Territory control and radars [fixed poll]

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Chris0132', Feb 4, 2012.

?

Which ideas (if any) do you like?

  1. 1. Building Autobuild

    10 vote(s)
    83.3%
  2. 2. Building Autorepair

    9 vote(s)
    75.0%
  3. 3. Build only in your territory

    3 vote(s)
    25.0%
  4. 4. No building in enemy territory

    4 vote(s)
    33.3%
  5. 5. Autospot in your territory

    3 vote(s)
    25.0%
  6. 6. Fast travel in your territory

    5 vote(s)
    41.7%
  7. 7. Upgradable radars

    6 vote(s)
    50.0%
  8. 8. Radars can double as refs

    5 vote(s)
    41.7%
  9. 9. Expensive radars out of territory

    4 vote(s)
    33.3%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Territory control and radars

    I was thinking, empires kinda has a bunch of things that kinda suck about it, and most of them have to do with building things. Having to take outlying refs, having to run across the map to build things, having to stay at base to build things, getting people to build turrets, getting people to repair buildings, all that jazz.

    I also thought, empires is kinda bad at territory. It's really hard to actually secure any territory in empires, because it's really easy to sneak/drive/walk very obviously into enemy territory and start building a base. While this can be kinda fun sometimes, a lot of the time it's really annoying. I don't really like having to killspawn to blow up a ninja rax, or have an entire base appear behind the lines in a few minutes because someone squad revived/piled into an NF jeep/walked around the combat zones and built one.

    I even further thought, empires kinda doesn't have many support mechanisms in place for players on the ground. Oh sure you can get repairs if the comm remembers to build pads, you can get intel if people remember to drop cameras/call out when they see things, you can fast travel if you don't mind getting yelled at for wasting tickets, and you can get cover/protection if people remember to build the walls and turrets, but a lot of these don't happen or are kinda imperfect solutions.

    So what I was thinking, is radars. Radars are kinda cool structures but people don't use them much. They have this neat feature where they spot vehicles in a wide area, but people tend not to place them so this actually works. Really you only build one to get research and that's about it.

    I was thinking, what about if you made radars create territory.

    Territory would be basically, an area around the radar, about the size of the vehicle detection range, maybe a bit less, which is considered as belonging to the side who owns the radar.

    Now, what would this do? Well, more or less anything you want it to. Whatever works, really, a few things I was thinking:
    1. Buildings autobuild when in your territory. It'd be very slow, but you could do things like drop turrets around the base and have them build slowly, or have the walls actually build up to shield your buildings from incoming attacks, also maybe lets you not need base bitches quite so much, it also leads into:
    2. Buildings autorepair when in your territory. Again, very slow, but enough that your base shouldn't accumulate too many nicks and scratches over time, especially on walls and turrets which people might not notice are damaged.
    You can then go onto more major changes like:
    3. Buildings can only be placed in your territory. This would effectively remove ninja buildings from the game, which I think would generally be an improvement, but I can see that there could be times when you'd want to be able to get bases up without having to walk radars across the map first, so maybe you could have:
    4. Buildings cannot be placed in enemy territory, this would be like the previous one only less restrictive. Enemies could lock down their territory to prevent you from building, but it requires a resource investment and could be disrupted by blowing up their radars.
    5. Everything in your territory is autospotted. I know a lot of people hate autospot, but radars are kinda big and kinda expensive, so you could make them a tradeoff. You could also tweak the detection range.
    6. You can fast travel between all raxes/refineries in your territory. This is kinda related to the other suggestion about refs being teleport points, but it would prevent you from using them as ninja buildings. It also potentially means you can't teleport from and to the front lines willy nilly, and it means an attacking force can destroy radar chains to cut off your supply lines and prevent you from teleporting across large areas of the map.
    You also have the opportunity of fine tweaking the functionality, with things like:
    7. Radars need to be upgraded to have the previous functions. Stuff like autospotting, autorepair/build, blocking enemy construction, or even things like upgrading them with extra armor, making them into spawn points, putting ammo/health crates in them, making them teleport points too. You could spend more money to make different radars into different things, a well placed radar in A1 on canyon for example with all the upgrades could be a really cool little holdout point, especially if:
    8. Radars can be placed on refinery points and double as refineries, but are more expensive. This is because refs are naturally spread out on the map, and it also means you have an alternative to building chains of them to expand somewhere. If you could also upgrade them, you could spend a lot of money to make a self contained super tough spawn point which spots incoming threats and also gives you money as long as you defend it. Could be really interesting from a strategic point of view, especially in areas that are very confined.
    9. You can drop radars out of territory,but it costs a lot more, this is just an idea to make it easier to expand over long distance without making it too tedious to string out your supply chain.
    I'm sure there's lots of other ideas you might have, such as stat bonuses when in territory, limited vehicle ammo out of territory, automatic arty feedback if the shots land in territory, that sort of thing. Feel free to post them.

    Also, can a mod please change the poll to a multiple choice one? I don't know how to edit it.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2012
  2. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    as always to these "game fixers" yes please
     
  3. ViroMan

    ViroMan Black Hole (*sniff*) Bully

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    no ninja bases? fuck that ... thats damn fun. your hearts pounding as your behind enemy lines next to the enemy main and your building a rax while praying no one notices... THEN ITS UP! people start poring out of the new barax... enemy team notices spawn kills and are like FFFFFFFFFFFUCK! Then you are set apon by waves of defenders! its just awesome.
     
  4. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    you can always build a ninja in enemy territory thats not covered by the enemy radar (a hole in enemy territory cover)

    it would actually make ninjas more fun since they would be a little more rare and thus less expected
     
  5. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    did the building placement code suddently got updated? last time i checked placing bases is rather limited on many maps. both, enabling and preventing building will cause a lot of issues.
    for enabling you wont even be able to build the first rax as you lack the 600additional res for radar - and if you say, ok then give them 600 more, fast vf gets an option too.
    for disabling it might become incredibly overpowered on maps with limited space.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2012
  6. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    It's pretty well known that I'm going to be totally against #3/4/5/6 so, no point in ranting on why. It just goes against what Empires is for me, fluid and dynamic, constantly changing, no real battle-lines.
     
  7. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    i think, though i understand what you like about it, this is probably something not very good for the games popularity either ...
     
  8. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    Really? I don't think it makes a great deal of difference to be fair. Or at least, there are 100 other things in Empires that could lower popularity rather than blurred battle-lines.
     
  9. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    it conceals the unobvious even further. its what makes empires hard.
    ive heard a lot of people complain about this with the battlefield series too.
    and i assume its the sole reason why dice introduced rush-mode.

    clearly defined frontlines make the game more accessible by making it more predicatable and reproduceable -> you have this "wtf where did THAT come from", "how did i die" or "how did he get up there" situations way less.

    while i can understand why you dont want this, and i dont like the playstyle that goes along with this either, it only attracts a certain kind of players. i assume its also why so many like maps which force this playstyle (district, escort, and slaughtered to some extend)

    in the right situation a bold unexpected push will pay off anyway, its a strategy independend from the actual gameplay rules.

    i dont think there is any need to further promote this and i think it might actually help in making the game more accessible by at least limiting such strategies to those that happen out of the fact that two human teams play against eachother.

    but no worries, since building placement is shitelimited, you cant really implement this idea anyway ^^

    edit:
    oh and i love the gameplay empires shows as long as there is only a few low tier tanks, mainly infantry and clear frontlines close to a stalemate - like it often happens on canyon f.e.
    for me its this point where the game really works superfuckingawesome balance wise and all makes sense, but as soon as racecar meds and heavies of mass destruction appear it all breaks down and either gets chaotic or bland.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2012
  10. Nickierv

    Nickierv Member

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    1. Meh, now how to set walls to not fully build.
    2. meh
    3. Lets talk map balance. Also, massivley unintuitive withount a major ui overhaul, and I can think of half a dozen more important things to have the code team to work on. Not to mention that most maps only have a few spots to build a base, trying to walk radars to a base area will be a total pain.
    4. No way to ninja = bad.
    5. Bad game design 101...
    6. Should have rax to rax transport for the "shit spawned at main" moments anyway.
    7/8/9:
    - 10 more massively unintuitive things new players need to learn.
    - oh god the code
    - oh shit, the ui code.

    If you want to cut down on ninjas, get rid of turbo jeeps or add something that can counter them.
    Lets talk game design 101 for a moment: Things that dont have a counter are almost always a bad idea. Jeeps with wacky hit boxes that can outrun everything but rails and hit scan weapons? Bad game mechanic.
    Same reason the sniper rifle is still in the "should have been removed 3 versions ago" list despite there being a "no sniper weapons/towers" part in the suggestions sticky. Same thing will happen if BE gets a 1 slot cannon that can 1shot the entire NF team. With no research/cost.
     
  11. Grantrithor

    Grantrithor Member

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    I really like this idea, it would make the radar much more useful, a much more important target, and a game mechanic itself. If the devs implement this maybe the engie radar could act as a jammer which neutralizes parts of enemy territory - currently no one uses it as detection since vehicles already detect themselves what with being loud and all. Refs, which are the current way of defining territory in the game, could at least have a small ring of control around them with a radius no more than 15 metres.
     
  12. -=]Kane[=-

    -=]Kane[=- Member

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    I kinda like 6. Teleporting at refs in your own territory, but change that into "teleporting inside radars" it just would be confusing the other way around, especially since you can enter radar but you cannot enter refs, and empires doesn't need to become any more complicated. This way you don't need to implement territories.
    But "limited vehicle ammo out of territory", I like this one, simply because unlimited vehicle ammo is a bit OP when sitting next or inside an enemy base, and it's very obvious that under certain conditions you use ammo and under others not, finding out that the condition is "being in range of a radar" seems to be rather secondary and unimportant, therefor wouldn't make empires more complicated.
     
  13. inferno

    inferno Member

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    have my children OP
     
  14. Chris0132'

    Chris0132' Developer

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    Remade because I'm a smart person who can use computors and make polls, honestly.

    I was thinking, empires kinda has a bunch of things that kinda suck about it, and most of them have to do with building things. Having to take outlying refs, having to run across the map to build things, having to stay at base to build things, getting people to build turrets, getting people to repair buildings, all that jazz.

    I also thought, empires is kinda bad at territory. It's really hard to actually secure any territory in empires, because it's really easy to sneak/drive/walk very obviously into enemy territory and start building a base. While this can be kinda fun sometimes, a lot of the time it's really annoying. I don't really like having to killspawn to blow up a ninja rax, or have an entire base appear behind the lines in a few minutes because someone squad revived/piled into an NF jeep/walked around the combat zones and built one.

    I even further thought, empires kinda doesn't have many support mechanisms in place for players on the ground. Oh sure you can get repairs if the comm remembers to build pads, you can get intel if people remember to drop cameras/call out when they see things, you can fast travel if you don't mind getting yelled at for wasting tickets, and you can get cover/protection if people remember to build the walls and turrets, but a lot of these don't happen or are kinda imperfect solutions.

    So what I was thinking, is radars. Radars are kinda cool structures but people don't use them much. They have this neat feature where they spot vehicles in a wide area, but people tend not to place them so this actually works. Really you only build one to get research and that's about it.

    I was thinking, what about if you made radars create territory.

    Territory would be basically, an area around the radar, about the size of the vehicle detection range, maybe a bit less, which is considered as belonging to the side who owns the radar.

    Now, what would this do? Well, more or less anything you want it to. Whatever works, really, a few things I was thinking:
    1. Buildings autobuild when in your territory. It'd be very slow, but you could do things like drop turrets around the base and have them build slowly, or have the walls actually build up to shield your buildings from incoming attacks, also maybe lets you not need base bitches quite so much, it also leads into:
    2. Buildings autorepair when in your territory. Again, very slow, but enough that your base shouldn't accumulate too many nicks and scratches over time, especially on walls and turrets which people might not notice are damaged.
    You can then go onto more major changes like:
    3. Buildings can only be placed in your territory. This would effectively remove ninja buildings from the game, which I think would generally be an improvement, but I can see that there could be times when you'd want to be able to get bases up without having to walk radars across the map first, so maybe you could have:
    4. Buildings cannot be placed in enemy territory, this would be like the previous one only less restrictive. Enemies could lock down their territory to prevent you from building, but it requires a resource investment and could be disrupted by blowing up their radars.
    5. Everything in your territory is autospotted. I know a lot of people hate autospot, but radars are kinda big and kinda expensive, so you could make them a tradeoff. You could also tweak the detection range.
    6. You can fast travel between all raxes/refineries in your territory. This is kinda related to the other suggestion about refs being teleport points, but it would prevent you from using them as ninja buildings. It also potentially means you can't teleport from and to the front lines willy nilly, and it means an attacking force can destroy radar chains to cut off your supply lines and prevent you from teleporting across large areas of the map.
    You also have the opportunity of fine tweaking the functionality, with things like:
    7. Radars need to be upgraded to have the previous functions. Stuff like autospotting, autorepair/build, blocking enemy construction, or even things like upgrading them with extra armor, making them into spawn points, putting ammo/health crates in them, making them teleport points too. You could spend more money to make different radars into different things, a well placed radar in A1 on canyon for example with all the upgrades could be a really cool little holdout point, especially if:
    8. Radars can be placed on refinery points and double as refineries, but are more expensive. This is because refs are naturally spread out on the map, and it also means you have an alternative to building chains of them to expand somewhere. If you could also upgrade them, you could spend a lot of money to make a self contained super tough spawn point which spots incoming threats and also gives you money as long as you defend it. Could be really interesting from a strategic point of view, especially in areas that are very confined.
    9. You can drop radars out of territory,but it costs a lot more, this is just an idea to make it easier to expand over long distance without making it too tedious to string out your supply chain.
    I'm sure there's lots of other ideas you might have, such as stat bonuses when in territory, limited vehicle ammo out of territory, automatic arty feedback if the shots land in territory, that sort of thing. Feel free to post them.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2012
  15. aaaaaa50

    aaaaaa50 Member

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    I know you were just throwing ideas to see what sticks to the wall, but I have to say that 3 and 4 are terrible, and 5 is as horrible as it's always been. So, unfortunately those three are real stinkers, but the messy stuff happens (in a way it needs to happen) when brainstorming so it's all cool. I really like 1 and 2, because just those would be totally awesome and not un-balance the game at all. 6 I really like because I honestly think that teleporting for infantry would be a huge boost to teamwork, and I feel silly for not realizing that the big open space inside a radar would a perfect place to put another teleporter. 7 seems good, but it's all things that you build other buildings for, so that gets a no from me. (Bigger bases are more dynamic.) 8 is good in general. Again, I don't think that a single super-building should replace an entire base. Still, being able to upgrade a normal refinery into a radar for the teleporting and building-help would be really cool and a big boost to radar usage. 9 only works with 3 and 4.

    Speaking of throwing ideas out, I'd like to add a number 10: Let radars show all enemy buildings in it's radius on the map. This works much better than 3 and 4 because instead of unbalancing the game you're giving players targets for them to attack. This would really define your team's territory: If an enemy places a turret in your territory, now you instantly know about it and your vengeance can be swift. It would still make ninja raxes harder, but you can fix that completely by making it so that only built enemy buildings are detected. That way a ninja rax would suddenly appear around the corner from your base on the map and you get a nice "Oh, Shit!" moment.
     
  16. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    did the minimap get fixed already? if not this might get confusing, but its a good idea.
    also i forgot to vote for the teleporting stuff, add 1 to that ...

    edit:
    also interesting outcome. atm 8(7) out of 10 people think that building and repairing need a change or at least should be reconsidered by devs. i know 10 isnt really that representative, esp since its a lot of inactives on the forums, but it shows a tendency.

    there should be more anonymous polls depending gameplay elements to get an idea about what players think.
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2012
  17. aaaaaa50

    aaaaaa50 Member

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    I wish that you could change your vote on a poll. Le sigh.
     
  18. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    i sometimes wish people could do that on reallife votes when they realize what they just did ...
     
  19. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    Instead of a radar, creating a New building would be better imo , relay station maybe?
     
  20. Grantrithor

    Grantrithor Member

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    Relay station is almost the exact same thing as radar, the radar currently serves only 1 purpose, it would be inefficient to find a modeller to get the new building and the code all the stuff for that new building.
     

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