As far as I can tell, the implementation of wages in 2.30 has made the matches far far shorter. No longer are there such things like long, epic defenses, or springing back from losing the majority of the round to win, or vice versa, or even the brilliant stratagems that used to win matches. It's my belief the shortness of matches is caused by wages, which inundates the winning team with large reserves of cash to build large amounts of tanks, to quickly take over/kill the losing, now heavily disadvantaged team. The large amount of resources means constant research, which means that there's no real time to react to the other team's tech/plan your tech tree as you go along. In case you haven't noticed, commanders never restrict anymore. Just curious what other people think about this
I too believe that a player should reap individual benefits by performing better, however I believe that every aspect in Empires makes the winning team win faster, and the losing team lose faster. There are two options. A: Make total suppression of a team very hard (good choice). B: Make annihilation of a team after suppression quick (bad choice). Things like superpowered weapons and tactical (commander) powers support choice B. Things like exponentially less productive refineries (the more you have the less each produces) and upkeep costs support choice A.
I'd rather have a game in which the tide of battle changes than a game in which the victory is decided in two minutes. Either game is going to last over 2/3'rds of an hour; one is more fun (for everyone).
I'm still on the fence about wages. I think if implemented properly and worked on, they could genuinely be a fantastic addition to the game, but for sure they aren't doing much good currently.
I think wages are OK. Maybe lower the reward to 10 per point instead of 20. If there's something that makes the game less epic, it's tickets. Also They do. Just that if you have enough wages, you're able to build your vehicle of choice, even if the VF is restricted. (Isn't that correct?)
how about making wages dependent on the number or refs you have? so if you have 0 refs, you get like 40 wages per point; conversly, if you have all the refs in the map, you get 5 wages per point or something like that.
it seems like I gain mad points for kill assist now and my wages get really high in a short space of time. How bout have kill assist be the only point thing that doesn't contribute to wages?
I think this idea could help immensely, and allow better balancing of resources. If no-one objects, I'm gonna thread this into the suggestion forum. There is no way possible this would not result in more awesome, IMHO.
Wages may contribute, but teams having over 10k res on slaughtered with two refs is the more pressing problem. The multipliers got changed a few versions ago, and res flow is seriously screwed up.
Actually those 10k res on slaughter make it easier to come back. I think it would be better to give the teams alot of money on every map but restrict somehow the amount of tanks at the same time on the field. I suggest to think about giving the players tank tickets, and give them extra ones through the wages mechanic.
But how many "tide of battle" changes are there in a single game? This is only the case for some maps (that aren't just choke points like canyon or slaughtered) with competent squad leaders and players. You would be lucky if you find one of those games in a single day. I would not be as pessimistic about wages as some others. They encourage players to be fighting in battle (preferably in squads) instead of camping the VF and waiting for enough res for a vehicle. As now you can get points from different types of assist kills and wages are solely based on those points, you may just need to consider lowering the constant multiplier for points to wages.
