It was recommended that I make its own thread about this idea to leave room for more in depth discussion.

Tl;dr that sucks, you're going to have to read it all if you want to know, so put on your reading glasses.

I made the original post last year, so I may not remember all of the details. Basically, you pick a faction (which I believe was originally Nite's idea), which I modified to give it more meaning gameplay-wise by using competition for resources (not sure what kind of resources yet, but the name has to be catchy).

Hold up -- Have you guys ever heard of the game called Ingress? It was made by Google, so it uses the Google Maps to make a real-life digital game, if you will, where you choose a faction (enlightenment or resistance) and you go to well-known landmarks to capture portals, which are displayed on a modified version of Google Maps. I played it for a while, it's pretty fun. Anyway, it shows real time data of the amount of portals captured by each faction in the world, and also shows captured territory using links, shown as long lines that connect portals, and so on.

My point is that we can make something similar for Zone. Instead of making an individualized or squad-based pk game, we create a larger picture through the use of factions. I'm not sure how squads choose the faction they are a part of yet, but the players get to choose or change factions anytime they want, and when they switch, they don't get to take their resources with them. The faction owns the resources, so they get to keep them when they switch. The squads, I'm guessing, will also pick their faction upon creation or pay to switch, kinda like renaming a squad, and only players belonging to that faction can join. Bye bye socialization squads, maybe we can also introduce social groups or something.

Now, those squads themselves don't own resources, and the players themselves only possess those resources. The faction actually owns the resources, but the squads and players defend those resources by basing and possibly missions as well, which would not only give more reason to base, but to also do missions. Bounties? I think yes.

The bases are put in the territory of a certain faction, and once you capture that base, it starts taking the resources at a steady rate from that faction. It does this by taking the resources from the defending players, which belongs that faction. How to decide territory of a faction? You drain the resources from the defenders. When the squad takes the resources away, it splits the acquired resources evenly between the offending players. Once the resources are taken away completely down to zero, that territory now belongs to the faction that squad belongs to, and now has the obligation to defend it.

If a player with a large amount of resources joins the squad, the total amount of resources the squad possesses increases, and if they leave it goes down.

This ties into trading. Since the players themselves possess the resources, you can trade the resources. Players desperate for ZC are free to give away their resources, but with one side effect: they lose their power, thus making the entire faction lose their power, which they may not care about, but they still lose their own individual power. When I say they lose their power, I mean in the pk and basing world, rather than in the trade world, where ZC might matter more than the resources, or not, since people who want resources will kill to buy them at the cost of their zc.

Now when you add this all up, it makes an ecosystem. I don't say economy because it's a combination of both the economy and a basing ecosystem. You think it would be hard to learn, especially as a beginner? No, just no. That's like saying it's hard learn how to buy a candy bar from a grocery store. You're still affecting the economy, you just don't know it. You don't need to know the entire system to do your part.

Refinements to ZC production would be needed, and the current economy would also need to be fixed. Production of ZC and resources need to be carefully monitored as to not allow the system to go out of control. Resources might be produced by mining, and ZC might be produced by basing and missions. This way, it's a win-win when it comes to trading.

In the end, we can make this a motivation driven game that doesn't get boring 5 minutes in.

Pk is a different story. Killing someone individually might give you one unit of their resources, but killing someone with a streak gives you the amount of units of resources that their streak is. E.g. I kill someone, gain one resource. I kill someone else, I gain another, and now I have a two streak. I get killed, the person who killed me gets two units of resources. Maybe, actually, if you're on a streak, every time you kill someone you take the same unit of resources that your streak is. So if I'm on a 10 streak, I kill someone I take 11 of their resources, since my streak is now 11, but then if someone kills me, they take 11 of my resources, so it's like a bounty set by the system itself.

I said this would revolutionize Graal, and I firmly stand on it. The faction/resource system revolves around all aspects of the traditional Graal gameplay areas, which are PK, spar, basing, and trading, creating a giant circle of competition.  

Sorry pls make a more appropriate tl;dr

Tashkin was working on factions, I dunno the progress though, I guess you didn't use the old zone-play?

In that case there will be 3 factions

Vanguard
Valiant
*forgot*Rebellion(?)

Sorry I didn't read your full post
So

Every(day/week/month?) the faction with most points will give a buff to it's members

To get points you must capture other factions flag/tower
I remember they already made the flag for each faction, I also had pic of the faction selection menu but it's gone now  

Tashkin's idea of if was another mostly useless aspect that would be added to the game... I'm hoping Alex/FR change it. The 'buff' was just extra points for an hour, but nothing that affects the faction, game, or anything.  

Posted by Lambda

Sorry pls make a more appropriate tl;dr

Tashkin was working on factions, I dunno the progress though, I guess you didn't use the old zone-play?

In that case there will be 3 factions

Vanguard
Valiant
*forgot*Rebellion(?)

Sorry I didn't read your full post
So

Every(day/week/month?) the faction with most points will give a buff to it's members

To get points you must capture other factions flag/tower
I remember they already made the flag for each faction, I also had pic of the faction selection menu but it's gone now

If you want to comment on my idea, I suggest you read. No, I didn't use Zone-play. I was on it for two minutes before I concluded it was a waste of a forum.

It's just reading, I don't get what's so hard. It's like reading multiple posts, but all crammed into one, so it isn't like you're reading more than you already do on the forum.  

So theres squads and factions?
And what would the overall pool of resources go to?

And i was thinking maybe their could be a special item or something depending on which one youre in  

Posted by GenoIndeed

So theres squads and factions?
And what would the overall pool of resources go to?

And i was thinking maybe their could be a special item or something depending on which one youre in

I agree, there would need to be an incentive to each faction. I was thinking two or three factions in all, but each could have its own upgrade/class, or as you said a weapon or melee.

Yes, there would be both squads and factions. To sum that up, upon starting Zone for the first time, you choose one of two factions, each with their own incentive. Then when that player creates a squad, that squad automatically becomes part of the faction the player originally chose (I revised the original idea a bit). Now the creator of the squad can only recruit players belonging to that faction.

And to the question of where the resources go, they really don't go anywhere, they just stay in the inventory like ZC would. Those resources are collectively added up from every single player of a single faction, and then compared with the total amount of resources belonging to the other faction. In the menu, there could be a resource database that shows the current stats of each faction, and a ratio of who's winning. Then when you open your map, it shows the territory of each faction. In Ingress, it probably won't ever go past a 40:60 percentage of territory owned by each faction, and typically stays at about 50:50. I would expect something similar in Zone.

So there would not only be even more basing competition than before, but also faction competition, and PK competition. Sparring can also be in the mix as well. Oh, and trading competition as I explained in the long ass OP. In fact, all of these gameplay areas would be linked with the introduction of resource competition, so competition will then span across all aspects of Zone on a small scale and a large scale.

Other squads can still take bases belonging to their own faction, it just won't take away resources from the defending squad, so squads have the choice to either go for hours or go for resources. Same with trading, they have the choice to either go for ZC or go for resources. In PK and spar, they essentially get resources either way, which is where gun regulation comes in. As we already talked about in other threads, the economy heavily influences PK/spar systems in zone, so it's all linked together.  

Posted by TWIZ

I agree, there would need to be an incentive to each faction. I was thinking two or three factions in all, but each could have its own upgrade/class, or as you said a weapon or melee.

Yes, there would be both squads and factions. To sum that up, upon starting Zone for the first time, you choose one of two factions, each with their own incentive. Then when that player creates a squad, that squad automatically becomes part of the faction the player originally chose (I revised the original idea a bit). Now the creator of the squad can only recruit players belonging to that faction.

And to the question of where the resources go, they really don't go anywhere, they just stay in the inventory like ZC would. Those resources are collectively added up from every single player of a single faction, and then compared with the total amount of resources belonging to the other faction. In the menu, there could be a resource database that shows the current stats of each faction, and a ratio of who's winning. Then when you open your map, it shows the territory of each faction. In Ingress, it probably won't ever go past a 40:60 percentage of territory owned by each faction, and typically stays at about 50:50. I would expect something similar in Zone.

So there would not only be even more basing competition than before, but also faction competition, and PK competition. Sparring can also be in the mix as well. Oh, and trading competition as I explained in the long ass OP. In fact, all of these gameplay areas would be linked with the introduction of resource competition, so competition will then span across all aspects of Zone on a small scale and a large scale.

Other squads can still take bases belonging to their own faction, it just won't take away resources from the defending squad, so squads have the choice to either go for hours or go for resources. Same with trading, they have the choice to either go for ZC or go for resources. In PK and spar, they essentially get resources either way, which is where gun regulation comes in. As we already talked about in other threads, the economy heavily influences PK/spar systems in zone, so it's all linked together.

Uh-oh, there'll be a faction where most players would join, leaving the other faction outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered and outplanned lol

Dear sir I hope you don't get too aggressive and understand not everyone here have a perfect vision

I support your concept, but I think you should address the flaws and advantages in a better formatted manner, maybe reserve the second and third post?

Again, please don't get too aggressive with me, thank you  

Posted by PigParty

Tashkin's idea of if was another mostly useless aspect that would be added to the game... I'm hoping Alex/FR change it. The 'buff' was just extra points for an hour, but nothing that affects the faction, game, or anything.

You do know FR has literally no Dev abilities whatsoever, he became a Dev Admin by being a ZPA...He can't do squat for Zone  

Posted by Lambda

Uh-oh, there'll be a faction where most players would join, leaving the other faction outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered and outplanned lol

Dear sir I hope you don't get too aggressive and understand not everyone here have a perfect vision

I support your concept, but I think you should address the flaws and advantages in a better formatted manner, maybe reserve the second and third post?

Again, please don't get too aggressive with me, thank you

I see you read it ;). I've stated the advantages, and I would like to have the community help me to address the flaws. I didn't make this thread just for the hell of it. Agressive? No. Assertive? More likely, but thanks for your advice.

As you said, a faction bias might cause the balance to skew. That's why it's best to limit factions to two, and three is pushing it. As for a lack of a better analogy, I'm going to compare this to pokemon instead. You have three different pokemon to choose from, but you really don't know which pokemon they are, unless you do your research beforehand. I don't know exactly what the ratio is of the amount of people that pick each type of pokemon, but it's probably going to be pretty close to 1:1:1. New players probably don't do their research upon downloading zone, so they'll blindly pick a faction based on which one reflects them best (their personality). That's should be the incentive, their own personality.

Back to the pokemon analogy, once you choose the pokeball you want, you can then see which pokemon you actually got. This is why the weapon that goes along with the faction shouldn't be revealed until after you choose the faction.

On second thought, maybe the option to switch factions shouldn't exist.  

Posted by Gitaz

You do know FR has literally no Dev abilities whatsoever, he became a Dev Admin by being a ZPA...He can't do squat for Zone

He can do levels and he knows how to code a fair amount.  

I had that same question about everyone flocking to one faction, what i think is best is that squads have no influence on it and the perks of being in a faction is based on playstyle or something that really affects an individual  

Posted by GenoIndeed

I had that same question about everyone flocking to one faction, what i think is best is that squads have no influence on it and the perks of being in a faction is based on playstyle or something that really affects an individual

Tashkin addressed that issue with a cap for each faction, which doesn't seem too easy to me... since it would have to be enough to let everyone join a faction, but not too high so everyone joins the same. I'd rather just randomly assign factions.  

Yeah a cap is kinda eh. The perk thing however, if the three main focuses of zone are pking, basing, and spar, there could be a perk that benefits each one, nothing op tho. Or maybe replace classes with factions  

so squad and classes?





and factions? say wut.  

Posted by GenoIndeed

Yeah a cap is kinda eh. The perk thing however, if the three main focuses of zone are pking, basing, and spar, there could be a perk that benefits each one, nothing op tho. Or maybe replace classes with factions

That's what I was thinking. Factions should replace classes.