DUST Search - FW Economic Model Concerns -CCP Nothin-

Vaerana Myshtana wrote:

Regarding off-hours attacks:

I talked a little about this here (https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=583770#post583770), but it was pretty bland.

There are two potential sources of defenders aside from the holding corp (DefCorp).

One is an Ongoing Guard Contract (OGC)- a negotiated contract in which another merc company agrees to defend your district for X fee per merc per battle, plus Y bonus per merc per battle if they win.

The other is Instant Battle folks, paid at a generic X per merc per battle divided up like the current pub match payouts.

So, if your district is attacked (with no timer), all of your corpies online at the time and all of your OGC mercs online at the time get a BIG FLASHING ALERT that there is a Corp Battle imminent.

From that moment, a 15-minute timer starts. This is to allow potential defenders time to get out of matches, call their friends, etc. The attackers and defenders can deploy into their War Barges and get ready. Periodically, more BIG FLASHING ALERTS appear to any member of the DefCorp or OGC who aren't in the War Barge.

At the 13-minute mark, the battle floats into the Instant Battle rotation. Any unfilled slots get populated from the Instant Battle people and the battle starts at the 15-minute mark.

They fight.

At the end, the Instant Battle people get Instant Battle type payouts from the DefCorp. The DefCorp pays the OGC based on the contract. The DefCorp members get nada, but hopefully their bosses will pay them later.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 69 post(s)
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 24	Posted - 2013.02.26 21:43:00 - [1] - Quote This is solved very easily. 1) Allow districts to be "locked" through a number of successful defenses. Have this limit be tied to how valuable the district is. 2) Add a bonus to the value of a district for holding it longer. A district becomes more profitable the longer you hold it (with a limit, obviously) so it might make sense to operate at a loss early to secure it as it grows. 3) Add the ability to lock a district by securing adjecent districts. This, couples with the lock on defenses means you can have some districts acting as pure profit if you take districts strategically. 3b) Alternatively, have districts get a bonus for adjecent ownership. Either way, you can increase the profit by establishing a large cluster of districts. Now on the DUST side, its easy. 1) The winning team gets both ends of the contract. Losing team gets nothing. 2) Winning team gets loot from losing team and some for their own losses. This way, a merc team can accept contracts estimating what it would take to win that fight, and anything on the other end is pure profit, + any loot. The total ISK in will be less than the ISK out for both EVE and DUST. However, it is only the losing DUST corp and the losing EVE corp that throw their ISK away. The winners both gain something. This provides incentive to participate if you are winning, while it still acts as a sink.
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 24	Posted - 2013.02.27 15:40:00 - [2] - Quote Here is how I assume/hope this will work. Keep in mind, this isn't EVE or even Planetside, there is no persistant world to be fought over. Every battle is a typical FPS match. Which IMO is a HUGE bonus to DUST over Planetside, as it gives "win conditions" and more purpose to the gameplay. First off, it is key to limit the amount of possible attacks on a district. This is needed or it will almost never be profitable to own a district and they will change hands like hot potatos. If a corp can successfully defend their district it should LIKELY be profitable for them to do so. You could "attrition" the corp by dumping tons of money into your contracts, forcing them to spend a ton to pay for defense. But it shouldnt be possible to just hit them over and over and over forcing them to keep paying for defense. So with that in mind, lets say for the sake of discussion a District can be attacked 10 times per month. Each attack on a district will have 4 parties. 1) CORP A- The Attack Sponser Corp 2) CORP B- The Defense Sponser Corp 3) CORP C- The Attack Merc Corp 4) CORP D- The Defense Merc Corp Now, CORPs A and C, and CORPs B and D may be the SAME corps. You may defend your own district, or lead your own attack, but you may also contract it out to a 3rd party. So, what happens, how does this all actually work out? Right now, who knows, but you don't want gameplay to NOT occur, and you dont want the problem of timezones messing with getting good matchups. So here is how I imagine it will happen. CORP A puts out a 20 mil ISK contract for an attack on CORP B. This contract has a specified time for the attack, and this time is a anywhere from 12-24 hours out from when it is created. All contracts can either be public or private. Meaning I can set a contract that is available to ALL DUST corps, or just specific ones. This allows me to use connections to get a good DUST corp to lead my attack or defense, or just put something out there for attrition or desperation. Once CORP A puts out the contract, two things happen. 1) A listing appears for the contract, allowing DUST Corps to accept it. They can see when the match will take place so they can be prepared. 2) CORP B is notified and they must put out a defense contract. So CORP B now has 12-24 hours to put out a matching contract. They can talk to some of their allies, or contact some famous corps, or they can just post a public contract to everyone. Either way, corp B ends up posting a contract for the defense. So now both contracts are up and available. Depending on if they are private or public, some or all DUST corps can accept. Now one of 4 things happens. 1) Neither contract is accepted before the scheduled attack - Both corp A and corp B are refunded and nothing happens. 2) Both contracts are accepted before the scheduled attack by CORP C and CORP D and a game of DUST is played. 3) The attacking contract is accepted by CORP C and the defending is not. CORP A pays CORP C the contract, CORP B is refunded, but the district changes hands. 4) The defending contract is accepted by CORP D and the attacking contract is not. CORP B pays CORP D the contract, corp A is refunded but an attack is used up. In the case of 2, CORP C and CORP D play a match. Depending on the district this may be 16v16 or 24v24 or whatever. It is up to the corps to fill those teams, if they do not you can see 24v8. The winning team gets the ISK of both the attacking contract and the defense contact and all the salvaged loot from the battle. The losing corp gets nothing. This prevents crappy corps from accepting contracts and getting the money and just losing. At the end, all 4 corps get a report of the battle. This allows CORPS A and B to review CORPS C and D and see if they made a legit effort and put up a good fight. If not, they can blacklist them from future public contracts, possibly even review them for other corps to see. I think this system keeps DUST acting as a money sink for both DUST and EVE while providing incentive for both universes to participate as long as they win.
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 24	Posted - 2013.02.27 15:55:00 - [3] - Quote Delirium Inferno wrote: unless they are 24 very wealthy mercs who hire other mercs to do most their business. Bingo. If you are good at picking solid contractors out and can negotiate good contracts that keep it profitable to defend your districts, then you are winning at the corporate level. Now, trying to keep affordable contracts up and running for defenses of thousands of districts also seems nearly impossible. So unless those 24 members are just filing paperwork all day to get good contracts, it still sounds like a major challange.
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 24	Posted - 2013.02.27 19:42:00 - [4] - Quote It seems like a lot of the concepts being tossed around for how this should work are imagining rules for a different game that has a more persistant world. In DUST, the actual gameplay isnt persistant, each battle is a stand alone instance. That battle absolutely 100% has to be scheduled when it comes to taking districts, because it has a start and a flow to it. It isnt just "hey lets attack and watch as people reinforce like an open world persistant game would allow" To me, this is DUSTs strength, its what sets it above Planetside or other PvP games. The battle an be won, decisively, and you cant just wait until the enemy is bored to try and win the fight. If you want my district, you have to fight me for it. And when we fight, it isnt until one side sort of gets bored, theres a GAME in place to determine a winner and a loser. To me thats the key here. You need to stop looking at it from EVE and start looking at it from how the game is actually played. Stuff like building defensive structures, or attacking when nobody is around all makes sense for a persistant open world. But for DUST? No. Im a bit surprised nobody has discussed the contract system I laid out on the last page. I believe something similar to that would have to be how this game plays out. You need scheduled matches. Look at it from the DUST corp that just wants to be a gun for hire. You need them to have a chance to negotiate a contract (possibly), accept a contract, and then gather their team to execute it.
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 25	Posted - 2013.02.27 22:43:00 - [5] - Quote If you are in a situation where you have a nice team ready to play right then and there, you look through contracts which are set to go off soon and accept one of those and get some ISK. The only realistic way to get a full 24v24 (or higher?) match between attackers and defenders is to have the match scheduled with a pretty large amount of time to prepare. If you can just attack instantly, how will a defending EVE corp ever be able to find a DUST merc corp to come defend their district in time? How would any CORP that wants to engage in merc activities, but not actually take and own districts, be able to find attack or defense contracts and adequately prepare for them under a non delayed approach? Realistically you shouldnt be launching spontanius attacks without any planning on a district anyway. Its not "oh we have a bunch of corp mates on, lets go attack some districts." District attacks should be planned out. If you want to be spontanious because you have a good amount of corp mates on, you can accept open contracts to play right then and there, as there should be plenty at all times.
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 25	Posted - 2013.02.27 22:59:00 - [6] - Quote Well keep in mind you dont have to be there to defend your district, you can contract it out, thats the only option for a lot of EVE corps who wont have a heavy footing in DUST. So you have an 8 hour delay, that gives the UK corp plenty of time to see the attack and find a mercenary group to contract out the defense to. A lot of the ideas seem to sort of ignore that there are really 4 parties in play. Two corps contracting out work, and two taking it on. Yes, in some cases the corp may do its own work, but not in all, especially when we talk about the EVE-DUst relationship.
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 28	Posted - 2013.02.28 22:55:00 - [7] - Quote Vaerana Myshtana wrote: Regarding off-hours attacks: I talked a little about this here (https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=583770#post583770), but it was pretty bland. There are two potential sources of defenders aside from the holding corp (DefCorp). One is an Ongoing Guard Contract (OGC)- a negotiated contract in which another merc company agrees to defend your district for X fee per merc per battle, plus Y bonus per merc per battle if they win. The other is Instant Battle folks, paid at a generic X per merc per battle divided up like the current pub match payouts. So, if your district is attacked (with no timer), all of your corpies online at the time and all of your OGC mercs online at the time get a BIG FLASHING ALERT that there is a Corp Battle imminent. From that moment, a 15-minute timer starts. This is to allow potential defenders time to get out of matches, call their friends, etc. The attackers and defenders can deploy into their War Barges and get ready. Periodically, more BIG FLASHING ALERTS appear to any member of the DefCorp or OGC who aren't in the War Barge. At the 13-minute mark, the battle floats into the Instant Battle rotation. Any unfilled slots get populated from the Instant Battle people and the battle starts at the 15-minute mark. They fight. At the end, the Instant Battle people get Instant Battle type payouts from the DefCorp. The DefCorp pays the OGC based on the contract. The DefCorp members get nada, but hopefully their bosses will pay them later. Having ongoing contracts paid out per battle could work, and it would help reduce the need for a longer delay to have the corps make a deal for a contract. However, here is the problem that might be minor to some, or major to others. You want your corp's success to be based on your corp as a whole, not 3 dudes from your corp + 5 dudes from another +8 from the contracting corp. One of the best ways to tell if a corp is worth contracting will be their wins/losses, how will that work in a mixed corp situation? Would the corp get a win or loss for EVERY member participating in the battle? Or just one? To really show the skills of the corp fairly, i would think it would have to be 1 for every member, so the more members a corp has involved, the more it sways their standing. Losing a match where you had 1 corp member in it shouldnt ding your corp the same as one where you had 16.
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 28	Posted - 2013.02.28 23:06:00 - [8] - Quote KEROSIINI-TERO wrote: I strongly disagree on the underlined part. That would be so disheartening for the weaker corps as it would hamper their abilities to try to rise and even the motivation to try to attack. A good solution would be to have complex enough contract system: Basic minimum payout for accepting a contract (?) 5% of total contract value. Standard wage for showing up in battle and trying. 20% of total value. Bonus for winning. 75% of total value. How about? --- EDIT: About 'using up an attack', there lies a danger that a sister corp will have a dummy merc team attack the district, using up all of the allowed attacks. Thereby making the district invulnerable to real attacks. You bring up valuable points. Personally I prefer the all or nothing approach as it makes matches mean a ton for the corps but I see how it could be a turn off. Perhaps the payout to the loser is based on the security of the system? Null sec would be 100% to the winner, but higher security gets more and more to the loser? As for the sister corp issue, I thought about that. A way to negate that would be if the cost of deploying an MCC is weighed in. Like a mimumum amount of ISK is lost no matter what. Sister corps could still do such a thing, but it would cost them money. Or limit the amount of failed attacks one can do on a district? Its tricky to get right, but I dont think you can have unlimited attacks or the game simply doesn't work. There would be no incentive to really hold districts unless they paid godloads of money, in which case the economy would go to heck. However, an alternative solution. The "limit" for defenses isnt based on winning or losing, but on ISK destroyed. In order to lock your district you have to destroy 100 million dollars in enemy equipment or so. Make this amount nearly equal to the amount gained by a district. Add in a much smaller minimum fee for launching an attack, but one that along side the closing threshold would make it worthless to launch sister corp to attack a district to close it.
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 28	Posted - 2013.03.01 16:05:00 - [9] - Quote A lot of these systems sound pretty decent, but they lose the initial concern from the OP: What is the incentive for corps to actually own these districts? A corp v corp match in DUST, 24v24 (or possibly higher in the future?) is going to cost a TON of ISK. Realistically with 24 people on a team, each fitting suits and tanks in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions range, you are talking 100s of millions of ISK destroyed in a conflict per battle. If you have tons of battles over a single district going on in a day, one district could easily cost billions of ISK out of EVE and DUST in the war over it. Almost half of that will be on the owner of the district to fork up. So a district would have to put out BILLIONS of ISK PER DAY to be profitable to hold. Why would anyone want to do that?
Bones McGavins TacoCat Industries 28	Posted - 2013.03.01 16:52:00 - [10] - Quote I thought of multiple corps fighting over one district. Opens the door for some shannaigans which is nice. But the question there becomes, does CORP C get to choose if they want to attack CORP A or CORP B when attacking the district? I would assume so. I would expand it a bit, make it so if you have over 35 points you get the full benefits of owning the district. If you own less than 35 but stll have the most, you get a percent of the benefits based on percentage compared to the 35. So in a situation where A owns 30, B owns 25 and C owns 15, A would still "own" the "contested' district and get 85% of the benefit. This would be interesting because it could actually be in Bs best interest for C to take more points from A. B could actually hire C to take some districts. If B takes 2 more from A, and they fund C taking 2 more as well, suddenly now its B at 27, A and 26 and C at 17, now it shifts to A getting 0% and B getting 77%. Thanks to B manipulating C into attacking A.