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Topic: New Islands With a New Way to Win

For some reason conquest in MMO's always seem to revolve around static points. Objectives are there to "Encourage PvP" and yet capturing them can actually be achieved without ever actually killing another player. What follows is an idea for a new way to fihht over an island. It's not complete and I have no idea ifit could be done but it gets the point across.

If the objective is an outpost, you shoot the outpost in order to capture it, you don't shoot other people. Why is that?

What if we had a new island. An island that didn't have a single outpost nor even a static inbound teleporter. To get there you go in via drop pod or some other suitably exciting sci-fi esque mode of transport with no control over where you end up. Once there members of your corporation can establish static but destructible teleporters accessoble from the other islands.

What if,even though there were no outposts, you were still fighting for influence over the island but you were fighting to move a dynamic "Frontline". Starting from your Main Spark Relay Beacon your aim is to push your influence out across the island. You do this by killing enemies within the Control range of your MSRB, which hijacks the departing Spark signal, cracks it and adds it AI routines to its own, boosting its effective control range ( or some *** like that, RP aint really my thing). Inside the control range of your tower smaller structures can be deployed, for harvesting EC stuffs or Deep Hole Mining Assemblies for Epriton or some kind of long range artifact scanner or other things that you cant have anywhere else. Basically things, whatever they may be, that will really make you want to gain influence on the island.

Kills made outside your MSRB radius still count as long as the robot that made the kill is able to return to the MSRB and upload the Spark for decrypting. Sparks gathered in this way will only be partial though. Maybe there are skills or modules that will incease how much of a SPark can be decoded when away from your MSRB.

Theres a lot of things you could do with it, but heres the fundamental point. To gain control you HAVE TO KILL OTHER PEOPLE. Simply dropping an uber blob in that simply means noone is going to come near you will get you precisely nowehere. Baiting one lone Assault Bot with a Sequer and then dropping 20 menchs on him won't get you nowhere, but it wont get you very far.

Anyways, what do you think. Would it bring something fresh to the table or would it just be stupid? Would it at least be fun?

  • CIR
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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

This is basically an instanced PVP warfront. You don't mention a reason to actully try to win influence, but lets say its for some sort of prize.


Its much easier to get people to PVP in a game like Rift because they don't lose anything when they die. People go to warfronts for simple reasons like trying to be the winner, and maybe get some token thing.

With sandboxes, and Perp in particular, there needs to be more incentive then just a prize, since the potential lose of equipment could vastly outweigh the incentive.

Roaming is popular now because it's reasonably cheap, you can pick your fights (for the most part), but its also sporatic and mostly just for fun.

tl;dr To get coordinated well equipted groups together in the same place is going to require some serious motivation.

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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

Bldyannoyed wrote:

Inside the control range of your tower smaller structures can be deployed, for harvesting EC stuffs or Deep Hole Mining Assemblies for Epriton or some kind of long range artifact scanner or other things that you cant have anywhere else. Basically things, whatever they may be, that will really make you want to gain influence on the island.

And uh, wheres the instancing? It's a persistent island that ANYONE can access at anytime, which is in fact completely the OPPOSITE of an instance.

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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

Yes, you've completely rebuffed my response by highlighting a difference in teminology.

  • NeX
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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

It's an interesting idea, and would certainly be much more dynamic than the current model of either taking or not taking an outpost. But it seems to award defence and discourage offence (if I understood right). If I invade (entering their region) I get less benefit for a kill than my enemy does. If I defend, I get more for a kill than my enemy does. So the best approach is to camp your front line MSRBs and hope the enemy invades?

Bldyannoyed wrote:

Basically things, whatever they may be, that will really make you want to gain influence on the island.

This is the best part. And the core of what should drive any future change to PO. People need something to fight for.

PO needs a thatched roof and raider approach. Everything should be buildable and destructable. If I "invade" an outpost now, what happens? I stand around and stare at a building until maybe someone decides "Sure. What the hell, I'll fight you". But if I can start razing nearby buildings or steal stuff from them, my enemy has a strong incentive to gang up and drive me off. Maybe you'd rather be peaceful and defensive? Fine. But someone will love the idea of burning your little village to the ground, for loot or lulz. You gotta be ready.

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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

Arga wrote:

Yes, you've completely rebuffed my response by highlighting a difference in teminology.

You're making no sense. (im assuming the sarcasm is strong here).

You've said that all I'm asking for is an instanced warfront and ive told you I want nothing of the kind. This is not instanced in anyway. There are no static teleporters as it eliminates the possibility of CAMPING said teleporters. Make up some RP junk to explain why conventional teleporters dont work if it makes you feel better. Anyone can come in through a drop pod at anytime but unless their corp has managed to setup a beacon you have no way of knowing where you're going to land.

You've said there needs to be a reason to do it and I've told you that the point if spreading influence is that it allows you to establish access to resources that are not available anywhere else. It's not some "we now control the whole island, get a prize and it resets" kinda thing. You spread influence to get stuff, other people will try to hinder you by attacking your structures and killing you to spread their own control. Should 2 opposing spheres of influence start to overlap new and exciting things can happen.

People fight for control of Beta outposts because they bring benefits. This is the same, you get benefits for gaining control over areas of the island. The wider your sphere of influence, the more stuffs you can get hold of. The difference here is that unlike Beta where the outposts are the enemy and the easiest way to get the benfits of ownership is to ensure that nobody else comes anywhere near you, on these islands you have to be killing other agents to get anywhere. Forcing your enemy to stay docked, or in this case keeping them off the island altogether, is self defeating.

You said yourself that atm pvp is mostly cheap sporadic and just for fun. Or to put it another way, barely existent and virtually pointless. Thats not a good thing.

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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

It's not a finished idea Arilou but how about this:

When you invade someones influence you get their Sparks at the reduced value as if you were in an area of no influence, but each Spark gathered also destabilises the enemies influence. So you'll stregthen your own and weaken theirs and also get a shot at blowing up some of their shiny stuff.

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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

Bldyannoyed wrote:

It's not a finished idea Arilou but how about this:

When you invade someones influence you get their Sparks at the reduced value as if you were in an area of no influence, but each Spark gathered also destabilises the enemies influence. So you'll stregthen your own and weaken theirs and also get a shot at blowing up some of their shiny stuff.

Problem with this idea is it really encourages people to blob so you have less risk of losing influence.

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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

suDndEth wrote:
Bldyannoyed wrote:

It's not a finished idea Arilou but how about this:

When you invade someones influence you get their Sparks at the reduced value as if you were in an area of no influence, but each Spark gathered also destabilises the enemies influence. So you'll stregthen your own and weaken theirs and also get a shot at blowing up some of their shiny stuff.

Problem with this idea is it really encourages people to blob so you have less risk of losing influence.

people will always blob in PvP ... strength in numbers ...

  • NeX
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Re: New Islands With a New Way to Win

There's also an inherent downside to trying to quantify influence. The results is there are very few ways to actually get it, and it doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of who is the stronger power.

Better IMO to let people build where they want. Let intelligence be the determining factor: if the building and location is poor, you'll know because it doesn't yield the benefits hoped for, and you have a really hard time defending it. The reverse would be true of well-placed buildings. This not because a magical spot on the ground gives it better/worse numbers, but because of raw logistic and tactical considerations. How would you know who has "influence"? It's the corp who has all the buildings in an area.