Intercontinental links, permanent strongholds and # of continents

[texico]

I saw the hex system of territory control in the GDC video, and it looks amazing One of the best-looking development moves for PS2 imo and that much more fluid, moving front line looks awesome, plus it'll be nice using all of the terrain, there were a lot of interesting terrain formations in PS1 that never got any fight time because they didn't lay between facilities. So well done

However, while it looks great on a continental level, i've been wondering how things are going to work between continents. Have the devs released any information?

As I understand, there's no more link system, but the collective time bonus of hex territories is an incentive for empire's to not just attack random facilities in the middle of the continent instead. But if there's no link system, and each continent now has an unconquerable "base" for each empire, doesn't that mean that people can just attack any continent they want all day long? If that's the case, the two problems I can see are annoying people hacking bases all over the place and therefore defenders always having to go all the way over there to kill one guy or something stupid, and the other problem is that it's much more likely there will be fights on all continents at all times, which will surely just act to spread the fights thinner?

In PS1 continents were of course locked (in terms of capturability) if your empire didn't have the link to get there. Therefore fights were usually concentrated on one continent. True, if there were more people, there'd be more continents, and sometimes you'd get two active conts, but that's only because one would be pop-locked.



This locking system actually had another big bonus when you think about it. Depending a little bit on your empire, there were some continents that you visited a lot of the time and where "normal" gameplay took place. Usually that's Cyssor, Ishundar, Searhus and Oshur. Other continents were rarer, and therefore, it probably actually took a whole YEAR, maybe more to have experienced every "fight" (for each and every facility on all continents from all directions), and some of them only once. At first that seems like a negative, but remember that every new fight felt like absolutely brand new content. I remember the first time I fought on Nexus after having looked at it on the map for several months, and I lapped up every single second.

Also, because of the way the link system worked, each empire had home conts that absolutely felt like their home turf, and it was always extremely difficult to try and beat an empire on their home (which made it all the more satisfying when you managed it). For some reason as an NC, Solsar, Esamir and Forseral were rarely fought on while Hossin, Amerish and Ceryshen were more-so.

The result was that some maps felt almost like premium content. You log on and see the NC fighting on Forseral and you're inclined to play for 12 hours because it's a fairly rare experience


I'm wondering therefore if with no sort of "link" system between continents to restrict what you can play, and continental strongholds so you can always spawn on every cont, there's going to be fights on all the continents most of the time, you're going to be playing on them all regularly, no empire has their own "turf" and the fights will spread thinner across more space.

Also, this is why I wonder if starting with only a few continents is a bad idea. If for example the game launches with 3, everyone will play all these continents fairly regularly, then when a new one is released, everyone might crowd that continent at first, then fights will spread out to all 4, and so on, rather than PS1's system where a number of continents are staring you in the face and you're looking forward to playing them, and each empire has their own favoured continents.







So yeah, I really like the hex territory system, but in a similar way I hope the continents themselves are treated as actual territory with bonuses, favoured maps per empire and maps that are played on less than others depending on your empire, rather than just the staging ground for battles. That's why I feel a little concerned about the permanent strongholds and the possibility of only a few continents at the start; I don't want the game to feel like it's just a battle for a continent when in PS1 it was a battle for the whole of Auraxis.

[WiteBeam]

Whether empires will have home turf or non-capture sanctuary type footholds, I hope they atleast switch up the route that links allow you to go. I see what your saying about the rare fights on some conts, but I would like to see a change of scenery a little more often.

[Thoreaux]

This is one way to look at it I guess. I'm actually looking forward to exactly what you're describing, though. I like the idea that, at any given time, every continent has a fight going on which I could hop into.

To be honest, I think that regardless of the system, concentration of fights into more or fewer continents is mostly a function of population. You saw that in PS1 early on when it had high pops; there were multiple contested continents. Still, there were often continents that did not see as much action, and some which saw so much people got sick of them (Cyssorside). I think that's a design problem, not a feature.

If you talk about each area having a certain probability of seeing combat, it is inevitable that some areas will have a higher probability than others. Myself, I'd prefer as even a distribution as possible between continents, and also between areas within those continents. I like a regular rotation of as many "maps" as possible, basically. I think it will help the longevity of the game as well.

[Kipper]

I now wonder if they're starting with three continents because rather than a home hex per empire on each one, we'll be seeing one continent be the home of each empire. Presumably with a warp gate or two on the opposite side of it to the foothold.

This would mean you should control most of your home continent but the two other factions can cross through the gates and attack you, but you can stop them by locking down the warp gate and defending the hex its in, and you can push over to the other empires continent when you control yours.

The further you push one way, the more likely the other empire will be able to make progress on your home continent while you're busy.

You'll also get a 'true' defensive advantage the deeper into your home territory enemies go - because you'll see those hexes all the time and know where all the best spots are, and they'll see them far less frequently.

That makes much more sense than one foothold for each empire on every continent, fo' sho'.

[Malorn]

I want to see a world where there are no "servers" as we understand it, but rather for each geographical region there are globally unique players and outfits, and then each "server" is a continent.

With only 3 continents at launch that will be difficult to meet player demand I believe, so they may need to create placeholder duplicate continents until additional continents are created.

But long-term, I can see a dozen or more unique continents, each capable of holding 2k+ players, and each continent matters.

The key issue as I see it is keeping continents densely enough populated throughout the day to have good battles 24/7 through the population variations from prime time to early morning. I don't see density staying strong all day long without them closing down access to some subset of continents as the number of players drops, sort of like how they locked/unlocked caves only make it population-based instead of time-based.