Victory Points

[Tempest Storm]

After playing Company of Heroes so much for the past 2 years or so I have really come to like the Victory Point system used for standard auto-match online play. I think that the idea behind it is great and it really allows a strategy game to focus more on the battlefield rather than the opposition's base. I was thinking about seeing such a game mode in BZ2 today, and I think it could prove to make strategy games fairly interesting.

For those who have never played CoH (or Dawn of War II now. It is also very similar to how the Battlefield games work) the VP system works by having the two opposing teams start out with a certain number of VPs at the start of a game that is predetermined at the start of the match. On the map there are a certain number of capture-able points  that when captured by a player comes under his ownership. If one side has more of these points than his enemy does then his enemy's VPs will start to slowly deplete themselves. The more VPs under your control the faster your opponent's points will deplete, until eventually when either side hits 0 victory points they will lose the match.

So lets say for example this was implemented in BZ2 and you played a VP ST game on Dunes. Say there are 3 VPs on the map, 1 near the center pool in the middle and 2 others on the far sides of the middle area of the map. The host decided to set the VPs at 500 points. The game would generally function normally as a non VP game, although now your focus is to keep control over the map not just for the resource benefits from the extra pools but also for the win as well. So let's say you want to get an early advantage on victory points for the game. Now there is a decision that you must make as the player; Should I head out to capture one or two VPs and try to take the point lead? If I do then my Scavengers might be left open for attack, and an early resource setback could cost me the game. However, the point advantage could really pay off if this turns out to be a close match. You could also sit tight and defend for the time being, not capping VPs early in the game may put you at a disadvantage in points but you will also have more resources to put together an early offensive. (Assuming that your opponent is spending his scrap on defending his points, otherwise you could just run in and capture them unopposed)

Depending on how many VPs a player controls would control how fast the other side loses their points. If I only have 1 point in my control then the ticker goes down pretty slow. However having 2 points would increase this, and having 3 points would start to really put a strain on the other team, it could even be devastating to their point value if they are low as it is. The enemy's control over the VPs also has an effect on the ticker as well though. If we both only have 1 in our control and the 3rd is too much of a hot spot for either of us to capture it then the ticker stays the same as if we both had zero. Also if my opponent had 2 points in his possession I could still slow down my point loss by holding onto the 3rd VP treating the countdown ticker as if he only had 1 VP under his control.

Now how exactly would this work best in BZ2? Here a few ideas I would suggest:

- Bases need to be tougher to crack: The general idea of playing a VP game would be to keep the focus of combat away from the bases and onto the battlefield. Recyclers would probably have some kind of early defense system that would crush most light attacks. Other methods should be applied too, maybe harder to destroy buildings? Or stronger defenses? Aside from what needs to be changed, the idea would be that going for the base kill is generally very risky; While you are hammering away at the base, your enemy could just sweep through the map and cap all the VPs, and if your base assault gets crushed you will be at a considerable disadvantage. Raids on the base to kill power/unit production or on extractors should still be a viable tactic but to totally annihilate the base should not be a viable strategy unless you have a considerable advantage over your opponent.

- VPs would be capturable by players and AI units: A VP could generally be anything depending on the map. Generally an object that the map DLL would recognize and transfer ownership to the player who is able to stay there unopposed for a certain amount of time. It could be a building, a ruin, or a wrecked unit, heck it could just be one of those flagpoles from CTF . It could be more interesting to see different objects as VPs, it actually makes you feel like you are fighting over important stuff. As long as you or some of your units can stay at a VP for say 5 seconds or so and no enemy units are nearby then it is yours for the taking.

- There should be a limit to how hard you can put up defenses at VPs: VPs shouldn't be a race to who can get there and build more GTs at that spot than the other guy. Perhaps the terrain by VPs should only allow for 1 or 2 GTs if any at all. (although with no GTs at all there may be a need for more defensive types of units)

It is still a pretty rough idea in my head for BZ2 implementation although I think it would make an interesting new game mode to add a twist to BZ2 ST games. Players will have to use different strategies in order to be victorious and there are a lot more opportunities for a turnaround. Resource management, teching, and unit placement/tactics will play a deciding factor for the winner. I think that this could be a really interesting idea to put into practice in the BZ2 world. Please let me know your opinions on such an idea, and of course any suggestions and ideas are welcome too! If it would work out properly and be fun to play, perhaps it is something the CP could look into as a feature.

[Nielk1]

So... Conquest?

Someone made one once. (More DM like IIRC.)

It's on my list, with, a lot of other things.

Applying it to STRAT could be interesting.

Technically it is just using a team death limit though. Capture points have to have a point or else no one will grab them. In Battlefield they are spawn points you can pick. In BF2142's Conquest Assault if you get all the points you can attack the main base, but before that you cannot.

It could end up being like RD's Capture the Relic with different relics, the rewards be their incentives, and the tickets (as called in BF) the team wide death limit. Making a hud to show such things would be trivial too.

[TheJamsh]

Doesnt actually sound too difficult to do. BTW its early so i didnt read the whole post, just skimmed through youres and N!'s. I guess what youre looking for is a system similar to Star Wars battlefront where you capture area of the map for points (usually defined by blue/red rings typically.

I actually find this gamemode very fun. Its like a much nicer variation of KOTH, and on a side note play it in GOW all the time. (Mainly because if you are still pretty poor at it you still dont spend half the game sitting out, and can actually improve ¬_¬).

Integrating such a system into strat would be tough to balance out, seeing as strats are pretty fast paced anyway. It could be pretty cool though i have to admit...

[Tempest Storm]

Indeed, BZ2 ST is a pretty complex game in itself. But I still feel that the general objective of the game is no further than fighting over pools to build up the force that destroys the other guys base. A system like this would hopefully make a shift from rather using your units to kill the other guys base you would use your units to fight the other guy's units.

[Zero Angel]

I do like the Victory Point idea of Company of Heroes (which I also play).

I think that in order for a VP to be successful it should have the following qualities:

1) Decent base scrap generation. So that the commander can build limited role units somewhat quickly without the need to hold pools.
2) Ability to build slightly more advanced/multirole units by holding more pools (holding VPs should be the highest priority, not holding pools.)
3) Wingman losses must not weigh so heavily on a commander's resources -- which means that the more units are in the battle, the less the individual wingman matters (in a vet strat, wingmen are the most important resource a commander has). In a VP mode this would be ideal, since the primary focus should be on building forces to defend/attack the VPs.

With decent scrap generation (like, say giving the commander 3 base pools), you can get base defenses up quicker. I do not advise implementing any sort of recdef or any way to make the base invulnerable to attack, since in CoH you could destroy the enemy base too, if he was careless about defense.

I might also suggest using a relay bunker/console as the way to capture a VP. Say a player hops out of his ship, accesses the relay bunker. A 'capturing' bar shows up which counts down from 10 seconds, and then the point is captured (or 20 seconds if the point is under enemy control, since it must be neutralized -- at least thats how it works in CoH). If the player dies while capturing a VP then that just means he needs to clear out the hostiles in the area first.

[Warfreak]

Detecting if one is in the Point's radius AND is not a vehicle is highly possible, but i guess an in-use check works too.

[mrtwosheds]

Currently in strat, scrap/pools are everything, I can't quite see how any point system would effect this
basic element of strategy, Control the scrap to weaken your enemy and destroy their Base. Maybe, if you had a limited number of pilots/lives that was increased by the gaining of points (but only reduced by deaths) That way A side that chose to ignore the points might find their team weakened by that choice.

[Zero Angel]

A point system affects this a lot actually. It gives the commander a choice to focus either on 1) Capturing the VPs to win the game, 2) massing a necessary force to attack the enemy base, or 3) Capturing pools to increase resource production slightly in order to fulfill the aforementioned goals.

Since the primary goal isnt to destroy the enemy base, you can win the game simply by holding the field, yet also lose it by inadequately defending your own base

[Red Devil]

 This is weird; I was just thinking of implementing a capture system like BF2 uses.  

[TheJamsh]

I really feel like (well, getting N1 to program it ) making something like this for the addon pack...

The idea would be a disc, which when not taken is white, when you take the point, it changes to you're team colour... could either do it with objects or pathpoints. There would have to be an object involved to tell you the point is under which sides control...

Or maybe ill leave this... seeing as theres already so much to do...

[mrtwosheds]

Pre-placed indestructable com bunkers models would be better.

[Mr X]

Pre-placed indestructable com bunkers models would be better.

Maybe some kind of building where a human player has to hop out of their tank and interface with a screen for X seconds to capture it?

[Red Spot]

Just venting my opinion here ..

I dislike the idea of "additional" VPs in this game, though I do think it might be a nice extra feature that would fit the game if VPs are linked to pools. So when say you have 1 more pool than the other side his VPs would slowelly go down and take away the "need" to end the game with a base-assault, which given time could be a really hard thing to do (given enough time to get overwelming defences up).
Linking pools to a VPs system would also be easy and require no updates of the existing maps, and as I already mentioned keeps the game as it is ... revolving around poolcontrol/scrapmanagement.

[Warfreak]

Um, the idea is for a Gamemode that WILL have it's own maps, so the stock gameplay isn't even threatened by this...

[sabrebattletank]

What about, instead of there having to be zero enemy units in range, it worked more like Alliance Battles in Guild Wars: the shrines (that's they name they use in GW, not "VP") could a) be captured by who has more units in range, and/or b) spawn something (ships, weapons, defenses?) at a certain time interval for the benefit of the shrineholding team. Maybe they could temporarily give bonuses to ships in range (could you give all the weapons on one team +20 range in a certain area? or maybe damage resistance, a speed boost, or having ships drop more biometal.)