WDS Preseason and Upcoming Changes

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Malorn, Sep 24, 2013.

  1. Malorn

    Updated: 10/16/2013

    Hello everyone! We have some updates for you regarding the goals of the World Domination Series preseason and upcoming changes to it.


    The WDS Preseason
    The goal of the World Domination Series is to create a fair long-term event where outfits and empires can come together to defeat their opposing empires over the course of several weekly challenges. We want to give you a fun empire and server competition to give you something more meaningful and persistent to achieve day-to-day beyond the next capture or cert farm.

    As most players should know, we are currently very focused on performance optimizations, and work on other features has been suspended until those optimizations are complete. The WDS is something that we managed to create with very few resources as a means of giving you something fun and engaging to participate in while we complete the performance update. This also the perfect opportunity to beta test the idea of the WDS since the game will not have significant mechanic changes for several weeks.

    The WDS preseason is intended to find out what works and what doesn’t and to get your feedback so when we do it for real you will have a fun, fair, and engaging experience.


    Player Concerns
    Your feedback has been received, and there are several concerns with this event, primarily revolving around fairness. These are the top concerns that we have heard loud and clear from you and briefly what we are doing to address them.

    Population Imbalance. We will be changing the scoring to scale with enemy population on a per-continent and per-empire basis. Underdogs will earn more points for their captures and holdings.

    Geographical Imbalance. For the preseason we will be rotating warpgates soon in an upcoming hotfix, and may do additional rotations during the event. For future seasons we will have scheduled rotations to ensure geographical fairness.

    Empire Hopping. We will be adding a participation requirement in the preseason and are considering scaling rewards with participation in future seasons so empire loyalty is properly rewarded.

    Off-Peak/Ghost Capping. We will be changing the scoring such that it scales with total population, so continents with many foes will be worth more, empty continents will be worth much less. This will generally mean that peak time will have a higher point potential than off-peak.

    Runaway Empire. We will be adding a bonus when taking territories from the empire with the highest season score on the server. This is expected to keep the competition competitive and give the lower scoring empires an opportunity for a comeback.

    Depth/Variety. We will be adding increased capture and hold value the longer a territory is held. This provides for potentially more lucrative captures deep in enemy territory and a reason to defend long-held territory. We also have plans for weekly challenges that will change the rules slightly to mix things up.

    In-Game UI Integration. For the preseason we are working on an in-game WDS summary on the TAB screen, and to add WDS capture and hold values to the regional tooltips on the map so you can see exactly how much a given territory is worth. Other UI integration points are being considered for future seasons.

    Server vs Global Rewards. We do not have any pre-season plans to address this issue but we are aware of it. For future seasons we are considering more rewards based on your empire’s performance on your server.


    Upcoming Scoring Changes
    Our goal is to get these in before the preseason is over so we get some time to see how they play out, adjust values, and get your feedback on how well they are working. We will also be extending the WDS by 1 week to get more feedback on these changes. ETA: Now Live!

    Base Score Values [Live!]
    The base scoring is focused around capturing and holding territories. These are base scoring values before modifiers are applied. They are of course subject to change.

    Small Outpost = 10 points for capture, 20 points per hour held
    Large Outpost = 30 points for capture, 50 points per hour held
    Major Facility = 50 points for capture, 100 points per hour held

    These point values are increasing by a factor of 10 because the difficulty modifier will generally reduce it in the typical case and decimal values are ugly. Overall point earnings should be similar to current. This will result in more point potential but will be offset by the difficulty modifier reduction.


    Difficulty Modifier [Live!]
    Each empire has a Difficulty Factor applied to the scoring of each continent. Difficulty is calculated per-empire and is based on enemy percentage of population cap.

    Difficulty = MAX(EnemyPop1/PopCap, EnemyPop2/PopCap, MinValue)

    This is intended to address the issues of Population Imbalance and Off-peak/Ghost Capping. More enemy population = more challenge = more potential points. If you are outnumbered, then you will be earning more points for captures and holdings than the highest population empire. Peak time will also be worth more potential points due to more enemies on more continents than off-peak time. Ghost capping empty continents will be worth much less than fighting where there is opposition.


    Top-Dog Bounty [Live!]
    Territory belonging to the empire on the server with the current highest score for the event will be worth 50% capture points. This is intended to allow lower-scoring empires to catch up to a leader and to encourage those empires to go after the dominant empire.

    Bounty is currently set to 1.5x capture score.


    Territory Value Increases with Time Held [In, but currently disabled]
    Each hour a territory is held it will increase slightly in both capture value and hold value (though the rates of each may not be the same). This is essentially an hourly compound interest being applied to the territory capture and hold value. There is a limit of course so it won’t be wildly disproportionate, but the intent is to add some depth and to encourage both capture and defense of long-held territories. Combined with the top-dog bounty this is expected to be one way to catch up to a dominant empire and to deny them the more lucrative territory gains.


    Alert Victory Points [In, but currently disabled]
    World Domination points will be awarded for winning alerts, with more points for dominating victories. These are intended to make Alerts relevant for the WDS instead of alerts being a conflicting goal. Since alerts are more frequent off-peak this will also be one way for off-peak players to contribute more to the event.


    Weekly Challenges [NYI]
    These are weekly tweaks in scoring rules. The goal is that they will help mix up the event and give empires and outfits opportunities to pull out ahead or play to their strengths. We may try out a few of these in the preseason. Here are some of the ideas for challenges we are currently considering:
    • Esamir/Amerish Madness – Scoring on a specific continent will be worth significantly more points. Example: Amerish is worth double points. Alert frequency also adjusted so the only alerts you get are on this continent. (Don’t worry, we probably won’t ever do an Indar one)
    • Size Always Matters – Major Facility point values increased (bio labs, tech plants, amp stations). Facility Alerts increased in frequency and continent domination alerts reduced.
    • Red Alert – Alert victory point values are increased to have more significant contribution.
    • Molon Labe – Territory Hold value increase over time and max value is increased. Defense is more rewarding.
    • Pillage – Capture value increase over time and top dog bounty increased. Attack is more rewarding.
    • Sudden Death – Base Capture and Hold values increased, so more points overall earned this week. This might make an interesting challenge for the last week of the season.
    Please let us know what you think of these changes and the event in general. Constructive feedback always welcome! Help us make it better!
    • Up x 66
  2. ItsJustDash

    YES
    YES
    YES
    YES
    YES
    [IMG]
    • Up x 25
  3. Van Dax

    thats looking pretty good.
  4. Flashtirade

    [IMG]
    Fantastic.
    • Up x 4
  5. Lonecompany

    Can't wait to see how this turns out, thank you DEVs.
  6. xboxerdude

    Yes I am so happy I saw this before I went to bed thank you guys for actually making it fun, and worthwhile playing as NC
  7. dirtYbird

    WDS is a distraction, it is not bringing players back to the game, not that it was probably intended to.
    Scoring changes for what is pretty much a meaningless event will excite a few, so would a handful of beads and a mirror.
    Imo its nothing more than a placebo to appease the masses who are duped into thinking changes to the game are being made.
    Nothing more than scoring criteria for the WDS is being changed.

    We all understand that due to optimization we can expect next to nothing being added to the game for months.
    Can you please at least fix the bugs in the game, as well as the bugs you create when you attempt to fix the bugs.

    Even one bug fix a week without introducing new/old bugs would be an achievement.

    I like playing the game but I am never thinking about the WDS scoreboard when I do.
    Not one of my ingame actions has been to conscientiously assist my faction in winning the WDS.
    The population imbalance on Briggs for example existed well before this.
    • Up x 4
  8. DJPenguin

    [IMG]
    • Up x 16
  9. Hibiki54

    [IMG]
    • Up x 16
  10. disky00

    I'm not the only one that thinks that this mechanic should become a permanent component of the game, am I?
    • Up x 10
  11. Sen7rygun

    Looks good. Though just to point out, extra points for attacking and/or extra points for defence are pretty meaningless since the overall objective is just to cap and hold as much land as possible. Bonus points for retaining land/defence will still be useless to a team that only holds 15% of the land on a map unless their population is so small that holding the minority stake still counts as punching above their weight.
    • Up x 2
  12. Selerox

    Exactly what I was thinking.
    • Up x 6
  13. Gringosuave

    So SOE does realize that there are pop imbalances, how long before they try to fix the things that cause these pop imbalances, like the TR straight up having better equipment than the NC thanks to the myriad of nerfs the NC has received over this games lifetime
    • Up x 3
  14. Tack

    [IMG]
    Tl;Dr: Underdogs get more points.
    • Up x 5
  15. UberBonisseur

    Aren't you afraid that it might take a LOT of manhours and resources for something that is basically a "XP boost generator" ?


    Still think it's worth the effort, over a XP rework that is not kill-centered but capture centered ?
    Or rather grant XP over a shorter period of time than 1 week, but not necessarily stemming from alerts ?


    At this point we've been lectured so much about "putting development on hold" and delaying new content, that it feels like you're trying to shove WDS despite the multiple issues that've been raised.



    I know there's no perfect solution, but pop balance should be adressed before WDS; those changes only prevent the snowballing nature of 4th factionning, but the overpop remains.
    • Up x 5
  16. Irathi

    One question about the way the score is calculated.

    It says that the score is adjusted depending on the empire population, but shouldn't this be the area population if possible? Idk how much of a problem it could pose, but isn't it likely that people will start capping the small undefended bases rather than getting involved in the major fights? Simply because they still get the bonus cap points since it is the empire population that dicates and not the actual population in that area.

    It could be completely unproblematic, just a thought.
  17. vincent-

    [IMG]
    • Up x 3
  18. Avaa

    This is not a good idea.
    Off-peak population is where the population imbalance is the most obvious and during an alert it becomes completly unbearable for the underpopulated factions.
    I play on Miller, and outside of primetime TR has upwards off 40 % worldpop without an alert going. If there is an alert, it can even go up to 50 % worldpopulation, due to everyone switching to TR or logging off because they, understandably, see not fun in fighting TR and they "tactical zergiority" and have been on the reciveing and for a long time now.
    Alerts in off-peak time completly destroy any good fight that may have been going on and replace it with getting shelled by dozens of prowlers and fractures, farted to death by a vulcan and generaly being outnumberd horribly.
    The majority (of non TR ) do not care about alerts, at all, simply because the fights they create are not fun.
    All talk of "be tactial", fight harder, go unite with each other, etc. is moot; Fun is, for me, the most important metric of succes in Planetside.
    I don't care if I get pushed back, lose battles or in general get my *** handed to me as long as the fights were fun and equal. This never happens outside primetime and even then it is sadly rare.
    This leads to every alert going to TR, most of the time with a dominating victory.
    Having the result of this influence the WDS score would undermine your efforts to balance this event with the population in mind.

    TL; DR :
    Population imbalance way more obvious outside of Primetime.
    Alerts always won by overpopulated faction. ( TR with up to 50 % on Miller )
    Incorporating off-peak alert results into WDS score undermines effort combat population imbalance.

    Edit:
    Some Data, making the imbalance obvious.
    Numbers are maybe a bit low, but still acurate.
    • Up x 8
  19. Vesanus

    Any chance the difficulty modifier could be applied to Alert XP rewards as well?

    Plus I echo everything said above. Fixing the XP rewards on an alert to pop levels might help. As well as a Dominating Victory being renamed to Hollow Victory when the pop balance is completely out of whack :p
    • Up x 4
  20. JOups

    I´m starting to love you guys ;)