Commander-less gamemode with research and buildings.

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Chris0132', Aug 31, 2009.

  1. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Thanks to the moving buildings thread I finally an idea for how to preserve the best parts of empires gameplay without having to include the damn stupid commander and 'one loadout fits all' research system.

    Ok, so I like empires, I like driving around in a blinged out tank busting some fools who be stepping to my homies, I like the changing gameplay that can result from being able to set up shop anywhere on the map, I like the infantry combat, I like working with my squad when I can get a squad to work with, I like empires.

    However the commander gets in the way. The commander serves to place buildings and unlock technology, but he quite often fails to do either, and because of that the game doesn't work a lot of the time. Rather than leave this to one person (who by his very nature cannot actually play the game while he is commanding, this alienates a lot of potential commanders like myself) I propose we find a better system.

    While I don't agree with DonMegel's idea for moving NF buildings, the thread sparked an interesting idea. What if instead of the commander buying buildings, players bought construction vehicles from the VF, which could be driven to areas and deployed to create structures, thus removing the need for the commander to place structures.

    Player Placed Buildings


    Now, there are obvious problems with this, however they have solutions.
    • Griefing, buying unneccesary structures, well this can be said of any vehicle factory, buying bad tanks can grief, buying bad structures would be the same, however I propose that the centralised money pool be removed and replaced with a per-player money pool. Each refinery gives resources to all players, and each player can buy his own stuff with his own money. Therefore it is now impossible to grief because you're only fucking yourself over. This is the basis for a lot of the following and it is the only solution I can think of, however it has a lot of benefits.
    • Why buy structures? Well this is where the money system comes in. Buying a structure would mean that the person who bought it gets income when the structure is used, for example a rax might give 20 res every time someone spawns at it, so 20 spawns would pay you back in full, and any more would give you extra cash income, also you get the use of the rax yourself. A vehicle factory could give say 20% of the cost of all the things bought there, so about 200 res for the average arty tank, however a vehicle factory in this mode would be more like a construction yard, so it would be much more expensive and much stronger, probably half way between a fortress and a war factory, a big investment with a big income bonus. Repair pads can give 10% of the cost of the damage they repair, based on the price of the vehicle, so a vehicle costing 500 res being repaired 75% would be priced at 375 res and the player who built the pad would get 38 res, which is a steady income from a fairly cheap structure, not to mention the usefulness of having one. Radars, armories, walls and turrets will be covered later.
    • What about competition? What if people buy raxes when we don't need them? Well that's possible, I expect to see at least two raxes at every choke point but how is that a bad thing? I mean people won't simply buy structures, because doing so will cost them tank money, and there is a limit to just how cost effective it would be, placing a vehicle factory right next to another one would be kinda pointless, although if someone did it's only hurting them, everyone else benefits if only from the increased security that redundancy brings.
    Research and Radars would be handled differently as well.

    I don't like the fact that while empires has a whole load of stuff to research, there isn't much choice, even if we had everything perfectly balanced, there is still probably only going to be one thing researched for most of the game, this is kind of killing the 'customise your tank' selling point. So, research should be personal.

    It would still be performed with the radar, however it would be done individually, to perform a research you press the research key when there is a radar in the world, and the nearest radar to your location gets the comission. You would have a similar research tree to the current one, in fact the current one could be used, however the costs would likely need scaling down a bit to account for the generally smaller income of the person financing it, the player can pay more (say 1.5 times the normal price) to have the research performed instantly, this is explained later. The comission charge is to encourage people to build radars, basically you get say 10% of the cost of any research performed at your radar. Combined with the way the system works, it makes sense to build radars near forward raxes and bases because this is where players will likely be when they perform research, as accessing the dialogue in the middle of battle is unlikely. This means that each base would get its own radar naturally, and they provide sensor coverage so there is a reason for this to occur. The net effect is that everyone is free to choose their own progression and their own preferred build of tank, and if the comm sucks it doesn't matter, as long as there are players who know what to do, they are free too, a good team is a good team, they don't have to be constrained by their commander.

    Armories, walls, and Turrets are by their nature somewhat hard to build without commander input, however there is a solution.

    Engineers can build walls and turrets as normal, however they can also pay money to have them made 'permanent' which essentially removes them from the engineer limit and adds them to the global limit, it is also possible to have a per engineer 'permanent cap' to stop one engineer monopolising the global cap, say 30 walls and 4 turrets per engineer. Engineers could upgrade their turrets as normal to level 3 with the skill and they would be eligible for conversion at a greater cost, say 50 for the standard turret and 25 extra for each level. The reason they'd want to do this is because they get cash bonuses for their kills, say 10 res for every dude, 10% of the price of every tank, and 20% of the price of every structure.

    Armories I think would be best bundled into APC functionality. The APC already gives ammo, however I think it could be expanded. As of now, the APC is rather difficult to balance because its spawn works when mobile. I posit that it should require deploying in order to spawn, and when deployed it functions like a barracks, the owner of the APC (the one who paid for it) gets money for people spawning at it, although this is considerably less than they get for spawning at a rax, say 5 res as opposed to the standard 20. The APC when deployed also spawns ammo and health crates nearby, and it cannot be undeployed by anyone other than the original owner. APD is removed, and this spawning functionality is available from the start. This means that the early game revolves more around people using APCs to get to important areas and set up shop, which removes the tiresome walking, and some of the unstable early gameplay, because if everyone can afford an APC it is likely that there will be enough out there to ensure some stability, as no team should lose all their forward spawns.

    The commander
    does have some useful abilities however, the actual troop direction part I have no issue with, and this interface could certainly be built into the squad leader mechanic. If a squad leader buys and deploys an APC, he can use it to access a commander interface and direct his squad. When doing this, the APC generates a much larger squad aura, and the squad leader can aim his squad powers using the comm interface (I suggest remaking revive, heal, hide, charge etc to use an area effect rather than a squad-wide effect) and he can give orders like the commander can. A 'heavy APC' chassis may also be appropriate given the value of these 'mini commanders', many may wish to expend more on a better squad support vehicle.

    Miscellaneous information: The income from refineries should always be enough to make all these other income sources merely icing on the cake, players with no buildings or research should not be excluded from the game, a player who joins a game in progress should get a big cash lump to play with, equal to the income the rest of their team has acquired during the course of the game from refineries, they can then pay more to catch up on research fast, or just go slow and get better stuff because they don't need to play the arms race any more, they can go straight for heavies. However they will understandably be a bit behind, although they should still be able to afford an armor and engine or maybe a building or two to start accumulating money again.

    All players also get cash bounties for kills, I'd suggest 15 res per infantry, 25% the cost of any tank, and 50% the cost of any building, if multiple players assist in the destruction of one unit, they all get a share of the cash depending on how much percentage of the damage they did, this is reduced for turrets as shown above.
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2009
  2. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    In summary, I think this is worth trying, it removes a lot of the problems with the commander, adds a lot of new and cool functionality, retains most of what I think makes empires fun, and makes a lot of things possible, for example maps no longer need to be quite so 'commander friendly' as buildings can be placed wherever vehicles can go, allowing for more diverse maps (and better optimisation!!!) The squad leader commanding function is something I think will really improve squad gameplay, as will the ability of squads to essentially buy buildings for their squad, a squad could be like a very well organised team if it wanted to be, performing all the tasks neccesary to win the game with all of the game's options available to them, but also the game as a whole is strengthened because the commander can no longer break it, and the simple greed and individualistic desire of the players naturally contributes to the success of the team. Teamwork works with individualism, not against it. The success and skill of the team is what matters, not the commander. I submit that this is far more 'teamwork' than 'you all do what I say' which is how the current command system works, when it works.

    Also please note that there isn't really any reason to remove the existing gamemode with the inclusion of this, as I said in the other thread, it 'works' at least some of the time, and its existence does not preclude the development of this rule set, so 'I like the current system' is not a counterargument.

    (I reserve the right to subject the first person to say TL;DR to rectal tentacle rape, where the tentacles are made of blunted, rusty, razor blades.)
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2009
  3. TheAmethystDuke

    TheAmethystDuke Member

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    Yes to this game type, if only for the fact that it is written with care.

    I have a fix for the Turret-Wall-Useless Building-Tank spamming.

    UPKEEP :D Upkeer is removed from your personal money, so you can't spam turrets, walls, buy composite heavies and still spam a VF or 3 because then you will end up with a negative amount of money(or just 0)
     
  4. Icely

    Icely Member

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    Overall I think it is interesting. It would kind of add a bit of Railroad Tycoon strategy to the game, encouraging players to compete to get the most useful buildings for their team. My guess is it would encourage base building rather than stringing buildings out, as a barracks would attract other buildings if properly protected. But then again, building the forward most barracks would be valuable too, so you might end up seeing a line of barracks right across the map.

    There might be a small downside too. After all good strategy is not just to provide the best service, but to undermine your competition as well. There will, without much doubt, be multiple Barracks, VFs, repair pads and radars around bases. And why let players decide which of the two repair pads to use, wall off the other guys and they'll have to use yours?

    In truth though I don't think players will stoop as low as walling off competing buildings when it'll reduce their chances of winning the game. At least not very often. What I think you'll get is more consistency in the quality of building placement but poorer placement than what you'd get with a good commander.


    All that said, I do really like the idea, problems and all. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that I enjoy building things. And based on the time played by class stats for TF2, I'd say a fair number of people do as well.
     
  5. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Good point icely, that might be an issue, although you could solve it by preventing walls from being placed too close to other player's VFs and repair pads, so you'd have to wall off a large area to actually enclose it. Raxes wouldn't be much of a problem because you can wall ladder your way out and they need walls near them a lot of the time.

    I think though that would simply fall under the area of good server administration, and you could make it so squad leaders could recycle the walls of all their squaddies. If someone is seriously just out to grief they can find a way to do it with or without walls. They can grief with walls currently because it takes 30 seconds to recylce them but only 5 to place them to block a VF.

    Building competition would be present yes but as I said, to build raxes you would need to forego tanks, and the income you would get from a well placed rax would only really cover the cost of the placement and maybe some extra, the main bulk of your income would be from refineries.

    Players should build structures because they need the service they provide, the income they get is simply so that placing it well would mean they get that service for free more or less, the only one I expect people to make an actual profit off would be the vehicle factory, which would be so important that you want them in good supply.

    Also I wonder whether a global commander interface might not be helpful, it could be accessed from any vehicle factory and could be used to give orders to everyone, just in case someone does feel the need to direct the team as a whole, I don't see much reason to remove that function entirely.
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2009
  6. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    you turned dictatorial communism (current command system) into capitalistic anarchy

    but yea, id say i would like this very much, basically if this gets implemented properly the game will lose almost ALL raeg moments and would add giant uniqueness to it at the same time

    if not only for the "big airplane" maps that are still needed, because airplanes, the costs that they will have and the map size will break the game anyway imo
     
  7. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    i seriously dislike the removal of the commander. i dont want to derail the discussion, so please dont start argueing about the following. but i think buffing the commander with several, not game deciding, not very powerful but still usable active skills would add to the game more, than his removal.
    i - personally - like commanding. several other players like it too. and i bet each of us (the ones that like commanding) would like to contribute to the battle more than running around, drawing enemy fire and run people over.
    like small arty strikes, targets bound to some ability (maybe mass target sweep for the whole map) and so on. as i said i dont want to derail the discussion itself with argueing about comm skills, its just an example.

    what i think could work would be if the commander would be similar to the one in savage. if there is a commander at start, he plays as commander for the rest of the game. if noone got elected all builder-units have the ability to use the teams cash to build structures.

    i like the per kill income idea tho ...
     
  8. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    thing is that chrisses idea makes it possible for more players to experience the commander game play at the same time
     
  9. TheAmethystDuke

    TheAmethystDuke Member

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    I like what blizzerd said, from a Communist Dictatorship to a Capitalist Anarchy.

    I like having 2 totally different game modes.

    I - SUPPORT!
     
  10. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    oh lol

    while carefully reading all that text, i overread the topic itself ...

    ... well, as gamemode ...

    WHY NOT? :D
     
  11. Avneet

    Avneet Member

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    Sounds like something great to have a new game mod AFTER we finish balancing and then later add in aircraft =P
     
  12. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    And the squad commanders would have commander powers, firstly they would be able to use squad powers as commander-aimed abilities, and they would also be able to move their spawn point around, as well as instructing their troops to build structures. A squad leader with a good squad would have everything the current commander has and more.

    Oh yes I just thought, this framework would allow for a few interesting expansions.

    For example you could add a function to artillery tanks which lets them deploy, and then the squad leaders or scouts who bought them could target them using their squad commander view or binoculars, it'd be less accurate than manually aimed artillery with a spread of about the size of a barracks, and they would be vulnerable while deployed, and it wouldn't go beyond the range of the cannon installed on the artillery, and it would fire in salvos of say 8 shots and then a cooldown of about 30 seconds, but it would mean that squads can have artillery support without having to lose a squad member, and it negates the fact that artillery is something you need to learn, there is a benefit to using it manually if you're really good, but if you aren't you can just set it up like this. It'd work because the idea of building/vehicle ownership would fit in neatly with that, you could also allow squad members to turn their arty control over to the squad leader.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2009
  13. McGyver

    McGyver Experimental Pedagogue

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    Sounds a lot like the Natural Selection Combat gamemode. While it has a lot of good ideas in it, introducing it as a gamemode would probably split the community in two, atleast that is what happened in NS.
     
  14. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Well actually I'm rather hoping the current mode will be abandoned once people play this, as I expect they will find it to be a global improvement, however even if the game attracts two different types of players I don't see that this is a problem, because it's not going to reduce the numbers of players.

    Either people will move from classic to this, or they'll stay in classic. Then on top of that you have the potential for new people to join as a result of this mode. Two groups of players are still playing the same mod.

    I don't see how introducing a new mode could possibly result in fewer players.

    Also how on earth is this remotely like NS combat? NS combat is like CSS, it has most of its classic features removed and a greater emphasis on shooting people, this is all the stuff you get in normal empires but implemented differently, you still have access to all the stuff, you still have all the building mechanics, the territory control aspect etc.

    Empires on district is more like NS combat.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2009
  15. aaaaaa50

    aaaaaa50 Member

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    I have no real contributions to this discussion except to give compliments on good ideas and to use my obligation to point out the obvious problem: There are some places where you cannot drive a vehicle where buildings can be built only by the commander. For example: Emp_Cyclopean has a refinery in the far North West that cannot be accessed by vehicles. Also, there is no reason why the APC's can't just be the deployable barracks.

    To be truthful, I see no reason why we cannot simply have Engineers use their calculators to have buildings parachute from the sky, but I suppose it would be abused as a weapon. However, I would greatly enjoy running people over a radar. :cool:
     
  16. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Refineries could be built like map buildables I suppose, as they do sometimes need to be in places where vehicles can't go, and having to drive to place them might be rather irritating.

    I don't want to make APCs turn into raxes because I like the two different types, an APC would be more of a light spawn point, and a squad support unit, something you could keep moving around, but weaker as a result so you couldn't easily use them as a ninja vehicle. The APC would also be the squad commander's interface, so I think it needs to deploy.

    Also I was thinking the construction vehicles would be pretty slow, the idea is that you can't ninja with buildings under this system, you need to push forward with tanks and then bring buildings up. If you can just drop them in it would kinda defeat the point, also buildings could use a real creation system, rather than just appearing at random.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2009
  17. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    do the devs want to shine there lights of decision on this thread?
     
  18. ScardyBob

    ScardyBob Member

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    While there are some good ideas here, I don't think eviscerating one of the defining features of Empires (i.e. the commander) is a good idea. Having a shitty commander is a big problem, but their are better ways of solving that then eliminating him. In NS, the combat mode is fun, but plays like an average-to-poor team deathmatch. The reason NS has been popular for so long is the RTS/commander gameplay.

    Also, while this could be an interesting gamemode, I'd rather have the devs spend their time tweaking and balancing the current gameplay rather than redoing it. What you're proposing is an entirely new mod IMO.
     
  19. spellman23

    spellman23 Member

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    Would be kinda cool, imo.


    Would probably need a new map prefix to distinguish this style from more traditional styles.
     
  20. Beerdude26

    Beerdude26 OnThink(){ IsDownYet(); }

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    I don't see anything gravely wrong with it, but I personally would like to continiue working on the current gamemode before making a new one.
     

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