Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Boma Airaken on 24 Apr 2011, 22:25
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Just curious about this after trying to make sense of another thread.
*IF* an organization deliberately grinds/trashes standings to give their corporation or alliance more credibility to their RP loyalty/stance, in your opinion are they deserving of more (for lack of a better word) "respect" than if they don't?
Having a hard time phrasing the question at the moment but I think you guys get my drift. NMot really looking for heady analysis of the issue or another discussion of how lame the current standings system is, just honest personal opinion.
Yes/No?
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I think standings that reflect an organization's IC stance can be one way to gain respect or credibility. I just don't think that they're the only ones.
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Do I see someone who has taken the time to run the several hundred missions necessary to ensure their standings match their RP as having done something worthy of note? Yes, especially when we're talking about pirate factions.
Am I willing to accept someone with standings that are neutral or even contradictory to their (strong) professed IC beliefs/politics? Yes, provided their RP is generally consistent.
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Do I see someone who has taken the time to run the several hundred missions necessary to ensure their standings match their RP as having done something worthy of note? Yes, especially when we're talking about pirate factions.
Am I willing to accept someone with standings that are neutral or even contradictory to their (strong) professed IC beliefs/politics? Yes, provided their RP is generally consistent.
I have to agree with Ken.
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Yes :)
It shows commitment for your chosen path. I agree with the other posts in that it's not required for credibilty but it does add to it.
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No. Grinding standings doesn't get someone IC respect for me. OOC I respect them for their tenacity and their willingness to make an OOC sacrifice to prop up some game statistic, but I consider faction standings by and large meaningless as a gauge of loyalty for a respective faction.
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Sometimes.
It depends on what they do with the standings.
Someone with +10 to Federal Intelligence who claims to have access to every piece of information across the Federation = :ugh:
Someone with +1 to Federal Intelligence, but only makes statements that seem entirely believeable, and doesn't claim to know what Souro Foiritain said to Mentas Blaque in a meeting they had in a sealed room = :)
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Sometimes.
It depends on what they do with the standings.
It just tends to cause trouble to take standings into consideration. If someone does post something believable concerning Federal secret intelligence, I believe them no matter their standing.
If someone has a high standing, and posts some secret Federal intelligence, how do you explain standings moving not one inch as a result of that? Federal intelligence doesn't look at the IGS? It wasn't important intelligence in the first place?
I have high Rep. Fleet standing, despite me shooting down their ships *for years* in FW. If they don't dislike me for killing millions of their people, but do dislike me for helping the Amarr Navy in a mission that removes Angels from Republic space, what gives?
Standings just cause trouble for RP as far as I'm concerned.
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I think the standings as a thing are just nice to have. Unless the standings system gets a major overhaul its unreasonable to ask that people have standings to their factions, and missioning is boring, if you don't mind the mission grind, then by all means run some missions and grind up standings with your chosen faction. I'd give people with good faction standings (pirates in particular) a pat on the back, but I doubt I could do much else then that.
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I look at it a bit differently. If you have no positive standings with the faction you proclaim championing, I can't take it IC seriously, nor OoC seriously since it means you can't even be arsed working a little to back up your RP with measurable in-space effects.
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I look at it a bit differently. If you have no positive standings with the faction you proclaim championing, I can't take it IC seriously, nor OoC seriously since it means you can't even be arsed working a little to back up your RP with measurable in-space effects.
I could agree with that, but its a problem with pirate factions because:
1. Most people go into the pirate faction game having mission ran in the past and therefore having shit standings with their faction, and since the angels and the guristas are the only factions with epic arcs, its really hard to claw your way out of a standings hole once you're in it.
2. Nullsec is unfriendly. I have positive angel standings, and the more times I run the epic arc and the more missions I run, the more paranoid I get there. By the end of the epic arc, I'm always so high strung I'm physically shaking. Even though I'm in an unimplanted clone and a cheaply fit retribution. And I know that a lot of people can't deal with that stress as well as I can.
3. A lot of people need to mission run for isk, and if they can't live in nullsec, then they've got to keep running missions for highsec factions, which will slowly whittle down their faction standings.
4. Other then a pretty little symbol and a number, there is absolutely no tangible benefit to standings, it means nothing its just a sticker.
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To me it all depends on the organisation you are with. If the corp requirement is that you are to have a specific standing with a corp or faction, and you go out and do what you must to prove your dedication to that group. Then I can see a certain level of consideration that can be given IC to that player for his hard work put in.
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The standings system may not have had a complete overhaul, but with the change to low-level agent requirements, that problem is overcome.
And yes, that means you may have to take a long time to recover standings and prove your loyalty to your newfound faction. This strikes me as fairly immersive.
Flip things around: can you claim to be loyal to a faction if you regularly shoot their stuff?
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The standings system may not have had a complete overhaul, but with the change to low-level agent requirements, that problem is overcome.
Not true, for some factions. Mordus don't have L1 agents of zero or lower quality, so it's entirely possible to completely lock yourself out of missioning for them.
I'm actually quite concerned as to how the removal of connections skills and agent quality is going to affect that change.
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You should be able to reverse Mordu's standing by working for the Caldari State.
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I have Mordus at +5 and I have never ran missions for the State :D
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The connections skills aren't going to get removed, actually, that changed again. Soundwave or somebody mentioned it briefly, though of course that could change one MORE time between now and then.
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You should be able to reverse Mordu's standing by working for the Caldari State.
The change to low-quality L1 agent access was intended specifically as a way to prevent requiring people to faff about with the derived standings system.
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No. Grinding standings doesn't get someone IC respect for me. OOC I respect them for their tenacity and their willingness to make an OOC sacrifice to prop up some game statistic, but I consider faction standings by and large meaningless as a gauge of loyalty for a respective faction.
Agreed.
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Flip things around: can you claim to be loyal to a faction if you regularly shoot their stuff?
I'm on the fence. If pirate factions were easier to gain standings for I'd be more interested in supporters of those factions having relevant standings.
It adds credibility but you have to take it with a grain of salt, as some newer RPer that wants to be say, a blood raider, most likely does not have the resources to run out to 0.0 and grind Blood Raider missions to back their story, and nor should they have to.
Working missions and general high-sec activities should not be a crutch or a requirement for anyone's RP.
Standings are already screwed up as it is.
Khanid Kingdom NPCs will shoot Silas in Kingdom space for sec status reasons, but I think I still hover around +9.0 standings from when I was running missions in the region. I'm not about to waste time coming up with some convoluted reasoning to explain that, etc.
Long story short use it as a backup to flesh things out if you like but never as a necessity.
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Yeah, Merd and Silas sum up my opinions on the matter nicely.
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I don't care as much about standings, but if you are claiming to be an evil pirate while grinding missions for the Caldari Navy or whatever, I find it very hard to take you seriously. If you simply don't have the standings or they are a relic from your past, meh whatever. I judge people on actions, not really what numbers say.
That said, I wish standings mattered a lot more in the game (and I find it ridiculous that I as a Caldari FW member can stage out of Federation stations -- including the FDU's stations).
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Standings involve NPC/PVE interaction. NPCs and PVE aren't realistic even in a thousands of years into the future perspective. It's pretty flawed and I don't feel standings should be considered fundamentally sacrosanct.
Standings are based on extremely old unfinished code. Perhaps one day if standings are changed to a more dynamic system, I'll take them more seriously. Until then, they are an occasional fun thing to mention and casually play with.
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I think we're straying from Boma's original question here. Yep, standings are broken, unrealistic, etc. The question was whether you consider someone who, working within the imperfect system, grinds/trashes standings for RP purposes worthy of note.
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Seems to me that the consensus is that having them is good, but not having them may not be bad.
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If you truly want to test the loyalty of someone who is "loyal" to one of the main four factions. Send them plexing in the militia and set the objective of trying to claim a system.
If they come back victorious, welcome them with open arms because they have done the most boring, and grueling thing you can possibly do in eve in the name of your faction.
The militia plexing system is the true test of ones loyalty.
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I'm not going to consider anyone who doesn't want to grind standing as less worthy of note, roleplay-wise. Missioning is a special sort of torture, and I'll never back anything that'd require people to do it to get roleplay "street cred."
That said, I do respect people who mission for their chosen faction, especially when it's not a trivial job to do so. OOC, it's an accomplishment. In-character, the exact interpretation is a little more (more than a little) muddy, but the least that can be said is that the character's willing to do more than just pay lip service to their chosen masters.
This answer might be slightly self-serving because I'm currently up in Curse doing just this, but there you go.
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I agree that it is a difficult enough task to earn OOC respect, and it could be used IC to meld well with whatever storyline you have on the go, but is not necessary for it.
Also, I haven't come across many RP'ers who would give much IC credence to Concord.
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Some really great responses here. Seems to be a really personal issue for people. I like that. I am mostly asking because I am having a pretty heated discussion with a friend on "999 ways to back your shit up with ingame action".
Thanks for all the replies so far. Seems like grinding to GET standings being boring as hell (I totally agree) turns alot of people off.
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I could agree with that, but its a problem with pirate factions because:
Its a problem with many factions. There are 24th Crusade capsuleers who have a perfect 10.0 with the 24th Crusade and extremely high Amarr standing as well who never left their Impairor much less ever shot a gun in their career.
And Miz, you don't take like Archbishop seriously IC? He aids the Amarr loyalist through industry and sermons rather than doing missions (his Amarr standing is 0.38). Really?
I think people should lighten up on the whole standings issue as far as indication of RP loyalty. It is mostly a mission record, and with the possibility to share mission rewards, a flawed mission record.
People want standings to mean something, at least more than it does. I can understand it. But in most cases it really doesn't. A loyalist doesn't need to run mission to be a loyalist anymore than an alliance leader needs to a good PvP record to be an good leader.
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I could agree with that, but its a problem with pirate factions because:
Its a problem with many factions. There are 24th Crusade capsuleers who have a perfect 10.0 with the 24th Crusade and extremely high Amarr standing as well who never left their Impairor much less ever shot a gun in their career.
And Miz, you don't take like Archbishop seriously IC? He aids the Amarr loyalist through industry and sermons rather than doing missions (his Amarr standing is 0.38). Really?
I think people should lighten up on the whole standings issue as far as indication of RP loyalty. It is mostly a mission record, and with the possibility to share mission rewards, a flawed mission record.
People want standings to mean something, at least more than it does. I can understand it. But in most cases it really doesn't. A loyalist doesn't need to run mission to be a loyalist anymore than an alliance leader needs to a good PvP record to be an good leader.
Great point Merdaneth, since you said "in most cases" could you elaborate a bit on the odd cases where it does mean something, in your opinion?
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Great point Merdaneth, since you said "in most cases" could you elaborate a bit on the odd cases where it does mean something, in your opinion?
There are a few instances that people got their standings raised for specific (in-space) act of support of some cause or faction (like helping defend the Imperial Apocalypse I believe). Recently we had an incident where Sansha supporters got their standings lowered after aiding a Sansha attack while a CCP actor was in space.
Today CCP is able to use medals, which are a far nicer and more RP friendly tool to indicate that you've contributed to some cause, if you ask me.
If the Republic hands Miz a medal as a 'staunch defender of the Republic' for specific in-game action, then that's worth something to me IC. I wouldn't even look twice at her standings to determine loyalty, although it would indicate to me what mission she has run. And I can always ask about that.
Standings do give information, and they can be used in RP for sure. They just provide very little *loyalty* information and using them as a yardstick for loyalty is not my thing.
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Yeah it wasn't standings. Me and Koronakesh got our security status changed to -6.00 for that particular event, and it still pisses me off it didn't stick.
I definetly see where you are coming from though and your outlook makes a lot of sense.
What about people deliberately trashing individual corp standings? I ask because that is our project at the moment. Any examples of people doing this in the past? We like it because it is 100% consequences for no material or monetary gain, unlike grinding standings up.
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I once made an effort to nuke my Amarr standings. It was a pita. If it wasn't for the fact I was on house arrest for three months with nothing to do other than play eve, it never woulda happened as much as it did.
If you want standings, you simply must pve grind, which is lame for casual pvp-centric players. Even with data centers, you still need to pve a bit to use them all.
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Boma/Koro's suprise nuking of the Minmatar Fleet Admiral actor during the Sansha event still ranks as one of my absolute favorite in game curveballs.
Absolutely fantastic and always brings a smile to my face when I think about it.
Revised standings code would only be a small bandaid on some issues that we'd always have trouble solving.
For example were any of this 'real' no one saying anything disparaging about the Empress or the Empire would be able to dock in an Imperial station without facing an armed boarding party after docking. Vice versa no imperial loyalists would be allowed near any Matari stations without being blown to bits.
Perhaps I'll start a thread on the topic.
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Boma/Koro's suprise nuking of the Minmatar Fleet Admiral actor during the Sansha event still ranks as one of my absolute favorite in game curveballs.
Absolutely fantastic and always brings a smile to my face when I think about it.
Revised standings code would only be a small bandaid on some issues that we'd always have trouble solving.
For example were any of this 'real' no one saying anything disparaging about the Empress or the Empire would be able to dock in an Imperial station without facing an armed boarding party after docking. Vice versa no imperial loyalists would be allowed near any Matari stations without being blown to bits.
Perhaps I'll start a thread on the topic.
This sir, is the way I wish things were as well.