End Game: Pros and Cons

[Malorn]

I generally like the idea of rewarding the empire that owned the most territory over the last month. However I would change the rewards.

The empire that won gets a one-time resource boost or perhaps free station cash - 5-10$ worth?

The empires that lost get the xp boost, as clearly they are the ones that need it.

Gotta be careful about the rich-get-richer problem. Cant' reward conquest with things that help them get more conquest. Rewarding them with access to cosmetic crap is fine, while giving the empires that lost an xp boost as a handicap to help encourage that empire to improve.

The empire that won of course also gets bragging rights. I think bragging rights + stuff that doesn't directly impact the game is reward enough.

Giving the losers a boost is a good thing ot help those empires and discourage people from piling on the winning team.

[Vancha]

I'm remembering back to the cowboy/knives only event in Planetside. Even something as small as that segregated the players. You had one game going on on the battle islands and another going on on the rest of the continents. It felt like those of us knifing each other on the battle islands were playing our own little game. I don't think it'd be a stretch to say that any different "game-type" that was instanced would immediately split the player-base.

I also wouldn't want to see the best outfits absent from battles because they were off on some other continent, busy "practicing" for next weekend's outfit tournament.

I was pleased to hear of the inspirations from EVE back when we first saw Planetside 2 at Fan Faire 2011 and I think it should serve as inspiration again. I discovered the EVE Alliance Tournament back in 2010 when I first played EVE, and while I only played EVE itself for a couple of months, I made sure to watch the 2011 EVE Alliance Tournament last year and look forward to watching this year's one as well.

With that in mind, I could imagine a huge outfit tournament happening every 9-12 months in the style of EVE's alliance tournaments, with a live duo of commentators (*cough*TB?*cough*) and SOE streaming the event. I can imagine the commentators having flying cameras, the ability to look through various players' views and such, though obviously they'd need to be given the software to do so.

[Bags]

Agreed 100% vancha.

[basti]

Given the new layout of the continents, Victory conditions are quite simple actually.

Leave everything as it is, but make those Footholds capturable. Means, in theory, you could capture a continent, just like back in the days. But it would be quite hard i assume, and you cant even begin to attack those footholds unless you got all surrounding territory, as well as the owner of the foothold has just this one base.


PRos: Continents could shift. Instead of allways coming from the same side of a continent, you could now end up attacking from a different direction, making those battles a whole lot mroe interresting

Cons: Dunno. Would need to think fully about the idea, but im to damn lazy atm.

[Spoof]

Originally Posted by Higby

... The very nature of a fiercely competitive game without a victory condition is a conundrum I've been wrestling with since starting on this project, it usually comes down to having to rely on "smaller" victory moments.

That's the irony of Planetside, and one of the cornerstones that made it great and unique - no overall winners, just the ebb and flow of small victories and losses, and all the fun it entails.

The flipside to any debate on a winning scenario is the losing scenario, but nobody ever talks about that. In the endgame, two-thirds of the playerbase will be on the losing end.

One issue with the original idea of monthly tournaments is apathy. At some point near the endgame it will become obvious who the eventual victor will be, and the losing factions will melt away to play other games, do some much needed gardening (the grass is growing as I speak...), or hop empire to claim bragging rights. This could happen several days before the end of the event.

I'm not dismissing tournament play as a sideline to the game, but I feel it doesn't have any place in the bigger picture.

I liken the whole thing to a bridge battle, where CR5s are screaming at the zerg to find another way around, take the last base and win. Bridge battles are a stalemate. But they are so much fun!

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Vancha

I also wouldn't want to see the best outfits absent from battles because they were off on some other continent, busy "practicing" for next weekend's outfit tournament.

That's their choice though. If they want to focus on a different aspect of gameplay, who are you to tell them they can't?

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

That's their choice though. If they want to focus on a different aspect of gameplay, who are you to tell them they can't?

I'm Vancha.

[DviddLeff]

There needs to be victory conditions that span over minutes, hours and then even days and weeks. From what we have seen we have them for the minutes and hours, but any longer and there is nothing empire wise for that.

Daily and monthly winners declared may be enough (say the empire that has held the most territory/facilities in that time) but what you really want is something to really brag about.

The only way I see this being able to happen is to capture entire continents, not just everything except the enemy footholds.

[megamold]

i support the idea of having an "end-game" type thing in the game, but i think this will be something that will require a lot of back and forth discussion with the devs and the community, to me this should also be a concern for after release.

i say this because there is pretty much no fps out there that has an actual end-game, so anything they decide to use will be groundbreaking in the fps industry.
seeing how this would a first it should be tought out really really well, and thats why i think it should added after release when they have less on their mind and can focus more on how to turn this idea into something viable, fun , balanced and achievable.
and since its "endgame" it should only happen a couple times a year.

[Redshift]

I don't like the idea's of rounds at all.

loosing should be a matter of pride.

How about a strong hold, a really hard to take base back from the front, give it some sort of capital shield so you have to take the hexes around it first.
Then keep the scores on how many times your empire has lost it.
It'd be the equivalent of being zero based and ultimately humiliating.

[megamold]

that would work, but they would need to flesh it out more then that otherwise its just capturing another base ( a more difficult one but a base capture none the less ) since this would be the first endgame type deal in an fps game it should have some more inspiration and innovation to it then just capturing a base
persistance and endgame is something a little difficult to combine, but it think it can be done

i heard someone suggest the same thing but that the cont would be "reset" to neutral after the cap wich is rediculous imho, if they want their territory back they need to come get it

[likwidneo]

Originally Posted by Higby

The very nature of a fiercely competitive game without a victory condition is a conundrum I've been wrestling with since starting on this project, it usually comes down to having to rely on "smaller" victory moments.

This is going to be long.... but hopefully worthwhile...

I think there's a way to do things like this that makes everyone on both sides happy. I think the problem, if you break it down at the most fundamental level, is that, PS is a war simulator where other shooters are just battle simulators. BF3 and CoD are checkers to PS's chess. BUT, one problem with PS where it differs from real life warfare is that every battle ultimately has relatively the same MEANING, or the same AMOUNT of meaning. Ask any WWII veteran on either side of the conflict if D-Day had the same meaning as the battle for the rhine, or marching on Berlin.

The problem, is, War's have ends, or more specifically, they have decisiveness. PS while it's a war simulator game, it's still a game. And the game can't be allowed to end. Now in PS1 unfortunately, a distinction was never made between a war without end, and a war without "decisive moments." For example, I'm an NC. We move in. We take a base. The VS respond. A battle ensues. One side wins. We move to another base. A battle ensues, move on to another base... rinse and repeat ad infinitum, and 9 years later it's still the same thing. Planetsides greatest draw, it's purely PVP persistent game world, also became its biggest flaw due to shortsightedness on the part of the developers, giving the game a certain sense of monotony. Later in the game they acknowledged this and tried to remedy it with things like Black Ops, but sadly that was too late, and nowhere near enough.

I think with the bigger focus on backstory for planetside2, this creates opportunities for in game live events that can give a certain sense of "decisiveness" without necessarily ever letting the battle end. What if, 3 month's in, The mysterious Auraxian Planetary Core unlocks the shields around the warp gate's/safe zone's on Indar continent, then, when the 3 sides start duking it out over their respective safe zones, a safe zone capture flips ALL of the defeated empires territory to the victor, thus eliminating that empire from the continent? Then, maybe a week or so after the continent was monopolized, just as swiftly all the bases are mysteriously neutralized, and all 3 sides scramble to regain a foothold when the warpgates normalize again? Story can be release subsequently about the epic battle, and the players are the one's who dictated at least who the winners and the losers in that story are. The Matrix Online, at least for the first year after it's launch was a GREAT example of this concept.

At the end of the day I guess my point is it's perfectly ok to screw with the game every once in a while, and GIVE decisiveness, even "seemingly" permanent victory to the war, and then take it away the next day. If the dev team doesn't know how to screw with the players minds a little, then I think there is a certain lack of imagination going into the creation of this game, no offense intended. Make them fight for something in live events, only to have it turn out to be something else entirely. Taking away the previously promised outcome of the event wont take away the satisfaction the players derive. Get creative.

One thing that bugs me is that early on when PS2 was announced and they brought out Higby/Josh/Smed to start hyping the game up, one of the things they kept talking about, which now they are completely mum about, is having a sandbox aspect to the game. I know it won't be there at launch, and it doesn't NEED to be to keep the game entertaining for the first few months, maybe even a year. But once the shine and polish of the games "newness" wears off, you guys may put yourself in a position where youre going to have to to find ways to break monotony, which PS1 suffers from severely. As a player, this should be done FOR me, by the developers. I shouldn't have to find ways to do this for myself to keep myself invested in the game. New content as it's rolled out will soon have the same effect in an even shorter time frame. When they rolled out the Skyguard and the Lib 3 months after launch, sadly this wasnt enough to keep me subbed. The polish wore off, and I wouldn't come back to the game for a good while. And if PS1 is any indicator, it is ALOT harder to role out new, varied, and balanced content for an MMOFPS than it is for other MMO games out there. This method can not be overly used with a game like PS. Ultimately new content, live events, and sandbox elements will all have to be implemented and balanced against each other if the game is going to have long term success, in order to keep the game fresh and keep the player base involved and always thirsty for more.

But I do get it, from a developer standpoint, sandbox content, in a game like PS, where it's 100% PVP and the players ARE the content, can be extremely scary and essentially be a way of giving the players the very tools they can use to subsequently UNBALANCE the game. You could potentially be creating an end game completely unintentionally and without even trying. The consequences could be disastrous. BUT, there is still a big big place for this type of content in the game. I guess you just have to be more judicious about it's use.

Sadly, some of these sandbox promises were made a few years into PS1 and they never materialized and I'm concerned the same thing might happen in PS2. There was talk about how they were going to have outfit owned bases in PS1 that outfits could spend outfit points on to pimp them out, which would then spur outfit wars to happen on their own without the need for the live events style matches that they created for this. None of it ever happened.

I know currently what you guys are working on is the nuts and bolts, the moment to moment action, making all that shooting play work and feel right. But as a player I think we're at a point where you guys should start telling us a little bit more about the deeper metagame. What happened to those capital ships you guys spoke about earlier on? Do you yet have any idea about how outfits are going to work and all that vaunted outfit customization? We haven't heard a PEEP about the command cert tree. What's going on with that? Maybe I'm just anxious but I'm a bit concerned that the reason why PS Next was scrapped and turned into PS2, which was that PS Next was just going to be a PS1 remake, complete with all its glaring flaws, is now happening to PS2 anyway. Even if you guys are making changes to the moment to moment action, very little has been mentioned about how you guys are changing the metagame. And what little has been mentioned, specifically the territory control system, at least to me, doesn't seem to solve PS1's metagame issues of monotony. You guys are doing a fantastic job of reaching out and listening to the player base this time around, but I think you should start informing us and asking us a little bit more about the metagame as well as the nuts and bolts.

Don't get me wrong if I sound negative. I think you are doing great. I'm psyched and can't wait to get my hands on PS2 as early as possible, and I already know I will be a paying customer. Hell I'm still subbed to PS1 right now. BUT, you guys have your work cut out for you if you're going to keep my interest over a longer period of time compared to other MMO's. Final Fantasy XI kept me paying almost every single month for 7 years running. I'd like to see you guys try and do that for PlanetSide 2. But this means you guys are going to have to find ways to keep it from becoming as monotonous as PS1 became.

[Gandhi]

It seems like we're trying to bolt something on to Planetside that doesn't really belong. Planetside isn't a competitive FPS, even PS2 doesn't seem to be, it's a totally different breed of shooter. Different game modes, instanced matches, some kind of "you're the ultimate winner" condition... they all sound like solutions looking for a problem. People who want that kind of competitive nature will play a competitive FPS, people who want persistent all out warfare will play Planetside. Trying to please everyone usually ends in failure.

That's how I see it anyway. I'm all for mechanics that give some more meaning to capturing bases or territory, but not for totally unrelated things that are bolted on to the underlying game.

As an example of the former, in another thread I mentioned having bases slowly become more powerful the longer your empire controls them. A base that you've held for a week now becomes a fortress for your empire, with banners and very clear empire markings everywhere, maybe a big flag with your empire logo, empire specific turrets, whatever. It's a symbol for your empire, and a prime target for your enemies because of the increased resources it puts out (not to mention the morale it creates). Successfully defending it is a big deal, capturing it is an even bigger deal. Each one is almost a mini-endgame in and of itself.

That's the kind of thing I'd like to see. Leave the tournament modes and instanced matches to games like Tribes or CSS. Outfits will have to completely change their strategy for these matches anyway, it just makes no sense in this game.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by likwidneo

I think the problem, if you break it down at the most fundamental level, is that, PS is a war simulator where other shooters are just battle simulators. BF3 and CoD are checkers to PS's chess. BUT, one problem with PS where it differs from real life warfare is that every battle ultimately has relatively the same MEANING, or the same AMOUNT of meaning. Ask any WWII veteran on either side of the conflict if D-Day had the same meaning as the battle for the rhine, or marching on Berlin.

The problem, is, War's have ends, or more specifically, they have decisiveness. PS while it's a war simulator game, it's still a game. And the game can't be allowed to end. Now in PS1 unfortunately, a distinction was never made between a war without end, and a war without "decisive moments." For example, I'm an NC. We move in. We take a base. The VS respond. A battle ensues. One side wins. We move to another base. A battle ensues, move on to another base... rinse and repeat ad infinitum, and 9 years later it's still the same thing. Planetsides greatest draw, it's purely PVP persistent game world, also became its biggest flaw due to shortsightedness on the part of the developers, giving the game a certain sense of monotony. Later in the game they acknowledged this and tried to remedy it with things like Black Ops, but sadly that was too late, and nowhere near enough.

I think with the bigger focus on backstory for planetside2, this creates opportunities for in game live events that can give a certain sense of "decisiveness" without necessarily ever letting the battle end. What if, 3 month's in, The mysterious Auraxian Planetary Core unlocks the shields around the warp gate's/safe zone's on Indar continent, then, when the 3 sides start duking it out over their respective safe zones, a safe zone capture flips ALL of the defeated empires territory to the victor, thus eliminating that empire from the continent? Then, maybe a week or so after the continent was monopolized, just as swiftly all the bases are mysteriously neutralized, and all 3 sides scramble to regain a foothold when the warpgates normalize again? Story can be release subsequently about the epic battle, and the players are the one's who dictated at least who the winners and the losers in that story are. The Matrix Online, at least for the first year after it's launch was a GREAT example of this concept.

At the end of the day I guess my point is it's perfectly ok to screw with the game every once in a while, and GIVE decisiveness, even "seemingly" permanent victory to the war, and then take it away the next day. If the dev team doesn't know how to screw with the players minds a little, then I think there is a certain lack of imagination going into the creation of this game, no offense intended. Make them fight for something in live events, only to have it turn out to be something else entirely. Taking away the previously promised outcome of the event wont take away the satisfaction the players derive. Get creative.

Yup, story. This is what I was talking about in the other thread, but you've explained it far better than I could have.

[NewSith]

My head exploded with ideas for comp play so my points are hard to connect. I'll just type them in here in random order:

1. If there's the "Endgame Sequence" it must ONLY be competitive imo.
2. Competitive endgame must exist on the same server with the main pop. We don't want players to solit between two different servers.
3. Design an instanced map for endgame competitive play. (Idea - if the leagues are annual, design a new map each year, this way people will not be drawn away from the mainstream by "practice")
4. Sport Leagues idea is good. Even for Esports. I mean, Asus Summer/Autumn/Winter/Spring CS cups are very common even in Russia. Now if you make 'em lasting for a year that would be even cooler.
5. Set a fee for participating based on Station Cash or very high amount of Resources.
6. Implement a set of rules for competitive play into the game (weapon/sidegrades/vehicle restrictions, etc)
7. Have an "active advertising" of those leagues not only via the game and Sony Launcher but via some other media sources.

EDIT: Paraphrased the first line.