Oso Peresoso
RisingSuns
260
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Posted - 2013.07.10 21:03:00 -
[1] - Quote
OP made a much too complicated idea. I have ideas to make it simpler. FoxFour, I want responses on this.
Problems: Dust has very little Mercenary feel to it, despite being a game about being a Merc. Planetary Conquest is not very Merc-like if you're fighting to own the planets yourself instead of fighting for cash at your own discretion. The need for a contract battle system is nearly universally recognized to both improve the Dust experience and strengthen the EVE-Dust connection that is now lacking in concrete features. If my previous comment was not clear enough, mercenaries do not need to own things or defend their stuff, they need to fight for money when they feel like it.
Opportunities: Mercs fight on planets. Eve has lots of planets. Planets make stuff for the Eve economy. PI is a player-level thing, POCOs are a corp-level thing. POCOs already supposed to be lowsec conflict-drivers, POCOs already exist, POCOs are a proven way to control the PI on a planet, and EVE players already fight over POCOs, reinforcement mechanics exist.
Basic points:
-Make EVE corps still own the POCOs, not give them to Dust players.
-In the absence of the either party voluntarily seeking Dust support, POCO takeover mechanics would remain more or less the same.
-EVE corps still would issue contracts to attack POCOs. This is great because Dust players would not need to be involved in ownership, management, or otherwise major investment (optional collateral terms set by contract issuer). Any Dust corp would be able to apply, and their involvement would primarily be limited to getting the contract, shooting people and blowing stuff up, and getting paid. MERCENARY STUFF. No burnout, take as many or as few contracts as desired, no major isk investments. Easy Access on the Dust side is key because there's a lot of planets, potentially a lot of contracts, and we do not want this gameplay to be exclusive to the super-elite dust corps that are already doing PC, this will instead be an EVE-DUST interaction available to anyone.
-Merc contract battle happens right before POCO exits the first reinforcement timer, with the outcome of the single battle influencing how it will behave upon exiting reinforcement. The ground battle should change the dynamics of what's happening in space, but will never trump it. If you win the space battle outright and quickly, the outcome of the ground battle won't matter much.
Details and Implementation:
-Although many would plan such contracts privately ahead of time, there would still need to be some kind of interface to do this, and this is probably one of the bigger hurdles in this imagining.
-To simplify implementation and reduce the raw number of POCOs up for grabs, this would initially only be rolled out for temperate/barren maps (interestingly enough the only ones allowing hi-tech industrial processors), allowing for surface fighting. Iterations can include maps for fighting inside pocos, fighting on ice planets, whatever.
-The Merc Contract Battle can only occur when the defending POCO is in reinforced mode, preferably in a 3 hour window just prior to it exiting reinforced mode. Who does the reinforcing naturally wouldn't matter. Contracts can be issued the moment it enters reinforced but there would be some time limit, probably less than 12 hours after it is reinforced.
---it would be interesting to allow contracts to be issued before the POCO enters reinforced, with such contracts requiring a preset time window and would automatically close if the reinforcement does not occur.
-Precision strikes or warbarge strikes would not be permitted, only orbital strikes. This means that whoever is in space in the hours prior to reinforcement has an effect on the battlefield.
Potential effects of winning the ground battle. Needs input from Eve players, understanding of what people would be willing to pay for the effects they might get.
Attacker wins:
-Internal cooldown of POCO reinforcement mechanism, making the POCO vulnerable to destruction for 24-48 hours even if repaired. Probably a bit unfair to the defender as the attacker could kill the POCO while avoiding a space-fight.
-POCO raise the threshold to save the POCO to 50-75% shields instead of 25%
-POCO experiences armor decay that will destroy the POCO in 3-6 hours unless its shields reach 50-75% or something, necessitating armor repair until its shields regenerate or shield repair prior to the armor hitting 0%.
Defender wins:
-POCO gets an armor reinforcement cycle.
-POCO exits reinforced mode with 25% or 50% shields, with 75% being the threshold to trigger another shield reinforcement cycle.
-Significantly and temporarily increased POCO shield regen speed upon exiting reinforcement.
Contract system. This is the big one balance-wise. Lots of pitfalls to avoid. Simplest way is to only hold a battle if both sides issue a contract, but this would result in lots of blueballs and no-shows, although this could be OK if the Mercs get some of the pay and the contract issuer gets the effect of winning the ground battle. We can ensure a battle takes place by auto-issuing a contract when one side does and the other doesn't, but this also leads to problems (does the system subsidize people that don't issue a contract, thus dis-incentivizing those that do? or are they simply paid less leading to pubstomping? Is pubstomping an issue when corps voluntarily take a contract? Will the people who take up auto-generated contracts just AFK ?). My original thought was to require the attacker to issue a contract first, with the defender getting an auto-generated one if the defender doesn't manually issue one.
Lastly, there would need to be a report system so the Eve players paying for this can get some verification that fighting is actually happening. |