Three Factions

[Daedhart]

I was just thinking about the original Westwood classics and thought of the Dune franchise. Then I thought, what if C&C had followed suit and introduced a third faction; like Atreides, Harkonen and Ordos. Thinking even further, I started thinking of translation of such a concept to Renegade and its multiplayer. So my challenge to you would be this...

If Renegade X had three factions each with their own base, what would the gameplay be like?

Would two of the teams join up to take out the third and then focus on each other? Would it just be a free-for-all? Would one team attack another until they were crippled and then leave them alone to try and farm enough credits to make a final defense?

And what would happen if one team was taken out; where would their players go? They couldnt just be out, since the remaining two teams may take a while to kill each other. Surely, they would be absorbed into the remaining teams. Perhaps that would also create incentive to finish one faction off, hoping that their best players would then be forced to join you.

Just a thought provoker...

[R315r4z0r]

I imagine that games wouldn't be very fun. An extra team means that the players in the match are spread that much thinner. Basically each team would have less players on it. When there aren't a lot of players on a team, destroying the enemy base becomes easier and kind of boring. You just wait until the enemy is out of their base and you sneak in and blow it up.

Just because there are two types of enemies won't make the combat any more intense since you'd still be shooting the same amount of enemies regardless.. just that now some of the enemies will shoot each other (thus making your job that much easier).

While having 3 factions might be interesting in theory, I just don't think it would work out very well.

[Daedhart]

So you think every game would turn to a free-for-all. I admit that aside from maybe clan battles, this is probably true.

[PermaGrin]

Main problem I see with 3 or more factions in one map, while it could be cool, I foresee more of like a Starcraft or RTS game would play out. Generally you end up with a 2 on 1, then once that 1 is out, whichever of the 2 left was able to remain bigger can push over the other left over.

I even see this in Planetside 2 a bit. Again, while there were times where the 3 factions would meet head on and fight, that actually happened few and far between compared to having the above scenario play out.

[Daedhart]

True that. I suppose we should be happy Westwood dropped the three faction mechanic. Never made sense in Dune either, since Ordos was some nobody-house.