This is a split topic of Nytehauq's thread about the meaning of warfare. The discussion here is not about why we have it, but how to have it. The follow describes an implementation of such warfare. The current version of the design can be found here: BattleCry

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BattleCry This is an MMORPG in a medieval/fantasy setting (shadowbane, wow, etc...). While the player can still raid dungeons, play quests, and level up, make stuffs, and buy and sell stuffs, a major component of this game is warfare. In BattleCry, the game objective is to conquer the other fractions. This is a game where players will log on just to see the battle map, and to discuss strategies on how to cut off enemy supplies and decide what target to attack. Gameplay: Overall: - The world begins divided into two factions with neutral cities and locations; - Players enter the game choosing an allegiance and a location to begin - The game begins with the factions claiming territories and resources - Resources linked to the territories include: (Fournicolas)

The great furnaces - allow metal crafting to be 50% faster. The hidden library of alexandrius - gives access to new spells for the spellcasters of faction. The cask of holy water - makes healing spells and auto-regen 25% more effective. The great Bronze Mirrors of Archimetrius - lower the attackant's powers by 25%, blinding and burning them slightly, or more severely, depending on its use. The Golden Trumpet and Brass drums - lowers the attackant's defense by 25%, but are too heavy to be moved... The statue of saint Jerome the Crucified - lowers the cost of all faction's preasts by 50%, because of increased faith. or maybe giving 50% more faith (mana) points, as you please. The minefield or Craskell - which produces meteoritic iron, which in turn produces weapons with 25% more durability and damage output...

- High Ranking characters can decide what already to siege by council voting. - After the area of siege is decided, players in the vincinity can enter that area in different instances by sectors to conduct the battle. - For example, if there were 64 players in each instance and 500 players signed up for a battle, there will be 8 instances or 16 forces. - High bandwidth instances may exist that can support more players on each side - Special instances may also exist that includes different proportion of NPCs. - Among the instances, the hitpoints of the buildings are shared. The forces that are attacking the buildings can be seen on the battle map or be represented by invulnerable NPCs simulated on the client side. - High ranking characters can communicate across instances. - Characters except healers may switch instance as long as there is room to switch. - The outcome of a battle is determined by the accumulated outcomes of all of the instances. - The battles will progress throughout the whole map, until the last territory is captured or one side surrenders. - A new war may begin by dividing the united part of the land or by reseting the game world. It doesn't matter whether guilds are starting the war or the game divides itself into factions. - If the game resets, ranks are not retained by the level and items of the characters may. A chronicle is kept of the high ranking characters. Character: - It is expected that each player will have more than one non-mule characters because death is not handled normally in BattleCry. If your are in a faction and died during battle or in enemy territory, you cannot 'port to home'. Someone must raise you or until the territory is claimed by your ally and it is not under siege. - Stamina and hitpoint. Hitpoint is the usually quantity that can be improved by getting healed. Stamina on the other hand can only be recharged through time. Suppose there are more attackers then defenders, as the attackers keep sieging a town defended by the same characters, the stamina of the characters will go down (In general, stamina goes down every time you go into an instance). Stamina will scale the attributes and how healing spells will affect your HP. When your stamina drops to zero, you can still fight but you cann't not be healed nor regen. This prevents a group of high levels doing all of the fightings. - Healer type characters are responsible for resurrecting. In BattleCry, Healer may sneak into enemy territories to res allies. - Spy type characters can sneak into neutral towns or enemies to see what technology their towns have, and may potentially steal enemy technologies. If you are a spy and you die in enemy territory, the chance is that you won't get res'ed until the territory is claimed by your ally. - Defender type characters can select a few number of locations (2 or 3) to teleport to defend. The places where the defender has set a teleport point is represented by flags that only spy type characters can see. (So if you are just a warrior you may see that there are only a few guards near a tower, but a spy will be able to see the flag and tell how many addition defenders may teleport back to defend it. Of course if you do it fast enough the defenders don't have time to react anyway.) Defenders must physically travel to a location to set the teleport point. (based on zEROx) - Attacker characters may teleport to the Flag set by a higher rank commander. The Flag is mobile and can be set on any place, enemy or allied territory, open area or towns. As long as the commander is not dead, the attacker can teleport there. There is a teleport weakness that the attacker needs to wait until recovering full health. In order to associate with a commander the attacker must be physically next to the commander. (based on Fournicolas) - Commanders (or Flag bearers) are any type of characters that can set Flags. Depending on your rank, you will have different number of tokens that you can give up to let other players teleport to you. Everytime a commander himself is teleported, the tokens that have been given out will be lost. So before a commander decides to teleport to the high command flag, the flag needs to be passed on to someone else. There is also a maximum distance between the commander and the Flag where the Flag is still valid. A character can only teleport to a Flag if the Flag is of a higher rank. (based on Fournicolas) Thoughts: - How many characters will need to be on the battle scenes to satisfy you? - If you know what 'Defense of the Ancient' is in Warcraft III, the reason why a Player Character is able to last a reasonable amount of time is that there are NPC tanking. Since the NPCs form a wall in the front, it prevents the enemies from simply chasing you till you die. Do you think that the PCs will die too fast? How would you fix this? - Time limited battles: In this implementation, the fallen PC will respawn in the battle area, the point is not to simply kill the PC once, but to keep killing them like how it is done in FPS. This gives the players a little more time to learn about the enemies and to adapt to their strategies. At the end, which ever side killed the most enemies win that instance. Note that damges to buildings are still shared and accumulate across instances, so if the defendes won but the town was gone, it means that the attackers didn't succeed conquering the territory, but they succeeded in destroying the town (The attackers still need to sneak res the dead ally, since they didn't conquer it.) Other Thoughts? [Edited by - Estok on April 22, 2005 4:28:25 AM]

Well, I think that the "'port back to flag" should NOT be handled through tokens, but rather automatically, since IF you DO give tokens, then ONLY those WITH the tokens will 'port back to the flag they belong instead of the closer, specially if there is a limited number of tokens.

In addition, I think that there should be Flag-bearers that would be able to take up and land the flags in order to materialize the front line. Only some distance behind the line you could have the HQ Flags, which would act as homebase for deceased soldiers.

As for the assault on the instances, I think that the map should have a flag for each faction(group) entering the instanced map, and the deceased soldiers of said map should only be able to "respawn", say, 20 or 15 seconds after their death, at their homeflag. The goal of such instanced maps would be to capture the adverse flag, in order to prevent the adversaries to respawn. Once everybody is dead, well, you have won yourself a map as a tactical advantage, and will benefit of some time before youi are transported to the next instance of this precise zone. During this time, you may choose to either heal your soldiers, or repair the structures if you are aiming at taking the structure and not destroying it.

As for the "no res if the zone is not taken back", I think there is a major issue there, because unless it happens quickly, you will not be playing for quite a while. So what happens if you die in the penultimate battle before taking ennemy last position? You won't be resurected until your faction REALLY takes that last stand. And if suddendly the course of the "war" changes, your character is doomed forever.

What COULD happen instead, I imagine two different things.

First: Gentlemen warfare. The winning side authorizes doctors to come on the battlefield to collect the wounded and transport them back to their camps. The doctors are NOT to be attacked under ANY condition, for this would mean loss of honor and immediate downranking. If you are downranked when you actually have no rank, you are executed. But there is a counter part to this. All equipment from the footmen are confiscated by the winning suide. The Knights and nobles and officers of the losing side are to remain untouched, because they are nobles. In the Medieval times, a sword's value was akin to that of a farm, so, this would amount at arming more people on your side freely. But this only works if you have to repair your equipment. If not, this is of NO use whatsoever.

Second: Multiple characters on the same account, same side imposed.
In order to prevent your gameplay to definitively stop if you lose a character in one definitively lost to the ennemy, you are authorised to create different characters on the same account. How many can be tracked and how many can be managed at the same time will be a very difficult issue in programming. But one can reasonably assume that a resurection can only happen in a given time after loss of life, before the "soul" departs forever. right? This way, one can create, say, up to eight characters and may loose up to six in any instanced zone. If the deceased characters remain deceased for more than a week, or two, or just two days, or what have you, then resurection is NOT possible anymore,a nd your character is definitively lost. You may create as many characters as you want, but with a cap at eight at the same time in your account. (Or any number, eight being there only for the sake of the exemple...)

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Original post by Fournicolas Well, I think that the "'port back to flag" should NOT be handled through tokens, but rather automatically, since IF you DO give tokens, then ONLY those WITH the tokens will 'port back to the flag they belong instead of the closer, specially if there is a limited number of tokens.

There are four reasons why tokens are used:

1) To allow higher rank characters to have more power. So higher ranking commanders can give more tokens.

2) Obtaining tokens require physical proximity. This introduces time delay for reinforcements.

3) To introduce great cost of lossing a commander. As long as the commander is dead, no one can teleport. At some point there may not be enough commanders, and it effectively creates a reinforcement/supply costs. (So if your commander is dead, you can no longer just port back to town, repair equipments, and port back to the frontline.

4) To preserve the locality of the battle field. The overall war will be fought on different fronts. And tokens preserve the fact that reinforcements need to physically travel from one territory to another. (There are times that a commander would risk travelling through enemy terroritory to set the flag, this exposes the commander to be attacked, but it allows implementations of more effective ambush and suprise attacks.)

*Note: The teleports here are used to simplify troop movement. So the commander is moving on behave of the corresponding regiment. What were you think that the teleports were for? I think you were thinking about some other uses. Note that if you are a commander and you died, some of your men are just going to switch to a different flag. So you do lose some men and 'fame' as a commander for getting killed.

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In addition, I think that there should be Flag-bearers that would be able to take up and land the flags in order to materialize the front line. Only some distance behind the line you could have the HQ Flags, which would act as homebase for deceased soldiers.

I think this is a good idea, I don't see any other easier ways for the game to determine where the frontline is. But to really define the frontline you will need many flags. What do you think about the number of flags? Won't it be too easy for the enemy to destroy, since most of them will be unguarded?

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As for the assault on the instances, I think that the map should have a flag for each faction(group) entering the instanced map, and the deceased soldiers of said map should only be able to "respawn", say, 20 or 15 seconds after their death, at their homeflag. The goal of such instanced maps would be to capture the adverse flag, in order to prevent the adversaries to respawn. Once everybody is dead, well, you have won yourself a map as a tactical advantage, and will benefit of some time before youi are transported to the next instance of this precise zone. During this time, you may choose to either heal your soldiers, or repair the structures if you are aiming at taking the structure and not destroying it.

I think this implementation provides a more reasonable gameplay experience, but since the space is so open, how do you actually defend against those attacking your flag? Won't it effectively split an instance into two? Since, now instead of 32 vs 32, you have 16vs16 and 16vs16 at the two flag sites. How about the defenders simply have to hold the flag for a time limit, so you can still have a 32vs32 match.

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As for the "no res if the zone is not taken back", I think there is a major issue there, because unless it happens quickly, you will not be playing for quite a while. So what happens if you die in the penultimate battle before taking ennemy last position? You won't be resurected until your faction REALLY takes that last stand. And if suddendly the course of the "war" changes, your character is doomed forever.

If you die in enemy territory, some healer on your side need to sneak in to res you. This gives healer something to do while not in battle. You are correct that each player is expected to have more than one characters so that they can still play while some of their characters are dead. Note that dead characters are not gone. If no one ever res your dead characters, they are still available to you in the next game after the world reset. The soul doesn't go away, you can consider them as being captured instead of being dead. Several reasons why death is implemented like this:

1) To give healers something exciting to do.

2) To increase the cost of death. To give the player a more intense emotion about lost.

3) To introduce strategy (for example choosing not to defend a town so that your character won't get captured) and risk (especially for spies sneaking into enemy territory to steal technologies)

4) To give a reason for other characters to become commanders.

5) To introduce most cost for reinforcement (your higher level char got captured, so now you can only use your lower level one, which has to walk all the way from the city. So right after a huge battle, it actually make sense for the winner to push forward.

6) To make the game fair. Suppose there are 1000 players on each side and there are 10 territories. What you don't want to do, is to have the same 2000 players fight each territories. It will be like just doing the same thing 10 times, since the losing side isn't really getting weaker, at the same time became more concentrated.

You can attack these reasons too.

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First: Gentlemen warfare. The winning side authorizes doctors to come on the battlefield to collect the wounded and transport them back to their camps. The doctors are NOT to be attacked under ANY condition, for this would mean loss of honor and immediate downranking. If you are downranked when you actually have no rank, you are executed. But there is a counter part to this. All equipment from the footmen are confiscated by the winning suide. The Knights and nobles and officers of the losing side are to remain untouched, because they are nobles. In the Medieval times, a sword's value was akin to that of a farm, so, this would amount at arming more people on your side freely. But this only works if you have to repair your equipment. If not, this is of NO use whatsoever.

The players can actually organize this, by deliberately letting healers from the other side to enter with a ransom. In your gentlemen warfare case, the ransom is zero. I don't think that this should happen because it destroy a part of gameplay for the healers.

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Second: Multiple characters on the same account, same side imposed. In order to prevent your gameplay to definitively stop if you lose a character in one definitively lost to the ennemy, you are authorised to create different characters on the same account. How many can be tracked and how many can be managed at the same time will be a very difficult issue in programming. But one can reasonably assume that a resurection can only happen in a given time after loss of life, before the "soul" departs forever. right? This way, one can create, say, up to eight characters and may loose up to six in any instanced zone. If the deceased characters remain deceased for more than a week, or two, or just two days, or what have you, then resurection is NOT possible anymore,a nd your character is definitively lost. You may create as many characters as you want, but with a cap at eight at the same time in your account. (Or any number, eight being there only for the sake of the exemple...)

It is intended that the same account has multiple characters. I want to implement some mechanism (such as age) so that old warriors can actually die forever, so that the game world will not be saturated by high levels. Characters with high rank died of old age (deceased heros) can be summoned at the capital as a last resort. Everytime they 'die again', there is a penality time before they can be summoned again. In general, Heros can only be summoned maximum of once per game. So if you are at deceased hero class, you only have one life, but heroes are supposed to be uber.

I think that rising through the ranks shouldn't allow you to have more opportunities at having reinforcements. The "teleport back at the nearest flag" element was just there in order to make sure that any player logging off or encountering lag or disconnection or whatever would not find himself lost in the middle of enemy lines. It was also an element which might have explained, In My Opinion, WHY said soldier was NOT alone in the middle of nowhere. that's because he is a soldier and he does NOT have a choice at NOT following his officers. He just 'ports back, period. now, it can be discussed. I thought that, if the commander dies and the actual flag is not in order to be used as respawn, then the troups would _naturally_ fall back on the next flag along the line of command, that is the nearest one anyway. The higher ranking the soldier who settles the flag, the faster the respawning happens, and that's all. A flag should always be taken when there is no more soldier around to defend it, and a deceased soldier will only be queued. If there is a basic respawn time of one minute for, say, a group leader, then a higher ranking should be able to lower this time to 40 seconds, possibly only ten, if it is set by a general. But having a general around is likely to be dangerous, so maybe not a good idea.

But as I see it, rising through the ranks brings in fact MORE implication to the game. If you start as a simpler trooper, you, naturally, belong to the troop, and have no choice as to your missions. Rising in the hierarchy should allow to some extent to _create_ the mission objectives, and to gather a troop under your orders to accomplish said objectives.

Let's take the denomination of Roman army, for the sake of clarity. Soldiers rise to be made Decurion, responsible for 10 soldiers. decurion rise to be made Centurions, responsible for Ten decurions and 100 soldiers, then rise again to... well, you've got the point. If it should be groups of 16, in order to be easy for the coding, then replace the name, but keep the idea. 1 group leader, and 7 men under his orders. Or 1 senior officer and 1 group leader commanding each a group of 7 men. At the very end of the line of command, there are generals, more or less starred, which do NOT take place in the battles, but rather toy around with the map of the game, thus creating mission objectives to be accomplished by subordinates. Since the Generals won't be around 24/7, there is room for more than a few. And even if a general decided to go on his own with a group of men to accomplish some objective, if he died, he should still be able to brought back, as a hero.

But the "buffs" should only be available for the officers. Let's say that a group leader gives a +5 bonus to the strength of his men (he himself does NOT receive the bonus, since the bonus is due to his presence in the vicinity and the boost to morale or confidence the men feel...), then a more senior officer should give bigger bonuses. And the bonuses should NOT be cumulative. In fact, if there is a more senior officer in the troop, then the lower ranking offciers should NOT have the possibility to use their "buffs" for some time, because the loss of an officer has a cost, in terms of morale. And I don't know HOW it can be done, but I would like the bonuses to have an increment, in order the "buff" to be more effective on soldiers you have already ordered, in order to give more confidence, and create an "esprit de corps". Some soldiers are known to have said, the eve preceding the D-day "I will follow my sergeant wherever he leads me, but I am not sure I would follow anyone else". that's what i want to create through this system.

As for the doctors and the spies, I would have had it another way.

Why would doctors be played anyway? They are there and that's all. Or maybe you may want to raise you medecine skill in order to be able to bring back some persons thought long dead by other less skilled field-medics? Possibly if you were in a MASH, you could "repair" the men faster, and allow for a faster respawn, like a General's flag?

And for the spies, since they wouldn't have much fighting going for them, I would have them much faster, more stealthier, and give them other objectives than "sneak around and tell us how it looks". A scout is able to do the same, so no interest there. I would have given them missions of sabotage. If we keep with the example of the well in the desert, two ways of winning are offered. Either you fight around it until one can surpass the other, and you gain access to it, or you poison it, and make it uneffective after the spy departure. It could be used as a tactical movement in fleeing, or in avoiding confrontation, or depriving the enemy from an advantage. The same could be used for destruction of siege weapons, or bridges, or opening castles' doors, or any kind of other sabotage mission, which would be more difficult, if not impossible for any other kind of character. The spies would have a panoply of skills and tricks impossible to get for other characters, like climbing, swimming, dissimulation (through immobility), language (that is, if the other faction was speaking another language on screen, they would read it naturally), and manipulation(which would allow them to manipulate any kind of object, either to use them, or to disable them). Maybe even silent assassination?

I was wondering over the opportunity to add sniper-like and heavy artillery-like characters in this design. Would it be practical? Would it be interesting? How could it be done?

Fighting for the Flag

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Original post by Fournicolas I think that rising through the ranks shouldn't allow you to have more opportunities at having reinforcements. The "teleport back at the nearest flag" element was just there in order to make sure that any player logging off or encountering lag or disconnection or whatever would not find himself lost in the middle of enemy lines.

As long as your commander is not dead, you can still port back to the Flag. An idea behind this, is to discourage having unaffiliated soldiers. It also creates a sense of loyalty, so that it has a benefit to associate with a Flag and fight with the Flag. If you ask the question:

"Why is it that players will battle in an organized way instead of just going ffa?"

This is the reason. One of the reasons. So if you are a 'bad' commander, you won't have enough men to do the tasks you want. 'Good' commanders will have realistic leadership and charisma, since your men is basically your popularity as a leader and strategist.

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It was also an element which might have explained, In My Opinion, WHY said soldier was NOT alone in the middle of nowhere. that's because he is a soldier and he does NOT have a choice at NOT following his officers. He just 'ports back, period. now, it can be discussed. I thought that, if the commander dies and the actual flag is not in order to be used as respawn, then the troups would _naturally_ fall back on the next flag along the line of command, that is the nearest one anyway.

This is correct, but fall back will require physical travel, not just teleport. This allows the pursuers to arrange beforehand to decimate the retreating troops. In the current discussion, a character only respawn while in an instance, or while in an ally territory that is not under siege.

If a character is disconnected in enemy territory and his commander is dead, the character can be ported back to the nearest flag. The nearest flag may be still in enemy territory. So when a Flag is destroyed, there is the confusion of routed troops and requires an effort to redistribute and reorganize. So if you successful destroy a Flag, it damages the moraleand organization of the enemy. This gives a chance for the lower ranking commanders to rise. (By absorbing the routed troops.)

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The higher ranking the soldier who settles the flag, the faster the respawning happens, and that's all.

Shortening respawn time is reasonable, but do you mean that it is all there is about high rank? A major implementation consideration is to implement loyalty and affiliation in the ranks. The commanders are not supposed to be seen as those just set locations so that characters can port to. The characters belong to the Flag, and they attack with coordinated reasons. Because of this existence of coordination, it allows coordinated strategies and counter measures. If you destroy the Flag system, it makes it harder to strategize, and the game may render to be a "Yo, we need more guys in city x, everyone come over!"

The Flag system is supposed to create a better sense of responsibility, risk, and strategy by preserving the tradeoffs for movement.

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A flag should always be taken when there is no more soldier around to defend it, and a deceased soldier will only be queued. If there is a basic respawn time of one minute for, say, a group leader, then a higher ranking should be able to lower this time to 40 seconds, possibly only ten, if it is set by a general. But having a general around is likely to be dangerous, so maybe not a good idea.

The problem I was imagining is that no one wants to defend a flag that is just the marker of the frontline. Do you think that there is significant strategic value or is that just a nuisance? I don't have much against the shortened respawn time, but the difference probably shouldn't be significant, since a high ranking flag already give certain kind of bonus. If there are 8 ranks for commanders, how much do you think the respawn time should differ?

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But as I see it, rising through the ranks brings in fact MORE implication to the game. If you start as a simpler trooper, you, naturally, belong to the troop, and have no choice as to your missions. Rising in the hierarchy should allow to some extent to _create_ the mission objectives, and to gather a troop under your orders to accomplish said objectives.

Correct. The mechanisms of how exactly to declare missions and rise in rank is undefined.

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Let's take the denomination of Roman army, for the sake of clarity. Soldiers rise to be made Decurion, responsible for 10 soldiers. decurion rise to be made Centurions, responsible for Ten decurions and 100 soldiers, then rise again to... well, you've got the point. If it should be groups of 16, in order to be easy for the coding, then replace the name, but keep the idea. 1 group leader, and 7 men under his orders. Or 1 senior officer and 1 group leader commanding each a group of 7 men. At the very end of the line of command, there are generals, more or less starred, which do NOT take place in the battles, but rather toy around with the map of the game, thus creating mission objectives to be accomplished by subordinates. Since the Generals won't be around 24/7, there is room for more than a few. And even if a general decided to go on his own with a group of men to accomplish some objective, if he died, he should still be able to brought back, as a hero.

Yes. Again, 'death' is not perminant except from old age, and even that you can still be summoned (by high level necromancers (There is a difference between being revived by a healer and being summoned as an undead)).

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there are generals, more or less starred, which do NOT take place in the battles

Be brave, be brave.


Commander Abilities, specialization

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But the "buffs" should only be available for the officers. Let's say that a group leader gives a +5 bonus to the strength of his men (he himself does NOT receive the bonus, since the bonus is due to his presence in the vicinity and the boost to morale or confidence the men feel...), then a more senior officer should give bigger bonuses. And the bonuses should NOT be cumulative. In fact, if there is a more senior officer in the troop, then the lower ranking offciers should NOT have the possibility to use their "buffs" for some time, because the loss of an officer has a cost, in terms of morale. And I don't know HOW it can be done, but I would like the bonuses to have an increment, in order the "buff" to be more effective on soldiers you have already ordered, in order to give more confidence, and create an "esprit de corps". Some soldiers are known to have said, the eve preceding the D-day "I will follow my sergeant wherever he leads me, but I am not sure I would follow anyone else". that's what i want to create through this system.

I agree with the fact that buffs should not stack, if they are the same buff, but note that high ranking commanders have more specialized and tactical buff that lower rank commanders do not have. For example, if you are a rank3 cavalry commander, as you advance to rank4, you can select new buffs from a set of buffs to specialize your own style, such as specializing on buffs toward heavy cavalry, specializing for speed, or for stealth, or mounted archery. The specialization system will be like the talent system in WOW. I talked a little bit about morale above. Your intuition is correct, the Flag system aims to create "esprit de corps" through dynamic involvement instead of guild structure.


Doctor and Spies

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As for the doctors and the spies, I would have had it another way. Why would doctors be played anyway? They are there and that's all. Or maybe you may want to raise you medecine skill in order to be able to bring back some persons thought long dead by other less skilled field-medics? Possibly if you were in a MASH, you could "repair" the men faster, and allow for a faster respawn, like a General's flag?

Doctors are the 'healers, priest, clerics, white mage, etc...' in an RPG. Among with other support jobs, there are people who like to play those types. I don't see much justification to remove them. I think in the context of Flag system, the healers are going to feel quite important, as they play significant role in the warfare. For example, if you are a commander and you are a healer, you can specialize your command abilities for recovery (Hospitaler). Healer type characters have equal importance in strategy, during battle, and off battle. They are not just the carebearers.

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And for the spies, since they wouldn't have much fighting going for them, I would have them much faster, more stealthier, and give them other objectives than "sneak around and tell us how it looks". A scout is able to do the same, so no interest there.

I am thinking spies as stealth units, they are the common "rogues, thieves, ninja, etc..." Normal warriors can choose to have some scout abilities also, but no as specialized as spies (spies forgo defense and normal attack abilities to specialize). So spies and scouts are pretty much the same thing. While spies have an edge on observing enemy movement and enemy flag composiions, they are also responsible for steal enemy technologies. So if you are a spy, bascially what happens is that you will roam around enemy territory assassinating Flag bearers, and stealing techs. While doing so, you will encounter enemy troops and you can report them back to your ally. (You follow the enemy Flags not because you just want to see them, you are trying to kill the commanders).

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I would have given them missions of sabotage. If we keep with the example of the well in the desert, two ways of winning are offered. Either you fight around it until one can surpass the other, and you gain access to it, or you poison it, and make it uneffective after the spy departure. It could be used as a tactical movement in fleeing, or in avoiding confrontation, or depriving the enemy from an advantage. The same could be used for destruction of siege weapons, or bridges, or opening castles' doors, or any kind of other sabotage mission, which would be more difficult, if not impossible for any other kind of character.

Sabotage is correct, it should be part of their missions. When you are a spy type character and a flag-bearer, effectively you are a commander of special operation unit. In effect, you will penetrate enemies likes and destroy their logistics. I agree with everything here.

While spies get all the most exciting jobs, they do it at a high risk, that if you die behind enemy lines, someone needs to come to res you. Therefore, it should be unlikely that the whole world is flooded with newbies trying to sabotage the enemy (they fail, they got captured by the piles, and don't get res'ed)

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The spies would have a panoply of skills and tricks impossible to get for other characters, like climbing, swimming, dissimulation (through immobility), language (that is, if the other faction was speaking another language on screen, they would read it naturally), and manipulation(which would allow them to manipulate any kind of object, either to use them, or to disable them). Maybe even silent assassination?

These are all correct. Assassination is intended.


Snipers and Artillery

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I was wondering over the opportunity to add sniper-like and heavy artillery-like characters in this design. Would it be practical? Would it be interesting? How could it be done?

What do you think those characters will do? A stealth sniper is practically a spy. If you don't do stealth they are just archers or characters specilized in ranged attacks.

What do you mean by artillery? There are siege weapons. Artillery is for attacking large targets, such as a large number of marching troops or armored units. It also prevents any enemy structures from being built in the covered area. Instead of a huge cannon, the implementation may be like a wizard tower, that can nuke with Firaga XXVIII the help of a character (think ghosts in starcraft, where the wizard towers are nuclear silos). Protective towers can simply set up a dome, allowing all the ally in the radius receive some attribute bonus.

ARTILLERY:

I was in fact imagining a group of three bulky soldiers specialized in transporting and manning a portable-sized trebuchet. One would transport the main arm mast, the second the legs, the third would transport the weight, and the fourth would transport the ropes and the cogs, and a fifth could be attributed the stones, or another soldiers could be asked to go on and find some good throwing stones in order to be used during assault. It would be a team thing. Although the transportation requires four to five persons, moving quite slowly, the manning only requires one or two persons, if enough are providing stones. It could be a sort of heavy weapon, only I don't see this as very suitable to skirmishing, more like ambushing.

RANGED ATTACKERS:

That was precisely those to which I was refering. Is there a need, in this precise context, for archers or fireball throwers? Snipers were only a term to determine the ranged attackers. If most of the fight happens in hand-to-hand contact combat, then ranged attackers are not involved, and therefore not needed. Even more so if ALL their shots are deadly to friends and foes alike. They will be pestered, and won't be played at all. Designing and creating time wasted. Should think of something else.

SPIES:

Honestly, Spies usually are super-agents. You don't want to send a newbie you know nothing off on a vitally important mission. Therefore I think this class should be an evolution allowed at some point in your progression in the ranks. Unfortunately, I see them as being essentially loners in their line of action. So if solo play requires too much team play before being authorized, it becomes silly. Once again, We should think a little harder on their role. Unless we DO plan to make them hard boiled loners and be played only by PGers tending to solo.

HEALERS:

I have never imagined them in this role, and I must admit that, gamewise, this is much more appealing. Yes, Medics should have their place on the battlefield, and should even be enforced in teams, as a requirement, unless you plan something terribly hopeless, in which case surviving a suicidal assault is a little bit stupid. Which brings me to my next point.

HEROES AND MEDALS:

Is it possible to attempt suicidal attacks, knowing fully that no matter what you do, there is only the tiniest chance that you will walk back home? Imagine something like the dirty dozen, with a bunch of guys ready to die for their mission, knowing fully that the territory to which they are heading will NEVER be taken back. Their characters are freely sacrificed. Is there a valid way to reward the player for this sacrifice? Should the missions be scaled in difficulty, and the difficulty points be rewarded regarding the different sub-goals achieved? (number of enemies brought down, number of comrades saved, number of sub-goals achieved by the team, survivor, etc...)

FRONTLINE:

I think we have a misunderstanding there. What I meant by "flagbearer" was something similar to Medieval Japanese Warfare. Since the uniform was close to unknown of at the time, the closest thing to a uniform was a sort of flag born on the back. The front line would be materialized, but only on the Generals map, by a line contouring a colored area, the line going from standing flag to standing flag, roughly. There is no way to imagine that there would be actual Flags landed in order to PHYSICALLY materialize a frontline or a frontier. IRL, you never see a frontier, until you thread on the line and encounter a custom officer. If you crossed the frontier between, say, two american states out in the woods, you wouldn't even know it until you reached the first city. I suppose, at least. The same should apply here. We should make a differentiation between the BattleCommand Flags, and the frontline flags. The last should be manborn, and everybody should bear a flag, in order to recognize your mate from "that yellow bastard overthere", just in case he looks just like you and dresses just like you too.

COMMANDMENT:

Is there a way to make high commanders' game different from private tommyboy's game, without putting them in a different part of the game, where all they see is the map and toy around with some pewter figures on it, in order to create the missions? Agreed, they should have some buffing effects on the men, and the buffs should not be stackable, but how do they define the objectives? How can EVERYTHING ingame be coordinated without supreme headcommand? And how can anyone interested in action games be interested into becoming supreme headcommand, which brings him away from action? Unless you leave the supreme commander the opportunity to take part to action? Which makes the position quite useless, then.

STRUCTURES:

It is agreed that there will be structures with strategic values, for the players to fight over. But if it could be implemented, would player built structures also be in use? If so, which kind of structures? Bunkers? BattleCommands? MASH? Could they be fought over as well? Or would they be plainly destroyed?

GAMEPLAY:

That last question got me. I have been unable to answer it without resorting to blackboxing.
Given the game is about rising through the ranks, and given you start out as private, therefore subordinated to a superior ranking officer, what rank should have the first players to log in? What kind of content should you give your beta-testers, when there is NO line of command? Would it be just random at creation, for the time? Would there be some evolution from then on?
Do you think it a wise commercial move to propose your beta-testers to remain in your player base for free, just in order to establish a commandment line, for at least three free months after release? It would also provide a sort of sense of hierarchy for the first characters to "move in", wouldn't it?

I think I just slipped at a point. I went to re-read the whole thread and stopped at about the second line.

People do quests?

What kind of quests do you think can possibly happen in times of war? Aside those to retrieve one stolen artifact, or a lost facility, I can't think of any.

But the problem lies there. How should we place the facilities and static artifacts? One way or another, they will ALL be placed in someone's side at one point or another, thus making it VERY difficult for the other side to win them back. If all it takes for a faction to take over an artifact or facility is to put up a flag on it, then so be it, the flags can be put down after a fight. But you specificaly mentionned the OPPORTUNITY to push forth after a victory. Which means that once you won it, you are virtually stronger than your opponent, depending on how many artefacts your side owns, thus making it particularly difficult for a turnover.

And once again, how should they be placed? All in one line, going from one major town to the other, in order for the fights to be fought and won in line? this does not sound very fun.
All in one PERPENDICULAR line to that which runs from one headquarters to the other, in order to have them roughly on the frontline? then what happens after the frontline has been pushed away from them?

What if the facilities and artifacts had to be in static dungeons? This way, a team goes down, and activates the artefact for some time. A flag can be put at the entrance, so that those who fall in the course of the mission don't have thirty minutes of running before getting back to mission. And others have to gather around the flag in order to protect it from teams from the other side that may want to enter it as well. But the same problem comes up. Where to dispose them?

Then what if they were magical static dungeons, the doors to which appear for a given time in random locations? This way, it may make the game more random. And the need to reactivate the artefact each time could be added, in order to maintain the permanent buff. But do the players REALLY want to run around looking for magical doors to appear out of thin air, where there was nothing interesting previously? If we choose to go this route, then it is likely that these moving static dungeons will NOT be activated at all times.

What if those magical static dungeons only moved ONCE they have been activated? this would trigger some random missioning and scouting, in order to find it and prevent the other side to take them over, wouldn't it?

The only downside to this is that it still sounds too random for your average gamer. i am not sure many customers would apply for a war where the conditions of victory are not clearly drawn in advance, nor static.



I have also come up with a strange idea.
Is it possible to consider your character, while you are offline, as a mob? Given that if the mob gets killed, your character is not and you may find it back when you next log in at the flag you left him. But would it be natural to find them there? If they are supposed to follow the orders, they should be patrolling, or sitting, or eating, or anything that soldiers do, right? then why, in a fight, would you only see the eight or sixteen adversaries designed to be in your instance? What if they were simply considered mobs in a static dungeon? Or in an open field, it would be the same, right? If you are a spy, you are basically on a solo mission. Then, what if you encountered mobs that were soldiers? It would make more sense than fighting against giant ants and rabbied wombats, wouldn't it? Only you would be automatically spawning a mob that would be a soldier where you left your character last time.

On a second thought, I recognize that there may be some defensive abuse there. One man and some time could create a real army if he kept logging in and out in front of a castle keep. To work, it would require to track the spawned mob in order to make it disappear afetr you re-log in. But I believe that would require too much processing,a nd not be a valid move.

Still, the "questing" aspect is bugging me. I don't think the possibilities I have proposed are any satisfying.

What do you say?

By the way, I've just read Nytehauq's latest post on his thread, and it triggered my attention:

"What if PvP was needed to complete a quest?"
This would "force" the players to PvP. But in our precise case of a world at war, I don't think it is relevant, afetr all, since there would be PvP everywhere anyway. Then what if we based the progression in the ranks on the number of enemies taken down, like dogtags taken home as trophies? Or ears in Diablo2? These would reward the progression for the fighters, but would not be exactly suitable for the healers and the spies, would it? nah, I think our best bet is to place reward points on the sub-goals of missions, and have different sub-goals according to different classes of character, like:

level 120 Mission: "Take Over the brass bridge and receive 120 Promotion points"; "Destroy the Brass Bridge and LOOSE 120 Promotion points. No downranking."; "For each rank of officer in the enemies taken down, each team member will receive 5 Promotion Points"
Healers: "Bring back 6 out of 8 party members and receive 60 promotion points."
Spies : "Make any enemy siege weapon out of use and receive 20 Promotion points."; "Eliminate an enemy flag and receive 20 promotion points."; "Successfully report a back-up flag, and receive 20 promotion Points"
Fighters : "For each enemy you personally bring down, if you recover their dog-tags, you receive 10 Promotion Points."


In order to be able to undertake a given level of difficulty, the team should have an overall value equal to 80% of the level at least. The value of each member equates the number of Promotion Points he has previously earned. The average value of each member cannot be below 40% of the mission value.

Of course, this leads directly in the direction of a game that is solely based upon PvP. And NO permadeath, in any form, can be bent around it. too bad. I have also posted something in Nytehauq's thread, about the PvP missions. You should read it.

RE: ARTILLERY:

I think this is implementable. Finding rocks may be kind of dull. So maybe engineers can fix the rocks to make them explode. It is a funny concept because it means that you can't use the trebuchets in the middle of a desert without bringing your own rocks.


LOGISTICS:

This topic is related to logistics, and how far we want to do it. For example, archers should run out of arrows, but how do we implement them?

- Siege weapons move as NPCs on a path set by commanders, so that they can be spotted and be ambushed
- Supply carts move the same way as siege weapons.


RE: RANGED ATTACKERSS:

I think there should be archers. And archers should be strong damage dealers. The weakness of archers is that they need a supply of arrows, and that supply may run out if they are isolated. (Archers can melee too, they are not total melee wimps. Think of them more like samurai, that can be both archers or melee depending on how far the enemies are. At the same time there can be light armored archers, corresponding to those trading armor weight for arrow weight.) Because of the need for supplies, archers probably favor fighting with the large Flags where supplies are more dependable. The same probably go for cavalries. This gives more reason why the characters will fight together or at the proximity.



RE: SPIES:

For this system, there is nothing preventing a newbie trying to spy in enemy territory. But due to the death system, a newbie is prevented from repeatedly doing it. So, there may be a horde load of spies trying to complete a mission, most of them will get caught and die, only the smarter ones will survive and advance. Low level spies can advance by spying easier targets and murdering easier targets. Note that death by assassination is not a normal death, even if you are assassinated in allied territory, there should still be a heavy penalty to revive you. The form of penalty is undefined. Maybe a some counterdown timer before you can be revived (The timer will be in units of real life hours or even days). I agree that most player playing spy-type characters probably don't want to team up just to level up. The original idea allows the Spies to level up and advance in ranks by solo missions. Spies as commander have additional tactical value because they can sneak troops across enemies lines. Grouped special assassination missions are also encouraged. (Spies can team up with Spies, or Stealth units with different specializations, Stealth+Engineering characters are practically the stealth bombers.)



RE: HEALERS:

The odds are there is never enough healers. Newbies are going to flood the screen shouting, "Someone please res me at (x,y)", hopefully the need will make more players play healers. Healers are probably the easiest to advance in ranks. Since they can still lead Flags in instance battles, and during battles, they logically stay in the back. The weakness is that they are the easiest target for assasination. (Note that if your rank advance really fast, your level may not keep up. So if you are a healer, it is possible that your rank and level become disproportional, which makes you more vulnerable than any other type of commanders)



RE: HEROES AND MEDALS:

Suicidal attacks commissioned by a Flag should allow both the Flag and the individual to gain rank points. So if the Flag is desperate to advance to get a new buff to fight against the intruders, suicidal attacks make a lot of sense. I am not sure what kind of reward will be meaningful. Is giving the Flag rank points enough reward? If the event is significant, I would expect the event be noted in logs and forums. Maybe the Flag commander will be responsible for giving medals. If all the attempts were futile it probably won't make much difference in any way, but if the event is significant, the sacrificer will eventual get res'ed, with an increased rank.



RE: FRONTLINE:

yes, there was a misunderstanding. Because you can see already see Flags on the Generals map, we actually don't need to do anything more to define the front lines (Note the front line won't be continuous, just like battle maps in real life. The natural distribution of the flags should show the frontline.

Suppose you are a rank 6 commander, and under your flag there are 4 rank 4 sub commands, then it would be reasonable that the rank 6 teleport flag is set further behind, while the rank 4s set their teleport flags more near the front. So on the battle map you will still see a rough outline of the frontline.




RE: COMMANDMENT:

The commanders can always charge. The actual effect is that there is probably a slight surplus of commanders (so if you die, there is still a back up). So, charge all you want, go to the front and kill people, feel your youth. The implementation and motivation can come from the command abilities such as:

Battle Valor: This is an attack buff for melees where the melee attack damage under the flag (except the commander himself) is increased based on the number of melee kills made by the commander.

I think that mission creation should be rather dynamic, so that a commander really only create missions for himself instead of missions for everyone. There is probably no a single headcommand, because on one hand a high commander is a leader, on the other hand it is a leader only because of the good faith of the people. So the commander and the subordinates are still fighting together. The rank points for a commander to advance is exponential. The only reason that a commander can advance is because the supporters want the commander to advance.


RE: STRUCTURES:

I think they can be seized. Battle camps may store supplies and allow characters in the vincinity to recover stamina faster. Watch tower maybe useful. One of the related question is how do the players get money, and whether money is meaningful in the context.


RE: GAMEPLAY:

I don't see this problem. The players will rise in ranks, some faster some slower, at some point the players need to group up, which gives opportunity for further advancement.


RE: ARTIFACTS:

Artifacts only have local effects, and they can be stolen. Artifacts are initially in neutral hostile areas. Players need to team up to conquer it to claim the artifacts. But before attacking, the players won't know what artifact the location is holding until a spy goes in and take a look. For course you can just go in and fight through it, but you might lose an opportunity to claim an equally close artifact that might be more important.

Some words on how the map is initially divide: When the war begins, the map is not divide left and right. The map will be like a checker board. The players will decide what locations to strengthen and possibly what locations to give up. During this conflict, some areas will be more successful and evolve to be the captial, and at the same time characters will rise in rank through the uncoordinated skirmishes. Since areas are not divided left and right, it makes room for stealthy movements and supplies.

What I meant by OPPORTUNITY to push forth after a victory: After a victory, the men on your side are readily revived (although weakened), but the dead enemies are not (since they died in your territory), therefore it creates a temporarily shortage of enemy defenders. So if you have enough men you will push forward. And take out the undefended stuffs. This is only an opportunity because the stamina of your men had already been worn by a battle, so if the second attack is unsuccessful, your men may have already used up all the stamina, and they may get slaughtered while retreating. This is why even if you out number the enemy, you don't all fight at the same battle, it would just use up the stamina of the Flag. Some Flags should deliberately don't fight to take advantage of the opportunities afterward. So one flag will fight the first town, and rest, while the second flag continue the assault.

Quote:

The only downside to this is that it still sounds too random for your average gamer. i am not sure many customers would apply for a war where the conditions of victory are not clearly drawn in advance, nor static.

This is what I was thinking while reading the magical dungeons and stuff. In general the game tries to focus more on strategy and the cooperative execution of strategies.


OFFLINE PCs:

There is an issue where an army is attacking a populated city, but the defenders are ofline. The solution is to allow a proportion of NPCs to enter the instance battles on behave of the defenders. This prevents the attackers from completely taking advantage of the timezone. but since those NPCs represent actuall PCs, if the town get overrun, the corresponding PCs will be dead. (They won't be just refugees, they will be dead, as if they fought and died). It might be a shock, but think about it this way: The attackers did kill all the NPCs, this means even if you were online, you would probably have died anyway. This implementation aims to prevent the abuse where the defenders intentionally logout so that the attackers will get weared down by the NPCs, and log back in to counter attack them.

---

There is now a more reasonable document for the discussion: (See original post)

[Edited by - Estok on April 22, 2005 4:42:11 AM]

PvP and WARFARE:

In the case of BattleCry PvP is intrinsic to all activities. You can see BattleCry as a game of WarCraft III magnified, where each player controls an individual unit. The main difficulty here is not to promote PvP, but how to promote PvP in an organized way such that strategies can still exist. The questions being addressed in BattleCry is:

"How do you implement a warfare system such that the players have incentive to be a subordinate of a Flag, to be a commander of a Flag, and to fight in organized, and strategic fashion?"



MISSIONS and RANK POINTs:

When a spy spots an enemy target, the target will be shown on the local missions board. Different types of targets have different types of base rank points. If some flags try to take it out but fail, the 'bounty' of the target will increase. (Note that there is no net gain of rank points, the lost rank points from the defeated got transfered to the enemy target, and when a different flag take that target out, the flag gets rank points from the enemy target.)

There are transactions of rank points, but rank points overall are not conserved.

- When a character is killed, some rank points from that character is transfered to the attacker.
- When a healer res a fallen ally in enemy territory, rank points are transfered from the enemy defender flag of the territory to the healer
- When a spy spies a piece of information, rank point is deducted from the flag controlling the area.
- For individuals under a flag, the flag will gain an additional fraction deducted from the target. (So there is no benefit for completing missions Flagless).
- To claim a town or locations, the defending flag must be at least rank 4. There won't be enough flags to claim all the locations on the map, so allied towns are not all adjacent to one another. There will be unoccupied towns in between.
- The land is still full of 'creeps'. Only the main roads are clear of creeps. So if you decide to take a shortcut, you might be attacked and killed not by the enemy but by bandits and creeps. Dungeon areas are within creeps areas, and cannot be controlled by any factions.
- Creeps are a form of resources. For example, there may be missions to kill creeps to gather poisons for making poisoned arrows. Or to gather some kind of special shells for shields and scales for armors. (These are just quests assigned by NPCs to those players not affiliated to the factions, to those affilated, they gain rank points.)
- And there are the normal escort quests/missions for supply carts.
- Artifacts inside dungeons maybe configured to aide either factions. Each time it is configured, it may set a timer that it will expire. (Like what you said) The effect is like going into a temple and pray for your faction. But in reality 'praying' means going into a dungeon, kill the dragon and bring back the blood. These kinds of missions should be pretty hard. It might actually take two flags to take out a dragon (64 men vs 1 dragon). It is an instance battle, and it costs stamina to enter. So this creates a decision on whether the flag should stay and keep the stamina high, or to spend the stamina to take out the dragon. Groups also get rank points for getting the artifacts.
- There may also be towns that are seemingly unoccupied but are dotted controlled by enemy NPCs (such as a small mining town). These towns usually provide some minor advantages that do not worth a Flag to station there. But characters can still fight there in unorganized manner to gain the initial rank points. These are the normal capture the flag battles that are not big enough for an actual Flag to participate.

Quote:

level 120 Mission: "Take Over the brass bridge and receive 120 Promotion points"; "Destroy the Brass Bridge and LOOSE 120 Promotion points. No downranking."; "For each rank of officer in the enemies taken down, each team member will receive 5 Promotion Points" Healers: "Bring back 6 out of 8 party members and receive 60 promotion points." Spies : "Make any enemy siege weapon out of use and receive 20 Promotion points."; "Eliminate an enemy flag and receive 20 promotion points."; "Successfully report a back-up flag, and receive 20 promotion Points" Fighters : "For each enemy you personally bring down, if you recover their dog-tags, you receive 10 Promotion Points."

These can be implemented. It seems really hard to calculate the appropriate rank point rewards. For the taking over bridge example, what if it took two rank 2 flags to seize the bridge, they how do you assign the rank points? What if you are just an engineer passing by and you saw the enemies building a bridge. Can you just bomb it and get rank points? I am thinking that there are static formulas for calculating how many rank points will be awarded automatically (without any commander assigning a mission). I also thought about allowing commanders to invest their own rank points in the targets, but that might give rise to some abuses where commanders can effectively transfer their rank points, which shouldn't happen.

Quote:

In order to be able to undertake a given level of difficulty, the team should have an overall value equal to 80% of the level at least. The value of each member equates the number of Promotion Points he has previously earned. The average value of each member cannot be below 40% of the mission value.

What is the logic behind setting a minimum level requirement for undertaking missions?


EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT OF WARFARE

There is a slight difference in concept, because when you are a flag commander, the mindset is a little different. You start to think, "Where will I be needed?" instead of "How should I get my rank higher?" Healers will go behind enemy lines not just because of rank points, but the fact that those dead bodies were those fought for your faction and died honorably. Those who died in battles were those who cared about the battles. When a rank 3 commander see a rank 4 flag coming with siege units, the commander is supposed to feel a sense of duty to stop it, to gather enough people to attack the incoming flag before it builds up. The players are playing because they want to feel that they are part of something greater that can only be accomplished through cooperation, strategy, and sacrifice.