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[Merdaneth]

My Amarr Navy standing has been like that for over 2 years, it's annoying. I actually tried to reduce my Amarr Navy standings by accepting then refusing missions for them, but my Amarr faction standing is now too low to get missions it seems. Except possibly with lvl 1s, haven't tried to see if they are still available yet. The next thing I'm going to try is killing the NPC traders and couriers at Amarr stations, I noticed during our last empire campaign that this reduces NPC corp standings pretty quick.

Look, I'm up the same creek. My (adjusted) standing with Republic Fleet is +6.05, I'm quite sure though that I've destroyed hundreds if not thousands of their ships, and are still shooting them regularly. They still love like they did years ago.

The Ammatar Mandate loves me more than the Empire, even though I never lifted a finger to help them. My storyline missions often specify the need for secrecy, but apparently everyone in the galaxy is immediately informed once I finish them.

I just think that the current standings mechanisms are, from an RP perspective, a fairly flawed tool. I think you shouldn't be or have to worry about standings at all. I do think you should worry about who you work for or why. But that's an issue only partly related to standings.

[Borza]

They really only mean anything for people who PvE a lot - including that aspect of FW mechanics.

[Merdaneth]

It's not a perfect system, but I agree - changing loyalties should be hard. In fact, I'd possibly like stiffer penalties for having bad standings with a faction - maybe no docking at their navy facilities or something else interesting like that.

I don't think changing loyalties should be made hard through an enforced a standings grind for NPCs, I think it should be made hard by the people RP-ing.

I don't think any amount of missioning for Republic should make them like Merdaneth if he still keeps slaves or carts them off by the thousands to Amarr.

In fact, I fully believe the Republic should appreciate it if I hunt Angels in their territory but do so on a mission from an Amarr company that happens to have a base in Heimatar, and not punish me for being a bad person in rescuing those poor Matari from their Angel enslavers.

Standings are two-dimensional and very limited, and as such for me not a very good RP tool.

[Louella Dougans]

Standings are one of those things that I'd really like to be able to use realistically, and I'm working hard to get my angel standings somewhere shiny. However, I know that its simply not realistic to ask my members to have high standings. Not only that, but I can't even really use the faction standings to determine my policies on engagement, because they've never been updated, and according to standings, I should be neutral with the Caldari and Amarr, sworn enemies of the Minmatar and Gallent, and on "shoot if its not too much trouble and they're stepping out of line" with the Guristas, Blooders, and Sansha. Which, I'm not sure is really a realistic outlook.

why is that not a realistic outlook? Everything else in game indicates these factions really don't like each other. Angels + Sansha being the opposing forces in Worlds Collide for example.

[scagga]

I would rephrase the argument to "High NPC standings don't necessarily imply loyalty."

However, in certain cases, I believe that high NPC standings definitely imply loyalty. For instance, where one accepted suboptimal missions in order to specifically raise standing with a certain subfaction. E.g. In the earlier days of the Ammatar cause it would be a mandatory requirement for Minmatar recruits to 'correct' their standings...(we even banned doing any form of buying/selling in minmatar space but that's a different matter...).. It would have been much 'easier' for them to continue making money from Minmatar/Gallente...Caldari or even Amarr agents.

[scagga]

The Ammatar Mandate loves me more than the Empire, even though I never lifted a finger to help them. My storyline missions often specify the need for secrecy, but apparently everyone in the galaxy is immediately informed once I finish them.

Servants of the empire would naturally show approval towards other servants of the empire.  If the Amarr view you with esteem, the Ammatar may exaggerate with some motive to continue their yes-mannishness.

[Matariki Rain]

[....] many people may just want to play a game for fun without the "I caught you RPing such-and-such" games...SWG spoiled me with the (OOC) tag you could turn on over your head to let people know that you going into the cantina and staring at half-naked chicks (getting buffs) was not in the same reality-continuity as your RP stuff.

Okay, I'm going to boggle a bit here.

*boggle*

I do immersionist RP in EVE. Who Matariki fights -- podder or not -- what she makes and how she trades are public parts of the game. Mata really does them: at least as certainly and provably as anything she does in chat channels and forums. What she sees on killboards, standings registers and trade data dumps tells her true things about the people she interacts with. Any claim of "Oh, I did that, but it was OOC so it shouldn't count" isn't going to fly with me-the-player (I consider it blocking), and is likely to have Mata thinking you've got problems you're not owning up to.

There's stuff you want to do that you don't think you should do? Welcome to humanity. Figure out what you're going to do about that: denial; sublimation; sneaking off to do it anyway; outing yourself and daring others to make an issue of it; doing it, but for a cause. This is one of the things that gives RP its depth and texture, rather than being about cardboard cutouts of faction loyalists living their caricature lives.

If the issue is that you as a player really, really want to try something that you can't conceivably imagine your main doing, then get an alt. Otherwise, embed the data points of your EVE resume into your story.

Mata's standings show low-level work in hostile areas when she was new to the pod, and also that she did a substantial amount of work for the RSS in Amarr space. Those are parts of her history. They're the seeds of interactions and the motivations for future decisions.

[Vieve]

Look, I'm up the same creek. My (adjusted) standing with Republic Fleet is +6.05, I'm quite sure though that I've destroyed hundreds if not thousands of their ships, and are still shooting them regularly. They still love like they did years ago.

FIO still claims to like Vieve, even though she can only use their lowest level agents (and that wasn't always true:  wasn't there a patch that opened up all low level agents, despite faction standings?).

I've interpreted it as "you're free to come back and be detained any time you like.  We won't stop you from turning yourself in."

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

This is a game. Games generally have limitations. You have to try to work within them or work around them.

I choose to have my character's standings reflect his loyalties as far as I can. This is, of course, easier for him as a loyalist to one of the core nations. The trade-off is that he is now irrevocably KOS in the empire. Unless, that is, he does a lot of work for low level Amarrian agents in the Republic. To date he has had no reason to consider doing so.

In the unlikely event that he decides to go Ammatar he would probably follow Kazzi's example and start shooting up Republic owned assets to nuke his standings with them.

Why do NPC corps maintain public standings listings? Possibly this is due to some arcane piece of the CONCORD treaties so that the baseline population (and the DED) can keep track of who the mad people with warships are working for. Or have worked for.

Public standings with pirate groups might be a combination of the group trying to tie a pilot to them by arranging for their empire standings to drop in response and infiltration of those groups by empire intelligence agencies.

Yes, I know these are rationalisations. However the in-game facts exist so it's less jarring if you can find a justification for them.

Likewise my character's default view on Ammatar pilots of Minmatar ancestry is that they are all traitors. Why is this? All of them show as graduating from Republic flight schools and all of them have Republican tribal ancestry listed on their pilot ID's.

I have had Ammatar roleplayers complain that this is unfair before but... Would you expect me to believe a Gallente character who claimed to be a Mannar or a Matari who claimed to be Khrusual?

And lets not even get started on the pilot who claimed they where a Kitsune in their bio.

[Mizhara]

It's a fairly simple thing, no need to make it complicated.

If you do something in space, it's your character doing it. If they support the Caldari Navy by aiding them in combat missions, your character either supports them or have no care for the ones opposed to the Caldari Navy. Same goes for if you gain standings with the Empire or Republic corps. You're supporting one through actions and thus you're working against the other, no matter your character's beliefs or ideology.

Standings from a year ago doesn't imply you're currently a rabid Imperialist/Matari supporter, but you have supported them quite effectively in the past. This should have an impact on your RP as far as I'm concerned.

It's the convenience of changing loyalties and being accepted without having to work for it that I find ludicrous. The records are clear. You've supported faction X which means you've harmed faction Y. Why should RPers aligned with faction Y consider you anything but suspect or even hostile?

If I were to suddenly go batshit insane and start approaching Empire aligned corps or entities, you could be damn sure I'd expect my standings to be an issue. They're proof that I've supported the Republic, it's fleet and done harm to Empire forces.

Standings may not imply loyalty... but they're proof of your character's actions in space.

[Vikarion]

What Miz said.

However, I would like to clarify that I don't see standings as the be all end all of character loyalty. For example, Vikarion has higher Amarr, Ammatar, and Mordu's standings than Caldari standings. If loyalty was based on standings alone, I would be a Mordu's loyalist. But this is because of the failings of the standings system - because of how associated standing work, you will almost always have higher Mordu's than Caldari State standings, for example.

What I see standings as, as Miz points out, is the general "location" of a character's loyalty and definitely a guide to past actions. And I think that that should matter - I'm fairly immersion-ist, and when I do something in-game, I did it IC, with very few exceptions.

[Kazzzi]

This has kinda given me an idea. Despite being a complete disgrace in the eyes of the Amarr Empire faction, I might still have the support and respect of a few well placed Amarr Navy officers who may be interested in political reform in the Empire.

Hehe, I'm in your stations, corrupting your NPCs!

I just might roll with this.

[Syylara/Yaansu]

There's stuff you want to do that you don't think you should do? Welcome to humanity.

That's just not how I approach my leisure entertainment, but different strokes for different folks.

Figure out what you're going to do about that: denial; sublimation; sneaking off to do it anyway; outing yourself and daring others to make an issue of it; doing it, but for a cause. This is one of the things that gives RP its depth and texture, rather than being about cardboard cutouts of faction loyalists living their caricature lives.

Occasionally doing things I consider non-contiguous with RP portrayals hasn't made Syyl'ara a cardboard cutout loyalist caricature.

If the issue is that you as a player really, really want to try something that you can't conceivably imagine your main doing, then get an alt. Otherwise, embed the data points of your EVE resume into your story.

I should fork out money for another (3rd) account or idle my main's skill training for months just to build a PvE mission runner?  Again, completely ruins the entertainment aspect (for me).

Mata's standings show low-level work in hostile areas when she was new to the pod, and also that she did a substantial amount of work for the RSS in Amarr space. Those are parts of her history. They're the seeds of interactions and the motivations for future decisions.

If I were to play it to the hilt, I wouldn't run missions for any corporation period, Syyl and Yaan are supposed to be a non-partisan surveillance and investigation team.  That would have made for an awfully unfulfilled entertainment experience since my first 6 months or so I'd have had pitiful income levels.  Maybe I could explain CEP, CBT, and HoR.  I actually did try those 3 a bit early on, but quickly found they are very annoying grinds (hard to trigger storylines for, big gaps in agent qualities, etc).

Now, there is no (OOC) tag in EVE, so I'm not saying this should extend to making statements in local or RP channels and then denying them or opening fire on other players and then claiming you were "nameless capsuleer X" at the time.

This is just a mindset I've had for a long time in more formulaic MMOs that I absolutely refuse to consider the leveling grind and the quests (which you'd essentially be masochistically punishing yourself not to do) as applying to my character's backstory and experiences.  My analogue for that in EVE is corp grinding for high-quality mission and research agents to generate income until your skills are such that you can engage in income-generating activities that are in line with your RP.  Like now I spend much less time running missions and more time moving PI goods around as "Mordu's overseeing the security of the goods in transit".

[Merdaneth]

If the issue is that you as a player really, really want to try something that you can't conceivably imagine your main doing, then get an alt. Otherwise, embed the data points of your EVE resume into your story.

My point is, just because some of the data points are called 'standings' doesn't neccessarily imply all the things we associate with good and poor standings.

Let's look at how players treat standings. In most cases, people can go from good to bad standing overnight. One heinous act by one alliance or corp member may set that entire organization from good to bad. You can't save ten lives and then claim you've saved up enough standings to commit ten murders and end up neutral, doesn't work that way. Standings mechanism do, for a large part.

Additionally, the worst thing I could do for my faction standings (and the reason why my Ammatar standing is better than my Amarr standing) is decline missions. Game mechanics seem to indicate organization/faction prefer if you work for another faction than refuse missions for their own.

As said, the standings is a reflection of a portion of your PvE skills. If you've cleared the belts of Angel rats in the Republic, apparently none of the Republic agencies would care, just Concord. The data points should be treated as such, accepting missions for a specific faction, and being.

I find it insane (and besides absolutely not fitting with my character) that I would need start shooting civilian transports to 'correct' my standing to what I think is fitting with the character. Merdaneth doesn't shoot civilian transports, and no amount of killing Republic Fleet ships is apparently moving his standings with regards to them one iota.

The data points seem to indicate that Republic Fleet doesn't care if you shoot them. If I want to piss off the Republic Fleet, then asking and refusing missions seems the way to go? Want to put that into your RP?

In short, I don't like to juggle my RP too much around the game realities of standings, I prefer to largely ignore these as brought forth by a poorly designed and named system that imposes artificial barriers on access to certain services and rewards grinding.

[Merdaneth]

Also, I remember this big row that I caused inside PIE (being accused of being a traitor to the Empire and all that) because I hinted at (IC) the possibility that since the Empire rewarded us far better for doing missions (more standings, ranks, more loyalty, more isk) that they really wanted us to do missions in FW rather than capture or defend plexes.

Fervent missioners raised much faster through the ranks than fervent plexers after all.

The responses of most people inside PIE were roughly: those who do missions are only after their own wallet, they do not care about the Empire at all, those who capture plexes are the real warriors. That is not what standings would suggest. And really nobody could come up with any good IC explanation why missioners advanced through the ranks much faster.