Territory Capture Concern

Death2All · 2011-12-30, 02:23 AM

If you all recall in PS1, there was originally no lattice system in the game. You were free to hack any base on any continent whether you had a link or not. This turned out to be a huge cluster fuck, thus they implemented the lattice system.

In PS2, once again you do not need a link to hack territory. You can hack any territory you wish, the catch this time around being that you don't get a "capture bonus". Basically, the more adjacent territories you have nearby, the faster you capture. Vice versa, the more territories the enemy team has the faster they resecure. Or so I've heard. Even with these parameters in place, is this really going to stop tedious back hacking?

I've dubbed this time (late '09 to present) as "The Golden Age of Trolling". Not that everyone is necessarily good at pissing others off, just that everyone is doing it. The popularization of the word "troll" has generally led to more people trying to do it. More and more people are trying to "troll" others, generally to no avail, but it persists none the less.

Why do I bring this up? Given that PS2 is going to be free to play and already bring in (as one person so excellently put it) the lowest common denominator of player to the game, and the prevalance of "xD xDDD i tro0ll3d u lolool" it could lead to one of the most irritating overlooked concept of the game.

There's always going to be malicious people who want to fuck everyone else over. But given the scope of PS2, and just the general atmosphere of online gaming nowadays I'd really hate to see PS2 turn into a cluster of constant backhacks and resecures.

Again, there is a "capture bonus" for resecuring with adjacent territories. So hypothetically any attempt at this would be easily thwarted. But let me put something else in perspective for you.

Sometimes in PS1, I get bored. Mainly because I play VS and we always get shafted out of a fight and there's nothing else to do. So I decide to drain entire continents. It usually takes me about 7-10 minutes to kill everything neccesary and put the virus on the base so that it will drain in about 20 minutes. Then I move on to next base and continue doing this until the entire continent is drained.

A lot of the time the enemy responds, but by the time they've saved one base. Repaired every term, taken the virus off and filled the base up with NTU. I've already done another base. They can't keep up. And they eventually give up because stopping the base drains is boring as hell for them and they don't feel like wasting their time.

I can continue doing this. Why? It's fun for me. It's fun knowing that I'm wasting someone else's time. Or the reaction when they open their map and see their entire continent is drained. It's entertainment.

Now this is lighthearted "trolling" at the most. I'm not doing it on the impulse that I want the whole world to burn and fuck everybody. The only reason I do it is out of boredom because there is nothing else to do.

Now back to PS2. Suppose the fight is really shitty for a group of malicious individuals. They decide to spend their whole time back hacking territories constantly simply to annoy the other empires. The other empire responds, it's easy to resecure. But just suppose after a few hundred hacks they give in. They don't care any more and they just want to play the game.

So what's the point of this thread? All I'm saying is don't overlook the lattice system. It was put in place to put an end to that stupid shit in PS1, let's not make the same mistake in PS2.

Also, this backhacking still persists in PS1, the only difference is they can only do it to bases or continents they have a link to so it at least puts a limit to what they can do.

Azren · 2011-12-30, 03:30 AM

I doubt this will be a problem. If some group decides to back-hack, they will just get rolled by the owner empire. If not, they will end up opening a new battlefront, which is always fun (I don't think everyone wants to parttake in 1000+ man battles all the time, such small scale fronts might be a good change)

FastAndFree · 2011-12-30, 04:56 AM

I don't think it will be an issue with the reduced resecure timer, as this time even if the backhackers do succeed the "owners" of the continent can take back their base in significantly less time. Also, ANTs have been confirmed as out for release, so we have no idea how base draining will work, if at all possible.

I guess we'll just have to wait until beta to see what your annoying ilk comes up with

Hamma · 2011-12-30, 06:16 AM

Yea it's very hard to know how this will work. I would think, or hope there is a system in place to prevent "Back Hacking" similar to the Lattice system but we haven't a clue.

ringring · 2011-12-30, 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by Azren

I doubt this will be a problem. If some group decides to back-hack, they will just get rolled by the owner empire. If not, they will end up opening a new battlefront, which is always fun (I don't think everyone wants to parttake in 1000+ man battles all the time, such small scale fronts might be a good change)

Not necessarily. A group will hack a base, wait for responders and farm them. If they don't get the base they get the kills ........

I think it is a problem. If any base can be hacked with all continents available via the footholds then the 'fight' will become an amorphous mess with no true battlefront.

This is why I thought the mission system would in part form the same role as the lattice links.

It would be nice to get some definitive clarity from higby though.

Trolltaxi · 2011-12-30, 08:48 AM

I hope that a lonely enemy hexa will take almost no time to hack back, while doing it the opposite way will take almost an eternety. Like 30 secs vs. 30 mins.

In the original PS there was no difference if the neighburing bases were yours', the enemies' or the 3rd empires'. It took 15 minutes to hack, more than 15 to hack it back (you had to fight for it). The system of the game hasn't done anything against it.

Now we'll have something different. I hope it will work well.

Erendil · 2011-12-30, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Trolltaxi

I hope that a lonely enemy hexa will take almost no time to hack back, while doing it the opposite way will take almost an eternety. Like 30 secs vs. 30 mins.

In the original PS there was no difference if the neighburing bases were yours', the enemies' or the 3rd empires'. It took 15 minutes to hack, more than 15 to hack it back (you had to fight for it). The system of the game hasn't done anything against it.

Now we'll have something different. I hope it will work well.

Yes IIRC this is how Higby described it to us in one of the Fan Faire panels. Basically you can hack any hex in the cont that you want, but if you don't own any of the adjacent hexes it takes way longer for the hack to go through than if you owned hexes adjacent to it.

The specific TOH in each case is probably not nailed down yet, but I believe he said it would be something like 20 mins for a backhack, and 2 mins if you owned all the adjacent hexes, just to give us an idea.

Plus when looking at PS1, in the beginning there was no hack timer. Once you hacked a CC the base flipped immediately. That's why the lack of a lattice was full of Charlie Foxtrot. I'm not positive but I think the hack timer wasn't added until shortly after the lattice was already in place.

SgtMAD · 2011-12-30, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by Erendil

Yes IIRC this is how Higby described it to us in one of the Fan Faire panels. Basically you can hack any hex in the cont that you want, but if you don't own any of the adjacent hexes it takes way longer for the hack to go through than if you owned hexes adjacent to it.

The specific TOH in each case is probably not nailed down yet, but I believe he said it would be something like 20 mins for a backhack, and 2 mins if you owned all the adjacent hexes, just to give us an idea.

Plus when looking at PS1, in the beginning there was no hack timer. Once you hacked a CC the base flipped immediately. That's why the lack of a lattice was full of Charlie Foxtrot. I'm not positive but I think the hack timer wasn't added until shortly after the lattice was already in place.

there was always a hack timer,what they eliminated was NTU's being drained by spawning,they added the lattice but then we figured out that blowing up all the matrix panels would drain a base inside of 10 minutes so we just lattice punched any base we wanted to take.

Crator · 2011-12-30, 09:15 AM

^^^ This is how I imagined it would work...

klu · 2011-12-30, 10:06 AM

the latice system turned the game into the 'same ol fight' ooover and oover again. i say good riddance.

Raymac · 2011-12-30, 12:54 PM

D, you bring up a great point, but from what we know so far, I think the devs have come up with a good system they can balance against this. I think there will most certainly be back hackers. If it's effective, and it is, then it will be a useful tactic. However, it appears the bases will be much larger and more complex than the PS1 bases, and if somebody wants to try and take a random hex or 2 that can be retaken in a matter of minutes, then let them waste their time trying to troll like that.

I'm really excited to find out more information about how the capture system will work though. Just seeing the maps, and then the hint of a hex grin on the website background gets me all tingly.

Miir · 2011-12-31, 12:08 AM

Finished this little animation off and thought it might go good in here.

I like the idea that we will be able to go behind enemy lines and do missions and think that it will be a benefit to the gameplay. Can't wait to see what they come up with.

Quantumplation · 2011-12-31, 07:33 AM

I don't think it would be a good idea to completely stop these backhacks: All is fair in war, and one of the key elements of that is the concept of chaos in the enemy ranks. Preventing that element would be directly detrimental to the kind of varied tactical options that are going to make this game so appealing.

However, in order to prevent these types of tactics from being outright overabused, you just need to make them more difficult to pull off. The first thing that comes to mind after a couple of minutes of speculation, is that anything a few (2 or 3 depending on map size) hex's in from your empires "frontline" gains a "fortified" status.

This could provide various advantages, but the one I find most significant to this conversation is a sort of field radar. Anybody roaming around in your back alleys gets placed on the map, and it notifies the command channel depending on the size of the grouping (one person, 10 people, etc). That allows them to dispatch the force necessary to deal with it, giving a squad something to do outside of the mayhem of the front lines for a bit of a breather. This allows "chaos in war" style tactics, but makes the empire work for that kind of achievement, instead of just "trololol".

It also gives a direct tactical advantage to maintaining a solid front, as opposed to a "spaghetti noodle" frontline, with tendrils of hacked hex's streaming into the enemy lines.

This same idea can be leveraged for other things like: While in the fortified region, vehicles move faster, allow you to get to the front-lines faster, similar to the road network that made the roman army so powerful.

I'd be interested in hearing everyone's feedback. The idea isn't perfect, obviously, but perhaps as a community we can hammer it into something robust enough to garner the devs attentions (assuming they don't have something like that in place.)

Trolltaxi · 2011-12-31, 07:05 AM

Good job mate... Do you plan to extend the animation?

In this case I think hexas will be smaller. IIRC a larger base will mean 6-7 hexas (or is it their SOI that turns when the base itself turns? - /unsure).

It would be great to see how the frontline will move. Like a 3-3 adjacent hexa situation (no time bonus), one empire gathers forces and breaks through, making it easier the capture the center, and finally the front collapses and and the defenders must withdraw.

And one more thing. When TR responds to the attack, the animation suggest that they rearrange their troops and they attack from multiple directions. How about adding a timer ticking slowly to 0 when NC comes, then the timer ticking fast when TR recaptures?

Anyone has an idea how 3-ways will work? Does it matter if (let's say) we have 2 adjacent, enemy has 3 and 3rd empire has 1? How will the timer be calculated?

What will happen, if you have 3 hexas (like satelites around a center hexa), you start capturing the middle one (3 adjacent, no timer bonus/malus) but you loose one or two in the meantime? You finish the conquer based on the original timer, or your timer will go up when loosing an adjacent territory? On the other hand, if you manage to capture additional hexas, your timer will drop with their bonus?

Man, it would be so much easier to make an animation based on my concerns than trying to explain them in words!

Miir · 2011-12-31, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by Trolltaxi

Good job mate... Do you plan to extend the animation?

In this case I think hexas will be smaller. IIRC a larger base will mean 6-7 hexas (or is it their SOI that turns when the base itself turns? - /unsure).

It would be great to see how the frontline will move. Like a 3-3 adjacent hexa situation (no time bonus), one empire gathers forces and breaks through, making it easier the capture the center, and finally the front collapses and and the defenders must withdraw.

And one more thing. When TR responds to the attack, the animation suggest that they rearrange their troops and they attack from multiple directions. How about adding a timer ticking slowly to 0 when NC comes, then the timer ticking fast when TR recaptures?

Anyone has an idea how 3-ways will work? Does it matter if (let's say) we have 2 adjacent, enemy has 3 and 3rd empire has 1? How will the timer be calculated?

What will happen, if you have 3 hexas (like satelites around a center hexa), you start capturing the middle one (3 adjacent, no timer bonus/malus) but you loose one or two in the meantime? You finish the conquer based on the original timer, or your timer will go up when loosing an adjacent territory? On the other hand, if you manage to capture additional hexas, your timer will drop with their bonus?

Man, it would be so much easier to make an animation based on my concerns than trying to explain them in words!

It's pretty easy to add more information to the animation. I tried to avoid using any timers or numbers not to mislead people into thinking those numbers were official. But if we get some more concrete information I can modify video.

Below shows what I think will be the natural progression of battle. Nothing is stopping an empire from attacking out of order but this would be the best method to get the time bonus on the front lines.