Food For Thought: Continental Benefits

[NewSith]

As it stands right now, the benefits are:

Indar - 10% Reduction of cost for items purchased with Infantry resources.
Esamir - 10% Reduction of cost for vehicles purchased with Mechanized resources.
Amerish - 10% Reduction of cost for aircraft purchased with Aerospace resources.

After Malorn has given us a verbal glimpse at the upcoming resource system, one thing caught my attention. He mentioned that his idea for benefits is most likely resource discounts. What I would like to point out is: while it's all good and meaningful in theory, it does not provide enough incentive for a typical shoot-shit-jack.

From a psychological standpoint, discounts are viewed as "defensive benefit". What I mean is discounts allow for owner to withstand higher attrition. But that is a "defensive benifit", since it provides players' with "more of the same tool" as opposed "more tools".

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/sept08/ps8.jpg
Let's just remember how ^this^ game did it:

Ishundar - Vehicle Shield Recharge in the proximity of all bases (AMP Station Benefit)
Cyssor - 5% Vehicle Armor Buff
Searhus - Reduced Spawn Timer
Oshur - Vehicle Repairs on all Rearm Stations
Esamir+Amerish >
Ceryshen+Forseral > Access to enemy Vehicles based on which pair you've locked
Hossin+Solsar >

As you can see benefits here (which are really all base benefits, minus Cyssor), feel less ephemeral, since they provide visible and, more importantly, - tangible bonuses. To a degree where it's even tactile, like the Oshur benefit.

I want to make one thing clear, right away, both discounts and "tangible benfits" provide the same level of advantage, BUT, since the game must always be viewed as a game, overwhelming majority of players in which are zerg, one should not forget what zerg sees in these benefits. The implications are - if you give 50% vehicle discount for Tech Plant ownership, it will not feel as vital as the same Tech Plant giving access to MBTs.


To simplify:


-- Discounts are a bad idea for benefits, because micromanagement is zerg's weakpoint. You give a player a sweet, and he's gonna take this sweet, even if you say that he can have two the day after tomorrow. And Discounts are sweets, not cars, since the value of a tool is rather low already, and it will be especially low if you can pull two of it in a row (the new system's feature). --



Instead,
there should be some benfit that provides "extra tools", rather than increases the attrition. Benefits like:

Facility Spawn Time reduction (making it so you spawn on facilities faster, than you do on AMSes, zerg will notice that straight away)
Or that very 5% Vehicle Armor Increase
Or Scout Radar working on an unoccupied vehicles (in light of the latest patch)

The zerg should be given what it would feel powerful with. Giving it something that requires any sort of management is a bad idea, because that's the prerogative of tactics/strategy-aware players.

[Carbon Copied]

The problem I have with global benefits is that it just makes the dominating side "stronger" (i.e with reduced costs etc.) - however that said why can't these be limited to per continent with the downside that if you want these assets at reduced costs then you have to pull them on that continent? After all with continental conquest comes the warp gates being used to go through to the other continent; you pay with inconvenience and time out the battle if you want assets at "reduced" costs.

Edit: I'd like to see something abit more inventive as conquest perks though - I don't know what it'd be though.

[NewSith]

The problem I have with global benefits is that it just makes the dominating side "stronger" (i.e with reduced costs etc.)

That's actually the whole point of continental Lattice:
A) (which was untrue for PS1, btw) it can make an interesting mechanic, where unconnected continents don't give benefits
B) The benefits are the incentive to capture continents. Otherwise the game becomes BF clone on a larger scale.

I would love to give an example from PS1, but since it's typically viewed as being an oldfag, I'll give you an example from, say, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Multiplayer (Spies vs Mercs), let's be original. Optimally the spies are at disadvantage - the lights are on, everything works as intended. However completing an objective, even one, makes it easier for spies to win, because it either disables something or triggers a script that does a change to the level (you needed 3 objectives to win and there were 6+ objectives usually). But still, people there played Mercs just as often as they did Spies and not just because of the matchmaker. The game was still perfectly balanced.

EDIT: I understand where you're coming from and that's the current resource system fault. But the truth is - the current resource system makes you lose gradually, so you can't just change the tide with a single successful blow, you have to gradually retake the territory to regain the income. BUT, if you can change something at a single moment (a base capture or a continent capture, with latter being just the scaled version of former), the dynamic changes drastically.