Game mode living off game joining feature - Perpetual war

The engine of PA is going to be packing a lot of goodies. One of these goodies is the ability to join a game already in progress. This seems like a feature that is utilised only in very edge cases in course of usual play.

The main reason why it would propably break down is that players might be expected to have a similar state of progression. A person joining a game 5 minutes from it's start is usually about 50% behind by minute 10 without much regard will it be by the measure of tech, mass or shear unit amounts. However this assumption of simultanoeus "phases of the game universe" might not be fundamental to the general idea of having good strategicing fighting on planets and fighting planets. But this would propably result in a very different kind of game.

Now with the understanding that we are messing with some fundamental things about what it is to be a strategy game entertain one such vision how it could be.

Say that we have a solar system that has a steady influx of new players. If they are hostile to each other pretty soon the system is going to be populated to it's brim so that there is simply not enough lebenschraum to accomodate everyone confortably. At that point keeping to add new players pretty much means that someones somewhere have to fight to the death. Once enough players start to die the rate that which they join the game and die off should cancel each other out keeping the amount of live players pretty constant.

If the players that die are exactly those that entered the game 10 seconds ago then it would be pretty pointless to join such a game. However the player that killed them off propably used some efford to kill them offf. This makes it harder for that player to duel off with another player that has inhabited the system as long as they(which doesn't have the burden of dealing with newcomers). So nobody wants to make the initiative to go off the new players. But if they are allowed to grow they can become equal threats.

So in this kind of game you can't win or lose but the challenge to survive as long as one can can still be interesting. Even if a player would attain momentary solar system domination they would still have to play a defensive play that could be 1 vs 40 with the more numerous side receiving regular reinforcements! And if there are only a few key players it would be all about how they meddle with the middlesized players so it topples a bigger player. So if the presssure of the joining players is too much there is a max size a player can steadily archieve after which point they must adapt to the changing startegic atmosphere as the joining and dying of players shape the battlefield or risk their current arrangement fall ineffective.

So imagine that start out with a empty solar system. Then every minute shoot a asteroid / small planetoid toward the system on a escape trajectory with a commander on it. They get to do the build they want and prepare their invasion force and scout on where they want to make their landing or maybe even convert the asteroid into a KEW to enter the game with a bang. However if they keep riding the asteroid they will get carried away from the solar system which we count as them getting killed. So they have to land somewhere even if it doesn't look too inviting. Then score them on how long they survived, how many other comms they killed and the max amount of extractors they held at once (say that each extractor and com being worth another minute).

With this rate you would need 60*24=1440 players wanting to have (atleast) one such attempt during a day and you get a perpetual war machine. If the solar system supported 45 players it would propably have a 45 minute mean commander lifespan.

now this has many nice properties:
- reliable source of X vs y where X>>y matches that are about balanced
- reliable source of guerilla gameplay
- interaction of multiple scales of conflict. Small players might be suborbital but it doesn't neccesarily make sense for the KEWers to nuke them.
- a promising source of diplomatic complexity. Does it make sense to try to become a (temporary) vassal to a bigger player? Should I squish the small players now or do I have a immient threat about that other empire to take care of first?
- interaction of multiple timescales: crates made by long dead players entering as the given playfield for unrelated new players. For dueling with the present empire enemy it might make sense to KEW the opposition into oblivion but "wasting" them into planetary engines allows a player to buy long term security (this pluto-like orbit is much calmer than the mercury-like near the sun) without becoming a hot potato for anyone (have fun when a big power kicked out of the center wants to share in to that security).
- small amount of servers compared to playing players make for a enchanced sense of community and accomplishment. In the edge case if there is only 1 official perpetual war server it could lead into things like community news casts where cool events are highlighted in the chrono cam.

There could also be a meta-game involved. Say that each active player gets equal chance to spawn into the game. In the long run the scores of players could be added from multiple "runs". There could be things like picking a good time to spawn (maybe spend surivial minutes from previous runs to bid for the most desirable time?).

Now there are some potential issues:
- it's very chaotic, you can't lose, you can't win. Overall an inconsistent measuring instrument of skill at best.
- king maker effects all abound
- if you can make craters you can wear out the solar system (balance mass lost by periodically adding a new planet?)

So by the sounds of it it might be possible to do as a mod atleast. Anyone else that would like to play a match like this?

Re: Game mode living off game joining feature - Perpetual wa

Win and loose are subjective in a game like that. To me, if I had fun I won. Nothing makes me happier than coming back from the brink of defeat to take vengeance on an attacker. Something like this offers a lot of opportunity to get lost in the chaos as the "other fish to fry" become bigger threats than my escape force, allowing me to escape total defeat in order to come back stronger later. Being the major force in the galaxy also has an interesting dynamic as you battle to quell rebellions on forgotten moons (because, due to unit limits you just can't have a presence everywhere at all times) and battle to keep your fragile grip on power. Even without dynamic teams (FFA) there is great incentive to chip away at the larger players (especially if you know they are preoccupied) and cause a death from 1000 papercuts type scenario.

Re: Game mode living off game joining feature - Perpetual wa

CTF first team that gets 10 Flags wins. After that or if time is over 1h? next map Starts. Jump in jump out. Only team ressources, maybe little personalized amounts.

Spawn mechanism to prevent total domination of one team?

Autoteam balance, switching players...

Re: Game mode living off game joining feature - Perpetual wa

Maybe we could have a gamemode where the players from each team join the game after 5 mins. So every five minutes two players join, one friendly and one enemy. The first player has to get a decent base so the new player can build with some protection.

Re: Game mode living off game joining feature - Perpetual wa

I don't think marginal commanders will have much affect on ongoing games (beyond com-bombing). The main value of additional players will be the additional assistance in managing units. Shared economy/production/control would be good for this sort of thing.

Re: Game mode living off game joining feature - Perpetual wa

While team game direction is one thing I imagined that the FFA nature of it would work best. Instead of drawing one stable battleline against the galaxy there would be smaller pockets which would make the choice of landing site more interesting.

Also if the map restarts hourly that would directly go against the idea of having a consistent battleground that you could hop into. In this situation players being in asymmetrical positions despite not doing any mistakes is a feature. If a player triumphs the circumstances he is given he gets a new possibly harder one. In an usual game when a side wins and another loses there is nothing left to play. Here you would either get kicked out of the game or get served a different flavour of gameplay.

The solar system is not spoiled by shifts of power so there is no need to revert symmetry breaking. Making the high end of roles hard namely how hard it is to be the only player in the system and even with the help of metal incomes from all the bodies in the system resisting the income flux of all the players bolsters the irrelevance of power distribution.

Even if one man armying would be an impossible task by simply one person not being able to coordinate the whole solar system by themselfs it would be sufficient to have everybody have gameplay going on. The small players try to figure out how to grow without getting squashed too hard while the "system lord" tries to keep their mouse in motion as best as he can. They do not have the same kind of gameplay but it's very possible that everybody is having fun.

Re: Game mode living off game joining feature - Perpetual wa

+1!!!! I've been looking forward to a game that can pull something like that off for as long as I can remember. The thought of it becoming a reality brings a tear to my eye ^.T