News: Roadmap Resource Revamp & Continental Lattice Updated

[maradine]

One request: make the home warpgate assignment permanent. I would rather have the worst of the three forever and build a sense of ownership with it than hop around Auraxis once a month.

[maradine]

That said - Indar Southwest, please.

[camycamera]

OMMMMGGGGGGGG IT IS PLANETSIDE 1!

[Ruffdog]

Both beautiful, beautiful things!

My first thought with regard to resources: offense.
Will extended offensive ops eventually cause the depletion of nanites with no power to regenerate personal allowances? e.g. if you're running off a sundy only? Grenades, C4 and MAXs will zap that quickly and 10 mins with no top up will give defenders quite the boost. Portable power crystals maybe?

I'm also wondering if now is the time to make MAX units hard facility only not Sunderers?

[Obstruction]

How players spend their resulting resources does not affect other players.

but where players are recharging does. i think no matter how you do this it's going to cause a certain subset of players to point fingers about not getting enough resource. basically they're going to scream "GTFO" and call names. and teamkill people who stand in the spawn shield area for any particular reason.

also it could be exploitable if an outfit were to make 48 cross faction alts and just go sit in the forward base with empty resource, recharging to lower the collective power. reducing resource flow in this way could be more effective than an equal number of attacking opposition characters.

whatever you end up doing, with changes this broad, you really, really, need to think hard about the dirty ways people will play. i know you guys like to think you're super smart about your design choices, but people are very devious and will exploit anything you leave vulnerable.

[Fenrys]

What happens when 2 factions pile into the same warpgate on Hossin via 2 different warpgates on some other continent? For example, what if VS own one warpgate on Indar and NC own the other, and both faction pile though into the same warpgate on Hossin?

Will there be two separate, shielded staging areas with a control point between them? Will the continent warping trip be one way if your faction does not control the gate on the other side?

[DviddLeff]

Looks like a great change, few questions:

1. Once a base is out of power and the troops run out of resources, they simply can't pull resource requiring kit, but they can still spawn there? Would be interesting what happens if the spawns shut down.

2. By removing the inventory I presume you mean the stock of 40 C4, grenades, Mines, etc that we all have? Good change if so as I waste a good amount of time and certs getting things I don't even use simply so I don't 'waste' infantry resources! As you say that insulates us from being cut off for potentially hours of game play.

3. I presume it will be ground vehicles only that can transport resources, rather than aircraft? And just like the good old ANT I presume it will take time to deploy and refill a base, rather than it being instant?

4. Resource nodes - are these just randomly around the landscape or specific points between each base on the lattice? Are they capturable if so? Will there be any kind of defences around them?

5. AMP Stations stink of being a resource pipeline in their very design, will they play a unique part in the new system? Could act as an alternative hub for resources if you have no connection to the warp gate, making them important strategic targets like the tech plant is currently.

That's it for now! Thanks for all the hard work Malorn.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Looks like a great change, few questions:

1. Once a base is out of power and the troops run out of resources, they simply can't pull resource requiring kit, but they can still spawn there? Would be interesting what happens if the spawns shut down.

2. By removing the inventory I presume you mean the stock of 40 C4, grenades, Mines, etc that we all have? Good change if so as I waste a good amount of time and certs getting things I don't even use simply so I don't 'waste' infantry resources! As you say that insulates us from being cut off for potentially hours of game play.

3. I presume it will be ground vehicles only that can transport resources, rather than aircraft? And just like the good old ANT I presume it will take time to deploy and refill a base, rather than it being instant?

4. Resource nodes - are these just randomly around the landscape or specific points between each base on the lattice? Are they capturable if so? Will there be any kind of defences around them?

5. AMP Stations stink of being a resource pipeline in their very design, will they play a unique part in the new system? Could act as an alternative hub for resources if you have no connection to the warp gate, making them important strategic targets like the tech plant is currently.

That's it for now! Thanks for all the hard work Malorn.

1. The idea of PS1-style neutrality is a possibility, but it isn't essential for the core mechanics. The running thought on this is that we want to see how a pure-resource loss system works. If we are successful in making resources matter then the 100% loss of them should be crippling enough. Neutrality offers other tradeoffs though. It does make for a more extreme consequence and can up the stakes.

2. Yes, inventory refers to the stockpile of infantry consumables which completely insulates players from shortages. The goal is that resources are generally constant and predictable, but they are subject to local acute shortages that are impactful. Inventory hurts that and is also tedious and unnecessary. Removal of it opens more skill of resource management for veterans while making it easier for new players to explore the game and be more spendy (they start with only grenades and vehicles to spend resources on, so they can afford to try out vehicles more...lot better than current 20 minute cooldowns).

3. Mechanic is very ant-like: Deploy, charge up, transport, deploy to dispense. And yes, ground vehicles. Air vehicles would circumvent the geography and detract from the desired gameplay.

4. The resource nodes will be placed, not random. Think of them like charging stations. Drive up, deploy, charge up, leave. Some will charge faster than others as part of a risk/reward tradefoff. They'll be placed in remote parts of the continents to get more interesting gameplay in the more unused areas and make geography more of a factor. The number and placement is TBD, but that's the goal. Oh and every warpgate would have one nearby so you always have a power source even if backed up.

5. I had envisioned AMP stations having a power-related role but that moved to the Warpgate. AMP stations have another important benefit planned.

[TermiGR]

I really like both! The Resource-System-Idea is just awesome -> i was waiting for the "Energy-Level-Thing" like in PS1 - NICE!

The Continental-Lattice is awesome, too! -> Now we have to wait for Hossin and the BI'S...

[Boildown]

These will be the best changes they've ever made. I think both items will be awesome, particularly their Vision (tm) for resources. Rolling Sunderers to grab resources to spawn tanks, is fracking brilliant. Can you say Zug Zug? PS2 will become a RTS/FPS/MMO hybrid. Awesome.

Originally Posted by maradine

One request: make the home warpgate assignment permanent. I would rather have the worst of the three forever and build a sense of ownership with it than hop around Auraxis once a month.

Better idea... at the end of a month, make everyone's home warpgate capturable. Once one faction captures another's warpgate, they "win" and the maps reset and warpgates rotate. If no one can capture anyone else's warpgate, then they must be pretty balanced that way and they don't change. Its a win-win design.

[EvilNinjadude]

Not having played Planetside 1, I'm struggling just a tiny bit to get this all down in my head (because it's not live yet and I love trying things for myself). I'll throw in a short question once in a while.

So basically, a player with non-full personal resources enters a friendly territory. The territory starts to refill the personal resources (at what radius? Anywhere in the "territory"?). This resource refill taxes the base's power level. The more people with non-full resource stock, the faster the base loses power. (When power reaches Zero, no resource refills? Any other deficits? Changes to spawning timer? Spawning disabled?)

To refill base resources, enough non-full people must leave so that the base recovers; or someone brings in an ANT that carries base power (how much? How long can it hold onto the power? How long will it take for the power to be transferred? I personally see the ANT as a spare capacitor holding 50-100% of the base's power, to be transferred over to the base at a slow, steady rate when required).

One request: I want there to be a personal resource replenishment toggle. If I've just pulled a vehicle or used lots of consumables, and I'm in a base that's under assault and missing an ANT, I'd rather not make the situation any worse, and NOT replenish my personal resources there. In PS1 everything (including spawning) drained base power... this is not the case here, since we have a personal resource stock instead. I'd love to be able to manage it more, if I understand the current planned system correctly.

[Carbon Copied]

Regarding the continental lattice diagram and touching on the side issue of major faction population imbalances: are there mechanics in place/planned for any potential max player continent population lock problems? i.e x amount of people on one faction rendering the battle islands unwarpable due to them (possibly on purpose) pop lock?

Unlikely to happen I know but a possible problem.

Really like everything posted but just want to know if anything like that has been taken into account!

[CodeyP]

Originally Posted by Malorn

I posted some clarifications in the resource roadmap thread. Reposting here for your convenience:

Whats with Tank/Vehicle Zergs then? Even now they still appear alot and just yesterday a tank zerg with around 20 tanks captured everything which came in their way. It's near impossible to stop a tank zerg, and with this it probably gets even worse...

[EvilNinjadude]

Originally Posted by CodeyP

Whats with Tank/Vehicle Zergs then? Even now they still appear alot and just yesterday a tank zerg with around 20 tanks captured everything which came in their way. It's near impossible to stop a tank zerg, and with this it probably gets even worse...

Striker focus fire. It's the only way to be sure.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Carbon Copied

Regarding the continental lattice diagram and touching on the side issue of major faction population imbalances: are there mechanics in place/planned for any potential max player continent population lock problems? i.e x amount of people on one faction rendering the battle islands unwarpable due to them (possibly on purpose) pop lock?

Unlikely to happen I know but a possible problem.

Really like everything posted but just want to know if anything like that has been taken into account!

That's a good question. It could happen during the low pop hours and then when people start to log on again there's nowhere to go.

e.g. one empire is kicked from both of the other two home continents, they can then only find a fight on Hossin and two BI's while the excess population on 'their' home continent is idle (and perhaps logs off).

It would be nice to have devs comments on this scenario, perhaps it will never happen and the devs know this from the data.