New WDS broken; Needs serious, immediate refinement

[Mordelicius]

I was going to write a different post about PS2 I would title "PS2P: One foot charging, one foot retreating", then I was stunned how badly the new WDS scoring and award system is destroying the battles in PS2.

So, instead I'll just explain how busted the new WDS is. The effect on the gameplay is so severe that it requires immediate fix. I'll break it down in subsections:


Rewards drive the fight - First of all, the personal reward is so high that, everything else is unimportant. Basically, every player just goes to cap a base for the WDS points to get the personal tier rewards.

Fights are now driven by those personal rewards. Fights are no longer important. It's what give easy WDS points is where players flock to.

Solution - Personal WDS rewards should be based on actual fighting. Acquiring cheap points for capping empty bases should be severely deemphasized (read more at the very bottom for suggestions).

Alerts are now WORTHLESS - That's right. Alerts are now utterly worthless in light of the new rewards. Just had an alert, Vanu ignored everything, just capped as much as they can.

Solution - ALL WDS scoring will be completely suspended during Alerts, except for the particular alert areas. Example: during Biolab alerts, only the Biolab will give points. Better yet, the Alert areas should give extra points on top of the normal scores. Otherwise, just remove all the alerts. It's an utter distraction.

Capping empty bases is highly favored and rewarded - (this section is extremely important) I just spent almost an hour losing base after base (totally outnumbered) in Indar during and after the alert and how many WDS point do I get? ZERO. Where are the NC? Capping the whole Amerish.

Defending outnumbered during alert means nothing. Defending outnumbered during non-alert mean nothing as well. Everything is about capping free bases to get the reward. The fights are literally gone, since your empire just stacks where there are no defenders. NC lost Peris, the adjacent Peris Base, the Crown, then Hvar, then Indar bay point, with TR and VS just divvying up Indar and NC has 60% population in Amerish.

So, I went to Esamir. Got into a base that's almost capped with 30 seconds left. How many point do I get for that 30 seconds? Seven points!! How many defenders are there. Practically none. I went to the next base. It's the same thing. I can't go to the next base any longer. I logged out.

The battle flow, alerts and fights are just obliterated. Players just want the WDS tier rewards. I want it too, sure. But hell, I want to PVP for it. Just as the now-obsolote Alert system would used to make players do.

Solutions: - Base point value need a cooldown or a weighted score value timer (or both).
Example (now, the actual time can be calibrated, the hours are just placeholders):

Base A: <1 hour after capped = 0 point value
Base A: 1 hour after capped = 1 point value
Base A: 2 hours after capped = 2 point value
Base A: 3 hours after capped = 3 point value
Base A: 4 hours after capped = 4 point value (maximum)

That means, the faster the base is exchanged, the lesser points it gives. Currently, it's a mess. Do you expect players to fight when the non-fighting rewards the most points? The personal point system and scoring system has to be completely reconfigured.

Secondly, a weighted score value timer may not be enough. Players will still ghostcap everything. Score value should also be weighted in terms of the ratio of the population of defenders to attackers. If the attackers outnumber the defender 2:1, it should be halved and so on and so forth.

Even if the defenders gave up the base, the attacker faction will still be EVENTUALLY rewarded in some form because they will hold the base.

In short, capturing empty bases should give no reward (zero WDS personal point). If the defenders strategically say, 'let's give them the base so they don't get a reward', it's OK. They lose territory, they lose WDS faction points and eventually, they will have to reclaim bases because it is sustainable up to only the Warpgate. Right there and then, the fight will have to ensue, the the points in capturing a base will actually matter. If we flip the coin and the new defender says "they didn't give us points earlier, let's give up this base too and give no points as well". Again, it's ok. Simply put, no fights = no personal WDS points towards the tiered rewards. And finally, on congruence to that, Holding (defending) bases should be more emphasized, because that's where all the fights will should happen. If players are rewarded for defending (as we are now), then more fights will happen. Actually, they really don't need to change the defense scoring at all (just refine it for scoring balance), they simply need to deemphasize personal scoring based on attacking empty bases and by that, defense is emphasized automatically.

[capiqu]

Yeah I didn't enjoy playing tonight as well.

[almalino]

Is the whole idea of WDS points to access a suзply caches?

[Deringer]

I like all your ideas M. That's why this is a pre-season. To test what works and what doesn't. I hope the devs take a lot of your ideas back to the table.

[Crator]

This is a problem. I saw the same thing as well. I'm surprised they never added a point reward system like PS1 had for base captures.

Remove ghost captures from giving WDS points and you might fix the issue.

[camycamera]

yep, this new system rewards ghost capping way too much.


this morning on briggs almost all of TR went off and ghost capped esamir and amerish, and while they succeeded at that, NC and VS completely took over Indar with ridiculous zergs. it wasn't fun for me, especially being TR. i just wanted to have fun and not ghost cap, yet in order to have fun we needed some damn reinforcements. but the only reinforcements we had were people like me and pubs.

platoons and outfits were too busy capping the other continents.

so yes, the WDS points should only be rewarded when capping bases with actual resistance. hell, attackers should get more WDS points for capping a base with a large resistance, and visa versa for defenders as well. that is all that is needed to fix it imo, although i like your ideas as well as they are similar if not the same as mine.

[Binkley]

I agree completely. As it is, WDS is broken and is ruining game play. Due to WDS, good fights are few and far between, it's just zergs rolling around ghost capping. Ack.

[typhaon]

I'll say it again...

Get rid of the arbitrary scoring systems and institute a map design where winning is a logical and tangible thing.

[Mordelicius]

Is the whole idea of WDS points to access a suзply caches? Yes and no. The reward in of itself is not the problem. The problem is the pathways to the reward.

I'll illustrate it for you. Suppose there two exact, identical bases (Base A = Base B). They both give the same exact WDS faction point and WDS personal points. The difference is one base has 0 defender and the other has 48 defenders.

Base A - Zero defender (most attackers will go here). This is the heavily favored, most rewarded pathway.
Base B - Forty eight defenders (most attackers will avoid this). This is the unfavorable, unrewarding pathway.

Now, flip the coin. Where do the players in Base B with 48 defenders go to (since nobody is attacking them)? They go to the least defended base as well. Hence, you got a system of factions attacking EMPTY bases that has a positive feedback loop effect. Meanwhile, defending outnumberered has a negative feedback loop since, you simply will lose, lose and lose and not gain any personal WDS points at the same time. Eventually, you either will have to join the zerg or log out.

Imo, they should suspend the WDS until it is fixed. It is that bad :(.

[capiqu]

I say we should all go play at the test server.

[KesTro]

Personally.. I'm all in favor of alerts not meaning jack all. I hated 'em to begin with but I understand why they were introduced. With Esamir lattice in place and Amerish lattice soon to join it I just don't see a need for it.

Agree about the bit of ghost-capping though. I don't think you should get -nothing- for it but it should be significantly less compared to a base where fighting is actually happening.

[Vashyo]

haha, Hoardingside 2. XP loses its meaning if you get something that normally costs money.

I honestly want to get rid of all these small scale rewards and system, I hope alerts will be gone when we have intercontinental lattice too, all kinds of planned strategies fly out of the window the moment people get a new carrot that they automatically set as their main priority and forsake what they were just doing.

[synkrotron]

I have to admit... I was there, and we laughed at the rediculousness of it all.

On Friday, I was in a Gal with some squad mates on Amerish. There must have been at least another twenty or more Gals with a few Libs and Reavers, and some ground troops.

We basically followed the Zerg. There was some resistance, and it was easily squashed.

It was fun, in a way, but in the long run it just didn't feel right.

Then on Sunday morning I went onto Indar. Quartz Ridge was under attack so I spawned there to have a gander. There were around two dozen enemy ESF's buzzing around, so I went HA and used my Hawk, see if I could at least frighten a few off. It was pretty useless.

Went back to Hvar and the same Zerg turned up, of course, and I thought, sod this, and I went to Esamir.

I joined a squad mate and he spawned a Sundy and we joined our own Zerg. Simply loads and loads of other Sundy's and tanks... We went from base to base, with minimal resistance, in a kind of clockwise direction. After a bit we didn't even bother getting out of the Sundy and just waited for the timer to run down. Every now and then, to break up the boredom, I ventured out to hack a vehicle spawn or a few terms and turrets.

And while that was going on, the enemy were doing exactly the same thing to the north. It was just too easy, to bag the WDS points uncontested, than to meet each other face to face.

Sunday evening was pretty much the same thing. I spent most of my evening session as a loner, jumping from one failing base to another just so I could get some target practice in. Thankfully, it wasn't all close range "sniping" and I was able to practice some reasonably long range stuff, which is what really makes me smile about this game.

As for the WDS... In its current form I may have taken advantage of some of the prizes given out, but on the whole, I do not like it. And the trouble is, if you don't join the Zerg, you're left trying to counter the Zerg with only a relative handful of allies.

[almalino]

Thankfully, it wasn't all close range "sniping" and I was able to practice some reasonably long range stuff, which is what really makes me smile about this game.

This weekend I picked up my silenced Impetus with 1x fast reticle and went short range hunting using "Instant Action" button. I didn't use Impetus for half a year and man it is so much fun.

I managed to kill 2-3 enemies in a row many times doing cloak, run behind enemy lines, uncloak, 2-3 hits into the head, cloak, change position, 2-3 hits into the head and so forth.

[Emperor Newt]

I would have actually preferred if the made the supply crates only one or two tiers and equal percentages to get the same things in both of them (so far it seems like the higher tiers yield better results?)
That would hopefully reduce the amount of people just farming for their personal WDS score and actually do stuff like playing the game. Not hopping between bases that are going to flip within the next 30 seconds.
Defending bases has become completely useless as even the zerg ceases to exist once an attack fails. One second you have a 48/48 fight, the next it's 48/12. It's really not much fun to play right now unless you are attacking all the time. Maybe that's what they were going for, but then I have to say that this was/is a stupid idea.

[Crator]

Defending is easier to get steady WDS points from. Go to a base your empire owns and there are enemies trying to take it. Allow the enemy to flip a point. Now flip the point back, wait for the capture timer to finish, and get the WDS points for defending. Rinse and repeat. WDS point values are not reset on a successful defend, only on a successful capture. So defenders get more points this way quicker because it is easier for them to do so.

Of course you must have enough friendly empire players needed to defend the location. The higher the WDS point reward is the more likely a larger force will attack it.

I'm guessing SOE was hoping people would realize the above and things would sort of balance out. But instead, we just got mindless zergs attacking for captures only, ignoring the defense aspect... I guess more players will start realizing this soon enough and change their methods.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Oh my god...they are still trying to shoehorn this arbitrary scoreboard mechanic into the game? What the heck is wrong with these people?

Since they started developing PS2 they keep playing to its weaknesses. "Let's take everything other games are doing better and put that into our game. Also let's not capitalize on the features that let this/PS1 stand out from the rest, infact let's flat out ignore everything remotely original or clever this game could offer."

It saddens me to see how they are constantly butchering the potential of this concept for the sake of being "casual daah *drool*" (tm).
Why take this franchise to defile it with this F2P, bland, call of duty shit? Just make a battlefield online instead with some generic, shitty name, like "fightforce" or "warfield" or whatever. That would atleast be an honest description of this "game" and we could keep our fond memories of "Planetside" without knowing its annoying, obnoxious, loud and dumb jock stepbrother is running around ruining the name for everyone.

And this is not some "elitist i'm too good for casual shooting" rant. Infact, i'm totally fine with such games exisiting. But mind you, this was the ONLY fucking "high budget" fps game that was (supposed to be) different.
But no. Conform, confooorm!

You know at this point i only have two possible explanations for this behaviour:

1) Every tiny little detail in this game's development has to be signed off by this guy:

http://i900.photobucket.com/albums/ac207/sinnesloeschen/Corporate_Commander2_zps47bda231.jpg

2) There is some kind of fraud scheme going on here, where they are intentionally screwing up this project. Like in "The Producers", just with video games. And possibly with matthew broderick.

BRRRFFFF *makes farting sound with hand* Hopefully there is some game left when they finally add the basic, core game mechanic with hossin/intercontinental warfare. Rant over. :p

[almalino]

Usually I get 5-8 WDS point for capture but once I pressed Instant Action , deployed on some arbitrary AMP station that we NC were attacking I think and after 2 minutes being there I get 100 freaking WDS points.

Any explanation of that? I want to repeat that :)

[Emperor Newt]

Defending is easier to get steady WDS points from. Go to a base your empire owns and there are enemies trying to take it. Allow the enemy to flip a point. Now flip the point back, wait for the capture timer to finish, and get the WDS points for defending. Rinse and repeat. WDS point values are not reset on a successful defend, only on a successful capture. So defenders get more points this way quicker because it is easier for them to do so.
That's a nice theory but only works if everybody is aware of that (which will never be the case) or when you have an organized group. And in the later case one could argue if this isn't stats padding. Not that I say it is or that it is a bad thing. With their freakishly arbitrary scoring system they basically enforces such behavior with being completely oblivious how people play games and especially how the John and Jane Doe plays PS2. The result is what we see now.
If this "ideal defense flipping" was their intention for people to go for (which I think gives them way too much credit considering how f*ed up their scoring systems have been in the past) then it still runs contrary to what the game should be (better: is) about. Like actually defeating the enemy and driving it out of the territory. Not playing capture point ping-pong.

[Crator]

That's a nice theory but only works if everybody is aware of that (which will never be the case) or when you have an organized group.

Not a theory, it works that way. I've seen it happen while I was playing. It didn't happen on purpose but rather my empire simply was able to successfully defend multiple times at the same location. Each time defense was successful we got awarded the amount of WDS points that the base gave out, and the points value on the location was not reset after the defense.

Successfully defend means the enemy started the capture timer but the empire who owns it was able to flip the timer and wait for it to complete which then initiates an on-screen indicator that the location was defended.

It doesn't have to happen to locations that have a high point value, but it can. What I mean is, you could have a location that only gives out 5 WDS points. There might not be a big push from the enemy to capture it but let's say there is one enemy trying to take it. You could go defend the location and get 5 WDS points over and over again if the enemy stays and keeps flipping a capture point. That's more lucrative then trying to capture a location for hours and not get any WDS points. Of course, the same is true for any defense size. Meaning, if you have 48+ zerg of enemies going after a location that has a point value of 50 or above and you counter that with a 48+ zerg of your empire troops you all could be getting 50 WDS points every time the location is defended successfully. Defense is more lucrative as long as there are enough players to successfully defend it.

[CheeZeX]

Not a theory, it works that way. I've seen it happen while I was playing. It didn't happen on purpose but rather my empire simply was able to successfully defend multiple times at the same location. Each time defense was successful we got awarded the amount of WDS points that the base gave out, and the points value on the location was not reset after the defense.

Successfully defend means the enemy started the capture timer but the empire who owns it was able to flip the timer and wait for it to complete which then initiates an on-screen indicator that the location was defended.

It doesn't have to happen to locations that have a high point value, but it can. What I mean is, you could have a location that only gives out 5 WDS points. There might not be a big push from the enemy to capture it but let's say there is one enemy trying to take it. You could go defend the location and get 5 WDS points over and over again if the enemy stays and keeps flipping a capture point. That's more lucrative then trying to capture a location for hours and not get any WDS points. Of course, the same is true for any defense size. Meaning, if you have 48+ zerg of enemies going after a location that has a point value of 50 or above and you counter that with a 48+ zerg of your empire troops you all could be getting 50 WDS points every time the location is defended successfully. Defense is more lucrative as long as there are enough players to successfully defend it.

This is 100% on the money. The problem is more people just aren't aware of it. That and the WDS rewards are kinda crappy, but I'm sure a big tug of war battle will make anyone happy regardless of rewards.

[Belhade]

The problem with that tactic is that you need to ensure your defense is up to the task of recapturing. That isn't going to be nearly as reliable as being part of the attacking zergforce which would just back off and look for another base to hit (under the current game conditions).

[Emperor Newt]

Not a theory, it works that way.
I did not doubt that it works. I doubt that it is actually feasible for most of the players/fights. To make this work the defenders do not only be able to push the enemy out again and again (so have the upper hand anyway) but also need to deliberately not go for enemy sunders and deliberately not push the enemy out of the hex but instead give the enemy time to regroup and push again.
It only works if the defenders do not play the game how it is supposed to be played. And it doesn't work in pretty much every fight that is not driven exclusively by outfits/people who are organized and know about this. It might happen in a few singular instances by pure chance, but for pretty much all fights going on this simply isn't an option.
And even if more people know about this then players will have an even bigger incentive to only attack undefended bases as they don't want to give free WDS points to the enemy and/or be stuck in an endless loop that doesn't yield any points for them. It might be a nice farming option right now for people who know how to do it, but as a gameplay mechanic (which I guess was introduced to create fun and fair fights) it is broken by design and cannot work.

[typhaon]

All any WDS scoring system does is emphasize what PS2 will apparently never be...

Counting points is NOT fun.

[Crator]

I did not doubt that it works. I doubt that it is actually feasible for most of the players/fights.

As a test I logged in with the express intent to gather WDS points using this defense method. I found a large enemy force working it's way to one of our biolabs on Esamir that had 30 WDS points on it. I got 30 WDS points from an early bird that had flipped one of the points in the biolab and we quickly flipped it back. The enemy zerg was too much for another one though. We did not have a counter zerg to continue in this fashion.

I moved on to Amerish, this time an Amp Station that we owned with 30 WDS points. 1-12 enemies showing on adjacent hex they were about to capture. I went to the base and waited for them to break the shields and capture the point. They were showing around 12-24 count and so were we now. They took the point and we quickly took it back. There was a little bit of fighting and I even killed a max at the point but overall it was pretty boring. So, I got another 30 WDS points there too. The enemy was having a hard time getting back to the point to flip it again though. Like you said, everyone else has to know to allow them to flip it again. I even tried to tell them in chat to do just that but I don't think they were listening. :lol:

So in the end I got 60 WDS points and that all took about 20 minutes. But, like I said, the waiting part sucks... But if people really want to farm WDS points, defense is the way to go as long as you can keep the enemy flipping the point and taking it back. Or just hunt around for where the enemy is striking next and grab those quick points like I did above. But that's trying to do it solo. Finding a small fight might be best for solo stuff.