Hi everyone, zerg rushes. You love them, you hate them. As somefrom from Cobalt TR, I am very familiar with the concept. And to be honest, while the sight of an entire amor column can be pretty. To often, I see how it hurts TR to be unable to spread out their population across an entire frontline. And I totally can get it, why VS and NC might want to contain the havoc they can deal by double teaming. And let's be frank: +96 battles on small outposts are not fun. I am well aware that devs have tried and tried again to tweak the spawn system to naturally distribute randoms across the map, but that doesn't help with dedicated platoons just piledriving with sunderers and galaxies to a location. So after rolling the problem in my head for a while, I came up with another approach: Zerg Fatigue. I've heard in PS 1 bases could take damage and had to be built up again to some extent. And while I don't expect something like this to make it into PS2, I can totally see, how an zerged base, especially small outpost, might totally be wrecked after a gruling fight. To reflect this I propose a Zerg fatigue. If for a majority of a bases capture, the pop is well above a recommended size, it will be exhausted after capture for say 5 minutes. During this time, it doesn't provide any stable links into HOSTILE territory. So a clutch push to reconnect cutoff territory is still possible. This way a zerg rush will either be stuck endlessly in a waiting game or have to scramble at every base into a new lane, which might cause the whole operation to fall apart unless that zerg has amazing logistics. There are of course numerous factor's to consider. Like distance to own warpgate, overall territory to which a pop can spread for fights and much more, but those are factors already probably being considered as part of the spawn system. Mind you fatigue is primarily a thing happening to an incoming rush, defenders are at no obligiation to not overpop a base in defense. But the fact, that during most times, a faction wants to expand (outfit ressources, alert, whatnot), this won't likely be an issue. Because if overall pop is already balanced on a continent, you cannot just overstack all base defenses and hope to win. Here are some more ideas what zerg fatigue might look like and a general summary: If attacker population exceeds the treshold of a base given its type, base begins taking zerg fatigue over time Once zerg fatigue reaches a certain threshold, base becomes zerg exhausted. Zerg fatigue resets when capture on a base is stopped (timer/flag count reset to normal) Zerg exhaustion lasts for 5-10 Minutes, probably scaling for size of target. Zerg exhaustion can be extended by new zerg fatigue. During exhaustion a base will not provide stable links into enemy territory. Allied Territory is still being securely connected. The threshold for zerg fatigue is lowered during zerg exhaustion. For some small interconnecting bases, zerg fatigue might also reduce the capture time, A zerg exhausted base should maybe neither autorestore SCU nor other generators upon switching ownership. Base threshold for population that triggers fatigue should be dynamically adjusted based on distance to warpgate and pop/controlled continent among other factors like risk of cutting off enemy territory, etc. A base with zerg exhaustion might not generate ressources for outfits as another incentive not to use zerg rushes. Thise are just some pointers, to give a rough idea of the concept. Anyway wanted to get this off my chest, if you don't like it, I cannot help it.
Anything to stop the 60+ brain-amputeted zerglings desperately avoiding meeting a group that would pose an actual threat.
How about something more simple. Divide cap experience by overpop percentage. You overpop enemy by 2X, your cap XP is divided by 2. Overpop enemy by 3X, your cap experience is divided by 3. Overpop enemy by 4X, your cap XP is divided by 4. Overpop enemy, and then enemy fail pop dumps on you at last minute but you still get the cap? Get rewarded with full XP. Maybe extend that cap XP change to all XP change, player kills and damages, everything. Then maybe we wouldn't hate getting pop dumped so badly, cause generally when someone pop dumps you they are in a tactically bad position, you may lose the base but you get lots of kills on them in the process, get rewarded with more XP wouldn't be so bad on a personal level.
That also sounds like an idea that is also probably easier to implement and doesn't require to much work on the UI. Perhaps in such a case the UI should have a filter much like Influence cloud, which shows the fight with the best experience.
The cap exp is already tiny; even large bases, with a squad with some boosts, end up being like 10-15 certs for the 6 or so minutes ~= 2 certs a minute... which is unbelievable terrible. The problem is, and always has been, player mentality and bad PLs. Even if you reduced it to 0 exp people would still do it because "tactical play", "milsim", or "painting the map".
That is unfortunately true. For the latter point, I like tactical play and going for the win, but I want to do so in a fun way, by winning through skill of individual and group, not by "virtue" of having 5 times more players on hand. Guess that's the high road these days, which is why it almost never happens, but still.
Yeah, meant it more as those players that think winning is all that matters instead of having a fun win, and think they were being 'tactical' by dropping 2 platoons on every base using a single waypoint each.
