Social points....

That's true. Many group missions don't have any group dialogue at all.

Thanks for the input. Interesting point, however...

I don't understand why grinding the same flash points over and over again for points is ok, but getting a few points a day working with a friend on his ship is not.

I mean, is the idea to get people to socialize or not? Because even if I'm "exploiting" the system by say, visiting the same guy's ship all the time.... I'm still being just as social as I would be doing PvE in a group, if not more so.

Yeah, except you don't get those social points for grouping with others, you get them for talking to NPC's while being grouped. Two different things.

Grouping itself is being social, grouping so you can get some stupid points when talking to an NPC is just bad game mechanics.

Both PvP and trading on the auction house are social activities that could legitimately be part of the social points system in some way.

Beethoven's 5th, right?

It is a bit of an issue when the leveling 'group' quests get you zero points. You take the time to get a group of four together, spend 30 minutes (give or take) to actually do the quest, hearty congrats go around in chat for completing it, and then you manage to keep the group together for turn in - but the turn in is just a drop box. So no points.

Oh, you can get them if you know in advance which quests will be group when you talk to the person, and get your group to go (maybe drop the quest if some had it) and all talk to them. Yay - two to four points.

Unless you have a great friend (IRL or IG) that always plays the same time as you - you aren't getting many points. Only choice (if you want to get a good amount of social points) is hope you can find a guildie or whatnot, roll characters together and then play that char only when the other person is online.

Not to be bitter - glad some people have the joy of having that one (or two or three) people they are can always play with, but that's not a luxury everyone can enjoy. Sorry, my IRL friends aren't gaming types (yes, I think they're nuts too).

TL, DR version: Not sure if serious.

It would be nice if my social points meter even WORKED, it's been stuck idle about halfway in social I since near the end of head start. I've missed out on at least 4 or so social levels while leveling because it's stuck, and I haven't heard any dev response on the issue, other than they're aware that it gets bugged on some people.

The game has way too many kinds of currencies, social points are one of several that ought to be removed completely. On that note, why exactly do we need 3 different kinds of PvP currency?

The 1 and only way to raise social rank is to farm Black Talon/Esseless repeatedly ad nauseum with a 4 man group.

All the other FPs give you 10-15 points and BT/Ess gives 150-160.