[Feature Request] Continuous Map Game Mode (Great for high player count games)

RTS games have often lagged behind things like first person shooters in one aspect...
The annoyance of not being able to hop right into the middle of an already-going game, and having to wait around in a lobby and hope it gets people who stick around long enough to get things going.

But, what if we had an option that DIDN'T do that?

Enter: Continuous Map Game Mode
It'd probably be easier to set up as a team battle, with people only controlling their own commanders. With a few number of teams, but a high player cap to each team. Otherwise, it'd get messy with sabotage players from the other team.
A player can log in at any time and drop in at any location.
If a player logs out, either their stuff blows up, or goes inactive and can be captured, or is divided among other teammates.
Player's commander dies, their base blows up, they get a new commander in a drop pod.
Example map setup: Take, for example, an asteroid field map. No planets, lots of smaller planetoids instead. A planetoid gets blown up, another one comes into orbit. Hader to claim territory
Potential win condition ideas:

• Add an extra building, a territory claim beacon. Each covers a set area. Claiming a majority of territory equals win.
• Commander kills (either to target number or in a time limit)
• No win condition. Screw it, just let the battling continue forever.
• Escape - You can have a target for planetary engines other than another planet. Escape the solar system (in storyline, to spread your forces to other systems). Whenever a player builds a planetary engine, it shows up in hud as a warning they have it and location revealed (and easily accessed by clicking warning.)

Just thinking it could take the RTS genre to new heights to do something like this, because it's always such a drag to wait forever to get into the action. And PA is already proudly intense, and this could make it even more so.

this is the idea of the two-week long game @neutrino (Mavor) mentioned.

Do not see why it shouldn't (eventually) be a thing.

It would also facilitate "permanent instances" allowing modders to make MMOFPS style mods. Just make sure that there is an option to allow to the server to continue indefinitely.

I know Also allowing people to hop in and out ensures that you don't have to dedicate X of your life in order to enjoy the game. Hop in, play without waiting, go until yo get your fill, rush out because you forgot you were taking your S.O. out to lunch without having to apologize to your game group for ending their game early.

There is a pretty major hurdle to making this mode viable though: if a player hops into a game with just their comm, and their opponents have 500+ metal income, they probably won't last very long (whereas in an FPS, the biggest advantages available to preexisting players are things like killstreak bonuses and weapon/vehicle pickups).

One possible solution would be giving the player a temporary amount of stored metal and energy equal to the average energy and metal totals gathered by players still in the game, and starting them out on a small new planet. This would give them a bit of a chance to build up before getting thrust into the fray.

I wholly support this. Being able to just jump into a giant FFA for half an hour and leave whenever would be amazing.

What you're describing is essentially what I have wanted to do since I first saw the kickstarter.

I've thought about persistent world RTSes and from what I can see, it can't work.

And it can't work for two simple reasons: economy and unit count.

If I join a game that's been going for 5 minutes, I'm waaaaaaayyyyy behind and I can't catch up.

Well, if there is a huge system, you can safely start on unoccupied world and catch up. There might be unit/building cap as well, so person who has been there whole day won't be omnipresent.

You know, kinda like DayZ type of games. When you join, there are always guys with top gear and stuff, but the size of the map and the fact that they can carry only so much ammo and stuff mean that they won't absolutely dominate everyone on server.

I'd say no to a building cap, since that's literally everything that this game is not, but perhaps the orbital distances could be huge on this map so interplanetary travel is at a snail's pace... Except for planet smashes, which could be accelerated significantly . That way it's easy enough to spawn in on a small asteroid where there is low enemy presence and maybe halley rush and try to blast a planet clean, launching your commander to the new planet at the last possible second for minimal travel time to set up camp before the enemy rolls along.

Also, perhaps a sort of eco-sharing complete alliance option as an add-on to the current free for all alliance. That way new players who have managed to get a foothold can get reinforcement from players that are entrenched and just holding on, and visa versa.

Of course there's always the option of hopping on with two or three friends in a shared-army alliance and making your game plan on the fly. Speaking of, maybe there should also be a way to implement a betrayal within a shared army alliance; a civil war option of sorts. That way, there's no army that's too big to not get bored enough to splinter into fighting itself. Or you know, simply logging off and leaving a massive power gap in their wake.

I'm in favor of no win conditions I do believe. But maybe a territory or flag type system so there's a visible tug of war going on.

Few things that might be necessary for this:

• Commander offense or defense buff so they are less vulnerable to instant enemy snipes.
• The ability to spawn anywhere and everywhere on any planet. (put a check on this one, already done)
• A huge system with loads of planets.
• Deep space radar available when picking a spawn point, with radar blips for every orbital unit in transit and in orbit, but no info on what kind of units they are.

Change the economic model. One that doesn't expand as time goes on. If there's no falling behind in the first place, then the inability to catch up is a moot point.

I'm thinking about putting a massive weighting towards reclaiming and make metal extraction (almost) irrelevant.

The idea being that a 24/7 server is going to have a 40-foot thick carpet of wrecks covering the planet no matter what happens. All players are going to reclaim those wrecks to fund their war-machine.

The consequence is that you set an upper-bound on how fast the war can rage across the server. Metal-extraction will balance with metal loss at some point in size. Destroying units faster will ultimately reduce the scope of the fight.

Of course, this isn't a perfect solution. My main point is that the traditional concept of get resources, expand, get more resources [repeat] isn't appropriate here. Just because it's a staple of the RTS genre, does not mean that an RTS must include it.

I'd like to sit and discuss what economic models would and wouldn't work. It's an important thing to consider.

Even if you change the economic model, I'll still have more units than you.

I just don't think this type of RTS works as a persistent world.

I'd be interested in being proved wrong, but I just don't see it.

I'll see your extra-units, and raise you;

the five commanders my friends bring along. ​

What I think is a real problem to this is Halleys.

I think the only way for this to work is the "point" system they had in World in conflict. It gives you like 100 points, and every unit is worth a certain amount of points. You can only build a unit if you have the points for it. In world in Conflict there is no base building though. But i can imagine Base building would still be necessary for the tech i guess. Also, maybe once you have the points for a unit you can then only build it.

Another way to do it with this point system is that you throw out the major part of base building and you can mostly build teleporters. Once you invest points in units, they appear from the teleporter.

They point system made world in conflict really balanced and it was the best player who would win.

EDIT: Its worth mentioning that if the unit dies, you get the points back that he was worth. (this can be instantly but can also be over time.) (for bigger games, More Points!!)

Let me know what you guys think!

I would also love to see some sort of persistent/longer game. Being able to jump on and out would be brilliant.

I've read this thread.
While I agree reclaiming needs a bigger role, that won't fix somebody's head-start.

I don't like artificial restrictions like tech-trees, unit caps and halley caps.

The idea of having a safe planet is good for somebody behind, as they aren't losing metal in combat.

Perhaps a place for a 'No Spawn-Rush Timer', as in SupCom?
Uber are probably going to develop that mechanic eventually anyway.

I think the thinking in General is a bit short sighted. One has to think of team armies. A game hosting 40
Planets, with let's say 20 players per side, multiple fronts, team strategies, high importance for intelligence and cooperation.

It's not about a single player joining with his lonely com facing a huge army upon entering. It's a player joining and being able to interact inside Team A and control Units fighting Team B.

Would probably require a bit more meta game than we have right now. Also the start of such a battle would be a challenge. Doing that as pickup group is probably a bad idea, but who knows. Open raid groups in wow also clear HC content by now, nobody would have thought that 3 years ago.

The problem with a no-rush bubble is placement.

I could be the biggest **** in the world and drop in on your base, using the bubble to deny you access to... your base.

The most obvious solution to this is prevent spawning too close to enemy units and structures. But what happens when your enemy decides to be the biggest **** in the world and evenly spaces buildings everywhere to stop you from spawning?

As @byte01 said, a 24/7 server needs to consider metagaming and teamplay as a core part of its balance. We're all probably too entrenched in the mindset of traditional RTS mechanics to see a solution.


On an aside note: Halleys remove celestial objects from play. The game gets smaller each time, eventually ending up with one lone planet and a star. Actually, if you're super unlucky, you could comet-rocket everything!

The Halley cap you need is zero.

I think a persistent game mode should periodically spawn new planets / smashables.

That would remove the problem of planets getting too sparse. Also, regular planet smashes will remove large chunks of units *out of the game* this allowing new players to enter and stand a chance.

you could arrive on an asteroid coming from off system.

or its a shared armies game, when there is 1 person in the queue for each team present they all get to spawn at once, within the teams vision range. if people join quicker than commanders die then the game carries on. if a side leaves the ai takes over.

joining as your own team would be problematic as others have said. - could combine the two concepts above, in alliances mode, when there are people in queue for each team then they each arrive on their own asteroid, zooming in system to orbit the sun. a good team will protect their new arrival, and attack the new weak arrivals of the enemy. makes for a sudden mad rush to protect them.

Perhaps the 'win' condition can be down to each team having a number of 'respawn' points. First team to kill all the enemy commanders (including all their additional lives) wins.

100 points per team would be a good start, that could be a very long game.

On a side note, a 100 point a side com boxing competition could be fun as well!