Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Declaring overt
Personally I feel if your near a recruiter you can instantly change is a good idea. However I want to add something. I feel like several that you should be able to declare anytime if your covert, as you could in real life. Yes I do see the exploit problem so might I recommend a 60 seconds NO ATTACK timer if you go covert more than 50m from a recruiter. This means YOU cant attack unless attacked first. So a hidden team of 20 rebels show up and declare to take Theed. Fine this gives all IMPs 60 seconds to RUN, prepare for combat or summon friends. Lets face it if this was real Star Wars, Imperials would outnumber the rebels constantly and ambushes by rebels would make sense, but sense everyone and their cousin has choosen Rebel it seems, then this tactic would be unfair. Of course sure an entire group of covert Rebels could travel to a town to attack it, 1 minute out they all declare and charge in, this would be no different than if they had declared earlier, except NPCs and stray IMPS wouldnt notice who they were, but might guess. Anyway
My feelings on the issue of being able to go Overt should really depend on which side of the fight you are on. If you are imperial, you shoulsd ALWAYS be overt, unless you declare otherwise; if you're rebel, you should ALWAYS be covert unless you declare otherwise. This would stick to the Starwars-iness of the galaxy because the rebels are supposed to be fighting a gurrilla war against the overwhelming and repressive odds of the Empire. Because the number scale is tipped so much in favor of the Empire, NO rebel would want to be KNOWN as a rebel or he would be killed immediately. At the same time, an Imperial would want all of his/hers peers to KNOW that they are an Imperial Officer.
So the rebels would be able to declare instantly, while the Imps would have to find a recruiter to go covert. It would mean that if the Rebels got organized then, yes, they would have the upper hand in a fight...but they probably wouldn't try to take the fight to a city filled with Imperials. And if the Imperials got organized, they would try to travel more in packs/fleets to protect each other more.
It would make the game feel more like what the Starwars Galaxy was really like.
This makes perfect sense, until they introduce Rebel AT-ST's.....thats in the next patch right??
Seriouslly, Holo said that you could march an army into town and go overt and start attacking. Yes you could. That would be the point. IMP towns have gaurds, and I'm sure if I attack then more would show up. Not to mention those noisy TIE fighters over head....
OK here is another thought, how about a covert who witnesses an overt attacking the opposing faction can then choose /assist on them and it will delcare them overt. So if 20 rebels rush into town and attack the 3 overt imperials with 12 coverts ones, you can /assist any of the imperials under attack and join in the battle. I think this would make an interesting play out in PvP
BAD Idea, that would all be true, but then the developers would have to inforce an imperial to rebel ratio, as it sits right now Rebels outnumber the Imperials on most of the galaxies. This is why the rebels are winnin Act I, since even if every Imperial gets his disks, most I know have. They dont have a chance to win if only every 3rd rebel needs theirs.
My feelings on the issue of being able to go Overt should really depend on which side of the fight you are on. If you are imperial, you shoulsd ALWAYS be overt, unless you declare otherwise; if you're rebel, you should ALWAYS be covert unless you declare otherwise. This would stick to the Starwars-iness of the galaxy because the rebels are supposed to be fighting a gurrilla war against the overwhelming and repressive odds of the Empire. Because the number scale is tipped so much in favor of the Empire, NO rebel would want to be KNOWN as a rebel or he would be killed immediately. At the same time, an Imperial would want all of his/hers peers to KNOW that they are an Imperial Officer
biwan:Holo, I would rather....
At a certain high Rank, a Player can act as a Faction recruiter and allow people to /declare Overt within a certain distance of them as long as THEY are overt and not engaged.
This would add meaning to Ranks a bit more.
It would add tactics where opposing forces would try to preposition "Officer" rank players who are Overt out side of the battle so that they can coordinate the fight and redeclare some of the fallen. The Tactics of the fight Obviously would become to kill the Leader of the Opposing force to eliminate the ability to redeclare.
JEST3R
Kurzzun Starfire on Corbantis
This is a very nice, thoughtfulchange. The only issue I have with it is that it's going to lead to some very, very silly battle scenes in front of/inside of factional buildings, especially with the departure of the TEF. Picture:
Invading force kills defenders. Defenders come back covert very shortly, gather RIGHT IN FRONT OF the invading force (who can't attack the newly-cloned defenders), and wait untilreinforcements arriveto /declareOvert en masse. This is a sound tactic and makes sense from a strategic point of view, but it's just plain silly that people just killed five minutes ago will be able to play "red light/green light" with their attackers and essentially manipulate an invincibility window to give themselves a tremendous advantage. In my opinion, part of the strategy of HQ battles should be holding off the reinforcements -- but this becomes impossible if the reinforcements can just come covert, stand WHEREVER they like inside the base, and then yell "GO!" when they're good and ready. It'll be -almost- as silly as the currentbattles at cloning centers.
Addendum: *IF* covert faction scanners are really working properly now (have more than 12 hit points and a reasonably wide "sight range", that is), then dropping one while trying to hold off the reinforcements would do the trick -- but I'm not sure if this has been resolved. Are the factional fixes on TC all working right, yet?
All in all,/declareOvert looks like a good idea and it'll probably solve more problems then it creates, so... go right ahead. Just thought I'd offer this up. (Not sure if this has been mentioned before, as Icannot summon up the desire to read 20 complaints about CHs,5 whines about eyeshot, and 18 screaming wails about the flame DOT commandos get. Please excuse me if someone's brought this up earlier in the thread.)
Larathorn wrote:
After watching a battle in Tyrena where 5 Imps walked in and a horde of Rebel's ran out the back to declare and come back in and overrun the Imps, I think that something needs to be done. The big issue wasn't that the Rebels could declare, it was that the 5 Covert Imperials that were in the cantina couldn't do anything to help their Overt buddies.
My opinion, make it so you can declare Overt anywhere, anytime. To become Covert you have to go back to the recruiter and wait an hour. There is no reason that I should have to be within 50m to put on my uniform or flash my military ID and fight for my ideals.
Sounds like a great idea Holo, but might want to go a bit farther. Lets say 60 - 100 meters. That would sound fair.
To those of you, who like the above poster in quotes, believe that you should be able to declare anywhere, there is an EXTREMELY good reason for play balance that you cannot do that.
If you could declare Overt anywhere, you could simply bypass any defenses available to any factional headquarters or any player cities, set yourselves up for the offensive, then you and everyone in your group "declare yourselves" and attack. This is, of course, a ludicrous situation when considering a player defense of these areas. It will never be allowed to happen, so this is the next best alternative.
Scratz wrote:
This is difficult to answer until we have some real world experience with the new changes. But I'm prone to liking any system that eases declaration. Its too akward right now. These are good proposals, but I think we need more. My suggestion:
-- An overt leader of a group can declare party members
This would make raids have a particular target for both offense and defense. Toss the TEF matches aside for a full blown battle to remove the heirachy of the opposition. Once the leader has been removed and loses his declaration, you can then pick off the lower players. Until that point, cloned players can redeclare and keep up the fight. This way there is a real end goal, rather than the TEF tag "clone wars" that have no end in sight other black HAM bars or bored players.
Sure, the leader could then hide in another city or far outside town, but doing that would decentralize the attack and weaken the group. Any cloned player would have to seek out the leader to redeclare.
Just my two cents. Flame away.
Nope, just wouldn't work. This would greatly imbalance PvP if people have a traveling "recruiter" with them.
As you so aptly point out, a person could simply hide away - his location known to his allies - and people would just keep redeclaring when killed very quickly in areas where there usually is no recruiter for their alliegance available. This is just a extension of the problem we are getting rid of - the revenge tef.
TheDweller wrote:
Holocron wrote:
Larathorn wrote:
My opinion, make it so you can declare Overt anywhere, anytime. To become Covert you have to go back to the recruiter and wait an hour. There is no reason that I should have to be within 50m to put on my uniform or flash my military ID and fight for my ideals.
That would let you move in armies of safe people to the location of a fight, and have them all go overt at once and ambush...
What's wrong with that? Hiding militants among the local populace until you can ambush is a logical tactic, and I'd be surprised if the Rebels didn't use those very tactics often. Maybe make it a Rebel only ability, or perhaps a faction perk that is bought. Another alternative is that after using the "surprise attack" ability a player cannot go Covert again until after they have had an image designer hide thier identity with a little appearance change. Please don't dismiss the chance to add different tactical abilities and ways of waging warfare in favor of making a completely even (and no fun) playing field.
Please..... don't bring a real-life analogy into a question of game balance. You simply cannot compare the two from a design issue.
It would grossy imbalance game play and the balance of PvP when it comes to defense. There simply is no argument you can make to change this.
Moffett35 wrote:
Holo,
First off, great idea. I do have a couple concerns:
1) If we cannot declare overt "relatively" easy, it is going to turn this game into DAOC like. What I mean by this is 1 minute battles, 30 minute downtime running to the recruiter. I don't think anyone would like this.
2) With regards to the "ambush" theory..which I agree totally with....Why not color code Coverts as everyone knows who is Rebel and Imperial by now anyways!! hehe Red for overt, purple for your own faction covert, and say green for enemy covert...(only a suggestion but is there really any value of being covert?? )You only become vulnerable for 5 mins doing faction missions so who cares if they know you are covert??
In short, I think there has to be a way to let faction people become overt in a relatively timely manner. Whether that is letting people with rank have the ability or putting terminals in houses , etc...
Thanks
Reddog(naritus, Corbantis)
1) Actually, you should play with the changes to the removal of the revenge TEF before you say "what way its going to be". You have no imperical knowledge to back up your claims. I could make the argument that the battles will evolve into a raid that will involve tactics, strategy, and skill instead of the simple retardedness that they are now. However, neither one of us knows exactly how it will be until the revenge TEF is gone and we try it. I DO KNOW that the other night in Coronet, our group would have lasted a VERY long time there as we killed all the rebel Overts and were brought down simply by 2 commandos with flamethrowers using their revenge TEF's against us. Without that option, we could have lasted a long time - if they had declared like they should have, we would have been able to see them coming and defend ourselves.
So in short, I couldn't disagree with you more.
2) Color coding wouldn't do anything to solve the problem. Covert is still covert no matter what you color them on the radar. Color them pink and they are still a Covert. The problem is that they are unattackable. Meaning a Covert can bypass any defense you mount. Allowing Coverts to bypass all you defenses then declare themselves Overt after they have bypassed them is grossly unfair and imbalanced. You MUST allow the defenders to be able to combat this, and your proposal prevents that.
aaaaaaarrrgh wrote:
Holocron wrote:
That would let you move in armies of safe people to the location of a fight, and have them all go overt at once and ambush...
Well, yes. Exactly. This has been a well-established tactic since, oh, say, Robin Hood tried it, and probably earlier.
Isn't thisPRECISELY the strategy that covert detectors are meant to counteract?
Once again, do not bring "real-life" analogies into a debate of game balance. While similar, your logic cannot be applied to game mechanics. We are talking about game balance - this has nothing to do with "real life".
You simply cannot make an argument that allows you to bypass all the defenses of the defenders.