Inter-Continental vs Alerts

[NewSith]

Here's some food for thought and a room to be an oldfag for a bit:

The two don't really mix well. Coming from a PS1 veteran with a sad memory of Capitol Defenses happening during good fights. What do you think?

[Dougnifico]

Ya. With intercontinental lattice, the alerts need to die. They were a good stop gap, but now the real game can begin.

[bpostal]

Originally Posted by Dougnifico

Ya. With intercontinental lattice, the alerts need to die. They were a good stop gap, but now the real game can begin.

Yep. This should help funnel players during the off hours as well to ensure that everybody's getting a chance at a fight, so no reason for the alert system.

[Root Hade]

Yeah alerts were just a bandaid fix against all the meta-game complaints.

I think they could stay if devs remove the automation and give control over to outfits/commanders somehow. Just to direct the zerg a bit. Only really useful with way more conts though.

[Eggy]

The alerts only happen when the pop is low enough to trigger them.
They work great.
It would be sensible to just include more conditions into the triggers so that capped/locked conts, overall teritory and lock time factor into the automation trigger process.

Theres allready going to need to be some auto unlocking of conts in order to prevent people from running out of places to spawn.
Theres no reason why at "low pop time" a locked cont couldnt be auto flipped and become a cap target for an alert.

Even at high pop alerts could be used as a driving force. With a large pop disadvantge on a cont, an empire specific alert could be used to entice people to fight rather than logging off.

[Carbon Copied]

I don't see the alerts themselves going; just what the alert objective is changing. Are they needed? Not really; but if they take a more subtle integrated form then it's not going to be the biggest bugbear in the game come continental lattice time I'm sure.

[GeoGnome]

Originally Posted by Carbon Copied

I don't see the alerts themselves going; just what the alert objective is changing. Are they needed? Not really; but if they take a more subtle integrated form then it's not going to be the biggest bugbear in the game come continental lattice time I'm sure.

I kind of go with everyone above, The alerts are obsolete the moment the continental lattice hits, because at that point you are in a 24 hour alert, and it's goal is: "World Domination"

Making the facilities be some kind of strategic objective, that also means that the alerts for facility ownership becomes useless, because it just makes sense to secure those places to help your advance.

Alerts added in, after we have some kind of clear objective, takes away from what the game should be about

[Ruffdog]

When intercontinental begins:

Out with Alerts
In with Command Rank 5 and mission system

[Rahabib]

I think most of us agree that alerts are broken,

I would like to see alerts scaled back to small objectives (like take one specific biolab for fewer xp). It should be a side objective, not THE objective.

[ringring]

They've got to go but expect lots of complaints from folk who miss the 'sugar rush' of free xp at the conclusion of one.

Maybe a bit of thought is warranted on how to mitigate that?

[GeoGnome]

Originally Posted by ringring

They've got to go but expect lots of complaints from folk who miss the 'sugar rush' of free xp at the conclusion of one.

Maybe a bit of thought is warranted on how to mitigate that?

Well that is the mission system. Another means of doing it, is to grant XP for continent capture or mass facility capture.

So if you take all the biolabs on a continent, or all the biolabs in the world, there is a built in XP reward for your faction.

I mean, the basic IDEA of alerts, where you are paying out XP for accomplishments could be integrated back in, as built in tiered rewards that your faction unlocks... that might even help to push people down lane even more, because then there is that clear payout for taking all of X from the other 2 factions. The only thing that needs be removed (Because it just doesn't make sense anymore after the timeless 24 hour a day world wide war is factored in) is the timed portion of it. That will be taken care of with the mission system.

[Climhazzard]

Originally Posted by Eggy

Theres no reason why at "low pop time" a locked cont couldnt be auto flipped and become a cap target for an alert.

No reason... Other than it completely undermining the entire point of locking a continent.

Originally Posted by Rahabib

I would like to see alerts scaled back to small objectives (like take one specific biolab for fewer xp). It should be a side objective, not THE objective.

I'm not sure how that would work, considering one faction must already own the facility.

I guess you could make it a faction-specific Alert. Say, the TR get "orders" to take a Tech Plant currently owned by the NC. But you'd have to notify the NC, too, so that they can either deny the TR any reward for capturing the target, or receive a reward for defending it.

In order to not leave out an entire faction, though, you should probably have at least one "attack" Alert going for each faction. That means each empire would have one particular facility they're charged with capturing and one that they'd need to defend. This could present problems if two factions get an Alert to take two different facilities owned by the third faction, essentially creating a double-team. To correct that, you'd have to give a faction one of these alerts for each of the other factions; that's two facilities each empire would be charged with attacking and two that they'd need to defend.

But then these types of Alerts could be either extremely difficult or relatively easy depending on how deep in the enemy territory the facility actually is.

It also comes off as an AI-controlled mission system which may or may not go over well with the community. I don't see much love for the facility type-specific Alerts as they are now.

Originally Posted by GeoGnome

So if you take all the biolabs on a continent, or all the biolabs in the world, there is a built in XP reward for your faction.

That could be interesting. It could be "passive"; something that's always in effect, in a sense. Any time an empire captures all [Bio Labs|Amp Stations|Tech Plants|Interlink Facilities] on the continent, they get some extra reward (nothing huge). Capturing all of them in the world would grant a larger reward.

A reward could also be granted for breaking another faction's hold on these facilities.

I think you'd have to implement some kind of "cooldown", though, to prevent situations where, intentionally or unintentionally, two factions go back and forth (capture, break, capture, break, etc), raking in the rewards.

[KesTro]

I don't see a reason for alerts to go away entirely. But once they get the intercontinetal lattice in they definitely need to be toned down even more.

Now how to include every faction in those alerts I don't know.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by KesTro

I don't see a reason for alerts to go away entirely. But once they get the intercontinetal lattice in they definitely need to be toned down even more.

Now how to include every faction in those alerts I don't know.

Well......

based on ps1 experience, we had the inter-continental game and that's what people were concentrating on and also what motivated people. We had CR5's to discuss and decide on strategy.

Very occasionally brewko would start an event and nearly everyone hated it because it disrupted and was a distraction to the basic game. (I say everyone, obviously if you disagree I meant me and one other bloke).

So, in PS2, if after we get inter-continental gameplay the event doesn't annoy in a similar way it indicates to me that the inter-continental game isn't working right.

[Rahabib]

Originally Posted by Climhazzard

...
I'm not sure how that would work, considering one faction must already own the facility.

I guess you could make it a faction-specific Alert. Say, the TR get "orders" to take a Tech Plant currently owned by the NC. But you'd have to notify the NC, too, so that they can either deny the TR any reward for capturing the target, or receive a reward for defending it....

I know what you are saying, and I agree, that particular example I gave is a bad one. I think faction specific ones would be ok as long as you can see all the other factions alerts to stop them.

More appropriately, make it so that the player generated missions replace the alert system for faction specific alerts. For instance, if a biolab is needed (not sure why one territory would mean more than another, territory still wont really mean much other than just more territory), platoon leaders can use their "bounty" points to specify areas they want the zerg to go. The more platoon leaders place points on one area, the more xp for that spot. Platoon leaders are given points based on territory caps and defenses or something. I know its not a perfect system its just one that came to the top of my head.

The point is, alerts need to be smaller objectives not massive objectives that take the entire focus.