Metagame Redesign

[Rothnang]

Metagame Redesign

Goals of this redesign:

• Create more "macro strategy" where minding the whole map matters.
• Give more of a sense that your whole faction is working together toward a goal.
• Make Zerging less atractive by giving people the ability to weaken large armies by attacking their supply lines.
• Give people a better sense that their actions matter in the long run.

My idea consists of two parts. A revamp to the resource system that is aimed at creating more shared responsibility between players and large scale teamwork, and a revamp to the continent lock system that is aimed at making continent locking something you can contribute to meaningfully at all times, and your contribution has meaning hours, even days later.


Resources - Logistics System

The resource system is removed from the game, and replaced with a new logistics system. The logistics system tracks supplies not based on the individual player, but on the individual regional bases in the game. Every base has a large supply pool that is exhausted as people spawn vehicles, respawn infantry or pull consumables. Vehicle timers remain as they are.

The supply pool in a base is replenished automatically over time if the base is connected to the warpgate. The warpgate is considered to have infinite supplies, and anything that has a cost can be done for free there.

Extra supplies can be moved to a base with a specialized Galaxy or Sunderer, that trade their transport capacity for storage room that holds additional supplies. Delivering supplies to a base that is in dire need of them awards a significant amount of XP, while delivering to a base that isn’t in great need rewards less. The map will include a new filter that shows the supply level at all the bases you currently own.

Sunderers and other potential AMS vehicles will need to bring supplies for spawning along from a base that provides them. They can be resupplied by a supply Sunderer or Galaxy like a base can.

The automatic flow of supplies could be further refined by having a lattice of supply lines, so that not every adjacent territory also provides a supply line. This will make it easier to cut off territories, and thereby create a higher stakes strategic game where defending back territories becomes much more essential.



This system will create much better macro strategy, because it will make zerging a lot less effective. Cramming hundreds of people into a single territory will very quickly drain its resources. Cutting off territories will force the players in those territories to retreat, or establish convoys that bring them new resources.

At the same time it doesn’t drive people off a continent they aren’t winning on by depriving them of resources, if your faction holds very little territory it will be much easier to keep supply lines active, while holding a lot of territory can potentially cause you problems.

Including supply runs from vehicles like Galaxies and Sunderers that are essential for maintaining a large army, especially one that operates in enemy territory creates a much more dynamic metagame, where raiding enemy convoys behind the front line is a huge part of what can drive a victory. This makes good strategy more essential.



Continent Lock - Influence System

Continents are no longer locked by simply capturing all the territory, but through a new influence system. The influence system awards each faction on a continent influence points, which accumulate over time. The first faction to reach a certain number of influence points on the continent gains control over the continent, and retains it until another faction reaches the required amount of influence to change ownership.

Influence is gained in two ways:

Every territory a faction holds grants a number of influence points every minute. Larger territories or important stations give bigger influence bonuses.

The game will randomly assign critical territories that have a large number of bonus influence points that can be attained by holding on to that territory for a certain amount of time.

Influence points are gained cumulatively by all factions. They are not a tug of war, but simply a race to gain the required number for a continent lock first. If a faction owned all territories on a continent, and got every single critical territory bonus awarded they should be able to gain enough influence to flip the continent in roughly 24 hours. Flipping a continent under combat conditions will take significantly longer.



This system will create a much more interesting fight for continents, because it shifts the focus of continent control of just waiting for the right point in time to steamroll your opponents with a massive numbers advantage (which usually happens in the middle of the night) to a long term cumulative effort of your entire faction.

An outfit that puts a few thousand influence points on the board by grabbing critical territories and pushing their own land holdings to 50% of the map one night can still see the difference they made the next day. Those points stay there until the continent falls into new hands and a new influence round begins. This encourages more long term thinking. You can’t just quickly flip a continent while the enemy isn’t looking, you need to consistently do better over the course of several days.

This makes the game more interesting because what you do has longer lasting consequences. Fighting for land and critical territories makes a difference you can see when you log back in the next day. Your contribution from Friday night might decide who rules the continent Sunday afternoon. That removes the feeling that nothing you do even matters, because the second you log off someone can completely change it all in your absence.

[Sunrock]

Grate sugestions. But I don't think they need to redesign it. Just add those tings on top of what already exist.

[Ghoest9]

You will be hard pressed to ever have a meta game until you can trade and stock pile at least 1 resource in a game world.

[Mietz]

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Resources - Logistics System

The resource system is removed from the game, and replaced with a new logistics system. The logistics system tracks supplies not based on the individual player, but on the individual regional bases in the game. Every base has a large supply pool that is exhausted as people spawn vehicles, respawn infantry or pull consumables. Vehicle timers remain as they are.

The supply pool in a base is replenished automatically over time if the base is connected to the warpgate. The warpgate is considered to have infinite supplies, and anything that has a cost can be done for free there.

Extra supplies can be moved to a base with a specialized Galaxy or Sunderer, that trade their transport capacity for storage room that holds additional supplies. Delivering supplies to a base that is in dire need of them awards a significant amount of XP, while delivering to a base that isn’t in great need rewards less. The map will include a new filter that shows the supply level at all the bases you currently own.

Sunderers and other potential AMS vehicles will need to bring supplies for spawning along from a base that provides them. They can be resupplied by a supply Sunderer or Galaxy like a base can.

The automatic flow of supplies could be further refined by having a lattice of supply lines, so that not every adjacent territory also provides a supply line. This will make it easier to cut off territories, and thereby create a higher stakes strategic game where defending back territories becomes much more essential.

You mean like NTU and ANTs from Planetside 1, no wait, I... I mean Battlefield 3?

[Rothnang]

Yea, Planetside 1 had a system similar to this, and that was pretty solid for what it did. In the case of Planetside 2 it's more about creating an incentive to divide your forces every once in a while and attack in multiple places at the same time by making it more difficult to keep a huge monolithic army supplied.

[Veraxes]

Good suggestions Rothnang. I could see the outposts becoming more important targest because of this system as well. To help this out here's one thing that would help I out with the Hex System

I would like to see Supply Caches pop up at the different outposts surrounding the major bases. The reason these would appear after a successful capture would then be to transport them to the major base to keep them stocked. Then Adjaceny would be created when each Supply Cache was transported safley to the base and more xp bonus would be rewarded.

This would tie in with the race aspect of it and the supply lines being created. I could also different 'trade routes' being created around those bases that would be protected by the controlling empires 'no fly zone'.

These would make for a much more interesting meta game for commanders and an actual reason to get command points.

[Rothnang]

The automatic supply lines themselves could be managed by a network of small network stations that you can flip to disrupt the flow to give people guerrilla war objectives.

All good ideas.

[Rolfski]

In regards to the resource system: I haven't played PS1 but doing logistics runs seems kinda boring to me.

As for the new influence mechanic: Could be interesting. I like the idea of making a difference over time.

[Kerrec]

All sounds very good to me.

Also, logistics runs may suck for some people, but there WILL be others that would do nothing BUT logistic runs.

There should be enough population on a server to cover all play styles.

[Mutant]

Very nice ideas going on here.


As for supply lines being boring, some of us like to play RTS games that require thought and planning, not just twitch skills.

[Beerbeer]

Ant runs were fun as hell. So were ant bombs.

Kerric is correct: there were a lot of people in ps1 that did almost nothing but ant runs and I would imagine the same would happen here.

Regardless, they need to add a meta game, whatever that may be, fast.

[psijaka]

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Resources - Logistics System

The resource system is removed from the game, and replaced with a new logistics system. The logistics system tracks supplies not based on the individual player, but on the individual regional bases in the game. Every base has a large supply pool that is exhausted as people spawn vehicles, respawn infantry or pull consumables. Vehicle timers remain as they are.

The supply pool in a base is replenished automatically over time if the base is connected to the warpgate. The warpgate is considered to have infinite supplies, and anything that has a cost can be done for free there.

Extra supplies can be moved to a base with a specialized Galaxy or Sunderer, that trade their transport capacity for storage room that holds additional supplies. Delivering supplies to a base that is in dire need of them awards a significant amount of XP, while delivering to a base that isn’t in great need rewards less. The map will include a new filter that shows the supply level at all the bases you currently own.

Sunderers and other potential AMS vehicles will need to bring supplies for spawning along from a base that provides them. They can be resupplied by a supply Sunderer or Galaxy like a base can.

The automatic flow of supplies could be further refined by having a lattice of supply lines, so that not every adjacent territory also provides a supply line. This will make it easier to cut off territories, and thereby create a higher stakes strategic game where defending back territories becomes much more essential.

I like this a lot; gives much more meaning to the resource system.

Not sure that we need the added complexity of a lattice though; would work perfectly well within the Hex system that we have now.

SoE - DO THIS!

[Realmofdarkness]

Sounds alot more fun. more variations to the battle plan. I just imagine a sniper on a hill spotting a convoy of supply sunderers, making it a mission in the mission system and as long as the sunderer is spotted, allies can see and follow the movement of that sunderer on the map. So it should be tagged or be in a different color on the map. making it easy to plan a ambush along the road.

[Babyfark McGeez]

This resource idea sounds quite cool. I loved doing ANT runs in PS1 and i'm 105% certain me and enough other players would love to do something similar in PS2 to make such a system work.

We are in dire need of a more complex resource/logistics system, it's another piece that could make this game feel like more than "just a shooter"

(just like proper mapped continent boundaries, sanctuaries, voice/animation macros, holstering, etc. - stuff lacking that i really like to nag about ).

[Satanam]

Originally Posted by Veraxes

This would tie in with the race aspect of it and the supply lines being created. I could also different 'trade routes' being created around those bases that would be protected by the controlling empires 'no fly zone'.

What do you mean with 'no fly zone'? Like, we wouldn't be able to get our ESF, Liberator or Galaxy and fly on enemy hexagons? It would make the aircrafts useless for attack. We would be able to use aircraft for defense only, and it would bring 'OP' advantage for defenders. I mean, imagine a group attacking the enemy hexagon without air support, while the enemies would be waiting on a line of Liberators and ESFs (with Hellfire Rocket Pods, to make it worse for the offensive team) waiting when the enemy ground vehicles cross the line of the hexagon.
It would be really unfair, unless they make it 'no fly zone' on the hexagons not connected to your faction's hexagons, it means you could fly on the enemy hexagon next to your faction's hexagons but wouldn't be able to fly on the next one where's just enemy hexagons around one hexagon. But anyway, it would be really hard to 'cut places', like attacking enemies from behind to cut their resources from Warpgate.