What if maps were constantly lost/created?

[Vancha]

This is a very loose concept that came to me after re-reading "The 1%" article on Rock/Paper/Shotgun

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/09/05/planetside-the-1/

He describes how fighting felt so much more important when their existence was on the line. Now obviously you couldn't have entire sides being destroyed, it'd be a player and development nightmare...but what if sides could be pushed back, beyond their home continents? What if sides could permanently gain bonuses for having taken ground?

I can think of a couple of ways this could happen...

For the first way, say TR lost all their bases and got pushed back to Sanc, four things would happen...

- A random map generator would produce two new home conts for TR below Cery and Fors.

- Cery and Fors would become neutral continents.

- NC would claim Oshur and VS would claim Searhus as home continents.

- Solsar and Amerish would disappear off the map, becoming inaccessible.

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/696/exampled.png

Now obviously the bonuses would have to be small, and possibly on a timer. Some randomly generated bonus that decreased weapon draw time by 1% or something. Over the years each side would change noticeably, but hopefully the bonuses would be small enough not to make things unfair.


The second way would be to have a progressing storyline of some kind. Perhaps every 3-4 months they aim to release a patch, and with it progress the story by doing something similar to the above, where the army that's done the worst gets pushed back and the other two armies get a slightly more substantial reward (a new weapon attachment or something).


This would of course need to be adapted to whatever shape Planetside Next takes, and there's some obvious issues that would need to be addressed, but I just think a constantly changing "map-scape" could keep the game fresh, keep people returning to the game and give some more importance to winning or losing a fight.

[Furret]

I'm not sure how well a random map generator would work, since you need to think about where the towers are placed relative to the roads, the bottlenecks, and all of the possible strategies that are created by the maps. I just don't think a random map would work out in a game as strategic as planetside.

Although I do agree, the story should progress as the game goes on.

Perhaps if the developers were constantly making new maps, then what you were suggesting might work out. My only problem was the random generation.

[Vancha]

My post was supposed to be the outlining of a problem with some example solutions, but then the solutions grew as I was putting them down and the whole thing ended up somewhat of a mess. I agree a map generator would probably be a disaster.

I think it was someone's mention of Warhammer 40k in the comments of the article I linked that started my train of thought. In 40k you can have huge crucial battles where one side gets decimated, but because the size of it's races are so immense, you can always be sure they'll pop up on some fringe of space even if they're thought to be extinct. By having an endless "edge" to Planetside's territories, those "meaningful" locations could be lost without the side getting completely eradicated.

[Furret]

So basically there's a sense of victory and defeat, without a true defeat.

Since I don't understand your idea, whats so different about getting shoved back to your sanctuary?

Maybe if there was a third 'home' continent that only opened when you lost footholds on every continent.

Though what would happen to the real second home continent. Would the victors still own that continent, and therefore gain another continent? Or would that continent disappear until the losers lost their third 'home' continent?

[Vancha]

So basically there's a sense of victory and defeat, without a true defeat.

Since I don't understand your idea, whats so different about getting shoved back to your sanctuary?
Well pushing someone back to their sanctuary always felt rather "victory-less", because you knew in a few hours they'd be back on the continent you just took from them. If however you were able to push back one side endlessly, there's a chance you could keep it forever (along with possibly whatever bonus you got for capturing it). The fact that there are three sides, which means rather than back-and-forth there's also an element of up and down, would only increase the possibility of keeping somewhere for a longer period of time.

Maybe if there was a third 'home' continent that only opened when you lost footholds on every continent.

Though what would happen to the real second home continent. Would the victors still own that continent, and therefore gain another continent? Or would that continent disappear until the losers lost their third 'home' continent?
This is what I tried to show with my diagram. If the losers lost both home conts, they'd become neutral continents and two new home conts for the losers would appear behind them. Meanwhile, as the map shifted to accommodate the new home conts, the victors (both empires) would lose access to one of their home-conts as it went off the map (but retain ownership/bonuses), and claim whichever neutral continent was closest to their remaining home cont as their new home cont.

Now that assumes that one side losing both home continents would pull both the other sides closer, but I suppose it could work individually too.

Say VS take both TR's home conts...TR's home conts would turn neutral, and TR would be given two new home conts behind them. VS would have both their home conts go off the map, and be given whichever two neutral continents were closest to their old home conts as new home conts. Meanwhile, NC would be unaffected. The world map would have to pivot around a certain point for that though, rather than just shifting in one direction.

[Furret]

For discussion, lets assume everyone has control of only their home continents, and there's fighting occurring on the neutral ones. Then the Vanu Sovereignty captures the two original Terran home continents.

So the bases would be created behind the original home continents, so on the diagram Terran Home Continents 1 and 2 would be located beneath Forseral and Ceryshen?

Then do Cery/Fors become under the Vanu control? Then the Vanu can keep pushing back into home continents 3/4? And since the Vanu control Cery/Fors, the New Conglomerate can't help with destroying the Terran Republic any further.

Or do the original home continents become neutral, so that the Vanu dont get control, but the New Conglomerate can attack as well.

[Vancha]

The first two paragraphs are correct, as is the third (almost) if you accidentally referred to the two new TR home conts as 3/4, having previously called them 1/2.

I said before if TR got pushed back to their two new home conts (which would indeed be "beneath" Cery/Fors), two continents would need to disappear to make space for them (on the map/map selection screens). My original concept assumed NC owned Oshur and had taken Cery, while VS owned Searhus and had taken Fors, upon which Solsar and Amerish would disappear and NC would claim Oshur as their replacement home cont (being the closest cont to Hossin), while VS would claim Searhus as their replacement home cont (being the closest cont to Esamir)...

Of course with your scenario, if VS owned Cery and Fors while having no bases on any neutral continents, Esamir and Amerish would disappear and they'd be forced to take Cery+Fors as home continents...Which would get very messy...Unless the lattices re-jiggled themselves to compensate, then it would work, but it'd be confusing as hell as warp-gates kept re-assigning themselves.

Thus the reason I should have simply outlined the problem rather than coming up with a solution. My solutions are always complicated and terrible. http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/5571/psyducki.gif

[Sifer2]

I think this attempt at a solution is a dead end. Random map generator is most likely not doable. Maybe technically but it would ruin the tactical nature of the game for sure.

Plus I am not sure that being able to kill a faction or push them back more an more is the answer to making Planetside feel like your efforts matter. They could go that route if they were willing to reset the servers every time someone won. But people would tire of that quickly.

I think they would better off just trying to add more depth to the game an more forms of progression that would get people's mind's off the fact that the land they are taking may change hands again soon. Planetside kind of failed there since once you were all ranked up an had participated in a coordinated push to take over most of the world it just became repetition.

[Firefly]

Unless I'm misreading the original post, the example of Sanc-locking the TR would result in two brand-new randomly generated continents and it would revert two continents to neutral. Now, from my perspective, if you took away two continents that I'd spent time locking so that you could give them to the losers, I would be fucking furious. And I'd probably cancel my sub. That game mechanic is, purely and simply, fucking stupid. The end. There's no penalty for the loser in this situation - you got Sanc-locked? No problem, dude. We're giving you continents and forcing two to go neutral.

No. Damn that. Damn that whole "two continents would need to disappear to make space for [their two new home conts]" stuff.

Sorry. If a faction gets Sanc-locked, they get Sanc-locked. It should fall on strategists to figure out how to get some turf (though this would usually fail because CR5s are a bunch of ego-maniacs and there would be six or seven thrusts depending on which outfits can muster the croneys and sycophants). Don't hand them a get-out-of-jail-free card.

The thing that made gameplay for me in Planetside was the strategy and tactics. I recall getting Sanc-locked a sum total of twice. The first time, I had to log out for the night anyway. The second, a group of like-minded allies ignored the popular vote to go start trouble at a known fail point - we ended up performing a simultaneous base-drain, continent-wide. With multiple hacks in progress, plus the zerg doing Failpoint, we busted free. We didn't need game mechanics to say "Here's a crutch, losers."