Development Cycle Archive

"I think Overt should always be worth it, the only downside being that you can be attacked at all times.

There have to be reasons to go overt, covert should never get a first strike for example. You should get more faction points when overt (twice as much?), stuff like that.

Don't punish coverts, overts should be awarded, I think that's very important."

This is a great post! Part of the problem very much is that there is no reason to be overt so you have a huge number of players running about covert instead.

At a minimum, GTEF needs to go. As I recall, Holocrons original vision was that covert members of a group simply couldnt fire first, ever.

My personal belief and preference, remove the TEF system completely. You are either "on duty" or "off duty". Off duty players cannot heal on duty players, nor can they attack them. Period. Problem fixed.

Going back to the post I quoted above, MUCH needs to be done to make players want to be overt. The list is extensive, and includes:

1. Making faction pets viable
2. Craftable faction armor and a wider range of factional uniforms.
3. Territorial control or some other global form of motivation that allows players to wage a measurable war where each side takes gains or losses.

I would very much like to see the covert/overt system rewritten as:

Declared/Undeclared

Declared players are on or off duty (attackable or not) and undeclared players are neutrals.

Ok a lot is being said on the bad of group TEF, I think GTEF can be a good thing (here is where I get flamed).

Yep you come along expection a fair fight and find the person grouped with 10 other faction members.
It's called an ambush. This makes perfect sense in the GCW, especially for rebels. Covert is the name of the game for a rebellion. These people can all of a sudden declare themselves by helping (getting a TEF) or stay covert and in the shadows.
It also makes sense for imperials in rebel held cities,

I see the problem not in "greif" but that in most people don't use stragety in fighting. It's Spam this attack Spam that attack. Keep shooting you will win. Stun is the ultimate. WRONG!!! You don't see 1 red and go for it, you look around. There is a group ID again, so you will see if the person is grouped or not and who is in the group, then plan accordingly.

I see the GTEF as leading into some important roll play in this game. Yes it can be used as grief, again just pay attention to the red dots when you are overt. The same can be said of having one overt in the open and 10 hideing just inside a NPC building 5 M away. I have used that stragety to raid bestine many a time.

Now other TEF problems:

• Tradeing, why get a TEF from tradeing? you can be neutral and sell to both factions but not trade? You also cannot always tell an overt member of your faction, so you trade in a player city structure and boom you get tossed out.


• Healing yes you should get a TEF form this, however you should not get tossed out of a player medical center because you healed a overt player. They need to make it so you cannot enter a private building with a TEF and you cannot access the admin panel while in combat. Running into your house with a TEF and locking the door is a valid defense, but you should let a slicer be able to override the lock. And you should not be able to run in while in combat. TEF also locks you out of player Clone centers, so if you get a tef from healing an overt friend and then realise you forgot to clone Oh well time to die.


• TEF should be a temporary overt status, you should be able to initiate attacks as well, and show as a red con to opposeing factions and have them show red con to you not a "floaty" above their head

Over all the TEF system is a good idea but definataly needs some tweaking

I know I don't post very often, however I just wanted to say.

GTEF's can be annoying but are in my opinion just implemented wrong.

I think that if any overt decides to be an aggressor in any situation any covert faction member should be able to respond. But you don't get a TEF for doing this, you simply GO OVERT.

In other words, if some imperial guy shoots some body other covert imperial people can join in on whoever is fighting and/or rebel people can shoot at the imperial agressor.

However if your covert and you DON'T shoot you stay covert and nobody can attack you. You only go from covert to overt if you attack someone.

TEF this TEF that, it doesn't make sense. If someone shoots at someone else, they should be forced to go overt to everyone. If I see some imperial guy shoot one of my friends or some stranger even if I'm covert I should be able to shoot back. Not go run around looking for a recruiter then declare then go back or something.

I think this would be very exciting and take away the safety of group battles. Imagine cities having civil wars between rebel and imperial people

Having read these posts im trying to consider what I would propose instead.

On analysis I have a problem with only one aspect of Group TEF. The problem is firing first.
TEF from NPCS, and helping team mates is fine - they mean the enemy can attack you first.

I also dont want to remove GTEF. Quite simply some of those fun battles that involve small skirmishes are based on two teams which start overt, die a few times each, and progress from there. If we want to PvP then we need the elements of TEF to continue that fight.

If we implemented the suggested rule, GTEF makes the whole group tef'd or an overt forces the whole group tef'd.. we get to clone camp. As one surviving member is making them all attackable after they clone.

The layout and design of cities and the recruiter system adds a problem. If we remove gtef and a group clones there isnt an easy way for the group to redeclare themselves and re-enter the fight. We'd need a recruiter of both factions in the city.

I believe the change we need:
a member of a group can attack using GTEF. At which point they'd are TEF'd to the enemy and instead suffer the effects of DELAY for 20 seconds. If attacked during this time, they can defend themselves, against the player(s) which attack them.

20 seconds is sufficient time for the enemy to realise they are getting gtef'd. Its reasonable to have a group defend its members. Its unreasonable to have 5 of them position themselves around 1 player and first strike en-mass.

I also believe that Group tef should work against groups at close range. If any member of the group attacks me.. i get to attack any member of their group within 20m of them.

This means a group can clone and prepare itself in the med centre or nearby.. and fight 100m away.
But a group of 10 ppl next to and supporting each other enter the fight as a group.

Being overt in a group, means at all times the covert enemy hostile to you can be attacked by yourself first with a minimum of 20seconds warning.


As for TH's suggest /overt command: 2 minutes later being able to assist in the destruction of a base. Did anyone raise that you must be overt for a minimum of 10 minutes to begin a base destruction sequence? 12 minutes is a more reasonable time isnt it? As they can currently tef if attacking, or instantly declare in defence, that doesnt seem such a problem.

I would suggest that declaring /overt instead of being an SL ability, is a faction perk for having the highest faction rank. The 'player recruiter' would have needed to display their rank and been overt for a period of 10 minutes to achieve this. Which would be one of those oft feature requests: visible ranks while overt.