Victory Conditions - New/Old Ideas

[gingerbear]

There are two tendencies that are worth noticing, which led me to muse about victory conditions:

1. The community is growing well, and the map gets wiped within 3 days maximum.
2. Victory Points will become useless. Tanks can be already obtained via drops, and augments are planned to be droppable too. What should happen to VP is a different question, the relevant thing is that if the game goal (ie getting VP) becomes moot, then playing for said goal becomes moot, too.

Which means there should be a change in victory goals, at least in their rewarding, and most likely in their mechanism and (in)variety too.

Based on this I'd like to discuss Victory Conditions here, as Rewarding is more tied with the question of Victory Points and their future. Until it gets resolved, having multiple victory conditions could be interesting to keep on playing.


Victory Conditions, End Game Content
These are actually two different things, namely "What should be the win condition?" and "What should happen afterward?".

For the second question, there has been a good thread already (you can read it here). I encourage everyone to read it, and post there, it has interesting ideas, some thread necroing wouldn't hurt.

Back here, let's focus on the first question: "What should be the win condition?" Here are some of my ideas, feel free to suggest more and to like/dislike them:

Conditions

• Players have to clean up N sectors. Just like it is now. Instead of 5, it could be assigned randomly from a set range, for example 4 - 10.
  
• Players have to discover N cities, and / or reach M sectors. N could be 120+ (assuming an average of 3 cities / sector), M could be 40-100, depending on how "big" grid you'd have to make. A variation could be that Players have to reach N of a specific kind of sector, but this would need some assistance for the random map generator to ensure its feasibility.
  
• Discover N sectors in a straight line (horizontally or vertically). N=10 is not challenging, N = 20 might prove interesting...
  
• Find a specific city / sector. The latter one assumes that two sectors with identical effect have different numbers, eg. Barionic 1 and Barionic 2. Giving individual names for sectors could be also fun. The algorithm should be limited to choose a target within an R radius centered from the origin to make it possible within reliable time.
  
• Liberate a specific city / sector. Similar to the previous, with the extra chore of cleaning a path to there and clearing the actual part too. To make it easier, the city / sector in question could be shown on the map. This could work with multiple targets too, e.g.: Liberate the following N cities / sectors, with N being 1 - 10.
  
  
• Players have to level up cities to a total amount of N levels. This has been around before, and could be re-added. N can be a big number. Assuming a cleaned sector has about 24 ( 3x lvl 8), and an average one about 12 (2x lvl 6), N = 400 could be a nice goal. It could also force players to play efficiently to get shards faster (clearing in teams, hunting convoys, building shard bonus structs, etc), or to scout a lot more for easy level ups.
  
• Build up a city (E.g. Origin) to level X. This is assuming cities are not limited to level 10. To handle the increasing amount of grid shard cost, there could be a rule that each of the new buildings have to be erected in order to level up a city, which in turn would allow lower numbers on buildings + upgrades. (This needs balancing, obviously.)
  
• Build up a specific object. This is an alternative to the previous one, but has a lot more options to be fun. Instead of leveling a city, the players have to build up a Lvl 20 Grid Cannon, which is located next to origin. Once the grid cannon is ready, it fires a huge beam, cleaning everything in the way, and the players happily waltz through the new-found path ... (end game animation). This, and similar end game condition could be made more difficult with for example having to find/build the different "modules" for the object in different cities, or with attracting convoys / patrols that might reduce the building back to a certain amount (For example progression from Lvl 7 to Lvl 8 will be lost, but after that it cannot fall back to Lvl 6).
  
• Destroy N of a specific Tower / Convoy / (minion?). The number of N can be adjusted depending on the targets difficulty. This would require some tweak to the random generator too to ensure a target rich environment.
  
  
• Draw a specific pattern / a series of patterns on the map, by destroying the towers lying over the tiles. You know, Nazca in future. Could be made harder if a "pixel" would be a sector, or a specific city reaching level X (counts colored at lvl 5, for example).
  

Of course, harder conditions would mean bigger rewards.


Mechanics
These are not necessarily exclusive ones...

• Each map has 1, unique win condition. (Unique means no other active maps have the same condition.)
  
• Each map has 1 win condition, chosen randomly from a set of conditions, overlap with other maps possible.
  
• Each map has all the win conditions, map is won when at least 1 / a certain % / all of them is met.
  
• Each map has a set of random conditions, map is won when at least 1 / certain % / all of them is met.
  

[hypevosa]

grid12.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=129&page=2

Cross link

[Ood]

Personally, for the time being, I think increasing the regions cleared condition to 12 (it is called Grid 12, yes?) would be sufficient.

However, most of what you have here is very good. Having some sort of system where you join a 'grid' from a list and then play off of that would allow for lots of different types of games going on at the same time. One that favors scouters one for clearers, etc.

[quicklite]

Although the 'unique' part could get ridiculous if grid eventually gets realm's popularity (and therefore, servers), I still like this idea a lot. I like how, for every map, there could be a choice on what style you can play as. I agree with regions being increased to 12 as a temporary solution, but I'd like to see a lot of tactical flexibility in grid. After all, it is already 'play at your own pace'. Why not make it 'play at your own style' too?

[rob]

But WHY would people want to take the time and trouble to win a map? With no VPs, what's the incentive?

[fsm]

You could create a clean map with an uber-convoy that drops great loot (think something like going to Oryx's Chamber)

If you keep VP and add augment modules then we will need another use for VP though.

[slayingu]

The incentive could be something such as unique modules. The more sectors you help clear to win the map the higher your odds are of obtaining a unique module.

You could also have modules with tiers only obtained by helping to clear the map. (e.g. there are 6 regular tiers for modules but the 7th is only obtainable through helping to win the map, maybe by contributing to a certain percentage of fortress kills or gridshards your chances of getting one of these modules increases).

Maybe to keep their uniqueness these modules can't be traded, only sold to a shop for gridshards or something else.

These ideas are rough around the edges but I think anything that could only be obtained by contributing to winning the map could be a good incentive.

[gingerbear]

May 18, 2013 6:49:44 GMT -5 rob said:

But WHY would people want to take the time and trouble to win a map? With no VPs, what's the incentive?

Yeah, this is a question I wanted to discuss in a new thread, but we could brainstorm here too.

Since you want to make everything dropable and craftable, then obviously some high tier loot would be the obvious choice. This would - however - have a serious problem: who would receive it? If only the people currently active, then people not being around at the time of win would consider it unfair, even if for example they did the 90% of the tasks but couldn't get online in the critical time. If there is a minimum requirement, then most people would do the minimum, then sit back and let the "geeks" do the long and boring parts. To prevent this, if the minimum is "too much", that might discourage casual gaming entirely.

Since VP will be kind of useless anyway, and "direct rewarding" seems to be a bit problematic, I think a better question might be:

"How should we reform the system to keep an incentive and still make things work as we intended them?"

Or for shorts: "What should we do with VP?"

I think VP should become a status symbol. Social groups like to define themselves after status symbols, and as there are no "real" hierarchies nowadays (and clearly not in a game), having some kind of pseudo "status symbol" could be an incentive that could work well.

How should it be done?

Make VP something like "fame", but not like the fame system in rotmg, that's just bad now.

Reward VP after successfully completing a mission (main mission is winning a map, side missions are leveling cities, clearing sectors, killing convoys, whatever you come up with). This should be awarded proportionally to activity to the specific mission.

• Keep VP spendable on the current things, but rethink its value. With the current drops VP is worth about a T11 tank, or a level 8-9 slot extender (Convoy drop). I don't know what levels the augment modules will have, but that should be also a factor to consider. With that, perhaps making "high tier" modules buyable with VP would be a great incentive to play, however I'm not sure it would be a good business model for Jetbolt. (Why would I trade for something, when I can get it with VP?)
  
• Make VP spendable on unique items, or perhaps customization (modules with own name or color). This would be also a good incentive, and also removing one good cash cow.
  
• Keep a hall of fame of total VP accumulated (not "current" VP, as it could dwindle down). This doesn't hurt the economy, but provides only a small incentive. Still, better than nothing.
  
  
• Make VP as an "unlocker" of things. For example you cannot find/equip/buy a cool item /move onto a specific sector /obtain the 5th trigger as long as you don't have a certain amount of Victory Points. As soon as you have the requirement, you are instantly able to get into action. This wouldn't hurt economics since it does not give anything "specific", only the possibility to reach that specific thing. It would not make "unfair" advantages, as 1) getting infinite VP is open for everyone, and all you have to do is to play, 2) if someone thinks that dedicated players should have no advantage whatsoever against newcomers or casuals is an ignorant git.
  

I'll be honest when I say I actually don't know how to make it work, perhaps ask mSellers for some tips. Oh wait, don't do it, this game looks promising. Nevertheless, it would be nice if we could have something to comment on. Concrete ideas / thoughts to give feedback on. Not necessarily right now, but I think soonish, as it seems to be an urgent question, looking at the Dev Roadmap for Build 53 at latest...

[slayingu]

gingerbear

How about when clearing the map you don't have to be online at the critical time to have a chance at getting the loot. Regardless of being online or offline, anyone who contributed at least the minimum requirements to obtain the high tier loot may get it.

As for the people who would only go the bare minimum for the high tier loot we can avoid that by having a % chance of obtaining the high tier loot directly in proportion to the contribution of the player (e.g. bare minimum may give you a 5% chance of getting high tier loot whilst someone who did much more than that has a 30% chance). That way achieving the minimum requirement can be small and won't discourage casual players and it even encourages them to play more in order to have a better chance at getting the good loot.

In order to compensate players who are actually online at the time of the win an event could happen. As mentioned above by Hypevosa, an end game boss. This is another encouragement for players to keep playing and win the map, this end game boss. It could drop high tier loot, exclusive items, etc.

I also agree with VP becoming a hall of fame type option. We could even have ranks such as private, general and colonel to tie in with players being tanks. It would be a show off thing

[hypevosa]

May 18, 2013 6:49:44 GMT -5 rob said:

But WHY would people want to take the time and trouble to win a map? With no VPs, what's the incentive?

Make the endgame awesome and enjoyable to the point players feel a drive to get there? good loot?

[amitp]

I think a lot of this will change as we get new players so it may not be worth spending that much time figuring it out without figuring out how it scales to thousands of players. Thoughts:

Players per game:

If each game has 50 simultaneous players instead of 5, the game ends in 1/10th the time. So the 3 days would be 6-8 hours. Is this enough time? The tradeoff here is that short games can be faster paced, where more people feel like they contributed, but they're disposable. If I play once a day I'm already not playing all the games. Long games are ones where large scale objectives and strategy can be fun. But it may also mean people don't feel like they made a difference.

Starcraft is a fast paced short game. You don't care about the world. You just go as fast as possible and then play another game as fast as possible. You place things wherever you can, because it doesn't matter that much. Civilization is a slow paced game. The cities and other things you build actually matter. You have to work your way through it. You learn and remember the places in the world because they're different and interesting. You remember that Pittsburgh is the powerhouse and Berkeley has lots of artists.

Grid12 is moving towards a short term fast paced game.

It's not just about time though. The scale of space also matters. When you have lots of towns, each one no longer matters. Already, do you care about each individual town? I think you don't. You build it up, then move on. What happens when there are 10 times the number of players, and 10 times the number of towns? They become forgettable.

If you try to fix the time aspect by extending the goals (for example from 5 regions to 25) you worsen the space aspect because you now have tons and tons of forgettable stuff.

One idea I heard Rob talk about was to increase the scale of the game by adding “dungeons”. There would be wormholes throughout the world, and you could jump into one to find a large area inside. To clear a grid region you need to clear the wormholes too. Maybe when you drive near a wormhole you see how many players are in it, and once it's cleared, the wormhole disintegrates. Dungeons are a way to increase the time scale of the game without increasing the space scale. That might be interesting.

Games per player:

Once there are enough players that there are multiple simultaneous games, do players want to stick to one, or will they jump around? If they stick to one, they are more likely to help build it up. You put gridshards into towns where it matters, because it affects your future battles. When players jump around, they don't need to care. So you can just put all your gridshards into origin, jump to another game, and never see those people again.

If you have to be at the final battle to get the rewards, then everyone's going to jump from game to game looking for something close to the end. If you don't have to be there, then everyone's going to jump from game to game fulfilling the minimum requirement and then moving on. If you need 50 VP in that game to win loot, you're better off playing 10 games at 50 each than 1 game at 500. Both of these scenarios discourage people from staying in a world.

I think you need a different mechanism if you want to encourage players to stick together for a while. And I think the two are related. If a game lasts 6 hours, you're unlikely to see the same world when you play tomorrow, so why bother helping it more than necessary?

We haven't seen any of these dynamics and won't until the game has enough players. It's easy to write random stuff like I just did but there will always be things people can't predict, so you have to try it and watch the player behavior.

I'm looking very much forward to having the server and client faster so that we can have 50+ players in a game. Some of the stuff around victory conditions is going to be hard to experiment with until there are a lot more players than that.

[quicklite]

amitp, firstly, about towns. Even if you only had to clear one sector, heck, even half a sector, towns would still be as forgettable as they are now. And I'm fine with that. I like towns as a thing which you build up and leave behind. It lets you quickly build up and found towns yourself (giving you a better feeling of 'doing something) and it allows you to slowly build up a network of towns throughout the grid to help not only clear but also catch and destroy convoys. And who knows, as the game progresses and when towns inevitably get more advanced, maybe those network of towns could be connected (not literally, but via bonuses, or debuffs, or something) to each other in some way, or each individual town simply doing more to help you or hinder the enemy, or even convoys. Although that will make individual towns more 'memorable' per se, I think the aesthetic of towns doesn't come from the individual towns themselves, but the networks that they create. Even if this was what was meant to happen, it happened, it is awesome, and I think it should be played on more.

As for games per player, well, if we're talking that far ahead, then VP will have to be completely revamped (getting VP for servers ending doesn't work as well for people who server-hop). I think the best way to reward people for ending games is either a) a boss (fun!) or b) unique loot. I think that although flat-out VP works now, it also works because we don't exactly have a choice. Once people get a choice, then it'll stop working as well. After all, why grind for something (clearing) that you can get by doing something less grindy?

Thirdly, I've played before scouting was popular and when there were usually 10 visible sectors at best, and I've played now, when you can sometimes see around 40. And I definitely prefer the latter, and would love it if the sector counter was increased or the win condition was changed entirely to make it so that the new, larger maps are used more. As for 'not mattering', I think that this doesn't really happen. Firstly, larger areas means that you clear in groups. You clear more efficiently, and you might not be the only contributor, but you still feel like you 'helped', and therefore that you did your part. Same goes with towns. You don't get all the towns, but the ones you do get give you a sense of satisfaction and progress. Also, I've seen lots of people (myself included, ofc) plow/scout through a lot of sectors, slowly expanding the area, and I have solo-cleared a sector (this is when 4 people in a server were rare), meaning that I did a 'bigger part', but in a more boring, grindy, less aestheticly pleasing fashion. And I gotta say, I'd take the former any day. The progression may not be all me, not even mostly me, but the progression just looks and feels cooler.

[Ood]

After some thought... I've come to the conclusion that the game's 'win condition' should be much more dynamic. It's not that what's been posted prior to this are bad ideas... It's that in the end, they end up telling the player: Do this. Here's what I've come up with.

Firstly, what we have and play right now should be considered the beginning stages of a 'game'. Towns are discovered, regions are cleared, the good guys push the bad guys back from whence they came.

The mid-game then turns into boss-fights, dungeons, and holding the territory that we've gained. 'Bosses' appearing when a region is cleared (with a little warning). Dungeons being some sort of 'wormhole' to another area that must be neutralized. And perhaps the most important of all, holding the territory that we've gained.
Holding a certain number of regions clear of enemies for a certain timeframe would be the new 'win condition'. To clear a region in the first place, it's the same as it is now (plus some sort of boss-fight immediately following clearing), but to hold it, you would have to fight off attacks from colonization convoys (convoys that go to an empty region and establish an enemy town), enemy sieges of friendly towns (A very sturdy wall built around a friendly city with its strength determined by city level), face off against waves of minions spawning from a wormhole (and eventually kill the spawner inside), etc. Obviously these things are supposed to be tests of teamwork more than tests of brute force.
Each cleared region would get a timer that it must be held for. For example's sake, let's call it 4 hours (it could be longer or shorter depending on spawn rate of the above described 'events'). Once a region is cleared completely, the 4 hour counter begins to count down. However, once an enemy event begins in the region, the counter stops counting down, and actually increases (perhaps at double the rate of counting down depending) until it is cleared completely, this means that it's possible the timer can go over 4 hours, if the event isn't dealt with quickly enough. Once the timer reaches 0, it will stay there and count as a 'region cleared'. This does not mean that events cannot take place in that region any more (they can, and the timer can go back up, and the region will not count as 'cleared' anymore), it just means that the region in question qualifies for the 'win condition counter'. The 'win condition' is much the same as currently with an added caveat: Hold and Clear 5 (or X) regions (for 4 hours). (Origin's region could be exempt from all this, and once cleared act as a 'nexus')

Once this new 'win condition' is satisfied (Hold X regions simultaneously w/ a timer of 0), end-game can happen. What end-game is I don't know. A mega-boss fight, Oryx style? Or just a game map reset since you have proven you can keep the grid under control.

What does this system give you?
A beginning and a way for new players to get into the game: Clearing regions and scouting new cities
A middle and a way for all players to co-op more epic enemies: Holding regions and clearing events
An end: With possibilities open for whatever is deemed appropriate.

It also serves as a way of 'lengthening' the game without getting rid of what we have now, which is great for new players, and people just casually jumping in and out. While also giving groups and more importantly teams of people opportunities to take out harder enemies. And finally gives use to the barren landscapes of cleared regions.

[gingerbear]

Except that Rob has expressed dislike towards having to "defend" stuff, so your idea of holding a sector for a certain time might be seen with some opposion. Also, I don't see how your proposal is any different from the "do this" from before, if anything it is even more "do this", as now you have time limit to reach a certain goal. What if not enough people are online? What if I want to go to sleep but suddenly a "defend this sector for 3 hours" kicks in, and I should stay because the remaining bugers have no chance? Why would it be any batter having to fight an "end boss" right after clearing convoys, mini bosses and dungeons?

Also, I think what you have in mind is a more dynamic "gameplay", rather than a more dynamic "win condition". Making "missions" in the game could be (and will likely be) implemented, convoys are already an example.

[Ood]

gingerbear
There's no having to 'defend' cities in particular. Cities would hopefully remain safe even if under siege or something, the city should remain safe, but various 'siege/blockade' events are a cool idea in my opinion. As for regions, yeah, some events might make players take back a small portion of a sector, but they wouldn't be actively attacking players, once you get far enough away, the minions stop following you.

You're correct, it is a bit of 'do this' but you keep play options for all sorts of players open as well. If an event comes up, and you would rather keep clearing, just avoid the region. If you're a scout, keep scouting to your hearts content, no amount of cities found or leveled or regions cleared will reset what you've worked toward. If a region gets a large timer because an event has sat in it during an inactive period in the game, that's fine, another region can be cleared and its timer kept in check. The time limit is there, yes, which makes it 'do this' but it, in my mind, makes it so that other things can still be done. You don't HAVE to do the events as they spawn, but eventually to 'win' they all have to be cleared (or at least some of them). (you can grind the godland, and avoid events in realm while others do them if you like, you can do dungeons while others do events, you can run around the roads instead of doing any of it).

Right now, and with most of the other 'do this' win conditions I've seen proposed, players just do what they do currently. Nothing changes. If that means I'm proposing a more dynamic gameplay, instead of win condition, okay. I don't think having something so simple as 'clear X regions' or even a hidden 'upgrade town x to level y' ( or whatever ) is going to work for much longer. 'Winning' shouldn't be easy.