Developing a Road to Conquest

[Aaron]

Developing a Road to Conquest

Planetside 2 needs some objective that each empire is trying to reach; a rationale for their efforts and a goal that is feasible to accomplish. The first step to global conquest, continent locking, is right around the corner, so I think it would be relevant for PSU to discuss the future of conquest mechanics for Planetside 2. This is to pave to road to the Planetsider's dream-having the entirety of Auraxis under your empire's control. Putting this within the player's reach will hopefully give reason to defending and taking every base on Auraxis.

Daily Goal – Secure the Auraxium
Every day, one empire will secure the Auraxium for themselves. Securing the daily Auraxium yield will allow your empire to afford certain levels of tech. We'll get to that soon. This will also create a daily victory that players can look forward to.

Earning Conquest Points and Securing the Auraxium
To secure the Auraxium yield, your empire must attain the most conquest points. An empire will be eligible to score conquest points if they currently hold more continents than either of the other empires. Points will be awarded at a given rate to the empire that can hold on to their majority. If no empire currently owns a majority of the continents, no points are accumulated. If an empire obtains more continents than it needs, conquest points will be awarded at a higher rate.

At a set time each day, the empire with the most conquest points will be successful in securing the Auraxium. An XP award should go to eligible participants, and recognition of the most contributing players and outfits should also be included.

Note: It would be more ideal if conquest points not be eligible during hours when everyone is sleeping.

Advancing the Tech for Your Empire
By securing the Auraxium, your empire will be able to advance in tech. Securing the Auraxium for the first time will allow your empire to power “Adv. Tech I,” consecutively securing the Auraxium on the next day will allow your empire to power “Adv. Tech II,” and so on. Alternatively, any empire that does not secure the Auraxium yield will lose one tier of tech.
The whole idea behind advancing your empire's tech tier is to empower you to bring a greater number of continents under your empire's control. Each tier will give you certain global benefits that will aid you in your conquest. For example:

Adv. Tech I: Longer continent lock timers or buffed turrets/shorter respawn for all facilities.

Adv. Tech II: Advanced radar and orbital strikes.

Adv. Tech III: Nukes and galaxies with light speed capacitors (jk jk).

Anyway, you get the idea. Anything that would be truly relevant to keeping more continents under your control. This would also give definition to which empire “won” each day, and which empire is currently “winning” the war.

Taking Auraxis Without Having to Lock Everyone Out
Now how do you do that? How do you gradually conquer the whole globe without disrupting a persistent game that is supposed to be fun for everyone? Well, here is one possible idea.

If we are to do this without locking everyone out of the continents, then we must have a separate layer of dominance that is established in the background while everyone is fighting and having a good time. It's about setting up Auraxis so that it all falls under your control at once. Hopefully this will hurt less.

Infrastructure Printing (I guess?)
When an empire locks a continent, its print (lack for a better word) will be secured on the continent's infrastructure. The print will have a certain level of security that corresponds to the level of tech that the conquering empire has.

For instance, if VS has “Adv. Tech II” and currently owns Amerish, then Amerish will have VS's print on Amerish's infrastructure with a security level of “II.” So let's say NC locks Amerish afterward, but if the NC does not have a superior (or equal) level of tech, then the print will remain because the NC can not override it. So although everyone can fight on the continent and take it for its benefits, you may not be able to override the subtle infrastructure programing that it still has. The only way to override the print is to take a continent while having higher or equal tech, or gaining appropriate tech while the continent is in your ownership.

Once one empire has established its print on all the existing continents, the continents will flip to the respective empire's banner. In order to not disrupt everyone's gameplay on the entire server, facilities and outposts will not be overturned, and players will not be moved. However, the championing empire will receive ownership of all the continents, all benefits, the highest tech, and perhaps specific benefits for conquering Auraxis.

Recognition should be made for the conquering empire. The victory should be recorded in the server's archives, and the empire will gain a status indicating that they are the current champions of Auraxis...until another empire takes that position.

All this is to allow meaning into the whole scheme of things. There is now a road you can navigate on to take Auraxis for your empire. This also makes global conquest viable as you don't have to spread yourself from one side of Auraxis to the next.

Now, my hope is that the community will take this post, mutilate it, and make better than what it is. This is very rough, but I think it is up to us to give meaning to our game. So please, take it further.

Other thoughts:
Gaining “Conquest Points” might be a bit dull. Perhaps you'd actually have to harvest the Auraxium? Some people liked ANTs. It might be interesting.

Advancing in tech doesn't have to be at some interval during the day, it could be when you reach a certain amount of points, or when certain conditions are met. However, I didn't want tech levels to change so suddenly. It would make it seem less significant.

Also, Higby, any impressions? Good? Bad?

[Phantomdestiny]

maybe having more than one tech possibility per level;
let's say you achieve tech level V then you can choose between a bastion fleet carrier or a under water HQ base (for when naval combat is in) .
Then you will have council of outfits decide which tech they would prefer tactically for their empire . that would allow to bring in some outfit alliance/political game to the sandbox

[Phantomdestiny]

i'm stoned no one is responding to this

[Baneblade]

I'd rather Tech be something more akin to Maintenance. The better your empire does, the newer and shinier your toys are. Not to mention a mild price discount. The worse your empire does, the more NC looking your toys become.

Nothing game breaking, but rather an aesthetic incentive to conquer. The differences should be noticeable. Perhaps bases can even reflect this.

Or it could just be a crappy modification of a mediocre idea.