Leither Yiltron
KILL-EM-QUICK
RISE of LEGION
492
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Posted - 2013.06.03 20:13:00 -
[1] - Quote
The core mechanics of the PC system seem to have held up robustly over the past couple of weeks. I know from my end we've been having great fights all over the place, and the depth in the game has coalesced almost instantly. There are no other games on the market that have accomplished the feat of non-consensual FPS PvP like Dust has.
Read: Kudos True Grit!
There is, however, a relatively subtle problem with the current locking mechanics that puts some corps at an arbitrary disadvantage. The best way to understand is an example.
KEQ holds District A (DA) that has reinforcement at 00:00. It is there because this is a good timezone for KEQ.
Generic Enemy Corp [GEC] has District B (DB) with its reinforcement timer at 23:00 for the same reason.
GEC makes a super mean post on the Dust forums, so KEQ initiates FULL SCALE WARFARE, because that sounds about right as a reaction. Here's the timeline:
(1) KEQ uses 150 clones from DA to attack in the first round and wins the attack.
(2) After KEQ's victory at 23:00, they use another 150 clones from DA. But this leaves DA with a projected 160 clones at the time of the next potential attack, so KEQ reinforces DA with 150 clones from another one of their districts. The only time they are able to do this without OVERFILLING THE DISTRICT is RIGHT AFTER THE INITIAL ATTACK, which happens at 23:00.
Doing the calculation, we see that it will be 47 hours before District A unlocks. THIS IS THE PROBLEM.
(3) KEQ loses the second attack. Screw those GEC guys!
(4) KEQ cannot send clones from DA to continue the attack on District B because DA is still locked.!
You can work through it and see that the same thing happens if GEC is attacking KEQ, though their district is only locked for about one hour longer than usual for a grand total of 25 hours of locking as opposed to KEQ's 47. This already suggests a problem: KEQ suffers 22 hours of extra downtime on their district just because of the timer configurations.
There's an similarly bad problem similar to the asymmetric one just described: You need THREE districts in order to sustain an attack with just one because of the locking & minimum move mechanics. The key problem: attacks happen every 24 hours, locking occurs for AT LEAST 24 + (minimum unit of CCP's time measurement).
Assume that:
All 3 of the listed districts have the same reinforcement for simplicity's sake.
Also, the districts are attacking a timer which is 1 hour after their reinforcement timers.
ALSO, assume that all clones are always used in the battle, win or lose, so that we don't have to deal with returning clones.
Day 1:
(1) D1 attacks. State: Online (+80). Current reserves: 150.
Day 2:
(1) D1 generates clones at its reinforcement time. Current reserves: 230.
(2) Actual battle occurs, freeing up destination district for further attack.
(3) D1 attacks again. State: Online (+80). Current reserves: 80.
Day 3:
(1) D1 generates clones. Current reserves: 160.
(2) The second battle occurs, freeing up destination for further attack.
(3) D1 attacks. Current reserves: 10.
(4) D3 immediately reinforces, locking D1. D1 reserves: 160, D3 reserves: 150.
Day 4:
(1) D1 & D3 generate clones. D1 reserves: 240, D3 reserves: 230. D1 is still locked.
(2) The third battle occurs, freeing up destination for further attack.
(3) D2 attacks. Current reserves: 150.
Day 5:
(1) D1-3 generate clones. D1 reserves: 300, D2 reserves: 230, D3 reserves: 300. D1 unlocks.
(2) The fourth battle occurs, freeing up destination for further attack.
(3) D1 attacks. Current D1 reserves: 150.
By this point it's evident that the process is sustainable.
Now it's possible to play this closer to the chest, but it involves leaving D1 at 90 clones for a day, which is obviously not very desirable.
If D3 is available at the same attrition rate, you could use it, but now you're going to run into problems with ping-ponging between just two districts.
This is also super contingent on none of these districts getting attacked during the process, which is a distinct possibility.
It's obviously a matter of taste, but from my perspective this is pretty ass-backwards. The whole system is non-intuitive. There's simply no reason why the locking mechanics should mirror attacking mechanics. The at-least-24-hours mechanic is working perfectly for actual BATTLES, since it guarantees a minimum amount of time to prepare. But there's nothing for which to prepare with the locking mechanics.
The most intuitive method is just to unlock the district, if it's locked, every 24 hours at the time of its reinforcement timer. In the above situation that would go like this:
Day 1:
(1) 150 move from D1
Day 2:
(1) Clone generation. D1 reserves: 230.
(2) Battle.
(3) D1 attacks, reserves @ 80.
(4) 150 move from D2 to D1. D1 reserves: 230. D2 reserves: 150.
Day 3:
(1) Clone generation and unlock. D1 reserves: 300. D2 reserves: 230.
(2) Attack.
(3) D1 moves clones. D1 reserves: 150.
Day 4:
(1) Clone generation at D1 and D3, D1 unlocks. D1 clone reserves: 230. D2 clone reserves: 300.
(2) Attack.
(3) D1 moves clones, D2 reinforces D1. D1 reserves: 230. D2 reserves: 150.
It's obviously sustainable by this point.
I really have no earthly idea why the current system "makes sense", other than to harshly punish any small groups and confuse the unwary. It even produces asymmetric locking times for basically no good reason.
Before you say: HTFU...
check Molden Heath.
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