Uncapturable Foothold / Sactuary Hexes - Pro's and Cons - Page 2

**Malorn** · 2012-03-13, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by Kipper

In other words - each faction will nearly always retain the same territory in the same part of the map, give or take a few hexes as the front line expands and contracts.

Yes, this is my prediction as well, and why I want to see those uncap locations change every few weeks or once a month so each empire gets to experience all parts of a continent and different sides of the same battle to keep the game fresh and interesting.

There are 6 potential configurations, so monthly rotation seems like it works out nicely to give two full cycles of all configurations a year.

See this post here in the idea vault where I brought the issue up before:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/f...ad.php?t=36782

Raymac · 2012-03-13, 05:44 PM

Positioning resources in different parts of the map will make different hexes more valuable at different times, greatly influencing where the fights will happen. We need to get our heads out of the old PS1 base hopping reality and imagine just how much more dynamic PS2 will be with these resources to fight over.

**Malorn** · 2012-03-13, 06:01 PM

Originally Posted by Raymac

Positioning resources in different parts of the map will make different hexes more valuable at different times, greatly influencing where the fights will happen. We need to get our heads out of the old PS1 base hopping reality and imagine just how much more dynamic PS2 will be with these resources to fight over.

That PS1 base-hopping reality happened for a reason. Just because some new carrots are added to dissuade it doesn't mean it is suddenly over.

I believe Resources can change the behavior. Will they is an entirely different question. Can the typical player hop into PS2 and play all day and not really concern themselves with resources? If so then nothing will change. If they are forced to care (by running out of one or more resources and seeing a noticable drop in options/power) then they may start to think about them more and finally learn what the strange symbols and numbers on the map actually mean. They have to translate that resource map into "go here if you want your super vanguards". Usability of the resource system is another barrier.

People are generally quite primal. Attack and follow the thing running away. Go towards the big shiney thing. Take the shortest path. If you want to override that with a significantly more complex resource system then it needs to be simple and intuitive.

I'm actually surprised I didn't see a player's current resource count on the HUD. It seems like it should be there to keep the idea of "resources" ever salient to players. The more they think about them, the more likely they are to play for them and override those primal behaviors.

Also, resources alone does not change the staleness-factor the OP brought up.

Kipper · 2012-03-13, 06:24 PM

Not sure I like the idea of having GM's constantly changing the resource values of hexes - even if that does serve to change player behavoir, its essentially removing "free will" from players - the GM's are now directing the battle like leading a dog with a piece of chocolate ("here, attack here, its now worth more!")

Where on the map the war happens - whether the choices end up resulting in tactical genius or complete lunacy must be down to the player base and the squad/platoon/outfit commanders.

How does the suggestion of alternating the footholds work if other territory is held? Isn't that basically introducing 'game over, this map is done, reset and move onto the next map' rules that the majority don't want?

Skepsiis · 2012-03-13, 06:27 PM

I agree that this could possibly be an issue.

The problem is the stacic uncaptureable footholds right? Some people suggested the solution of simply rotating them, but I personally wouldnt like this so much if they magically just changed after a set period of time.

But what if you push this idea to the next level and have each foothold as say a flying or even landed and deployed mothership type structure...

These could either slowly rotate around the map to be always in the oposite 3 corners of a triangle and be moving very slowly all the time, or every so often have them migrate in a clockwise fashion to each others spot and remain static for a while once they arrive (this could be important if the maps are carefully designed around the new foothold system and the routes and layouts of maps are strongly focused on that being your starting point.

Perhaps this would be what the "lockdown of a cont" that people want would trigger if it is not on a timer where the normally static bases would take like 12h or whatever to move and have limited functionality when mobile, like no tech plant benefits so the die hard few of the losing side can remain and try and fight but the bulk of the winning forces can leave to join a fight going on elsewhere.

Garem · 2012-03-13, 06:59 PM

Capturable Footholds, letting the victor rake in the resources for doing so = win

I just don't see the necessity of having uncapturable footholds. Let people drop in all around the foothold when it's lost, making holding it (1) exceptionally challenging and (2) EXTREMELY exciting!

LONGFELLA KOJ · 2012-03-13, 07:34 PM

Sorry, but this feature is so far off the mark of what Planetside is. We fight to lock continents. We fight to find and destroy every last spawn point. We fight until the population of the enemy is taken down to 0%.

And now there's gonna be a untouchable spawn point that an enemy can just keep popping out of?

Thus far I have been listening to the DEVS and the community trying to say to myself "Yea, It's a new game, just wait and see how it turns out. I may like it."

But after hearing this idea of uncapturable spawn points. I had to say something. This needs to either change after launch or get fixed before beta.

Shanesan · 2012-03-13, 08:06 PM

Alright guys, work with me here.

Each force has a floating city (Citadel) which relies entirely on Nanites. The Citadel rotates around the continent in question, staying equidistant from the other factions' Citadels. It has an enemy-reflecting shield and a large teleporter in the center. The teleporter only works when the Citadel is positioned over a Warpgate, gathering enough additional nanites from the warpgate to teleport the units to the ground.

Flying units can fly out of the Citadel shields at any time to reinforce any location they want. Infantry and ground units can only pass through the teleporter to the warpgate when it's enabled.

The Citadels fly over one of the warpgates every 5 minutes and hover slowly over the warpgate for one minute.

This keeps the bases in the center of the continent the most stable and keeps the bases on the outside constantly changing. This also helps a faction that has lost entirely because all the ground forces spawn together in a huge group.

QuantumMechanic · 2012-03-13, 08:09 PM

I also agree with the OP's point and his offered solution. After your faction has been totally removed from a continent (which may happen more often than we think - as every faction wants to wipe it's rivals off the map), having the ability to pick a single hex somewhere (but who's decision is this?), anywhere on the map could really make things exciting for the morale-blown faction that just got wiped out. Being the victim of continent lock-out in PS1 was never a fun experience.

And it would keep the battle front lines fresh and dynamic infinately longer than any other idea I've heard sofar. And that will keep players playing longer, which is what we need.

I think this idea really deserves some serious consideration. There is some possibility of abuse - say your low on population and backed into a corner somewhere. Wouldn't it just be easier to do a faction /suicide - everybody die on purpose - just so you can choose a new and better starting point?

But I love this idea.

Figment · 2012-03-13, 08:16 PM

It's a concern that a lot of people share (see hex grid thread already).

An additional problem is that this may lead to apathy. Apathy for what happens to the map and people being more concerned with getting kills than making sure the empire "wins" (whatever that means).

In the past, on /c we used to argue that we recalled a "good fight" so we and others could still have a good fight in two hours from there on. However, it meant that we could actually END a fight.

In PlanetSide 2, with only three continents at launch (meaning a max of around 6.000 people per server), I'm even wondering if we will even be able to move to another continent if we're bored of the current one? Because we can't END the current one. Worse, the other might be pop-locked...

As you cannot lock the cont, nor control even the fast majority of it realistically, there's no time at which you conclude a fight. I feel like it's going to be like trying to keep the TR out of Zal/Jamshid (Oshur): even if you brutalise and pulverise them time and again, they will just keep coming back, not allowing you to move on till you eventually just give up. That has always been extremely unsatisfying to me and I fear this will lead to the apathic state of people much, MUCH sooner than the two to four years it took most people in /c to give up on zerg-herding and resecuring and just farm.

From my perspective, that's especially going to be causing stress, desillusionment and even small depressions for the strategic map moving crowd who like to think of the game as largely RTS: there's going to be very little point in going behind enemy lines if you can't hold on to it and won't get you anywhere. Going behind enemy lines in PS2 (in my mind) will eventually be more like "let's just go farm that for a change, see if we can pull it off", rather than "if we go there, we cut of their supply lines to here and our forces over there will be able to push and kick them out of the cont".

Simply because the last bit misses: there's no goal to achieve, so why bother trying to achieve it? Besides, as others have said, you will eventually get the approximate same territory back anyway, right? In PS1 the goal was locking continents one or two at a time and getting as many of them locked like the cont-collector obsessionists we were. The sense of possession: "The commies are raiding OUR piestacks on Solsar! Kick them from our land!", I'm afraid we're going to miss that sentiment since we'll just have little bits of each land.

Almost feels like more of a redneck fued over some local land than really invading another nation, taking their stuff and making it yours, for the empire you want to see rule supreme over all of Auraxis.

Really do hope a new intercontinental lattice will be introduced or that you eventually can capture a sanctuary by capturing all surrounding hexes. In that sense, it would be great if there was a way to have (naval/HART) invasions on locked continents in attempts to capture one of these on cont sanctuaries. But for that, we'd need true sanctuaries again, or at least orbital staging grounds.

Skitrel · 2012-03-13, 08:24 PM

Originally Posted by Kipper

I was suggesting that you ONLY get the 'space drop' option when you have no territory at all.

Otherwise I agree - if you were to allow the mechanic at other times, it would have to be restricted only to an adjacent hex to one you already own. I'd say restrict it to to one that you do already own, but since you can probably spawn there anyway - what would be the point?

Ah. In that case I entirely agree and support the proposal. It's a better system.

Plus, those sanctuaries look like they'd be SWEET to attack.

**Malorn** · 2012-03-13, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by Shanesan

Each force has a floating city (Citadel) which relies entirely on Nanites. The Citadel rotates around the continent in question, staying equidistant from the other factions' Citadels. It has an enemy-reflecting shield and a large teleporter in the center. The teleporter only works when the Citadel is positioned over a Warpgate, gathering enough additional nanites from the warpgate to teleport the units to the ground.

Flying units can fly out of the Citadel shields at any time to reinforce any location they want. Infantry and ground units can only pass through the teleporter to the warpgate when it's enabled.

The Citadels fly over one of the warpgates every 5 minutes and hover slowly over the warpgate for one minute.

This keeps the bases in the center of the continent the most stable and keeps the bases on the outside constantly changing. This also helps a faction that has lost entirely because all the ground forces spawn together in a huge group.

I think the change is too rapid. The idea of a front dissolves and I think it would end up scattering people around the map a lot.

Also the empires are always in the same position relative to each other.

There's 6 position configurations:
TNV
TVN
NTV
NVT
VNT
VTN

It should cycle through each of those positions, but not too rapidly.

Neat idea though, reminds me of BF2142's Titan mode. I enjoyed that.

Originally Posted by Kipper

Not sure I like the idea of having GM's constantly changing the resource values of hexes - even if that does serve to change player behavoir, its essentially removing "free will" from players - the GM's are now directing the battle like leading a dog with a piece of chocolate ("here, attack here, its now worth more!")

GM's wouldn't be the ones changing it. The game could do it randomly. I really like the idea of what was valuable today could be worthless tomorrow. From a tactical perspective it's great and simulates resources being exhausted and discovered. It doesn't have to be purely randomly either, it can use various algorithms to ensure the resources are reasonably balanced so you don't end up with all of a super valuable resource in one empire's back yard. Even if so if it changes every day it even a bad configuration is not the end of the world. I think changing every 2-3 days would be best though. It doesn't affect existing territory in any way - the value of the territory just changed .That worthless territory in the middle of nowhere you captured for shits and giggles is suddenly super important and now you have to go defend it.

It generates battles in different places and keeps the game fresh. Higby mentioned they were already doing this in July when he talked a lot about the resource system.

Quote was:

Originally Posted by Higby

And these are even going to shift and evolve over time as resources migrate, spawn and despawn, to keep things fresh.

(If you want the source its from the videos, I transcribed what Higby said word-for-word about the resource system and put it in this post)

Originally Posted by Kipper

How does the suggestion of alternating the footholds work if other territory is held? Isn't that basically introducing 'game over, this map is done, reset and move onto the next map' rules that the majority don't want?

It doesn't have to affect it at all. It'll be a little strange because the TR foothold might be in the middle of NC territory, but nothing changed all the other territory. If anything it could be a real interesting event. All that changed is that the other empires now have a spawn point and have the ability to capture the nearby territory a little easier. Whether they act on that is entirely up to them. What the other empires do is also up to them.

It might make for a day or two of complete chaos and mayhem as the empires shift around their territory to be more defensible in their new foothold location. Or it might change very little if an empire decides it doesn't care about where its foothold is and wants to hold onto the old territory. Whatever floats their boat. It just mixes things up and allows for new possibilities.

One thing it would also do is potentially introduce a lot of fighting right around the warpgates that might not otherwise happen. Helps utilize more of the terrain.

The point is that things get mixed up - not "reset" - reset is not the correct label for this idea. Nobody is taking territory away from anyone else, they're just swapping around the 3 foothold territories. All the other territory stays right where it is until it is forcibly taken.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2012-03-13, 08:59 PM

I hope they balance the maps so that there's always good resources to capture near your foothold. And the nearest bases all give the same rewards.

I'd be upset if the nearest base is 5 hexes away for one team and only 2 for another.

**Malorn** · 2012-03-13, 09:05 PM

If they do it right you'll care more about the resource value of the territories than you will the facilities.

If my understanding of the vision is correct the primary advantage of facilities is purely logistical. It's still an advantage, but if resources matter (and I've argued in other posts today that they must and the will), it will be the resources that are the more important.

Remember that your foothold is also a base you can always go to, so effectively it is a super facility. You don't necessarily need to claim a facility outside of that, but you do need to secure resources.

The Civilization games had great algorithms for randomly generating reasonably balanced resource distributions, so we know they exist. I'm sure they could use the same sort of algorithms to ensure there's no gross imbalances with the resource distribution.

noxious · 2012-03-14, 01:09 AM

Why not just make it so that an empire cannot hold less than one hex? An empire might lock two continents if the populations are heavily in their favor and command plays their cards right, but it's unlikely that they're going to be able to push one or both of the other empires back to holding only a single hex, and if they do, the underdog(s) will still have that single hex which will be uncapturable until they acquire more territory to spawn from.

In the event that an empire is locked into a single hex for some period of time (perhaps an hour, plus or minus whatever would make it balanced), then they'd be given a random non-adjacent hex for free so that that empire could have a chance to break free.