Instead of new vehicles

[The Fugitive]

I'm trying to figure out if this question is rhetorical in favor of my standpoint, or rhetorical in favor of yours.   Forum board posters are not a representative sample of the playerbase.  There's lots of guys on here that would pipe up and say they'd go to the underdog side.  Most of them might even actually do it.  If that mindset was a majority thing though, don't you think we would see less hordes in game now?

Sure.  There are always some who enjoy being on the pressed side.  Hey, at least you'd never have to worry about ENY again.

The problem I see with the game is, dogpiling on an undefended or poorly defended location works, and works well.  You get points, you get perks, you get attaboys.  Your side advances on the map.  You get maybe 1 or 2 grumbles from the usual suspects about 'way to go, those buildings sure put up a helluva fight!' and you move on to your next base.

There is no ingame reward for defending a base as it stands now.  That's a major problem.  The only thing you do by defending is momentarily slow down the other side's offense.  Somebody possibly gives an attaboy if your side completely crushes an oncoming horde, but apparently that isn't as motivating as something that says SYSTEM: in front of it. 

I don't know what kind of a carrot to offer people for defense.  Perks?  'SYSTEM: Rooks successfully repelled a Bishop attack on A34'?  That's the tricky part, is to provide people with a motivation to do the stuff that's good for the game.  I think that's part of the problem across the board.

Wiley.

Thats where I think the carrot should be as well. Not enough people work the defensive side of the game. No "glory" in it other than patting yourself on the back for a job well done.

As for the strats, I've been trying to think of what happened to them. I think it got lost in a map change or when they grouped them together, they changed how they worked. Originally they had zone bases that supplied the surrounding bases. The depots supplied the zone bases. If you lost the zone base it wouldn't auto resupply all the surrounding bases any more so porked stuff stayed down until they were player resupplied, or they recaptured the zone base. I liked that system, made for some really nasty fights for the zone bases.

Then they tried the new capture system. Basically you had to capture bases in a certain order. There was a bit of "play" in the model so you could take one track or another so the enemy didn't know "for sure" which base you were hitting next. I think that is when they took out the strat set up with the zone bases. The capture path deal was horrible and they went back tot he regular system but they didn't bring back the zone base deal. After that they lumped all of the depots in a single group to centralize them and added the auto "move to the rear" to make it easier to intercept the porking runs and protect the depots better (dar for your country use to go down a couple times a night). This protected the depots so well that nobody goes after them any more.

I'd like to see the zone system come back with the separate depots spread out around the map again. It would bring the porkers back out, and maybe attack/defense of those runs. Put the GV spawns back for those porkers to hit the depots as well if you must, but I'd rather see them NOT come back.

I'd like to see a timer on a base. Once the first object is destroyed...other than radar, two timers start. A 30 minute one that logs all those who rise to the challenge and work at defending the base. The second is a 60 minute timers for the attackers. If they don't capture the base in the 60 minutes those that made it onto the logs in the first 30 minutes and are still inside the dar area for the base win "Saving the base" points/perks.

I agree that something should be done as will to make the new owners of a base defend it for a certain amount of time. No auto ack, and maybe something like the "Save the base" idea above, log the defenders who just took the base and if it is still theirs 30 minutes later give those people points/perks.

[JUGgler]

Use my idea plus give perks to everyone on that country everytime a base is succesfully captured!

Maybe even take equal perks from the country that lost it!


"fighter perks"  



JUGgler

[Wiley]

I'd like to see a timer on a base. Once the first object is destroyed...other than radar, two timers start. A 30 minute one that logs all those who rise to the challenge and work at defending the base. The second is a 60 minute timers for the attackers. If they don't capture the base in the 60 minutes those that made it onto the logs in the first 30 minutes and are still inside the dar area for the base win "Saving the base" points/perks.

I agree that something should be done as will to make the new owners of a base defend it for a certain amount of time. No auto ack, and maybe something like the "Save the base" idea above, log the defenders who just took the base and if it is still theirs 30 minutes later give those people points/perks.

A couple simplistic examples illustrate the challenge with this kind of idea though.  How do you code in the rules the program goes by to build that list?

Guy upped from the base, heads out to jabo a completely unrelated field.  60 minutes later he's RTBing and inside the dar ring.  Does he get whatever the carrot may be?  I say he didn't do anything, doesn't deserve it.  Maybe the system just ignores the fact that what he did wasn't 'useful' and gives him the carrot anyways.  I could see a lot of hording to be in the dar when the defense carrot gets given out.

Same guy upped from the base, headed to the field that's the base of attack for the enemy, porks ords and radar.  Does he get the carrot?  To me that's helping the effort.  However, how does the system know which base is the one being used to attack another base?

Or, do we completely ignore retaliatory strike missions and only award the carrot to people that purely stuck around the base and either blew up GVs or shot down planes?  Maybe you only get the carrot if you damaged an enemy?

The devil's in the details designing a system like this in a game.

I like the idea having a base be 'contested' for an amount of time, but the conditions for a successful retake and the amount of time it's contested for needs to be very carefully set up.

Maybe supplies and/or troops being flown in could reduce the contested time.

Heh... looking at that, we run into the problem again of requiring too much complexity or action by multiple people means 'bring a bigger horde' to most.

I can see why little has changed on the strat front for a long time.  The system they've got now has its detractors, but you have to admit, people aren't leaving in droves due to lack of land grab strategic play.  It might be a simple case of 'good enough is good enough'.  The legitimate gripes I've seen when people talk about leaving are usually about hordes or HO's or other things of that nature.

Wiley.

[guncrasher]

I knew you were sitting at your screen hoping against hope to see me post again. Although your attraction to me is flattering it is also gross, please find a new idol!



JUGgler

that's funny I almost fell off my hospital bed reading this as I was waiting to be released.  I got low standards but not that low.  

Use my idea plus give perks to everyone on that country everytime a base is succesfully captured!

Maybe even take equal perks from the country that lost it!


"fighter perks"  



JUGgler

interesting idea but what about the players who will do this?

-oh cool leave my computer on over night my country is hording and those are free perks.

-oh crap base about to be taken, hey guess what? alt f4 does really save perkies.

in addition a strat system that causes resources to be limited by percentage doesnt affect all airplanes the same.  a b17 with 50% fuel will still fly for a long time, same for lancs, jugs, ponies.  but a c205, la7, spit 16  will be limited to minutes.

most buffs with 25% fuel will fly for a long time.  but if you limit some airplanes to 50% or 25%, you will see mass exodus to another country faster than you can up the eny of the country with increasing player population.   and that's all it will accomplish if massive strat raids were to lower ammo/fuel capacity.

you will have two options either switch or log out.  either choice is bad for the game.  but look on the bright side, there will be ONE (perhaps none)  fight over the strats then it's all over for the country with diminished resources.

semp

[The Fugitive]

Well WIley, much like the "ditch" model with one gear an inch of the runway, you win some and you loose some. There has to be a line drawn some place. I figured comparing the 30 minute log and the final log and matching that group of names as winners for points/perk was a good compromise. I keeps players in long enough, and weeds out those that start out there but leave when the going gets tough.

With any add on that could/may get added there are going to have to be compromises.