Topic: Proposed Production point system

[762_XC]

I don't see any advantage over the old OOB, and it carries the same disadvantage, which is that n00bs would never get to fly heavy metal.

[Dizzy]

It's my personal mission on these forums to get laepton to 0 karma~! From then on, it's wherever it goes.

This pp BS points system is ridiculous. You have got to be able to recognize by now what works and waht doesnt within the confines of the system we have.

What we have on SGO5 is perfect and easy for the current playerbase and if players dont want to hurt their team, then ask for a fun match. Either that or we have a rotating list of players exempt from pvp point loss, or gain from that matter. The mere presence of this player in the match voids all pvp points earned/loss for that match for both sides. The only deciding factor is pp loss, DV and hex ban.

Thats the only improvement I can SEE right now that may make this easy system we have work better for some players... I still say ask for a fun match, and u'll likely get one.

[Lepton]

I'm not really commenting on the merits on any particular system, but merely how a PP system might achieve similar effects as Tracy's proposed system.  I am not on the server or any server enough to know whether one system is better than another, however there does seem to be some brewhaha over BBs. 

Now, I find BBs to be ridiculous in a system that basically only allows a skirmish level battle.  3v3 is not a battleship engagement in my opinion.  Further, I find it somewhat disconcerting on a personal level that the better PvP players seem to be the ones flying these behemoths which I see as a significant impediment to the casual player like myself.  I can't hold my ground as casual player in PvP normally.  Add in more experienced players with heavier iron and I hardly see the point of participating at all.  This is why I largely fly a flight combat sim where everyone's on an equal footing and I only get shot down because I am an inexperienced player, not because I have a smaller or suckier plane.

As I am wanting to say nowadays, these are just my own personal perceptions.  It's largely you guys' playground. I just visit now and then.  Whatever system you all agree on is fine with me.  I'm not here to dictate to anyone.

[el-Karnak]

I'm not really commenting on the merits on any particular system, but merely how a PP system might achieve similar effects as Tracy's proposed system.  I am not on the server or any server enough to know whether one system is better than another, however there does seem to be some brewhaha over BBs. 

Now, I find BBs to be ridiculous in a system that basically only allows a skirmish level battle.  3v3 is not a battleship engagement in my opinion.  Further, I find it somewhat disconcerting on a personal level that the better PvP players seem to be the ones flying these behemoths which I see as a significant impediment to the casual player like myself.  I can't hold my ground as casual player in PvP normally.  Add in more experienced players with heavier iron and I hardly see the point of participating at all.  This is why I largely fly a flight combat sim where everyone's on an equal footing and I only get shot down because I am an inexperienced player, not because I have a smaller or suckier plane.

As I am wanting to say nowadays, these are just my own personal perceptions.  It's largely you guys' playground. I just visit now and then.  Whatever system you all agree on is fine with me.  I'm not here to dictate to anyone.

If a given poster follows the forum rules , then that poster should always feel welcome to post his/her opinions here.

I think you're right about people trying to re-invent the PP and shipyard wheel that Taldren gave us. To buy bigger ships, you need more PP. One way to get lotsa PP is to get lotsa PP by doing lotsa hex flipping. Another way is to have the missions scripted to pay substantial bonus PP when you make a player taco bell and even more when you kill them.   Now, to limit the ships then make the capital ships expensive and use max.-online-at-one rules for capital ships.

Well now, I guess we should ask a scripter to do that  PP bonus stuff.

Gimme a sec., and I'll check on that.

*Karnak grabs phone and calls ISC Tech. support*

*ring, ring*

"Hello, this is 'We are Superior Tech Services'. I hope you are smart enough and civilized enough for me to help you today."

"Umm, yeah.  We need missions that pay bonus PP for people that make others Taco Bell and even more for BBQing them."

"You are so feeble-minded. Just use EEK scripts at EEK-Scripts.com."

"Oh, thanks. But, what about having too many big ships on the dyna?"

"Then, just make those capital ships more expensive in the shipyard and limit the max online limit for them."

"Oh, OK. But, wait a minute; what about all those casual players that can't do much PvP and win?."

"You can allot a number of them some PP grants via a lottery system or via whatever their hardly-worthy-to-be-a-non-ISC-leader's system"

"Oh, OK. That's sound good, I guess.  But, don't you need SQL for that?"

"No, my dear feeble-minded one. You can edit the player's PP in the flat file DB. You need a good techie Dyna admin for that, too. Of course, us frogs can do this in our sleep."

"Well, that's good to know. Thanks again."

"No problem, you hardly worthy to have been helped being."

[Dfly]

Perhaps it is just me, BUT I think I see a flaw in all your guys thoughts on this issue.  Just follow with me a bit.

1-Currently we start with some points, and a ship.
2-We have to win missions in Hex flipping or PvP to earn more points to get more expensive ships.
3-Nutters always have too much and casuals never really get enough to get top choice of ships, and replace them.



With SQL there is a way to award points to players who win PvP in accordance to what ship vs ship they kill.(ie light TKs heavy, extra points to light, but if heavy TKs light, less points)
This is not doable on Flatfile(unless I heard wrong)

Now, perhaps I am the only one so far who mis-understood part of what Tracy was stating, or I am the only one who gets this next part.

the SQL can keep score of "starting points" and "extra bonus points" and any extra "PvP points".

What if: All players get say 25 points to start, nutter or not.
All ships in the campaign cost 1 point
everything else costs 1 point(repairs etc)
ALL ships with the small letter "w" are worth say 2 points(droners,escorts for example)
ALL ships with the small letter "t" are worth say 4 points(BCH for example)
ALL ships with the small letter "y" are worth say 7 points(DNs, CVAs for example)
ALL ships with the small letter "b" are worth say 12 points(BBs for example)

this would allow all players the chance to fly any one ship size with affordability to replace the ship at least once(in the case of BB).  Also allows to replace that droner a dozen times.  Getting extra kills vs these name-specific(ones with small letters) ships gets you say 1 extra point?  If you get a total of 12 kills, you now can afford to get another BB to replace yours.

Of course the points could be done slightly differently, such as a BB is worth say 20.  This way to replace it you must kill at least 15 PvP name-specific ships or some such. 

At no time would any ship available be too expensive to buy.  Just a matter of making a balanced shiplist(wich we mostly already have)

Does this make any sense Tracy? any comments anyone?

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Thanks Dfly good to see someone has caught onto the idea, the starting points rewards, etc would have to be considered and discussed but you got the basic idea.  Everyone getting the chance to fly some big metal )no matter how little they played would be really cool (I don't think I'd go as far as BBs for all, making a little bit of PvP sucess or other effort needed for those, but Dns for all would be appropriate I think)   Also, You can still have the max points online at once system so that you dont see tons of DNs on the server at once.

Additionally it might be possible to award points for doing special missions that award a medal the first time such a mission is completed, for example the alien enocounter mission might be so set up, giving the players a strategic reason (getting the bonus points, or helping a wing to do so) for flying a long and difficult, yet fun mission, that would otherwise be best to avoid from a strategic standpoint.   

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

Yes, you've got it DFly, that was exactly what I was saying.=, although the actual numbers could be adjusted with for balance. The idea is too somehow limit the inevitable BB fest that always seems to ensue when players can just build up prestige and fly whatever they want, while still somehow not disadvantaging the casual player over the nutter, or only having a few select pilots hand picked by RMs to fly the bigger ships.

So, with a Build Point system, eventually anyone and everyone will get the chance to fly a bigger ship, via various possible paths, either as a nutter and just going up in ranks, through PvP and earning BPs that way, yet still the casual player will start with enough BPs to say buy something decent (but not necessarily a BB, which I think should be worked for, otherwise we just end up with another BB fest again).

Now, the aim is to still limit the amount of heavy metal on board, so that even if players do have enough prestige to buy a BB, they are still restricted with an overlay of this BP system.

[Lepton]

My intent is not to be critical of the system proposed but what is the mechanism by which one earns build points?  If it is based on PP then it's merely the same system with a different scale.  If it's rank which currently is PP-based, again we're largely at the same place.  One would have to develop an as-yet undefined system that generated these build points and allowed people to earn them in some manner, which I can only believe is either based on mission performance (aka hex-flipping PP) or PvP performance (aka PvP PP).  Whether one awards build points or PP based on AI mission performance or PvP mission performance, these seem largely the same to me.

I only offer this in the face of the difficulty of implementing any SQL solution that might be proposed.  Any system might be great.  The initially proposed one certainly has merit, but is it implementible?  In light of that difficulty, can the same thing be accomplished with what we have available to us?  Maybe.

What can we do with PP now?

1.  Repair ships
2.  Supply ships
3.  Buy ships

The first function of PP seems essential.  No way around that one, unless somehow repairs could be made to be free.  Resupplying ships costs PP.  Perhaps it shouldn't.  Is there a way to give ships  a standard outload at little or no cost?  There is certainly precedent for that in SFB.  That would leave PP for buying ships essentially.  Reduce PP rewards per mission or up ship prices and you've got the limiting factor for capital ships.

Restrictions on cap ships would merely come about by restricting player PP totals via reducing PP awards, upping ship prices, and/or reducing the value of return on a lost ship.  And let's not forget negative PP.  Didn't people used to lose an amount of total PP for losing a ship?  Now we "reward" failure?  Lose a BCH, get back a CC?  Something like that.  Doesn't really capture the idea of prestige.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

One would have to develop an as-yet undefined system that generated these build points and allowed people to earn them in some manner, which I can only believe is either based on mission performance (aka hex-flipping PP) or PvP performance (aka PvP PP).  Whether one awards build points or PP based on AI mission performance or PvP mission performance, these seem largely the same to me.

actually Tracey did provide a basic outline

Each player begins the server with a certain number of production points for buying capital ships. This number would initially be small, and could increase as a player went up ranks. PvP kills would also earn more Production points based on some scale an your opponent's ship.

So each player starts with points and can earn more though gaing ranks, or by PvP success,  and has been later posted,  by completing special missions is another possible way.

On the PvP side it is possible to scale the rewards according to the type of match it was.  First by dividing any rewards among all participants on the victorious side, which makes bogger rewards for pilots winning without a wing as they don't have to divide the spoils.  Secondly by having an automatic adjustment of the reward based on the hull class of the ships so that the smaller the victor's hull class the greater the reward.  This makes it more rewarding for players to engage foes in similar or larger hull classes if they can pull off the win, conversely it minimizes the rewards for fighting and winning against smaller opponents.

On the ranks side (and potentially the special missions side) it allows for the non aces to have a way to earn rewards even if they are not comfortable with PvP, it also allows for some reward to the nutters for time spent on the server.  It also allows any player who lost most or all of his points and can't field the ship they want for PvP an opportunity to recoup their loses so that they can get the ship they feel they need to get back into the heat of things, it just might take them some hex-flipping time (one reson I wanted to include the special missions option is so that these players wouldn't have to hex flip so much but could instead try to earn their point by doing a challanging and fun mission)

So it is not limited to any one method for accumulating points, but actually allows for all types of activities to do so, hopefully accomidating the different preferred styles of D2 play.

[Dfly]

The problem with what you are proposing, and which is in place currently Lepton, is that only Nutters(either PvP or hex flippin) would ever fly anything bigger than a light cruiser if you up either the costs or reducing the reward for finishing a mission.  Also, my losing a CCY right now rewards me with losing a 13,000 point ship and giving me a ship that totalled out for resale at 1,700.  Considering that  my single ship loss this campaign cost me 11,300 points, why would a casual player even want to fly for nearly 3 weeks to be able to finally afford a good ship(CCZ as example, not out yet but most likely costing near 30,000), only to lose it due to unlucky draft vs player, or otherwise.  I know if it happened to me, and I was only playing say 10 hours a week max, I would stop playing right there as there is no other way I could ever afford another.

The system we are proposing, should it work, would allow even the guy who only can get on for say week 2, and be able to get pretty much any good Heavy for that time period.  Should he lose it, there is enough left most likely he could get a second chance.  Should he lose that one well, then he would have to work up for more.


A possibility, to help reward nutters(like they need it) is that they can maybe trade in say 100,000 points of PvP or Hex flipping for a couple build points for ships?  This would be above any other system mentioned that would work.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

And let's not forget negative PP.  Didn't people used to lose an amount of total PP for losing a ship?  Now we "reward" failure?  Lose a BCH, get back a CC?  Something like that.  Doesn't really capture the idea of prestige.

An excellent point here Lepton 

Now with a point based system, ship replacement would have to be set incredibly low so that a replacement ship couldn't be sold to recoup the lost points.  I'm thinking )5 replacement value if that is possible, if not something incredibly low like 10%.  Or perhaps taking all the "point ships" out of the shipyards except for the webmap ones would do this.  Not exactly sure, maybe someone with more knowledge can answer that.  At the same time make non-point or "vanilla" ships dirt cheap and some of the more standard point ships like the Command variants relatively cheap in cost so that replacement isn't so hard.  This would hopefully keep everyone in at least a light or heavy cruiser command variant even if they sufferered quite a few defeats as long as they didn't risk all their points on bigger ships in which case they will have to PvP, hex-flip, or special mission their way out of the hole.

If ships are made cheap mission payouts can be relatively low, but if they aren't higher payouts would be needed with a low ship replacement value, otherwise we'd potentially have guys in freighters.  Irregardless, mission payouts should be able to cover expendable costs for most sucessful missions with a bit left over, lower the expendibles cost as well and you can drop the mission payout further.

Personally I like the idea of flying the largest ships to have the greater risk, while still allowing more opportunity for everyone to fly a DN.  If you lose it you have only yourself to blame, and you will be the oone to suffer the greatest consequence as your points disappear, not those of your team  VC points could be downplayed for such losses, though not eliminated.  Basically half the loss might effect your team via VCs and half the pilot personally via lost points, rather than have it all placed upon the team

[trO]

This is my first D2 in many a year. I can’t remember the last one I played. And I must say I have enjoyed the little I have been on.  Except when DH trashed my KRCS.  Lol 
I haven’t really attempted to do to much PvP as I still feel a bit rusty,  but the whole game I feel revolves around this.
                     If you want to do endless missions and play against AI,  I would use the single player mode.
                      I like the idea of affordability of bigger ships this would help out the casual player. If I remember right the last time I played a D2 Dreads were restricted to one player per race.. It always seemed to make it interesting trying to locate, trap and kill the enemies BB.  So perhaps one Dread per race, this would cut down on the amount of Dreads on the server, and make sure there wasn’t a Dread feast.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

I haven’t really attempted to do to much PvP as I still feel a bit rusty,  but the whole game I feel revolves around this.
                     If you want to do endless missions and play against AI,  I would use the single player mode.
                     

Some would argue that strategy,  is what the game revolves around and that those interested in endless PvP missions use the Gamespy Arcade mode   

Personally I like a bit of both with the strategy aspect of pitting wits against the other side and the PvP aspect of doing so against individual captains.

[Soreyes]

What about the idea of giving away pp to other players? I'm a Nutter I admit it. (Start my 12 step program next week    ) The thing is that I do not like flying anything larger then a CL. Is it possable to give some of your PP to other players?

[Hexx]

What about the idea of giving away pp to other players? I'm a Nutter I admit it. (Start my 12 step program next week    ) The thing is that I do not like flying anything larger then a CL. Is it possable to give some of your PP to other players?

Since there would be a massive prestige cost for anything wih more than 3 drone F racks I'd save it if I were you 

[Soreyes]

What about the idea of giving away pp to other players? I'm a Nutter I admit it. (Start my 12 step program next week    ) The thing is that I do not like flying anything larger then a CL. Is it possable to give some of your PP to other players?

Since there would be a massive prestige cost for anything wih more than 3 drone F racks I'd save it if I were you 

Well Hell if that's the way it's going to be Hexx. I'd just say Screw the game and do something else

[762_XC]

What about the idea of giving away pp to other players? I'm a Nutter I admit it. (Start my 12 step program next week    ) The thing is that I do not like flying anything larger then a CL. Is it possable to give some of your PP to other players?

Then we might as well wipe out PP and make ships cost nothing.

[Lepton]

I'm not actually opposed to the system that Tracey has proposed.  If an SQL server can work and someone wants to code it up, I'm all for it.  The build points for rank needs some fleshing out, but I am more than fine with the idea.  I was merely suggesting a somewhat similar alternative.  I am certainly not wed to my idea by any means.  Just sort of thinking out loud.

My thought for allowing anyone to fly the heavy iron is to let everyone start with enough PP to buy one from the get-go, but then limit the amount of PP that people can earn from that point on.  Let's say enough PP to get a BCH. 

The casual player may choose to blop all this bread down for it, or buy something more conservative and create a little PP nest egg and buy a BCH later or save up for a dred.

The nutter will always have more PP, BP, or higher rank, or even PvP points, nearly by definiton of being a nutter.  Thus he can buy and sell whatever he chooses, fly whatever he chooses.

The PvP player will live and die by the sword.  Lose a capital ship.  You're screwed.  He'll need to build his PP back up or perhaps pull from his PvP-based accumulated PP as well as AI mission PP.


I think the one caveat with any of these systems is that if one makes capital ships available to all, everyone will want to fly one.  There may need to be a system in place like we have for SGO5, which basically puts us back where we started, expect that people would be bitching at Dizzy to get out of the BB and stop hoarding all the capital ship points so that they can field their BCH or what-have-you, which may not be a bad idea.

[Dizzy]

Hardly fly the BB, but nopw that u mentioned it...

[Riskyllama]

not everyone likes riding around in a BB..i like flying little guys for the bigger ship, but sometimes you need to be the big one...both plans have their merits, i'd love to see both tried or used, and then maybe ideas from one can help flesh out the other and vice versa..
One thing I am worried about is the dependancy on SQL...it didnt run perfect last time around, but then that might not've been SQL's fault.