Ideas for the "Rich get richer" problem

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by WildVS

So regardless of worth you'll receive equal amounts of each type?

I don't understand your question.

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by WildVS

Has it been stated somewhere that all hexes offer the same and equal types of resources? If there are variations across a cont, this is going to cause some issues with all the hypothesizing here.

Yes, lots of assumptions and theorycrafting around here.


Assuming resources are spread evenly and territory is controlled 33/33/33, if you have the wrong resources on your empire's 33%, there is 1 chance in 2 that an enemy empire also has the wrong kind of resources and 100% chance that one of them has yours.

[Boomzor]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Territories are not equal and some are certainly worth more than others. Higby said yesterday that the resources are currently static, but indicated they might spawn/despawn and move around over time back in July.

That, and I had a look at the enhanced Indar map (this might be completely moot due to alpha build but I'll toss it out there anyway) ->Ref link<-.

I counted a total of 20 red resource icons, 20 yellow resource Icons, no blue and no green.
Not all territories had any resource icons either.

Like I said, alpha build and no idea what the icons actually mean, but someone may draw some conclusions from it (or just speculate wildly for the fun of it)

[Ruwyn]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Would you mind elaborating on why you dislike the idea of discounted vehicles for an empire that has little or no territory on the continent?

(obviously any discounted vehicles would need to be flagged and not be transferable off the continent to prevent abuse)

Basically just that when an empire cycles around to their heavy population time they normally form up and start pushing back the battle lines on their own. Reducing their vehicle cost won't help them take back territory it will just allow them to spend more resources later in order to become the dominant force.

If someone has 1000 resources saved up and you reduce the cost of a 100 resource tank by half does it really help them as they get the ball rolling?

Reduced cost would help those that are playing during their faction's Low Pop times which is fine by me.

Reducing the cost also assumes that people are going to be strapped for resources which I don't think will be the case since the you will accumulate lots of resources when your faction is dominating. (assuming that you accrue resources while offline which probably isn't the case.)

So reduced cost WHILE population on the server < X (# or %).

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by WildVS

Are hexes divided into equal amounts of individual resource worth. As [...]
700 Res C
300 Res D

Big question is:
will the game be more about resources or facilities ?
will it require short term strategy (random resource spawns, challenge is to keep covering short term resource needs while keeping the most facilities) or long term strategy (static maps, trying to maintain control over facilities and necessary resources while trying to expand territory) ?

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Ruwyn

Basically just that when an empire cycles around to their heavy population time they normally form up and start pushing back the battle lines on their own. Reducing their vehicle cost won't help them take back territory it will just allow them to spend more resources later in order to become the dominant force.

If someone has 1000 resources saved up and you reduce the cost of a 100 resource tank by half does it really help them as they get the ball rolling?

Reduced cost would help those that are playing during their faction's Low Pop times which is fine by me.

Reducing the cost also assumes that people are going to be strapped for resources which I don't think will be the case since the you will accumulate lots of resources when your faction is dominating. (assuming that you accrue resources while offline which probably isn't the case.)

So reduced cost WHILE population on the server < X (# or %).

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying. The situation is the empire is at 0 or very few territories and has little to no resource income on the continent. They cannot wage effective war. So in these extreme circumstances, offer discounts to vehicles.

As they take territories the discount is reduced and then vanishes entirely. So it's just used to kick-start their war machine. Once they get going they're back to normal resource costs. And of course the vehicles produced from discount should not be transferable off-continent.

[NewSith]

If it wasn't suggested - resource income degradation, Global Agenda style*.
If it was suggested - I support it.

*A little twist in the following explanation (real GA mechanics are far more complex), but generally - 10 territories produce at (10%X)*10 capacity, 11 territories produce at (100%+9%)X capacity, 12 territories produce at (109%+8%)X capacity, etc.


This way having "M0AR L4ND!!!!!1111!!11!1oneoneone111!!11one!!!" doesn't mean you produce effectively. You can always go as far as to make degradation take negative values, affecting the overall production, but then again, when you have zerg on the field such delicate rules do not work.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Big question is:
will the game be more about resources or facilities ?
will it require short term strategy (random resource spawns, challenge is to keep covering short term resource needs while keeping the most facilities) or long term strategy (static maps, trying to maintain control over facilities and necessary resources while trying to expand territory) ?

If we take Higby at his word then the game is more about resources than facilities. Facilities serve logistical benefits as well as owning large chunks of territory (and thus resources) themselves, but you aren't going to be hopping from facility to facility like planetside and we will actually be motivated to go out and get all territories due to the resources they contain. Some more important than others obviously.

I think it'll require short term and long term due to the adjacency system. You won't be able to easily cherry pick territories - you'll have to push toward a territory and take the stuff in between and nearby it to help secure it. So you'll have both short term "what do I need direly right now that is within reach?" and long-term "what territories should we be working towards that will help me secure stuff for the future and deprive the enemy?"

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by NewSith

If it wasn't suggested - resource income degradation, Global Agenda style*.
If it was suggested - I support it.

*A little twist in the following explanation (real GA mechanics are far more complex), but generally - 10 territories produce at (10%X)*10 capacity, 11 territories produce at (100%+9%)X capacity, 12 territories produce at (109%+8%)X capacity, etc.


This way having "M0AR L4ND!!!!!1111!!11!1oneoneone111!!11one!!!" doesn't mean you produce effectively. You can always go as far as to make degradation take negative values, affecting the overall production, but then again, when you have zerg on the field such delicate rules will not work.

GA had different goals from Planetside and different mechanics so I'm not sure how well it will transfer.

In general I dislike anything that discourages conquest or makes land less valuable. The GA system implies there's an optimal configuration and a point at which you don't want to capture any more land.

Any sort of diminishing returns on resources earned does not seem like a good option to me for that reason.

Here are things I don't want to think in PS2:
"well, we could take that territory over there, but the net result would be nothing."

"Hey if we let the VS take that territory over there we'll increase efficiency, so tell the troops to back off and let 'em have it."

"There's nothing more to do on this continent - if we take more territory it won't be worth anything, so lets go to a continent where we can get resources"

Those are all bad and things that are a result of punishing conquest with diminishing returns on the rewards.

Rewards should not be diminishing, but difficulty should definitely increase. It should be HARD to hold all of a continent, but it is hard because the mechanics work against you, not because it isn't worth doing.

[Ruwyn]

Malorn,

You are assuming that you have different resources per continent? In which case you are using reduced vehicle costs as a way to bribe people to go start solsar as opposed to staying on Cyssor?

I mean I can get on board to reduced cost as long as it's tied into faction/empire population. As in PS1, low pop faction/empire got an experience bonus. So if your faction is sanc locked and has 28% of the server population, reduce the cost a bit. If you are sanc locked and have 34% of the population, tough luck. Player better. We all know that if you own 34% pop then you are going to begin taking territory, provided you don't have absolute crap for leaders.

Edit: There should be, and probably is, a default amount of resources given to you per X amt of time. So you should still be getting the Minimum to function even if you hold no territory. Besides severely unlikely you don't start getting hacked all over the place.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Ruwyn

Malorn,

You are assuming that you have different resources per continent? In which case you are using reduced vehicle costs as a way to bribe people to go start solsar as opposed to staying on Cyssor?

I mean I can get on board to reduced cost as long as it's tied into faction/empire population. As in PS1, low pop faction/empire got an experience bonus. So if your faction is sanc locked and has 28% of the server population, reduce the cost a bit. If you are sanc locked and have 34% of the population, tough luck. Player better.

According to Higby's reddit yesterday, there are different abundancies on each continent. It's one of the questions I asked.

The primary purpose of discounts is not to pull people from another continent - it's to enable people ON the continent to fight.

And yeah free or cheap vehicles on a continent where you have literally no land is a good motivator for people to go there or stay there, combined with increased rewards for actually capturing territory. So they risk little, but they have a lot to gain. That's motivation to help fight back and keep the battle raging rather than abandon the continent entirely.

But I think we need to think in PS2 terms now, not PS1 terms where we had to manage different continent populations. That'll happen again in PS2 but that's really an orthogonal discussion. I'm not going to get into cross-continent population shifting, that's really not the point nor something that is easy to predict at this time.

[SniperSteve]

That's the beauty of three empires. One empire is dominating, everyone starts hating them, next thing you know they are crushed because they are fighting a 2-fronted war with a 1:2 friend:foe ratio.

I don't think it will be an issue, but we shall see how it works out in BETA.

[Malorn]

Oh another idea popped into my head...

Scale resources earned based on the enemy population on the continent. So as the enemy population drops, so too does the resources that you receive.


This is more or less to encourage people to attack places that are defended and not sit on an empty continent AFK racking up resources. Or to ghost-hack a continent late-night when the battle is mostly raging on only one continent.

[Ruwyn]

You keep saying things, Malorn, that are leading me to believe that you ONLY gain the resources that your faction would be getting from the continent you are currently ON. As opposed to total from the whole World (3 continents)

[Boomzor]

It's a fairly good idea, tho it doesn't quite address the double teaming. It would make more sense to attack NC cause we'd gain more from one conquest, but we could easily steal two territories from VS cause they're already on their knees.