Syndicate, Favors, The Part Time Job You Have To Pay For, And You

[Thanatoasty]

Fellow tenno,

 

Have you ever wondered why you needed to pay credits and usually a rare item that you found just to "rank up" with a particular syndicate? Ever said to yourself "I'm a tenno, why would I need to pay to get the chance to work for this syndicate? THEY SHOULD BE PAYING ME!!!"? 

 

I know I have.

 

After much though and deliberation, I want to introduce a new system of syndicate progression, hopefully I can get some honest feedbacks regarding the new idea and see if anyone else likes it. Before anyone posts that I'm just a whiner complaining how hard it is to rank up with syndicates, I would like to take the time to note that I have more than enough hours devoted to the game to complain about some pesky grinding.

 

 

 

 

The proposed system:

 

Basics:

 

Progressions with syndicate should be indicative of the tenno's level of adherence to a particular syndicate's ideal, rather than just having a pool of "favor points" that they can throw at the syndicate leaders based on how many enemies each tenno have killed. Not only that, it would make sense for a syndicate to refuse to see you in any better light should you go over the pool of allocated "favor points"

 

The new system would do away with the "allocation pool" and potentially allow the tenno operative to earn a quite a lot more syndicate standing in a day, provided they play loads of missions and participate in the requests sent out by each syndicate (how it should be). However, the actual points tennos earn would be hidden from them, but instead having different faction attitude towards the tenno with the conversation via voice over or texts (see the spoiler for details). This hiding of the actual points (I know I'll probably hate the fact I can't see EXACTLY how far I would've gotten with a particular syndicate) and showing the approval rating of the tenno based on simple phrases would definitely bring the syndicates alive.

 

 

The syndicates would give a status update to a particular tenno based off their current standing points (which would be hidden), but the statuses would reflect what kinds of rewards the tenno can get

 

For example:

 

0 to 2500 standing - we await further contribution

2500 to 5000 standing - we appriciate your contribution

5000 to 7500 standing - thank you for your further support

...

and so on

 

 

 

Initiations and ranking up:

 

For each of the syndicates, initiation and rank ups within the syndicate should be a mission to test the tenno's compatibility with the ideals of the syndicate, rather than just simply donating a few thousand to a few hundred thousand credits. 

Each syndicate (aside from simaris and the conclave) have their initiation/rank up ritual be mission based, rather than the current donation based. After the mission, the tenno would then be able to receive their first sigil and/or their respective rank up rewards.

 

 

Progressions within a single current syndicate rank:

 

For example, the red veil, with their world stance set as the harbingers of a great galactic purge, would naturally gravitate towards extermination side objectives and view the tenno in better light should the tenno go on a murderous rampage compared to the stealthy operative that only extract the data within the data vault and leave the squishy mortals intact. Suda, on the other hand, would prefer to preserve the world's knowledge, and as such, probably see the tenno operative that consistently extract precious data from data vaults in a better light than some tenno that would be more accurately be described as a galactic blender.

 

Wearing the sigils on regular missions would unlock a syndicate specific bonus objective that the player must complete in order to gain some standing with the syndicate. Of course, depending on the enemy difficulty, would increase in the standing obtained. 

 

By constantly earning points with a particular faction, the tenno would be eligible to participate in the syndicate missions.

 

 

Syndicate Sigil:

 

Syndicate sigils shouldn't be merely a sticker that converts some experience into standing, instead, the sigils themselves would unlock various side objectives that the tenno could complete in mission to gain some standing with the syndicate. Obtaining new sigils would mean better standing gain after side objective completion. Of course, this brings up the issue of players exploiting the system by spamming short and easily completed missions (sabotage or deception) to quickly obtain side objective completion, but this problem can be easily countered by the missions operating on a percentage activation with a diminishing chances of activation. and each unlock chance is locked for the syndicate's sigils. 

 

For example: the base sigil for a given syndicate would have 100% chance of unlocking a side objective for the tenno to complete for a given mission type, and with consecutive runs of the same mission type reducing the chance down in a x^2 relation (read the spoiler for detailed explanation). Similarly, after a few missions (Tentatively 3 additional mission types) not of the same type, the bonus mission unlock chance resets back to 100%. Hereby allowing the tenno operatives to take a break from one type of mission grinding

 

With consecutive runs of the same mission type, set X as the percentage chance that detracts from the 100% base unlock chance, and have the formula of X = (# of consecutive mission type)^2

 

first mission would of course have the 100% chance of unlock, 2nd mission would have 99% chance of unlock (X = 1 since # of consecutive runs = 1), 3rd mission would have a 96% chance of unlock (X = 4) and so on.

 

 

Syndicate Requests:

 

Syndicate requests can be broken down into 2 different catagories: one, the standard mission where the tenno is deployed to a particular enemy base, and proceed to complete the given objective; and two, the donation requests.

 

Standard missions would of course, follow the ideology of the syndicate themselves, and will have the added bonus of having an additional bonus objective of the syndicate that's providing the mission, in addition to the bonus mission that could be unlocked from sigils. Missions can be chosen from any of the existing game type, but different syndicates would have their own preferred mission types. That would mean under the pool of missions that a player can choose, they will always see more of the mission types corresponding to that particular syndicate more than other mission types

 

Given that the syndicates require funds and resource to operate, they would occasionally be asking for the tenno's help in procuring some materials and resources, these missions could range from donating credits, common/uncommon/rare resources, mods, weapon components, or in rare instances, entire weapons. This wouldn't mean throwing a crate filled with whatever stuff the syndicates wanted at them, since the syndicates are proud and would like NOT to be considered "under the tenno's thumbs" the tenno would have to acquire additional resources to give to the syndicate (this only applies for resources and credits, not weapon/prime parts/whatever hard to come by things).

 

Each day (as in each daily cycle), a player could be allowed to sign up for an amount of syndicate requests proportional to the player's mastery rank and the ranking within the syndicate. However, the player can choose from a pool (randomly selected) of requests. 

 

each rank within the syndicate would allow 1 request to be fulfilled, and every 3 mastery rank would allow an additional request to be filled out.

 

 

Syndicate Consequences:

 

Should a tenno fail to complete the syndicate request/failed to donate the necessary resources within the allotted time, they would lose half of the standing they would have received. However, failing side objectives within missions/requests would not contribute towards the standing loss.

 

Should a tenno become hostile with a particular syndicate, the current death squad/platoon would still take effect, however, should a tenno successfully eliminate said death squad/platoon, the standing with the syndicate would decrease, and the standing of the opposing syndicate would rise. To raise the syndicate ranking from being hated, tennos must go through a liaison (paying resource/credit) to undergo a series of missions (difficulty depending on how hated the tenno is with that particular syndicate) in order to slowly become friendly with the syndicate. 

 

As a note here, syndicate death squads would only have 1 operative (with the entourage of eximus units) and syndicate platoon would have 3 operatives (with their own entourage of eximus units).

 

 

Conclusion:

 

Hopefully, the method of revamping the syndicates would at least turn grinding points into more of a living universe populated by people rather than numbers. Should you actually read all of the post, kudos to you (maybe rep, I dunno), and I hope you can offer your opinion on this topic, and hopefully our efforts would be able to reach DE and help them improve this awesome game.

 

 

 

-Toasty

 

 

EDIT HISTORY:

 

4/18/2015:

 

Slightly modified the resource/credit donation requests based on Sint1066 and Forgotten_Aeon's suggestions

 

Added a new syndicate mission (request) idea from Latronico

 

Created the Basics section because I'm a dummy yesterday and forgot to make it...

 

Changed the death squad/platoon from eximus units to have actual operatives in the platoon based off of Ethice's suggestions

 

Edited April 18, 2015 by Thanatoasty

[Sint1066]

Fellow tenno,

 

Have you ever wondered why you needed to pay credits and usually a rare item that you found just to "rank up" with a particular syndicate? Ever said to yourself "I'm a tenno, why would I need to pay to get the chance to work for this syndicate? THEY SHOULD BE PAYING ME!!!"? 

 

I know I have.

 

After much though and deliberation, I want to introduce a new system of syndicate progression, hopefully I can get some honest feedbacks regarding the new idea and see if anyone else likes it. Before anyone posts that I'm just a whiner complaining how hard it is to rank up with syndicates, I would like to take the time to note that I have more than enough hours devoted to the game to complain about some pesky grinding.

 

 

The proposed system:

 

Initiations and ranking up:

 

For each of the syndicates, initiation and rank ups within the syndicate should be a mission to test the tenno's compatibility with the ideals of the syndicate, rather than just simply donating a few thousand to a few hundred thousand credits. 

Each syndicate (aside from simaris and the conclave) have their initiation/rank up ritual be mission based. After the mission, the tenno would then be able to receive their first sigil and/or their respective rank up rewards.

 

 

Progressions within a single current syndicate rank:

 

Progressions with syndicate should be indicative of the tenno's level of adherence to a particular syndicate's ideal, rather than just having a pool of "favor points" that they can throw at the syndicate leaders based on how many enemies each tenno have killed. 

 

 

For example, the red veil, with their world stance set as the harbingers of a great galactic purge, would naturally gravitate towards extermination side objectives and view the tenno in better light should the tenno go on a murderous rampage compared to the stealthy operative that only extract the data within the data vault and leave the squishy mortals intact. Suda, on the other hand, would prefer to preserve the world's knowledge, and as such, probably see the tenno operative that consistently extract precious data from data vaults in a better light than some tenno that would be more accurately be described as a galactic blender.

 

Wearing the sigils on regular missions would unlock a syndicate specific bonus objective that the player must complete in order to gain some standing with the syndicate. Of course, depending on the enemy difficulty, would increase in the standing obtained. 

 

By constantly earning points with a particular faction, the tenno would be eligible to participate in the syndicate missions.

 

 

Syndicate Sigil:

 

Syndicate sigils shouldn't be merely a sticker that converts some experience into standing, instead, the sigils themselves would unlock various side objectives that the tenno could complete in mission to gain some standing with the syndicate. Obtaining new sigils would mean better standing gain after side objective completion. Of course, this brings up the issue of players exploiting the system by spamming short and easily completed missions (sabotage or deception) to quickly obtain side objective completion, but this problem can be easily countered by the missions operating on a percentage activation with a diminishing chances of activation. and each unlock chance is locked for the syndicate's sigils. 

 

For example: the base sigil for a given syndicate would have 100% chance of unlocking a side objective for the tenno to complete for a given mission type, and with consecutive runs of the same mission type reducing the chance down in a x^2 relation (read the spoiler for detailed explanation).

 

With consecutive runs of the same mission type, set X as the percentage chance that detracts from the 100% base unlock chance, and have the formula of X = (# of consecutive mission type)^2

 

first mission would of course have the 100% chance of unlock, 2nd mission would have 99% chance of unlock (X = 1 since # of consecutive runs = 1), 3rd mission would have a 96% chance of unlock (X = 4) and so on.

 

 

Syndicate missions:

 

Syndicate missions can be broken down into 2 different catagories: one, the standard mission where the tenno is deployed to a particular enemy base, and proceed to complete the given objective; and two, the donation missions.

 

Standard missions would of course, follow the ideology of the syndicate themselves, and will have the added bonus of having an additional bonus objective of the syndicate that's providing the mission, in addition to the bonus mission that could be unlocked from sigils. Missions can be chosen from any of the existing game type, but different syndicates would have their own preferred mission types.

 

Given that the syndicates require funds and resource to operate, they would occasionally be asking for the tenno's help in procuring some materials and resources, these missions could range from donating credits, common/uncommon/rare resources, mods, weapon components, or in rare instances, entire weapons. 

 

Each day (as in each daily cycle), a player could be allowed to sign up for an amount of syndicate requests proportional to the player's mastery rank and the ranking within the syndicate. However, the player can choose from a pool (randomly selected) of requests. 

 

each rank within the syndicate would allow 1 request to be fulfilled, and every 3 mastery rank would allow an additional request to be filled out.

 

 

Syndicate Consequences:

 

Should a tenno fail to complete the syndicate request/failed to donate the necessary resources within the allotted time, they would lose half of the standing they would have received. However, failing side objectives within missions/requests would not contribute towards the standing loss.

 

Should a tenno become hostile with a particular syndicate, the current death squad/platoon would still take effect, however, should a tenno successfully eliminate said death squad/platoon, the standing with the syndicate would decrease, and the standing of the opposing syndicate would rise. To raise the syndicate ranking, tennos must go through a liaison (paying resource/credit) to undergo a series of missions (difficulty depending on how hated the tenno is with that particular syndicate) in order to slowly become friendly with the syndicate. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully, the method of revamping the syndicates would at least turn grinding points into more of a living universe populated by people rather than numbers. Should you actually read all of the post, kudos to you, and I hope you can offer your opinion on this topic.

 

 

 

-Toasty

 

The only system that could have a bit of a problem with is that the syndicate levelling up directly correlates to either grinding for hours upon hours or that you buy the items through a market which meant at one point you must have bought plat giving DE money, however the catch of this system would over all decease the amount of money DE gets which would decrease its viability in the eyes of DE or it would require the Donation missions be very common for levelling in syndicates.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Sint1066

[Forgotten_Aeon]

Love it, love everything about it. Some minor issues in terms of DE's bottom line (as Sinty said) but I don't doubt it could be altered slightly to retain the same amount of income for them as the current system does.

Nice work.

[Evanescent]

It's actually a very interesting take on syndicates. Definitely makes them come more alive and makes more sense then rep farming.

Edited April 18, 2015 by (PS4)IIIDevoidIII
Cleaning

[(PSN)IIIDevoidIII]

Please avoid posting empty posts merely of gifs about how you 'didn't read' and asking where the 'TL;DR' version is, as it doesn't forward the conversation as a whole and is disrespectful to the OP's efforts. If you are truly intent on getting a TL;DR, please PM the OP.

 

Moved to Fan Concepts.

[Latronico]

I read it.

 

Well, there are good ideas but I have to say (I'll make a list so it will be more easy to read):

- I like the syndicate system as it is now. Ranking up requires credits and rare resourcers because affiliated Tenno have to support the Syndicate. So it's ok for me. 
The important thing is to allow people to donate just 1 time per level, as it is now (and not be forced to make another donation if lose a rank or more). 

 

- However, as you wrote, there could be different kind of syndicate missions. Alerts should be more centred on Syndicates purposes, but not merely in terms of mission types. For example, it's true that Cephalon Suda wants to preserve, but sometimes it could be necessary to exterminate everyone however. Again, it's true that Red Veil purpose is to clean the corruption, but sometimes steal enemy informations could help. 

So, instead of just Syndicates alerts of few types (that will be really boring, imagine all days be forced to do the same missions again and again), there could be more custom alerts with different side objects or with completely new objects;

 

- About sigils, I like the way it is now. I prefear to have side objects every time in missions, instead of unlock them via sigils. Syndicates sigils should work as a patch that show how much a Tenno is into a Syndicate.

 

- The system based on reputation is ok for me, because it's logical: wearing sigils players represent their efforts to support each Syndicate. It's true that there are also more specific Syndicates missions (alerts), but they can do it too during normal ones. 

However, we could be able to gain reputation in different ways, instead of just alerts and tokens. As you wrote, there could be daily or weekly Syndicates requests (resources, BPs, Prime parts and so on) that Tenno could satisfy in order to obtain even more reputation. BUT, they shouldn't be forced to do so: you wrote about a system that make lose reputation to players who don't satisfy these requests. I don't like the idea. I don't want to be forced to farm even more to obtain a BP/component in order to avoid loss of reputation. 

 

- There should be more 'Syndicate vs Syndicate' missions. For example, there should be particular alerts for every Syndicate, where player have to sabotage another Syndicate or faction. 

For example, Perrin Sequence missions where players have to sabotage Corpus, or Steel Meridian ones where players have to defend SM operatives from Grineer assassins, or Red Veil missions where players have to sabotage Arbiters of Hexis and so on. 

All of them, of course, with their proper lore and everything else. 

 

 

 

So, at the end, for me, instead of change the reputation and sacrifice systems, I prefear to maintain it and have more different ways to obtain reputation (as I wrote, alerts, daily/weekly requests, Syndicate sabotage missions and so on). 

[Thanatoasty]

Please avoid posting empty posts merely of gifs about how you 'didn't read' and asking where the 'TL;DR' version is, as it doesn't forward the conversation as a whole and is disrespectful to the OP's efforts. If you are truly intent on getting a TL;DR, please PM the OP.

 

Moved to Fan Concepts.

 

I knew I posted it under the wrong section...Thanks for the move!

[Ethice]

Well written. This system would give Syndicates more depth and foundation. I'd also like to add that I think Syndicate death squads and platoons should consist of Syndicate operatives and not just a group of eximus.