A complete Sandbox would be fantastic, but it seems that whatever it boils down to, it is in some way pvp centric to determine wins -- and i say this because it is a forum where we roleplay with others. It is collaborative writing; key emphasis on collaborative.
Even PVE objectives turn PVP to some point, because one must allow the defender the chance to defend. Eventually, another writer will come to try and stop and advance. How that fight turns out tends to sway victories.
I do think, however, there is one aspect that most don't realize is important - and this is what I dislike the most.
Losing a battle or even sacrificing of the self could lead to victory as well as a bigger picture.
What if the loss of your battle allowed others to move forward to barge into the sith temple and destroy it? Being a distraction serves a purpose, even if it results in your death or a loss in a battle.
I don't think many people realize that; instead it is considered a "loss" against the faction. Kinda depresses me.
To elaborate on some things spoken in the thread now.
All the current saturation of rules have evolved due to experiencing some form of issue that cropped up in a previous invasion or due to a method in the past used to - with good intentions but bad initiative ( at the time it was believed to be the best route) - to try and make judgement easy.
Take the 48 hour rule.
This was implemented due to several stalled fights that caused drama because a two week invasion ended up with participants posting all of two to three times to each other, which was not enough time to successfully be able to discern how that fight evolved.
Typically, an rper talks to their partner to be respectful and allow a measure of reasonable response time.
> Person A fights with person B
> Person A ends up waiting three days after several attempts to contact B to please respond to the post.
> Person A decides to move on and find another opponent.
> Person B states that person A abandoned their fight, therefore person A technically withdrew from their duel and lost.
> Person A says no, they simply wanted to be able to rp...
When scattered across several fights, it ends up being an invasion with several stalled fights and no actual roleplay. What does that leave? Nothing but a draw and the draw goes to the defender.
Good intentions are to show that one should show a sense of urgency to invasion posts, so the suggestion of implementing a 48 hour guideline for response window is given to allow an rper to move on without repercussions.
The intention was this: Allow freedom for writers to move on and find other opponents if their initial partner, after discussing with them and poking them to post doesn't provide a timely reply that is suitable for both parties, to move on and find someone else so they do not have to lose time in two weeks of fighting.
As more and more invasions come to pass, this gets even more strict if terms of victory are "pvp matches"
It ends up being a band-aid to try and fix things but that may or may not help out.
The same thing happened with the "active" members date cut off times.
Take the Invasion of Manaan.
> A a Multi Major Faction writer who has been inactive in the Republic ( but fully active in another different major faction that year.) was demanded to be able to fight for the Republic side as an active member and not be counted as an ally ( Republic ally list was full)
The concern for multi major faction members going around the ally rule brought another band-aid in subsequent invasion terms.- Multi Major Faction Masters must be active in their respective defender and attacker faction as of the last thirty days to join this invasion.
Somehow this got twisted into it being ALL members must have been active in the past 30 days to be able to join the invasion, which was never the intention.
That's honestly what has happened with how invasion terms have become so saturated. The desire to make it easy to judge, easy to review, and quick to track based on previous concerns that had cropped up in the past.
Even Coruscant and the first Empress Teta, without much rules to begin with, was won merely because the case was made that several One Sith members managed to fell so many Jedi Masters and take over an area. (Either by pvp matches or turning them into the darkside)
I think that perhaps that is where the initial "Pvp for victories" idea as a quick way to point out the sway of victories.
The band-aid that was given to prevent that idea was "objective based" victory conditions.
Well, that goes out the window when you have one faction with a massively large population of active writers compared to another. Eagerness comes into play and what do you get?
Swarming.
All of a sudden it can seem very overwhelming to see 30 plus members of one faction post their initial post, then wait 24 hours and post again while the other faction is still very much unprepared for how to keep track of where people are at.
Unless you can go overboard and make a list of where everyone is exactly at, it is hard to keep up on who is doing what, what they are attacking, are they setting up traps, who is fighting whom.
Wheaton's law is beaten on a dead horse, but people can get easily stressed by that sort of chaos. Every Faction Owner has felt stressed in trying to find a fair and balanced way to ensure things run as smoothly as they can.
There doesn't seem to be a perfect solution, but I wish there were a way to make it easier without saturating things any further or imposing more rules.
