Auto Recall

[Ze_PilOt]

I still think that what would not betray the spirit of the function would be to only make it work near your spawn area and/or a beacon, and not changing anything else (except the price, probably).

If you want to go berserk, it's at your own risk.

[Iszh]

Ok thats another idea. Lets collect what we have so far:

1. Autorecall works only next to spawn point or beacon
Pro: Would limit the autorecall in a useful way
Fact: Gameplay like in 1v1 all or nothing with acu is extremely risky you can never relax and play like normal
Contra: Char snipes with tricky reinforcements are hell easy on small Maps
(my personal opinion is that it sounds very nice but a gameplay like in the attached replay would be impossible, it was only won because of the acu and as a general you could not risk something like this anymore otherwise avatars would die very often. it could lead to extremely careful playing wich might be less fun. Because you are limited to sit in your base alike with normal recall. So i think it would be hardly an upgrade to normal recall with this option.)

2. Autorecall for Victory Points
Pro: Relaxed playing like in 1v1 still possible and playing with acu fully involved also possible
Fact: Leveling ranks will be more difficult with proposed system and weak players would lose avatar more often
Contra: Good players would collect unlimited victories and would be nearly unstoppable like now with no limit autorecall
(my personal opinion here is that a general would have a cost of 7 victories for 1 autorecall i dont think that even the best players can reach this sooo easy. But at least with this feature you would have some kind of control when you can have a relaxed game and when you have to take care)

3. Cooldown for Autorecall
Pro: Autorecall limited
Fact: It does not influence the situation somehow from now, only less people will play games.
Contra: Players simply play less and wait for cooldown
(i think this is unacceptable people would either die to often or simply not play anymore and thats all what gw does not need)

4. More expensive Autorecall like it is now
Pro: autorecall would be limited
Fact: No change to actual system
Contra: It will lead to the same like "3" people will wait till they can afford autorecall or somebody will buy for them. If it is to expensive people will simply wait again and play less
(My opinion is that it will not change anything either it will stay alike it is now when it is to cheap or it will lead to waiting till people can afford or maybe it will make it impossible to use which can lead cheap avatar death (avatars will have no value anymore since they die to easy))



Have i forgot a suggestion? In this replay here think about all 4 proposals and think how often and easy an avatar can die! And how you can play against such reinforcements without your acu or to risk your acu in different situations. Here the reinforcements have been wasted so nobody died but you know every percival could have been easily your death. Is it worth to risk your avatar when you need a beacon next to you for autorecall. Or how you will play when your autorecall has cooldown, will you risk such a game?

[ColonelSheppard]

I like Iszh idea.
Also how a bout a 10% failchance? That will keep it usefull but people would still play carefully because.. well.. you know
never sure

[Thatcherite]

Can I throw some ideas in? I don't know if they would work but just alternatives...

Maybe it could cost more to use auto recall, not to get it in the first place, but if you are forced to use it you loose all your stored credits and unused reinforcements. Go one step further and the player who forces the recall gets the reinforcements you've been stashing, no matter what faction....

Or for higher rank players the auto recall activates sooner, at a higher hp. The higher ranks are more valuable assets so doesn't it make sense the recall system would grab them back sooner.

One last thought, I do like the auto recall but I'm not sure it should be infallible, so I like the idea of a short delay (1 sec maybe) if your ACU is being swamped by t1 you'll get out ok. But if a nuke drops on your head the system wouldn't have chance to react in time and so there's always risk you could still loose your avatar....

[FunkOff]

I still think that what would not betray the spirit of the function would be to only make it work near your spawn area and/or a beacon, and not changing anything else (except the price, probably).

If you want to go berserk, it's at your own risk.

What about the idea of not working near other acus?

[Iszh]

Just the posted replaz above is showing that this would be an avatar killing idea. My acu was pushing and defending him he could not use normal recall and my acu was next to him so no autorecall. I think to many acus would die to fast thats not intended.

[Hawkei]

Just the posted replaz above is showing that this would be an avatar killing idea. My acu was pushing and defending him he could not use normal recall and my acu was next to him so no autorecall. I think to many acus would die to fast thats not intended.

No that WAS intended. It is the obvious consequence of making Auto-recall not work near an enemy ACU. It means that players will move in with their ACU when they are about to make the kill. Imagine getting com-dropped by the enemy ACU in your own base. No recall for you. Bye bye avatar. Seriously, can't you see how bad that idea is?

****

Also, I don't see why my idea about having an auto-recall cool down is that bad. If players are subject to cool downs all the time - then they will likely make the decision to play without auto-recall in fairly safe missions. Or in circumstances where they can't afford not to play. Sure, a player could choose to play it safe and log off GW for the evening. I think this would happen most of the time. But in doing so they would penalise their team - and give their opponents a solid tactical advantage.

Imagine, for example, you forced ZLO to auto-recall. Under the present system you get some points, he needs to spend 500cr, and you play on as normal. There is no immediate tactical advantage. Imagine what would happen with a cool off timer. He withdraws, you tell your team, and you all have a field day with Cybran - cause you know ZLO won't want to intervene. His team gets hammered and pressures him to respond. Loosing planets and avatars hand over fist, ZLO is forced to help his team without his auto-recall... See the difference?

Additional pressure would be placed on players subject to cool down to participate without recall. Teams need their players to be functional - especially their good ones. So a cool down can create a conflict between the personal interests and the team's best interests.

So it would do two things:
1. Increase the number of instances where players play without auto-recall;
2. Make loosing auto-recall a much more dire situation - because, no amount of credits will fix it.

[Szakalot]

It still doesn't solve the problem of less play, due to people afraid for their avatars.

[Hawkei]

It still doesn't solve the problem of less play, due to people afraid for their avatars.

I'm not sure about your experiences. But with experienced players in GW, using auto-recall is a rare event. If a player if forced to auto-recall twice, in a 24 hr period, they deserve to loose their avatar.

As for people not playing because they are afraid to loose their avatar. That is not the problem we face at the moment. Currently, the problem is the exact opposite. People DON"T fear for their avatars - and that would be the point of this change.

If you engage your mind with the likely meta-game which would result from my changes. You should begin to see that what I am saying makes perfect sense. There is a pathway for absolute security, as well as a pathway for greater risk. It introduces a natural mechanic where avatars might be sent into battle without auto-recall. As well as giving a tactical dis-incentive to using it - and a tactical bonus for causing it's use.

[Rogueleader89]

Well I'm in favor of Hawkei's plan personally, but I've noticed that Ze_Pilot's idea is almost the same thing with one exception (and it fits very neatly into the existing system which is probably a huge point in its favor, which is why I feel the need to address it specifically).

With price increases, assuming auto-recall works much the same way it does now, this will basically work like Hawkei's plan if the price is high enough, the ability to buy auto-recalls for other players is removed (really it should be if we're doing price increases based on rank), and you can only own one at a time (so a successful player can't just build up a large stockpile of them as they keep winning otherwise this won't fix the problem at all). The only difference from hawkei's plan is that instead of waiting for your recall to recharge you either have to go into battle to earn credits to buy another and risk your acu or you have to wait for the regular daily credit income to come a few times to buy another.

The only big flaw I see with this that hawkei's plan does not have is that your incredibly skilled player could potentially just go play games against a bunch of new players to earn enough for an autorecall (Iszh's plan also has this issue, a very skilled player would almost never be in danger, especially once they reach the point at which they stop needing to rank up, there would be brief vulnerable points at which a high rank person could lose but that is when they'll go find a low rank to throw high tier reinforcements at for the autorecall, this might even turn out to be cheaper than actually buying autorecalls in Ze_Pilot's plan), personally it is this flaw which makes me favor hawkei's plan a slight bit more as I don't think hawkei's plan will decrease activity in GW in the long term (people who enjoy GW will still play it, having higher ranks be vulnerable is a nice balance and will make lower ranks more valuable, hopefully encouraging people to help train and organize their new people into an effective army and increase activity a bit there (uef right now is great proof that a bit of organization and explanation of GW makes new people feel involved and goes a long way to having an active faction)) and it makes everyone equally vulnerable, people who are very skilled will actually have a chance at dying or be forced to wait out some amount of time (I do think it should be more like 6 hours than 24 though), it makes sniping these people much more valuable than it would be with the other ideas.

Having autorecall only work near the beacon is an interesting idea as it opens up the possibility of killing the beacon to prevent autorecall from functioning, but the beacon is much too weak to last long enough for autorecall to ever work then except in the occasional rare circumstance (could still see doing this along with the spawn location stuff though, maybe also offering higher tier beacons at much greater cost with stealth or something would help here as well).. Permitting it only near the spawn area is probably a better plan, but there needs to be a clear visual indicator of this range in which it functions then. This idea has interesting metagame implications but it won't make higher ranks more vulnerable or open up the possibility of sniping important high ranking members as they'll just be more cautious in games (against lower ranks they won't use their coms on the front lines but they'll still have high tier reinforcements they can call to fight for map control, against higher ranks this restriction will largely cancel out as neither will be aggressive most of the time). In the end I don't see restricting the ingame area of auto-recall activation being a real solution to the larger problem.