Reduced scale of gameplay

[texico]

The whole class/inventory thing aside, there's one other issue that's been concerning me with PS2. So this doesn't turn into a big wall of text, I'm just gonna sum it up short and sweet:

- Sanctuaries have been done away with and uncapturable footholds placed on each continent

- THEREFORE you can essentially fight where you want AND you can never fully own a continent if it has footholds of enemy empires

- THEREFORE you won't be able to fight over continents as if they represent actual pieces of territory themselves (in their entity) as in PS1. You'll only be able to fight WITHIN each continent

- THEREFORE, the game loses its "global" scale - the highest exchange of territory is the exchange of facilities/territory within each continent, so the game's maximum level of territory exchange and ownership is a fight over a continent.

- Each different continent will essentially just be different backgrounds to fight on, maybe with vaguely interacting exchange of benefits, I don't know, but not ownership, strategic use and loss of ownership of continents.




I understand that the goal here is not to have whole maps unplayable at a given time. But unfortunately that's a necessary part of creating the perception of "ownership" - you need to be able to lock down and control something if you're going to perceive that you won it, and that therefore means stopping other people from using it. The same logic could be applied to territory in a continent - by allowing the capturing and ownership of territory you're making large parts of the continent unplayable at any given time because the side that owns it is trying not to let a fight occur there so they can continue to perceive ownership. If you take the territory system away and have the empires running at each other from opposite corners of the map, you can get fights occurring all over the map in random locations - but you'd lose the perception of being able to have ownership over the land and therefore kill motivation for the player to fight.




So yeah, it's a problem that's been nagging me. I understand there will be just 3 continents to start, + footholds. It does seem like the game is being designed to focus on continent-scale battles. A key concept of the massive scale of PlanetSide 1 wasn't the fight size, but the fact that the continents themselves were actually the commodities being fought over to try and capture Auraxis itself.




Also, Chelsea won the Champions League.

[CaptainMaverik]

I understand your concerns, but they may implement variables we dont know about yet, to encourage play being spread throughout different continents, for instance certain resources per continent.

Besides, at least this way it doesnt turn into what was created in PS1, which usually had you fighting over the same 2-3 conts continously, because you knew how hard it was to try and take the home cont.

[NCLynx]

And with only 3 continents I wouldn't have it any other way.

Now after more continents pop up should it stay this way then yes, I'll have complaints.

[acosmo]

"deal with it" - psu/soe

[bpostal]

I can understand your reasoning but I don't share your concerns.
I can't suggest anything that would alleviate them either so...

[SKYeXile]

And with only 3 continents I wouldn't have it any other way.

Now after more continents pop up should it stay this way then yes, I'll have complaints.

yea isnce there is only 3 conts this is the way its gotta be...there therefore though, I WANT TO SEE MORE CONTS.

[Duddy]

I disagree texico.

Whilst the size and number of continents is definitely questionable, the changes that have been made do promote scale.

They encourage fighting in more places simultaneously, both on a global and continental level, unlike PS1 where there were usually only 1 or 2 (3 during its prime perhaps) places "to be" (globally and within continent).

It does indeed come at the expense of "total" ownership, or rather should we say a perceived win condition, and I think the answer to that is change the perception of winning from that of just holding territory for the sake of it to holding territory so we're getting more resources/denying them to the enemy.

Why is the latter any less valid than the former? I think it might only be down to holding onto the PS1 ideals as sacred.

[SKYeXile]

I disagree texico.

Whilst the size and number of continents is definitely questionable, the changes that have been made do promote scale.

They encourage fighting in more places simultaneously, both on a global and continental level, unlike PS1 where there were usually only 1 or 2 (3 during its prime perhaps) places "to be" (globally and within continent).

It does indeed come at the expense of "total" ownership, or rather should we say a perceived win condition, and I think the answer to that is change the perception of winning from that of just holding territory for the sake of it to holding territory so we're getting more resources/denying them to the enemy.

Why is the latter any less valid than the former? I think it might only be down to holding onto the PS1 ideals as sacred.

you imply the place "to be" is the zerg clusterfuck, there should be more places to be than that.

[Duddy]

you imply the place "to be" is the zerg clusterfuck, there should be more places to be than that.

And you assume that I disagree with you :P

[JHendy]

People have mentioned the idea of giving each continent a number of different sub regions , which would be fully seizable. For instance, wrack up every hex within a region's borders and your empire will have the prestige of controlling the greater region.


It certainly lacks the grandeur of a continent-wide capture, and without a tangible bonus given to the holding empire it is completely superficial, but it does somewhat satisfy people's desires for some form of win condition.

I share your concerns texico.

[Malorn]

- Sanctuaries have been done away with and uncapturable footholds placed on each continent

- THEREFORE you can essentially fight where you want AND you can never fully own a continent if it has footholds of enemy empires

The last part is incorrect. You can fully own a continent and pin an enemy into the warpgate just as you could PlanetSide 1. You couldn't capture a warpgate in PS1, that isn't any different in PS2. What has changed is that instead of that warp gate connecting to a sanctuary where the empire can regroup and get vehicles the warpgate itself has those things. This makes it easier to launch an offensive and keep people engaged on the continent. That doesn't mean it is any easier to break out of a warpgate camp. In PS1 it could be pretty brutal to be trapped in a warpgate. I don't expect that will change.


- THEREFORE you won't be able to fight over continents as if they represent actual pieces of territory themselves (in their entity) as in PS1. You'll only be able to fight WITHIN each continent

That was also true of PS1, with the exception that capturing a continent incurred a global benefit. They can have that same mechanic in PS2 without fully locking the continent. With the continent being divided into territories instead of just facilities, they could define thresholds of territory ownership within a continent that result in a continent or global benefit. There is more than one way to skin this cat.

- THEREFORE, the game loses its "global" scale - the highest exchange of territory is the exchange of facilities/territory within each continent, so the game's maximum level of territory exchange and ownership is a fight over a continent.

As above, it can retain the global scale in a different way. I am in complete agreement that there should be a reason to fight over a specific continent and do our best to dominate it. I do not believe complete domination of the continent is required. 50% of it would be a significant enough accomplishment.

I wrote about that in this thread on continental benefits and differentiation.
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=36627



- Each different continent will essentially just be different backgrounds to fight on, maybe with vaguely interacting exchange of benefits, I don't know, but not ownership, strategic use and loss of ownership of continents.
That may be true if they don't add some benefits in, but the presence of footholds does not prohibit that.



I understand that the goal here is not to have whole maps unplayable at a given time. But unfortunately that's a necessary part of creating the perception of "ownership" - you need to be able to lock down and control something if you're going to perceive that you won it, and that therefore means stopping other people from using it.
You do not need to lock others out of a continent in order to claim dominance over something. If, as I detail above, they provide dominance benefits where dominance may only be a majority you still have recognition of being the dominant empire, enjoy a benefit, and have encouragement to create a larger buffer so you don't easily lose that benefit.

You can have those things without locking out the other two empires.

[Kurtz]

thread closed.

[Xyntech]

I definitely think the game could use more continents, but I think 3 continents will be okay for a short while after launch and 4 continents will be enough to change things up. Each empire could have a single foothold globally, with the fourth continent having no footholds at all.

Remember that with the huge number of capture points (towers being similar to what bases were in PS1, outposts perhaps being more like towers were but still controlling territory), PS2's continents function much more like multiple continents from the first game. Indar will probably be at least the equivalent of 3 or 4 PS1 continents. The point being that while 3 continents at launch may be a tiny bit stifling, 4 will probably actually give more breathing room than we even had in PS1, especially if there is then only one foothold globally for each empire.

Copy pasting this mock up I did from another thread (click the picture to enlarge):

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3766/battlelines.png (http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3766/battlelines.png)

The way I see it, populations should have plenty of room to spread out as they see fit. In this mock up, there are examples of 3 way clusterfucks, large 2 way fights, and smaller 2 way fights. Obviously I could be way off on how the game actually plays out, but this is my best guess as far as what the devs intend the hex system to do, thus I think they will do everything in their power to make sure it balances out this way.

There is no reason that an empire couldn't be pushed back to their foothold in this scenario. There are two other continents that the losing empire may also be fighting on, so it is perfectly viable that they may not be able to field a strong enough force to stay in the fight. Once there are more continents, it will be nice to officially completely kick them out, but pushing them back to their foothold will do fine until then.

I think what Higby wants is for the option to fight on every continent and even on every hex to always be there. That certainly doesn't have to mean that every hex will always be fought on, or that every empire will always have a strong presence on every continent. I do think it will be rare and unlikely that 2 empires get pushed off of a continent as long as there are only 3, but I don't think it will be unheard of. I also think that having at least a 2 way war on every continent most of the time isn't particularly terrible either.

[Malorn]

The whole point of the footholds is to allow you to have action on all continents, all the time, any time. You aren't locked out of a continent and forced into playing in only one or two other places.

In PS1, I loved fighting on Ceryshen. It was my favorite continent. Unfortunately as NC Cery was not an easily accessible continent during most of the time I played the game and typically VS and TR fought there. Every few days though there would be a good Cery fight. I'd prefer not to have to wait a few days to have a fight on a continent I enjoy playing on. If I want to fight on Cery every day, why shouldn't I? If you don't have footholds on every continent then some continents will be more accessible to empires than others. We'll enjoy less of the content and the world will seem smaller.

We saw that in PS1 a lot, and after fighting on Solsar and Hossin for years I was at the point where another TR invasion at Seth made me want to vomit. It got really stale and while PlanetSide had ten continents, typically only 2-3 were accessible with a battle at any given moment, and because of static sanctuary locations those were often the same set of continents every day with some minor shifts from day to day.

I much prefer access to every continent all the time, but I definitely want to see benefits for dominating each continent and provide unique incentives to fight over each one and reward us differently for fighting on one vs another.

[Xyntech]

I much prefer access to every continent all the time, but I definitely want to see benefits for dominating each continent and provide unique incentives to fight over each one and reward us differently for fighting on one vs another.

The hex system would allow you to capture territory without needing any sort of lattice link from another continent. Even if there were 4 continents and only 1 foothold globally per empire, you could still start a TR incursion into the VS home continent at any time, starting on any hex you preferred.

So I think with 4 continents, having 1 global foothold per empire and having the rest of the warpgates be broadcast warpgates, would be fine. It would just help give the home field advantage to one empire on 3 of the continents by the fact that they would never have to travel through a warp gate to spawn into that continent.

[Malorn]

Footholds don't prevent domination of a continent. They do give better accessibility and allow you to more easily mount a reasonable offensive.

If PS1 taught us anything it is that the masses typically move to the next nearest objective along the path of least resistance (typically a road).

In PS2 terms that means people will fight out from footholds, and if there isn't a foothold you won't see any serious offensives there.

[Xyntech]

In PS2 terms that means people will fight out from footholds, and if there isn't a foothold you won't see any serious offensives there.

I disagree, especially if they do something like making the territory near a broadcast warpgate be easier to capture no matter who controls the other nearby hexes.

The bigger problem is the resource system. If your empire controls no resources on a continent, why not go fight on one where you are earning more. But this is a problem with or without footholds.

My point wasn't that it wouldn't be harder to push into a continent where you had no foothold. I agree it would be harder, that's actually the whole idea. My point was that there would be nothing to stop you from fighting where you wanted. Unlike the lattice system, you could attempt to break into every continent, on any hex, if you so chose. Even if it is harder, I still doubt it will be as bad as trying to drain a base neutral and then refill it and hack it. If the enemy controls the entire continent, they may be bored and not expect a large force to come crashing in. If there is a two way fight going on, their forces will be to busy to respond as swiftly.