Attn SOE: Time to Implement Kill-XP Cooldown Mechanic

[Mordelicius]

Planetside 2 players overwhelmingly want a meaningful, sustained base fights.

SOE want nonstatic, nonpervasive, elastic, wide-open frontlines to avoid base turtling and in turn kill farming (which in turn will hurt their business, due to high rate of earning Certs).

Here's the practical solution to both: Add a cooldown to kill credit everytime a player dies.

Example:
Player A kills Player B. Gets XP points for the kill.
Player B will not get XP kill credit for the next (say) 2-3 minutes.
Player B will also not be able to give XP everytime he dies the next 2-3 minutes.

Every time Player B dies, the cooldown is reset. What will this mechanic do?

1) It will allow SOE to contruct or reconstruct tighter bases without the fear of xp kill farming.

2) It will prevent kill farmers for the sake of gaining cheap XP. That goes for Air units and even exploiters.

3) It will rewards a community that simply wants great balanced, competitive pvp.

4) Players will still get kill credits but the XP farm simply won't be there. If Player A kills Player B 10x every minute for the next ten minutes. Player A gets XP credit for first kill but still get 10 kills.

5) The onus will be on players not to die and reward strategy to kill and not die repeatedly.

SOE will have to adjust the amount of XP per Certs, including the ones already owned by players, but it will solve the divide between SOE and the players.

[Ghoest9]

go away

You dont "fix" the game by making it annoying and unfun.

[Bags]

So dying = no xp? Okay I'm never doing anything but camping on D with a mag rider.

[Wahooo]

This is not the right approach to solve issues. Better base designs would lead to more balanced killing (though defenders usually are on the more beneficial side) and XP that encourages fights... THIS? Only encourages ghosting cap points more rather than shooting and getting shot at.

[Electrofreak]

I may be biased, but I believe implementing dynamic XP gain as I describe in another thread (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51343) to be the more reasonable alternative.

[Bags]

Electro idea is much better. But it was in ps1 so we will never see it in ps2.

[Electrofreak]

Electro idea is much better. But it was in ps1 so we will never see it in ps2.

Hah... there may be a bitter truth in that. Sometimes it seems like the devs intentionally avoid PS1 mechanics. I get that they don't just want to remake the same game, I get that they don't want it to be overly complicated, but I feel like we can make PS2 a game that uses some of the best elements of PS1 while building upon it. There were some good bricks in PS1's foundation.

[Bags]

In all serious the second I did with this implemented I'd jus log off and do LFR in wow since both have a habit of giving me nothing.

[Mordelicius]

This is not the right approach to solve issues. Better base designs would lead to more balanced killing (though defenders usually are on the more beneficial side) and XP that encourages fights... THIS? Only encourages ghosting cap points more rather than shooting and getting shot at.

I'm sorry but imo SOE will not change their base designs to benefit defenders. In fact the opposite is happening. They are systematically eliminating all the farming hotspots (look at the outrage at the Mesa and Techplants). I think the Biolabs are next. Look at the ramps they added. Pretty soon, they will note the Crown as well.

There's a reason why the bases are so wide open, with no place to turtle. They designed it that way. But you're right on one thing. My suggestion shift the focus on base fights rather than pure kills. But it's no different from what is going on right now. Most base 'fights' are just capping empty bases.

The only places left to fight are really the Crown and Biolabs. If they implement this, they can restructure their base-capping, base defense mechanics around the concept.

[Heavygain]

Lol, this is the least of PS2's problems. Don't fix it if it's not broken.

[Mordelicius]

I may be biased, but I believe implementing dynamic XP gain as I describe in another thread (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51343) to be the more reasonable alternative.

I doubt SOE would acquiesce to that because again, they simply don't want base turtling that will evolve to cert farming. What SOE is trying to avoid is easy Cert farming for players.

That will just speed up the demise of the Crown because it would be even more prime area for defense farming. They destroyed the Techplants for that very same reason. I wouldn't be suprised if they add loads of jumppads toward the crown.

[Bags]

Why would scaling xp add to farming D? In ps2 attackers live like 5 seconds.

[Wahooo]

So, you are assuming SOE's concerns are that certs are too easy to come by with defense and that the changes were made that made bases so undefendable was because... SOE thought defenders were making too many certs? It wasn't because people were whining about not being able to win by zerging through a choke point?

I honestly don't understand what the actual problem you see and how your suggestion is a solution. What has been brought up in these other threads about base design and the dynamic XP is trying to find a way to make the game more about fighting and the fun of killing each other in a competitive way. Your suggestion does not do that.

In fact it makes so little sense i'm sure it will be implemented soon.

[maradine]

I'm trying to figure out when holding an objective successfully turned into "cert farming". Why bother with captureable territory at all if we're going to flatten fights?

[Electrofreak]

I doubt SOE would acquiesce to that because again, they simply don't want base turtling that will evolve to cert farming. What SOE is trying to avoid is easy Cert farming for players.

That will just speed up the demise of the Crown because it would be even more prime area for defense farming. They destroyed the Techplants for that very same reason. I wouldn't be suprised if they add loads of jumppads toward the crown.

I fail to see how a system that rewards XP for capturing a base dependent upon the duration and intensity of the battle encourages "base turtling" and "cert farming". The system still benefits the attacker more than the defender, which was still a sore point in PS1 for defenders.

All the system really does is discourage spawn farming by providing more tempting alternatives (such as actually blowing up an AMS Sunderer instead of farming it as Figment mentioned in my thread) and preventing the zerg rushing to whatever base is on the cusp of being captured, instead continuing to fight at a contested base or attacking a new territory.

So if you can explain how that lends itself to the type of gameplay you describe, I'm all ears.

[Juryrig]

Player A kills Player B. Gets XP points for the kill.
Player B will not get XP kill credit for the next (say) 2-3 minutes.


Player B starts the game for the first time, gets dropped into battle, gets shot. And then you tell him he can't earn XP for the next three minutes, because he died?

You could just prevent any new players from downloading the client instead, that would save them the trouble of having to install it, play once and uninstall it again.

Stopping anyone getting XP for a period of time because they got killed is not a good idea. At all.

If someone is better than me? Great. I get killed, he gets XP.
If someone being better than me results in me being locked out of the opportunity to progress for an arbitrary time? Not great, I stop playing, and hence spending money on microtransactions.

[Elgareth]

Player B starts the game for the first time, gets dropped into battle, gets shot. And then you tell him he can't earn XP for the next three minutes, because he died?

You could just prevent any new players from downloading the client instead, that would save them the trouble of having to install it, play once and uninstall it again.

Stopping anyone getting XP for a period of time because they got killed is not a good idea. At all.

If someone is better than me? Great. I get killed, he gets XP.
If someone being better than me results in me being locked out of the opportunity to progress for an arbitrary time? Not great, I stop playing, and hence spending money on microtransactions.

Agreed. The Result would be:
Player B, not being able to get XP anyway just AFKs at the Warpgate/Safe Base X for the next 3 Minutes, before he goes to battle again.
Furthermore, should he not wait, and instead risk getting his timer reset AGAIN, without even gaining ANYTHING during that time, and Player C shoots him, he gains nothing for killing Player B.
That system is bad on so many levels... dynamic XP sounds good enough, every Player is worth a small amount of Base-XP, which increases the longer he lives (small increments), and the more Kills/Captures/XP he gained during his life.

But this idea here... no... just no, it penalizes People who take a shot for their team, and that should be encouraged, NOT penalized...

[Bags]

I still don't understand what problem this would fix?

Having fun?

[Calisai]

The only places left to fight are really the Crown and Biolabs. If they implement this, they can restructure their base-capping, base defense mechanics around the concept.

I swear its an attempt to improve performance by thinning out the herd. The less players jammed in a single area, the better the performance of the server. The old tech plant farms were pretty epic. That is when you were able to see the hundreds of players zerging in... but then draw distance issues happened... and grenade spam, etc.

Breaking the tech plant into outlying fights over the gens and making it a courtyard fight will help with performance... but with the unfortunate side-effect of making it a much more vehicle-centric fight.

[Lieken]

All I took from this poorly worded post is that I kill one guy, then that guy is worth no XP for the next 2-3 minutes?

No, fuck that

[Memeotis]

Well, if you are trying to prevent/discourage spawn-farming...

How about this:

Player A kills Player B
-> Upon respawning, it takes 60 (or more?) seconds for Player B to return to full kill-value (5xp added to his kill-value every 3 seconds) with relation to Player A
-> However, it takes only 20 seconds for Player B to return to full kill-value (5xp added to his kill-value every second) with relation to Player C

What would this do?

It would discourage people that are already camping/farming, because campers would see a sharp drop in their ratio of:

Point gain
Time spent camping

However, it would also discourage players like Player C from joining in on the farming, because even if he was to participate briefly, the point gain would be meager.

But of course player C shouldn't be punished for not partaking in the farming process, which is why the timer for him should be shorter. It could even be as short as 10 seconds, but that is a balance issue.

What this would do is discourage the zerg by creating a sort of invisible "bubble-of-low-exp" around the spawn area. This means that spawn camping would mostly occur for tactical reasons, and if tactics are already involved, the organized group might choose to just take out the spawn-generator instead.

[maradine]

This means that spawn camping would mostly occur for tactical reasons, and if tactics are already involved, the organized group might choose to just take out the spawn-generator instead.

Spawn camping already occurs for tactical reasons. What I find entertaining is that you feel that the "camped" party isn't also a rational actor, and isn't choosing to spawn right back into that fight for tactical reasons.

[Memeotis]

Spawn camping already occurs for tactical reasons. What I find entertaining is that you feel that the "camped" party isn't also a rational actor, and isn't choosing to spawn right back into that fight for tactical reasons.

If you are being spawn-camped, and you are part of an organized squad, choosing a different spawn-point becomes a rational option very quickly, because you know that if you take a short break from the action, you can get organized and have a large impact when you return to the battle.

But if you are a lone-wolf, it takes a lot longer for you choose to spawn elsewhere, because you don't have the same degree of certainty that spawning elsewhere will actually benefit you. Instead the temptation of maybe getting a couple of kills around the spawn-point makes you overlook the fact that you are being camped.

[Duckforceone]

wow.. so you want the standard player to be unable to earn xp, unless he starts camping in vehicles????

my my that's a truly bad idea you have there...

i can live with the, only gives xp reward to a specific player once every 1-3 minutes.. but that he himself becomes unable to earn xp due to being killed, that's just bad. Like really really apocalyptic 21st mayan bad...

[maradine]

But if you are a lone-wolf, it takes a lot longer for you choose to spawn elsewhere, because you don't have the same degree of certainty that spawning elsewhere will actually benefit you. Instead the temptation of maybe getting a couple of kills around the spawn-point makes you overlook the fact that you are being camped.

Sounds like he just made a risk decision.

[Lonehunter]

Horrible design solution, this is like using a flamethrower to get rid of a puddle in a building. Sure it may eventually get the job done but it's going to fuck up a lot of shit and piss people off.

[Sledgecrushr]

I like xp, so no.

[Juryrig]

Spawn camping already occurs for tactical reasons. What I find entertaining is that you feel that the "camped" party isn't also a rational actor, and isn't choosing to spawn right back into that fight for tactical reasons.

My tactical reason is to drop a long-lasting ammo pack right behind the crowd firing out of the door.

Then go respawn someplace more fun :lol:

[Mordelicius]

It seems I wasn't clear enough why I made this post :D. I made this post after reading so much Base Design threads.

My point is, the only way to convince Sony to change their open-ended Base Design is give up fast XP farming.

The current base design favors attackers not defenders. Hence you have cries of "nobody is defending". You have cries of "Zerging empty bases". You have cries of "where's the fight?" While the suggestions on changing bases are arguably well-meaning, it's all player-centric. Sony's position wasn't even part of the discussion or equation. It means SOE ain't gonna bite because the faster players farm their kill, the less they sell the Certs and XP boosts.

The only way for Sony to bite and change their base design philosphy to allow turtling, camping and heck even kill farming (different from xp farming), is to incorporate a Kill-XP cooldown mechanic. I lifted this mechanic from my favorite MMO where it worked wonders over there, by focusing players unto objectives (The GMs found a way ruin the game in another way but that's another story :( ).

Players prefer:
Defensive Bases (favors defenders) + Easy kill farm

Sony prefer:
Open Bases (favors attackers ) + Slow kills

The current system is a mix of both:
Open Bases (favors attacks) + Easy Kill farm

What I'm suggesting is a reverse. If Sony is to ever make highly defensible base, then the kill farms has to go:

Defensive Bases ( favors defenders ) + Slow kills ( Kill XP cooldown mechanic)

Now that doesn't mean getting XP is now impossible. Sony still has to adjust the XP per Certs ratio. Suppose, put it at 50 XP per certs. This system also shift focus on the objectives themselves. That means the priority is kill for the objective. The current system forces to players to go to a base to farm. It's never about objectives anymore. Also, 2-3 minutes may also a bit too high for this type of gameplay. Perhaps, 1-2 minute cooldown would be better?

Lastly, I still think they are systematically removing all the kill farm zones because it will hurt their Certs and XP boost business.

So yeah, take a pick. But I don't think we will have a defensible base and easy kill farming. Just look at how fast they took down the Techplant. They could have turned the Amp station to an easy version of the Techplant by adding two doors on each side of the main building. Instead, they made Tech plants an easy version of an Amp station.

I think the time is now while they are still constructing the new continents to give out our best suggestions. Because, if not, we'll be stuck with the same ole base concepts.

[Mordelicius]

Player B starts the game for the first time, gets dropped into battle, gets shot. And then you tell him he can't earn XP for the next three minutes, because he died?

You could just prevent any new players from downloading the client instead, that would save them the trouble of having to install it, play once and uninstall it again.

Stopping anyone getting XP for a period of time because they got killed is not a good idea. At all.

If someone is better than me? Great. I get killed, he gets XP.
If someone being better than me results in me being locked out of the opportunity to progress for an arbitrary time? Not great, I stop playing, and hence spending money on microtransactions. Yeah, sorry I wasn't clear with my opening post.

My suggestion is contingent on SOE on making a more defensible base. This suggestion isn't for the current base design.

They fix the bases to be more defensible and as a tradeoff, we lose the kill farms because it will turn to choke point battles for the most part. There will be alot more kills but it's not farm-able in XP points

[Wahooo]

My point is, the only way to convince Sony to change their open-ended Base Design is give up fast XP farming.
Only way? No it isn't the ONLY way.

While the suggestions on changing bases are arguably well-meaning, it's all player-centric. Sony's position wasn't even part of the discussion or equation. It means SOE ain't gonna bite because the faster players farm their kill, the less they sell the Certs and XP boosts.

And why wouldn't the enjoyment of the game be player-centric? There has been no change to XP gained by many people the changes they've made have just turned it to zerging attackers instead of defenders.
.

Look, the game's concept of large battles, epic long fights for small patches of territory.

PLANNING, TEAMWORK AND COMMUNICATION!
In PlanetSide 2 battles can last for days or even weeks, and finally taking control of the base means it's yours until someone can take it back. Working strategically as a team to capture key tactical positions such as power plants and ammo depots have long-lasting effects that can shift the tide of battle. Victory requires strategic teamwork and a quick trigger finger to survive the massive battles. (http://www.planetside2.com/overview)

THAT REQUIRES DEFENSIBLE BASES. You are assuming a lot about what SOE wants, and I personally don't think you are correct in those assumptions about SOE's concerns.

[boogy]

I swear its an attempt to improve performance by thinning out the herd. The less players jammed in a single area, the better the performance of the server. The old tech plant farms were pretty epic. That is when you were able to see the hundreds of players zerging in... but then draw distance issues happened... and grenade spam, etc.


This is probably the truth. Although the results they got was a thinning out of the server population instead. People go to places like the crown and old tech plant because they had fun, not because of some cert/xp formula. Remove the fun and people remove themselves from the game.

[Mordelicius]

Look, the game's concept of large battles, epic long fights for small patches of territory.

PLANNING, TEAMWORK AND COMMUNICATION!
In PlanetSide 2 battles can last for days or even weeks, and finally taking control of the base means it's yours until someone can take it back. Working strategically as a team to capture key tactical positions such as power plants and ammo depots have long-lasting effects that can shift the tide of battle. Victory requires strategic teamwork and a quick trigger finger to survive the massive battles. (http://www.planetside2.com/overview)

THAT REQUIRES DEFENSIBLE BASES. You are assuming a lot about what SOE wants, and I personally don't think you are correct in those assumptions about SOE's concerns.

Then give a plausible reason why the almost current bases are designed this way? There are no place to turtle, camp or farm. The remaining hotspots are Biolabs and the Crown. Every room you go to there's a flank, a window or a second door. Every bases, there are numerous entry points.

The only reason I can think of is they are eliminating all high kill hotspots so they can sell more xp boosts and certs. They could have turned the Amp Station into a Techplant by adding two doors in to building A. Insteady, they turned Techplants into Amp Station.

Who the heck doesn't love Tech Plants? The sheer majority of players loved the old Tech Plants for its epic meatgrinder battles.

[Wahooo]

There are a lot of possibilities. The Devs didn't respect the simplemindedness of much of the player base. They didn't expect the level of rage quit to the zerg and the inability of so many to actually think and act tactically. The Sunderer had the shield diffuser for a reason, but the mindless zerg marching headlong into the grenade spam of the techplant double doorways couldn't grasp the concept.

There was some thought given to tactics and base offense but there were two problems. Some of the devs ideas about defense seems to be very wrong and over complicated I would assume, AND they caved in to the people who were quitting because they were getting farmed non-stop at the back door of those tech-plants.

I really believe they thought the attacking vehicles coming into the AMP stations and around the tech plants could be countered by a defensive push out with vehicles and HA/maxes. They are simply wrong. it becomes a choke point in reverse. There is only one major direction the defenders can try and push out from and the attackers are all over. No room to maneuver, no hope of success. They over reached in their thoughts about the zerg being able to use tactics to attack, they countered with to simplistic an approach and seem to have over reached on their thoughts about what a defending force is able to do.

I really fail to see where XP grinding and the buying of boosts comes into the decisions at all. They know the money comes in if people are playing, what they are concerned with is the people who are quitting and why. Obviously the numbers of people who quit because the techplants were farming them are higher than the number of people who are quitting because the bases and hexes changes hands so quickly and easily.

[boogy]

There are a lot of possibilities. The Devs didn't respect the simplemindedness of much of the player base. They didn't expect the level of rage quit to the zerg and the inability of so many to actually think and act tactically. The Sunderer had the shield diffuser for a reason, but the mindless zerg marching headlong into the grenade spam of the techplant double doorways couldn't grasp the concept.

There was some thought given to tactics and base offense but there were two problems. Some of the devs ideas about defense seems to be very wrong and over complicated I would assume, AND they caved in to the people who were quitting because they were getting farmed non-stop at the back door of those tech-plants.

I really believe they thought the attacking vehicles coming into the AMP stations and around the tech plants could be countered by a defensive push out with vehicles and HA/maxes. They are simply wrong. it becomes a choke point in reverse. There is only one major direction the defenders can try and push out from and the attackers are all over. No room to maneuver, no hope of success. They over reached in their thoughts about the zerg being able to use tactics to attack, they countered with to simplistic an approach and seem to have over reached on their thoughts about what a defending force is able to do.

I really fail to see where XP grinding and the buying of boosts comes into the decisions at all. They know the money comes in if people are playing, what they are concerned with is the people who are quitting and why. .

Did you even do tech plant battles much? I spent a lot of time in the old tech plant battles and saw a lot of tactics going on as well as mindless moment to moment fighting. I saw the AMS kitted out with the shield diffusers work. I saw it countered pretty effectively with tank mines.

Obviously the numbers of people who quit because the techplants were farming them are higher than the number of people who are quitting because the bases and hexes changes hands so quickly and easily

I highly doubt this. We only saw the decline in pops happen after the tech plant change. It could be coincidence, but that is when it started happening.
Besides you weren't forced to go the tech plant like you're not forced to go to the crown. But when you remove the tech plant you removed something a fucken lot of people loved.

[velleity]

SoE nerfed tech plants to end the raging about touching-tips-length rendering, which was making them the laughing stock of the internet.

The cynicism of the three week shield breaker special prior was priceless.

[boogy]

I'm sure it was the rendering/server issue. Somehow I thought it was cool we the players could break the game like that because of our awesome baddass epic battles. If this was the reason, they should of did something else besides that crappy wack-a-generator bullcrap that's in the amp station. I hate the amp station because it's a tedious frustrating thing to capture or defend. Run forever to the gen to repair or hack, get killed, rinse and repeat. Wack-a-mole at its finest. I'll admit the current Tech Plant is much funner than the Amp Station, but just pales in comparison to the old glory days.

[Brusi]

Timer that reduces the XP given for a person who keeps spawnming themselves will also limit the amount people try to stat-pad, off on a far away location of the base ;p