[Malorn]

I have a great interest in the resource system and territory capture/control. I've been thinking about the resource denial mechanics for PS2, as it is something that Higby has mentioned a number of times as a key part of the system.

Resource denial was a big part of PS1's continental strategy due to it being the means by which you could tip the scales and gain advantage. It also gave alternate objectives for players to pursue if they didn't want to be in one of the front line conflicts.


The PS1 Resource and Denial System

At its core, the PS1 resource system was...
* Resources - facility benefits & modules
* Supply Line - lattice links that exported resources to other facilities

The PS1 resource system revolved around facilties and the lattice links which connected them. Each facility type produced a resource, and using the lattice exported that resource to other facilities. One of the most important resources was the tech benefit, which enabled an empire to create MBTs, Reavers, Liberators, and Skyguards. The reason this was so vital to continental strategy is because these benefits are what tipped the scales when the battle was otherwise a stalemate.

Assuming all things were relatively equal, it was the resources which enabled an empire to push forward or be pushed back. Sure, tactics and outfit organization played a role, but these strategic resources were the tools by which outfits could affect the larger struggle.

This is a simple system, but it made for some straightforward and effective denial strategies. Resources could be locally denied by severing the lattice that connected the resource producing facilities to the front line facilities. They could also hack or disable the resource producing facilities themselves. A gen drop at a tech plant was a common strategy in PlanetSide. Drop the tech for a little while and all the heavy vehicles start disappearing and the empire has a hard time fighting back.

There were two important aspects to this system that made it work so well:

1) Impactful - these resources were important enough to alter strategies on the continent and change outfit plans. Going for a tech plant mattered, as having access to those vehicles was vital. Repair and interlink were two other valuable resources that made a big difference.

2) Immediate - acquiring or losing these resources took effect immediately. There was no delay in when the strategic action was taken and the effect was observed. It was immediate.



PS2's Resource Model

When PlanetSide 2 was first announced one of the first things Higby mentioned was the resource system. No longer were we tied to facilities for benefits, and no longer was combat focused around facilities - every territory would have value and resources would be a vital part of success in Planetside 2. This was music to me. This system was designed to make all parts of the continent important and give us battles everywhere instead of the typical PlanetSide base back-and-forth.

Over the fan faire there were several more comments about resources which included a few examples of resource denial. Take away the Vanu's tank resources and they won't have as many tanks running around. The concept was great, but it was also very different than the rather simple yet effective PS1 system.

Here is a good map of resources and territory distribution (Map is made by Xyntech). Each color is a different resource. As you can see if each empire owns roughly 1/3 of Indar they will have many producers of each resource.
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7782/resources.png

What we know of the PS2 system is that the resource model is based around income and outflow. Territories produce resources which are then spent on vehicles and consumables. We also learned that simply fighting can generate resources. From this we can build a simple model.

Income - Income is generated as dividends from territories, also from capturing & defending territories, and also simply fighting.

Supply - Each player has a pool of personal resources that acts as their supply of each resource, which is filled by the income.

Outflow - Purchasing vehicles and consumables.

On the surface this seems like a fine system, however it is also a system highly resistant to resource denial. To see this, lets compare it using the same characteristics of the PS1 system - impact and immediacy. If a territory is captured, how is it felt?


How PS2's Resource Denial Measures Up

1) Impactful - Losing a territory is not impactful due to there being multiple sources of income. It is typical for an empire to have at least 5 territories that provide resources, in addition to the resources they gain from capturing and defending and simply fighting. Losing a single territory is a small hit to a player's income. Moreover, it does not impact the player's current supply at all, which takes us to Immediacy...

2) Immediate - Losing a territory only impacts income, and only a small part of that. With a decent supply of resources losing one will not immediately be felt. In fact it might not be felt for a long time, if ever if you consider the rate of resource consumption vs the rate of income. Alternate sources of income from fighting and capturing further exacerbates this.

Income > Outflow means their resource supply is growing, which can still happen after a territory is taken. Income must be less than outflow before you will see an impact, and even then it will be a small impact as it is the net difference. That difference will be subtracted from the supply pool, which may take a long time to completely exhaust.

But it actually gets worse. With this system the empires most affected by resource denial are the empires that have low income. These are the empires with few territories. Empires that have a lot of resource producers won't feel a loss of a few territories at all, as they already have more than they need.

Additionally, the territory influence system encourages us to attack territories that are border territories. Thsoe are the territories that we have the most influence on and so the easiest time capturing. Territories beyond the border have no influence and so take a long time to capture and are difficult to hold. This means that assaults to the back lines to disrupt resource production are not practical, nor effective, as even if we did succeed in capturing a territory or two it's still not affecting the supply of that resource and not significantly affecting its income.

My conclusion from this is that resource denial is not a practical strategy for PS2 because it is neither impactful nor immediate. The tactics of resource denial are also highly restricted - they are only practical on border territories.

The great resource denial capabilities in PS1 to immediately and significantly affect an enemy empire by capturing or disrupting resources is not possible in PS2. This is unfortunate as the PS2 strategic gameplay on the continental level will be quite bland. And without resource denail there isn't much point to resources. It is like playing PS1 where everyone always has all the benefits. There's no value, it's just noise.


The Problems with the PS2 System

1) Personal Supplies
Personal supplies of resources are at the root of the problem. As long as players have their own supplies they are shielded from the effects of resource denial. Any solution to make denial a viable strategy would have to affect personal resource supplies. Without this it can never be immediate and any impact would be delayed until supplies ran low, which will vary on a player-to-player basis. It will be inconsistent at best, completely ineffective at worst.

2) Many producers
There are many resource producers in PS2 and attacking any one producer is not practical as long as there are several other resource sources. This isn't particularly bad in its own right but as territory is gained an empire gains more producers and has less to fear from denial. These are precisely the sort of situations where denial needs to be viable. When an underdog is getting hammered they need to play smart to turn the tables, and that means being strategic. BUt attacking resources is pointless because the other side(s) have so many producers.

3) Limited Attack Options
The Influence system is sort of causing problems in this instance. On one hand it creates the same idea that the lattice did in PS1, which was to funnel troops to certain areas to fight at a time and not go anywhere and everywhere at once. But the Lattice had a dual function - not only did it govern hacks but it was also the supply line for benefits. The Influence system doesn't provide a way to make a resource impact behind lines. Captures behind lines are described as taking roughly 30 minutes to capture and possibly 30 seconds to lose. That is, at best, a very risky attack decision. The only practical resource attack options for denial are along the borders, of which there may be only 1-2 of any given resource. This exacerbates the too-many-producers problem. There needs to be a means of impacting resource flow without plowing through all of an empire's territory.


The PS1 system had none of these problems. Many continents only had 2-3 sources of tech and even the biggest didn't have more than 4. Few producers. And the supply-chain system of PS1 meant that you could always attack the supply chain. The resources of PS1 were granted to facilities - locations, not players. So when they were denied it was immediate.

This isn't to say the PS2 system can't work, but it looks as though it will need a bit more complexity before it has the rich strategic options that the PS1 system had.


Some Possible Solutions


Supply Drain on Territory Capture

Add impact & immediacy - make a territory loss also drain some resources from the players' current supply. This would likely be percentage based. Lose a territory, lose some % of your supply of resources which that territory produced. That would add impact and losing of a territory would be immediately felt. It wouldn't necessarily remove the ability to pull a vehicle or buy consumables but it would make a dent.

The amount drained should be scaled on number of territories that produce the resource that was lost. This would reduce the impact to empires with few territories and amplify its impact against empires with many territories. Lots of territories means high income, so the drain would have to be more significant for such an empire to notice, or even care. Conversely low-income empires should have little or no drain because they're already struggling and the loss of the income source is likely painful enough. The numbers could be tweaked, but I was thinking something simple like a linear formula where % drained = 10 * (number of territories producing resource), with some maximum amount like 50. So if an empire has only 1 resource producer for a given resource and they lost it, then they would lose nothing, but if they had 6 or more, they would lose 50%.

This drain does a lot of good things, but probably won't be received all that well by the players. People generally don't like things taken away from them, which is why resource denial and personal resource pools don't mix well together. I think the PS1 system had it right by providing the resource to a location and denying it to a location. Then players don't feel wronged by it because they can always go elsewhere to get their stuff. When its personal resources that isn't true.


Add Resource Objectives to Territories

Add Attack Options - PS1 allowed supply line attacks by downing generators at resource producers or along the lattice chain linking that resource to the front line. Since territories are now the resource producers the equivalent would be a sort of structure or control console that allows disabling of generation for the territory. That would provide more practical means of affecting resource generation for an opposing empire.

I like this idea regardless of whether it is used to solve this problem. More strategic targets is a good thing, especially targets behind the front line of territories.


Increase Resource Value on Border Territories

Add Impact - Not all territories need be equal. Resource generation could be proportional to influence, that is any resource that is below an influence threshold is worth a lot more for income. Resources that have high influence should then be worth significantly less resource generation. This would be good for empires with few territories especially and lessen the impact of lots of territories. It doesn't really fix the problem in a good way but it does make the territories that are attacked along the borders matter a lot more.

I'm not sure how well this will work out in practice because after a territory is taken another one becomes a border territory so the net effect could be negligible.




That's about all I can think of at this time. Perhaps this thread can generate some other ideas. I think the supply drain approach will work best but I don't think players will like it because it takes directly from them.

I'd like some sort of solution that brings back the concept of the supply line, where resources are given to a specific location instead of players, and that decides what things players at that location can obtain. That might blend well with the territory resource objectives, as they could be the thing which creates the supply line.

This is one area where I think PS1's simplicity did a damn fine job and PS2's model will have difficulty replicating that effectiveness.