Warpgate Pushing and Locking (Intercontinental Conquest Mechanics)

[Mordelicius]

What:
- Introduce an intercontinental conquest mechanic.
- Eliminate as is/defacto Home WG/Continent.
- Introduce a malleable, player driven WG Locking mechanic.
- Allow, theoretically, complete intercontinental control.

When I saw the Intercontinental lattice interview with Higby, the thing that fazed me is the idea of a HOME Warpgate/Continents :doh:. Imo, locked/anchored Warpgates should be generated by player activities and interaction and not randomly picked by design by the Devs.

The idea is this:
- keep the rotated Warpgate system.
- keep teleportation between warpgates.
- But add a new, malleable locking mechanism using the Battle Islands map.
How:
- When a warpgate is captured, a link to a Battle Island is activated and a new warpgate is activated for the losing side.
- Pushing this warpgate again, activates another link to another continent's warpgate.
- Since the WG has been pushed twice, it's now in a "locked" state, guaranteeing an uncaptureable home base for the losing faction when they can launch their attacks.
- If the BI WG has been recaptured, the previously "locked" WG becomes captureable again.
- In theory, this mechanic can allow a single faction to "lock" all other factions in Battle Island Warpgates. It's extremely difficult but it's a possibility, paving way for a satisfying complete, intercontinental domination.
- (Providing the 2 factions fit on those Battle Islands) :eek:
Here's some Paint illustrations :lol::
http://i.imgur.com/UsyLAMJ.png?1
Example:
- Here the VS captured an NC WG pushing them to a BI
- On the other side, the TR captures another NC WG, giving the NC BI WG a "locked" status.
- In the 2nd example, VS pushed NC twice before TR can capture NC Indar WG, hence that NC Indar WG becomes "locked".
http://i.imgur.com/f48QIF6.png?1

Thoughts, comments?

[Obstruction]

under this system the overpopped faction will stay overpopped because it will suck to lose that badly, and/or the queues will be unmanageable.

right now the "unsatisfying" nature of the game keeps it mostly level outside of alerts because you can't really lose that badly and it isn't "unfun" to fight your way out of a warpgate.

it is, however, super "unfun" to have 14% server pop because everyone is playing vanu to get the alert domination points.

that is typically what win conditions do. they promote "winning" behaviour. and even if they were to remove faction swapping, too many casuals would log in, see their team getting hosed, and log back out to play something else.

people are generally fickle and shitty. and you have to design around that. while your design would make for a cool game in a perfect world, real players would quickly ruin it.

[Edfishy]

I'm liking the idea of the 'toggle on', 'toggle off' warp gates. Mind making a Google Presentation / animation to play out a scenario of continental domination?

Might make it much easier to visualize. =)

[Zadexin]

people are generally fickle and shitty. and you have to design around that. while your design would make for a cool game in a perfect world, real players would quickly ruin it.

That might just be the most true thing I have read on the internet all day.

[Mordelicius]

I'm liking the idea of the 'toggle on', 'toggle off' warp gates. Mind making a Google Presentation / animation to play out a scenario of continental domination?

Might make it much easier to visualize. =)

It's a fairly simple concept.
1) Keep every continent as it is with the ability to teleport through warpgates. (and also the ability to rotate WGs).

2) Add an inert (inactive) Battle Island in-between a single faction's WG on two different continent (eg. NC Esamir WG --- Battle island --- NC Indar WG )

3) If the Vanu takes the NC Esamir WG, it is "pushed" to the Battle Island hence activating it and its link.
(eg. VS Esamir WG ____ NC Battle Island WG --- NC Indar WG)

4) The NC Battle Island WG can be further pushed to the NC Indar WG by the Vanu. Conversely, the NC Indar WG can also be pushed towards the NC Battle Island WG (creating an overlap. two overlapping WG = locked). Either way, the final resting point will be the "locked" state where the WG can no longer be taken, hence eliminating the need for Developer mandated HOME base, because they are one and the same.

5) Hence, theoretically, the two factions can be "locked" in the Battle Islands with the other faction holding the rest of the continental WG.

I'll see if I can illustrate it better.

[Mordelicius]

under this system the overpopped faction will stay overpopped because it will suck to lose that badly, and/or the queues will be unmanageable.

right now the "unsatisfying" nature of the game keeps it mostly level outside of alerts because you can't really lose that badly and it isn't "unfun" to fight your way out of a warpgate.

it is, however, super "unfun" to have 14% server pop because everyone is playing vanu to get the alert domination points.

that is typically what win conditions do. they promote "winning" behaviour. and even if they were to remove faction swapping, too many casuals would log in, see their team getting hosed, and log back out to play something else.

people are generally fickle and shitty. and you have to design around that. while your design would make for a cool game in a perfect world, real players would quickly ruin it.

Yeah, as with most of everything (unless they fundamentally alter every base layouts), the overpopulation will cause an imbalances, unfortunately :(

But time and again, it's been known the Devs are allergic to those type of bases. Just remember what they did to the Crown. Nowadays, it's completely unrecognizable from its glory days. And remember the Tech plant circa early launch?

Even the defensive hotspots in a base, they eliminate. It's a very selective tuning. Example: they nerfed the best ambush spot in Biolabs in GU10 (not complaining) ;) and it's not in the patch note.

[MrMak]

Yeah, as with most of everything (unless they fundamentally alter every base layouts), the overpopulation will cause an imbalances, unfortunately :(

But time and again, it's been known the Devs are allergic to those type of bases. Just remember what they did to the Crown. Nowadays, it's completely unrecognizable from its glory days. And remember the Tech plant circa early launch?

Even the defensive hotspots in a base, they eliminate. It's a very selective tuning. Example: they nerfed the best ambush spot in Biolabs in GU10 (not complaining) ;) and it's not in the patch note.

If by "glory days" you mean an endless meatgrinder sucking up the entire faction while at the same time having 0 strategic value, then yes. those days are gone. And thank the nanites for that.