End Game: Pros and Cons

[Duddy]

I wish people would consider goals over "win conditions". One implies something that you achieve whilst the other implies a state where the fight is over.

But couldn't all this this be tied into the empire mission system?

Missions could have scopes of various sizes. Some can be a very short time frame, representing the moment to moment fighting going on. Some however could be measured in days, weeks and possibly even months?

The idea being to have a set of conditions that when met reward the players for accomplishing them. The best thing would be is you can have different goals for different empires, creating a conflict of "How do we stop the enemy whilst achieving our goals?" You could even have multiple goals per empire to create a dynamic where people need to choose whether they would try just for one or to attempt to do it all.

These certainly aren't the huge "win conditions" you'd find with global domination or some of campaign system, but I think this analogy suits the scenario best;

Life isn't about the destination, it's about the journey.

[Mechzz]

Good idea Duddy.

For example, say the VS has a continent lock on Indar. That could open a "special missions" menu for the CR5's who get to vote on which one to select.

e.g.
1. Hold on average 80% of the resources
2. Hold at least 4 of the 6 main bases at all times
3. Do not allow the NC to take any main bases

All options would be time-bound, say for the coming week.

Would add real urgency imo and could be rewarded with resource bonuses, etc.

You're right about win conditions being secondary to the journey.

We want solid reasons to play this game for Years!

[TheBiscuit]

Originally Posted by 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.

This, all this game needs for end game as far as I'm concerned is the ability to win a continent and zero base an empire/both empires.

Unfortunately at the launch state with no sanctuaries, this is effectively impossible. Also the one big con of the idea is that with only 3 continents, it makes it far too easy for an empire to actually be zero based, it should be more challenging. In PS1 with 10 conts it was rare that an empire could be zeroed at prime time (overnight ghosting doesn't count too much!)

I'm racking my brains to think of a way that empires could lose all their territory, but it still be possible for them to get back in and not lock players out for more than a few mins to organise a raid and get some territory back, without a sanctuary I just can't think of one. If sanctuaries did come back but at all times the main bases on each continent could always be spawned at, I think it would have huge advantages in terms of allowing outfits to organise and allowing a "victory" of zero basing, without the negatives of really slowing down time to enter combat

As a side note having monthly empire winners that would get some kind of resource boost/station cash, and giving the losers an xp boost sounds like a good idea, but I don't think its strong enough to stand alone.

[PrISM]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

It seems like we're trying to bolt something on to Planetside that doesn't really belong.

The more I see of PS2, the less I recognize as being Planetside.

[Eyeklops]

I wouldn't want to see an endgame, or full server reset, unless one of the empires has been totally dominating the other 2 to the point that gameplay is breaking down because something is out of balance. The only time I could see this happening is in beta and I would hope that any massive imbalances that could cause this get worked out before official release.

[waldizzo]

I like the idea's people have had about declaring a monthly or biweekly "winner" of the server based on whatever empire consistently held the most land.

I also liked the idea someone had about a DAOC relic (alien artifact) capture system. Give each empire a "main base" (capitol) that can only be accessed by opposing factions when certain, dominating, conditions are met. Pushing the enemy back to their capitol, breaching the defenses, stealing the relic and bringing it back to our capitol would seem like a clear victory to me.

[Xaine]

Originally Posted by PrISM

The more I see of PS2, the less I recognize as being Planetside.

It had to roll with the times.

I loved vanilla wow and Everquest 2, but they had to evolve to stay alive. Same with PS2. It needs to be updated for today's market.

[SUBARU]

Originally Posted by PrISM

The more I see of PS2, the less I recognize as being Planetside.

I know how you feel

[SUBARU]

Originally Posted by Xaine

It had to roll with the times.

I loved vanilla wow and Everquest 2, but they had to evolve to stay alive. Same with PS2. It needs to be updated for today's market.

I dont have a problem with change,and improvment hold on i have a call,Its cod and they want their game back

[Eyeklops]

Originally Posted by Higby

Yeah, it's something I've thought about from time-to-time. We have talked about "tournament mode", which would be something like an instanced battlegrounds where you could have 20v20, 50v50, 100v100 matches with a clear victory condition so you could have an outfit battle, or fight against rivals on your same empire from different servers, whatever. The worry has always been pulling people out of the primary game mode which many think should be sacrosanct. 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 something that concerns me.

[Wargrim]

I believe it would have to boil down to something symbolic and emotional. Like, when you have taken all hexes on a continent, the shields over the warp gates of the other two factions go down, and you can attack them. Once you hack the CC of the enemy warpgate base, you do not get the usual color switch of a base, but things start to explode, the base is engulfed in fire, huge smoke columns rising, victory/defeat music kicks in, a live cinematic camera feed is displayed on monitors in all bases of the defeated faction on other continents, displaying the text "Hossin has fallen!", and through the smoke rises a really big flag of the winning faction. The base and its warpgate are unusable for 30 minutes, afterwards the shields go back up, it returns to the previous owner, and the directly adjectant hexes are also given to the empire.

To prevent this happening multiple times in a row, the defeated empire has to gain a minimum of hexes on that continent before another shield down/ base burning event can be triggered.

[dachlatte]

Originally Posted by Wargrim

...30 minutes locked cont...cinematics with smoke....yadayadayada

i dont know about you but when i play a shooter i want to shoot stuff. i dont want to look at some fancy animation and i dont want to look at a one colored cont i cant fight on for 30 minutes.

also, all that talk about the potential esport aspect of ps2 is pointless. it will not work in ps2. you have way too many casual players or players that just arent good enough to win any "end game" or "goals".

[Sleepy]

Most people can appreciate the reality you have bringing a new game to the market. It's a business, and the more features one can employ the easier the soundbytes become when asked 'what's this game all about.' However, your angle on this game needs to be hit out of the park, and that is Massive Scale Persistent Warfare.

It seems tempting to add features such as Outfit v Outfit deathmatch timed Arenas. Most, if not all, FPS games are that in nature. Having a mechanic in PS2 whereby the game's most active/competitive Outfits fight one another for quick bragging rights is understandable. However, your reservations should be:

1) Pulls players out of the actual game (no longer quite as Massive Scale)
2) If you don't create an instanced battlefield on par with what the other 4000 shooters provide, the demographic you wish to lure to PS2 will quickly leave (the ones not attuned to the PS1 style that is) anyway, as that mechanic is what drives their gameplay only
3) To even attempt to accomplish #2, you will need to divert a lot of resources, which will obviously dilute features and polish of the supposed Main Game
4) You have what is a unique opportunity in any marketplace in that you've no real competition with the Scale involved - your competition with the Arena gameplay is utterly saturated; it's like if Subway were to have initially pushed burgers and fries along with their 'healthy sandwich mainstay' - instead, they carved a niche and rode the success

PS2 has seemingly borrowed enough (some would argue too much) from Battlefield and it's kin already. Please focus your development time and money towards one goal. Remember, PS1 was successful for a time back when there were considerable headwinds - most who've played it remember it fondly. No need to re-invent the wheel. If you are hellbent on adding such instancing though, please, if nothing else, make it completely ancillary to the game's focus, and have the matches occur rarely.

[Fenrys]

Originally Posted by Xaine

I think i can see your esports nature coming through there Matt. :P


An event lasting a weekend where three empires just go at it on one cont. or something would be awesome, i think.

I think it would have to be separate to the 'main' game world. Have it on a different server or something. I'm sure the outfits would join up to compete for bragging rights.

You could turn it into esport matches with ??? vs ??? vs ??? on maps, with battles that last 3/4 hours. That would be amazing to watch and keep up with.

I really like the idea.

I like the idea of occasional outfit v. outfit tournys outside the main game. First to conquer the continent wins, or whoever has collected more resources after {time}.

Give everyone on the server either unlimited resources and all unlocks, or start them all with brand new characters and the same number of resources and item store gold. The second option is more appealing to me since individuals will have to specialize to create a well rounded team.

[NEWSKIS]

I can see where people might want something to work towards and win, but as others have said it does kind of get away from the persistance of the game. Personally I'd rather see occasional events that take place on specialized continents for that purpose. In PS1 they ran some special events, but they did it on the regular continents which led to balance issues during the event. The specialized continents would be made so that all 3 empires are on an even footing to begin with. Make the event winner determined by the fighting and strategy, not who happens to be on the right continent at the right time.