18 replies to this topic

[Karpundir]

As much as they are detested, we have to admit that Ghost Drops (or Turret Drops) are a double-edged sword. We need them to happen to kick off a conflict, but they can be open to abuse by taking a planet too far in favour of a large attacking or defending force.

I have an easy solution that can utilize Ghost Drops to be a viable solution WITHOUT it getting too far out of hand: put in LIMITS as to what percentage of attacker wins can be affected.

ATTACKING - maximum sectors taken by GHOST wins is 8 of 15 (53%). This limit then makes it attainable for a smaller defending faction to enter the conflict to try and "save" the planet. The attackers would be responsible for monitoring activity on that planet to see if a defending force is going to attempt to reduce the attackers sectors down by 1.

DEFENDING: Conversely to attacking above, the defenders can only take GHOST wins to a value where the Attackers own 7 of 15 sectors (46%). This encourages the attackers to put resources toward that last sector to push it to 53%.

CEASEFIRE WINDOW: Matches taking place inside the ceasefire cooldown timer cannot have any Ghost drops activating (i.e. matches are always a 1:1 ratio). This prevents a planet sitting at 46% or 53% to be flipped one way or another by an uncontested 12-man group. The idea here is to avoid loading a series of 12-mans into the queue right before ceasefire.

Example:
A planet is sitting at 46%/53% attacker wins and there are 24 attackers and 12 defenders queued inside of the ceasefire window. The outcome of this conflict TODAY would favour the faction with the extra 12-man (defenders win the battle and the ghost drop flips it back to 53%). Under the proposed change, the Ghost drop will not find a match and the planet resolves ownership once the final 12v12 match has been completed.

NOTE: programming would have to look at the state of the planet for the final battle and align the attack/defense sector with the outcome of planet ownership being meaningful. A planet with 46% attacker wins with the final 12-man of attackers going on defense of their sector should not be permitted, since there is no chance of winning the planet in the final conflict of the attack window. The reverse would be true when the planet is sitting at 53% attacker wins (defenders MUST be in counter-attack of a sector for a chance to take it to 46%).


I think this is a great way to make Ghost Drops accomplish the function of creating a need for conflict, while not getting out of hand where it is considered manipulation of population advantages/disadvantages between factions.

I welcome your thoughts on my proposed idea.

[jay35]

Makes sense. Would help curb the gaming of the system while still allowing it to occur where it's actually necessary.

[MuonNeutrino]

The problem I see with this sort of scheme is that in some cases it will become the optimal strategy to *not* queue up for a planet, specifically when a faction believes it will likely lose most 'real' matches.

For example, say it becomes known that faction A is attacking a planet with 2 competitive 12-mans, and faction B knows it does not have any comparable teams to defend. In this case it is a better outcome for faction B to not queue up to defend the planet, because without opponents faction A can only push their control to 8/15, while if faction B gives them targets they could push it all the way to 15/15. If faction B denies them targets, the planet will be left at 8/15 and faction B can either hope to push it back once faction A gets bored and leaves or else to sneak it back right before ceasefire.

Similarly, let's say that faction A is attacking a planet early in a battle window with no opposition, and ghost drops it to 8/15 with the aim of getting the most favorable starting point for a concerted push during the critical couple hours before ceasefire. If faction B starts trying to push faction A back on that planet before that time, unless faction A has both plenty of free teams available and they feel they could have a high win rate against faction B, it is most effective for faction A to not drop in attack on the planet since without opponents faction B could only reduce their control to 7/10 and this lets faction A continue attacking other planets.

In other words, the inability to ghost drop beyond a certain point will in some circumstances incentivize factions to *avoid* fighting their opponents. I feel that the proper route is not to limit ghost drops in cases where one faction truly isn't fighting for a planet, but rather to ensure that ghost drops are as infrequent as possible if both factions *are* actively fighting. This has already been partially done by the change of the ghost drop timer, as now a ghost drop can only happen if no opposing team enters the queue for a full *10* minutes. On an actively contested planet, this occurrence will be relatively infrequent - remember, the devs have access to the logs, and Russ has repeatedly commented that ghost drops are almost non-existent on planets during the last couple hours before ceasefire. I do not think that ghost drops are affecting the outcome of planet battles significantly enough to warrant such a sweeping change - this particular cure would, I think, be worse than the disease.

[Duskov]

I support this

[Karpundir]

Thanks for the alternate argument, MuonNeutrino. I considered that aspect, as well. I think it is up to each faction already today to determine where they want to focus their resources, but when you know there is a CHANCE of saving/taking a planet, it would encourage battles. That is what we are looking for here... meaningful battles. I can't see how taking a planet further away from 50/50 would encourage more fights, even if they may only occur right before/during ceasefire (which is already happening today).

The solution I have makes it MUCH harder to win or lose planets due to player population imbalance, which is the bigger issue right now until PGI can implement a way to balance populations through the contract system.


EDIT: Once we have 3 ceasefire windows tomorrow, I think it will mean triple the action compared to what we see today.

Edited by Karpundir, 19 January 2015 - 10:41 AM.

[Mogney]

Maybe after the cutoff, instead of not counting, it takes like 3 ghost drops to equal 1 win.

Another change to make is to make you not actually go through with the ghost drop. There is zero chance of the turrets winning, just award the point and move on.

[Kin3ticX]

I agree with the ceasefire window not spawning any turret drops, even if in queue already.

[Peter2000]

Karpundir, on 19 January 2015 - 10:17 AM, said:

Thanks for the alternate argument, MuonNeutrino. I considered that aspect, as well. I think it is up to each faction already today to determine where they want to focus their resources, but when you know there is a CHANCE of saving/taking a planet, it would encourage battles. That is what we are looking for here... meaningful battles. I can't see how taking a planet further away from 50/50 would encourage more fights, even if they may only occur right before/during ceasefire (which is already happening today).

The solution I have makes it MUCH harder to win or lose planets due to player population imbalance, which is the bigger issue right now until PGI can implement a way to balance populations through the contract system.

I don't agree with your assessment that ghost drops are the major problem with population imbalance in the current implementation of CW. Sure, they happen, but they're often rare if the planet is contested by 36+ people (not to say we shouldn't try to fix those cases...).

The biggest issue in terms of population difference is who is attacking. First, you can only move the counter with an attack. As defender, you can only stop the opponent from moving. As a result, if you want to win a planet, you need to get attacks.

Second, unless you have 24 players on each side waiting to queue (which I would guess almost never happens), the first team to get 12 readied up (including those waiting) gets to attack. Generally this will be the side with the larger population, who then pull in the first 12 of the other side to defend, leaving no more of them in queue, while the next 12 of their own side ready an attack. When I drop on planets where my side is outnumbered, I'm playing easily 80% defense drops, and I'd bet PGI's numbers would back me up on this for planets where the queued player count difference is at least 12. We can't advance the counter, no matter how much we win. This is the real problem.

[Karpundir]

With 3 ceasefire windows being implemented tomorrow, I think having the system I propose above will also make each of those windows very exciting to participate in and watch for the outcomes.

Again, the overarching objective of my proposal is to have meaningful battles and eliminate that sense of hopelessness by a faction defending a planet from a higher volume of enemy attacker ghost drops. Consider this post from reddit as evidence of that sentiment. This is coming from one of the FRR Council who communicates with other units. In reading other sub-forums, I see a LOT of complaints about the Ghost/Turret drop mechanic. Putting in limits achieves the desired goal (win a planet if totally undefended), but also encourages fighting to save that planet when resources are limited.

Edited by Karpundir, 19 January 2015 - 10:53 AM.

[MuonNeutrino]

Karpundir, on 19 January 2015 - 10:17 AM, said:

The solution I have makes it MUCH harder to win or lose planets due to player population imbalance, which is the bigger issue right now until PGI can implement a way to balance populations through the contract system.

The problem is, there *are* no ghost drops winning planets. During the town hall, Russ commented that there is generally something like 1 ghost drop per planet over the critical last couple hours. If a faction is actively contesting a planet, ghost drops are not what is causing them to lose. The actual mechanism is what Peter pointed out above about the outnumbering faction being the one that gets the majority of opportunities to move the counter due to always entering the queue first. Preventing ghost drops from moving the counter above a certain point does not stop this from happening, but it *does* cause all of the other issues noted above.

I do agree about preventing ghost wins during the ceasefire period, however. Allowing one faction to get a free win just by pure luck of slipping in unopposed right before the queue is locked doesn't make any sense. In-progress matches should continue, but if a pending lobby is in progress it should only allow it to launch if it can fill it up and start a normal match.

[Karpundir]

Peter2000, on 19 January 2015 - 10:26 AM, said:

The biggest issue in terms of population difference is who is attacking. First, you can only move the counter with an attack. As defender, you can only stop the opponent from moving. As a result, if you want to win a planet, you need to get attacks.

Second, unless you have 24 players on each side waiting to queue (which I would guess almost never happens), the first team to get 12 readied up (including those waiting) gets to attack. Generally this will be the side with the larger population, who then pull in the first 12 of the other side to defend, leaving no more of them in queue, while the next 12 of their own side ready an attack. When I drop on planets where my side is outnumbered, I'm playing easily 80% defense drops, and I'd bet PGI's numbers would back me up on this for planets where the queued player count difference is at least 12. We can't advance the counter, no matter how much we win. This is the real problem.

Yeah, I see what you mean. Clearly, this part of the attack/defend mechanic needs another way of handling things.

[Karpundir]

MuonNeutrino, on 19 January 2015 - 11:07 AM, said:

The problem is, there *are* no ghost drops winning planets. During the town hall, Russ commented that there is generally something like 1 ghost drop per planet over the critical last couple hours.

When Russ said this, there seemed to be mixed feelings about his statement. Quite a few people did not believe his statement. It is very possible that PGI wants to downplay the impact of ghost drops because they didn't have a solution should they admit it was a bigger problem than Russ indicated.

With 3 ceasefire windows, it will be interesting to see how things change. It may eliminate the problem due to the shorter attack windows OR it can be exploited to a greater extent in certain attack windows where population imbalances are very polarized. We should know by the end of this weekend what the impact will be.

[pwnface]

Karpundir, on 19 January 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

Yeah, I see what you mean. Clearly, this part of the attack/defend mechanic needs another way of handling things.

The entire Attack/Defend / Counter-Attack/Hold Territory system sucks horribly. It is un-intuitive and a very clunky way to manage planetary control. Every win in a match should move the counter, not just successful attacks.

Here is a simple solution:
Every successful attack gives the attacking faction 6%.
Every successful defense gives the defending faction 6%
Whichever faction controls less than 50% of the planet is the attacker.

So for an invading faction instead of attack / hold territory and repeat it would just be attack attack attack until they hit over 50% then defend defend defend.

[pbiggz]

Solution to ghost drops:





http://youtu.be/vutAv2t1r9I?t=2m19s

http://youtu.be/WYWe9x7GErE?t=1m5s

Put a big fat heavily armed dropship in the middle of the base. Attacking team must destroy it in 10 minutes or it lifts and they lose.

[Karpundir]

pwnface, on 19 January 2015 - 11:32 AM, said:

The entire Attack/Defend / Counter-Attack/Hold Territory system sucks horribly. It is un-intuitive and a very clunky way to manage planetary control. Every win in a match should move the counter, not just successful attacks.

Here is a simple solution:
Every successful attack gives the attacking faction 6%.
Every successful defense gives the defending faction 6%
Whichever faction controls less than 50% of the planet is the attacker.

So for an invading faction instead of attack / hold territory and repeat it would just be attack attack attack until they hit over 50% then defend defend defend.

That was how I THOUGHT it would be done initially and I agree that it makes much more sense to have it work this way. I suppose the current implementation was to create more variety in the drops, since you only have 2 maps and 1 mode per map.

[Cerlin]

Quote

CEASEFIRE WINDOW: Matches taking place inside the ceasefire cooldown timer cannot have any Ghost drops activating (i.e. matches are always a 1:1 ratio). This prevents a planet sitting at 46% or 53% to be flipped one way or another by an uncontested 12-man group. The idea here is to avoid loading a series of 12-mans into the queue right before ceasefire.

This is the best idea in the whole lot. Love it. I hope PGI takes a look.

[Tarogato]

I'm just going to leave this here, because this is what I was thinking when Russ was talking about it, and now Abivard expressed it clearly:

Abivard, on 19 January 2015 - 11:06 PM, said:

12% = roughly 1 ghost drop for every 7 battles, funny when added together that makes just the number needed to flip a planet. theoretically, at that rate of ghost drops, every single world that is flipped could be based on WHO gets the ghost Drop.

12% is a HUGE MO FO number! Not an insignificant one.

The FRR is very well aware of how ghost drops influence planet flips, not only are ghost drops happening, but the planet is also "forced" into a single mode selection for the side that has the 12 man advantage when teams are matched by forcing continuous "counter attacks'' for Ghost dropping defenders side or 'attack' for Ghost dropping attackers side.

This last part could be fixed by not actually selecting/locking a sector until teams are matched or the timer to find a team expires.

[Lord Jay]

Quote

CEASEFIRE WINDOW: Matches taking place inside the ceasefire cooldown timer cannot have any Ghost drops activating (i.e. matches are always a 1:1 ratio). This prevents a planet sitting at 46% or 53% to be flipped one way or another by an uncontested 12-man group. The idea here is to avoid loading a series of 12-mans into the queue right before ceasefire.

This!

Honestly I'd prefer simply flushing the queues when the ceasefire hits. Time's up? No drops. Period.

[Wibbledtodeath]

Ghost drops: What a great opportunity to deliver a new type of content - missions vs AI.

OK . So it may be a longer term solution, but one worth aiming at.

Edited by Wibbledtodeath, 20 January 2015 - 04:00 PM.