Resource Denial: PS1 vs PS2

[Ohaunlaim]

Repeating what Ragemaster said....

Instead of frontier areas having a higher resource gain rate another option is to have long-non-contested areas build up a resource pool which would be immediately distributed (or quickly over X minutes time) when the territory is captured.

This offers some benefits...

1. Factions doing poorly and pushed back to a few bits of land need significant and immediate influxes of resources in order to make a strong push against their enemies. A resource gain increase does not provide that.

2. Long-non-contested areas are areas that have not been seen by the player base for too long. The temptation of an immediate resource pay-out just might be enough to get people to attempt a long-shot capture.

3. The owning faction does not have access to the pooled funds. Although their motivation is simply to keep the enemy from getting the prize (and the pride of not losing a long-held territory), there is also no personal immediate resource hit to make players whine or quit in disgust.**

**note** in case this isn't considered sufficient: The resource gain rate could also increases over time, in direct proportion to the resource pool. Again no immediate personal pain, but more reason than pride.

4. This would work in conjunction with the influence system. Harder areas to capture means said areas are less likely to be captured over a given amount of time which, in turn, makes these areas have increased rewards. No need to arbitrarily designate areas as frontier. The natural flow of the war determines where tempting targets would appear.

5. Simplicity. Zerg players don't need to know the mechanics of how this works, or calculate if a certain resource gain increase on a territory is worthy of their time. They just look at a territory and see that if they helped capture it they would get 5 kittens immediately, no questions asked.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Regarding frontier territory being worth more - you could make influence inversely proportional to resource value. So if you manage to take a big risk and go after a territory that you have a small amount of influence over, the resource gain could be big. This is a bit of a risk vs reward tradeoff, as the more influence the easier it is to capture something, so perhaps reward efforts which go after hard to capture territories. Capture a high-risk territory which you may not hold for long and you get a big yield. As they secure other territories nearby and strengthen influence (risk goes down) the value goes down. It's tricky because it could also discourage taking of territories, but that's probably more of a balancing thing.

This could turn into a sort of diminishing return mechanic so dominant empires don't get massive resources for all their rear holdings. They should get some, but it shouldn't be an overwhelming advantage. This could be one way to tone it down and also reward risky attacks. And conversely, it could also help backed-up empires. They won't have much influence so the territories they have would generate more resources.

I'm not sure this works as well as it might seem on first blush. The whole reason resource denial could ever work is that you're chopping away at their territory, reducing the total "surface area" of resource-producing territory. If you make the "interior" area not count for much, then it doesn't matter a lot how much territory they have, so long as the front is still long.


What if regions have different resource values for different empires? That way, you could directly tie places deemed "more difficult to hold" based on location relative to footholds to higher values, without trivializing interior spaces in general. Sure, the ones closest to your foothold wouldn't help a lot, but if you gain the middle by pushing the front forward two hexes, the former front lines don't become worthless since they're not high-influence. They're worth just as much before, and that's a premium vs. foothold-adjacent stuff. Similarly, the front lines are your enemy's most valuable holdings, so taking them away actually hurts them, instead of simply making the row behind them now more valuable (by virtue of being more contested now).


Also, when we're talking about making hexes that are "cut off" worth less (which is an idea I like vis a vis representing logistical supply lines), what if the way you measure "cut off" isn't by connecting back to your foothold, but rather, by connecting back to you?

So if you backhack deep in enemy territory, and secure one facility for yourself as a staging ground.. Bully for you, but you're still trapped deep behind enemy lines, and so you need to preserve resources because it's hard to get them back to your staging ground to pull a new vehicle. This could even replace hack timer differential as the "increased difficulty" to make backhacking rarer and more challenging. You could take the bases at normal speeds, but you need to do it with what you brought, basically; you're not getting more resources dumped in your pocket while you fight there, not until you've carved out a big chunk to support yourselves, at least.

This also makes splitting holdings off work as a tactical maneuver.

[Nemises]

Originally Posted by kaffis

What if regions have different resource values for different empires? That way, you could directly tie places deemed "more difficult to hold" based on location relative to footholds to higher values, without trivializing interior spaces in general. Sure, the ones closest to your foothold wouldn't help a lot, but if you gain the middle by pushing the front forward two hexes, the former front lines don't become worthless since they're not high-influence. They're worth just as much before, and that's a premium vs. foothold-adjacent stuff. Similarly, the front lines are your enemy's most valuable holdings, so taking them away actually hurts them, instead of simply making the row behind them now more valuable (by virtue of being more contested now).

Hmm....so more of a Denial as a strategic weapon, rather than tactical gain...?

Ie. hex 15 , currently held by TR and bordered by 3 NC hex's and 1 friendly TR hex

Is worth:
- (X) for the NC
- (X*3) for the TR (defending)

The gain for the NC is in terms of resource denial to the TR ... the value of the Hex to the NC diminishes as it is bordered by additional friendly Hex's.

The gain for the TR is in defending, as the value of the Hex increases as less friendly Hex's border it

...havent played that through properly in me 'ed, ...pretty sure there is a flaw in there WRT backhacking..
Still...interesting proposition...
Favours the defender quite strongly...might cause turtling

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by Higby

3 - our influence system is going to have more effects than just territory capture bonus ... deploying galaxies so you have to be further out from a base to set up a mobile spawn point

Is anyone else terrified of this? I mean this just shoots a lot of asymmetrical gameplay right in the knees.
I can no longer dream of landing a gal on top of a capture point, on a base wall, on a base, turn a bad but survived landing in an unusual spawn point, and can't setup a spawn point on the roof of a Tech plant despite the large open area.
This would force fights to always be infantry grunting across open areas which was normally something avoided as best we could in the original. It also stops people from being able to attack back hexes as you'd want to use your enemy's walls as protection for your own forces and spawn point.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Nemises

Hmm....so more of a Denial as a strategic weapon, rather than tactical gain...?

Ie. hex 15 , currently held by TR and bordered by 3 NC hex's and 1 friendly TR hex

Is worth:
- (X) for the NC
- (X*3) for the TR (defending)

The gain for the NC is in terms of resource denial to the TR ... the value of the Hex to the NC diminishes as it is bordered by additional friendly Hex's.

The gain for the TR is in defending, as the value of the Hex increases as less friendly Hex's border it

...havent played that through properly in me 'ed, ...pretty sure there is a flaw in there WRT backhacking..
Still...interesting proposition...
Favours the defender quite strongly...might cause turtling

Well, this is more like what Malorn was suggesting, with resource gain being inversely proportional to influence over a tile.

What I was thinking was more like.. imagine all the tiles have 3 resource values displayed in the map. For the NC, the resource values trend upward as you radiate further from the NC foothold. Likewise for the TR values and the TR foothold, and the VS values and the VS foothold.

So, mid-continent, where people expect the 3-way deadlock to occur, everybody's extractable resources would be similar. We'll say 6's on a scale of 1-10.

I'll use VS as an example, since they're at the north end, and we can just talk about north/south as an expedient way of indicating closer or further from their foothold.

So the middle is 6ish in resources. South of that a row or two, would be 7's. North of that would be 5's. Immediately adjacent to the VS foothold would be 1's and 2's, while the southern coast would be 8's, 9's, and 10's. For the VS. Because some of that southern coast is practically next door to the TR and NC footholds. So next to the NC foothold, would be like a 10 for VS, and a 10 for TR, but a 1 for NC.

Now, as people settle into the mindset of capturing territory for optimal resource gain for themselves, you'd see a lot of backhacking near the enemy footholds to get those 9's and 10's. You'd probably initially even see people ignoring backhacking near their own footholds, because it's more important to secure the 10's than to lose the 1's.

But then, ease of access and resource denial come into play... and you'd see *denying* the enemy territory near your own foothold become an objective. It's not important to hold it for yourself, but you *really* want to make sure the other guy can't hold it, because those are his gold mines.

The thing I can't quite wrap my head around is whether the inclination to deny enemy A his high-producing territory near enemy B's foothold is more attractive than denying him his high-producing territory near your own foothold is just way too silly, as it would mean that the two people most likely to be fighting near a foothold are the two empires whose foothold ISN'T the one nearby...

[Dagron]

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Is anyone else terrified of this? I mean this just shoots a lot of asymmetrical gameplay right in the knees.
I can no longer dream of landing a gal on top of a capture point, on a base wall, on a base, turn a bad but survived landing in an unusual spawn point, and can't setup a spawn point on the roof of a Tech plant despite the large open area.
This would force fights to always be infantry grunting across open areas which was normally something avoided as best we could in the original. It also stops people from being able to attack back hexes as you'd want to use your enemy's walls as protection for your own forces and spawn point.

You can always have 2 gals: one deploys outside the base and the other keeps going back and forth hauling people from the first one to the roof.

All kidding aside i see your point, but making a spawn point basically inside the enemy facility could be a little too unbalancing.
I'm not saying that's why they're doing it, just pointing out that it might be.

[Nemises]

bit hard to fit a Gal underneath a low base bridge anyways...and a bit unsubtle without a cloaker

Originally Posted by kaffis

Well, this is more like what Malorn was suggesting, with resource gain being inversely proportional to influence over a tile.

What I was thinking was more like.. imagine all the tiles have 3 resource values displayed in the map. For the NC, the resource values trend upward as you radiate further from the NC foothold. Likewise for the TR values and the TR foothold, and the VS values and the VS foothold......

.......

Ah I see...so fixed values, but empire specific...like an inverse radial from each empires foothold..

seems sensible..

means the hex's worth the most are the ones nearest the enemy's foothold though...can't quite see if thats a good idea or not

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by Dagron

You can always have 2 gals: one deploys outside the base and the other keeps going back and forth hauling people from the first one to the roof.

All kidding aside i see your point, but making a spawn point basically inside the enemy facility could be a little too unbalancing.
I'm not saying that's why they're doing it, just pointing out that it might be.

There's no stopping the defending side from having in base spawn points as well and squad respawn allows for inbase spawning as well.
I get where you're coming from with fear of being unable to remove the spawn. The counter to that is allowing both sides to do it and then it comes down to whoever plays better. Besides, the randomness of spawn location adds to the gameplay. Otherwise there's going to be a fairly limited number of places to stick your spawn point outside a base safely with good access.

[Pillar of Armor]

How about this... Instead of having a large resource pool, keep the resource pool very small (about enough to spawn 1.5 MBTs - 2 MBTs). To balance out the small resource pool, the resource generation rate would have to be high. The baseline for resource regeneration could be: If your empire controls 1/3 of the map (it's base territory) you will accrue enough resources to buy another tank at the minimum possible time to spawn a tank. In other words, if your empire is holding it's portion of the continent, every time the countdown timer on your MBT is up, you should always have the resources to buy it.

When an empire gets pushed back into the foothold the resource gain for the empire should jump back up to the baseline amount to give them the ability to push back out and avoid getting stuck in the gate.

Also, instead of giving resource gain benefits for performance to individual players, give them to squads. This way team play is always encouraged. If you aren't in a squad you don't get increased resources for doing well as a lone wolf.

All of this put together should result in: Teamwork is rewarded, benefits for captures are immediately noticed, penalties for losses aren't harsh, but are definitely felt, playing well is rewarded and buffers against penalties, foothold battles won't feel one sided.

The exact numbers on this system would have to be played with, but the nice thing is I believe it could be implemented without having to do any major changes to the existing system.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Is anyone else terrified of this? I mean this just shoots a lot of asymmetrical gameplay right in the knees.
I can no longer dream of landing a gal on top of a capture point, on a base wall, on a base, turn a bad but survived landing in an unusual spawn point, and can't setup a spawn point on the roof of a Tech plant despite the large open area.
This would force fights to always be infantry grunting across open areas which was normally something avoided as best we could in the original. It also stops people from being able to attack back hexes as you'd want to use your enemy's walls as protection for your own forces and spawn point.

Yes. Noting that you could place an AMS right outside a base wall in PS1, I would have thought that, sure, you can't place a galaxy spawn inside the perimeter of a base,but that apart from that, minimum placement distance would be left to player common sense and preparation. If you are capable of setting a galaxy within range of the base turrets and surviving, why should the SOI make you place it even farther away?

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

There's no stopping the defending side from having in base spawn points as well and squad respawn allows for inbase spawning as well.
I get where you're coming from with fear of being unable to remove the spawn. The counter to that is allowing both sides to do it and then it comes down to whoever plays better. Besides, the randomness of spawn location adds to the gameplay. Otherwise there's going to be a fairly limited number of places to stick your spawn point outside a base safely with good access.

Squad spawning is apparently going to be rendered impotent and for occasional use only, so I really don't think it even merits mention as a factor. It might make a difference in rare situations but as a prime mover, it's going to be pre-nerfed.

And with squad spawning pre-nerfed, if the minimum Galaxy placement distance is very far, well, do the math.

[MrQuiet]

I would like to propose a simple easy to understand solution. KISS

Basic premise is resources flow from Territory -> to Resource Depots (RD) -> active players pools on that continent.

With 3 resources to mine and 3 empires competing for those 3 resources I suggest 2 Resource Depots per unique resource, i.e. 6 hackable Resource Depots scattered around the continent idealy away from bases and footholds. That means 2 RD for resource A 2 for resource B and 2 for Resource C. Obviously at least one empire is not collecting A, One is not collecting B etc.. This will leave at least one empire hungry for each type of resource creating a titanic struggle for each type of resource Depot.

The teritories would send there resources to the nearest friendly RD of that resource type. (simple method would not require a physical link, more complex method would require a physical link).

Every 15 minutes the unhacked RDs would distribute its resources to all of its factions players that are logged onto that continent (exception could be players hanging out in warp gate). This way Low Pop gets a bigger % of resources then Higher Pop.

The RDs would be subject to the same capture influence rules as any other capture facility. Hacked RDs do not distribute. Deep Raids are more practical than actual caps. At anytime players could click on friendly RDs on map and see how much they are distributing per cycle.

PRO
1) Easy for anyone to grasp.

2) Effects of hacking or capturing a Resource Depot are felt fairly quickly since most of the time the empire that held that depot only had one of that type. This assumes maximum personal resource pools for players are in the range of 2-3 expensive vechicles.

3) A weak empire can hack or capture a RD from the rear of a strong empire and efectively hurt the strong empire. Raiding becomes worth the risk.

4) Moves the fights to 6 important locations away from bases plus individual resource producing territory is still important and worth fighting for.

CON

1) A empire that is not holding any depots is in big trouble and not collecting resources via mining. There options are to take a depot, or accumalate resources via fighting or travel to a continent that there empires is doing better on to build up their resource pool and then return.

2) A very strong empire will be collecting a lot of resources. But if max resource personal pool is low enough it may encourage players at max pools to try taking another continent, which will improve the chance for weak empires to strike.

I cant think of any other cons.

Thanks for reading
-MrQuiet

[wOOtbEEr]

I think RageMasterUK is really on to something with his escalating resources idea.

Originally Posted by RageMasterUK

Make it so territories
1. ...are worth more resources on capture by the longer they have been held.
2. ...give soldiers directly defending the hex a higher resource gain rate the longer the base has been held.
3. ...give the empire holding them a slightly higher continent-wide gain rate the longer they are held.
4... stockpile is reset if the hold on a territory is broken. It pays no extra cap or defend reward untill the territory stockpile fills back up over time.

Territory Stockpile effect. Pays out more over time to defenders, and more on cap for attackers.

-RageMasterUK

I really like points 3 and 4. For number 2 I'm not sure if there are going to be any resources given based on where you are fighting. Number 1 can fit in the current system but I'm not sure the devs want even more encouragement to attack back line bases. Hurting the enemy should be enough.

But lets just stick some numbers on this and see what we get.

Lets say a small 2 hex territory next to the NC foothold gives 10 polymers per tick. Every 20 minutes it is held it adds one bonus polymer to this value. This seems pretty slow, but that's a good thing. It's a back line territory and probably wont see much real action unless the NC are getting kicked back into their foothold.

So the battle lines have been out near the center of the map all day and this territory, along with all the other non contested territories, has about 25 bonus points built up for a total of 35 polymers a tick. I think polymers pay for aircraft so lets say the NC are pulling Reavers and Liberators as fast as their timers allow and have the TR locked up in buildings all along the front line.

Now is a great time for a few squads of TR to load up in some Gals and attempt to sneak to that backline territory and try to hack it. They wont be able to hold it very long because the capture mechanics will favor the NC too much. But if they are successful the NC will be back to getting 10 polymers a tick instead of 35.

Over time each empire will have a few territories that work their way up to being good targets. But there won't be any reason to try and capture a territory behind the line until it has built up enough resources to be an advantage to their empire.

This will be a bit like Generator holds in PS1. A few squads from one empire would go blow up the generator in an enemy tech plant and then guard the room to stop it being repaired. This would keep that empire from pulling their empire specific tanks and their reavers until they could kick the trespassers out and repair it. The problem with Gen holds was as soon as you kicked them out there was nothing to stop them from coming back except sitting and waiting at a base with no fight going on. Not much fun.

Some other thoughts.
This shouldn't work for auraxium. Back hacking it would feel like players taking money from each other. It's value will stay constant. Also the full size bases are the only territories that produce auraxium right now and the 5-7 capture points they are supposed to have would be hard for a small group to hold.

Also the timer could be scaled to give the first few bonus points more quickly but then exponentially slower after that to make very high bonuses very rare.

Empires with a lot of land will be more vulnerable as they have more territory to defend. Empires pushed back to their last 5 or 6 territories will have an easier time reacting to these types of attacks.

The rate a territory earns bonus points should also be based on how many people are fighting on that continents. No bonus if no one is there.

More Complicated Stuff

We don't have information on any capture mechanics other than the one at E3. But I know they said there would be a few different ones. Perhaps which capture mechanic is at which base could depend on how many bonus resources the base has. Keeping the multipoint ticket system at the more front line bases for big battles. Having an LLU like system at the bases that changed hands over an hour ago. And then then a base starts earning 3 times its base resources, it switches to a more PS1 like system where a few squads can hold out against superior numbers defending a single point. Then if they cap the point it will switch back to the multipoint capture and the home empire can take it back quickly.

Fluff.

When an empire takes a territory their nanites immediately start harvesting the resources in that territory and also improving the harvesting infrastructure. As the infrastructure improves the territory will produce resources at a faster rate but produce new infrastructure at a slower rate as the harder to reach resources are harvested. If the territory is taken away the infrastructure self destructs so the new owners start from scratch.

I feel like I have built a whole house out of textwalls now. Hope you had fun reading it.

w00tb33r

[Malorn]

Influence doesn't necessarily end at the hex border. If it is like Civilization the influence could reach beyond the hex border giving plenty of locations along frontier territories to deploy galaxies.


The more-value the longer it's been held bit is not something I think would work out border/middle territories will change hands a lot. Territories by warpgates not so much. In practice it would end up with rear territories always having the high value and the border territories having little value. I believe the opposite should be true so strategic resource attacks along vulnerable territories can have an impact.

If rear territories are to be targets the idea of a resource structure or set of structures that can be destroyed/captured independently of territory ownership is the way to go.

[GuyFawkes]

I don't like being negative but a galaxy is just a big ass bullet magnet. Can it not be like Thunderbird2 (lol I know but only thing I can think that would work), drop an ams , it cloaks, then go grab another sort of thing. Maybe keep the galaxy to do the same job, just something more.

Captain1nsaneo's concerns are justified.

As for the resource denial thing - is there any? The hex thing seems more about resource acquisition and few tools so far as seen towards denial. Its not even like if you manage to take hexes to 5 sides of an enemy hex that it reduces that hexes acquisition of resources by 5/6ths.

Resources are continent wide, so there's little tactical benefit map wide other than keeping your third of the map tidy. Just hold your ground and go grab a cup of tea. Taking over a continent give little bonus to another so world wide they might as well be on another server for all it matters.

There doesn't appear to be any immediate 'oh shit' factor in the equation. You have x amount of whatever in your resources screen. That resource is denied but you still have x on your person. Its not like when someone drops a gen on some bio lab, and suddenly you are denied tech , galaxies etc until someone goes sort it out. Or there's even continental benefits by taking the battle islands and so on.

[Marsgrim]

Originally Posted by Synapse

Zomg higbywall!


Interesting thoughts higby. I'm not sure I quite agree that a personal resource for each player is a good idea. As people pointed out, it makes the taking of a base quite weak in terms of weakening the other empires.

It should be pretty clear what we want is a way to attack the empire, not just the players in front of us, and we expect to do that by warring on their resources. I dont see that happening with individual resource stores though because the effect seems like it would be way too weak and diffuse. I think you should take another look at #5, perhaps give players a free vehicle at the start of the day so it won't matter to them where they start.

#3 I like the idea of more variables to influence, good stuff, but please give us a way to have an impact beyond the front lines as well.

#1 if you can sustain a fight based on your kill bonuses alone...why have the passive income bonus from territory at all? It just pushes the winners to have slightly more vehicles but isnt directly more fun for anyone, and it makes resourcing an unstable equilibrium. The guys camped in the warpgate will always get fewer vehicles, and have no tactical options for quickly reducing the supply their enemies have.

This is a very good point that I think it would be good to consider Higby.

The game is a war between factions and from the response you made, I think too much effort is being made to satisfy the casual individual gamer (my understanding) as opposed to punishing and rewarding the empire as a whole. Further to Synapse's response on point #6 you are effectively rewarding solo play above teamwork by an empire if all that matters to resource levels is individual effort.

Not only that, but I think it may make the idea of capturing territory meaningless - it could create the attitude of "Why take that base or defend this tower, my resources are fine I am just going to keep flying around as a lone wolf".

Whilst on the one hand you may view empire resources as punishing an individual, I don't think any player of the game will think that. However individual resources will undermine the faction/teamwork element of the game to a significant degree I believe. If personal resources are all that matter then there is no point in having a territory control function, an empire can just sit at their warpgate and fight around it.

Look at PS1 - you needed a tech plant to pull the advanced vehicles and air craft. No one (well I hope no one is so petty) ever rage quit because their empire didn't own a tech plant, it made getting a tech plant a priority. Therefore the empire pushed to take a tech plant and it became the common goal.

I know there is a drive to make the game accessible, however I don't believe that it should come at the expense of undermining teamwork. Every game has reward and punishment mechanisms within it, that is the fun element - risk and reward - and eliminating risk ultimately makes the game less fun. There are a number of posts on the forum that talk about the fears of "dumbing down" games and how this impacted BF3/COD etc, and I think the resource element needs carefully looked at in line with that concern.