Balancing Factor: Resource Storage Limit

[MikeChance]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Fulfilling one intent at the expense of the others isn't success.

Having a cap on resources doesn't make the reward worthless. Players adapt and change spending habits so that the cap isn't an issue.

Malorn, you are quite right.

I'm infantry. In PS1 I build squads and platoons and run around shooting people. I don't use grenades. I find them messy.

If I'm in the middle of a battle defending a base, and suddenly I am faced with "leave and spend your pay or don't get any"... I'm gonna leave. My squad/platoon is gonna break up or leave, and if I'm maxing out then quite likely so are others, so they are likely to leave - at increasing rates as more people leave because we're now losing ground.

So ya, hard resource cap does cause us to adapt, and spend.



You all seems to be assuming we're gonna be able to transfer resources between players. Has this been confirmed? What's the point of it? If you can then no cap will stop people from being able to afford to spam OS or pull tank after tank because players like me will always have plenty to give to their squad or clan.

[Soothsayer]

I voted no because (unfortunately) I have ceased to be a hardcore gamer and now am a lot more casual than before. So with that in mind, I want the time I do have ingame to be as awesome as possible and I don't want to have to pull any punches with the equipment I pull or the number (and quality) of vehicles I roll out.

I'm going to have as full of a subscription as possible, hopefully the idea that has been kicked around these forums about offline resource accumulation will be in effect.

I want to relive those original massive planetside battles, get in, get out and not have to be constantly watching my resource tallies.

Alternatively, I would want to have a good enough cap that I could log in occasionally (like every 3-4 days) and spend the resources on my character without having to worry about losing something that I am entitled to have by nature of not being able to get to the game on a daily basis.

In short, casual gamers who support the F2P model shouldn't be left in the cold.

[Red Beard]

The resource limit isn't for balance, it's to make people pay for stuff in the shop.

I'm sure when they changed it so there were no longer items you HAD to buy with cash, they lowered the resource limit a little bit to compensate.

[Pollo Jack]

Originally Posted by Red Beard

The resource limit isn't for balance, it's to make people pay for stuff in the shop.

I'm sure when they changed it so there were no longer items you HAD to buy with cash, they lowered the resource limit a little bit to compensate.

Gonna have to agree with this guy.

Even if you can pull vehicle after vehicle it doesn't matter if you just die with it. Eventually you will be pushed back to base and pulling an aircraft from a camped pad or a tank from a mined vehicle bay turns your res into their XP. We may even have people suicide rush vehicle pads just to feed vehicle kills because they don't want to lose out on potential vehicles. Face it, you get much more kills in a base fight than out in the open. Vehicles are never the guaranteed kill that infantry are.

[Sirisian]

I don't feel the developers should implement a system that forces players to horde resources. Ideally resources should just be a way to upgrade and customize among many choices. It should be used as a method for balance, limiting choices over time. That is you can purchase 5 things now to min max or spread it over time. Having a resource cap removes any player's tendency to needlessly horde resources. That and like I said in another thread I want players to work together to purchase vehicles with complicated loadouts and a resource cap makes sure that someone isn't just AFK grinding resources to pull the most advantageous loadout every turn by themselves. Any resource model should promote players that are currently playing.

That said I'm strongly against a resource acquisition model that directly rewards kills/support since it allows power to get power. Which is why I proposed a loyalty system that caps the resource acquisition rate for personal resources. The resource cap on top of this I feel promotes the best atmosphere so that resources don't overwhelm a player's priorities. That is it's independent of a player's success so they can play casually without feeling like they are stressed keep up.

Originally Posted by Soothsayer

I want to relive those original massive planetside battles, get in, get out and not have to be constantly watching my resource tallies.

You make a lot of assumptions. What if it only takes like 10 spawns to hit the maximum if you don't spend anything? That is playing casually would allow you to get most everything every other spawn?

[Soothsayer]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

You make a lot of assumptions. What if it only takes like 10 spawns to hit the maximum if you don't spend anything? That is playing casually would allow you to get most everything every other spawn?

They have stated many times that they want to cut down on the monotony of PS1. If I'm a dedicated tank driver and I have to wait twenty minutes for my resources to replenish in order to pull a tank they aren't getting me back into the action faster than the original.

When I say "playing casually" I mean a few shorter play sessions per week as opposed to every night for 3+ hours.

Not sure about how I'm making a lot of assumptions, there's really just one, I was responding to an opinion poll.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by MikeChance

Malorn, you are quite right.

I'm infantry. In PS1 I build squads and platoons and run around shooting people. I don't use grenades. I find them messy.

If I'm in the middle of a battle defending a base, and suddenly I am faced with "leave and spend your pay or don't get any"... I'm gonna leave. My squad/platoon is gonna break up or leave, and if I'm maxing out then quite likely so are others, so they are likely to leave - at increasing rates as more people leave because we're now losing ground.

That's not adaptation - that's discovery that you aren't spending enough and need to use loadouts with more upgrades. How you adapt to it is by picking more upgrades for your infantry, implants, medkits, tanks, or whatever. Youll make new loadouts and you'll change your spending habits so you won't be in that situation or are less likely to be.

And I'm also quite certain that you won't have to go anywhere to use the shop - it's a UI option, not a place.

People seem to think resources are only used for the in game shop - they aren't. They're used to pull vehicles, get night vision scope, upgrade your rifle, add stuff to your tank, etc. I believe one type of resource is used in the shop to buy a few things, it is unknown if that is also used for other stuff.

If you find you're hording too much and reaching the resource cap its time you re-evaluated your loadouts and pimp them out a bit more.

I expect for most things we do we'll have at least two loadouts - a low resource loadout for when the budget is tight and balls-to-the-wall loadouts for when you've got good resource income and have some things to burn. There will be specialty loadouts in there too of course, but managing resources is important so it will be reflected in our loadouts.

[Pollo Jack]

Hold up. Have they said these sidegrades will have to be purchased every time you pull a loadout? I was under the impression you pay to unlock it once.

If you aren't rewarded for killing then you are certainly punished for dieing which also punishes playing too much at a time. Killing a half day on your favorite game will require you to spend money money just to play if there is a low cap. Forget vehicles if the infantry combat will bankrupt you.

And what if you have almost enough for your loadout? Do I have to spend five minutes every time I am at the terminal deciding what to put back? Sure, it can just not give me anything saying I have insufficient funds but I will still have some funds and I want to use my favorite weapon.

That is all under the assumption that you have to pay every time you use the weapon.

I had assumed it was just with vehicles. With vehicles I say no to a resource cap, with a price tag on everything I say hell no.

[Vamp Hunter]

I think there should be no cap and instead the spawning of vehicles should be regulated by having them start at a low resource price and then the more that are spawned in a short time the higher the price goes.
This would cause the number spawned at a time to self regulate.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Pollo Jack

Hold up. Have they said these sidegrades will have to be purchased every time you pull a loadout? I was under the impression you pay to unlock it once.

[...]

And what if you have almost enough for your loadout? Do I have to spend five minutes every time I am at the terminal deciding what to put back? Sure, it can just not give me anything saying I have insufficient funds but I will still have some funds and I want to use my favorite weapon.

Specifically grenades and implants and max units were mentioned as costing resources. (I can't remember what he said about C4). Also I don't remember anything regarding stock weapons, but sidegrades cost resources. So if you want say a grenade launcher attachment you use resources.

Also regarding trying to pull a loadout or favorite that you lack resources for I'd imagine just says "insufficient funds". You'll probably see the resource cost next to loadouts and vehicle favorites when you choose to spawn them? Speculating though.

[Pollo Jack]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Specifically grenades and implants and max units were mentioned as costing resources. (I can't remember what he said about C4). Also I don't remember anything regarding stock weapons, but sidegrades cost resources. So if you want say a grenade launcher attachment you use resources.

Also regarding trying to pull a loadout or favorite that you lack resources for I'd imagine just says "insufficient funds". You'll probably see the resource cost next to loadouts and vehicle favorites when you choose to spawn them? Speculating though.

I understand that method. I assumed it would be similar to the LoL style. You use resources to unlock the weapon or sidegrade once and then you can use it whenever.

[Malorn]

Unlock-once occurs through the cert system, and by some things that can be purchased either with certain resources or station cash in the store.

They have to give things recurring costs or resources become useless. If they're just used for unlocking you'll have no desire to get more resources as soon as you've unlocked everything you care about. By making them cost resources to acquire they can both balance the upgrades/vehicles and keep resources relevant throughout the lifetime of the game.

[Fenrys]

No caps please.

Resource caps punish success and encourage not playing.

We should be able to save up as many resources as we can earn. I want to see major offensives where loads of resources are being spent all at once on huge numbers of tanks and aircraft. I want to see long-term view economic warfare, with guerrilla tactics used to wear away the opposition's equipment in an attempt to prevent them from earning back the resources spent on that huge pile of hardware, thereby giving their side an average armor-over-time advantage.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Fenrys

Resource caps punish success and encourage not playing.

I believe it was hinted that paying real money might allow you to earn resources off-line. So what you said actually has two sides. Resource caps don't punish success at all. If you are successful you can pull sidegrades and vehicles. They just remove the incentive to horde.

I'm imagining the game as more casual. You get in play with vehicles for an hour and kill some dudes then logoff. That is you aren't sitting around hording unlimited resources for a later time, nor should the game encourage that. Resource caps directly limit that feeling. As soon as you see for instance that a maximum is set at say 1000 and it costs 500 for a stock tank you know if you want a tank just get it. You can delay that purchase until you need it, but not forever unless you want to waste resources. It promotes players to spend and have fun.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

In many ways I would like to see no-cap (or at least an extremely high nigh-unreachable cap) since that would allow for meaningful resource trading based on supply and demand and hoarding resources against times of scarcity.

However in practice I think a cap for resources makes sense. You'll still get AFK resource farmers but it will at least somewhat help to limit them and mean that the players involved are checking in more frequently. Additionally very few MMOs manage to make a truly balanced in-game economy and a moderate resource cap helps to alleviate the need to do so. While it would be nice if the resource rate was perfectly balanced it is extremely unlikely to be so and honestly I'd rather have the devs focusing on the more important parts of gameplay.