Donating Wages to your Team

1) I'm not so sure of this. Maybe don't display player wages to everyone then?
2) Newbies already have difficulty getting used to the command view so I doubt this would be any more unintuitive than a personal command view.
3) I can't see how this is any more distracting than a personal command view that could potentially get you killed while your messing around with it.
4) It's not actually possible to farm points by building engineer stuff. I tried that when testing my code for donating wages.
5) I don't really like the idea of decentralising the commanders role.

I much prefer the idea of having a button in the scoreboard that allows players to donate wages to another team member.

 

I don't like it. The game has enough complication. It's only going to encourage point farming again, which thankfully seems to have disappeared.

Weren't wages introduced in the first place to make sure you can buy tanks, even if the commander locks the VF or if someone bleeds the team by losing too many tanks? That was back when resources were way more scarce.

So basically Wages were added as a work around to a problem, so now we are going to add another feature on-top of wages because why? We have too many wages?
If you are ending up with 1000+ wages it just means you are not buying tanks, which is fine - but they were meant to be a safe guard for you. If we think there aren't enough resources in the game (and lord knows there definitely are) then just buff ref incomes?

The reason why I think this is a bad idea is that the game would be worse off with another revenue stream.

Fundamentally Empires is about controlling ground & the resources it gives.
There are already so many resources in a well populated game now + Wages that it very possible to win conventionally from behind in the late game. This is essentially a buff to the losing team and I don't think we need any more of that.

Choke points would end up becoming x2 refineries and the loser could park the bus, build some walls and just wait for the cash to roll in whilst bleeding enemy tickets.

 

Not sure what you meant by that, but donating wages would be more of a mid to late game things and at that point the dropping buildings is no longer the biggest strains of resources. So wages would still be used only for tanks.

I was never a big fan of wages, so adding yet another system of res pool, no.

I'm 99% sure you can actually farm points/wages by building's other engineers' stuff (turret/camera), I know for a fact you gain points from that. But in a real Empires game this is not nearly as fast as heading out with your squad and fighting enemies, so I don't know what your point is on that.
Of course there's always the good old healing upgrade trick (does it still work?) on money.

Anyway I don't see a point to even having wages other than giving the best players a higher chance to be the one to build tanks.
And don't give me the "it's to allow comebacks". I'm sorry but despite all the "it's to allow comebacks" that have been implemented (no research cost, wages, recycling tank bodies) I haven't seen ANY increase in comebacks for noob games. Making all of that pointless.

as I always say, you can't fix people being noobs.

 

The com can drop a line of walls and it gives you a shit ton of points to team build it.
Com sells walls and drops again.

 

You get 60 wages for building 4 walls. You lose 30 resources for dropping/recycling 4 walls.
Even with squad participation bonus, that gives you like 10 resources/wall.

In the beginning of the game this is absolutely suicidal, map control is of the highest importance.
In late game, if the winning team allows you to do that, you deserve a comeback.
Other than that, walls will have a lower resist against vehicle weapons, that means you can't just brainlessly drop walls and farm points behind them.

 

isn't reviving the quickest way to farm points? or did that get fixed?
anyway - i just dont think we need another way to make resources, it is going to get more grindy when a team locked in their base is still rolling out heavies and rebuilding.

 

First, point farming is bannable.

Second, revive? Please, the fastest way to spam points is mortar+healing upgrade.

Last, like I said, sacrificing early map control in any way is fucking, absolutely, ridiculously retarded.
It's only viable if you farm points while moving, that leaves revive the only way to spam points and everyone will know that you are spamming points. That will also give you a calculator with almost no charge when you are at the frontline, have fun building a rax with that. (also without repair upgrade)

If you are doing it in mid-game, 100 points = 2000 wages, you require 2 players & 10 minutes for those wages.
Keep in mind that's not just 2 players, that's 2 players who know what they are doing.
I failed to see how that's any worthy, really.

Wages aren't just for the losing team.

 

Farming aside I still see this as kind of negating the original intention for wages.

I don't personally like the idea of alternative revenues other than refineries. Feels like dumbing down, refs should always be the most important thing and its already less and less the case over history. You really don't need refinery superiority in the same way as you used to.

Res output is already high compared to what it one was, the commander very rarely has to do any resource management. Research costs nothing now. Seems like commanding is just a formality at this point - not that it was ever very in depth. But now there really aren't many decisions to make anymore - just do some research and scan for targets.

Also seems very backwards way for the commander to get money from player points - to be paid "wages" and then to them back? If the commander/team should get money for points then just taken them. As a player I don't want to have to mess around with rts elements, just drip feed my taxes or something.

 

When I say I know for a fact that you gain points by building other engie's stuff, I mean you're wrong. no sooner than yesterday I asked Hawk to drop a turret so that I would get my 10th point before heading out of main base.
and I did read what you replied to. I'm just not gonna quote every single post in this thread to debunk them, I don't have this for that. In the end wages in the problem, end of story.
And somehow this has started a farming points debate, which is pointless and off topic. You will NEVER sacrifice map control for ANYTHING, not even a radar. so no one will ever farm at the beginning of the game. debate over.

 

make your own wages invisible to other players. no one is pressured into making a tank again and nobody ever thinks about someone ending a game with 1000+ wages again

 

You're right, anyhow in the end adding the ability to donate wages to the commander would be the same as removing wages and boosting ref incomes. so remove wages.

 

wages should be all communal (goes straight to the pool) unless you opt out by locking your wages. most new players are oblivious to the system so an "opt out" mechanic isn't as invasive as making kids give you t heir lunch money

 

wages help players and teams overcome the refinery gap

 

Which comes back to how refinery income is calculated for the server population.

I am for keeping wages but, not how they are currently used. Wages should be for personal things. Temporary Equipment/Powers. I like the idea how NS1/NS2 gave a low rate of wages to all the team players per rez node. This meant that everyone sought out refineries on a personal level to get more personal income to buy things for themselves. Dump the point = wages system or at least lower the amount gained per point. Its a team effort we are trying to promote not point whores.

 

So perhaps engineers should have to use wages to drop engineer buildings like a turret or camera?