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Post by Ketara on Feb 8, 2010 11:41:07 GMT -5
Marcus and I have been talking over email, and he's raised an issue that I think is pretty legit.
Compared to the amount of specializations people have gotten for RPing, I have given out very few promotions for effective side board planning or winning PC driven events. The majority of promotions given to date have been for Seattle or the Phantom event.
Basically, the nutshell reason for this is that because promotions are given out for major events, and because players can only get a certain number of promotions before reaching the top rank, I can only give out a couple promotions for PC events and planning to each player, otherwise if they went to every major event throughout the war they'd end up a Grand Super Duper Admiralicus or someshit.
This potentially creates a problem where players, especially officers, don't plan because they don't feel aptly rewarded for it, instead they can just make sure they're at every major event.
While I want participation in major events to be a big deal, if we made it so automatic promotions didn't happen in major events, I could double/triple or so the number of promotions I give out for planning and PC events.
Discuss!
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Feyd
ZMF Officer 
Major
Your favorite Tin Cod now with more GUNDAMU
Posts: 1,911
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Post by Feyd on Feb 8, 2010 12:07:09 GMT -5
I think it could work if you treated it like you do RP comendations where people could get like 1 promotion a month for consistent side board activity.
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Advocate
EFF
Chief Petty Officer
Youkai Moe~
Posts: 473
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Post by Advocate on Feb 8, 2010 13:03:23 GMT -5
I think you should be looking to prop up the lower ranked players instead of motivating the officers. Since you already obligate them to plan using their super secret club house full of woman and beer I think it's the other people who don't put much input in who you should look to reward when they finally do start talking. I would love it so much if we had more then the same five people consistently commenting on strategy and asking questions, the more eyes looking the better.
So basically if your just going to give the officers more promotions don't bother.
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Post by aleksei on Feb 8, 2010 13:38:29 GMT -5
In addition to this promotion discussion, I would like to know why certain officers haven't been demoted and slowly been replaced by PCs who actually contribute to strategy.
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Draco
Rogue
Anaheim Electronics Employee
Anaheim Hitman
Posts: 1,240
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Post by Draco on Feb 8, 2010 13:51:10 GMT -5
Maybe I'm not remembering things correctly, but last run it seemed to me like you only had three major events for anyone to go to: Seattle, Side 7, and Odessa.
Two promotions for ground and one for space doesn't seem like it's going to break the rank bank to me.
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Post by on Feb 8, 2010 13:59:44 GMT -5
I'll admit that I've come to realize that planning on side boards as a non-officer boards gives no rewards. The level of discussion on the general board never reaches the level that it does on the officer board in regards to tactics ect anyways. You kind of give up trying to help monitor and advise the war effort after awhile of trying too hard.
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Chan
ZMF Officer 
Rear Admiral
Posts: 1,348
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Post by Chan on Feb 8, 2010 15:48:29 GMT -5
I'm in the opinion that promotions should be given to those who show leadership and extraordinary success in the field. This goes for officers and non-officers.
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Post by flippmoke on Feb 8, 2010 18:18:29 GMT -5
Well, considering how hard it would have been for me to be at the last major event, (mostly because of the patrols and the fact that I was in a medea) I had been fairly disappointed that I hadn't received any rank increase despite for a long period being quite active on the boards.
This and the fact that I felt like my character was going no where kind of let me slip off of the constant RPing bandwagon, which then became more and more frustrating. Frankly I picked the Medea as a ship because I wanted to do a more role of leadership which I never really got to fully RP it so I don't deserve for that, but I definitely don't feel like my character contributes to anything in a battle which is frustrating.
But I am getting way off topic: So I pose a question. Why are officers not meant to get to "uber ranks" in the game? It seems quite silly that you even list them, its like teasing us. If the problem is that their pay check is too high, then why not have a paycheck cap? The number of men we often control in battle seems really silly to have only a single officer and seems like we should have fairly high ranks. It makes it confusing as hell to RP at times.
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Post by latooni on Feb 8, 2010 20:00:40 GMT -5
I agree somewhat with the officers. I've noticed people, including Ketara, saying "I wonder if anyone's going to reach the High Command board this time?"
Well, the answer is kinda obvious! Since officers get held back from promotions, of course they won't!
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Post by dj1678 on Feb 8, 2010 20:22:10 GMT -5
I've often thought that the ranking system made little sense from an RP standpoint. You can have a 2nd Lieutenant commanding a fleet, something that would make more sense for a colonel or higher to be commanding. You can have a private E1 commanding an MS team, something else that doesn't make any sense at all unless you make all of his MS team pilots privates.
In addition I find it kind of frustrating that I can't seem to advance in rank almost at all. I know you're supposed to help plan and contribute to strategy and such, but all to often I feel like its pointless to even try. Jojo had been organizing the EFGF orders for probably more than a month, and always got others opinions and input about it, and he still hasn't been promoted outside that first RP contest. Latooni's done it for even longer for the EFSF and as far as I know, he's only been promoted once. (for that) What chance do I have when it's all I can do just to login, read what's been going on, and add my opinions when they haven't been mentioned already 5 times? I feel like the only way I'll make it out of the Private ranks is if I die, or a couple events happen on the Earth that I can actually limp my way through to.
Some possible solutions: -You could scale how many of each rank you had. -You could make it really easy to advance from Private E1 and get progressively harder as you go up. -You could separate pay grade and rank.
I don't necessarily like all of my suggested solutions, but I figure bad ideas are better for others to think about than no ideas.
I have several other complaints with how some of the ranks are named, but they are mostly inconsequential and probably pretty nit-picky, so I won't bother anyone with that. I think it mostly comes from the differences between rpg ranks and modern military ranks.
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Post by on Feb 8, 2010 21:05:49 GMT -5
The problem I see with officers on this board reaching high command is the attitude planning takes in the game most of the time. Things like launching marines in missiles, finding loopholes in rules, and deploying gimmicks in battles aren't really something I would ever thing of happening in the military's higher ranks. The blend between real tactical battle fronts and the way most players perform in this game just isn't laid out in a way most officers evolve into since the officers in this game tend not to use a command ladder but instead an monarchy if I were to put a name to it.
"High Command" material if you ask me wouldn't have people emailing saying "follow my plan" like I've seen 98% of the events do. They would be the think-tank dividing up the forces into three attack forces during the attack, assigning PCs they deem competent to lead those into battle, and they would issue the plan of attack and formation. But then again this is a game and stuff like that wouldn't be likely to play out.
It matters little since I still don't see the 'Officer' attitude working as a 'high officer.'
Oh, side note, we aren't the ones who make you in command of an MS team. Hell if you purchased an MS team as an private E1 I would assume one of your NPCs would be of higher rank than you and if you didn't make them outrank you then thats a question you need to answer for yourself.
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Post by Ketara on Feb 8, 2010 22:02:45 GMT -5
In regards to the rank continuity, that is always how you deal with it. Invent an NPC who is a higher rank than you. Everybody does it.
A lot of you don't have very coherent points, which disappoints but does not really surprise me. The vibe I am getting though is basically the same as the one Marcus was talking about, which I think is pretty legit, so I think we will curve ball and focus more towards planning posts from now on, at the expense of automatic promotions in major events.
Unless somebody wants to actually object to that, seems like everybody here is for it?
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Post by nirvash on Feb 8, 2010 22:04:26 GMT -5
dan's got a point i'm kinda sick of just being an RP gathering tool for the EFSF instead of actually playing the game
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Radune
ZMF Officer 
Ensign
The child of the sun
Posts: 428
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Post by Radune on Feb 8, 2010 22:06:55 GMT -5
Sounds good to me, Ketara. Focusing more on planning seems like the best choice.
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Daren
EFF Officer 
Ensign
I Don't know what were talking about.
Posts: 939
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Post by Daren on Feb 8, 2010 22:07:31 GMT -5
I think if a person is consistently active and contributes to their side, they should get a promotion even if they aren't the big planner behind the movement. My 2 cents.
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