Possible upcoming changes to Spawn Rules

[Rahabib]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Squad deploy is a tricky one, but I'd like to have that function more like instant action and follow the above rules.

So placement won't matter?

[Gatekeeper]

Just remove squad deploy, it overlaps confusingly with both instant action and spawn beacons and really adds nothing to the game.

Spawn beacons are a far better mechanic, since the enemy can see them and destroy them they have a chance to stop you spawning - just like Sunderers, or even SCUs. All these things effectively provide organic sub-objectives which make the battle more interesting and diverse.

But squad spawn just means a constant stream of enemy reinforcements from nowhere, with no indication as to which enemy player they're spawning on. How are you supposed to prevent that? It just makes the battle messy, confusing and unfair.

I'd also suggest adding some kind of super-beacon for Instant Action - either a high-level unlockable from the command tree with a high resource cost, or automatically placed by the server when it decides an IA location. That would improve consistency and make battle flow much clearer on the ground, as well as potentially generating new objectives.

You could also consider adding some kind of marker (something akin to a waypoint, but in the appropriate faction colour?) to spawns that have been selected by Reinforcements Needed - so attackers can prepare for the wave of defenders that are likely to spawn.

Finally, I like the idea of long-range spawns costing resources - that makes a lot of sense. Adding a resource cost for Reinforcements Needed and for all drop-pods (ideally replacing the cool-down on IA and beacons) would be a good resource-sink and would balance them better with transport vehicles.

[Stanis]

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

Easy!

Long Range Spawns = Cost resources depending on the facility type!
Keep spamming redeploy = run out of resources if you're jumping all over the place.

Make them cost 100 (on medium distance) and 200 resource points on the farthest regions. This better balancing point now that resources are scarcer with the price increase of vehicles.

Example: if I want to spawn in the furthermost Biolab across the map, it will cost 200 infantry resource points (because that's what biolab gives, infantry resources).

The empire that has fewer hexes finds it ability to move around severly impacted. While the other empire can hop around at will..

Costing resources when they 'fix' resources, seems like a good idea.
However they haven't fix the positive feedback loop inherent yet in winners-win-more.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally Posted by Stanis

The empire that has fewer hexes finds it ability to move around severly impacted. While the other empire can hop around at will..

Costing resources when they 'fix' resources, seems like a good idea.
However they haven't fix the positive feedback loop inherent yet in winners-win-more.

If you don't control many hexes then you don't need to move around that much, so actually I don't see a big problem with this.

[Obstruction]

Squad deploy is a tricky one

not really. burn it to the ground and salt the earth. it needs to be removed because there is no version where it isn't highly abusable in multiple ways.

there are already many ways to move troops quickly and to regroup with your squad. being the HNIC you don't need me to list them. beacons and instant action should be the only drop pod options. if you really love drop pods that much, reduce the cooldown for placing a beacon by 2.5 minutes.

it won't be unfair because beacons placed and defended versus found and destroyed, whereas corpse deploy has no counter.

[Root Hade]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Of course this isn't the only thing we're looking at. Battle flow both macro and micro is an important area for us to improve upon. Need to be careful with this sort of thing though due to the subtle but very significant impact it can have.

Mentioned this last week but we have some drop pod changes coming too. They won't be as steerable and defenders and for instant action attacker pods will come down in different parts of a facility. Defenders will come down in the interior and the attackers will come down around the outside for better flow.

Squad deploy is a tricky one, but I'd like to have that function more like instant action and follow the above rules.

When the player missions go in, it'd be cool to have automatic missions that alert AA units (MAX, lightning, etc), and people near terminals including those on Sunderers, of enemies that are about to drop pod in the vicinity. Sorta player driven version of the automatic AA drop-pod-spawn denial over enemy bases in Section 8.

[Obstruction]

Costing resources when they 'fix' resources, seems like a good idea.
However they haven't fix the positive feedback loop inherent yet in winners-win-more.

+100% this.

obviously warpgate and sunderer spawns don't cost, but i think redeploy hopping is something else that makes for lazy play. when resources are consolidated and resource flow redesigned, i think paying to hop along the lattice is a good idea.

you could also incentivize transport with more than just deploy kills. encourage players to move troops for their faction, and encourage lone wolves to rely on strangers and make friends in order to get around more effectively.

right now if you have a troop transport you really don't care to stop for guys who need a ride, and a galaxy is basically a throwaway or something to move maxes up onto a cliff.

one layer of the much discussed missing metagame imo, revolves around these sort of troop moving mechanics.

[Baptist]

I posted a long winded Post to say the below sentence, hence the edit.

Simple answer, make it so you can't squad deploy when the squad leader is Dead.

[Klypto]

Reinforcements Needed should have a pretty decent cooldown (10 minutes) and so should the Instant Action.

If you are Instant Actioning and being needed as reinforcements more often than that then something is wrong.


I miss the days of Galaxy Airports in the Warpgate. (However the ground vehicle deploy pads need to be moved, it's such a pain driving around all the aircraft landing on you as you pull something)

[DviddLeff]

Here are my thoughts:

1. Currently too many spawn options - I (and my platoon) can spawn all over the place miles from where I currently am.
2. Squad deploy is far too powerful - my outfit sends its squad leaders to suicide on a point using Scythes then we throw a whole platoon onto it in a matter of seconds. It is also a back up option for if we lose the spawn beacon and Sunderers.
3. Spawn beacons should not be able to be placed in spawn rooms - far too often are Sunderers destroyed using this method (earning me far too many cert points!).
4. I don't even bother with the reinforcements needed options - I usually have 10 or so anyway.

So what to do? Well Malorn's changes look solid but even then I think it could be too many with the options he has described. I would make it so:

1. Current territory if you own it.
2. Lattice connected territories.
3. Nearest facility.
4. Warpgate
5. Sunderers within 750 meters.
6. Squad beacon.
7. Reinforcements required attack/defend option, based around the number of attack/defend markers squad leaders have put in a territory.

Remove ALL other options.

[phungus]

The spawn limitations ruin battle flow and are nothing but frustrating. Players should be allowed to spawn at and support any location they control. This would create much more interesting and active gameplay and reduce the number of boring camp fests as well as push players to the actual battle lines rather then massing into zerg balls.


The idea and effect of the current and proposed spawning limitations are simply bad for the game and are bad design.

[Malorn]

As listed in the roadmap, one important part of the mission system is to have a reinforcement request mission, which would only be able to be created when a faction is reasonably outnumbered and would only last until the fight is close to even. In that way it is used as a player-driven flow balancing mechanic and not as a zerg escalation mechanic. The idea behind this mission type is that it would replace the current reinforcements needed on the deployment menu. The other aspect to that is that you would have to be in the region in order to make the request, so you have some assurances that anyone who responds is not alone. The trick is preventing overwhelming response, which might be achieved by throttling the spawns.

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by phungus

The spawn limitations ruin battle flow and are nothing but frustrating. Players should be allowed to spawn at and support any location they control. This would create much more interesting and active gameplay and reduce the number of boring camp fests as well as push players to the actual battle lines rather then massing into zerg balls.


The idea and effect of the current and proposed spawning limitations are simply bad for the game and are bad design.

Spawn limitations = logistics which provide for battle flow. If you can teleport across to each base you own you have absolutely NO flow of battle.

Zergs form because the defenders do not counter attack or stay to defend. Camping happens because the defenders get radically outnumbered quickly after some small setbacks in the fight. It's too easy for losing defenders to just /suicide or redeploy to another fight where they have the numbers advantage.

Forcing people to fight down the lanes instead of hopping along the front will reintroduce real battle flow into this game and make halting attacks and defending much more rewarding and fruitful for the players.

Last night we pushed back and forth from Allatum to Dhaka against a force of VS players. It was a decent fight with a slight NC pop advantage so we were able to slowly push back on the VS until we hit Indar Comm array. We were winning the fight until a large VS outfit dropped 50+ from a Squad Deploy thus shifting the numbers from about a 20% pop advantage (on a < 48 pop situation) in favor of the NC to a 3:1 in favor of the VS.

They kicked us out and started pushing on West Highlands Checkpoint only to not be able to outzerg us. 10 minutes later they teleported away and we easily pushed all the way to Dahaka.

That's not battle flow. A group of at least 50 were able to teleport in, tip numbers their way, and the second they had to start fighting they teleported out.

We need restrictions on where you can spawn and how often. Right now potentially great fights up and down the lattice lanes are ended by the defenders being able to scatter the second the battle starts tipping in favor of the attacker. The lattice lanes do not fufill their purpose if sustained battles do not happen along them.

Right now they turn into the attackers greatly outnumbering the defenders because the spawn mechanics do not conform to the idea of the lattice. Instead they counteract the mechanics of the lattice in a major way causing any battle flow improvements originally intended with the lattice and work against the flow of this game.

It's a major design flaw right now that was a culmination of design decisions made to more quickly get people to the rather thin front line the hex system caused.

[phungus]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The trick is preventing overwhelming response, which might be achieved by throttling the spawns.

I have done alot of thinking on spawning, and what I would to if I made a game (I really need to actually just figure out how to compile and start building something from the torque engine, my damn laziness and procrastination has always ruined my life, but that's another topic).

Throttling spawns is the answer I came up with and theorized about. The player should have feedom to deploy to bases they see they can help at, but having a dynamic timer would give you guys, the designers, the ability to control spawn rates and really shape border battles.

[phungus]

Originally Posted by wasdie

Spawn limitations = logistics which provide for battle flow. If you can teleport across to each base you own you have absolutely NO flow of battle.

Zergs form because the defenders do not counter. Camping happens because the defenders get radically outnumbered because it's too easy for them to just /suicide or redeploy to another fight where they have the numbers advantage.

Forcing people to fight down the lanes instead of hopping along the front will reintroduce real battle flow into this game.

Last night we pushed back and forth from Allatum to Dhaka against a force of VS players. It was a decent fight with a slight NC pop advantage so we were able to slowly push back on the VS until we hit Indar Comm array. We were winning the fight until a large VS outfit dropped 50+ from a Squad Deploy thus shifting the numbers from about a 20% pop advantage (on a < 48 pop situation) in favor of the NC to a 3:1 in favor of the VS.

They kicked us out and started pushing on West Highlands Checkpoint only to not be able to outzerg us. 10 minutes later they teleported away and we easily pushed all the way to Dahaka.

That's not battle flow. A group of at least 50 were able to teleport in, tip numbers their way, and the second they had to start fighting they teleported out.

We need restrictions on where you can spawn and how often. Right now potentially great fights up and down the lattice lanes are ended by the defenders being able to scatter the second the battle starts tipping in favor of the attacker. The lattice lanes do not fufill their purpose if sustained battles do not happen along them.

Right now they turn into the attackers greatly outnumbering the defenders because the spawn mechanics do not conform to the idea of the lattice. Instead they counteract the mechanics of the lattice in a major way causing any battle flow improvements originally intended with the lattice and work against the flow of this game.

It's a major design flaw right now that was a culmination of design decisions made to more quickly get people to the rather thin front line the hex system caused.

I hear you, and agree in part. There is a need to limit and impede massed movement around the map. However forcing a player to spawn hop across a map to deal with a squad at an important base is just frustrating. I spend alot of time on dead continents (usually trying to accumulate air resources), so if I see 1-12 guys attacking an amp station on Amerish I should be able to go there. It wol't just be better for me, but it'll be more enjoyable for the attackers since there will actually be people there to fight, and people play this game to shoot people in the face, not to spawn and ghost cap.

There needs to be limitations and logistical considerations on battle flow in terms of how spawning works. There are more limitations that are needed, for instance something I think is desperatly needed is a timer/energy pool on Sunderers so you can't just instantly spawn in 100 people to an area. But these restrictions shouldn't stop small engagements from happening on dead continents and they shouldn't force a player to spend 2 minutes or more spawn hopping across a dead map.