The godawful spawncamping issue

[Babyfark McGeez]

Seriously, this has to go.
Many people have been complaining about this since the beginning of the beta and it has not become any better. As soon as a group reaches an enemy base tanks start to spawncamp, rendering any defense (from the actual base) impossible. If you're lucky they don't have tanks so you have a slight chance of getting out of the spawn-hut. If not, re-spawn elsewhere and just ditch the base. That really blows.

Why on earth are spawnrooms isolated little huts with a maximum of two doors at the edge of the base? Why not an underground spawn room below the complex? Or atleast some tunnels from the "spawn-hut" leading to other buildings? Why is this spawncamping such an integral part of the play experience?

Honestly, i may be raging a bit here after being spawncamped at 6(!!) different bases trying to defend them (note: all six bases still had alot of time to flip), but this is bullcrap.

Edit: The only positive example here is the biolab, where the spawn is inside the actual base. In amp stations and tech plants there is usually an ams-sunderer in the main area, for a reason; Because that is where the spawnroom should be...

[Necronile]

I agree
alot of times I found myself getting shredded because I left the spawn room,
they need to be relocated in a way that the defenders have a chance to get out and fight back.

[Sturmhardt]

Yup, spawncamping really sucks about ps2.

[Ghoest9]

Or you could ----- SPAWN SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!


Its not like an old MMO where you bound to a spawn point.
If someone is farming you at a spawn that means you are too dumb to regroup at a position that hasnt been over run.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Or you could ----- SPAWN SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!


Its not like an old MMO where you bound to a spawn point.
If someone is farming you at a spawn that means you are too dumb to regroup at a position that hasnt been over run.

That is a bandaid-fix for a problem caused by stupid map design.
If a base is overrun a clever game mechanic would be to prevent the defenders from spawning there anymore, or at least, give the defenders any indication that you most likely will get spawnkilled at that base ("platoon detected" is not enough).

And since you worded your post like you didn't even read my OP; I SPAWNED AT FIVE DIFFERENT BASES WHICH WERE ALL BEING SPAWNCAMPED (one of them didn't even had the cap point contested).

[PredatorFour]

Or you could ----- SPAWN SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!

Id say this is a real potential game breaker. If everyones getting annoyed by what is some crazy design idea, just think of the newbies and casuals they are trying to attract and how they will see this.(how many of these will simply follow the above comment? Why should we have to spawn AWAY from our base to try and defend it?)

They seriously have to look into this, all we can do is be constructive and offer alternatives. Having them underground or in the base sounds essential so that defenders can get out and actually mount a serious defense instead of getting rolled over by tanks.

[Tiberius]

The tank camping will happen regardless. The only thing they can do is put more tunnels between you and the shells.

I agree though, it feels way too open. I liked having everything underground because you weren't tank fodder while running to resecure/fix something.

[psijaka]

Or you could ----- SPAWN SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!

Missing the point completely - The onus should be on the attackers to defend 'A', not for the defenders to break out of a camped spawn room.

I often do spawn elsewhere once I realise that we are being heavily camped, but I shouldn't have to; poor game design if spawn camping is the deciding factor in takeovers.

And nothing is more likely to turn off a new player than being repeatedly slaughtered as soon as they step through the shield.

Spawn rooms should be designed so that they have multiple exits and are difficult to camp, especially by tanks. Teleports and jump pads should even be considered.

It is possible to turn the tables on the attackers to a certain extent by popping in and out of the shields and taking potshots with the Bolt Driver, especially from the upstairs balcony windows of the larger spawn rooms, but that is hardly going to recap the point and save the day.

[PoisonTaco]

Respawn at closest tower or facility with vehicle/air terminals. Get your crew and roll out to go and retake the facility before it flips and rout the attackers?

If you've lost a base, stop respawning into the meatgrinder. Regroup and make a counter assault.

[Sledgecrushr]

I think that if you cant keep the enemy armor and infantry out of your base then you have pretty much lost. Save yourself some further humiliation and stop spawning back into your defeated base.

[Sledgecrushr]

Missing the point completely - The onus should be on the attackers to defend 'A', not for the defenders to break out of a camped spawn room.

I often do spawn elsewhere once I realise that we are being heavily camped, but I shouldn't have to; poor game design if spawn camping is the deciding factor in takeovers.

The deciding moment in this hypothetical battle happened when you were unable to defend the base and were conquered. The issue you seem to have is in reconciling with that fact.

[Cosmical]

Don't know what the answer is for this. Yes i admit its hardly compelling sitting there camping a shield, infact i have a Magrider setup with VPC specifically for this. Certs are Certs.

But to solve it i dont know? You can shoot out of the force field and assess the situation safely to realize you're outgunned, which is more than you would get in any actual war. And i have seen situations where people in the spawn rooms have held out by taking pot shots, and then pushed out together and have retaken the base, although this is rare.

But then again i think every base should have an easily defendable wall with turret defenses, not those Targets on sticks we have at the moment.

I dont think people realise how much elevation is a deciding factor in planetside 2 fights. Seriously play for a night and watch every fight you get into, and take not of whether you either win or lose. Its usually decided by who has the high ground.

Bases that are surrounded by hills and sunken down are a none defender. Your just fish in a barrel, with ducks sitting on them.

[Fear The Amish]

i agree with sledge if you are being spawn camped you lost that base move on and either settup defense at next base or gather a fighting tail and try and retake it.

[Figment]

Of course you lost that base, under the current status quo due to base design not providing you with options.

What is incomprehensible is people thinking that's how it SHOULD be.


What's the point of designing a combat game and a fight over a control point, if you actively discourage fighting over the control point?

Might as well just make it instant flip then. But I guess that's kinda lost on the people with a pragmatic defeatist attitude towards a status quo design. :/ A siege is excellent, a camp is not.

[Babyfark McGeez]

I see several of you made their peace with the crappy map design.
That is fine, but please refrain from telling me/others to "SPAWN ELSEWHERE".

Because that is not the problem here.
The problem here is it will be an issue for new players (you know, all these new players they are making this game for and then leaving them alone in the dark when they actually start it), and especially it is an issue that could be solved by some common sense mapping.

People writing "Spawn elsewhere" are completely missing the point.

[Fear The Amish]

Of course you lost that base, under the current status quo due to base design not providing you with options.

What is incomprehensible is people thinking that's how it SHOULD be.


What's the point of designing a combat game and a fight over a control point, if you actively discourage fighting over the control point?

Might as well just make it instant flip then. But I guess that's kinda lost on the people with a pragmatic defeatist attitude towards a status quo design. :/ A siege is excellent, a camp is not.

here is my problem with this though... Spawn room camping can be alleviated by a few things that the PLAYERS need to do. Sundies park them on opposite sides of base hidden in buildings, this gives you 3 spawns and defend each one like its the alamo. Forward Defenses don't just defend in the facility have people defending the terrain outside so that they have to push you into the facility first. I prefer these mechanics over me camping a tunnel to keep them down there like in PS1 that shiat was boring.

[Dagron]

I'm not sure what would be a good solution to the spawn camping situation that's going on, but this dismissive attitude some people seem to have towards it doesn't solve anything.

Some people don't see a problem with just quitting and spawning elsewhere, but losing a territory because you can't get out of a spawn room isn't fun and quitting isn't a tactic. There should be something you can do other than just say "meh, we will take the base back later".

Others think if you're being spawn camped then you lost the base before that happened, but the problem isn't about when you lost control of the base, the problem is keeping the fight interesting until the last minute after the defenders have already lost a lot of ground. They should be able to make a decision, whether to fall back and regroup or to keep fighting to try a desperate recovery, but this decision shouldn't be made for them the minute the vehicle barricades fall, that's no fun.

By encouraging people to keep fighting to the end, there is a better chance that when someone sees a hotspot on the map, they can drop there without fear of wasting the instant action in a place where they'll make no difference and will just have to find somewhere else to fight.

As for the suggestion of setting up a sundie hidden somewhere in the base, it's an interesting idea but very hard to accomplish because there aren't many places to hide it where they'd be somewhat protected from tanks and airships (and i mean protected, not completely safe), and those few places are usually right where the enemy has already taken over and is currently squatting while they wait for the base to flip (right under the control point). Hell, chances are they already have their own sundie deployed there... maybe there should be many more places suitable to deploy a sundie in big bases, so people would have to look for it instead of just swarming the one place where they know it is.

[Fear The Amish]

I'm not sure what would be a good solution to the spawn camping situation that's going on, but this dismissive attitude some people seem to have towards it doesn't solve anything.

Some people don't see a problem with just quitting and spawning elsewhere, but losing a territory because you can't get out of a spawn room isn't fun and quitting isn't a tactic. There should be something you can do other than just say "meh, we will take the base back later".

Others think if you're being spawn camped then you lost the base before that happened, but the problem isn't about when you lost control of the base, the problem is keeping the fight interesting until the last minute after the defenders have already lost a lot of ground. They should be able to make a decision, whether to fall back and regroup or to keep fighting to try a desperate recovery, but this decision shouldn't be made for them the minute the vehicle barricades fall, that's no fun.

By encouraging people to keep fighting to the end, there is a better chance that when someone sees a hotspot on the map, they can drop there without fear of wasting the instant action in a place where they'll make no difference and will just have to find somewhere else to fight.

As for the suggestion of setting up a sundie hidden somewhere in the base, it's an interesting idea but very hard to accomplish because there aren't many places to hide it where they'd be somewhat protected from tanks and airships (and i mean protected, not completely safe), and those few places are usually right where the enemy has already taken over and is currently squatting while they wait for the base to flip (right under the control point). Hell, chances are they already have their own sundie deployed there... maybe there should be many more places suitable to deploy a sundie in big bases, so people would have to look for it instead of just swarming the one place where they know it is.

the problem with the Sundies is you took 1 piece instead of the whole pie. If your forces are fighting in the terrain around the base and start to be pushed you pull the sundies and hide them, A few choice places are between buildings are against them or hidden behind a hill. So that you DON'T lose the base and get spawn camped.

[Sledgecrushr]

If your defending forces have been wiped out and your only spawn area has been surrounded by a force strong enough to keep you contained then you have lost the fight. Sure your still spawning and running outside and dying in a hailstorm of bullets but this fight barring a last minute counter attack from outside forces is done with.

[SixShooter]

The only positive example here is the biolab, where the spawn is inside the actual base. In amp stations and tech plants there is usually an ams-sunderer in the main area, for a reason; Because that is where the spawnroom should be...

I agree with you for the most part except on a couple points.

The teleporter in the Tech Plant spawn room takes you directly inside the main base and works great for defending when you might want to pop back over to the spawn room to resupply grenades or C4 or whatever. That one only get's camped if the main building is overrun.

At least the Amp Station spawn is located within the walls and placed in such a way to not get camped by tanks. The only time this one gets camped is if the courtyard is overrun. I actually prefer how the spawn used to be located behind the main building providing more cover and better access to the main building but the way it is currently gives faster access to defend the main gates.

Outposts (excluding towers) are mostly a joke which is why we really need Jammers/EMP to be able to push out from the spawns. There are exceptions here including TI Alloys where the spawn is in a fairly defensable position while only having 1 door to exit through. Defenders are able to hold that area pretty well despite spawining in a shack at the edge of the base.

I definitly miss the underground spawns with more options to push out from and hopefully they will make a return but even those got camped all the time. Keep in mind that this stuff is not set in stone even after launch so hopefully if enough people want it to change then in can be changed.

[PredatorFour]

I got an idea that might help the spawn camp situation without redesigning the game environment.

How about the defenders can fire out of their shielded spawns so they can push back the enemy campers. The attackers wouldn`t be able to shoot through the spawn shield but defenders would be able too.

[Saintlycow]

I got an idea that might help the spawn camp situation without redesigning the game environment.

How about the defenders can fire out of their shielded spawns so they can push back the enemy campers. The attackers wouldn`t be able to shoot through the spawn shield but defenders would be able too.

They can already, its just that the doorway is so small that you get friendly fire, and the enemy can camp just outside of your view, forcing you to exit the spawn

[james]

I got an idea that might help the spawn camp situation without redesigning the game environment.

How about the defenders can fire out of their shielded spawns so they can push back the enemy campers. The attackers wouldn`t be able to shoot through the spawn shield but defenders would be able too.

They already can do that to my knowledge, but it still wouldn't fix it when you have 200 guys chilling outside, gl with that.

A simple solution would be if the attackers hold all points for lets say 1 min, the spawns for the defenders would be disabled, thats basically how it is now. It just takes away from sitting on a span door

[Ghoest9]

When you are spawn camped - YOU HAVE LOST.

Its not a 'issue" with the game - its only an "issue" that you arent accepting that YOU HAVE LOST.

Maybe you would be happy if instead of having facts on the ground demonstrate that the fight is over in stead the devs put a big flashing message on your screen that says
YOU HAVE LOST

[Babyfark McGeez]

And another one not getting what the actual issue is. Welcome sire, you are not alone.

[Beerbeer]

I agree, vehicle spawn camping is a bit ridiculous and not fun at all.

I thought about this more and there's really no easy solution, however here are my thoughts:

Outposts:
1. Shuffle the spawn locations at outposts, moving them more into the core of the base, coupled with more buildings around it preventing vehicle access or Los to the doors, while also moving the capture point to the core of the base, away from vehicles OR
2. Add a small vehicle-proof wall around the spawn location (with infantry-only accessible stairs) OR the entire base, ensuring (or minimizing) vehicle Los to the doors.

Tower:
1. Completely enclose the floor with the capture point AND interior spawn floor from the outside, no wall jumpers or tank spam.

Tech:
1. Create a third floor in the main building that will serve as a spawn location, with exits that lead both down to the second floor and capture point and to the roof. Fairly simple change.

Amp:
1. Create a spawn room in the center of the main building, possibly on another floor. Add one way tube teleports to the top of two outer towers on opposite ends of the base.

Bio: no change

Bases won't be changing hands so much. A concerted effort will be needed to take stuff over instead of just camping doors with tanks. I think more people would be inclined to defend since they will know they at least can leave the spawn room to put up a fight.

[Fear The Amish]

And another one not getting what the actual issue is. Welcome sire, you are not alone.

see my problem is if the spawn is underground and connected by tunnels they would just camp that. I think its ridiculous what i think you really want is a free pass to constantly harras the attacking force even if you have lost that is just silly.

[Chewy]

Some people don't see a problem with just quitting and spawning elsewhere, but losing a territory because you can't get out of a spawn room isn't fun and quitting isn't a tactic. There should be something you can do other than just say "meh, we will take the base back later".

Quitting IS a tactic, one that must never be forgotten. To "quit" a battle is called making a retreat and can/has saved more lives and won more wars than you will ever know. Not every fight needs to be a Thermopylae pass. To see each fight as you MUST hold that ground or lose it all will cost you a war. Never toss away a life. Retreat, rearm, and regroup. Make them SUFFER for taking what is yours.

Take the Crown for example. It's so easy to defend that the defenders often stay there LONG after it is cut off and are beaten to a pulp over hours. That always leads to that faction losing damn near everything and getting pushed back to the WG. One must learn to see when a battle is lost before hope is lost or bare the pain of losing everything.

[Ghoest9]

This is like lemmings complaining the the cliffs are too high and the water is too cold.

[Babyfark McGeez]

see my problem is if the spawn is underground and connected by tunnels they would just camp that. I think its ridiculous what i think you really want is a free pass to constantly harras the attacking force even if you have lost that is just silly.

No, that is not what i'm on about. But your comment actually made me realize there are two points to this problem (Also i realized it is more an issue in the outposts than the actual big bases, so i will refer to those in the following paragraph):

If you have a spawnroom like in most outposts with a maximum of two exits that also sits outside where tanks can continously fire at it, it's simply too easy to camp these doors to effectively end any resistance (also: ++Certs).
By increasing the numbers of exits (or better: possible wayouts, since simply adding more doorframes to the huts won't cut it) you automatically decrease the number of people who can camp these exits. That way people would concentrate more on keeping the actual objectives instead of simply trying to shut down the resistance via spawncamping.
Camping 6 exits that are not in the same building is harder than to camp 2 in one building. Result: More opportunities to actually retake that outpost for the defenders. Attackers focus on the actual objective and camp there instead of the spawn. Bottom-line: More varied action for everyone.

Now for the second point. This is being mentioned all the time and it was just now that it hit me: When exactly is a base "lost"? What is the indicator for that? Game-mechanic wise it is the point when the base actually "flips", all the time before it is not technically "lost".
I'm fully aware that bases are usually "lost" way before that and nobody in his right mind would spawn in a base close to being flipped. But still, that moment where it gets impossible to resecure a base, that moment of the actual defeat is not in any way or shape accounted for in the game mechanics. You can only make an educated guess as to when the base is "lost". That means not the hard-coded feature of the base territory going to the attackers is the defining moment of the battle, but a semi-consensual agreement of the defenders that this place cannot be defended anymore.
The logical thing to do here would be to make it so that the attackers can remove the spawnpoint for the defenders. That would be a clear point of "base is lost". Some bases even have spawn gens, but it's either harder to destroy them than to simply spawncamp instead, or there are other reasons for people not having these as prime targets (*cough* certs *cough*).

This is going to be a major frustration especially with new players. One usually assumes that if there is a spawnpoint you can (still) do something there, because "why would i be able to spawn at that base when it's allready lost?" (actual citation from an anonymous PS2-player).
So don't worry about me hating the cheapness of spawncamping, but a bit concern about the thousands of new players experiencing spawncamping due to bad game design should be appropriate. New players will have to face enough crap allready, each possible last nail in the coffin removed would be a good thing.

Damn. what a wall of text. But i felt i should really get this point across. And the next one who writes "spawn elsewhere" is getting this as pm (not aimed at you amish, hehe).

[brighthand]

Of course you lost that base, under the current status quo due to base design not providing you with options.

What is incomprehensible is people thinking that's how it SHOULD be.


What's the point of designing a combat game and a fight over a control point, if you actively discourage fighting over the control point?

Might as well just make it instant flip then. But I guess that's kinda lost on the people with a pragmatic defeatist attitude towards a status quo design. :/ A siege is excellent, a camp is not.


I agree with you and all other posts like this. As beta testers, we are taking part in game design, and should be able to spot a poor mechanic, and give feedback as to how to improve it.

Spawn camping is lame, and game mechanics should be inherently deterrent of it- which is not the case in PS2, which currently promotes spawn camping as one of the primary means of achieving success in the game, along with undermining any form of defensive effort.

We DO see the devs make an effort to improve defensibility of bases through some reworks of the layouts, additional cover, and added turrets, but we are not quite there yet. The spawn camping plus porous base peremeters (in regards to the amp-stations), still are both very prominant features in game that undermine the much needed defensibility that would give this game a significant boost in playability.

I think a simple solution would be to place the spawn tubes INSIDE the base that people are trying to defend and let the attackers break their way into the bases itself and neutralize it. As for the ampstations: some proper walls around the edges so that LAs -if they MUST hop over, can only do so at known, predictable spots that are still diverse enough to leave room for uncertainty and strategy. -And have some underground/basement areas where important things are :)

[Figment]

At babyfark: In PS1, as long as there was a second on the timer and you started resecuring with a second to spare with regards to your hacking speed, the base was NOT lost.

In my case, this was 21 seconds left on the clock (Expert Hacking).

Hence the most frantic fighting took place in the last minute of the fight, especially if you got the spawns back up in the two to three minutes leading up to that moment and surprised the enemy with a sudden surge in spawnees.


Last minute resecure adrenaline rush just feels so good. :x

[Aaron]

Yes, when the spawn camping happens the base is technically lost. However, I don't believe that is when the fight should stop and be uninteresting. The devs don't want this, and new players won't want this. If that is what the devs wanted, they'd implement a mechanic to end the fight officially. Something to indicate that "You don't want to fight here. It's over, and it's boring."

I remember Higby saying that this is a game where something like a 50 vs 200 fight would still be a fun fight. Why should it not be?

Anyway, an idea that might help:

The main spawn could lead to an underground complex which connects to various bunkers in the base courtyard. Perhaps you could shoot out from little firing slots, but the enemy wouldn't be able to enter them. From those bunkers, you would be able to escape the spawn-camping to roam the courtyard. There could be some tower-like bunkers overlooking the main spawn entrances as well.

In that case, the attackers might be more focused on staying on the point instead of camping the spawn (as there would be many places they'd have to camp). This would also give the defenders more options for organized pushing attempts.

[MrBloodworth]

If your defending forces have been wiped out and your only spawn area has been surrounded by a force strong enough to keep you contained then you have lost the fight. Sure your still spawning and running outside and dying in a hailstorm of bullets but this fight barring a last minute counter attack from outside forces is done with.

There is only one defense in a defend the base action. Then its over, and you spend the next 15-20 minutes being spawn camped, our, you move on. Leaving the Attackers standing around for 15-20 min.

This is 100% about base design. The problem is, this happens RIGHT OFF THE BAT.

The Spawn room should be the last reachable thing in ANY base or outpost. Right now, the base design asks defenders to fight an overwhelming and better equipped force to even BEGIN to defend.

If you do not repel the attacking force in the first assault ( AKA your first death ), you loose. Because moments before you died, that spwn point was already being camped by every tank and Engi Turret in the area.

[Dagron]

Quitting IS a tactic, one that must never be forgotten. To "quit" a battle is called making a retreat and can/has saved more lives and won more wars than you will ever know. Not every fight needs to be a Thermopylae pass.

I know that, i should have been a little more clear. I meant quitting as in "screw this base, we will just sit here for 15 min while they camp us... let's find a real fight somewhere else". If you read the last paragraph of my post you will see that i said something like "they should be given a choice to retreat and regroup or try to stick it out, but the choice shouldn't be made for them the instant the outer wall shields drop".

The whole problem we've been complaining about is that it's boring, not only for whoever is being camped but for those camping as well. If the game gave the defenders some hope of turning the tides at this point, they might decide to stay and everyone could still have a fun fight even if they ultimately lose the base. As things are, we often instant action into bases, die instantly and get stuck in a spawn room.

Edit: Btw - that's pretty lame for us, now imagine how any new players would feel about it.


Yes, when the spawn camping happens the base is technically lost. However, I don't believe that is when the fight should stop and be uninteresting.
There is only one defense in a defend the base action. Then its over, and you spend the next 15-20 minutes being spawn camped, our, you move on. Leaving the Attackers standing around for 15-20 min.

^ This is pretty much the core of what we've been complaining about.

[Mox]

Or you could ----- SPAWN SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!
Its not like an old MMO where you bound to a spawn point.
If someone is farming you at a spawn that means you are too dumb to regroup at a position that hasnt been over run.

I agree on that. If the base is taken you shouldnt spawn there.

The problem with the base design is that the spawn points arent located in the core of the bases. Except in case of the biodome the spawn are outside the mainbuilding. Therefore it happens, that the spawns are already camped before the base is overtaken. The placement of the spawns even foster that a base is taken sooner.

Solution of the problem:

Dear devs, how about locating the spawns in the inner core of each base? (like in case of the biodomes)

[yonman]

Another possible solution - have more than a single spawn room in facilities. In some cases these rooms can be arranged to form a crossfire which can be the basis of a rush to resecure.

[MrBloodworth]

I am completely convinced they want this.

Its Session based design in a Persistent world. They want churn, they want movement, they want constant action. To the point of detriment of play in many cases.

Its part of the "No hour long fights" mentality they have. When for many, epic long slogs at bases were what was fun. Now, you do not even have time to mount a re-secure. Its over already.

[yonman]

btw, the militaristic and ordered outfits go directly to spawn camp with vehicles. After the base was cleaned and the defenders herded into their pen, they assign the boring duty of holding the CC to the new kids and settle down to farm.

Like it was said ... Certs are Certs.

[Figment]

What makes it so annoying is that you feel like the military of the future is utterly inept in base design.

Everything from Roman, Chinese and crusader castles to Vaubain's star forts to the Maginot Line to the Atlantik Wall to you name it... All have been forgotten in the future? :/

Don't know about you lot, but I expect a defensive position to be defended.

[MrBloodworth]

Its arena and Death match world design in a persistent world.

Does not mix.

[Fear The Amish]

Yes, when the spawn camping happens the base is technically lost. However, I don't believe that is when the fight should stop and be uninteresting. The devs don't want this, and new players won't want this. If that is what the devs wanted, they'd implement a mechanic to end the fight officially. Something to indicate that "You don't want to fight here. It's over, and it's boring."

I remember Higby saying that this is a game where something like a 50 vs 200 fight would still be a fun fight. Why should it not be?

Anyway, an idea that might help:

The main spawn could lead to an underground complex which connects to various bunkers in the base courtyard. Perhaps you could shoot out from little firing slots, but the enemy wouldn't be able to enter them. From those bunkers, you would be able to escape the spawn-camping to roam the courtyard. There could be some tower-like bunkers overlooking the main spawn entrances as well.

In that case, the attackers might be more focused on staying on the point instead of camping the spawn (as there would be many places they'd have to camp). This would also give the defenders more options for organized pushing attempts.

see my problem with this is you are making it like a tower... oh noes now i have to move half a squad into a basement and camp a tunnel... you know how easy that would be for attackers and wouldn't alleviate the issue. Now yes you could make them shielded but here is the problem. what this leads to is 1 guy sneaking out and because the cap is so open and you have to crowd it 1 Grenade and a single guy just wiped out a squad and took back the base that is stupid. Because the Cap points are even more open and susceptible to camping then the spawn rooms.

you are all trying to find a way to make point defense more of a priority, and spawn camping more difficult. Here is the problem the current bases on Indar and Esamir make this extremely difficult. Yes i would love the old PS1 style bases but i don't see them redesigning every base in the game for this. Luckily they are already Amerishing up the bases on Indar making defense more of a priority.... Until then i will use my go to line you lost, it is time to do a retreat to the next most defensible point and try again.

[MrBloodworth]

"Spawn somewhere else" is a horrible suggestion for such an obvious flaw. Not only does it not address the issue, it attempts to trivialize AND justifies the bad design.

Meanwhile, it still makes for some really terrible game-play. You will never see the epic comebacks from the original.

All that matters is Mass of players, and who camps better with tanks. Real fun there.

[Crator]

We're not here to shut down conversations about a bad game mechanic just because that is how it is. We are hear to talk about bad game mechanics to try and come up with ideas to fix it.

So saying "Spawn elsewhere" pretty much shuts down the conversation and suggests that the players just deal with it until the DEVs figure something out. That's not why we discuss things on the forums.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Exactly.
In the three months i played this beta i took part in maybe a dozen successful retakes opposed to the hundreds and hundreds of captures.

[PredatorFour]

You will never see the epic comebacks from the original.

All that matters is Mass of players, and who camps better with tanks. Real fun there.

The people directing the game must be on a different planet to us (Auraxis;)) They would surely of known it was going to turn out like this when designing the bases/worlds.

Planetside 1 had countless epic comebacks which you remember for years. If they don`t change this issue this game might not be around in years to come.

I`ve been racking my brain trying to think of a solution, one i just thought of would be to have some kind of automatic firing, indestructable turrets above the spawns that fire on camping enemies.

[Shogun]

i also think, that the spawnrooms should be moved into the bases like they were in ps1.

after all the spawnroom is one of the most vital rooms in a base, and any architect would place this vital room in a secure place.

spawncamping is always a funbreaker, it has to go, it´s not an option to have spawncamping as a normal part of every basecapture.
there will always be some kind of camping, and it´s natural in online shooters, but spawncamping is the worst way to camp. i have no problem with people successfully defending a chokepoint by camping on it, but there needs to be a chance to survive (like not rushing through the camped doorway all alone, but the only way to avoid a spawncamp is to spawn somewhere else and hope this new point isn´t camped as well.

[MrBloodworth]

And people wonder why I question if the Dev team spent any meaningful time with the original.

[Sir fraggington]

I said this earlier, and i am fully confident that this would solve the issue.
what bases need are exclusively spawn room accessible battlements, designed in a way to provide decent cover,
numerous vantage points over key areas, high ground and a good overview over the main control point(s) (if possible).

it is considerably harder to focus fire on one doorway, if you are taking fire from numerous positions.

[Aaron]

The main issue is probably the fact that the spawn room can be reached so easily. Literally, you can, with little resistance, waltz right over to the box-like building if you wanted to. I think that problem has been identified thus far.

In the original, the spawn was fortified and protected by the natural flow of defenders via the base stucture. This effect disallowed the enemy to easily bypass the main defensive force in reaching the spawn room. Of course, we don't want tunnels, but maybe the same effect can be achieved in a more spacious way.

[Figment]

Don't see why we wouldn't want tunnels?

I'd be all in favour of combinations of narrow and wide corridors. I mean, consider a hallway in PS1 like the long DSC basement from CC to Gen. That's a tunnel too. We're not just talking about narrow corridors the width of one or two people. Though if there are a couple pillboxes or something, I wouldn't mind the type of tunnels you had between bunkers in PS1 in those areas. But of course those aren't suited for general tunnel design. No, we can easily use tunnels the size of Bio Lab lobbies, any PS1 basements or stair well width at the least. That's easy enough to get through and easy enough to defend.

Look at the vehicle pad of PS1. There could have been some more cover for attackers to hop from cover to cover and a bit more flat terrain in front of the vehicle pad door, but all in all it was excellent fun to attack and defend. Please don't think of backdoor defense too soon as the only type of tunnel you can conceive.

[Warshed]

I find the problem to not be the spawn camping as much as peoples inability to assess defeat and turn it into a win. For instance, a smart outfit will realize they are lost, immediately go to the closest base, organize some vehicles and roll back to the base to attempt to retake. If they can be smart and focus on destroying the sunderers they will easily kick the defenders out through attrition, but what we got are people not organized who keep respawning at an obviously taken base and using the cover of the shields to take pot shots (all win with no risk). Those shields are ridiculous if you ask me and should never have been implimented. I understand pain mods in spawn rooms, but not impregnable spawn rooms. Its just bad.

Also maybe there should be a timer from the time the points are taken till the time the base caps and that determines when you get the points for capping a base, NOT just being there right when it caps as it currently is. Right now you just time your reaver exploits around base cap timing and you cash in big time on XP you never earned. Thats crazy!

Or what they do is they tally up the amount of kills one has gotten within the sphere of influence until the base caps and for every kill you get a bonus. You get no kills in the sphere of influence, you get no bonus and lastly you get the bonus regardless of being in the sphere of influence or not so you can leave the base and continue to conquer rather than waiting around. Once the base caps, you get your bonus regardless of where you are at. Bonus could be 25xp times base kills once base caps. So you get 25 kills during the battle you get 25 * 25 or 500 xp. You get 50 kills, you get 1000 xp.

Another way to stop spawn camping is you disable XP gains after certain conditions are met. For instance, if all points are captured and your force is 80% and the enemy force is 20% (4 to 1 odds) you only get 20% of the xp while the defenders get an 80% xp boost. This encourages people to come back to fight the attackers and increase the pop there (XP bonus) and it discourages the attackers from staying to camp (XP loss).

These are just ideas, but really. There are tons of ways to discourage spawn camping, it just takes some additional programming and flexibility.

[Miir]

Lots of good ideas in here related to this issue.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=49105

[Crator]

Lots of good ideas in here related to this issue.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=49105

Meh, I'd rather the spawns be in a location that has some defensibility once you walk out out of them. If they were to put the SCU back in for all spawn locations they would need to put it near the spawns. If that's the case, why not just make the spawn tubes themselves have the ability to be destroyed, you know, like how it was in PS1?

[Chewy]

Another question/s I have for those that want less spawn camping, but find it a bit hard to word.

Do you think that defenders should always have a way to win?
Do think it is fair that attackers have to fight tooth and nail to keep or even get a spawn while defenders have a safe, worry free spawn at every base?


I agree that spawn camping can be a bad thing, but that needs to be looked at game by game. In most games you just can't spawn elsewhere or are placed in a random spot and in such games spawn camping is a very evil thing because there's nothing that can be done. But in PS2, defenders (not attackers) have spawn rooms where the player can't be killed in. You have all the time in the world in that room to think about what to do. I don't call that being spawn camped. As you can spawn and have time to think before choosing to go out into the fight.

Attackers on the other hand, are the ones that can get spawn camped. If the sundy is under fire any who spawn there can't fight back. Iv had fights that there wasn't time to even see what is shooting you, let alone get a shot/rocket off. THAT is spawn camping. To die without being able to fight back (minus extreme luck) on spawn is the definition of being spawn camped.

In short. Defenders get to choose to go into the grinder and get farmed. Attackers can't.

[Crator]

Do you think that defenders should always have a way to win?
Do think it is fair that attackers have to fight tooth and nail to keep or even get a spawn while defenders have a safe, worry free spawn at every base?

Well, my answer is no. But I defiantly think that vehicles have no business being able to camp the doors of spawn rooms. And the locations of spawns should be placed strategically in relation to the capture points so the defenders have a chance to fight back. For sure if the base is over run the ground troops will camp the spawns.

For instance, with the current situation, let's say you have a force that equals the attackers in the spawn room, you still loose cause the enemy has vehicles outside suppressing all of your troops which gives them no chance to even attempt to try and take back the capture point.

Now let's say we put the spawn room in a more defensible position, where vehicles can't camp it. And put the capture points closer to the spawn room as well. The attackers can still swarm the spawns and suppress the defenders, but at least the defenders have a chance to break out of the room and perhaps get close to the capture points to resecure them.

EDIT: I remember when Higby first started talking to the community about PS1 in relation to PS2 and said how he hated spawn camping. Little did he realize that it's pretty much inevitable if you want to allow some sort of defense to occur at a base. It's much worse in PS2 because both ground troops and vehicles can do it at the same time in a lot of locations.

[Figment]

Well Chewy, why do you think we wanted CLOAKED AMSes back? :p

Because we know that it saves a lot of untimely deaths. For both attackers and defenders alike.



Should or would defenders always get a chance? Of course not. We simply ask, for a better chance to do at least something. It could be done in PS1, so why wouldn't it be possible in PS2? Even if executed differently?

[Chewy]

For instance, with the current situation, let's say you have a force that equals the attackers in the spawn room, you still loose cause the enemy has vehicles outside suppressing all of your troops which gives them no chance to even attempt to try and take back the capture point.

In that instance I would most likely fall back and call the base lost.

If there's vehicles and troops flooding your base then the attackers have either got lucky and hit the base before defenders set up, pushed into the base without loosing vehicles, or hacked the panel and spawned more vehicles after/during pushing the defenders out of the main building/s.

In all 3 of those the attackers earned to take the base and in my eyes should have the upper hand in holding that ground till defender reinforcements come to mop up.

Maybe this can be worked on by having a way for defenders to destroy attacking vehicles from greater distances. Base turrets are pure crap the way I see it now. They take so long to repair but are taken out very fast. Often before having the chance to counter snipe the tanks. Rockets and MAX AT weapons are just to damn slow moving to work at distance. Defenders need a better way to fight sniper tanks.

I say beef up turret HP by 3 times and see how it goes. 1 tank can out DPS a repair tool and will kill engis repairing a turret and it takes a long ass time rebuild one. So little worries about sneaky engies if you keep an eye out for the great glowing lights. Id leave the turret damage alone though, just buff the HP.

[Dagron]

Do you think that defenders should always have a way to win?
Do think it is fair that attackers have to fight tooth and nail to keep or even get a spawn while defenders have a safe, worry free spawn at every base?

No, but tell me something, so far how many successful defenses have you seen? Once the shield gens are down, i haven't seen more than a couple (and gens seem to always drop in the first few minutes of an invasion). Attackers shouldn't have to fight tooth and nail any more than defenders... but they shouldn't have an easier time either.

In other words, this:

Should or would defenders always get a chance? Of course not. We simply ask, for a better chance to do at least something.

Like i've been saying from the start, the problem is that the fight is over very quickly, and then attackers get stuck sitting around and defenders get stuck in a spawn room where they have all the time in the world to think what to do next... and their only alternatives are a few versions of "i give up".

If defenders at least had different places to come out of after the base is overrun, attackers wouldn't be all sitting next to each other around one building instagibbing everything that gets close to the doors - they'd be more spread around the base, maybe doing the same thing (depending on numbers), or maybe having more interesting fights trying to mop up the defense from their soon to be new base.

[Hamma]

Spawn "Camping" is a viable tactic to hold the enemy down while a base or outpost captures. I can't think of any scenario where they could possibly eliminate this. They have already done some things on some of the newer spawn buildings on Amerish.. but in the end this will never stop.

[Beerbeer]

Regardless of whether it's "viable" or not, it's just not fun and cheap.

In fact, it will probably be confusing and a turn off to a brand new person being shuttled to such a location for their first experience. They'll get their machine gun, ready for some action, run out the door only to instantly die without knowing why. Do it again and get discouraged.

Poor game mechanic IMO that could be solved with a little tweaks the bases. In fact they tried to change that in Amerish, so it's obvious they agree to a certain extent, why they don't try to eliminate it completely is confusing to me for a number of reasons.

[Figment]

Spawn "Camping" is a viable tactic to hold the enemy down while a base or outpost captures. I can't think of any scenario where they could possibly eliminate this. They have already done some things on some of the newer spawn buildings on Amerish.. but in the end this will never stop.

That you can't see one, doesn't mean there isn't one. I can think of ample scenarios in which it can be toned down however.

1. Make only weaker forces be able to camp the actual spawn area: make it impossible for strong units such as vehicles to camp a spawn area. Only infantry should be able to. Infantry can be fought directly outside of a spawn on a fair basis.

2. Provide high ground to infantry, obstructions and cover (including top cover) to keep vehicles away from the immediate spawn and control areas and provide a vantage point to fight back.

3. Provide a "transition zone" between the spawn and defendable indoors area and the area where the siege takes place.

Do this, by distinguishing between internal and external fights and providing a transition zone where cover gradually decreases as you get further out, while cover favours defenders. Vehicles should be part of base and outpost siege, but they should not determine the outcome of the base capture on their own.

Here's an example that would make the ground level of the Bio Dome much harder to camp from the outside, yet makes it easier to reach the top floor with infantry:

http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/4884/biodomecatwalksystem.jpg (http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/4884/biodomecatwalksystem.jpg)

Next, provide incentives to take out the spawns, rather than camp. Do this by making it easier for defenders to get to and cover the control points, than it is to attack and hold it under surveillance of said spawn point. To ensure a fight right up to the spawn points, indicating you've lost if it goes, place the "switch" (can be destructable tubes, can be a SCU, can be something else) in close proximity to the spawn area. If the defenders can't secure their spawns, they lose. As long as they can, the base must be pretty much under their control.

Once the spawn method is destroyed, the spawnroom should be possible to be completely cleared from defenders (no shields should prevent anyone from entering).

Once you have that situation, there's very little reason to spawncamp and it would be perceived as a huge risk and gamble to leave it up. On the other hand, it provides resecure teams a good objective and reason to get the spawns up and running again and work from there to secure the facility - even against bigger odds.


In the status quo, there's indeed nothing you can do, but thinking from a status quo, gets you no where, so don't think about what you can do in the status quo after your initial analysis on what's wrong with it. Think what would happen if you'd alter the layout, configuration etc.

[Beerbeer]

It is not that cereal. New CoD has plenty of spawncamping. Same as the old
CoD. No biggie. PS2 is not alone in spawncamping. So dont hate, appreciate.

I'm not hating, in fact I do it because it's so easy to get kills. I park my tank 100 yards away, zoom in, shoot blindly almost and watch the kills come pouring in. That alone should say something.

Spawn camping is fine, but vehicle to infantry spawn camping is cheap.

[Miir]

Dear SOE:

Makes sure one of your new player tutorial videos explains spawn camping and why it's a part of the game. Have the video show that once you instant action on a big battle and eventually respawn at the camped spawn room how you can either walk out the door and die over and over or leave the fight and go elsewhere. Make sure to explain why staying and feeding free kills to players in tanks is a great idea or that leaving the battle is a better option and how wasting your instant action to get here was worth it.

or....

you could just fix it :P

[Babyfark McGeez]

Well, a solution would be a more linear and "progressive" base design with this underlying schematic in mind (from a defenders perspective):

Spawn Point -> Spawn Generator -> Cap point(s) -> Shields Generators / Courtyard / Exterior

Vehicles and Aircraft should only have access to the first "level" (Shield gen / Courtyard). A base designed in that way would (most likely) reduce spawncamping alot, because the Spawn gen would be taken out before the attackers would reach the Spawn tubes.

Right now we have all these elements cluttered around for most bases (heck, outposts don't even have a spawn gen).

Once more, the biolabs are a good example of how to do it right if you want to reduce spwancamping. I'm not even implying that spawncamping can get removed completely (with "moar certs" in mind people will most likely ignore spawn gens for a good part), but with a more "progressive" and "linear" base design it would atleast not be promoted to the degree it is now.

Want to hold down enemy spawn? Blow the spawn gen!

[Ritual]

Spawn "Camping" is a viable tactic to hold the enemy down while a base or outpost captures. I can't think of any scenario where they could possibly eliminate this. They have already done some things on some of the newer spawn buildings on Amerish.. but in the end this will never stop.

Tts internal testers like you that got us into this mess by giving bad advice and showing unconcern for the real problems hoping SOE would fix it themselves so you dont have to use your brain too much.

Spawn camping is too easy, if you arent concerned about it, youre a moron who only cares about flying galaxies and forever sucking at the game as a whole.

PS2 is in trouble. Big trouble and if you dont think so, I will bet you 100$ USD right here and now that PS2 playerbase is not going to be much bigger then it is right now in closed beta in three months. And these total shit base designs and exposed spawn rooms are going to be one of the reasons why, along with your precious new player experience which is obviously the only issue you have ever used your brain for but which SOE has neglected because they are not much smarter.

People piss me off because this game is releasing in a week and people have their heads up their asses. This game is total mediocre for a Planetside sequel. Planetside 1 when it released was more polished and finished then this game. And Planetside 2 had Planetside 1 to work off of!!! Planetside 1 was developed in three years! 3 continents in how many years of development for Planetside 2??? We have less vehicles in PS2 launch then we did in PS1. Not much "new" really in the core of the game besides horribly optimized explosions and lighting and models that it brings the latest computer to its knee's. I could render a soldier in Planetside 1 from a mile away, but in Planetside 2 I cant see him past 100 feet. I could bombard bases from a distance in Planetside 1 killing people from across the map but in PLanetside 2 I can only hit what renders. They have de-evolved!

Give me a break. Main problem is Higby and his design muppets. They suck and there are too many of them they have created an atmosphere of idiocracy in the SOE offices. The community has had to hold their hand the entire time. Need coders and artists, not designers. Any two year old can game design.

I don't like Higby. I have heard him say some ridiculously stupid things, mostly about what ideas he likes to ignore or doesnt want to implement. He needs to be blamed for problems, and the community needs to take credit for this game having any good qualities. The only good ideas that fix issues in the game have been people flipping the fuck out. If SOE never had a beta, we would of all laughed and said WTF when the game launched and we seen how ridiculous it was. But that is the type of game Higby and muppets would of gave us if it was up to them. And you people cant seem to let that sink into your heads. Higby is not god, Luperza is not any prettier then any other girl I have fucked, Arclegger, Whisencunt, Malorn, whoever have absolute zero credibility in ever making a succesfull video game so lets all stop feeding them grapes. They are fucking nobody's until they earn it.

Thats why I say F EM.

Even in Planetside 1, we beta testers pretty much saved that game by demanding the lattice system among other things. Alot of the same designers are still making rookie mistakes in Planetside 2. They keep de-evolving back to morons.

They were handed a game to make bette, and they have somehow only manageed to make it prettier.

But then again we all have different opinions. Im not happy with this launch and I dont think PS2 is going to be as popular as I want it to be.

Planetside 2 needs to be good, not just some weak ass rehash so SOE can add something new to its games lineup. Maybe we can get them going in the right direction and making the radical decisions they need to make, not just bare minimum path of least resistance whatever takes the least work lets hold on to what we consider sacred but everyone else hate's bullshit we have been seeing this whole beta.

Get rid of the fucking base's. NUKE THEM FROM FUCKING ORBIT AND TOTALLY REDO THEM. Add fucking proper spawn rooms and objectives. Take your head out of your ass's and create a real improved Planetside base with layered objectives, battle flow from outside to inside, proper walls, and a means to get around your base so you can defend it, attack it without wanting to fucking slit your wrists. Oh and making bases so large that they require 500 people to defend its perimeter is probably a bad idea. If you cant do all of this because you dont know how, go home and stay there.

[Fear The Amish]

That you can't see one, doesn't mean there isn't one. I can think of ample scenarios in which it can be toned down however.

1. Make only weaker forces be able to camp the actual spawn area: make it impossible for strong units such as vehicles to camp a spawn area. Only infantry should be able to. Infantry can be fought directly outside of a spawn on a fair basis.

2. Provide high ground to infantry, obstructions and cover (including top cover) to keep vehicles away from the immediate spawn and control areas and provide a vantage point to fight back.

3. Provide a "transition zone" between the spawn and defendable indoors area and the area where the siege takes place.

Do this, by distinguishing between internal and external fights and providing a transition zone where cover gradually decreases as you get further out, while cover favours defenders. Vehicles should be part of base and outpost siege, but they should not determine the outcome of the base capture on their own.

Here's an example that would make the ground level of the Bio Dome much harder to camp from the outside, yet makes it easier to reach the top floor with infantry:

http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/4884/biodomecatwalksystem.jpg (http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/4884/biodomecatwalksystem.jpg)

Next, provide incentives to take out the spawns, rather than camp. Do this by making it easier for defenders to get to and cover the control points, than it is to attack and hold it under surveillance of said spawn point. To ensure a fight right up to the spawn points, indicating you've lost if it goes, place the "switch" (can be destructable tubes, can be a SCU, can be something else) in close proximity to the spawn area. If the defenders can't secure their spawns, they lose. As long as they can, the base must be pretty much under their control.

Once the spawn method is destroyed, the spawnroom should be possible to be completely cleared from defenders (no shields should prevent anyone from entering).

Once you have that situation, there's very little reason to spawncamp and it would be perceived as a huge risk and gamble to leave it up. On the other hand, it provides resecure teams a good objective and reason to get the spawns up and running again and work from there to secure the facility - even against bigger odds.


In the status quo, there's indeed nothing you can do, but thinking from a status quo, gets you no where, so don't think about what you can do in the status quo after your initial analysis on what's wrong with it. Think what would happen if you'd alter the layout, configuration etc.

Basically that would make it so only way an attacker could take a base is with 3x the numbers. That is just retarded.

[MrBloodworth]

Spawn "Camping" is a viable tactic to hold the enemy down while a base or outpost captures. I can't think of any scenario where they could possibly eliminate this. They have already done some things on some of the newer spawn buildings on Amerish.. but in the end this will never stop.

Did you really just say that?

[EVILoHOMER]

It's because you capture points but then have to camp the spawns to gain control for ages... such a dumb system.

Once you have a point it should be yours.

[Figment]

Basically that would make it so only way an attacker could take a base is with 3x the numbers. That is just retarded.

Don't be a zergling. You never hear from sabotage?

PS1 zerg also thought it was impossible to blow up an interlink gen and needing a 4:1 pop advantage by only straightforward grind (for the record, that is dumb), while if needed I blew up one within two minutes of arrival. Funny. Cloak once in your life and blow up your objective, distract, focused precision strike, organise. In other words, use strategy to take out objectives and give your team the edge they need to beat their opponents.

Oh wait, I'm sorry, only braindead people play war games thinking it is Zombie Apocalypse Online... Hence why spawncamping is like... So much better...

[Chewy]

Everyone here wanting spawn camping to be "removed" is forgetting a few things.

1- Defenders CAN'T be spawn camped. They have to choose to go out of the spawn room and can't spawn once the base flips.
2- Defenders have to LET attackers be inside the base in order to camp the spawn room. Either by force or not bothering to hold the walls.
3- Attackers inside a base have FOUGHT to get there and take control. Often by forcing themselves through many bottle necks, destroying shields, and holding key points.


Basically you have to keep attackers out of a base if you want to defend it. Don't start calling foul once attackers overrun a base by having a stronger force or better players. That's the same as bitching about loosing in other games and/or calling HAX even though the guys that beat you where clearly better players.

Learn form loosing the base and get better. It's not the games fault that you choose to get farmed. That's why I don't say zerg and use the term herd.

[Dagron]

People keep assuming those complaining about spawn camping only have that opinion because they're always on the defender's side... it's been repeated in this thread several times that sitting in a tank shooting at a shielded door for 15 min is just as boring as being camped. Maybe you think it's fun to sit on a rocking chair and fish out of a barrel, but some of us don't care for it.

Anyway, it's mind boggling how some people like to shut their eyes, cover their ears and shake their heads repeating "it's all good, it's all fine". Is it that hard to look at other people's opinions and try to see things from a perspective other than the one you're comfortable with? This "i don't see a problem, so there isn't one" policy is really selfish and short sighted. It's really disappointing to see hamma taking that stance too.

[Fear The Amish]

Don't be a zergling. You never hear from sabotage?

PS1 zerg also thought it was impossible to blow up an interlink gen and needing a 4:1 pop advantage by only straightforward grind (for the record, that is dumb), while if needed I blew up one within two minutes of arrival. Funny. Cloak once in your life and blow up your objective, distract, focused precision strike, organise. In other words, use strategy to take out objectives and give your team the edge they need to beat their opponents.

Oh wait, I'm sorry, only braindead people play war games thinking it is Zombie Apocalypse Online... Hence why spawncamping is like... So much better...

Never said spawn camping was better i actually pointed out how their new bases deter spawn camping and i like it. Also they are redoing Indar bases a few at a time every patch to match this.

Were the problem is i see is you are suggesting basically a redesign of the entire system for caping points and bases, This is not something that is going to happen. also i never roll with the zerg i also don't roll tank spam, come to East and fight against me and my outfit we shut zergfits down hard (looking at you a few NC outfits) with infantry only. My point is if you requested places around a spawn that are heavily covered and are wide open allowing a defeated enemy to disperse into the base. This is not conducive for DEFENDING the cap point from recapture.

So now that you have stooped to insulting me i will respond in kind, i am sorry you are tactically braindead and unable to fallback gather reinforcements and retake a facility. I am also sorry that you are incapable of adapting and working with a new system that isn't 10 years old. Also EVERY fps has spawn camping its kinda part of the inherent system.

[Figment]

Learn form loosing the base and get better. It's not the games fault that you choose to get farmed. That's why I don't say zerg and use the term herd.

Funny, we use the term "zergherd" when commanding the zerg. You know why? Because the zerg is not smart. Making it the center point of "strategy" leads to only one thing: frontal assault and swarm.


That's not tactical. That's not strategy. That's not challenging. That's not satisfactory. That's not fun.

At least it isn't for people with an academic mind, we like the mind to be stimulated after all and for that we need a riddle to solve. A puzzle. Analysing the position and layout to find the weak link. Finding the right pressure points. Pondering "what would Caesar have done?". Finding new ways to solve the puzzle. Be creative with what you have.


If every outpost and base can be taken by just zerging it with vehicles, no thought required... you think that increases the satisfacition of capture? You think that increases the adrenaline rush? Aiming at a little glowy square with a tank gun and waiting for the puppets to pop out? You think that's stimulating enough to make it worthwhile to repeat over and over and over again? You think that's not going to get repetitive fast?


You think the defenders in the meantime are having fun being swarmed from all directions with no tactical means of defense? You think they're having fun to always be forced to fall back? You have any idea how demoralizing that is? You have any idea of the psychological effects on players at all, that they realise the only thing they can do is fall back and HOPE there's enough people at the next point, because numbers is all you can hope to win with?

You know how that makes them feel? Like a little, insignificant, pawn that has no hope whatsoever to make a name for themselves. No hope of feeling good about themselves and their team REALLY making a difference among all the other people by just having that extra ingredient where they outsmarted others. THAT sense of competition, rivalry, success and victory against all odds and despite of all the hardships.


It's not there right now. And the buildings and in some ways, capture mechanics, are to blame.


And guess what players play games for? Not to be repeatedly told they're insignificant and powerless. That makes people play once, play twice, get bored and leave. And guess what this game needs? Returning customers and lots of them. You need to give them a stimulating challenge that's different and remains challenging every time.

Not this spawn camping. Not this. Not for this game. Please try to see reason.



Why DO you think I've been playing as an infiltrator that resecured bases, sabotaged, took positions against all odds, am leader of an outfit and commanded the NC empire for years and years?



Is it because I could spawncamp with vehicles everywhere?



Is that it? Or did I too, almost leave over Flight Variant BFRs camping every single base door, like 60% or more of the playerbase when that happened? When the last few top floor exits that were relatively safe from vehicle spam and provided you with high ground to clear the CY were rendered unsafe to heavily armoured units?


Really? :/

[Crator]

Thought this was good to post here. He talks about the spawn camping issue in the first part of his post: POV of a Late to the party beta tester (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/pov-of-a-late-to-the-party-beta-tester.45474/)

[Babyfark McGeez]

I think at this point two things should be noted:

1) Keep it civil guys n' gals. After all we are still debating over a videogame.

2) Spawncamping is an issue to look at. Alot of different people voiced their concerns here, and the thread didn't reach 6 pages for nothing.

[Figment]

Never said spawn camping was better i actually pointed out how their new bases deter spawn camping and i like it. Also they are redoing Indar bases a few at a time every patch to match this.

I've yet to see a lot of major changes. I've said before that the external layout has improved at Amerish and THESE changes are making it back to Indar, but there's pretty much no noticable difference in the actual building design and layout used within the actual bases and outposts and each and every one of those designs have no secondary line of defense in the case of outposts or a tertiary line of defense as the secondary would be a sundy in the middle of a shielded vehicle bay area.

Were the problem is i see is you are suggesting basically a redesign of the entire system for caping points and bases, This is not something that is going to happen.

Defeatist and pretending development stops after november 20th. Interesting attitude. But wrong on so many levels.

also i never roll with the zerg i also don't roll tank spam, come to East and fight against me and my outfit we shut zergfits down hard (looking at you a few NC outfits) with infantry only.

Great, I suggest you try it from the confines of the spawnroom. What, you don't want close quarters combat? Your outfit suck at that, that it? Hardly. Your outfit and you would love close quarters to and they'd probably be decent at it, just that there's none of it required or stimulated to capture the base or outpost. There's just camp ganking.

My point is if you requested places around a spawn that are heavily covered and are wide open allowing a defeated enemy to disperse into the base. This is not conducive for DEFENDING the cap point from recapture.

Stop there:

1. The enemy is not and should not be considered defeated as long as you haven't routed them completely. As long as there's a single man alive, willing to fight and able to use his wits, you should be able to lose it. Risk man. RISK. That is what gives people satisfaction! Coming out on top! Having to stay sharp against an enemy that's out there, trying to get at you! THAT is what you play the game for! Hectic fights, to the end!
2. Dispersal? Who said anything about dispersal? The current map design leads to dispersal! What we suggest is a far more linear approach to base sieges and capture, that works in several steps: siege, breaking first line (maybe a second line), next line of defense would be centered around defending the control points and other primary, vital systems of the base and last, taking out the spawns.
3. Cover can work two ways. You do realise that, right? That a defensive position can be used in two ways? You do realise this is why the walls of actual castles (unlike PS2) do not have battlements oriented towards the inner keep and walls: then if the outer walls were taken, you couldn't use the walls to attack further and would be easy targets for archers in the open. In PS2, you can take facility walls and then use them against the central area...

Now, apply this principle of using cover against the defender, think of the cover around a CC, it's not actually something people would do in reality, but for a game it's good. In PS1 this was very easy to see as well. All the crates around the CC area of an Interlink, DSC or Bio Lab were used by the attackers, to prevent a resecure. The PS1 AMP station's central room with ring was used by attackers to hold it against the defenders. The stairwell and air term room choke points were used by attackers against the defenders.

But only once the defenders were beaten from them after a hectic fight, a battle often won on wits, outflanking and good timing, but the great thing was, that's only half the battle. It doesn't end there. As defender, you get this defiant spirit of "Oh yeah? We'll see about that!" and as attacker the "Bring it on!" attitude and this attitude would shift from attacker to defender several times during a fight. THAT is what creates heated, hectic, personal fights where you feel your effort can pay off and you'll fight to the bitter end.

Or you could just leave in a very anti-climatic, desillusioning, demoralising "screw this... we lost" manner. Regrouping by choice is one thing, regrouping without choice an entire other. Especially if you feel they haven't literally beaten you, but the system did.


None of that is in PS2. But it can be, even with relatively minor adaptations of the current base design. You don't want to think about it though, so you pretend there's these huge changes that have to be made. Really, that's not how it works... :/

So now that you have stooped to insulting me i will respond in kind, i am sorry you are tactically braindead and unable to fallback gather reinforcements and retake a facility. I am also sorry that you are incapable of adapting and working with a new system that isn't 10 years old. Also EVERY fps has spawn camping its kinda part of the inherent system.

I applaud your misplaced arrogance. You drop to conclusions you can't possibly make and I don't recognise myself in this description at all and from what I've said in this thread, you can't draw that conclusion at all. On the contrary: I'm far ahead of this design, thanks to experience with both the previous system, this system and oh I dunno, wide historical knowledge of castle and fortress layout and a lot, a LOT of RTS experience. But what you can't seem to grasp is that unlike you, I'm not content with falling back and regrouping time and again when I see the potential defense would have with a better designed facility. :/

Something you seem to lack because you give up way too soon and deem it impossible. Sure, I currently fall back when it's needed and I'll often bring a new Sundy AMS in this game to try to pincer enemies between spawnpoint and another point - but that's an unnecessary and often inviable strategy as you could make a couple simple changes to base design to create a defensive position that could last far longer and would have rings of defenses, overwatch positions and all in all not such stupidly easy to take layouts. In PS1 I always tried to make sure I had back-up plans in place ahead of an impending attack and I always place AMSes (multiple) there where needed - we often even had a Router back up. I'm probably one of the only people who would use Routers during resecures because for some reason it was only seen as an offensive tool, not a defensive tool.

And for the record, I did not insult you, I insulted the system. Unless you feel personally appealed to, then maybe there's a core of truth in it.

[sylphaen]

Very interesting thread. Since there's no +1/-1 or Like/Unlike on PSU, I'd just like to say that I support Figment's interventions.

I myself often wished the biolab structure would be more interesting. When we were given the first screenshots months ago, I was already imagining a huge vertical battle (devs had said PS2 gameplay would be more "vertical"...) with assault teams moving upwards towards the dome, LA jumpjetting to create new ascension paths, defending LAs jumping in the air and landing below the attackers to catch them from behind, snipers trying to help their team progress from the outside, defenders using those nasty turrets to delay enemy progress, etc...

A whole new gameplay, I was expecting ! A plain run-of-the-mill base, the biolab was.

And the techplant is a large, mostly empty base.

So much more of the volume from those structures could be made into an exciting battlezone ! So much more of the surrounding areas could be structured to make a more interesting use of it ! How more exciting the game could be !

[Fear The Amish]

I've yet to see a lot of major changes. I've said before that the external layout has improved at Amerish and THESE changes are making it back to Indar, but there's pretty much no noticable difference in the actual building design and layout used within the actual bases and outposts and each and every one of those designs have no secondary line of defense in the case of outposts or a tertiary line of defense as the secondary would be a sundy in the middle of a shielded vehicle bay area.



Defeatist and pretending development stops after november 20th. Interesting attitude. But wrong on so many levels.



Great, I suggest you try it from the confines of the spawnroom. What, you don't want close quarters combat? Your outfit suck at that, that it? Hardly. Your outfit and you would love close quarters to and they'd probably be decent at it, just that there's none of it required or stimulated to capture the base or outpost. There's just camp ganking.



Stop there:

1. The enemy is not and should not be considered defeated as long as you haven't routed them completely. As long as there's a single man alive, willing to fight and able to use his wits, you should be able to lose it. Risk man. RISK. That is what gives people satisfaction! Coming out on top! Having to stay sharp against an enemy that's out there, trying to get at you! THAT is what you play the game for! Hectic fights, to the end!
2. Dispersal? Who said anything about dispersal? The current map design leads to dispersal! What we suggest is a far more linear approach to base sieges and capture, that works in several steps: siege, breaking first line (maybe a second line), next line of defense would be centered around defending the control points and other primary, vital systems of the base and last, taking out the spawns.
3. Cover can work two ways. You do realise that, right? That a defensive position can be used in two ways? You do realise this is why the walls of actual castles (unlike PS2) do not have battlements oriented towards the inner keep and walls: then if the outer walls were taken, you couldn't use the walls to attack further and would be easy targets for archers in the open. In PS2, you can take facility walls and then use them against the central area...

Now, apply this principle of using cover against the defender, think of the cover around a CC, it's not actually something people would do in reality, but for a game it's good. In PS1 this was very easy to see as well. All the crates around the CC area of an Interlink, DSC or Bio Lab were used by the attackers, to prevent a resecure. The PS1 AMP station's central room with ring was used by attackers to hold it against the defenders. The stairwell and air term room choke points were used by attackers against the defenders.

But only once the defenders were beaten from them after a hectic fight, a battle often won on wits, outflanking and good timing, but the great thing was, that's only half the battle. It doesn't end there. As defender, you get this defiant spirit of "Oh yeah? We'll see about that!" and as attacker the "Bring it on!" attitude and this attitude would shift from attacker to defender several times during a fight. THAT is what creates heated, hectic, personal fights where you feel your effort can pay off and you'll fight to the bitter end.

Or you could just leave in a very anti-climatic, desillusioning, demoralising "screw this... we lost" manner. Regrouping by choice is one thing, regrouping without choice an entire other. Especially if you feel they haven't literally beaten you, but the system did.


None of that is in PS2. But it can be, even with relatively minor adaptations of the current base design. You don't want to think about it though, so you pretend there's these huge changes that have to be made. Really, that's not how it works... :/



I applaud your misplaced arrogance. You drop to conclusions you can't possibly make and I don't recognise myself in this description at all and from what I've said in this thread, you can't draw that conclusion at all. On the contrary: I'm far ahead of this design, thanks to experience with both the previous system, this system and oh I dunno, wide historical knowledge of castle and fortress layout and a lot, a LOT of RTS experience.

Something you seem to lack because you give up way too soon and deem it impossible. The sign of an uncreative mind. I fall back when it's needed and I'll bring a new Sundy AMS in this game to try to pincer enemies between spawnpoint and another point - but that's an unnecessary and often inviable strategy as you could make a couple simple changes to base design to create a defensive position that could last far longer and would have rings of defenses, overwatch positions and all in all not such stupidly easy to take layouts.

And for the record, I did not insult you, I insulted the system. Unless you feel personally appealed to, then maybe there's a core of truth in it.

First i realize development doesn't "stop" after nov 20th i would rather tweak the system then start from scratch like you are suggesting.

Secondly as i pointed out earlier in this thread you fight in the outer terrain then fallback to the interior base were you have sundies settup then into strongholds around sundie and finally if those all get taken back around spawn room. ONCE you are camped in the fight is lost, i will not use bodies in an attempt to win that. At that point i am just feeding them. that is dumb, so that i do instead is move on to another base re organize and go back and force them into the spawn room.

Also claiming that knowing fortifications (which i think is funny because they stretch from the time before written record to now and have changed so dramatically it isn't even funny) i can also claim this knowledge but as opposed to your arrogant view of knowing all the forts i will stick to what i am expert at which is the Roman Era from the revamp of the roman army which one of the primary changes was the development of Encampments. They also developed a system of fortifying border towns (which i used to make a suggestion on redesigning smaller outposts)http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/small-base-design.36696/. I also have some expertise on the star fortification's which Amp stations are very similar too with the slanted wall location's and bastions. a The problem with this is it is mostly useless, because people designing forts never had to worry about people constantly resurrecting or making it "fun" for the attacker.

Do i think our current system is perfect? no i do not. Do i think it needs to be completely removed and replaced? no. Personally i think it needs tweaked because every minute and penny spent on this is a minute and a penny not spent on overall meta game, bug fixes, optimization, new continents, etc. What i would like to see is a continued "amerishization" of indar and esamir, and people being more realistic about their suggestions.

[sylphaen]

people being more realistic about their suggestions.

"Realistic" is a dangerous word. Used too strongly in the way of toning down expectations or suggestions might stiffle innovation or imagination.

When people talk about flying fortresses akin to Titans from BF2142, should we ask if it is realistic or it if could be fun ?

As you imply, there is a difference between implementing now, soon and (n)ever. Of course, the flying fortresses are not a game-release-time concern.

However, could they add an interessing element to the game in the future ? Could buggies be fun too ? Could improved biolabs be fun too ? etc...

People express concerns and offer ideas which they hopefully support with a case explaining their reasoning. In the end, it's better to have constructive criticism or even just criticism (implying an idea is being tested when it faces criticism) than expectations that get too "realistic".

Realism is often limited to one's own imagination. Copernicus, Columbus, Newton... Were they realistic in the eye of the beholder ?

Edit: maybe Newton is a bad example.
:)

[Fear The Amish]

"Realistic" is a dangerous word. Used too strongly in the way of toning down expectations or suggestions might stiffle innovation or imagination.

When people talk about flying fortresses akin to Titans from BF2142, should we ask if it is realistic or it if could be fun ?

As you imply, there is a difference between implementing now, soon and (n)ever. Of course, the flying fortresses are not a game-release-time concern.

However, could they add an interessing element to the game in the future ? Could buggies be fun too ? Could improved biolabs be fun too ? etc...

People express concerns and offer ideas which they hopefully support with a case explaining their reasoning. In the end, it's better to have constructive criticism or even just criticism (implying an idea is being tested when it faces criticism) than expectations that get too "realistic".

Realism is often limited to one's own imagination. Copernicus, Columbus, Newton... Were they realistic in the eye of the beholder ?

Edit: maybe Newton is a bad example.
:)

LOL columbus probably is a bad one too ;) kinda never discovered a faster route to India. But spot on with copernicus.

[Figment]

First i realize development doesn't "stop" after nov 20th i would rather tweak the system then start from scratch like you are suggesting.

I'm not suggesting that if you listened carefully... I'm suggesting a new spawn building. Beyond that, any tunnels and catwalks would be pretty straightforward changes and could even be done by directly connecting current buildings with walled corridors or new buildings.

Of course it's going to take work and it should. Why would you propose only "solutions" that aren't actually solutions, just because they take no effort?

We got years ahead of us, only tweaking is not very ambitious. Nor is it always wise. Tweaking is what needs to be done with the interiors of the big bases and court yards (in the case of bases, primarily the keep and court yard). Overhauls is predominantly related to outpost designs.

But I suppose a lot of effort and imagination was put in a single room 3x10 m box with two doors and that's the ideal design of a spawnroom? >__> I doubt you'd agree with that statement.

Secondly as i pointed out earlier in this thread you fight in the outer terrain then fallback to the interior base were you have sundies settup then into strongholds around sundie and finally if those all get taken back around spawn room. ONCE you are camped in the fight is lost, i will not use bodies in an attempt to win that. At that point i am just feeding them. that is dumb, so that i do instead is move on to another base re organize and go back and force them into the spawn room.

Doesn't work that way if you have a smart enemy. But you seem to forget that we're predominantly pointing at the outposts. Outposts work like this:

1. Enemies arrive.
2. You get (one shot) killed by something.
3. Defense is over.
4. You lose.

Of course the outdoor fight can last a couple minutes if you have sufficient manpower (more defenders than attackers), but if you have more people, then why are you defending? You should have the initiative. Meaning, you wouldn't be on the defensive. Meaning you'll have less people. Meaning, you simply lose. Meaning, the bases are not designed properly for defense.

Also claiming that knowing fortifications (which i think is funny because they stretch from the time before written record to now and have changed so dramatically it isn't even funny)

(...Yet here we are with worse designs than the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, which I think is funny)

i can also claim this knowledge but as opposed to your arrogant view of knowing all the forts

Uhm... That's not arrogant. =|

Fucking hell, I'm not allowed to know something about castle, fort and defensive line design now and thus argue these designs simply suck in comparison, because that's arrogant?


Uhm... How about they just suck? =|

i will stick to what i am expert at which is the Roman Era from the revamp of the roman army which one of the primary changes was the development of Encampments. They also developed a system of fortifying border towns (which i used to make a suggestion on redesigning smaller outposts)http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/small-base-design.36696/.

Idea needs work, but would have been an improvement. However, THAT would be requiring to start from scratch on every outpost.

Though granted, on many it is needed.

I also have some expertise on the star fortification's which Amp stations are very similar too with the slanted wall location's and bastions. a The problem with this is it is mostly useless, because people designing forts never had to worry about people constantly resurrecting or making it "fun" for the attacker.

Vaubain would scoff at the AMP stations tbh. The firing lines are poor, the defenders on the walls are the ones in the firing lines because of how open the walls are and the whole wall setup does not take into account the type of units it is facing: jet packed infantry. In fact, the walls are often open at one or more point, so you can actually drive vehicles in without downing any generators, which is simply inexcusable. I just ignore walls and drive a Sunderer into these bases - even now - on the far side from the Outdoor Barracks. There's nothing to it. Their vehicles usualy can't even get to me in their own courtyard...

Now if these were shielded areas (also on top of the walls), okay. But they're not. There are hardly any merlons even. The walls are poreus as hell and hardly double for a line of defense, because not only can you just ignore them, it disperses the defender over such a large area, they're usualy completely unmanned! That poses a challenge to the attacker, how?

Do i think our current system is perfect? no i do not. Do i think it needs to be completely removed and replaced? no. Personally i think it needs tweaked because every minute and penny spent on this is a minute and a penny not spent on overall meta game, bug fixes, optimization, new continents, etc. What i would like to see is a continued "amerishization" of indar and esamir, and people being more realistic about their suggestions.

"Amerishization" as you put it doesn't fix spawncamping. It only delays it. Amerish uses the exact same spawnroom buildings as the other continents and hence continuously defenders get camped. The difference? It takes a bit more effort to reach it, which is good, but not enough, because there's still no actual fight over the control points.

[Fear The Amish]

I'm not suggesting that if you listened carefully... I'm suggesting a new spawn building. Beyond that, any tunnels and catwalks would be pretty straightforward changes and could even be done by directly connecting current buildings with walled corridors or new buildings.

Of course it's going to take work and it should. Why would you propose only "solutions" that aren't actually solutions, just because they take no effort?

We got years ahead of us, only tweaking is not very ambitious. Nor is it always wise. Tweaking is what needs to be done with the interiors of the big bases and court yards. Overhauls is predominantly related for the outpost designs.

But I suppose a lot of effort and imagination was put in a single room 3x10 m box with two doors and that's the ideal design of a spawnroom? >__> I doubt you'd agree with that statement.



Doesn't work that way if you have a smart enemy. But you seem to forget that we're predominantly pointing at the outposts. Outposts work like this:

1. Enemies arrive.
2. You get (one shot) killed by something.
3. Defense is over.
4. You lose.

Of course the outdoor fight can last a couple minutes if you have sufficient manpower (more defenders than attackers), but if you have more people, then why are you defending? You should have the initiative. Meaning, you wouldn't be on the defensive. Meaning you'll have less people. Meaning, you simply lose. Meaning, the bases are not designed properly for defense.



(...Yet here we are with worse designs than the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, which I think is funny)



Uhm... That's not arrogant. =|

Fucking hell, I'm not allowed to know something about castle, fort and defensive line design now and thus argue these designs simply suck in comparison, because that's arrogant?


Uhm... How about they just suck? =|



Idea needs work, but would have been an improvement. However, THAT would be requiring to start from scratch on every outpost.

Though granted, on many it is needed.



Vaubain would scoff at the AMP stations tbh. The firing lines are poor, the defenders on the walls are the ones in the firing lines because of how open the walls are and the whole wall setup does not take into account the type of units it is facing: jet packed infantry. In fact, the walls are often open at one or more point, so you can actually drive vehicles in without downing any generators, which is simply inexcusable. I just ignore walls and drive a Sunderer into these bases - even now - on the far side from the Outdoor Barracks. There's nothing to it. Their vehicles usualy can't even get to me in their own courtyard...

Now if these were shielded areas (also on top of the walls), okay. But they're not. There are hardly any merlons even. The walls are poreus as hell and hardly double for a line of defense, because not only can you just ignore them, it disperses the defender over such a large area, they're usualy completely unmanned! That poses a challenge to the attacker, how?



"Amerishization" as you put it doesn't fix spawncamping. It only delays it. Amerish uses the exact same spawnroom buildings as the other continents and hence continuously defenders get camped. The difference? It takes a bit more effort to reach it, which is good, but not enough, because there's still no actual fight over the control points.

Lol i guess we just have a different opinion on the subject and no i wasn't saying you can't have an opinion. after i posted i realized i replied with some heat because i felt you were personally insulting me. Which i apologize for taking it that way. Yes i agree it is no were near a Vaubain star fort but the angles of the walls and placement of bastions are similar and to defend amp stations i am usually forced to order people back into the towers and just attempt to hold them. But i believe a perfect star fort would also make attacking very very difficult and not much fun. Honestly i would love a polygonal fort added to game with glacias, ditch, scarp, and counterscarp developed later on and added to game or at least some of the current forts to be placed in realistic positions (NOT IN A DAMN DEPRESSION).

[Methonius]

I've said this before on another post but the spawns need to be moved on the tech plant and the amp station at least to the upper levels of the bases. The amp station has a whole top area that is only used to spawn aircraft there is so much room up there I think their should be a spawn located up there and make maybe a couple more ways up. Also make a spawn on top area of the tech plant as well not the very top but the part in between that has a roof that is not used for anything. You could easily make more rooms up there and put more stairways down to the room below that has the capture point and gen. Guarantee the fights would improve at these bases, could even try it with the current spawns in there and add these ones as well. Honestly they should have gens for these spawns somewhere close by to them as well and it would give reason to actually gal drop on these bases and give reason for defenders to keep that spawn room up cause its going to help them the most to take the base back. They only need spawn gens for the inside base spawn room though the out spawns they have can stay that is the last hope and if you can keep your spawn gen up on the inside of the main base you should be rewarded for it by defending off the base easier. If the attacking team can bring down the inner spawn room gen well then they have gained the upper hand but there is still that chance the other team can counter from the outer spawn. Definitely more of a tug of war with this set up.

[Chewy]

I still don't think that the spawn room placement is the main reason for spawn camping. I believe that it's the inability to take on long range tanks that endlessly pepper turrets, walls, anything in sight. Once a few tanks setup a sniper nest or 2 there's little that can be done to stop them outside of air support. Even with good air support it's only a matter of time before all turrets are lost and the enemy gets a free ride to bring up armor to storm a base.

From what Iv seen of the reworked outposts they are incredibly easy to defend if there's men that know how to. I love how they are looking so far from both an attackers POV and defenders. But without a way to deal with long range tanks there's almost nothing that can be done till the armor rolls in.

Again I suggest that the devs either buff turret HP to make it worth the time it takes to repair one or lower the rebuild time to fit the low HP. As it is now it's just not worth the time to rebuild lost turrets seeing how easy it is for a tank to take it back out (maybe 4 shots) before it can do damage. And without turrets there's almost no way defenders can deal with long range vehicles.

[Aaron]

+1 for Figment's input (as long as it's civil and constructive). He sees and understands the problem and is offering solutions to fix it. Not afraid to suggest any changes necessary for the success of the game.

Suggesting players to just deal with a less-than-fun game mechanic is nonconstructive. At least, I see nothing fun or tactically exciting about spawn camping. I'm usually just walking or running around doing absolutely nothing while I wait for enemies to stick their heads out of the spawn. As an attacker, you can't simply spawn somewhere else. You have to make sure the defenders don't get out of that little box. I would much more prefer to end the defender's misery as well as my own.

@Ritual
Dude, why make personal attacks on Hamma and the PS2 team? Sure, I don't agree with Hamma on that one either, but that was uncalled for. That didn't help anyone.

[Hamma]

I mean I hate spawn camping as much as anyone here. I just can't see a scenario where it can be totally stopped.

And yea - keep it civil :)

[Ritual]

I mean I hate spawn camping as much as anyone here. I just can't see a scenario where it can be totally stopped.

And yea - keep it civil :)

You might need to temporarily ban me,

I am livid right now about the state of base's. I hoped all these tweaks would be more comprehensive but they are perpetuating the problems. Me and SOE arent on the same page and in this state of mind I am going to be nothing but a horrible troll.

:cry::cry::cry:

[Figment]

Lol i guess we just have a different opinion on the subject and no i wasn't saying you can't have an opinion. after i posted i realized i replied with some heat because i felt you were personally insulting me. Which i apologize for taking it that way. Yes i agree it is no were near a Vaubain star fort but the angles of the walls and placement of bastions are similar and to defend amp stations i am usually forced to order people back into the towers and just attempt to hold them. But i believe a perfect star fort would also make attacking very very difficult and not much fun. Honestly i would love a polygonal fort added to game with glacias, ditch, scarp, and counterscarp developed later on and added to game or at least some of the current forts to be placed in realistic positions (NOT IN A DAMN DEPRESSION).

The thing is, a star fortress would have much better firing lines, but would still face Galaxy Drops and Jetpack troops (!), it therefore wouldn't be as effective in the new context, but would still make for better defense. Vaubain's star forts after all are designed for horizontal defense with very little vertical design aside from shelter from mortars and the moat systems, which are predominantly aimed at preventing getting close or setting up siege units. Airborne units have a huge impact on the effectiveness of the design in the PS2 setting. PS2 bases are a bit more like an old school castle, just with lower walkways, less protective battlements

Vaubain did not design against those and some AA guns won't suffice to fight them off. So if you create good objectives and good vital weaknesses - that can be defended and taken with a good organised drop - you can create a very (alternative) objectives oriented assault, but also one that is fun for both defenders and attackers. Plus, walls of course are used to obscure AMSes in PlanetSide games. So a star fort would also block line of sight on regular occassions.

[Figment]

I still don't think that the spawn room placement is the main reason for spawn camping. I believe that it's the inability to take on long range tanks that endlessly pepper turrets, walls, anything in sight. Once a few tanks setup a sniper nest or 2 there's little that can be done to stop them outside of air support. Even with good air support it's only a matter of time before all turrets are lost and the enemy gets a free ride to bring up armor to storm a base.

From what Iv seen of the reworked outposts they are incredibly easy to defend if there's men that know how to. I love how they are looking so far from both an attackers POV and defenders. But without a way to deal with long range tanks there's almost nothing that can be done till the armor rolls in.

Again I suggest that the devs either buff turret HP to make it worth the time it takes to repair one or lower the rebuild time to fit the low HP. As it is now it's just not worth the time to rebuild lost turrets seeing how easy it is for a tank to take it back out (maybe 4 shots) before it can do damage. And without turrets there's almost no way defenders can deal with long range vehicles.

Think of it this way: should a base or outpost be lost based on barrage, artillery and mortar fire alone? No. In any position designed for defense, people would retreat into the bunker or keep of said base and hold there either waiting for relief troops, or wearing the attacker out. Clearing out a base shouldn't be so damn easy (and impersonal) as it is now. That's just not good fun for both sides.

[psijaka]

Spawn "Camping" is a viable tactic to hold the enemy down while a base or outpost captures. I can't think of any scenario where they could possibly eliminate this. They have already done some things on some of the newer spawn buildings on Amerish.. but in the end this will never stop.

Spawn Camping is a viable tactic and indeed in a lot of cases is the only viable tactic, forced upon us by poor game design.

I do agree that it will be hard to eliminate altogether; however, a lot can be done to alleviate the problem:

More spawn rooms with several exits.
Teleports to adjacent buildings.
Elevator beams through the roof (some have this).
Jump pads launching through shields.
Tunnels to adjacent buildings.
More spawn rooms with balconies.
Barriers, walls etc to keep tanks away.
Ample cover nearby etc etc.

[MrBloodworth]

I still don't think that the spawn room placement is the main reason for spawn camping.

It is, and buffing a turret you cant get to will not help.

In outpost assaults, camping the spawn building is the first thing that is done.

I thought the game was about epic battles of struggling sides gaining and loosing. Right now, its about who brings the most equipment to the spawn room. Nothing else matters. This is why fights are so short.

[Chewy]

Think of it this way: should a base or outpost be lost based on barrage, artillery and mortar fire alone? No. In any position designed for defense, people would retreat into the bunker or keep of said base and hold there either waiting for relief troops, or wearing the attacker out. Clearing out a base shouldn't be so damn easy (and impersonal) as it is now. That's just not good fun for both sides.

Mortar fire alone shouldn't be able to clear a base (as in kill everyone), but last I was on there wasn't any mortars in PS2 that I can remember. Just tank shelling from ranges far outside of what defenders can fight against and the odd Libby or light aircraft raining hell. If there was true mortars in PS2 then it would be even worse that it is now thanks to a mortar being able to fire without a line of sight. At least tanks need to see a target before firing.

Either way the shelling of an area is to make defenders bunker down or run inside. That's the point, to make the enemy afraid to get out of cover and to let your army move up. As is now there is so little I can think of that defenders can do to deal with long range tank shelling. Only things that come to mind are tanks (to bunched up trying to get out of the gates), air support (AA peppering deals with them, even stock mounted guns can do the job), and turrets (to little HP to fight heavy armor). HA troops and AT MAXes weapons are just to slow for that distance. The rounds are either seen coming and dodged or if takes to much time to get the right angle/zeroing and you're sniped/blown to hell.



It is, and buffing a turret you cant get to will not help.

In outpost assaults, camping the spawn building is the first thing that is done.

I thought the game was about epic battles of struggling sides gaining and loosing. Right now, its about who brings the most equipment to the spawn room. Nothing else matters. This is why fights are so short.

Im trying to say that it is a must to keep the enemy outside of a base at all costs. Once they get inside I see that as a failure to defend and it should be a massive fight to regain control, however cheap it may seem. You let them in, deal with the negatives of your actions and learn from it.

Then again Im talking about bases, not outposts. An outpost should be easier to take than a base because it's an outpost, not a base. They should be supported by a nearby base if it's under attack and used as staging areas for attacks, counterattacks, and retakes. Outposts are buffers to get to a base. Taking them gives defenders time to setup a base for attack or counterattack and meet the enemy in the field.



The way I try to defend a base is to keep attackers outside of its walls at all costs. To let a single vehicle in the walls or to let a squad touch the bases ground is a failure in my eyes. One that must be used to learn on how to better defend. But without a way to deal with long range shelling there's little that can be done. Turrets are made for that role, but can't do the job thanks to such low HP and the large amount of time it takes to get on back. How often do you see entire walls of turrets broken long before an attack even starts?

Till people see that turrets are worth the time to repair them. Defending anything will be a bitch, on PMS, with crabs.

[MrBloodworth]

There are really walls on bases. Not to mention, most spawn buildings in outposts are part of the outer perimeter of the base.

[Figment]

Mortar fire alone shouldn't be able to clear a base (as in kill everyone), but last I was on there wasn't any mortars in PS2 that I can remember. Just tank shelling from ranges far outside of what defenders can fight against and the odd Libby or light aircraft raining hell. If there was true mortars in PS2 then it would be even worse that it is now thanks to a mortar being able to fire without a line of sight. At least tanks need to see a target before firing.

That may be, but they have line of sights that the defender does not have as they can fire at an entrance from the side. Furthermore, they can use gravity drop and hull down, which makes it a damn lot harder to retaliate at all. Especially since infantry AV gravity drop off is much worse, plus the line of sight of infantry does not agree with your weapon as the sight is slightly off-set. The amount of times you hit yourself with AV while thinking to have a clear shot is actually pretty often when you try hitting the tanks from the harder angles. That has everything to do with how narrow the exits are.

There's a couple good reasons why PS1 vets have always asked for wider base exits, and those base exits we had in PS1 were often triple the size we got for outposts now (PS1 FD) up to 7 times (PS1 Tech Plant vpad), but even normal doors were already twice as large as the PS2 doors. What happens is that you see a lot of people move in the way of others as well and it's to the point where you can easily block people from even firing out with one or two persons.

Those are all things you can do something about with base design.

Either way the shelling of an area is to make defenders bunker down or run inside. That's the point, to make the enemy afraid to get out of cover and to let your army move up.

So there's only ONE little room where everyone, all 12+ spawnees should be in? You're not honestly suggesting that's how you think it should be? Please don't tell me you think a single room of 3x12 meters is sufficient "taking cover" room and fun?

Don't be ridiculous. =| Please don't become a designer.

As is now there is so little I can think of that defenders can do to deal with long range tank shelling. Only things that come to mind are tanks (to bunched up trying to get out of the gates), air support (AA peppering deals with them, even stock mounted guns can do the job), and turrets (to little HP to fight heavy armor). HA troops and AT MAXes weapons are just to slow for that distance. The rounds are either seen coming and dodged or if takes to much time to get the right angle/zeroing and you're sniped/blown to hell.

AV rockets should have a bit more speed to negate the gravitational pull a bit and make dodging - particularly with Magriders - a bit harder. But even that doesn't matter if you get no vantage points AT ALL to use AV from. And THAT has everything to do with base design.

You still haven't explained how you think it's good design that 20 tanks can fire at a 1x2m door without even entering the compound, because 90% of outpost barracks have one door leading directly outside of the compound and that already makes camping a lot easier, because that only leaves one other exit to camp after wards.

And you're saying that has nothing to do with base design and there's nothing that can be done about that? Please. Don't make me laugh.

Im trying to say that it is a must to keep the enemy outside of a base at all costs. Once they get inside I see that as a failure to defend and it should be a massive fight to regain control, however cheap it may seem. You let them in, deal with the negatives of your actions and learn from it.

Ehr... you can easily camp without even entering the outposts at this point in the game. you can sit at 250m and camp the outpost doors. AT 250 METERS.

Don't tell me you think they "got into the base" at that distance? They only just got within range for crying out loud!

Then again Im talking about bases, not outposts. An outpost should be easier to take than a base because it's an outpost, not a base. They should be supported by a nearby base if it's under attack and used as staging areas for attacks, counterattacks, and retakes. Outposts are buffers to get to a base. Taking them gives defenders time to setup a base for attack or counterattack and meet the enemy in the field.

Easier to take or a neglible push-over?

And no, they don't provide any time to prepare, because it's the same people that defend the outpost that will be defending the base, plus there's nothing to prepare for, since the bases are too large to be covered by those same people. They can't communicate with the rest of the empire effectively to ask for reinforcements, they can't relay information on enemy strength and they can't prepare minefields or anything of the kind at the base.

So no, sorry, but I can't agree at all. Maybe if we had a working command structure. Maybe if we could lay 20-25 mines per player. Maybe if we could setup base defenses to become more effective (upgrade walls with merlons, shields, turrets, etc). Maybe if we had Spitfire Turrets and other protective deployables, like we had in PS1.

As is, spawning at the base just means "place ONE Sunderer which can be done at any stage of the coming siege" and grab a vehicle and hope you're not too late and hope some people move with you, because organising it outside of your squad is utterly hopeless right now.

The way I try to defend a base is to keep attackers outside of its walls at all costs. To let a single vehicle in the walls or to let a squad touch the bases ground is a failure in my eyes. One that must be used to learn on how to better defend. But without a way to deal with long range shelling there's little that can be done. Turrets are made for that role, but can't do the job thanks to such low HP and the large amount of time it takes to get on back. How often do you see entire walls of turrets broken long before an attack even starts?

Till people see that turrets are worth the time to repair them. Defending anything will be a bitch, on PMS, with crabs.

How about they simply never got repaired? You know, in PS1 we had auto-repair and the NTU system for that sort of thing. We had turret upgrades that could give it two roles to switch between. PS2 turrets are far more situational and are for more niche oriented and the firing angles are pretty bad at close range (can hardly fire down and has very limited horizontal angles) while at long range it's only effective against stationary targets. More health will do very little and won't change anything but make it take longer to repair and expose the engineer longer to enemy fire, but you could give them recharging AMP shields instead.

But as hinted at before, why engineers don't repair is not because it takes time etc, it's because they're sitting ducks out in the open for snipers. Have you seen the ridge they sit on while repairing? And consider also the amount of damage a sniper deals and how fast they kill.

MUCH faster than in PS1, had you a chance to relocate in PS1 because it was at least a two shot kill required with less accuracy than now, in PS2, you often instantly die.

It's not worthwhile and that has everything to do with the TTK on the engineer, not with the amount of hitpoints of the turret. All that combined, lack of repairs, poor angles, poor alternate fire modes and being a stationary sitting duck makes it not worthwhile to man a turret unless the enemy is actually present within the appropriate angles. Hitpoints are pretty fair.

Speaking of fair, Magrider driver gun accuracy, splash and damage combined, isn't.

[Rodel]

This is a really interesting thread. Here's the problem I'm detecting.

1) Some of you guys want a very defensive map where it becomes increadably hard to take a base. PLANETSIDE 1 was like this. Each base had only three points of entry and was surrounded by walls. This lead to hour long "door fights."

2) Others want an offensive map that doesn't bog down. Exposed points and spawn areas and so on. I think I like option 2 better than 1 but a balance is needed.

One curious thing I've noticed, some of the responces make it sound like a stratigic withdraw is beneath them... interesting outlook but I'll never call it wise.

Secondly, there is a way to avoid spawn camping; destroyable spawn tubes and spawn generators.

Now not everyone is like this but I've come across some who are. Planetside 2 is an MMO and an FPS and a RTS. You need to remember that you have to play the RTS part in order to be successful. I always get conserned when people complain that a game is broken because they find themselves in a situational dead end that skill won't fix but refuse to develope tactical or stratigic salutions. it's like saying rock paper sissors is broken because every time they incounter paper their rock is defeated.

Spawn somewhere else and counter assult, stop zerging out of the spawn points. But I do think the level of defenceability (great word) of bases is a valid question.

[Chewy]

This is a really interesting thread. Here's the problem I'm detecting.

1) Some of you guys want a very defensive map where it becomes increadably hard to take a base. PLANETSIDE 1 was like this. Each base had only three points of entry and was surrounded by walls. This lead to hour long "door fights."

2) Others want an offensive map that doesn't bog down. Exposed points and spawn areas and so on. I think I like option 2 better than 1 but a balance is needed.

One curious thing I've noticed, some of the responces make it sound like a stratigic withdraw is beneath them... interesting outlook but I'll never call it wise.

Secondly, there is a way to avoid spawn camping; destroyable spawn tubes and spawn generators.


I getting those thoughts as well but don't agree with the spawn tube idea. Having a SCU already serves that role, maybe give it a flare as that if it's taken out the spawn tubes power down or explode.


Another point Iv been trying to say (but have failed to type by not thinking about it out loud) is that not everything needs to be a fort. The hex system is setup so that you can cut off a base from supplies to weaken it for an attack or to affect influence/flip speed. You just can't do that if all outposts are walled up super forts. Yes there are some outposts that need to be beefed up a bit, but only to a point.

Outposts need to be outposts and bases need to be bases. As in outposts are easier to attack and harder to defend while bases are the ones that can take hours to breach. That opens up entire kinds of ways to deal with a threat. Attackers can ignore a base and go just for outposts till the enemy is drawn out only to then bash the base once it's under maned. Or defenders could flank around a contested base for a counter attack and cut off attacker reinforcements thus putting them in a 2 sided fight.

If all bases and outposts are setup full of bottlenecks and what not then it's just going to be the same fight as being spawn camped. Just at a different door.

[Figment]

One curious thing I've noticed, some of the responces make it sound like a stratigic withdraw is beneath them... interesting outlook but I'll never call it wise.

Not beneath us. It being the only option every single time you try to defend an outpost is simply absolutely ridiculous. Why should it be the ONLY option? Why are defensive and stalling strategies not allowed to be part of base design? That's the whole point of base design! No, the only strategy is to fall back and regroup. Do you honestly think that's a deep tactical game? What if my goal is to prevent an enemy from pushing towards that next base by simply holding a choke point on the map? What if I need to stall them there? If I retreat, I give them that base and I don't stall and I probably will be handing them the next base as well! Have you seen how that goes in PS2? Retreat? you end up handing away 40% of your territory because all you can do is fall back and back and back and nobody is satisfied that they won anything, because they had no opposition to do so. Every time people fall back, you disperse your own side more, because people spawn elsewhere and because every time you fall back, the enemy gets up to three or even four options to attack to. There's no time to mount a counter offensive and get back to the base in time before it falls, because capture is so fast and that is something you don't seem to want to understand.

It's also insulting that the answer to everything is retreat. You who say "just retreat" are like the writers of Star Trek: every solution is a Vulcan mind melt. BORING. PREDICTABLE. LAME. Retreat has its time and place, but it's not "ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE". If you can't fathom that, then there's no hope for you to win RTS games. Sometimes you just have to make a stand and every facility be it a base or outpost should have that option.

If we're not supposed to fight just die for the exp grind, then why play the game?

I won't play the game for long if we don't have options to contest a base capture. And by options I mean a way to fight back. Why do you trivialise defenders to equal them to fodder to camp? How is that not insulting to players?


If you honestly feel like you've accomplished something with an "offensive (zerg) map", then hooray for you. I call that absolutely sad. You win an outpost in this game right now and you honestly feel you've worked for it? You're kidding, right?

Because if that is true, then you must have the lowest standards for satisfaction known to man.






There's not even walkways at the walls of most outposts! How are you supposed to man the walls and fight back!? YOU CAN'T! You know how easy that makes it to approach the base and start camping it? The walls in outposts funnel the defenders, rather than the attackers! That alone says enough about how bad the defensive state of these outposts is! The walls in outposts do NOT protect the defenders, THEY CONFINE THEM! Shooting ducks in a barrel may be a sport to the mentally challenged, but it's not to me. And I don't like being the duck either. I want options. I expect options. I don't expect to be able to withstand every assault or every numerical odds, but I do expect that if you're outnumbered two to one, or even three to one, there's a chance for you to beat them back with smart play, but you'll be expected to work hard for it.

But working hard is not the same as being confined into ONE room with two options to shoot out and when you exit it you die by definition. That isn't good design and it never will be. Not a single military engineer in history would design outposts like this. Please do not ever try to excuse the design.

[EVILoHOMER]

I mean I hate spawn camping as much as anyone here. I just can't see a scenario where it can be totally stopped.

And yea - keep it civil :)

The issue is simply having to wait around while you gain influence. Basically this means stopping them from spawning by camping the spawns.

Planetside just had destroying the spawn tubes to spawn camping didn't happen for more than like 2 mins.

[Figment]

I getting those thoughts as well but don't agree with the spawn tube idea. Having a SCU already serves that role, maybe give it a flare as that if it's taken out the spawn tubes power down or explode.


Another point Iv been trying to say (but have failed to type by not thinking about it out loud) is that not everything needs to be a fort. The hex system is setup so that you can cut off a base from supplies to weaken it for an attack or to affect influence/flip speed. You just can't do that if all outposts are walled up super forts. Yes there are some outposts that need to be beefed up a bit, but only to a point.

Outposts need to be outposts and bases need to be bases. As in outposts are easier to attack and harder to defend while bases are the ones that can take hours to breach. That opens up entire kinds of ways to deal with a threat. Attackers can ignore a base and go just for outposts till the enemy is drawn out only to then bash the base once it's under maned. Or defenders could flank around a contested base for a counter attack and cut off attacker reinforcements thus putting them in a 2 sided fight.

If all bases and outposts are setup full of bottlenecks and what not then it's just going to be the same fight as being spawn camped. Just at a different door.

You need to learn to think out of the box more. You only think in super-fortress the moment you hear defensibility. Yes, there are degrees of defense, but having none is not an option. The mere size of an outpost already determines the defensibility of said outpost.

Look at the differences in defensibility of the Tower of London:

http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/new_pa9.jpg
http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/new_pa10.jpg
http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/new_pa11.jpg
http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/new_pa12.jpg
http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/new_pa13.jpg

Each successive design is harder to take, but also requires a larger group of people to defend effectively. There is good reason that pretty much all castles have a (strong) keep. A keep provides the basic needs for defense after all, could make a list, but you get the idea. The most vital parts and people of a castle are ALWAYS found in the keep for that reason, including the barracks for times of siege (there may also be a forward barracks).

Every single civilization in the history of mankind realised this.


Now, whether we get a pallisade defense like a motte and bailey:

http://medievalcastles.stormthecastle.com/images/motte-and-bailey-castle-drawing.jpg

http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/hdhs/lords/images/palisade.jpg

An outpost:

http://www.digitalmatte.com/filmvault/images/starshiptroopers_large.jpg

A castle:

http://www.designsdelight.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/castle-netherlands.jpg

Or a multi-ringed castle:
http://www.goffs.herts.sch.uk/Goffs%20m3/subjects/Historypages/yr7historyfiles/castle21.jpg

Bunker base:
http://www.maastrichtevents.nl/data/photos/03c2/b67a/74a3/b37e/ad9a/8740/8488/49c6/rondleiding-pieterpad.jpg

Or a defensive bunker line:
http://ww2today.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/maginot-600x250.jpg

Or even the simplest protection of all:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Spanish_Palisade_Fort.jpg

No, we get this:

http://www.elbecgardenbuildings.co.uk/shopimages/products/normal/MPENT.jpg


And that's apparently the best we can do.

[Figment]

Just as a reminder: this is what we had in PS1:

http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Features/2009/12/Multiplayer%20maps/Finished/Technology%20plant--article_image.jpg

vs a plain keep:

http://www.planetside-idealab.com/images/tower-ntusilo.jpg
(Note: with ntu and repair silo, since it's from Hayoo's idealab)

Here's some stuff I had come up with for PS1 that's in between the two (include's Fort4Law's tower umbrella cover idea on top and was supposed to require minimal art-creation input):

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/HanSime/FinalSupply1.jpg

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/HanSime/FinalGround2.jpg

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/HanSime/FinalAir2.jpg

Now, the latter three are clearly better defendable than the mere tower, but far from as easy to hold as a normal base. Simply because inside it is smaller and the courtyard is smaller etc and it's easier to cut between spawnpoint and CC. In fact, there are many routes to the CC. But they don't involve spawn camping! Of course it contains camping in the sense that you try to keep people pinned inside, but that's significantly harder to do in this setup and that's a good thing! Fighting isn't supposed to be a one way street!

But compared to a mere box with two exits... Damn man. =| Capturing shouldn't be a principle of walking or driving up to it and saying "tag, you're mine". You'll have to take it! That influence is worth a lot, why would you just have to give it away? That's nuts!


PS: Speaking of base designs, here's a plan for a replacement of some of the PS1 Bio Labs.
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/HanSime/StorageFac_TL.jpg
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/HanSime/StorageFac_GL.jpg
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/HanSime/StorageFac_U1.jpg
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/HanSime/StorageFac_U2.jpg

Note how it has all the vitals inside, a lot of routes inside, larger open, multi-level halls inside, the ability to get to the walls, courtyard and backdoor through the backdoor "guardhouse" or the keep itself, with many places where you could pop out - and in. And a CC that is at the top of a multi-level hall which is suitable to hold defensively and offensively (especially with Router). I'd have made more entrances from ground level, but I had to make due with using the cuts in the ground that existed for the Bio Lab since PS1 had no proper map editor.

Of course it still had the corridor fighting, like any other base in PS1, after all, it has to fit in with the rest.

But what it would NOT have had, is a lot of spawn camping, because there are three exits that each lead to different parts of the facility and as such is very hard to camp. Now, as attacker, you have ample chance to get to, take and hold any of the vital parts of the facility too: the gen, the CC, the vpads and airpad and even taking out the spawns. It's a design based around breaching defenses then holding the vitals while the fight continues for some time unless you gain full control of spawns and CC and manage to keep resecure teams out.

[Sunrock]

Or you could ----- SPAWN SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!


Its not like an old MMO where you bound to a spawn point.
If someone is farming you at a spawn that means you are too dumb to regroup at a position that hasnt been over run.

QFT.

But seriously what would you expect the attackers would do? Not trying to control the base? If it comes to a point that they are able to spawn camp it's allot better idea to respawn some where else and regroup for a counter attack then try to fight your way out of the spawn room.

I don't see this as a problem at all in this game. People just have to stop thinking so one dimensional.... or maybe not. As long as people play stupid I win :D

[Figment]

QFT.

But seriously what would you expect the attackers would do? Not trying to control the base? If it comes to a point that they are able to spawn camp it's allot better idea to respawn some where else and regroup for a counter attack then try to fight your way out of the spawn room.

I don't see this as a problem at all in this game. People just have to stop thinking so one dimensional.... or maybe not. As long as people play stupid I win :D

Wait, you're telling us to think out of the box?


Very ironic. Then again, you probably haven't read a single other post.


EDIT: For the record, just that we complain about the current base design, doesn't mean we get farmed and don't up and leave when the campfest starts. Anyone who thinks so is actually pretty... "one dimensional".

[Sunrock]

Wait, you're telling us to think out of the box?


Very ironic. Then again, you probably haven't read a single other post.


EDIT: For the record, just that we complain about the current base design, doesn't mean we get farmed and don't up and leave when the campfest starts. Anyone who thinks so is actually pretty... "one dimensional".

Yes because you're only allowed to comment on the latest post in a thread or all of them :rolleyes: FYI I only replied to the OP no one else in here. And you should have understod that without me having to point that out for you.

[Figment]

Yes because you're only allowed to comment on the latest post in a thread or all of them :rolleyes: FYI I only replied to the OP no one else in here. And you should have understod that without me having to point that out for you.

Then you shouldn't have QFTed, because it's a bunch of baloney, especially since you made a very big judgmental, not to mention insulting comment regarding anyone who disagreed.

[Sunrock]

Then you shouldn't have QFTed, because it's a bunch of baloney, especially since you made a very big judgmental, not to mention insulting comment regarding anyone who disagreed.

The post I QFT'ed was a reply to the OP. :rolleyes:

Besides way would I QFT it if I thought it was baloney? QQ'ing over being corpse camped is lame no matter what game we are talking about. That's only what carebears do.

Besides how they designed the bases with the placement of the spawn room has to do with the difficultly level of attacking and defending the base in question. If you would remove the possibility of never being able to camp a spawn room you increase the difficulty level of attacking and makes it easier for the defenders to defend with less men. As the design is now I think it comes down to more how good the players are if you manage to defend a base successfully or attack it. Without giving ether side a significant advantage.

[Figment]

Alright Sunrock, what advantages are there for defenders that the attackers have to overcome then?


Because as it stands, approaching a base can be done blindfolded. Clearly that's not where the difficulty is. Then once you arrive, you can immediately start camping the spawn room. So that's also not where the difficulty lies.

Then where does the attacker have issues?



And btw, without even reading anything, all you do is presume it's "QQ", meanwhile insinuating that the status quo is by definition the best designed thing ever. Very constructive indeed. Not. What you do is called trolling, not debating. And why would you QFT if it is baloney? Because you have no clue on the matter, which is quite clear from your reply that defense is fair right now.

Defenders should always have the positional advantage and ways to compensate for lower numbers, as the attackers always tend to have the advantage of organisation (they moved out for this objective, defenders are often there by coincidence), mobility and numbers, as well as the advantage of defense attrition (siege). Often also qualitatively in terms of available equipment. After all, they have the initiative, otherwise the defenders wouldn't be on the defensive. Defense means you're going to have to dig in.

Of course the defenders should have weakspots to make use of and disable defense, but spawn camping infantry spawns with vehicles is not necessarily one of those or even the default thing that happens at the start of a siege!

And that's what we protest against.

Btw Sunrock, iirc you're a BF3 player, right? Which would suggest you have little to no experience with proper base design for a MMO context.

[Sturmhardt]

Base design and defendability aside, it would all stop if they put an scu right next to the spawn. If the attackers can hold it for 1 or 2 minutes straight, spawning is disabled. Et voila: no spawn camping anymore.

@sunrock: you miss the point.

[Crator]

Base design and defendability aside, it would all stop if they put an scu right next to the spawn. If the attackers can hold it for 1 or 2 minutes straight, spawning is disabled. Et voila: no spawn camping anymore.

@sunrock: you miss the point.

^ This! Or just make the spawn tubes destructible. I like the latter cause it's more challenging for the attacker. Also, +100 to everything Figment just said in the last couple post he made.

@Uneducated Please read all the posts in a thread before you spout out drivel. If you really are interested in discussing the topic, you would do so.

[Sturmhardt]

^ This! Or just make the spawn tubes destructible. I like the latter cause it's more challenging for the attacker.

That would be a cool solution too. Remove the Shields, add the painfield and make spawntubes destructible. And hard to reach for vehicles.

[Babyfark McGeez]

The post I QFT'ed was a reply to the OP. :rolleyes:

Besides way would I QFT it if I thought it was baloney? QQ'ing over being corpse camped is lame no matter what game we are talking about. That's only what carebears do.

Besides how they designed the bases with the placement of the spawn room has to do with the difficultly level of attacking and defending the base in question. If you would remove the possibility of never being able to camp a spawn room you increase the difficulty level of attacking and makes it easier for the defenders to defend with less men. As the design is now I think it comes down to more how good the players are if you manage to defend a base successfully or attack it. Without giving ether side a significant advantage.

Thank you for your input. I spawned somewhere else but for some reason that didn't improve the base design. Didn't help.

[Aaron]

Destructible spawntubes/gen I think is a step in the right direction here. Spawn camping would only last a few minutes. However, the spawn tubes/gen should not be so easily reached if this is the case (actually in any case).

Defensible yet end-able spawning is what we want. We don't want the fight to end as soon as the enemy arrives, but we also don't want sudden spawn camping as it is quite boring for attackers; and most likely will be aggravating for defenders. After all, the defenders want to fight just as much as the attackers. Having to spawn somewhere else so soon after the battle has just begun will ware on people.

It simply shouldn't be the 1st or 2nd thing that the attackers do right off the bat. As of now, it is because that is the easiest and most effective way to shut the defenders down. Personally, I think it shouldn't be that easy. The defenders should have a better layout to protect the spawn. The facility is SUPPOSED to give them an advantage.

Here's the bottom line: Mitigate the time players spend in a spawn camp scenario. If any spawn camping is to occur, it should be the last thing that the zerg naturally run into. If the zerg overrun the spawn, let them shut it down.

Also, hire Figment into SOE so he can make this happen.

[Sturmhardt]

Also, hire Figment into SOE so he can make this happen.

It was my idea :cry:

[MrBloodworth]

All defenders have an advantage. That's how the world works. That's the point of defensible structures.

The Flaw of ps2 is they have chosen to give only attackers good gameplay, and given defenders every disadvantage they could. That, in all honestly, is not good game-play. Steamrolling is not very fun.

[Chewy]

You need to learn to think out of the box more. You only think in super-fortress the moment you hear defensibility. Yes, there are degrees of defense, but having none is not an option. The mere size of an outpost already determines the defensibility of said outpost.



What I see from those pics are building made for the sole propose are for war time or in a very hostile land. (love Starship Troopers)

What if the outposts we have now weren't made for war time, but for research and in a time of peace?

That line of thought fits into PS2s lore of where a fleet of ships cut off from Earth needed to find a new home. They found Auraxis and lived on it for a number of centuries before the war broke out. Read the lore for yourself.

http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Lore

With about 202 years of peace and living on the same ground together. Why should every building/settlement be made for wartime when the war has only recently started?

Think about if that story happened to your home land. 200 years of peace will not make people build proper bases and defensible outposts. They would make towns, cities, places to live with one another. Then when the idea of war started to seem unavoidable (10 years, maybe 20 max) would proper bases be built. There just wouldn't be time to remake every research center, living area, or places of work into somewhere that can be fought over. However sad it may seem, most of the world will be abandoned and left to fend for itself in order to make what vital buildings each empire has as secure as possible.

If the war was going on for those 200 years then I would be on the side of walling everything up as that what those buildings where made for, wartime. But that isn't in the lore.

[psijaka]

The post I QFT'ed was a reply to the OP. :rolleyes:

Besides way would I QFT it if I thought it was baloney? QQ'ing over being corpse camped is lame no matter what game we are talking about. That's only what carebears do.

Besides how they designed the bases with the placement of the spawn room has to do with the difficultly level of attacking and defending the base in question. If you would remove the possibility of never being able to camp a spawn room you increase the difficulty level of attacking and makes it easier for the defenders to defend with less men. As the design is now I think it comes down to more how good the players are if you manage to defend a base successfully or attack it. Without giving ether side a significant advantage.

Spawn camping is a pretty lame gameplay mechanic from both the defenders and the attackers point of view. If I'm attacking I would much rather be involved in a protracted gunfight than be waiting around for someone to pop their head out of their spawn.

And it should be easier for the defenders to defend. Part of the problem with the current game is that there is more fun (and XP) to be had from attacking than from defending, leading to a chaotic and unstable front line.

Why bother going through the misery of defending with the odds stacked against you when you could just abandon the outpost and join a steamroller attack elsewhere?

[Crator]

What I see from those pics are building made for the sole propose are for war time or in a very hostile land. (love Starship Troopers)

What if the outposts we have now weren't made for war time, but for research and in a time of peace?

That line of thought fits into PS2s lore of where a fleet of ships cut off from Earth needed to find a new home. They found Auraxis and lived on it for a number of centuries before the war broke out. Read the lore for yourself.

http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Lore

With about 202 years of peace and living on the same ground together. Why should every building/settlement be made for wartime when the war has only recently started?

Think about if that story happened to your home land. 200 years of peace will not make people build proper bases and defensible outposts. They would make towns, cities, places to live with one another. Then when the idea of war started to seem unavoidable (10 years, maybe 20 max) would proper bases be built. There just wouldn't be time to remake every research center, living area, or places of work into somewhere that can be fought over. However sad it may seem, most of the world will be abandoned and left to fend for itself in order to make what vital buildings each empire has as secure as possible.

If the war was going on for those 200 years then I would be on the side of walling everything up as that what those buildings where made for, wartime. But that isn't in the lore.

:doh: Really? Sounds like an issue with the lore then if you're going to go there. You don't build game mechanics in a WAR GAME around lore that doesn't fit in with the game to make it fun. You build game mechanics to make a game fun then write the lore for it. No one here could give 2 craps about whether the lore fits in with what we see in-game. We should care about making the game mechanics fun because, you know, that's why we play the game.

[psijaka]

What I see from those pics are building made for the sole propose are for war time or in a very hostile land. (love Starship Troopers)

What if the outposts we have now weren't made for war time, but for research and in a time of peace?

That line of thought fits into PS2s lore of where a fleet of ships cut off from Earth needed to find a new home. They found Auraxis and lived on it for a number of centuries before the war broke out. Read the lore for yourself.

http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Lore

With about 202 years of peace and living on the same ground together. Why should every building/settlement be made for wartime when the war has only recently started?

Think about if that story happened to your home land. 200 years of peace will not make people build proper bases and defensible outposts. They would make towns, cities, places to live with one another. Then when the idea of war started to seem unavoidable (10 years, maybe 20 max) would proper bases be built. There just wouldn't be time to remake every research center, living area, or places of work into somewhere that can be fought over. However sad it may seem, most of the world will be abandoned and left to fend for itself in order to make what vital buildings each empire has as secure as possible.

If the war was going on for those 200 years then I would be on the side of walling everything up as that what those buildings where made for, wartime. But that isn't in the lore.
Interesting perspective.

But do we know when "Now" is?

2846 or a century or two later?

[Tatwi]

Interesting perspective.

But do we know when "Now" is?

2846 or a century or two later?

Who cares about the lore when the game play is really obnoxious?

NO ONE!

That's who...

[MrBloodworth]

With enough time, I can explain anything away with lore.

[Chewy]

Interesting perspective.

But do we know when "Now" is?

2846 or a century or two later?

From what Iv read about the plot and lore on that wiki it seems that "now" is 2846. Right at the start of everything seeing how there's nothing after that in the time line and that the war will be fought by players, not a pre-written story. Maybe give a few months fit in the VS declaring their independence and joining the war (the trailer on Steam is a good example of that. It shows hardened NC and TR troops kicking ass then VS joining at the end).

But there's a 200 year gap between getting to the planet and the peace talks ending. So just about anything can be in there. This line helps in the thought that those 200 years are "mostly" of peace though
"Towards the end of humanity’s second century on Auraxis, the New Conglomerate’s unrest began to take the form of worldwide protests against the Republic." (taken from the last line of the 2nd paragraph of "The New Earth")

So with the majority of 202 years being in peace, there's little reason for outposts to be very defensive. Those few years before the war started (during peace talks) where spent to fortify the main bases and an odd key tactical ground point. It takes time to rebuild a civilian focused area into military. Choices had to be made.




As for those that don't give a shit about lore and back story in a game as long as the gameplay is there. I have questions.

Why are you fighting that war? For what reason could you and the thousands that are killing one another have to be spilling ones blood? Why is that fight worth your LIFE?

I for one can't touch a MP game if there's no reason for the killing. If the game doesn't bother to answer those questions I just don't play or even buy it. Lore and story are just as needed as gameplay in my eyes.

Lore and game mechanics are there. It's up to the players for great gameplay as they are the ones in control of the war in PS2, not the devs.

[Sturmhardt]

Nobody cares about the lore, it's a story that is invented to fit to the game, not otherwise. If the game has to be changed, the lore changes too.

Please stop talking about the story guys, it has no place in discussions about gameplay.

[Rodel]

Not beneath us. It being the only option every single time you try to defend an outpost is simply absolutely ridiculous. Why should it be the ONLY option? Why are defensive and stalling strategies not allowed to be part of base design?.

Figment, here's what i don't get. Yes when your getting spawn camped your only option is to withdraw... I concied that. But your opertunity to defend a base is before they spawn lock you. Why are you taking this out of the equation?

[Figment]

Figment, here's what i don't get. Yes when your getting spawn camped your only option is to withdraw... I concied that. But your opertunity to defend a base is before they spawn lock you. Why are you taking this out of the equation?

Because that window of opportunity is waaaaaaaay too small? Once they are in the base, you should still be able to beat them out. In many cases spawncamping begins as soon as the enemy arrives. AS. SOON. AS. THEY. ARRIVE. How about the attacker should work for their claim on the base? The cc is often found in the frontline of the base. Often the base is so open, you can just walk in from any direction without being hindered at all. Anyone who thinks that is how it should be is IMO not worth following in command, to say the least.

I don't get why anyone would want spawncamping to be so quick to begin and so omnipresent. Are they masochists? Do you think a fight inside a base should last less than two minutes before spawncamping begins? Because when we drive up to a base, we can immediately and without delay start spawncamping. We don't even have to work to approach the base, since you can enter from any direction, even above, with ease.

I'm sorry, but I've got a degree in aerospace engineering and do master in industrial design. Maybe I can't think on the level of design for which this is being designed: zombies. I was under the impression a lot of students, graduates and adults play this game and then perhaps the target group of the undead isn't quite correctly chosen, despite the spawncamping. Either way, I can't enjoy the attacking role, nor the defending role in the status quo.

Tbh, it is a shame they added the jumpjets. That made the camping problem so much worse. Nothing harder to take care of then a camper above and behind you.
If you ever played ps1, you would remember those agile droppers on towers who sat in third person above tower top doors with HA. That, plus tanks and snipers over the single room where you must begin and come out of.

How easy do you want to make it for them? Don't you have any pride? No sense of fair or fun play? No thrill of handling the unknown? No interest in working to track and predict your enemies and ontsmart them in a larger base? We have 64 square km maps and you want all outpost fighting to take place in the two square meters at the exits of twenty square meters? You don't consider that a wasted opportunity?

[Rodel]

Al right now i see where your coming from and yes some of the bases are redicuously hard to defend such as the generic outposts on Indar but they're adding more variety to bases. Also the towers are buch more difficult to assult with spawn rooms that aren't overly exposed. I'm also a fan of the large bases which lead to al kinds of encounters.

Consider this though. If these bases were designed to be fortresses then the fight would become super bogged down. I mean I love a good Crown fight but I'd hate all the bases to be so tough. Also the outpost bases I think are desighned to be simple capture points for the hex system. My stratigic responce has always been to use adjacent bases to support operations at out post rather than using the outpost as my base of operations for the fight.
It's kind of like Harpers Ferry during the Civil War, it's stratigically important to take but completly undefenceable.

I think one reason why I'm not frusterated by a lot of the things people have issue with is because I don't overspecialise. I can see if you play primarily infantry it would be difficult to deal with this situation. I usually handle it by hanging up my carbine and spawning at an ajacent hex and pulling a scythe/mag/lib and then counter assulting the from thi alternate location. I find that to be a fun way to play the game.

[Buggsy]

Respawn at closest tower or facility with vehicle/air terminals. Get your crew and roll out to go and retake the facility before it flips and rout the attackers?

If you've lost a base, stop respawning into the meatgrinder. Regroup and make a counter assault.

Won't work without an AMS that cloaks. Generally the defenders are outnumbered 10:1 at the start of the battle, meaning a non-cloaked sunderer you parked for defense is easily spotted.

[FatherJack]

Ugh this has been discussed before. Let me make this clear, if you are getting spawn camped you have lost the base. Game over, not going to get it back. I see the same people coming out of the spawn and meeting a literal firing squad over and over again, what are they hoping to achieve? I really dont know.

I have got in the position of being spawn camped before and I just tell the rest of my squad to spawn somewhere else, simples.

[Figment]

Fatherjack, just shut up and go away. You aren't suited to development discussion if you can't perceive that the status quo design is subject to change.

If you exploded every time you would enter your vehicle, your solution would be to not enter your vehicle, rather than see if there is a bug or issue that can be fixed with a different solution. Your adapting to an unworkable situation is not interesting, because it isn't new or brilliant.

In fact, the mere fact that apparently there is a need for players to keep fighting that makes them exit against all odds and the ability to spawn remains suggests they perveive or there is a chance to take the base back. Just because you enjoy spawncamping someone does not mean we all do and like it happening this easily. You being too shortsighted to realise that it could take a lot more effort to get to the spawncamping and that by design you can create a situation where you can break out of spawncamping does not warrant insulting others or aggravating them on forums by posting a non solution, but an avoidance of an issue you admit is there.

[Littleman]

The continental selection screen has a little quip about how Auraxis has seen conflict since its first colony was founded in 2643.

On the note of spawn camping: I'm rather surprised the old PS1 vets haven't defended the "spawn somewhere else" notion with the notion that we could have had open spawn rooms and destructable spawn tubes again. They want just about everything else back...

Nothing will really fix spawn camping. There are ways to alleviate the pressure on the home team, but for the most, once the enemy has a billion barrels pointed at the shield doors, they're SOL. Removing tanks and VTOLs from the equation isn't really going to change that. See: well suppressed bio-lab teleport rooms for an example. If the enemy has enough guns surrounding the doors, the invading army is going to have a very hard time pushing out.

Finally: we don't get to decide who does or doesn't have the cognitive ability to contribute to development discussions. Criticisms and suggestions are criticisms and suggestions... some are just more well written and thought out than others.

[Piper]

What issue?

Spawn camping is, and always has been, relative. If your team is dieing more often than you're killing you're being camped in a way, it just isn't obvious till it's happening right outside the door/shield. Same as it ever was.

Oddly enough killing more of the enemy than your team is dieing to them is kinda how we take bases quite often in the first place. Same as it ever was.

It takes two to tango, a camper and a campee, for spawn camping to occur, don't like that you feel you're being camped then do something about it? You have plenty of spawn options in Ps2, just like Ps1, spawn elsewhere and come back at the enemy again if you like, with vehicles. Same as it ever was.

Being locked into a spawn area because to leave it is near on certain death is generally a good indication that you have, or are about to, LOSE. Accept it, move on. Same as it ever was.

Now should Ps2 have, by design, more destroyable spawn points like Ps1 had, (think about the caves that didn't have any and that camping was utterly necessary in them), maybe yes....or players can adjust their attitude to what is going on in the game. Same as it ever was.

To give defenders continual options to perpetuate fights is not going to help the games dynamic though. :(

[Sunrock]

Alright Sunrock, what advantages are there for defenders that the attackers have to overcome then?


Because as it stands, approaching a base can be done blindfolded. Clearly that's not where the difficulty is. Then once you arrive, you can immediately start camping the spawn room. So that's also not where the difficulty lies.

Then where does the attacker have issues?



And btw, without even reading anything, all you do is presume it's "QQ", meanwhile insinuating that the status quo is by definition the best designed thing ever. Very constructive indeed. Not. What you do is called trolling, not debating. And why would you QFT if it is baloney? Because you have no clue on the matter, which is quite clear from your reply that defense is fair right now.

Defenders should always have the positional advantage and ways to compensate for lower numbers, as the attackers always tend to have the advantage of organisation (they moved out for this objective, defenders are often there by coincidence), mobility and numbers, as well as the advantage of defense attrition (siege). Often also qualitatively in terms of available equipment. After all, they have the initiative, otherwise the defenders wouldn't be on the defensive. Defense means you're going to have to dig in.

Of course the defenders should have weakspots to make use of and disable defense, but spawn camping infantry spawns with vehicles is not necessarily one of those or even the default thing that happens at the start of a siege!

And that's what we protest against.

Btw Sunrock, iirc you're a BF3 player, right? Which would suggest you have little to no experience with proper base design for a MMO context.

What advantage does the defenders have? They are defending that is an advantage in it self. And if you let the attackers start with surrounding your spawn rooms you either have way to few defenders defending or some one is an extremely bad commander.

Personal I have never experienced that any base have been camped before the attackers have taken control of all the the check points. But I guess it can happen as there is no game design that prevents it.

But lest say SOE decides to make you lead designer on base designs in game and you design the bases as you describe in this thread. To me it makes me think that a group of 10 players can easily defend a base from 100 players trying to take it as the base design would allow to set up to kill zone where one soldier could easily get 100 kills per minutes because there is only one way into the objective.

And yes I play BF3 but I also play or have played 50+ other FPS games. I also have allot of experience playing MMORPGS with siege PvP designed like Lineage 2, Age of Conan and Aion to mention a few games. Sure they have more medieval type of battles but the medieval combat was also heavily focused on fortress attacks and defenses. And I have seen what well designed fortress that are easy to defend does to the game play. IMO it lessen the skill demanded by the players and the co-op skills needed to win. And a dumbed down game is also a less fun game to play.

But after have played PS2 for 500+ hours totally I think I know how it is to play this game at least...

[Figment]

The continental selection screen has a little quip about how Auraxis has seen conflict since its first colony was founded in 2643.

On the note of spawn camping: I'm rather surprised the old PS1 vets haven't defended the "spawn somewhere else" notion with the notion that we could have had open spawn rooms and destructable spawn tubes again. They want just about everything else back...

Considering you never listen to PS1 vets, I'm surprised you only noticed now that spawncamping was considered an issue in PS1, though not as much as it is now because in PS1, someone would kill the tubes eventually.

There's no need for the attacker to kill the tubes in PS2, in fact, it costs them free kills. That alone indicates bad design.

Nothing will really fix spawn camping. There are ways to alleviate the pressure on the home team, but for the most, once the enemy has a billion barrels pointed at the shield doors, they're SOL. Removing tanks and VTOLs from the equation isn't really going to change that. See: well suppressed bio-lab teleport rooms for an example. If the enemy has enough guns surrounding the doors, the invading army is going to have a very hard time pushing out.

Yes, but it takes far longer to get to that situation and it takes actual effort. That's the point. What's wrong, you don't want to fight for your right on the facility? You just want to come up to a facility, declare victory immediately and not even contest the base? Because that's what is happening now, aside from a select few bases and that it takes a while for the base to turn based on random timers and random influence. AND, since they are reliant on infantry, taking away the source of infantry spawns around the base would aleviate the pressure on the spawn room. In contrast, you can't take away all the tanks as easily.

Think things a bit further through. There's a huge difference if it is just infantry or infantry and vehicles (and aircav), because if it's only infantry, you won't need to have 8 rockets to kill ONE camping enemy right at the spawnroom. It means you get a chance to do something more and don't take on a variety of unit types requiring a variety of counter weapons and a mass spam of said counter weapons. How hard is it for you to differentiate between a group of enemies with 1 second ttk each or a group of enemies with a 20 second ttk each?

How hard is it for you to realise that if you can hold a larger area, the concentration of fire disperses and this gives defenders a much better chance against vehicles and completely reduces spawn camping to a non issue? "Building" camping or camping a "compound" (set of buildings) is entirely different from spawn camping. OF COURSE it can lead to spawn camping eventually, but the thing is, if it does you'd had to have fought your way to it and defenders could have prevented you from getting to that situation. In the current design, that option does not exist and I can't figure out for the life of me why anyone would not want that option. Fanboys? Defeatists? Masochism? Exploiting it themselves? Lack of vision or insight? You tell me, I can't figure out what's fun, fair or logical about these designs.

Saying "it will (no: might!) happen anyway (no: potentially) so might as well get it over with immediately (no: give us options to prevent it from happening!)" is not constructive, it means you gave up before you even tried and that you are too demoralized to even attempt to do anything about it or think about ways to aleviate the effects. That's a sad and apathic attitude to have IMO.

You should realise that base sieges and tower sieges in PS1 were broken constantly by smart play without always having to fall back and towers could now and then hold for ages, with the control console just 50m away from the enemy, who simply couldn't spam them to death and it took significant effort to break through - people get satisfaction out of both that hold, sneaking past and taking it subtly or taking it by force.

Why should you remove the fight and turn it into a farm and call this good, with the only option for the defenders to give up by default as soon as enemies enter the base? What's the point of taking the facility back then?

Yes, damnit, it should take a much longer time to siege an outpost. The actual capture can be a lot shorter from my perspective, as long as the conquest is fun and worthwhile. Currently the capture is boring, while the fight is boring too and you're not allowed to feel as if you could actually do something about the outcome if you directly partake in it!

And that doesn't bother you at all? =|

Yes retreating and getting vehicles is and always has been and always will be an option. It shouldn't be the only thing you can do and certainly you shouldn't be forced to do it before you even lost the fight. The declaration of "we lost" now happens way before it should be considered lost simply because people start getting cheap kills you can't prevent very early in the battle. If you need time to destroy heavily armoured enemies, the last thing you should do is make the fight short!

But that doesn't seem to be realised by people who can't imagine there are more ways to fight. What an uncreative bunch... And that's what they want to play for 10 years? Riiiiight.

Finally: we don't get to decide who does or doesn't have the cognitive ability to contribute to development discussions. Criticisms and suggestions are criticisms and suggestions... some are just more well written and thought out than others.

That's great if they would take actual part in the discussion, provided actual feedback or contributed to development rather than stagnation: people should stop coming into a discussion, not reading a single post but going "just move somewhere else and stop QQing". Because that's not constructive posting, that's trolling.

Moving somewhere else does not end the spawncamping issue, it does not make it happen occur less swiftly and it doesn't help hold the base in question. It's the most stupid suggestion of all: "do nothing and pretend it's not there, give up and accept the game is designed poorly". These people have nothing to contribute, have no constructive feedback, do not even want to think about what the issue is and provide no feedback a developer can work with whatsoever. They never have and never will, so what the hell are they doing in a discussion on aleviating the issue or telling other people that clear take issue with something there is no issue?

Trolls should gtfo.



Someone said they think it's tactical to take the bases and outposts around other territory. Sure is! But it's not tactical or strategic to prevent you from doing so!? And you should just topple over and run away at the mere sight of them? Say what? You think you don't have to work for it because your actual objective is another facility and you want to get to that fight? Then why bother with this one? Just remove the influence system if you don't want to actually fight to get that influence, but think you're simply entitled to it so you can quickly end the other fight!

Only attackers are strategic and tactical? Bullshit. How about you need some effort to take the other territories and have to fight hard for every inch of terrain?

[Sunrock]

That's great if they would take actual part in the discussion, provided actual feedback or contributed to development rather than stagnation: people should stop coming into a discussion, not reading a single post but going "just move somewhere else and stop QQing". Because that's not constructive posting, that's trolling.



If you complained about being corpse camped no matter how it happens or in what game it happens in you are QQ'ing over some one else manage to kill you. There is no other way to see it. There is always a way to avoid getting corpse camped in any game if you are willing to accept your defeat.

And if you only read the first page of this thread that is what this thread looks to be about. Some carebear QQ'ing over being killed.

That has nothing to do with your discussion about base designs and the pros and cons about how to place the spawn room where in the base.

[Figment]

If you complained about being corpse camped no matter how it happens or in what game it happens in you are QQ'ing over some one else manage to kill you. There is no other way to see it. There is always a way to avoid getting corpse camped in any game if you are willing to accept your defeat.

And if you only read the first page of this thread that is what this thread looks to be about. Some carebear QQ'ing over being killed.

That has nothing to do with your discussion about base designs and the pros and cons about how to place the spawn room where in the base.

Just because every other FPS game with fixed spawn sites is poorly designed doesn't mean you can't complain about it.

You're just not interested in finding out if there's something that could be done to make it less of an issue because you've been trained to accept it. You're not interested in if it's a viable complaint because all you've seen is that there's camping in many games.

That's something else entirely. That's your state of mind that has been ruined by being formed to be biased and apathic to the situation. You don't care (anymore), so you decree that anyone that does care must be QQing.


That's your problem. And since you haven't played PS1, you don't seem to realise that there's a lot that can be done about spawn camping by increasing your options of escape and enlarging the area which has to be camped and the amount of directions you'd have to camp from AND by creating options for defenders to flank campers. And if you ever thought off ways to create buffer zones, you'd realise there's a lot you can do to soften the impact and counter it. But you haven't.


If spawn camping is inevitable, then why aren't we warpgate camped continuously? Because the enemy becomes too dispersed (or too concentrated in another area) and outnumbered to fight two empires at once.

But even then both empires could be gate camped by a numerically smaller number of players (campers need less people to kill many), but they can't as we have more terrain to move through than the enemy can practically cover. If there was just one warpgate exit, rather than a half globe, warpgate camping would be really easy.

But you don't think in that way, because you're not interested in finding a solution to a problem you try to ignore. Hence you're a troll and not providing worthwhile feedback.

[Dagron]

In one side of the discussion i keep seeing people's arguments as to why defense is so difficult and that while they don't want defense to be easy mode it still needs to be a lot better than it is now, some even have suggestions on how to solve this (a few more thought out than others), and yes some rude posts and uneducated opinions as well.
While on the other side i keep hearing people chanting "you should have defended before you were camped", ignoring all the arguments to why that's not a solution (and the fact that they aren't whining as defenders that "we are being bullied wah wah wah", but actually complaining that both attacking and defending gameplays are boring), not to mention the shmucks who spout idiotic knee jerk reaction opinions without reading one single post past the OP.
This thread is a joke.

[Piper]

Some of this is down to the notion that we have fewer tools for commanding and communication in Ps2 than Ps1.

If we actually had /comcont in game then informing others that air support (well or ground but air responds faster) is needed to help clear a bunch of campers at X base would be a start.

No little pissy icons on the map will ever be a substitute for typing out a reason why something needs to occur in a chat box.

[Sunrock]

But you don't think in that way, because you're not interested in finding a solution to a problem you try to ignore. Hence you're a troll and not providing worthwhile feedback.

My god... You just call every one that disagree with you a troll don't you? :rolleyes:

[Babyfark McGeez]

After reading your post about "carebear" and "qq" i must admit you really come off as one lol.
Carebear?? In a FPS? Also you didn't seem to have read the main part of my initial post:

"Why on earth are spawnrooms isolated little huts with a maximum of two doors at the edge of the base? Why not an underground spawn room below the complex? Or atleast some tunnels from the "spawn-hut" leading to other buildings? Why is this spawncamping such an integral part of the play experience?"

I would suggest spawning in a different thread. :p

[Sunrock]

After reading your post about "carebear" and "qq" i must admit you really come off as one lol.
Carebear?? In a FPS? Also you didn't seem to have read the main part of my initial post:

"Why on earth are spawnrooms isolated little huts with a maximum of two doors at the edge of the base? Why not an underground spawn room below the complex? Or atleast some tunnels from the "spawn-hut" leading to other buildings? Why is this spawncamping such an integral part of the play experience?"

I would suggest spawning in a different thread. :p

In the way you are using the word carebear I see you don't understand the meaning of the word.

Carebear was first used in a game called Ultima Online (a MMORPG from 1998). In that game when some one killed you you respawned naked and had to run back to your corpse to retrieve all your gear, or you could just go to the bank and get new gear if you had some stored. Now some players in that game got scared about loosing there presses items so they tried to avoid all PvP. Those become called Cearbears. As the MMORPG games evolved the meaning of cearbear evolved too and started to include every one that QQ over getting killed in PvP for one reason or an other.

So, as I don't complain over players killing me in the game you really can't call me a cearbear.

[Crator]

You guys need to stop with the name calling already. And stating "Spawn somewhere else" after others have already stated reasons why this comment does not belong in this discussion is definitely trolling and seen in my eyes as an attempt to derail the discussion about the spawn camping issue.

[Harrod]

Threw this around on IRC and it seemed to get positive feedback;

Each (or at least the multi-point) small outpost will contain an SCU behind a permashield which is side locked to the defenders unless the attackers hold all points, at which point the shield drops.

If the defenders hold at least one point, the shield is raised and a pain field activated after a short delay (long enough to start an overload if someone get inside just before the point was taken, but not long enough to allow camping inside).

With the SCU destroyed, the attackers just have to hold out for counter-attacks, while the defenders will need to press one, and spawn camping won't occur.

As it stands, spawn camping only occurs when one side holds a decisive advantage. Inserting an SCU linked to point control would mean an overwhelming force could truly overrun a point, but a small force would have a much harder time.

I'm not sure how this could be applied to single point facilities; it would work in that there would be a delay of at least overload time between point capture & SCU destruction, but not much and one person could do it, which isn't the objective.

[Figment]

My god... You just call every one that disagree with you a troll don't you? :rolleyes:

Not really, only people that don't contribute and use troll terms like QQ to describe the opposition because those have a complaint about something this particular person doesn't care for.

In other words, if you are only here to frustrate discussion, you're a troll.


Not quite sure why you even bring up corpse camping, clearly we've evolved beyond that bad design that rigged PvP in favour of a camper, where the campers would reap their advantage crying whenever someone was threatening to take their free candy in fair even combat.

It's a matter of perspective who is crying. Personally, I rather see campers cry.

Anyone remember this thread?

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?&topic_id=1800222145

[Rodel]

Fatherjack, just shut up and go away. You aren't suited to development discussion if you can't perceive that the status quo design is subject to change.

And we are ignored. Probably for the best anyways. I obviously am way out of my league in a discussion with him. Did you guys hear that he's an aerospace engineer :eek:AND he has a master in industial :eek:

[Sunrock]

Apparently people are of the opinion that "if you get camped, just spawn somewhere else". This would make sense if bases were actually defensible, and by that I don't mean having 200 turrets.

I wonder how the outfit I play with fielded 26 men and manage to hold a tower for 2 hours against large waves of VS and NC attacking from two directions at the same time during the last day of beta?

It's true that the bases them self does not give any real advantage other then some slightly better cover. But saying they are undefendable is not true. Sure it takes skill to defend them but that is how it should be. The players skill at killing his or her opponent should be the major factor in wining not how the base is designed.

[Furber]

This really is an issue that could be so easily fixed by taking a glance at PS1. As you put it, by having the spawn point so isolated and vulnerable the fight pretty much ends once tanks get to the spawn point and can hold the doors down. They really should've put Jammer Grenades in the game, they created an incredible balance between infantry and tanks. Not that that would truly fix this issue though, they should definitely put the spawn points in the base, preferably as you said, underground.

[Sunrock]

Because being surrounded by 50 retards sitting in tanks at 500 meters and then losing a tower because you're constantly being hit by random spam is the epitome of "skill", right?

The point here is that too often, exactly the opposite happens, i.e. terrible players who refuse to come out of their armored tanks, getting major rewards for an activity that requires about as much thought as masturbation.

First of all no that was not what was happening. But I guess you already could figure out that by your self...

Yes vehicles Vs infantry battles are in favor of the vehicles as it should be. But there is nothing that prevents the defenders to use vehicles either. Also with a organized squad/platoon infantry can successful defend against vehicles.

Complaining that the enemy is using vehicles is really not a valid complaint in my book because you can just spawn one your self.

[TheStigma]

There is only one defense in a defend the base action. Then its over, and you spend the next 15-20 minutes being spawn camped, our, you move on. Leaving the Attackers standing around for 15-20 min.

This is 100% about base design. The problem is, this happens RIGHT OFF THE BAT.

The Spawn room should be the last reachable thing in ANY base or outpost. Right now, the base design asks defenders to fight an overwhelming and better equipped force to even BEGIN to defend.

If you do not repel the attacking force in the first assault ( AKA your first death ), you loose. Because moments before you died, that spwn point was already being camped by every tank and Engi Turret in the area.

You are right on the money here. The problem is that there is no defense-layering in any of these smaller bases. If you have ever watched a tank approach a small base (that isn't crawling with HAs, which usually isn't the case) the first thing they will do is put themselves into an optimal firing-position to hit the easily exposed spawn-room door. Of course they do - it is just logical and promoted in the game by both the easy XP and the ease of capturing the base. That means that anyone who is not already outside of the spawn-room is pretty much dead - and unless someone saw that attack coming and had the foresight to hide an AMS somewhere (and it didn't get detected and destroyed) then that base is lost because the defenders can't defend, and any reinforcements will be too late to help.

Either the design needs some sort of defense-layering (which would require a fairly big redesign of all these tiny "2-3 shacks" kind of outposts simply because tey would need to be a fair bit bigger) or they need to make the spawns themselves less easy to camp - and under no circumstances should ALL the exits be campable by vehicles. In other words you need to have a safe way from a spawn into a larger building which then lets you have many options to exit out from (including via the roof, maybe jumppads also ect.). Exits also need to be some distance apart so that you can't just cover them all. Just adding a dozen doors to that small spawn outhouse obviously wouldn't change anything, but a tunnel over to a larger building with many exits would as you would now have to divide your attention many places.

Exits being camped in some fashion is probably unavoidable, but given equal numbers in defence and offence you CAN break a lock-in against infantry if you just have enough exists to work with that have some significant distance between them. 30 attackers can't lock down 6 exits when al 30 defenders could concievably decide to rush out through any one of them all at the same time...

It is when vehicles like tanks with HE shells come into the picture that it just totally kills any chance you have. No matter how many guys you have and no matter how organized you are - you can't break that kind of overwhelming odds.

As it stands right now - when you get spawncamped the base is lost. Ok, so we know that and that is factually accurate - but does that mean it is a good game system? Would you rather fight for 15 minutes capturing an outpost or would you rather fight for 1 minute and spawncamp for 14 minutes to capture that same outpost? No-one enjoys the spawncamp. The defenders hate it, and even the attackers only put up with the tedium because it is an easy source of XP. If we take relatively simple steps to make spawns much harder to camp (especially by vehicles) then we get a double benefit of much more interesting base attacks/defences that actually is about fighting the enemy most of the time rather than waiting most of the time - and also it won't be nearly as off-putting to newcomers who just don't realize what is happening and just keep spawning and dying and get a real bad experience before uninstalling.

I think the design idea of bases was for attackers to penetrate the base and HOLD the "flagpoint" until the base flipped. That would on paper allow for a long interesting fight and even ample opportunity for good tactics to turn the tide. The spawn-camp short-circuits all this and cuts away all the fighting and replaces it with uneventful waiting (which no-one likes I'm sure we all agree). Just make spawns much more impractical to camp overall, and all but impossible for vehicles, and I can almost garantuee that basefights will be that much more enjoyable for it.

-Stigma

[sylphaen]

Apparently their amazing Forgelight engine can't handle underground structures. This is what I gathered from the official forums.

No cave crawling in Everquest Next ? Hard to believe.

Even if it's not underground, I'm pretty sure they can do better for base combat.

[LostSoul]

What I have said on the main forums on this issue:

They need to add destruct able spawntubes, remove the shields so defenders can actually be pushed out of the base.

They'll need to add a few more spawn points inside the base to make this work (so people can't just run into one spawnroom and clear the defenders (having 2 or maybe 3 spawnrooms would make this work).

Once pushed out of the base the original defenders would need to start to retake the base (if they wish to defend it) and use their own assets (AMS's, tanks to retake the outer bases, galaxy drops onto the base to repair the spawntubes?).

I think this would actually fix a bit of the "stand outside the spawn room (or inside) and camp those on the other side of the shield" and increase the natural flow of the gameplay.

[Sledgecrushr]

These little outposts are tough to defend without great numbers because they are just a couple of shacks off the side of the road. And really why would you want a fortified rest stop. If the devs make anything easier to defend it needs to be the bases.

[Ghoest9]

The only way to stop spawn camping is to not allow people to spawn.

I much prefer deciding when a base is lost myself(asit is currently in game) rather than than letting the game decide for me(as the whiners want).


If you are too dumb, to not let people farm you - go play BF3

[TheStigma]

You need to learn to think out of the box more. You only think in super-fortress the moment you hear defensibility. Yes, there are degrees of defense, but having none is not an option. The mere size of an outpost already determines the defensibility of said outpost.

Look at the differences in defensibility of the Tower of London:
And that's apparently the best we can do.

Just awesome post(s) in general... and illuminating :)

It doesn't take very much thinking to realize that it would be easy to nearly nullify vehicle camping if you wanted to. All you need to do is have the spawn be in a building that has multiple exits - preferably at multiple levels - and/or has protected pathways (tunnels/hallways/teleports) to other buildings. I think the basic tower in PS1 demonstrates this. It only had a few exists but was still resistant to camping - or at least required many vehicles of several types (you needed air-units to cover the upper exists) to lock down all the exits. Also to actually capture the tower you would inevitably have to send your own infantry inside to secure it, so just camping it didn't get you very far. If you wanted to further add more anti-camp sauce to that type of design then just add more exits (or exit-options like a teleport or a jump-pad that shoots you out of a shielded door). With enough options it eventually becomes non-trivial to lock down all possible exits. For sure - a box with only two (sometimes just ONE) tiny door in the middle of otherwise open terrain is a design that is only possible to improve upon no matter how you change it...

The metagame of PS2 will evolve and work around this problem even if it dosn't get fixed (some people seem already resigned to it apparently, sadly...) but I think the enjoyment of the gameplay as a whole will suffer simply because people hate pointless waiting - and that is exactly what this current mechanic basically mandates - pointless waiting over actual fighting. It will quickly get tiresome, and it is the kind of thing that makes you get bored of a game that much faster.

-Stigma

[TheStigma]

If the war was going on for those 200 years then I would be on the side of walling everything up as that what those buildings where made for, wartime. But that isn't in the lore.

I hope you are not seriously suggesting that we should make the bases conform to lore rather than to facilitate good gameplay...

The lore can quite frankly go F itself. The game first and foremost needs solid, fun gameplay with good flow. Lore is the little extra icing you put on top of that once the cake has baked - and you make it fit the cake rather than the other way around. If you are putting cake on top of your icing you are doing it wrong...

-Stigma

[Buggsy]

Apparently their amazing Forgelight engine can't handle underground structures. This is what I gathered from the official forums.

Any engine that's capable of running a MMOFPS is an amazing engine.

[The Heavy]

As I've been saying a lot. Replace the current building with an unground facility, hack able doors, destroy-able tubes, all connected via small corridors ala PS 1 and life will be that much better.

[TheStigma]

What issue?

Spawn camping is, and always has been, relative. If your team is dieing more often than you're killing you're being camped in a way, it just isn't obvious till it's happening right outside the door/shield. Same as it ever was.

Oddly enough killing more of the enemy than your team is dieing to them is kinda how we take bases quite often in the first place. Same as it ever was.

It takes two to tango, a camper and a campee, for spawn camping to occur, don't like that you feel you're being camped then do something about it? You have plenty of spawn options in Ps2, just like Ps1, spawn elsewhere and come back at the enemy again if you like, with vehicles. Same as it ever was.

Being locked into a spawn area because to leave it is near on certain death is generally a good indication that you have, or are about to, LOSE. Accept it, move on. Same as it ever was.

Now should Ps2 have, by design, more destroyable spawn points like Ps1 had, (think about the caves that didn't have any and that camping was utterly necessary in them), maybe yes....or players can adjust their attitude to what is going on in the game. Same as it ever was.

To give defenders continual options to perpetuate fights is not going to help the games dynamic though. :(

I don't agree Piper.

Yes, of course we could just make spawns destroyable - or something similar like adding back SCUs. They had that in at some point after all. All that would do would be to replace the spawncamp with a spawn-block. That would prevent clueless newbies from having a bad experience by walking into inevitable death but it wouldn't really add much of value to the gameplay. Outposts would still fall redicolously fast, and then the defenders have to sit there and basically do nothing for a long time - BOOOOOORING (I think everyone agrees on that).

You remember why they removed the SCUs in the first place? Mainly because it trivialized taking an outpost. One or two guys could go in - disable the SCU before anyone had time to react - and then it was just a matter of withstanding some mindnumbing boredom before you captured the base. Well that is why they removed the SCUs, but they just forgot that without also changing the spawns nothing really changed. The spawns just became the new SCUs in effect - and pure pointless waiting got replaced with almost equally mindnumbing spawn-camping.

I have to agree largely with Figment on this issue. There ARE ways of designing this so that we replace the "waiting around to finish the capture" time with "fighting to hold the point until the capture can finish" time - and every sane person will admit that they would much rather be engaged in a proper fight during those several minutes rather than (a) just waiting or (b) spawncamping and maybe getting a few really cheap kills. Attackers and defenders both will have a much more fun time if you simply can't shut down the defence completely until you actually flip the base (and thus can move on to the next objective directly if you feel like it without being forced into mandatory tedious tasks).

-Stigma

[Buggsy]

As I've been saying a lot. Replace the current building with an unground facility, hack able doors, destroy-able tubes, all connected via small corridors ala PS 1 and life will be that much better.

What would that accomplish?

[JoCool]

If you get farmed at your spawn, it is your own dumbass fault.

The system right now is fine. Maybe could use a popup message on a player's screen that has been killed 3 times in less than 10meters from the spawnroom within 90 seconds, saying something "If you are being spawn camped, try to spawn somewhere else!"

[Beerbeer]

Easier said than done.

Imagine a brand new player, forced to respawn at a base with its spawn doors under siege, gear up itching for some action, runs out the door only to instantly die without knowing why. That same player respawns, thinking it was a fluke, runs out the door and gets instantly nuked again.

Now imagine the impression this will have on a new player, not wise to the mechanics of these bases. It won't be a good one that's for sure and he may log off in disgust never to return thinking to himself that this FPS game is a joke.

What seems obvious and logical to us, no matter unpalatable it is, won't apply to new people.

[Figment]

I'm done debating the "Defenders of the Status Quo", I'm not going to bother trying to convince people that think the epitome of fighting is camping a single shack and clicking a button 100 times and then saying "well yeah, but clearly you lost it by the time I could press my button so why are you using that facility for respawning if you could use another spawnpoint on the other side of the continent as well?" and think that is an answer.

These people just don't have any insight or vision and I very much doubt that if they can't or don't want to grasp even the basics of the complaint after ten pages of discussion, that they ever will even admit there's an issue.

Apparently their amazing Forgelight engine can't handle underground structures. This is what I gathered from the official forums.

I don't think it's incapable of doing that at all. It's more of a design vision issue from what I gathered. It's more that they don't want to, rather than that they cannot. Remember how they described the corridors from PS1?

They think base design is to be much like a DeathMatch FPS map, akin to CoD. So a collection of independent buildings, where you have lots of flanking and run and gun type of action.

But they seem to at times have forgotten that the idea of PlanetSide is to conquer, take and hold territory. In fact, how many times have you heard Higby say something like (approximation): "If you take a base, that base is yours till someone else comes and takes it from you, but they'll have to fight to get it."

If you then look at the designs of the bases, then the two philosophies don't mix. The description Higby gives is not that of a deathmatch run and gun map, but a conquest map. In a conquest map you have objectives to take and hold. Now, taking means that you need options, while holding - defense - means that you have counters against those options.

The problem is that they want to design the game as a game that feels at home to random shooter players (akin to CoD, or whatever other small scale map shooter you may think of) AND as a conquest game at the same time.


Essentially, you can have a bit of run and gun in areas of less strategic importance, but it is madness to have that design around objectives and vital locations.



Now, if we were to look at this video and check the types of defenses:
302 Found

High ground - Not always present, but even when it is, often even higher ground is available to the attackers.
Good visibility of approaching units - No.
Moats - No.
Ramparts - Usualy not and they don't seem to be part of a planned defensive perimeter if they are.
High walls that are difficult to scale - no (jet pack can get over anything PS2 throws at you).
Few entrances - Can enter from any direction, doors on all sides of buildings.
Battlements - Partial battlements on large buildings. Remainder has to do with nothing or a railing the enemy can fire through but you can't really.
Parapets (high wall protecting the walkway on top of a wall) - No.
Wall walk - only on a very select few mediocre sized bases and the base walls, no where else.
Crenels and merlons - Very few merlons and only at base walls with filled space behind it so you still can't use them to hide effectivelly. Crenels are more like gates.
Machicolations or hoards (to target things straight down in safety) - No.
Draw bridges - No.
Gate towers - At large bases? More or less, but they're very open to attack as they have next to no cover
Gate door - Gate shield, only available at bases and even then not on every entrance to the courtyard
Portcullis (vertical sliding gate) - No. Though in essence like a gate shield you could fire through.
Murder holes - No.
Round towers - Yes! Well at larger bases. But the reason for being round is mostly a foundation strengthening thing.
Arrow and gun loops - No.


So anyone claiming that "merely being on the defense, is having an advantage" is complete and utter rubbish, because the only reason one would be in the advantage while defending, is if one is defending a fortified position that is designed around killing your opponents.


And that is exactly what PS2 bases have not been designed around. =/

[Figment]

What would that accomplish?

Let's see, no vehicle spawn camping, being able to use corridors and corridor exits as a defensive choke point, getting to different parts of a facility without being exposed to the weather (can get quite shelly this time a year) and spawning can be stopped completely, effectively removing the defender's ability to spawn at the base.


You didn't really need someone to figure that out for you, did you? :/

[sylphaen]

If you get farmed at your spawn, it is your own dumbass fault.

The system right now is fine. Maybe could use a popup message on a player's screen that has been killed 3 times in less than 10meters from the spawnroom within 90 seconds, saying something "If you are being spawn camped, try to spawn somewhere else!"

Let's take an extreme case and see what an adequate answer would be.

Imagine that the outposts were just a flag. No buildings, no walls, nothing. Just bare terrain with a flag/capture point/whatever which keeps spawning troops and which you have to occupy for a while until it becomes yours.

The "if you get farmed at your spawn, it is your own dumbass fault" answer would still apply, just like it applies to anything: "it is your own dumbass fault if you lose", "it is your own dumbass fault if you're too dumb", "it is your own fault if X happens because you're dumb". The key point of that statement is not about the validity of a mechanic, it's about stating that people are dumb.

However, whether they are truly dumb or not, the real concern is:
Is it good gameplay ? Can't there be a more interesting and engaging way to play a game ?

Let's take the previous case of outpost with no walls. Would it be an improvement over the current gameplay ? If not and if building make the game more fun, why scoff at people asking for better buildings or a better structure for the capture of outposts?

It's easy to state that people who get camped are dumb. They are however smart enough to address and attack the correct issues i.e. game design, not stupidity. They are also smart enough to desire an improved gameplay i.e. more opportunities for fun and exciting fights per unit of territory available in the game.

[Dagron]

Would you rather fight for 15 minutes capturing an outpost or would you rather fight for 1 minute and spawncamp for 14 minutes to capture that same outpost? No-one enjoys the spawncamp. The defenders hate it, and even the attackers only put up with the tedium because it is an easy source of XP. If we take relatively simple steps to make spawns much harder to camp (especially by vehicles) then we get a double benefit of much more interesting base attacks/defences that actually is about fighting the enemy most of the time rather than waiting most of the time - and also it won't be nearly as off-putting to newcomers who just don't realize what is happening and just keep spawning and dying and get a real bad experience before uninstalling.

This is the issue here, fighting for 15 min vs fighting for 1 and sitting for 14, which a lot of people keep ignoring because they want that easy XP.

This has been posted in this thread over and over and they never respond to that argument, they just keep repeating their mantra "spawn somewhere else, spam somewhere else, his name was robert paulsen". Only a couple of them are actually using any arguments, but they still refuse to acknowledge that while long fights might be fine right now, most fights are gone faster than a fart in a hurricane.


I'm done debating the "Defenders of the Status Quo", I'm not going to bother trying to convince people that think the epitome of fighting is camping a single shack and clicking a button 100 times and then saying "well yeah, but clearly you lost it by the time I could press my button so why are you using that facility for respawning if you could use another spawnpoint on the other side of the continent as well?" and think that is an answer.

QFT.

[psijaka]

If you get farmed at your spawn, it is your own dumbass fault.

The system right now is fine. Maybe could use a popup message on a player's screen that has been killed 3 times in less than 10meters from the spawnroom within 90 seconds, saying something "If you are being spawn camped, try to spawn somewhere else!"

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see replies like this.

The point is not that someone might die a lot if they are "dumb" (or dedicated) enough to repeatedly try to break out of a camped spawn, but is that spawn camping is a pretty unsatisfactory means of determining the outcome of a battle over a base. Both from the attackers and the defenders point of view.

Or are you one of those people that likes to rack up their K/D by sitting outside the spawn room in your Magrider?

[Kitsune]

Not too much you can do about spawn camping honestly.

Give them multiple spawn rooms and people will camp those.
Giving them drop pods would just be annoying.
Giving them invulnerability won't help a whole lot. (unless it's stupidly long, 10-20 sec)
Giving them force-field windows would be exploited to protect control points.

Basically, if you got killed enough times to be pushed back into spawn, then you lost the point fairly. Defense could not beat the offense, simple as that.

[Nasher]

Just need a spawn generator at every single base and outpost, then once it's destroyed the enemy can't spawn there. Simple really O_o

Or spawn points need to raised above the ground and have defensive positions to clear the nearby area.

[Sturmhardt]

Some people here are so ignorant, it's unbelievable (I'm talking about the "deal with it"-guys).

Of course you can set up the game mechanics so that spawn camping is not such a big part of the game. To figure out how to do that is the job of the game designer. The current situation is just the result of poor game- and basedesign and could be improved a lot.

I don't really want to say it, but there is an example of an old game that started with a p and ended with anetside and I don't remember much spawncamping from that game. I'm not saying it should be exactly like that, I just want to point out that it's possible to design a game so that spawncamping is not 30% of the gametime.

[spoofghost]

As a newb to planetside, i also noticed the awesome spawn camping. But to be honest most new players probably know what is happening as soon as it happends cause it happends in a lot of games.

Now i do see it as a problem! as it is no fun not for the defenders but also not for the attackers. its getting boring fast as it can take quite some time to cap a massive base and face it anyone will camp even tho its boring.

What could be done? Well it will happen anyway as long as there are spawn points. but putting more spawn points with multiple exits is a nice start.
Also what about drop-pods. let the defenders drop near the base!?

[Crator]

They should have named the game, "World of Vehicles"

[Piper]

I don't really want to say it, but there is an example of an old game that started with a p and ended with anetside and I don't remember much spawncamping from that game. I'm not saying it should be exactly like that, I just want to point out that it's possible to design a game so that spawncamping is not 30% of the gametime.


I remember just as much really. :( Whether it was just a Scat-max in front of a spawn tube, or a boomer waiting for you at a cave spawn point, or someone standing to the side of a tower/cave base door so that an MBT could fire into it, or someone half the map away AFK with a Flail trained on a doorway (spawn camping still relative). Or just an overwhelming force waiting for people to exit the spawn room, let's face it that's what this discussion is about, overwhelming force. Pretty much the only tictac in Ps2, for a variety of reasons, is bring-more-clowns.

If you put more destroyable spawn points in at every base then the focus of complaints will be that the smart attacking forces, rather than looking to subdue a spawn point (of any type) will just look to immediately drop a spawn option (as anyone sensible does the moment they see an AMS?).

Now I recall a ton of complaints about the Gen's on top of Bio-lab's in Ps1, that outfits that just immediately dropped them were "playing lame". One persons lame is always just another persons sensible? :p

Can base design be improved, sure, but I don't want to see mechanics put in game that put us back to interfarms from Ps1. Interlink benefit bases with a few choke point entrances and a ton of AoE....

...no thanks. The game should be biased to favour attacking, it's from that we get dynamism and not stale dull grind fights.

What you can do in 2 that you couldn't really do in 1 is reverse spawn camp. I often get a ton of kills through the one way shields with a sniper-rifle or tossing mines out of the shield doors. :p

[Buggsy]

Let's see, no vehicle spawn camping, being able to use corridors and corridor exits as a defensive choke point, getting to different parts of a facility without being exposed to the weather (can get quite shelly this time a year) and spawning can be stopped completely, effectively removing the defender's ability to spawn at the base.


You didn't really need someone to figure that out for you, did you? :/



If you're fighting 5:1 odds or 10:1 odds it don't matter how the base is designed, you're still going to lose. Most fights start out with the zerg rolling from one base to another, and one poor sap that accidentally spawned into the base the zerg is heading to. What you need is to give the defenders time to delay the attackers long enough so more defenders trickle in.

What PS1 did have was CE, cloaked AMS, and a flag timer that wasn't captured in less than 1 minute giving defenders a chance to trickle in to lower them odds from 10:1, 5:1, to something like 3:1, 2:1, and 1:1 Base design doesn't change any of that.

[FatherJack]

I don't really want to say it, but there is an example of an old game that started with a p and ended with anetside and I don't remember much spawncamping from that game. I'm not saying it should be exactly like that, I just want to point out that it's possible to design a game so that spawncamping is not 30% of the gametime.

Hahaha your joking right? One of my most enduring memories of PS was staring down the barrels of a locked down TR MAX after a respawn.
At least PS2 gives you some amount of protection with the spawn room. Before we get into rose tinted "Oh PS1 was so much better at everything" territory lets get a decent idea of what actually happened.

[Littleman]

This thread is still going? Of course, some people talk WAY TOO MUCH for the little bits of post they quote...



On the topic of spawn camping:

It can never be removed. The place where one spawns will always have an exit somewhere, and the enemy WILL camp that exit. It's an issue of the source of enemy reinforcements being horrifically predictable, and that already gives the attacker an edge.

There could be a lot of exit points, even from "spawn closets" behind a door shield reached via teleporter from the main spawn, but the attacker can camp those too. Make too many and it could offer too much mobility to the defense however.

Vehicles could be removed from the equation, true, but infantry can still hold a point, as they have often done via the teleport rooms in bio labs when they have those door ways sufficiently suppressed.

Defenders could have drop pod capabilities, but they'll inevitably be landing on the surface and scattered. Drop pods aren't subtle about their entrance.

There's just no way to handle the spawn camping issue directly. Bolstering base defenses only prevents the issue from becoming a problem if the defense can make use of those defenses.

On the topic of improving base defense...

For all of the conceptual design, the knowledge on outdated fort designs with swords, cavalry, and arrows in mind as opposed to assault rifles, VTOLs, jetpacks, and tanks, no one bothers to ask why the F**K do the satellites allow an empire to produce MBTs and sundies, and why must there be THREE of them per base? Seriously, who in their right mind, concerned about the defensibility of a base, misses these small, crucial variables in the design of base defense? They effectively give the invading force three local spawn locations that surround the base and provide immediate armored support. Chee, how'd this little factoid slip just about everyone's mind?

I remember bringing this up ONCE during beta on the official forums and people essentially ignored the post for more random, unconstructive "make bases more defensible" banter or far more complicated ideas that would take loads more work.

This is just another issue blown out of proportion by butt-hurt narcissists believing they alone can change the tide, if only there weren't people shooting at the damn shields so they didn't have to spawn somewhere else and form up a proper counter attack.

EDIT: To add to the spawn camping issue, I have a conceptual idea for the tech plant: add a third floor starting from the raised balcony at the far end of second floor, and at the far end of that third floor is the spawn room. From there, soldiers can pour out onto the third floor, and the side doors lead onto a small platform that allow troops to fire down onto the second floor, with an accompanying downward grav-lift to safely get them to that floor. LA can just hop over the third floor railing and glide down from any point, mind you. While it still won't solve spawn camping, it should in theory improve the defenses chances of taking back the super structure by giving them unique one-way approaches the invaders can not feasibly use themselves in their assault on the base.

To add to the base defense issue: I'm not against balconies attached directly to the super structure, just to be clear. I am in total support of these, hell I suggested them once too. I'd actually prefer to see "stronghold" walls/catwalks surrounding the base of the super structure, but those could look very goofy in tandem with the landing struts.

[Sturmhardt]

Hahaha your joking right? One of my most enduring memories of PS was staring down the barrels of a locked down TR MAX after a respawn.
At least PS2 gives you some amount of protection with the spawn room. Before we get into rose tinted "Oh PS1 was so much better at everything" territory lets get a decent idea of what actually happened.

No really. I never got spawncamped. I did only play for 1 year or so in total, but I don't remember spawning over and over again for 5 minutes being camped in my spawnroom. The spawntubes were usually destroyed quickly and things moved on. No false memories here, I played recently before the launch of the PS2 beta and there was no spawncamping as well.

[Knocky]

I remember getting TKed by people who wanted to farm the tubes.

Blow the tubes and move on.

[velleity]

Spawncamping itself is not an issue in Planetside 2. The problem is that facilities are poorly designed and indefensible, which makes spawncamping occur too soon too often.

^

Outside of a handful of defensible facilities, it's an offensive circle jerk.

They could really just close conts off to specific factions, have bases change faction on a counter clock wise timer, ghost in afks from other continents to "hostile bases" and the zerg would probably love it. Sweeping around counter clock wise reconquering their one faction continent.

[Figment]

See Littleman, you are the first person of the "deal with it" camp that admits base design can remove types of spawn camping, in this case vehicle spawn camping. I don't get why anyone would say though "well there is going to be camping eventually anyway of some kind, so might as well get it over with and make it the harder to deal with type of camping from the beginning of the fight and let us not create a need for pure indoor infantry fighting on a more equal level".

That is like a giant leap forward in this debate. Even if it took you a lot of pride swallowing... Given that you hate agreeing with me on anything (see all the constant jabs).

I love though how you pretend that the idea behind medeval and bunker defense systems to you is somehow obsolete because of jetpacks. That just shows your traditional narrowmindedness of not being able to take lessons and abstractions of one concept from one context and placing it in another and in another format. Portcullis as a shield, high walls can still stop, stall and funnel jetpacks: they can't reach the top of tech plants right now. And so on and so forth. Medeval an "obsolete" designs can be used for inspiration and something like merlons can be ported straight from 6000 bc. Parapets and bunkers and hoardes can be used as well. Moats and ramparts can too. Vaubain's designs work very well even if they would need to evolve further in a vertical manner. You however, are someone who doesn't look at things that way. You dismiss everything that is slightly older as obsolete. If everyone had done that, we would never seen a vehicle with wheels beyond basic wooden wheel carts. We still use wheels, are those obsolete because old units that used wheels are obsolete?

That is the same attitude PS2 fanboys have with respect to ps1, it is a ridiculous position to take that all ps1 mechanics are bad because ps1 is a decade old.

If you don't like my posting style though, that is like these people's solution to spawncamping: it is here to stay, deal with it or move on to something else. Nothing you can do about that.

As for the solutions you posted, satellites wouldn't be a big problem if we had a lattice that would run through them... But alas. Beyond that, yeah they have tanks if the enemy has a tech plant. But you remember this issue of everyone having access to them, which you thought was us whining? They are too numerical and too easy to obtain in general. That and what Elcyco said is virtually ALL down to the class/cert system. But hey, I've been "whining" about that too, havn't I? :|

Multi-level design is one of the things you can do, but the most important thing is being able to disperse and relocate in relative safety. Otherwise it is nice that they are there, but you couldn't ever reach them.

@Buggsy: if you want you can beat 10:1 odds with base design. Look up the defense of the castle of The Knights against the Ottomans: 6000 knights killed tens of thousands and some sources suggest even over a few hundred thousand before they surrendered due to prolonged siege. That is not what we request for ps2, nor do we ask for equals to Interlinks everywhere. May I remind you the main redeeming quality that makes an interlink powerful is radar: take away interlink radar (gen/hack/radar viral) from an interlink and the base always falls in two-three minutes, if your empire makes use of the opportunity of course.

The odds I expect a good squad to be able to hold is 3:1, but that should take effort, not be the default required numbers. I expect proper infil work to beat such a defense and I expect attackers to find and create their own opportunities. But, I expect a force that wants to take a base require to show some skill beyond numbers and hitpoints and heavy explosives.

Was there and will there be spawncamping? Sure, but ps1 spawncamping could be resolved as you could fight your way back outside even if brought back to the spawnroom. How? Use of exits and playing smarter an better. And if you lost the spawns, bringing them back up could save a base. In PS2 this is not the case and that is a huge miss as it reduces options, variation and depth to game play. Shallowness of spawncamping should never be promoted by design.

What is more, what makes you think the devs intend this camping to occur? Can you imagine it is simply an unexpected consequence based on bad assumptions and too tunnelvisioned play scenario's?

[bpostal]

Congratulations, there are those who have posted here that know how to quit and give up a fight. Wonderful. Not all of us want a fight to be over before it's even gotten a chance to properly begin. Between this issue and the lack of 'flow' as a fight progresses (i.e. the severe fragmenting of the battle space) my personal PS2 experience has been poisoned.
There may be those among us who wish to wait at an empty base in the hopes that someday the enemy will encroach upon us but for the rest our reaction timer typically starts when an area goes from 'no activity' to 'anything other than'. This is because we are not resting on our laurels but trying to take the fight to the enemy. As it currently stands, the offensive empire has gained the initiative and the pressure put upon the defending forces is compounded by terrible base layout and horrendous spawn locations.
The defense in the game as it currently stands is poor and malnourished, it barely exists. Even if, a group were to fall back, pull vehicles and push forward they ARE NO LONGER ON THE DEFENSIVE. That becomes an offensive action and thus we mindlessly zerg in circles.
Should outposts be fortifications of doom that requires a grossly skewed ratio to overcome? No, but as they stand today there is little to no pressure put on the offensive faction and an almost herculean task to regain control on the part of the defense.
These factors do not equate to an enjoyable experience and I feel only displeasure and anger at those who count themselves as satisfied.

[Littleman]

See Littleman, you are the first person of the "deal with it" camp that admits base design can remove types of spawn camping, in this case vehicle spawn camping. I don't get why anyone would say though "well there is going to be camping eventually anyway of some kind, so might as well get it over with and make it the harder to deal with type of camping from the beginning of the fight and let us not create a need for pure indoor infantry fighting on a more equal level".

That is like a giant leap forward in this debate. Even if it took you a lot of pride swallowing... Given that you hate agreeing with me on anything (see all the constant jabs).

I hadn't considered it pride swallowing, so much as looking at things in an honest way. It's not a bad idea, but it alone won't solve base defense issues, especially with spawn rooms still located outside the complex, and nothing can be done to 100% mitigate spawn camping.

I love though how you pretend that the idea behind medeval and bunker defense systems to you is somehow obsolete because of jetpacks. That just shows your traditional narrowmindedness of not being able to take lessons and abstractions of one concept from one context and placing it in another and in another format. Portcullis as a shield, high walls can still stop, stall and funnel jetpacks: they can't reach the top of tech plants right now. And so on and so forth. Medeval an "obsolete" designs can be used for inspiration and something like merlons can be ported straight from 6000 bc. Parapets and bunkers and hoardes can be used as well. Moats and ramparts can too. Vaubain's designs work very well even if they would need to evolve further in a vertical manner.

It's not just jetpacks (whom do a wonderful job breaching the outer wall.) It's everything, including the lowly rifle. The castle, just as one example among many fortifications, went obsolete for a reason, mostly having to do with cannons punching through walls more so than air power which came hundreds of years later, admittedly. There's no wall punching here, but there is aircraft!

Bunkers are still somewhat effective - for Planetside 2's selection of equipment anyway. If a tank/aircraft can pound the defensive point, it's an ineffective defensive point for infantry to linger on. That's just how it works right now. The base walls are spotty at best currently. The super structure is a really big bunker with uselessly large doors.

***As for the solutions you posted, satellites wouldn't be a big problem if we had a lattice that would run through them... But alas. Beyond that, yeah they have tanks if the enemy has a tech plant. But you remember this issue of everyone having access to them, which you thought was us whining? They are too numerical and too easy to obtain in general. That and what Elcyco said is virtually ALL down to the class/cert system. But hey, I've been "whining" about that too, havn't I? :|

Multi-level design is one of the things you can do, but the most important thing is being able to disperse and relocate in relative safety. Otherwise it is nice that they are there, but you couldn't ever reach them.



I cut most of the unessential crap - it makes up about 70% of all your posts.

***Your second to last paragraph threw me for a loop for a second there, if only because it was way off base. The hex is essentially the lattice system, only with hexes instead of lines. It still funnels troops from point A to any adjacent, connecting point.

The satellites, despite some having their own individual hexes, are still connected to the base proper. Sure, SOE could change this. I somehow doubt they'd go through the trouble. As for the class/cert system comment, now you're just grasping for things to blame while pandering to our nostalgia. Everyone would be packing a rocket launcher with the old system. EVERYONE (except the useless folks wanting to heal while cloaked to avoid fighting.)

With the low TTKs, we wouldn't have tanks. Is it a system I'd enjoy seeing again? I can see SOE working with the current slot system we have now to still pseudo control what people can bring to a fight, but the system we had then was too much freedom. It was streamlined for maximum efficiency, and nearly everyone that grunted used the same setup, because it could tackle anything.

It's fine that everyone has access to tanks: what isn't fine is that people can essentially pull them from their ass because a valid terminal is found at nearly every spawn point that isn't an AMS.

I'd rather not limit what people can do by giving their toons a small selection of things they could ever do and telling them to roll 2 more alts to get the rest, I'd rather restrict them based on location and keeping one facet from combining with another to make the ultimate kit (I'm looking at you, rexo/HA/AV/med/eng.) Classes achieved that. The one out of ten on the forums that claim to have opted for something different than a cloaker intending to blow a generator were gimping their team.

If one wants a tank, they should head back to the nearest base their empire owns. As long as we're harking about how wonderful PS1 seemingly was, didn't that requirement work pretty damn well back then?

If SOE made the satellites produce only flashes, a good portion of the base defense issues - primarily tank spam - would be mitigated immensely, because I KNOW people are lazy/impatient and don't like going back to get another tank. I've seen it happen countless times in the beta, where a wave of tanks is dwindled down, but the tanks are rarely replaced for the convenience of spawning at the nearest AMS and continuing the fight on foot.

As for the last paragraph, you lost me. Is that in response to the tech plant idea? Again, no way to stop spawn camping, there are just ways to mitigate it. People will approach the exits, and they will set down a perimeter as long as it's not miles from the AO. You're SOL from there. At least we can fire out through the shields.

[Buggsy]

See Littleman, you are the first person of the "deal with it" camp that admits base design can remove types of spawn camping, in this case vehicle spawn camping. I don't get why anyone would say though "well there is going to be camping eventually anyway of some kind, so might as well get it over with and make it the harder to deal with type of camping from the beginning of the fight and let us not create a need for pure indoor infantry fighting on a more equal level".

That is like a giant leap forward in this debate. Even if it took you a lot of pride swallowing... Given that you hate agreeing with me on anything (see all the constant jabs).

I love though how you pretend that the idea behind medeval and bunker defense systems to you is somehow obsolete because of jetpacks. That just shows your traditional narrowmindedness of not being able to take lessons and abstractions of one concept from one context and placing it in another and in another format. Portcullis as a shield, high walls can still stop, stall and funnel jetpacks: they can't reach the top of tech plants right now. And so on and so forth. Medeval an "obsolete" designs can be used for inspiration and something like merlons can be ported straight from 6000 bc. Parapets and bunkers and hoardes can be used as well. Moats and ramparts can too. Vaubain's designs work very well even if they would need to evolve further in a vertical manner. You however, are someone who doesn't look at things that way. You dismiss everything that is slightly older as obsolete. If everyone had done that, we would never seen a vehicle with wheels beyond basic wooden wheel carts. We still use wheels, are those obsolete because old units that used wheels are obsolete?

That is the same attitude PS2 fanboys have with respect to ps1, it is a ridiculous position to take that all ps1 mechanics are bad because ps1 is a decade old.

If you don't like my posting style though, that is like these people's solution to spawncamping: it is here to stay, deal with it or move on to something else. Nothing you can do about that.

As for the solutions you posted, satellites wouldn't be a big problem if we had a lattice that would run through them... But alas. Beyond that, yeah they have tanks if the enemy has a tech plant. But you remember this issue of everyone having access to them, which you thought was us whining? They are too numerical and too easy to obtain in general. That and what Elcyco said is virtually ALL down to the class/cert system. But hey, I've been "whining" about that too, havn't I? :|

Multi-level design is one of the things you can do, but the most important thing is being able to disperse and relocate in relative safety. Otherwise it is nice that they are there, but you couldn't ever reach them.

@Buggsy: if you want you can beat 10:1 odds with base design. Look up the defense of the castle of The Knights against the Ottomans: 6000 knights killed tens of thousands and some sources suggest even over a few hundred thousand before they surrendered due to prolonged siege. That is not what we request for ps2, nor do we ask for equals to Interlinks everywhere. May I remind you the main redeeming quality that makes an interlink powerful is radar: take away interlink radar (gen/hack/radar viral) from an interlink and the base always falls in two-three minutes, if your empire makes use of the opportunity of course.

The odds I expect a good squad to be able to hold is 3:1, but that should take effort, not be the default required numbers. I expect proper infil work to beat such a defense and I expect attackers to find and create their own opportunities. But, I expect a force that wants to take a base require to show some skill beyond numbers and hitpoints and heavy explosives.

Was there and will there be spawncamping? Sure, but ps1 spawncamping could be resolved as you could fight your way back outside even if brought back to the spawnroom. How? Use of exits and playing smarter an better. And if you lost the spawns, bringing them back up could save a base. In PS2 this is not the case and that is a huge miss as it reduces options, variation and depth to game play. Shallowness of spawncamping should never be promoted by design.

What is more, what makes you think the devs intend this camping to occur? Can you imagine it is simply an unexpected consequence based on bad assumptions and too tunnelvisioned play scenario's?

You almost always lost with 3:1 odds even in PS1 base battles. But what PS1 did have was 20 mines, 10 spitfires, and 10 motion detectors 1 player could put down. That delayed the attack (before everyone had CR5 EMP CUD cheat), allowing more defenders to trickle in over a 5 minute time period to even the odds.

This is how the battles are now. The zerg finishes capping one base, and 40 players move onto the next base. There are 4 defenders at that next base. Spawn points are camped within 5 seconds of attackers arriving.

How it should be. Defense minded players like me make guesses as to which base the zerg moves onto next. We first deploy a cloaked AMS about 100-200 meters out of sight of the base we are defending then lay down lots of CE around the base so it isn't so easy to just move near the spawn point. Or we lay down CE around the cloaked AMS, to defend the AMS. Or we setup a cloaked AMS at a chokepoint between the base the zerg is capping ATM and the base we assume the zerg will move to next. This slows down the attack long enough for more defenders to move in.

[Littleman]

You almost always lost with 3:1 odds even in PS1 base battles. But what PS1 did have was 20 mines, 10 spitfires, and 10 motion detectors 1 player could put down. That delayed the attack (before everyone had CR5 EMP CUD cheat), allowing more defenders to trickle in over a 5 minute time period to even the odds.

This is how the battles are now. The zerg finishes capping one base, and 40 players move onto the next base. There are 4 defenders at that next base. Spawn points are camped within 5 seconds of attackers arriving.

How it should be. Defense minded players like me make guesses as to which base the zerg moves onto next. We first deploy a cloaked AMS about 100-200 meters out of sight of the base we are defending then lay down lots of CE around the base so it isn't so easy to just move near the spawn point. Or we lay down CE around the cloaked AMS, to defend the AMS. Or we setup a cloaked AMS at a chokepoint between the base the zerg is capping ATM and the base we assume the zerg will move to next. This slows down the attack long enough for more defenders to move in.

Shoot, I forgot about CE, and I was advocating that on the official forums for a time too (again, no one noticed.) I want my PS2 back QQ

I do believe PS2 had spitfires during tech test? CE ain't no deterrent, but it will help impede the opposition's advance. I miss walking in a tank column with my trusty striker, dumb firing away at mines on the ground.

[Chewy]

Figment-

What you fail to see that we are trying to defend what we have already around us. Not having the perfect bases to defend makes a better player. Iv defended many outposts in the beta and even though it was an uphill fight each time. My squad/platoon would be able to hold ground for up to half and hour on the worst places or could be there for well over an hour. The key is to keep attackers out and to defend the base/outpost BEFORE it is attacked.

Think of it not like invading a land that was made to withstand the hardships of an endless war, but as a land that was made for understanding and trying to live ones life. Look to WW2 instead of the 1400s where there just wasn't a place like what you speak of outside of foxholes, trenches, and the odd bunker.

Hell, look around your home town/city and think of how to defend that. It would be hard as fuck to hold that ground if war broke out. Now think about if you where in command of an army in the middle of very heated peace talks. What would you make as defensive as you can if you had a limited time to do so on top of having to either hide the work form another faction or risk instant war?

In the backstory of PS2 it shows that the planet was found and lived on for over 200 years before the war. It wasn't till the later part of the 2nd century that riots and the peace talks started. Why would everything be made for war, if there wasn't a hint of it until the last 20-30 years?

[Evolutionary]

I think that if you cant keep the enemy armor and infantry out of your base then you have pretty much lost. Save yourself some further humiliation and stop spawning back into your defeated base.
Pretty much this

[Furber]

Taking the courtyard shouldn't equal taking the spawns. That's what many of us are arguing here, the spawn room shouldn't just be some arbitrary building somewhere in the CY. Put the spawn room inside the base so there's actually progression through the base to take it instead of tank spam around the spawn building. Preferably put it under ground beneath the main building, so it's naturally more defensible. In PS1 you took the CY with tanks, got out, manned up, and pushed through the enemy base to kill the spawns. Make attackers have to fight tooth and nail to oust the defenders, instead of giving them an easy winning solution.

[Dagron]

Yep, bases that can be captured in one crucial moment can be fun sometimes, but that's all we get right now. There is no base with progressive fights, there is no half capturing a base and then having to keep fighting to really own it. People keep saying they don't want bogged down fights, maybe because they've been traumatized by some other game, but the fact is that right now there are barely any long fights at all, and that little variation makes the general gameplay somewhat stale. We need diversity.

Maybe we could keep a few bases as a one tier fight as they are right now, but there should definitely be a lot more different bases where once you breach the outer walls you still have an interesting fight ahead of you. I don't know about most of you but i'd love to have some bases where you could fight for over several stages, like: after taking the courtyard the attackers had to work on breaching inner walls, then taking the main building and finally clearing the underground (of course not all bases had to be so complex, hell just a couple in each continent would already be awesome). Right now all we have is: breach outer walls, profit... there is not even the ??? step. What's up with that?

[Figment]

Chewy, we know what you say and we don't agree because it is a stupid thing to say that defense should occur outside a base only.

What the hell is a base for then, cosmetics?! No. It's a shelter and fall back point and should have internal fall back points too. Retreating into an outpost and digging in, biding time and launching a counterattack from within the outpost should be a viable strategic option.

And Littleman, your lack of insight in the consequences of combinations of base design decisions keeps baffling me. Are walls obsolete just because there are jetpacks and aircraft? No! No no no no no! Because you are facing tons of different units, many of which are hindered by even small walls! For air there is anti air defenses and they can work very well. So we have a combination there that can keep enemies out on foot, in tanks and by air. Combinations of defensive structures create a proper defense. One didn't just place tank traps on the beaches of Normandy to expect those to stop paratroopers! What a silly thing to say!

What we don't have is a way to funnel jetpackers or a way to man the walls and keep them off the walls. Why? Wall design is low, not steep (a lot of kibble on the outside to use for scaling the walls) and jetpacks can get up very high objects with ease. That and the size of the courtyard with respect to the amount of defenders (low density) and a non-central spawn (skewed density) just creates huge swaths of undefended walls.

What is funny is that you claim everyone used the same inventory setup or "they were useless" in PS1, an arrogant and stupid suggestion and insinuation. Probably you just sucked with other combinations, maybe you were useless who knows, but I beat HA users with ease with Sweepers and even Magscat Pistols, so let's not pretend everyone needed HA as long as they knew what they were doing. Of course certain combination were popular, they would always be because the amount of weapon combinations you could make were few! You compare ps1 where you had very few options to cert weapons and degrees and contextual weapons with where you would have dozens of gun options? The uniqueness in PS1 characters lay in far more subtle things: shifts in inventory over time, combinations of available inventories and the amount of ammo and ammo types and back up weapons in these inventories all differed greatly. Of course some inventories were used more.

You should realise that PS2 could lead to far more unique characteristics, but currently forces everyone to be the same setup to much greater extremes and you make it possible from the start. I mean, if you hate standard inventories, how the hell can you stomach every HA setup being 85% similar and every player being able to go HA in the first place? That Littleman, is called hypocrisy, working with two standards and rose teinted glasses.

You keep whining about nostalgia being the reason to want something just because you don't agree with the concept or don't see how it actually worked (I keep seeing posts of you that state ridiculous "facts" about PS1 without a proper understanding of why that happened, if it happened at all as you said. You keep making very shallow analyses of PS1 systems, ignore combinations of systems and ignore the context completely and then make denegrating comments). Also because you can't accept that someone else thinks it would be the better solution. You should never use the word nostalgia in relation to my reasonings because I -unlike you- are not biased. I compare the systems objective and the effects of the combination of PS2 mechanics leads to worse gaming experiences and more shallow and less unique game play and characters.

And that is not nostalgia, that is fact. We didn't get spawncamped this extreme in ps1 with the exception from Redoubts, which I've always (since 2004) have complaint about. If I were nostalgic, I would want Redoubt design too. Instead I hoped to never see such a horrible designed building again.

The TTKs are so damn low because of your obsession with having loads of soloable tanks because of a minority populace that you don't want to commit to the PS2's Lightning's AP and HE turrets. So your entire TTK argument falls flat right there. If the tanks were less in numbers and required more crew to man, the TTKs could and should increase. You mention the PS1 context of long distance tanking and tech requirements, but you forgot to mention we had about 25% of the amount of tanks too which made non-tank vehicles be able to fight them. The current Sunderer needs 5-6 clips of Fury mortar fire to kill a Lightning - and that's assuming the Lightning is stationary enough to actually be hit by a heavily arced mortar shell that hits far lower than where you aim, while the solo unit hits every shot. How about the lack of an alternative to solo tanks is an issue too in comparison to PS1 where APCs were a valid, though slightly less powerful counter to tanks?

Elcyco described perfectly how the cert and class setup ruins tactical options: they will all grab your counters en mass and unlike in PS1, you can't rock-paper-scissor a larger group by using the appropriate tools or even the tactical option of denying them access to terminals, since everyone is an engineer next spawn without even requiring a terminal or locker - or time. That makes for shallower game play as every of these design decisions strips opponents from options to weaken, sabotage and outwit enemies. By providing everyone with rocks, paper and scissor you make it impossible for smaller groups to gain a tactical unit choice advantage at any time over a larger group. Like the dedicated medic thing, groups without medics are doomed while large groups can bring as much as 5-8 medics and keep sustaining themselves much more easily in comparison. In PS1, you could beat an enemy by picking out those that needed to die first, because the others could not perform that task and yes, that includes advanced medics, pre-BR40 (the PS2 system is akin to BR40, not to BR20 or even BR25, if you're a twit that only compares to BR40 as that was the latest status quo in PS1 that most people disliked, then you are deliberately deluding yourself). PS2 is a zerg game, PS1 was not and that has everything to do with cert/class, crew controls and base design. And yeah, other acquisition rules as well.

Another such example is that if you got an AMS at an enemy base, ANYONE, and I literally mean ANYONE can convert all local turrets and terminals to your empire by simply switching to "Snipefill" class and then later turning back. In PS1, this was done by specialists as few could afford even the five points into Advanced Hacking and these specialists would increase the options and effectiveness of your attack, but you could stop that by taking out the advanced hacker and terminals. In PS2, your empire gains full, permanent control over the terminals and turrets from anyone who touches them as an infil. That's an example of PS2 shallowing of game play and character uniqueness if I ever saw one.

And yeah, I've been argueing in favour of a large increase in mines (and a reduction of damage per mine) as well.

[JoCool]

Easier said than done.

Imagine a brand new player, forced to respawn at a base with its spawn doors under siege, gear up itching for some action, runs out the door only to instantly die without knowing why. That same player respawns, thinking it was a fluke, runs out the door and gets instantly nuked again.

Now imagine the impression this will have on a new player, not wise to the mechanics of these bases. It won't be a good one that's for sure and he may log off in disgust never to return thinking to himself that this FPS game is a joke.

What seems obvious and logical to us, no matter unpalatable it is, won't apply to new people.

You mean, new, stupid people.

Honestly, I consider anyone who is too dumb to select another spawnpoint, when the one he just got killed at is camped, as a total idiot. Those are the minority, you really have to lack some brains to continue doing that. That's common sense for any 2nd-day gamer, even CoD players get it. BF3 players anyway.

[Warruz]

As many had said before the main problem is the flow of the battle. For bases having a spawn outside the center of the facility gives the attackers the ability to shutdown reinforcements to early in the battle when the objective is in the center. In my book the amp station is the worst offender.

What is simply needed for example the amp station is 4 spawns in total, 3 spawns in the courtyard that can be shutdown that make a triangle in terms of placement in the courtyard. this allows defenders to go to the part of the wall that is being assaulted. Then one that cannot be destroyed near the last capture point (much like towers are setup).

As of now towers provide the best in terms of spawn placement and protection , while they can still be camped they have multiple exists and are on the top floor which slows LA's to get up there.

In my mind bases should be 2 or 3 tier assaults. As you further push it should get harder to attackers to push. Tier 1 should be outside the base trying to take the wall and start the courtyard push. Tier 2 would be the courtyard and tier 3 would be inside. The problem now is tier 1 gets taken far to fast and tier 2 is just skipped entirely and goes straight to 3 which relies on a sundy otherwise it gets skipped also.

What id like to see with the spawn changes is also making portions of the walls higher for LA so they cant reach them, leaving them less spots to get on to the wall.

[JoCool]

Depends on the station. When you spawn, take a look around - there is often a teleporter in the spawnroom.

When the station is under attack, spawn an AMS, put it into the V-bay. If you play alone with the Zerg and there's no Outfit on your side that has the slightest meta value, it's a lost cause anyway.

[Littleman]

Fluff and stuff


Wasting your time bud. This is my last post to you, because this back and forth will change nothing, and I've done enough of the talking to a self-indulging-brick-wall on the TERA forums. Too much tippity-tap, not enough doing other things also-not-so-productive.

The class system keeps those HA from being eternal self-healbots. They can have medkits, but those won't save them during a heated fire fight unless they can retreat into cover. They also sacrifice other tools to use them (I know, negligible with a rocket launcher in hand.) Also, they can't drop an ammo pack at their feet and keep the rocket spam going all day. They're the shock troops, but they offer no support to their allies. I drop 'em left and right, despite all this. Trying to find where the "everyone's the same" and "rose-tinted glasses" comment directed towards me comes in. Sounds like you're desperate for a leg up in this argument. HA is popular and this should come as no surprise because A: most people like killing things and B: few people actually like playing support.

What I see are six different classes with six different playstyles to maximize their potential. Weaponry could use a little more variety (in looks and animation even, especially the rocket launchers,) but otherwise, it's more variety than I saw from the average player in PS1.

Anyone that walks into this game and instantly resorts to "this worked in PS1" is a fool in the wrong place. It's good to look at PS1 as reference where massive numbers of people are a concern (inventory systems do no concern massive numbers of people anywhere near as much as surface base design and capture mechanics do.) What isn't good is looking at PS1 and asking for just about everything about PS1 being ported over into PS2. Different era, different game. NEXT was scrapped for a reason. The truth is we only have PS1 to really look at for how an MMOFPS works. Expecting all of those systems to work here, in this game, is unreasonable.

Could we have had driver/gunner MBT's from the start? Sure. Insta-seat swapping would have just forced the driver to park to fire away. The majority of them do that already without the necessity of seat swapping. Could they have brought back the old tanks, mechanics and all, sure. Hrm... last I checked most FPS' today with vehicles allow seat swapping, driving-and gunning-though. I'm pretty sure the majority of players today actually don't want nor are accustomed to driver/gunner tank variants.

The walls you're asking for would be too high to be effective for infantry to fire from. Additionally, raising them out of the reach of the LA sort of defeats the purpose of the LA. They're not just about firing from rooftops, they're also about ignoring ground set obstacles that impede just about any other ground asset. The only real valid problem with the walls is that they cover too much friggin' ground to hold, AND they have those god awful jump pads only the invading force ever abuses. This is a base design issue on the overhaul level. It won't happen for some time until we're looking at brand new, smaller bases from newer continents that can be subbed in. If ever.

You'll note that VS MAX units ala PS1 weren't much of an issue with base defense, not because they couldn't hack anything, but because infantry were generally concentrated enough on the walls that a lone VS max wouldn't turn out to be very devastating. Wall height was never the problem with PS2's base defense. Wall LENGTH is, as you so rightly pointed out.

As for your MBT's: too bad. They're here to stay, but at least the driver/gunner variants we'll eventually get should be better overall. Lightnings can still be pulled without a tech plant, so dedicated tank commanders likely will invest into a Lightning on the side just in case. Considering the AP cannon hits like a Vanguard's, and the front armor makes it about on par with a Prowler in terms of durability, it's a fairly solid back up tank that still doesn't quite out match an MBT. At least it's been elevated out of their shadow as an always available tank to compensate.

Also, while requiring driver/gunners would reduce the number of MBT's on the field (a shame we'll lose those that want to only MBT and control both at the same time, but **** 'em, right?) I really don't expect the difference in numbers to be all that great with few tank spawn locations and longer distances back to the front. A LOT of the tanks I saw in PS1 weren't done by squaddies or outfit mates, but one random grabbing another random out of necessity. I often saw these same drivers stick to fighting on foot when they lost their tank on the front line.

I'd agree with your/Elcyco's class spawn argument, if terminals weren't hidden behind door shields along with the spawn tubes. As for the rest of that paragraph, PS1 was pretty zergy too, don't even pretend this wasn't true. I'm calling BS on the comment that one couldn't do everything in PS1 by the way. I mean, yes, before BR40 they couldn't, but it was a hard restriction. People shouldn't have to roll alts to enjoy every aspect of the game.

The standard grunt, as anyone that has played PS1 should know, countered everything. They could heal and repair themselves. They could fight vehicles, and they could fight infantry. All at the same time. PS2's classes can't do all of that at once. The player has access to all of it, but it's all neatly sectioned apart from one another like dining utensils organized in a drawer. Unlike PS1's set up, the classes prevent one from bringing a spoon, a fork, and a knife to table. They will always have the choice to switch out in the event the dish demands another utensil, but they can't have them all at the table at the same time. It's inconveniencing, but it's not unnecessarily restrictive either, like PS1's system of picking a knife and that's it, you're stuck with tackling your soup with a knife.

For infils, I too believe it's along the lines of BS that an infil doesn't first need to cert into hacking hardware to do so. Though along those same lines, it's easy to counter with a counter hack. Requiring hacking certs doesn't exactly add depth however, it just adds prerequisites. Classic engineering deployables, such as spitfires, ample quantities of (not so insta-gib) mines, and motion sensors add depth. Soldiers will need to watch their feet and check corners when moving through enemy controlled territory, preferably clearing each deployable safely along the way.

Arguably the infil has the motion sensor now, however. Speaking of which, more/completely solid cloaking at the expensive of larger weaponry adds depth, and so does dark light but only if the best cloak is sufficiently invisible enough to warrant it. However many infils hated darklight. I guess they never much enjoyed the thrill of the hunt(ed,) which adds depth to the whole stealth routine from my perspective.

MAX units in themselves add depth as being the heavy armored juggernaut of infantry (currently as of beta: laughable) that in PS1, couldn't do anything outside of kill, kill, KILL. While I was one to cal doors "stupid" and "unnecessary," I had realized that doors were one major roadblock to MAX solo domination in PS1. Where the rexo could easily hack the door (if he was bright enough to bring a REK, like ALL soldiers should...) the MAX unit was fubared by 3 inches of steel. However, once that door is open, infantry now have to fire away, or in typical, moronic fashion, turn tail and run if they're not packing a rocket launcher. They still couldn't hack the next door or even the control console however, keeping them to a juggernaut role. Currently, they're like, bigger, slower, clumsy and ineffective HA.

MBTs with directional armor have more depth now. My first instinct is always to fire away at a tank, like a bad zergling, but I stop myself and ask "can I get around behind it?" I'm am greatly rewarded by a two shot kill if I can work my way around the target. Likewise, a tank driver needs to be aware of where they're parked and/or heading into to avoid smart asses from tossing explosives into their rear vents.

[MrBloodworth]

Littleman, I disagree with just about everything you said.

Why is PS2 like it is? Battlefield. Don't kid yourself.

[Sturmhardt]

Yeah... I couldn't have written that much wrong stuff if I wanted to....

[Littleman]

Littleman, I disagree with just about everything you said.

Why is PS2 like it is? Battlefield. Don't kid yourself.

I'm amused that people still think it's a bad idea to follow the examples of success. If you don't like battlefield, don't play battlefield. Why is this so hard a concept to grasp? Because PS2 is the only other MMOFPS from PS1? Go play PS1.

So many do like battlefield. Maybe, just maybe, Planetside 2 isn't the game for you. No one promised every FPS, much less this (MMO)FPS would be to your liking, and there's no way to make any game, to everyone's liking. Live with that very real fact.

I really don't care if you disagree. the simply answer has been, from the start, this is not Planetside 1, and I like it that way. Coincidentally, I'm not the only one, and we'll see tomorrow how many people that didn't play PS1, really care for what was PS1.

EDIT: Oh, so this is what's on the 14th page. Is this forum just setting up the next page despite not having anything in it? O_o

[Figment]

Cut the crap Littleman, you know you're now resorting to making up arguments as well and simply trolling for the sake of trolling.

Stop the flamebait with the "go play PS1" rubbish - we're here to play a proper PS2, not something that tries to do it half arsed. BF3 is the least liked BF game in history, DESPITE of being so overhyped it sold millions. It sold 4 million LESS than BF2 on PC, despite being its successor.

Did BF3 sell well on consoles? Yes, but you have to realise that in 2005 when BC2 launched, there was no console called a Xbox 360 or a PS3 with few alternative high profile games. In the meantime, BF3 was promised to be BF2 and much more prior to release - which got it to sell very well, after which it turned out it wasn't... So even comparing BF2 sales with BF3 sales is not really fair.

Yet here you are, wanting to compare the sales (note, PS2 is free) of a 2003 pure subscription pre-WoW MMO, too-high-tech-for-low-end-PCs of 2003 and all the surrounding context details (hardware, internet connections, amount of online games, subscriber program, marketing program, failing game balance revolutionising expansions, lack of support, etc etc etc etc) with a PS2 game launch in 2012 that is actually on Steam from the start whereas PS1 never was due to the DX version it used (Steam required games to at least have DX9 or better).


Riiight.


Also realise that none of those consoles ever had PlanetSide to up the sales and that PS was even a bit older than those games so it wouldn't be realistic to have expected that - and even then, the consoles wouldn't have been able to handle it as they won't be able to handle PS2.


Also realise that you claim that PS2 players will make a conscious choice for a game with mechanics that YOU support BECAUSE THEY SUPPORT IT TOO *that is your claim after all*, yet if you look at Hamma's video and commentary on new players that even play PC games for the first time, let alone MMOs for the first time and that he even has to tell them how to hold the keyboard and mouse, that that's not a very realistic statement, at all.

Those people have NO idea what mechanics PS1 uses.

Those people have NO idea what mechanics PS2 uses.

Thus those people have NO idea what mechanics are better when they actually start playing PS2!



The main reason for them NOT to pick PS1 is that it's not really on offer and if they do come across it they only look at the date and graphics to form a first impression, they won't judge it by the actual game play. They would judge the book by its cover, not its content and fact of the matter is that the presentation graphically between PS1 and PS2 is a world of difference. That doesn't mean that it's actually better in game mechanics! Not in general, but certainly not in detail. As such in 2012, of course people will pick PS2 over PS1.

It's the new version, new is per definition better right? That's what you've been saying all along. Everything old is in any way, shape or form obsolete in a new context, isn't it? Oh but hey, BF3 is new, no wait, it's actually old by now in pc standards. So it's obsolete? ALL it's mechanics must be obsolete by your definition then? Or are you a hypocrite afterall? Who'd have thought.

Hey Littleman, ever played Commandos 4 (http://www.ign.com/games/commandos-strike-force/pc-708693)? It's three games on from Commandos 1 (http://www.ign.com/games/commandos-eidos-platinum-collection/pc-3853). Must be better right? Oh wait, it's got a lower rating. That can't be right, can it? It had a 3D environment instead of isometric view like all its predecessors, yet somehow scored lower and was the last Commandos game in a line that sold millions before? Weird that all reviews rate this fourth FPS title lower than all its isometric predecessors while clearly trying to copy the success of CoD and MoH of the time by going FPS... Since 2006, they've not published new games in this series after they had been making new ones every few years...

Also funny how most reviews and reader ratings of PS1 are in the order of 7.5-8,5 on release. Must have been a completely horrible game that... :rolleyes:
http://www.eurogamer.net/games/planetside-pc
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/planetside
http://www.ign.com/games/planetside/pc-15582
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/71/view/reviews/load/96/Planetside-ReReview.html



So cut the crap already and go find a toilet that will take it instead.