Ideas for the "Rich get richer" problem

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The only exploit to watch out for is people using a continent with no territory to get free/cheap vehicles and then taking them through the warpgate to another continent. Thats bad, but could be easily stopped by setting a flag on the vehicle making it so that vehicle either can't go through a warpgate or it is destroyed if it does.

Travel times are a good limiting factor... Remember going to sanc to pull an MBT for a cont where you had no techplant?

[Duddy]

Originally Posted by Malorn

I don't think the population really matters. Territory will reflect population. If it doesn't; it will converge towards it. They aren't exact, becuase an even population matching could result in one empire pushing back another, but if there is a significant mismatch in population you're going to see territory change hands to reflect that. If there isn't a significant mismatch then it isn't a problem.

Sorry Malorn, I think we misunderstood each other;

I was referring specifically to vehicle timer reduction not being linked to territory/resources and preferably instead tied to population.

The cost could be tied to whichever.

But to address that first point, what if the major holder of territory on a continent is the lowest pop and they are being attacked by a vastly larger force?

I think they need the reduced timers there, not the attacking force. Hence why I feel we should be clear what is tied to what and why and subsequently how it interacts with it.

[Thoreaux]

The only way to fix it is to ensure large blocks of territory are fundamentally unstable, no other way around it. You could do this by making empires more and more susceptible to back-hacking as they took more territory:

Owning 1/3 of the map for example, would mean your rear bases would be tougher to cap than your front-line bases.

Owning 1/2 of the map would mean your rear bases would take as long to cap as your front-line bases.

Owning 2/3 or more of the map would mean your rear bases would take less time to cap than your front-line bases, approaching 1 minute or even less. Your empire would become untenable, long term. Back-hacks would eventually splinter all of your territory. If you devoted enough people to quickly re-secure 1 minute hack timers, you would lose ground on the front lines.

That is assuming population is balanced, which would need incentives.

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by Malorn

It reduces the motivation to keep taking. It doesn't matter who the weakest is, diminishing returns does not distinguish from territory taken from the weak or territory taken from the strong.

The 3-empire system is what prevents one empire from getting too strong.

As Evilpig said, double-teaming is the purpose of the 3-empire system to keep one empire from getting too strong, even when they have 50-60% of the global population, the other two can still team up and be competitive. The key is to make this sort of behavor natural, and not the sort of behavior where one of the weak empires piles on the other weak empire. We can influence that with incentives and missions.

The bigger issue is motivating people to fight on a lost-cause continent, and giving them the vehicles and tools they need to be successful and carve out a foothold.

We are talking about the same thing. Reread the dimishing returns proposition I made, it is to decrease incentives from any empire to pile on the weakest:
TR 40% / NC 30% / VS 30%: no diminishing returns for the TR
TR 40% / NC 40% / VS 20%: diminishing returns for both TR and NC for territories above 33%

We all agree that the 3 empire system is what creates the complexity and the auto-balance of PS.

The problem is a resource system which can potentially throw things off-balance with the "richer getting richest" effect. In PS1, territory controlled was not linked to the quality/quantity of equipment available.
e.g. if medkits cost resources in PS2, they did not in PS1.

You are disregarding the heavy advantage that a double team strategy (to pile on the weakest empire) represents when resources are involved.

In an even situation with 3 empires present, colluding with one empire and wiping the other out together is a win-win:
- you play with a 66% vs. 33% advantage which means your 33% troops face 0% to 33% enemies depending how the double-teamed empire reacts.
- without diminishing resources from land taken to the double-teamed empire, you get the same amount of resources for attacking a weaker force than you would in an even-fight situation.
- the 3rd empire having been wiped out vs. the bigger 2, it will be hard for it to get back up (do not tell me they will not get farmed) and get its resource spots back until the 2 empires stop double-teaming it.

I am not trying to say your propositions are bad. As I said, many good ideas (including yours) that work different ways have been proposed. Mine is just trying to emphasize on prevention and is an idea between others.

To be honest, I think a good system would be a combination of ideas that were proposed (including your vehicle rebates which I share; instead of rebates I would actually propose everything free from the sanctuary warpgate terminals).

Edit:

Originally Posted by NewSith

Travel times are a good limiting factor... Remember going to sanc to pull an MBT for a cont where you had no techplant?

Essentially, yes.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Duddy

But to address that first point, what if the major holder of territory on a continent is the lowest pop and they are being attacked by a vastly larger force?

Are you referring to the high pop attacker getting tons of resources or the fact that the defenders dont' have the power to defend?

If its the former, several posts back I had an idea where resource reward was tied population ratio, so capturing a territory with few or no defenders yields few resources. On the other hand the low pop dominating side would receive a strong bonus of resource, motivating them to defend it and get more people on the continent to help out.

But even if they don't successfully get people to defend, the high pop group will gobble up territory and then the tide turns. Hopefully they would not have gotten too many resources out of it due to a low-pop defender.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

instead of rebates I would actually propose everything free from the sanctuary warpgate terminals).

If the empire has no territory at all I agree. If they have a few pieces of territory then a discount. If they have several pieces of territory then nothing is free.

It can't be free all the time. Everyone can spawn at the foothold base, and particularly aircraft pilots will have little incentive to spawn anywhere else if they can get their stuff for free and spend an extra 10-15 seconds flying than if they had used a closer base.

Nothing should be free unless it is warranted, like having absolutely no territory/resource income. If they have some resource income but not a lot, then discounts are in order. If they have enough to sustain a reasonable fighting capacity then no discounts.

But stuff like implants and cert bypasses and grenades/medkits and anythign else that is intended to be a resource sink should definitely not ever be free. If they want those things - take territory!

[Whalenator]

I don't see what was wrong with Planetside 1's experience bonus/detriment system for server populations. It could be applied to current territory too.

ALSO IDEAS GO IN THE IDEA SECTION GHGNNRGHRNG

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Whalenator

ALSO IDEAS GO IN THE IDEA SECTION GHGNNRGHRNG

Those are debates. It's a little bit different.

Ideas are ideas and are demonstrated for the sake of being applied.
Debates exist solely for the sake of debates.

[KrazeyVIII]

I will put this under the 'wait until beta' section. I have a feeling that since there is a 3 way tug-of-war going on that the game will balance itself. When one empire starts spreading itself too thin the other two empire will be able to focus their forces in a few select areas where the more dominant empire cannot.

If for some reason it does NOT balance itself out then a simple quick fix would be to temporarily give the empires with very little zone control a minor increase in the resources provided in that area. Another option is to have unlimited resources in the staging area of each continent for offenses to be mounted if your empire is below a certain % of control over the continent.

[Hamma]

This is a great thread guys nice discussion.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

That was a lot to wade through.

The Warcraft 3 system was pretty good. Tax you the more resources you had. I like that idea but it can be more gradual in PS2.

How about: For every 1% of territory over 50% you own, you get taxed 1%. That way you will still want to grab "that next bit" because it still gets you resources, but in the end you're getting taxed at 50% for a sanc locked continent.

Just to spell it out for the non-thinkers: You're still getting more resources if you capture more land. You own all the resource piles on the continent. There is still incentive to keep that land.

I think the more important question is: If you see a whole mess of one colour, how do you support the underdog? As an Australian it's a cultural thing for me to ally myself with whoever's coming last but this isn't a universal cultural constant. Other countries/cultures around the world have a bias to "join the winning team" and grind the losers into the dust.

I said elsewhere on the boards that when you log in to PS1 and see that the VS have 8% server pop, they only get a 50% bonus to XP. Even though they are outnumbered almost 12:1 instead of the more normal 2:1. Therefore, at 8% server pop they should get +600% xp. This will encourage people to log on their VS alt to get more XP (4th Empire HOORAY!) and pops become more balanced.

So you can still pull the basic variants of whatever (because they don't cost resources, correct?) but you're getting huge XP/kill, which looks nice and make you feel awesome.

And the sanctuaries should have HHHUUUUGGGGEEEEE resource nodes in them. So everybody gets X units of resources regardless of how it's going "outside".

And, if you're still with me, how many times have you ever seen the PS1 world 1 colour without that colour having more than 60% pop?

33% pop and 0% land is only a theoretical construct and will not happen IRL so let's not worry about that. (Famous last words...)

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Hamma

This is a great thread guys nice discussion.

Not to jinx it but we're on page 8 with no flaming, hostilities or useless drivel. The entire 8 pages is actually intelligent discussion. I'm stunned.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by StumpyTheOzzie

How about: For every 1% of territory over 50% you own, you get taxed 1%. That way you will still want to grab "that next bit" because it still gets you resources, but in the end you're getting taxed at 50% for a sanc locked continent.

How does reducing the resource income of the empire with all the resources fix the problem?

Does it motivate the underdogs to fight?

Does he help the underdogs compete?

Does it make holding the territory any more difficult?


The whole diminishing returns thing has come up a few times but I don't see how it helps the problem. Even with diminishing returns on rewards it doesn't change the fact that the empires with little or no territory still have nothing, and the empire that conquered them still has more than enough told them down.

[Grognard]

Originally Posted by Malorn

How does reducing the resource income of the empire with all the resources fix the problem?

Does it motivate the underdogs to fight?

Does he help the underdogs compete?

Does it make holding the territory any more difficult?


The whole diminishing returns thing has come up a few times but I don't see how it helps the problem. Even with diminishing returns on rewards it doesn't change the fact that the empires with little or no territory still have nothing, and the empire that conquered them still has more than enough told them down.

I did offer an alternative to all of that. Must have a flaw somewhere that I didnt notice, but its definately an alternative, using present game mechanics only...

[StumpyTheOzzie]

nothing...