There desperately needs some defense bonus

[Beerbeer]

Empires just Zerg each other to warp gate, hardly anyone defends, then the attackers leave and Zerg elsewhere, while the overrun empire zergs after the attackers have already left.

It's boring zerging five people and also boring getting zerged by fifty while you're one of those five.

They need to make a system, add a bonus or do something that discourages empty zerged base exchanges.

Personally, IMO, one of the contributing factors IMO is that the continents are too big. But there are things they can do to discourage this IMO.

[Sunrock]

What server do you play on? Roll on Miller and you will see allot of bio labs and tech plants being defended to the last man...

Besides there are bonus to be defending. Throwing in a grenade where 20 players hug the flag to flip it. :groovy:

[Beerbeer]

I agree, I love defending, problem being I'm the exception, not the rule. It's just too easy zerging empty bases with five hearty defenders so I can see why people do it. There should be some mechanism in-place that encourages people to defend what they already have. Right now? None. Lose base benefits? Who cares, we'll just empty Zerg back in an hour.

Damn continents are too big.

[Sunrock]

I agree, I love defending, problem being I'm the exception, not the rule. It's just too easy zerging empty bases with five hearty defenders so I can see why people do it. There should be some mechanism in-place that encourages people to defend what they already have. Right now? None. Lose base benefits? Who cares, we'll just empty Zerg back in an hour.

Damn continents are too big.

To me it sounds like you play on a low pop server or during crazy hours.

Or do we talk about the small outposts between the bigger bases? Well those where designed so they where relatively easy to flip to focus more fire power on the big bases that really matters like tech plants that allow you to spawn MBT's outside of the warpgate... All bases on the continent don't have equally strategic value. This enables you to see large fights that stretch on for hours and small fights that are over in a few minutes.

So it does not have to do with that no one want to defend a base. But no one want to defend an unimportant base.

[Beerbeer]

Connery

[Babyfark McGeez]

Agreeing here, i see this still as one of the major flaws. It's no game-breaker per se, but it's part of the overall "rushy" (is that a word lol?) feeling. And combined with the lack of any rts elements or stuff to do besides shooting it adds up to the "shallow" feel of the game that i kept hearing about from players.

My favorite incident regarding the "merry go round" issue happened just today; I was rolling a cig in my deployed sundy as i watched the troops pour out and take over an outpost (Ceres Hydroponics). I saw the bar was close to complete so i went and got me a beer as a proper driving enhancer.
When i came back two minutes later the base had flipped, was completely deserted and the cap point was allready taken again by another faction.
So i played according to the "max certs" game mechanics, left, waited for them to cap and move on, and finally capped the outpost back...and after that i felt the system could really use some improvements.

But here is me hoping the mission system might resolve some of the problems concerning troop flow and defense duties.

[Chewy]

The way I think about it is that there's no real reason to defend anything but the perk giving bases. All because of there being almost no way to stop an attack outside of hunting down all of the sundies in the area. Sometimes that just isn't possible.

Last I played the only drawback to getting an AMS was 50 certs. That's it. No passenger limit, no sidegrade nerf, not anything. There's not even a reason to pick another option but an AMS thanks to it having zero drawbacks unless you're in a very organized outfit that needs a bumrush transport.


My idea is to either make it cost a little infantry res (5 max) to spawn at a sundy, give sundies limited spawns (can be upgraded with certs and refilled at an ammo tower), remove all passenger seats but the gunners if the driver has an AMS, or up the cost of a sundy if it has an AMS (say around 500-600) an/or lower the cost of a non-AMS sundy (maybe 300-350). Maybe a mix of those if it works. Just saying that there needs to be a way to stop an attack other than holding out for so long that everyone leaves of boredom.

Think about it. Has anyone ever had a failed attack? I had maybe one or 2 in the beta, but they where due to the CO calling it off.

[Beerbeer]

If the continents were 50% smaller, we would have good fights non-stop IMO.

[Phrygen]

No defense bonus combined with terrible defensive structures... yea it should be improved.

Each warpgate should have 3 zones with fortified structures and are more easy to defend than to assault.

[GTGD]

You guys are too funny. The defense bonus is being able to farm the attackers if they don't know what they're doing. It's not that people don't want to defend, they don't want to leave where they currently are if there's a fight. Exact same stuff happened in PS1.

[Chewy]

Past 4 hours I was apart of a NC herd on Waterson. It started with decent pop numbers and good hard fights was fought, but as time went on I noticed one thing. In those 4 hours of pure zerging from base to base there was not a single stopped attack. Not ONCE did the VS or TR stop us from taking base after base and outpost after outpost.

I (kinda) know what outfits are on the VS and TR in Waterson. They have kicked far to much ass to be unknown or not felt on the battlefield. Maybe this was the night off for both TR and VS outfits, I don't know. What I do know is that once a herd forms, there is nothing that can stop it but splitting it up. And that's done by retaking land or cutting it off, both attacking not defending.

How are defenders suppose to stop an attack? Taking out sundies isn't an option as they are so easy to replace as well as defenders needing to expose themselves and weaken the defenses. What else is there to stop an attack that defenders can do? I can't think of a damned thing.

[Figment]

Sigh. Where did you people learn to analyse? :/


1. Lack of communication.
There is no way for someone in the east to ask for help from those in the south. Yes, there is two tools for squadleaders right now: squadleader chat, which is underused and offensive/defensive hot spot markers that nobody understands because there is no legenda.

2. Hot spots and region alerts are poor.
Hot spots are not indicative of where heavy fighting takes place. This makes it - unlike PS1 - harder to read the map and read enemy movement. There is often no good warning until a base flips. Very large need for mapreading commanders. Combine this with the above for large communication issues as not all commanders who notice something can pass on that info to others as they have to rely on others to pass that information (double, if not tripple communication obstacle). Where is /sitrep?

3. Adjecency rules incentice bypassing.
Two enemy forces, even zergs, heading in opposite directions can pass each other by without ever engaging one another. Just taking each other's territory. They don't have to fight through the other enemy to take the territory behind them. Thus an attack on a bio lab often sees a fight stagnate because although the outposts are under enemy control, the linked territories just flipped as they had no defenders: all defenders were attackers in the outpost next to there.

4. Too many enemies, too many weakspots
Your frontline is so big that if you want to protect them all you have to disperse while attackers tend to concentrate. Again, see 3. Eventually attackers disperse if they need to finish up on surrounding territories and then the roles reverse.

5. Overwhelming numbers can't be defended against.
If everyone on the enemy side brings a tank, you can try going all HA, but that is not enough even if you have equal numbers, as their endurance/firepower leverage, time to cap and positioning will always be in their favour. You can't break through the cordon around the cc building to reach it. Even if you are not spawncamped directly.

6. vehicle spawncamping.
If you spawn somewhere to defend it because it is flashing, 9/10 times you are too late as the building you spawn in is spawncamped.

7. No reward for succesful defense opposed to capture.
No encouragement, at all?

8. Always facing two empires due to lack of intercontinental conquest.
One empire is always double teamed. If you conquer something, you can't consolidate it. One of the other empires is already attacking you elsewhere.

Could go on, but you catch the drift. I mean haven't even discussed broken /re chat, lack of responsiveness of players to notice what is going on around them, etc. Hell, people see capture messages all the time, but they have no idea where that happened. Map names are hard to find, map ownership indicators have the same colour as the ownership map (just white outline), VS and NC colours are pretty much the same at first glance... You don't even know who the members of the other three squads in your platoon are UNLESS you go into a hidden menu! That sort of thing makes coordination even worse.

[Sturmhardt]

Yes, defending needs a bonus too, even if you loose. Everyone leaves if the defenders are loosing because they get no points. Even in my outfits people say "We only want to attack, there are no points for defending." - That is a bad sign, so I hope something will be done.

Edit: Great post Figment, the devs should read it, it hits the core.

[Kail]

Yes, defending needs a bonus too, even if you loose. Everyone leaves if the defenders are loosing because they get no points. Even in my outfits people say "We only want to attack, there are no points for defending." - That is a bad sign, so I hope something will be done.

Edit: Great post Figment, the devs should read it, it hits the core.

Do they realize that killing an enemy while defending yields more experience than killing an enemy while attacking? Attacker exp is backloaded into successfully capturing, but defenders get +% bonuses to the little things you normally do. So sure, you don't get to see a big fat +90000 xp at the end, but that's because you've racked it all up during the fight.

It's designed that way to discourage flipping bases.

Now you can argue the bonuses aren't enough, but in my play so far I've been happy with the amount of experience I can earn defending.

[sylphaen]

2. Hot spots and region alerts are poor.

Figgy, did you check out the map option that colors zones by enemy presence ?

By looking at zones that are blinking, their current ownership and enemy activity, I manage to read a lot of useful information on the map.

I still end up jsut zerging around, though.

[Beerbeer]

Yet base flipping is exactly what we're getting because of this. I don't think many people realize this and never will because it's not obvious, apparent or intuitive to most people.

[Figment]

Figgy, did you check out the map option that colors zones by enemy presence ?

Yeah, but that doesn't tell much more info than the flashing light mouse overs. It doesn't allow you to estimate their position or direction or resistance. In particular useless on Esamir due to the region size.

Tactical overlay in ps1 was more refined. Annoyingly refined even. Would rather just have hot spots with different sizes and only info on where your allies are. Hot spots based on size of clash. Situation and scout reports and updates and friendly troop concentrations.

[Sturmhardt]

Do they realize that killing an enemy while defending yields more experience than killing an enemy while attacking? Attacker exp is backloaded into successfully capturing, but defenders get +% bonuses to the little things you normally do. So sure, you don't get to see a big fat +90000 xp at the end, but that's because you've racked it all up during the fight.

It's designed that way to discourage flipping bases.

Now you can argue the bonuses aren't enough, but in my play so far I've been happy with the amount of experience I can earn defending.

Really? How much is it? I didn't know (if it's true).

[Javelin]

Do they realize that killing an enemy while defending yields more experience than killing an enemy while attacking? Attacker exp is backloaded into successfully capturing, but defenders get +% bonuses to the little things you normally do. So sure, you don't get to see a big fat +90000 xp at the end, but that's because you've racked it all up during the fight.

It's designed that way to discourage flipping bases.

Now you can argue the bonuses aren't enough, but in my play so far I've been happy with the amount of experience I can earn defending.


This

[james]

Really? How much is it? I didn't know (if it's true).
Its 10 percent

[Fear The Amish]

nm realized someone pointed out the modifier...

[Hamma]

100% agreed there needs to be more visible incentive to defend bases.

[Lonehunter]

Yeah there needs to be something in place to keep people from ditching a base that needs defending because they just want to go on the offensive, who can blame them, it's more xp

[Dragonskin]

I agree, I love defending, problem being I'm the exception, not the rule. It's just too easy zerging empty bases with five hearty defenders so I can see why people do it. There should be some mechanism in-place that encourages people to defend what they already have. Right now? None. Lose base benefits? Who cares, we'll just empty Zerg back in an hour.

Damn continents are too big.

^This. I love defending, but most of my outfit prefers attacking. It seems the other factions are the same. Seems like people give up defending once they know they will lose and then start attacking something else which is usually much less defended or maybe even empty.

[Thaddeus]

I agree I was defending some bio-dome from like 7 or so VS, and they'd flip some point and I'd flip it back, ad infinitum. There wasn't any point for me to be there I was better off joining some offensive and letting my base get capped by a dozen VS than try to hold them off myself.

[rhilir]

i thought everyone knew the main tr and vs outfits went on watterson and mathew something. The nc went west coast servers. And ya both those sides are organized.

[satori]

Personally, I love defending.

What I don't love is the word "zerg". Seriously, that's gotta go. I'm sure the zit faced leet kid who coined it is probably sick of hearing it too after all these years.

[Crator]

It's funny, you didn't need a defense bonus in PS1. The base benefit which was defined by location on the lattice and the actual benefit the base provided to the empire was a reason to defend it, or not.

[Trolltaxi]

There are multiple factors why people join massive zergs:

1. Better XP that way. Every base means 1000 outposts 250 in no time. Add a cap for XP/base? Now if you have 100 people zerging a single base, that means 200.000 XP when they conquer. Make a cap of 50.000 XP and if there are more people involved, share the XP between them! No point farming the same base for 200 XP instead of 1000.

2. But that wouldn't solve the problem. Massive columns are a great view, it is fun to join one. Size. Does. Matter. Everyone here loves it big, we were in COD if we weren't fond of big numbers.

3. Everyone loves to win. If you steamroll the enemy for hours, and keep winning it is a good evening, isn't it?

4. No point to defend. Quite a role of the underdog when everyone is massing up against you and your 5 comrades.

I don't think I need to carry on with this. You all see the points here. But what could be done? (besides the XP-cap)

- how about adding modifier to XP based on the opposition? If you outnumber the defenders by 60:40, you get no modifiers. A 70:30 (interfarm anyone) would mean that you get half the XP. A 80:20 steamroll would mean 1/10th of XP. And a 90:10 roadkill would mean 1% (maybe even a deduction? :) ). And that for every cap bonus AND kill/heal/reapair/support XP.

Some of you have spent solid sums to get the best XP bonus - but you loose it all if you don't try to pick a fair fight! :) And if you don't pay, you will wait for your hard earned certs even longer! :)

On the other hand, defenders would receive the same bonus. Are you a heroic type? Do you defend against the worst odds? Go heal your buddy and get 50 XP for every tick instead of 5! Pop out and land a lucky shot and get 1000 XP instead of 100!

Harsh, but could work in these early weeks when everyone is working on his progression.

- Another method could be a much more strict resource gain system. We currently can't spend our resources fast enough. Cut the income rate and add a timer when new terrietories start gaining you resources. ("Enemy activities damaged/destroyed our mining/transport facilities, we need time to fix the base and start production at full rate." - or something like that...)

If you must scavange the last bit of resources to keep yourself armed, and you cannot "plunder" the land to gain more, but the enemy can easily deny your resources, you'll have to fight to keep what you have. And while attacking in full force, you should keep an eye on enemy diversions. (Maybe a Mining station to every outpost that can be destroyed?)

Anyways, defensive play must be encouraged!

[Beerbeer]

Another thing that might help is to add additional indicators on the map, showing the tug-o-war capping for each zone without having to click on that zone. Maybe make it a selectable layer. Blinking zones isn't enough IMO and I bet most people don't even know what that means. Or, be more liberal with the defense shield icon that occasionally pops up. Maybe it should pop up every time the zone starts to cap.

I know this sounds lazy, but I bet a lot of people look at that map and don't even bother selecting zones to see the status. If they were made more aware of the situation, at a glance, they might be more inclined to fall back and defend.

Or, make it so the data just pops up in a small window by simply hovering over that zone with your mouse.

[Saintlycow]

100% agreed there needs to be more visible incentive to defend bases.

Key word is visible

As a defender, you get + 15% XP on every action you do. This isn't really mentioned clearly enough.

Apparently this scales towards smaller bases as well, with small sized getting 5%, and medium getting 10%. I don't have time to check tonight, so I left both values in. IMO, it should be a standard 15% bonus, as the length of an assault is much different, and giving less xp on tiny bases has nearly no xp incentive

Since I'm bored and doing math homework, I decided to model the xp intake
that a player would get if he attacked vs defended. This assumes he gets the same number of kills each scenario

By modeling the intake from kills by defenders and attackers during the course of a battle at a base with an equation, it is possible to see the defence vs attack bonus. This assumes the enemy actually takes the facility, which doesn't always happen. It also assumes both players get the exact same amount of kills.

(K x 100 ) + P = (K x 100 x 1.15)

In this scenario, K is equal to the amount of kills an individual in the fight achieves (I simplified the equation to only track kills) and 100 is the standard point value per kill. The P is the xp reward for taking a base as an attacker.

If we assume a small outpost battle, the xp reward is 250

(K x 100 ) + 250 = (K x 100 x 1.15)
K=16.7
(K x 100 ) + 250 = (K x 100 x 1.05)
k = 50


If we assume a small outpost battle, the xp reward is 250

(K x 100 ) + 500 = (K x 100 x 1.15)
K = 33.3
(K x 100 ) + 500 = (K x 100 x 1.1)
k = 50


If we assume a small outpost battle, the xp reward is 250

(K x 100 ) + 1000 = (K x 100 x 1.15)
K=66.7

After looking at this, it kinda makes sense why people would rather attack small outposts than defend them. Battles are usually short, which limits the amount of kills, which means attackers have an inherent advantage in points.

Medium bases seem to be in the middle, possible favoring attacker xp.

Facilities grant tons of xp, but only if you fight for a long while. These fight can last long enough to favor defender xp

TLDR

It is easier to achieve xp defending big facilities vs small ones.

[GLaDOS]

Math.

You're not quite right. Defending a small outpost, you get 5% bonus, a tower/medium base 10%, and a large facility 15%. I feel like they should be doubled, to really mean a lot, but I don't really know what I'm talking about.

[Saintlycow]

You're not quite right. Defending a small outpost, you get 5% bonus, a tower/medium base 10%, and a large facility 15%. I feel like they should be doubled, to really mean a lot, but I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Alright, I'll edit the post. I didn't actually know that.

Thanks for the tip. Makes even less xp now...