Ideas for the "Rich get richer" problem - Page 8

Boomzor · 2012-03-24, 06:45 AM

Originally Posted by Malorn

How does reducing the resource income of the empire with all the resources fix the problem?

It doesn't fix the problem, but in my mind it goes a long way to postpone the issue. It takes a lot more for the underdog to get to the "helpless" state.

I also do agree with what your saying, there needs to be some additional mechanic to help them bounce back once things have gone down the shitter.

The rebate and reduced timers are excellent compliments.

BuzzCutPsycho · 2012-03-24, 07:00 AM

Originally Posted by Malorn

Not to jinx it but we're on page 8 with no flaming, hostilities or useless drivel. The entire 8 pages is actually intelligent discussion. I'm stunned.

Well, I'm about to post so that might change.

Here is my take on the situation - Is this really even an issue? Typically the "rich getting richer" is a problem for games with complex and important tech trees like RTS games. Let's take Dawn of War 2 as an example - In DoW2 if your enemy controls more power points than you do he is probably going to get to Tier 2 first and produce a vehicle. That vehicle will require a counter from T2 and will allow him to control the field until you scramble up just enough to deal with it, By the time you've dealt with it he now has enough power for a counter to your counter (rich getting richer) and it's essentially game over.

In PlanetSide 2 from what I can tell the resources will impact certain vehicles and a few other minor things such as grenades. Without having an in-depth amount of knowledge of how the system is going to work I can only assume it really wont end up being that big of a deal. One of the most common things mentioned in the thread is the third faction preventing one from getting too powerful and I think we can all agree on that. The one point I will bring up is that if the resources determine whether or not you can pull a Vanguard or a Reaver I won't be too worried because players can simply switch to anti-vehicle rolls to help deal with the situation or, if possible pull lighter vehicles (Lightning?) configured in either AA/AT rolls and at least put up a fighting chance. I am going to land on the side of "wait until beta" for this one despite it being a good, healthy discussion.

TLDR: I've never encountered anything that a platoon of strikers can't deal with.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2012-03-24, 07:27 AM

The post I deleted from above could be politely be summarised as:

It won't happen, and who cares if it does?

1. Biggest difference between super 10 year veteran and total virgin newbie is 20%. Dev stated goal.

2. This game will cater to the instant gratification "I demand this" generation so there's going to be more resources than you can spend. 13-18 year olds will form the bulk of the player base and as a general rule they are whinging spoilt losers who will scream and stamp their feet and SPEND THEIR PARENT'S MONEY so the devs will listen to them and free up some resources for nothing.

3. The sancs will form a staging post. The supply lines are therefore short. Therefore frontline losses will be replaced quickly. Therefore the enemy will (slowly) be repelled and the underdog faction will secure some resources.

It's much more important to maintain population balance between the 3 empires than caring about land holding. If pop is evenly spread eventually it should flow into captured territory unless one team has an unfair advantage (ES weapons probably) which will get nerfed after a few weeks of the world being one colour.

Each faction will have outfits that are uber military strategic.
Each faction will have uber twitch 1337 shooter grunts.
Each faction is essentially balanced in terms of the players. The only difference will be populations.

Like i said somewhere before, giving the VS a +50% xp boost when they are outnumbered 12:1 is not enough. You should be outnumbered 2:1. Anytime you are outnumbered more than 2:1 you should get a corresponding increase in XP.

So when you're at 8% population, you should get +600% xp. I'll be quite happy in my 80% effective vanilla tank attacking at horrific odds if the rewards are so big.

Boomzor · 2012-03-24, 07:47 AM

I dunno, but I read this as resources won't be in abundance.

Originally Posted by Higby from Reddit AMA

4) Can players stockpile a lot of resources or will we always be on the hunt?

there will be a cap to resource pools, ideally you won't ever feel like you have more than enough resources.

I also believe we have no idea of just how much resources impact what you can get. If the opposition can all pull mossies and prowlers, but all my team can pull is lightnings, we'll get chewed up as soon as we stick our noses out of the base.
Or worse, we're forced to foot zerg.

And I'm saying this with PS1 tinted goggles. I also don't know how well a lightning will stand against a prowler, but I assume it'll be at a disadvantage.

Further, I'm not sure an XP boost is the way to go at all. Yes, it'll help you rank up faster and give the ability to play with new toys. But rank does not equal power. Rank will not give you the toys. Resources will. Once you're max BR and unlocked everything, xp won't mean squat to you.

Coreldan · 2012-03-24, 07:55 AM

Hmmmh. I suppose you get resources at least much less or none if you are not online. Wouldn't somebody who makes an idle macro in the sanc (or just cloaking in the middle of nowhere) be able to stockpile resources while at work/School/sleeping?

Duddy · 2012-03-24, 08:14 AM

Originally Posted by Malorn

Are you referring to the high pop attacker getting tons of resources or the fact that the defenders dont' have the power to defend?

If its the former, several posts back I had an idea where resource reward was tied population ratio, so capturing a territory with few or no defenders yields few resources. On the other hand the low pop dominating side would receive a strong bonus of resource, motivating them to defend it and get more people on the continent to help out.

But even if they don't successfully get people to defend, the high pop group will gobble up territory and then the tide turns. Hopefully they would not have gotten too many resources out of it due to a low-pop defender.

I was referring to the latter, but that is a decent idea nonetheless, much like how BEP increased the more fighting that took place during a base cap in PS1.

It was also in some part a rhetoric to illustrate that you could own a lot of territory but have low pop, in which case you'd need the timer benefit and not a resource one.

As before, I think thinks to aid population deficits need to remain de-coupled from aids to combat owning no territory as they, whilst probably commonly occurring together, are however two different states and a such potentially exclusive of each other.

@Buzz

I don't think the discussion was purely about not being able to come back from such a situation. As you point out it is probable that one could.

The issue is players are people, and people are more inclined to take the path of least resistance.

I think the point of discussion was to give an incentive to fighting the odds and encourage territory to exchange hands rather than be held for large periods by a single empire.

You are however correct in pointing out that, as with most things, there is an aspect of "wait till beta" to this.

Stardouser · 2012-03-24, 08:34 AM

Undoubtedly I will probably be rehashing something already thought of, but I got in on this late and it's a pain to read all 9 pages.

But anyway, I mentioned in my landmass size thread about how one way to prevent packing of players for lag purposes was to limit the amount of people who can spawn at any one base. i.e., 50 people(or, insert appropriate number) can spawn at a base, and if you want 100 to attack, you need to get 50 from the next closer base to join, if you want 150 you need 50 more from the next farther base, and so on, at some point people aren't going to want to have to respawn from a long way away(squad spawning will factor into this somehow but I guess we have to ignore this for now).

So...firstly, if something like this were done, then, it would by its nature provide a small prevention for driving an enemy into a very small remaining territory area because the player per base spawn limit functions like a sort of...supply line limit.

And, something else...obviously you're going to say- well what if one empire only has 5 bases left? Then they can only spawn 250 players TOTAL...Well, the answer is the second part of my plan! The game will detect when this happens and it will release the player per base spawn limit temporarily(or perhaps just increase it to 75/100, etc, instead of fully releasing it)- this will allow the losing empire to temporarily overwhelm the encroaching enemy and take back some territory.

Driving an empire back to the point where the game does this could be considered an informal "victory" as well.

/flamesuit on

Boomzor · 2012-03-24, 08:54 AM

That's another thing to keep in mind. It's a persistent world. It won't reset 30 minutes after things go bad (well, save for a server crash, GM meddling and other such horrors). Things will stay bad until you and your empire do something about it.

If you don't get the tools to atleast have a fighting chance, most will either hop to the winning side or just stop playing. The latter is very detrimental to the game as a whole.

@ Stardouser; the spawn/base cap is quite odd. I'd really hate if my tank crew or outfit squad got split up due to different spawn locations beacuse a random number generator gave me an odd number instead of an even. Or am I missing your point?

Stardouser · 2012-03-24, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by Boomzor

@ Stardouser; the spawn/base cap is quite odd. I'd really hate if my tank crew or outfit squad got split up due to different spawn locations beacuse a random number generator gave me an odd number instead of an even. Or am I missing your point?

Well, under my idea, once you spawn from a base, you are "logged into" that base and the right to respawn there is yours unless you either sit idle too long, or fail to respawn there after death for too long. And, there might be a bit of an "overflow" to the cap so that entire 10 man squads can use the same base. ie, if the limit is 50 and there are 49 logged in, if your SL logs in, then your whole squad can log in, making it technically up to 59(simply a relaxation to prevent the kind of thing you are worried about), so 50 would be a soft cap, 59 a hard cap.

And I'm glad you mention tank crew. Vehicles can't squad spawn, so, while an attacking force might be able to continue respawning via squad spawn as infantry, when the tanks and other vehicles die in the assault, they have to respawn at their bases of origin and come all the way back. This would help give the advantage to the packed-in defending empire, as they can respawn their vehicles nearby.

Baneblade · 2012-03-24, 09:21 AM

Here is another thought: stop with the wasteful battle mentality.

In PS1, nobody cared about losing a vehicle or dying in general unless they wanted to screen cap kpd or some such nonsense.

In PS2, those vehicles and equipment will have a cost, and losing them will hurt the empire. So enough with the trashcan items mentality. Players will have to shift the paradigm in PS2 from 'who cares if my tank asplodes' to 'maybe I shouldn't bum rush that <insert overwhelming enemy> after all'

Boomzor · 2012-03-24, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

Here is another thought: stop with the wasteful battle mentality.

That sort of illustrates the rich get richer problem, or actually the reverse: the poor gets poorer.
A few idiots squandering the resources in the rich empire wont make much difference because they will make up that loss quite quickly. They are rich.
On the other hand, a few idiots squandering the already strained resources in the poor empire could quite possibly be catastrophic.

And let's face it, self gratifying idiots are in abundance.

When all empires are within reach of each other power wise, it is working as intended and that's fine. It's when the balance tips significantly that the real issues occur.

raykor · 2012-03-24, 12:46 PM

I don’t like the idea of incentives to the losing faction as it tends to make winning or losing pointless.

I say let the rich get richer and let them simply win. Perhaps something similar to what Guild Wars 2 will be trying in their world vs. world system would work in Planetside? For those that aren’t familiar with their WvWvW design (all 3 of you) it is a 100% PvP, 100% persistent zone where hundreds of players from three factions will fight across four land masses (continents, islands, whatever) to capture a variety of fortifications of different sizes as well as control resource points and even ambush supply lines. It lasts for two weeks, someone wins, and it resets.

PS2 could do something similar although maybe a little longer than two weeks per round. Additionally, the locations of the resources could be randomly rearranged for each new spawn to completely change the flow of battles and keep things interesting. They could even create multiple possible locations for each base and randomize their placement as well.

Graywolves · 2012-03-24, 02:41 PM

Like I said in the 2nd part of my post earlier. (I'm going to flesh it out more.)

I don't think we really need to stop the rich from getting richer as much as just slow down their gain after a certain point. As buzzcutpsycho pointed out, a team of strykers[av] can take down most vehicles. What we know now is that resources is used for upgrades and 'might' be used for pulling vehicles.

So there is some advantage in being the rich empire, but they are also (or should be) being attacked more.

Back to the idea I presented. I think it's more important to avoid an empire monopolizing a single resource than controlling the most hex's. I think at some point in time and multiple times, we will have red, purple, and maybe blue worlds/maps.

What we do is curve the resource gain after a certain amount of Hexes are controlled. If the VS control nearly all the Auraxium hexes, future auraxium hexes will have a smaller yield. This will provide a stronger meta-game as underdogs will be able to easier identify which Hex might be least defended or which Hexes are more likely to be attacked as the Powerhouse empire will probably control most of a certain resource. The powerhouse empire will make decisions on where to attack for a better yield of overall resource gain.

**Malorn** · 2012-03-24, 02:47 PM

Boomzor articulated the problem well here:

It's a persistent world. It won't reset 30 minutes after things go bad (well, save for a server crash, GM meddling and other such horrors). Things will stay bad until you and your empire do something about it.

If you don't get the tools to at least have a fighting chance, most will either hop to the winning side or just stop playing. The latter is very detrimental to the game as a whole.

And again here with the other side of the rich-get-richer problem...

That sort of illustrates the rich get richer problem, or actually the reverse: the poor gets poorer.
A few idiots squandering the resources in the rich empire wont make much difference because they will make up that loss quite quickly. They are rich.
On the other hand, a few idiots squandering the already strained resources in the poor empire could quite possibly be catastrophic.

This drives to the core of why motivating the empire with nothing is important, and why giving them something to reduce the risk associated with trying to fight a battle where the odds are heavily stacked against them is vital to solving this problem.

The reason I believe discounted (and in extreme situations free) vehicles are required is to lower the risk. As stated above, the rich side can afford to throw fully upgraded vehicles at the poor side. If the poor side can't even pull basic vehicles the only way they'll recover is if the rich-side leaves the continent. With only 3 continents in prime time I don't see that being a realistic situation, especially if staying on the continent generates more resources for them and could result in easy defensive kills. The rich side won't be going anywhere. So what is the poor side to do? The result will be people start having alternate accounts to play on other empires when things go south for their current empire. That is not good for the game at all.

Unless of course there are incentives to take that dire situation and turn it around. And we come back to motivating them to fight.

I think we can motivate people with two things.

1) Reduce or remove the risk associated with fighting that bad situation. This is why discounts are important. If the vehicles are super cheap or even free then they have little to lose by attacking. Moreover, they are now reasonably competitive with the rich empire in the short term. Obviously the discounts don't last after they start taking territory but the point is it gives them momentum and helps them get a reasonable foothold on the continent and some resource income.

2) Make taking territory against that empire more lucrative. IF the rich empire is sitting on most of the resources then it isn't too much of a stretch to say that an empire with a lot of territory has larger personal bonuses when capturing that territory. So reward the people that go out there and capture territory with significantly larger bounties. So for players after personal resources for their implants or cert tree advancement or what not, attacking on this lost-cause continent becomes a potentially very lucrative prospect. It also helps rebuild the resource pools of that empire so they can continue to wage competitive war since their discount bonus will be disappearing after they start getting territory.

As an empire gains more territory these bonuses that are intended to motivate them and give them a fighting chance quickly fade away. It's only for dire straights.

And resources are still important because the discounts I mentioned only apply to certain things. They shouldn't apply to implants or cert tree bypasses. So if you're worried about people abusing this or it making resources worthless, it won't. It's a short-term boost to help jump start the war machine and get it rolling. Once it starts rolling the bonuses and discounts go away.

There's a third option that I believe will help, and that is making it more difficult for a rich empire to hold onto its territory - by making it easier for other empires to capture.

I'd mentioend this idea before but essentially past a certain threshold in % territory owned it starts to modify the adjacency system's capture time modifiers, so it becomes easier for enemy empires to capture your turf if you start getting an excessive amount of territory. This is important because there's a lot of territories and an empire can capture any territory at any time, but the adjacency system protects deep territories and gives you lots of time to respond to them and makes it quick to recapture. If this aspect of the adjacency system starts to break down as you get more and more territory then it naturally becomes more difficult to defend a large empire without compromising the value the adjacency system normally provides.

Normally empires rely on the adjacency system to give them plenty of time to respond and recapture deep territories that are taken, but if that isn't as prominent when you have lots of territory then it becomes naturally more difficult to hold onto everything.

This is the third piece of the puzzle, and when combine them, I think you give an empire a chance to dig itself out of a hole and reward people for doing so. They get greatly discounted vehicles to push out with, the territories they take are worth more personal resource bonuses than normal, and they are quicker to cap. That's good incentive to get out there and turn things around rather than log off, switch sides, or abandon the continent.

Tapman · 2012-03-24, 03:12 PM

Limit the maximum amount of resources you can have at once and keep timers on vehicles.

As long as the cost of vehicles and consumables are balanced, population density will prevent any issue with one empire doing so poorly that they can't afford to defend their territory enough to be foothold-locked, short of a severe lack of population. On the whole, I think that if one empire seems to be laying down a larger amount of hurt, the other empires will figure out what resources to target to counter it. The rich won't be able to get too rich, the poor will only be the people who can't figure out how to survive in a real war and end up wasting their resources.