I had an idea for an alternate alert, because continent locking alerts get a little stale after awhile and I'd like to see something a little more dynamic. Supply Train: This alert would start 10 minutes after capturing a tech plant; the faction who captures the tech plant would have those 10 minutes to gear up and prepare for what is essentially going to be an escort quest. Once those 10 minutes are up the tech plant spawns what is essentially an oversized and longer version of a Sunderer, we'll call it The Mammoth (for flavor), this Mammoth, controlled by AI, will then make it's way along one of three set paths (randomized so that it's not immediately clear to aggressors where they should set up shop for ambushes) and head towards the Warpgate of the faction who just captured the tech plant. The goal is to defend the Mammoth while it travels. This ought to provoke some good vehicle combat since the Mammoth is always on the move, and as such is less likely to wait around while people deploy Sunderers and start their infantryside fisticuffs. For an alert like this faster vehicles such as the harasser and the lightning would shine, while still leaving important roles for MBTs and Sunderers. This type of alert would also heavily promote proper organization and team play, requiring proper scouting in order to spot ambushes and incoming vehicles and the like; as well as bring about a different kind of battle within the game: a mobile one. This alert would also be liable to spark a lot of variety of combat, giving ample opportunity for both ambushes and hefty tank battles as well as an opportunity for fast responding air combat while minimizing the over abundance of infantry combat we already see. Upon reaching the warp gate, the Mammoth will de-spawn and the escorting faction will win the alert; if the aggressors succeed in destroying the Mammoth then they will win the alert. This alert is liable to pit the other two factions against the escorting faction, and as such perhaps the Mammoths health will scale in proportion to the percentage population difference between the escorting faction and the other two factions within the hex, while never going below a set health pool benchmark. Either that or it would gain some kind of resistance to damage based on the population difference, but something would need to be done in order to help balance the fight accordingly. It would take some testing in order to properly balance the health pool of the Mammoth, as well as the effectiveness of engineers repairing the Mammoth, but other than that it should be relatively straight forward and good to go. There would probably need to be some companion alerts to this one for amp stations and bio labs, perhaps a sky whale version of the Mammoth for the amp stations, in order to promote air combat; and some sort of infantry version for bio labs. Rewards: If the escorting faction successfully defends the Mammoth they gain 15,000 XP as well as a continent wide +20% XP buff that lasts until that continent is locked, by their faction or any other. In addition, since it is a supply train, they gain a 25% increase in nanite generation. If the attacking faction(s) successfully destroy the Mammoth they gain 15,000 XP, as well as gaining a continent wide 10% XP bonus (morale has been boosted) that lasts until that continent is locked, and of course the joy of denying their foes the blessed supplies they so desperately need. The Mammoth: Over sized, slower moving version of a Sunderer, controlled by AI which will follow a set path. Roof can be stood on, and is easily accessible via small jump pad elevator located in the back. Sports an arsenal of 3 facility AA turrets in the center, and 1 AV turret on either end, useable by players. Has an enormous health pool and may be repaired by engineers at 50% of regular speed, however the engineers will be extremely vulnerable standing on top of the Mammoth or running alongside it. Cannot be damaged by mines (because that would be too easy). Can be damaged by C4, if you managed to get that close to plant C4 you've earned it. Will stop moving at 5% health and will slowly self repair until hitting 15%, at which point it will continue moving (engineers can repair at 100% speed during this point). This ought to make the alert more of a frantic nail biter towards the end. Will spout faction specific rhetoric/propaganda (a la Liberty Prime in Fallout 3) over loud speaker to every player within the same hex as the Mammoth (Probably only a couple times per hex, so it doesn't get spammy). Will also support the transport of 20 soldiers from the escorting faction, giving safe haven to medics and engineers and the like during the conflict. Thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Let me know, and if you like the idea feel free to post it elsewhere if you think the Devs are more likely to see it that way. I'm not liable to bother with twitter or reddit so go ahead.
An escort alert definitely sounds fun and interesting, but I'm not sure how feasible it'd be to implement on a technical level. It'd give the game some much-needed flair, though. As far as the concept itself, it sounds as though it'd turn the attacking faction into a pursuer through countless enemy hexes. If that were the case, it'd make defending the Mammoth incredibly easy past one or two friendly hexes, since the opposition wouldn't have any convenient way of getting back into the fight after getting killed once or twice. And it does sound a little cheesy to be piloting my tank in reverse to ward off those pursuers. The alternative would be for the escort vehicle to travel through a number of enemy hexes on a swinging path back toward friendly territory, but that wouldn't really make much sense -- so, instead of being merely an escort mission, perhaps the Mammoth could make relatively infrequent stops in enemy territory to gather intel / resources / whatever. It'd give the opposition a break and a chance to destroy the Mammoth, and it'd give infantry more of a role in the fighting.
Nom-nom-nom... nope, doesn't taste like mammoth at all. Some SOE guy said their finely trained slowpokes spend 6 months to create typical vehicle, how long would it take to create all stuff for this alert?
I honestly don't get it. How long does it take to create a vehicle model, model its physics after existing assets (such as the Sunderer, in this case), and throw it into the game? I realize there's some chaff to cut through, but six months is absolutely ridiculous. It shouldn't take more than a few days to create reasonably good concept art and render a computer model after that art, and implementing some rudimentary physics (i.e. collision detection boxes, functioning wheels and tracks, et cetera) doesn't sound like it should take terribly long, either. It's nearly 2015, damn it. Why does it seem like game engines are getting clunkier and more difficult to deal with instead of more elegant and streamlined? As technology advances, you'd kind of expect a lot of things to get simpler, not exponentially more complicated.
So... an alert that would draw every player on the continent to one location? Yep... nothing could possibly go wrong with that.
Simple solution -- scale the escort vehicle down a little, create two more escort vehicles, and make it so that they're all traveling through different hexes. Depending on how many escort vehicles make it back to the warpgate, the opposition and the defenders are rewarded proportionately.
That could work well, instead of having a single Mammoth choosing a randomized path you would simply have multiples taking each path. As for the path towards the warp gate going through friendly territory (for the escort faction) it would hopefully promote the attacking faction(s) to pull forward in an attempt to slow progress long enough to get heavier reinforcements into place in order to take care of the convoy. There could also be randomized circumstances where the Mammoth stops, be it for information gathering in enemy hexes. as Ransurian suggested, or for refueling at a friendly base or some such. Naturally there would need to be a fair amount of testing in order to figure out the best way to implement an alert like this, but technically speaking I don't see why there would be too much issue coding wise in getting an AI driven vehicle to follow a specific path, nor should there be much issue in creating said vehicle if it's based off current assets.
Love the concept, but here's what I'd do to prevent massive strain on the hex. As an alert: Use multiple objectives Objective functions as a cap point, ie, it will move in favour of those controlling it. Like a "tug of war." There could be turrets or something on the objectives to help improve defence. At the end of the Alert, points as awarded for proximity to the factions warp gate. More points are awarded for getting it all the way to the warp gate. As a constant: Resource management. Factions still get resources but the faction who defend their supply convoys gets either a resource boost or discount on the type of resource gathered(could be different depending amp, tech, or bio lab). Sort of a mini-version of a continent cap bonuses. Constantly ignoring the convoys would result in a penelty for resources. Both creates elements where the factions have to plan ahead, making full use of the open world. Battles wouldn't just take place around a base, but move across the entire continent. The most memorable fights I've had is when the combat is rolling across the fields from base to base, and a mechanic like would make the continents feel bigger. I also think this would go a long way in providing more interesting play for air and ground vehicles. Normal bases would still be very important since they provide more spawn options for infantry and vehicles, and territory alerts/caps and so on would still be there. Overall, I think would serve to revitalize PS2 and make full use of its open world. SOE are working on AI, and I doubt it would that hard to create objects moving on a preset path.
For that first point, the game physics currently don't allow for the "friction" required to make a player match the velocity of a vehicle. Just pointing it out. Second, I have a feeling that a squad dropping from a galaxy with drifter LA's would spoil the party pretty easily. And for the third point, Triage would get some decent use. This pleases me. So, all in all, I love the idea of a mobile alert type. It's obvious you put quite a lot of thought into this. I'd like to see something like this implemented.
It wouldn't work. Once the escorted vehicle was beyond the outlying facility of the tech plant it spawned from, the danger it would face goes down dramatically. The defenders hold all the advantages and the territory. Vehicle shields are on most tech plant outlying facilities and this coldblocks enemy vehicles almost entirely. Those that get through would be harassers and sunderers, both of which are chewed apart by MBT. Not to mention there'd be no spawn for the attackers to bring armor, making it a slow chase, whereas the defenders could summon hordes of lightnings as it goes. The only chance for a kill would be massive airpower, and all the defenders need to do is spawn as many skyguards as they can manage. There, alert won. The counterpoint would just be a platoon of TB liberators suiciding on the objective, dealing out more damage then the defenders could stop. On paper, it does sound like a fun time, but mechanically, the game doesn't support it. There is no significant way for an enemy to guerrilla through unowned territory. A vehicle term can be hacked, but two rockets permanently ends that advantage. Game modes like capture the flag or payload, on Team Fortress 2, work because of several things. First and foremost, there aren't any more then 24-64 players operating in the area. Two, anyone you kill off the objective, one way or another, typically has a downtime period of more then ten seconds. If nothing else, they need to run back to the place. Meanwhile, the objective is invulnerable. To make it otherwise promotes suicidal tactics, ignoring the enemy in favor of spamming the highest damage you can muster onto the objective, and otherwise just cheesing it.
That's what I was going for, I get tired of battles that stagnate in specific areas, or fights that amount to little more than a circle jerk over a control point. It seems a waste to have such large continents yet almost every battle is always contained to a hex, an alert like this would help get things rolling back and forth all over the map. It does need a lot of fleshing out, but I feel like the overall concept is pretty solid. That is true, perhaps the 'on the roof' portion can be scrapped. I'm not a developer, after all, so I'm not entirely sure of the limitations they deal with for implementing this kind of thing, it's more the general concept that's important as opposed to the details which would get properly fleshed out and tested. The AA turrets are meant to deter that sort of thing, but of course if it became clear that C4 was turning the Mammoth into swiss cheese a little too easily it could be adjusted to do little damage accordingly. Needs testing, naturally. You mentioned triage and I completely agree, there ought to be more in the way of dynamic choices to be made that actually affect a battle and something like this might help promote that.
You make some good points, it's a concept that someone more capable than I would have to play around with quite a bit in order to make it feasible and practical within the constraints the game poses, but I think it would have a lot of potential. The moment the tech plant is capped the two attacking factions also have time to prepare, and as such should be able to get vehicles in place in order to mount assaults. As for simply loading up in liberators and ramming the objective there are different ways to counteract 'cheesing it' as you put it, and I should think that through proper testing those sorts of issues would come to light and be handled accordingly.
I bet decent designer could create much better model for sunderer in a week than we have now. But hey, its SOE, they got special way to do things and explain things.
Excellent idea, but that mammoth would have to be one tough mother fker.......otherwise it would be air bait and hte team with the best planes would win hands down...a libs would show up and blast the crap out of it.....ofc, getting through an entire faction......that does sound a bit harder.
