Dark Sectors: The Purpose The Politics & The Pvp Part I The Purpose

[-InV-Skitz0]

The Purpose:

 

Dark Sectors upon release was DE's first attempt at something that is considered END game content. For the first time in warframe history individuals/clans/alliances now have the ability to directly influence portions of in game content on a daily basis. Currently that influence is solely based on taxes on dark sector farming nodes during  armistice, and the ability to offer money as battlepay during conflicts

 

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                                                                                                           Taxes

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What effect do these taxes have on the owners of a dark sector and the community that run these taxed nodes during armistice? 

 

0%

If you offer 0% then maybe providing that free income to the community is reward enough in that charitable action alone. The owner receives +1 Karma coin, and the supporters receive untaxed dark sector farm.

 

The draw backs are any defense funding will come straight out of you're own pocket. You will be reliant on your own forces and what ever you can farm and good ole Tenno Karma to defend your rails.

 

1%-40%

If you offer a low to mid tax you reward is now in the form of credits that you can offer out as payment for the defense/attack of other rails. Also if your taxes are considered low enough support from those who appreciate your low taxes may be offered as well. The community loses free farm but now have the chance to recoup some of that loss in battle pay.

 

The draw backs are if your on a very low traffic node and offer 1-25% tax you'd be lucky to get 50 million after the armistice is over. And even if you are lucky enough to win those extremely high traffic nodes that could support itself with a very low reasonable tax, The portion of the community that enjoyed those free services to farm will not only not support you, but support any attacker that they believe offers a better chance of a lower or 0% tax.

 

40-100%

If you offer a High tax, you are rewarded with far more credits from those low traffic nodes then you would with a low or mid tax. That same low tax node that only got you 50 million before now earns you just over 200 million. If battle pay is set in high enough ticket counts then the community has a chance for the best credit farm in the game.

 

The drawbacks here is that you are considered greedy by a large portion of supporters. Even though you may now have more money to pay on defense, you have effectively painted a giant bulls-eye on your sector. Everyone who dislikes high taxes will now attack your node free of charge supporting who ever deploys against you in hopes of taxes dropping on that sector. Also if you ever try to take a high traffic node and even if you set very low very reasonable tax on that high traffic node. You will still be considered greedy because of your taxes elsewhere and regardless if you plan to keep the taxes low there or not most players that would support you for having low taxes wont.

 

 

The Flaws in the tax system:

• The majority of nodes are unsustainable with a low to mid tax due to low traffic.

• Players who do not wish to participate in DS battles have nothing to gain from high taxes and everything to lose.

• There are no direct rewards for  owning nodes or a direct benefit for those that support the owners during battle.

 

Possible Solutions:

 

• Create a reason for players to visit low traffic nodes.

Balance the rewards of all DS nodes to be equal, and separate those rewards into three Different tiers. (Keep in mind the UI in game says Sechura gives you 10000 credits when in fact you get double that amount assuming you have 0% taxes there, the below credit values are what you would see in game with the UI but would be doubled just as normal upon mission completion.)

Tier 1 Lowest 7500 Credits/12% recourse drop/10%xp from kills 8%/xp from specific wepon kills

Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter

Tier 2 Mid 10000 credits/20% resource drop/18% xp from kills/25%xp from specific wepon kills 

Sedna
Europa
Phobos
Uranus
Saturn

Tier 3 High 15000 credits/35%/resource drop/25% xp from kills/20% xp from specific wepon  kills 

Pluto
Neptune
Ceres
Eris

                                                                                                     

• Create a sliding tax scale with direct benefits and caveats.

Resource drop rates and credit values are constant and never change.
The more credit tax charged the larger the bonus xp from kills increase.
The more resource tax charged the larger the bonus xp from specific wepon kills increase.

 

Using the values from tier 3 above
If your credit tax is set at 0% you receive 30000 credits at the end of the mission all xp from kills are boosted by 25%
If your credit tax is set to 100% you receive 0 credits at the end of the mission all xp from kills are boosted by 50%
(X÷Y)+X=Z  X= the base amount from that experience boost. Y=the tax percentage. Z = The new xp boost
(25÷Y)+25=Z The base tax on Tier 3 for credits is 25% X=25
(25÷100%)+25=Z  What ever you set the credit tax to = Y in this case 100% so Y = 100%
25+25=50 the xp boost is changed to 50%
Each 1% increase in tax is equal to +1% of the base xp

 

• Create a reward for the owners of a dark sector as well as the players that support those owners in battle.

Owners of a DS should gain some type of reward or benefit for owning that sector. Like wise Those who support said Owners during conflicts should be able to receive these as well (more on rewards farther down).

 

 

In summary, Changing nodes to different tiers that are equal in rewards spreads the traffic out somewhat better and gives the DS owner the ability to sustain it with a reasonable tax. Also with the sliding tax scale the more money that a player loses in taxes then the more XP he gains from that  node. In this way there is a direct trade off between the two and no matter the tax placed on that node the players running it will have a direct benefit by doing so.

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                                                                                            Alerts/Rewards

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Given the Current state the influence the players actually have on the game is severely limited to credits. But what if this system was expanded upon. In recent streams two very promising future content reveals where made, The ability to set alerts by clans for their members and the upcoming faction system. How can we use these two systems to both offer a reward to Tenno beyond simple credits and to directly Influence our in game universe.

 

 

The ability to offer Alerts would be done so in 2 ways. The first being able to offer an alert for direct contribution of the PvP battle. Ideally set up as an invasion ( setting X reward that is given to the benefactor if X runs are completed before the end of the battle). Of course there would need to be code added to keep track of runs done for each alliance to ensure the supporters did not simply run both sides for each reward (every run you do for one side would mean a negative run for the other as long as the battle does last).

 

 

What would the rewards be for the alerts and how would we obtain them?

 

To start with we could use the upcoming faction system. A battle breaks out between The Red Veil and The Pink shorts Brigade. You have your alliance meeting and you decide to support the Pink shorts Brigade after the battle is over your alliance not only receives the standard reward for supporting them But they also receive a special alliance only alert reward. The reason it's separated from the other reward you obtain is to keep it desirable and is otherwise unobtainable.

 

But what about the non PvP players, It's unfair to offer a reward that the PvE community can not obtain. Tough Cookies....No IM joking calm down. What if we had the option to customize the reward pool of the dark sectors during armistice. That is the ability to customize the drop tables of defense/survival rewards. While the alerts rewards we get from factions would only last for one battle, we would be able to put that rare reward in the drop table and it would stay in their for as long as your association owns that node or until it is replaced by you with another reward.

 

 

We could also obtain alert rewards from different methods.

Perhaps the alliance could have the option to research and build forma blueprints in the lab, or maybe even catalyst and reactors among other things. We could also have the option to obtain such rewards by exclusively owning a certain node. If you own a node on Earth you could then research kubrow egg rewards, or DNA stabilizers that can be offered as payment only on earth. The only way for an alliance member to obtain this research is to either run an alert set by your clan/alliance or to get it trough the drop table on the node armistice.

 

 

Also their could be a donation option set in place. An alliance of 1000 could donate 1 Paris prime upper limb each, the tactician could then set an alert for one Paris prime upper limb for 5 runs. A bit pricey on your alliance end but IM sure there would be those who would gladly take this option.

 

 

Lastly the faction system could play a greater part in the rail itself by means of customizing the units and defenses of each schema. Say your alliance supports Corpus invasions throughout the system and gains affinity with the corpus. You could then deploy Corpus troops to defend/attack your opponent. Also if 2 nodes on any planet Contain the same affinity( if both corpus are deployed on that node) the likely hood of an invasion of corpus on that planet are greatly increased. There is no limit to this type of customization, perhaps Red Vail will offer a Specific unit type to assist in battle, Maybe the Grineer will offer their arc traps, the corpus their Shock Moas.

 

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Tl;DR; While IMO the current form of DS is merely a placeholder to be expanded on later. I believe with enough fine tuning that a system could be implemented with the ability for us to offer even more rewards to all party's involved, both to those who play PvP and to those who do not. The ability to offer alert rewards and to customize rewards for dark sectors during armistice as well as having those rewards have a direct effect on the in game universe as well.

 

Revision A~ added a few bullet points and spoilers, also removed excessive explanations.

Edited September 17, 2014 by -ExT-Skitz0

[-InV-Skitz0]

Part II The Politics

 

While taxes has always been an issue of debate in DS none of it become as much of a mainstream issue until Space Confederation lost their free tax node on Sechura. While many before that event already felt very strongly against high taxes, it us undeniable that losing the easiest key free credit farm in the solar system left a very bad taste in the mouth of a large number of Tenno.

 

 

The DS system in itself was designed to attract the interest of the community. Offering Higher XP and mats then any other node along with a very large above average credit farm then all other nodes. Before this node existed the only source of high credit farm in the galaxy was void runs or alerts. Outlined In part I was the direct pros and cons to every form of tax from 0% - 100%. No mater your stances on taxes the entire system is designed to draw in the public to run these nodes with the option and ability to create or support any clan or alliance and fight for what ever form of tax you believe or agree with.

 

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A very large part of the controversy lay within three key issues that have become the bane of assistance for these very unlucky Tenno. Listed in order from the oldest to the most current are Players who do not wish to participate in DS being directly effected by it, PvE players being directly effected by PvP players, and Rail Blocking.

 

 

Outlined in devstream 22 DS (then referred to as badlands) was but 1 of 3 future end game content release announcement's. Ds was meant to be just one of many possible things to do long term in warframe and is only designed to accommodate those who wish to participate in them.

 

 

On the horizon of warfame now we have Archwing, as well as the still to come hub/focus system/proxy wars/new alert system that will offer a very large number of options to players to explore and draw interest to. Once these systems are in place the average person who has no interest in DS what so ever will have more options of things to do and will fill less cornered by one specific content release.

 

 

Also specters where designed to create the option of making a clone army of your self. And while more effective in the original design of PvE DS the option of cloning yourself was meant to be a way for you to directly support your clan/alliance without directly participating in it. In part III PvP I will outline a suggestion of specter 2.0. In which any player could customize and build their specter to have an actual presence on the battlefield and offer great support for DS conflicts without directly contributing to them.

 

 

The option of a wide variety of things to come to occupy you game time in warframe paired with the ability via specter army's to indirectly influence the outcomes of battles would in fact redesign politics as we know it today. DS will be left to the ones who want to fight for the glory or honor of owning that node, and the PvE player would have the option of lending this army his powerful Tenno clone to fight in his/her stead.

 

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Last but certainly not least Rail Blocking. This conflict of interest arose from the possibility of one clan or alliance to place a rail in opposition of another with no intent to attack. Thus offering a free pass for 12 hours and blocking a potential attacker the chance to do so. Also BP is not being received by the public during these blocks.

 

 

This traditional tactic has actually existed for quite a long while. While in the past it was more limited to a tactician /w another to let them know they had no intent on attack and just wanting their name in the billboards, or perhaps two alliances attacking each other at the same time on two different nodes they both owned declaring a truce.

 

 

Rather or not the current deployments are undermining the best interest of the community or not I can't unbiasedly comment upon. What I will say is that a large portion of Tenno  fill this practice is exploitative in nature. Also DE has stated in the forums that they are aware of the issue and are discussing it entirely.

 

 

If and when they reach a conclusion on the matter I may have more to say about it. In the meantime the responsibility to enact change lays solely on the player base. Empires will rise and Empires will fall. The bigger the organization the bigger the chance for it to breakdown due to it's own success. There will always be those who make deals behind closed doors but without a real opposition change will be a very slow process.

 

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TL;DR Many of the political controversy that arise from DS are from players who do not wish to opt in to this content. Having tax directly effect their game play from a game system they don't want to play and having no option to do other enterprising activity. In time when more and more longer repayable content becomes available players will begin to fill less cornered by this system. And with the ability to fully customize a specter that is capable of a more direct impact on their behalf they would have the option to opt out of actively participating and still have a direct influence upon it.

 

Alliances within alliances, treaties and back door deals will always play a part in DS. What is important is for the community to band together and fight either in a direct or indirect manner to support changes that they wish to see.

Edited September 15, 2014 by -ExT-Skitz0

[-InV-Skitz0]

Part III-https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/310656-dark-sectors-the-purpose-the-politics-the-pvp-part-iii-the-pvp/

 

Seeing as part III deals directly with PvP It was posted Directly in the PvP Feedback Section.

Edited September 15, 2014 by -ExT-Skitz0

[vaugahn]

Two suggestions: first, more stuff to do with a rail. Right now all the do is pay for themselves. Second, the rail should be a persistent location.

[Shifted]

Before any of this, they need to re-enable PvE mode for conflicts.

[Rakshal]

Very well thought out post. Nice job. ^_^

[Perserve]

I just want PVE mode for conflicts back. keep PVP in the conclave solely.

[(PSN)guston7]

OP,

Thank you for taking the time lay out your perspective on this. It is a good read, for both players and (hopefully) developers.

I'll be tuning in to Part III.

[-InV-Skitz0]

Before any of this, they need to re-enable PvE mode for conflicts.

 

 

OP,

Thank you for taking the time lay out your perspective on this. It is a good read, for both players and (hopefully) developers.

I'll be tuning in to Part III.

Thank you both for your supportive words. I was reluctant to post it here on the forums for various reasons but I am glad I did. Also  half way done with part III.

[-VS-AtLasVegas]

This should be considered in the weekly concepts on prime time. Very well made summary and truly usable solutions!

 

Thank you for your time on this.

[-InV-Skitz0]

~snip~

Thanks Brother.

 

Also I have revised Part I and made it a bit easier to read. revisions of Part II & Part III will soon follow.

Edited September 17, 2014 by -ExT-Skitz0