Fox Gaden wrote:Can anyone give me a good reason why the WP reward for Counter Hacking should be less than the WP for a normal Hack?
This is a serious question, because I canGÇÖt figure out a good reason for it being less, yet a lot of people are suggesting it should be.
Well there are a couple different schools of thought but I think the main reason is to ensure that everything stays "balanced".
Also the two mechanics are a bit different. When you hack an objective there is a period of time during which the enemy can negate your reward. When you counter-hack it's like hacking a supply depot insofar as you would get the points instantly.
Right now the reward system encourages offensive hacking. There is no down-side to hacking an objective regardless of whether or not you are actually going to be able to secure it and hold it. Once rewards are introduced for counter-hacking, there would be a down-side (as there should be up-sides and down-sides to everything) but there could also be situations in which this reward would actually unbalance the game in the opposite direction. In other words, create too much of a potential down-side and discourage offensive hacking.
For example: Team 1 hacks objective A from Team 2 five times and each time Team 2 counter-hacks.
In the current system, nobody gets any points from the above exchange. Once a reward is implemented, Team 2 would have 5x the number of WP per counter hack. This certainly increases the incentive to defend objectives. But this must be done without creating a negative incentive to hack an objective in the first place.
In other words, if the reward for counter hack is 100 WP than Team 1 might give up after two attempts to hack objective A knowing that if they attempt and fail 3 more times the reward that they will have effectively "handed" the enemy will out-weigh the reward their team will get if they successfully hack the objective. If the reward for counter hacks is only 50 WP however, the number of successes required to cover the number of failures is reduced.
None of this even takes into account getting assists for hacks or counter-hacks and the additional points those add into the mix. But I am not a numbers guy so perhaps someone who is better with them can delve into this issue a little deeper and perhaps field a more convincing answer.
Personally, I am of the opinion that right now the system is unbalanced and a nominal reward for counter--hacking must be introduced in order to create balance. That being said, due to the reasons listed above and others I didn't get into, I also agree that making the reward too high would cause unbalance in the opposite direction.
I think the magic number here is 50 WP +/- 25.