Uncapturable Foothold / Sactuary Hexes - Pro's and Cons - Page 8

Hoodlum · 2012-03-15, 03:27 AM

Originally Posted by Malorn

We're talking about different things. I'm talking about rotating which empire owns each foothold, not talking about anything about hexes.

I'm talking about Figments picture and how having the same footholds will make the map stale as you'll have the same cycle of hex changing teams hands and that I'd like to have the footholds change or be bases that float or cirlce around the map, and thus having the footholds change more often to change things up but with more places then 6

megamold · 2012-03-15, 03:53 AM

Originally Posted by Malorn

We're talking about different things. I'm talking about rotating which empire owns each foothold, not talking about anything about hexes.

but how would you set up that rotation?
because just popping a chat msg "empire foothold will switch in 5 minutes" kinda ruins the whole immersion/persistance thing i think

**Malorn** · 2012-03-15, 04:01 AM

If its immersion you are concerned about, it's pretty easy to make a claim that the warpgates are unstable.

If it's a regular thing there's no reason why people couldn't know ahead of time the configurations/schedule. Most likely though they would do it during regular maintenance of the server(s). That would minimize the disruption and wouldn't interfere with any battles in-progress since there wouldn't be any.

Hoodlum · 2012-03-15, 04:13 AM

Originally Posted by megamold

but how would you set up that rotation?
because just popping a chat msg "empire foothold will switch in 5 minutes" kinda ruins the whole immersion/persistance thing i think

That's why I think floating ships or sky bases (or even space stations which would be pretty cool) would work better and make more sense.

On a side note, does anyone remember reading long ago a post by a guy to make a space combat expansion, with space station battles ect? I think that would be amazing in PS2

Figment · 2012-03-15, 04:24 AM

Cutter, you are not much of a strategist, critic or designer, are you? You almost always don't see the underlying reasons or consequences of design decisions. Downplay everything you don't see as non-existent issue... In fact you pretty much like everything by default. Sorry to say Cutter, but at this point I'm classifying you as a PS2-auto-fanboy. Now playing devil's advocate is one thing, you are just defending everything by default.

There is a HUGE difference between an on cont, to the enemy visible staging ground and one off cont. An even bigger difference between a permanent foothold and a potential gateway. Note the word 'potential', as in securable, passable, lockable, not a continuous threat. If you don't even see that, then you make a lot more... 'sense' in other topics as well.

Kran De Loy · 2012-03-15, 05:10 AM

Somewhere someone said that capturing a base behind enemy lines, while possible, would be more/less difficult based on how many allied hexes touch the one you're capturing.

How is this any different than being forced to reenter a continent from a non secured foothold? Does having a secured foothold stop anyone from capturing a base in the middle of the map and working their way backwards to the foothold? Or just sitting on that lone base in the middle of hostile territory and defend it like in 300?

Just because it's easier to move out from a foothold isn't going to stop anyone from trying to be sneaky or just decide to change the location of a battle.

Honestly I don't see how people wanting to move footholds is getting more attention than people wanting to move resource locations. It's the resources that everyone will be fighting on top of over and over and over...

And an easier way to fix that would be to fluctuate the quality of resources gathered by location based on a number of different possible factors like population, deaths in a region, resources spent within a region, etc..

kadrin · 2012-03-15, 05:27 AM

Originally Posted by Kran De Loy

Somewhere someone said that capturing a base behind enemy lines, while possible, would be more/less difficult based on how many allied hexes touch the one you're capturing.

How is this any different than being forced to reenter a continent from a non secured foothold? Does having a secured foothold stop anyone from capturing a base in the middle of the map and working their way backwards to the foothold? Or just sitting on that lone base in the middle of hostile territory and defend it like in 300?

Just because it's easier to move out from a foothold isn't going to stop anyone from trying to be sneaky or just decide to change the location of a battle.

Honestly I don't see how people wanting to move footholds is getting more attention than people wanting to move resource locations. It's the resources that everyone will be fighting on top of over and over and over...

And an easier way to fix that would be to fluctuate the quality of resources gathered by location based on a number of different possible factors like population, deaths in a region, resources spent within a region, etc..

It's more about always fighting from the same direction in the same areas. Fighting over the same area from different sides is preferable to the same area the same way every time.

Ideally, resources would also fluctuate, so you're fighting over different areas from different directions.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2012-03-15, 05:40 AM

So Figment's map (It was figment wasn't it) will have a few hexes + or - depending on how resources are eaten and respawned. You'll still fight to the next good node, then not bother. Too many enemies, not enough reward, time to play defence.

The spirit behind the drawings remains the same.

Rotating the safe spots doesn't actually change anything, it just rotates the problem. The frontlines are going to be pretty much exactly the same after a few hours, just you're looking west not east.

Fundamentally, you're going to have zergballs getting three wayed in the middle and outfits trying to attack and gen hold and other outfits responding and shutting it down. Which leads to stalemate which leads to boredom which leads to pop crash.

Jandor · 2012-03-15, 06:02 AM

Having only one uncapturable stronghold would be ok, expanding that to two or three uncaptureable bases when more continents are added. But for the most part capturing whole continents should be possible. You don't want the war to end, but likewise you don't want it to get stale and pointless.

kadrin · 2012-03-15, 06:03 AM

Originally Posted by StumpyTheOzzie

Fundamentally, you're going to have zergballs getting three wayed in the middle and outfits trying to attack and gen hold and other outfits responding and shutting it down. Which leads to stalemate which leads to boredom which leads to pop crash.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it.

Kran De Loy · 2012-03-15, 07:35 AM

Just because your to the east of a base doesn't mean you have to take that base from the east. Same goes for switching it around, just because you're now on the west of the base doesn't mean you're not going to try to use the same methods and approaches your already know that work and like.

This ties in with one of the reasons I really want to make sure servers do not become region locked as people in other countries have their own ways of doing things that completely changes the game. Like in League of Legends (a f2p) that when I'm on in the middle of the day I end up playing with Brazilians and I wind up cussing at the screen for the next 20-60 minutes because their methods are so alien to mine that I find them retarded. Not because they are stupid (though I often think they really are), but because they have a different sense of value on the various factors of the game than I do.

Figment · 2012-03-15, 07:54 AM

Originally Posted by Kran De Loy

Just because your to the east of a base doesn't mean you have to take that base from the east. Same goes for switching it around, just because you're now on the west of the base doesn't mean you're not going to try to use the same methods and approaches your already know that work and like.

Logistics and psychology.

With the danger of coming off as underestimating players, the fast majority (and herein lies the problem), does not prefer high risk/high investment-high/indirect reward, but low risk/low investment-direct/medium reward strategies. They will do the most straightforward things.

Small groups will be the Wild Cards as you describe it, but small groups in the new PlanetSide populace landscape and with the greater ease of relocating across continents, will be facing fastly worse odds in order to pull such things off. ESPECIALLY if they want to try anything closer to an enemy staging ground than to their own.

It WILL be conceived as a "mission impossible" and not as an extremely valid, or long term goal. From a strategic perspective, it is important to keep your back secure. People will therefore expect to lose ground close to an enemy sanctuary almost as fast as they got it. Other people will behave very territorial, these will see it as a "Mission from God" to cling on to "own" territory nearby the sanctuary and will fanatically come down on whoever is there, not allowing those who just captured that hex to move to the next hex until it is in the "right" hands again.

There will be those that want "nice borders" (really don't underestimate the aesthetics, a lot of people in conquest games want borders to look clear and symmetrical for no other reason than it looking prettier). Some will feel it is "playing safe" to have at least certain territory under control and would prefer to at least maintain a status quo than try or support something daring that could backfire.

For others, it will just be the default thing to capture upon spawning into the game, because it's the closest thing to them and because they have better logistics (weaponry et all) close by at hand.

And even if you are allowed to move on, the moment you capture all or nearly all territory from ONE of your enemies, they will mass spawn in your rear and you are screwed again since you now have multiple frontlines. (This is why most strategies in PS2 for threeways consisted of securing the edge and pushing two enemies into eachother, then trying to wipe out both almost simultaneously).

In all cases on Indar, it will eventually lead to the "T-split"-threeway with some minor variations of it depending on troop densities or if two empires "work together" by ignoring each other.

I really hope the other continents have geographical dividers to create different distributions of land. Natural borders are a psychological and strategic barrier, after all.

kadrin · 2012-03-15, 08:04 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

With the danger of coming off as underestimating players, the fast majority (and herein lies the problem), does not prefer high risk/high investment-high/indirect reward, but low risk/low investment-direct/medium reward strategies. They will do the most straightforward things.

Yep, never underestimate the stupidity of the zerg. They would rather bash their heads against a wall for hours rather than try to flank.

Kipper · 2012-03-15, 08:06 AM

Originally Posted by kadrin

Yep, never underestimate the stupidity of the zerg. They would rather bash their heads against a wall for hours rather than try to flank.

By definition, the zerg can't do anything but that - because they're a coming together of many individuals, rather than an organised group. If one of them decides to flank, he'll die, and he can't organise the rest of them so they must all stay where they are.

Its the squads and outfits that have communications that will form strategies and cooperate to actually DO stuff.

Figment · 2012-03-15, 08:16 AM

You can see zerg behaviour quite well on the maps of World of Tanks, there are usualy three-five main routes to follow. The 15 people on each side tend to not be working together. A lot of people start the map in "default" mode and go to the route or side they usualy go. This can cause massive imbalances in spread, which, depending on their next action, determines the course of battle. The term "Lemming train" comes to mind, a lot.

Either they completely overwhelm a flank, or the leading tank stalls, making them all stall since everyone is waiting for the other to make the first move.

People who play like individuals with initiative, can shape the battle by initialising attacks or moves and keep momentum going. Platoons of three people can similarly impact, because they DO play organized together and roll up a side on their own, or, they split up on purpose, creating a better defensive/offensive spread over the different routes.

However, communication is key. Communication in random matches of WoT fails incredibly often and the 'teams' (groups of individuals) shatter into chaos and disarray and eventually get picked off one by one by little packs of tanks.