Originally Posted by Sirisian
When defining the proportional resource gain for loyalty I was trying to figure out if someone should be rewarded for time played. That is going idle at the Warpgate or at a base being captured. Ideally players should have no downtime or feel they need to wait so rewarding them for it wouldn't be constructive. It leads to people going idle waiting for timers and for resources to tick up. If players want resources to upgrade all they'd have to do is heal or repair or do damage to the enemy in anyway. This keeps players generally active. That said, I completely agree with your assessment. How would you feel about a minimum cap of say 200 Nanites. If you drop below that number you would automatically get 1 Nanite a second. Trying to think of a system that wouldn't feel cheap, but would help players sitting at a warpgate trying to push out. Go idle for a minute and you're fully equipped to kill a Sunderer for instance assuming you have 0% loyalty. You'd also need minor changes to other mechanisms. Like over X Nanites to build a tower for Y Nanites. So over 500 Nanites to spend 200 Nanites to place a tower on the map kind of thing. Simple restrictions to help make things sane.
You mentioned it already though and I'll cover it now since it's one of the most controversial parts of what I proposed. Charging people to use the certs they've unlocked.
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Adding a minimum nanite level would help so that players don't feel overly constrained. A delicate balance must be struck to ensure that this minimum level doesn't eradicate the purpose of the system entirely whilst still allowing for misfortune and the random act of idiocy. Dialing the cost back at the warpgate is a good compromise. Players shouldn't feel the need to always recall back to the warpgate in order to pull their gear but if they do then there is a cost associated with it, typically the time investment of recalling and then going all the way back to the fight.
Originally Posted by Sirisian
You can look at it two ways. In the current system players are restricted with exclusive certs. This is most readily seen with suit modules. You can unlock all of them for a class, but you have a restriction on which you can use at any one time. Same for C4 and Mines for an Engineer. For a player that is a grunt and doesn't fly they'd have extra resources and could really specialize with the system I proposed. A light assault with both Flak Armor and Ammunition Belt for instance with 3 C4s and 2 Grenades. So players are already punished for getting exclusive certs. This system isn't necessarily a punishment as it's a way to specialize more and remove pointless exclusive restrictions while placing a more sensible limitation.
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More specialization is always a plus but again, care must be taken so that the power balance between a BR 1 and a BR 100 isn't insurmountable. This may also require a look into the certification system as well to address pricing. As you've said, it's controversial to be sure.
Originally Posted by Sirisian
Well are you? If you're out of combat for extended periods your loyalty will begin to tick down. In my example my numbers were that loyalty would drop 1% every 5 seconds. So if you were at 60% loyalty and did nothing for 5 minutes. Didn't resupply, heal, or shoot anything you'd drop to 0%. I mentioned just getting an assist might be 10% which alone takes 50 seconds to go away. It would require testing, but the goal is to keep people in the battle. However, you might be right again. This was brought up before that players going to the Warpgate to jump in a Galaxy would suddenly see their loyalty drop as they plan for a few minutes. How would you feel if you didn't lose loyalty at the Warpgate but didn't get resources while being there? (Other than up to your minimum cap).
On that though this could extend to not getting resources while dead also and having the loyalty lock. The issue there is some players might want their loyalty to drop to gain resources as they wait to pull an awesome loadout. Which brings me back to the idea that it might be preferable to have players not spawn with a loadout so they have more incentive to just spawn and then look at their loadout at a terminal. (Removing it from the main menu). That is the death or spawn screen would only be for spawning essentially and you'd sit at if only if you want to go grab some food and preserve your current loyalty percentage. Getting into a bit of a more complicated redesign though at that point which I've tried to avoid. More special rules makes it more confusing.
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Having the loyalty drop at such a rate would still allow for PLs to focus on leading instead of having to engage in combat solely for the purpose of ensuring loyalty. Due to the pacing of combat in larger facilities there may still be an issue, say when the SCU goes down and there is no combat to be had but still several minutes on the cap. 'Locking' loyalty in when a player is at the warpgate is a good idea and would discourage camping. Personally I think a severely reduced resource gain instead of none would be preferable though.
If you remove the loadout options from the respawn screen, what would happen to those who squad deploy or drop on a beacon? Would they be stuck in PJs or their previous loadout?
Originally Posted by Sirisian
I think I see where the confusion is. "No resource system should cut off a player's ability to purchase certain vehicles." What I meant by that is things like losing the tech plant which block players on the map from pulling MBTs.
MAX units and vehicles would cost resources. Vehicles would have a stock cost like in my Liberator image. It's just that their stock weapons wouldn't cost anything extra over the base cost. The idea of "stock" items refers to certifications that designers determine would be free to use after certification.
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Ah okay, thanks for the clarification. As an aside, would you support an initial increased cost (perhaps not just for MAX suits?) at AMSes?
Originally Posted by Sirisian
It's not too much difference than the current design. "Oh no I pulled proxy mines and suddenly there's a Sunderer next to me. I wish I had C4." It has one huge advantage though where players are only charged for what they use. On that note because of how the resource system removes restrictions this also means they don't have to be mind readers. If someone is a specialized grunt then they can have multiple C4, Mines, and other deployables on hand if they have the resources. Sure they'd lose them if they die, but they can be ready for any situation if they choose to specialize that way.
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I suppose I can see that. It's a higher risk/reward and encourages specialization. I still wouldn't charge full cost for gear that gets switched out if that would fit in with your design philosophy.
Originally Posted by Sirisian
They're not tangible and each are completely separate. You could have a base with 30 modules installed if it came to that. The only way to destroy them is to take the base. As I mentioned though unfunded modules would have their resources go back to the players so there's no risk defending a base by investing in modules during the last stand.
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Alright. I was envisioning a Planetside style control console where a hacker could only put on one virus at a time. This is much more like the module system (hence the name I suppose). What about the addition of (yet) another gen, or tying the mods to a current gen (perhaps the SCU?) so that mods can be temporarily disabled? Especially since you refer to a redesign of the bases, which I assume to mean the addition of better flow and defensibility correct?