[Malorn]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

If I may add something, different capture mechanics for different types of objective could also make the game feel more varied.
e.g.: hack-to-cap for a small tower-like structure would be more adapted than a full-scale tug-of-war.

At its simplest a territory might only have a single control point, in which case it is still tug-o-war but effectively functions like a hack & hold. You cap it and you sit on that one point while you wait for the timer, which in the 50% territory case would be exactly 15 minutes. Unlike PS1 however, if you lose control the other faction still needs to pull the capture object back into their control, which may take more or less time depending on surrounding territory control. It wouldn't be an instant resecure and all your hard work vanishes.

Another possibility is to get flat out awards or bursts of capture strength. For example, a specific territory might have a special modifier to its capture mechanic that slows it or stops it beyond a certain point as an attacker, but you can do special tasks that create a burst of capture strength, like taking an object from one location to another. In this way we could get simulate the LLU-like behavior from PS1 where attackers can move the capture point away a certain point but in order to capture the territory they must run the LLU. Meanwhile you still have the hack & hold going on back at the territory so defenders can foil the attempt.

So its extensible and can offer up different capture mechanics.

Also the actual control nodes themselves might have different requirements. They might be triggered by proximity of a tank rather than infantry, creating capture nodes that must be captured by a special unit type. That isn't unique to this concept though - any capture model could feature that, just as the burst-tickets/LLU concept above could apply to multiple capture systems.

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

An interesting alternative - and one I prefer over what we understand about the actual one. I particularly like the UI mock up as it makes what is going to confuse some into an easy to understand system.

However as you comment on, is it still easy enough to understand, compared to the originals "Hack - Hold - Capture" mechanic? It is a lot trickier, but then so is the current dev version.

Simplifying either is no easy task, especially as we want to speed up uncontested hacks and slow down back hacks, while taking into account surrounding territory but at the same time not make the system confusing to some.

Thanks, I think the UI can be as simple or as complex as we want to make it. I also believe people will easily understand a Tug-o-war concept as it has existed in many games before to wrestle control of something from another team.

The race system I think would be a little less easy to read since the user has to look a control bar for each faction and try to figure out which one will cap first. They could estimate this and put up a timer like I describe above for this model. Seems like it requires more information and isn't as easy to represent visually as a triangle with an object moving between each empire. Maybe not but we'll have to see what they come up with there.

The thing I like most about the tug-o-war model vs the race model is that in the tug-o-war model everything a player does to capture a territory is permanent until someone undoes it. It fits naturally into the persistent world. If we're at a tough fight over an evenly contested territory and my team spends 20 minutes on a capture, that effort is not wasted if we lose control for a short time. The enemy still has to overcome the control we gained over those 20 minutes. It might not take them the same amount of time but they still have to deal with it. Likewise if I only spent 30 seconds trying to cap something the enemy doesn't need to sit around for 15 minutes waiting for the cap to be completed as I believe would happen in the race system.

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

I certainly think that in a one on one fight the indicator should be made linear, rather than the triangle; only have the triangle develop if the third empire sticks its foot in the door.

Having the triangle collapse to just a single edge makes sense (current owner & your own faction) and having it only unfold into the full capture triangle when all three factions are contesting would certainly simplify the UI for the common case and make it easy to see how the capture is going.

The only possible issue is it may cause funkiness in the triangle's orientation, but that could be reduced by always having the player's own faction appear in the top left or right corners, that way the only sides that would potentially be swapped are the hostile factions. The act of collapse and possibility of factions switching positions might cause more confusion than simply having a static triangle always present in the same orientation. It would also add to the cost of the implementation, but could result in simplified UI in the common case.