The only sensible way to eliminate kill farming zones is to make territory domination actually worth it. Taking over an entire continent is not a reasonable goal for the average player. We need shorter-term rewards for moving your front up, but at the same time we don't want to incentivize capturing the same territory repeatedly. First of all, the XP reward for capturing territory is way too low. Then there's the fact that we lack the all-important resource revamp update that was supposed to give a tactical advantage by cutting off resources. Anyway, let's get down to some ideas that could be implemented right now. Idea #1: Territory Capture Bounty -The longer a territory goes without changing hands, the higher the XP reward for capturing it is. -"Would this encourage ghost capping?" No, because there will (hopefully) be an equal effort on both sides to capture the adjacent territory. The XP bounty raises equally on both sides of the front. -This idea discourages recapturing the same territory over and over since the capture bounty is erased after the capture. Meanwhile, the losing team sees a huge bounty pop up on the territory they just lost (if it hasn't been captured by them recently). This ensures that there is an incentive for the losing team to not abandon the fight. Idea #2: An SCU for Every Territory -Place a destructible SCU at every base. When it dies, the built-in spawn points at that base no longer function. The time required to capture the base may significantly decrease as well. -This wouldn't incentivize capturing territory, but it would make it much easier to end stalemates. -It may significantly decrease the time needed to capture territories, possibly making ghost capping and zerging easier, but it WOULD NOT encourage it. Anyway, the faster the zerg hits opposition the better. -This idea would encourage players to bring more sunderers as backup spawn points. Since these can be deployed anywhere, it would encourage more "outside-of-base fighting". Idea #3: Nanite Drain (Pre-Revamp) -Slowly decrease nanite regeneration rate within territories adjacent to an enemy. -One of the largest contributors to stalemates is the readily available power multipliers that both sides constantly have access to. By forcing the opposing teams to pull vehicles from other territories, there is a greater chance of force multiplier imbalance, thus helping to end stalemates. *** Now, please get rid of all associations you have between the terms "zerging" and "ghost capping". Zerging is a problem that can only be fixed by removing XP gain from the excessively large-population faction, which is another topic altogether. Ghost capping is an admittedly boring tactic that few want to defend against, but guess what? It's the only way to force a zerg to break apart and defend multiple fronts. It would not hurt the gameplay to make ghost capping less of a chore by speeding it the hell up if nobody is around. In fact, it would improve the gameplay by forcing zergs to split up even faster. ***
Territorial conquest doesn't offer personal feedback on how well you are doing compared to other players. When you capture or lose a base your personal contribution to it is negligible. In other words, in MMOFPS of this scale actions of a single player are mostly irrelevant. That is why I think people prefer farming kills over conquering territory. They can't control who owns the base but at least they can control their KDR and SPH. Question is, if people prefer good old TDM kill farming then what is the point of trying to force objective play on them?
Idea #1 is great, it doesnt solve all the problems but could be coded quickly (1-2days and then ready to QA) and would be a step in the right direction. Idea #2 im not sure about it, seems a bit like a radical change, would need to test it. Idea #3 is good but Id prefer a global nerf. Then again Idea#1 and #3 could be implemented in 2 days of work maximum and then I dont know how long the QA process last internally but we could get a much better game in 1.5months.
Problem with 1 is I remember back in the World Domination thingy days defenders could, in a way, exploit the system. For example in a base that has a high bounty, they let the enemies get a point, then take it back and the defender bonus would get ticked over and over and over. Tech plants were notorious for this type of tactic. Point 2 is actually something I like. There already are medium bases that have SCU's. Like the Palisade. I wouldn't think it'd be necesary on really small bases, but bigger ones, especially those strategic "crossroads" type bases that split into multiple lanes and that's where the fighting tends to be the heaviest. Point 3 I can't comment on. In a way I had an idea on resources where the further you are from the warp gate or the required facility, the higher the cost of a vehicle gets. So you basically get your MBT for free at the WG, but closer to the other WGs and the cost goes up, to like 600 resources for an MBT. A completely different concept. But the idea being that if you have the resources, good. But if you don't, you have to chance this little thing called "logistics" and try to get your armor from further back. Also would lend some credit to the idea that ambushes in enemy territory could become a more common tactic.
I'm not a fan of point 1. I mean no offense, but we need to realize that XP incentives do not change the way people play. Making a base worth more XP has no impact on the time, effort, or strategy involved in taking any specific base(it is also why people will always spawn kill regardless of xP provided). Point 2 and 3 are definitely a step in the right direction, I'm not sure that an SCU in every base is the way to go, but certainly making uncontested, 1 capture point bases easier to take should definitely be a priority. Funny that the original resource system did almost exactly what point 3 asks for, and phase two of the current resource system will work towards that as well. I wonder why they needed to push the revamp on us so prematurely? Wish they waited to revamp until their idea was more fleshed out and ready for release. While people ask for content, I don't think anyone sees a dumbed down, simplified, incomplete, and temporary resource system change as meaningful content.
#1 was done with the World domination series, and it didn't work out all that well. My question OP, why do we need to make territory important? In a game about shooting people, why do you want to remove incentive/opportunity to do so?
I saw these questions asked a few times in this thread, so I'm just quoting your post. About your first point: Yeah I remember the WDS event and all the horribly boring ghost capping gameplay that went along with it. It was a massive failure, but keep in mind there are a few major difference between WDS and my idea. In my idea there are no defensive bonuses, only offensive bonuses (bonus XP for capturing a territory, not defending it). This makes sure there's no incentive to keep defending the same territory all day long. Another big difference is that the XP bounty is highly time sensitive and a one-time reward. Once the bounty is fulfilled, it may not be worth capturing the same territory again for 24 hours. Eventually the middle of the continent, containing highly contested areas, becomes an unattractive place to wage war due to low bounties. This encourages large pushes deep into enemy territory. The enemy will want to push back due to newly revealed bounties. WDS was random and without purpose while my idea is systematic. About your second point: Yea the average player has very little influence over which territory his faction captures, so solo players are unlikely to drop what they are doing to go and fight a 1 vs 32+ battle for a territory with a large bounty. Regardless, I'm not trying to distract from the most interesting part of FPS gameplay: shooting. Capturing territory is simply the means to an end goal. That goal is to shift the battlefield to another location (outside of the usual farm zones) to keep things refreshing. Planetside 2 is rather driven by zerg platoons that look strictly for battlefields that give them the highest return on XP for the amount of time they play, hence why I came up with "Idea #1". The other ideas simply make capturing territory less painful. I tried addressing this point above. Do you really think medics revive people just to be nice? Your example with spawn killing is not a very good one. People will spawn kill for the tiniest bit of XP because if you don't kill that guy that just ran out of the spawn room, someone else will always be glad to take that bit of XP instead. Then there's the fact that he could be a light assault ready to wreak havok on your sunderer with C4. The only way to end spawn killing is to prevent people from spawning around enemies. With that said, there are XP incentives that actually influence the average player. Some common examples are air-to-air ganking, fighting in cluster-**** battles, ammo dropping, and of course reviving. The issue is that it is not always all that apparent that there is more XP to be found elsewhere.
