I'd like to start this off by saying 1) I know this has been suggested before and 2) I'm not really into infringing anyone's right to play the game as they want to. However, I want to rant: Last night, playing VS, I was party to two situations where a sunderer was TKd by tank mines. The first was mine, stealthed in a difficult to reach location in preparation for the upcoming armor push against our base. As soon as I broke cover and started working, twist of fate, someone spawned on it and blew it up. Needless to say, I was unable to get another one back up there because I couldn't get through the tank spam alive. The second one was not that long afterwards was where I was with a random group in a highly defended and dug in sundy. After 10 minutes of being unable to dislodge us, presto, a BR 100 VS blows up the sunderer, me, and half the group with tank mines. This is basically ****. I won't even go into the ***** scumlord lifestyle choices that allow you to rationalize your inability to actually win by doing this. Hell, at least terminal camping serves a purpose and is an effective way for one person to influence a siutation - within class and game mechanics. People hate it, and that's fine, but I hate death screen from a Dalton Lib at flight cap. Same thing. Changing faction to sabotage, while possibly difficult to prove, is easy to remedy. After the second incident, I simply logged off, because what's the point in playing when you've got TK trolls that you cannot counter? Put a lock duration on same-server faction changes. Nothing excessive, but something that's enough to discourage this behavior, perhaps a 15 minute break between each change. And I mean 15 minutes logged off, not playing.
I agree, and I think a 15 minute cool down after logging out before switching characters is fair length of time. It puts in a buffer (30 minutes total to switch and then go back) so people can't instantly go TK to break a siege, but it's not so long that it's a pain for a person to switch to an alt when nothing much is happening with their main faction. The problem has gotten worse due to the fact that we don't have the high player numbers to reach the population cap on a continent. In the past if a person tried faction switching just to break a siege by TK'ing they would be faced with waiting in the queue before they could spawn back in on the continent.
This is how to bypass the faction lock: Two accounts, two computers, two different IPs due to tethered smartphone connection. If you want to stop fourth factioning TKing, ask for the game to be sub only and enforce excessive TKing. Its the only way. And before you say that's too much effort for people. Understand that I personally already have 3 Daybreak accounts. I've dual/tri-boxed in Everquest, Everquest 2, and World of Warcraft. It is not hard to do, and the effort is easy. In fact if I wanted to (even though I don't) I could login to all three factions on the same server. I could sabotage easily a 3 way fight into the favor of my main. I could also use it as a scouting tool to see what other outfits and platoons are doing. And due to it being separate accounts, separate computers, and different IPs, this method is undetectable, untraceable, and probably impossible to stop. So set the lockout to 15 minutes, or fifteen years. It wouldn't make a difference. A would be saboteur doesn't even need to logout to do their deed.
This thread is probably not about planned sabotage, but bitter lash-outs out of spite. I doubt those things happen very often though
Please no! I have avatars on all factions and on different servers. I like to flip between them if there is nothing going on for a particular faction, continent or server. I know faction switching is abused sometimes by sad little kids who can't deal with the fact that their preferred faction is just not winning a battle (and they don't have the stones to go stalker and get in amongst the enemy). I also know some TKs are so that other players can put their Sundy where they want, or because a deployed Sundy is in an unhelpful place. But the fact is that having multiple avatars is an attraction in the game and it shouldn't be removed for the fair-minded players like me just to remove what is, in fact, an occasional irritant. Make certain kinds of exploitation more immediately punishable instead. There are a number of ideas throughout the forum for doing this, some are actually quite good and practical sounding. The simplest I've seen is immediate weapon lock for some kinds of obvious TK, like friendly kills in the spawn room. Blowing up a vehicle of your own faction with mines or C4 could be treated in a similar way.
I'm sure I won't get much sympathy for making this post, but the switch timer would screw any member just trying to get his daily certs. Maybe limit it so that you can switch without a cooldown, as long as you haven't spawned yet?
Yes, I get what you're saying. I have two machines and an unlimited tether and could easily do the same, but I don't think this applies to the majority of players. I would go so far as to allow faction switching but put the lockout on the return instead, including playing time, perhaps increasing the length in that case. This would do less to hinder legitimate players and while it won't stop multi account abuse, it may do something to limit the rest. It could be worth watching for a pattern of accounts logging in and dropping TKs, but doing little to nothing else. That's definitely detectable. I'm not sure I view faction switching to get alert XP in any better light, but people do what they do.
The number of 6, 12, and even 18 boxers on a progression server (which requires a SUB for each account) tells me otherwise. If someone is willing to pay nearly 270 a month for an 18-box.. I'd imagine a 1-2 free accounts would be simple.
As someone who plays on multiple legit accounts, I think a 15 minute timer is a bit overkill. I think the devs could incorporate a much simpler means of combating fraudulent team killing. Some quick examples I came up with include: 0.5x damage multiplier against friendly units/vehicles friendly damage is disabled until you 'prove' your worth by a set number of enemy kills or experience. Vehicle ghosting - remove same-faction collision detection between vehicles, instead vehicles just pass thru each other like infantry if occupying the same space ( to deter killing friendly sundies/other vehiciles that are blocking the road) More immidiate and more severe punishment for TK. Specifically, the server might track your kill history, and if it detects you're only targeting friendlies, it may kick you off that account for, say between 15 minutes to 1 day, depending on the severity of the crime. As a last resort, remove friendly damage all together...
you'd nerf the fun for everyone because of pansies switching to the winning team? all of my characters are on the same server (my main used to be on Ceres, alts on Cobalt, but ceres and cobalt were merged) in my game night (which i usually get once a week) i play through 5 different characters across all 3 factions, i don't care if i'm joining a winning or losing team, i just play characters and have fun and switch when i get bored! fancy some MCG? play my TR, fancy some lasher? play my VS, fancy some fury flash? back to my main. don't go nerfing everyones fun because of MLG pansies or sore loser TKers!
Is this a dig at people who actually pay a subscription to play the game? Seems a bit mean-spirited......and pointless as I can't see DBG punishing subscribers so as to pander to the free riders (there - lack of sympathy confirmed, no need to thank me).
I'd just like a limiting mechanic to stop the ultra-lame method of siege breaking. I don't care if you go from VS -> TR -> NC and play, but I do care if you go VS -> TR to blow up a TR sundy -> VS; factions interchangeable. I think that if we can't agree on other things, perhaps you just cannot change back to the last faction you played for at least 15 minutes if you have done any in-game damage, friendly or otherwise.
perhaps if you deal a large amount of friendly damage (sunderer health) within 15 minutes of switching faction you should be punished? that way the rest of us can continue playing all of our characters, but sore losers switching to kill people as "friendlies" would be punished. a good punishment imho would be 30 minute account-wide weapon lock.
