Sanctuary Strikes/Outfit Reset

Doppler · 2003-06-08, 07:43 AM

Ok a lot of speculation has been posted as to what should happen when a sanctuary strike is initiated/successfull. Here is what I propose.

1) Rename one of the towers by each sanctuary warpgate a gateway tower, they already have a similar name but this designates the added importance of these towers. The CC console of these towers whould also be hacked similar to a base, requiring a 15 min. wait for it acutlay to change sides.

2) Create a fortress at the center of each sanctuary. The fortress should have four levels, on the roof level are air vehicle pads, turrents and antiaircraft guns. The level below that contains 4 turrents that alternate between a tank killer cannon (similar perhaps to the cannon mounted on a vanguard) and the standard phanalax (sp?) cannon. These turrrents are oriented on the compas points. Also on this level are multiple "sniper slits" to give the defending troops the ability to fire down on their enemies from relative safety. The level below this contains the spawn tubes, inventory stations and other "survival related" items for the defenders. This level also contains the central computer core, the ultimate destination of any attacking force. There is one way into the core, three heavy doors (think of standard base main door) The core doors do not even open for their own faction, an enemy breaches them by hacking each IFF each takes as long to hack as a base controll console, although hacking and advanced hacking whould speed up the task. Once hacked the doors are open permanently until the assault is repelled or is successfull and a reset occurs. Within the core are spawn tubes, only accessable when the enemy has actualy breached level 2 and inventory stations, this is where the proverbial last stand whould occur.

The first floor is a open caverness area with indoor phanalax turrents, ground vehicle padds and one massive garage door and outramp. It should be noted that the ramp is outside and sitting right under one of the turrents making it an effective killing zone against enemy troops. Two turrents one on either side face the door forming a V shaped kill zone for the onrushing enemies. Off on the sides are advanced med terminals to help refresh the defenders. You will note that the only inventory terminals in the base are on the second floor, this is designed to prevent an invading enemy resuply. Also a field around the base prevents the enemy from setting up an AMS either within the first level garage (if they breach that far) or right up against the wall. I wanted a building that actualy gives a serious advantage to the defenders for a change.

The system goes as follows. Once continent lock has been achieved on all three continents bordering the sanctuary and the towers are held by the agressors, The defenders recieve a sort of five minuete warning. A countdown clock appears and stays persistant right below the chat bar stating how long until sanctuary breach occurs. All people spawning into sanctuary at this time are respawned in fortress. During this grace period the only way to stop the breach is to get a hack in on one of the gateway tower. Unlike when hacked by an agressor there is no 15 minuete wait for the defenders to hack them, if they are successfull the tower immidiatly changes hands.

Once the breach is succesffull a one hour timer starts. The attackers may now use the warp gates into the sanctuary normaly. All defending faction are immediatly notified and have a persistant little message at the bottom of their chat bar telling them their sanctuary is now under siege. Any defenders respawning into the sanc are forced to spawn in the fortress unless they deliberately deconstruct themselves and go elsewhere on the sanctuary continent (guerrila raids anyone).

Before the one hour timer has elapsed the enemy must successfully breach the fortress maindoors (or force a landing on the roof) fight their way either up or down to the second level, open all three doors, clear the core, and then hack into the factions central mainframe. The hack itself is a straight hack the only exception is it must be done by three people simulatniously.

If the one hour timer elapses without success:
The warpgate towers revert to neutral and must be rehacked again, this guarantees the defenders at least a twenty minuete breather. Also if the continent locks have been lost (remember that tricky third faction who wont be just sitting on their hands) then the continent locks will also need to be restablished. It whould make sense that the defenders now all mobilized in one place whould be trying a counter attack.

If the attack is successfull:
Every atacker get a little slash or such rank insignia for their uniform (everyone that was online at the time of the capture at least, reguardless of where they are in the game world). All continents bordering the sanctuary all go neutral (to prevent just constant steamrollering by population advantage, this whould hopefully guarantee the defenders at least an hour before the sanc can once again come under siege)

If three such successfull attacks are launched in a 24 hour period, whether that be fixed window or sliding window whould have to be determined, all the defending faction characters revert to BR 1 and all bases world wide revert to neutral. It must be noted that all three attacks must originate from the same faction.

Purpose: To give players a "end goal" to shoot for, without totaly persistantly screwing one faction. This system is designed to heavily favor the defender, and to force the attacker to not only have supperior numbers but supperior organization. I'm not saying i support sanc strikes or faction resets but this is one way I think they might be implemented. This ideal whould also hopefully foster cooperation both on the attacking and defending side by creating prospect of tangable losses.

What this system aims to prevent:
Rewards involving beefing up one faction:
A total reset of characters, because it sucks having to fight over your name and your outfit being lost.
An offhours "zerging" by one or two outfits. Also by forcing all attacks to occur from one outfit, it will hopefully prevent factions from entering into alliances.

I've had this idea rolling around in my head in whole or in part for a while now please let me know what you think.

NightWalker XI · 2003-06-08, 07:50 AM

That Fortress sounds awesome, your idea is really good, I would love for it to be like that....but I don't think it will...plus Sanctuary strikes will be incredibly hard, everyone in sanctuary will make TONS of tanks and all that...attacking force will have a hard task ahead of them...

domdre · 2003-06-08, 07:52 AM

all the defending faction characters revert to BR 1 and all bases world wide revert to neutral.

the only idea i dont like about this is that you would be also punishing people who arent online and also punishing unpopulated factions now i know there is an xp bonus to under populated factions but nothing beats numbers

Doppler · 2003-06-08, 08:00 AM

the only idea i dont like about this is that you would be also punishing people who arent online

I concede this most undoubtedly. I for one am not in favor of facitonr esets but if they were to be implemented this whould make them sufficently dificult coupled with the fact that it must be done 3 times in 24 hours whould hopefully make it extrmeely dificult. The system is built so that hopefully if someone plays once every day and they are in danger of a reset at least some time when they jump on their going to be in a position to help prevent it, hopefully. Also hopefully the fortress design should give serious homeground advantage to the defenders, this coupled with the fact that the best time for the third faction to try and sanc strike someone whould be while most of the offenses forces are out trying to sanc strike someone else whould hopefully help smooth out the population curve.

Peacemaker · 2003-06-08, 10:02 AM

Wow thats a really good idea. Now unfortunatly theres a problem. But i jsut starting to write this post came up with a solution. The problem is that the reason they took a main base out of the sactuary was that it was lagging too much. Too many people in one area. So heres the problem if you ever penetrated a sanctuary every single person on that planet is going to be very pissed off. They are all going to recal to sanctuary. (lagg anyone) So while you have guys attempting to hold the siege and guys trying to recap the continets its just too many people. The solution is as follows a new continet is created (mabye one for each empire but it would be easyer for just one that is shared) When ever a san strike can happen the server automaticly picks lets say 50 - 70 defenders and 140 or so (each team recieves one CR 5 one CR 4s two CR 3s 4 CR 2s and 8 cr 1s) attackers (most likly it would be best if attackers had 2- 1 advantage basic rules of war indicate that a normal attacking force needs four times the numbers to tank a defended position). Now on one end of the continent you have the supa fortress and at the other is a small base. The Defenders have two options spread around the island and use the small defensive turrets scattered about along with towers and fall back as they come or make a stand at the Fortress. The CR 5 guy gets to pick the strategy. If he says stay in the Fortress the defenders get a 10 % hp boost and 5 % damage boost and the respawn timers are set to 10 - 15 seconds. If he wants to hold them outside for a bit the timers are at 30 seconds and the HP boost goes to 20% but the damage goes down to 3%. This battle length will be determined by the attackers general. The lower the time the more EXP. (also on exp the people choosen are picked based on number of kills so u ont have noobs against vets) There are two ways to win do what he stated or kill the enemy general more than 40 times. Phew that just started as lets have a sanctuary island place and turned into that

.

Thrik · 2003-06-08, 10:22 AM

Resetting characters would be terrible. It takes absolutely ages to level up to high BR and losing it all because you weren't around at the time of the Sanctuary Strike or whatever would just.. be gay.

A better way to end it would be to simply have the world reset as you say, and in addition to this give every ONLINE player in the winning faction something like 5000xp. This number could be lowered or raised, but you get the idea.

Maybe someone should tell this to the devs though - I doubt they visit these forums much.

Seer · 2003-06-08, 12:28 PM

I don't know what gives you to idea that having one faction's characters reset would be fun. That would just make them a permanent bitch, since it would probably happen to the weakest faction in the first place. Taking away their battle ranks and causing their players to quit--great plan.

Warborn · 2003-06-08, 01:08 PM

... the fact that it must be done 3 times in 24 hours whould hopefully make it extrmeely dificult.

Maybe, maybe not. You can't predict how players will be able to handle it. What if they do it three times at 5am EST (if it's Konreid or Emerald)? Everyone on the Empire which got screwed at night will wake up with a BR1 character.

Honestly, having your character reset adds absolutely nothing to the game, and there are better ways to reward players. It's always better to give to players than it is to take from them. Give the winners the carrot, and spare the losers the stick.

Seer · 2003-06-08, 01:45 PM

The number one rule in mmogs is that if it is capable of being done, it will be--and more quickly and more often than the designers intend.

TheJingle · 2003-06-08, 02:01 PM

Considering that for a empire to get driver all the way back to its sanctuary it would have to be pretty badly off in the first place , making them reset BR would be terrible .

Strygun · 2003-06-08, 02:07 PM

Wow, this is a well thought out thread.

I'm gonna sticky it for a few days. Maybe we can expand on the ideas a little?

NightWalker XI · 2003-06-08, 04:38 PM

Hey what about...

You see having one big base would cause lag but WHAT IF:

You had 3 fortresses, one on each Village, each of these fortresses had a big door which led to an underground tunnel, all 3 tunnel would meet underground at a big power core all 3 tunnel doors had to be hacked simultaneously for the door to open, after it did and the core was hacked the Sanctuary would loose all power and each village would have to be fueled by ANT's like for bases for a certain period of time until the power was restored.

What do you think?

Doppler · 2003-06-08, 06:52 PM

I never at any point said i support the idea of faction resets just many people have tossed that out as a probable consequence of a sanctaury strike so i worked with that as an end goal, you dont like it, fine that's your biz, i tend to agree with you. The other opetion the wayi see it is giving experience or giving non tangable rewards. Experience is ok but lets face it it wont take too long for everyone to top out. Which hey ill be playing long after i've hit br20 on all 5 char slots but still. The other option is non tangable rewards, this I tend to like a little better. Subtle skin changes, decals or personal decals of some sort, that sort of thing.

Code4 · 2003-06-08, 07:32 PM

WTF is a turrent?

Doppler · 2003-06-08, 07:54 PM

As to the lag issue, hmm I hadnt really considered that, maybe setting up another continent whould work but it whouldnt really be a sanc strike then. The problem if they used the current island without the fortress i forsee it just becoming a constant spawn tube camp fest on the defenders, and that whould suck amost as bad as a reset.