Resource Collection and Self Interest

[nathanebht]

Originally Posted by Rarntogo

Global Agenda has or had a resource system for obtaining things used in outfit vs outfit battles. What a bunch of crap that was. Ya get recruited into an outfit and later realize that the outfit taxed you a percentage of your resources gained during battle. I saw outfits charging as high as 75%. These same resources are used for individual armor upgrades, accuracy buffs etc.. Not a bad system as far as sharing, trading, buying and selling etc... as a whole but the exploitation was lame to say the least. If you wanted to be in a top outfit you had to basically pay for it. I would hate to see something like that happen in PS.

Really hope PS2 is going to be completely different from that part of Global Agenda.

Too many unknowns about territory resources, gonna wait for the reveal.

[Xaine]

As was said above, i'm fairly certain that when you gain 1x unit of whatever - a set amount will go to you, your outfit and your empire.

Anything else would seem abit strange.

The whole new meta-game of resources excites me a lot. Being able to starve X faction of using X tank or weapon but cutting off their resources seems like a much more interesting way to make war, ontop of the territory control.

[ShowNoMercy]

back hacking areas with vital resources will be the new gen hold. I'm looking forward to it personally. The economy in PS2 is needed since SOE is trying to make this huge. Having resources to worry about collecting is just another carrot in front you that you will keep grabbing at. People chasing after carrots don't un-sub.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Sifer2

This whole topic kind of casts doubt for me about whether its a good idea of have personal resources at all honestly. Seems like its going to be hard to organize your army to work together if the outfits are off chasing the plot of land that is going to give them the materials they are low on an ignoring you.

Why not stop complaining about them not working with you, and you can go work with them? Or let them play how they want to since they are paying the same $15 as you. Who are you that you must be listened to? I'd ignore you too.

[Sifer2]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Why not stop complaining about them not working with you, and you can go work with them? Or let them play how they want to since they are paying the same $15 as you. Who are you that you must be listened to? I'd ignore you too.

But why would I work with them if I or my outfit needs a different resource right? An sure they can play how they want. Nice to know they will be eating our Empires population cap though an not really helping the push. Unless SOE are miracle workers this time an there are no caps then I really wont care.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Sifer2

But why would I work with them if I or my outfit needs a different resource right?

I suppose your outfit will have to discuss things with their outfit. Maybe plan a bit. Conspire to do harm unto others. That sort of thing.

Nice to know they will be eating our Empires population cap though an not really helping the push.

Not the push. Your push. Big difference. They have their own push, and are complaining about you guys taking up the pop cap going after your idiot choice of targets.

Feeling resentful towards those players when you are completely disregarding their choices is just arrogance.

[LordReaver]

Originally Posted by Sifer2

But they do very easily run the risk of killing any real sense of faction an working together an instead creating armies of privateers that only work together when they stand to both earn something out of it.

Well, the NC are a conglomeration of pirates, terrorist, rebels, and whatnot afterall. So that's right up our alley cannon wise.

[Soothsayer]

They'll be taxed by the empire regardless, so as long as they're capping territory there will be some net gain, plus by capping that land they're denying resources to the enemy.

I think that you've raised a point about personal vs empire use resources here. A common complaint in PS1 was about people not supporting tactically sound objectives. If you feel that the zerg is not working towards the right goal, being able to limit the amount of resources you send their way via the empire resource common pool would be like a vote of confidence for their actions.

If you feel that supporting the empire's resource pool will pay off tactically, then you can send more resources that way, if its just going to be squandered you can keep a bigger cut for yourself/your outfit.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Soothsayer

If you feel that the zerg is not working towards the right goal, being able to limit the amount of resources you send their way via the empire resource common pool would be like a vote of confidence for their actions.

Once again, the question becomes who decides who gets to control the restriction, and who the hell are they to have the arrogance to penalize others in a game, and if there is a disagreement, who gets to be the arbitrator?

If people think they should be listened too, they can put up their resources to reward those others for listening too them. Or talk to them and convince them of it.

[Soothsayer]

As far as I'm concerned, the work you've put in to securing resources should entitle to you decide (to an extent) the use of those resources.

I just had an idea which I believe would mitigate the problem of selfishness vs altruism. Say an empire is running short on a certain resource, Thorium for example.

The automatic mission generator puts out a message that says "The Terran Republic needs Thorium, if you accept this mission the next source of Thorium you capture will go directly to the empire pool. Once 1000 units of Thorium have been successfully harvested you will get a 25% bonus to XP for the next two hours while fighting on this continent."

Exact mission parameters are up for debate, but this would address shortages by rewarding people who are pitching in.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Soothsayer

With the new resource collection mechanics we know that resources harvested go towards the individual, outfit and empire.

I haven't heard about the ability to designate how much of any given resource goes to those three entities.

When I start, I'm going to want to get as much for myself as I can, since it was hinted that certain skills can be advanced through using certain resources. When I'm in an outfit, I want to be able to freely trade my personal resources to outfit mates, and I want that outfit to be able to distribute those resources based on performance/need.

Players and outfits should be able to set percentages, empires should probably always get a minimum amount but reward higher amounts.

Once I've got mine, I'd consider kicking a little more back to the empire... Ammo ain't free!

This loss of personal wealth should be recognized by the empire in the form of some sort of benefit that is internal to the empire.

Designating certain nights of the week (on an outfit basis) as high tax nights, whether the resources go to outfit or empire, would be a cool option. The mission system could be a resource transaction where territory can be capped on behalf of an outfit (of course working on behalf of the empire).

Resource collection pretty much implies economy and I want a robust system where the player determines his or her own contribution weighted by his or her own priorities.

Its really hard to say what the numbers are, but we do know they are awarded for holding, capturing, and defending. We know they are awarded over time, and we know that resources are split amongst the empire on the continent. So a low-pop empire gaining the same amount of resources with a high-pop will gain more resources. We know they can be stored-up by the player and spent as currency. They could have other factors like active conflict going on in the continent.

Both accrual and consumption are unknown at this time.

I have my suspicions that resource accural depends on the scale of the conflict (otherwise you could just sit on a continent you own and rake in territory, or fighting on a low-pop continent and ghost-hacking would be highly profitable).

Additionally I think there are 3 separate pools of resources that are generated when you gain resources.
1) Self - split amongst the participants on the continent, we know this much
2) Outfit - probably a proportion of the resources gained by the player..might be a tax-like mechanic that outfits can set.
3) Empire - the empire

It could be one resource amount that is divided. Example, Suppose 1000 resourcs are gained by a capture.

The empire's cut might be 500
The remainder is split among the 20 participants, with the outfit taking a 20% cut.
So result, if I had a 10 man squad among the participants all in the same outfit, then:
- Empire gains 500 resources
- Each player gains 20 resources
- Outfits gain 5 resources * number of players present


I suspect "empire" resources are shared amongst the players on the continent, which means that if I pull a tank it grabs those resources from the empire's pool. If the empire can't afford it I have the option to take it from my personal pool.

I also suspect that certain upgrades must come from the personal pool and not the empire's pool. Like if I pull an upgraded vanguard the resource cost of the vanguard might come from the empire's pool, but the upgrades might come from my pool.

I can see a system like that working out fairly well. If you can dump resources into skill learning that would also be interesting.

[Soothsayer]

It has been said that some kind of resource will go towards skilling up... This is why I want to be able to hold back some of my resources.

I'd like a system where I can assess the benefits of holding back resources vs giving them to the empire and act accordingly.

I want a fair cut to the people doing the work, I want a fair cut for my own advancement.

There's definitely benefit to restricted and public access pools for upgrades to weapons and vehicles vs base model weapons/veh.

If they are making the territory/resource system the main driver of content, there needs to be significant linkage between all the systems they have in place. This will be the core of the meta game.

[Malorn]

Without more details I don't see how we can really sort out whether we think there's an issue here. It could be implemented in many different ways, but I think overall its' got a lot of potential.

Spending resources on certs may not be permanent, but if it is then I see the conflict of interest between spending those resources on upgrades vs spending them on certs. Spending in on certs may also be a temporary thing, it might have a cooldown, or some other mechanic limiting its use. Point being it may not be a resource-dump.

Certs might help you in the long run, but not getting upgrades may impair your ability to conquer a territory which could mean you are at a net loss because you didn't use your best gear.

Lots of ways to look at it but we need more information.

[TRex]

My concern with resources is more to do with the general zerg mentality .

By that I wonder if theres any cap system on factions percentage and resulting balancing? In times past I've seen one side with 40/50% of global population , and if they are controlling the vast majority of the map and therefore resources it perpetuates the game twofold :

The side with lowest resources and population struggles to have enough to maintain its own advancement via certs etc . This results in the second :

Zergites leave the lower populated side and join the side with most resources to be able to advance their character .

This worries me even further since theres talk of maybe a ftp model /cash shop, and having tried a few myself my conclusion is that a zerg we will definately be having . If theres chance of getting extra points towards a pink fluffy bunny suit , they would kill their own granny to aquire it.

[Malorn]

This was brought up and they recognized that as a problem but also listed a few ways it might not be a problem.

Originally Posted by Public Panel

Resources are continental-based right now. I gain resources from the continent I am on. If I don't have a foothold on the continent the TR are fighting on as much - maybe the TR and Vanu are really in a stalemate on one continent and my empire doesn't really have a foothold there - I can go to a continent where we do, fight there, gather resources, my team can sort of save our resources and then we can transition to that continent and be ready to really mount an offense over there.

Also the way we distribute resources will solve that problem (referring to small population vs large population). If you have less people there resources are going to be getting distributed in higher percentages to the fewer people that are there. Once we start seeing the real play patterns, the way that the game starts balancing out then we'll be making more decisions about how we keep things balanced.

There is a combination of static & dynamic spawns for resources, so that is a very simple and elegant way to solve that problem (referring to the problem of a low pop getting attacked by a high pop and not having a lot of territory for resources).

The executive producer also mentioned missions will help spread people out. There is a lot of things they can do here.

1) Distributed system means lower pop => each person gets larger portion of resources

2) Static & dynamic resources means if they see an empire is low on pop they could spawn some dynamic resources as a handicap to help compensate.

3) The mission system can help spread out the populations to begin with so it's not all one big zerg blob moving from continent to continent.

4) They could base resource amount on amount of conflict in the area, so that might discourage completely overwhelming the enemy as you won't get much of a fight and as a result, won't get much resources for the capture.


They have a lot of tools, and as T-Ray said in my sig...if it doesn't work they'll fix it. This specific problem is actually the context in which T-Ray said that statement.