How come each faction doesn't own a continent?

[Resolve]

Each faction could own a continent(1 foothold per continent), and each continent could have 2 warp gates that go to the other continents. This way it'd be possible to lock an empire from a continent but they'll still have their home continent to plan another attack/defend from invaders.
I think the only downside to this is that you wont be able to play on any continent at will if your empire doesn't have a base on it.

[Stew]

this subject is already decide by the dev team and its not subject to change so its a lost of time !

[Ratstomper]

I actually liked the sanctuary and wouldn't mind if they brought them back. That said, I don't think it's game-breaking or anything. I'm not going to make any serious judgments until I get hands on with the game and see how it works out.

[Stew]

Each faction could own a continent(1 foothold per continent), and each continent could have 2 warp gates that go to the other continents. This way it'd be possible to lock an empire from a continent but they'll still have their home continent to plan another attack/defend from invaders.
I think the only downside to this is that you wont be able to play on any continent at will if your empire doesn't have a base on it.

And also locking factions out of a continents mean USEless battleground why should the dev team make some amasing base outpost etc.. if all those are almost never contested and players cant play on it most of the time

all this subject start to really get anoying

Think twice why should the dev team make some awesome contents if 90 % of the time this contents have no use ? Why making biodome if no ones figth in it ?

And also it will dramatically reduce the pace and the variety in the gameplay

anyway the dev team already have state on it and their choice is smart

[Stardouser]

this subject is already decide by the dev team and its not subject to change so its a lost of time !

This is one of the reasons it's decided, people are assuming the devs know best. And maybe they do, but that's not because you have to be a card carrying game designer to have a valid opinion.

Let's look at this from another angle. There WILL be other MMOFPSs at some point. You can bet they won't all adopt the continent approach. Or will they? Is there some reason it has to be such small continents that isn't unique to Planetside?

[Resolve]

And also locking factions out of a continents mean USEless battleground why should the dev team make some amasing base outpost etc.. if all those are almost never contested and players cant play on it most of the time

all this subject start to really get anoying

Think twice why should the dev team make some awesome contents if 90 % of the time this contents have no use ? Why making biodome if no ones figth in it ?

And also it will dramatically reduce the pace and the variety in the gameplay

anyway the dev team already have state on it and their choice is smart

It can still be discussed :P

I mean, in ps1 I saw different continents every day. It's up to the players if they want to fight somewhere they have to earn a base on that continent. I always loved that part of PS.

[Bags]

Because higby doesn't want players locked out of the content.

[Baneblade]

Three Little Sancs

The first little sanc built a house of spent shell casings and dried gun powder. It looked awesome. But when the Vanuwolf came around and knocked on the door with his big laser teeth, the house exploded and the Vanuwolf abducted the first little sanc and promptly began to test its loyalty until death with probes.

The second little sanc's house was build out of the shell of an old Vanguard. It didn't look like much, what with duck tape everywhere. The Vanuwolf knocked on the top hatch with an orbital strike and the second little sanc tried to quadshot, but missed when Vanuwolf strafed up :doh: . Vanuwolf tazed the rebellious little sanc and decided to give him to the first little sanc as a slave.

The third little sanc thought itself pretty smart building its house out of a warpgate. The Vanuwolf tried everything, but ended up giving up hope of ever getting his hands on the third little sanc. The third little sanc told the first and second little sancs about this idea and they decided to try it themselves when the Vanuwolf was eating an Auraxisalad (treestuff and thousand island dressing).

Thus the three little sancs all had houses that the Vanuwolf couldn't destroy, which was too bad, because then the three little sancs started fighting about Cake, Pie, or Brownies. Clegging pigs.

[Resolve]

Because higby doesn't want players locked out of the content.

But why? It was a huge part of PS1 and it's a strategic game...having footholds on every base kinda removes a huge aspect of that.

[Turdicus]

I've heard compelling arguments both for and against sanctuaries and continent locking. The most reasonable one so far has been the idea that sancs and locks arent necessary with just 3 continents. But when more and more become available a system to avoid depopulation must be created, and sanctuaries, warp gates, and continent locks are great ways to rotate the continents so that depopulation doesn't occur.

So it might be better at launch to have the footholds, and then later on when the game world expands a new system will be implemented to keep battles big and fresh.

[Mechzz]

Because higby doesn't want players locked out of the content.

Never mind Higby, I don't want to be pop-locked out of the server my main character plays on. I'm sure none of us would want that. So until someone can a propose a "let's throw an empire off a continent" model that does not involve either :

a: causing players on the losing side to not be able to play because of pop-locking
or
b: more than 3 continents

then I can't see anything positive coming of these threads.

Anyways, I stick to the opinion that footholding an empire will be rare in a balanced game and therefore something that will be valued by the winners.

[Geist]

The problem with that is if you have a foothold solely on that continent, than you can't really fight anywhere else if your continent is being attacked. Than you have 2000 of your empires players who would usually be spread out on all 3 continents fighting the queue to get one of the 666 spots on your home continent, because that is the only place you have a foothold on.

Tbh, I would love for each empire to have a "Home Continent", which would be:


TR Esamir - They've hinted that Esamir would have some actual(albeit ruined) cityscape, so what better place for the rightful governing body to have than the remains of their cities?
NC Indar - Most of their equipment is repurposed mining equipment, and Indar gives me the feeling of a continent who's main purpose and value is the mining of it's resources.
VS Amerish - http://www.planetside-universe.com/media/album/mp52rz6sp6/20120527_4fc300fb5e5f2.jpg Kind of looks like Amerish to me and those crystals give me the uncontrollable urge to research something. Perfect for VS no?

But I still think that each continent should have a foothold for each empire so that we can keep the max amount of players fighting constantly all over Auraxis. Either that or a Sanctuary with access to every continent. That works too.

[Malorn]

There's only 3 continents. Do you want to fight on only 1 continent most of the time? I don't, that would be shitty.

Until they add more we can't get anything like the old PS continents.

To be clear, there's two issues.

1) Not enough continents. Until this changes any sort of inter-continental linking is dead in the water.

2) Downtime/lockout fun-factor. Even if there were enough continents, its another issue whether the downtime created and the concept of locking players out of playing on a continent is something that is good for the game.

The first will be resolved in time. The second one is a design decision they may revisit after they see how things play out and we have more continents to work with.

[Mechzz]

OK. 3 posts in a row saying the exact same thing.

/thread

[kaffis]

I think the only downside to this is that you wont be able to play on any continent at will if your empire doesn't have a base on it.
Actually, the problem with this is the same problem you have when you can lock a faction out of a continent at all:

Suddenly, the amount of players who can play on that faction on that server plummets once they get locked out of a continent.

We don't want to see drastic capacity changes like that.

[IMMentat]

Bad idea.
It would reduce gameplay to "guard the warpgate 24/7"
The only reason multiple continents workesd in planetside is because there were so many attack options.
PS2 will launch with 3 continents. thats 2 pairs of free access warpgates to defend per continent.
Clusterfuck anyone?

[Stew]

There's only 3 continents. Do you want to fight on only 1 continent most of the time? I don't, that would be shitty.

Until they add more we can't get anything like the old PS continents.

To be clear, there's two issues.

1) Not enough continents. Until this changes any sort of inter-continental linking is dead in the water.

2) Downtime/lockout fun-factor. Even if there were enough continents, its another issue whether the downtime created and the concept of locking players out of playing on a continent is something that is good for the game.

The first will be resolved in time. The second one is a design decision they may revisit after they see how things play out and we have more continents to work with.

Deeply agree with this I do not want to always play on the same part of the maps the bases the maps have been made to be contest not to be left over to have everyones figth on the edje of the continents

[Xyntech]

Continents are bigger now. I'm not even talking about how many square kilometers they are, I'm simply talking about how many important capture points there are on the map. A lot of towers used to be inconsequential in PS1, but now they are as important as bases used to be, with PS2's bases being huge and even more important than that.

By the most up to date information I can find, it looks like there are 63 points on Indar which you can capture to control a piece of territory. By comparison, Cyssor from the first game had 17 territory capture points (17 bases, becuase towers didn't provide territory control in the Lattice system). So that's more than 3x as many capture points on Indar vs some of the biggest maps in PS1.

The point being that there is at least three times as much play area packed into a single continent, with at least 4x as many players fighting over it.

So the upshot is that 3 continents at launch will equal pretty much the same amount of population and contestable territory as the 10 continents that PS1 launched with.

The downside is that locking a continent would remove 3 PS1 continents worth of playing space at a time, not just 1 out of 10.

Personally, the more I've thought about it, I'm not even a big fan of locking continents even when there are as many as 10. Certainly it allows for attackers to rest a moment without having to worry about immediately going back to fighting over the same land they just took, but I think the better choice would be to just make it more difficult to break into a continent, so that defenders don't have to keep such a huge force guarding the gate.

I'd also like to see a region system put in, where you can capture a series of hexes which together give you control of a region of the continent, with a regional benefit similar to continental benefits from PS1. Indar is already the equivalent of several PS1 continents smashed together, so I think it would make a lot of sense to also have subdivided regions which can be capped to replace that continent capping feeling.

[CutterJohn]

There needs to be more continents.

With more continents, but not an increase in players on the server, empires WILL cap conts, because there is more land to defend than people to defend it.

The empires, then, will naturally pick home continents that they defend vigorously. Other empires will be able to take and hold these continents.


Literally nothing else needs changed. There simply needs to be more land. Thats it.

[Xyntech]

There needs to be more continents.

With more continents, but not an increase in players on the server, empires WILL cap conts, because there is more land to defend than people to defend it.

The empires, then, will naturally pick home continents that they defend vigorously. Other empires will be able to take and hold these continents.


Literally nothing else needs changed. There simply needs to be more land. Thats it.

I disagree. Certainly continents will get taken over, but that would be like one empire holding 3 continents in the first game. It happened, during that time players didn't get to play on those 3 continents, and the game was fine. During peak hours where that play space is needed, players will push their way back out of the footholds and begin the cycle anew. With the territory advantage, maybe the dominant empire can push them back again, or maybe eventually their lines break and the other empires spread free again.

I also want more continents, but I understand that as far as populations and numers of capturable territory points, 3 Indar style continents already matches or exceeds the 5000 players with 150-ish capture points from the first game.

I think more continents with more players, like 12,000 players per server, would be an excellent thing for the game, I'm just trying to keep some perspective here. 6000 players per server is already more than the first game. 3 continents isn't as disastrous as some people are making it out to be.

It certainly will have some new challenges and problems that will have to be fixed and addressed, but it's not inherently broken, or insufficient. That is a huge myth, and I don't even need beta to know that for certain. Just look at the number of people they are shooting for per server, and count the number of capture points on Indar. Other problems concerning having only 3 continents at launch will definitely have to be addressed during beta, but it's no worse for playable space and population limits than the first game was.

Of course, if they fail to get 2000 players per continent, there could be some big problems. But let's cross that bridge when we get to it.

[Otleaz]

And also locking factions out of a continents mean USEless battleground why should the dev team make some amasing base outpost etc.. if all those are almost never contested and players cant play on it most of the time

This is the same bullshit logic that has ruined a great feature that used make older games so amazing. "Why should I design content if not every single player isn't going to see it?"

Now "secrets" in RPGs have giant neon arrows pointing at them and there are invisible walls that kill you if you stray too far off the path.

The best part is though, is that it isn't even relevant to planetside 2 because eventually you WOULD see it. Just because every last area won't be used 24/7 doesn't mean it isn't there and making the game better.

[Zolan]

I'm surprised how many people picked the sanctuary option.

I say, replace the sanctuary with an orbital space station sanctuary as someone suggested in the idea section of the forums.

That way we can attack anywhere at any time via warp gate entry or perhaps the occasional drop pod from the space station. Something similar to the HART shuttle in that it would have a 10 minute cool-down or something, but dissimilar in that you wouldn't have to wait to board the damn thing.

Orbital drop pods would have to be relegated to landing in open areas on the map away from large bases (similar to the original), or perhaps along the edges of the map. You don't want a hundred players dropping in on a single base courtyard or anything like that. :doh:

[kaffis]

The best part is though, is that it isn't even relevant to planetside 2 because eventually you WOULD see it. Just because every last area won't be used 24/7 doesn't mean it isn't there and making the game better.
The problem isn't that content gets locked away. It's that player capacity does. You can't have big swings in player capacity at peak playtimes. Thus, footholds allow for an empire to own the map without reducing the "playspace" for the other empires -- their players can still log in after the other two continents are population capped.

[Xyntech]

I wouldn't mind having a sanctuary back, but I'm fine with the current system. I do think it would be vastly improved by some sort of foothold capture mechanic. Just make it so that if it's an empires last foothold, it can't be capped. Easy.

That, or do the home continent thing, where each empire has one continent who's foothold can never be captured, but that they can grab broadcast warpgates on other continents and turn them into footholds, which can then be captured and reverted back to warpgates. But I prefer the other option. More dynamic, while still keeping empires from being kicked off the world.

[kaffis]

I wouldn't mind having a sanctuary back, but I'm fine with the current system. I do think it would be vastly improved by some sort of foothold capture mechanic. Just make it so that if it's an empires last foothold, it can't be capped. Easy.

That, or do the home continent thing, where each empire has one continent who's foothold can never be captured, but that they can grab broadcast warpgates on other continents and turn them into footholds, which can then be captured and reverted back to warpgates. But I prefer the other option. More dynamic, while still keeping empires from being kicked off the world.
But you could still have *individuals* from the empire kicked off the world, when they lose access to a continent (because they don't have a foothold there) and the other continents are poplocked for that empire.

Unacceptable.

[Red Beard]

There needs to be more continents.

With more continents, but not an increase in players on the server, empires WILL cap conts, because there is more land to defend than people to defend it.

The empires, then, will naturally pick home continents that they defend vigorously. Other empires will be able to take and hold these continents.


Literally nothing else needs changed. There simply needs to be more land. Thats it.


IF the new continents don't have 3 footholds on each! If they do it would suck.

[WNxThentar]

There are warp gates on each cont that function as a Sanc. Having a Sanc just seems to pull us further from the fights and introduces a loading screen I don't care to have personally.

[The Kush]

With a limited amount of continents at launch having a home continent or sanctuary (which I believe should be eventually added) is impossible.

[WNxThentar]

I actually liked the sanctuary and wouldn't mind if they brought them back. That said, I don't think it's game-breaking or anything. I'm not going to make any serious judgments until I get hands on with the game and see how it works out.

What did they provide that a Warp gate will not? Staging wasn't a big surprise in PS1 especially when PS1 began to be F2P. All it did was slow down getting back to the battle. Now instead of respawning at Sanc, getting thrown to 1 of 3 random corners of the island you get to respawn in a protected warp gate and no issue of having a loading screen.

It can still be discussed :P

I mean, in ps1 I saw different continents every day. It's up to the players if they want to fight somewhere they have to earn a base on that continent. I always loved that part of PS.

And that will still be the case. Just because you've got a warp gate to push in from doesn't mean anything. Also remember that the way PS2 will work is that if you wish you could fly to the middle of cont controlled completely by 1 empire and start capturing territory. The game will promote capturing adjacent territories but it isn't like PS1 where you needed a link to make a capture.

But why? It was a huge part of PS1 and it's a strategic game...having footholds on every base kinda removes a huge aspect of that.

Because this is PS2? Now you have to fight to protect and capture every piece of land and it makes every piece of land have some value. Unlike in PS1 where there are towers in the middle of no wear that have ZERO purpose in PS2 every piece of land has value resource wise. Back hacking while possible is going to be hard because if you don't own territory around it then it will take a lot longer to capture and it will take very little time to take back.

Actually, the problem with this is the same problem you have when you can lock a faction out of a continent at all:

Suddenly, the amount of players who can play on that faction on that server plummets once they get locked out of a continent.

We don't want to see drastic capacity changes like that.

Agreed. We'll probably see battles all over the place because of the resources. If one empire doesn't have a good pop they may go to a fairly empty cont to gain ground and resources and pull part of the fight to there. Locking an empire from a cont isn't going to happen simply because of the resource game mechanic but they've made it harder for an empire to just back hack. Pushes will be out from the empire warp bubble I imagine but it doesn't have to be.

[Baneblade]

Nobody liked my answer? Cleg you all.

[WNxThentar]

Continents are bigger now. I'm not even talking about how many square kilometers they are, I'm simply talking about how many important capture points there are on the map. A lot of towers used to be inconsequential in PS1, but now they are as important as bases used to be, with PS2's bases being huge and even more important than that.

By the most up to date information I can find, it looks like there are 63 points on Indar which you can capture to control a piece of territory. By comparison, Cyssor from the first game had 17 territory capture points (17 bases, becuase towers didn't provide territory control in the Lattice system). So that's more than 3x as many capture points on Indar vs some of the biggest maps in PS1.

The point being that there is at least three times as much play area packed into a single continent, with at least 4x as many players fighting over it.

So the upshot is that 3 continents at launch will equal pretty much the same amount of population and contestable territory as the 10 continents that PS1 launched with.

The downside is that locking a continent would remove 3 PS1 continents worth of playing space at a time, not just 1 out of 10.

Personally, the more I've thought about it, I'm not even a big fan of locking continents even when there are as many as 10. Certainly it allows for attackers to rest a moment without having to worry about immediately going back to fighting over the same land they just took, but I think the better choice would be to just make it more difficult to break into a continent, so that defenders don't have to keep such a huge force guarding the gate.

I'd also like to see a region system put in, where you can capture a series of hexes which together give you control of a region of the continent, with a regional benefit similar to continental benefits from PS1. Indar is already the equivalent of several PS1 continents smashed together, so I think it would make a lot of sense to also have subdivided regions which can be capped to replace that continent capping feeling.

Latest shots of Indar I've seen I counted over 70 capture points. So yea...They show that you don't even need adjacent territory to capture and control land. This makes the game much more fluid. I suspect you'll see things like outfits dropping on one small piece of land that has resource 'x' that they either need and try to hold it. I like this idea.

In my mind PS2 shouldn't be about 1 faction dominating a 2nd faction closely following behind and a third being some bastard child. I like what the devs have designed so far.

[WNxThentar]

There needs to be more continents.

With more continents, but not an increase in players on the server, empires WILL cap conts, because there is more land to defend than people to defend it.

The empires, then, will naturally pick home continents that they defend vigorously. Other empires will be able to take and hold these continents.


Literally nothing else needs changed. There simply needs to be more land. Thats it.


I'd love to see PS2 become like EVE. One MASSIVE world where everyone plays on the same one. I think you'll see a lot of balancing as far as pops from new players. I very much imagine all PS1 vets will be loading on one server. As the flood of greenies come in our server will show as a high population and players will opt to pick less populated servers.

I think the 3 maps being as big as they are will be fine for the PS1 vets and some greenies. That said if it isn't and the game is that popular it means the world developers will probably be able to pump out other maps fairly quickly because they'll be very familiar with the tools, they'll have a very good idea of what works where from beta and live testing.

Personally I'm very optimistic :)

[WNxThentar]

Beta is coming soon and we'll get a better idea of how things work to ... so no one freak out just yet.

[EVILoHOMER]

Before judging changes we'll have to experience how it works out in beta.

[Xyntech]

Heh, oops. I said I had counted about 63 capture points but I left out the hexes with the base facilities. 72 was the number I should have listed.

[noodz]

Bring back the sanctuary and allow sanctuaries to be attacked if that faction has no bases anywhere else... the chances of this ever happening is so small but it would be a good global goal/incentive to have in the back of your mind while playing in my opinion.

[Sabot]

Just wait and see how it all works in reality before screaming for changes. Might be totally fine this way... regardless of how many continents there are. The devs have played the game as well.. it's not like they're guessing or throwing darts at wall blindfolded, picking whatever it hits. And if it's a complete disaster I'm sure changes will be made... and they've already proven they listen to us so...

Sorry for sounding like a fan boy, but I kind of am... They have my support in their decisions. :P

[Traenor]

Footholds are not a perfect solution, but i certainly think it is the best. The most "immersive" solution would be that you could defeat factions and they never would be able to come back. That does not work, as this is a game, not a real war. Footholds are a better solution than sanc´s, because footholds make the defeated factions much more likely to keep up the battle. Sanc´s would make continents be all about locking people out by defeating them soundly. It might feel a little better to do that for the winners, but you also have to consider it from the losers perspective.
Tl;dr: I want the battle to keep raging all the time, footholds is best for that.

[Magpie]

Three Little Sancs

The first little sanc built a house of spent shell casings and dried gun powder. It looked awesome. But when the Vanuwolf came around and knocked on the door with his big laser teeth, the house exploded and the Vanuwolf abducted the first little sanc and promptly began to test its loyalty until death with probes.

The second little sanc's house was build out of the shell of an old Vanguard. It didn't look like much, what with duck tape everywhere. The Vanuwolf knocked on the top hatch with an orbital strike and the second little sanc tried to quadshot, but missed when Vanuwolf strafed up :doh: . Vanuwolf tazed the rebellious little sanc and decided to give him to the first little sanc as a slave.

The third little sanc thought itself pretty smart building its house out of a warpgate. The Vanuwolf tried everything, but ended up giving up hope of ever getting his hands on the third little sanc. The third little sanc told the first and second little sancs about this idea and they decided to try it themselves when the Vanuwolf was eating an Auraxisalad (treestuff and thousand island dressing).

Thus the three little sancs all had houses that the Vanuwolf couldn't destroy, which was too bad, because then the three little sancs started fighting about Cake, Pie, or Brownies. Clegging pigs.

What are you smoking I want some of that stuff! Lmao