Ideas for the "Rich get richer" problem

[Malorn]

One of the Reddit questions I had asked was:

How do you plan on addressing the "rich get richer" problem where as an empire gains more territory and resources, they gain more power over the other empires?

Higby's response
this is a tough problem to solve.

Perhaps we, the illustrious PSU community, can assist with some ideas to help address this hard problem.

Part of the reason this is a tough problem is because solving it could render motivation to take territory useless. For example, if we had a welfare system it might not motivate people to take territory, or if we penalized large territory ownership it might motivate an empire to not take too much territory in order to optimize resource gain.

So how can we both reward players for conquest while simultaneously handicapping them so it is still possible for the conquered empires to strike back and regain territory?

What do you think could be done to help solve this problem?

[Skitrel]

I'll copy what I said elsewhere on this topic as a matter of keeping info all in one place.

I think the rich getting richer will balance against the fact that defending their own territory gets harder and harder the more they own. Making it so that capturing territories of a faction that has more territory than everyone else will be quicker than capturing territories of factions with fewer territories would essentially make it impossible to sustain a larger number of territories for any length of time.

If the balance is right on this, it should make the fight do the balancing, as opposed to the resources. They might be the tougher, harder faction due to higher resources, but they still can't defend everything at once with ever quicker capture times.

[noxious]

Just use variable hack times. If your faction owns all but one or two hexes, hacking the last two hexes will take 5 or 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the other guys can hack adjacent hexes in seconds, and they can back hack in a minute or two.

[Death2All]

Socialism! Your resources are my resources!





Seriously though, I don't know if there's an actual way to combat the rich getting richer, or how big of an issue it will end up being. I'm not entirely sure how resource spending works. I think Higby put it as "Your empire pays you resources out like dividends for having territories". I assume you get more, the more territories you own.

But how does spending work? When you buy a weapon, attachment, vehicle etc. is it a one time unlock? Or do you have to repurchase it everytime? What's the average cost of a weapon/vehicle/attachment? Can you still purchase weapons if you're resource starved with station cash?


Territory capture is one of the features I'm really excited for, but there are a few possible problems it could cause. Perhaps it will work out like PS1, where you beat the shit out of an empire until they're left whimpering in their sanc warpgate, then after everything settles down they start to slowly cost back their conts, or in this case territories. But since territories are a lot more important this time around than bases/continent lock incentives, are people going to be more adamant on keeping territories since it supplies this with resources? Guess we'll have to wait on beta to see how exactly this whole system works and functions.

[Death2All]

I'll copy what I said elsewhere on this topic as a matter of keeping info all in one place.

I think the rich getting richer will balance against the fact that defending their own territory gets harder and harder the more they own. Making it so that capturing territories of a faction that has more territory than everyone else will be quicker than capturing territories of factions with fewer territories would essentially make it impossible to sustain a larger number of territories for any length of time.

If the balance is right on this, it should make the fight do the balancing, as opposed to the resources. They might be the tougher, harder faction due to higher resources, but they still can't defend everything at once with ever quicker capture times.

I remember them saying something about that the more adjacent territory hexes you have near you, the faster capture bonus you get for the next territory, as a means to prevent backhacking.

They gave an example of "it will take an empire hacking an enemy empire's hex surrounded by other hexes of that same enemy empire 30 minutes to complete, but it would take the defending empire 30 seconds to resecure."


Of course, this was back when we had seen little to no game footage and Higby was just answering random questions on Reddit, so who knows how much that's changed since.

[Coreldan]

Just use variable hack times. If your faction owns all but one or two hexes, hacking the last two hexes will take 5 or 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the other guys can hack adjacent hexes in seconds, and they can back hack in a minute or two.

As I replied to someone in the other thread as well, I doubt the hardest part of defending/capturing bases will be the hack times.

Either you sorta have it in control or you don't. EDIT: To clarify, naturally hack times make a difference and you often get bases resecured if you have time, but the point being that the poor getting poorer might have really hard time getting anywhere near the CC, if the rich getting richer can afford just about anything, while the poor are stuck with grunts.

If the pinned down faction can't even get out of their foothold, a short hack time doesnt help much cos you cant even get to the CC cos they have the man/gear power to stop you.

That said, other ideas I thought about the rich getting richer could be that if you have low pop and/or territory, you could get bonus resources (much like the low pop bonus exp in PS1). That would still require you at least have some resource income, but then again it could just make fighting over territory for the resources "boring", cos the losers still get a good amount of resources just for sucking :D

[MrSmegz]

I would rather the game do nothing at all if you were at a population disadvantage. I know it really sucks being on the loosing team because say VS are at 40% and NC and TR are at 30% each. These situations will require Global Commanders to change up strategies and maybe save resources (in meta game) for another day.

Being at a disadvantage in PS is far better than your team getting "Base-raped" for 700 tickets in BF3, and the loosing teams players are constantly leaving.

[Bazilx]

I SHALL ANSWER THE CALL MALORN AND FIX THIS PROBLEM

Hear me all ye who fear the coming wrath of the imba faction! As there are 4 kinds of resources, we shall simply make it so that once you are down to a significantly lower amount of bases your empire gets "Emergency supplies" in the form of ONE resource! Preferably the resource that makes plain warfare easier but which still doesn't give you any of the many other benefits of the other resources, thus retaining the motivation - beside the obvious fun - of taking over other bases but still not making it so that a faction loses the ability to fight.

It could even function in the same way that a cornered animal bears teeth so that as a faction you'd be rather strong in the tank/air/max department once you are pushed really far, thus motivating the imba faction to turn its attention to the third empire instead of you.

Thank you all for your attention, that's one more problem solved by me. Autographs will be signed exclusively on womens breasts, and any muffin-donations should be sent to my agents office.

[Jonny]

Nanite Systems charge 50% tax rate. The more one empire owns the higher tax they charge because its in their interests to keep the war going....or something.

[Coreldan]

Nanite Systems charge 50% tax rate. The more one empire owns the higher tax they charge because its in their interests to keep the war going....or something.

Ideas like these are probably the simplest solutions, but I think it kills the point of having resources.

Like, why fight for territory to gain resouces when you are gonna be punished for success or alternatively the scrubs will get just as much resources cos they get some bonuses even if they just got steamrolled.

[MrSmegz]

Ideas like these are probably the simplest solutions, but I think it kills the point of having resources.

Like, why fight for territory to gain resouces when you are gonna be punished for success or alternatively the scrubs will get just as much resources cos they get some bonuses even if they just got steamrolled.

Agreed, this is why I say leave it alone. Being the underdog for the week, then having your faction fight back, and take back its stake of land on the weekend will make for more great PlanetSide stories.

[Biscuit]

hm..... if certain resources are physical items that must be transported to key facilities. id say steal them mofo's.

make a certain vehicle resource stock ready (new type of ant? quad? variant sundy?) with its own inventory trunk space.

throw down a transferring node that resources come from (to withdraw and deposit) , which can also be hacked.

hack resource node, why work for it when you can steal them bishes.


get rid of the instant grits direct deposit resource gathering if it exists.

super rich outfits will be prime targets of being bled out by other empires.

to prevent resources from being constantly stolen, take their goods over to the foothold territories for actual permanent depositing.

[Vash02]

You could say that your faction only has a limited number of "miners" so that the more territory you control the output becomes lower and lower to at some point (50-60% of total territory?) it levels out. and adversely with less territory the output rises.

The faction with the most territory would still get more than the other factions but not hideously more.

Also if a faction gets down to zero territory and resources their empire command could just release their resource reserves until the empire gets back some territory and bases.

[texico]

I honestly think it will balance itself fairly naturally, because there's 3 empires.

If TR own 70% of the continent, the VS and NC would both normally gang up on them. This is entirely natural - the "CR5's" or whatever the top commanders are will be inclined to attack the strongest empire. Both weaker empires will think this simultaneously. Plus, if TR owned 70% of the continent, it's just naturally more likely that they'll encounter both empires and less likely the two weaker empire's will physically come into contact.

Imo, that should be enough. Because remember, we don't want it to get progressively more difficult to hold on to more territory by a massive amount, because if one empire is winning, they should have the upper hand until another empire is able to overturn them with tactics and hard work.

The progressive difficulty to hold onto territory should only be reasonably subtle.

[Knocky]

Before you guys totally flip out about this "problem", it will be easy to see if it really is a problem.

Take all the territory from a faction and see how hard it is to dig yourself out of that hole.

[Kipper]

I don't think this is a problem worth worrying about. The solution was already there in about post #2....

The more territory you have, the more resource you accumulate = fair. You're defending far more territory with the same amount of players as the other two empires, so if you can actually keep that going as a team - you deserve the extra!

The bigger your space, the more prone to backhacks you are because your territory is 'deeper', and the less players you have in any one area of the front line, assuming you are defending the full length of it.

A team with 30 hexes vs a team with 10 is going to have on average 3x less players in a skirmish, or they're going to have to leave 20 hexes undefended.

It should balance. My worry is that it will balance too well, and just be a complete stalemate in the centre of the continent where every gain results in a loss elsewhere.

[morf]

Greetings TR,

You're being too successful, so we will now artificially limit your success so those other panzies can feel better about themselves.

-Higby




Is this REALLY the game you want to play, people? Is it even a game at this point? I guess when you guys were kids you played in the little league where they didn't keep score huh? I have news for you: those trophies aren't real and they don't mean anything when everyone gets them.

Territories should give a set amount of total resources, so if you have a higher pop, those resources are split among more soldiers. Furthermore, defending more territory becomes increasingly difficult on it's own - but why limit a team if they have what it takes o win? What's the point in playing if the losers get CPU assistance?

[CutterJohn]

Those auto generated missions they talk about? Set them towards the rich empire.

For instance, TR has the most land. The missions generated for NC and VS would be weighted towards combating TR.

If VS and NC are both top dogs, and TR is a distance third, the the missions can push the VS and NC against each other, and less against the TR.


I would also advocate that vehicles could be pulled from the uncap for free. Air pulled from uncaps should have a much lengthier timer than ground vehicles due to their mobility.

[morf]

Double post, bad connection. .sorry

[Dart]

It is important to have some kind of mechanic in place but hopefully we can all agree the PS1 solutions for population balancing and resource control were, for the most part, dreadful. I do not want to be fighting anyone who has 20% more health than I do. Similarly a system which leads many of the 'veteran' players to switch to the underpopulated Empire because they are receiving superior benefits is also daft.

In 2012 there must be a more elegant solution than tying dramatic benefits to the individual to a system over which the individual has little control.

[CutterJohn]

Similarly a system which leads many of the 'veteran' players to switch to the underpopulated Empire because they are receiving superior benefits is also daft.


Why is this daft? I know plenty of people around here are all 'Ooo-Raaah! Go TR/VS/NC! Elmos/Barneys/Smurfs suck!', but there are some that simply do not care one bit about what fictional team they happen to be on at any given time.

I look on the empires like I look at red vs blue in TF2, it doesn't matter which I play for. I'd be perfectly fine temporarily switching to an underpopped empire if asked nicely, and especially if I received some consideration.

[Boomzor]

If left as is, the rich getting richer will happen and probably go hand in hand with double-teaming an empire already on the knees.

This will lead to 4:th empiring and no one can stop that in regards to it's-F2P-I'll-just-make-a-new-account. We don't want this.

A simpler way to implement this:
Some form of tax that scales with the percentage of continent real estate the empire controls. The more you have the less you gain from new territories (or perhaps the resource yielding territories to be exact).
You will still gain resources, but not as much as someone who controls far less then you do.

A more difficult way of implementing (in the line of what Biscuit was thinking):

Have a Train of haulers go from the resource yielding facilities to the continental foot holds. For nostalgia, let's call them ANTs. Either simple AI controlled ones that stick to the roads and chug along while it still have wheels or even let players do the hauling. The "dividence" will not be shared untill the ANT reaches the foot hold and can be hijacked or stolen by the other empires while en-route. Escorting or Hijacking the ANTS could be a nice addition to the mission system, and also points out the logistical difficulties of an over stretched empire.

[Skitrel]

Why is this daft? I know plenty of people around here are all 'Ooo-Raaah! Go TR/VS/NC! Elmos/Barneys/Smurfs suck!', but there are some that simply do not care one bit about what fictional team they happen to be on at any given time.

I look on the empires like I look at red vs blue in TF2, it doesn't matter which I play for. I'd be perfectly fine temporarily switching to an underpopped empire if asked nicely, and especially if I received some consideration.

Yeah but this isn't really in the spirit of planet side. Its also not really in the tradition of mmos, where you traditionally play a character and remain that character.

[Truemedic]

It is indeed a "Difficult" problem with the assumption that not all players are equal in terms of skill. A couple ideas in this thread are decent but aren't quite there the solution.

The imagination I have with Planetside 2 is there will be at least 1 significant empire outfit per shard. It's a gamble but it also could pay off in the end where if a side gets pushed back, that particular outfit will indeed make a difference in gaining more ground.

The one big downside to this plan is if the separation of the North American's and Europeans is final, that means in off peak times can be not as interesting where as if both were together, there would be always a good battle.

Just my two cents.

[Eyeklops]

How do we know this problem even exists yet? We probably won't know until beta. I get the feeling this will not happen for the same reasons Nazi Germany lost WW2.


population too spread out
fighting a war on too many fronts

[sylphaen]

Disclaimer: all ideas expressed in this post are opinions and if I state something without saying "I think" or "IMO", you should still consider as an opinion rather than a fact. I do not claim to be an all-knowing superior being: that would be Vanu.

This post will mainly aim at giving propositions and answers to:
So how can we both reward players for conquest while simultaneously handicapping them so it is still possible for the conquered empires to strike back and regain territory?

Doing so, I address issues such as "richer gets richest" and double-teams.

I. Disturbances in the force

Assuming all variables (population, resources, equipment, player skill, player organization) are even between all empires, we could say that in theory, an equilibrium should exist between all factions in the long-run.

However, game mechanics can create "disturbances" in this equilibrium and destroy the carefully balanced chaos we know as Planetside.

I believe that winning should come from skill and organization (i.e. player variables) so before exposing some ideas and solutions, let me restate what I consider to be systematic sources of dis-equilibrium.

1. Resources
I think the problem is not stated properly. yes, "the rich getting richer" is a problem but we may all agree that it is the natural by-product of a game with resource mechanics. If equipment depends on resources and assuming all other variables are the same between factions, winners get more resources and more resources make winning easier.

If resources did not give a benefit, no one would care about them and they would serve no purpose. However, by providing benefits, resources increasingly favor winners (since winning gives you more resource to win) like new snow feeds a snowball rolling down a hill.

We all agree this is what we name "the rich getting richer" problem. Assuming all variables to be equal, once an empire starts winning (let's explain this through luck since all variables including skill is equal), resources would only help the winner to win more.


2. Factions
Another factor rarely mentionned and that I believe to be critical in Planetside is "3 factions". More territory is also linked to more benefits (facilities benefits and continent benefits in PS1, facilities and resources in PS2) so for an empire, it's always better to control more territory. Controlling more territory is also a source of pride and a feeling of achievement for players of an empire.

The problem with 3 factions is that there is a natural tendency towards double-teaming. I think so because as an empire player, controlling 40% territory makes people feel good even though it could be through a double team.

In the end, there are huge differences of difficulty in how your empire achieves control of 40% of global territory. A share of 40% TR / 40% NC / 20% VS share of total territory is significantly easier to achieve than 40% TR / 30% NC / 30% VS. The difference is that in the first case, you have a double team. In the latter, your empire conquered territory vs. 2 empires at the same time.

As long as people only see 40% territory as a victory and not how it was achieved being the victory, there will be double-teams. This issue compounded to resources would simply make the game unplayable for one empire once equilibrium is broken.



II. Maintaining equilibrium

1. How the Planetside system should behave

Planetside is a game about players interacting through a system. I believe that this system should have an equilibrium state and have mechanics that pushes it to return towards equilibrium. I also believe that, while the system should revolve around an equilibrium state, there should be room for disruption of that state through quality (skill & team organization).

A team of better players should be able to beat even odds. They should be able to keep the system out-of-balance through skill while the system itself pushes towards the equilibrium state. Beating the odds is what I call a victory.

2. Tendency towards equilibrium

The biggest threat to equilibrium between all empires is a double-team. It is much easier to rack-up kills and dominate while doing a 66% vs. 33% pop because numbers are a greater factor than skill. It is also much frustrating to be on the double-teamed side because there is little that can be done to prevent losing territory once 66% pop decide to roll over you.

Uneven situations create a flurry of issues (players switch empires or stop playing which increases the problem) so Planetside should have mechanics which favor even populations and promote even fights.

PS1 had incentives and benefits for lower pop empires (more XP, faster spawn rate). It's not perfect but it did promote balance and while it did not stop from losing vs. 66% pop, it did make it a little less frustrating until the other 2 empires started to attack each other again.

I believe that PS2 should provide incentives for an empire to attack the other 2 evenly to promote equilibrium. If all empires attack each other evenly, the most skilled should naturally control the most territory. In any situation that is not a double team, skill and organization should be a determining factor for territory control.

Double teams should not be incentivized.

2. Equilibrium with a resource system

With a pure resource system where % of territory controlled is proportional to resources accrued, double teams are being rewarded. Getting into a 40% TR / 40% NC / 20% VS situation is easy-mode for the NC/TR and they both would get more resources from double-teaming the VS. Such a system will effectively wipes out an empire as its player population and resources will drop along with decreasing territory. Planetside could become a 2-faction game most of the time once a double team starts.

Of course, the situation could return to equilibrium once the other 2 empires start fighting each other again but in the mean-time, an empire was wiped out: not from skill but from incentives to double-team an empire. Incentives which are also compounding through the richest gets richer issue. Worse, if a double-teaming empire managed to conquer territory faster than the other double-teamer, the game would transform into a game of quantity (what's left in the double-teamed empire in stock equipment+double-teamer in ok equipment ) vs. quality (the "winner" of the double-team in decked out equipment). It could be a long readjustment process during which the game is frustrating for the losers (i.e. the majority of players) and overall, this could kill Planetside pops.

Of course, this is just theory and it may not be as terrible as I think when it happens but still... It doesn't sound great.

To prevent such a situation:
- there should be decreasing returns on resource per territory controlled as your empire's total territory increases vs. other empires (in order to limit the strength of the snowball effect)
- decreasing returns should kick-in much faster if there is a double team in order to not incentivize it (if you progress vs. 2 empires, you are rewarded. If 2 empires progress vs. 1 together, they are not rewarded).

e.g. by controlling TR 40% of territory, you are naturally getting more resources. Then a modifier could apply where:
- NC 30% / VS 30% = 1 so no penalty
- VS 20% / NC 40% = .5 so 33% at 100% return and the remainder 7% at 50% return

Of course, this is just an example. The key point is that double teams must not be rewarded. It could even go as far as decreasing XP given from players from a double teamed empire while a double team is happening. The point is to promote 33% vs. 33% vs. 33% instead of 33%+33% vs. 33% which would naturally happen in a 3 factions game.

3. Promoting domination through skill

As many of you know, I am openly against end-game or resets in Planetside because I think they create more problems than they solve. However, I am not against victory conditions that can happen during the game. While I have described ideas to prevent situations from happening (i.e. maintain equilibrium), there should be mechanisms which promote a behavior that favors equilibrium.

So how should player skills be linked to territory mechanics ? One solution I see is through a victory mechanism. In the end, the reason why players want to control the most territory is to have a feeling of victory. It's one thing to win battles and engagements but it's another one to dominate the world.

Here is how I envision a victory condition that would fit Planetside:
- the victory condition should promote all 3 empires to compete against each other (i.e. it should be desirable)
- the victory condition should involve all 3 empires at the same time in order to promote even fighting between all empires and decrease the prevalence of double-team behaviors (i.e. it should promote competitive behavior)
- achieving the victory condition should be difficult enough in order to become a rare event (i.e. it should not be trivial)
- a victory should not happen in unfair conditions

How would each of those goals be achieved:
Desirability:
- victories should provide rewards (I think of unique merits with numbered victories such as "Markov - Victory n.1 - VS - 04/10/2012")
- victories should be visible (character stats and merits page, "Victories Hall of Fame" with links to players who achieved them)
- victories should be difficult to achieve and rare
- essentially, the drive to achieve victories is pride and recognition

Fairness
- Possibility of a victory should only be allowed after the game situation has reached "fair" conditions (large overall population, even empire population & even territory per empire would allow victories to be achieved) and stop being active when parameters become "unfair" (e.g. to prevent ghost victories when no one is online, victory conditions would stop being active when total population drops below a certain treshold of players on the server; they would reactivate only when that condition is met again along with all other conditions for fairness, so that it's useless to ghost all territory when everyone is offline).
- victory conditions should not promote double teaming:
45% TR / 27.5% NC / 27.5% VS would be a fair victory
45% TR / 40% NC / 15% VS would not be a victory

Competitive behavior
With high desirability and fair conditions, it would be incredibly hard to reach victory because the closer you are to victory, the more the other 2 empires would not want you to win. By victory being so hard and so rare, it fuels its desirability and competitiveness between all 3 empires who would tend to double-team less. With even odds, meeting the victory conditions would be more about skill than double teaming.

Finally, victory conditions are a rare event and neutral to the overall gameplay: they simply promote fair-play and competitiveness by showing a carrot on a stick. They also provide a feeling of victory for those who want a large-scale objective. The amount of time a victory condition is kept alive by an empire could also be timed and shown in the hall of fame.

Victories are neutral because they would not prevent temporary fluctuations in battle and temporary double teams. However, providing a greater incentive to win than to double-team and giving no benefits for double teaming will likely shorten the time the game spends out of equilibrium.


_______________________________

I hope I have explained my idea correctly enough to share and thank you for reading.

[Truemedic]

How do we know this problem even exists yet? We probably won't know until beta. I get the feeling this will not happen for the same reasons Nazi Germany lost WW2.


population too spread out
fighting a war on too many fronts


You're right, we don't, but we try to figure out all potential problems to attempt to keep ourselves sane till beta arrives. :D

[Dart]

Why is this daft? I know plenty of people around here are all 'Ooo-Raaah! Go TR/VS/NC! Elmos/Barneys/Smurfs suck!', but there are some that simply do not care one bit about what fictional team they happen to be on at any given time.

I look on the empires like I look at red vs blue in TF2, it doesn't matter which I play for. I'd be perfectly fine temporarily switching to an underpopped empire if asked nicely, and especially if I received some consideration.

It is the reason WHY you are switching that is the issue. It's about the game-mechanics which motivate you. Unless you and I were playing different versions of PS1 I was never asked to switch Empires by DanB due to population imbalances. Instead it was the ' considerations' you referred to which caused people to Empire-hop. Specifically the exp bonus or module bonuses. That is a clumsy system because, in the case of the exp bonus, you are being rewarded for losing. The less efficient your Empire, the more casual players log off, the more the vets (most PSU members I'd imagine) benefit for an individual exp bonus. To my mind that is NOT an elegant MMO system.

[Eyeklops]

It is the reason WHY you are switching that is the issue. It's about the game-mechanics which motivate you. Unless you and I were playing different versions of PS1 I was never asked to switch Empires by DanB due to population imbalances. Instead it was the ' considerations' you referred to which caused people to Empire-hop. Specifically the exp bonus or module bonuses. That is a clumsy system because, in the case of the exp bonus, you are being rewarded for losing. The less efficient your Empire, the more casual players log off, the more the vets (most PSU members I'd imagine) benefit for an individual exp bonus. To my mind that is NOT an elegant MMO system.

Agreed, the PS1 incentives system was not perfect. My reasons for switching from the high pop to the low pop empire was really about who had the most the target rich environment. I gotta think about these things as a killwhore!

[dm Akolyte]

Those auto generated missions they talk about? Set them towards the rich empire.

For instance, TR has the most land. The missions generated for NC and VS would be weighted towards combating TR.

If VS and NC are both top dogs, and TR is a distance third, the the missions can push the VS and NC against each other, and less against the TR.


I would also advocate that vehicles could be pulled from the uncap for free. Air pulled from uncaps should have a much lengthier timer than ground vehicles due to their mobility.

I like this idea. Seems more unobtrusive.

[Bittermen]

It should be easy for an empire to overextend itself.

Even if you have the resources to make tanks,aircraft, other crap it doesn't mean you have enough people to defend those resources.

[Dart]

It should be easy for an empire to overextend itself.

Even if you have the resources to make tanks,aircraft, other crap it doesn't mean you have enough people to defend those resources.

But when an Empire is consistently dominant, particularly if it is going to have access to more resources, it will attract more people. It does need addressing.

[Malorn]

we shall simply make it so that once you are down to a significantly lower amount of bases your empire gets "Emergency supplies" in the form of ONE resource! Preferably the resource that makes plain warfare easier but which still doesn't give you any of the many other benefits of the other resources, thus retaining the motivation.
I had ideas in another thread for a welfare system but the more I think about it the more I dislike giving handouts int he form of resources. Just like the real world people will abuse it. Additionally the problem with handouts is that it doesn't necessarily encourage territory capture and doesn't completely address the problem of the empire with all the territory easily holding onto it. It helps give an empire a fighting chance but that's about it.

I like discounts on very specific things as an alternative. So people who have resources can do more with them. Giving out a very minimal amount of resources as you say of the one resources that allows basic vehicle construction, combined with a discount might work out. But from what we know of resources different resources will be needed for aircraft vs tanks (was on Reddit yesterday).

Might not be able to avoid a welfare system to some extent for the worst-case scenario. Still it might be beneficial to have some minimal resource generation at the foothold, combined with a discount that renders that resource generation utterly worthless for anything but pulling vehicles on the same continent. So someone couldn't go sit on a dominated continent and rack up the resources for doing nothing.

Getting away from your post a bit, that brings another problem to mind - if the dominating empire has all the resources, more people might flow in looking to ride the resource train. I assume more people would mean the resource amount each person is given lowers, but people like free rides, so I see more people piling on into a continent when an empire is dominating it because its a lot of resources. But if they do that they'll lose resources elsewhere.

We want to avoid situations where the TR are sitting on all of Indar, the NC are on all of Amerish, and the VS are on all of Esamir, just reaping rewards of resources and bottling people into warpgates milking the gravy train.




I honestly think it will balance itself fairly naturally, because there's 3 empires.

If TR own 70% of the continent, the VS and NC would both normally gang up on them.
Not necessarily. If the NC and VS border one another or are locked in a big battle they might not give a crap about the resources and enjoy their fight. Before they know it they've lost everything but they're still adjacent to each other. It could be that because TR are attacking on one side the other empire decides the best course of acting is to take what few resources the other has even though the TR are the bigger threat.

To prevent that they need incentives to attack the bigger empire and not pile onto someone already getting ground up.


Take all the territory from a faction and see how hard it is to dig yourself out of that hole.
This is a good test for beta to simulate and see if whatever sort of systems they have in place are working. I'd like to see this test simulated many times to ensure they have a good sample size.


The bigger your space, the more prone to backhacks you are because your territory is 'deeper', and the less players you have in any one area of the front line, assuming you are defending the full length of it.

A team with 30 hexes vs a team with 10 is going to have on average 3x less players in a skirmish, or they're going to have to leave 20 hexes undefended.

It should balance. My worry is that it will balance too well, and just be a complete stalemate in the centre of the continent where every gain results in a loss elsewhere.
I think you're onto essentially the right way to balance this, which is making more territory naturally more difficult to hold.

However, the way the Territory control system works is based on adjacency. That is if you have all the territories in an area it is very easy for you to take a territory back, but much harder for someone to take it. The example Higby gave was that if someone takes a territory deep behind the front it'll take something like 30 minutes to cap but only 30 seconds for the empire to retake it - all because the attacker has no adjacent territories and the defender has that territory completely engulfed.

Now it might not be as extreme as that, but the implications of this are that as you gain more and more territory, the new territory you gain helps protect the other territory you have. It is similar to how in PS1 certain continent combinations had lattice links to each other such that locking one helped protect the other (like 2004's Amerish-Solsar-Searhus combo NC held for a long time).

The result of such a system is that unless your FRONT is ever-expanding you wont' actually have that problem.

If the example Higby gave was accurate then I expect what will happen is the empires will try to claim back-territories, but since it takes so long to cap them the dominant empire has plenty of time to send a response unit to recapture or stop the capture. And since it takes nearly as long as one of the warpgate-bordering territories they have plenty of time to respond to both. So again, the rich get richer.

Because they took so much territory its actually easier for them because their front got consolidated.

This is one reason why I believe the adjacency system should take into account total territory owned by an empire so naturally as you take more territory it becomes more difficult to hold.




Greetings TR,

You're being too successful, so we will now artificially limit your success so those other panzies can feel better about themselves.

-Higby




Is this REALLY the game you want to play, people? Is it even a game at this point? I guess when you guys were kids you played in the little league where they didn't keep score huh? I have news for you: those trophies aren't real and they don't mean anything when everyone gets them.

Territories should give a set amount of total resources, so if you have a higher pop, those resources are split among more soldiers. Furthermore, defending more territory becomes increasingly difficult on it's own - but why limit a team if they have what it takes o win? What's the point in playing if the losers get CPU assistance?

I agree, penalizing the winning empire or bolstering the losing empires defeats the purpose of the resources because no matter what you do, resources will come your way. And if capturing territory is meaningless because of some penalty people simply won't do it and the game strategy devolves.

Capturing lots of territory should be rewarding always, but it should also be difficult to maintain, and nearly impossible to maintain an entire continent lock for a long period of time. This also adds more to the satisfaction of actually doing such a feat.

Those auto generated missions they talk about? Set them towards the rich empire.

For instance, TR has the most land. The missions generated for NC and VS would be weighted towards combating TR.

If VS and NC are both top dogs, and TR is a distance third, the the missions can push the VS and NC against each other, and less against the TR.

I like this idea. I have a feeling they will use missions like that to do subtle encouragement of the players away from un-fun situations, consolidating populations, and helping avoid ultra-laggy situations.

I think this will help solve the problem, but not utterly eliminate it. Strictly speaking at the extreme end, once an empire bottles the other two into their uncaps then the adjacency system for territory control works in the favor of the dominating empire. The other two empires on that continent already have no choice to attack the dominant empire. But missions can help encourage more people to join that underdog struggle, and missions can help discourage that situation from happening in the first place. It's good for discouraging it, but it doesn't solve it.


I would also advocate that vehicles could be pulled from the uncap for free. Air pulled from uncaps should have a much lengthier timer than ground vehicles due to their mobility.

Gotta be careful with this. People can always spawn at the uncap and for vehicles like aircraft there would be little reason to not always pull from the uncaps.

Another mechanism might be rather than giving resources, simply make things cheaper. Like if the territory is direly low, they could offer a discount on the vehicles continent-wide. That discount creeps up as territory is lost and lowers in magnitude as territory is gained. So nobody is getting handouts but they are getting some stuff cheaper to help them wage war effectively. It gives more refined control over simply handing out resources or making stuff free all the time.

I do like the idea of possibly making all vehicles free from the foothold if you have 0 territories, and then scaling back the discount from there. Example:
0 territories = 100% discount
1 territory = 75% discount
2 territories = 50% discount
3 territories = 25% discount
4 territories+ = no discount

So if you have nothing, free vehicles! That might not only allow you to wage war, but it also might encourage people from other continents to come help that effort because of the free vehicles. Since it doesn't give resources there's no gravy train to ride and those resources can't be used to get implants or certs or anything else - just free tanks for helping break out of a bad situation. Once the empire starts to recover, the discount fades and it's back to business as usual.

How do we know this problem even exists yet? We probably won't know until beta. I get the feeling this will not happen for the same reasons Nazi Germany lost WW2.


population too spread out
fighting a war on too many fronts

Its fairly easy to reason this problem exists from what we know (see my previous replies in this post). Between getting more resources and the way the adjacency system work, I dont' see how it it is not a problem.

Also your list may not be correct.

Take a look at the map of Indar - as an empire wraps itself around one of the other empire's footholds their front doesn't get bigger - it actually decreases. It is smaller than the front when all 3 empires have the same territory. Additionally that front has the full power of the adjacency system working in its favor - lots of friendly territories, only one hostile territory, which means it will take a long time to capture one of those territories and fairly easy to retake it. The adjacency system protects the rest of the territories not on the front as mentioned earlier in this post.


With a pure resource system where % of territory controlled is proportional to resources accrued, double teams are being rewarded. Getting into a 40% TR / 40% NC / 20% VS situation is easy-mode for the NC/TR and they both would get more resources from double-teaming the VS. Such a system will effectively wipes out an empire as its player population and resources will drop along with decreasing territory. Planetside could become a 2-faction game most of the time once a double team starts.

Of course, the situation could return to equilibrium once the other 2 empires start fighting each other again but in the mean-time, an empire was wiped out: not from skill but from incentives to double-team an empire. Incentives which are also compounding through the richest gets richer issue. Worse, if a double-teaming empire managed to conquer territory faster than the other double-teamer, the game would transform into a game of quantity (what's left in the double-teamed empire in stock equipment+double-teamer in ok equipment ) vs. quality (the "winner" of the double-team in decked out equipment). It could be a long readjustment process during which the game is frustrating for the losers (i.e. the majority of players) and overall, this could kill Planetside pops.
This is a good capture of what I believe to be a very realistic scenario for PS2. It happened all the time in PS1, even without resources. Resource rewards for doing it will only make it worse.


To prevent such a situation:
- there should be decreasing returns on resource per territory controlled as your empire's total territory increases vs. other empires (in order to limit the strength of the snowball effect)
- decreasing returns should kick-in much faster if there is a double team in order to not incentivize it (if you progress vs. 2 empires, you are rewarded. If 2 empires progress vs. 1 together, they are not rewarded).

e.g. by controlling TR 40% of territory, you are naturally getting more resources. Then a modifier could apply where:
- NC 30% / VS 30% = 1 so no penalty
- VS 20% / NC 40% = .5 so 33% at 100% return and the remainder 7% at 50% return

I don't think a system that penalizes people for conquering territory is a good solution. Holding more territory should always be rewarding.

Alternatives I like for this are making it more difficult to hold the territory, which means its more easy for the underdogs to retake it. A discount system as opposed to a welfare system would be another way to give them a hand-up until they established a reasonable foothold.

Having empire missions generated automatically favor attacking a larger-population faction on a continent would help avoid the worst-case scenario. If those empire-generated missions are lucrative enough that would hopefully be good encouragement without forcing anything.

[Bazilx]

I had ideas in another thread for a welfare system but the more I think about it the more I dislike giving handouts int he form of resources. Just like the real world people will abuse it. Additionally the problem with handouts is that it doesn't necessarily encourage territory capture

However (also in reddit), it was said the cap for resources would be such that you'd never really have more than enough. My idea was that since nobody would gain from this or really be able to sit around and wait to have 200 tanks worth of resources they would have only one use of it, attacking the enemy. So I understand where you are coming from with the wellfare thing, but I believe the cap on resources makes it relatively unexploitable.

This way the Handouts would be only practical in nature and not give the player anything of worth unless they actually fought to gain something. It wouldn't be beneficial to sit around doing nothing since all you'd have at maximum would be like 2 tanks worth of resources and none of the other resources.

It would be the non-proverb equivalent of giving a man a fishing rod but no fish.


But from what we know of resources different resources will be needed for aircraft vs tanks (was on Reddit yesterday).

Well... This I don't know how to deal with, I guess if that's the case a discount would accomplish the same thing as my idea.


OH! And Even though I will defend my idea to my last breath, I now believe the best idea is the mission idea where the dominant faction becomes the preferred target, it's easy, it makes sense, and it doesn't feel laboured.

[sylphaen]

Alternatives I like for this are making it more difficult to hold the territory, which means its more easy for the underdogs to retake it. A discount system as opposed to a welfare system would be another way to give them a hand-up until they established a reasonable foothold.

Having empire missions generated automatically favor attacking a larger-population faction on a continent would help avoid the worst-case scenario. If those empire-generated missions are lucrative enough that would hopefully be good encouragement without forcing anything.

I agree that the welfare system is a bad idea and those 2 solutions (discount+missions) are a good idea.


e.g. by controlling TR 40% of territory, you are naturally getting more resources. Then a modifier could apply where:
- NC 30% / VS 30% = 1 so no penalty
- VS 20% / NC 40% = .5 so 33% at 100% return and the remainder 7% at 50% return
I don't think a system that penalizes people for conquering territory is a good solution. Holding more territory should always be rewarding.

The thing is that you would not be penalized for taking territory against 2 empires at the same time. You would just get less if captured it while taking advantage of a double-team.

[Mackenz]

Having empire missions generated automatically favor attacking a larger-population faction on a continent would help avoid the worst-case scenario. If those empire-generated missions are lucrative enough that would hopefully be good encouragement without forcing anything.

Yes, I think this could be key. Even going in the underdog, getting automatically generated guerrilla or hit-and-run missions with large rewards (and maybe achievements/medals for being the underdog?) to spoil larger empire territory holds, even if retaken quickly, encourages fighting.

Of course, you will need resources, and I must admit I haven't seen how these work so its hard to comment on that. But maybe there is some basic kit that you can get for minimal cost, such as a 'hit' squad load out for taking such a mission:

* Galaxy for transport,
* A mix of infantry, plus a MAX or two;
* Maybe one air support.

Not sure tanks would be worthwhile because only adjacent territory would be realistically accessible.

Resource taxation seems lame, and diminishing returns/hex population adjustments might work, but I can imagine it being complex and opaque. And without a good understanding of how resources work, it gets a pretty hand-wavy, at least for me.

Key is that you do the least amount of work to address this to help reduce the unintended consequences.

[PoisonTaco]

Why should you take away from a team that manages to take a large portion of a continent? If anything they should be rewarded for winning so much territory. Yeah they beat the other two factions, they deserve to reap the benefits. So here's my idea:

Give rewards factions when they cap territory. A nice fat reward. The longer a faction controls a territory or facility, give a bigger bonus to the faction that captures it. This gives the other two factions more of a reason to fight back against the dominant force. If they get too big and sit on that land for too long, then it's going to be a nice target for the other two.

Display a bonus reward for a territory or facility if it's captured. Show how much of a big payoff a team can expect for rallying together and fighting to take everything back.

[sylphaen]

Why should you take away from a team that manages to take a large portion of a continent? If anything they should be rewarded for winning so much territory. Yeah they beat the other two factions, they deserve to reap the benefits.

When a situation of TR 40% / NC 40% / VS 20% comes up, neither the TR nor the NC have beaten the other two factions.

Why should it be rewarding to double team a 3rd empire ?

[Trolltaxi]

You need resources on the frontline, but your resources are mined mostly behind the lines. The greater your territory is, the more distant mines you have.

The resource train seems a fun idea, but actually it would be like antruns. That seemed to be a fun system too, but ended up in lonely long drives around the continent. This would be the same in PS2 with these trains. Even if it is easily hijacked they would most likely run safe all way long, as the empire on knees would be too heavily occupied with sheer survival.

But you may simulate the system by a decrasing rate of resource flow. The further your mines are from the frontline, the slower they will contribute to the resource. That is not just a gameplay mechanism to artifically balance the fight, but the simulation of long supply routes.

This would still not help the cornered empire's low resource problem, but it would slow the process of getting richer.

[Saintlycow]

http://www.revisemri.com/tools/timeconst/images/1_exp_x400.gif

Something like this has to happen. of course, the axis are all wrong, but hexes captured is on the x- axis and resources gained is on the y axis.

Maybe talk about supply line as justification.

Essentially, as an empire begins to conquer more and more, the amount that they take in from those bases steadily decreases. At a certain point, they take in almost no ressources from a certain base

[Boomzor]

I suppose we can agree on that while we still want to see the battle and power sway back and forth (it is after all what makes a persistent world dynamic and interesting) we don't want it to oscillate so much it actually keels over and cement the imbalances.

I like that graph in regards to Rewards (y) in relation to territory (x).

[SGTalon]

I really don't like the "Socialist" solution to this issue.

Pulling hardware takes resources, and you get resources by taking real estate right?

If a faction gains all the real estate and has a surplus and the people that have no real estate get stuff for free what is the point of having real estate? Why fight for all the stuff?

I am not sure how this whole resource thing works. My gut feeling is that the old way is ideal. Real estate for abilities (like tech plants and dropship centers). Resources are a way to keep the facilities functioning and conversely another way to capture a facility (drain resources)

So what happens when you run out of resources? If i am fighting an epic battle and getting my stuff blown up a lot/ spending resources, what happens when i run out? Does this mean that i can't pull the good hardware anymore? Am i now limited to basic equipment? How is this going to help me retake my real estate?

This seems like another penalty. Similar to Grief Points. Some retard keeps running in front of my MAX while i am suppressing a door and pretty soon i can't fight anymore because my grief points are maxxed out. So now if i die a lot and pull a lot of hardware i deplete my resources and can't fight anymore?

I don't get it.

[Graywolves]

Could provide a resource gain buff to empires that are on the ropes and have very little territory. This would have to be balanced to NOT be equal to that of the largest empire because that would defeat the purpose of grabbing territory.


I have an idea where the hex's closest to the safezone's/warpgates/empire footholds/w.e could be deemed as the "Home territory" and this territory could be harder to grab or just produce more resources the more it was encroached on but less to the opposing empires if they did take it. Unfortunatley this would probably encourage factions to NOT fight there as the physical reward of resources would be greater elsewhere.


Perhaps something could be done like WC3's system of 'Upkeep'. In WC3 when you had so many units you were basically tax'd on your income or something (been forever since I played). What we could do is give a Tax to the incoming resources after a certain empire has reached a certain amount of Hex's under their control. This would encourage an empire with the most territory to play more defensively if they were being attacked but their gain would not stop with the more territory they had, they would only have their income not grow as large as it normally would.

I think an Upkeep or Tax would work well. If you make it work with specific resources it could provide a stronger meta-game in predicting where the enemy will go based on what resources they mostly control and the richer empire's commanders will see a stronger benefit in grabbing other resources than that which they are monopolising.

( VS have the majority of Auraxium, Normally for each auraxium node they control they have 25gain per minute as an empire. Future Auraxium nodes will only provide 20/15)

You don't stop the rich from earning or being rich, just curve it so that they don't become too powerful.

[Uberculosis]

Just have it so that in the event of not being able to pull enough resources(eg, empire has 1000 gold, you need 1500 to pull a magrider) you can use other resources at a less efficient rate than the 'standard' element(1500 gold for a magrider vs. 3000 platinum). Compounding this, make empire dividends on resources global(e.g. resources from Ceryshen benefit the fight going on in Cyssor) but at a slower rate of updating(resources on Cyssor[where the fighting is going on] get refreshed every 5 units of time, vs. 15 units of time from Ceryshen).

To recap, assuming all else equal, you get 1500 gold every 5 minutes from the continent you're fighting on, and 1500 gold every 15 minutes from abroad, added to the empire-continent pool of resources to draw from.These resources can be used in varying efficiency rates depending on availability.

This way, you can still have a chance at defending even when you have less resources than desirable. And if you have NO resources left, well you're boned anyway.

[Malorn]

An observation I had while in the car is that this problem really has multiple facets.


1) Enabling the have-not empires to wage effective war

Without giving them free resources, which defeats the purpose of fighting for them


2) Motivating the have-not empires to fight back for territory instead of going to some other continent

The dominant empire will be motivated to stay to reap the rewards of their conquest, but the dominated empires have little reason to stay on the continent.


3) Maintaining the intensity of the battle

Essentially this means both sides of the battle need to be motivated to stay and fight. Penalizing conquest is a way to make the conquerors leave and discourage conquest and intensity, which would lead to some un-fun situations for everyone involved (ghost hacking a continent for the underdogs, not getting to reap the rewards of their conquest for the dominators).

4) Making it difficult to maintain a large amount of territory

This does not happen naturally in PS2 due to the adjacency system making it harder to lose a territory as you have more adjacent territory next to it. This is the mechanic that creates the "front" in PS2, but in extreme cases it can also help a dominant empire maintain their territory. A likely solution involves factoring in territory owned into the adjacency system's mechanics.


These 4 aspects sort of create constraints and show why there is no silver-bullet answer to address this problem. There's been good ideas but I think a combination of ideas is required to address all facets of the problem.

This thread has yielded some good ideas for each of these different aspects. I'm going to think on this more, I think some ideas are converging in my head which I need to put to paper.

[Tamas]

Base/Tower upkeep.

Bases get static defenses that require x resources to maintain them. The more zones you have the better/more defense you can have (manned defenses not auto). So a partial resource sink becomes the upkeep (apart from naturally spending on vehicles etc.).

Towers - well the more towers you want, the more upkeep you have to pay. If there would be be different levels of towers (increase in size/strength/functions etc.) the more expensive it becomes.

There has to be a resource sink for the empire, but on the other hand there must be a reward for getting those resources.

[Duddy]

1) Enabling the have-not empires to wage effective war

2) Motivating the have-not empires to fight back for territory instead of going to some other continent

3) Maintaining the intensity of the battle

4) Making it difficult to maintain a large amount of territory

These 4 aspects sort of create constraints and show why there is no silver-bullet answer to address this problem. There's been good ideas but I think a combination of ideas is required to address all facets of the problem.

This thread has yielded some good ideas for each of these different aspects. I'm going to think on this more, I think some ideas are converging in my head which I need to put to paper.

I think I have a solution that helps address 3 of those 4, Malorn;

A "bonus pool" that is taken from the "haves" and is awarded to the "have-nots".

Have the bonus build up based upon the amount of territory owned and how long it has been owned, perhaps utilising a multiplier to make it more prominent when more is owned for longer. When the "streak" by the haves is broken the amount built up should be taken from the haves and awarded to the have nots.

The closest analogy to this I find is in the MOBA genre. A player that is dominating builds up a bounty on them which is awarded to the player that kills them and comes from their own pocket.

How this ties into your criteria is;

2) The bonus pool not only gives the have nots a reason to fight against their superior but it awards them generously if successful, not to mention humiliating the opponent.

3) The have nots want to win the bonus and deny it from the haves, the reverse is of course true for the haves naturally

4) If the bonus can be broken from any base it forces the defending empire to have to stretch across those fronts making it easier for the inferior empire to succeed somewhere

Unfortunately I can't think of a good answer that also covers 1), I'm not adverse to some of the suggestions so far such as the mission system. I don't think the discounted cost is so bad, I think it should only be necessary in extreme cases.

EDIT:

TLDR; Dominating empire builds up bounty that is awarded to empire that takes base from them, comes from dominating empires pocket.

[Malorn]

I was thinking something very similar to that Duddy.

One of the things Higby said in the reddit from yesterday about how resources are distributed:
You'll earn resources both as divedends on your empire territory holdings as well as personal rewards

If the "personal rewards" are in the form of bonuses that you get for capturing territory, then one way to help motivates the have-nots is to dramatically increase the personal reward bonus when capturing territory from an empire, with bigger rewards the more territory the has.

Conceptually it is similar to what you are saying, which is that as an empire gets bigger and more resources the territories they own get richer - and when that territory is captured the conquerors get a bigger bonus from plundering the rich territory.

So we help motivate by making territory belonging to a large dominant empire more lucrative to capture as a one-time bonus.

Your time-based solution is interesting too, making it worth more the longer it remains uncaptured, however I think that would mostly encourage back-hacking as opposed to pushing out from a front. It might add a bit of complexity too.

I think most people can understand a simple concept that "the empire with the most territory is worth the most to capture". As a bonus this sort of mechanic will also help discourage double-teaming on weaker empires. It would encourage double-teaming on large dominant empires, which is what you want to keep them in check and move things back to a more balanced position. Once they are more balanced the bonuses are gone so things return to a more normal neutral state.

[Duddy]

Your time-based solution is interesting too, making it worth more the longer it remains uncaptured, however I think that would mostly encourage back-hacking as opposed to pushing out from a front.

You're right that it would probably encourage back-hacking, depending on how easy it is to notice said event potentially mitigates the issue but I guess I'd still prefer it as a means to try encourage a fight somewhere that has been held for too long.

Certainly however, I think the method of awarding bonuses for accomplishment should be the go-to over handouts to those in the inferior position. There certainly is, this said, a good case for combination of the two.

[Boomzor]

Isn't the back-hacking to some extent already countered by the adjacency system? Maby not countered, but inhibited at least.
(what I mean by "to some extent" is that behind the lines is so binary it doesn't make any difference between just behind the lines and all the way back at the foothold)

[ThGlump]

Taxes are bad. It should be something that penalize dominant empire on cont but its wanted anyway.

What about transferring resources to other continents?
This rely on that empire that will be dominant on one continent wont be as strong on others, so they want that buff to happen.
It wont work in case global dominance - well it will work but there will be no benefit for dominant empire - thats a flaw
It counts on that people will care how their empire is doing globally (global dominance is everybodys dream), zerg and K/D fanatics would not probably like it to be cut from resources.

So here it is:
Once empire gets like 80% of all territories, all resources diverted to building transferring machine in their warpgate, and after its build (say 30-60min), all other continents gets 20% resource income bonus to help them fight there.
During this time dominant empire wont get ANY resources, so they start getting resource starved on that continent, giving others greater chance to get some territories back. Those who would want get some resources still could get it at other continents (at increased rate because of that buff), but leaving cont give others another chance to retaliate. So both should lead to restoring balance. Transferring should stop once you get under 60% of territories held.


Its not perfect, has some flaws, but maybe somebody can improve it.

[Malorn]

You're right that it would probably encourage back-hacking, depending on how easy it is to notice said event potentially mitigates the issue but I guess I'd still prefer it as a means to try encourage a fight somewhere that has been held for too long.

Certainly however, I think the method of awarding bonuses for accomplishment should be the go-to over handouts to those in the inferior position. There certainly is, this said, a good case for combination of the two.

At this point I think the combination of making larger bonuses against empires with larger territory (scaling of course, with small increases as they gain more territory), along with huge discounts to vehicle costs for an empire that's at a severe disadvantage would be a good way to enable them to fight and motivate them to take territory. In effect they have very little to lose with a huge discount so the battle could keep raging, and if the do take territory then it's a huge bonus.

I think also having the adjacency system take into account the amount of territory an empire has and start scaling it back as it gets significantly large would help make it harder to defend all of the territory. Combined with free or near-free vehicles, it would allow squads to branch out into other territory not just the stuff immediatley around the warpgate. If the capture times are reduced they'll have an easier time capturing, large bonuses for capturing, and then be able to get back on their feet.

All this without punishing the empire for making those conquests, so it seems to be shaping up to a good set of mechanics.

[sylphaen]

I think most people can understand a simple concept that "the empire with the most territory is worth the most to capture". As a bonus this sort of mechanic will also help discourage double-teaming on weaker empires. It would encourage double-teaming on large dominant empires, which is what you want to keep them in check and move things back to a more balanced position. Once they are more balanced the bonuses are gone so things return to a more normal neutral state.

Well summarized !
:thumbsup:

For those who jump in this thread for the first time, I just want to emphasize that promoting a balanced situation is not equivalent to promoting stalemates.

a 33/33/33 territory split at time X and Y only means that all empires control an even percentage of territory at time X and Y but it does NOT mean that they control the same territory.

Balance remains somewhat constant on average while territory shapes fluctuate.

[Malorn]

Isn't the back-hacking to some extent already countered by the adjacency system? Maby not countered, but inhibited at least.
(what I mean by "to some extent" is that behind the lines is so binary it doesn't make any difference between just behind the lines and all the way back at the foothold)

Yes, the adjacency system makes back-hacking harder. I would argue that they should scale back that mechanic so as a empire gets larger and larger it becomes more difficult to defend all of that territory and they become more vulnerable to back-hacks (and front-line assaults).

[Ruwyn]

Nanite Systems charge 50% tax rate. The more one empire owns the higher tax they charge because its in their interests to keep the war going....or something.

Along these lines is what I was thinking. Make a tax system that can be written in as "maintenance costs" for the story line.

If each "hex" in a territory was worth 10 units of X resource you could do something like:

0-9 hex = 0 tax
10-19 = 1 unit tax (faction would get 9/10 units)
20-29 = 2 unit tax (8/10)
etc.

You could break this down by resource type even further so factions would then target key resources that aren't yet highly taxed. A tax cap would have to be put in place of course or you could let it hardcap out (where it no longer pays to take more territory since you will make less then if you didn't have it).

The best would probably increase the "tax" for each block of 10 and not as a whole. So it would basically act like diminishing returns. So in the example above if you have 23 hexes worth of a single type of resource:
No tax = 230units
increasing tax to all hex = 184
tax hitting just those in the block of 10 = 212

Adjust the rate as needed.

[Malorn]

Well summarized !
:thumbsup:

For those who jump in this thread for the first time, I just want to emphasize that promoting a balanced situation is not equivalent to promoting stalemates.

a 33/33/33 territory split at time X and Y only means that all empires control an even percentage of territory at time X and Y but it does NOT mean that they control the same territory.

Balance remains somewhat constant on average while territory shapes fluctuate.

To be clear I was advocating one-time capture bonuses based on territory size, not the residual income from owning territory.

I don't think resources should balance out at all or they lose their value. I do however believe resources are a fantastic reward for conquest and can be used as an encouragement to fight back and strike against a dominant empire by yielding more lucrative personal gains for doing so.

The idea is that if the vehicles are cheaper and you get rewards of personal gains that sort of gets the war machine rolling, so as you gain more territory back the bonuses taper off and then you rely more on the residual income and have to be more mindful of your resource spending.

Its almost like a pillaging model where you take territory, pillage it, get lots of one-time resources, and after its pillaged you have to rely on the land to replenish its loot.

[Ruwyn]

To be clear I was advocating one-time capture bonuses based on territory size, not the residual income from owning territory.

I don't think resources should balance out at all or they lose their value. I do however believe resources are a fantastic reward for conquest and can be used as an encouragement to fight back and strike against a dominant empire by yielding more lucrative personal gains for doing so.

The idea is that if the vehicles are cheaper and you get rewards of personal gains that sort of gets the war machine rolling, so as you gain more territory back the bonuses taper off and then you rely more on the residual income and have to be more mindful of your resource spending.

Its almost like a pillaging model where you take territory, pillage it, get lots of one-time resources, and after its pillaged you have to rely on the land to replenish its loot.

I like the 1 time bonus idea.

I don't like making things cheaper, unless it's in part based on population. One question before I go further is, " are resources gained while offline or only during online sessions? If Only during Online time then disregard anything further.

If you reduce price and resource accumulate offline then what happens is that when its the "weak" empires turn to take over for the day (experienced players know it cycles) they instantly get an advantage even if it's only going to be until they recap territory. Pops can change several hundred players per empire pretty rapidly simply because, "NC dominate EST, so i'm gonna play that!".....everyone logs off EST and now TR takes over, then VS. Then you get like 12 hours where nothing really happens before NC starts rolling again....repeat.

[Malorn]

Would you mind elaborating on why you dislike the idea of discounted vehicles for an empire that has little or no territory on the continent?

(obviously any discounted vehicles would need to be flagged and not be transferable off the continent to prevent abuse)

[sylphaen]

Edit: Emphasis mine to show that we agree:
To be clear I was advocating one-time capture bonuses based on territory size, not the residual income from owning territory.

I don't think resources should balance out at all or they lose their value. I do however believe resources are a fantastic reward for conquest and can be used as an encouragement to fight back and strike against a dominant empire by yielding more lucrative personal gains for doing so.

The idea is that if the vehicles are cheaper and you get rewards of personal gains that sort of gets the war machine rolling, so as you gain more territory back the bonuses taper off and then you rely more on the residual income and have to be more mindful of your resource spending.

Its almost like a pillaging model where you take territory, pillage it, get lots of one-time resources, and after its pillaged you have to rely on the land to replenish its loot.

No worries, I was basically saying that a system which promotes balance (or, said differently, incentivizes battle between 3 empires instead of double-teams) is essentially a good system.

Some solutions are more preventive (to promote/keep equilibrium between 3 empires) while others are more about restoring the balance once it broke.

There were a some good ideas and many could be used to prevent snowballs or keep the game enjoyable when things get out of balance. The good balance to strike is enough liberty in the game for unexpected situations to happen at anytime but never enough to let the game break once weird stuff starts happening.

[Malorn]

Has it been stated somewhere that all hexes offer the same and equal types of resources? If there are variations across a cont, this is going to cause some issues with all the hypothesizing here.

Territories are not equal and some are certainly worth more than others. Higby said yesterday that the resources are currently static, but indicated they might spawn/despawn and move around over time back in July.

[Malorn]

So regardless of worth you'll receive equal amounts of each type?

I don't understand your question.

[sylphaen]

Has it been stated somewhere that all hexes offer the same and equal types of resources? If there are variations across a cont, this is going to cause some issues with all the hypothesizing here.

Yes, lots of assumptions and theorycrafting around here.
:D

Assuming resources are spread evenly and territory is controlled 33/33/33, if you have the wrong resources on your empire's 33%, there is 1 chance in 2 that an enemy empire also has the wrong kind of resources and 100% chance that one of them has yours.
:lol:

[Boomzor]

Territories are not equal and some are certainly worth more than others. Higby said yesterday that the resources are currently static, but indicated they might spawn/despawn and move around over time back in July.

That, and I had a look at the enhanced Indar map (this might be completely moot due to alpha build but I'll toss it out there anyway) ->Ref link<- (http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b164/Coreldan/indarhex.png).

I counted a total of 20 red resource icons, 20 yellow resource Icons, no blue and no green.
Not all territories had any resource icons either.

Like I said, alpha build and no idea what the icons actually mean, but someone may draw some conclusions from it (or just speculate wildly for the fun of it)

[Ruwyn]

Would you mind elaborating on why you dislike the idea of discounted vehicles for an empire that has little or no territory on the continent?

(obviously any discounted vehicles would need to be flagged and not be transferable off the continent to prevent abuse)

Basically just that when an empire cycles around to their heavy population time they normally form up and start pushing back the battle lines on their own. Reducing their vehicle cost won't help them take back territory it will just allow them to spend more resources later in order to become the dominant force.

If someone has 1000 resources saved up and you reduce the cost of a 100 resource tank by half does it really help them as they get the ball rolling?

Reduced cost would help those that are playing during their faction's Low Pop times which is fine by me.

Reducing the cost also assumes that people are going to be strapped for resources which I don't think will be the case since the you will accumulate lots of resources when your faction is dominating. (assuming that you accrue resources while offline which probably isn't the case.)

So reduced cost WHILE population on the server < X (# or %).

[sylphaen]

Are hexes divided into equal amounts of individual resource worth. As [...]
700 Res C
300 Res D

Big question is:
will the game be more about resources or facilities ?
will it require short term strategy (random resource spawns, challenge is to keep covering short term resource needs while keeping the most facilities) or long term strategy (static maps, trying to maintain control over facilities and necessary resources while trying to expand territory) ?

[Malorn]

Basically just that when an empire cycles around to their heavy population time they normally form up and start pushing back the battle lines on their own. Reducing their vehicle cost won't help them take back territory it will just allow them to spend more resources later in order to become the dominant force.

If someone has 1000 resources saved up and you reduce the cost of a 100 resource tank by half does it really help them as they get the ball rolling?

Reduced cost would help those that are playing during their faction's Low Pop times which is fine by me.

Reducing the cost also assumes that people are going to be strapped for resources which I don't think will be the case since the you will accumulate lots of resources when your faction is dominating. (assuming that you accrue resources while offline which probably isn't the case.)

So reduced cost WHILE population on the server < X (# or %).

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying. The situation is the empire is at 0 or very few territories and has little to no resource income on the continent. They cannot wage effective war. So in these extreme circumstances, offer discounts to vehicles.

As they take territories the discount is reduced and then vanishes entirely. So it's just used to kick-start their war machine. Once they get going they're back to normal resource costs. And of course the vehicles produced from discount should not be transferable off-continent.

[NewSith]

If it wasn't suggested - resource income degradation, Global Agenda style*.
If it was suggested - I support it.

*A little twist in the following explanation (real GA mechanics are far more complex), but generally - 10 territories produce at (10%X)*10 capacity, 11 territories produce at (100%+9%)X capacity, 12 territories produce at (109%+8%)X capacity, etc.


This way having "M0AR L4ND!!!!!1111!!11!1oneoneone111!!11one!!!" doesn't mean you produce effectively. You can always go as far as to make degradation take negative values, affecting the overall production, but then again, when you have zerg on the field such delicate rules do not work.

[Malorn]

Big question is:
will the game be more about resources or facilities ?
will it require short term strategy (random resource spawns, challenge is to keep covering short term resource needs while keeping the most facilities) or long term strategy (static maps, trying to maintain control over facilities and necessary resources while trying to expand territory) ?

If we take Higby at his word then the game is more about resources than facilities. Facilities serve logistical benefits as well as owning large chunks of territory (and thus resources) themselves, but you aren't going to be hopping from facility to facility like planetside and we will actually be motivated to go out and get all territories due to the resources they contain. Some more important than others obviously.

I think it'll require short term and long term due to the adjacency system. You won't be able to easily cherry pick territories - you'll have to push toward a territory and take the stuff in between and nearby it to help secure it. So you'll have both short term "what do I need direly right now that is within reach?" and long-term "what territories should we be working towards that will help me secure stuff for the future and deprive the enemy?"

[Malorn]

If it wasn't suggested - resource income degradation, Global Agenda style*.
If it was suggested - I support it.

*A little twist in the following explanation (real GA mechanics are far more complex), but generally - 10 territories produce at (10%X)*10 capacity, 11 territories produce at (100%+9%)X capacity, 12 territories produce at (109%+8%)X capacity, etc.


This way having "M0AR L4ND!!!!!1111!!11!1oneoneone111!!11one!!!" doesn't mean you produce effectively. You can always go as far as to make degradation take negative values, affecting the overall production, but then again, when you have zerg on the field such delicate rules will not work.

GA had different goals from Planetside and different mechanics so I'm not sure how well it will transfer.

In general I dislike anything that discourages conquest or makes land less valuable. The GA system implies there's an optimal configuration and a point at which you don't want to capture any more land.

Any sort of diminishing returns on resources earned does not seem like a good option to me for that reason.

Here are things I don't want to think in PS2:
"well, we could take that territory over there, but the net result would be nothing."

"Hey if we let the VS take that territory over there we'll increase efficiency, so tell the troops to back off and let 'em have it."

"There's nothing more to do on this continent - if we take more territory it won't be worth anything, so lets go to a continent where we can get resources"

Those are all bad and things that are a result of punishing conquest with diminishing returns on the rewards.

Rewards should not be diminishing, but difficulty should definitely increase. It should be HARD to hold all of a continent, but it is hard because the mechanics work against you, not because it isn't worth doing.

[Ruwyn]

Malorn,

You are assuming that you have different resources per continent? In which case you are using reduced vehicle costs as a way to bribe people to go start solsar as opposed to staying on Cyssor?

I mean I can get on board to reduced cost as long as it's tied into faction/empire population. As in PS1, low pop faction/empire got an experience bonus. So if your faction is sanc locked and has 28% of the server population, reduce the cost a bit. If you are sanc locked and have 34% of the population, tough luck. Player better. We all know that if you own 34% pop then you are going to begin taking territory, provided you don't have absolute crap for leaders.

Edit: There should be, and probably is, a default amount of resources given to you per X amt of time. So you should still be getting the Minimum to function even if you hold no territory. Besides severely unlikely you don't start getting hacked all over the place.

[Malorn]

Malorn,

You are assuming that you have different resources per continent? In which case you are using reduced vehicle costs as a way to bribe people to go start solsar as opposed to staying on Cyssor?

I mean I can get on board to reduced cost as long as it's tied into faction/empire population. As in PS1, low pop faction/empire got an experience bonus. So if your faction is sanc locked and has 28% of the server population, reduce the cost a bit. If you are sanc locked and have 34% of the population, tough luck. Player better.

According to Higby's reddit yesterday, there are different abundancies on each continent. It's one of the questions I asked.

The primary purpose of discounts is not to pull people from another continent - it's to enable people ON the continent to fight.

And yeah free or cheap vehicles on a continent where you have literally no land is a good motivator for people to go there or stay there, combined with increased rewards for actually capturing territory. So they risk little, but they have a lot to gain. That's motivation to help fight back and keep the battle raging rather than abandon the continent entirely.

But I think we need to think in PS2 terms now, not PS1 terms where we had to manage different continent populations. That'll happen again in PS2 but that's really an orthogonal discussion. I'm not going to get into cross-continent population shifting, that's really not the point nor something that is easy to predict at this time.

[SniperSteve]

That's the beauty of three empires. One empire is dominating, everyone starts hating them, next thing you know they are crushed because they are fighting a 2-fronted war with a 1:2 friend:foe ratio.

I don't think it will be an issue, but we shall see how it works out in BETA.

[Malorn]

Oh another idea popped into my head...

Scale resources earned based on the enemy population on the continent. So as the enemy population drops, so too does the resources that you receive.


This is more or less to encourage people to attack places that are defended and not sit on an empty continent AFK racking up resources. Or to ghost-hack a continent late-night when the battle is mostly raging on only one continent.

[Ruwyn]

You keep saying things, Malorn, that are leading me to believe that you ONLY gain the resources that your faction would be getting from the continent you are currently ON. As opposed to total from the whole World (3 continents)

[Boomzor]

It's a fairly good idea, tho it doesn't quite address the double teaming. It would make more sense to attack NC cause we'd gain more from one conquest, but we could easily steal two territories from VS cause they're already on their knees.

[sylphaen]

Any sort of diminishing returns on resources earned does not seem like a good option to me [...]
Rewards should not be diminishing, but difficulty should definitely increase. It should be HARD to hold all of a continent, but it is hard because the mechanics work against you, not because it isn't worth doing.

While I agree that rewards should not be diminishing, I am all for them when it comes to a situation where an empire is being double teamed.

My logic on why this would be fair:
- it's not that difficult to take territory from one empire 2 empires fighting each other or when one empire is not attacking you.
- a situation terribly detrimental to one empire should not be rewarded/promoted.
- for 2 empires double teaming another empire, one empire is getting thoroughly f***ed up. Isn't that enough of a reward already ?

[EVILPIG]

The core of this balance falls on the three Empire model. The more vast their territory becomes the hard it will be to defend. The other empires will want their real estate and will go for it. Not much is needed beyond that.

One thing that I do think that will need to be changed is truncated territory receiving full benefits. If you can cut off an area of their land, they should lose their resources to and from that area.

[NewSith]

GA had different goals from Planetside and different mechanics so I'm not sure how well it will transfer.

In general I dislike anything that discourages conquest or makes land less valuable. The GA system implies there's an optimal configuration and a point at which you don't want to capture any more land.

Any sort of diminishing returns on resources earned does not seem like a good option to me for that reason.

Here are things I don't want to think in PS2:
"well, we could take that territory over there, but the net result would be nothing."

"Hey if we let the VS take that territory over there we'll increase efficiency, so tell the troops to back off and let 'em have it."

"There's nothing more to do on this continent - if we take more territory it won't be worth anything, so lets go to a continent where we can get resources"

Those are all bad and things that are a result of punishing conquest with diminishing returns on the rewards.

Rewards should not be diminishing, but difficulty should definitely increase. It should be HARD to hold all of a continent, but it is hard because the mechanics work against you, not because it isn't worth doing.

I disagree:

Playing fields of outfits and the zerg were always different. The zerg motivation is tacticalless fighting on a large scale and M0AR L4ND, basically rape and pillage, while outfits do smaller and more tactical ops. This is a situation where population balances the game. So let outfits play GA to control hexes and control the zerg. Suych control is next to impossible, though, so rich won't get richer.
On a note more related to the quote, - I offered two solutions - negative degradation, which you imply, I also reject myself. Neutral degradation, where you never get a hex that produces 0 resources is better.



More points, non-related, alternatives offered:

Periodical resource feeds from the empire - if you're zero-based. Basically the oppressed get a chance to successfully attack after every X minutes.
Foothold-connected hexes have defences and landscape setup facing the opposite of the warpgate. This way if one is taken through great effort, it already givesa a certain advantage.
Flying Fortresses idea
No adjacent hex rule, though I'm very against it, but it seems to me that that's the solution devs use currently.
Something like you offered alongside with absent vehicle timers, etc.

[EVILPIG]

You keep saying things, Malorn, that are leading me to believe that you ONLY gain the resources that your faction would be getting from the continent you are currently ON. As opposed to total from the whole World (3 continents)

If you are receiving benefits to an empire as a whole, I would hope it is only received on the continent that you are on. Resources however, are collected and stored by the outfit, so you can pick up resources on one continent and move to another.

[EVILPIG]

Well now you are talking about a "lattice" type structure again and that certainly helps against double teams if you play it right.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with double teaming, that is the purpose of the 3 empire model. It will happen to all empires and with the resources or benefits, it will be an incentive for the weakest to double team the strongest.

Similar to lattice, yes, I believe that if we are talking about benefits gained from a facility, you should have to be to draw a line through owned territories to share it with other facilities. It is currently not like this.

[sylphaen]

You know what guys ? Sanctuary warpgates should just allow to pull out any kind of gear and vehicle.

That way, if you are double-teamed and zero-based, you do not need resources to come back in the fight.
And during regular game situations, spawning at the sanctuary warpgate would take too long to make it worthwile (along with the risk of interception).

[sylphaen]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with double teaming, that is the purpose of the 3 empire model. It will happen to all empires and with the resources or benefits, it will be an incentive for the weakest to double team the strongest.

There could be something very wrong with double teaming:
Imagine TR 48% / NC 48% / VS 4% and linear resource income only from territory controlled.

Congratulations, Planetside effectively became a 2 factions game where the game for the 3rd is to get back into it until the other 2 decide to stop doing a 66% vs. 33%.

Have this happen often and it could get annoying very fast.

Edit: just to be clear. I agree there is nothing wrong about double teaming except for that specific case which was the theme of this thread ("the rich getting richer").

[Grognard]

One of the Reddit questions I had asked was:

How do you plan on addressing the "rich get richer" problem where as an empire gains more territory and resources, they gain more power over the other empires?

Higby's response
...

Perhaps we, the illustrious PSU community, can assist with some ideas to help address this hard problem.

Part of the reason this is a tough problem is because solving it could render motivation to take territory useless. For example, if we had a welfare system it might not motivate people to take territory, or if we penalized large territory ownership it might motivate an empire to not take too much territory in order to optimize resource gain.

So how can we both reward players for conquest while simultaneously handicapping them so it is still possible for the conquered empires to strike back and regain territory?

What do you think could be done to help solve this problem?

No welfare, no math, no reduction in desire to take territory...

My idea is just the history of war... What do underdogs do when they are out of stuff? Steal... destroy... sacrifice... I think the mission system would be perfect for this... I'll illustrate some basic missions that would be used as a proactive way to "adjust the economy" without sacrificing the will to conquer territory...

1. Partisans...
Back hacking in the enemies rear areas allows for a resource gain for each minute the hack is in progress, regardless of success or failure. So, the needy empire always gets something for the effort. It puts a similar drain on the owning empire for each minute also, which simulates supply line interuption abstractly. Resource gain should probably tie into the hack timers to simulate the value of "fresh / untouched" areas which should be considered more productive for having seen less war ravages for longer, as an abstraction... If the hack succeeds, then this territory would produce very little if it is recaptured, due to an implied scorched earth policy of the back hackers efforts. IE... typical partisans...

2. Sabotage...
Missions in the rear of empires that attempt to destroy infrastructure. These could be hacks that are quicker, but do not allow control, just a destruction of resources. Sometimes you just want to jack them up, you may not need the territory... so the timer for the missions hack is far less to complete.

3. Raid...
These missions are similar to sabatoge missions, but if an empire needs resources more than they need to deny resources, then this is a marauder mission on "depots", abstracted... Think in terms of attacking baggage trains, depots, convoys, etc. Similar to sabotage, but there may be an element of extraction involved, much like PS1s LLUs.

4. Scorched earth...
If you presently own a territory that is in danger of being taken, there could be a mission(s) of scorched earth, where you destroy a territorys usefulness for a period of time, and this means if you keep ahold of it, you screwed yourself too... It could be as simple as multiple hacks on your own structures, each one reducing, or lengthening the resource degredation of a given territory. This one is cool, because you never know who gets hurt, or helped by this, so feints and diversions could cause the enemy to damage themselves.

All this could be done with no damage to the resource system for territory aquisition, and fleshes out the mission system even more, since it would interact with the meta economics, for more strategy. If tuned well, this could even things out meta-wise, and really FORCE empires to maintain villigance on the rest of the map or really SUFFER from complacency.


Edit: Spelling stuff

[Malorn]

I disagree:

Playing fields of outfits and the zerg were always different. The zerg motivation is tacticalless fighting on a large scale and M0AR L4ND, basically rape and pillage, while outfits do smaller and more tactical ops. This is a situation where population balances the game. So let outfits play GA to control hexes and control the zerg. Suych control is next to impossible, though, so rich won't get richer.
On a note more related to the quote, - I offered two solutions - negative degradation, which you imply, I also reject myself. Neutral degradation, where you never get a hex that produces 0 resources is better.


Something like you offered alongside with absent vehicle timers, etc.


Let me put this another way. How does diminishing returns on resources address the following issues
1) Enabling the have-not empires to wage effective war
2) Motivating the have-nots to fight
3) Maintain the intensity of the battle
4) Making it difficult to hold lots of territory

I don't see how making the resources less valuable addresses any of these issues.

It does not help the Have-nots wage war - they are still resource deprived.
It does not motivate the have-nots to fight
It does not maintain the intensity of the battle - if anything it hurts it by causing the dominant empire to give up and go somewhere else
It does not make it more difficult to hold lots of territory - all it does is make holding lots of territory less enticing.

It doesn't really solve the problem, it just reduces the motivation of empires to take lots of territory. It won't prevent it from occurring, nor does it help recover the situation in a fun way.

I like the vehicle timer reduction idea - that should go along with discounts. The idea behind discounts and vehicle timer reduction is to remove risk from the underdogs so they go out there and try to take territory. Since they have almost no costs and the dominant empire has plenty of resources to pay for vehicles they can stay competitive and have a raging battle at little to no risk of the underdog. The alternative is them taking their ball and going home.

[NewSith]

...

It doesn't really solve the problem, it just reduces the motivation of empires to take lots of territory. It won't prevent it from occurring, nor does it help recover the situation in a fun way.

Well, I can't really argue with that.

[sylphaen]

Let me put this another way. How does diminishing returns on resources address the following issues
1) Enabling the have-not empires to wage effective war
2) Motivating the have-nots to fight
3) Maintain the intensity of the battle
4) Making it difficult to hold lots of territory
[...]
It doesn't really solve the problem, it just reduces the motivation of empires to take lots of territory. It won't prevent it from occurring, nor does it help recover the situation in a fun way.

It addresses the following issue:
5) Do not reward 2 empires for raping the 3rd

It does not reduce the motivation of an empire to take lots of territory. It reduces its motivation to keep taking from the weakest.

Edit: recovery will come by offering incentives to attack the stronger empire of the other 2.
FYI, I proposed dimishing returns for situations of double-teams to not incentivize double teaming. Why ? Because double-teaming would always become an optimal strategy: one empire is out and you gain more resources from this situation. Why try anything else ?

[Duddy]

I like the vehicle timer reduction idea - that should go along with discounts. The idea behind discounts and vehicle timer reduction is to remove risk from the underdogs so they go out there and try to take territory. Since they have almost no costs and the dominant empire has plenty of resources to pay for vehicles they can stay competitive and have a raging battle at little to no risk of the underdog. The alternative is them taking their ball and going home.

Whilst I do like the idea of vehicle timer reduction, and how it pairs with discounts, I'd prefer to not see this tied to territory/resources held.

I think that is the kind of modifier that serves helping a low population better than it does one without much in the way of resources/territory, as I feel it helps replicate the effect of having more players.

While there is probably a correlation between low pop and not having territory, they are of course not one in the same. So whilst they most likely will come into effect at the same time, I believe they should remain separate.

[Malorn]

You keep saying things, Malorn, that are leading me to believe that you ONLY gain the resources that your faction would be getting from the continent you are currently ON. As opposed to total from the whole World (3 continents)

That is correct, it is continent-based, per Higby from July

From the PS2 Public Panel Video from July:
Resources are continental-based right now.


I made an entire transcript of everything related to the Territory Control system in this thread:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=36613

For reference here's two key things from that transcript.

On resource distribution:
Resources are continental-based right now. I gain resources from the continent I am on.If I don't have a foothold on the continent the TR are fighting on as much - maybe the TR and Vanu are really in a stalemate on one continent and my empire doesn't really have a foothold there - I can go to a continent where we do, fight there, gather resources, my team can sort of save our resources and then we can transition to that continent and be ready to really mount an offense over there. Also the way we distribute resources will solve that problem (referring to small population vs large population). If you have less people there resources are going to be getting distributed in higher percentages to the fewer people that are there. Once we start seeing the real play patterns, the way that the game starts balancing out then we'll be making more decisions about how we keep things balanced.

There is a combination of static & dynamic spawns for resources, so that is a very simple and elegant way to solve that problem (referring to the problem of a low pop getting attacked by a high pop and not having a lot of territory for resources).


On the adjacency system:
The capturing system - and this is going really deep into some of the gameplay stuff - but the way it works is based on your adjacent territory that your empire owns you get bonuses to being able to capture the territory that is connected to that. We have a system of adjacency, so the front line is constantly shifting and constantly evolving based on territory that's being captured. And you will be able to capture any piece of territory on the map but you get significant bonuses to capturing ones that are adjacent to the territory that you already control. So back-hacking is still something someone could go do. If I want to I can go to the middle of your territory and capture this piece of territory. It might take me 30 minutes to capture this one region and then when your empire goes back there and re-captures it might only take them 30 seconds. So it might not be necessarily the smartest thing for you to go do, but if you want to gain a foothold over there and you're really interested in defending that territory then it might be worth doing. For the most part the front line is going to be the place where people fight - people will be fighting on multiple fronts since we have multiple factions - but that front line is really going to determine what the most vulnerable territory to capture is.

[Malorn]

It does not reduce the motivation of an empire to take lots of territory. It reduces its motivation to keep taking from the weakest.

It reduces the motivation to keep taking. It doesn't matter who the weakest is, diminishing returns does not distinguish from territory taken from the weak or territory taken from the strong.

The 3-empire system is what prevents one empire from getting too strong.

As Evilpig said, double-teaming is the purpose of the 3-empire system to keep one empire from getting too strong, even when they have 50-60% of the global population, the other two can still team up and be competitive. The key is to make this sort of behavor natural, and not the sort of behavior where one of the weak empires piles on the other weak empire. We can influence that with incentives and missions.

The bigger issue is motivating people to fight on a lost-cause continent, and giving them the vehicles and tools they need to be successful and carve out a foothold.

[Malorn]

Whilst I do like the idea of vehicle timer reduction, and how it pairs with discounts, I'd prefer to not see this tied to territory/resources held.

I think that is the kind of modifier that serves helping a low population better than it does one without much in the way of resources/territory, as I feel it helps replicate the effect of having more players.

While there is probably a correlation between low pop and not having territory, they are of course not one in the same. So whilst they most likely will come into effect at the same time, I believe they should remain separate.

I don't think the population really matters. Territory will reflect population. If it doesn't; it will converge towards it. They aren't exact, becuase an even population matching could result in one empire pushing back another, but if there is a significant mismatch in population you're going to see territory change hands to reflect that. If there isn't a significant mismatch then it isn't a problem.

Even if the underdog had a huge population but no territory and everyone got free vehicles, they'd pull what, one free vehicle each before they captured enough territory to remove the bonus? That one vehicle isn't going to make much of a difference and if anything it gave them a tiny little reward for coming to a continent they had no foothold on and capturing some territory, so I don't see any problem with it.

The only exploit to watch out for is people using a continent with no territory to get free/cheap vehicles and then taking them through the warpgate to another continent. Thats bad, but could be easily stopped by setting a flag on the vehicle making it so that vehicle either can't go through a warpgate or it is destroyed if it does.

[NewSith]

The only exploit to watch out for is people using a continent with no territory to get free/cheap vehicles and then taking them through the warpgate to another continent. Thats bad, but could be easily stopped by setting a flag on the vehicle making it so that vehicle either can't go through a warpgate or it is destroyed if it does.

Travel times are a good limiting factor... Remember going to sanc to pull an MBT for a cont where you had no techplant?

[Duddy]

I don't think the population really matters. Territory will reflect population. If it doesn't; it will converge towards it. They aren't exact, becuase an even population matching could result in one empire pushing back another, but if there is a significant mismatch in population you're going to see territory change hands to reflect that. If there isn't a significant mismatch then it isn't a problem.

Sorry Malorn, I think we misunderstood each other;

I was referring specifically to vehicle timer reduction not being linked to territory/resources and preferably instead tied to population.

The cost could be tied to whichever.

But to address that first point, what if the major holder of territory on a continent is the lowest pop and they are being attacked by a vastly larger force?

I think they need the reduced timers there, not the attacking force. Hence why I feel we should be clear what is tied to what and why and subsequently how it interacts with it.

[Thoreaux]

The only way to fix it is to ensure large blocks of territory are fundamentally unstable, no other way around it. You could do this by making empires more and more susceptible to back-hacking as they took more territory:

Owning 1/3 of the map for example, would mean your rear bases would be tougher to cap than your front-line bases.

Owning 1/2 of the map would mean your rear bases would take as long to cap as your front-line bases.

Owning 2/3 or more of the map would mean your rear bases would take less time to cap than your front-line bases, approaching 1 minute or even less. Your empire would become untenable, long term. Back-hacks would eventually splinter all of your territory. If you devoted enough people to quickly re-secure 1 minute hack timers, you would lose ground on the front lines.

That is assuming population is balanced, which would need incentives.

[sylphaen]

It reduces the motivation to keep taking. It doesn't matter who the weakest is, diminishing returns does not distinguish from territory taken from the weak or territory taken from the strong.

The 3-empire system is what prevents one empire from getting too strong.

As Evilpig said, double-teaming is the purpose of the 3-empire system to keep one empire from getting too strong, even when they have 50-60% of the global population, the other two can still team up and be competitive. The key is to make this sort of behavor natural, and not the sort of behavior where one of the weak empires piles on the other weak empire. We can influence that with incentives and missions.

The bigger issue is motivating people to fight on a lost-cause continent, and giving them the vehicles and tools they need to be successful and carve out a foothold.

We are talking about the same thing. Reread the dimishing returns proposition I made, it is to decrease incentives from any empire to pile on the weakest:
TR 40% / NC 30% / VS 30%: no diminishing returns for the TR
TR 40% / NC 40% / VS 20%: diminishing returns for both TR and NC for territories above 33%

We all agree that the 3 empire system is what creates the complexity and the auto-balance of PS.

The problem is a resource system which can potentially throw things off-balance with the "richer getting richest" effect. In PS1, territory controlled was not linked to the quality/quantity of equipment available.
e.g. if medkits cost resources in PS2, they did not in PS1.

You are disregarding the heavy advantage that a double team strategy (to pile on the weakest empire) represents when resources are involved.

In an even situation with 3 empires present, colluding with one empire and wiping the other out together is a win-win:
- you play with a 66% vs. 33% advantage which means your 33% troops face 0% to 33% enemies depending how the double-teamed empire reacts.
- without diminishing resources from land taken to the double-teamed empire, you get the same amount of resources for attacking a weaker force than you would in an even-fight situation.
- the 3rd empire having been wiped out vs. the bigger 2, it will be hard for it to get back up (do not tell me they will not get farmed) and get its resource spots back until the 2 empires stop double-teaming it.

I am not trying to say your propositions are bad. As I said, many good ideas (including yours) that work different ways have been proposed. Mine is just trying to emphasize on prevention and is an idea between others.

To be honest, I think a good system would be a combination of ideas that were proposed (including your vehicle rebates which I share; instead of rebates I would actually propose everything free from the sanctuary warpgate terminals).

Edit:
Travel times are a good limiting factor... Remember going to sanc to pull an MBT for a cont where you had no techplant?
Essentially, yes.

[Malorn]

But to address that first point, what if the major holder of territory on a continent is the lowest pop and they are being attacked by a vastly larger force?

Are you referring to the high pop attacker getting tons of resources or the fact that the defenders dont' have the power to defend?

If its the former, several posts back I had an idea where resource reward was tied population ratio, so capturing a territory with few or no defenders yields few resources. On the other hand the low pop dominating side would receive a strong bonus of resource, motivating them to defend it and get more people on the continent to help out.

But even if they don't successfully get people to defend, the high pop group will gobble up territory and then the tide turns. Hopefully they would not have gotten too many resources out of it due to a low-pop defender.

[Malorn]

instead of rebates I would actually propose everything free from the sanctuary warpgate terminals).

If the empire has no territory at all I agree. If they have a few pieces of territory then a discount. If they have several pieces of territory then nothing is free.

It can't be free all the time. Everyone can spawn at the foothold base, and particularly aircraft pilots will have little incentive to spawn anywhere else if they can get their stuff for free and spend an extra 10-15 seconds flying than if they had used a closer base.

Nothing should be free unless it is warranted, like having absolutely no territory/resource income. If they have some resource income but not a lot, then discounts are in order. If they have enough to sustain a reasonable fighting capacity then no discounts.

But stuff like implants and cert bypasses and grenades/medkits and anythign else that is intended to be a resource sink should definitely not ever be free. If they want those things - take territory!

[Whalenator]

I don't see what was wrong with Planetside 1's experience bonus/detriment system for server populations. It could be applied to current territory too.

ALSO IDEAS GO IN THE IDEA SECTION GHGNNRGHRNG

[NewSith]

ALSO IDEAS GO IN THE IDEA SECTION GHGNNRGHRNG

Those are debates. It's a little bit different.

Ideas are ideas and are demonstrated for the sake of being applied.
Debates exist solely for the sake of debates.

[KrazeyVIII]

I will put this under the 'wait until beta' section. I have a feeling that since there is a 3 way tug-of-war going on that the game will balance itself. When one empire starts spreading itself too thin the other two empire will be able to focus their forces in a few select areas where the more dominant empire cannot.

If for some reason it does NOT balance itself out then a simple quick fix would be to temporarily give the empires with very little zone control a minor increase in the resources provided in that area. Another option is to have unlimited resources in the staging area of each continent for offenses to be mounted if your empire is below a certain % of control over the continent.

[Hamma]

This is a great thread guys nice discussion.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

That was a lot to wade through.

The Warcraft 3 system was pretty good. Tax you the more resources you had. I like that idea but it can be more gradual in PS2.

How about: For every 1% of territory over 50% you own, you get taxed 1%. That way you will still want to grab "that next bit" because it still gets you resources, but in the end you're getting taxed at 50% for a sanc locked continent.

Just to spell it out for the non-thinkers: You're still getting more resources if you capture more land. You own all the resource piles on the continent. There is still incentive to keep that land.

I think the more important question is: If you see a whole mess of one colour, how do you support the underdog? As an Australian it's a cultural thing for me to ally myself with whoever's coming last but this isn't a universal cultural constant. Other countries/cultures around the world have a bias to "join the winning team" and grind the losers into the dust.

I said elsewhere on the boards that when you log in to PS1 and see that the VS have 8% server pop, they only get a 50% bonus to XP. Even though they are outnumbered almost 12:1 instead of the more normal 2:1. Therefore, at 8% server pop they should get +600% xp. This will encourage people to log on their VS alt to get more XP (4th Empire HOORAY!) and pops become more balanced.

So you can still pull the basic variants of whatever (because they don't cost resources, correct?) but you're getting huge XP/kill, which looks nice and make you feel awesome.

And the sanctuaries should have HHHUUUUGGGGEEEEE resource nodes in them. So everybody gets X units of resources regardless of how it's going "outside".

And, if you're still with me, how many times have you ever seen the PS1 world 1 colour without that colour having more than 60% pop?

33% pop and 0% land is only a theoretical construct and will not happen IRL so let's not worry about that. (Famous last words...)

[Malorn]

This is a great thread guys nice discussion.

Not to jinx it but we're on page 8 with no flaming, hostilities or useless drivel. The entire 8 pages is actually intelligent discussion. I'm stunned.

[Malorn]

How about: For every 1% of territory over 50% you own, you get taxed 1%. That way you will still want to grab "that next bit" because it still gets you resources, but in the end you're getting taxed at 50% for a sanc locked continent.


How does reducing the resource income of the empire with all the resources fix the problem?

Does it motivate the underdogs to fight?

Does he help the underdogs compete?

Does it make holding the territory any more difficult?


The whole diminishing returns thing has come up a few times but I don't see how it helps the problem. Even with diminishing returns on rewards it doesn't change the fact that the empires with little or no territory still have nothing, and the empire that conquered them still has more than enough told them down.

[Grognard]

How does reducing the resource income of the empire with all the resources fix the problem?

Does it motivate the underdogs to fight?

Does he help the underdogs compete?

Does it make holding the territory any more difficult?


The whole diminishing returns thing has come up a few times but I don't see how it helps the problem. Even with diminishing returns on rewards it doesn't change the fact that the empires with little or no territory still have nothing, and the empire that conquered them still has more than enough told them down.

I did offer an alternative to all of that. Must have a flaw somewhere that I didnt notice, but its definately an alternative, using present game mechanics only...

[StumpyTheOzzie]

nothing...

[Boomzor]

How does reducing the resource income of the empire with all the resources fix the problem?


It doesn't fix the problem, but in my mind it goes a long way to postpone the issue. It takes a lot more for the underdog to get to the "helpless" state.

I also do agree with what your saying, there needs to be some additional mechanic to help them bounce back once things have gone down the shitter.

The rebate and reduced timers are excellent compliments.

[BuzzCutPsycho]

Not to jinx it but we're on page 8 with no flaming, hostilities or useless drivel. The entire 8 pages is actually intelligent discussion. I'm stunned.

Well, I'm about to post so that might change.

Here is my take on the situation - Is this really even an issue? Typically the "rich getting richer" is a problem for games with complex and important tech trees like RTS games. Let's take Dawn of War 2 as an example - In DoW2 if your enemy controls more power points than you do he is probably going to get to Tier 2 first and produce a vehicle. That vehicle will require a counter from T2 and will allow him to control the field until you scramble up just enough to deal with it, By the time you've dealt with it he now has enough power for a counter to your counter (rich getting richer) and it's essentially game over.

In PlanetSide 2 from what I can tell the resources will impact certain vehicles and a few other minor things such as grenades. Without having an in-depth amount of knowledge of how the system is going to work I can only assume it really wont end up being that big of a deal. One of the most common things mentioned in the thread is the third faction preventing one from getting too powerful and I think we can all agree on that. The one point I will bring up is that if the resources determine whether or not you can pull a Vanguard or a Reaver I won't be too worried because players can simply switch to anti-vehicle rolls to help deal with the situation or, if possible pull lighter vehicles (Lightning?) configured in either AA/AT rolls and at least put up a fighting chance. I am going to land on the side of "wait until beta" for this one despite it being a good, healthy discussion.

TLDR: I've never encountered anything that a platoon of strikers can't deal with.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

The post I deleted from above could be politely be summarised as:

It won't happen, and who cares if it does?

1. Biggest difference between super 10 year veteran and total virgin newbie is 20%. Dev stated goal.

2. This game will cater to the instant gratification "I demand this" generation so there's going to be more resources than you can spend. 13-18 year olds will form the bulk of the player base and as a general rule they are whinging spoilt losers who will scream and stamp their feet and SPEND THEIR PARENT'S MONEY so the devs will listen to them and free up some resources for nothing.

3. The sancs will form a staging post. The supply lines are therefore short. Therefore frontline losses will be replaced quickly. Therefore the enemy will (slowly) be repelled and the underdog faction will secure some resources.

It's much more important to maintain population balance between the 3 empires than caring about land holding. If pop is evenly spread eventually it should flow into captured territory unless one team has an unfair advantage (ES weapons probably) which will get nerfed after a few weeks of the world being one colour.

Each faction will have outfits that are uber military strategic.
Each faction will have uber twitch 1337 shooter grunts.
Each faction is essentially balanced in terms of the players. The only difference will be populations.

Like i said somewhere before, giving the VS a +50% xp boost when they are outnumbered 12:1 is not enough. You should be outnumbered 2:1. Anytime you are outnumbered more than 2:1 you should get a corresponding increase in XP.

So when you're at 8% population, you should get +600% xp. I'll be quite happy in my 80% effective vanilla tank attacking at horrific odds if the rewards are so big.

[Boomzor]

I dunno, but I read this as resources won't be in abundance.

4) Can players stockpile a lot of resources or will we always be on the hunt?

there will be a cap to resource pools, ideally you won't ever feel like you have more than enough resources.

I also believe we have no idea of just how much resources impact what you can get. If the opposition can all pull mossies and prowlers, but all my team can pull is lightnings, we'll get chewed up as soon as we stick our noses out of the base.
Or worse, we're forced to foot zerg.

And I'm saying this with PS1 tinted goggles. I also don't know how well a lightning will stand against a prowler, but I assume it'll be at a disadvantage.

Further, I'm not sure an XP boost is the way to go at all. Yes, it'll help you rank up faster and give the ability to play with new toys. But rank does not equal power. Rank will not give you the toys. Resources will. Once you're max BR and unlocked everything, xp won't mean squat to you.

[Coreldan]

Hmmmh. I suppose you get resources at least much less or none if you are not online. Wouldn't somebody who makes an idle macro in the sanc (or just cloaking in the middle of nowhere) be able to stockpile resources while at work/School/sleeping?

[Duddy]

Are you referring to the high pop attacker getting tons of resources or the fact that the defenders dont' have the power to defend?

If its the former, several posts back I had an idea where resource reward was tied population ratio, so capturing a territory with few or no defenders yields few resources. On the other hand the low pop dominating side would receive a strong bonus of resource, motivating them to defend it and get more people on the continent to help out.

But even if they don't successfully get people to defend, the high pop group will gobble up territory and then the tide turns. Hopefully they would not have gotten too many resources out of it due to a low-pop defender.

I was referring to the latter, but that is a decent idea nonetheless, much like how BEP increased the more fighting that took place during a base cap in PS1.

It was also in some part a rhetoric to illustrate that you could own a lot of territory but have low pop, in which case you'd need the timer benefit and not a resource one.

As before, I think thinks to aid population deficits need to remain de-coupled from aids to combat owning no territory as they, whilst probably commonly occurring together, are however two different states and a such potentially exclusive of each other.

@Buzz

I don't think the discussion was purely about not being able to come back from such a situation. As you point out it is probable that one could.

The issue is players are people, and people are more inclined to take the path of least resistance.

I think the point of discussion was to give an incentive to fighting the odds and encourage territory to exchange hands rather than be held for large periods by a single empire.

You are however correct in pointing out that, as with most things, there is an aspect of "wait till beta" to this.

[Stardouser]

Undoubtedly I will probably be rehashing something already thought of, but I got in on this late and it's a pain to read all 9 pages.

But anyway, I mentioned in my landmass size thread about how one way to prevent packing of players for lag purposes was to limit the amount of people who can spawn at any one base. i.e., 50 people(or, insert appropriate number) can spawn at a base, and if you want 100 to attack, you need to get 50 from the next closer base to join, if you want 150 you need 50 more from the next farther base, and so on, at some point people aren't going to want to have to respawn from a long way away(squad spawning will factor into this somehow but I guess we have to ignore this for now).

So...firstly, if something like this were done, then, it would by its nature provide a small prevention for driving an enemy into a very small remaining territory area because the player per base spawn limit functions like a sort of...supply line limit.

And, something else...obviously you're going to say- well what if one empire only has 5 bases left? Then they can only spawn 250 players TOTAL...Well, the answer is the second part of my plan! The game will detect when this happens and it will release the player per base spawn limit temporarily(or perhaps just increase it to 75/100, etc, instead of fully releasing it)- this will allow the losing empire to temporarily overwhelm the encroaching enemy and take back some territory.

Driving an empire back to the point where the game does this could be considered an informal "victory" as well.

/flamesuit on

[Boomzor]

That's another thing to keep in mind. It's a persistent world. It won't reset 30 minutes after things go bad (well, save for a server crash, GM meddling and other such horrors). Things will stay bad until you and your empire do something about it.

If you don't get the tools to atleast have a fighting chance, most will either hop to the winning side or just stop playing. The latter is very detrimental to the game as a whole.

@ Stardouser; the spawn/base cap is quite odd. I'd really hate if my tank crew or outfit squad got split up due to different spawn locations beacuse a random number generator gave me an odd number instead of an even. Or am I missing your point?

[Stardouser]

@ Stardouser; the spawn/base cap is quite odd. I'd really hate if my tank crew or outfit squad got split up due to different spawn locations beacuse a random number generator gave me an odd number instead of an even. Or am I missing your point?

Well, under my idea, once you spawn from a base, you are "logged into" that base and the right to respawn there is yours unless you either sit idle too long, or fail to respawn there after death for too long. And, there might be a bit of an "overflow" to the cap so that entire 10 man squads can use the same base. ie, if the limit is 50 and there are 49 logged in, if your SL logs in, then your whole squad can log in, making it technically up to 59(simply a relaxation to prevent the kind of thing you are worried about), so 50 would be a soft cap, 59 a hard cap.

And I'm glad you mention tank crew. Vehicles can't squad spawn, so, while an attacking force might be able to continue respawning via squad spawn as infantry, when the tanks and other vehicles die in the assault, they have to respawn at their bases of origin and come all the way back. This would help give the advantage to the packed-in defending empire, as they can respawn their vehicles nearby.

[Baneblade]

Here is another thought: stop with the wasteful battle mentality.

In PS1, nobody cared about losing a vehicle or dying in general unless they wanted to screen cap kpd or some such nonsense.

In PS2, those vehicles and equipment will have a cost, and losing them will hurt the empire. So enough with the trashcan items mentality. Players will have to shift the paradigm in PS2 from 'who cares if my tank asplodes' to 'maybe I shouldn't bum rush that <insert overwhelming enemy> after all'

[Boomzor]

Here is another thought: stop with the wasteful battle mentality.


That sort of illustrates the rich get richer problem, or actually the reverse: the poor gets poorer.
A few idiots squandering the resources in the rich empire wont make much difference because they will make up that loss quite quickly. They are rich.
On the other hand, a few idiots squandering the already strained resources in the poor empire could quite possibly be catastrophic.

And let's face it, self gratifying idiots are in abundance.

When all empires are within reach of each other power wise, it is working as intended and that's fine. It's when the balance tips significantly that the real issues occur.

[raykor]

I don’t like the idea of incentives to the losing faction as it tends to make winning or losing pointless.

I say let the rich get richer and let them simply win. Perhaps something similar to what Guild Wars 2 will be trying in their world vs. world system would work in Planetside? For those that aren’t familiar with their WvWvW design (all 3 of you) it is a 100% PvP, 100% persistent zone where hundreds of players from three factions will fight across four land masses (continents, islands, whatever) to capture a variety of fortifications of different sizes as well as control resource points and even ambush supply lines. It lasts for two weeks, someone wins, and it resets.

PS2 could do something similar although maybe a little longer than two weeks per round. Additionally, the locations of the resources could be randomly rearranged for each new spawn to completely change the flow of battles and keep things interesting. They could even create multiple possible locations for each base and randomize their placement as well.

[Graywolves]

Like I said in the 2nd part of my post earlier. (I'm going to flesh it out more.)


I don't think we really need to stop the rich from getting richer as much as just slow down their gain after a certain point. As buzzcutpsycho pointed out, a team of strykers[av] can take down most vehicles. What we know now is that resources is used for upgrades and 'might' be used for pulling vehicles.

So there is some advantage in being the rich empire, but they are also (or should be) being attacked more.



Back to the idea I presented. I think it's more important to avoid an empire monopolizing a single resource than controlling the most hex's. I think at some point in time and multiple times, we will have red, purple, and maybe blue worlds/maps.

What we do is curve the resource gain after a certain amount of Hexes are controlled. If the VS control nearly all the Auraxium hexes, future auraxium hexes will have a smaller yield. This will provide a stronger meta-game as underdogs will be able to easier identify which Hex might be least defended or which Hexes are more likely to be attacked as the Powerhouse empire will probably control most of a certain resource. The powerhouse empire will make decisions on where to attack for a better yield of overall resource gain.

[Malorn]

Boomzor articulated the problem well here:
It's a persistent world. It won't reset 30 minutes after things go bad (well, save for a server crash, GM meddling and other such horrors). Things will stay bad until you and your empire do something about it.

If you don't get the tools to at least have a fighting chance, most will either hop to the winning side or just stop playing. The latter is very detrimental to the game as a whole.

And again here with the other side of the rich-get-richer problem...
That sort of illustrates the rich get richer problem, or actually the reverse: the poor gets poorer.
A few idiots squandering the resources in the rich empire wont make much difference because they will make up that loss quite quickly. They are rich.
On the other hand, a few idiots squandering the already strained resources in the poor empire could quite possibly be catastrophic.

This drives to the core of why motivating the empire with nothing is important, and why giving them something to reduce the risk associated with trying to fight a battle where the odds are heavily stacked against them is vital to solving this problem.

The reason I believe discounted (and in extreme situations free) vehicles are required is to lower the risk. As stated above, the rich side can afford to throw fully upgraded vehicles at the poor side. If the poor side can't even pull basic vehicles the only way they'll recover is if the rich-side leaves the continent. With only 3 continents in prime time I don't see that being a realistic situation, especially if staying on the continent generates more resources for them and could result in easy defensive kills. The rich side won't be going anywhere. So what is the poor side to do? The result will be people start having alternate accounts to play on other empires when things go south for their current empire. That is not good for the game at all.

Unless of course there are incentives to take that dire situation and turn it around. And we come back to motivating them to fight.

I think we can motivate people with two things.

1) Reduce or remove the risk associated with fighting that bad situation. This is why discounts are important. If the vehicles are super cheap or even free then they have little to lose by attacking. Moreover, they are now reasonably competitive with the rich empire in the short term. Obviously the discounts don't last after they start taking territory but the point is it gives them momentum and helps them get a reasonable foothold on the continent and some resource income.

2) Make taking territory against that empire more lucrative. IF the rich empire is sitting on most of the resources then it isn't too much of a stretch to say that an empire with a lot of territory has larger personal bonuses when capturing that territory. So reward the people that go out there and capture territory with significantly larger bounties. So for players after personal resources for their implants or cert tree advancement or what not, attacking on this lost-cause continent becomes a potentially very lucrative prospect. It also helps rebuild the resource pools of that empire so they can continue to wage competitive war since their discount bonus will be disappearing after they start getting territory.

As an empire gains more territory these bonuses that are intended to motivate them and give them a fighting chance quickly fade away. It's only for dire straights.

And resources are still important because the discounts I mentioned only apply to certain things. They shouldn't apply to implants or cert tree bypasses. So if you're worried about people abusing this or it making resources worthless, it won't. It's a short-term boost to help jump start the war machine and get it rolling. Once it starts rolling the bonuses and discounts go away.


There's a third option that I believe will help, and that is making it more difficult for a rich empire to hold onto its territory - by making it easier for other empires to capture.

I'd mentioend this idea before but essentially past a certain threshold in % territory owned it starts to modify the adjacency system's capture time modifiers, so it becomes easier for enemy empires to capture your turf if you start getting an excessive amount of territory. This is important because there's a lot of territories and an empire can capture any territory at any time, but the adjacency system protects deep territories and gives you lots of time to respond to them and makes it quick to recapture. If this aspect of the adjacency system starts to break down as you get more and more territory then it naturally becomes more difficult to defend a large empire without compromising the value the adjacency system normally provides.

Normally empires rely on the adjacency system to give them plenty of time to respond and recapture deep territories that are taken, but if that isn't as prominent when you have lots of territory then it becomes naturally more difficult to hold onto everything.


This is the third piece of the puzzle, and when combine them, I think you give an empire a chance to dig itself out of a hole and reward people for doing so. They get greatly discounted vehicles to push out with, the territories they take are worth more personal resource bonuses than normal, and they are quicker to cap. That's good incentive to get out there and turn things around rather than log off, switch sides, or abandon the continent.

[Tapman]

Limit the maximum amount of resources you can have at once and keep timers on vehicles.

As long as the cost of vehicles and consumables are balanced, population density will prevent any issue with one empire doing so poorly that they can't afford to defend their territory enough to be foothold-locked, short of a severe lack of population. On the whole, I think that if one empire seems to be laying down a larger amount of hurt, the other empires will figure out what resources to target to counter it. The rich won't be able to get too rich, the poor will only be the people who can't figure out how to survive in a real war and end up wasting their resources.

[Malorn]

Limit the maximum amount of resources you can have at once and keep timers on vehicles.

As long as the cost of vehicles and consumables are balanced, population density will prevent any issue with one empire doing so poorly that they can't afford to defend their territory enough to be foothold-locked, short of a severe lack of population. On the whole, I think that if one empire seems to be laying down a larger amount of hurt, the other empires will figure out what resources to target to counter it. The rich won't be able to get too rich, the poor will only be the people who can't figure out how to survive in a real war and end up wasting their resources.

You can't assume that foothold lock will never happen. It will happen. And it will happen more often than you think. The biggest cause of it will be changes in population throughout the day. People will log off, and not necessarily in perfect faction order. Sometimes a faction will have a higher population, but the other two are reasonably close. Battles may only be raging on one continent as opposed to all three, and what happens to the other two? They get captured by a small/medium sized force with light defense because the population mismatch and the fact that people don't want to leave their good fight in the raging battle.

[Ruwyn]

Because of the title of the thread I looked at it strictly from that direction, "how to keep the the Rich in resources from increasing exponentially while crushing a continent."
Taxing/DRing their resources basically slows their rate of gain since when you take a larger force and attack a small area (in this case an area around a non-capturable), you will inevitably lose a lot of hardware through deaths. Similar to how many times you would die while attempting to take a base or recap a tower. Rushing those doors is brutal! So it's possible that in that event you could remain steady or even lose depending on your "participation". However, it wouldn't be enough by itself.

As Malorn as said by looking at it from the opposite view, How do you convince someone to fight in a bad situation? The answer I think lies in the +experience gain. Also from one of the Higby quotes, there was something about fewer people equals a bigger slice of the resource pie. 1000 units split 10 ways vs 10,000 units split 50 ways isn't quite as daunting as "they get 10x more resources", when they would actually be getting only 2x more.

I think it will end up being a combination of things.

I am discouraged by the fact that you only gain resources from the continent you are fighting on. I really think it should be opened up world wide and some kind of faction contribution system put in. (perhaps it already does?) Simply to eliminate afkers from sucking up resources. Could be something as easy as gathering the mean "score" (in PS1 terms: experience) over whatever time period and dishing out the rewards accordingly.

I also foresee a potential problem with the split resources. Outfits are going to jump out of large area fights to start their own (a lot harder to do with only 3 continents) to try to get away from those that will just ride the coattails. Although it seems that coordinated hotdrops behind enemy lines is being discouraged by the adjacency system and since there are no benefits to be denied by doing so. Not liking the "30min hack on something that hasn't been actively defended in 3 hours because the battle line moved". Spec Ops = Heavy coordinated attack now?

[Mackenz]

For the underdog/locked out empire on a continent:

I am not sure about discounts - you should get a basic kit load out which gets you what you need, but not everything that you are use to. If you are discounting, no transferring to other continents;
I like the bonus resource system for the underdog getting bonus resources from their kills - that should be very tunable and encourages fighting;
The population on the continent based factoring is interesting, such that a wholly owned continent does not yield a full resource stream when not really 'manned'.

[Tapman]

You can't assume that foothold lock will never happen. It will happen. And it will happen more often than you think. The biggest cause of it will be changes in population throughout the day. People will log off, and not necessarily in perfect faction order. Sometimes a faction will have a higher population, but the other two are reasonably close. Battles may only be raging on one continent as opposed to all three, and what happens to the other two? They get captured by a small/medium sized force with light defense because the population mismatch and the fact that people don't want to leave their good fight in the raging battle.

I know that locks will happen but honestly I don't think that they can last, especially if they cap the amount of resources players can hold at once. There will be basic incentives in place to influence people to keep the populations as even as possible, perhaps those incentives could be calculated not only by population but also territory controlled.

Population changes at "end of day" log-offs could be also mitigated by not limiting people to their regional server(s). Just saying.

[Chaff]

.
So....we're building a resource-based game....where once you start "winning" and acquiring more territory...you begin to be penalized....whilist inferior Empire(s) are essentially "rewarded" ? Really ?

Maybe, all we need is a "back-up" plan (w/the Devs). Play the game without any drastic changes or Nerfs...and if the "Rich-Get-Richer" model ends up to be a major issue.....then the Devs need a solution "in-pocket"....one they can implement ASAP - pehaps overnight (or almost immediately).

WHAT would that be ? DEFENSIVE CAPABILITY....just short of being a Sanctuary.

When an Empire gets under 10%/10% (or somewhere 'round there) POP/RESOURCES.....it gains the ability to construct certain DEFENSIVE capabilities....where if facing overwheliming odds it would still have a decent chance of holding the last 5 or 10 sq km of it's meager Global territory.

What's to prevent the other two Empires from Double-Teaming an EMpire on the verge of extinction ?

Well, ONE....if it's real estate was very very small.....2 Empires just couldn't squeeze all their toons to 3 or 4 backdoors......especially, if the almost-defeated EMpire had bonus DEFENDER (Elimination) capabilities....fox holes, ROF, additional walls & cover...just very very "defensable" positions....perhaps depoloyable EvP ones......turrets that auto-return fire....and are very very hearty. THese EvP turrets turn their kills into resource flow....which over time helps the Empire fighting for survival to begin to slowly regain offensive capability.

The Empire in Super-DEFENSE mode gains nothing lasting....just the temporary ability to stave off Total Elimination, exit the near End Game licking its wounds, and perhaps do so with some DEFENSE-accumulated resources to give it a decent chance to fight back towards becoming a Global force/presence.

For NC with 70% of the POP (and 70% of the resources)...to finish off the TR with 10%/10%....might take weeks and weeks...with NC dieing 5-15 X faster than they could manage kills......meanwhile...the VS (with 20%/20%)...would be free to backhack and capture NC resources pretty much anywhere they choose.

Once NC move 20% to stop the VS....the NC will be doomed to "lose" their 50% VS 10% battle vs the TR....in the sense that TR DEFENSE Capabilities will allow them to push the front forward enough to begin acquiring resources that eventually allow them to begin Offenive manuevers again.

Not quite an End Game.....but enough of a "We rubbed-your-face-in-it" for the Dominate Empire to feel victorious.

Not a complete End-Game KO....but a moral victory via TKO.
.
.

[Stardouser]

.
So....we're building a resource-based game....where once you start "winning" and acquiring more territory...you begin to be penalized....whilist inferior Empire(s) are essentially "rewarded" ? Really ?

Maybe, all we need is a "back-up" plan (w/the Devs). Play the game without any drastic changes or Nerfs...and if the "Rich-Get-Richer" model ends up to be a major issue.....then the Devs need a solution "in-pocket"....one they can implement ASAP - pehaps overnight (or almost immediately).

WHAT would that be ? DEFENSIVE CAPABILITY....just short of being a Sanctuary.

When an Empire gets under 10%/10% (or somewhere 'round there) POP/RESOURCES.....it gains the ability to construct certain DEFENSIVE capabilities....where if facing overwheliming odds it would still have a decent chance of holding the last 5 or 10 sq km of it's meager Global territory.

What's to prevent the other two Empires from Double-Teaming an EMpire on the verge of extinction ?

Well, ONE....if it's real estate was very very small.....2 Empires just couldn't squeeze all their toons to 3 or 4 backdoors......especially, if the almost-defeated EMpire had bonus DEFENDER (Elimination) capabilities....fox holes, ROF, additional walls & cover...just very very "defensable" positions....perhaps depoloyable EvP ones......turrets that auto-return fire....and are very very hearty. THese EvP turrets turn their kills into resource flow....which over time helps the Empire fighting for survival to begin to slowly regain offensive capability.

The Empire in Super-DEFENSE mode gains nothing lasting....just the temporary ability to stave off Total Elimination, exit the near End Game licking its wounds, and perhaps do so with some DEFENSE-accumulated resources to give it a decent chance to fight back towards becoming a Global force/presence.

For NC with 70% of the POP (and 70% of the resources)...to finish off the TR with 10%/10%....might take weeks and weeks...with NC dieing 5-15 X faster than they could manage kills......meanwhile...the VS (with 20%/20%)...would be free to backhack and capture NC resources pretty much anywhere they choose.

Once NC move 20% to stop the VS....the NC will be doomed to "lose" their 50% VS 10% battle vs the TR....in the sense that TR DEFENSE Capabilities will allow them to push the front forward enough to begin acquiring resources that eventually allow them to begin Offenive manuevers again.

Not quite an End Game.....but enough of a "We rubbed-your-face-in-it" for the Dominate Empire to feel victorious.
.

I am partial to my idea where there's a maximum number of vehicle and infantry spawns per base, which acts like a supply line. That doesn't punish you as you win, it's simply a game mechanic that would prevent rapes in the first place.

[sylphaen]

One solution: PS2 must be tested ASAP.
:D

[Malorn]

I know that locks will happen but honestly I don't think that they can last, especially if they cap the amount of resources players can hold at once. There will be basic incentives in place to influence people to keep the populations as even as possible, perhaps those incentives could be calculated not only by population but also territory controlled.

Population changes at "end of day" log-offs could be also mitigated by not limiting people to their regional server(s). Just saying.

It will happen regardless because the number of continents is static while the number of players changes drastically.

Resource caps don't matter because you always have things to spend them on. All the resource cap does is make you continually want resources so they remain relevant and important to the individual player. Once you reach that cap you aren't going to stop getting resources. What you will do is spend them on things. Some things in the cash shop can be purchased with resources OR station cash, so that's one sink. You could spend it on implants or better implants than the ones you have. You could spend it on bypassing the cert tree to skill up faster. There will be plenty of sinks.

As to it not lasting - why do you think it wouldn't last? If I were the rich empire I'm sitting on all the resources I could need, so why not milk it for all it is worth? Its the perfect situation for player advancement. 1) sitting on resources, 2) defending is easy, 3) opponent is under-resourced. If I want to maximize resource input and maximize my K:D (both of which encouraged by PS2), then why wouldn't I sit and farm that for as long as the defenders keep coming?

While it might not seem like it, the above is actually a good thing. The attackers want to stick around and defend their stuff not just take off to the next continent like they would in PS2. ALl that really remains is to give the resourceless empire tools to be able to effectively fight a well-resourced enemy and (such as big discounts on vehicles and some upgrades). And also entice them to fight with bigger resource bonuses for capping. And also make it so defending isn't so easy. Make the rich empire work to keep its resource gravy train.

The important thing is to keep everyone on-continent and keep the battle fun. If it isn't fun people will leave or log-off, and that is no bueno for PS2. There's another issue of spreading out so everyone isn't in one place so the server doesn't get crushed by the lag. That's another reason making it easier to capture the territories behind the front as an empire gets bigger and bigger makes sense. It gives the low-resource empire more targets that are spread out on the continent and forces the high-resource empire to split off and defend them which lowers the concentration of forces around the warpgates.

[Malorn]

.
So....we're building a resource-based game....where once you start "winning" and acquiring more territory...you begin to be penalized....whilist inferior Empire(s) are essentially "rewarded" ? Really ?
This is why I dislike any sort of diminishing returns on resources. I believe if you conquer a territory, you get the spoils, no matter how many territories you have. Having lots of territory should always net you more resources than having little territory. Otherwise there's no motivation to capture territory.

Maybe, all we need is a "back-up" plan (w/the Devs). Play the game without any drastic changes or Nerfs...and if the "Rich-Get-Richer" model ends up to be a major issue.....then the Devs need a solution "in-pocket"....one they can implement ASAP - pehaps overnight (or almost immediately).
That's what this thread is about. And I don't think nerfs have really been talked about unless you're zeroing in on the diminishing returns on resources ideas, which I agree are not good for the game.

When an Empire gets under 10%/10% (or somewhere 'round there) POP/RESOURCES.....it gains the ability to construct certain DEFENSIVE capabilities....where if facing overwheliming odds it would still have a decent chance of holding the last 5 or 10 sq km of it's meager Global territory.
They could give out bonuses like that but I think it throws the game balance out of whack. The keys are the ability to compete and the motivation to hang in there and keep fighting. That doesn't require nerfs or buffs to an empire due to its holdings. It's all resource and capture-based.


What's to prevent the other two Empires from Double-Teaming an EMpire on the verge of extinction ?
By making the biggest empire the most enticing target - worth more, easier to capture. The only reason to double team a weak empire is because its easier to take their stuff. If you make something else an easier and more lucrative target then that behavior will sort itself out naturally.

[Ait'al]

Leave it all open to the players. All different scenarios are useful/prudent in different situations. Leave it up to players/empires to decide on their on as the time comes. Variations makes variation. It's a good thing.

Also, you don't learn strategy unless you have to use it. Automating it or simplifying it goes against the point of a strategy game. It literally ruins it in every sense. It removes both the potential and the means to reach it. Natural strategy is naturally balanced to begin with.

Leave it up to the people/players action and you will get x. Leave it up to the government/controlled situation you will always get y. Always go with X. The widest variation and versatility are always your friend. Leave it to people to choose to simplify it by their own actions. Never hard code it into the game.

Natural strategy. There are always ways to unbalance a resource heavy monster! etc etc.

[Malorn]

Leave it all open to the players. All different scenarios are useful/prudent in different situations. Leave it up to players/empires to decide on their on as the time comes. Variations makes variation. It's a good thing.

Also, you don't learn strategy unless you have to use it. Automating it or simplifying it goes against the point of a strategy game. It literally ruins it in every sense. It removes both the potential and the means to reach it. Natural strategy is naturally balanced to begin with.

Leave it up to the people/players action and you will get x. Leave it up to the government/controlled situation you will always get y. Always go with X. The widest variation and versatility are always your friend. Leave it to people to choose to simplify it by their own actions. Never hard code it into the game.

Natural strategy. There are always ways to unbalance a resource heavy monster! etc etc.

What are you talking about?

[Ductape]

First off, I am not a ps1 vet so my ideas are based off of what I have read and seen. Also all times referenced would be realtime, not gametime. My primary inspiration for the idea is the buying of additional territory hexes in Civ 5 where each territory has a "pricetag."

I was thinking of something where there is an immediate resource bonus upon capture of a hex. A "bounty" if you will on territories. Based on what resources the territory produces, this will fluctuate, and increase up to a maximum cap based on how long the territory has been held by a faction. The bounty cap would also decrease based on how many hexes it is from the front, up to 4 or so hexes. This would make rapid expansion very profitable in the short run. A Hex would take 8 hours or so to change status so that a breakthrough results in a high return.

However these new acquisitions would not start generating steady resources until a long timer is completed, say 4 days. During this time they do not provide anything, explained by a rebuilding of infrastructure and forming supply lines. This would help to prevent empires from becoming the dominant empire overnight. The off-peak hours would now be very profitable raiding times but would be harder to hold come peak hours. This would also make ganging up on an empire a prolonged affair, and a major effort would have to be made by the 2 empires to avoid having things become business as usual.

A hex would also begin to drop in status if it has not seen an attack in 24 hours or so. This serves a dual purpose, stopping empire team ups, and making sure battles are fought across the entire front.

It would be the counter measure to empires ganging up against the remaining empire because by the time the newly captured squares become resource generators, the rear uncontested borders would have a large bounty. Because the 2 empires are fighting across half of the territory, their resource incomes would be much smaller than fighting both empires. When the profit of empire cooperation starts to become meagre and its harder to keep up the assault, the plump back borders of the allied empire will start to grow in appeal.

I also believe that the encouraged shifting of battlegrounds will make all areas see combat, keeping the variety and make breakthroughs more common, increasing the tension in game play over all as players rush to defend the weak spots.

All these times are guesses and estimations but I think that the ratio should remain similar. Also it may be a good idea to insert a defense bonus after a hard fought battle where some resources can be earned by holding territory from enemy and harvesting the wreckage.

[Ait'al]

What are you talking about?

If they are talking about build up of materials. I'm saying leave it up to players to undo it. Just add more mechanics(not ones that restrict actions but give more of them) or if there is enough in the environment they will eventually widdle out of it. It gives people something to do. following natural logic and just letting the game simply exist over trying to incentivise or over control will fix the problem. Just letting people openly deal with it will fix it.... It's a part of strategy to begin with. If they made the game well enough there will be ways to undo it. If they can't then they just need to develop more which should add options not restrict them. I guess you could say if you can give more ways to engage the enemy it will resolve itself.... Not sure how to put it.

I'm saying don't worry about it.

[Red Beard]

"It gives people something to do. following natural logic and just letting the game simply exist over trying to incentivise or over control will fix the problem. Just letting people openly deal with it will fix it"

Thumbs up for free-markets! :D

[Malorn]

This problem has about as much of a chance of sorting itself out naturally as hackers deciding to leave Planetside 2 alone.

[LoopbackZero]

Agreed. I find it hard to believe that one faction will simply get steamrolled to the point of having extremely less territory than the other two factions. The player densities won't allow it. Even if it does get to that point, I can't see it NOT being fun as hell playing the underdog.

Let it run naturally, I say. Make a plan, work the plan. If the plan doesn't work, make a new plan. Don't try to fix a problem that isn't there.

[Arius]

"Thumbs up for free-markets! :D

Yes, but the free market lead us to financial inequality and people living off of other peoples poverty.
If you know what I mean, misuse of the "free market" in PS2 should be prevented.

[Machine]

seems to me they could make the "scoreboard" reset quarterly. reset it to balance every 3 months. combined with the other idea of longer hack times for dominant factions seems like an easy way to maintain balance. then they can even make seasons for competition and rewards that are per quarter.

[Retrograde]

It's unfair to subsidize the losers or tax the winners. The mission (or quest) system is really the key to making this balance out.

The solution is simple:

Increase the mission rewards for the lowest rank side.

For example, if you're stuck in your safe gate, missions pop up that have significantly better resource rewards to take nearby bases with limited resources. From there, if you succeed, you're back in the game. If you fail, you're still sucking hind tit.

Here are the benefits:

1. Create a high risk / high reward dynamic for working together.
2. Use limited resources to capture the nearest targets to a safe harbor.
3. Encourage players to back hack/infiltrate when they are getting beat down.

Key is taking risk.

[Grognard]

It's unfair to subsidize the losers or tax the winners. The mission (or quest) system is really the key to making this balance out.

The solution is simple:

Increase the mission rewards for the lowest rank side.

For example, if you're stuck in your safe gate, missions pop up that have significantly better resource rewards to take nearby bases with limited resources. From there, if you succeed, you're back in the game. If you fail, you're still sucking hind tit.

Here are the benefits:

1. Create a high risk / high reward dynamic for working together.
2. Use limited resources to capture the nearest targets to a safe harbor.
3. Encourage players to back hack/infiltrate when they are getting beat down.

Key is taking risk.

Already tried the mission angle...
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showpost.php?p=662504&postcount=92

Edit: All the stuff I mention there are missions etc. that are used for an underdog that is in duress of losing everything, or has. It simulates a faction that is out of room, out of time, and out of tools, and goes into an underdog mode, such as France in WW2, or the CSA at the end of the American Civil War, etc. Whether or not it comes into play at a certain point, or only at full sanc-lock is up to the devs... but tuned correctly those mission-based tools would work... and it would spread out the battle fronts...

[The Kush]

In the end resources arent going to make you win, and i promise with three empires you will not be able to completely pin a faction.

[Malorn]

In the end resources arent going to make you win, and i promise with three empires you will not be able to completely pin a faction.

World-lock occurred several times during PS1's first few years. All ten continents dominated by a single empire with few options for the other two. Continent locks happened all the time in PS1, and there were always three empires. They didn't fight each other evenly, and there were population and tactical considerations thrown into the mix. PS2 adds another dynamic - limited resources with which to wage war.

And resources will make you win if PS2 lives up to its promise that resources matter.

Even without resources it is absolutely possible to pin an empire down on a single continent (we know this from PS1 experience). Add in a resource swing and it tips the scales further.

Just because a foothold exists does not mean the populations on the continents will be even, nor does it mean resources will be even. If it can happen on one continent it can happen globally, just like it did in PS1.

[The Kush]

World-lock occurred several times during PS1's first few years. All ten continents dominated by a single empire with few options for the other two. Continent locks happened all the time in PS1, and there were always three empires. They didn't fight each other evenly, and there were population and tactical considerations thrown into the mix. PS2 adds another dynamic - limited resources with which to wage war.

And resources will make you win if PS2 lives up to its promise that resources matter.

Even without resources it is absolutelUy possible to pin an empire down on a single continent (we know this from PS1 experience). Add in a resource swing and it tips the scales further.

Just because a foothold exists does not mean the populations on the continents will be even, nor does it mean resources will be even. If it can happen on one continent it can happen globally, just like it did in PS1.

I have played Planetside since 2004.. That was planetside, this is planetside 2, completely different as far as capturing and pinning enemy factions. Too many hexes available to capture to completely pin an enemy faction. Guess you'll figure out the truth in Beta :D

[Toppopia]

I've been wondering but after looking at the map it looks like the VS has an advantage because it looks like they are further away from NC and TR while these 2 are almost half the distance to each other, unless my perception is warped the VS has much more breathing room compared to the other empires which could let them expand much faster compared to NC and TR.

[HellsPanda]

If a faction gets most of the hexes on a map, whats likely to happen is the other factions will just spread out and attack multiple hexes at once, forcing the controlling faction, to spread out. Guessing where the main attacks are, and even when knowing where the attacks are, they are likely to loose hexes to some of the probes.

[Kran De Loy]

If a faction gets most of the hexes on a map, whats likely to happen is the other factions will just spread out and attack multiple hexes at once, forcing the controlling faction, to spread out. Guessing where the main attacks are, and even when knowing where the attacks are, they are likely to loose hexes to some of the probes.

I think the point is that experience says that while this is probably what will happen it doesn't happen often enough really. Too often people just go to the closest fight without actually thinking of the overall strategy involved so you get a lot of chaff players going to the wrong places and getting them into the correct spots is like herding cats. They largely just ignore you and if you get pushy they'll just claw your face off.

Assume that if TR has 80% of a continent I still see a lot of idiots focusing on that major battle that's been going on for the last 2 hours with over 300 people between VS and NC while TR just mops up the rest of the map until the people with actual working brains can redirect the horde of lickspittle bone heads.

You see this kind of behavior in small FPS match games all the time when you have multiple choke points and 80% of your team keeps rushing the same one over and over again despite being repeatedly warned of the other team refocusing to another route to flank.

[Malorn]

I have played Planetside since 2004.. That was planetside, this is planetside 2, completely different as far as capturing and pinning enemy factions. Too many hexes available to capture to completely pin an enemy faction. Guess you'll figure out the truth in Beta :D
Perhaps in another 8 years of PS you might have a clue about empire and population dynamics.

[Toppopia]

You see this kind of behavior in small FPS match games all the time when you have multiple choke points and 80% of your team keeps rushing the same one over and over again despite being repeatedly warned of the other team refocusing to another route to flank.

One awesome thing about that happening is that i can either follow my teammates and kill the enemies which sometimes works or i try a more tactical approach like sneaking around them, but the hidden bonus of the team dying over and over again is that they are distracting the enemy with their dead bodies piling up allowing us to flank almost unopposed.

[Kran De Loy]

One awesome thing about that happening is that i can either follow my teammates and kill the enemies which sometimes works or i try a more tactical approach like sneaking around them, but the hidden bonus of the team dying over and over again is that they are distracting the enemy with their dead bodies piling up allowing us to flank almost unopposed.
If you and the rest of the 20% of the people that are actually paying attention can take care of that exposed flank by yourselves then yes.

When I made that previous post I was speaking from personal experience with Nuclear Dawn (I love that game). In this particular match one choke point could be held by 6 people easily, and it was being held by 8 from the enemy side. Still, 13 of my 15 people kept going to it over and over again while the other 7 on the enemy team rolled right over the defending 2 people that were paying attention.

It made no sense to me at all when the first point with 8v13 was very narrow killing field, excessively choked up and heavily fortified on both sides while the other point was wide open and could easily accommodate a larger group to take it. In addition to that the second flank also held one of the three major resource points and the only one we had left. So why were 13 of my 15 people going to first flank? Because it was the first one. No other reason to it. None.

It was insane that they ignored all other outside influence. The only way I could have gotten them to move to the other flank would be to completely remove the respawner which would have been equal to inviting the enemy to take the location away from me.

That behavior, that right there happens waaaaaaaaaay too often.

[Toppopia]

It made no sense to me at all when the first point with 8v13 was very narrow killing field, excessively choked up and heavily fortified on both sides while the other point was wide open and could easily accommodate a larger group to take it. In addition to that the second flank also held one of the three major resource points and the only one we had left. So why were 13 of my 15 people going to first flank? Because it was the first one. No other reason to it. None.


I think the only reason they do it is either they are stupid or its normally the closest place to go, but i think the first reason sounds most likely.

[Necronile]

They could shorten the time it takes to take over a richer empire's base,
what I mean is that the more resources an empire has,the faster the time of her base
being captured by a poor empire.

[The Kush]

Perhaps in another 8 years of PS you might have a clue about empire and population dynamics.

I know more about that then you could dream of, unlike some people who seem to be confused. As I have said and Panda put really nicely.. there are too many hexes it would be nearly impossible to pin an empire to their own base. An empire simply spreads out and hits multiple targets at once, that would be one quick and easy solution. You can't put your full force against an empire you have pinned because you will have to defend your hexes from two factions. This WILL NOT be an issue.

[Kran De Loy]

I think the only reason they do it is either they are stupid or its normally the closest place to go, but i think the first reason sounds most likely.

Combination of both. Now think of the same thing happening on a much larger scale. It would logically fix itself should it happen on a large enough scale, but there will always be exceptions and there will be times when a very large amount of people will all do the same stupid thing all at once because they haven't got their brain turned on and those times will happen much more often then they should.

They could shorten the time it takes to take over a richer empire's base,
what I mean is that the more resources an empire has,the faster the time of her base
being captured by a poor empire.Not such a great idea. The larger a faction expands the more it has to cover until a certain point when the battle lines begin to shrink again. At first you'd think that would be a reason to support your idea, but at that point the concentration of players for the smaller empire becomes much higher within their own territory. Essentially it becomes a matter not of one faction gathering too much, but the other factions have too little room for roughly the same amount of people.

If the factions with less territory lose even more territory then the bigger empire begins to really see an increase in back hacking. Which while difficult for the invaders, they would only really need a 100 or so to pull up to double that of the larger empire's people off the front line for the invader's empire to push back out again.


I know more about that then you could dream of, unlike some people who seem to be confused. As I have said and Panda put really nicely.. there are too many hexes it would be nearly impossible to pin an empire to their own base. An empire simply spreads out and hits multiple targets at once, that would be one quick and easy solution. You can't put your full force against an empire you have pinned because you will have to defend your hexes from two factions. This WILL NOT be an issue.

Glad to see you've been paying attention. /sarcasm

[Eyeklops]

How about a "cap" on how much resources an individual can "hoard." That way there is defined limit to how "rich" you can be resource wise.

[Kran De Loy]

Er.. I thought this was about faction empires and territory/resource control now rather than individual player resource pools.

[Malorn]

How about a "cap" on how much resources an individual can "hoard." That way there is defined limit to how "rich" you can be resource wise.

While resource caps are certainly needed on a per-individual basis (there was another thread on that topic recently), this is more of a difference in resource-rate issue between two empires on the same continent. Even with a small cap a rich empire can consistently pull the most heavily upgraded loadouts while a poor empire might be struggling just to pull stock tanks / aircraft. When they clash the poor empire is at a disadvantage, either because they lack the resources to even pull a competing vehicle or because the vehicle they pull has fewer upgrades. The disadvantage is by-design and is the purpose of the resource system, however it also perpetuates the dominance.

With enough continents the rich-get-richer problem might not matter as much as you could always go to another continent. But with only 3 continents getting pushed back in one will be limiting to an empire, and getting pushed back in two will really suck. The one continent where you might have enough resources to consistently pull the loadouts you want could be population-locked or just terribly laggy due to the high concentration of players being forced into a small space after getting hammered on the other continents.

If the factions with less territory lose even more territory then the bigger empire begins to really see an increase in back hacking. Which while difficult for the invaders, they would only really need a 100 or so to pull up to double that of the larger empire's people off the front line for the invader's empire to push back out again.

I agree that back-hacking is the way out of a situation where your empire is pushed back to very few territories. However, the way the capture system works it gives a huge benefit to the defender, both in stopping the hack and in re-capturing the territory if it is taken. I had an analysis of that capture system here:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=40416

So there's two systems working against the "poor" empire in this case:
1) few resources to wage war
2) the dominant empire has few vulnerabilities in their territories due to most of them having many other adjacent territories, and as a result the poor empire is at a severe attacking disadvantage

All it would take is a few old fashioned rapid-response squads to stop the back hacks. Even if they escalated the back hacks they're still at a severe disadvantage, and the defenders have access to effectively all the resources they could want to fight them off.

Both of these issues need to be addressed in some fashion, and giving the dominant empire a penalty to their resecure/capture rate seems like a good way to counteract the second problem (prorated of course as they gianed more territory the penalty increases). That would make it easier for the back-hacks to succeed, since back-hacks are unlikely to be successful normally by-design. It would also make it easier for the 3rd empire to enter the scene to help push back the dominant empire.

[Aaron]

There are two other factions. If one is to overspread, then it is likely they won't be able to hold it down.

[Malorn]

There are two other factions. If one is to overspread, then it is likely they won't be able to hold it down.

Of course they wont' hold it down forever, but they could hold it down enough to make players' life on a particular empire/server miserable. Since the game is F2P it is likely that players will have multiple characters on different empires, possibly even on the same server. When one empire gets beaten down we'll see the same behavior we saw in PS1 - players will either jump ship to the "winning" empire or go to another server where things might be better. This exacerbates the problem for the empire that lost. This was the "fourth empire" phenomena in PS1. There must be incentives to keep an empire fighting and help facilitate a comeback to prevent the exodus that will occur when an empire's back is broken and they get pushed back to a handful or less of territories on a continent.

The important thing to realize is that this happened in PS1 without resources or a territory control system that makes it easy to hold territory when the neighboring territory is friendly. Both of these make the problem significantly worse than it was in PS1. There are many good ideas in this thread to help mitigate it, but denying that it is a problem is rather silly.

[Marinealver]

How about making an Insurance system where if say if the empire, outfit, or player looses an item/upgrade or base investment that he put spendible resources that player will get a portion of that credit/resource back. The percentage will depend on the risk of it being loss so investments on the frontlines will be refunded 90% while those closer to sanc and away from the main fighting will only be about 40-50% or mabey even less. That way the victors still get to reap the rewards of using their resource investments wisely by not loosing any but those on the defeated end will have more flexibility and won't be too penaltized.

[Malorn]

The problem with refunds is that it discourages the capture of territory. If you are sufficient as-is with few resources but a large refund you don't have much motivation to fix the problem. It's a welfare system that doesn't encourage people to go out and get themselves off of it.

That's one reason I gravitate around ideas involving making territory capture against a large empire easier and increasing the territory capture rewards against those empires. In that way an underdog empire has incentive to capture territory and doing so will at least temporarily help offset their low resource situation. There's no incentive for them to stay in the low-territory situation and the territory capture reduction makes it easier to do back-hacks and split up the dominant empire and actually successfully start making a comeback. In general it also makes large empires bigger targets so it helps naturally solve the problem and encourage 2 empires to gang up on a dominant empire to prevent the situation from even getting that bad.

[Kurtz]

It's a welfare system that doesn't encourage people to go out and get themselves off of it.


Just like IRL ;P

[Neurotoxin]

So there's two things I see that reduce the problem here. One is the default gear, one is passive gains.

So when we respawn, it won't be in pajamas with the default loadout. It is going to be with some kind of weaponry, in some kind of armor. Vehicles are a luxury, but when resources and footholds are getting narrow, sometimes players may have to bite the bullet and go a few lives with more simple infantry gear and tactics.

I'm guessing there will be a passive amount of resources that every participating soldier will receive regardless of hexes owned. When we have a ton of bases and footholds, we are granted a lot of resources plus whatever we'd get as the default amount. When we have fewer hexes conquered, we are still getting regular passive resource gains in addition to the meager trickle coming in from the remaining footholds.


Personally, my solution for this is to increase the amount of resources collected from slaying combatants of factions with more hexes. If your faction has more hexes than the opponent, you only get the default 100 per kill. However, for each hex more that the opponent's faction owns, resources earned for the kill are increased.

[Malorn]

I know it's probably around here somewhere but I'm too lazy to find it. But has there been any sort of indication of dynamic resource relocation on a map?

Higby indicated that the resources would shift around back in July, but in the recent AMAA he said they are currently static.

It is unknown if they will stay static or if they will move around later, or some combination of the two.

[Shlomoshun]

Here's my two cents. First, I'm assuming populations are mostly blanced, like at 40%/30%/30% for the three sides. If it's worse than that, they'll need PS1 type faction rewards to get the populations in balance. Assuming they are at 40/30/30 at worst, the 40% one shouldn't be able to dominate any of the weaker factions unless the 2nd faction is also helping them out. So balancing out the faction dominance should be built around encouraging #1 to focus on #2 and #2 to focus on #1, while allowing #3 to build itself up. As long as they incentivize rewards this way, none of them should be able to really ever pull away from the other 2 by that much...

Personally, I like the idea of carrots for the underdogs more than i like the idea of Sticks for the stronger side...but the right answer should probably involve both to some extent.
I dislike resource diminshing returns, since the idea of the game is to get control and thus resources. Getting less for holding more land seems counterintuitive.

Combination Carrot/Stick methods:
One way they can provide some balance is by smart placement of resources. The middle ground should provide more what i will term 'luxury' type resources. Things that fund 'extra' types of efforts, not those that fund the basics of your war making capability. The hexes close to each sanctuary should provide more basic resources that do most of the fueling of the war efforts, that way you don't really cut down on any factions ability to fight by much until they are significantly pushed back. Topographically, areas near the bases should be designed to help the weaker faction take them back....Whether thats through providing protection for infantry flooding in from the sanctuary, back doors to bases that face towards the sanctuary so that faction has the more direct route in, etc..., the goal should be to allow the weaker side to have the ability to take back those areas more easily with the more simple vehicles and tactics necessary. Another combo carrot/stick proposal would be that although they have mentioned that the more adjacent hexes you control, the quicker the hacking, what if proximity to one factions sanctuary also had an effect on their hacking speed. That would mean taking a hex right next to another factions sanctuary would take a long time of control, while them taking it back would happen quite quickly for that faction....2 hexes away from the sanctuary would be less so and so forth... This makes sense from the view that areas near a sanctuary would be more loyal to that faction, and thus more easily controllable by them...

Carrot/Reward methods of faction balancing:
Though these would help the losing faction, they would also apply to the the middle sized faction to focus on the winner and not so much the loser.
One great subtle suggestion that I liked from earlier was the direction of auto-generated missions slanting away from the weakest faction, so the auto-missions for the strongest faction would push them more towards #2, and #2 would be pushed towards #1, thus allowing #3 to recover it's footing. Other possible carrots could be more direct, such as XP/resource increases for fighting near your sanctuary, or just for fighting the #1 faction (for both the smallest and the middle factions to encourage them to work mostly towards bringing down #1) or bonus damage when fighting against the winning faction (again for both the smallest and the middle sized faction).

I think if they can just incentivize factions #2 and #3 to mostly aim towards #1 at all times, you'll see that domination is difficult to obtain unless the server has a huge pop-imbalance, which is sort of a different issue altogether.

[Eyeklops]

How about an additional modifier to the base capture time? The more territory an empire owns, the faster it can be captured by an enemy empire. Also, make back hacks harder to re-secure if you own over a certain % of a continent.

[Eyeklops]

Another idea is to provide different amounts of resources for capture vs hold based upon distance from the friendly foothold. As an empire captures control points closer and closer to an opposing empires foothold the resource gain from holding that control point, or the "dividend", becomes smaller and smaller, but the initial capture resource bonus is higher. Encourage an empire to capture as far out as they can go, but provide incentive for the zerg to seek another front line wanting a better capture bonus. This would give the suppressed empire(s) (probably TR and/or NC) time to retake some control points and recover personal resources.

[Malorn]

How about an additional modifier to the base capture time? The more territory an empire owns, the faster it can be captured by an enemy empire. Also, make back hacks harder to re-secure if you own over a certain % of a continent.

This is similar to thoughts earlier in the thread (it's long so I don't blame you for skipping it), here's the direct link:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showpost.php?p=662952&postcount=130

Another idea is to provide different amounts of resources for capture vs hold based upon distance from the friendly foothold. As an empire captures control points closer and closer to an opposing empires foothold the resource gain from holding that control point, or the "dividend", becomes smaller and smaller, but the initial capture resource bonus is higher. Encourage an empire to capture as far out as they can go, but provide incentive for the zerg to seek another front line wanting a better capture bonus. This would give the suppressed empire(s) (probably TR and/or NC) time to retake some control points and recover personal resources.

The only issue I have with this is that if the dominant empire has another empire bottled up into their foothold and we want to encourage back-hacking by making it easier to take their territory then the territory the poor empire is taking is likely close to one of the other two footholds. If resources diminished by proximity to a foothold then this would reduce the effectiveness of the back-hack solution.

The capture bonus idea is also right in line with the thoughts from the post I linked above - very similar concept. I think it's on the right track.

[Malorn]

Higby just wrote this about resource distribution:
Resource gain is split between things like actively fighting (i.e. more active fights with more going on will always get you more resources) as well as dividends from the territory your empire owns. So, this sort of takes care of itself! In a big fight, you'll get large rewards - win or lose, once the dust settles the empire that wins will continue to get base resources for that region, but the folks that participated in the battle will be getting a lot more up front.

That changes things, at least on the resource side. There's still a disadvantage but it might be enough, have to see how significant it is. I still think the adjacency system must account for the large territory ownership so the poor empire can gain some ground.

[Eyeklops]

If resources diminished by proximity to a foothold then this would reduce the effectiveness of the back-hack solution.

If the "ramp down" on the resource dividend does not start until around 40% from an enemy empire foothold, back hacking with full dividend should still be possible. If the empire capture bonus reaches max at 20% from the enemy foothold, the boost for a back hack may well be worth it even if it does get recaptured quickly.

If you want to really be mean:
Cut off all resource gain on that continent for the the empire who got back hacked until it's fixed, but only if they own more than (some %) of the control points. This would force a large amount of the zerg off the front line or they go broke and get forced off the front line.