Poll: Rotation of empire footholds?

[bkx]

With the current system of empire footholds, if a person plays on one empire, there may be no chance for them to see all of the map. They will be fighting over the same several bases from the same direction. To keep things interesting, I think that it would be good to rotate the empire's footholds every so often (maybe 6 months.) This would keep the battles from getting stale and give you a new perspective on the continent.

On the other hand, this would reduce the sense of ownership that you feel over a piece of terrain because your hold on it is temporary.

What does everybody think?

[The Kush]

at first i was going to say this could be a good idea

but..

i want there to be a sense of that is the NC foothold that IS our home makes the game more personal

[Malorn]

Absolutely. I've been a big proponent of this for a long time. We need the variety or the game play will get very stale. With 6 permutations of foothold configurations that is a lot of new variety with existing continents.

The rotation does not need to happen frequently. Once per month would mix it up but limit disruption.

The idea of home continents really needs to die a horrible death. It led to stagnation in the game with the same battles on the same bases against the same opponents every day. Boring as all hell. Change it up and keep the game fresh.

6 configurations is a lot of variety.

[Arokel]

at first i was going to say this could be a good idea

but..

i want there to be a sense of that is the NC foothold that IS our home makes the game more personal

Exactly how I feel. Keeping them in the same spot very likely could cause each faction to regard a certain part of the map as their "homeland" on that continent. Nothing motivates people to fight more than the defense of their homeland.

While a video game will never be able to fully replicate that feeling of fighting for your home I think that it will still increase the motivation for the faction who are defending and that sense of faction loyalty PS is meant to create.

[The Janitor]

See that purple foothold? That will always be a purple foothold. Forever. Cause we're awesome. And purple.

[MrBloodworth]

No option for removal?

[Xyntech]

I don't like the idea of rotating footholds. I feel like it would damage persistence.

But once we have more than 3 continents, I'd like to see players able to capture footholds and lose them. Every empire would always have at least one foothold that couldn't be captured, either a set foothold or that they just couldn't lose their last foothold wherever that was.

The exact mechanics of capturing footholds would have to be worked out. There would be some problems, but I think it could be sorted out. Possibly by somehow limiting an empire to only controlling one foothold per continent.

[Synapse]

Exactly how I feel. Keeping them in the same spot very likely could cause each faction to regard a certain part of the map as their "homeland" on that continent. Nothing motivates people to fight more than the defense of their homeland.

While a video game will never be able to fully replicate that feeling of fighting for your home I think that it will still increase the motivation for the faction who are defending and that sense of faction loyalty PS is meant to create.

You're missing the point. You won't be proud of your homeland, you will be _bored_ of it.

Just like home continents did in PS1, faction footholds smack of having the same front line, fighting over the same 2-3 bases while the rest rarely see any action at all.

I want to see things get mixed up. Maybe not rotation, that seems heavy handed, but maybe handicap one faction or allow one to be pushed off the continent so the frontline moves around and the remaining players get to see the 1/3 of the map they've been missing.

[kaffis]

I don't think footholds should rotate. Their permanence should be a source of a sense of ownership.

However, I do believe that there is room for *other* means for a "spoiler" effect to enter the equation. Traditional warpgates, for instance, that could be captured to open up adjacency bonuses in variable locations on other continents, for instance.

[Synapse]

I don't think footholds should rotate. Their permanence should be a source of a sense of ownership.

However, I do believe that there is room for *other* means for a "spoiler" effect to enter the equation. Traditional warpgates, for instance, that could be captured to open up adjacency bonuses in variable locations on other continents, for instance.

Totally supported. Rotation would be heavyhanded, but some means to keep the frontline moving around will be crucial.

[Mr DeCastellac]

I think we should just do the Planetside 1 thing and not have footholds, haha.

But rotation would be a good thing to break up the monotony.

[Malorn]

Resources are currently static, as per higby a couple months ago. If that stays all the more reason for rotation.

People should be thinking of all of Auraxis as their "home", not small corners of it. Way too much clinging to home continent nonsense here.

[Xyntech]

Just to clarify, I voted no to rotation because I don't want it to actually rotate. I do want to see footholds change hands, but I want it to be dynamic and organic, not some arbitrary thing that fucks with the front lines every month or so.

[Arokel]

I think have a (rough) idea how to strike a balance between the two. So what would happen is that there would be muliple different faction footholds spaced around the continent. I think between 5-7 would be a good number.

Only three would be active at the same time so each faction only has one. If (and only if) a faction lost all of their territory on the map (aside from their foothold spawn point) They will be driven from the continent and their foothold will close.

This last bit is probably the weakest part of my idea. After a faction has been driven from a continent they would select one of the inactive spawn points (maybe not including the one they just lost?) and launch a new invasion from that point. The problem with this is who gets to choose? Any player of a high enough rank? Maybe it would require a minimum number of high level players agreeing on a certain point with some type of voting system? Or maybe it could be done by a member of SOE who plays as that faction?

[Xyntech]

Yeah ultimately until the game matures more and expands, what the hell might as well change footholds daily. Looks to be 3 way grind fest anyway you slice it.

Perhaps. We'll see in beta.

[Ghryphen]

How would it work? You are in your foothold and all of the sudden it becomes an opposing empires foothold they all start spawning there and your platoon that was getting ready to deploy a joint strike gets wiped out by the new owners of the foothold.

[DesertFox]

Could someone clarify how this rotation would work in practice? I don't quite follow. Wouldn't it be messed up if foothold ownership suddenly rotate and x empire's foothold ends up being behind y's frontline? Or would all bases suddenly become uncap'ed at the same time that the rotation occur?

[Ghryphen]

Could someone clarify how this rotation would work in practice? I don't quite follow. Wouldn't it be messed up if foothold ownership suddenly rotate and x empire's foothold ends up being behind y's frontline? Or would all bases suddenly become uncap'ed at the same time that the rotation occur?
Agreed, and if they were uncapped, how would new players coming into the game be able to spawn if their empire had no other bases?

[Immigrant]

Stupid idea, that would mean every time rotation occurs your foothold ends up deep in enemy territory. :doh:

[Xyntech]

How would it work? You are in your foothold and all of the sudden it becomes an opposing empires foothold they all start spawning there and your platoon that was getting ready to deploy a joint strike gets wiped out by the new owners of the foothold.

If it was dynamic, it would happen either with total domination of every territory on the continent (would require more than 3 continents), or domination of a specific region, a cluster of hexes, presumably surrounding the target warpgate. Any enemies in the warpgate would presumably die instantly if it switched.

So you would see it coming, and it's your own fault if your platoon is sitting inside the warpgate when the enemy is about to capture the foothold.

But if it was just a random rotation, it would have to have some sort of warning so that players would know it was coming. In that case, players would probably be teleported to their new foothold I would think.

[DayOne]

I'm not a fan of this idea. I get the need for diversity but I think with the territory control system and all the other outposts between bases we are going to see enough of this without some arbitrary base-rotation system.

[Malorn]

How would it work? You are in your foothold and all of the sudden it becomes an opposing empires foothold they all start spawning there and your platoon that was getting ready to deploy a joint strike gets wiped out by the new owners of the foothold.

The obvious way to do it is during regular maintenance and to move people who may have been logged out there to their new foothold. Certainly not something that happens automatically in the middle of prime time abruptly disrupting the current battle.

I would expect rotation to work like this.

1) once per month (or every other month), during regular maintenance, the foothold configuration changes to one of the six possible configurations.

2) the rotation should be known ahead of time and announced so we all know what the new configuration will be.

3) It occurs during maintenance, and at that time anyone logged out in one of the footholds that is changing (not every foothold will change necessarily) get relocated to their new foothold automatically so they don't log in and immediately die or some other strange behavior.

4) Territory owned at the time would not change other than the foothold. So while the foothold might provide a new avenue for attack, they would still have to capture the territory adjacent to the new foothold. Alternately to avoid disruption they could simply neutralize all the continents with a giant reset button. Probably not a bad idea to do that from time to time anyway.

With 6 permutations, once a month or once every other month would see a full rotation either once a year or twice a year.

That's how I see it working smoothly with minimal disruption to the game.

[IMMentat]

I am all for Bi-monthly (once per 2 months) continental shake-ups. swap what base is in what location and mix up the resource and special function facility locations.
Possibly mix up the timings, change the foothold every month, swap the bases every 3 months swap the resources every 3-6 months.

[Malorn]

I would also agree that resources (if they are static) also need to be changed, and much more frequently than the footholds (I think weekly is a good rate for that).

I'd prefer the resources were dynamic though and had quasi-random spawning and despawning. That changes the value of territory on a regular basis which means tactics and strategy will change, as will the focus of the battles.

Assuming of course that resources actually matter and that capturing territory for specific resources is meaningful. I'd like to assume that it is, but I'm not all that convinced from what we've seen/been told.

[tdopz]

I don't see it being as big of an issue in PS2. You HAD to take a certain base in the original, but there's no lattice in PS2, the only thing keeping you attacking the same areas will be yourselves. There will be reasons to own areas of the map that AREN'T bases, you know.

[Fafnir]

As someone else said, it will damage persistence. What's the point of capturing a base, if tomorrow it will automatically switch to another empire?

[Malorn]

As someone else said, it will damage persistence. What's the point of capturing a base, if tomorrow it will automatically switch to another empire?

The thread is about the non-capturable footholds, not capturable territory. So no, it won't damage those things.

[Arokel]

My main issue with a rotation system would be that in order to make it really work they would have to reset the territories owned by each faction to 0 or have some sort of predetermined division (or divisions to shake things up) of the map that they will reset to.

[Malorn]

I don't see it being as big of an issue in PS2. You HAD to take a certain base in the original, but there's no lattice in PS2, the only thing keeping you attacking the same areas will be yourselves. There will be reasons to own areas of the map that AREN'T bases, you know.

Well in PS1 you weren't strictly forced to obey the lattice - you could always drain a base of NTUs and turn it neutral.

PS2 also has the lattice replaced by a territory adjacency system. While there is no strict lattice chain requiring you to have taken a nearby territory, if you don't have nearby territory your capture time will be ridiculously handicapped, and it will be very easy for defenders to stop the capture, or to re-capture if you do succeed.

So no lattice does not mean that you will see battles all over the place. There will be battle lines and you will see a very similar result of the PS1 lattice from the Adjacency system. The adjacency system gives you more freedom and also puts value on non-facility territories so it's more about capturing all territory, not just the large facilities.

[Fafnir]

The thread is about the non-capturable footholds, not capturable territory. So no, it won't damage those things.

So what, you switch them and now your foothold is in the middle of hostile territory and you have to recapture everything around you? Or everything becomes neutral every switch? I don't see how it can be done differently.

[Raymac]

This addresses my only concern about non-capturable footholds. When the warpgates were static in PS1, you would attack the same base from the same direction time and again. It started to get stale. Adding the Broadcast Warpgates really opened up the gameplay considerably.

Even if you fight over the same location, if you approach it from a new direction it will play very differently.

This is a solution that doesn't create a problem of hundreds of players losing the last spawn point on a continent and therefore getting kicked out of the game, which is exactly what taking out the footholds would do.

[Malorn]

So what, you switch them and now your foothold is in the middle of hostile territory and you have to recapture everything around you? Or everything becomes neutral every switch? I don't see how it can be done differently.

The foothold just provides an alternate spawn point and probably some basic adjacency to make capturing the nearby territory easier - but you don' thave to do that.

You don't have to spawn at it, you don't have to capture the territory around it. There is no mechanic mandating this. so if you have a huge chunk of territory on the other side of the continent from your foothold it doesn't really matter. You can still spawn at that other territory, pull vehicles there, and attack out from it. The new foothold position provides you with a new opportunity to take other territory, that is all.

[Immigrant]

I would also agree that resources (if they are static).

Resource will rotate - that's confirmed, and that's good to keep things dynamic however footholds won't. SOE has been promising PERSISTENT WORLD EXPERIENCE I doubt they'll go and piss all over that now with hey let's do global position rotations every month because someone thought it was cool. Go play something else if you don't like world persistence - most multiplayer FPS games reset after 15 mins or less so you have plenty to choose from.

I would like if you could capture footholds however that completely defeats the purpose why they were put in the first place.

[Raymac]

Resource will rotate - that's confirmed, and that's good to keep things dynamic however footholds won't. SOE has been promising PERSISTENT WORLD EXPERIENCE I doubt they'll go and piss all over that now with hey let's do global position rotations every month because someone thought it was cool. Go play something else if you don't like world persistence - most multiplayer FPS games reset after 15 mins or less so you have plenty to choose from.

I would like if you could capture footholds however that completely defeats the purpose why they were put in the first place.

I don't think it will break persistance. I certainly hope the territory around the continent will change hands considerably just as it did in Planetside. So shifting the footholds will indirectly affect the territory captured, but it still needs to be fought for.

[Amdefor]

Absolutely. They should not only allow the footholds to rotate every year or three, but they should remove/add a completely new map every year or three as well. PS1 is still going now, and still fun for many of us who play, and IMO PS1 would be a lot more popular if they could add new maps or mix up the links on the existing maps.

They shouldn't rotate the footholds any time soon after launch, but should program the game to allow them to rotate in future patches (like a year or more down the road).

[Malorn]

Resource will rotate - that's confirmed

Do you have a source for that from the last few months? In Higby's AMAA he said they were currently static. He had previously stated in the initial PS2 reveal they would spawn/despawn but that either hasn't happened yet or isn't in the near future.

[kaffis]

Do you have a source for that from the last few months? In Higby's AMAA he said they were currently static. He had previously stated in the initial PS2 reveal they would spawn/despawn but that either hasn't happened yet or isn't in the near future.
All this means is it isn't a system they've implemented yet. It's probably something they need beta populations to bother testing and tweaking, so this shouldn't be surprising.

[SealedSun]

It always bugged me that I almost never got to fight on some of the more "remote" continents (from a VS perspective).

In my opinion, rotating positions every 3-4 months would strike a good balance between establishing a sense of home/ownership and freshening things up every now and then. :)

[NewSith]

Voted "No". We're about to have more conts sometime post-launch, so the whole foothold thing is not actually set in stone yet. I imagine that when there will be 6+ conts in the game we may even see the return of sanctuaries in some form or at least "homeconts".

Mostly because in my opinio switching foothold ownership is similar to changing sides after a match before the beginning of a new one. That goes against "no match-basement" concept.

[WaryWizard]

wasn't there a topic about this before? Well I don't really like the idea of rotating footholds, but in the previous topic some talked about randomly placed firebases in the hexless parts of the map that you could spawn from. They had some nice pictures to go with it too. I like that idea

[kaffis]

I'll buy that response although you weren't the one giving the initial claim :) He sounded so sure of himself for the feature to be included at release and I had my hopes up.
Oh, yeah. I mean, Malorn could be right and they've scrapped the notion of dynamic resources -- it's not like I have insider info. But just because Matt said that resources were currently static isn't a good reason to jump to conclusions about what they'll release.

[Ale]

Way too much clinging to home continent nonsense here.

ITT: Dr. Frankenstein has second thoughts.
or,
Malorn... you are the father of this child.
or,
Homeconts, A.S.S.inine.
:rofl:


As for the OP's suggestion: Yes, rotation please.

[diLLa]

For me, It's another one of those things that could become an issue, but is highly irrelevant now as you have no clue how battles will move and at what pace.

If stalemates occur a lot around the same areas, than obviously something should be done to keep it fresh, but for all we know we might be fighting all over the continent, and there will be no need to switch it around at all.

[Graywolves]

I'm usually all about changing it up but..

When they started rotating the home conts in PS1 it made me a little sad. Having that sense of "These are ours!" meant something to a lot of people. You couldn't step on Esamir without the entire Vanu Sovereignty coming down on you.

It already feels less like Planetside without Dagda being constantly besieged.

[SgtMAD]

anyone remember SOE flipping the home conts in PS1?

I wouldn't mind seeing it every 3/6 months just to change it all up,the same maps will burn everyone out.

there is one other thing to think about here and it might be the most important,chances are that one or more of the footholds will be in a terrible position and that empire will feel like it got screwed so if you do rotate the footholds the other empires get a chance to feel your pain.

anyone remember what a pain in the ass it was to defend/attack Dagda for years on end?

[SgtMAD]

I'm usually all about changing it up but..

When they started rotating the home conts in PS1 it made me a little sad. Having that sense of "These are ours!" meant something to a lot of people. You couldn't step on Esamir without the entire Vanu Sovereignty coming down on you.

It already feels less like Planetside without Dagda being constantly besieged.

go back and read the OF and see all the threads about getting everyone to leave dagda alone because the vs were sick of defending it,shit I was NC,we attacked it all the time or we would get a cavelock at caer and take that

[Zolan]

I like the idea of a single foothold for each faction on their home continent.

Everything else should simply be a neutral warp gate for travel to the corresponding continents.

Having a bunch of continents with a constant foothold on each one is just... :doh:

[Inverness]

I don't like the idea of permanent footholds on each continent. I think each empire needs one or two home continents like in PS1 and only have permanent footholds there. I don't like the idea of being unable to fully control a continent. Those home continents should also rotate every month or so in order to keep things fresh.

Also, the capturable footholds should not have shields around them and it should be possible for other empires to come in and deactivate the warpgate temporarily by shooting at those 3 pillars to disable them. Naturally, there would have to be other ways to gain entry to the continent like the HART shuttle or by certing a galaxy for inter-continental flight.

Edit: Heres another idea, perhaps instead of having a home continent with an uncapturable foothold gate, make it so each empire can always designate a foothold as their home location, either by default because its the last one left or because commanders chose.

[The Degenatron]

I said no because it ends up being like a round timer and breaks immersion.

Keep in mind that the devs have a plan to add more continent post-release, so there will be plenty of chances to mix it up.

I don't like the idea of permanent footholds on each continent. I think each empire needs one or two home continents like in PS1 and only have permanent footholds there. I don't like the idea of being unable to fully control a continent. Those home continents should also rotate every month or so in order to keep things fresh.

While I understand your reasoning, you have to remember that is exactly what the dev DOn'T want: people being locked out of continents. They want people to be able to go to different environments and not be trapped in one or two places. Keep in mind that when you lock out a continent, you lose the opportunity to play there also.

[Malorn]

ITT: Dr. Frankenstein has second thoughts.
or,
Malorn... you are the father of this child.
or,
Homeconts, A.S.S.inine.
:rofl:


As for the OP's suggestion: Yes, rotation please.

Yes, I did create quite the monster in PS1, and I saw the outcome of that monster - a lot of stagnant fighting. We saw tons of Amerish, Solsar, and Searhus, and quite a bit of Cyssor, but not much else. Forseral? Hossin? Esamir? Almost never. It got very stale. Even back then I wanted them to rotate the broadcast gates so they changed up the fighting. Not having home continents would have meant the battle lines shifted a lot more and we would have seen more variety of combat but may not have seen much of any lock benefits.

But the way PS1 was designed, home continents is how solidified a front, locked continents, and moved forward. That doesn't map to PS2 all that well since there isn't continent locking. That whole mechanic got moved to the smaller scale, and the last thing I want is stagnant fighting on a sub-continent level. Stagnant fighting at the continental level was bad enough.

Home continents promotes stagnation, we really are better off without that concept making its way into PS2. And yes, I know how hypocritical that sounds after being a huge encourager of home continents in PS1 :) I don't like how my monster turned out. That monster kept me from my love, Ceryshen.