A thought on the "uncapturable staging points"

[FIREk]

I don't recall how Matt Higby called these exactly, but on each continent there are supposed to be uncapturable bases, or staging points. Do you think he basically meant warpgates?

It would make sense, considering you could technically spawn/summon vehicles from inside a warpgate, and it's surrounded by an impenetrable shield.

There are also those concept artworks that depict something like structures around a warpgate. These could be surrounded by the warpgate's shield and serve as the uncapturable base...

What do you think?

[Bruttal]

could work, then there would just be 6(or however many conts/worlds there is) Sanctuary's though

[FIREk]

There will be no central empire-specific sanctuaries, only multiple ad hoc "sanctuaries" locally, on every continent.

Edit: I suppose moving the quotation marks helps clarify what I meant. In this thread I'm wondering about the exact nature of these "sanctuaries" (or rather their equivalents).

[Bruttal]

There will be no central empire-specific sanctuaries, only multiple "ad hoc" sanctuaries locally, on every continent.

^

[Death2All]

If that's the case then it's going to lead to a lot of boring battles right outside of the warpgate similar to what happens when you push an empire off a cont and they refuse to give up and continue attacking from the warpgate.

BORING

[ShowNoMercy]

So what are we thinking here? a warpgate with a small foothold base next to it? One thing is for sure, that foothold is going to get surrounded by a ton of CE when enemies get kicked off cont.

[Desoxy]

Maybe there could be a way to shut down the foothold for a few hours (if the empire in question has enough conquered terrain left on other continents) in order to give you some form of continental lock-down..

I really wonder though if the concept of continental lock downs will be a huge issue once the complete conquering system has been revealed..

[Surge72]

I really doubt that the uncapturable staging points are going to be the warp gates. I would expect that they will be empire specific (meaning that each empire has one), otherwise it would be pretty lame.

[Traak]

I don't recall how Matt Higby called these exactly, but on each continent there are supposed to be uncapturable bases, or staging points. Do you think he basically meant warpgates?

It would make sense, considering you could technically spawn/summon vehicles from inside a warpgate, and it's surrounded by an impenetrable shield.

There are also those concept artworks that depict something like structures around a warpgate. These could be surrounded by the warpgate's shield and serve as the uncapturable base...

What do you think?

The black and white artwork that Hamma put up here shows structures, very substantial ones, centered on what looks like smaller warpgates, but bigger than the mini ones of Oshur.

Since they are uncapturable, that would mean they never change to one empire or the other, but can be used by any and all at any time?

[Xaine]

I'm pretty sure the the uncapturable spawn point/base things are going to be the giant ships we've seen in some screenshots, floating around in the high atmosphere.

It doesn't really make sense that you can't capture all of the land on a cont, and i also feel it would be too easy to make ghost hacks/attacks like this.

A giant space ship, which lets you drop down into a defendable area under it would make more sense, no?

[Hamma]

I would have to agree with the orbital platform/ship idea as well but it's hard to say what they have planned. Maybe he will elaborate.. ;)

[Chaff]

.....maybe a giant old VW Corrado with a "Pizza" delivery sign attached to the roof ?

[Lartnev]

As others have said it needs more elaboration. Uncapturable bases would just be sad and the airship/orbital platform sounds kinda cool. I think the key is a specific place to rally up in order to push into a specific continent. Sanctuaries were too loose, you'd load up but didn't know where to. Continent specific starting points allow you to see it's about to go down!

It has been discussed if warp gates will be the uncapturable territory so I'd like to flip the question on its side: What if warp gates could be captured?

[WarChimp130]

I used to hate getting gate camped, so I'm hoping their solution isn't to let you get beat back to an uncapturable base then get the shit camped out of you unless that base gives you the means to really push back out. At the same time, I also feel like it prevents you from ever feeling "victorious" by completely knocking an enemy off the continent even if just for a little bit.

[Bags]

No one knows. It's all speculation at this point.

[Malorn]

I didn't like these at first, but having given it some thought I think they'll be really good for gameplay.


1) They are a natural counter to a large dominant empire.

In PS1 as you locked more continents you consolidated lattice links. While you opened up a few new ones, you invariably sealed a few on other continents as well. This even made some continents completely locked and unassaultable beyond a random cave link. The result was that as the big empire gained more territory their vulnerability decreased or at least stayed the same. This allowed them to maintain the dominance since there was no significant increase in vulnerability for all that territory.

With an uncap base on every continent as an empire expands and owns more territory they will progressively become more vulnerable globally, as each continent gained creates two new attack vulnerabilities. This will naturally make it much harder for a single empire to dominate most of the world.

Conceptually this is similar to having a lattice link and a broadcast gate to every continent in the game. They dont' need uncap bases to do this, but with them they don't really need sanctuary either if you're just hopping from one uncap to another. But there are other benefits beyond this one...


2) They make breaking into a continent easier by providing direct vehicle resources on-site as opposed to having to bring them in.

Invasions in PS1 were hard because the defender had tremendous advantage. They had all the facility benefits, they had all of the production on the continent, and the attacker could be removed of all spawn points which forcibly removes a chunk of them. In PS2 they'll also have a huge resource advantage. In both games they are confined to attacking a single vulnerable point. The worst part is that the attacker will generally not replace vehicles because that involves going back to sanctuary, pulling a vehicle, and going back through the gate (which may not even be possible if the continent was pop-locked!). So once the original vehicles were destroyed the invasion was basically over. Meanwhile the defender just keeps pulling more and more and it gets very lopsided quickly. If the vehicle pads were actually right there on-site then they'd be encouraged to pull vehicles just like the defender is doing and the fight would be meaningful.

Defenders usually have natural advantage because the attacker must come to them and they can set up static defenses, position each other, etc. When you add all of these together it usually took a huge raid to break into even a moderately defended continent.

What these uncaps do for that situation is give the attacker a lot more opportunity to be successful and keep the game from getting to stagnant positions. A locked continent, while it is a sense of satisfaction, is not good for the game because it creates a stagnant situation where the defender has all the advantage. To keep a tangible benefit for domination of a continent worthwhile I have proposed another thread to address that issue:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36627

That said, with the ability to pull vehicles immediately and have a hard spawn point attackers can wage meaningful war on a continent as long as they are determined to do so. It forces the defenders (who still have a huge resource advantage) to work a bit harder to maintain that complete dominance.


3) They give players viable alternatives at all times.

One thing that sort of sucked in PS1 was being forced to fight on a single continent at any given moment in time. Or worse, being forced to fight on the same continent each and every day. This is related to the problem identified in 1) above. As empires solidified lattice links, even for non-dominant empires the attack options were relatively limited to a handful of continents at any given moment. That lead to gameplay stagnation over time as you didn't really see anything new, just the same fight different day.

The uncap bases allow players the freedom to choose and effectively wage war on any continent they want. They can go after whichever one has close resources they need, or whichever one is more tactically viable given their situation. Once they get there they will have some core resources available to them like a spawn point and vehicle pads so that they at least stand a fighting chance at making a dent.

And from a gameplay variety standpoint it allows all empires to see all the continents whenever they want, instead of having a few "home continents" that empires see all the f'ing time, and a few opposing home continents that they rarely got to see and even more rarely got a meaningful battle on.

This also helps address the problem where you can't kick an enemy out of a continent. Sometimes an empire refused to leave. Why? Because they didn't have any other choice, or the alternative was some boring stagnant fight they didn't want to do. This helps fix that by giving them many more viable alternatives if a fight just isn't going anywhere.

It doesn't prevent locks, nor does it prevent an empire from completely dominating. In fact if an empire does dominate and they're getting an invasion from an uncap then they're all earning a lot of resources while fighting and holding that territory. But it does make them work for it, and it makes it progressively harder to hold more and more territory globally.


The only thing I really hope happens with the uncaps is that they mix up the which locations each empire has every so often (like once a month or something). That way we avoid getting the same battles against the same opponents from the same direction on each continent. If they mix them up we'll get variety in gameplay. It's simple to do and goes a lot way to keeping the game fresh.

[Grimster]

One thing I am thinking trying to remember what has been said on the topic. I can't recall that they have actually said that every continent will have a foothold for each empire that is not possible to capture?

Haven't they even used the term home continent is some interview somewhere? This would at least to me indicate that each empire only have one foothold and not one on each continent?

[Sinj]

If that's the case then it's going to lead to a lot of boring battles right outside of the warpgate similar to what happens when you push an empire off a cont and they refuse to give up and continue attacking from the warpgate.

BORING

"At the same time, I also feel like it prevents you from ever feeling "victorious" by completely knocking an enemy off the continent even if just for a little bit." WarChimp130.

I agree with both these statements and have never really had any issues with the sanctuaries as they are (aside from being too spread out). I prefer a staging ground away from the prying eyes of the other empires. But I would like to reserve final judgment until more details are out.