Higby in China, plus some minor infos came out of the chat [Archive]

stargazer093

2012-12-16, 09:52 PM

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9661/436f087b02087bf474b9243.jpg

so basically, a Vet(presumably a high statue member of a big outfit) appeared at the day of the event, then threw the following at Higby:

"YOU(Higby) WILL NOT INTERRUPT ME BEFORE I FINISH STATING MY POINTS. IN SHORT, I`LL TELL YOU THAT, THIS GAME(PS2) DOES NOT HAVE A POTENTIAL OF LONG TERM PLAYING!"

"THERE IS NO OTHER PURPOSE IN THIS GAME THAN KILL KILL AND KILL, WHICH ISN`T MORE THAN COUNTER-FU**ING-STRIKE TEN YEARS AGO"

"COUNTER-STRIKE IS SIMPLE AND USER-FRIENDLY TO THE POINT THAT EVEN A RETARDED MONKEY COULD POP-IN AND HAVING FUN, PLANETSIDE 2 IS NEITHER USER-FRIENDLY (lack of tutorial), NOR HAS A BIGGER LONG-TERM GOAL(a "good" feeling of accomplishment), MOREOVER YOU NEED A 1000$ (6000￥) COMPUTER FOR BEING ABLE TO PLAY IT, JUST IN ORDER TO HAVE A SAME AMOUNT OF FUN OF PLAYING COUNTER-STRIKE. Dafaq? REALLY, DAFAQ?!"

-------------------
then, there`s been a "friendly" chat between this guy and PS2`s developer team. During the chat, they`ve been able to pull-out some minor infos:

-Higby does have realized that some people only do backhacking and never go to frontline, and also most of the people dislike defense so when attacking, the base is normally empty. They are making some sort of LATTICE system, some sort of SANCTUARY will be there at future. However, it is a bit unrealistic to change the whole base layout at this stage of the game, but they will do minor change to the detail environment.

-The squad/platoon mechanism will change soon, attack/defense mechanism will also change but later, defense will be tying up with mission system somehow, defending faction must accomplished some type of mission in order to gain specific amount of exp, there may be "official" mission system, such as " Mission A: Battle of the Zurvan amp station".
------
-Afterward from this guy: Matt isn`t as mean as I thought earlier, he looks young but not arrogant at all. He does listen to what other says. Mission system sure does sound like a great thing, fix current problems without change too much core stuffs...

-TR and NC people under the stage were not less rager than him, a constant of "YEAH!" "TRUE!" "YOU`VE RUINED PS!" can be heard all long, VS people however, are the most calm:evil:

to those who can read chinese, here`s the original link
http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2050146818

stargazer093

2012-12-16, 10:01 PM

Big outfit I remember in China is PLA Planetside Lovers Alliance.
I wonder if that vet was from that outfit.

nah, apparently his from Red Thunder(RT)

SturmovikDrakon

2012-12-16, 10:04 PM

I translated that page in Chrome

hilarity ensued

"The landlord you how to lose my sofa!"

:lol:

Bags

2012-12-16, 10:06 PM

Heh wow.

The Messenger

2012-12-16, 10:07 PM

-TR and NC people under the stage were not less rager than him, a constant of "YEAH!" "TRUE!" "YOU`VE RUINED PS!" can be heard all long, VS people however, are the most calm:evil:
http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2050146818

I remember a time in beta when VS were always whining second to TR; NC never complained.

Someone on each faction is always going to have something to complain about. IMO, quite a great deal of the game is balanced but there are a lot of things that seriously make the programmers look like they have no common sense. I currently attribute this to oversite and bugs/glitches that have yet to be addressed but I'm seriously losing faith in them.

basti

2012-12-16, 10:09 PM

-Afterward from this guy: Matt isn`t as mean as I thought earlier, he looks young but not arrogant at all. He does listen to what other says.

Figured that ages ago at GamesCom.

Matt often appears like he is an arrogant prick, but he really is a nice guy. Its easy to misunderstand him.

Anyway, stuff: Give the devs a break already. They are currently enjoying vacation, well a good chunk of them at least. Lets wait with ranting till the new year arrives. ;)

That sanctuary bit tho sounds good, and was needed. With the upcoming 3 continents and the global lattience, you need a place for people to go when their home continent is under attack. Imagine your faction having a poplock on your home continent, and another poplock somewhere else (lets say Searhus). If those on searhus get kicked out of Searhus, you have an entire poplock of people with no place to go. ;)

Rivenshield

2012-12-16, 10:20 PM

Jesus H. Christ. The Chinese vets are screaming at the top of their lungs about the same thing a lot of us have, and for the same reasons -- wanting mechanisms from the old game included not because we're a bunch of atavistic old farts, but because they *work* and what we've got doesn't. Maybe now we can get some movement.

('Some kind' of a lattice system? That staggers me, after all of the NOPE NOPE NOPE we've heard on the topic for six months. How come our Chinabros are privvy to this sort of thing and we aren't?)

I feel really sorry for Matt, though. He's never struck me as arrogant at all.

Hamma

2012-12-16, 10:23 PM

What does the squad system have to do with any of this?

AnamNantom

2012-12-16, 10:32 PM

Lattice? I didn't order any lattice on my sandwich. I thought we were not doing a lattice system? To me, it *seem* a lattice system as we had, gives us less choices on what the next facility is to hack... what's the pros or cons on the old lattice system?

Also, Engrish is funny.

AnamNantom

2012-12-16, 10:37 PM

From the google translation of the original link:

"Brother scared urine Latin American relations with them immediately."

I have NO clue what that was supposed to say, but, LOL.

Galron

2012-12-16, 10:41 PM

Why so sweaty around the midsection? :huh:

Rivenshield

2012-12-16, 10:43 PM

Why so sweaty around the midsection? :huh:

That isn't sweat. It's Higby's body secreting excess adrenaline.

Beerbeer

2012-12-17, 12:18 AM

I'm sure this foretells of a coming asiatic server, and even though I really hate the warping caused by asian players, I'm afraid Connery might be a ghost town if they all decided to leave. I need players to farm in my tank.

Ironic how MMO "farming" has come full circle.

DirtyBird

2012-12-17, 01:26 AM

Cant say I've ever felt that Higby gave the impression of being an arrogant prick.
Passionate for the game maybe.

Higby

2012-12-17, 01:30 AM

Electrofreak

2012-12-17, 01:43 AM

Sunrock

2012-12-17, 02:30 AM

-Higby does have realized that some people only do backhacking and never go to frontline, and also most of the people dislike defense so when attacking, the base is normally empty. They are making some sort of LATTICE system, some sort of SANCTUARY will be there at future. However, it is a bit unrealistic to change the whole base layout at this stage of the game, but they will do minor change to the detail environment.

-The squad/platoon mechanism will change soon, attack/defense mechanism will also change but later, defense will be tying up with mission system somehow, defending faction must accomplished some type of mission in order to gain specific amount of exp, there may be "official" mission system, such as " Mission A: Battle of the Zurvan amp station".
------
-Afterward from this guy: Matt isn`t as mean as I thought earlier, he looks young but not arrogant at all. He does listen to what other says. Mission system sure does sound like a great thing, fix current problems without change too much core stuffs...

-TR and NC people under the stage were not less rager than him, a constant of "YEAH!" "TRUE!" "YOU`VE RUINED PS!" can be heard all long, VS people however, are the most calm:evil:

to those who can read chinese, here`s the original link
http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2050146818

Well as usual SOE fail once again to understand it's players. The majority of players are exp hoes. As attacking gives more exp then defending no one wants to defend. Not because we don't want to defend our bases.

Rivenshield

2012-12-17, 02:32 AM

Well... spit.

/slumps

Not that I ever had a giant hardon for the lattice system, but... I hope it all works out. I honestly bygodly do.

basti

2012-12-17, 02:47 AM

Wow, talk about lost in translation. I think I know the player they're quoting, but my translator just said something like "they want to know if there will be more to do than just attacking/killing" which I'm not sure got the full point across! I talked a bit about how the Mission System is designed to help player coordination and will help out a lot with coordinating defenses and strategy.

Just for the record, if lattice or sanctuaries were brought up it wasn't by me. I did talk about how a true intercontinental conquest via connected warpgates would come once we had the right number of continents to support it, as well as that a more robust tutorial and training area akin to the PS1 VR training was in the works. To be clear, there are no plans to add a PS1 style "lattice" system or sanctuaries to the game.

Nothing I talked about out here at DiGiChina should be a surprise or news to anyone who has been paying attention to what we've been talking about at recent events like SOE Live, etc.

edit: oh, and it was about 100 degrees in that tiny room, packed to the gills, so thats why I was sweating my ass off! =D

Heh.

To be fair, the "lattience system" made it pretty clear that something is off. Lattience just doesnt work in PS2, also never quite worked in Planetside. IT doesnt fix the metagame or anything, it just makes it terrible.

Anyway, no to sancs? I bet my balls that we will see sancs again. THey are required for the continent metagame, unless you are able to magically allow us to have 666 + 666 vs 666 (Two pop locks of people of one faction against another faction), and thats not gonna happen.
People need a space to go in case shit hits the fan. Cant be the home continent as that system would break whenever said home continent is under full attack.

DirtyBird, im with you on that one. Pretty much whenever you actually listen to the dude you notice he got a rather big clue. However, if you dont listen enough, or language barrier strikes, then its easy to get this "hes talking down to me" feeling. Quite a few folks got this, especially PS1 vets who didnt follow the game very closley, and only listened to Higs and the crew once or twice.
Most likley its just the usual effect of "this guy is taking away my toys" from PS1 vets who dont quite like how PS2 turned out to be. It appears that those chinese in question are within that category.
So, dont misunderstand me. Higby is a stellar guy, and i hope i can get to drink with him at Gamescon till 5 am again next year. ;)

Levente

2012-12-17, 03:38 AM

no sanctuaries? thats means no home continents in the future either? :confused:

EVILoHOMER

2012-12-17, 04:18 AM

I've never got the impression of Higby being a dick, I dunno where people who think that about him got it from, I do think he is wrong on a lot of things but we all probably do about each other because of our own opinions.

I just don't see why the game was released this early, it was clear it didn't work well in beta and needed sorting and now all the fixing is coming after launch and probably not for another 6 months. I highly doubt we'll see the right amount of conts or any server mergers to balance out the population until the end of next year. I highly doubt we'll see the stuff to fix the meta game until maybe Summer of next year.

By which point I reckon most people wont be playing the game and SOE will probably drop major support of the game and be focusing mainly on EQ3. I see the population has dropped big time on the EU servers I'm on anyways, I dunno about the US ones as you cannot make more than 3 chars unless that has changed. I logged on during peak time yesterday to see on Miller and there was hardly any one around, wasn't nearly as populated as it used to be a week or so ago.

Also because there are so many conts and servers and no restrictions to any of them, all the population during the rest of the day is so spread out the game is unplayable.

I don't get it why SOE went with this lame multiple server system.

Bags

2012-12-17, 04:23 AM

How is lattice worse for meta game ? Something that exists is greater than something that doesn't exist

EVILoHOMER

2012-12-17, 04:29 AM

They should just shut servers down until each cont is full again, that would be an easy short term fix for now until they fix the game to draw people back hopefully.

Pella

2012-12-17, 04:39 AM

Heh.

To be fair, the "lattience system" made it pretty clear that something is off. Lattience just doesnt work in PS2, also never quite worked in Planetside. IT doesnt fix the metagame or anything, it just makes it terrible.

PS1 lattice system promoted "OUTFIT" Play. Re-secures/Back hacking, Ninja LLU runs. These where perfected by outfits and the sole reason why we all played PS1 for so long.

PS2 does not promote that style of play. And only caters for Zergfits that roll 40 Tanks and camp a outposts all night.

If i see a Bio lab under attack. I dont think dam i need to defend that for the sake of the emipre! I think of the farm potential. Not my doing its how the game has been designed.

ringring

2012-12-17, 06:14 AM

Yea, I have to agree ... I've never detected any arrogance in Higby, he seems like a great guy, same with TRay and Maggie/Luperza and Clegg and Cycles and in fact all the guys.

Lattice - I wonder if that refers to a continental lattice or an inter-continental lattice which Higby has already talked about.

Missions - hmm, I've never had faith in those. So, there's a big signpost saying battle of Zurvan and people will go? Not unless the fighting is good.

Qwan

2012-12-17, 07:14 AM

On the topic of defending:
Funny this should come up, because this entire weekend me and my outfit didnt defend one base. We stayed on the attack on Woodman server. We even stopped the TR from locking a continent. I remember asking the mission commander are we going to defend this base he said no, lets move to the next one. It was funny :rofl: we just did that, attacked attacked and attacked. Now we did go back and resecure bases like our tech plant, and this was after they flipped, we actually waited for the them to take the base before we turned around and took it back. I might add we made a killing on certs this weekend :)

Im not ashamed to admit it, nor will I try to sugar coat it.
Hello my name is Qwan.... and im a XP Hore.

ringring

2012-12-17, 07:34 AM

no sanctuaries? thats means no home continents in the future either? :confused:
No it doesn't.

Higby has talked about continents being tied together in a lattice and there are plenty diagrams of ways that can be done with varying number of continents greater than 3 - when you do this you do get home continents, either 1 or 2 depending on the number of continents in total.

SGTalon

2012-12-17, 09:34 AM

They should just shut servers down until each cont is full again, that would be an easy short term fix for now until they fix the game to draw people back hopefully.

You "Shut it down" people are insane.

This game is a ton of fun as it is and it is going to get better. Apparently you were not in PS1 when it first came out. I was. Many of the issues that people are complaining about had similar issues in PS1.

The whole "no one defends" thing was a big problem in PS1. That is why they added the Lattice system. But with the scale of the game that PS2 has, it needs a MUCH larger front than PS1 had. There is no way that everyone on a continent could fight over the same 2 or 3 points like it was in PS1. That is why we have the territory system that is in place.

The issues with tweaking balance and base design is to be expected in a continuously updated game. How many times did bases change in PS1 before it ended up where it did?

And think about this for a minute.

If they "finished" the design of the game so it is no longer in the "Beta" stage that so many of you complain about wouldn't we be in the same place that PS1 is? The whole idea behind this game is that it will continuously evolve. It will never be finished. The fact that they are not charging a box or sub fee should more than make up for the minor glitches that new content and changes bring out.

Personally i hope they NEVER finish this game. Every time they add something awesome like Howling Stones Checkpoint or a new continent or new weapons, i get excited for the next new thing they come up with.

Just enjoy the game like I am!

Thunderhawk

2012-12-17, 09:41 AM

Akrasjel Lanate

2012-12-17, 09:45 AM

OK :)

Dragonskin

2012-12-17, 09:51 AM

PS2 is now about attack... attack... attack as thats where the certs are and thats what people want.

I really don't understand why XP for defending a base was removed. Sure, you can add XP bonuses to tasks like repairing, killing, farming attackers, etc... but there was something psychological about seeing that XP pop up when a base was resecured.

I have a feeling even though you probably get around the same (if not sometimes more) XP now then you did before, it still affects people's mentality that there is no "Ding +XXXXP Base Resecured" pop up and thus people tend to not bother.

Its not all about the maths, its also perception.

I agree, but I have a feeling it was changed for the same reason a lot of other things were... to prevent people from AFKing and gaining certs/auraxium. I could see people just going to a tech plant or bio lab and AFKing in the spawn room waiting on defense ticks. They do need to make the 15% defense increase more visible so that people know actively doing things does give you a benefit while defending.

Electrofreak

2012-12-17, 09:52 AM

PS2 is now about attack... attack... attack as thats where the certs are and thats what people want.

I really don't understand why XP for defending a base was removed. Sure, you can add XP bonuses to tasks like repairing, killing, farming attackers, etc... but there was something psychological about seeing that XP pop up when a base was resecured.

I have a feeling even though you probably get around the same (if not sometimes more) XP now then you did before, it still affects people's mentality that there is no "Ding +XXXXP Base Resecured" pop up and thus people tend to not bother.

Its not all about the maths, its also perception.

Yeah but it also introduced some nasty XP exploits via baseflipping.

I can't help but keep humming the same tune that I've been humming since early Beta; using dynamic XP like was done in PS1 would be the answer to a lot of these problems. Maybe it's too much compute load now that we've got so many more players per continent, but if they could find a way to make it work, it'd be the best solution.

Sunrock

2012-12-17, 09:54 AM

I agree, but I have a feeling it was changed for the same reason a lot of other things were... to prevent people from AFKing and gaining certs/auraxium. I could see people just going to a tech plant or bio lab and AFKing in the spawn room waiting on defense ticks. They do need to make the 15% defense increase more visible so that people know actively doing things does give you a benefit while defending.

Yea well... Some need to sit AFK on the flag to influence it and those players usually never get a kill anything as there are other players camping the spawn.

Dragonskin

2012-12-17, 10:01 AM

Yea well... Some need to sit AFK on the flag to influence it and those players usually never get a kill anything as there are other players camping the spawn.

You shouldn't be "AFK" while capping a flag... :lol:.. you aren't helping your arguement.

Sunrock

2012-12-17, 10:08 AM

You shouldn't be "AFK" while capping a flag... :lol:.. you aren't helping your arguement.

Well I did not mean latterly go AFK ofcourse :rolleyes:. But you just sit there doing nothing for 5 min while every one else is racking in kills. And if you don't have maxed out all the influence on the flag it takes for ever for the bar to move...

ThePackage

2012-12-17, 10:08 AM

Yea well... Some need to sit AFK on the flag to influence it and those players usually never get a kill anything as there are other players camping the spawn.

Agreed, this is counter-intuitive to what the game is about. Sitting on a cap point is neither fun or engaging.

The entire way of capturing at the moment just seems so gimmicky and weird. Very rarely is their any sort of tug of war, the bases simply don't allow it. I think a MOBA style defensive system would work quite well in PS2. Where you have a long line of linear objectives that need to go down in order to finally hit the last objective. Some bases try to accomplish this, such as AMP stations, but fall flat because of their layouts. This might be the first time I've ever recommended linear style objectives, but I think it will work better.

Capturing a base should be in the battle, not standing around an "A" for 10 minutes. If I'm going to be standing around a letter for 5-10 minutes, give me something to do. Place objectives in towers with AA, AV, and AI turrets. Push them out of boring bases with no purpose and into useful areas. Turning a point gives you access to those benefits. Allow certain objectives to provide spawning, and give defenders a reason to defend certain targets.

I remember when holding "B" at the crown allowed people to spawn from the current crown spawn area. It actually made the crown attackable and much more fun than it is now.

Oh by the way SoE, these ideas aren't free......Patent Pending.....

mObiusOne

2012-12-17, 10:28 AM

i think you guys need to reconsider the "no sanctuaries because it takes away from the action" mess you keep spewing out every time someone asks. When the continents are put in place, sanctuaries are still a better option then having a home foothold on each continent. Especially if you plan to out lockouts down the line.

SGTalon

2012-12-17, 10:36 AM

Capturing a base should be in the battle, not standing around an "A" for 10 minutes. If I'm going to be standing around a letter for 5-10 minutes, give me something to do. Place objectives in towers with AA, AV, and AI turrets. Push them out of boring bases with no purpose and into useful areas. Turning a point gives you access to those benefits. Allow certain objectives to provide spawning, and give defenders a reason to defend certain targets.

You know. It is actually a bit better than the capture mechanics for the Hack and Hold bases in PS1. There you had to stand around for 15 minutes. I seem to recall setting up and standing around for 15 minutes doing absolutely nothing just in case someone busted in to recap.

So it isn't all that bad. So far there has not been much in the way of organized assaults on bases on the Waterson server. I have yet to come across an actual defense setup at any time that I have been attacking... or defending a base. Not like it was in PS1 anyways.

ThePackage

2012-12-17, 11:53 AM

You know. It is actually a bit better than the capture mechanics for the Hack and Hold bases in PS1. There you had to stand around for 15 minutes. I seem to recall setting up and standing around for 15 minutes doing absolutely nothing just in case someone busted in to recap.

So it isn't all that bad. So far there has not been much in the way of organized assaults on bases on the Waterson server. I have yet to come across an actual defense setup at any time that I have been attacking... or defending a base. Not like it was in PS1 anyways.

I couldn't imagine standing around more than you currently do in some bases right now.

One thing's for sure, the current capture mechanics don't feel right. Perhaps it's the lack of points in large bases such as tech plants and amp stations. I think too much emphasis is placed on organized large platoons attacking or defending a base. The vast majority of players are in smaller squads which simply don't have the resources to turn the tide of battles. If they increased the amount of capture points per base it would allow smaller groups to make a larger impact on the battles, while still maintaining the usefulness of a large platoon.

Whatever they decide, the points need to have more meaning than influence over a base flip. The points need to be interesting and useful.

CaptainTenneal

2012-12-17, 12:09 PM

Also because there are so many conts and servers and no restrictions to any of them, all the population during the rest of the day is so spread out the game is unplayable.

I don't get it why SOE went with this lame multiple server system.

Is there a technical or design reason to have characters bound to a server? Because of my work schedule, I only get to play during the day. All the east/west servers are empty then. If we could pick a server *per session* that would guarantee some action, and it would be good for new players to not be underwhelmed.

ShadetheDruid

2012-12-17, 12:20 PM

Perhaps it's the lack of points in large bases such as tech plants and amp stations.

Mm, now that you mention it, it is a bit weird when tiny outposts (and even towers) have more capture points than the giant main bases.

Figment

2012-12-17, 12:22 PM

Hey they are all nice folks to talk to, it's just that there's a vision difference based on an experience and expectancy difference.

basti

2012-12-17, 12:24 PM

PS1 lattice system promoted "OUTFIT" Play. Re-secures/Back hacking, Ninja LLU runs. These where perfected by outfits and the sole reason why we all played PS1 for so long.

PS2 does not promote that style of play. And only caters for Zergfits that roll 40 Tanks and camp a outposts all night.

If i see a Bio lab under attack. I dont think dam i need to defend that for the sake of the emipre! I think of the farm potential. Not my doing its how the game has been designed.

The Lattice didnt promote outfit play, generators and lattice transmitted base benefits did.

The Lattice in PS1 only promoted zergs, by giving them a clear direction where to go, and where to defend. That may sound good, but once you notice areas like the Akkan Baal Dagon Triangle on Ishundar, or the whole Cyssor clusterfuck, you see how terrible the lattice actually is.

The hex system is actually a better starting point, but it needs improvment. For example, we need proper targets for outfits again. Generators at techplants, those who actually give out the benefit, would work wonders. Amp station and biolab benefits dont matter, they are pointless to being with.
Then, we obviously also need the continent metagame and sanctuarys with it (the two can only exist together. You cant have the continent metagame without sanctuarys).
With this, we actually have proper stuff to do, and fixed the Jojoing thats currently happening on every continent (and it got boring before release...)

Then, later, obviously outfit bases.

As for the base flipping: First of all, we need to get rid of this crappy capture mechanics. The whole "stand at the point and do nothing" is not helping.
We need hack and hold again. A simple, easy to read timer till the base flips, starting to count down once the base got hacked. Time depens on how many surrounding territorys you owned when the hack started, and the timer doesnt change counting down even if you loose all surrounding territorys.
That would allow resecures again, especially those awesome last second resecures.

We shouldnt have left beta, it clearly was to early. But it propably couldnt be helped, so theres no point arguing about that now. Lets just try to get the game in the right direction. :)

MrBloodworth

2012-12-17, 12:46 PM

Proximity Capturing and Mass on point is stupid. ( That's the most constructive word I can use here )

Bring back hacking. You hack a console, its hacked, no need to sit next to it, no need to put mass on point to make it go faster. Hacks take a set amount of time. Its up to the users to defend it, or not. ( Creating a window of opportunity for Defenders )

Also bring back instant hack reversals. Why in the world you would think its fun to have defenders, that are already at a huge disadvantage, have to sit on a point to STOP THE HACK for as long, or longer than the attackers is beyond me.

@Basti, The lattice is for the zerg. Always has been always will be. This is not a flaw, or a bad design. The lattice was more readable to know where to go than the hex system. Providing a focus is not a bad thing. The hex system can stay, but a lattice layer over top, that is dynamic would help.

MrBloodworth

2012-12-17, 12:56 PM

.....

Crator

2012-12-17, 12:59 PM

As for the base flipping: First of all, we need to get rid of this crappy capture mechanics. The whole "stand at the point and do nothing" is not helping.
We need hack and hold again. A simple, easy to read timer till the base flips, starting to count down once the base got hacked. Time depens on how many surrounding territorys you owned when the hack started, and the timer doesnt change counting down even if you loose all surrounding territorys.
That would allow resecures again, especially those awesome last second resecures.

I agree, hack-n-hold is superior to tug-o-war. I also agree that the PS1 hack-n-hold was too simple. 15 minutes for every hack was too long. As you said, the fix is to make the hack time less if you own adjacent hexes.

Of course, that's the first step. Next step is to redesign locations with appropriate attack and defense vectors providing varied game play for different class types. More defensible locations but with different attack vectors. Balance the attack vectors with the defensive capabilities of the location giving more of an edge to defenders.

SGTalon

2012-12-17, 01:45 PM

Mriswith

2012-12-17, 01:57 PM

Well the point is that defending gives you just as many points as attacking as long as there are actually people to defend against, no one wants to just sit alone in an empty base hoping that someone might... attack it.
It's just much more efficient to use the drop in ability to emergency defend when the base is actually getting captured or are under a heavy attack.
Sadly at the point where you actually need to defend then your usually already at a supreme disadvantage due to force disparity.
Personally I'm hoping that this issue will work itself out when there are more outfits around, so you can get an entire squad/platoon deployed to defend at the same time, instead of random people arriving one at the time just to get slaughtered by the opposing force/outfit.

I'm personally disregarding the entire "reward" system here though, because even if your attacking and capturing bases or destroying important nodes/generators the rewards for doing 'important' work for your team is to low.
Even capturing a major 1000 reward base, normally it goes like this -> intense fighting (for a varying time), then you have 10 minutes of simply standing around doing nothing except maybe killing people trying to escape their spawns (that are getting heavily camped at that stage).
And honestly standing around 10mins for a 1k reward is just much less then what you would get from actually killing people / turrets / tanks that I don't feel it matters much in a attack/defense versus points argument.
True getting snubbed off points because your successfully defending instead of attacking is annoying, but the main source of scores is still from actual kills.
And as I mentioned no one wants to simply sit around waiting for a base to get attacked.

I do feel some things should be better rewarded tho (maybe with diminishing returns to reduce any kind of farming).
Some things like standing on capture points (the [#/#] ones) just doesn't give you any return at all.
There are a lot of times I see only 1/2 players standing on a #/6 tech lab capture point for example simply because it just doesn't give you anything while at the same time covering the entrances gives you 200-300 score/minute (which is low if they're actually trying to take the base back) and you still get all the points once those standing at the capture point have succeeded taking the base.

But please do add some defensive bonuses (for people who've actually fought in the base > to prevent afk farming), and some bonus points for capturing a base (maybe dependent on the duration the player spent being one of those at the capture point).

You might even consider increasing the reward for most of the others 'mission' specific objects as well since right now just farming in a heavily populated area gives you waaaay more then any kind of base capture/defense.
Which is a bit sad since a capture/defense objective gives your team a much bigger overall advantage then simply sniping 5 people next to a sunderer ever will (even if sniping 5 people gives you much more points).

Anyway I love the game (although I didn't play PS1 so I don't know what I missed there ;D) but it's starting to feel like it's become a bit of a zerg > objective score farm atm, especially for non squad/outfit players.

Timealude

2012-12-17, 04:03 PM

As for the base flipping: First of all, we need to get rid of this crappy capture mechanics. The whole "stand at the point and do nothing" is not helping.
We need hack and hold again. A simple, easy to read timer till the base flips, starting to count down once the base got hacked. Time depends on how many surrounding territories you owned when the hack started, and the timer doesnt change counting down even if you loose all surrounding territories.
That would allow to resecure again, especially those awesome last second resecures.

I like how they had it in alpha, where you had to walk up the the term, hold E before it started the influence bar. I also think we do need that encryption back simply to just stop a constant zerg of people. Hell Just make the encryption for the Main points rather then the outer garrisons and im sure fights would be alot less fatiguing on defenders.

Crator

2012-12-17, 04:10 PM

Isn't this basically what we have now? Hack and Hold, 15 minute base. Decreases for Adjacency and decreases more if there are more people holding the control area...

Sounds like exactly what you are asking for.

As to the other targets in the base, they have several generators and an SCU. Some are inside some are outside. Seems like it is almost where you want it to be.

Personally I think that the Gate Generators need to be inside the Wall Towers. Make the walls an actual defense point.

No, hack-n-hold allows the empire to know how much time they have left to respond.

The act of hacking, if we are talking about that and not a default E button, requires certs to perform faster. It also requires one hold a REK to perform the hack leaving the person vulnerable. It also produces different strategies for defenders trying to resecure a hack as well as attackers trying to defend the hack...

Pella

2012-12-17, 04:12 PM

The Lattice didnt promote outfit play, generators and lattice transmitted base benefits did.

The Lattice in PS1 only promoted zergs, by giving them a clear direction where to go, and where to defend. That may sound good, but once you notice areas like the Akkan Baal Dagon Triangle on Ishundar, or the whole Cyssor clusterfuck, you see how terrible the lattice actually is.

The hex system is actually a better starting point, but it needs improvment. For example, we need proper targets for outfits again. Generators at techplants, those who actually give out the benefit, would work wonders. Amp station and biolab benefits dont matter, they are pointless to being with.
Then, we obviously also need the continent metagame and sanctuarys with it (the two can only exist together. You cant have the continent metagame without sanctuarys).
With this, we actually have proper stuff to do, and fixed the Jojoing thats currently happening on every continent (and it got boring before release...)

Then, later, obviously outfit bases.

As for the base flipping: First of all, we need to get rid of this crappy capture mechanics. The whole "stand at the point and do nothing" is not helping.
We need hack and hold again. A simple, easy to read timer till the base flips, starting to count down once the base got hacked. Time depens on how many surrounding territorys you owned when the hack started, and the timer doesnt change counting down even if you loose all surrounding territorys.
That would allow resecures again, especially those awesome last second resecures.

We shouldnt have left beta, it clearly was to early. But it propably couldnt be helped, so theres no point arguing about that now. Lets just try to get the game in the right direction. :)

The Lattice system didn't promote outfit play? Sorry but you clearly have no idea what your talking about. PS1 wasnt 1 direction. You had mutiple points to open a continent. Or even more so other continents linked to open. That my friend promoted outfit play.

And the Hex system is ridiculous which promotes the "Zerg". Which has been talked about a Million times already.

Any how Higby has palmed us all off again. This Chinese guy hit the nail on the head.

Rahabib

2012-12-17, 04:27 PM

...
Just for the record, if lattice or sanctuaries were brought up it wasn't by me. I did talk about how a true intercontinental conquest via connected warpgates would come once we had the right number of continents to support it, as well as that a more robust tutorial and training area akin to the PS1 VR training was in the works. To be clear, there are no plans to add a PS1 style "lattice" system or sanctuaries to the game....

The hex system would be fine if you make a few tweaks. i still stand by my stance that if they slowed the sunderer spawns just a bit making defense spawn more often that solves half the problem. Then you can defend almost at a 1:2 ratio much more making it so you can spread out among different points.

Also, make it so you can choose base spawns further away so you can get to the defensible locations from a larger region.

next, having vehicles etc. cost more or have a shorter cool down timer the further from the warp gate. This makes the teams that are pushed (most likely because of population issues) they can spawn more vehicles from the gate and push back the zerg. This also makes tech plants more valuable for the attacking teams.

Finally, lets make it so that continents can be a bit more level. If any team has more than 10% over population they should enter a queue or have it so that their vehicle cool down timers are increased by the amount of over population. Cool down timers are really the only thing that mean much to the vehicle spammers not XP.

sylphaen

2012-12-17, 04:42 PM

Cool down timers are really the only thing that mean much to the vehicle spammers not XP.

Resources are the only "timer" that plays a role in the current system since the timer cooldowns can be eliminated entirely with certs.

IMO, if it went the other way (i.e. certs decrease resource costs/cooldown timer identical for everyone), vehicle players would feel the pinch much faster.

But then what would be the point of resources ? If resources do not matter (or, said differently, do not matter enough to matter) and only the timer cooldown matters, we are back to a PS1 system (which also worked fined btw).

Of course, I am merely discussing ideas, not judging which is best.

Rahabib

2012-12-17, 04:50 PM

Resources are the only "timer" that plays a role in the current system since the timer cooldowns can be eliminated entirely with certs.

IMO, if it went the other way (i.e. certs decrease resource costs/cooldown timer identical for everyone), vehicle players would feel the pinch much faster.

But then what would be the point of resources ? If resources do not matter (or, said differently, do not matter enough to matter) and only the timer cooldown matters, we are back to a PS1 system (which also worked fined btw).

Of course, I am merely discussing ideas, not judging which is best.

well you are right, resources do very little to nothing right now. making them cost more would do pretty much the same thing. But honestly it would have to be almost double before people start to feel it. Its easy to spawn tank after tank as long as you stay alive for more than a few minutes.

Mriswith

2012-12-17, 05:22 PM

Resources are the only "timer" that plays a role in the current system since the timer cooldowns can be eliminated entirely with certs.
Cooldowns can only be reduced to aprox or exactly 50% of the original spawn time last I checked.
So both the cooldown and the resources makes constant vehicle spamming impossible atm, especially on a continent that you don't "own".
I know that resources are *plenty* if you can glide around not dying a lot but honestly if your playing on any continent that you don't have a major territory advantage on then your resources will be pretty sparse.
Especially if you for example need to spam tanks (both the heavy and the normal one) to combat enemy tank groups.
Btw I've got double c4 / dual grenades on my light assault, and oh man I'm running into some serious resources shortage, almost to the point where I would complain that c4 costs to much (it usually forces me to switch from infantry to air/tanks just to regenerate grenades and c4's).

Rivenshield

2012-12-17, 06:44 PM

And the Hex system is ridiculous which promotes the "Zerg". Which has been talked about a Million times already.

Zergs aren't the problem. The problem is that they almost never meet... and when they do, it's a mutual high-speed slaughterfest. It's not even attack and counterattack -- it's two attacks running headlong into each other.

I miss the old days when you could actually, you know, DIG IN and wait for your moment to sally forth. Or even dig in and buy time for the cavalry to show up. Can't do that anymore. Defense is all but physically impossible anywhere except the Crown.

But all of this is a moot point. If you don't like getting stomped by the enemy zerg, just switch sides and instantly join them. Soon you'll be able to take all your certs with you, too. Yay. There isn't a point in adding a cooldown timer, either; people can just install another client. Right? This line of logic is now firmly entrenched in game design, and it can be stretched out as far as you please... and it bids fair to murder this game in its grave.

basti

2012-12-18, 09:37 AM

The Lattice system didn't promote outfit play? Sorry but you clearly have no idea what your talking about. PS1 wasnt 1 direction. You had mutiple points to open a continent. Or even more so other continents linked to open. That my friend promoted outfit play.

And the Hex system is ridiculous which promotes the "Zerg". Which has been talked about a Million times already.

Any how Higby has palmed us all off again. This Chinese guy hit the nail on the head.

Links between continents have nothing to do with this. We will get that once we have 6 continents.

The "multiple points" is simply not true. You have defined points, sometimes more than one, that you could attack directly. But it wasnt just you who saw those options, it was everyone. The zerg just went to the nearest base, knowing that enemys are there. Outfits could do something more sinister (Kusag-Enkidu LLU, Akkan-Hanish LLU, or flanking in general), but the majority of options didnt help you in the long run at all, as they just put you in between the frontlines, resulting in you getting crushed on two fronts, while your zerg is somewhere else.
That isnt outfit play, thats just stupid.

However, what PS1s lattice offered was the ability to kill benefit connections to the frontline, like blowing up Enkidu gen resulting in the enemy loosing the Marduk + Neti (or was it Neit?) + Zarqar + Enkidu benefit, wich hurt a lot if they didnt own Baal and Girru.
So that was a big + of the system.

It wouldnt work in PS2 tho. for once, you absolutly need to spread out people. You cant have two full zergs clashing each other, thats more than 1000 folks in one area, propably even in just one base. That WILL melt the server and result in this annoying render issues.

But i think we can give this a try. Devs said one of the 3 new continents, i believe Oshur, is going to be set up like the PS1 continent. While no details where given what exactly they ment with that, i would love to see the whole thing have a lattice. You can easily fake one together with the Hex system, by simply only giving major bases territorys, have smaller bases only use one single hex (or even none if possible, its just towers without means to pull vehicles anyway), let base territorys connect with each other, and hack up the lattience by deploying uncapturable neutral hexes between bases.

I grab myself a oshur map and make an example, brb. :)

Canaris

2012-12-18, 10:08 AM

Matt often appears like he is an arrogant prick, but he really is a nice guy. Its easy to misunderstand him.

that's like the opposite of what Matt has been to us, I should know I'm arrogant prick and it takes one to know one and I can say hand on heart he ain't ever come across as such.
Sounds to me like misplaced frustration on other peoples part. :(

basti

2012-12-18, 10:39 AM

that's like the opposite of what Matt has been to us, I should know I'm arrogant prick and it takes one to know one and I can say hand on heart he ain't ever come across as such.
Sounds to me like misplaced frustration on other peoples part. :(

I never understood it myself really. Dude is cool, he listens. You are propably right with the frustration part, we humans always search someone or something to blame for stuff we dont like, and for someone who doesnt like PS2, who would be the first guy to blame other than the creative director?

Anyway, Oshur, with a hex lattice thingy ish abomination.

Sorry for the red propaganda, first picture i found.

http://www.abload.de/img/testoshsqkqa.jpeg

Greyish is Neutral, uncapturable territory. Rest is bases.
Towers would be capture points without any territory attached to them.

The lattice is intact, you can only go specific directions, based on what you own, but with the current capture mechanics of "own more surrounding stuff to cap faster" this map simply wont work.

Could propably do a better job at it, especially on other continents (Oshur was a fucked up map really).