Sunderer AMS made defense more pointless

[Rothnang]

One of the really big things that I don't like about this game in its current form is that base defense is pretty pointless, when a mess of enemies come rolling your way you pretty much have a choice between being a speedbump at the expense of your KDR or just going somewhere else.

It occurred to me that this is really a phenomenon that got much worse with Sunderer spawning. Of course Galaxy spawning had its downsides, you could completely ignore front lines and defenses, and just drop a spawn point anywhere you wanted pretty much. Also a parked Galaxy with 3, 4 engineers huddled behind it was damn near impossible to take out.

Sunderer spawning changed that, but it also changed something else: A Sunderer can be pulled from pretty much any terminal anywhere in the game, so destroying a Sunderer means next to nothing. The opponent can have anotherone ready within seconds. Galaxies are more expensive, can only be pulled from a small number of terminals, and have a longer cooldown timer, so destroying the enemy Galaxy spawnpoint was more meaningful.

The real cost of Sunderer AMS in that regard is simply that there is just no way to send a Zerg packing. Sunderers can be replaced so rapidly that you can never effectively wear down their capability to spawn in new troops. Blow up one Sunderer, there is likely another one just waiting to take its place. Even if you kill them all, the next random outpost over can make some more.

I honestly think that AMS needs to be harder to come by. Requiring it to spawn at the warp gate or tech plants made a big difference, because it meant that having one far away from your base was meaningful. It took time to get it there, and losing it could actually jeopardize your advance.

Maybe we need a new vehicle that does the AMSing, something big and unwieldy that is like the Galaxy of ground warfare. Comes from tech plants and warp gates only...

[Sifer2]

Totally agree. I personally think Tanks/Sunderers/Liberators, and their gunner ammo should only be able to be pulled from bases. Towers should only offer Lightnings/ESF's, and Outposts nothing but the Flash again.

A zerg of Infantry is one thing. It can be stopped but a zerg of Tanks, and AMS is pretty much unstoppable if your outnumbered. Making them have drive back from the last base would at least slow them down an make killing them more meaningful.

It's crazy to me that not only do some people not find the Sundy spam a problem but they keep complaining about the deploy radius too. :rolleyes:

[Rothnang]

Lightning and ESF is IMO only symetrical in price, fighters are absolutely superb vehicles that have the capacity to kill anything by themselves, inclusing vehicles with multiple crew. People will specialize in to the point where they get butthurt if the game ever presents a situation where they can't fly one 100% of the time. Lightnings on the other hand are pretty much a joke vehicle that nobody considers worth pulling unless you either really want Skyguard or you can't get an MBT for whatever reason. They lack the ability to defeat an MBT one on one, cannot be equipped with multiple weapons for engaging all targets, have very few meaningful upgrades, and generally are just in no way the tankers equivalent to a fighter.

[brinkdadrink]

I am conflicted on this point.

I agree that there are still to many AMS sundies a lot of the time. The distance limit helped but it didnt limit the number. This goes back to specializing because anyone can have an AMS sundy with very little certs (I think it was 10 when I got it).

I like them together but maybe make it:
A) more expensive certs to get
B) make it only only mountable at large facilities
C) cost more resources when adding the ams on

I personally am for A and C but also lower the distance between sundys down some (only like 10-20m) because its to large at the moment. large outposts you can get 1 and then maybe a second in a horrible position. By adding A and C you will limit the number of sundies. I choose C but would go for B instead some times when resources are really hard to come by. (side note idea - make vehicles cheaper if pulled from large facilities, it would make them even more important).

Please make the Sundy cheaper without ams on it. Its a squad transport vehicle that does very little damage comparably to other vehicles and helps get people in squads to the battle in a team fashion.

[Bags]

I like having sundies vs no sundies.

[EZero]

Sundies wouldn't be so bad if there was a universal queue time.

So instead of whenever someone dies they spawn with their own 5-6 second timer, people queue up at the sunderer in the spawn menu. Only 1 will spawn every 5 seconds. That or it can be wave based but with a longer interval, like 30 seconds.

I think the first solution is superior though, because it makes the attackers make more tactical pushes, like holding back at the AMS until they have enough people. Instead of just streaming in one by one and getting slaughtered.

[Rothnang]

I don't think high cert cost should ever be considered a balancing factor. Cert costs always have to be viewed as an entirely separate entity that serves purely to offer the player a sense of progression and a reward for playing.

[Sifer2]

Lightning and ESF is IMO only symetrical in price, fighters are absolutely superb vehicles that have the capacity to kill anything by themselves, inclusing vehicles with multiple crew. People will specialize in to the point where they get butthurt if the game ever presents a situation where they can't fly one 100% of the time. Lightnings on the other hand are pretty much a joke vehicle that nobody considers worth pulling unless you either really want Skyguard or you can't get an MBT for whatever reason. They lack the ability to defeat an MBT one on one, cannot be equipped with multiple weapons for engaging all targets, have very few meaningful upgrades, and generally are just in no way the tankers equivalent to a fighter.


I agree with ESF being superior to Lightning since an ESF with pods can currently kill anything. Where as a Lightning must specialize. But the Lightning is actually pretty good with the specialist weapons. The HE cannon wrecks Infantry, and the AV one they added fairly late in beta does hurt. It's weaker than a MBT but that's why I suggested letting it be pulled at towers, and Tanks only from base. Probably a shorter timer too. But then I also sided with the group thinking MBT's should probably go back to being 2 man crew required vehicles. And the devs disagree since they are still in the BFR mind of thinking with one man MBT's, and ESF's that do everything. Shame as it was that which ultimately ruined PS1.

[Dreamcast]

I love the Sunderer now than what it was in the beggining.


Right now, you're closer to action unlike back in August during the beta where you spawned so far away.


You mention that it makes defense pointless....No it doesn't......I have seen defense push these Sunderers back.


I wouldn't mind having the real AMS comeback as is own vehicle tho:D

[Buggsy]

Actually a cloaked AMS that isn't "Big and wieldy" but smaller than the sunderer, would greatly help improve defense.

Any attempt to nerf the Sunderer into uselessness makes the zerg actually stronger. If you're facing 3:1 odds, instead of facing a bunch of infantry you'll face a bunch of tanks and rocketpods. Guess what, you actually made your situation worse.

People like you think too selfishly, "I destroyed that sunderer, therefore I should have won the battle all by myself."

[Rothnang]

And the devs disagree since they are still in the BFR mind of thinking with one man MBT's, and ESF's that do everything. Shame as it was that which ultimately ruined PS1.

I wouldn't mind the fighters as they currently are if they had two crew members.

If you look at the Liberator as the MBT of the sky and then you realize that a fighter with rocket pods can smack them out of the sky like its nothing - and Liberators actually do need at least 2 crewmembers to unlock let's say 95% of its potential - and then you compare that to Lightning vs MBT where the MBT steamrolls the lightning even with just one driver, it's pretty obvious that fighters are overpowered, regardless of what Smed thinks.


Any attempt to nerf the Sunderer into uselessness makes the zerg actually stronger. If you're facing 3:1 odds, instead of facing a bunch of infantry you'll face a bunch of tanks and rocketpods. Guess what, you actually made your situation worse.

Tanks and Fighters are actually gone when you knock them out though, they don't come back in 8 seconds. Sure, fighting a bunch of tanks and fighters really sucks when you get spawcamped and have no means of pulling anything that can adequately oppose them, but at least there is a beginning and an end to an attack made with tanks and fighters.

People like you think too selfishly, "I destroyed that sunderer, therefore I should have won the battle all by myself."

I don't really know why you think that. I just said that destroying spawning vehicles was more meaningful when they couldn't be replaced in seconds. It's not about winning or losing battles by blowing up one single thing, it's just a question of whether or not you can actually destroy enough of the enemies material to make their offensive fail.

[KaskaMatej]

It was stupid when they allowed for Sunderers to be pulled at any vehicle terminal... A the beginning of the last day of beta, a squad of us was trying to defend an outpost. They had hacked terminal so 12 people was able to pull out S-AMS. Not all at once, but one by one, destroy one, they get another, and so on, not to mention they had 3 engineers with it so if you haven't destroy it in one go, it was repaired in few seconds.

Bloody annoying to cripple the defence this, or better put, making the offence so much easier.

[Dreamcast]

It was stupid when they allowed for Sunderers to be pulled at any vehicle terminal... A the beginning of the last day of beta, a squad of us was trying to defend an outpost. They had hacked terminal so 12 people was able to pull out S-AMS. Not all at once, but one by one, destroy one, they get another, and so on, not to mention they had 3 engineers with it so if you haven't destroy it in one go, it was repaired in few seconds.

Bloody annoying to cripple the defence this, or better put, making the offence so much easier.

Engineers need to be nerfed....They heal way too fast.


I also think Engineering shouldn't stack completly so if 3 people are repairing the same thing then they shouldn't repair it super fast.

[basti]

Aye, the real problem is that Sundys can be pulled everywhere. It shouldnt be that way, not at all.

[Sturmhardt]

Yup, they are a little bit TOO easy to pull. They should switch it back so that you can only spawn sunderers at bases again and see if that helps. I love em and I'm gonna really cert into the Sunderer, but there are too many of them.

[GLaDOS]

Agreed. I would also like to see a tech plant being required to spawn Sundies elsewhere than the warpgate, but that might be a bit much.

[Figment]

We've taken out a whole lot of Sunderers by simply flanking the big group with LA and a bit of C4, they're generally easy to find and poorly protected, hell you can just stroll quietly from behind through a zerg group as they don't really expect enemies to come from there and strawl into a huge group of their friendlies, place the C4, blow it up then kill a few before they realise you were there. Funny how group psychology works. The interference radius does spread them out a bit and you can often take out the extras before they can be deployed. It would help greatly if infiltrators could take care of these too, but alas, no perma-cloak, no C4, no mines, lack of mines in general.


The problem is not so much that they CAN be pulled at any friendly outpost, in fact, without it defense of these outposts would be even worse than it is now. The problem is that they can be pulled in quantities and at both enemy and friendly bases by the enemy by anyone and with great ease.

Why?

1. EVERYONE has immediate access to Sunderers. It is NOT a specialization.
2. The AMS cert is the most logical and rewarding function on the Sunderer and it therefore supercedes other Sunderer functionalities for most people. On top of that, it is relatively cheap.
3. Despite of the timer and cost of bringing the timer down, it is fairly rewarding to invest heavily in toning down the timer of the Sunderer-AMS and since sundies aren't deployed in the front line, timers usualy run out. At least they do for me unless pulled during an enemy zerg attack and driving into a couple tanks right of the pad.
4. Cost is relatively easy to circumvent if you have a lot of territory on the continent.
5. If you have one Sunderer AMS, equip term, spawn beacon or other spawn point nearby you can get an infil suit, walk up to an enemy terminal and perma-hack it open to your side.
6. Since everyone can get an infil suit and everyone can convert terminals, this means every vehicle terminal will deliver Sunderers.


Combine all of the above and you get a whole lot of Sunderers. If you tie it to a type of base, this will only make the strongest zerging empire even stronger. This is not so much a Sunderer only thing as it is the design philosophy that everyone must have access to every role in game. It's also why we have tank spam, why everyone has AV and why everyone can be a medic and why everyone can be an engineer, sniper, MAX, etc.

We're not creating unique characters and we are not carving our own role or reputation within the empire. THAT is the real issue with the numbers.



The developers stated before that they can't split the costs for different types of Sunderers. They can't make the AMS version more expensive nor can they make the basic Sunderer cheaper. My main beaf with the Sunderer then is that you won't use it as a throw away cheap transport and storm ram to get troops into enemy bases, which is what it was meant to be initially.


Of course... that's one of the reasons why I advised against using the Sunderer as an AMS, even if we did need a ground based AMS as clearly demonstrated by combat flow changes. They luckily did pick up on all the other visual and practical use cues I've been hammering on it needed if they wanted to have it this role (clearly visible term, placed on the sides rather than rear, clear deployed mode, recognisable from a distance, interference radius and radius visible on the map as per Hayoo's old idea). They've taken much more thought about those practical design element and they are to be commended on that.

But ultimately, it'd been better had it been an actual AMS and had people been forced to make a choice in what type of units they'd be using.

Doing everything will ultimately make the game more boring too, because you'll never get a chance to rediscover your character as something entirely different: it will always be: been there, done that. In PS1, you regularly heard stories of players that went "I got kinda bored doing this or this routine for two years, so I just completely recerted my character for the first time and wow, I can go on playing and refining my skill for ages again!".




*crosses fingers the "you can do everything" design can still be removed from the game, even post-launch*

[MrBloodworth]

Aye, the real problem is that Sundys can be pulled everywhere. It shouldnt be that way, not at all.

Availability is fine.The Problem is the Sunderer frame. The old AMS was simply better. ( AND added more methods of play to multiple disciplines )

I have never agreed with the idea of putting a logistical resource on a frame that can bring the firepower of a tank.

This is a side effect of that.

[Sifer2]

I agree I don't like the everyone can do everything design. But were probably stuck with it.

I also think Sunderer is too strong a vehicle to be the spawn vehicle. But were also probably stuck with it at least until they can find the time to build a new vehicle.

In the mean time I do believe the availability should be less. Either through not available outside of base terminals. Or through a much longer acquisition timer. Though I think the former would be better. They could also stand to increase the cert cost of the AMS ability.

[ZaiRoX]

Sooo...

1. Kill your own vehicle term. (Yeah, that's one thing from PS1 they didn't change). As far as I know, you can't repair enemy terms (?)

2. 200m deploy radius made multiple sunderes quite useless.

If anything I'd bet that the sundy ams gets buffed.

[Sifer2]

2. 200m deploy radius made multiple sunderes quite useless.




How so? Right now it just means you move the zerg 200m. Cause every Sundy driver deploys all over the area. It's rare that I don't see at least 3 deployed around every base with more in reserve to deploy if those go down.

[Rothnang]

I think the 200 meter deploy radius is an ugly solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. The only reason why deploy restrictions exist is because there are too many Sunderers in the field to begin with.

[ZaiRoX]

How so? Right now it just means you move the zerg 200m. Cause every Sundy driver deploys all over the area. It's rare that I don't see at least 3 deployed around every base with more in reserve to deploy if those go down.

You actually have to be around to deploy it though.

The thing is. This is the model that SOE created for this game. Anyone can drive anything and use everything. You have to love it or hate it. Personally I hate it, but atleast I can accept it.

In PS1 the majority didn't feel it was worth sacrificing two certs for a support vehicle. Their lifespawn was short and somewhat unrewarding. It didn't help that half the playerbase had a personal nuclear bomb either.

PS1 also had bases that were easier to defend, but they were also harder to push out from.
Sure, eventually someone OS'd the last AMS, or brought in a lib and bombed it. Or the pop changed and you simply overwhelmed the enemy. That's how it worked. It wasn't grunts who killed the AMS's though. Not in a zerg vs zerg fight atleast.

[Piper]

Of course you could always do what we did in Ps1, and you know....kill them. Such a novel idea! Use Infil's to locate 'em, use airchav to moider 'em.

As Zairox rightly just said, the problem is not the AMS. The problem is that everyone is identical to everyone else within a 20% margin by design.

Everyone can pull everything. There is no "I'll take this playstyle at the expense of not having this playstyle". However that is now seemingly fixed, they won't alter that aspect of the class/vehicle system post launch. :(

[Rothnang]

I don't think people being able to pull anything they want is the problem, it's more that if you're going to play Infantry you simply pull a Sunderer and park it somewhere, get the extra XP, spend a resource you do nothing with anyways...

The problem is that there is no effort involved in it, because the thing that keeps other vehicles from being overused is that when you pull them you are committed to them.

[BigpermCML]

"at the expense of your KDR"

Stopped reading there

[Rothnang]

That was sarcasm because there are a lot of idiots in this game who will abandon any fight where their KDR will suffer instantly.

I mean KDR basically means nothing in this game. If you never even leave the warpgate without a fighter or tank you'll have a hard time not having a positive KDR. On the other hand, if you ever stick around once the spawnroom doors have become dangerous your KDR will suck, no matter if you're an awesome player.

[Fear The Amish]

I don't see sundie as a problem they are easily destroyed by air, LA's wreck them with C4, Tanks eat them. Also some of my funnest times have been defending towers/bases 2 squads holding the base and the 3rd going heavy assault and going sundie hunting. I think OP's problem is he lone wolf's it a lil too much or rolls with open squads. Roll with an outfit and sundies cease to be a problem.

[MrDawkins]

OP you know how PS1 solved these issues?

Hard cert cap and you needed to cert to drive. Also it was an AMS ONLY! Sundy should be a sundy, nothing more.

[Crator]

OP you know how PS1 solved these issues?

Hard cert cap and you needed to cert to drive. Also it was an AMS ONLY! Sundy should be a sundy, nothing more.

^ This. The issue is how can you do that in PS2.

[Rothnang]

A cert cap would be nice because I like the idea of being a specialist who's sought after for having skills that not everyone does, but on the other hand, that would really not make the game do well as a free to play, and it certainly wouldn't help the balance issues we have, since if there was a cert cap absolutely nobody in their right mind would cert up flash, lightning or galaxy.

[Figment]

^ This. The issue is how can you do that in PS2.

Well, World of Tanks does it this way:

You can have as many tanks as you have garage slots. Meanwhile, you can research every other unit and upgrades of other units, but as long as you haven't purchased said researched unit in an empty slot, you can't actually use the researched unit.

When you did purchase the unit, you then fill up its vehicle slots with the appropriate tools. But only if you first researched them.

Several racing games apply a similar "Garage" mechanic.



Certification could be considered the same as "researching parts". So stuff you could put on a vehicle or suit. But only if you had a free "garage slot" to put that suit in, so to speak.


Now, what if you had a point system on top of your cert system, where you could put a (weighed) total of X points into whatever you had researched. In fact, that wouldn't be much unlike the PS1 cert tree. It'd be a bit of a double unlock system and sounds convoluted, but could be a good balancing system.



The question then though is how you're going to convince someone who paid real money to gain access to a gun that they can't always have access to it afterwards and would have to give up something else if they wanted to use that?

It could be so that Members could purchase a few more slots (up to a limit), but that'd possibly be considered p2w, unless of course, you could purchase those slots with certs or get them free with higher battle ranks as well.

Alternatively, you could put sidegrades or collections of weapons together into the same cert group (much like Medium Assault, Special Assault and Heavy Assault in PS1).

Of course you would be allowed to change your options every Y amount of time (say once every 6 hours? Hey, recert used to be 24 in PS1 at first! ...then 12, then 6...).




So yeah, a bit of a combination of PS1, PS2 and WoT research/certs?

[brinkdadrink]

OFF TOPIC kinda -As far as specializing I am for adding the BR skills from PS1 in so you can only take to the battlefield specific skills and can change every 3 hours or something. That way you can cert anything but only able to pull specific things when in the battle. They still have BR even though it doesnt do anythign so will give it a purpose.

BACK ON - I think with the system they have now they can only solve this with a new vehicle with a high cert and/or resource cost and give the sundy a drop in resource costs for transport again. I waste so many resources to drive my squad around that I rarely deply because there is usually another one deployed and no spot for mine.

[Zar]

i got beat by a squad with tanks and engis working togther....and they did their job so i cryed.


I also think Engineering shouldn't stack completly cause i lone wolf and its not fair i can't rambo stuff so if 3 people are repairing the same thing then they shouldn't repair it super fast.
Fixed =3

[Crator]

That sounds like it might work Figs. I like it.

[brinkdadrink]

Well, World of Tanks does it this way:

Alternatively, you could put sidegrades or collections of weapons together into the same cert group (much like Medium Assault, Special Assault and Heavy Assault in PS1).

Of course you would be allowed to change your options every Y amount of time (say once every 6 hours? Hey, recert used to be 24 in PS1 at first! ...then 12, then 6...).

So yeah, a bit of a combination of PS1, PS2 and WoT research/certs?

OFF TOPIC kinda -As far as specializing I am for adding the BR skills from PS1 in so you can only take to the battlefield specific skills and can change every 3 hours or something. That way you can cert anything but only able to pull specific things when in the battle. They still have BR even though it doesnt do anythign so will give it a purpose.


I think we have very similar ideas

[Rothnang]

Fixed =3

A tank and an engineer working together is one thing, a tank and some engineers tanking incoming fire like it's a WoW raid is another.

You should never have a system where doing something, even if it takes teamplay allows you to ignore the core gameplay mechanics. Tanking incoming damage by having engineers fix you faster than damage can be done overrides the core mechanics of movement and cover. Engineers repairing you while you're in cover enhances the value of using movement and cover, so the game should e built to encourage that, not the other.

[QuantumMechanic]

When they first added the AMS Sunderer, you couldn't pull it from nearly any vehicle terminal. At that point in time it was *too hard* to get an AMS when you needed one. Perhaps there's a midway that needs to be found there.

But to me, the main reason why defense is pointless is because:
1) the bases are way too friggin big
2) the bases are not made to be defended

Defensive fights were my favorite in PS1. When the baddies were coming, I'd get up on the walls, make sure all turrets were repaired/upgraded, and then I'd stand there waiting until I saw the tanks come over the hills.

Now I don't know when they are comming, which direction they are coming from, and by the time I actually see some bad guys running around I've already heard "generator compromised. generator destroyed".

I like the design of the new Amerish bases. But in general still bases are too hard to defend and to easy to take.

[sylphaen]

Figment, while I am a fan of the PS1 cert system and like your solution, it would not work out well with the current state of PS2. There is not enough diversity of gameplay offered.

I could roll all day driving in PS1 and enjoy myself without HA or hack/infil suits in PS1; however, in PS2, I can't see myself being limited to one kind of activity when the whole class system was developed and is balanced around switching roles every 15 seconds or evenly spending your resource pool to maximize its benefits.

There is not even some hybridization of roles yet.

[Fear The Amish]

i HATE when people say bases can't be defended... this is XoO at the TR warpgate when we litterally lost every position (the TR had 80% pop on amerish at the time) but these 2 and warp gate we reached thier warp gate by leap frogging 2 squads to the TR warpgate then taking both these territories this is a video of TWO SQUADS holding off the entire TR zerg for over 40 minutes (video is just 20 of it). YES you can defend a base, if you actually know how to. Funny part is he ran out of space before we got spawn camped broke out of that... then go spawn camped again at one. so we RESPAWNED at the other jumped in a few sundies and took it back.....

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/4446/funnyi.png

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekhOw_P0e1I&feature=player_embedded

[Rothnang]

Bases can be defended if you have people inside willing to do so. The problem is getting people to wait around for an attack anywhere. If you try to organize a defense after a place is already under heavy attack you have to defend it from the outside in, so it doesn't even really matter if it flips in the meanwhile and you just take it back.

[Skepsiis]

Figment, your idea sounds very similar to something i mentioned a while back.

Basically people were complaining about how easy it is to change class to counter the current problem. Like a bunch of tanks roll up so everyone respawns in with an anti tank rocket launcher, or aircraft show en mass and everyone can just spawn AA maxes.

My solution was memory crystals that you can allocate from the warpgate or possibly some bases - Your brain cant handle all the memories and experiences of everything all at once due to the trauma of rebirth or whatever and you need to hold just one or two classes in your mind to respawn into at any one time. This number could start low and improve with battlerank adding to the idea of a vet not getting a direct power upgrade, but being more versatile. You can change out these crystals at any point you like, there is no time limit or cool down. It just requires that you duck out of the fight for a min to get it sorted.

The same or very similar could be applied to vehicles. Maybe you could provide bonuses for specific combinations of memory crystals and create a sort of "meta" specalist class you can pick if you have all the requirements. Like an engy, medic, galaxy and sundy combo allows you to become a support specalist who visualy looks a little different and gets a +20% to support xp and can summon a drop pod every hour that contains a miniture supply/rearm/repair structure.

It is effectively the merger of the ps1 and ps2 cert systems. The ps1 system allowed for the allocation of a finite number of cert points to be used at any given time (in this case classes and vehicles) and truely allowed players to specalise their characters to certain roles. And the constant progression and permanent unlock mentality of the ps2 system.

It also gives purpose to battleranks which as far as i know dont actually do anything except unlock titles. The grizzled vets having been through so many rebirths are able to take the torture of addded memory implants in their mind without their head exploding. So they still specalise and limit themselves to a selection of classes and vehicles at any given time but have a wider choice than a fresh recruit.

[Sunrock]

Bases can be defended if you have people inside willing to do so. The problem is getting people to wait around for an attack anywhere. If you try to organize a defense after a place is already under heavy attack you have to defend it from the outside in, so it doesn't even really matter if it flips in the meanwhile and you just take it back.

Here is the thing with MMOs. No matter how you design the game more hardcore outfits will always beat the crap out of random casual players that are totally unorganized. Way is that? Because they have allot more experience, discipline and organization.

And as you point out discipline is key to win any war campaign. So this is not really a problem regarding game design it's a problem with the mindset of the players.

[Rothnang]

I don't dispute that an organized outfit is going to beat random players every time, but that has nothing to do with the fact that if you weren't around when a large attack started you might as well instantly shift your objective from "hold base" to "retake base".

[TheStigma]

I agree S-AMS are just too availiable as it stands now. The only reason why we don't see even MORE of the damn things is that 90% of people don't really realize that they could bring one too.

I think I would almost consider putting them only in the warpgate so that distant frontlines had some meaning to them other than just being an arbitrary spot on the map. That said if it was me designing the game I would rather adjust it in incredments and let it run a few weeks or so to evaluate the change before making bigger changes. Therefore I think it would be a good idea to start off with limiting them to (big/main) facilities. That would make you think a little bit about logistics as you could just trivially pull them from any base anywhere (ie. walk 300 meters in any random direction to find one).

-Stigma

[Buggsy]

Why am I the only one that even thinks of using an AMS for defense?

There are a few bases out there where you could deploy an AMS 200-300 meters away behind a rocky hill or something, out of sight of the approaching zerg, out of sight of the base battle. They are actually very useful. It would be more useful for defense if the AMS had a cloak.

A cloaked AMS is more a benefit to defenders than attackers. Even in PS1 everyone knwe where the closest attacker AMS is coming from, but somehow the cloaked AMS on defense confuses people and are less likely to be found.

[Rothnang]

People do that all the time, but it goes right back to the "If you have to defend a base from the outside in there is no difference to just capturing it back later" thing.

[Figment]

We have to place AMSes well outside the base to defend it, which is really quaint. The base perimeter is not good for defense if it doesn't have lots of high ground and even then it is designed such that any solid point is useless soon after the enemies arrive. I you can't escape the spawnroom to flank and fight, the fight is over. Hence yeah you need other spawnpoints and Malorn said that is why they made the Sundy available everywhere. And considering it is in many locations easy to create tank zergs to hit outposts with while the local defender ran out of vehicles, it is not a strange thing to compensate with.

I would expect buggies to be added to outposts (once they are in) for similar reasons. Outposts as is aren't particularly suited for footzergs like in PS1. The main reason is the amount of hardware you will face. If it is 30 vs 30, one side can pull tanks while the other cannot. In PS2 this means 30 tanks and a few Sunderers vs infantry and Sunderers. There is no question who wins prior to that battle starting...

Now if that was 25% tanks as not all players could afford it or would have to crew up, you would have around 6-8 tanks to deal with, which is far more manageable. If most of those are in multicrew vehicles, that may even be all. Then you don't need as many HA either and if you got minefields it would get even more interesting to see who would win. Though I must say that I would loosen gun constraints per class if there were double cert system as proposed earlier. All in all, doing everything makes balancing a mess, IMO.

[Piper]

Why am I the only one that even thinks of using an AMS for defense?



You're not. Any old AMS hauler from Ps1 has been doing this in 2 as well. A "back up" AMS was part and parcel of any base defense in 1.

Of course it helped they could cloak. :p

[Piper]

^ This. The issue is how can you do that in PS2.

Won't happen now, if it was going to happen it would have to have occurred in beta. There is zero way they will ever fiddle with restricting access to classes/vehicles after launch, too much toys from prams will occur from most of the games populace. They'll be basically too damn afraid to limit folks....even if it might well make for a better game.

But here is one way they could have done it. Italic C@P from beta forums below. All moot, mores the pity. The game will forever be predicated on everyone pulling the right tool for the right job at the right time, and we'll have to put up with the gameplay it produces. That there are spams of X whenever you expect to see X is still down to being identical within a 20% margin by design. :confused:


It's just a rehash of my Meta-Certs idea. Which essentially is just a port in of Ps1's cert system layered on top of the current one.

--Very first thing to say is that the current cert system would continue unchanged, all the endless progression and minor tweeks and sidegrading stuff would carry on and would be a separate thing from the following.
-- The below is just another layer of character progression and restriction that would fit over the top of it, hence meta. :p
--Divorce the current Battle Ranks from the certs we currently use. The later would continue to carry on as normal, Xp points earning them and folks spending them how they want in the current layout.
--Battle Ranks would go from 1-20 and would also increase by earning Xp in game, but at an independent rate from the current cert system.
--BR would be on a progression curve and start off quickly and the slow down at higher ranks.
--Each BR would award one Meta-Cert. Characters would start out with 10 Meta-Certs, for a total of 30 which would be a hard cap for the entire life-span of the game.
--Meta Cert points would be spent on giving access to the classes and the vehicle types, no points spent on them, no access to them.
--The total required to get all the classes and vehicles would be higher than the 30 points any given character could have, requiring people to make choices about what they would like to meta-cert.
--A respec would be available for meta-certs. It would start out, at low BR, being available very very often and as people advance in BR it would slow down, as in theory people become aware of what they would like to do more than less.
--The trick is assigning costings to the classes and the vehicles, the below are some for-instances.

Each class=7 or 8.
Flash=1.
Sunderer=2 or 3. Or 2 for the basic model and +1 for each variant you want to add in.
ESF=2 or 3.
Lib'= 3 or 4.
Gal=2 or 3.
MBT= 3 or 4.
Lightning= 2 or 3.
Empire specific Buggy=2 or 3. (when we get them).

The trouble is, that there really aren't that many things to turn into Meta-Certs, in the way Ps1 had a lot of things that went into their basic cert system. As such getting the numbers right, and the above do have problems, is a right PITA. However I believe the principal is sound. ;)

[snaffe]

I'd love a lightning with dual 50 cal. Woooop. Hit and run.

[ringring]

While I don't agree with the op I think the way to get around this whole issue of sundy/tank spam is perfectly obvious and we all know what it is.

It's the elephant in the room.

Borrow from ps1 *recoils in shock* .... "you can't say that"!

Make it so that you can either cert tanks or sundy's with the proviso that you can swap certs around at a special terminal in the warpgate with no penalty except for a cool down.

"Are you mad!"
"You can't do that!"
"It will never work!"
"Are you sure you haven't been kidnapped by aliens and a perfect copy substituted in your place!"

[Memeotis]

Would limiting the spawn location of sunderers to warp-gates (and perhaps one of the bigger bases) be a solution?

[ringring]

Would limiting the spawn location of sunderers to warp-gates (and perhaps one of the bigger bases) be a solution?
No, we had sundy spam before when that was the case.

[Crator]

Won't happen now, if it was going to happen it would have to have occurred in beta. There is zero way they will ever fiddle with restricting access to classes/vehicles after launch, too much toys from prams will occur from most of the games populace. They'll be basically too damn afraid to limit folks....even if it might well make for a better game.

You don't know SOE do you? ;)