Some ideas about what could be done to improve territory control, incentive to defend and attack. What is this all about – AFAIK in PS1 people used to camp all the time, leaving the map more or less empty, with everyone concentrated on 1-2 spots. As it is now, this is avoided and armies are constantly on the move, however many people have complained that there’s no –real- incentive to defend and hold a base, resulting in capturing and abandoning a base, moving on to the next. In general people will only defend for fun, boasting how they’ve “held the zerg” etc, but the game does not reward them in any meaningful way. I will try to identify the short-falls of the current system, and then try to propose a possible solution. Disclaimer: all values and "exact" things in this post are simply place-holders, i am not competent enough to provide actual numbers that will keep the game balanced, etc. No point in discussing those, it's up to the devs to figure it out. Problems: The bonuses for controlling a base are marginal at best Resources are very rarely a problem, unless fighting on a more-or-less warp-locked continent Capturing (even empty) bases gives experience, defending does not Here’s what I have came up, as possible solutions for the problems listed. The goal of these solutions is to change things in such a way that people will be provoked to defend but also attack (instead of camping): 1. The bonuses for controlling a base are marginal at best Analysis: Biolabs and techplants are somewhat ok, giving passive hp-regen and access to heavy tanks, but I feel it could be made even better and more important – the HP-regen is good to have but in no way crucial and basically changes nothing, heavy tanks are very important but don’t really apply to everyone (most people play infantry 99% of the time). Ampstation give more resources, which is a good start, but bonuses they provide are currently the worst – cooldown rate on phalanx turrets. This is so lackluster that no one even thinks about it when planning attacks/defense. Solution: Significantly boost the existing bonuses coming from major bases, making them really noticeable and/or stacking. Introduce new, smaller (think current-rate), bonuses for smaller bases. Pros/Cons: Nothing, except the obvious incentive to defend and hold a base for your faction. 2. Resources are very rarely a problem, unless fighting on a more-or-less warp-locked continent Analysis: Resources seem to be not all that important and quite easy to get. In my experience so far, the current resource gain rate combined with the vehicle cooldowns and increasing experience with vehicle use, result in refilling a vehicles worth before it gets destroyed, most of the time. In the worst case scenario people will just switch continent for a couple of minutes to gather resources then come back to where the action is. Solution: Increase vehicle and equipment pricing, increase the maximum resources poll for players, increase overall resource gain per territory while increasing key, “resource”, bases output (Ampstations). The increased resource poll means that people would be able to stockpile more and “burst-use” their resources when needed but then they will have a long cooldown to recharge. The goal is to deny chain-spawning vehicles and maxes, while leaving the option to quickly redeploy for emergency measures. Pros: The increased equipment and vehicle cost would accentuate the need for resources. That, combined with the overall reduction of resource gain and specialized resource bases should increase the importance of having more territory and controlling key points. Cons: The increased resource poll might cause problems because of the resources people gain while they are offline. Still, at worst they will start their sessions with full resources and carry on from there, as it is today, only that if they waste all their resources they will have to fight and capture/hold bases to get them back. 3. Capturing (even empty) bases gives experience, defending does not Analysis: Some will argue that the best way to “farm exp” is to defend bases, since you get many kills. However, in my experience most people would rather move on to another base instantly after capturing. Capturing a big base provides 1k experience, combined with the experience the attackers get from killing all the defenders. However, holding a base and actually “defending it”, getting the “facility defended” message, does nothing. Even though defenders get some bonus to exp for their actions during defending (repairs, kills and all) apparently it is not enough to motivate the “zerg” to stay and defend. Solution: Add an exp bonus for successful base defense (re-capturing all the points/satellites). Pros/Cons: This should equalize the basic exp interest of defending and attacking. Bonus idea, addressing the subject as a whole: It would be nice if a system was created, that would add additional value to attacking defended bases, instead of hitting empty bases for the 500 exp. I had two ideas addressing this, I will post them both even though in the end I prefer the second one. The common point in both ideas is that basic base-capture bonuses must be significantly lowered or removed altogether. 1. Track the time territories have been under control before capture. Provide bonus exp (or % multiplier) for every X minutes/hours/whatever a territory has been held. Recently captured bases should have no (or close to) value, whereas old bases should provide much bigger experience. Pros: This system should penalize constant moving around the map looking for empty bases to capture, bases switching hands every 5 minutes, etc. Cons: Deep bases, close to warpgates will become the most valuable on the map, which does not comply with my idea to accentuate key-bases on key-locations. 2. Track the number of soldiers of the currently-controlling faction active on the hex (hexes, for big bases) of a base, for the last X minutes. Provide a bonus or multiplier to the capture bonus for attackers, based on that number. The time should be something like 5 or 10 minutes, must find a good balance-spot to prevent attackers from getting huge bonuses for capturing a base that is under siege for a very long time, but also make sure attackers do get credit for capturing, even if a base gets abandoned in the end before “turning”. The same bonus should be applied to defenders when they deny a base to its attackers, perhaps with lower values for the defenders. Pros: This system (the tracking is already in the game) should discourage people from attacking empty bases, while also inciting people to stay and defend against numerous enemies (heroic defense for the win?) Cons: It is possible that organized platoons might start early-abandoning bases on the way of huge zergs, in order to deny the attackers the bonus for activity.
Exp is awarded for base caps not for holding territory. The rewards drive the behavior. Add a percentage increase to exp across continents for the territory held by your faction. Each piece of territory held by your faction gives you a 1% bonus to exp gain. This would be simple to understand and would encourage factions to hold onto territory.
I never really liked the idea of added incentive for huge battles. I mean sure, it will help reduce ghost capping, but in a way I feel is detrimental to the game. If the "goal" of the game is to capture territories, why reward the guys who attack the base with the most defenders? Shouldn't we be encouraging continent-wide strategy in this game? And strategy dictates it makes sense to attack the bases with the least defence, not the most. I agree with many of your points, especially making territory more valuable. But I think another method is needed to promote base defense.
Agreed, to some extent. There's a balance to be had between making it better to attack a weak point, and making it so that a front is impossible to defend, because there are too many bases that are vulnerable. Both these extremes make population the single most important metric, which is usually bad for gameplay and player satisfaction as a whole.
1. Yea, what bonuses shall it be? Remember that any bonus a base gives is something you will LACK if you dont own said base. So it cant be to powerful. Exactly, Tanks from Tech plants is almost to powerful. Yet you think its somewhat worthwhile? See the problem? 2. What you suggest doesnt fix the ressource problem, it only changes it around. Fact is, you cant fix the ressource problem with the current system of getting a set amount of ressources for each territory + the bonus for fighitng within a territory, and the fact that there is a large difference between players pulling vehicles all the time, and players playing infantary a lot as well. You dont want to frustrate the former, but thats already happening (its easy to burn through all your res). So you simply cant balance it out. Its not possible, to many different playstyles. Its vehicles that need to change drasticly, now how you aquire them. Otherwise you cant fix the spam. 3. Defending gives a 15% XP reward on everything, thats actually quite a lot if you do good. Its attacking that needs to change. Reward based upon how long and nasty the fight for the territory was is the solution.
I think the solution would be if the main facilities controlled ALL of the resources. Tech gives Mechanized, Amp gives Aeronautics, and Biolabs give Infantry, you get a basic 30 of each from the warpgate. The smaller outposts only provide logistics and influence to the major facilities, since they're so easy to take, I don't think they should be worth anything to the meta game, they're just stepping stones to capture the main facilities. Additionally, You should get %50 of the resources from the other continents that you're not on. So while it's easier to shut down a faction's Aeronautics on one continent, to shut them out for their whole faction, you'd need to hold ALL of their amp stations on all continents. It would encourage more dynamic continental combat, as people would care more about defending each of the facilities on the continent and not simply defend the very last point to keep the benefit. Additionally, last night on Amerish for example, TR pop was 60%, NC was like 35 and vs was %5 because the NC owned the buff (defending the last couple hexs), the TR were pushing to take the buff, and the VS couldn't give a **** about the continent, so they were on indar. With something like this, The VS would still have an incentive to at least hold their bio lab or amp station to maintain the resources from teh other continent, and those that were there defending would get the resources from the other continents which they have a better foothold in.
