The Resource / Territory Control System

[Malorn]

This new resource/territory system is what intrigues me the most about PS2. I didn't like how some of the "transcripts" were not word-for-word transcripts and so I went through every video and did my own transcribing. I didn't transcribe everything in the video, rather I focused on the new territory control and resource system. I got everything related to that topic.

Here they are in their complete un-paraphrased glory.

Originally Posted by PS2 Announcement Presentation Video

Players that control territory and empires that control territory will gain access to resources. You will automatically be given resources based on your territory control, the territory your empire controls, and based on your success in capturing and defending territory. Resources are going to be used throughout Planetside 2 for a variety of different things, such as upgrading your weapons, attaching new weapons to your vehicles, or even shortcutting different skills on the certification tree.

The importance of resources can't be overstated. These resources are going to add so much to the way people play, and the way that your empire, the way that your outfit, and the way that you manage resources is really going to affect your success or failure on the battlefield.

Later we'll be going even further with resources. In the future resources will be used for more sandbox features. Perhaps your outfit will be able to build its own facility, create its own defensive structures, build its own vehicle pads. We really do want to explore the sandbox nature of the games and we think that Planetside is an awesome IP to do it in.

Originally Posted by PS2 Developer Round Table w/ Press Video

The territory control system we designed is specifically created so each piece of the map has intrinsic value through resources and has value that players are going to want to contest and fight over. So rather than capturing a facility to increase your empire's influence over the continent you will be capturing everything. Every piece of territory. That has forced us to change the way we design levels & continents. What it ends up with is that we have continents that have a lot more vertical gameplay. And what I mean by vertical gameplay is that we have scaffolding on canyon walls, things like that. It's much more dense. The amount of players that can fit in a PS2 map and have meaningful interaction with other players and meaningful gameplay is much larger than the same square footage in PS2.

The territory control metagame really the thing that drives resources. Resources are a new impetus for content and combat and more like motivation for players to fight. On a continent you will have multiple regions that can be captured and each of those have intrinsic resource value to them. So as you walk around and capture these different areas you will be gaining resources for your empire, for your outfit, and for yourself. So certain areas might be more rich in rare resources, some might be more rich in common resources.

The way they are spread out is really going to encourage players to certain areas where they dont have access. Maybe I don't have access to Auraxium for instance, which is one of our rare resources. I dont have access to that on this continent. So I look at the map and I say 'you know what, in order to keep fighting I need to get Auraxium, or my squad needs to get Auraxium, or my outfit does.' And empires are making these decisions on a larger level too. So now you're going to go out and you're going to look at the map and say, 'well cool, where's Auraxium? Who's controlling Auraxium right now?' And you are going to make decisions about going and capturing that piece of territory that you need to be able to get whatever upgrades and attachments you want. The resource metagame really is going to be the reason people continue to fight. It isn't going to be capture all the bases. I want to deny this resource to my enemies. Maybe you know the Vanu really require a lot of Auraxium. Maybe you are a New Con player and don't require a lot of Auraxium. So you keep that Auraxium to deny it to the Vanu who are attacking you.

Originally Posted by PS2 Developer Round Table Q&A Video

We mean "sandbox" more similar to what we had in Galaxies and what CCP has in EVE. That means a player economy. There's a reason resources are going in from the start. We have big plans for them down the road.

One of our maps right now would support hundreds of potential territories. We're going through them now and we're creating those territories. And they're visualized to players as a hex grid. Some regions are going to be three hexes, some might be 7, some might be 2, some might be 1. And these are even going to shift and evolve over time as resources migrate, spawn and despawn, to keep things fresh. We want it to be as granular as possible.

I'm sure most of you have probably played Civ 5. You know the way they do territory movement, it's something akin to that is the closest example of it where you can actually get control of territory maybe not necessarily by being there physically, but certainly being there physically is one way to do it. But maybe influence over areas is another way. There's multiple ways for us to do that.

Certain types of facilities will exert more influence on how much territory they capture. In the wilderness there will be capture points that will capture smaller places. Towers will be out there that will help you capture more territory.

-- NOTE: Right here after that statement is where Smed points out the towers have "landing struts." Probably not a coincidence that it came immediately after the discussion about "tower influence". --

You will be able to discretely capture territory. Every piece of territory, every region - all the territory is broken into different regions and they are independently capturable.So for instance there may be a large region that is controlled by a facility. When you capture the facility you own the entire region. There might be other areas that are captured just by a bunker that happens to be out in the wilderness somewhere. And by going to and capturing that bunker you capture that piece of territory.

Its broken into a very granular hexagonal grid (overlay) and its neat how the territory can move back and forth. Its very different from what I've seen in other games.

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.

(While moment-to-moment pacing is faster) The speed at which territory gets captured is actually a bit different. It's harder for you to just blitz across territory in Planetside 2 because of the way bonuses are levied on territory. You'll notice when you log in one of the things we're adding is sort of a recap of what's happened since the last time you played the game and you'll see how the territory has shifted since the last time you played.

Originally Posted by PS2 Public Panel Video

Resources in Planetside 2 are given out to players by holding territory, by capturing territory, and by defending territory. So, if you imagine an enormous map with a hex grid overlayed on it and each of the hexes you looked at have a value of what kind of resources are there and how many of the resources are there. As you go and capture these pieces your empire is then gaining resources at an increased rate, gaining specific resources. And those resources can be used for things like upgrading your weapons, upgrading your vehicles, training skills on the certification tree. There is a huge level of interactivity between resources, character advancement, and the core gameplay. So this is really central to the motivations behind why people are fighting in the game, what sort of strategic tactics they're going to be using. If I'm going to go capture an area, it might be because I know the Vanu are attacking me on another front, and they need this resource in order to field the kind of tanks they're fielding against us there, and if I can capture that resource from them now I'm denying them the ability to attack us that way.

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).


(Responding to the question of 2 empires being locked in a struggle and the 3rd going and attacking some other continent) With the resource system people are going to have an increased motivation to go and defend those places. If I go and start capturing this area as a New Conglomerate player and they start saying 'hey these guys are getting back into the fight, they're gaining resources'...

-- NOTE: conversation breaks off into a little exchange that's hard to hear, and I'm paraphrasing but they recognized the problem with this type of game and motivating people to spread out and encourage defense of distant territory. At this point the Executive Producer chimes in and mentions that the mission system can help motivate people to spread out, then T-Ray does a great Silent Bob maneuver and states that this is going to be vetted in beta and if it doesn't work they'll change it. (see my sig) --

There were no direct quotes in other sources, and Matt has not mentioned the resource system on reddit - the words "hex" "territory" "resource" "continent" "region" and "upgrade" doesn't appear in any of his statements there. If I missed any let me know I'll happily edit them in. I wanted word-for-word information, so I omitted summaries and avoided citing anything paraphrased (telephone game, etc).

With this complete and accurate list of quotes I hope we can have some good discussion about how these systems work and maybe get some more ideas flowing.

One large unanswered problem is the one that I mentioned in this thread, which has to do with global strategy and motivating people to have interesting conflicts instead of ghost-hacking continents, double-teaming, rich-getting-richer, and moving into one giant zerg in only one continent.

I will reply to this with my own analysis but I wanted to keep this first post limited to the information we know.

Hawt damn I love what they're doing with this. Really, really awesome stuff.

[Malorn]

Here are a few interesting exerpts that caught my eye.

Maybe you know the Vanu really require a lot of Auraxium. Maybe you are a New Con player and don't require a lot of Auraxium.

Depending on the context, this could imply that the different empires consume resources in different ways. The above might be alluding to the VS having higher rare resource requirements due to their high tech (but they might be compensated by requiring less of other resources). This could be a significant empire differentiator and add qutie a lot to the metagame. Cool idea if it's there.

Certain types of facilities will exert more influence on how much territory they capture. In the wilderness there will be capture points that will capture smaller places. Towers will be out there that will help you capture more territory.

You will be able to discretely capture territory. Every piece of territory, every region - all the territory is broken into different regions and they are independently capturable.So for instance there may be a large region that is controlled by a facility. When you capture the facility you own the entire region. There might be other areas that are captured just by a bunker that happens to be out in the wilderness somewhere. And by going to and capturing that bunker you capture that piece of territory.

When I heard this, here is the sort of conceptual ideas I got from that. This is directly related to the Civ5 stuff as well.


I got the following from the 7-3-1 concept that Matt mentioned. The facility has 7, tower 3, bunker 1.

I put the bridge in there as conceptual, but in reality I can see a long bridge consisting of 2 bunkers and you capture one bunker and you get half the bridge territory. Smaller bridges might only have one bunker and thus one capture point to own the entire bridge.

If they wanted to be even more granular, it might look like this.


Depends on how they want to work it but they have a lot of flexibility. I like the idea of bunkers a capture points, especially if they are also spawn points for infantry. This is similar to how one might capture a point on a Battlefield Bad Company 2 map and then spawn from it. More spawn points around the map means the combat pacing will be sped up.

[Hamma]

Very thorough and well thought out post as always

This too is one of the things I am most excited about. This opens so many doors in a world like PlanetSide because it means every piece of land has value. In one of my conversations with the devs they talked allot about all of the areas that are empty in PlanetSide because there is absolutely no reason to be out there fighting. They tried to get people out there with various merit achievements but in the end that was in vain.

This type of system adds so much more strategic value to the PlanetSide map, even small outfits can make a much larger difference than they could before.

Plus people *should* have far more reason to defend.

[CutterJohn]

Yes, well laid out. I am excited about this plan.

Especially how it will keep the fights from being so utterly predictable. You can pretty much call how a cyssorside is going to play out over the next several hours due to the unchanging lattice. Battles with this system will be far more fluid and unpredictable things, and even that will shift with time as they alter the resources regions give.

[Malorn]

Here's another bit on how it could work.

We're going through them now and we're creating those territories. And they're visualized to players as a hex grid. Some regions are going to be three hexes, some might be 7, some might be 2, some might be 1. And these are even going to shift and evolve over time as resources migrate, spawn and despawn, to keep things fresh. We want it to be as granular as possible.

This also jumped out at me - the idea that the regions can change based on resource allocation. Not sure how that could work.

It could be that the idea of "influence" and regions is a little more dynamic. Towers & Facilities might might exert influence that helps you capture and hold territory, while the individual hexes can each be captured themselves. As stated above one can capture it physically but also via influence.

Call me crazy but I have this thought that the influence idea and the adjacency are inter-related. Not every territory may have a bunker or a tower, for example, and it might be pretty repetitive if every territory had either a bunker, tower, or facility claiming it. I'm getting this idea that it might be as simple as classic domination-mechanics from the Battlefield games -If you get units close to a capture point you will slowly capture it over time. The amount of time it takes to capture is based on that adjacency system and nearby influence from things like bunkers, towers, and facilities. This gives more value to those things as strategic targets but still allows you to capture any territory simply by physically occupying it.

Perhaps influence actually attempts automatic capture, as if you had a certain # of players occupying the territory (depending on how close the territory is to the influence-producer). Meaning if you move over and occupy territory right next to a facility and then leave, over time the facility will re-claim the territory if you dont have anyone there. This sort of thing would naturally help counter-act ghost hacking.

The strength of influence could then vary by tower type, by facility type, and by bunker type.

To permanently hold it you would need to occupy one of the influence-generating structures such as a bunker, tower, or the facility. So if we go back to domination mechanics, a certain amount of domination control might be constantly exerted by influence-generating structures on nearby territory. This would help capture that territory and also help hold it. This is sort of like how in Civ 5 "culture" was generated every turn and captured territory without being there.

This also allows them to have territory that doesn't have a spawn point on it or doesn't have a nearby tower but still have it capturable.

So if you have a bunker next to a territory it might take longer for the enemy to capture the territory because the bunker exerts an amount of influence. Towers might exert still more influence, making it worthwhile to capture towers so you can make it easier and faster to capture other territories. However, at the end of the day, you can still capture the territory by simply occupying it. Even if a tower is right next to the territory if you physically occupy it via the domination mechanics you control the resources there. But owning the tower would help hold it and make capturing nearby territory easier.

I'm still trying to figure out how they can change the region-size with resources moving around. It could be resources themselves augment capture time or are influence producers. That one eludes me but I will continue to think on it.

[Headrattle]

This idea is what I am really really stoked for. From what they have said so far, this seems like a great idea.

[Aractain]

Its a really awesome way to do things from what I hear. Love it.

I love the way there will be a real front line which is clearly visable and will probably have the most action all along it.

[Desoxy]

I find the dynamic spawning and despawning of resources most intriguing. This should shift empire priorities around quite a bit - preventing the frontline from getting rather stable.

[DviddLeff]

Good post as always.

This small scale strategy is what I am most looking forward to; no longer will the lattice define where we fight and where we strike next, but instead we will be aiming for every facility, tower, bunker, resource, choke point, or high ground along an entire front line. All the while thinking about how best to hold what we have, disrupt the enemies plans and how to wisely use our resources.

One thing I am thinking of is what they mean when they say that the Empire gets the resources; does that just mean each player in the Empire, or does the Empire itself have a pool that commanders perhaps can use for supporting the Empire ?

As an aside, I quite look forward to this small feature:

You'll notice when you log in one of the things we're adding is sort of a recap of what's happened since the last time you played the game and you'll see how the territory has shifted since the last time you played.

[Tool]

I hope the need for these resources is great enough so that players are always compelled to go after them or really be concerned over resource denial. If not I fear over time the war would degrade to capturing whatever territory regardless of resource or consequence.

[Kietharr]

I agree that this system is probably the single most interesting and exciting addition they've mentioned. I can't wait for them to give us a little more information.

I like the idea of the factions using different minerals for different things, It'd be stupid if 'tankium' was the element that all factions needed for their tanks 'boomium' was required for all shotguns, ect.

I also like the idea of different factions having different raw number requirements. It'd be amazing if Vanu required rarer resources but less of them, it would fit in with their mobility based gameplay. Need a resource? Spend some time figuring out the best spot to attack is, Go in, secure it, take the little you need and leave.

But the more stationary factions (especially Terran) wouldn't need so much rare stuff, but would need more resources. So the wouldn't need to look as hard for positions to take, but would have to stay and defend their extraction harder.

I wonder if the resources will be required to make some things, or if they will only provide buffs, or both? Like for example you need metal to armor a vanguard, but each metal has different properties, maybe a highly reflective metal would reduce damage from energy weapons, maybe a dense metal would defend better against AP rounds, ect. There have been rumors of vehicle customization and it would be amazing if this sort of thing was added to it.

Or maybe say you need a focusing crystal for your lasher, but you could put in a crystal which caused a larger lightning ball but diffused damage, or a crystal that reduced AOE and increased damage.

Right now though the possibilities really are endless because they've given us little real information to speculate on, we don't know anything other than there will be resources and we're supposed to fight over them. If they know anything about how games work this should mean they're going to be making them worth fighting over. Resource driven conflict is the most entertaining kind of conflict, so here's to hoping that they pull it all off.

[Headrattle]

It would be neat to have resource drones that would carry resources from the area on the map to the bases. And some people could destroy those drones. But I am sure there are reasons we can't do that.

[Malorn]

I like the concept of supply lines, however I think it might detract from the front-line action and game pacing. It is possible for us to have too-much going on.

WWII Online had a rich supply model but it's also an incredibly slow game because it goes a little too far down the realism side of things. But that's great for that game which is going after more of a WWII simulation as opposed to market-shattering change in the MMO genre.

[Kurtz]

The game isn't out yet and you are already turning the map blue!

Resources also remind me of the only other MMOFPS in the world, WWIIOnline (Battleground:Europe) . That was a fantastic game.

I love the idea of Outfits using resources to establish outposts, or construct towers or create vehicle pads. These support actions that consume resources should have a direct impact of Outfit Points (in addition to kills). This will give support players a reason to do support.

Resource Concerns:

Seems like Resources are needed on every level from Faction to Individuals. What problems can arise from that?

1. This could put outfits in a position to set up a DKP system on their members and even manage what they can spend.
   
2. What resources an empire needs and how long they should hold it is likely a strategy. Not everyone always agrees on strategy even when its proven to be successful (A.S.S) . This could still lead to bickering in CR chat regarding what missions are set up. "Who keeps making all the Ishandur Missions? We don't need Resource Y at the moment!!". While Resource Y is needed for the optimization of Sniper Scopes.

The randomization of Resource location?

1. After hours of fighting over some resource will the server move it to a new location on some sort of random timer?

The hoarding of resources for personal gain (because of a Player Economy).

1. Solo players who are not only against the common goal of an outfit, but the actual empire itself due to a personal need for resources. (Planetside 1 had almost no reason to play solo....I LOVED the economy in SWG. But SWG was primarily PvE and there wasn't a Persistent PvP world 24/7).
   
2. Can creating weapons and selling them in a player market divide the population even further. PS1 had Killers and Support people. Now PS2 will have Killers, Support People and Crafters? Could be brilliant.
   

PS2 promises to be an entirely different game altogether. The information purge we saw at Fan Faire was the news we were all waiting for - that indeed the PS IP is alive and well and was not some afterthought in a marketing meeting.

Whether it ends up truly great or terrible remains anyone's guess. We will have to just wait and see. I personally have been waiting 8 years for this and will do everything I can to see that it is everything we've been hoping for and more.

So far, these guys have tried to implement all my favorite features from all my favorite games. Kudos!

[Kietharr]

Fleshing out an idea of what I'd like to see:

Several classes of resources of varying importance to each faction (just some ideas here):

1) Metals and Minerals: used for vehicles, heavily used by NC/TR for infantry weaponry and ammuntion and in the construction/repair of buildings and vehicles of all factions. Common resouirce

2) Bio-Mass: used for spawning and construction of spawn-related stuff, common resource.

3) Crystals: Used heavily by Vanu for weaponry and vehicles alike, sees some uses in certain technologies of other races. Rare material, but smaller quantities of it are required.

4) Petrochemicals: Used in fuel for vehicles for TR/NC and for explosives in many weapons, also used for plastics in Vanu infantry weapons. Uncommon resource.

5) Nanites: Used for base electricity, and for Vanu ammunition, works in much the same way as the first game.

Lacking these resources wouldn't necessarily strip you of all things they are required for, but would incur penalties. For example say you're Vanu and you're getting a Pulsar from the equipment terminal, but your faction is COMPLETELY out of crystals. Then you'd get one with a shoddy focusing crystal and your cone of fire would be much larger. Or say your base was out of nanites and you're a vanu, who draws weapon energy from base nanites rather than from faction ammunition stores, you'd get a 'weak charge' on your weapon which means your range and damage is reduced.

Or say you were building a Vanguard and had no fuel, you'd have to run it on electricity from nanites instead and you'd face a speed penalty or something, just like a real electric car

Gotta run to work but I'll flesh this out more when I get home, it's very fun to think about.