News: Firing Line PlanetSide 2 Concerns

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

We have all been addicted to that idea but it just does not happen in a balanced 3-factions game unless unfair conditions are present.

"Unfair" conditions would be:
- low population (e.g at night or after server restart for maintenance) (i.e. game not working under intended conditions)
- uneven populations (i.e. game not working under intended conditions)
- permanent double-team vs. one empire (i.e. human factor making the game a 33% vs. 66% until your empire is contlocked and/or people start logging out feeding the uneven and low pops issues)
- significant hacker problems (i.e. not working as intended)

When you say "knocking out the enemy for good and starting over", I am not sure you realize what it technically implies. If the game is balanced at all, it means you will have 66% of player population (the 2 other empires) stacking on your to wipe you out as soon as the game restarts. And then the question is: should the game restart as soon as the 66% have eliminated 33% pop or should it stay 50% vs. 50% until one of the two empires left wins ?

Then there is the "unfair" conditions. How would you feel if your empire was wiped out during one of those and you can't play anymore ?

Events are one way to give a clear "goal" and a clear "winner", a game in the game. "Victory conditions" (what definition may be understood by that expression) are another.

I believe PS should have mechanisms in place so that you can pound an empire to the ground without breaking the game. It's like bending a material that takes back its shape: it takes a lot of energy, skill, effort and most importantly, it can be done. But in the end, everything returns to equilibrium naturally through the natural 3-factions gameplay (even if it went through "unfair" conditions).

That would be the real beauty of Planetside.

I didn't intend to mean a literal knockout nor for starting over to mean a literal reset...victory condition for me would be as simple as reducing one of the enemy empires to less than 10% of the hexes on the map, at which point the game will kick in and give them temporary help to turn it around.

The game may not say "You Won", instead it may say "enemy has been reinforced by unknown allies!" or something.

It's like you said "PS should have mechanisms in place so that you can pound an empire to the ground without breaking the game". When it becomes obvious that we are pounding someone into the ground, that's a victory, even if the game doesn't end and reset.