Global Strategy & PS2's Territory System - Page 2

NCLynx · 2011-07-11, 04:50 AM

Originally Posted by hippieschuh

I think without knowing details about the new system its all just speculation and you should not care to mutch about it.

All what we do know is that the region/resource system is far more complicated then PS1 so it will be a complete different gameplay (stratigic wise) then PS1.

Without speculation posts this forum wouldn't have even a fraction of what it does. What with Higby reading out threads as well, I wouldn't say speculation posts shouldn't be cared about. A guess or speculation post could very well be looked at and be the next patch.

That and it's fun as hell to imagine what could be in the game and how it'll work.

SKYeXile · 2011-07-11, 04:58 AM

with the new outposts it would seem you can always attack any continent, so it would be likely you can always backdoor the larger empire.

also whats your saying is the point of 3 factions malorn, you have more options to different things or strategies with 3 factions, it creates a wildcard element, it may not balance itself out, but at least with 3 factions you can get a decent fight some of the time even if you're the underdog.

**Malorn** · 2011-07-11, 04:58 AM

I will of course disclaim that this very well may not be a issue with the game, but I haven't seen anything to say it won't be, and it was a significant issue in PS1 that led to a lot of crappy situations. I think it's quite a good topic to bring up and at least discuss and think about. Perhaps its a dynamic not yet considered. Or maybe it is and the mitigation just hasn't been revealed. Either way its a good discussion to have.

hippieschuh · 2011-07-11, 05:06 AM

Im sorry, you both got a point there.

Watching the videos with the interview gives a deep insight of the plan how they want to lay out the strategic and map design.

Like the Information on using Hexagons, sounds realy interessting.

**Malorn** · 2011-07-11, 05:10 AM

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

with the new outposts it would seem you can always attack any continent, so it would be likely you can always backdoor the larger empire.

also whats your saying is the point of 3 factions malorn, you have more options to different things or strategies with 3 factions, it creates a wildcard element, it may not balance itself out, but at least with 3 factions you can get a decent fight some of the time even if you're the underdog.

No, what I'm saying is that there are behaviors and dynamics I directly observed and was a dominant part of global strategic thinking in PS1 that I think are detrimental.

They are not solved by having 3 empires, rather they are created by them.

I thought my purpose of the discussion was quite clear - something to encourage these behaviors to not happen and to encourage people to do the action that will lead to the most fun for the majority of players.

Consider a situation where only one continent remains with NC territory, but they have most of it and are locked in a stalemate with TR. Then VS come in and attack the NC from the side, further screwing them (which they can because they have a base there). That's the sort of behavior that is currently rewarded. If the VS are after resources they have no incentive to attack the TR because they'll just disengage the NC, while if they attack the NC the TR will continue leaving them alone. VS get territory and resources and there's little the NC can do about it other than let them have it and fall back to a position where they can defend against both empires or otherwise get them to fight each other.

That happened on a regular basis in PS1. Consolidation of defenses was the only viable protection against it, which meant losing multiple bases, and nobody likes to fight a losing battle. That's where the empire hopping/logoff starts happening and NC is not very fun for several hours as they lose on all fronts.

What I'm suggesting is providing more carrots for the VS to attact the TR in this scenario and NOT do a double-team on NC. If there is no such incentive then the same thing will happen as happened in PS1 as I describe above. If there's some incentives or mechanics to make it less-attractive for the VS to attack NC then they'll do so. Making the TR's territory a little faster to capture than the NC's and slowing down the TR's ability to advance due to having large amounts of territory both contributes to helping the underdog. Additionally it also makes it more promising that the NC will be able to regain territory for the same purpose.

I'm not suggesting anything that's fundamentally against the design of the game, just a way to provide a subtle yet powerful way to protect against behaviors that led to un-fun situations and short-term population imbalances.

NCLynx · 2011-07-11, 06:07 AM

Missions will probably give higher rewards if you attack an empire that controls more. The more they have the more there is to take.

This has probably already been said, sorry skimmed the thread.

**Malorn** · 2011-07-11, 11:54 AM

Rather than providing higher rewards I think simply weighting the system such that it prefers to put missions against the empire that has the most territory is a natural solution.

How rewarding missions are in general could go a long way here. If missions are very beneficial then the empire's "high command" could basically work against the forces that would try to take the path of least resistance and instead encourage empires to fight each other roughly evenly or counteract the tendency to double-team.

For example the mission system could give the empire that controls the most territory an even distribution of missions to attack both enemies. Or when the empire that's not locked in the big fight gets a mission, the other two empires also get little missions that would thin out their forces a bit and attack the 3rd empire.

Lots of potential in the mission system to help correct the global situation. I'm writing this hoping that global territory and the patterns of global movement that we observed in PS1 can be taken into account for PS2. This mission system can be used to prevent blobbing into all one area and keep all the empires attacking each other rather in a way roughly consistent with both territory ownership and current population taken into account.

DviddLeff · 2011-07-11, 12:30 PM

Great post Malorn, and good to see you here.

Totally agree with you that there needs to be subtle in game system to avoid double teams against the weaker empire taking place, and your suggestions seem solid.

Increasing base cap times for the larger empires attacks and decreasing them for the smaller ones would work very well, as would setting less missions against a smaller or weaker empire.

I am really excited to see how continental and global strategy changes in PS2.

nathanebht · 2011-07-13, 12:01 AM

Some PS2 info I didn't see included in this discussion.

Current decision is that you can't switch sides on a server. You have to go to a different server to play a different side. Not sure if this will help with the losing side leaving issue.

Adjacent territories are much quicker to capture.

Territory capture provides resources which are used to add additional weapons to your vehicles. From what I've read, resources can be spent to make you more flexible/capable in combat. It sounds like this isn't a one time purchase thing but a continual expense.

**Malorn** · 2011-07-13, 12:17 AM

They also said they weren't going to be dogmatic about the server restriction, and we don't know how the "free element" will work, so it could still be possible to easily switch sides. I also saw conflicting information about how they were going to handle server consolidation. They did talk about consolidation too, and I wonde rhow they'll handle it if you have characters on different factions on a consolidated set of servers. In PS1 they kept the characters which is where the empire-hopping started.

I'd prefer to see character-transfers as a better solution. As long as there's 3 servers in north america then you could still have an experience playing each faction wihtout the empire-hopping potential. so if they are going to consolidate servers, give you the option to move alts you might have to one of the other servers.

But I digress...

Hamma · 2011-07-13, 08:39 AM

One of the more annoying things they added to PS was allowing people to run multiple empires on one server. It led to people switching sides constantly when the going was tough.

**Malorn** · 2011-07-13, 08:55 AM

I really hope that when consolidation time happens (and it will eventually happen - it happens to every MMO) they force players to make a choice:

Either

1) Convert a character to another empire such that all your characters are on the same Empire

or

2) Transfer a character to another server such that all your characters are on the same Empire.

As long as there's at least 3 servers this will work. Free conversion/transfer of course.

It seems reasonable to me, since the likley reason you had the character on the other server was to try out another empire, so rather than allow empire hoping on the same server, give them an option to transfer to another server so they can retain that ability to try out another empire without disrupting the game.

They can take a big learning from Rift in that sense. Rift recently had to consolidate servers and one of the big things they did was
* Allow free transfers to a variety of destinations.
* Allow guild-transfers, so when your guild moved you could always follow them and you'd end up in the same guild on the other side.

To prevent disruption in PS2 they can do this same thing with outfits and allow outfit transfers off a consolidated server to another server of their choice and all members can follow. Or they could convert the outfit to another empire. The members have hte option of following the outfit.

It went really smoothly on Rift and populations got better and was a good thing overall. They took the pain out of it and made it stupid easy.

wildcat140679 · 2011-07-13, 09:30 AM

I wonder if capturing and maintaining control over a piece of land requires resources (upkeep) of some kind.

Possibly even limit how much land an empire can control at a given time, forcing them to give up land, in order to maintain control of the more important land pieces.

Hamma · 2011-07-13, 09:50 AM

I don't believe I have seen anything on that, I do know resources will be used to do things like upgrade weapons so their importance will be rather high. Whether or not territory requires upkeep though remains to be seen.

**Malorn** · 2011-07-13, 09:55 AM

Territory upkeep is one way to sort of balance it, but I don't think its the right way. The whole purpose of territory is to gain resources, and so I don't think you should be penalized or have diminishing returns on the territory that is captured. However, making it harder to hold it all by making it progressively easier/faster for the enemy to capture helps ensure you can't have that spike of resource goodness forever.

I think a better use of upkeep would be outfit-owned towers and similar constructs. Outfits could plant those on valuable resource nodes or tactical positions to help hold the territory, but it has a steady upkeep cost. The advantage is that if you hold that territory your entire empire benefits from it (as do you). Also these would of course be destroyable structures and not a permanent part of the landscape. I expect they'll do something like that with future sandboxing. I'd be surprised if it wasn't in "the 3-year plan".