Reputation Problems

[Zero 1]

So since joining SD the clan and I have been hard at work doing contracts in Rigel, eventually my rep was showing Moderate, Energy was 82% and Navy was 60% - Then after traveling to some neighboring systems (Sirius, Emerald, Orion) I return to Rigel to see my rep with Energy at 40% and Navy at 38%, tried logging off and back on but it still reads these low numbers, also the Navy and Energy ships are red again Help please.

[BraveHart]

"I assume you are online in MP doing contracts....if so the reputation of the area your in will remain the same since it is the default reputation....However you can change your reputation in SP, but MP will stay the same"

[Corgano]

I believe that if you leave the system without saving first, you lose any progress you made on changing your reputation

(I might be wrong, so someone feel free to correct me if that's the case)

[Wasp89]

Originally posted by Corgano
I believe that if you leave the system without saving first, you lose any progress you made on changing your reputation

(I might be wrong, so someone feel free to correct me if that's the case)

Close. If you leave a system, all of your progress made towards changing your reputation is gone, period. You must STAY in a system until you achieve a global reputation shift, or else you will lose your work.

Global reputation tiers are fixed in MP.

[Edited on 9-22-2010 by Wasp89]

[Zero 1]

Wow that kinda blows, thanks for the quick response though guys.

[Spartan268]

So your saying the only way to PERMANENTLY change your rep is to do it in SP then it should be changed in MP???

[Blackthorne]

Nah, reputation in MP is static and always at the default level of the game. You can only influence reputation in SP mode, and only for SP mode.

-Blackthorne

[Spartan268]

Hmmm... really dont like that... seems like a setback to me.. you should be able to change your rep. o

[ArcticPhoenix]

Agreed. The fact that we can't permanently change our rep in that system kind of defeats the purpose of us trying so hard to be 'good', doesn't it? Will the AI ever attack our stations there?

[Vice]

You can change it temporarily for the system you are in, including effecting ship threat levels in that system for other players that come in. But those shifts do no effect your earned offline reputations or vice versa. Nor do they stay permanent in the MP environment (protection for new players and consistency among clients, lots of debate and discussion since 2007 on this). The AI section stays fairly consistent and predictable so human players are the primary factor in establishing their reputations with each other unimpeded (clan groups, individuals, territory control, their actions with/against each other, etc). So think of news console reputations as an SP adjustable system and clan control/link options as the MP adjustable system.

With that said however, this may change in the future as I have been considering including a persistent reputation system for the AI layer that kind of piggy-backs on the player built station system. Not sure on that direction yet though.

[RobDog]

Wow. I wish I would've known this yesterday. I spent the whole day trying to increase my overall rep in Pearl.. I'll probably be playing a lot more Singleplayer now, that's a bummer for MP. I hope that persistent reputation system works out in the future.

[Shazzar]

Originally posted by RobDog
Wow. I wish I would've known this yesterday. I spent the whole day trying to increase my overall rep in Pearl.. I'll probably be playing a lot more Singleplayer now, that's a bummer for MP. I hope that persistent reputation system works out in the future.

I felt the same way when I first got Legends, as the rep system works the same way as Mercenary. However, keep this in mind:

If you are increasing reputation to improve the contract payments, doing contracts in multiplayer still gives you an increase in pay. This is because reputation is only one of many factors that increase the pay from contracts. Succesfully completing contracts, in multiplayer or singleplayer increases your Civilian Rank, which is a bigger factor in the amount you are paid than reputation is. So doing multiplayer contracts do help you to increase your contract pay, even if the reputation shift only stays in effect while you stay in the system.

[Shazzar]

Originally posted by Spartan268
So your saying the only way to PERMANENTLY change your rep is to do it in SP then it should be changed in MP???

The only permanent way to increase reputation is singleplayer contracts. The reason it does NOT transfer over to multiplayer is party because of this:

Imagine if you become friendly with a group in singleplayer, then join multiplayer with a friend. Your friend might still be hostile with that group while you are friendly. This would cause a lot of confusion, as they show up green for you, and red for your friend. If you then help your friend, you hurt your reputation that you spent all that time building in singleplayer.

The way it is now, you can help your friend, and your singleplayer repuation with that group will not suffer. And all players in a server will see the same ships as red or green, eleminating a lot of confusion.

Also, doing contracts in multiplayer still increases your future contract pay, because successfully completing contracts increases your Civlian Rank, which is a big factor in how much you get paid for contracts.

[Edited on 9-22-2010 by Shazzar]

[Vice]

If you are increasing reputation to improve the contract payments, doing contracts in multiplayer still gives you an increase in pay. This is because reputation is only one of many factors that increase the pay from contracts. Succesfully completing contracts, in multiplayer or singleplayer increases your Civilian Rank, which is a bigger factor in the amount you are paid than reputation is. So doing multiplayer contracts do help you to increase your contract pay, even if the reputation shift only stays in effect while you stay in the system.

That's a good point that I failed to mention. The other elements of your 'reputation' still remain intact in multiplayer, including your earned civilian rank (a combination of contracts successfully completed, earned equipment/ship, and wealth) and military rank. That also carries with it the benefits you earn, such as eventually acquiring a rank/reputation that bypasses all station fees, causes certain AI ships to follow your orders, improves what is offered to you, and increases your earned pay.

Shazzar's second post points out several of the important reasons such a direction was applied for AI faction reputations (only).

[RobDog]

I guess that makes sense, but I feel that every player having their own individual reputation on MP wouldn't be such a bad thing at all. So what if my friend is being attacked by a hostile AI that I see as green, If I want to make the choice to help him and suffer a bit of a rep loss, then that's my choice to make. I still think the reputation could remain independent from SP mode, but work the same way. If it could be worked out to piggy-back the Player built station system in MP, like Vice mentioned, I think that would make MP much more desirable to play. Increasing overall rep is a wonderful way to shape the universe in SP, but I like playing on MP better for other reasons, so I'm a bit torn between the two modes.

BTW I realize this may have already been debated at length back in the EL days but I wasn't here for that so I'd just like to make my points.

[Shazzar]

Originally posted by RobDog
I guess that makes sense, but I feel that every player having their own individual reputation on MP wouldn't be such a bad thing at all. So what if my friend is being attacked by a hostile AI that I see as green, If I want to make the choice to help him and suffer a bit of a rep loss, then that's my choice to make. I still think the reputation could remain independent from SP mode, but work the same way. If it could be worked out to piggy-back the Player built station system in MP, like Vice mentioned, I think that would make MP much more desirable to play. Increasing overall rep is a wonderful way to shape the universe in SP, but I like playing on MP better for other reasons, so I'm a bit torn between the two modes.

BTW I realize this may have already been debated at length back in the EL days but I wasn't here for that so I'd just like to make my points.

I wasnt around for the debates, but after having someone explain the reasons for the system, I felt that multiplayer was worth my time and didnt play much singleplayer after that. (this was for Legends)

However, I agree that it would be great if reputation could be more permanent in multiplayer, and from some of Vice's comments, it sounds like he will be trying to achieve something like this possibly in a future update. Judging by the updates he did for Legends, I'm confident he will come up with an excellent work-around for the issue.

[Edited on 9-22-2010 by Shazzar]

[Spartan268]

Wait i just thought of something..... if the varibles in MP for reputation are static.. couldn't you alter a game file to change them or is it built in to MP itself???

[Pelador]

I have to agree that the appeal of persitance to the playing field does actually mean that you feel as if your accomplashing something if you are at least able to manipulate the environment around you.

Whilst I can understand that the politics of systems are there by design for quests, gameplay in general to create different attitudes in sectors and that if one player where to change the reputations for all it could manipulate future gameplay for others accordingly.

However, I can't see why reputations with different systems can't be individually recorded and manipulated individually for each pilot. Such that as much as that you can't then change the political environment for every player you could at least adjust your own. And considering that its your activities that would vary the individual relations you have in each system it would at least create some semblance of realism that you can change your environment for purposes by investment of time and effort etc.

I suppose the complication then is what does it really mean, as if a system is orientated one way and encounters/populations adjusted accordingly to politics how will this really change the environment. Well invariably it wouldn't, but it would change your relations with the locals accordingly which you would have to calculate as what would be the most advantageous for needs. As such the reputations would need to be adjustable by system not globally. Which may create an inbalance due to factions borders.

Either that or for pusposes everything can be manipulated for all players. But I can see how that may create some imbalances for future players on questlines in the future. And go against sector histories and lore.

Question ultimatley however is if you cant change anything in your environment based on your actions, what is there to do except accumulate wealth and rank as its ultimatley repetative and nothing you do changes anything or has an impact.

Whilst clan system control is relevant and can be changed, and you can build stations to change things, I still feel some consideration to reputation is needed. Ultimatley this should then have changes to the economy aswell.

Even after such a short exposure to the game, I can see little longevity to pusposefull play without these persistant elements given an overhaul for MP. And to be honest I'm wondering currently what there is to do and it's just more of the same eventually with most gameplay being repetative.

As such it would be useful for the sectors to also adjust over time based upon campaign objectives by the AI. e.g. rebel uprisings. Guild/Energy wars. Military campaigns etc. This would increase the variability away from the designed statics also.

As an example if the Vorlon where to invade a sector on occasion, then it would require player intervention to "repair" the change. This would then give some purpose to activities even if its an extreme example.

[Edited on 23-9-2010 by Pelador]

[Vice]

However, I can't see why reputations with different systems can't be individually recorded and manipulated individually for each pilot.

It can, and some games do, and that's where there has been problems (especially if you have experience playing those games and what such 'individual' reputation structures did for gameplay). Here are some excerpts from past discussions on the topic:

And if you've played FL for any length of time, you've probably encountered the scenarios where one player has a bad rep in the same system one of their coop buddies has a good rep, it then hinders their ability to find jobs where they want when they want and to complete those objectives because they fail to share a reputation... even if they are of the same 'clan'... even if they are 'linked' together in a group... even if they are flying together in formation both as human players. And that's another element to why human reputations are linked together... but really just for common location.

So rather than having a spagetti reputation system, where even friends can have different enemies and allies in the same system (even though they themselves might be linked by group or common coop interest) resulting in interference for working together or even just trying to travel together, human reputations follow human activities based on location. If you're flying with a buddy, you can expect to have the same enemies and allies come along.
The main reason for the separate reputation structure between SP and MP in Evochron is to allow players to perform activities in MP that do not impact their earned individual SP reputations while still allowing them to keep everything else they've earned to use in both SP and MP.

Multiplayer reputations are synchronized for human players as part of the fleet system and to accommodate the conditions for multiplayer itself. Reputations are 'locked' in to protect your earned reputations for various actions while you're in multiplayer (primarily so that taking actions you may need to in multiplayer do not adversely effect the reputations you have earned in single player).

The primary reason for this are the player requests for a 'no-penalty' environment in multiplayer. That is, players want to be able to take actions in multiplayer (coop or otherwise) that they normally would not take in single player and not have their reputation penalized for it. As an example, they may have to attack ships that they were normally allied with in single player due to circumstances in multiplayer caused by helping out other human players. They want the option to do that without harming the reputation they worked so hard to achieve in single player. This lets the player do whatever actions they want in multiplayer without worrying about hurting their (hard) earned single player reputations.

Question ultimatley however is if you cant change anything in your environment based on your actions, what is there to do except accumulate wealth and rank as its ultimatley repetative and nothing you do changes anything or has an impact.

Fortunately, that is a false paradigm, although it does seem some reading such comments can get the impression it must mean 'anything'. The only exclusion is AI reputations... and even then, you can still change them temporarily with an impact on what other players will encounter. Other areas (as you point out) are 'changeable', including territory control and universe expansion through player-built stations (introducing new AI threads, trade locations, inventories, etc).

Whilst clan system control is relevant and can be changed, and you can build stations to change things, I still feel some consideration to reputation is needed.

Yes, and those 'reputation' options are shifted from AI ships/territory to human ships and territory in multiplayer... or at least that's what the game is designed to facilitate with the changeable options listed above.

Ultimatley this should then have changes to the economy aswell.

And that's exactly what can be done by players altering the game's universe by constructing the stations necessary to effect the economies/markets/inventories.

As such it would be useful for the sectors to also adjust over time based upon campaign objectives by the AI. e.g. rebel uprisings. Guild/Energy wars. Military campaigns etc. This would increase the variability away from the designed statics also.

Could also be incorporated into the SP mode for the AI system, although the game is already set up to introduce such changes through episodic type updates as part of the regular update process.

As an example if the Vorlon where to invade a sector on occasion, then it would require player intervention to "repair" the change.

Vorlon? Did you actually call them that? But I do get the point, almost a kind of MMO type of PvE structure where players rush to one region or another to keep up with changing events. For now, it's mostly designed for PvP type invasions and territory shifts, but adding to it with potential events/changes not involving human players is certainly an appealing and intriguing direction.

[BraveHart]

Originally posted by Spartan268
Wait i just thought of something....

"Does that thought come with light bulb above your head?" LOL

"I couldn't resist"

[Marvin]

Originally posted by Spartan268

Wait i just thought of something..... if the varibles in MP for reputation are static.. couldn't you alter a game file to change them or is it built in to MP itself???

Server-side, you can create a modded universe and define the entry reputation level however you like. But all clients would then be required to use the modded "universe" file. On the other hand, the default universe for Mercenary (unlike Legends) is built in ... probably to prevent cheating.