because the game is more fun in a group, but right now they are little more than chat channels.

 

Prestige would at least give the group something to strive towards together, even if it's just arbitrary. Maybe especially then, since it would be easy to ignore.

[MTeague]

I see no point to a currency that doesnt' do anything, and I see no benefit for allowing a Guild to stock up a currency instead of individual players.

 

If you truly *care* whether or not your SG members play in /sg mode, *ask them* to do so. 

If you don't trust them to, maybe they're not actually your friends, and maybe that's because you're trying to dictate their playtime for them.

[merrypessimist]

5 hours ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

We are still here.  Despite prestige having no value i still warn my sg/vg to run in prestige mode.  Of course its only me and i dont listen....  One day im gonna boot myself for insubordination.

 

Yeah but your number two will probably re-invite you back just to spite you.

[Greycat]

6 hours ago, kikyoku said:

Prestige at least has social value, which inf does not, for better or worse.  Prestige is a public measure of group involvement, like vet levels are for single characters (displayed publicly on info screen).

 

... which brings me to something else brought on - it's *not* a measure of group involvement. It is - or was, unless we're somehow vastly changing  how it's awarded - simply a measure of "how many things I killed in SG mode." WHich, sure, when we *did* have to buy stuff for the base (which the OP doesn't want a return to) was useful, but now?

 

Leading doesn't generate prestige. Yes, leading as far as deciding to lead, say, a task force on SG night indirectly does - but it does it for everyone there, regardless of if they just showed up or took the initiative and time to set that up. Leading a SG can be a *Lot* of work, in and otu of game, depending on the size of the group... but that's not reflected in Prestige.

 

Creating AEs does not generate prestige. (Given it doesn't go towards badges and such, I don't know if AE kills would generate any, either.) Yet they can be a big and very time-intensive thing for people to do.

 

RP - either being involved with, or setting up - doesn't generate prestige.

 

Base building and modification can take a *lot* of time... but not generate prestige.

 

Nothing on discord, voice chat, etc. can generate prestige, obviously, but they're in use by and a big social part *of* a number of SGs, not just RP SGs.

 

So, unlike vet levels - which at least do reflect activity on a single character (though that makes it a bit less useful for us altaholics) - I couldn't agree that prestige measures SG involvement. The only thing you need to do is have SG mode on while killing things. You can have that on and earn billions of prestige while being completely disassociated with anyone else in the SG.  (And indirectly circles back to one of the old criticisms of prestige - it doesn't show how good a SG is, how it treats its members or how active it is as a whole. Just that stuff has been killed by someone in SG mode.)