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[Kilgore]

I need to quote Ghosthack here ("Town control explained" topic):

Town Control Explained
There has been a lot of confusion about how this feature actually works. So I thought I'd explain, to once and for all clear the mist.

Town Control (TC for short or Town Guarding which is another alias) is a feature of the game that is only available for player controlled factions (gangs), it gives them the ability to take control of one of the six so called un-guarded towns in the north. Previously, you'd get a certain amount of profit from traders, but with the new economy, this doesn't quite work out, and commerce is fairly low in unsafe towns, simply because it's so easy to get killed while trying to trade.

In the recent update, TC has been remade once again, this time the mechanisms have been tuned for pvp. During every real time (RT) day, there's one hour (RT) allocated for each of the six towns (Modoc, Klamath, Redding, Broken Hills, Den and Gecko) when it is "vulnerable" to being taken over. During this time, factions will fight for control.

Seizing Control
To gain control in a town, you need to speak to the leader or chief of the town. You also need to make sure that you have a few gang members nearby, to "impress" upon the leader that you are capable of protecting them. After this, a countdown willl be displayed globally. You need to hold the town for this time, to actually gain control. When the countdown timer has gone to 00:00, your faction will be shown in the pipboy as controlling the town.

When the hour is over, the town is protected from being taken over for another 24 hours. The reward is given in caps after the takeover period has elapsed (the hour) and can be found in a special container that only the controlling faction may open. Ask the townleader if you can't find it.



Times
During these times, it's possible to take control over the respective towns. All these times are in GMT+1, which is the timezone of most of the developers, as well as the players.

Gecko - 11:00-12:00
Modoc - 15:00-16:00
Redding - 18:00-19:00
Klamath - 19:00-20:00
Broken Hills - 20:00-21:00
Den - 22:00-23:00

First thing: you didn't explain anything, because you only said what will be in the next update. At the moment, only few people fully understand how town control system works and how to use it.

How does it work now? Well, every 24h, you have few hours to take the town. You don't know when it is (unless you know when it was taken) and you also don't know when you have permanent control over town (well, there are some ways to check it, but I'm not sure if it is something it was supposed to be).

Problems:
1. Recently, PvP has become one big mess. We are going straight to the point where we'll have only 2 big alliances fighting each other and camping "un-guarded" towns to gain permanent control there, and leave, just to enjoy pipboy statistics "whoa we're guarding the town". Big fights (I mean those with more than 40-50 people involved) maybe sound fun, but they aren't - they're laggy and very random (an individual can be killed in the beginning of the fight and only lose his gear, while others can loot fallen enemies without even shooting anyone - so it depends on luck). We have 1-2 big fights almost every evening/night, but there are no small/medium battles between various groups in various places - as it used to be pre-wipe. Most of PvP fights are now limited to trying to camp exit grids with as big group of fighters as possible.

2. Benefits from town control are ridiculous. What I have observed throughout our town control (we often control 4 or more towns simultaneously) is that every day, u can grab random ammount of caps from footlockers - and it's mostly between 400 to 6000 per town(well, I have taken even as much as 10.000 caps from Den one day - but it was an exception). A single player can earn much more by crafting and selling stuff - so town control is now not worth of it if you want to earn money - most of the time, you can lose stuff worth much more if you are killed there.

3. Several times, we came across a bunch of players in bluesuits (they are from "The Spades" and wanted to take Klamath) who kept taking the town just after we have left it. When we have realised that they will keep coming there, we just simply camped "town control guy" for 2 hours to gain permanent control. You can guess that it wasn't challenging, but boring as hell instead. Moreover, I don't think that a bunch of bluesuit can "impress" the town leader much, so there should be some kind of checking if they are worthy of controlling the town.

4. Look at those times above and please answer following questions:
- What about players from US, Australia and Brasil?
- Is it going to stop big groups from camping these towns when they can be captured or not?(Hint: you can camp towns one after another to gain perma control in every northern town)
- Is it going to support big, random, laggy fights or it will cause more small and medium fights between gangs?

Ideas:

1. Leave town control system as it was pre-wipe (every town could be captured at any time), but let footlockers in each town spawn an ammount of caps every 10, 20 or 30 minutes after capturing them.

2. Spawn extra money in footlocker for every piece of stuff crafted in that town. It should bring some crafters to the north and finally the whole thing will be about GUARDING THE TOWN - not taking it, camping for some time and then leaving it dead. Of course, crafters will be interested in crafting there only if they'll be rewarded - but leave it to those who control the town.

3. If there will be less than, let's say, 3-4 equipped gang members (from the group that is controlling the town) present, the footlocker should stop generating money. Now you will ask why EQUIPPED gang members. Simple - gang members won't leave bluesuited alts hidden in the town somewhere, on their 2nd computers, just to keep earning money. You can ask now: what is an EQUIPPED gang member. Well, it should be discussed. For me, an equipped and worthy fighter is the one wearing at least metal armor and with at least level 2 gun in his hands..

4. There should be a global message when a faction takes control over town. Also, there should be a message for all members of a gang that is controlling it if any ammount of money is generated in town's footlocker.

These are just ideas and maybe have some leaks, but I'm sure that together we can find a way to create viable system of town control. Remember that gaining permanent control over any town will be followed by leaving it dead for next 24 hours, so it's just a wrong idea.

And if you want to post here only to start flame, talk shit about any gang, insult someone - please leave, we really don't need it here.

[Ghosthack]

1. Recently, PvP has become one big mess. We are going straight to the point where we'll have only 2 big alliances fighting each other and camping "un-guarded" towns to gain permanent control there, and leave, just to enjoy pipboy statistics "whoa we're guarding the town". Big fights (I mean those with more than 40-50 people involved) maybe sound fun, but they aren't - they're laggy and very random (an individual can be killed in the beginning of the fight and only lose his gear, while others can loot fallen enemies without even shooting anyone - so it depends on luck). We have 1-2 big fights almost every evening/night, but there are no small/medium battles between various groups in various places - as it used to be pre-wipe. Most of PvP fights are now limited to trying to camp exit grids with as big group of fighters as possible.

The fact that there's two big alliances is simple because of how the new name colorizing makes it possible to have a very large organizations. This is both good and bad.
I don't know if there's any easy way to resolve these huge "lag fights", but the modoc entry points have been fixed, so camping the southern entrance mindlessly is not possible anymore, which is one of the most popular things right now.

2. Benefits from town control are ridiculous. What I have observed throughout our town control (we often control 4 or more towns simultaneously) is that every day, u can grab random ammount of caps from footlockers - and it's mostly between 400 to 6000 per town(well, I have taken even as much as 10.000 caps from Den one day - but it was an exception). A single player can earn much more by crafting and selling stuff - so town control is now not worth of it if you want to earn money - most of the time, you can lose stuff worth much more if you are killed there.

With the new system, you have a potential to earn 60-120k caps per day. This reward system may be refined a bit (decreased/increased, but using trader derived items didn't seem to work that well, as people just got "crap" that they didn't care about. It will also create an influx in the economy, which is pretty stagnant right now in some ways. Factions may actually buy their equipments from some larger player controlled merchant company. Just a theory though.

3. Several times, we came across a bunch of players in bluesuits (they are from "The Spades" and wanted to take Klamath) who kept taking the town just after we have left it. When we have realised that they will keep coming there, we just simply camped "town control guy" for 2 hours to gain permanent control. You can guess that it wasn't challenging, but boring as hell instead.

This is why it must be restricted to only a few hours, it's simple impossible to keep control over a town without playing 24/7. The problem is that while europeans sleep, americans may capture some towns etc. This will be true to some extent with new times too, but it's imho more fair to everyone, because they know when it can be taken, and when it's "safe", so less having to send bluesuit scoutes to know who's camping where and if it's safe to grab it.

Moreover, I don't think that a bunch of bluesuit can "impress" the town leader much, so there should be some kind of checking if they are worthy of controlling the town.

Worthiness is derived from size of faction and number of members present, the requirements differ from town to town.

- What about players from US, Australia and Brasil?

Yes, what about them?

- Is it going to stop big groups from camping these towns when they can be captured or not?(Hint: you can camp towns one after another to gain perma control in every northern town)

No, it's probably not going to stop it, but at least they can't just camp one town for several hours and receive the same benefits (i.e none).

- Is it going to support big, random, laggy fights or it will cause more small and medium fights between gangs?

This depends if the alliances can hold themselves together or if they will break down into smaller factions again because of fights over resources.

2. Spawn extra money in footlocker for every piece of stuff crafted in that town. It should bring some crafters to the north and finally the whole thing will be about GUARDING THE TOWN - not taking it, camping for some time and then leaving it dead. Of course, crafters will be interested in crafting there only if they'll be rewarded - but leave it to those who control the town.

This is not a bad idea, I like it, but I don't think it will work any better than how it worked before, namely, that income from town control was items traded. So more trade meant more income. But gangs figured it was easier to just kill everything that entered the town and grab the stuff instead.

3. If there will be less than, let's say, 3-4 equipped gang members (from the group that is controlling the town) present, the footlocker should stop generating money. Now you will ask why EQUIPPED gang members. Simple - gang members won't leave bluesuited alts hidden in the town somewhere, on their 2nd computers, just to keep earning money. You can ask now: what is an EQUIPPED gang member. Well, it should be discussed. For me, an equipped and worthy fighter is the one wearing at least metal armor and with at least level 2 gun in his hands..

It's easy to leave an equipped sneaking alt hidden. This will never work good in larger towns where you can easily hide in some small house.

4. There should be a global message when a faction takes control over town. Also, there should be a message for all members of a gang that is controlling it if any ammount of money is generated in town's footlocker.

There's global message when some factions tries to take control, then there's a countdown, and they have to protect it during that time. Money is always generated at end of town capture period.

These are just ideas and maybe have some leaks, but I'm sure that together we can find a way to create viable system of town control. Remember that gaining permanent control over any town will be followed by leaving it dead for next 24 hours, so it's just a wrong idea.

Well, the fact that it was presented in such a detailed manor that it was actually worth reading, is appreciated. Nothing is set in stone (as you may have noticed), some of these things you've suggested may be incorporated into the system. Depends on how it works out.

[Bartosz]

2. Spawn extra money in footlocker for every piece of stuff crafted in that town. It should bring some crafters to the north and finally the whole thing will be about GUARDING THE TOWN - not taking it, camping for some time and then leaving it dead. Of course, crafters will be interested in crafting there only if they'll be rewarded - but leave it to those who control the town.

Well, if we consider town as belonging to some faction during that 24h period after takeover, then it's open to many improvements. For example, NPCs could offer some services to members of controling gang. If it's rewarding and interesting enough, then keeping town alive (and your reputation within that town), might be in your interest...

[Badger]

I think it might be worth moving this whole 'Town Control' thing away from towns to 'Key Areas'. Both existing and new. Places like the Ghost Farm, Sierra, etc. - people need to be rewarded for visiting there so we add good traders. It gives PKers interesting areas to fight over without shitting on everyone who isn't in their faction. Everyone needs to use towns at some point, so putting them in the hands of angry men with itchy trigger fingers doesn't make a good game. I loved the idea of Town Control, but it didn't work out. It isn't guarding the town, it's instead making it unusable to anyone who isn't your faction.

Forcing all players into such high conflict zones is inevitably a recipe for disaster. It sounds cool that people 'control towns', but the reality is that it means they kill anyone who enters because they could be SEKRIT ENEMY FAKTION SPY!!! It's questionable whether the people of Modoc would reward thugs that shoot anyone that comes into town, thereby running their economy into the ground.

[mofd)energy]

The fact that there's two big alliances is simple because of how the new name colorizing makes it possible to have a very large organizations. This is both good and bad.
I don't know if there's any easy way to resolve these huge "lag fights", but the modoc entry points have been fixed, so camping the southern entrance mindlessly is not possible anymore, which is one of the most popular things right now.
With the new system, you have a potential to earn 60-120k caps per day. This reward system may be refined a bit (decreased/increased, but using trader derived items didn't seem to work that well, as people just got "crap" that they didn't care about. It will also create an influx in the economy, which is pretty stagnant right now in some ways. Factions may actually buy their equipments from some larger player controlled merchant company. Just a theory though.
 
 
 
This depends if the alliances can hold themselves together or if they will break down into smaller factions again because of fights over resources.
This is not a bad idea, I like it, but I don't think it will work any better than how it worked before, namely, that income from town control was items traded. So more trade meant more income. But gangs figured it was easier to just kill everything that entered the town and grab the stuff instead.
It's easy to leave an equipped sneaking alt hidden. This will never work good in larger towns where you can easily hide in some small house.
There's global message when some factions tries to take control, then there's a countdown, and they have to protect it during that time. Money is always generated at end of town capture period.

u don't get it, do u ? how much is one bh ca ?
30k-40k plus guns, multiple by ammount of people in ur gang? thats why gangs are camping spawning points together, b/c ur "new great" crafting system and cooldowns make this game unplayable, people are trying to get the edge over opponents, the best and easiest way is get as many soldiers as possible.

how many people have u got on the serv 200 ? are u blind dont u see it? before the wipe u had 500 and more.
No matter when u logged in, u could always meet someone in encounters or in towns. now what? 200 people is not enough and most of them are hid in the caves, scared of losing stuff which takes aged to craft, big gangs that shoot at everything that moves make northern cities even more dangerous than pre wipe ( thx devs )
a single crafter have even less chance than before the wipe, on top of that if he lost his stuff, it'd take ages to get it back b/c of cooldowns of gathering and crafting ( just digging ore makes me sick to get a good armor and gun u need atleast 20 alloys, dont u think its already too much ? )

u said "you have a potential to earn 60-120k caps per day", im a player and im telling u its not enough, make it 300-600k,
gang's stuff armors, weapons are worth at least 600k there is no point in going with 5-7 mates against 20-30, thats why 2 sides war will stay as it is,

and even without "the new name colorizing" gangs could do it( i mean fight together), all we have to do is add the tag of our alliance or gang in front of our nicks, names, besides most of the people know akas of other players and opponents, yeah u are right it helps in battle, although most of the time u have a wall of soliders against another, its not so difficult to pick ur target, they are not mixed up

no encounters- another problem, its hard to find anything bigger than a rat, u could just keep the new xp system that gives u less and less xp instead of removing creeps ( on top of that u can still loot encounters when u find them ( lets say at night).
        u could just remove their ammo and guns in the same way as u did with town guard's stuff, who cares about karma in sf? atm that caravan gives u lsw, avenger and laser rifle + ammo ...

look how many people are playing now and before keep doing ur great job, only super crafters will stay, i mean 10-20 people ...

[Kilgore]

Fully agreed with mofd)energy on this one (even though I think we're in opposing parties). Well maybe 300-600k is too much of profit, it would create lots of caps in short time... on the other hand stuff worn by members of gangs taking the town is worth much more.

The fact that there's two big alliances is simple because of how the new name colorizing makes it possible to have a very large organizations.

I don't think that it's the reason for it. The true reason is that you must now have more members on your side to fight your enemy and not lose your gear, which will take ages to make again.

The problem is that while europeans sleep, americans may capture some towns etc.

It's not the problem... the problem is that now all towns can be taken by Europeans, and Americans/Australians/Russian can do nothing about it, because they are in a different time zone. In fact we'll have now serious issues with getting all members from Russian gangs to fight on our side in the conflict - just because most of the town can be taken when it is after midnight in Russia.

No, it's probably not going to stop it, but at least they can't just camp one town for several hours and receive the same benefits (i.e none).

It is now exactly as I have written before. The biggest group gathers in one town to take it, waits till it's theirs, then it goes to camp another town and so on. All PvP in this game is gonna be "gather a larger group and go camp from town to town" style soon (in fact, it's such already).

This depends if the alliances can hold themselves together or if they will break down into smaller factions again because of fights over resources.

There is no reason to fight for resources if you have an alliance big enough to camp every town one after another.

I got a new idea how to improve current town control system (only if it is still supposed to be with 1-hour capture window and 24 hours of permanent control):

Change the schedule. There are 6 towns to control so there should be one town to take every 4 hours. Gangs from every country will have an equal chance to take a town. Change the schedules every week (automatically) or 3-4 days so there will be no situation in which Russians always have Gecko and Americans always have Redding or sth.

Now 2 things will be solved:
1st camping for 1h, from town to town
2nd you will not be fucked up by your time zone, because every 4 hours there is a town out there, ready for the taking

[Cryofluid]

..."Change the schedule. There are 6 towns to control so there should be one town to take every 4 hours. Gangs from every country will have an equal chance to take a town. Change the schedules every week (automatically) or 3-4 days so there will be no situation in which Russians always have Gecko and Americans always have Redding or sth."...

=> to avoid "changing the schedules every week" you should put one town to take every 5 hours or 7 hours. It would do sth like this:

Every 7 hours:

Gecko - 11:00-12:00  /  18:00-19:00  /  1:00-2:00  /  8:00-9:00/  15:00-16:00 / 22:00-23:00 ...
Modoc - 12:00-13:00  /  19:00-20:00  /  2:00-3:00  /  9:00-10:00/  16:00-17:00 / 23:00-00:00 ...
Klamath - 11:00-12:00  /  18:00-19:00  /  1:00-2:00  /  8:00-9:00/  15:00-16:00 / 22:00-23:00 ... => Same time as Gecko so that a same gang can't take 2 cities at a time
Redding - ...
Broken Hills -...
Den -...

[Resp]

Sory, my Eanglish poor, and i use transleter-google. And i write russian text, then eanglish

Kilgore, очень дельное предложение говорит.
Ghosthack привёл неубедительные доводы по некоторым пунктам. Ненужно никого уравнивать. Попробую объяснить с чем я несогласен.
Но для начала отвлечёмся.
Kilgore, a very sensible proposal says.
Ghosthack cited weak case on certain items. It is not necessary to equate one. Let me explain with which I disagree.
But first digress

I don't know if there's any easy way to resolve these huge "lag fights", but the modoc entry points have been fixed, so camping the southern entrance mindlessly is not possible anymore, which is one of the most popular things right now.

Раньше, когда я играл через FOlineDx9.exe, игра просто летала. Лаги у меня появились, когда стало невозможно играть через *Dx9.exe.
Previously, when I played through FOlineDx9.exe, the game runs fast. Lags I came when it became impossible to play through *Dx9.exe.

With the new system, you have a potential to earn 60-120k caps per day. This reward system may be refined a bit (decreased/increased, but using trader derived items didn't seem to work that well, as people just got "crap" that they didn't care about. It will also create an influx in the economy, which is pretty stagnant right now in some ways. Factions may actually buy their equipments from some larger player controlled merchant company. Just a theory though.

Как показала практика - это не реально. Только, если они сами будут в своём же городе торговать/крафтить.
As experience has shown - it is unreal. Only if they-self are trade/craft in they same town  controled.

This is why it must be restricted to only a few hours, it's simple impossible to keep control over a town without playing 24/7. The problem is that while europeans sleep, americans may capture some towns etc. This will be true to some extent with new times too, but it's imho more fair to everyone, because they know when it can be taken, and when it's "safe", so less having to send bluesuit scoutes to know who's camping where and if it's safe to grab it.

Опять скажу - незачем всех уравнивать. Хозяин города будет чаще меняться, и в этом нет ничего страшного. Это ж бета тест, и когда будет релиз, то появится много различных серверов в разных часовых поясах.
Again I say - no reason to equate all. The host city will be more likely to change, and there is nothing to worry about. This is a beta test train, and when release, will beela lot of different servers in different time zones

It's easy to leave an equipped sneaking alt hidden. This will never work good in larger towns where you can easily hide in some small house.

жулики... жулики никогда не меняются. Это тоже не страшно. Для них это будет дорого, и сложно при большом онлайне. Разве большие города могут быть захвачены? В маленьких их легко найти. Так же, для них есть сложность стоять долго AFK - их выкинет в меню.
cheaters ... cheaters never change. This is also not afraid. For them, it will be expensive and difficult for a large online. Is the big cities can be captured? In small they are easy to find. Also, for they have difficulty standing for a long time AFK - will kick them in the menu.

There's global message when some factions tries to take control, then there's a countdown, and they have to protect it during that time. Money is always generated at end of town capture period.

понятно, что при выполнении пункта 1, 2 и 3 будет актуально. И города буду живые. Сейчас они получают в конце периуда плату за безделье. Хочется жывых RP-городов как на TLA
clear that in implementing paragraph 1, 2 and 3 will be relevant. And the city will be alive. Now they get to the end period fee for idleness. I want alive RP-cities as like a TLA

Я надеюсь, что вы прислушаетесь у предложениям топикстартера. И когда найдётся свободное время попробуете организовать.
Это всё моё ИМХО. Но пока длится бета, было не плохо найти оптимальный вариант. Сейчас всем игрокам понятно, что данная реализация никому не доставит веселья.
I hope that you listened at the proposals topic-starter. And when there is spare time, try to organize.
It's all my IMHO. But for the duration of the beta, it was not bad to find the best option. Now all the players understand that this implementation does not bring joy to anyone.

[Kilgore]

An example:

Gecko: 0.00-1.00
Modoc: 4.00-5.00
Broken Hills: 8.00-9.00
Redding: 12.00-13.00
Den: 16.00-17.00
Klamath: 20.00-21.00

(doesn't matter if it's GMT+1 or something else, since there is a constant gap between each (3-4 hours))

After a week/few days, just change Gecko's capture times to those of Modoc, Modoc's to those of BH and so on.

I think that it would be enough fair for everyone. And also would be more fun because of changing number of people on the server, knowledge about which faction is in which timezone, so u would have to plan your assault on specific town more carefully.

If not, then you should again consider disabling permanent control...

I have an idea how to stop players without anything (bluesuits) from taking the town, but I have to think more about it, so I'll post it later to avoid coming up with totally stupid fresh idea

[Izual]

Obsolete.