Wars in the game currently are pretty stupid, they will go on endlessly unless one party says we are done. How about a war mode where the Legions in question sign onto a War mode and when they are disabled by a member of an opposing Legion, they stay disabled until one member of one of the Legions is left. Makes it actually mean something instead of endless disables.

i think the reason why war mode is not that popular right now is because there is nothing to gain in War. If you kill players only your stats increase. but if you kill NPC there is a chance to get a nifty artifact that you can either use or equip to make your ship better.

Unless there's a mission or a reward for being the top kill or having lots of kills then PVP action will not be that popular which works for me since I dont want to hit those Krionus Virus Trap before a juicy Boss NPC pops up.. it happened to me before will not happen again. Renegar Lazuli Station appears and I only have 10% of my attack available since I just hit a Krionus Virus Trap of one player trying to protect himself.

That's what I mean, a quick conclusive way to conduct a war where it stops and there is a clear winner.

well i think with the added gameplay value of a war mode, there could be high level artifacts and/or special resources for the victor. It would need a way to balance so high level legions can fight others and maintain fairness...

It should probably be something a bit more rewarding than normal PVP, seeing as how pointless that seems now. It basically ends up being a race to see who can be more persistent in being constantly halcyoned in an effort to see who can waste more of the other person's traps or if it is ever possible to exhaust them. People who actually PVP don't last as long. the energy/XP ratio is pretty low when nobody on the battle tab is very high level and in the off chance they are, it just takes several days of complete harassment and leaving a tab open in order to just get what amounts to a tiny XP bonus. That is, if you can even find anyone that might be in the rival group. Hacking and raiding are even more wasteful in the long run if you aren't trying to be strong for your level. PVP must be all about pride with how it is.

NPC alerts seem like the only beneficial thing about being in a legion since PVP is almost totally avoidable. Coordinated PVP is fun, but pretty wasteful as it is. People that only do missions are almost a complete waste of space in a legion. There is just no mutual benefit in a legion besides NPCs.

how about this?
http://galaxylegion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2742

a special last man standing feature would be cool and i agree should be mutual because it must include all members at once to participate.

a REAL war mode would be something like this:
1) any legion can declare war on any legion at any time
2) alert timers should not apply if alerting a ship in WAR status with your legion.
3) a tally of kills/deaths and invasions per legion is visible to both sides.
4) war status removal must be mutually agreed.

I really don't see any improvement to PVP by injecting more pointless pride into it. I mean, thats all it is already. I'd like to see there be some kind of benefit to it aside from the per attack XP. I'd like there to be a long-term strategic point to it that actually goes beyond antagonism and a strategy that goes beyond just making sure you are doing better than just the one other person you happen to be antagonizing while everyone else surpasses you by simply abstaining while they end up with a much higher rank, better modules, better production and an endless stockpiles of traps.

Fixing PVP would probably have too many incentives for the personality of the average player though. The level limit was a nice limiting factor when you didn't have to worry about the people hundreds of levels higher than you being some of the least mature people in the game.

I think a war should just consist of the leadership choosing groups to show up on the battle tab more often for the group's members... Thats about it. Agreeing on war is a silly concept. it is hard to even start a conflict that goes beyond 5 vs 5 as it is. If you can, the conflict is usually never-ending. I guess a concept of surrender would be handy. Maybe 3 "wars" and 3 anti-wars which could be called 'peace' or 'evasion' or 'surrender' or whatever that would basically counteract an opponents war declaration back to normality. This would actually contribute to a legitimate political landscape.

PS: actually a total number of generic declarations that could be either war or peace would make more sense seeing as how some legions are war-like and others are peaceful. Even with only 2 types of declaration, there would be a lot of variations in their use including a mutually agreed upon war and legions getting in over their head with too many other legions declaring war on them and completely pacifist groups avoiding almost all conflict. Declaring peace on someone that has not declared war on your legion would omit them from your legion's battle tab, functioning as half of a non-agression pact. declaring peace on a hostile force could just return things to normal randomness on the battle tab. There might be a "mobilization" timer on war declarations to prevent all out sneak attacks.

Right now, being able to change the group description is the only thing separating leaders and officers.

PPS: A war mode that takes time restrictions off sharing isn't that bad of an idea either, but that sort of lends itself to neverending conflicts a little more if it weren't combined with some kind of "total declarations" concept that included peace. It would be a million times easier to implement though. Maybe taking off offensive requirements for sharing as well? That is sort of how recon works.

I sort of like the battle tab idea I had (stole?) because members can be dragged into the conflict and they might have something to blame on inept leadership. It might spur them to PVP activity or encourage them to join a more suitable legion for their playing habits. There could be petty internal politics based on decision making and its consequence. Scan and cloak mechanics would still have to be intact under a system that affects the battle tab. Maybe a minimum of 1 or 2 potential, scannable targets from the opposing legion for each member.

I think something like that, even though it would be very difficult to implement, would be almost impossible and pointless to expand upon for almost all of what "politics" and "war" might entail and its not intrinsicly unfair if there is a large enough number of total declarations... Though they might even need timers, ugh

too complex?

if not, a possible expansion could be a group mission called "utopia" or some governmental type of name that gets more potential declarations for your legion. I've always thought the energy builds were a complete waste of space in a legion but group missions with legion-wide effects and an inversely exponential return might help fix that. There would be the issue of knowing who is pitching in though.

I rather like the idea of a war mode. After reading through the posts parts I think would be good portions of this would be an actual obtainable reward for engaging in a war, such as some bonus point for the legion or modules. The idea of having legion based missions that would increase their abilities in some way in a war would be a great addition and make it worthwhile to members of mixed legions like mine to be part of the legion. I think the best way to conduct the war goes to Spoonyjanks idea of when the legions are at war it increases the likelihood of members of that legion appearing on your battle tab, or in a separate war battle tab. Then the ability for the leaders to have choices in the war to engage, evade or surrender would be a nice addition to the leaders powers. With engage meaning committing to the war obviously, evade returning the likelihood of contact to the normal random, and surrender awarding the war reward to the winning legion. I think with these three choices for the leaders would take away the need for war timers and put pressure on leaders to act in the way their legions wish to. So now for Dan to think on this. I would really love to see this enacted in some fashion.

just to put my 2 cents in i like a idea of a war mode but spoony is right about no real benefits of pvping except pride. what if in this war mode you could place a war chest up and who ever wins gets to keep their war chest and then takes what ever is in the oppents war chest. it could be artifacts, minerals, or even planets. that way you can have even more to gain or lose from a pvp war. also it would be nice that if a war type mode is created your legion could have stats on who they fought, if they won, and how well they did. in addition to that i believe that this war mode should have limits like you pick a certain number like only 10 ships from each side can fight and they are chosen by the leader of each legion that way you dont get the big guy bullying a weak member of his enemy legion that he bullys for pionts. i believe that would make it fairer to the legions because they can have their elites vs their oppenets elites so there is no question who would be better. the only question is how do you win the war? could you choose from a KOTH type war were a legion must take a certain planet to win, or could it be by a piont system like a disable is 10 pionts and a raid or a hack is 5 pionts if you enemy gets hit by a trap it could be 4-2 depending on the trap. there are many possiblities here for this war mode.

Lots to read here.

I disagree with there being an endwar reward, only in the exploitability of it but otherwise, so far, while Spoony's suggestions have a slight air of 'hopelessness' to them I think a lot of what he wrote is all great feedback and suggestive material.

I think so far, at least from what I've witnessed (being a younger GL'er than many) the game has already undergone several evolutions. Don't forget the whole legion system is still rather new. Only a few months old. So continue with all those suggestions. There are plenty of sources out there for ideas. I would love to see more complex interaction in combat besides the simple "one, two" system right now "take out traps, the other takes out the ship" but for now it's what we got. I'd like to see much more in the invasion sector of the game. I'd love to invade and control hostile planets, all the while never leaving the ownership of the original owner if I so chose. I promised to many a folk that I would return any stolen planets since my goal was to disrupt, not ultimately deprive. Traps... Well folks who've gotten to know me know I HATE em, and give em all away to my legionmates as I earn them, but they too are just another part of a game that's still growing and evolving.

Great ideas everyone. Continue the good work at submitting them so Dan and his flock can continue doing their great job at implementing them.

~ Drake

This idea still seems to be in its "conceptual" phase so rather then get nit picky about other's specifics ill just add what id like to see.

Id like a war mode to actually accomplish something. Right now its just "well nyeh I declare wars on youse! beg fur mercy! Nyeh!".
What im imagining is something on the lines of Civ, where during diplomatics you get a screen showing everything everyone involved has to offer to trade/give/demand like planets, AP, RP, Credits, Planet Scans, Artifacts. And by using this an aggressing legion for instance could show the defending one their terms. i.e. We want this member, to get this planet we have on our scans/alerts (And it would automatically turn up in his scans if accepted). And then in return for accepting the conditions the Defending legion has immunity of all aggressive actions for a certain amount of time from that legion.

I rather like that for a winning reward idea Coth. You don't win or lose a war and end up with the exact same things you had before it. This allows it to be negotiated properly between leaders and the immunity is a good idea so one legion does not just keep repeatedly attacking the same one.