Remove WARZONES, make a TUG of WAR across the system instead

[CTCParadox]

While I would love to see a much more in-depth strategic war system I am not familiar enough with the limitations of Elite's BGS/networking and updating.

As a quick fix for systems at war I would suggest the below.
- War zones should be dangerous, whether a player wants to participate or not. Players who don't want to be part of the war shouldn't enter the system.
- War status is shown on the galaxy map as some kind of easily visible warning.
- Players entering a system at war are given a big warning on their screen "DANGER! ACTIVE WAR ZONE" plus an audio warning.
- Players are automatically aligned to the faction that they have the most reputation with.
- If conflict is between Federal/Empire/Alliance factions then your major faction reputation is the primary decider.
- Military ships will aggressively attempt to interdict enemy CMDRs in supercruise.
- Enemy ships will blockade target stations (remaining outside gun range) and attack enemies who appear (this results in a blockaded tag on the station name in SC). Destroying enough ships will clear the blockade temporarily. In extreme cases a capital ship will be the blockade.
- The war as a whole acts like a mini-CG/Powerplay and tracks your contributions in terms of instances won/lost and ships/CMDRs destroyed. Probably using the same/similar interface to the CG/Powerplay one would be fine.

- Endless Conflict Zones are replaced by various kinds of events.
- Distress Beacon: Friendly non-combat ships under attack (or combat ships outnumbered). Destroy attackers to win the instance.
- Distress Beacon [Capital]: Friendly capital under heavy attack. Destroy attackers to win the instance.
- Engagement: Result of an interdiction. Basically a small Conflict Zone that has a very limited number of combatants.
- and others I can't think of. The main point is that none of these last forever and can be won for bonus points towards overall victory.

- Bulletin board missions give you more advanced events.
- The mission description gives you a good idea of what you are up against so you choose suitable missions.
- Base Assault: A small, destructible, space or surface structure (mining/refinery/munitions dump etc.) with some defenders. There could be different variants depending on your assigned objective in the mission. Destroy the gate, knock out generators, suppress defence guns etc.
- Convoy Assault: Destroy a group of enemy transports (or maybe pop their cargo hatches to steal war supplies or secret information).
- Recon: Get in close and scan some stuff. Enemy presence is very high so stealth/speed would be preferred strategy. Gives smaller ships some jobs just for them.
- Assassinate: Hit their military leaders.
- and of course the same missions but from the opposite perspective (defence).

- The overall system victory is based partially on ships destroyed but a bigger contributor is "winning" the missions and instances and destroying enemy CMDRs.
- If we had system where information/recon missions added to an intelligence rating for the faction which then unlocked higher value missions for all players that would also be a step in the right direction.

Just random thoughts, maybe some interesting ideas.

CMDR CTCParadox

 

[Falcon_D]

The only technical limitation I see to my proposed system, is how the instancing works, where there could be players in two different instances generating different results.

The solution would be that when attacking an objective, the system only generates one instance to get everyone in.

If the rare event that the instance gets full, it could generate a secondary instance, but the result of that one won't be saved and wont count towards the goal (but it will count towards earning rank and money). Neither will the solo and private group players. So while they CAN participate, they actions wont be in conflict with the main group.

Hello,
Everything you said was fine until you got to the Open vs Private vs Solo, nonsense (I would prefer to use another word, but can't.)

To add on to making your technical limitations less of a problem, Private groups should then have their own CZ stage instances which would then only affect their game universe and Solo players should then have their own instances which would also then affect their own universe.
Better yet Solo should be disconnected from the main server altogether so as to make instancing irrelevant.
Private groups could set up their own private servers and thus private universe. Again making instancing less of a problem.
This way Private/Solo groups don't affect open and open players do not affect Private/Solo. And everyone can have fun playing around in staged CZs, not just the so called "I want to be special" Open players (I do understand that not all open players want to be as special as the OP.)

Have fun, fly safe. o7

 

[Svartir]

The OP is right, wars (and other BSG faction events, booms, busts, elections) need more depth and basically a procedurally generated mini-CG-type and tug-of-war type mechanisms


I agree with CTCPardox's list of suggestions above. This is exactly the sort of things that would add "depth" to the game.

Even outside warzones. I think most WSS, SSS, USS, CZ should in supercruise should be replaced with with various sorts of "distress beacons" with a short message explaining the the nature of the problem/threat (some of these can be fake and pirate traps). The types of distress beacons which spawn should be radically different depending on system events (war, boom), dominant faction politics and distance from systems with human populations.

Each system faction should at least have an "Estimated fleet size: 1084 ships" type number displayed under their name/description. As players destroy ships of that faction and the updates to the BGS trickle through that number is reduced. As a factions fleet number drops their factions ship spawn rate should drop greatly which will help determine war outcomes. Faction economic/political influence combined with NPC trade, player missions/donations, system population should determine how fast factions (re)grow their fleets.

This would go some way to reducing that meaningless, shallow, lack of impact, endless waves of NPC feeling in CZ and RES sites.

In any case, system events such as wars should definitely be marked on the galaxy map and be a prominent feature in station news in neighboring systems. Even if you are just informed (on galaxy map + station news) about wars within 40 ly of your current location.

 

[CTCParadox]

In any case, system events such as wars should definitely be marked on the galaxy map and be a prominent feature in station news in neighboring systems. Even if you are just informed (on galaxy map + station news) about wars within 40 ly of your current location.

Yeah there's a bit of stuff that goes on with system bust/boom/war and all that but none of it is obvious unless you read the system status panel all the time.
It would be nice if there was a way to get the system news during supercruise. Maybe using that new role screen between our legs.
You could set it up with a simple text to speech program so we could LISTEN to the news while heading into the station.
Like Robot Rachael on Radio Sidewinder.

Also when wars finish the demand for alcohol, fireworks and what not should go up (also population should probably go up 9 months after the war finishes). Then when you visit a station controlled by the winner you can see fireworks bursting around the station for a couple of days.

CMDR CTCParadox

 

[Iori]

Hello,
Everything you said was fine until you got to the Open vs Private vs Solo, nonsense (I would prefer to use another word, but can't.)

To add on to making your technical limitations less of a problem, Private groups should then have their own CZ stage instances which would then only affect their game universe and Solo players should then have their own instances which would also then affect their own universe.
Better yet Solo should be disconnected from the main server altogether so as to make instancing irrelevant.
Private groups could set up their own private servers and thus private universe. Again making instancing less of a problem.
This way Private/Solo groups don't affect open and open players do not affect Private/Solo. And everyone can have fun playing around in staged CZs, not just the so called "I want to be special" Open players (I do understand that not all open players want to be as special as the OP.)

Have fun, fly safe. o7

I agree with you, but there is no chance FD is gonna give a separate universe for Solo players and private players, that thing has been asked since the beginning with no success. They even broke their promise of no offline mode for the sake of everyone sharing a universe despite knowing the controversy that it would cause. Therefore I proposed what I believe would be the second best option, after all, war is a collective effort, not a one man thing, and so Open should take priority to avoid conflict if the same universe is still going to be shared.

But yes, if they could change their minds, I would like a solo mode that is mine only, one that can actually be played offline, I just discarded that option as impossible.

 

[Surround]

I would rather have this than character creation and multicrew.

One thing what really bothers me in elite is that you can rank feds and empire at the sametime. Nothing matters what you do or kill. Nobody hates you and nobody loves you.

I remeber in escape velocity you had yo be a baddie before you could join and dock with pirate factions. Or if you killed confederate ship you were hated in the whole confederate space.

 

[CTCParadox]

I would rather have this than character creation and multicrew.

One thing what really bothers me in elite is that you can rank feds and empire at the sametime. Nothing matters what you do or kill. Nobody hates you and nobody loves you.

I remeber in escape velocity you had yo be a baddie before you could join and dock with pirate factions. Or if you killed confederate ship you were hated in the whole confederate space.

Yeah ranks in both major factions as once is weird.
Then again the whole naval rank thing is weird (Empire highest rank is King? What?) and nothing more than a content gate to hide ships behind.

Actually I think the character creator technology could be really helpful in giving more character to the universe.
Rather than a board full of random missions there could be a contact person for each faction in the system (generated using the CMDR creator).
Then at least we have a face (and name) to go with each faction.

CMDR CTCParadox

 

[kilvenny]

The way to overcome the instances is for them to each count towards a background value that manages the attack and defence. Once that background value is reached no new instances are generated and the control moves to the conquering faction. This would also overcome the solo/open argument as a player in solo is counting towards the background value.

I do think over the top of this there needs to be the ability of a player to join a faction. Also the factions need mechanics so you can decide system to conquer etc.

 

[[VR] Bac Ho]

+1 for me, a cracking idea. Just imagine if they had this game mechanic for PowerPlay, now that would be fun.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

- Players are automatically aligned to the faction that they have the most reputation with.
- If conflict is between Federal/Empire/Alliance factions then your major faction reputation is the primary decider.

CMDR CTCParadox

I love all those ideas except for this bit.

Currently my reputation is 100% with all 3 major factions. Lol
And I'm not even sure how I did it.

I'd rather still chose for myself which I side with.

More for the sake of gameplay. I don't wanna zoom over to a war zone with my buddies, only to be placed on the opposite side when I get there. Lol
Or like I currently am doing, helping the Hutton Truckers in Wise 0855-0714. With an automated system, I'd be placed on the federations side every time.

 

[CTCParadox]

I love all those ideas except for this bit.

Currently my reputation is 100% with all 3 major factions. Lol
And I'm not even sure how I did it.

I'd rather still chose for myself which I side with.

More for the sake of gameplay. I don't wanna zoom over to a war zone with my buddies, only to be placed on the opposite side when I get there. Lol
Or like I currently am doing, helping the Hutton Truckers in Wise 0855-0714. With an automated system, I'd be placed on the federations side every time.

I was thinking of a way to get the player involved without them having to go seek out an instance or mission or something.
Make the gameplay come to the player for a change. I might have gone too far.

I would prefer a system where siding with a faction has some consequences but like you said it might hamstring players if they try to play with friends (which is certainly something we don't want to discourage).

CMDR CTCParadox

 

[Lowievisser]

Agree , good ideas. lets try to get fd rid of the placeholders since alpha/beta 2014!!!!

 

[joshman72nd]

i agree but first we need to get the big ships moving and get rid of cap ships steal killing. the only thing you had to implement was a afk force log out in a conflict zone if a person hasnt touched a button in 4 minutes or something.

 

[Iori]

The way to overcome the instances is for them to each count towards a background value that manages the attack and defence. Once that background value is reached no new instances are generated and the control moves to the conquering faction. This would also overcome the solo/open argument as a player in solo is counting towards the background value.

I do think over the top of this there needs to be the ability of a player to join a faction. Also the factions need mechanics so you can decide system to conquer etc.

The problem with reducing it to a value, is that we fall into the same problem we already have, when you fight for a value, it becomes another skinner box, you don't have this moment of victory when you have conquered a key objective. Value based objectives is actually one of the biggest problems the game has right now, it is one of the main reasons that powerplay sucks, it is the lazy way, the smartphone freemium game way, and makes one feel like nothing is really there.

Another solution would be that wars are fought in a specific war instance that you have to sign up to in the station, think CQC (but with larger numbers and across the entire system), when that war instance is full, you can not join until someone leaves, it would be great if that had a dedicated server instead of P2P too. Then you could have the current system in place for people not actively participating as well as solo, and private players. But the actual outcome of the war is only decided in the war instance that you have to sign up to.

Take a look at Planetside, that game does massive conquest gameplay right, and yet you can never take the final base there thats the main problem Planetside has, because the game is limited in size and must sustain itself. Elite, having entire star systems, with real sized planets withing a real sized galaxy, doesn't have this limitation, and has much more potential for a similar gameplay style. Unlike in Planetside, systems CAN be won, CAN be claimed, and there are plenty of them.

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i agree but first we need to get the big ships moving and get rid of cap ships steal killing. the only thing you had to implement was a afk force log out in a conflict zone if a person hasnt touched a button in 4 minutes or something.

There would be easy ways around that, however, if a war instance is multiplayer only, the best counter to AFKers would be other players, so the problem would solve itself, and they could also make big ships good again.

 

[kilvenny]

The problem with reducing it to a value, is that we fall into the same problem we already have, when you fight for a value, it becomes another skinner box, you don't have this moment of victory when you have conquered a key objective. Value based objectives is actually one of the biggest problems the game has right now, it is one of the main reasons that powerplay sucks, it is the lazy way, the smartphone freemium game way, and makes one feel like nothing is really there.

Another solution would be that wars are fought in a specific war instance that you have to sign up to in the station, think CQC (but with larger numbers and across the entire system), when that war instance is full, you can not join until someone leaves, it would be great if that had a dedicated server instead of P2P too. Then you could have the current system in place for people not actively participating as well as solo, and private players. But the actual outcome of the war is only decided in the war instance that you have to sign up to.

Take a look at Planetside, that game does massive conquest gameplay right, and yet you can never take the final base there thats the main problem Planetside has, because the game is limited in size and must sustain itself. Elite, having entire star systems, with real sized planets withing a real sized galaxy, doesn't have this limitation, and has much more potential for a similar gameplay style. Unlike in Planetside, systems CAN be won, CAN be claimed, and there are plenty of them.

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There would be easy ways around that, however, if a war instance is multiplayer only, the best counter to AFKers would be other players, so the problem would solve itself, and they could also make big ships good again.

If you are in the last instance for the object and the background criteria is met, I would have expected an Objective complete message. Maybe I am missing something here? One other way would be to spawn multiple instances sequentially for the objective, but then you are stacking against an instance count so its the same thing. The only other way is to have single instance objects limited to whoever is there at a point in time.

 

[Dedannan]

Some great ideas, I have been hoping for something like this to add depth to the conflicts

 

[Kylby36]

This is such an amazing idea... Trying to revive this thread because I just discovered it off google. Should talk about it some more. FANTASTIC ideas.

 

[WreckWren]

+rep for OP. A great set of ideas well considered and presented.

There is nowhere near enough to do on surfaces, and this would really help with that. I can't help but think, though, that we really need some ship-to-ship combat planetside. It just doesn't happen unless a pirate follows you to a settlement, and I have to say - that fight was the best experience I've had in ED.

 

[Sandmann]

Great notion... and should be further expanded into a "boots on the ground" war once the atmospheric planetary landing's in too.

+1 for you.

 

[Ignition]

Agree with the OP, this game needs to stop adding place holders and focus on gameplay.