Ideas for the "Rich get richer" problem

**Malorn** · 2012-03-23, 04:27 AM

One of the Reddit questions I had asked was:

How do you plan on addressing the "rich get richer" problem where as an empire gains more territory and resources, they gain more power over the other empires?

Higby's response

this is a tough problem to solve.

Perhaps we, the illustrious PSU community, can assist with some ideas to help address this hard problem.

Part of the reason this is a tough problem is because solving it could render motivation to take territory useless. For example, if we had a welfare system it might not motivate people to take territory, or if we penalized large territory ownership it might motivate an empire to not take too much territory in order to optimize resource gain.

So how can we both reward players for conquest while simultaneously handicapping them so it is still possible for the conquered empires to strike back and regain territory?

What do you think could be done to help solve this problem?

Skitrel · 2012-03-23, 04:29 AM

I'll copy what I said elsewhere on this topic as a matter of keeping info all in one place.

I think the rich getting richer will balance against the fact that defending their own territory gets harder and harder the more they own. Making it so that capturing territories of a faction that has more territory than everyone else will be quicker than capturing territories of factions with fewer territories would essentially make it impossible to sustain a larger number of territories for any length of time.

If the balance is right on this, it should make the fight do the balancing, as opposed to the resources. They might be the tougher, harder faction due to higher resources, but they still can't defend everything at once with ever quicker capture times.

noxious · 2012-03-23, 04:35 AM

Just use variable hack times. If your faction owns all but one or two hexes, hacking the last two hexes will take 5 or 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the other guys can hack adjacent hexes in seconds, and they can back hack in a minute or two.

Coreldan · 2012-03-23, 04:59 AM

Originally Posted by noxious

Just use variable hack times. If your faction owns all but one or two hexes, hacking the last two hexes will take 5 or 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the other guys can hack adjacent hexes in seconds, and they can back hack in a minute or two.

As I replied to someone in the other thread as well, I doubt the hardest part of defending/capturing bases will be the hack times.

Either you sorta have it in control or you don't. EDIT: To clarify, naturally hack times make a difference and you often get bases resecured if you have time, but the point being that the poor getting poorer might have really hard time getting anywhere near the CC, if the rich getting richer can afford just about anything, while the poor are stuck with grunts.

If the pinned down faction can't even get out of their foothold, a short hack time doesnt help much cos you cant even get to the CC cos they have the man/gear power to stop you.

That said, other ideas I thought about the rich getting richer could be that if you have low pop and/or territory, you could get bonus resources (much like the low pop bonus exp in PS1). That would still require you at least have some resource income, but then again it could just make fighting over territory for the resources "boring", cos the losers still get a good amount of resources just for sucking

Death2All · 2012-03-23, 04:40 AM

Socialism! Your resources are my resources!

Seriously though, I don't know if there's an actual way to combat the rich getting richer, or how big of an issue it will end up being. I'm not entirely sure how resource spending works. I think Higby put it as "Your empire pays you resources out like dividends for having territories". I assume you get more, the more territories you own.

But how does spending work? When you buy a weapon, attachment, vehicle etc. is it a one time unlock? Or do you have to repurchase it everytime? What's the average cost of a weapon/vehicle/attachment? Can you still purchase weapons if you're resource starved with station cash?

Territory capture is one of the features I'm really excited for, but there are a few possible problems it could cause. Perhaps it will work out like PS1, where you beat the shit out of an empire until they're left whimpering in their sanc warpgate, then after everything settles down they start to slowly cost back their conts, or in this case territories. But since territories are a lot more important this time around than bases/continent lock incentives, are people going to be more adamant on keeping territories since it supplies this with resources? Guess we'll have to wait on beta to see how exactly this whole system works and functions.

Death2All · 2012-03-23, 04:45 AM

Originally Posted by Skitrel

I'll copy what I said elsewhere on this topic as a matter of keeping info all in one place.

I think the rich getting richer will balance against the fact that defending their own territory gets harder and harder the more they own. Making it so that capturing territories of a faction that has more territory than everyone else will be quicker than capturing territories of factions with fewer territories would essentially make it impossible to sustain a larger number of territories for any length of time.

If the balance is right on this, it should make the fight do the balancing, as opposed to the resources. They might be the tougher, harder faction due to higher resources, but they still can't defend everything at once with ever quicker capture times.

I remember them saying something about that the more adjacent territory hexes you have near you, the faster capture bonus you get for the next territory, as a means to prevent backhacking.

They gave an example of "it will take an empire hacking an enemy empire's hex surrounded by other hexes of that same enemy empire 30 minutes to complete, but it would take the defending empire 30 seconds to resecure."

Of course, this was back when we had seen little to no game footage and Higby was just answering random questions on Reddit, so who knows how much that's changed since.

MrSmegz · 2012-03-23, 05:38 AM

I would rather the game do nothing at all if you were at a population disadvantage. I know it really sucks being on the loosing team because say VS are at 40% and NC and TR are at 30% each. These situations will require Global Commanders to change up strategies and maybe save resources (in meta game) for another day.

Being at a disadvantage in PS is far better than your team getting "Base-raped" for 700 tickets in BF3, and the loosing teams players are constantly leaving.

Bazilx · 2012-03-23, 06:21 AM

I SHALL ANSWER THE CALL MALORN AND FIX THIS PROBLEM

Hear me all ye who fear the coming wrath of the imba faction! As there are 4 kinds of resources, we shall simply make it so that once you are down to a significantly lower amount of bases your empire gets "Emergency supplies" in the form of ONE resource! Preferably the resource that makes plain warfare easier but which still doesn't give you any of the many other benefits of the other resources, thus retaining the motivation - beside the obvious fun - of taking over other bases but still not making it so that a faction loses the ability to fight.

It could even function in the same way that a cornered animal bears teeth so that as a faction you'd be rather strong in the tank/air/max department once you are pushed really far, thus motivating the imba faction to turn its attention to the third empire instead of you.

Thank you all for your attention, that's one more problem solved by me. Autographs will be signed exclusively on womens breasts, and any muffin-donations should be sent to my agents office.

Jonny · 2012-03-23, 07:02 AM

Nanite Systems charge 50% tax rate. The more one empire owns the higher tax they charge because its in their interests to keep the war going....or something.

Coreldan · 2012-03-23, 07:18 AM

Originally Posted by Jonny

Nanite Systems charge 50% tax rate. The more one empire owns the higher tax they charge because its in their interests to keep the war going....or something.

Ideas like these are probably the simplest solutions, but I think it kills the point of having resources.

Like, why fight for territory to gain resouces when you are gonna be punished for success or alternatively the scrubs will get just as much resources cos they get some bonuses even if they just got steamrolled.

MrSmegz · 2012-03-23, 07:25 AM

Originally Posted by Coreldan

Ideas like these are probably the simplest solutions, but I think it kills the point of having resources.

Like, why fight for territory to gain resouces when you are gonna be punished for success or alternatively the scrubs will get just as much resources cos they get some bonuses even if they just got steamrolled.

Agreed, this is why I say leave it alone. Being the underdog for the week, then having your faction fight back, and take back its stake of land on the weekend will make for more great PlanetSide stories.

Ruwyn · 2012-03-23, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by Jonny

Nanite Systems charge 50% tax rate. The more one empire owns the higher tax they charge because its in their interests to keep the war going....or something.

Along these lines is what I was thinking. Make a tax system that can be written in as "maintenance costs" for the story line.

If each "hex" in a territory was worth 10 units of X resource you could do something like:

0-9 hex = 0 tax
10-19 = 1 unit tax (faction would get 9/10 units)
20-29 = 2 unit tax (8/10)
etc.

You could break this down by resource type even further so factions would then target key resources that aren't yet highly taxed. A tax cap would have to be put in place of course or you could let it hardcap out (where it no longer pays to take more territory since you will make less then if you didn't have it).

The best would probably increase the "tax" for each block of 10 and not as a whole. So it would basically act like diminishing returns. So in the example above if you have 23 hexes worth of a single type of resource:
No tax = 230units
increasing tax to all hex = 184
tax hitting just those in the block of 10 = 212

Adjust the rate as needed.

Vash02 · 2012-03-23, 07:44 AM

You could say that your faction only has a limited number of "miners" so that the more territory you control the output becomes lower and lower to at some point (50-60% of total territory?) it levels out. and adversely with less territory the output rises.

The faction with the most territory would still get more than the other factions but not hideously more.

Also if a faction gets down to zero territory and resources their empire command could just release their resource reserves until the empire gets back some territory and bases.

Knocky · 2012-03-23, 08:08 AM

Before you guys totally flip out about this "problem", it will be easy to see if it really is a problem.

Take all the territory from a faction and see how hard it is to dig yourself out of that hole.

Kipper · 2012-03-23, 08:47 AM

I don't think this is a problem worth worrying about. The solution was already there in about post #2....

The more territory you have, the more resource you accumulate = fair. You're defending far more territory with the same amount of players as the other two empires, so if you can actually keep that going as a team - you deserve the extra!

The bigger your space, the more prone to backhacks you are because your territory is 'deeper', and the less players you have in any one area of the front line, assuming you are defending the full length of it.

A team with 30 hexes vs a team with 10 is going to have on average 3x less players in a skirmish, or they're going to have to leave 20 hexes undefended.

It should balance. My worry is that it will balance too well, and just be a complete stalemate in the centre of the continent where every gain results in a loss elsewhere.