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World PvE ... CONTROL POINTS for City of Titans

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Redlynne
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World PvE ... CONTROL POINTS for City of Titans

CONTROL POINTS ... How Tabula Rasa Did It

Been thinking over the issues involved with doing anything even remotely akin to Control Points in City of Titans ... because, golly gee whiz, they were just so much fun in Tabula Rasa ... and have been coming up with some really strange answers.

The basic idea still remains one of Capture The Flag, and would still be a World PvE sort of thing, instead of being a direct PvP oriented option (although creating an Arena map based on Control Points ought to be quite possible). However, in Tabula Rasa, you could get away with making Control Points into "forts" with walls and "doors" you had to batter your way through in order to enter the compound and take the Obelisk to switch "ownership" of the Control Point from the Bane to the Allied Free Sentients (the AFS). That entire premise of structure ... that you can have "walls" that PCs can't get over easily, thereby funneling them through the front door (which required a lot of DPS to open) so as to give you a "castle" kind of fortification that changes sides ... only "works" if you're dealing with a ground bound environment where PCs can't Jump or Fly or Teleport over those (speed bump) walls.

So in a Superhero game, particularly one which features a lot of vertical movement options, you can't build what amounts to 2D fortifications and require the PCs to break into them in a conventional fashion. Or at least, you can't do that without building a Roof over the location of the Flag to be captured, which then brings all "Indoor" considerations to what is supposed to be an "Outdoor" activity. So when Vertical Movement is the "rule" rather than the extraordinary, the fact that you can build (vertical) Walls isn't all that good of a protection/defense to fortify a position. It just won't work when PCs (or even NPCs, in the case of Prisoners leaping the fences around The Zig in Brickstown as though they were trifles) have enough vertical movement to render the Walls useful only against Superspeed.

So what to do if you can't have a walled compound to assault and defend?

Simple ... add more Flags to the area and require them to all be in a state of Capture simultaneously in order to "flip" the ownership of the Control Point.

How MANY Flags to assign to a particular Control Point then becomes something of an interesting question. I'm thinking that as few as 3 in a lowbie zone would be appropriate, and placing them close enough together that potentially a determined soloist of appropriate Level could solo capture a Control Point with 3 Obelisks ... but it would be "tricky" to do and prone to failure (mainly due to NPC Foes spawning in fast enough after being defeated to make this option difficult but not impossible). At higher Levels though, the number of Obelisks to capture simultaneously could be increased, going perhaps as high as 8 for a single Control Point in a high level zone. The basic notion however is to encourage TEAMWORK for both the Assault and the Defense states for these things.


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Gangrel
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Interesting take on them, and

Interesting take on them, and if you slowly introduce them, then you can have extra content that can be launched by them being under Player/NPC control as well (mission givers/repeatables) and the like.

Yes, it means that some content wont be available all the time, but it can be interesting to see... and the longer that the player side owns a control point, the larger and more determined the NPC forces become to take it

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Players might be able to jump

Players might be able to jump/fly/teleport over the walls but so can the enemy. An enemy coming from all directions simultaneously would be a lot harder to deal with than a steady stream through a bottleneck. Plus, even if you can get over the wall easily you would still be ambushed by a large mob of enemies. I don't think the lack of a ceiling is as much of a problem in this sense.

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In CO most bases have AA guns

In CO most bases have AA guns to handle flying heroes They start shooting if a hero is flying over a minimum height so they do not start attacking ground hovering heores but than NPC's can attack them melee easily. Something similar to this can be put if someone tries to apprach to complex above ground from walls height that guns can start raining bullets, energy, plasma or whatever they are loaded with. It should be punishing enough to fly all the way but not as bad as if they are just jumping over walls. Once in wall however the structure maybe made like a maze. Trying to jump over all walls will definitly cause some damage and if someone penetrates first wall there can be some sorf of alert.

Also this is a super hero game it can always be said there is a forcefield above falls that does not let flying heroes get in from above but not restrict their movements once they are inside walls.

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Actually, I was thinking of

Actually, I was thinking of something even more radical than that ... NO WALLS AT ALL.

Consider a wide open public space, like a Park or something (Perez Park?), which could be a Control Point with widely spaced Obelisks (or whatever) scattered around its open space. At that point, it becomes less a matter of "peeling the onion" to get "inside" somewhere, and more a matter of defeating the opposition that's defending the Obelisks. When you eliminate the bottlenecks of walls and doors that you have to get through in order to reach a SINGLE point, things can become much more wide open and free flowing.

Consider how the Deadly Apocalypse Event worked, in that you had Flags that needed to be "defeated" but the Flags weren't protected by barriers or terrain of any kind ... they just had Defenders protecting them. You could do something like that as a freestanding World PvE style of thing, where the Obelisks of the Control Point basically don't have any kind of fortification built around them to protect them from assailants. Instead, it's up to the PCs and the NPCs to "fight it out" in the vicinity near them to establish (and maintain!) ownership of the Obelisk(s) in order to capture, or hold, a Control Point.

So you wouldn't even need to set things up as being some sort of defensible compound (although you COULD do that). The basic notion though is that which "side" has dominance of a Control Point would determine the "nature" and character of the neighborhood that Control Point is in. So like Gangrel says, if a public park were set up as a Control Point, when that park is in "Hero" control there might be a Mission Contact who will show up in that park sitting at a picnic bench ... but if it is "uncontrolled" or if the "Villains" have control of it, then that particular contact simply won't be there (and can't be reached by cell phone). It could literally be that simple.

Furthermore, when dealing with Control Points with multiple Obelisks, the "victory" condition doesn't necessarily have to require that ALL of the Obelisks be held by one side or the other simultaneously. So it should be perfectly possible to create a Control Point with say, 10 Obelisks, which only requires that 7 of them be held by one side simultaneously in order to "win" ownership of that Control Point, thereby "flipping" the remaining 3 even if they hadn't been captured and held yet.

Now, in the context of the City of Titans alignment axis system, the most obvious axis to work these things on would be the Law axis (law abiding versus lawlessness) ... but there could also be some made for the Violence axis (safe streets versus gang violence everywhere). Another point in their favor is that you don't have to build them all at once and you certainly don't have to have them all in place from the beginning. Since Control Points are essentially a "modular" concept, they could potentially be ADDED to the game over time as part of an ongoing effort to develop Content for various Neighborhoods in the various zones. So as part of an Issue Release, one of the changes/updates/upgrades made would be that the Weathering Heights Neighborhood has now become a Control Point, when it wasn't one previously, done as a "revamp" of that particular Neighborhood and as a part of the "story" of that particular area. Then in a later Issue, the Weathering Heights Control Point gets some further development, where new Contacts will spawn in it when the Control Point is held by different factions, leading to new Missions and more Content that tells the "story" of that particular part of the City.

So Control Points would allow the Content Developers to add Content in stages for particular regions, if they so desired, because the entire Control Point "system" would be somewhat "flexible" in that regard as to what it does, and what it "demands" in terms of changes to the region around it. Some Control Points could be rather inconsequential, having minimal impact on the environment ... while others could be used for Gated Content. Control Points could be introduced as having a very limited impact, but then over time and with further development and Content Creation could become more consequential and "important" as Content gets added to the game, giving Players something to "fight FOR" rather than just a meaningless, freestanding World Event that is persistent.

It would be possible to start with a mere 4 Control Points at launch ... 2 in the "Hero" areas, and 2 in the "Villain" areas. That would then give you a "Hero" biased and a "Villain" biased Control Point in each of the "Hero" and "Villain" regions/zone of the city. That in turn gives "Heroes" and "Villains" a Control Point that is biased towards being "friendly" to them in their backyards ... and another Control Point that is biased towards being "hostile" to them in their own backyards. By doing 1 of each type, you then make it possible (and give a reason) to "go behind enemy lines" and try to capture a Control Point outside of your own back yard, rather than just overrunning the "local" Control Point(s) that are easy (and safe) for you to get to.

Bare minimum though, if Control Points are going to be "done" in City of Titans, I'd want a minimum of 2 in the city at Launch ... one in the "blueside" areas, and one in the "redside" areas. After that, more can be added to the game over time as Developer Resources permit.


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This idea has me intrigued.

This idea has me intrigued. And it's something I just might participate in.

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I would most definitely

I would most definitely participate. Control points were a very fun aspect of Tabula Rasa and I would love to see them included in CoT.

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Here's another option for

Here's another option for tying Control Points into Content and Story for various regions of a the city.

I'm sure that a lot of us remember how Trials tended to have things like "go to this neighborhood and Defeat 100 Rikti" or whatever. Basically it was glorified street sweeping to make you "pay your dues" before moving you on to the next stage of the Trial. Well ... what if the requirement was instead "Go and capture a Control Point that is currently held by another faction" and it gave you a list of Control Points to choose from and you just had to go and "get one" from that list. Something like, "take a Control Point in either The Hive, Peregrine Island or the Rikti War Zone" as your objective. That way, certain Trials would require Teams to go out and force a change of sides in a Control Point somewhere, leading to turnover and "churn" around these Control Points.

Alternatively, if the Content Creators wanted to be "mean" they could put the contact for a Task Force IN a Control Point, and so in order to interact with that Contact, the Control Point needs to be held by "friendlies" and allies of the Team. If the Control Point falls into "enemy" hands, the Contact either flies off, leaps out of sight, teleports out or runs away or whatever, and doesn't come back until the Control Point is retaken. Again, this would introduce a certain level of "churn" for certain Control Points making them more dynamic than static, even if they only "rarely" fall into "enemy" hands, meaning that the Contact will *usually* be there (even if they're not *always* there). The idea is to introduce a small level of uncertainty, leading to opportunistic street sweeping For A Purpose, rather than creating a hassle and annoyance just to act as a speed bump.

My point being that in many cases there needs to be a "reason" to bother with assaulting (or even caring about) a Control Point and who has control of it. That's because if there isn't any kind of a content reason given, people will just tend to not go there. A lot of people skipped over Faultline, simply because there was no "need" to go there for anything for the longest time. With nothing directing traffic into the Zone, it just turned into a big empty "wasted" catastrophe Zone that people avoided because there was no reason to "go" there. Same with Boomtown. Pretty much the only reason to go to Boomtown was because there was a Mission Door there, or people were Badge Hunting. The rest of the time ... no need or reason to go to Boomtown at all, so the Zone was just left empty of traffic.

So Control Points could potentially be used as "drivers" of traffic to various regions of the city, and used as objectives for either Mission Completion or as Contact locations, and it could be done in a way that drives Player "interest" in those areas.


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All of this stuff looks good

All of this stuff looks good to me; it's also a good way to get people out and active in the main zones instead of spending all their time in mission instances.

The first thing I'd be careful about is solo versus group dynamics; ideally, there would always be enough people around and willing to help for that to be a non-issue, but it's inevitable that, somewhen, somewhere, someone will need to take one of these things solo. (Unless there are simply no missions that revolve around the things, and thus no reason to need to take a control point solo, but where would be the fun in that?)

My suggestion for dealing with this: introduce something akin to Shivans or Vanguard Heavies - temp powers that can (with some effort) be acquired solo, and that are designed to help with taking control points. That way, nobody will ever have to just flat give up because they're in a zone that's not popular, or because it's 3AM, or whatever.

The second thing I'd be careful about is exactly what rewards you get for taking or holding such a control point. If the control point is strictly PvE, there's no issue here; it's when the control points become a form of PvP that you can have problems, ranging from win-trading (if capturing the point is where the good rewards are), to high level unicorns just locking the place down 24/7 (if rewards are tied to holding the point... or even if they just know that some missions require a lower level hero to take the point in order to gain access).

This one, I don't have any really good answers for - the simplest solution is to just keep the control points single-sided PvE (so, for example, there's no way a villain could come along and help the violent gang that's taken over the park), but that feels a bit lame, to be honest. Still, I'd rather that than leave control points wide open to abuse by unicorns.

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The way that Tabula Rasa ran

The way that Tabula Rasa ran them, actually capturing a Control Point (ie. the click the Glowie part) had NO REWARD at all. The only rewards you got for the activity of assaulting a defending a Control Point was the XP and Loot dropped by the NPCs you killed in and around the Control Point. Later on in the game, they switched to an Awards system that didn't even require Looting the corpses, and thus would have been much more familiar to any City of Heroes player, which essentially took the form of Merits that you could then cash in to NPC Vendors who spawned inside a Control Point while it was held by friendly forces. That way you had a "buy your own reward" system based on how many NPCs you mowed down in the battles to Assault and Defend the Control Point. And even better yet, the Assault and Defense Merits were different merits, and had different Vendors (who usually stood right next to each other) inside the Control Point. So you had a motivating reason to both capture and protect the Control Points from the NPC enemies.

If memory serves, these Merits were specific to individual Control Points, so the Merits you earned in one Zone couldn't be cashed in at another Zone ... although the NPC Vendors who accepted those Merits typically all had the same wares within a single Zone. So in that respect, the rewards system for actually engaging in Control Point battles essentially boiled down to XP, Loot and opportunities for Shopping, with the occasional chance for additional gated Mission Contacts and Content. Most, but not all, Control Points also featured Telepads, for quick transportation around inside the Zone, and a very few also had Landing Pads, for quick transportation to other Zones. So really, the main "reward" for fighting around a Control Point was "FUN" and access to Services (bank, vendors, hospital, transportation, etc.), beyond the obligatory XP and Loot opportunities. And that was the beauty of it. Assaulting or Defending a Control Point was so *FUN* to do, that you didn't NEED to hand out a big reward for doing it ... or even trying to do it and failing. The "reward" was the pitched battle itself, rather than the counting of coinage after the battle was over and wondering if you'd gotten "paid" for your troubles.

Then again, I played a Spy, so I really didn't have cash flow issues like other classes did ... and once I settled on my Grey Ghost equipment loadout, it was practically impossible for me to NOT have a positive cash flow when playing the game because my gear was just Dirt Cheap to repair back up to full. For the most part though, it was "economically viable" to assault or defend a Control Point because the Loot that dropped could be either cashed in or used to an extent "good enough" to make the whole effort "pay" for itself, even though you had to buy ammo for your weapons (except for Staffs and Blades) and had to keep your armor and weapons repaired in Tabula Rasa ... which of course have no counterpart analogy in either City of Heroes nor City of Titans.

So ironically enough, I really don't see much of a "need" to dangle a big fat reward in front of Players for either assaulting or defending a Control Point in order to motivate them into wanting to participate. Fun is fun, and if you do it right, you don't need a whole lot more than that.

As for the Solo vs Team aspect ... Control Points in Tabula Rasa really weren't "meant" to be soloed. There were some where doing that was possible ... either because there was a terrain feature that let you jump over the wall or some other "bypass" method so that you didn't have to peel the ENTIRE onion before capturing it (see "getting locked in" scenario in previous thread) ... but usually, the idea that you could take a Control Point all on your own, with the help of nothing more than a few NPCs, was pretty much an exercise in futility. Although, sometimes you could get lucky, and you'd make it (and damn that made you feel like the Hero of the Battlefield!). Usually though you'd need to have about 3 Players (at least) assaulting before you started seeing a decent chance of being able to win, and even then it was something of a slog (in a good way, because it was a target rich environment, which meant lots of XP and lots of Loot drops).

And that was the thing ... it was almost inevitable that even if you were "hopelessly" assaulting some Control Point in the middle of nowhere, chances were that after "a while" some other Player would mosey along and figure this might be fun and try to help you. Teaming wasn't required to do this activity (and frequently didn't happen) and so usually it was Pick Up Groups who would gather up for an Assault and try to break in an take a Control Point. Sometimes people would stick around after making the capture in order to defend against the *inevitable* counterattack, and those who did would just keep fighting and fighting and fighting until they were either killed and had to Hospital away from the Control Point (now in enemy hands) or they would be forced out and had to retreat outside the walls in order to stay alive once the Control Point was lost.

Ah ... good times. Good times. *^_^*

In the higher level zones, it started getting harder to capture Control Points, so you might need 4 or 5 people before you stood an even chance of successfully assaulting one, but the requirement for teamwork was never all that high. The deck was however stacked against being able to solo these things, so there was a definite benefit to making the assaults and defenses more of a community effort, and so calling out for help and reinforcements in the Zone Chat was reasonably common, and getting people to respond and show up wasn't all that difficult ... provided the zone had a population of other Players actually in it (and you weren't "soloing the Zone").


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I know that on the EU server,

I know that on the EU server, that we had enough of a population to generally flip a control point even in the dead of night.... You just needed to shout for it in general chat.

It was fun, and in my guild, we could *normally* 3 man them taking them... defending them was a bit harder, especially when you were the spy, because if the waves got *too* heavy, you really needed AOE focus (which shrapnel *did* have, but could get expensive to spam).

It was fun seeing people just coming along to help out. Sure, a level capped player could *easily* flip the low level ones to help out the newer players... but it was still *fun* seeing stuff go boom... or suiciding yourself against a Linker.

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Some help in capturing

Some help in capturing control points would be a scaling system. If, for instance, there were between 1 and 5 players in the CP, the mob scaling system would spawn enough mobs for 4 players. That way you don't need a large group to capture but it's difficult to capture solo, but not necessarily impossible based on strategy. This could be applied up to 50 or so players, bringing in large groupings of enemies but also bosses and others mobs of higher levels of difficulty.

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ravonos wrote:
ravonos wrote:

Some help in capturing control points would be a scaling system. If, for instance, there were between 1 and 5 players in the CP, the mob scaling system would spawn enough mobs for 4 players. That way you don't need a large group to capture but it's difficult to capture solo, but not necessarily impossible based on strategy. This could be applied up to 50 or so players, bringing in large groupings of enemies but also bosses and others mobs of higher levels of difficulty.

In Tabula Rasa, they did generally scale to be roughly suitable for the number of players in the area. There *were* exceptions, and you could end up with a wave being TOO powerful (people coming to help, building up the size of the waves, and then running away, leaving you stupidly outnumbered.) but then sometimes it ended up the other way around, of suddenly a lot of players showing up and just killing everything at the very end of the attack, making it very easy.

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"Arise ... thread of legends. Arise!"

islandtrevor72 wrote:

Quote:
Of course, I still love the idea of using Control Points (ala Tabula Rasa style) to determine which NPCs dominate or control particular neighborhoods so as to be able to "churn" the contents of various regions throughout the city. That then gives players a Zone Event to participate in, to aid and abet (or hinder and thwart) their preferred NPC Factions. Tie that in to a sort of Reputation System that keeps track of your relationship with various NPC Groups and ... you've got a way to Gain Faction with the different Power Brokers in the city..
I really like this idea a lot so did not want to include it in my previous post. Im not sure I would want it for every area of the city but would still love to see it in the game.
Would love to see you expand on it more.

One does what one can to keep thy girlish figure ... {wink}

I'll do what I can to stoke your interest(s) in this topic.

islandtrevor72 wrote:

Like ...how would you deal with stories based around a certain group that take place in the contested area when that certain group is not in charge? Heck would the area actually contain missions at all?

This is a difficult one to answer with specifics until more specifics of City of Titans itself have been nailed down and hammered out. My personal inclination would be to have Contact(s) and Missions related to the currently "in charge" faction be the only ones available. That way Control Points would have "ruling" factions who dominate the local region/neighborhood. The way to deal with "remainder" problems such as not having the "correct" faction in charge to complete/begin a particular Mission or progress through a Story Arc would be to ... overthrow whoever is in charge. So if you don't like the present "rulers" of a Control Point, you replace them ... preferably with the faction that you DO want to have in charge there.

So as to whether or not the region would contain Missions at all, my answer is yes. Opportunities to "do" or complete those Missions may have some requirements.

islandtrevor72 wrote:

What about street hunt missions?

Always a possibility. Easiest one would be defensive Missions where you're needed to aid the defense of a Control Point against attacking forces. In that case, rather that you going out and hunting them down ... they come to you ... and you mow them down! Such Missions could even be repeatable (think Daily Missions if it helps any). Likewise, there could also be Assault Missions where your "job" is to aid a faction in taking control of a Control Point. Suffice it to say, if you watch any of the videos linked in either this thread or the previous thread to see what Control Points looked like in Tabula Rasa, you'd know that they were Target Rich Environments.

islandtrevor72 wrote:

Would this be a constant activity or would it be on a timer?

My preference is that Control Points would be "persistent" features of the game world, although there would be countdown timers after a successful or failed assault attempt before another faction tried to launch another attack so they wouldn't be constantly under attack. The way that Tabula Rasa did it was that after you'd captured a Control Point there would be a "lull" for a few minutes before the Bane would show up (in force!) to try and take it back. So you'd have time to patch up, collect loot, sell to NPC vendors, grab missions and do all of the ancilliary stuff of managing your character before the next wave of attackers would show up to ruin your day.

If you're thinking in terms of things like the Praetoria World Events, which were on a 1 hour countdown timer, that would be too long to wait methinks. In Tabula Rasa, the Control Points were permanent features of the landscape, and all you needed to do was venture by and annoy the Bane to get things rolling. It was VERY COMMON for other players in the area to wander by and join in on an assault against a Control Point. It was Pickup World PvE that didn't even require Teaming in order to do effectively. 3 or 4 PCs each "doing their own thing" was often sufficient to successfully assault and capture a Control Point.

Of course, once that happened ... the Bane had to take it back ... and the longer the PCs held the Control Point, the "heavier" the waves of attacking Bane became, until they just overran you with sheer numbers ... sometimes by the hundreds ... and no, that's not an exaggeration. It was really quite fun! *^_^*

islandtrevor72 wrote:

How would you show the change in zone control? What I mean is would it be a gradual thing or would it just happen when certain conditions were met ala Recluse Victory?

Hard to nail down without more specifics about City of Titans being laid down and frozen. The major way to tell would be the distribution of NPCs in the area. The faction holding the Control Point would have NPCs of that faction "patrolling" the streets and parks and so on around the Control Point. So there'd be a faction "presence" in the neighborhood that would be hard to ignore or mistake. Another way to tell would be to have a pop up hover text on the Map Marker for the Control Point, explicitly telling you which faction currently holds the Control Point. Colors on the map would be another way, although depending on how many NPC groups there are that could quickly become unwieldy. Best way to handle that sort of thing (the colors, that is) would be to show which Control Points are secure vs which ones are currently being contested, so as to know "where to go" in order to join a fight (or start one).

Tabula Rasa handled the change of control through use of a Capture The Flag method, with control transferring "instantly" between factions and causing new defender NPCs to spawn in to defend the newly held Control Point. I would not be averse to seeing the same sort of thing happen in City of Titans ... although 2D fortifications don't exactly work in a world where players can Jump and Fly and Teleport in order to get past walls. Still, the concept is basically the same, even if the requirement changes. It could be something as simple as Capture 4 Flags Simultaneously, such that it becomes an objective that can't be done solo. Anyway, that's the basic idea.


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Thanks for the reply, I have

Thanks for the reply, I have read this and the other threads and there are a lot of ideas that that I want to make sure I have correct before I full on discuss this (just so there is no confusion).

As I understand your proposal ....

You are suggesting multiple capture points in areas of the city which are flagged based on the alignment system from the kickstarter.

The capture points are defended by the dominant foe of the area which is subject to change upon the capture of enough points.

Once captured you have a short grace period before the previous foe group rushes back in an escalatating fashion until inevitably they recapture the point reverting the area back.

You want to have some tie in with the story aspect of the game or at the very least have missions that are influenced by this.

The visual change to illustrate this would be street mobs and a map label....and this would happen instantly when enough points where captured.

This would be a persistent activity and not a timed event.

If I am incorrect about anything or if you think I missed anything please let me know.....

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Winterset wrote:
Winterset wrote:

Redlynne,
First just let me say Wow! I'm practically buzzing from reading that (and I didn't take the time to watch the video). I did read both of your initial posts to the two threads you linked, however, and I'm simply stunned.
These are, for all intents and purposes, mini and triggerable zone events!

In Tabula Rasa they were free standing permanent features of the game that were persistent (in the terrain sense). They weren't something that was Instanced. They were World PvE. Each and every zone in Tabula Rasa had at least 3 Control Points to attack/defend, and some of the later zones had as many as 5 Control Points in the zone! And they were totally Pick Up Events that anyone wandering by could join in on or keep on moving by and ignore. There were no "requirements" to go and capture a Control Point, aside from the occasional Mission Objective. Most people did them Because They Were There and they were a Target Rich Environment (think Street Sweeping where the Foes come to you) and there was a very obvious and tangible victory condition that was easy to understand ... Capture The Flag or Defend The Flag.

Now, to be fair ... in Tabula Rasa you only had two factions ... the PCs and the Bane. This meant that Control Points were either friendly (blue) or enemy (red) held, and due to the way the game was balanced the blues were ALWAYS the underdogs and the reds were always the superior numbers force (because: Players). So you'd get an equal number of spawn GROUPS around a Control Point, with lots of Patrols and the like (hardly anything was static about them aside from the fortifications) ... but the friendly spawn groups were all woefully undermanned with either 3 grunts or 1 mecha, while the enemy spawns were just much more heavily populated with like 8 Bane each (some of whom would then go on to spawn Pets of their own!).

Do the math and it isn't hard to figure out that Players were intended to make up the difference in the numbers of NPCs. But that's what made it FUN! You got the same "rush" of feeling when fighting for (or against) a Control Point as you did with City of Heroes. You had the "battle against incredible odds" factor going the entire time, along with the whole "locked door" assault and defense phase mechanic of "don't let them get in!" and so on.

And even better yet, each and every single Control Point in Tabula Rasa was DIFFERENT. The terrain was different, the layout of the fortifications was different, the blind spots were different, the "zerg" strategy used by the Bane was different. The objectives and the purpose of what you were doing was always the same, but exactly HOW to best achieve those goals was different at different locations. Thus the "strategy" for getting into, defeating and defending different Control Points was rarely all that similar ... and that's before getting into the fact that some of the fortifications had only one way in, while others had two or more ways into the fortified area.

Still, nothing quite gave you that thrill of an adrenaline rush to look out from the walls of a Control Point and see HUNDREDS of Bane swarming around the outside of the Control Point you were defending, pounding on the "door" in order to break in, and just see this swarming mass of INhumanity teeming and sloshing up against those indestructible walls protecting you ... and getting that "Last Stand" feeling as you desperately try to Thin The Herd. The developers of Tabula Rasa did a really good job of making you feel Under Siege when defending Control Points.

The sad thing was, that without Player intervention, it was essentially INEVITABLE that the Bane would take back any Control Point you'd captured. Not just because of the spawn size disparity, but because the longer a Control Point was held by Friendlies, the bigger the spawn sizes the Bane would commit to retake it on successive assaults ... meaning that eventually they'd swamp even the most determined PC defense and "flip" the Control Point back to being Bane held. This meant that Control Points were usually Bane held, and only infrequently (and temporarily) captured by PCs. That way, the Control Point objectives were usually Assault first and then Defend second, rather than the reverse. It also reinforced the notion that the PCs were always outnumbered (and outgunned?) and were thus the underdogs in the fight against the Bane (even though you slaughtered Bane by the thousands as a PC).

Winterset wrote:

I see only two problems which would need to be overcome and I doubt they'd be remotely insurmountable.

Oh I'm sure there'd be more than two problems with translating a Control Point concept and game mechanic into City of Titans. ^_~

For one thing, in Tabula Rasa you only had two factions ... the Blue (friendly) and the Red (enemy). This neatly divided Control Points into an US vs THEM dynamic. Things get rather different when you translate the basic concept into City of Titans for neighborhoods and them up as POLITICAL power bases that can be held by a variety of NPC factions. So instead of an Us vs Them you're dealing with an Eeny-Meany-Miney-Moe situation of competing forces for "control" of territory. This literally takes the concept of a Control Point to the next level (a moment of silence please for the memory of War Witch).

Winterset wrote:

1) CPE (Control Point Event) size: if it's too large it would take up too much space in the zone but if it's too small it would leave little room to maneuver.

This is one of those things where watching the videos I'd linked to would be instructive. I'm thinking that in an urban context like City of Titans will be that a Control Point could occupy a city block, or a public park ... that kind of thing. The Control Point ITSELF wouldn't need to be all that large, necessarily. However, whoever "holds" the Control Point at any one time would be(come) the dominant faction in that particular neighborhood, so the "effect" of holding a Control Point wouldn't be limited to just the confines of the Control Point itself.

Note that this would mean that NPC groups "battling for control of the city" would literally be battling for CONTROL of the neighborhoods of the city so as to extend their base of power and influence. You'd of course want to set things up such that the more you hold the harder it gets to continue holding on to what you've got, so as to maintain a "churn" factor in terms of who holds onto what. But it would certainly be a way for a Villain, or even a Villain Group to seize power over the whole city ... for a while ... until everything inevitably collapses and the status quo ante reasserts itself. So you wind up with a game of King of the Hill, where no one gets to be "king" of the hill forever.

Winterset wrote:

2) CPE level limitations: Keeping toons of too high or low of a level from either triggering or participating in the event.

Tabula Rasa ... just like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft and so many other MMORPGs ... spawned Foe NPCs at specific Levels, and that the zones you played in, like City of Heroes, were intended to be inhabited by a specific Level range of PCs. You had the Up And Out design intent in every single zone (except at Level Cap). The "trigger" for Blue Assault on Red Defense in Tabula Rasa was really just PCs wandering by and "trying their luck" whenever they felt like it.

When the Bane (red) held a Control Point there was a fairly regular cycling going on a friendly (blue) NPCs spawning in and running up to the Control Point ... and without PC help committing suicide, because they were too few against too many with no meaningful backup. You'd see 3 AFS troopers or 1 mecha spawn in and go try to break down the door or engage the first Bane Patrol wandering around outside the Control Point. These blue NPCs spawned in like every minute or so and were just hopelessly outnumbered ... but the mere futility of their actions created opportunities that PCs could then exploit to "get in on the action" and try and make the assault a success, rather than a repeated failure.

So in one sense, Control Points were "events" that were always happening, but they didn't really "get going" until the PCs joined in and started turning the tide of battle.

What made it really exciting is that you didn't have to be a PC in order to Capture the flag of a Control Point. The NPCs could do it just as easily as the PCs. Click on target Flag (when close enough), which will draw aggro from every hostile in range, and if you take no damage for X seconds, you capture the Control Point. It was actually somewhat common to see a blue allied NPC actually start the sequence to capture a Control Point and then complete the sequence, "winning" the battle. This meant that a successful assault and a successful defense wasn't JUST up to the PCs to accomplish, because the friendly NPCs were doing their part too! So PCs and friendly NPCs were all on the same "team" with shared objectives.

The friendly NPCs were often little more than cannon fodder, but even then they weren't completely useless. This meant that capturing or defending a Control Point was an action "led" by the PCs but was more likely to succeed when those PCs had plenty of "follower" NPCs participating and aiding you. In other words, around Control Points, there were no "civilians" in the City of Heroes sense. Everyone was a soldier.

Winterset wrote:

For problem 1, my first thought is that the trigger could be not just any foe group mob throughout the control point, but only very specific ones (clearly marked in some way), perhaps even at very specific locations. That way practically the entire zone could have both normal PvE and CPE play at the same time. If one includes your thoughts on Friendly Fire limitations it would be a simple matter to make the trigger mobs not aggro unless engaged.

Not exactly sure of what you're getting at here. My first notion for why NPC Faction A assaults the Control Point held by NPC Faction B would be because PC Team C (of 1 to 8 members) has begun a Daily Mission from a Contact of NPC Faction A to help them in "making a play" for seizing this Control Point from NPC Faction B. So one of the ways this could start would be because Players decide to do the content. That then tees up a "battle in the streets" and then it's off to the races.

A second possibility is that NPC Factions will (each) be on countdown timers to try and take control of Control Points ... meaning that assault/defense events can take place without them being cued up by PCs accepting a Mission from a Contact. So even if there's no "nudging" from the PCs, these events will happen anyway, so as to keep the "churn" for control of the city ongoing even in the face of Player disinterest in participating. That way, it becomes a part of the setting.

Winterset wrote:

For problem 2, CPE level scaling just as in CoX events. While I'm wholeheartedly against this method for normal PvE, I strongly support it for events.

Funny how that works ... {knowing smile}

Winterset wrote:

For Devs' Sakes, Red, that could very well be the coolest possible feature I've ever heard of.

Everyone who played Tabula Rasa found the Control Points to be a very fun, if ultimately meaningless, game feature. They could get pretty harrowing at times and really get your blood up and were QUITE the immersive experience! Guess why I'd like to see something like this done in City of Titans?

One of the things I never cared for much about the early zones of City of Heroes was that the NPCs rarely fought each other (and if they did they were doing no damage to each other). That's because in City of Heroes (and many other games), the NPCs you encounter on the map exist solely for the PCs to fight and defeat ... not to fight other NPCs and defeat other NPCs. Reason for this is the mentality that every time an NPC defeats another NPC that's XP denied to a PC(!) and therefore needs to be disallowed.

Needless to say, that changed (for the better) in Croatoa where you'd see NPCs duking it out with other NPCs when spawn groups of opposing factions met and clashed, until one side was victorious over the other. Suddenly the PCs weren't the only (combat) force in the world, and the NPCs didn't exist just to get pummeled by the PCs for XP, Inf and drops. The NPCs were now fighting for TERRITORY! It was a really exciting development to see, because it made the world that much more "real" ... instead of having all the NPCs standing around waiting for a PC to show up and ruin their day.

Winterset wrote:

Even if it doesn't get implemented it'll be in my hopes for as long as I'm playing any MMO ever. Thank you for presenting it (but don't get a big head about it. :))

Well, considering it's not even my ORIGINAL idea, since I'm "stealing" most of it from Tabula Rasa, I can hardly take credit for it now can I?


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islandtrevor72 wrote:
islandtrevor72 wrote:

Thanks for the reply, I have read this and the other threads and there are a lot of ideas that that I want to make sure I have correct before I full on discuss this (just so there is no confusion).
As I understand your proposal ....
You are suggesting multiple capture points in areas of the city which are flagged based on the alignment system from the kickstarter.
The capture points are defended by the dominant foe of the area which is subject to change upon the capture of enough points.
Once captured you have a short grace period before the previous foe group rushes back in an escalatating fashion until inevitably they recapture the point reverting the area back.
You want to have some tie in with the story aspect of the game or at the very least have missions that are influenced by this.
The visual change to illustrate this would be street mobs and a map label....and this would happen instantly when enough points where captured.
This would be a persistent activity and not a timed event.
If I am incorrect about anything or if you think I missed anything please let me know.....

You're close ... and that's ONE interpretation but not the ONLY interpretation. Side effect of not even being "set in mud" yet, so there's a lot of fluidity and possibilities just yet.

This gets hard to talk about in specifics simply because nothing's been nailed down yet and all of this is just notional.

I suppose that Alignment might be relevant if a PC captures a Control Point, in which case the Control Point would be set to "match" that PC's Alignment axes. If an NPC captures a Control Point, the faction that NPC is a member of gains the Control Point and the other members of that NPC faction would become the dominant presence in that neighborhood, "tilting" the Alignment of that neighborhood towards themselves (which the PCs may or may not match up with).

Makes me wonder if replacing Morality Missions with Control Point Missions to "nudge" your Alignment around by +1/-1 would make sense, depending on which NPC Factions you're supporting for control of neighborhoods of the city. Heroes support heroic NPC groups, while Villains support villainous NPC groups ... that sort of thing. Doing that in the context of Control Points would definitely give the necessary "street cred" for that, I'm thinking.

Control Points and their surrounding neighborhood are dominated by whichever faction holds the Control Point in that neighborhood. The Control Point is thus a "power base" or headquarters in that area for that particular faction for them to extend their (small i) influence throughout an area. Essentially you're dealing with turf battles.

In Tabula Rasa there were only two factions, so "flipping" a Control Point meant there was only a single other faction that could try and take it back (with the Bane always being the odds on favorite, putting the PCs and AFS into the perpetual underdog position). This was an US vs THEM dynamic. City of Titans is expected to have a variety of factions, meaning you'll be dealing with an US vs (all of) THEM dynamic instead. Instead of only having two poles, you be dealing with multi-polar conflicts.

So saying that the "previous" Foe group rushes back in to retake what they've lost is not what I've got in mind. Rather, "some" Foe group from a list of many choices can show up to take (or retake if it's the previous owners) a Control Point. So I'm not angling for a kind of tit-for-tat sort of exchange here. I'm looking for CHURN ... up to and including an alliance of villain NPC factions taking over the "whole" city and ruling it ... until they start fighting amongst themselves over the spoils and their alliance fractures, creating opportunities for non-villainous factions to "push back" and even "roll back" control of parts of the city.

The basic dynamic ought to be that a particular NPC group can hold onto a small number of Control Points for a very long time, or can hold onto a large number of them (all of them?) for a very short time ... but can't hold all of them forever.

"The more you tighten your grip, Taarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
- Princess Leia in Episode IV, A New Hope

So ... want to do a Brass Monday Event? Nemesis takes over every Control Point in the city Steel Canyon and holds them ... for a while ... until the Heroes show up (because Nemesis is a Villain and they're opposed to him) and ruin his day and take the city back from him, breaking the back of his power play.

The intent would be for a Rise and Fall of Empires dynamic, such that the further a group's control is spread, the more "brittle" their grip on what they have, making it inevitable that they will fall and decline while others arise in their place. In other words ... POLITRICKS.

I'm not necessarily angling for a major story tie in for Control Points, necessarily, although one could potentially be done I suppose as a part of Task Forces and the like (ie. intentionally group content). Instanced Missions would be substantially (and perhaps entirely) unaffected by Control Points ... as in the Mission Doors don't vanish because a Control Point has changed hands. So a major story role is possible but not necessary.

The "declaration" of a Control Point's allegiance is something that's a bit "squooshy" at this point and I think you're taking things a bit far, but you're on the right track.

Control Points would be persistent features of the game world ... sort of like Recluse's Victory (setting aside the Hero vs Villain orientation). Ownership of a Control Point would not be eternal, obviously, and would be subject to "churn" among factions. Obviously then, the best locations for Control Points would be along "border" lines of the city ... kind of like Forts or Castles ... in "buffer zones" between competing regions (lawful/unlawful, honorable/dishonorable, violent/peaceful).

Does that help any?


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Ok, I think I understand it

Ok, I think I understand it all now.
Its a very neat system but I am not a huge fan of the idea of a foe group coming back to take it over right away. I get why you suggested it but I would think the constant churning of control would make the capture aspect less interesting. What I mean is if the only reason to capture a control point was to have a random group spawn to take it back (and keep going until they do) then your actions are amounting to a dice roll. At least to me.

Personally in the way you describe it I would suggest keep everything the same except make the retaliation aspect minimal. Let me explain better. A player or group decides to capture a point and do so which puts a new foe group in dominance around the point Presumably one the characters have a tie with. Then there is the same random other foe group that immediately attempts to capture the point for themselves. The difference from what you describe is this attempt has an end that can be fought off with a similar difficulty to captureing the point to begin with. This way the player has more control over who is in charge of the point. This group persists to be in dominance until another player or group decides to change it.

This wont change the dynamic you desire or the politics concept but it does give the players more a sense of accomplishment IMO.

Im glad that control points wont be the focus of stories and wont change exisiting arcs as this would make them a fun activity to engage in and more a chore to complete so that you can continue on your way.

The idea of declaration was not my intent. It was more one of thinking how the change to the zone in RV was always jarring. Instant changes kinda annoy me. I am more for a gradual change that you can watch progress. In this case I would prefer to see mobs in the area actively change.....meaning they run away, join in on the fight, get just stomped by another mob whatever. I would hate to have them just shimmer for a second and then all of a sudden they are a different group.

The location of control points is important and I agree that your suggestions make sense. I would like to say that I do not think these control points should in every area but only a select few.... yes I mean I think there should not be that many areas of contention which feature this activity. I would like to see this idea of area control be expanded on to include alternate methods to show the same concept.

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It is worth pointing out that

It is worth pointing out that different instances of the same zone (think AP 1, AP 2, AP 3) could all have the map in different stages of ownership... that the base being under "enemy control" was not as much of a problem as people thought it could be in the early days of the games life.

Later on though, people learnt the area, learnt the dead spots/places to snipe from... learnt via dying what worked and what didn't work.

Hell, even a high level player could die to mobs 10 levels lower than them if there were enough of them attacking (or Linkers... Red knows the mob that I am talking about. They were the bane of spies for a period of time).

They did in the end also provide extra bonuses for running the CP events, but it was not uncommon to see high level players in the low level zones doing these CP events to help the newbies.

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

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Redlynne,

Redlynne,

It seems I didn't make myself clear about my intention on the post you've quoted. My apologies. Please let me explain.

I am not simply reinforcing comments made by you; I'm putting forward ideas about how those comments could be used to fulfill all the goals I've discussed previously.

First: continuing the tradition of making everyone feel "Super", be they hero or villain or anything in between.

Second: making a draw to get high level toons to return to low level zones.

Third: to make open world PvE (as opposed to needing instanced missions) fit in with goals one and two.

And my own goal Fourth: to get as many zone events as possible as they were a feature of CoX that I adored.

Towards those ends I incorporated the ideas you brought up as relating to TR and applied them to a possible feature in CoT.

I won't address your post on a point-by-point basis as that would result in a Wall of Text situation and even as "verboginous" as I am, I prefer to not do that to readers. There are, however, a few things I would like to address.

By "triggerable" I meant that in my proposed version there would be no need to have the event limited in size. In fact, it would be better if it were zone-wide. Multiple Control Points would be easy to set up regardless; they'd just each have their own flag, as it were, and would each have their mob triggers. Most likely this would mean having CPs for more than one foe group. This also answers the question of "reinforcements" as even other foe groups could enter the fray in their own effort to use the PC's attempt to take over the CP as an inroad. That, of course is only one of many options I'm sure the Devs are more than capable of devising.

Your idea of having the CPE affect alignment is very interesting but unlike CoX, CoT will be using three vectors and in all likelihood only one or two would be affected by any actions during the event. Further, AOE would make it very reasonably possible to harm the wrong mobs during the event. I would be strongly against the idea of making open world PvP be an intrinsic part of CPEs. I'm sure, however, that between the posters and Devs, something could be thought of to deal with these seemingly minor hurdles

Finally--and I hope you take this as friendly advise because this is something not directed at you but at all of us, including myself--please try to keep in mind that in a text medium such as this, tone and expression are very difficult to discern by the reader and therefore must be carefully controlled by the poster. In this I'm referencing some of your writing style in general and your comment "Funny how that works ... {knowing smile}" in particular. That was perceived as both condescending and arrogant. Obviously I am assuming that was not your intention and even that you were unaware as you wrote that it might be interpreted that way. That makes it a perfect example of my point here. We all need to be very cautious of our writing styles as we are dealing, mostly, with people who don't know us and are unfamiliar with our tones. Offense is often taking where none is intended.

CoyoteShaman

PS: So much for avoiding the Wall of Text issue. I really need to be more succinct.

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"Retaking control" would

"Retaking control" would obviously be something subject to playtest and "tuning" so that it doesn't invalidate efforts, gains and a sense of pride in having succeeded. That was one of the best things about Control Point battles when you finally "won" ... the sense of WE DID IT!!! elation you got. Any enemy stragglers were usually mopped up pretty quickly by all of the reinforcements that spawned in, engaged and cleared any pockets of resistance still remaining (which no longer caused respawns of enemy forces, for a while). So even after successfully capturing a Control Point it's not like all of the enemy "vanished" and you were in totally in the clear. Being in the clear and able to relax usually happened after the guns fell silent (which could be up to 30 seconds after completing a Capture, simply because of NPCs fighting NPCs). So after a capture there was a bit of mopping up and clean up to do ... and then you'd be able to make use of all the Services now being offered in the Control Point's location by the newly spawned in friendly NPCs.

Tabula Rasa was also very good about its NPC spawning system. Things spawned where they did, the way they did, for a reason. Allied Free Sentients troops would start transporting in from the telepad and run to their NPC Services location (medical tent, etc.). Dropships would swoop in to hover and either drop of mecha or "beam down" infantry who'd set up patrols to keep an eye on the Control Point ... and so on. Same would happen with the Bane, which is that loud GOOONNNG!! noise you'll hear a lot in the videos I linked to. That was the sound of a dropship coming down and transporting in infantry troops to oppose you with before zooming back up into the sky. The dropships were just scenery, not actual objects with HP to shoot down, but they made a big difference to immersion.

So yeah, the delay timer before another assault on a Control Point after it has changed hands is definitely something you'd want to playtest the {FNORD!} out of in order to tune it right. THAT's not a problem, and is the way it ought to be handled.

And yes, Gangrel, I know all about suiciding in one shot on a Linker when going for a backstab with a monofilament Blade. That was always embarrassing!

Just so the rest of you know what I'm talking about, one of the Bane NPCs you'll see in the videos I posted is called a Linker. They had an attack mode where they draw in energy and then redirect it outward in a big beam blast (after which they fall on the ground and have to recover). The bit of nasty was that during this energy gathering phase they would REFLECT the damage you did to them ... so you didn't want to be shooting at them/vorpal backstabbing them during this part of their attack chain. Well, one of the character classes could use a melee weapon that when skilled up did multiplicatively higher damage ... enough to one shot most Bane ... and yourself!

And sometimes there was just a little bit of lag going on so you'd move in to backstab a Linker with your Blade and ... DIE ... quite instantly ... and THEN see the Linker start doing his Reflect Damage windup animation tell ... after you were already dead. It was annoying, but you learned to deal with it in terms of when it was "safe" to attack a Linker and when it wasn't. It was just another one of those way to punish unthinking button mashers and reward players who paid attention to what they were mowing through La Machine style.

Damn I miss playing Tabula Rasa ... ;_;


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Everquest had a few zones

Everquest had a few zones where a faction war was going on between NPCs. Players who did missions in that zone were attacking on of those faction or the other, effectively 'weakening' them for the big battle that was happening (ir)regularly.
Losers of that battle would be driven to some small strongholds in the corner of the map with the winners taking over the main locations.
For players who frequently had to 'farm' certain factions, in particularly named members for their rare drops it therefor became an issue not only to defeat those enemies, but also to prevent the other factions from taking back the zone, which would happen if the players weakened the dominant faction enough (like in, perma camping their named while ignoring the named of the other factions)

Applying this kind of scenario to the control point one makes it all more interesting. It even provides a form of PvP that does not require players to attack each other directly but still allows heroes and vilains to compete. By supporting one faction over another villains may make them win the gang war, opening up opportunities for villain specific missions and perks in that zone (like not being subject to police patrols). While heroes want to keep one or another law enforcement faction in control. Each faction has some unique amenities (like faction shops) that apply only to their specific alignment and offers missions that the other factions don't offer. It also alters the tone of the zone of course

So, drawing back on CoH names and places, in Perez Park you would have Skulls, Hellions, PPD and Wyvern battling it out for control over the area, with a number of chokepoints and bases being contested. Doing specific 'sabotage' missions against a competing group would weaken their standing in the power struggle. Finding and defeating (Elite) bosses for a faction does the same. At some random moment the game flips from peaceful to gang war mode and enemy groups spawn to start fighting int out. The number and size of groups a faction can field and the chances they have of winning a battle are linked to their current power ranking. Each battle won increases the standing of that faction a bit, each battle lost diminishes it. A faction that is defeated below a certain threshold retreats to their corner where is their stronghold and withdraws from the battle. Ultimately one faction remains the dominant one and 'takes over' the zone, and become the units that spawn at the contested strongholds.

Players of course can influence the gang war by siding with one faction or another in each battle they see on the street, and can force control of a stronghold by conquering it for 'their' faction. However, that control is temporary unless permanently defended because the dominant faction keep spawning attacks to take it back (and without player support they will eventually succeed).

I think something like this would make contested hazard zones quite interesting. As players wanting to flip it to their side will have to do the PvE groundwork in missions, then be in the front line of the gang war battle to help their side win. But opposing players can still temporarily claim some of the control perks for themselves with a bit of team work. The advantages of controlling a control point should be substantial but not essential. I would definitely add travel opportunities to zones that are blocked off (or extremely difficult) unless you take over a control point.

(gang wars in a hazard zone should be relatively rare on a MMO time scale. certainly not more often than once every few days, more likely less than once a week, just to give players time to stack the deck in their favour through PvE missions for the faction they want to be in control. The problem of course with this is that it is difficult to grasp what effect your actions will have when you can't tell when the gang war will start and you may not see anything happen for days yet. That was also the issue with the everquest zone. Few players knew how to 'flip' the dominant zone and fewer yet had the patience to make it happen. It's a bit of a balancing act to get this right. Too short and the PvE mission aspect becomes meaningless. Too long and players won't realise the point to it and essentially watch hazard zones as ones that are only occaionally useful and at other times need to be ignored. Tripping the gang war after a number of destabilisation missions have been completed or after a random but long timer runs out, whichever happens first, might help. NPC flavour speech and news flashes might also alert players when a zone is about to erupt into gang war (and things getting interesting there).

Redlynne
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All of which is true, Nadira.

All of which is true, Nadira. The trick is, I wasn't limiting the potential contestant factions to US vs THEM. In other words, it would just be "heroes" vs "villains" in a sort of good vs bad contest. Instead, there would be a collection of factions that could challenge for control. Ideally, you'd want to have at least 4, possibly 5 or more, NPC Factions that can take over a Control Point. This would then result in a variety of possible "casts" to populate the region with.

If you wanted to be excessively simplistic about it, you could have 27 possible factions ... all representing a particular set of alignments on the Honor, Law, Peace vs Dishonest, Lawless, Violent axes (high, mid, low each).

And you're right, that "tuning" these World PvE features would be an ongoing process that required repeated iterations and playtesting. It's doubtful that the right balance would be achieved the first time out.

I'd also point out that doing this sort of thing is something you wouldn't want to have/impose on EVERY neighborhood in the City. You do want to have some parts of Titan City be relatively stable, after all. But it would be cool/nifty to have "pockets" of the city be contested and contestable. Indeed, if there are enough Control Points scattered throughout the city, you could even run them as a sort of "rolling parade event" where the battle for Control Point 1 ends and then the battle for Control Point 2 begins 5 minutes later. Set up the "chaining" of which Control Point is being contested to be (effectively) random so that there isn't a preset pattern to it and you'll have a reason for Players to "tour" the city in a way that keeps taking them to where the "action" is. And since each neighborhood is different, and you aren't facing the same factions fighting each other each time, there's plenty of variation in how things play out.

Do all that and you then have the space (as a content designer) to take an additional step from a purely Tactical "event" like battling for Control Points into the realm of the Strategic. How many Control Points does a particular faction hold? Do certain factions have "home field advantages" in different parts of the city (ie. Redside vs Blueside) that tilt the odds in their favor in particular regions? Do factions suffer a "brittle grip" weakness where the more Control Points they hold, the harder it is for them to successfully defend them, creating a "churn" factor that favors increasing Player involvement as a "requirement" for continued "rolling" successes across multiple locations?

In other words ... build enough Control Points and you've got a game in which Players can participate in battling for the "soul" of the City of Titans.


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Izzy
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Hehe... what if missions that

Hehe... what if missions that are based in a neighborhood, thats controlled by a Legion (might be a few smaller groups), is mentioned by Name in the NPC's Mission Text? ;)

It would then become ever changing Dynamic Lore, well.. just the part that concerns the Present Legions Name? ;D

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I love this idea. Hell I

I love this idea

Formerly known as Bleddyn

Do you want to be a hero?

My characters

Redlynne
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We make every pretense of

We make every pretense of competency around here. *^_^*


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