Ideas for the "Rich get richer" problem

[Eyeklops]

Another idea is to provide different amounts of resources for capture vs hold based upon distance from the friendly foothold. As an empire captures control points closer and closer to an opposing empires foothold the resource gain from holding that control point, or the "dividend", becomes smaller and smaller, but the initial capture resource bonus is higher. Encourage an empire to capture as far out as they can go, but provide incentive for the zerg to seek another front line wanting a better capture bonus. This would give the suppressed empire(s) (probably TR and/or NC) time to retake some control points and recover personal resources.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Eyeklops

How about an additional modifier to the base capture time? The more territory an empire owns, the faster it can be captured by an enemy empire. Also, make back hacks harder to re-secure if you own over a certain % of a continent.

This is similar to thoughts earlier in the thread (it's long so I don't blame you for skipping it), here's the direct link:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...&postcount=130

Originally Posted by Eyeklops

Another idea is to provide different amounts of resources for capture vs hold based upon distance from the friendly foothold. As an empire captures control points closer and closer to an opposing empires foothold the resource gain from holding that control point, or the "dividend", becomes smaller and smaller, but the initial capture resource bonus is higher. Encourage an empire to capture as far out as they can go, but provide incentive for the zerg to seek another front line wanting a better capture bonus. This would give the suppressed empire(s) (probably TR and/or NC) time to retake some control points and recover personal resources.

The only issue I have with this is that if the dominant empire has another empire bottled up into their foothold and we want to encourage back-hacking by making it easier to take their territory then the territory the poor empire is taking is likely close to one of the other two footholds. If resources diminished by proximity to a foothold then this would reduce the effectiveness of the back-hack solution.

The capture bonus idea is also right in line with the thoughts from the post I linked above - very similar concept. I think it's on the right track.

[Malorn]

Higby just wrote this about resource distribution:

Resource gain is split between things like actively fighting (i.e. more active fights with more going on will always get you more resources) as well as dividends from the territory your empire owns. So, this sort of takes care of itself! In a big fight, you'll get large rewards - win or lose, once the dust settles the empire that wins will continue to get base resources for that region, but the folks that participated in the battle will be getting a lot more up front.

That changes things, at least on the resource side. There's still a disadvantage but it might be enough, have to see how significant it is. I still think the adjacency system must account for the large territory ownership so the poor empire can gain some ground.

[Eyeklops]

Originally Posted by Malorn

If resources diminished by proximity to a foothold then this would reduce the effectiveness of the back-hack solution.

If the "ramp down" on the resource dividend does not start until around 40% from an enemy empire foothold, back hacking with full dividend should still be possible. If the empire capture bonus reaches max at 20% from the enemy foothold, the boost for a back hack may well be worth it even if it does get recaptured quickly.

If you want to really be mean:
Cut off all resource gain on that continent for the the empire who got back hacked until it's fixed, but only if they own more than (some %) of the control points. This would force a large amount of the zerg off the front line or they go broke and get forced off the front line.