Uncappable Bases

[Zulthus]

Apparently PlanetSide 2 is going to have an uncappable base on each continent, thus removing the need for a sanctuary. I truly believe this is a terrible idea, for several reasons.

1. There will be no sense of completion of success on a continent.
2. Backhacking will be such a major problem.
3. Organizing a "raid" in a small uncappable base will alert any enemies that happen to be scouting the area.

I really believe that sanctuaries are the way to go in PS2, as they allow an empire to fully capture a continent that they have earned, and allows much easier mobilization of a raid.


---On a completely different note, don't allow people to send tells to a different empire. It'd be such a help.

[BorisBlade]

Yeah the cross faction chat needs to be axed, no clue why they left that in ps1.

And yeah they dont want sancs, but they put sancs on every cont. Makes no sense. But we havent heard all the details yet so hard to say too much. We do need areas to train in peace, to practice with weapons/vehicles (like VR training) and we need areas to group up to organize assaults in large scale where the enemy cant see us. If its just behind some transparent shield dome then these cont sancs wont work, esp if they are small. Plus if it trips population number meters then it also wont work. So not sure what they have planned but should be interesting.

[MgFalcon]

I loved cross empire chat (shit talking obviously). But I can understand to get rid of spies from another empire or what not. I have made friends in the past though from other empires and it was nice to coordinate a double-team(empire) attack on the other faction

[BorisBlade]

Well it can get nasty in a hurry in pvp games and then you have to get gm's and what not involved and its just a huge headache. It will save them alot of time and manpower to just turn it off. yeah it stops some chat spies. But anyone doin too much of it will just use a second acct or chat on voice progs etc so thats not a huge reason to do it as much as just to limit the bad social interactions that can get outta hand in a hurry and just cause nothin but grief.

[Zulthus]

Well it can get nasty in a hurry in pvp games and then you have to get gm's and what not involved and its just a huge headache. It will save them alot of time and manpower to just turn it off. yeah it stops some chat spies. But anyone doin too much of it will just use a second acct or chat on voice progs etc so thats not a huge reason to do it as much as just to limit the bad social interactions that can get outta hand in a hurry and just cause nothin but grief.

If people are going to spy and we can't stop them, might as well make them pay to do it. :groovy:

[Firefly]

Uncappable bases, to me, without further info, sounds like continent locks are a thing of the past. It also sounds like uncappable merely means they can't be captured. They can still be camped, whether that be inside or outside of the base is irrelevant. Ergo, without having any further info and not having played the game, I cannot make an informed decision. My gut instinct is that I am against this.

[Zulthus]

Uncappable bases, to me, without further info, sounds like continent locks are a thing of the past. It also sounds like uncappable merely means they can't be captured. They can still be camped, whether that be inside or outside of the base is irrelevant. Ergo, without having any further info and not having played the game, I cannot make an informed decision. My gut instinct is that I am against this.

I was also thinking this, sort of like battlefield uncaps. These bases wouldn't work in the slightest to form raids unless they have some sort of shield the size of a SOI. Which would be kind of stupid too.

[SKYeXile]

Yea i dont get it myself, every popular MMO has its capital citys. I can understand they want people when they login to play to get everybody fighting.

But I always loved the sanc, i thought they could be so much more than just afew scattered buildings though. have actual bases on them, suburban settings, make them feel more alive. while still having the cert terminals, training etc.

sure scrap the heart whatever, have people launch in pods upto the orbital station, or smaller shuttles where they don't have to wait.

Capital citys in all MMO's have always been a gather point for players, it gives more of that sence of community, like the devs say they want anyway. how many of you have walked through a wow captital city and been like whaoo look at that gear or those achievements...or been that guy who just got shadowmorune and goes to whack the target dummies then run around like a spastic on your mount with partical effects flying everywhere.

[Zulthus]

how many of you have walked through a wow captital city and been like whaoo look at that gear or those achievements...or been that guy who just got shadowmorune and goes to whack the target dummies then run around like a spastic on your mount with partical effects flying everywhere.

wat

[Firefly]

how many of you have walked through a wow captital city and been like whaoo look at that gear or those achievements...or been that guy who just got shadowmorune and goes to whack the target dummies then run around like a spastic on your mount with partical effects flying everywhere.
YouTube - ***x202a;Francis Hates World of Warcraft Patch 3.3 Dungeon Finder***x202c;‏

[Rarntogo]

Not having Sanctuary would be strange if we were playing PS1 because we're used to having it. Many a great victory was planned out in sanctuary. Mobs of Libs, tanks and Gal's storming the warp gate. This is a new game. I'm an older player who's gaming skills have long since gone by the wayside and playing for killing sprees matters little let alone ever happens. I just want to play the game, frag a few enemies and do my part for the greater good of the faction. It doesnt matter how I get there as long as I get there and without sanctuary maybe I'll get there faster. I'll just wait and see how it plays out before I judge. :)

[opticalshadow]

soudns bad to me.

i mean sancs in ps now a days are near useless. but i remember loading up 200+ man invasions in sanc, sometime more, sometime so many that more then a 1/4th of the army sat in queue. sanc let us have these d-day scale invasions.

removing sanc removes this, i cant see an area of the map large enough to be closed of per cont to allow this, and if they did, it still would just be a waste, concidering they could have made that battle field and just given the sanc anyways.

it really sounds like these are going to be "spawn zones" and they are going to be perma camped by the dominating empire.

atleast going off of what we know.

[Bags]

soudns bad to me.

i mean sancs in ps now a days are near useless. but i remember loading up 200+ man invasions in sanc, sometime more, sometime so many that more then a 1/4th of the army sat in queue. sanc let us have these d-day scale invasions.

removing sanc removes this, i cant see an area of the map large enough to be closed of per cont to allow this, and if they did, it still would just be a waste, concidering they could have made that battle field and just given the sanc anyways.

it really sounds like these are going to be "spawn zones" and they are going to be perma camped by the dominating empire.

atleast going off of what we know.

because you totally can't be camped coming out of a way gate in ps

[Sirisian]

Didn't think anyone would be averse to this. I never saw the point of sanctuaries. You can get a group ready at these new uncappable bases it sounds like.

Regarding the back hacking it sounds like they want that in the game. The hexagon based maps with blocks of hexagons for each territory sounds like it's designed to be traded back and forth at a fast pace. They mentioned I believe 30 seconds to 30 minute captures. Makes me think that if no one is around it's 30 minutes and if people are fighting it's fast back and forth contested areas.

[Hamma]

I'm a little concerned on this uncappable base thing myself. Time will tell, maybe it will change :)

[Coyote]

I'm not quite sold on the lack of a 'staging area'. You gotta meet up with people somewhere, right? Dropping into hell is cool the first 20 times but on that 21st time you're going to want to get back, reset, and walk into hell in a coordinated combined arms attack.

These footholds. I don't like the taste of it in my mouth. I actually think Uncappable conts would be BAD for making a solid frontline. It would now just be "Well I died x amount of times here, insta-go to the next place where there is nobody there", it will thin out the lines too much imo. (maybe there will only be 3 continents in release. Maybe there will be 13.)

Still too little info. I wish they elaborated on this more. HART removal I don't mind at all. Sanc removal you got me staring at you funny. Inventory removal my eyebrow quirks, and lastly, not picking up weapons off of the floor has me locked in a Fry voice saying 'Not sure if Trolling...."

[Evilmp]

I think a sanctuary similar to Atlantis from Stargate would be pretty cool given some room for vehicles and aircraft.

Obviously without the cheesy teal themed set props and massive amounts of hair gel that are mandatory in Atlantis.

[Hamma]

The thought is these bases will be some sort of staging area.

[krnasaur]

I never understood the sanc hate, i always loved it. It was another factor that set planetside on another level. In most games you sat in a lobby/chatroom waiting to start your instance/match whatever, in this one you get your own area to form up and get organized to launch the assult. True, hart timers didnt need to be there, it could have been hart in whenever you want. but that is maybe the only -.

[MgFalcon]

I'm gonna miss the Sanc, in large outfits it was so useful to tell everyone to head back to the sanctuary to regroup and go off on another attack somewhere

[Redshift]

I too am not sure about the lack of sanc, it's where you go to organise a few hundred people, i doubt you could do that in a base and keep the secret secret.

I also assume if they're uncappable they'll be some kind of shield to stop people just camping the tubes all day, shielded things sucked in PS1, idiots banging their heads into capitol shields, camping warpgates etc, could spend hours doing nothing is my concern

[NCLynx]

I thought it would be one uncappable base on ONE continent, not one on every continent.

Why would there be a need to have our own personal sanc on every single continent? One on one continent (or maybe 2 if you wanted to stress what was an empires "home conts") doesn't sound as bad to me.

[Volw]

It should still be possible to stage an attack at one continent and then hop over to the designated one ...

[Azren]

There could really only be two ways to these bases:
1: They are safe zones with weapons locked, where enemies can not enter (force wall or some other silly thing)
2: There is a way to capture them afterall. Since if not, your whole empire could be spawn camped - now what would that do to the playerbase?

[Volw]

There could really only be two ways to these bases:
1: They are safe zones with weapons locked, where enemies can not enter (force wall or some other silly thing)
2: There is a way to capture them afterall. Since if not, your whole empire could be spawn camped - now what would that do to the playerbase?

1 - that's how PS1 did it.

Also as a reminder - after Lodestar was released it was quite usual to set up shop inside of the force field, until it was nerfed/removed. So it's probably going to be the same old dome, but with spawn tubes and vehicle terminals instead.

[WellWisherELF]

I don't think each empire will have a traditional 'base' per-say, but rather a foothold that becomes inaccessible once they lose all control of that continent.

If a certain empire ends up losing all of their footholds on every cont, a second chance system similar to PS will most likely occur, allowing access to one of their footholds on a random cont.

[Manitou]

Not enough intel to make a call either way, honestly. This announcement could be a fishing expedition to see the reaction and/or get feedback on details.

It boils down to trust in the development team. I am hoping we can trust them to bring us a quality game. If so, then they will solve this challenge and we will reap the benefits with a new way to enter battle.

[Kouza]

I figured it would be each empire would, have One base PERIOD that is unconquerable, not one per continent. I may be wrong.

[NCLynx]

I figured it would be each empire would, have One base PERIOD that is unconquerable, not one per continent. I may be wrong.

My first thoughts as well, one perma base per cont seems to much

[Kouza]

Also, this beckons the question.... One base as the starting point for every one in planetside.... THAT'S GOING TO BE ONE CROWDED BITCH.... or, are the Bases going to be giant? We saw how much bigger the tower got, how much bigger are the bases going to get?

[Lunarchild]

My first thoughts as well, one perma base per cont seems to much

If that's the case I seriously hope it has two warp-gates to other areas as well!

[Malorn]

Conquering a continent was a great achievement in Planetside and unlocking access to other continents kept the game flow current.

My concerns with uncappable bases on each continent are as follows:


1) Static gameplay.
VS/TR/NC will always be attacking from the same uncappable bases. They will almost always be assaulting that continent from the same direction. They will always have one empire attacking from one direction and another empire on the other direction. Mixing it up is important and I don't want to always be fighting the VS from the same direction at the same base every other night. After a few months that's going to get very boring.

At the very least the location of which empire has what static base needs to rotate around periodically to keep the game fresh.

2) Shifting the front around the continents
As long as a static base exists there will always be link into a continent that the other empires can use to attack. I think this will result in the battles being thinned out since there could be an attack on any continent regardless of who owns it. The lock mechanic was good because it gave a sense of accomplishment and finality to a long struggle. And then it shifted the front to a new continent.

Unless PS2 has a really, really large population on each server there will be only a few large engagements going on at any one time. Having ghost-hacks all over the place due to these static bases does not seem particularly fun.

3) No sense of victory.
Capturing a continent was a good victory and while capturing the world was extremely rare and only happened a few times, those continent captures were a great sense of accomplishment for a night of hard work. As long as the static bases exist it'll never really be captured and it'll be have more like a domination map of a battlefield game where you have all territories captured for a few minutes and then some random guy goes and takes one of them and you go chase him down.

4) Diminished strategy.
One part of choosing good targets in PS1 was picking continents that could not only have favorable invasion routes (ones where the chances of getting back-hacked by the other empire were minimal). This changed daily as different empires held different continents, which opened/closed different warpgate links. If there's always a static base at every continent then all of these strategic options for attack are lost and the game gets a bit dumbed down.


On the other hand, having a static base with which to always have a foothold when invading a continent is a good thing. I like the idea, but I would propose something a little different:

Instead of having static bases, make the warpgates themselves the "static base" with basic facilities with which to continually assault the continent as long as you had a valid warpgate link.

The challenge here would be to ensure only one empire could control that link at any one time. I have to think more on this, but I really like the idea of having dynamic static bases and connecting it with warpgate links.

But at that point we may as well be back to having Sanctuary w/ broadcast gates.

You could give each empire 1-2 static bases on a few continents or warpgates that they always control that rotate every few days or once a week to keep things fresh and mix up the gameplay, but keeping static uncappable bases that never moves on every continent is very bad.

[2coolforu]

I think this could be fixed as people said before, by having only 1 home continent which has the uncappable base on it.

[Malorn]

The problem is I believe what they are trying to do with the uncaps is foster combat in more places and that whole 'get to the fight faster' bit, though I'm not entirely convinced an uncap helps with that.

[waldizzo]

I think they are planning on the new resource and terrain control system to replace the current lattice/cont lock system.

Didn't they say somewhere that under certain conditions, an area could take an attacking empire 30 minutes to hack while the defending empire could hack it back in 30 seconds? Seems like it would have the same effect as a continent lock, but would make it so the defenders can't totally neglect captured areas.

I also think that the resource system will be what moves people off of continents. Didn't they mention that where will be "rare" resources which is something people will probably want to get instead of camping these foothold bases.

[moosepoop]

how can you capture a continent if theres an uncappable enemy base on it? can anyone explain this??

[Hamma]

We don't really know.

Good assessment Malorn I agree with what you said.

[hippieschuh]

From what I understand is that you have to capture regions, not bases.

wich leads to the conculusion that there will be no links, only like 6 resources everyone fights over and this resources are accessible via capturing a region.

You can capture any region at any time, no more links or none-accessible regions.

[basti]

I think the basic idea of SOE is to have multiple pop locks during prime time, rather than just 2 or 3. That would work with uncappable bases, very well actually. But the big problem is that once a continent lacks population, ghost hacks will be everywhere.

We know to little about the entire system to be sure if it will work they way they want it, or if it will crash on day one. Keep it mind that Planetside had the same issues during beta, the lattience was actually put into the game because of ghost hack issues. If it happens again, im sure they will change stuff. They have to, they want this game to lift off into the sky. ;)

[Haro]

Like Malorn said, the main reason for this is probably to allow people to move quickly from one uncap base (fuck it, I'm calling them sancs) to another. To be honest, I'm mixed about old school sancs. On one hand, having a safe base was fun, I did like Harting if I was going alone for a bit, and it was a great coordination zone. On the other hand, so much of it felt unnecessary. Large outfit platoons usually had pre-selected targets, so it didn't necessarily have to been in a sanc, just a protected area with the capability of producing all vehicles and weapons. Plus, most of the sanctuary was useless and a waste of space.

But I believe there is another reason for having these new sancs. I haven't found where I may have heard this, but I am almost positive I heard subtle talk about removing daily resets. At least, something about territory being held for hours, days, or weeks. If this is the case, continent locks become a whole different beast altogether. If this is the case, and again, I CANNOT confirm this, then having sanctuaries on each continent means that if a particular continent has been dominated by one empire, you can easily switch your emphasis on other continents. As others have said, a sanc on a continent is likely to be vulnerable to camping, but if you can switch to another continent quickly, then that doesn't become a problem. If an empire does take over all the bases on the continent, maybe they can all lock down for 6, 12, or 24 hours or something like that, to give that lasting satisfaction, as well as avoid ghost hacks. With new technology, I think PS2 can be a lot more flexible with how it programs bases and conts to work.

As for predictability, that could be a problem if we still use the lattice system, which I think is unlikely. What could happen, for example, is that bases under your control generate a field of influence, and that enemy bases within a certain distance can be attacked, while those behind the front line are locked. You get a similar battle line effect as you did with the lattice system, but it's not as fixated on specific routes. This is a vague and not completely thought-through idea, but it could be one of several ways the lattice system gets changed to make gameplay more dynamic.

Ultimately, it is too early to make judgments, but I believe that, reflecting the possible changes that the game could see, this could actually work out. But who knows?

[Death2All]

Also, this beckons the question.... One base as the starting point for every one in planetside.... THAT'S GOING TO BE ONE CROWDED BITCH.... or, are the Bases going to be giant? We saw how much bigger the tower got, how much bigger are the bases going to get?

My thoughts exactly :D

So when everyone logs on will they be sent to the same foothold? Or does it send them to the one on the cont they were last at. It seems to me that would just promote people to fight on whatever continent they just started at and go from there.

With no staging ground like a sanctuary to organize and ready troops it sounds like one chaotic mess where people spawn wherever and attack everything. ESPECIALLY without the lattice system.

I'm very confused. Information has been very limited on how they work so far, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. (I'm saying this a lot lately)

[Zulthus]

Heh, on day one if everybody spawns into the same base with three spawn tubes...

[Death2All]

Heh, on day one if everybody spawns into the same base with three spawn tubes...

That reminds me of the day of the server merge with Gemini when the server finally came up.

Hundreds of people crammed in the HART building waiting for the first shuttle of the server. It's sad to see that it didn't make it into the new game because people found it "annoying". I always thought it was a great way of travel for newbies.

[Death2All]

Snip

[morf]

Guys I think we may be jumping the gun here. I understand the concerns but right now, we don't even know what a "continent" is. They have stated "yes we will have multiple continents at launch" - multiple could be 2 or 3. Also they have stated that a continent will support "thousands" of players. If you put thousands of players on a PS1 continent, it's a clusterfuck. Reading between the lines, I'm thinking a continent in PS2 will be HUGE. Perhaps the size of a continent in a game like WoW or even bigger. Having a sanctuary city on the outskirts of something of this scale would hardly make a dent in the map. Maybe instead of locking continents, you'll lock down sub-continents. Sticking with the wow theme, a subcontinent might be the size of say, the barrens. This would be further broken down into smaller control points (a tower here, a facility there, a mine here etc.)

This is complete speculation on my part, just based on the things that they have said regarding continents.

[2coolforu]

Guys I think we may be jumping the gun here. I understand the concerns but right now, we don't even know what a "continent" is. They have stated "yes we will have multiple continents at launch" - multiple could be 2 or 3. Also they have stated that a continent will support "thousands" of players. If you put thousands of players on a PS1 continent, it's a clusterfuck. Reading between the lines, I'm thinking a continent in PS2 will be HUGE. Perhaps the size of a continent in a game like WoW or even bigger. Having a sanctuary city on the outskirts of something of this scale would hardly make a dent in the map. Maybe instead of locking continents, you'll lock down sub-continents. Sticking with the wow theme, a subcontinent might be the size of say, the barrens. This would be further broken down into smaller control points (a tower here, a facility there, a mine here etc.)

This is complete speculation on my part, just based on the things that they have said regarding continents.

Given that they are bringing back the continents from Planetside 1 + more like Indar makes me feel that there won't be 2-3 megacontinents

[morf]

Given that they are bringing back the continents from Planetside 1 + more like Indar makes me feel that there won't be 2-3 megacontinents

There was a continent named indar in planetside?

[Marsman]

Didn't they say somewhere that under certain conditions, an area could take an attacking empire 30 minutes to hack while the defending empire could hack it back in 30 seconds?I believe what you are referring to there was a discussion about back hacking in the new territory system. The lattice network took back hacking away to a great extend. Under the new system, I believe Smed or Matt said one "could" go behind enemy lines and back hack a territory/facility although it might take them 30 minutes to do so, while the controlling empire could simply hack it back in 30 seconds.. or something like that effect.

[2coolforu]

There was a continent named indar in planetside?

No, they are making the original continents and adding new ones. That's why I said all the originals + more like Indar, with Indar being an example of the 'more new continents'. Sorry my wording and punctuation was pretty bad.

[morf]

Ah okay gotcha no worries. When did they say they were bringing back the original continents? I think i missed it.

[Hamma]

Their intent is to add more fight spaces. For example allot more vertical play area where you could fight on a large scaffolding on a mountain/Cliffside as well as things like Hilltops.