Request: Faction Favortism

[AngelOfIron]

While the game isn't without a number of flaws, some far more glaring than others, I feel that one of the things holding it back is a mechanic that doesn't currently exist. As it is now, earning the trust of a faction through doing missions and killing their opposition will only benefit you financially.

What if it were possible for it to benefit you in other ways? As in, if you manage to gain the trust of a faction, and you remember to equip a certain item on your rig before deploying on a mission, such as a scarf, or a bandanna, arm band, or even flag, the faction who sees you wearing that will effectively ignore you? I say "effectively" because you would be given a short time limit to move away from them before they take unction and shoot you in the leg.

Obviously, you will only be able to maintain a healthy relationship with one country at a time, and keeping them in your favor will be an ongoing and arduous endeavor. But being able to navigate the front lines with one less thing to worry about (for the most part) would be give players reason to pick and choose who they work for, beyond simply getting benefits from vendors.

[CATTY&Co.]

They are using an off-the-shelf FPS AI, which is a path they wouldn't have started down if they had any intention of making the AI realistic.

You could have a scarf that made you invisible to one side. You could have a scarf that increased one side's trigger-thresholds for aggro'ing you, but which caused lag, and worked through walls, and continued to work the same way if you shot them.

In a shoot-em-up, there isn't a simulation of trust - just aggro-or-not. If trust wasn't too complicated to script, other FPS games would have done it already.

[AngelOfIron]

This game is in Early Access. That means things are bound to change over time. You cannot say one way or the other what the final product is going to be like, much less identify the kind of coding that's going to be a part of it.

[Narkozzz]

Originally posted by CATTY&Co.:

They are using an off-the-shelf FPS AI, which is a path they wouldn't have started down if they had any intention of making the AI realistic.

You could have a scarf that made you invisible to one side. You could have a scarf that increased one side's trigger-thresholds for aggro'ing you, but which caused lag, and worked through walls, and continued to work the same way if you shot them.

In a shoot-em-up, there isn't a simulation of trust - just aggro-or-not. If trust wasn't too complicated to script, other FPS games would have done it already.

You are clearly wrong there. It is already in game that AI have target preferences that affect its agro on player. Also, it have 3 behavior modes: calm, curious and agro. It also separates units by squads so squadmates makes agro more likely when one of them attacked. Thats what we have right now for sure. And there are signs of attention system on early stage that describes enemy "blindliness" - probably they just ignore scav being aware of his presence for some limit.

[Akameka]

It's probably comming at some point.
The devs described the game as something they want you to not only be a scavenger but that you could also act like a relief unit for a faction at some point.
Like for exemple, bringing a faction a big stock of meds or cigarettes, helping repairing something. Kinda like we have a few missions like this, but more developed. At some point, doing that in the back of the soldiers (and potentially having to fight them to do it) won't really make sense, so I guess at some point we will have a way to be assumed as 'neutral' by the soldiers of a faction.

Maybe by equiping a faction themed scraf, a banner on the rig or something like that

[Lucius Caesar]

I like the idea of having a certain item equipped for them to recognise you, because the average soldier isn't going to have any idea who you are. But it would need a downside, mainly the other faction should be quicker to aggro because they recognise your allegiance to their enemy.

[Thndslz]

Originally posted by Lucius Caesar:

I like the idea of having a certain item equipped for them to recognise you, because the average soldier isn't going to have any idea who you are. But it would need a downside, mainly the other faction should be quicker to aggro because they recognise your allegiance to their enemy.

They would no questions asked. I mean the faction knows everytime you kill one of their grunts or bigger asset and drops your reputation. If your rep with said faction were unchanged even after you murderhobo the entire map then your vision would be more plausible.

[Akameka]

Originally posted by Thndslz:

Originally posted by Lucius Caesar:

I like the idea of having a certain item equipped for them to recognise you, because the average soldier isn't going to have any idea who you are. But it would need a downside, mainly the other faction should be quicker to aggro because they recognise your allegiance to their enemy.

They would no questions asked. I mean the faction knows everytime you kill one of their grunts or bigger asset and drops your reputation. If your rep with said faction were unchanged even after you murderhobo the entire map then your vision would be more plausible.

Not really. Some officials like the vendors know, but the base grunt ? Who the hell are you ? Although I do agree that going absolute murder hobo on a faction should lock you from allying with them until you die when there is a real faction reputation system in place. Like maybe a bounty on your head if you kill too much, and base the HK system on it. You could either pay the prime or die to reset it.

As for the way to handle the 'alliance', IMO a banner would be the best way to handle it. For exemple you could have a banner with the EU flag mounted on top of your rig. EU troops would not shoot you unless you steal stuff in front of them or marked items, or kill them. At that point you would take a huge hit on rep and be marked as ennemy for the rest of the mission. Meanwhile, having the EU banner would allow RU and Eurasian troops to engage you in the exact same way they engage EU troops. Shoot on sght.

[Chronologger]

Yeah I'm hoping they implement something like this. We're already working with all the factions through quests, it's not like there isn't a logical justification for a faction to turn a blind eye to you if you've maxed out your trust with them. I really like the idea of playing as a mercenary scav now and again but only as a one off quest related thing with the faction that trusts you the most at the time.