Abilty to buy back destroyed building

[TomUjain]

Just throwing out an idea here. Having an option (maybe on the buy panel?) to restore a building for a very high cost of credits (i'd say around 30,000 per building) it'll be a great way to promote teamwork and donations as well as reward players who work together.

 

The downside is the cost of getting said credits; meaning offence will be crippled -- might also be a good idea to restore the building with only 1% health as well when the team buys it back. I'm thinking this could be a real game changer and really add excitment during stalemates.

 

Thoughts?

Edited January 18, 2018 by TomUjain

[NodSaibot]

I think that buying back buildings would be interesting and beneficial to game play, but I don't know for sure if credits would be the best way to buy them back. Would like to hear other experienced players opinions on this as well.

[LavaDr4gon]

With the addition of the commander mod, the commander can be the one to buy back the buildings.  However, the biggest problem of buying buildings back is the increase of game time.  So far most games ends around 30 mins, with the addition of buying buildings back will prolong that period.

I see the interest as it can enforce the "winning" team to end the match as quickly as possible, but I also like games that will end.

[NodSaibot]

1 hour ago, LavaDr4gon said:

With the addition of the commander mod, the commander can be the one to buy back the buildings.  However, the biggest problem of buying buildings back is the increase of game time.  So far most games ends around 30 mins, with the addition of buying buildings back will prolong that period.

I see the interest as it can enforce the "winning" team to end the match as quickly as possible, but I also like games that will end.

The problems of marathon 😂

[Ryz]

Unless you have these odd games where you fight with just Powerplant or Refinery left against the same buildings on the other team. In these cases the game can last hours and you have almost nothing to spent your money on. Then it would be handy if you can donate to get the Barracks / HON or Strip / WF back. 

[RypeL]

We are discussing this internally aswell for a while now, so pls go ahead and share your ideas. Ill give out more details about what is planned (but not set in stone) eventually. I really wanna try a few things in this direction and doing so with mutators so that the core game can stay as is and its up to the mutators to get interest or not before it can be decided to include those changes into the main game.

One detail that seems to be kind of a final decission is that we wont give the option to fully bring back a building, instead there will most likely be more airdrop/rebuy options but with very special rules about how those can be attained.

[Axesor]

Ok well if there has to be such a feature, so lets replace the current rule that tells who is the winner (destroying every main building exactly once) with another rule that tells that any building needs to be destroyed 4 - 5 times. Buying a building back will not bring back the "destroyed buildings" point.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Axesor

[Sn4ke]

If this ever gets a thing....

• make it really expensive
• only once per match possible
• commander feature?
• maybe spend team-VP instead of cash?
• it shouldnt be possible to "repair" the building instantly - maybe 15-30 minutes after destruction (so the team that destroyed the building has time to use that advantage)

Edited January 18, 2018 by DarkSn4ke

[NodSaibot]

Also, at most, I think it's HP should be at 50% if not lower.

[roweboat]

I've always liked this idea. it comes closer to the idea of "base building".

I would say there would have to be some sort of limitation on it. like others have said. Once per match, or less HP or perhaps whatever building is brought back, it has limited capabilities. e.g. War Fac/Barr / Air Strip/HON have 1 or two extra vehicles/characters available (more than buggy/ APC), Power plant goes offline intermittently. No Harvester with Refinery. 

 

AGT/OB can just stay dead ;p

[TomUjain]

I like the VP cost idea -- maybe make it cost 2 ranks (for the whole team), and bring back the building by 20%? I do agree it shouldn't be instant, 5 - 10 mins sounds about right; EVA or Cobal can say 'building...' when the team does it.

Although, I think making this VP based will be a nightmare to code. It would be so much easier to make it credit based - and unlock the option to anyone who has the credits;  but the cost should be very high, so high that it will make it very hard to do it once, let alone twice. That is why I think 30,000 credits is a good number in order to get that sum the team will really have to pool together all their cash which means they won't be able to buy tanks / tier 3 units making them very vulnerable. In long games where I rarely spend I've only ever managed to get upto 18,000 (and i'm talking 2 hour plus games here) so I think 30,000 is a brutal / hard - but realistic and fair amount.

I don't want this to be easy, I want it to be almost impossible to do, the point is that it is a trump card that rewards players who work together and 'plan' how to use their credits. It will also be pretty much impossible without the ref, making that building one of the most important to destory first.

It gives some form of hope, atleast to players that have lost the hand (for example) and are locked in a 2hour + slug fest -- those games drag and are dull, this option will make those dull games that bit more intresting and why I really think it should be considered.

 

Edited January 18, 2018 by TomUjain

[isupreme]

May i suggest that the price is paid  by sacrificing the health of other buildings?  

Not the short term health but the serious/important stat.

[RypeL]

Im liking that you braught up the idea of it costing VP. Cause that is also what i had in mind and what is currently beeing evaluated. To be more precise, the idea is for it to cost/use VP that can only be attained outside of your base. But this will also mean in order to not doom dedicated defenders it would need to be some kind of pool of shared team VP that can be attained in certain situations/parts of the game and especially to the loosing team.

In terms of cost i prefer to think more in percentages then in like a credit or VP ammount. Like what is the current chance for a team loosing a building first to still win the game ? Maybe like 20% for pubs and like 10% for PUGs (cause in PUGs its harder to come back as the defense is more organized) ? And what percentage would we want this to be ? Maybe like increasing the chance to 30% ? If thats decided then we could start tuning cost etc of such a new system till this percentages are roughly met.

 

[TomUjain]

That could work, but again might be difficult to code that in as it requires a lot of scripts to be connected to other buildings -- but it would work, i'd suggest a radio of 5 : 1 for every 10 points taken from another building 50 points are lost on another.

But to keep things simple and easy to code, a simple credit script to restore a building is the easiest and fastest way to do it, with a option on the buy panel to 'restore building'

[RypeL]

I´m down for coding it if we find a good system. Dont worry about for now how easy or not easy it looks to code. Finding a good system is more important then coding time on this i think.

[TomUjain]

21 minutes ago, RypeL said:

I´m down for coding it if we find a good system. Dont worry about for now how easy or not easy it looks to code.

That would be awesome! The health idea is by far the fairest, and best approch and will for sure make the team think. Might be worth having this a commander only option as it will encourage players (outside of pug) to pick a commander and encourage teamwork. To keep things simple, players can be given the option to restore one building to 1% in exchange for randomly removing 70% hp from another building. It has to be a % and not a number reduction e.g. 40 as they may only have one building left with 15hp -- a way around this would be to disable the 'buy back building feature' if all buildings have lower than 60hp (for an example) this option can be on the buy computer of the destoryed building and have a cooldown of atleast 20 mins to prevent spam.

I'm thinking it may 'perk up' several games where a building is lost instantly during the opening of a game -- which nobody wants to be part of, it is boring, it drags and feels cheap. Having some sort of system in place (as long as it is balanced) will hugely improve enjoyment.

But a simple credit check, with a 20m cooldown works just as well -- as long as it is a fairly high cost and only partly restores the building.

 

Edited January 18, 2018 by TomUjain

[TomUjain]

1 hour ago, RypeL said:

Im liking that you braught up the idea of it costing VP. Cause that is also what i had in mind and what is currently beeing evaluated. To be more precise, the idea is for it to cost/use VP that can only be attained outside of your base. But this will also mean in order to not doom dedicated defenders it would need to be some kind of pool of shared team VP that can be attained in certain situations/parts of the game and especially to the loosing team.

In terms of cost i prefer to think more in percentages then in like a credit or VP ammount. Like what is the current chance for a team loosing a building first to still win the game ? Maybe like 20% for pubs and like 10% for PUGs (cause in PUGs its harder to come back as the defense is more organized) ? And what percentage would we want this to be ? Maybe like increasing the chance to 30% ? If thats decided then we could start tuning cost etc of such a new system till this percentages are roughly met.

 

Costing VP? -- I do like that idea more, honestly -- but as pointed out it would have to be taken from the whole team, which comes with its fair share of problems which is why I question if it is the best way to do it.  The best way I can think of is to make it cost a flat VP fee e.g. 30, and remove this figure from the whole team. My issue is it may upset a few players outside of Pug and isn't really an option if you are all stuck on rank 1 with 6 MRLS outside the base at elite.

However; a good compromise to this issue would be to have the option to willingly donate 'all VP' into a pool via the buy screen, meaning only willing players will lose their VP.

------------------------------------------------

An example is;

(the cost can scale on a percentage based on how much VP the entire team has)

1000 vp required to restore Power plant

 - Player walks upto Power plant buy screen and donates all VP (total 300 in power plant restore pool)

700 vp required to restore Power Plant

- 5 players walk upto the Power Plant buy screen and donate all VP (totally 700)

Power Plant is restored to 5% hp

Cooldown 20mins...

---------------------------------------------

I see a loophole though -- new players who join get an automatic 'VP boost' -- if one player who has donated does so, leaves until his / her IP has been forgotten -- then rejoins (or joins as new player name) this can be abused, turning the 'auto VP on login' option off would work -- but isn't fair on new players joining a fight, if everyone is heroic. The only way around this is to have a different currency used similar to VP, but its sole purpose for restoring buildings, earned like VP e.g. Another way around this would be to make it that you need to be in game for x amount of time before you can donate VP.

....earned 15 vp for destorying tank

...earned 2 base VP

However; this option makes it unfair to the winning team as it comes at no cost, and will only lead to fustration, stalemates and rage quits.

I'm leaning towards taking HP from the other buildings option (as above) -- it is a fair exchange, and doesn't make it unfair for the winning team (as long as there is a cooldown) I can think of nothing worse than facing off everyone as a recruit, while 8 elite patches storm the base.

Or

Stick with the good-old-fashioned credit based system (as above) -- this will lead to ref hogging though, making the whole system worthless if the ref is taken out.

 

Edited January 19, 2018 by TomUjain

[Guest Gliven]

What about a VP credit system? Instead of automatically being upgraded to the next veterancy level, you have to spend the points you earned in order to upgrade. You could decide to save up your VP for features from dead buildings.

Dead Weapons Factory
Spend 200 VP and you can now airdrop MLRS from dead WF
Spend 300 VP for meds

Dead Barracks
Spend 150 VP for Patch

Dead PP
Spend 300 VP to reduce the cost increase

Dead Refinery
Spend 100 VP for an extra credit every 2 seconds

etc..

This would be done individually, not team wide. You would have to pick carefully what you spend your VP on. You would have to decide if whether or not you want to bump up to the next level in Vet, or be able to buy back features. One team mate could spend their VP on meds, while another on mammoths, and they could donate each other money in order to buy said vehicles. A feature like this wont prolong the game by bringing dead buildings back. Games generally end before people hit heroic, sometimes even elite.

Also maybe change VP into XP?

 

[yosh56]

Seems overcomplicated. 

Also I don't think prolonging a game is a problem if it at least is prolonging the game whilst simultaneously breathing new life into an otherwise drab round of play. 

A round that lasts an hour with PP vs PP+WF is far worse than a round that is prolonged to two hours but was saved from being a boring slog of credit-less peasants repairing one building vs. a never ending siege. 

 

Also, I'm so far beyond against tying this to VP. It just seems janky and hamfisted. Tying it to credits makes the Ref's death even MORE game breaking. 

Honestly, being able to trade a building's health for revival sounds worth looking into. Like 75% damage taken to the PP could revive the Bar to 1 health and full Armour. 

Actually that kind of saves teams that lose a building immediately without totally giving the finger to the enemy team by reversing everything they've done and not giving anything in return. 

[Guest Gliven]

To be honest, i'm totally against bringing back buildings. RIP early rushes. I do however, like the idea of bringing back partial features at a cost.

What about using 2000 CP (commander points) or w.e the full amount is, to call in a reinforcement phase for 5 mins. With some sort of cool-down. You can purchase units from dead buildings at 2x cost.

[TomUjain]

I know what you mean Yosh...I just don't think a system tied to VP will work at all, even with some of the options posted here. The abilty to use credits is also a dud (as posted out) due to the ref being a big part of that system.

The best, and most fair way to do this is to have one random building lose a percentage of hp, in exchange for 1% hp on the selected broken building -- i'm all for having this done on a cooldown of x mins, but each time it is used a building loses a chunk of hp. Though this feature should be disabled if all buildings have taken a big chunk of hp (under 60?)

The alternative is to have a offline / air drop mode system, like Rypel pointed out where the building remains offline but players can 'get back' some features e.g. meds, MRLS etc... via air drops -- but honestly, I like the sacrificial hp option  best, it is clean, simple and works.

[Redarmy]

So I was talking to Gliven about his idea with VP, and one thing that I think is important is, the sense of pride and accomplishment™ needs to be maintained for the team that destroyed the building originally. I mentioned that if the VP idea could be implemented, it still shouldn't be applicable to Advanced engineers, 1k infantry, and signature vehicles (Mammoth, Flame Tank, and Stealth Tank). Just like how I assume if this were to affect refinery, it wouldn't bring back the harvester, but the trickle income would return to 2 credits. The major blow of losing the building is still there, but it's not as bad. You can't just have the WF be destroyed, only to have GDI field like 4 mammoth tanks anyways and win Islands because of it. Or allow hon to be destroyed and then a tech or 2 Raveshaws just infiltrate and sneak a building anyways.

The idea of a building health cost is definitely intriguing, though it'd have to be something significant. Something like, 40-60% of all other buildings current HP is sacrificed to revive a building back to partial health, somewhere between maybe 20-35%. I don't agree with the 1% notion because that's almost pointless for a building like HoN in Walls where it can easily be bombarded from afar. Probably include a stipulation of sorts to where no building could be below 10 or 20% to do this, so a team doesn't just pay peanuts for a building. How would this work with multiple buildings down? Not sure, probably it not being doable with multiple buildings down is the best answer anyways.

In general though, getting back the building's full usage is iffy at best I feel, but partial recovery is also somewhat of a headache in a few scenarios. You don't want to treat buildings differently from each other, it should be similar affects for each one, and what they enable needs to be intuitive. The two biggest headaches in this case is simply base defense and power plant. How do you partially bring the power plant back? Does the hit to cost remain, but base defenses return online? Does the hit to cost get removed and base defenses stay offline? What about maps without base defenses, that do have a power plant though? To answer that question myself, I think the best bet would be to include minor base defenses (GT/AA/Turret) in all maps with a PP then, and have them also only be functional if the PP is online. Most maps already fit this except for like, GDI on Under, Field, Mesa and Arctic Stronghold I think? Partial implementation could then bring minor defenses operational again without bringing the AGT/Obby back online and either not affect the credit cost, or reduce it. Though this in general is a fairly radical change to RenX and would require a few maps to be tweaked that allow GDI to have Guard Towers and the guard towers not being an insane advantage (or design a new minor base defense building for GDI!). Then the other question is, partial implementation of the AGT/Obby. How do you partially bring those back? How do you partially bring them back without it also being broken that they can't be destroyed? 50% reduced rate of fire on AGT with a 50% damage reduction on obelisk? The fact that they're still dead and able to kill people though would be infuriating in general, but it does allow vehicles to move in rather safely. I'm not saying any of this is right or the answer, but these are questions I feel need to be asked.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Redarmy

[TomUjain]

You bring up some intresting points, Redarmy and I do agree that this feature should come with a price, which is why I suggested a ridiculously high credit cost; but using a credit system is moot when the ref is the first building to go. Robbing a team of a building kill, when they can simply 'bring it back' is not the way this should be done -- bringing a building back should be a tool, that both teams can use during intense games, but it should come with a cost.

The whole purpose of this idea is to have that option to reward a team that is working together. Working off some of your points Redarmy...I do like the 'increased cost' idea, where restoring a building comes with a cost for example.

-----------------------------

Building   / effect

Power Plant Restored  / Cost of units reduced from 30% to 15% (defence systems come back online)

Bar or Hand Restored / All units appear back on buy menu with a 30% increase in price

Ref Restored / Team gets a 2 credit tick, but no harv

WF or strip Restored / All tanks appear on menu but have a 30% increase and are brought in by air drop.

Obli or AGT restored / Damage inflicted is reduced by 30%

--------------------------------

The restored building should have no more than 10hp. Red army brings up a good point (e.g. walls) where buildings can be swarmed with MRLS / Artys, but argument holds very little weight as a good team should be able to push back.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 19, 2018 by TomUjain

[vandal33]

I'm okay with bringing back turrets and SAM Sites at a VERY high cost, but I'm against the main buildings coming back. It would take a long time to get enough credits to buy it back an once a team has enough credits, the match would probably be a long boring one and having another building just makes it longer. Had this on Renegade, it totally makes unlimited time game boring.

[Eagle XI]

 I think this capability shouldnt come as a freebie, rather be tied to the presence of an conyard(or an smaller version of it), which itself cannot be restored once dead.

Instead making it player driven, chosen freely what to restore next, can make it so that follows an lineup emulating going up the techtree in CC95. That means it first restores the PP, then Hon/Rax, Ref, Weap/Strip. One building at a time. That means should both PP and Weap dead, first must restore the PP.

There would be two seperate lineups, one is for basebuildings, and the other for defenses that goes as Guard/Turret, AA, Obelisk/AGT.

It costs credits, an team without credits can still restore the building, that can make the team go into deficit. Should that happen it means future income will go into paying off this debt until at 0. We can use the building costs from CC95, weap would cost 2k to get restored.

12 hours ago, TomUjain said:

An example is;

(the cost can scale on a percentage based on how much VP the entire team has)

1000 vp required to restore Power plant

 - Player walks upto Power plant buy screen and donates all VP (total 300 in power plant restore pool)

700 vp required to restore Power Plant

- 5 players walk upto the Power Plant buy screen and donate all VP (totally 700)

Power Plant is restored to 5% hp

Cooldown 20mins...

I had something similar in mind, that works with credits and used for allowing automated building repairs that should negate the need for multiple engineers inside the building to an extent when the building comes under fire. Keep in mind should the building have credits pooled for autorepair and get destroyed those credits will be lost.

Somewhere in the conyard would be an repairs console, in there the players can donate credits to be pooled for repair of an building. The more credits in the pool for an building the faster it will be repaired. The repair rate achieved this way begins at the base strength of one engineer repair gun and scales up to until 5x.

An alternative to this all would be using a form of dozer unit, equipped with an large repairgun that can restore an destroyed base building, draining credits from the using player to do so. It can also double as an mobile repair tank, repairing vehicles at the cost of credits like repairpad does.

[RypeL]

For VP i was thinking of something like having to accumulate X ammount of offensive team VP to unlock like two higher tier buys per player (for just credits).

The building health idea also seems very interesting! Thx for sharing your ideas and thoughts it feeds the mind and i really hope we can make something out of it!

[Redarmy]

I've been thinking more on partial implementation and stuff like an Obelisk still being able to shoot while it's dead. I think I came up with a pretty good solution, which I'm going to refer to as "zombie buildings." Zombie buildings still have health, in fact they're brought back to full health, but just like zombies, they're still dead. They do not count towards "alive structures" for the team. Meaning if the WF is "zombified" on Walls, Nod only needs to destroy the Bar, Refinery, and Power Plant to win. The Zombie WF can still have health and be standing, but if the others go down, GDI still loses. Zombie buildings do not have the full functionality of their normal state, so partial implementation of features only still. Since destroyed buildings are actually still standing in RenX, I like to think of this as, engineers doing their best to patch up the ruined structure, but with such a quick rush job needed for the battlefield, they're unable to do full repairs only regaining some of the building's usage. I was also thinking, zombie buildings should be easier to kill than normal buildings, since killing them doesn't technically progress the enemy team towards victory. This can be accomplished in a few ways. First I thought maybe just they take increased damage, but I think it would be best for the total health/time to kill, needs to be the same as normal buildings, so this way infiltration is still the same. This leaves two options, hell, maybe use both options. One, zombie buildings receive a repair debuff modifier, all repair beams are less effective at healing them, requiring more units to have to rush inside to keep it alive if it's under siege. Two, zombie buildings have more permanent health, but less armor, so the damage threshold needed to actually damage it is lessened.

As far as partial implementation goes, I feel like it should be something like this:

• Hand of Nod/Barracks - Units cost normal amount. No access to 1ks or Advanced Engineers. This still enables all relevant infantry roles for the team in a decent, workable way.
• Weapons Factory/Airstrip - Vehicles cost normal amount and are "built" normally, no air drop required. No access to signature vehicles: Mammoth Tank, Flame Tank, and Stealth Tank. This allows teams to maintain a field presence without them still having their be-all-end-all.
• Refinery - I thought about this one a bit more. Instead of just returning the credit tick back to two, it'd make more sense for the harvester to also come back. Losing refinery is pretty damning in general, and bringing this back needs to really help lessen that impact. The refining of tiberium is less effecient. Credit tick at 1.5/second, harvester dump only gives 50% of normal amount for the map.
  • Alternate idea for what Refinery provides in general - This requires changing some non-refinery maps (Snow) around probably. Refinery provides no credit tick. Players just have a base 2 credits a second tick in general, or simply have refinery's destruction not affect it's credit tick at all. This suggestion is purely based on the fact that losing refinery sucks and will help slightly mitigate the damage from it's destruction.
• Power Plant - I like what I said earlier about powering minor defenses. Minor Defenses back online, cost debuff is cut in half.
  • Alternate Power Plant - Since this system would be messing with the Obelisk and AGT's functionality anyways, Obelisk and AGT back online, at 50% damage and 50% RoF respectively. Cost debuff cut in half.
• Obelisk - 30-50% reduced damage.
• Advance Guard Tower - 30-50% reduction on rate of fire.

For a system such as this, what I said on health costs earlier is unnecessarily extreme. If you wanted to just fully bring back a building, then yes, I think honestly about 50% of all other buildings health should be sacrificed for that. With partial implementation though and a debuff to survivability, I don't think a health cost is even the best route. I feel the cost would have to be really low for it to be worth it, and a cost low enough for that would be unfair to the opposing team. Using the new commander point system would probably be the best option here. Now, I don't know much about the commander point system like what it caps at (or does it even cap?), the rate it's gained at, nor the price of other commander abilities, so I'll leave that cost speculation to others.

Another thing I like about this "zombie building" system with partial implementation is, if you really want to (I personally don't, just tossing this out there for the people who want buildings fully back), you could stagger it, create tiers, and possibly include full functionality if desired. I would only suggest doing this if it's a high enough cost and possibly a cooldown timer is implemented for each building so this way the enemy team has plenty of time to take advantage of well, the advantage they created. Think about this as, the commander ordering engineers back into the building and fixing it up a bit more, the engineers spent more time and resources, so they regained more building functionality! An example of zombie tiers:

• Tier 1 - What I said above.
• Tier 2 - A halfway point. 1ks and adv engis are purchasable, for 175-200% base cost. Mammoth, Flame, and Stealth tanks are available for air drop, 150-200% base cost. Refinery operates at 75%. Power Plant is hard to balance out for this one, but removing cost increase (or lessening it further) is best option. Halve the reduction of Obelisk damage and AGT RoF.
• Tier 3 - Fully Functional. Buildings operate normally.

At each tier buildings will still be considered zombies. They'll still be counted as dead buildings towards victory condition. Whatever debuffs they receive on survivability will still be in effect on them. Also, they can totally be represented in the HUD building status with new colors! Like TOXIC GREEN! or PLAGUE PURPLE! Or even both, maybe green normally and purple when it's "critical," like how red is critical for normal buildings. Then visually on the outside of the building, it could be represented by janky bolted on steel plates that cover holes! Or something, I'm sure the dev team can think of something cool for that.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Redarmy
Added alternate Power Plant partial functionality idea.

[Guest Gliven]

8 minutes ago, Redarmy said:

Zombie buildings still have health, in fact they're brought back to full health, but just like zombies, they're still dead. They do not count towards "alive structures" for the team. Meaning if the WF is "zombified" on Walls, Nod only needs to destroy the Bar, Refinery, and Power Plant to win. The Zombie WF can still have health and be standing, but if the others go down, GDI still loses. Zombie buildings do not have the full functionality of their normal state, so partial implementation of features only still.

I really like the idea of only having to kill a building once for it to count towards victory. I also really like the idea that opponents can still take away the features by killing them again.

[Ryz]

The VP thing could be a good option.

Where I used to hate stalemates I feel much better about them as long as I gain VP untill I am heroic. I've had Xmountain games which lasted 3 hours on which some of us were Heroic but we had no bar / wf or HON / strip. If you could use the VP once heroic to invest in the team that would improve the game. Why?

- Stalemate feels less clueless (unless all buildings stand and you cant spend the VP)
- Bringing back buildings speeds up the game which is exactly why the veterancy system was made, to prevent stalemates

[Guest Gliven]

What about

Spend (random credit system TBD) to buy back building
Building is brought back immediately at 1% health, full armour, no features. With a big announcement by EVA with a countdown
After 10-20 minutes, building gets upgraded to tier 2. At 25% health and full armour, with tier two options stated by @Redarmy. Another big announcement by EVA
after another 10-20 minutes, buildings gets upgraded to tier 3. At 50% health full armour, full functionality. Another big announcement by EVA

If no tiers. Give a cooldown of 15-30 minutes after purchase of building to use features at twice the cost.

You only need to kill a building once for it to count to victory.

 

I think the idea of sacrificing health from one building to resurrect another is a cool idea. I just don't know if i like it or not. The PP and Ref will be sacrificial lambs of the WF and bar. 
We all know people want this feature, so that they can buy advanced infantry and tanks. No one is going to take health from the Hon and give it to the ref.
What we want is to be able to get back the features of the dead buildings, not the buildings themselves.

[JoeBrogan7]

I don't really like it being tied to VP, and would prefer a credits-based system or tying it to other building health. The VP proposals seem overly complicated to me. This means the refinery becomes even more important in games, but I see no problem with that. Don't lose the ref.

A tiered system could be implemented to keep it from being abused. For example, 30,000 credits for the first time a building is brought back. 50,000 the next time, and 75,000 the next time. That way, even on rich maps like Islands, there will be a point where it's just not feasible to purchase yet another building.

4 hours ago, Eagle XI said:

 An alternative to this all would be using a form of dozer unit, equipped with an large repairgun that can restore an destroyed base building, draining credits from the using player to do so. It can also double as an mobile repair tank, repairing vehicles at the cost of credits like repairpad does.

I actually like this idea, too. Or, just require engies or technicians to "repair" the husk (on the outside, not the MCT, so they can't hide in the safety of the building while they do it). It would take a very long time to complete while draining the resources of whoever is doing the repairing. Since no 1 person would be able to do this alone, it would require donations from most of the team, which is where the teamwork element comes in. It would also serve as an additional layer of disadvantage to the team if 5 people were busy repairing the husk for several minutes at a time. So, bringing a building back would not only require a certain level of time, and team sacrifice, but also strategy, because deciding exactly when to devote the manpower to bring a building back could also be an important element to this.

[Eagle XI]

2 minutes ago, ps212 said:

I actually like this idea, too. Or, just require engies or technicians to "repair" the husk (on the outside, not the MCT, so they can't hide in the safety of the building while they do it). It would take a very long time to complete while draining the resources of whoever is doing the repairing. Since no 1 person would be able to do this alone, it would require donations from most of the team, which is where the teamwork element comes in. It would also serve as an additional layer of disadvantage to the team if 5 people were busy repairing the husk for several minutes at a time. So, bringing a building back would not only require a certain level of time, and team sacrifice, but also strategy, because deciding exactly when to devote the manpower to bring a building back could also be an important element to this.

Exactly the type of team efford i would like to see. Instead of absurdly high costs can be balanced via the time its going to take restoring an building to full health, as it would be 1.5x - 2.0x the time it takes for restoring shields from zero to full.

The repair gun would have to get an alternate firing modus for building restoration specially. It can be either RMB or switched to via X.

Also an building wouldnt able to get restored immediately upon destruction, first will have to wait a while until its husk cools down.

The 'dozer' we can still keep in as only that would able to initiate an building restoration, the engineers can help later. The vehicle would be an medium/light tank chassis with an mechanical arm turret that can be moved sideways, with the large repairgun attached at the end of this arm that can be tilted up down seperately of the sidemovement.

Dozers would be limited to 2 per team and probably not cost vehicle pop. Limit drops to one if have no wf and can be paradropped like jeep,apc.

[RypeL]

Having to save up lots of credits to buy back a building wouldnt do good to the gameplay i think. After loosing a building it would mean you would be crippled even more on options cause youd want to save up for just a chance to revive that building. Its like crippling the loosing team even more and removing even more options from it. Thats why i think any form of rebuying a building with credits is not an option.

The zombie building idea is interesting but the loosing team doesent need to achieve something to get the zombie buildings. Neither do they need to do a strategic tradeof.

The VP idea i find interesting cause it offers the loosing team a reward for playing exceptionally well even when down a building. It doesent cripple them more like, having to save up credits, it gives them an extra chance if they do well and accumulate X VP outside their base.

The building health trade idea i find interesting cause it isent something that the loosing team just gets. Neither do they have to earn it, but they would have to make a strategic tradeoff. They would give something to get something. So VP: Team needs to fight well to be rewarded more buy options, Building Health: Team would need to make a sacrifice to be rewarded more buy options. Both ideas dont cripple the loosing team even more neither do they stall the game. Thats kind of the type of ideas i think would work best for the sake of gameplay and fun.

[Eagle XI]

The thing is if an team is losing buildings they have not been doing well. So its unlikely they magically start to play better accumulating all that VP once their base starts to blow up.

[LavaDr4gon]

5 minutes ago, Eagle XI said:

The thing is if an team is losing buildings they have not been doing well. So its unlikely they magically start to play better accumulating all that VP once their base starts to blow up.

With the implementation of VP gained through damaging vehicles, it can provides the losing team a chance

[boxes]

1 minute ago, Eagle XI said:

The thing is if an team is losing buildings they have not been doing well. So its unlikely they magically start to play better accumulating all that VP once their base starts to blow up.

There’s a difference between a team earning a comeback opportunity vs given a comeback opportunity. One is frustrating for the other team, and ends up prolonging a game that’s going to end the same way thirty minutes ago while the other might give a different and derserving outcome. 

Getting structure functionality back needs to be tied to something gameplay related, something that can prove that a team has good chemistry and can pull things off against a full base team while being handicapped (aka not donating credits or trading structure health)

[TomUjain]

I love the zombie building idea!

What I like

•  The 'zombie' building still counts as a 'destoryed structure' - so the winning team don't have to worry about it again to win
• Takes increased damage making it easier to destory again
• Can be unlocked on the buy panel (with commander points?) this will motivate teams to use the commander feature and improve teamwork.
• It can't be spamed (tied into commander points) as they need to be 'earned' via teamwork / working together
• Building can be re-zombiefied over and over, but the team has to work hard to replace the 'commander points' to do so meaning they need to 'earn back' the right to that building via good teamwork and pushing back.

What I think

• A minor credit penalty should still stand to buy back buildings (pp still has a global 15% price increase, wf / bar have additional 15% increase, ref has no harv)
• Commander points can be used to losen this penalty, or unlock higher tier units (as suggested above, but I feel there is no need to complicate it further and stick to a one-trick-pony zombie building option).
• Or, remove the price increase and add a timer (like when WF or strip is destoryed) where you can still buy ABCs but with a cooldown. This can work for units.

What we need to be careful about

• Losing a building should still come at a cost to make it fair for both sides of the fight; we do not want to give the middle finger to a well placed sneak kill or well timed tank rush. This can be a price increase, a unit restriction or a cooldown (or a mix of all three) as long as we have atleast one for the 'zombie building' then everything will go fine.
• Outside of PUGs, people might not want to vote in a commader to spend the points, not a deal breaker but might be something to think about.

Final thoughts

• A credit based system will not work due to ref hogging, it will also make both teams more skittish about buying tanks / units which we don't want
• A VP system has some room for abuse (as I touched upon above) it also seems cheap and unfair mid and late game if you are demoted to a low rank when fighting elites or heros.
• Commander points would work well, my issue with commander points is who has them? Are they stored as a 'credit' like resource on the commander only? If so what if he/she leaves the game, are the points lost? To address this issue I believe the credits should be 'universal' and stored as a 'bank' on the team, that can only be spent via the commander.
• A system based on HP removal of other buildings could work; but this system becomes moot if (for example) only one building remains or we have maps with only 2 buildings.

 

 

 

[RypeL]

2 minutes ago, TomUjain said:

A VP system has some room for abuse (as I touched upon above) it also seems cheap and unfair mid and late game if you are demoted to a low rank when fighting elites or heros.

I wouldnt suggest taking VP away from people. That would again cripple the loosing team even more for just a chance to get building functionality back. So spending VP is not an option i think for the same reasons spending credits is not an option.

For VP the idea is basically: If you manage to accumulate X VP even when at a building disadvantage you unlock X to be bought like 2 times. You earn it by playing well, having accumulated that VP. But you then shouldnt have to sacrifice that VP as that would feel like demoting as you said and weird. The idea is basically to just use the VP system to measure if a team did well enough. Then they could get like 2 buy options of a high tier and a mid tier unit or vehicle. And if they would accumulate X offensive VP again they would get another 2 buy options (at normal or slightly increased price) of a high tier and a mid tier unit or vehicle.

[JoeBrogan7]

3 minutes ago, RypeL said:

I wouldnt suggest taking VP away from people. That would again cripple the loosing team even more for just a chance to get building functionality back. So spending VP is not an option i think for the same reasons spending credits is not an option.

For VP the idea is basically: If you manage to accumulate X VP even when at a building disadvantage you unlock X to be bought like 2 times. You earn it by playing well, having accumulated that VP. But you then shouldnt have to sacrifice that VP as that would feel like demoting as you said and weird. The idea is basically to just use the VP system to measure if a team did well enough. Then they could get like 2 buy options of a high tier and a mid tier unit or vehicle. And if they would accumulate X offensive VP again they would get another 2 buy options (at normal or slightly increased price) of a high tier and a mid tier unit or vehicle.

I think there should still be an element of sacrifice needed to bring a building back, as opposed to "just play well and eventually these options will become available to you". There's already incentive to play well, so there is nothing new that really needs to happen for you to unlock a destroyed building or its abilities?

Why not make it a tactical decision: We have enough credits (or VP or whatever system you want to use), but it's going to take some dedicated manpower and a few minutes to bring this building back. Do we want to do it right now or wait because we can't spare the engineers at the moment?

[Ryz]

58 minutes ago, Eagle XI said:

The thing is if an team is losing buildings they have not been doing well. So its unlikely they magically start to play better accumulating all that VP once their base starts to blow up.

That's not always true...

I've seen so many games decided by:
- Overminers (before we could fix this, we lost a building)
- Multiple afks first 5 min of the game... Someone shouts: "Defend the barracks.." Me checks the map while not in a position to reach it... Ah five people in there. Seconds later the bar dies... Still have people in there (afk)
- Bad luck: one team goes inf path and the other vehicle path. They do not meet eachother and both teams kill stuff in the enemy base thus cripling the way the game moves on. Both teams can farm VP (or credits depending on the system you choose) to get a building back.

I think the VP system works especially in these kind of games where both teams miss a few buildings but where the game doesn't really move forward. And the best thing: people don't have to do anything to archieve VP besides playing. This option doesn't rely too much on teamwork which is a problem in many games also...

[LavaDr4gon]

I always wonder, how about two separate credit systems:  individual and team credit.

Individual credit will work as is while the team credit is accumulated through the passive of ref/silo and harv dumps.  The team credit can be used to repurchase your buildings.  Also having a team credit system can open up other ideas for purchases besides buildings like team upgrades.

[Xtractor]

My thought:

A Bulding Destroyed Is gone : in c&c usualy they disappear

Credits to rebuying one building will make only  disagrement in some case .

I was tinking of the Big Wrench icon on top of buildings ..but that when the building is Not destroyed .

What I can see that will bring some team support and new variation of gameplay is  a new guy..the Enginer that can steel building in c&c ..

You could Buy this guy at a very HIGH price and will need to reach the Destroyed Building to Reactived it, as pop up a new one(building) will be to much stuff to do (devs side)

And the trick will be to cover this engineer  so he can reach the buildings ..High teamplay needed .The player that will have enought credit to switch to this special engineer will do it on a voluntary base and should be recon as an Heroe

[Redarmy]

6 hours ago, RypeL said:

The zombie building idea is interesting but the loosing team doesent need to achieve something to get the zombie buildings. Neither do they need to do a strategic tradeof.

Aren't commander points gained via teamwork though? The tradeoff would be them having to not use any other commander ability for awhile at least to be able to afford to bring back the building, plus I feel the building only having partial functionality at first in general is a tradeoff as well.

5 hours ago, RypeL said:

For VP the idea is basically: If you manage to accumulate X VP even when at a building disadvantage you unlock X to be bought like 2 times. You earn it by playing well, having accumulated that VP. But you then shouldnt have to sacrifice that VP as that would feel like demoting as you said and weird. The idea is basically to just use the VP system to measure if a team did well enough. Then they could get like 2 buy options of a high tier and a mid tier unit or vehicle. And if they would accumulate X offensive VP again they would get another 2 buy options (at normal or slightly increased price) of a high tier and a mid tier unit or vehicle.

The problem with this is, unless it's accumulating an absurdly high amount of VP, I can totally see some players, buying a sniper, and earning multiple "buy credits." The player would be able to essentially act like nothing is destroyed for them and be able to stack "buying credits." Then also I feel like mammoth tanks in general would be an issue with this. Mammoth tanks have the tendency to not die after hitting elite. Mammoth tanks also have really long range and can farm buildings for VP pretty easily. This once again, leads to a single person, being able to stack "buying credits" and either they're able to behave as if the WF isn't destroyed for them at all, or with their stacked credits, they could just buy tanks for everyone else who didn't earn "buying credits."

A problem with spending VP would be dedicated repairs actually. As far as I know, veterancy doesn't increase the rate at which engineers heal. It only increases the range. And while yeah sure, being elite is pretty nice as field repair because you basically never ever have to worry about your health then, it's not really required. Whichever way you try to go about implementing spending VP, the best thing would always be repairs spend their VP to unlock vehicles/buy back the WF, so everyone else still keeps all their VP for their tanks where it matters.

[Eagle XI]

9 hours ago, Redarmy said:

Mammoth tanks have the tendency to not die after hitting elite.

The addition of an SSM into the game may help with that.

[NodSaibot]

9 hours ago, Redarmy said:

A problem with spending VP would be dedicated repairs actually. As far as I know, veterancy doesn't increase the rate at which engineers heal. It only increases the range. And while yeah sure, being elite is pretty nice as field repair because you basically never ever have to worry about your health then, it's not really required. Whichever way you try to go about implementing spending VP, the best thing would always be repairs spend their VP to unlock vehicles/buy back the WF, so everyone else still keeps all their VP for their tanks where it matters.

It does, actually... a little bit.

 

Engineer:

20, 22, 24, 26

Hottie/Tech:

40, 42, 44, 46

Edited January 20, 2018 by Sarah!

[RypeL]

12 hours ago, Redarmy said:

A problem with spending VP would be dedicated repairs actually. As far as I know, veterancy doesn't increase the rate at which engineers heal. It only increases the range. And while yeah sure, being elite is pretty nice as field repair because you basically never ever have to worry about your health then, it's not really required. Whichever way you try to go about implementing spending VP, the best thing would always be repairs spend their VP to unlock vehicles/buy back the WF, so everyone else still keeps all their VP for their tanks where it matters.

Yes, stacking shouldnt be allowed for that reason. Also i am proposing a team goal of VP that must be reached. So if someone buys a sniper and manages to accumulate lots of VP that would benefit everyone in his team just the same as it does for him. Cause if not this would create the problem of dedicated base defenders etc not getting anything.

The Thread has come to a point where lots has been written and it starts to get hard to keep up for everyone. I also dont have the time to properly reply to everything so far. I thank you for your initial impressions about ideas like those but fear this thread might now start to go in circles a bit. At one point we should probably make separat threads out of it for specific ideas. But for an initial impression this already achieved quite a lot, thank you. I still have to reread the longer posts etc to get all the impressions from that, but ill do that once i have time and then again will see if we can come up with like 2-3 different approaches implemented. I dont expect this process to alter CnC mode in this way to be short or easy, but lets try.

[isupreme]

If an option is found   I would like to suggest that option chosen be Announced Clearly to the opposing team. 

I.e.  please dont leave players confused...   "hey joe i thought we destroyed the hand.   Why is up? "

 

or find ways to make it clear that there is a game feature that revives a building.

[swaffelen]

What if the building buybacks for the hon, bar, wf, strip, and PP only make prices go back to normal for the units that remain available for purchase? 

Rocket rushes would be cheaper and probably easier to organize so games would end a bit sooner than normal in stalemates of both teams having only 1 or 2 buildings left.

I don't think there is a good way to buy back the refinery. Destruction of the refinery cripples cash flow- end of story. If you still need to get money, capture the silo or rush with free infantry as much as possible or crate whore. 

Edit: maybe the refinery can be bought back to improve the credit rate to 75% of a normal refinery- but the harvester never comes back again.

One way to implement this is with a special repair tool with only a little bit of ammo and special MCT that you need to repair to get the price reduction- the special MCT must only be active after the main MCT is dead. 

When a building dies, can the main MCT be blown up similar to a vehicle? Just place a smaller MCT model inside the regular MCT and use the small MCT for restoring cheap prices for units. 

What if the enemy can infiltrate and disarm the special MCT too? That would be an interesting strategy since a destroyed building usually gets de-mined so it will be easier to sneak inside. 

Edit2: one more idea- what if you just put a silo MCT inside the regular MCT and people can just capture it with any repair gun- the consolation prize for losing a building is a higher cash flow rate. The silo MCT should only be visible after the building is dead. 

Edited January 27, 2018 by swaffelen
Added note about refinery and silo MCT

[vandal33]

It would take a long time to get enough credits to buy it back an once a team has enough credits, the match would probably be a long boring one and having another building just makes it longer. Had this on Renegade, it totally makes unlimited time game boring.

But buying a turret and SAM Site back should be OK, but it should be priced very high.

[j0g32]

Just adding my 2 cents here:

Why are you actually discussing this?

(1) Is it a out limiting the options when losing infantry/vehicle production?

We have air drops and low-tier infantry/vehicles available, with cool down timers. This mitigates devastation of losing those buildings.

Perhaps we could play around with those mechanics instead of overcomplicating things; e.g. just re-enable higher tier units (though with cost/timer penalties) when the team reaches X VP in total.

 

(2) or lies the problem/discontent with the "established" renegade gameplay, i.e. building/base defence is lost forever, and so are associated functions?

This is the year-old discussion about the cost to the loosing team vs. the benefits to the destroying team. Or in other words: "what's the point of attacking a building?"

In such case you might want to think about changing the whole gameplay, e.g. towards a "true" FPS/RTS with basebuilding around proper resource management.

Not to toot my own horn here, but I pers. think in terms of gameplay there's no sensible in between option...