you may have won the battle, but - oh wait you won the war.

[lostabyss]

i posted this in the OF, as a reply to some thread, and kinda wanted to see PSU's opinion. i have no doubt that this has been discussed before.



I had an idea recently after reading this wonderful story (which i posted in the TR forums) http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/200...anetside-the-1/



basically, winning is a great motivator right? well, how about if you could win the war for your side?



my idea was that after one faction has locked down another factions home continents/planets/whatever, they then gained access to fight and attempt to control that factions sanctuary. perhaps with a small window of oppurtunity to fight, a higher than normal pop cap, while the home base isn't limited, and a longer hacking period? some kind of attacker handicap. and these sanctuarys could, well should, be more fortress-like.



what happens when a faction loses? the outfits choose whether to 'assimilate' or 'defect', and the non-outfitted players choose for themselves. the winnning faction would gain access to the defeated factions tech, while the defeated faction would have both their own tech and their new allies tech. but i feel there should probably be some way to limit the 3rd factions ability to use the losers tech. otherwise defecting players could just spawn their vehicles and weapons and drop them, or worse, someone could do that with an alt. it is then down to two factions, the lost factions home worlds would have no effect on winning or losing other than control would give benefits. and the final battle declaring a victor/loser would work the same as the first time, except modified for the larger number of players.



the payout? victorious players (victors and some assimilators/defectors) would of course gain bragging rights, but also a boost to XP gain. perhaps a faction tech of their choice that is locked to their character for the next round of war. maybe extra cert points? an extra implant slot? they wouldn't get all this, these are merely suggestions.

but only giving the winners something would make the game unbalanced for the next round. the losers would perhaps get something of the abovementioned perks, maybe their weapons and vehicles would get something of a 5% boost (anything larger seems like it could be unfair even though it seems insignificant, i'm mainly thinking in the way of splash or lasher damage though)

these perks would of course not carry and stack, they would reset after the next victory or, maybe they'll reset after half the period of time it took for the victors to win the war.



these wars could probably be labeled through decades, or just some acronym and a number: WC - war cycle, GFW - great faction war, etc.

this is totally open to ideas, critiques and flames. it just seems that when your so close to achieving something, there is more of a drive to finish it.