The case for a single universal resource

[Rothnang]

Currently the resources in the game are split into three separate categories, Infantry, Armor and Air resource. In my opinion this is one of the worst systems in the game, and here is why:

The current resource system punishes people for being specialized as an infantry, armor or air player, while at the same time giving people a ton of throwaway resources in the other areas.


If you're a Pilot you will never ever find yourself out of C4 or Grenades, because they come from a throwaway resource pool that you don't usually need. Whenever you do find yourself in an infantry battle you can chuck them around without a care in the world. However, if you lose a few Aircraft you can't get another one without waiting around.

If you're an Infantryman you will never ever find yourself unable to pull a throwaway Galaxy, use it to get somewhere, then ditch it without really caring that it got destroyed, because that vehicle comes from a throwaway resource pool that you don't usually need. However, after an hour or so of continuous fighting over a big facility you might find yourself running low on grenades, and C4 and Mines and you can't get more without waiting around.


This is also a large part of what creates "vehicle spam", since you don't need to give up the resource you most care about to purchase something that lies outside of your typical gameplay, it's very easy for people to create vast quantities of throwaway vehicles without actually being in any way dedicated to them. Galaxies, Sunderers, Flashes, Fighters, Tanks, Liberators, all created just to be thrown at the enemy in exchange for a few certs, completely without value to anyone who doesn't care about pulling another one for a few hours.


The resource system would be significantly better if there was only one resource, that is used for purchases universally. That way if you spend all your resources on one thing you don't end up with a crapload of throwaway resources for purchasing other things.

Anything you pull out of a terminal should cost you something, it simply doesn't make sense that resources are only ever a limitation to pulling the things you use the most often. A tanker shouldn't be pulling a Galaxy with less cost than a Pilot. A Pilot shouldn't be creating Minefields with less cost than a Commando.

It simply doesn't make sense that players who specialized are heavily penalized when it comes to pulling the units they most care about by extremely limited resources when you use something continously, but they can pull units outside of their primary field as throwaways. It devalues items with a cost drastically if they are most expensive to the people that specialize in using them, but practically free to people who don't.


The current system works well for "jack of all trades" kind of players who just go back and forth between various types of units, but that capacity wouldn't be lost if you simply had one resource pool that holds three times as many resources, and three times the resource income - that would however allow people to keep pulling units of the same type long after they would currently be out and unable to get their favorite unit fielded. At the same time you'd see fewer throwaway units. If you're going to cough up the 400 resources for a Galaxy then you won't just crash it when you got to where you were going because it actually cost you something, even if you don't need to pull another Galaxy for another hour.

[Blynd]

Can understand where your coming from but making t a single resource is not going to work with a 3*pool or 3*income. You would never ever ever run low on resourc and that's not the point the point is to have people runnint low so you hve to adapt and think about what your doing oherwise trey may as well just take resources out of the game completly.

Ir you had a pool that was say 1125 ((750*3)/2) and the resource gain at 125% of current gain of a single resource over time. This I would say gives you what your after but keeps it as a finite pool that you could run out of.

[Whiteagle]

Personally this is why I was against the switch to the current setup over what we had previously in Beta.
There were Alloys, Catalysts, and Polymers instead of the generically named single theatre versions we have now.

Alloys were used for non-explosive Infantry Consumables like Med-kits and Spawn Beacons, as well as the Transport Vehicles (Flashes, Sunderers, and Galaxies).

Catalysts were for your "Heavy Assault Vehicles" (Magrider, Prowler, Vanguard, and Liberator)... but I don't think they really had an Infantry use at the time...

Polymers were for deployable Infantry Explosives like grenades and Mines, as well as Lightnings and ESFs.

This was a far better system in my mind, as Specialist would still have a Resource they could Purchase something in their fields with, while Generalist like myself could stock up on one thing while spending another Resource they had in Surplus.

[Falcon_br]

If they unified the resources, I will not use tanks or Mosquitos anymore, it will be all on mines!
Today for the first time I was locked in the warp gate, in a VS siege I lost all my vehicles to lancer fire, everyone of them, the last one was the flash, and it was the faster to die, to a sky guard! (Wtf?) when I respawned I couldn't believe all my vehicles were on cooldown.

[Sirisian]

Not sure you'd find many that would disagree. We've had a few threads on resource changes before. Instead of going into detail I'll point out that SOE has a resource revamp (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?forums/roadmap.59/) in their roadmap. It's part of the June changes now.

My plan (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/june-resource-revamp.83018/page-2#post-1091705) is in there and discusses a complete rework for the resource metagame using a single resource. It's a bit more extreme than the basic suggestions though of simply using one pool.

[Dougnifico]

I could see this being a very interesting proposition...

Quickly, to the Test Server!

[Ghoest9]

The OPs suggestion is completely wrong.

What the game actually needs to do is move to a system where the 3 resources can be traded one for another on a market.

You will never have a meta game until you have some sort of economy.

[Rumblepit]

first and foremost i dont think air and armor have the same problems with resources that i have as infantry. i never have enough, av mines, nades, c4, med kits,flash bangs,conc nades,claymores, it never ends...... infantry resources need a boost something awful.

i think armor and air should have to spend resources on flares, smoke,and ejection, or they should increase the cost of air and armor .

[Rothnang]

Infantry items tend to overall cost more than vehicles, but you can play infantry without items, you can't play vehicles without a vehicle though. I wouldn't be terribly opposed to having vehicle based consumables, but only if the base vehicles were free. I could see something like a big bomb or guided missile that acts like a grenade for your aircraft. Might actually be a really interesting way to go if all the huge ordnance is something you pay for, so you have to use it judiciously, and most of the free to reload aircraft weapons were less focused on splash radius. Similarly tanks could have a variety of special shells they can fire that have a cost attached to them, and the basic shell you get for free would just be solid shot. That's a huge overhaul to vehicles though.

Maybe instead of simply doing a tripple pool tripple gain system it could be double pool, double gain, but there are various reductions to resource cost you can get. For example -20% resource cost on armor vehicles if you own at least 1 tech plant with adjacency to your gate.

What people need to keep in mind is that premium + alpha currently gives you double the resources that you get as a free player, which is pretty freaking insane, because even with premium + alpha you can run out and get stuck not being able to do anything other than base infantry. Every single problem I complain about is twice as bad for a free to play player, and it's already ruining my fun pretty hard when I end up in a situation where all the good fights are instant death to vehicles.

[Whiteagle]

Infantry items tend to overall cost more than vehicles, but you can play infantry without items, you can't play vehicles without a vehicle though. I wouldn't be terribly opposed to having vehicle based consumables, but only if the base vehicles were free. I could see something like a big bomb or guided missile that acts like a grenade for your aircraft. Might actually be a really interesting way to go if all the huge ordnance is something you pay for, so you have to use it judiciously, and most of the free to reload aircraft weapons were less focused on splash radius. Similarly tanks could have a variety of special shells they can fire that have a cost attached to them, and the basic shell you get for free would just be solid shot. That's a huge overhaul to vehicles though.
Well in the Original Planetside, Vehicles pulled from the Sanctuary didn't cost any Nanites...

...Then again, the first game had a far more complex and robust Resource system, with I think even the restocking of small arms ammunition deplenishing some of a Base's Nanites stores.

What people need to keep in mind is that premium + alpha currently gives you double the resources that you get as a free player, which is pretty freaking insane, because even with premium + alpha you can run out and get stuck not being able to do anything other than base infantry. Every single problem I complain about is twice as bad for a free to play player, and it's already ruining my fun pretty hard when I end up in a situation where all the good fights are instant death to vehicles.
...Da faq?:huh:

Roth, are you sure you should be flying if you're going through Aircraft that fast?
I mean I've only got Alpha, and even at my splurgiest I'm never at a loss for Resources...
...Mind you I do play rather conservatively, and usually don't bother to log off until I've made back a Purchase, but still...

[Rothnang]

It all depends on the situation. Sometimes you can have a 1 hour run in a Liberator, and when you eventually die, oh well, you instantly have another one. Sometimes you just get unlucky though. Some moron plows their fighter into you and flips you over, you get struck by a friendly drop pod while waiting for a base to flip, you get caught by a Striker squad and can't get away in the time your flares bought you, and let's not forget that a single ESF can kill you pretty damn easily if it's piloted by someone who knows what they are doing.

I mean, let's say you have a third of the continent, that's about a +70-80 point gain to air give or take with full premium and alpha boost. So basically you need to fly a Liberator for 20 minutes to break even on resources. 20 minutes is one hell of a long time to fly around in a giant slow moving aircraft that's worth 1000 XP. Sure, sometimes you can pull it off, but I don't pretend to be so uber good at the game that other people have no influence on how well I do. In my game enemy players have agency and skills of their own and sometimes they simply win. I don't think it makes me a bad pilot that on a busy day someone manages to defeat me more often than once every 20 minutes.

When you own the whole continent it's super easy, because not only do you get crazy resource gains, but the enemy is also usually fairly well contained. When you're actually pushing out on a continent that's mostly owned by the enemy and your resource income is like +20, good freaking luck not running out.

At the end of a several hour play session it's very likely that I end up quitting and doing something else because I got slammed with a 20+ minute wait. Since the resources don't even come back while I'm logged off I also won't log back in until I feel like playing Infantry for an hour so I can get back to flying with a full tank. Overall I'm just losing my patience with that shit, I just can't really justify paying premium in a game that drives me away for days at a time with an arbitrary idiotic system like that.

[Goliith]

I just want to say, taking 20 minutes to break even on your Liberator is not exactly the case, as you also earn Resources for earning EXP in the zone you are in, so if you cap off a full Vanguard/Prowler/Magrider with two Extreme menace occupants, you can easilly earn upwards of 100 resources with one kill in the right zone.

I regularly see my "Resources Gained" counter in the Tab screen depicting upwards of 3500-8500 Resources earned after 1-2 hours play.

On topic however, I also hate the resource system as it doesn't impact me at all, being Alpha squad with 5 month Premium bonus, and playing somewhat Jack-of-all trades. Even though I specialize in Tank warfare, I never run out of Ground vehicle resources unless I hit a stream of horrible luck/timing.

[Rothnang]

Enemies unfortunately don't show up in air resource territories on command, but yea, when I'm fighting for an amp station it's a heck of a lot easier to keep flying. :lol:

There are a couple things you can do to keep yourself rolling in resources, especially if you faction has zerged another continent you can zone there for a bit to get a +200 drop and that will do your budget good.

But there are still situations where you just run out, especially if you're fighting on a continent where your faction doesn't hold a lot of territory.

[JesNC]

I never understood why they changed the resource system in beta - the old one encouraged specialization and kept single players from being an efficient 'universal soldier'. You had to decide if you wanted to bring a tank or C4 to the fight. With the current resource system people just tend to spam the most effective tool per resource and switch roles once one pool dried up.


The system certainly needs a rehaul, either through re-instating the old system (won't happen, I know), adding a resource marketplace like Ghoest suggested or even by changing everything to a single resource.

[Rothnang]

I think their primary motivation was to make it more intuitive to people. It's very easy to understand what buys what now, and it seemed pretty arbitrary to people in beta.

I agree that the Beta system was a lot better, you could be a Pilot and pull Fighters, Galaxies and Liberators from different pools, so getting your Liberators killed didn't mean you were grounded, it just meant flying something else for a while, which was much less obnoxious.