Winning condition

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Jonny

Like it or not I think the game probably could use some kind of goal, instead of feeling like the fights always going back and forth and nobody can win or lose. The relic idea is interesting, Id love to see what SOE has come up with.

I get bored with these type of discussion .... somehow, for some reason people haven't noticed that there are many winning conditions in planetside ...
you capture a tower, how do you feel, good? .. super, you should cos you just won.
you capture a base, how do you feel .... and so on ......

if you want a little score board on how many bases you captured over time then I'm sure the data provided by the game would provide it. iirc this was recorded in ps.

Also, no reset. Planside is persistent, if you want a base go and win it!

[DayOne]

Though an actual outright winning condition is a stupid idea I would love to see continent caps, or something equivalent, coming back in some way.

[sylphaen]

Winning conditions ?

Victory in PS is domination.

Being able to wipe out an empire is a terrible win condition because it promotes ganging up on one empire and playing with 66% pop vs. 33%.

Increasing your overall territory vs. 2 empires is a true win condition.

IF at time T, your empire is holding more than 33% of the global territory vs. even odds (i.e. you manage to gain more territory than you lose with the same amount of resources than enemy empires), then you are winning.

NOTE:
controlling more territory should not increase your resource advantage vs. other empires. Why ? Because snowballing to victory by throwing resources at a problem does not reflect skill and is a terrible mechanic.

NOTE 2:
- Here is a TR victory that should make TR players who made it happen proud:
Populations: TR 33% NC 33% VS 33%
Territory control: TR 40% NC 30% VS 30%

It shows superior skill vs. even odds.

- Here is something that should not be rewarded:
Populations: TR 33% NC 33% VS 33%
Territory control: TR 45% NC 45% VS 10%

It shows steamrolling by gang-raping one empire. It is not fun and makes people stop playing.

NOTE 3:
There are actually 3 victory conditions in PS:
- personal victory: achieving a personal goal, beating someone, surviving a large firefight for more than 4 minutes, etc ...
- group victory: capturing a facility, defending a base, etc...
- empire victory: the situation I mentionned in Note 2


Now do we really want self-congratulation messages to pop-up every 15 seconds saying "Good boy ! You did X kills in a single life." to feel good ?

If having fun in a balanced large-scale battle is not enough for you and you need something else to acknowledge your "victory", I think you are missing out on some of the best aspects of PS.

[Shogun]

hope the "congratulations you managed to walk a straight line" type of popups will NOT make it into planetside 2!
todays games tend to tread the gamers as total mentally disabled. i hate that!
i don´t need a popup to tell me i did something cool.
i´ll know, when i´m still alive and the floor is littered with enemy corpses. or when a base switches sides.

[Warborn]

I like the idea of winning conditions. I like how WW2OL, for example, has campaigns that progress and eventually end and then start anew. It's, personally, a lot more interesting if your empire is actually able to make real gains that contribute toward an ultimate goal. Taking a really hard-fought base one day, and the next seeing it and every other base on the continent taken back, is kind of a drag.

[fod]

i dont like the idea of a winning condition
pushing an empire back to their sanctuary is enough of a win for me

[sylphaen]

Planetside has one significant difference vs. any other FPS game you may compare it with: it has 3 FACTIONS.

It is what makes the game exciting, it is also what makes it so different to any other FPS. Standard win conditions from other games may not be adapted for a 3 FACTIONS game.

Ever heard of double-teaming or 4th empire in other FPS games ? Planetside is unique.

Allowing elimination of an empire is not a good idea. Even if it was implemented, resetting the game when a faction is eliminated would be as lame as gen-dropping. Continuing the game with only 2 factions left would be even more stupid. Giving even more bonuses to winners when they already dominate is terrible too.

________________________

The CORE of Planetside is BATTLES.

Bases and objectives are here to promote fighting and create battles. That's their only true role. The whole map is about providing a reason for battle. Maps provide focal points to crystallize fighting and make it intense. For example, a bridge can become an epic battleground even though it has no bonus or victory condition associated to it.

PS is not about winning, it's about being part of large-scale breath-taking battles.

Winning and losing do not matter. They are only a side-effect of battle. But PS is war and the next battle is right around the corner. Retreat, defend, counter-attack, deny, conquer, etc... PS is a non-stop war made of battles after battles.

There is a war for air-control, war for ground control, war for base control, etc... Why should it be transformed into a fucking lame empire-elimination game ?

Frankly, playing a 66% vs. 33% pop to wipe-out one empire asap and then being stuck forever at 50% vs. 50% pop until everyone logs off and one empire wins at 3 AM is just sad.

PS is an environment to create epic battles. Its equilibrium from 3 FACTIONS is what allows to keep those battles going with minimal maintenance and prevent it from being dependent on resets to rebalance the game every 3 days.

Are people really that addicted to pop-ups saying "you win" ? PS1 players have some of their greatest gaming memories from that game. Yet, strangely, almost no one will say their best memory comes from empire-locking another empire. As a matter of fact, one of the most reported and epic moment comes from the 1%, a story written by RockPaperShotgun where the TR suffered its greatest loss ever and got wiped out due to a bug.

THAT was a heroic moment that those TR players will remember forever and it comes from a loss, not a victory ! How strange ? Can you imagine a pop-up showing up on their screens to tell them "You have lost" ? The victory condition system would be completely out of touch with reality. "Sorry son, we are heroes against all odds". That's what those guys are feeling.

Planetside is not about winning. It's about being there.


Edit:
For those who never read it, here is a link to the 1% article:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011...tside-the-1-2/

I never played TR and I was not there but I did have those few epic moments in my almost 10 years of PS. Not a single one of them was about a winning condition of empire-locking players from opposing teams.

[BorisBlade]

Two things:

First, PS did have sort of "win" that ps2 will not. Capping a cont was essentially a win. You fought long and hard but when you capped the entire cont, you got your cont bonus and sense of victory and the other team moved on to somethin else, you had a chance to take a break and plan for the next assault. Thats a win condition in my book thats not so hugely overwhelming as to make the other empires quit (like a sanc-ing an empire would do), nor does it penalize anyone unnecessarily or overly reward anyone. Worked very well. Its been stated many times that we wont cap entire conts very often in PS2. Much more short lived "hollow" victories in some areas that you lose in relatively short time as you move on and the other empires come behind you. Much less rewarding and very discouraging imo, maybe beta will tweak this somewhat.

Second thing, bonuses for winning must not be that powerful. Even the xp cant be crazy big compared to the losers. You dont want a situation of the winners getting more powerful making them win more and get more powerful while the losers get weaker and so lose and then get even weaker and then lose more. If you ever played that awful MAG game on the ps3 then you see what i mean. The winners just got on a compounding effect where their wins just gave em more power and more wins while the opposite was true of the losers.

[Rbstr]

No artificial resets, no "winning" the game. It ruins the idea of a persistent world.

If two empires suck balls and the other one takes over and keeps everything forever, so be it.
Related: capping a continent isn't winning the game, it's winning a continent, you get bonuses, you keep them until someone takes the continent from you. It's still a goal, goals exist without requiring someone to trigger some kind of end-game condition.

[Mastachief]

THIS is a persistent world.

THERE IS NO END GAME.

What is it with people wanting to screw the game up with simplistic round by round fps concepts.

At a decent population level i believe on werner at least the world was capped twice, once by the VS and once by the NC. This lasted around an hour and took years to achieve.

[SpLiTNuTz]

Sorry but no thanks.. Keep it the same as ps1

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Mastachief

What is it with people wanting to screw the game up with simplistic round by round fps concepts.

That isn't what people are suggesting, but I guess it's easier to knock down straw men you've built for yourself than address actual arguments.

[Shnipah]

in PS1 it would have been awesome that if you sanc locked someone you got to pillage and rape sanc for 12 hours.

never sadder for the smurfs than the barneys destroying your sanc and murdering your women and children.

not sure how it would work in PS2 as you can't ever lock a continent

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Mastachief

THIS is a persistent world.

THERE IS NO END GAME.

What is it with people wanting to screw the game up with simplistic round by round fps concepts.

At a decent population level i believe on werner at least the world was capped twice, once by the VS and once by the NC. This lasted around an hour and took years to achieve.

^ This

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The continent captures were responsible for the longest and most boring downtimes in all of Planetside 1. And to what purpose? See the map change color? Child please.

I'd rather not have at least 30 mins of complete bordedom and no action as you mop up 1 continent then argue about where to go next.

[VanuMAXGuy]

Turning all continents purple is the ultimate goal.

Too bad PS2 won't have continent locks :|