Ghost capping zergs - air domination everywhere else - wordt 2x event ever.

[Ghoest9]

-No one is defending because its a total waste of time xp wise.

-So attackers are just moving in giant zergs from undefended base to base(which are even harder to defend against).

-If you try messing around in smaller forces you are quickly dominated by air.



Thers is practically no fighting for anyone except air picking off clueless small groups. And Noob defenders who get rolled imediatly when the zerg shows up.
This is not fun.
Im hardly kiling anyone any more(and my average k/d is still about the same.)




EDIT: Ghost capping zergs - air domination everywhere else - WORST 2x event ever.(if a mod could happen to fix my title that would be nice.)

[Thunderhawk]

The fliers dont care as long as they're getting the points, and the zerg doesnt care as long as its gettign the points, so I can only assume you're being steamrolled by both ?

Wait till prime time, when things settle down, the Double XP is going to be on for a week, so the mad rush to get kills today will quiten down and average out over the course of the week.

[Ghoest9]

The fliers dont care as long as they're getting the points, and the zerg doesnt care as long as its gettign the points, so I can only assume you're being steamrolled by both ?

Wait till prime time, when things settle down, the Double XP is going to be on for a week, so the mad rush to get kills today will quiten down and average out over the course of the week.

Last night was this way too.
The game play has changed - mainly because this is the most rational choice at group level.

But my guess is that zerg DOES care at an individual level and its making players unhappy.

[Sifer2]

Yeah it's like this even during normal gameplay just amplified by double xp time.

There are several root causes of the behavior:

Bases for the most part are too difficult to defend. AMP station especially. But now also the Tech Plant after the changes. The Bio Lab is the only one where defenders have a chance if they don't greatly outnumber attackers. Outposts of course feel like a waste of time to defend to begin with since most of them are not placed in strategically significant areas, and there is nothing like lattice to force you to care about them. You just grab them after they are empty for free xp.

Lack of direction. The sheer number of places to go causes people to scatter. Nothing like lattice to force the zergs to fight each other. So they end up going around each other as it's easier an more profitable. But ultimately more boring. I don't necessarily feel the map is too big. Just that there are too many junk outposts that draw people apart, an encourage ghost capping.

Air is highly mobile which perfectly adapts to this flawed gameplay. When your in an ESF you never miss out on free ghost cap. Just watch the map an zoom to wherever is about to flip to your side. It's also easy to pick off all those scattered ground forces with pods. You also see Liberators taking advantage of the above mentioned poorly defensible bases by spawn camping the completely open unprotected outdoor spawn rooms.

[Malorn]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

[Joeaniator]

i think no one defends is because it is just so hard against big groups u have no chance because there is no walls around the small outposts and towers. I have been in planetside 2 since a month after the beta started and i and all my squad have not managed to defend a base against a armor colom or air squadrent even though we have the bigger numbers, you are just to exsposes in the bases and there is not enough defences (turrets, Walls, Trenches and ceilings to prevent air strike it is a very good game but when you get attacked you have no chance against big zergs (not organized)

[PurpleOtter]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

With no apparent gain to base defense vrs. capping unoccupied territory for the benefit of acquiring 'certs to pay for unlocks at extortion level prices why would anyone do anything else? I realize that much of the current meta game design choices are deliberate, but from a player perspective I don't think it is working as intended. You, the collective "you" at SOE, made some design decisions that are at odds with each other. After unlocking the three load out slots EXP is meaningless and 'certs are the only real currency in game. The other major issue is base design and layout. I get that you want to encourage "game flow" and discourage protracted sieges, but the structures as they are currently are basically markers for places to meet and shoot at each other. The wise cracks about no doors or windows on Auraxis really are apt!

[Tatwi]

I think it's simply a matter of people taking the path of least resistance to "win". It's no different than Alterac Valley in WoW. Even though the original rules for AV were better for encouraging long PvP battles with neat player driven events, quite a few of those events are still in AV today, yet they are never used. Instead, both sides pass each other in the field and complete the PvE objectives in a race to see who will "win" first. And people complain when one side "turtles", forcing PvP by actually defending their own base and PvE objectives. Personally, the most fun I had in WoW PvP was an AV turtle.

Sadly, it seems that's not what people want. Some want a good fight, while most just want to maximize their xp per hour.

If SOE removed XP, certs, and resources then folks might actually fight each other more consistently. There would be nothing else to "optimize" or "maximize" or "min/max", etc. Terrible suggestion of course, but it proves the point that the problem is with the players and not the game. We can't have nice things (like balanced character advancement through side grades), because people focus on the wrong things, losing sight of the purpose of the game: to have fun blowing stuff up with your friends.

[Ghoest9]

I think the causes are fairly straight forward.

1 playing defense doesnt earn many certs for ~70-90% of the players anymore. Playing offense always earns cert(if you move with the zerg.)

2 Medium size groups(10-30 players) are not viable unless they are highly organized with their own dedicated air support to defend them from enemy air roamers.

[Figment]

-No one is defending because its a total waste of time xp wise.

-So attackers are just moving in giant zergs from undefended base to base(which are even harder to defend against).

-If you try messing around in smaller forces you are quickly dominated by air.

Wait.


Wasn't it you who said people should always up and leave bases when they were outnumb... I mean "lost" the outpost?

Wasn't it you who said people shouldn't expect to be able to make a defensive stand?




So now that people actually do up and leave and avoid the zerg they can't beat, probably even log or log onto the winning empire's side because winning nets you exp and defe... I mean, "losing", doesn't, you complain about lack of targets to shoot and lack of fighting?



Nice.

[Biohazard]

Dynamic base defense XP, the longer and harder the fight the more you get. This would be a powerful incentive to fight and seek the enemy.

[Figment]

Dynamic base defense XP, the longer and harder the fight the more you get. This would be a powerful incentive to fight and seek the enemy.

Definitely. Same for resecures (maintain that a resecure should be instant, rather than tug-o-war).

[Ghoest9]

Wait.


Wasn't it you who said people should always up and leave bases when they were outnumb... I mean "lost" the outpost?

Wasn't it you who said people shouldn't expect to be able to make a defensive stand?




So now that people actually do up and leave and avoid the zerg they can't beat, probably even log or log onto the winning empire's side because winning nets you exp and defe... I mean, "losing", doesn't, you complain about lack of targets to shoot and lack of fighting?



Nice.

No that is not what I said - and lets not muck this thread up with personal stuff. I like insulting you but If you want to fake call me out do it in another thread.

[PurpleOtter]

I think it's simply a matter of people taking the path of least resistance to "win". It's no different than Alterac Valley in WoW. Even though the original rules for AV were better for encouraging long PvP battles with neat player driven events, quite a few of those events are still in AV today, yet they are never used. Instead, both sides pass each other in the field and complete the PvE objectives in a race to see who will "win" first. And people complain when one side "turtles", forcing PvP by actually defending their own base and PvE objectives. Personally, the most fun I had in WoW PvP was an AV turtle.

Sadly, it seems that's not what people want. Some want a good fight, while most just want to maximize their xp per hour.

If SOE removed XP, certs, and resources then folks might actually fight each other more consistently. There would be nothing else to "optimize" or "maximize" or "min/max", etc. Terrible suggestion of course, but it proves the point that the problem is with the players and not the game. We can't have nice things (like balanced character advancement through side grades), because people focus on the wrong things, losing sight of the purpose of the game: to have fun blowing stuff up with your friends.

Imagine if they did the following:

1. Hid stats like K/D
2. Cert's were only passive gain via time played
3. Reduced the cost of unlocks by 50%
4. Upped the resource cost per vehicle/aircraft and extended the timer

[Sturmhardt]

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Uhm.. what do you think it is? It's exactly what folks have been complaining about since beta: The fucked up hex system. People are encoureaged NOT to search the fight, it's always easier to cap stuff that is not contested. It's a very old problem and nothing new and it's built into the hex system - as you probably know because you have been one of the good posters here once.

I don't have an easy solution for this and I don't want to suggest the lattice here, but right now this lonesome zerg (without opposition) behavior is highly encouraged by the hex system.

Edit: The incentive to NOT engage your enemy also is a problem on a meta level. If one faction has a strong presence on one continent, the other 2 automatically go somewhere else where they can be the winning zerg steamrolling empty bases.

[SeraphC]

2 Medium size groups(10-30 players) are not viable unless they are highly organized with their own dedicated air support to defend them from enemy air roamers.

You can definitely fight off air if you man and repair your turrets. Other than that just target them and hit them with anything available. It's not like they have a giant HP pool and if they're AG they have to come in close.

[Figment]

No that is not what I said - and lets not muck this thread up with personal stuff. I like insulting you but If you want to fake call me out do it in another thread.

ô_ó

I'm calling you out on hypocrisy, that's not personal and it isn't an insult.

But interesting to know you simply like to insult someone. That explains a lot regarding your rude behaviour towards others. Anyway.




In this thread you complain that there's nobody defending. Correct? The problem is, you tell people to not actively defend bases yourself:


Spawn camping is not a a problem.
IT DOESNT NEED A SOLUTION.


The only problem is that we have players stupid enough to feed the campers when they should realize they have lost the battle.

I believe that's you saying those silly things, right? Here you tell them - along with some other people you agree with - that people should L2P and spawn somewhere else.

Now that they do that, it's also a problem, because they're not fighting the zerg directly and not stalling them and even avoiding them (rather than what you had in mind, form up and attack). In fact, they're attacking somewhere they can make some headway (which is technically the same thing as spawning elsewhere).


People would stay and defend if they actually get a fighting chance and have the capacity to push back even in the face of severe numerical disadvantages. Since this isn't possible and they just feel useless being camped and fighting back from the next spawnpoint is equally impossible for most groups, they'll just move right out of the way.

If they can dig in and have the upper hand over attackers, they wouldn't up and leave. Why? Because then it becomes fun and you feel you're doing something worthwhile. And on top of that, you'd actually get a decent cert gain. Plus, the zerg would get stalled long enough for your side to call for reinforcements, get your zerg to attack or flank their zerg etc. Currently you simply don't get that much time, because attacking is WAY. WAY. WAY. too easy.



And that's entirely down to spawncamping being so easy. It is the easiest way to make experience points, it is very attractive to roll in groups that can just roll over bases, start camping and capture the base in terms of experience points. And yes, because you don't get any defensive advantages that you can turn into experience through kills, nor do you get a chance to reset or push back out, yes, defense is not attractive.

And of course you see that behaviour of apathy spike when cert grinding is involved. Hell, you see that in the aircraft groups that fly from territory about to be captured to territory about to be captured, to net as much extra exp as possible, without actually having been present during a fight. If there ever was any.

Dynamic Exp based on activity (as PS1 vets been saying since what, early beta?) needs to come back in. Defensibility needs to be improved, of every base: in terms of spawn building design, outpost design and capture mechanic design.




Yet here you are stating base design has nothing to do with it, hell, you state yourself that people should just up and leave when they're losing. And you simply never realised that whether or not they come back with a vehicle, they still wouldn't be able to make a stand against that zerg. You still won't realise that organising sufficient groups to come help you fight a zerg is in this game pretty damn near impossible due to lacking coordination tools until everyone is pushed back to the warpgate.

In such a context, can you blame people when they try to avoid the zerg and at least net some exp? Can you blame people when attack is so easy that netting a lot of exp is best done in huge groups? Can you blame people that they don't want to waste the few resources they have on fighting a zerg that has next to no attrition and where the defender has to make all the logistical efforts?

You state it's down to lacking exp gain for defense. Even if that was, even without a base defense capture bonus (WHICH YOU WOULDN'T GET AGAINST A ZERG ANYWAY WHEN SPAWNCAMPED), exp gain is still directly related at how effective you are in the field.

Since you're not allowed to be effective in the field against larger numbers, nobody is going to bother and they will just do what does seems rewarding: reconquering territory you lost to the zerg, which is best done by avoiding and bypassing the zerg.

Small groups simply have it way too hard and there's simply nothing you can do with exp incentives alone to change that unless you go ridiculous and provide a huge multitude of exp per kill in territory that's yours.

But even then, people would get sick of the spawncamping with no hope of making a difference very fast.

[Figment]

You can definitely fight off air if you man and repair your turrets. Other than that just target them and hit them with anything available. It's not like they have a giant HP pool and if they're AG they have to come in close.

Question, how do you repair turrets that instantly die due to the sheer volume of fire - if the engineer even lasts that long due to HE and sniper spam on an exposed ledge?

[mcFlaw]

It's actually pretty easy to defend against roaming ESF. Get 4-5 dual burster maxes, a few more if you only got one burster per max, a couple of engies and heavies with grounders, and you clean the air above you very quickly.
This is doable by any 12 man squad out there. Just takes a minuscule of coordination.

The problem tend to come when you get steamrolled with a huge amount of ESF, Libs and ground vehicles at the same time. But then we're talking about a vastly superior enemy and you _should_ get steamrolled.

Regarding the bigger issue of zergs avoiding each other:
It is indeed a result of people following the path of least resistance. There's no fix for that behavior. What SOE needs to look at is WHY avoiding fighting in big fights is good. Big fights should be the best and most rewarding you can do, if big fights is what SOE wants to see.

I don't think there's a magic quickfix for it but here's a few problem areas worth looking at:
1. Cap rewards for undefended bases. Maybe scale the reward on how hard the fight for it was? On how long YOU were there fighting more precisely. Have it start from zero and go up. That way the ESF who swoops in just before a cap wouldn't gain as much. Hardy anything at all ideally. Ghostcapping (capping an undefended base) should give almost no exp at all as well. Then people would only bother with it when they need the base for tactical reasons. Compensate all this with an increased max amount of exp upon capture. Getting a huge bonus after finally taking that techlab you've been attacking for the last 3 hours would be something players would like very much I think. :)

2. Exp bonuses for defense. I know SOE have said this is in the game already, but I haven't noticed it. Perhaps increase it to a point where people actually start to seek it out?

3. More interesting defensive options. Add layered defense lines to the bigger outposts. Small walls with vehicle shields. Turrets on each wall layer that can be powered down by generators inside that layer. Trenches. You name it. Something more than just the successful defense/spawncamped that it is now. Definitely do something about the way a tank column can just circle an outpost and blast everyone within to kingdom come.

Making people want to fight a stronger enemy (i.e. a bigger zerg) is hard. Removing other means for easy effortless exp is a good start.
Having a latice system won't help much I think. It would help with focusing the big clashes we already have and make the back and forth on the continent at large more predictable and slower (a good thing!), but do little to encourage the individual player to charge that zerg.

To sum it up:
The best way to get exp must be to charge that big zerg. Even when you are on the losing side.

[Ghoest9]

It's actually pretty easy to defend against roaming ESF. Get 4-5 dual burster maxes, a few more if you only got one burster per max, a couple of engies and heavies with grounders, and you clean the air above you very quickly.
This is doable by any 12 man squad out there. Just takes a minuscule of coordination.

The problem tend to come when you get steamrolled with a huge amount of ESF, Libs and ground vehicles at the same time. But then we're talking about a vastly superior enemy and you _should_ get steamrolled.

Regarding the bigger issue of zergs avoiding each other:
It is indeed a result of people following the path of least resistance. There's no fix for that behavior. What SOE needs to look at is WHY avoiding fighting in big fights is good. Big fights should be the best and most rewarding you can do, if big fights is what SOE wants to see.

I don't think there's a magic quickfix for it but here's a few problem areas worth looking at:
1. Cap rewards for undefended bases. Maybe scale the reward on how hard the fight for it was? On how long YOU were there fighting more precisely. Have it start from zero and go up. That way the ESF who swoops in just before a cap wouldn't gain as much. Hardy anything at all ideally. Ghostcapping (capping an undefended base) should give almost no exp at all as well. Then people would only bother with it when they need the base for tactical reasons. Compensate all this with an increased max amount of exp upon capture. Getting a huge bonus after finally taking that techlab you've been attacking for the last 3 hours would be something players would like very much I think. :)

2. Exp bonuses for defense. I know SOE have said this is in the game already, but I haven't noticed it. Perhaps increase it to a point where people actually start to seek it out?

3. More interesting defensive options. Add layered defense lines to the bigger outposts. Small walls with vehicle shields. Turrets on each wall layer that can be powered down by generators inside that layer. Trenches. You name it. Something more than just the successful defense/spawncamped that it is now. Definitely do something about the way a tank column can just circle an outpost and blast everyone within to kingdom come.

Making people want to fight a stronger enemy (i.e. a bigger zerg) is hard. Removing other means for easy effortless exp is a good start.
Having a latice system won't help much I think. It would help with focusing the big clashes we already have and make the back and forth on the continent at large more predictable and slower (a good thing!), but do little to encourage the individual player to charge that zerg.

To sum it up:
The best way to get exp must be to charge that big zerg. Even when you are on the losing side.

You are comments on how small forces should be steams rolled by more powerful air group is exactly why the zerg rules. A group of 15-30 is only loosely organized can avoid a more powerful ground force. That means the powerful force can keep them from prime obhjective but they cant stop them cold. But a more modest izell air group can pretty much shut them out of a whole continent. 15 players loosely flying together in a pick up squadrenn 5 libs and 5 ESF are much more powerful than 30 grounds troops in a pick up platoon.

[Bocheezu]

The zerg always takes the same path after capping specific bases, usually in a direction towards the nearest big base. For instance, after breaking out of Allatum, TR zerg will always go west to NS Secure Data Lab and on to Hvar. They will never go to Vanu Archives because that would require them to get out of their vehicles and go in the teleporter to cap it. There also isn't a nice, obvious road that goes straight there from Allatum. NS Secure Data Lab lets people just roll in with their tanks, camp the spawn, and get their 1 cert point for driving over there. It's just a speedbump to Hvar, where the TR zerg on Mattherson tends to get chewed up by all the Vanu air coming out of the warpgate. Then TR get pushed back to Allatum and the farm begins anew.

Sometimes Vanu will break out on the west side through Quartz Ridge, but no one will give a shit because those are the most worthless fights. The TR zerg only cares about Allatum/Hvar, they don't care about Dahaka/Saurva. Once TR gets bounced out of Allatum, then it's like, oh hey, look at all the shit we lost on the west side. Then the TR zerg builds steam recapping all those useless speedbump bases on the west side for the big push either through Quartz Ridge (a miserable fail most of the time) or up through West Highlands to Allatum again.

Similar things happen on Esamir with Mani replacing Allatum. Most TR zerglings go to Mani, none of them go to Nott because that whole east side is a complete desolate wasteland. I have never seen a VS player at Ymir, ever. Eisa can be tough to cap because Freyr is actually closer to Mani and much of the zerg will go there instead. Organized outfits ghostcapping Apex Genetics, Saerro Listening Post, and the bases outside Eisa are really the only way to prod the zerg into going to Eisa.

Amerish; hell, I don't know. I haven't been there since the tech plant change.

[mcFlaw]

You are comments on how small forces should be steams rolled by more powerful air group is exactly why the zerg rules. A group of 15-30 is only loosely organized can avoid a more powerful ground force. That means the powerful force can keep them from prime obhjective but they cant stop them cold. But a more modest izell air group can pretty much shut them out of a whole continent. 15 players loosely flying together in a pick up squadrenn 5 libs and 5 ESF are much more powerful than 30 grounds troops in a pick up platoon.

To me it is perfectly reasonable that bigger numbers beat lesser numbers. It would be rather weird otherwise. Equal numbers, but one side has a ton of resources spent on vehicles should favor the vehicle side. Also reasonable.

Yes, unorganised players tend to lose against most stuff unless they are heavily favored by the above factors. This is also reasonable imho, since planetside is a game that favors teamwork.

But all that said, my experience is still that if your are ONLY facing a bunch of air, infantry can defend quite effectively. 30 infantry you say? Well, that could be 10 dual burster maxes, 10 grounders, 5 engineers and 5 medics. 5 ESF and 5 Libs got no chanse at all against that.

Yes, that defense requires quite a bit of teamwork, but that's what the game is about. The game is still rather new, so many of us haven't learned these things yet. Give it some time, and folks won't need an outfit to know when to pull out their AA gear. :)

My favourite activity in game is to fly in organised air squadrons. Mossies and libs (and even some A-130 gallys), just like in your example. While we wreck total havoc in general, we still do best to stay clear of any area where the infantry have pulled out their AA stuff. That's when we call for our Tank Battalion to roll in. It's all about those good ole´rocks, papers and scissors. :D
In fact, it doesn't take more than a handful of dual burster maxes to keep our entire squadron at bay (could be because we're not super good yet, but still).
TL:DR;
It's not that air is OP, it's that inexperienced, unorganised players aren't very effective. Solution is not to nerf air, it is to teach your friends how to counter air. It can be done, and it's actually pretty easy.

[Soothsayer]

Hey Malorn, I think it's got to do with the static rewards for capture. If you wanted to globetrotter the base XP up I'd do a comprehensive dynamic reward that considers several factors (in addition to what was in PS1).

First you take the time slices of nme in the territory over the duration of the capture (as it was in PS1).

Consider the number of attackers in the same criteria, form a ratio.

Factor in who capped/held surrounding territories for 10 min prior to capture being initiated on the main base and give them a bigger piece of the pie, linked to the capture (but also the current reward on the outlier cap).

Incentivize[sic] standing on the point (to some extent) maybe have a circular XP gradient area where you get less and less of a bonus the farther from the point you are.

Take that ratio that was calculated and use it to rate the intensity or difficulty of the fight for the attackers, reward them accordingly. If a fight has been particularly long (due to tug of war back and forth as opposed to nobody on the point) more points!

With smarter carrots you will get the emergent gameplay you want.

[AThreatToYou]

I think the points contributing toward this player behavior have all been touched upon in this thread, but I should make it clear that the points are fairly small. There are a lot of them, but working on just a few of them at a time would make large steps in the right direction.

Obviously, my points are opinionated based on my experiences, but here are some points and a simplified explanation of what I think the cause-effect relationship is.

- Faction populations blob on the continents they own. We are seeing dramatic continental defense, but we are not seeing base defense in the way that is fun. A reason may be that if your faction blobs on a continent, it's much easier to capture bases (by sheer numbers) and thus its easier to earn the base capture XP.

The effect is the game is less fun for the defenders and the attackers and the result of that is that either people log off and wait for primetime or people move to their own continent and absorb the XP there.

Sometimes contingent populations of 24% to 30% from the opposing factions to the owner of a continent rise up. I will suggest that these come from those who are bored steamrolling on their own continent, or they have completely captured their continent. Then, players from the owning faction either log off or go to another continent, allowing the opposing faction population percentages to increase on the owned continent and capture bases back.

Rinse, repeat. Sound good? I believe that is a very solid summary of how (but not exactly why) this happens all the time.

Moving on to more opinionated statements....

Why does this happen? I have a few reasons that have nothing to do with the actual defending or attacking of a base, and some that actually do. Let's start with the conceptual/metagame reasons.

- Base capture XP is rewarded on a flat rate. Honestly, I can fly around a continent and just be there for the base captures, maybe kill a few liberators in the process, and get 30-40 certs an hour. Maybe 3-5 kills, almost no fighting, and yet I can get more certs doing that than I would actually fighting against the dismally low enemy population.

That, or I could try to beset a 50% enemy population advantage on another continent and possibly get very little kills. This is making the result of: it's basically less profitable to fight. Someone has to fight for some of the bases in the first place, but there's very little.

Possible solution: Dynamic base capture rewards, based off of how much fighting went on in the hexes involved in that base.

- Empire footholds on continents. Since you can't lock out a faction from a continent, even if you push them all the way back to their warpgate, there is still a constant threat to your faction's ownership of that continent. As far as "winning" goes, it is actually beneficial to your empire to stay there and defend that continent.

Thus, we get blobs who do just that. There are likely more reasons involved or better ways to explain it, but I think a lot of players can easily agree that there is a problem in not having either faction sanctuaries or home conts.

Possible solution: If it were possible to completely lock out the enemy faction from a continent, then there would be no more reason for your empire to blob on that continent after it is captured.

This should produce a domino effect: Some people would log off, but that number would pale in comparison to the amount of people who would swarm the next available continent.

Thus, we would get more players on a single continent. I'll be honest; the game is actually pretty damn fun when the faction populations are even. We need to encourage confrontations, this is a way to do that.

- There are not enough continents. Three continents is not enough for a warpgate lattice. Sanctuaries really wouldn't work because of that! There's also a binary function of encouragement for each faction to take one continent and lock it down.

I've observed several times for a faction to own two of the three continents, and then some real fights start as the harrying continent-less faction swarms back to retake it. It's really odd how we have this weird continent problem that encourages blobbing, and PlanetSide is all about big fights, but the current in-game "solution" to the problem is to punish one faction and divide the resources (players) of another between two continents.

Possible solution: Obviously, we need more continents. However, that would take a lot of time.

As another short-term solution, I believe we must introduce contestable home-conts to the table.

We can do this by splitting up Indar into three continents. The VS, TR, and NC can thus have their faction foothold on one of the three "islands" that has an open, contestable warpgate on the other side. Not only will this introduce more two-way fights, it will also allow for the current continents of Esamir and Amerish to be open and completely contestable. There will also always be one faction who is out of a continent, because there are always two.

I know a lot of players don't want to see another Oshur happen, but seriously, I think that would work beautifully.

As for the issues that contribute to this on a game mechanics level, where the attackers have an advantage over the defenders, we have a few problems.

- Spawn camping is too easy. You can say just to go away and not let the enemy spawn camp you all you want, but that doesn't change how it gives an advantage to the attackers over the defenders.

Possible solution: Move spawns underground. If I remember correctly, PlanetSide 1 had all base spawns underground. Spawn camping still happened, but it was usually the final death-throws of the battle and it was a nice finale as the opposing faction broke through and took down the spawn tubes. I'm not saying we need spawn tubes and generators back, but I am saying that all outposts and bases should have their spawns moved underground.

Another solution is to make the spawns themselves contestable. Breaking through the spawns and hacking the final terminal would result in an instantaneous base capture, as your Empire would own the spawns. There could be a trigger that would require your Empire to have done something significant prior to that, such as having removed all of the defending faction's points from the capture-counter. It wouldn't make defense any easier, but it would make it less painful. Combining this with underground spawns would also make defense much more meaningful: "Defend the control console!"

- Bases are too accessible. The bases are almost completely open to attack from the air, aside from a small area where infantry combat takes prevalence. In a BioLab, infantry combat takes over completely; but in other bases, these areas are still open to attack from vehicles. There are "doors" in a sense, but they are see-through and are controlled by destructible generators that are put in positions that serve mostly to accelerate the attackers.

- Another problem that ties into this is that some bases are far too spread out. The generators are all in very decentralized locations, which make it even harder to defend them.

Possible solution: Doors, less generators, and more roofed areas. Possibly even moving entire bases underground.

In addition, outposts should have more vehicle shields that restrict the movement of tanks into the outpost, creating a wider window in which infantry attack is needed and making it easier for the defenders to predict what weapons will be needed: Anti-air, and and anti-infantry.

- MAX units are too weak. The weakness of MAX units makes attack easy because now the direct, heavy-armor solution that can be brought right out of the spawn room is ineffective. The anti-vehicular MAX weapons barely threaten a tank, and although a dual-burster MAX certainly threatens aircraft, one is rendered ineffective to infantry by this.

A key point from PlanetSide 1 is that any MAX unit was an absolutely terrible threat to an infantry unit without an anti-vehicle weapon. Even anti-vehicular MAX units could do serious damage to air units that hovered to fire on them.

I think it is a real problem that Uni-MAX is gone, and that MAX units themselves are too vulnerable to just about everything.

Possible solution: The MAX armory should be buffed and possibly expanded, as well as empire-specific MAX abilities making a return. I'm sure you can think of many scenarios in PlanetSide 1 where your empire's specific MAX ability made a huge difference in base defense.

Aside from the anti-air weapons, the clips and rates-of-fire on MAX weaponry is too small.

MAX units having limited mobility will also make it harder for them to be used so effectively in base attack, although I certainly don't want to make MAX units a "defense-only" unit. The support line of a defending MAX will be a lot closer than the support line of an attacking MAX; I think that's enough.

MAX units are also ineffective at range. Empire-specific anti-air weaponry should make a return, as well as the ability for a MAX unit to zoom, including a certifiable increase in accuracy, especially for anti-infantry weapons.

There are more things I could say, but I think I'll end there.

[Forsaken One]

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Bases need to be funner, defending tends to suck both gameplay wise and cert wise.

Make more bases like The Crown. It feels both fun to attack and fun to defend. Every other base atm feels like "shoot at guys through this hole" for BOTH attack and defense.

Tech plant? Hold up in the main room and shoot through the slot at the top (again both attacker and defense will do this) till the shields are down.

Most other places? Shoot at doorways till someone breaks through and it won't be the defenders.


The game needs better Indoor (bios semi suck)as well as better variety at least with the bases. For the most part a lot of the bases feel the same just with a different wall/object placement.

[Ghoest9]

To me it is perfectly reasonable that bigger numbers beat lesser numbers. It would be rather weird otherwise. Equal numbers, but one side has a ton of resources spent on vehicles should favor the vehicle side. Also reasonable.

Yes, unorganised players tend to lose against most stuff unless they are heavily favored by the above factors. This is also reasonable imho, since planetside is a game that favors teamwork.

But all that said, my experience is still that if your are ONLY facing a bunch of air, infantry can defend quite effectively. 30 infantry you say? Well, that could be 10 dual burster maxes, 10 grounders, 5 engineers and 5 medics. 5 ESF and 5 Libs got no chanse at all against that.

Yes, that defense requires quite a bit of teamwork, but that's what the game is about. The game is still rather new, so many of us haven't learned these things yet. Give it some time, and folks won't need an outfit to know when to pull out their AA gear. :)

My favourite activity in game is to fly in organised air squadrons. Mossies and libs, just like in your example. While we wreck total havoc in general, we still do best to stay clear of any area where the infantry have pulled out their AA stuff. That's when we call for our Tank Battalion to roll in. It's all about those good ole´rocks, papers and scissors. :D
In fact, it doesn't take more than a handful of dual burster maxes to keep our entire squadron at bay (could be because we're not super good yet, but still).
TL:DR;
It's not that air is OP, it's that inexperienced, unorganised players aren't very effective. Solution is not to nerf air, it is to teach your friends how to counter air. It can be done, and it's actually pretty easy.


Im not complaining about bigger numbers beating smaller number - I gave that as an example of the what works.

But the issue here isnt about some sort of idealized 30 man force could do to a pick up air group(basically you are saying if ground well organized they could chase air away.)

The issue is what happens with the normal squads in the game. A pick up group of 30 ground troops gets totally owned by a pick up group of 15 people in aircraft when you look at what actually occurs - over and over and over.
And this isnt going to change because most player dont want to spend the evening chasing away aircraft for no gain wbhile the rest of the platoond gets to kill stuff.
Only outfits can force a fair division of labor on the players.

[Bags]

I think it's simply a matter of people taking the path of least resistance to "win". It's no different than Alterac Valley in WoW. Even though the original rules for AV were better for encouraging long PvP battles with neat player driven events, quite a few of those events are still in AV today, yet they are never used. Instead, both sides pass each other in the field and complete the PvE objectives in a race to see who will "win" first. And people complain when one side "turtles", forcing PvP by actually defending their own base and PvE objectives. Personally, the most fun I had in WoW PvP was an AV turtle.

Sadly, it seems that's not what people want. Some want a good fight, while most just want to maximize their xp per hour.

If SOE removed XP, certs, and resources then folks might actually fight each other more consistently. There would be nothing else to "optimize" or "maximize" or "min/max", etc. Terrible suggestion of course, but it proves the point that the problem is with the players and not the game. We can't have nice things (like balanced character advancement through side grades), because people focus on the wrong things, losing sight of the purpose of the game: to have fun blowing stuff up with your friends.

Well, it's not 100% comparable because no one really wants to play AV. Everyone is forced to grind honor to be competitive in arena. No one is grinding base caps in PS2 for some other aspect of the game.

[Bags]

Bases need to be funner, defending tends to suck both gameplay wise and cert wise.

Make more bases like The Crown. It feels both fun to attack and fun to defend. Every other base atm feels like "shoot at guys through this hole" for BOTH attack and defense.

Tech plant? Hold up in the main room and shoot through the slot at the top (again both attacker and defense will do this) till the shields are down.

Most other places? Shoot at doorways till someone breaks through and it won't be the defenders.


The game needs better Indoor (bios semi suck)as well as better variety at least with the bases. For the most part a lot of the bases feel the same just with a different wall/object placement.

Defending is far greater certwise than attacking. 1500 xp doesn't hold a candle to 15% more xp per kill + a meat grinder.

[mcFlaw]

The issue is what happens with the normal squads in the game. A pick up group of 30 ground troops gets totally owned by a pick up group of 15 people in aircraft when you look at what actually occurs - over and over and over.
And this isnt going to change because most player dont want to spend the evening chasing away aircraft for no gain wbhile the rest of the platoond gets to kill stuff.
Only outfits can force a fair division of labor on the players.

Can't really argue with that. I've been in TAW since the day I entered beta, so I can't speak for the mentality of pickup-squads. It's a shame though, it really isn't hard to defend against air, and you definitely do more than chase them away. You kill like crazy! All the coordination we do is basically someone yelling "incoming air!" and people bring out their big guns. That's not really something you must have an outfit to do.
Truly a shame if people think it's not worth it. I guess it's an easy impression to get, since one single inf can't do more than that. But two or more focusfiring and you become deadly.

Here's an example: We were 6 or 7 in a sundy driving towards a biolab. A few hundred meters away, we saw that the place was swarming with enemy air. We parked behind a small hill, got grounders and bursters, and just stood there killing everything in sight. Over the course of 30 min or so we killed maybe 50 aircraft. Enough for me to lose count. They found us after 10 min or so, but couldn't get to us, since we saw them the moment they spawned on the pads.
That was 7 infantry holding down what felt like an entire factions unorganized zerg air support.

After 30 min or so they smarted up, and drove over with a few vanguards and killed us. ;)

edit: grammar failz

[Forsaken One]

Defending is far greater certwise than attacking. 1500 xp doesn't hold a candle to 15% more xp per kill + a meat grinder.

What you're forgetting is the meat grinder 9 times out of 10 is the defenders being meat grinded.

[Mriswith]

Well, it's not 100% comparable because no one really wants to play AV. Everyone is forced to grind honor to be competitive in arena. No one is grinding base caps in PS2 for some other aspect of the game.
I think this is kind of the same problem though.
Because honestly what is "the goal" in planetside 2 ?, I'm assuming the goal is to actually capture an entire continent (or several) but the reward for doing so is pretty much non existent (or very puny -_-) and also that it's incomparable to the amount of effort involved means that peoples goal is currently divided by the type of players they are:

1. Good non-outfit players whose goal is simply to "level up" as in getting as many certs as possible in as short a duration as possible. (I'm assuming most of those players are doing this, those are the ones that actually do defend as long as they're not going to get spawn raped/camped)
Since they move around get a good amount of certs/hour for a moderate effort.

2. 'Bad' non-outfit players whose goal is also just leveling up, but compared to the 'good' non-outfit people these aren't good enough to actually defend or win most 1:1 fights, and the result is that it's much more efficient for these people to simply cert zerg farm even though you get much more points in non-zerg farming either attacking or defending.
They get a decent/low amount of certs/hour for a very low amount of effort.

3. PS Veterans or the like that want to resume where PS1 left off who doesn't really care about certs, most of them doing squads / outfit based play and what I'm guessing is that no matter what they do they have a moderately good success in it and even do last stands even if they get semi spawn camped.
They get about the same amount of certs/h as the good non-outfit players, at the cost of having the most effort involved, in organization/communication if not in strategy.

But I think due to the game being f2p the largest amount of players are either 1 or 2 (most of them 2 I bet).
Because honestly if your a semi-good player even solo playing (not even squading) you still get way more points defending a position against a decent sized group (the zergs still crush you in the end) then what you get from zerg-farming no matter how many bases you take.
I would say that if you want to actually get the non-good zergs to attack or defend bases / attack other continents you need to lure them with cert / score gain / cert/score continent buffs instead. (maybe add a score increase dependent on territory as well as population like it is right now, it's not very tempting moving to a continent where you only got your warpgate left because the bonus for fighting a superior force is pretty pathetic, which makes the situation even worse when your facing a team with ~60%+ territory control (and all the resources / spawn points that gains them)
And also make taking a base with a vehicle force harder to do, many of the esamir bases for example can easily get spawn camped by tanks that are outside any effective counter attack (especially those 4x air platforms bases).

[Helwyr]

[...]
Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

On Connery I don't notice this distinction between Outfit players and non Outfit players. If players are sweeping up lots of bases largely uncontested it's with an Outfit in the Vanguard and everyone else just going with the flow. I don't see fight avoidance in quite the same way, rather avoidance of being the underdog/losing. So, players of each faction will cluster on a single continent perhaps two, but rarely ever split evenly between all three.

The problem with PS2 is the primary motivation is just gain certs, ok there's K/D stats etc for some people on top of this. However, there's very little in the way of game mechanics for players to be motivated to see their Faction collectively do well. There's a lingering PS1 culture that breathes a little life into Faction loyalty, but outside of that the player culture seems apathetic at best.

Double EXP days just seem to bring out the worst of it, there are Medics killing Medics over who gets revive EXP, people blowing up friendly Sunderers to deploy their own (and no it's rarely about bad placement)... Really it's like those awful Blackfriday events where people are trampling each other for the 50% off Toaster. Also, this behavior can be found among Outfit and non Outfit players alike. I know there's some great big Outfits that really help this game, but don't assume they're all good.

PS2 desperately needs a meaningful Metagame, where players benefit or suffer as an entire Faction. Being F2P and FF, the game also needs a lot of active policing, with bans handed out to repeat offenders who are working against their own Faction.

[RobUK]

I can only relate what happens (or rather, doesn't happen) in Planetside 2 to what happened in Planetside 1.

First of all, the chat window in PS1 was always open. In that window was a pretty constant flow of tactical information, plus the directions issued by Command Chat. That helped a lot in my opinion.

In Planetside 2, the chat window disappears too quickly and has so very little tactical information or Command direction in it.

I really miss those things from Planetside 1.

The other cause of this is the massive vehicle and air spam. The "blob" consists mainly of powerful offensive weapons that simply cannot be stopped. It's like a Tsunami of steel, shells, and rockets thundering ever forwards to the next nearest "something" in the hex.

In the original Planetside the developers bemoaned their mistake of making the areas between bases complete wastelands bereft of action. Planetside 2 has made exactly the same mistake.

There is nothing to slow "the blob" down and nothing to dilute and disperse it, especially the increasingly massive air zerg that doesn't even have to worry about terrain and its inherent choke points.

This game is far too vehicle centric and suffers because of it. When I first started playing PS2 I really thought that I had found my dream gane that offered massive and prolonged outdoor infantry combat. The "everybody can do everything" design of PS2 has put paid to that, which is an absolute tragedy.

[MyOdessa]

-No one is defending because its a total waste of time xp wise.

-So attackers are just moving in giant zergs from undefended base to base(which are even harder to defend against).

-If you try messing around in smaller forces you are quickly dominated by air.


Thers is practically no fighting for anyone except air picking off clueless small groups. And Noob defenders who get rolled imediatly when the zerg shows up.
This is not fun.
Im hardly kiling anyone any more(and my average k/d is still about the same.)




EDIT: Ghost capping zergs - air domination everywhere else - WORST 2x event ever.(if a mod could happen to fix my title that would be nice.)

Until there is major air power nerf, it will not change.

When you move with zerg, your air follows, giving you protection from enemy air. Anytime you try to have squad or two move to take bases on their own, you get decimated by air.

I had great time in ground battled for the first week after release, then all ESFs got pods and Libs got buff on their Daltons and ground battlesl are largely stopped. Tech plants were fun, but after last patch, Tech plants are rolled over in 5-10 min.

Planetside is getting exceedingly boring.

[Rivenshield]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night.

/puts tech pubs glasses on, rubs hands

You're our man on the inside, Malorn. Preach the gospel of defensibility and put it into practice as often as you can, so that people can look at their maps and good fights have a chance to coalesce.

Here are some quick but vital fixes:

1) End XP for capping empty bases. NOW. Implementing dynamic XP for *individual* kills is prolly a coding nightmare, but I fail to understand why it can't be done in short order for bases. No gunfire, no XP. Half a dozen stalwarts, eh, a little XP. Raging-ass battle, full amount and maybe a bonus tacked on for each half an hour.

2) There is no incentive for stubborn defense among the instant-gratification mid/late teen target audience -- the ones Smed apparently hopes to harvest -- if they can instantly swap sides and happily join the attackers. We had an eight-hour cooldown timer a decade ago. We need one now, for God's sake.

3) Spawn rooms need to be protected from vehicle spam. The only way I can think of accomplishing this with existing base/outpost design is to connect the spawn room to another nearby building via covered hallway. The hallway itself should have multiple doors. That gives the defenders more avenues of egress and makes the problem more complex for the attackers.

That's for starters. I've worked on a few enterprise software development projects myself as a technical writer, so I don't want to fall into the twin traps of feature bloat and 'it's easy because I don't understand it.' But... those are three quick (?) fixes I *think* can be implemented relatively painlessly in the near future.

Nice-to-haves include:

4) In the fullness of time, if they could include a spawn shield generator that's close by and easy to defend, I think that'd also help end the lame five-minute ritual of 'overrun base, camp spawn, farm people dumb enough to jump out.' Also, make spawn tubes destructible. Give the attacker the fierce joy of gunning the bastards in their tubes, as we did of old. Decisive victory is fun. :D

5) Make everything SMALLER. Good God those bases are huge. Having a few megacomplexes the size of small cities is fine, but in the main a base should be defensible with sixty or seventy warm bodies.... and that, frankly is all the game will support without lag or rendering issues. Clear some of the clutter -- not all -- out of the courtyard and bring in the walls by a third. Tighten them up.

6) I hate launch pads. They're stupid. They take away from the hard-SF feel. They're a video-game device inserted into an online war. That said, if you're going to have them in the game at all, make them usable by the defenders alone so we can't be overrun by a handful of enemies bouncing around like fleas with high explosives. Defense with launch pads that can be employed by both sides is impossible-- full stop.

7) Turrets need to be buffed. They're stationary and highly visible and they can't take cover, and they are magnets for all kinds of fire. I think the answer is to provide them with shields, same as infantry have. Perhaps this could be one of the benefits tied into ownership of an amp station.

8) Nerf grenades. Having an instakill weapon when there's 32 of you per side and clusters of 2-4 people are rare is one thing. When there's 50-100+ packed into stairwells it's a bit different. I've got 3/4ths my flak armor certed on my HA tree, and it makes no perceptible difference. I cannot count the number of enjoyable small-unit actions I've been in that have been ruined by a single grenade. It currently does no good to take a knee and be patient... you can only dance around like an idiot and the instant you see the bouncy red thing, RUN. Half the time you still die. Instagib weapons indoors that involve a minimum of shooter skill have no place in the already-lethal environment of a massive online FPS.

9) One big reason people enjoy attacking and taking bases is because you get the Pavlovian popup with POINTS! and MUSIC! and the NPC commander telling you how good you did. Do the same for the defenders. Rather than offering a small but user-transparent bonus on top of normal XP, increment them and roll them together every five minutes or so. BLING! BONUS DEFENSE XP!11!!1! and a big fat number that tells them how much they got ON TOP of their normal experience. It's a cosmetic thing.

10) With antitank mines, we can merely lay booby traps for individual tanks. We can't lay minefields. And minefields were, as you recall, one of the ways we used to attrit the attackers along chokepoints and in our own courtyards. We hardly ever *killed* anybody or anything with them, unless they were dumb or careless, but they helped. Bring back the mine from PS1 -- deployable only outside and only in friendly territory, and unable to kill anything but an infiltrator with one hit -- and let us cert the ability to lay up to ten of the buggers. Call it the General Purpose Mine, the GPM. You want to slow down battles a bit? You want a remedy for the tank spam? You want to promote strategic gameplay? Bring back MINEFIELDS!

Any or all of these can remedy the phenomenon of ghost-zerging by making traditional stubborn defense fun and rewarding -- and most of all, *possible.*. Best of luck to you and yours, and thanks for staying in touch. I hope you got something useful out of the wall of text.

[Stanis]

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.


Complete lack of defenders advantage. By this I mean very few tactics withstand superior numbers.
lack/unclear of linear objectives. we play ring around the base stamping out fires. defenders can't defend that many multiple choices.
Current dominance of air.
Lack of metagame objectives to influence strategy



I shall run through each.

Defenders should be in a better position than the attackers inside a base they control.
The enemy can put a sunderer next to one of the half a dozen objectives they might choose to target. Probably two as outside the walls is a fair distance apart. The defenders are stuck with maybe one sundie inside the base due to interference ranges. Friendly sundies inside base should have half/50m radius.

Who put walls around a base and then left two 20m gaps infantry can run through? We have light assault. We have galaxies. We have teleporters and jump pads. We have shield-diffusers.

Those walls are to complex. Plain walls with merlons on the outer edge only

The objectives are not linear. They might need to take the wall shields to get vehicles into the CY. But there is nothing stopping them taking the central shields first. In the case of satellite bases they can flip those first and get teleporters into the bases.

I'd like to say teleporters and jump pads are atrocius in that they remove the defenders ability to hold a line. And make the intervening distance pointless.
In the case of Biolabs the jump pads are ok. They get you onto the pads. There are two entrances.
The teleports - are just wrong. They should be for the defending empire only.


Make objectives linear.

satellite base to secure spawn point (attackers must destroy teleporter generator to prevent defenders coming through it)
Put a shield on the "infantry wall gap". add a 20m vertical shield to the wall.
add 'shield generator' to one of the satellite bases. this opens the infantry wall gap and means LA can jumpjet over the wall. without this only drops/diffuser can get in.
inner base shields are also protected by the vehicle shields (infantry cant get to inner base gens until CY is taken)
take down inner shields
capture base or take down spawn gen


This makes the areas or points to defend known. Right now we are playing ring around the base attacker or defending it. It's a lovely deathmatch, but a terrible war effort.

The spawn rooms. How easy it is to camp them. Whether by infantry or vehicle. Plenty of suggestions about improvements to be made there.


If this sounds like the base can't be taken. That's kind of the point. With equal numbers the defenders should win. Handily.
Even outnumbered. 3:2. The defenders should win.
This is why metagame is so important. I have replied to Malorns post about "big outfits" with suggestions for every outpost and hex to have a purpose. Such as comm arrays. Shield-generators. intel facilities.
Players defending a base have to balance defence of those outposts and facilities. This is why the base falls - the defenders can't afford to just lose all that territory.
This gives us a rich metagame full of strategy.

Air can respawn in sanctuary. Bomber and Pilot, swap roles when one dies. 2 man teams can remain in the air fairly consistently. They have the freedom of movement to trundle around - short of strong enemy A2A ESF they don't have natural predators that. At first sign of ground based AA they bug out.

There is not a "no mans land" for air. No automated turrets.
Base turrets are virtually all limited in firing arc. They are certainly static. No turret every snuck up and suprised the air craft. They turrets take forever to repair compare to their TTK.
Also, some idiot put the AA turrets on the out edges of the base in clear line of sight for AV weapons. They should have been at the centre of foxholes on each turret - enclosed and protected.
AA turrets just don't offer enough bang. Fixed AA emplacement should clear the sky. No really they should.
Teamwork and co-ordination should be necessary to prevent that AA turret defending the base successfully.
(All the same arugments apply to AI and AV turret)

This gives us the current situation of anyone with a bit of teamwork using air - it works and is apex predator.

Maxes, Skyguard. They are needed in such numbers to act as a deterrent let alone a viable kill force. You get 50 aircraft overhead it's too late to start trying to take them out of the sky.



Finally the metagame.
What 30 men do on the other side of the continent should influence the strategic decisions for the whole continent.
A rapid response outfit or platoon may choose to grind kills instead - but they must ignore that at their peril.

Hexes and outposts should have a purpose. See huge-outfit thread.

[Helwyr]

The other cause of this is the massive vehicle and air spam. The "blob" consists mainly of powerful offensive weapons that simply cannot be stopped. It's like a Tsunami of steel, shells, and rockets thundering ever forwards to the next nearest "something" in the hex.

In the original Planetside the developers bemoaned their mistake of making the areas between bases complete wastelands bereft of action. Planetside 2 has made exactly the same mistake.

There is nothing to slow "the blob" down and nothing to dilute and disperse it, especially the increasingly massive air zerg that doesn't even have to worry about terrain and its inherent choke points.

This game is far too vehicle centric and suffers because of it. When I first started playing PS2 I really thought that I had found my dream gane that offered massive and prolonged outdoor infantry combat. The "everybody can do everything" design of PS2 has put paid to that, which is an absolute tragedy.

Yes this is a real problem as well. Air is especially bad as its speed, maneuverability, ability to ignore terrain, and firepower combined with targeting enhancements like IR/Thermal make it omnipresent and very hard to avoid. Meaning once the enemy has Air Superiority, it's usually game over and time to move elsewhere.

Infantry really need a big boost in PS2, and it isn't in being able to destroy enemy vehicles more easily, but rather avoid them altogether. Bases should be redesigned to be much more Infantry centric. There needs to be way more overhead cover in the game, like 10 times as much. And finally Vehicles need to lose their ability to easily target Infantry, that is remove radar and IR/Thermal options that show Infantry from all Vehicles.

[boogy]

Saying just rolling out coordinated anti-air is fine, but reality is people don't and won't do that enough to solve the problems we are having with air completely dominating ground. You can't tell people to play a game a certain way that they inherently will not. As each day goes by it's becoming increasingly obvious that there is a balance issue with air domination. I'm confident that the devs will figure it out, but let's not pretend that this doesn't exist. It's not going to help them make PS2 a better game.

[Beefnoodles]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

I honestly think that this situation (which occurs a TON on Genudine due to the moderate numbers of players everywhere except the Crown), can be solved with a couple of changes:

1) Drastically increase exp gain when fighting in territories where you are very outnumbered. I would love to defend, except I have a 2-3 KDR when fighting equal numbers. It drops down to ~1 or less if I am taking on the zerg outnumbered. I hate how slow I gain exp (and less importantly the hit my KDR takes) when I try to fight the zerg.

2) Bring back squad-only galaxy AMS. Allowing squads to attack territories without having to travel on foot is a huge deal. My outfit and I normally roll in groups of 1-2 squads. We often don't even get to our objective, because we run into the zerg or get bombed by air. It is really not fun, but we have to go on foot, because we NEED a spawn point (sunderer).

If we could travel in gals with squad spawn, it would be faster, safer, and give us the vital spawn point we need. It would also let us outmaneuver the zerg without getting farmed (or at least not farmed as often).

[Beefnoodles]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Yes this is a real problem as well. Air is especially bad as its speed, maneuverability, ability to ignore terrain, and firepower combined with targeting enhancements like IR/Thermal make it omnipresent and very hard to avoid. Meaning once the enemy has Air Superiority, it's usually game over and time to move elsewhere.

Infantry really need a big boost in PS2, and it isn't in being able to destroy enemy vehicles more easily, but rather avoid them altogether. Bases should be redesigned to be much more Infantry centric. There needs to be way more overhead cover in the game, like 10 times as much. And finally Vehicles need to lose their ability to easily target Infantry, that is remove radar and IR/Thermal options that show Infantry from all Vehicles.
+1 One of the reasons why I stay at the crown so often is that vehicles play such a small role. I really wish vehicles were more of a support role rather than the true power behind pushes...

[Illtempered]

Simple things that would vastly improve the game:

On Optimization
-Do it, and do it with fervor. Want new players?

-Do it without sacrificing game-mechanics-type things like render-distance of enemies, or hit-distance of enemies rendered, or not rendered, etc. Do it with cosmetic things first.

On XP
-Add Dynamic defense XP, as others stated, including XP for flipping or resecuring hacks.

-Add bigger global, and some kind of continental pop XP bonus for outnumbered empires.

-Less XP for ghost-hacks, possibly zero?

-Add platoon XP, not just squad XP.

On Resources
-Increase continental ownage bonus % for all three continents.

-Return % of resources when a vehicle decons by timer or by order, but increase resource cost for vehicles.

-Make all ammo, including vehicle ammo, part of the resources, in infantry or as a new resource, but make it cheap, which should mean less spam on all sides, and make the "auto-resupply" feature actually work....

On free-2-play
-Lower price for cheap textures(camo) that would take a novice artist 5 minutes to make(I know, I'm a novice and have made textures of that quality in about 5 minutes)

-Allow refunds for weapons that have been CHANGED AND THAT WE PAYED GOOD $$$$ FOR!!!!!

Outfit-mate: "Dude what's a good weapon?"
Me: "Well this one is, but I'm not sure you should buy it because it will get nerfed."
Outfit-mate: "What? Why would it get nerfed?"
Me: "Because it works good, and we're still in Beta. Maybe you should buy this other weapon that sucks, because I think they're gonna over-correct and buff the @#%^ out of it."
Outfit-mate: ".....?....."

On UI
-Overlay voice-comm and chat on outfit/platoon/map/etc. When you're leading a platoon, and looking at the map, and the platoon/outfit/squad lists, and getting AFK-knifed by cloakers, it would be nice to see who's talking on voice-com and text-chat.

-Make UI more customizable, like it was in Planetside, and allow chat-window to stay open longer, or indefinitely.

On Base-design
-Change Tech-Plant design back. Really? I loved defending them before. They weren't untakable at all though. And, I loved having to load up three full Bangbuses with shield-diffusers, and crashing the back shield, that they never defend, to take one sometimes. Or, hot-dropping everybody in on the roof to suppress the turrets and hold the top until the zerg pushed in the bottom. Those were epic caps that I'll never forget. Now when we get to a tech plant we are forced to ghost hack it because nobody is ever there. They are now the WORST base to defend. Just ask.

-Change Scarred Mesa Skydock back. Another really? It was epic to hold, and epic to take. We've done both, and lost it too. It can be done. You just have to think out of the box. Remove that retarded bounce-pad.

Do NOT touch Bio-Labs!!!!!!!! They seem the most perfect to me. Some are fortresses...others pushovers. I personally love the variety you find in all the different bases as-is. AMP stations are fine too. We've actually found some good defense tactics, and to prove it, today we held Elli Amp on Waterson against a much larger TR zerg coming from the north. We had our outfit platoon guarding the two outer gate-shield gens, and our pub(greeny) platoon split between the other two inner gate-shield gens. Every time one started overloading, we crashed it with Sunderers or ATVs full of engineers, maxs, and medics. They thought we'd be a pushover at an amp station.



Not-so-simple things that would vastly improve the game:

-Don't nickel-and-dime us to death with new content that costs SC. Make it cost certs, and lots of them. Please, for the love of God, do not introduce cheap clones of existing weapons(meshes), with improved stats, every week or two, so you can get quick money. I know it's not-so-simple, but please....

-Give us Sanctuaries, and more continents.

-Give outfits something. Outfit HQ? I mean, it's nice that I can outfit-invite from the platoon-list, and platoon-invite from the outfit-list now, but come on. We lost outfit-points, and a list of other outfits. We lost outfit-decals. Give us something, anything. I would be willing to buy more SC if I could pass it to outfit-members, or buy some outfit-specific camo, decals, features on vehicles/weapons, whatever. I would be willing to buy my outfit a gargantuan, Star Wars Star Destroyer-like Bastion Fleet Carrier.

-Get rid of the cheaters. I put this in the not-so-simple category because I don't mean that I want to have to DL some third-party program that doesn't even work, like Punkbuster. I'm torn. Is it that hard to have a few admins pop in from time to time though? TR was zerging us with 50% server-pop today, and to make matters worse, these obvious speed-hacking/aim-botting TR kicked us out of our Biofarm. To SOE's credit, we didn't see them much after about an hour, so I do hope they were removed. What happens when they can spoof their IP's though? How will you ban them in this free game?

-Fix the in-game voice-comm. I was really surprised and impressed when I first saw/heard the in-game voice-comm. "Wow" I thought, "Finally an in-game voice-comm that might be worth a $#17" It's only gotten worse since beta. I put this in the not-so-simple category because it must not be simple. Otherwise how could it's functionality actually be declining?

-Moooooar Meta-game!

[Carver]

It's already been said but i'll chime in: Bases are not very defendable. Spawns are easily camped.
Turrets are impossible to keep alive.
Jump pads that can be used by the enemy.

3 continents, 3 factions also doesn't help with players avoiding each other. Leads to a lot of 15%, 15%, 70% situations. Being hopelessly steamrolled near your warpgate or finding your own team's massive zerg is not a hard choice for most people.

As for air domination eveywhere, I think aircraft should take much more damage from small arms (including Liberators, which take zero right now). Nobody seems to think Skyguards are useful. The A30 walker AA option for tanks can't kill anything, it could use a major buff and i'd like to see it available for sunderers too.

[Wahooo]

The OP isn't crazy -
Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

I appreciate the concern. Since I have a crap work schedule and have had weekend commitments my primetime play with my outfit has been on the order of about 4 hours since release. The rest of my game time has been late night and i've seen this issue basically my entire time in game.

As has been said, the dynamic XP thing is the quickest fix I can see. Removing the benefit from doing dumb. There of course, like in PS1 you had some guy that was having a bad day in RL or was fed up with getting repeatedly farmed and went off and drained a whole continent or just flipped as many bases on an empty continent as possible just to pull people away from the fight. People will still do it but to remove the GCB (Ghost Capping Blob) take away their XP.

As Bags (14 K/D) tried to point out the cert/XP gain is miserable for ghost capping. As many others (o.5 K/D) are pointing out gaining that XP/Certs is important because the cert cost of everything is so high. Personally I think the cert costs/real money cost are about nailed. I know they went up and down a bunch and I don't really have an issue. There is always something to work for (I don't feel it is a grind) and it WOULD suck to have everything too quick, would just lead to asking "why not just give it all to us from the start?"

Anyway on top of the dynamic XP. There is the XP gain for strategic stuff as I have said before. Towers in PS1. The ones that were used for taking a base were crucial. Everyone knew it, they were taken for their tactical value, XP wasn't needed and wasn't given and that was good. Same thing with killing Gens. In the wee hours i've gone to empty AMP stations to figure out, I guess exploitable ways to get vehicles around... every gen blown and every term down. I don't know who wants to do that for XP but they are obviously out there.
Simply XP changes encouraging fun... like fighting.

The other and much bigger issue from the ability to change is the base design. I don't have as much on the side of good suggestions for change, but can say a few things.
The outposts around the bases seem designed FOR the attacker. It is obvious they are needed in the progression of taking the base but their set-up and locations FEEL like they are designed to help attack a major base rather than defend them. Since that is the case it eliminates that part of the needed progression.

You had pointed out in another thread PS1 had issues with Air/Tanks camping doors after taking a CY and keeping player inside a base. The biggest difference? WE STILL CONTROLLED THE BASE. There was also the possibility of breaking the siege. Taking out the AMSs cloaker, Libs from Sanc or other base, OS, plus re-taking the tower when those things happened in conjunction a team could push back out. Now with multiple points around the base and AMS's which everyone could have pullable from all of them even if the base was made defensible breaking the siege? Not sure it is possible.
Also with the PS1 base siege, as was also pointed out in another thread, there was a progression. Open field battle - Tower fight - CY fight - Lobby fight - Basement fight - Hack - Spawn.
Here everything is not just compressed but upside down, and totally missing the lobby/basefight and has gotten worse with the base changes to eliminate the "exploited" AMS locations inside the bases where you could defend.
Also pointed out here, the jump pad things and the base walls of the AMP station just are too beneficial to the attacker and hard to use by the defense. I don't see that changing though, especially with the note a few weeks back about improving the lone wolf aspect of LA. That and drop pods into the middle of the base. I can see being able to sneak in and getting a spawn beacon down to allow it, but for the instant action? It is just really powerful and is a very big issue with being able to properly defend a CY.

TL;DR
Dynamic XP
Defensible Bases
2 biggest issues in making people fight rather than the ghost hack blob.

[p0intman]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Defense isn't viable atm. Go and change that, and see what happens. I bet if liberators and tanks had less of an immediate effect, you'd see more infantry -fighting- and less camping/blobbing.

there needs to be a definite line at all facilities - outposts, towers and main bases alike - where tank spam stops and infantry fighting begins. the base design in ps1 was well done for this exact reason. go take a look at them again with this in mind.

until then, im going to get my infantry fighting fix with dayz/arma2/wasteland. its much more fun when personal ability comes into play.

[bpostal]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Farming is what's going on here. Farming the 'most efficient' path of cert gain. There seems to me, to be a bias towards the majority of players to work towards the certs (and the personal gain) it brings at the expense of more (but potentially more rewarding, game play wise) strategic gameplay. Those who are not in large outfits are at an extreme disadvantage when they encounter the enemy zerg and are quickly overwhelmed, leaving a bad taste in their mouth.
I'd bring up the lattice, although I know you have more experience with it than I do, and how it funneled these opposing zerg together in a chaotic, orgasmic frenzy of murder and mayhem. The same can be accomplished with the hex system but it takes much more thought on the behalf of the players (new players especially) to locate the opposing zerg and move to not only engage, but to engage in an favorable location.
I can't really propose any ironclad solutions other than to change base layout to aid in nullifying enemy vehicle spam at the final push for the control point (a la Planetside) and tip the favor towards a smaller number of defenders when they're faced with a large number of defenders.
Figment has a rather high quality thread (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/outpost-spawn-design-based-on-existing-building.65475/) on the official forums with suggestions that are much better than anything I could come up with.
As it currently stands defense has a very high turnover rate, facility-wise in that one person can flip a base seconds after the last defender leaves for the next base that needs attention (and that one person has either flipped the base before defense has gotten a proper chance to respond, or as good as.) It's a small piece of metagame that I've taken to referring to as "Ring around the 'go fuck yourself'"

[BorisBlade]

First, no lattice, so no focus, or much real strategy, which means you can go anywhere. Fights have no focus or real meaning. Makes no sense to go to a big fight when ghost caps give far more and are just as easy, and have no penalty.

Second, you give lots of xp for capping empty bases. The xp should be almost nothing if there is no fight, like ps1. Back capping should be more tactial, less xp focused unless the enemy shows up.

Third, defense is not realistic, no walls, no clear lines to keep the enemy out til defenders regroup. Even bases with walls have so many holes, gaps, tunnels, doors, stairs, jumpads, teleports, gates, etc etc that the walls are pretty meaningless. The ways in need to be drastically reduced, esp when light assault negates walls entirely anyway, not to mention LA and lame beacons, etc. There should be options but not 10+ ways in on top of LA and air drops. Also turrets are pathetic, low armor, mediocre firepower, on a sitting duck target. Turrets should be menacing. Its not like they can hide or take cover, they are a joke to take out esp with a bazillion infantry and the cheezy solo MBT's. The defenders also spawn way across from defense points while attackers spawn next to them, terrible design. The far too low TTK does limit greatly having very many players because you die too fast if there are more than just a few players, but things must be less spread out or its just not feasible to realistically defend. Its also not fun to try to cover 15 different openings and cap points.

Fourth, no legitimate way to defend a cap unless you are already there. Cap times are too quick, you dont have time to respond. You cant really tell whats goin on where, you cant see clearly marked hack alerts with the timers like in PS1. You have very little idea on whats goin on. Combined with no lattice and complete chaos on the hacking, bases just constantly flip back and forth all over the map so it feels meaningless to secure one because the other 10 are gonna flip anyways. Again, the attack options need to be more limited to several targets not all bases at once. There needs to be some rules and a lattice. Obviously not like ps1, more complex with an updated system, but a lattice none the less.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but ps1 already did all this right, I know the game has gotten bigger but the same basic ideas should have been learned already but somehow ps1's successes are totally ignored constantly, almost nothing of ps1 is even in ps2, its like it never existed. Most every problem in this game was already solved in ps1. Dont feed me the line of "its a different game, that stuff wont work" cause yes, it will, some is nearly cut and paste, some is more complex but the basic ideas can be implimented and modified as necessary to make ps2 a far better game and something that is actually a sequel and not just yet another BF game but with more people.

[Revanmug]

NC (as well as TR) need a dedicated main gunner ASAP; you either driving or you gunning with the design of these tanks. Fun times in a Magrider, effortless getting the first shot off on an NC tank driving by.

The Magrider is perfect don't nerf that either. Just saying In a Vanguard it is not fun!! As you go from driving to operating the turret as it slowly turns and you know you gonna die YOU KNOW IT. But you try anyway.:lol:

NC and TR tanks could be much better deterrents against zerg waves if they worked like a true tank. Not to bring up PS1 like a little bitch but many a time the tanks helped push back the zerg thanks to a driver/gunner team.

Driver/gunner is not going to change the really big thing that hurt track base tank over the special case Magrider. No, I'm not talking about his strafing ability but the main gun handling.

Every little bump your track tank drives over will fuck your main gun aim like no tomorrow. This isn't much a problem for the Magrider as everything is just much more smoother when moving around giving a better experience when firing.

I feel like driver/gunner is just going to show this problem even more and not really fix the problem the way you might think.



On the XP matter, I'm not sure why people would just go around capping DURING a 2x XP event. Base cap, weirdly, don't give double XP meaning killing people in your own base (for the 5/10/% defense bonus) is several time better than just ghost capping since one ain't affect by it.

[Blynd]

there should be a minimum xp level given for capping an undeffended base or one with few deffenders - it should take into account the size of the defenders and the size of the attackers groups and give a small amount if there is hardly any fighting - if there is a good 30 minute battle for a base both sides going hard at it and it gets capped then there should be a ton of exp for the attackers similarly if the defenders resist the attackers then there should be an equal amount of exp as it is to cap it based on the fight over the base ( to eliminate the 1 man hacks and re hacks) that way its just as profitable exp wise to deffend and deffend well as it is to cap a base in the first place. I cant understand why there is no exp for defences

[Subedai]

My first thought is the crown - having only one profitable farm for defenders means that half the population of the server can be stuck in one place for weeks. The crown needs to be easier to take.
Conversely the other bases need to be more easily defensible. There should be ways defenders can farm the attackers equally.
More xp for the longer a fight is - for defenders as well. Ie if the defenders take back the point quickly little or no xp, if the defenders get it back after an epic counter attack and defence, they should get a reward for it. Not just a timer but how many people died/fought over the base - similar to PS1. You got more xp for a big drawn out fight compared to a steamroll.

On briggs atleast the easiest solution would be to delete the crown so the noobs have to see the rest of the game.

[p0intman]

[03:17:36] < P0INTMAN >so i noticed there are actually a lot of very bad players in day-z and other arma2 mods.
[03:18:15] < P0INTMAN >im actually suprised that people are shocked when I return fire
[03:24:25] < P0INTMAN >its so unsatisfying though, it isn't fucking persistant.
[03:29:44] < P0INTMAN >it would be fucking fantastic if there were an mmofps where being infantry was viable.

the last part is where emphasis should be.

do something about this horrifying situation I find myself in Malorn, so I can bring myself to press log in again.

[Rago]

Like we told them 100 Times before removing point for defending base´s and removing the Teleporters out of the Spawn room was not the best idea,...


So what wrong with the Game ?

--Defense is worthless, and even got more worthless for casual and players without a Outfit.

--Introduction and basic Game Functions are not explained for new Players(it even more chaotic being in a droppod for them) imho

--Graphical Problems from Time to Time

I really love Planetside and i like those Planetside scale Battles but really they should make it WORTH defending stuff.
I understand that this i kind of experience for them that they need, but counting 1 plus 1 is a thing that everybody should be able to do.:huh:


Why are so many Players frustrated ? Right because this is basic "core" Game which is essential for everybody.

[Arkanakaz]

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

The problem I have as an individual is that unlike in PlanetSide 1 where there was the 'tactical overlay' and the base alert system (yellow, orange and red). In PlanetSide 2 it is much harder to tell where the enemy is.

My goal is like yours, as in to find a fight. If I want it to be a good fight then no side can have more than say 70% of the population in that area. If either empire has 70% or more then the one side isn't able to fight back and the fight is over too quickly - often before I can get there.

I try to make the most of the 'enemy activity' feature and the population reveal that each hex gives but I find it hard to see where there is going to be an even, and therefore prolonged fight. I like to think as a PlanetSide 1 veteran I am better than most at interpreting the continental map but I still find that I end up traveling for some time to reach an area only to find that we are either overwhelming with our numbers, or the enemy is overwhelming us with theirs. I suspect others have the same problem of trying to track both friendlies and enemies so that they can see where the balanced fight is going to be.

I feel if information on enemy and friendly population movements were more accurate it would make it easier for the blobs to find each other. It would also mean that defense would be more worthwhile as you could have a better guess at where the enemy is going to attack next. At the moment it inset worth guarding a location as it is too hard to tell if somewhere is going to be attacked and you don't want people standing around doing nothing. Also only start to defend an area when it is already being captured and the blob already has a grip and small groups and individuals turning up are going to be easily defeated. This causes very few to turn up as no individual or group wants to spend time traveling there only to find they are the only ones from their empire that has turned up to defend.

So more information on friendly and enemy movements to help people find the even fights would be my suggested solution.

[SUBARU]

How can you stay and defend a base,when you dont know if it will be attacked???????

PS1 you knew what would be attacked and where to go to defend.PS2 is just a mess

[Cadia]

I experienced this "air Camping" a lot yesterday on amerish.
geting farmes by a BattleRank 30+ in his Lib. This requires no Fu**** Skill at all. just spend 1000 SC in a better gun or GtA Missils. And the certs flow. this is realy frustrating, and I´m not this kind of player who takes dying in a game to serious.
Aircraft´s OP? .. May be.. I´m not shure about this. There are some realy good Pilots out ther, earning respekt. on the other hand there are too many killwhores in Airplanes out there. And bad Base design helps them farming again and again.

[Electrofreak]

Trying oh so hard not to mount my soap box and go on about the benefits to using dynamic XP for base captures.

...trying so hard....

[igster]

*wave* to Malorn. Nice (as usual) to see the dev team interacting with the community.

Tactical Failure
Biggest issue for me is the Map. Please SOE Dev team, objectively consider how you have designed your map. From an objective user interface point of view it doesnt help the user get a strategic overview of what is happening.

More precisely, it gives me some view of where the enemy are at. (but only if i hover over the area which is bad UI design)
It gives me no overview of where my friendly forces are at.
It gives me no indication of the status of a base.
It doesnt tell me if the base is capped.
Are the outposts capped?
Is the shield Gen down?
Is the SCU down?

When a big zerg is coming down the West of Indar, should I go to reinforce it or is our zerg farming the NC at Tarwich? You have no idea. Tactically it does not support the squad leaders to co-ordinate defences since you have no tactical overview of what forces to redeploy. Do we have a massive over population at one base and a smaller population trying to defend against a large zerg?
There is no visibility of this. If you are running on guess work, the strategy and meta game come down to guess work. Even using the leader channel to try and ask people where they are... the leader channel is across three continents. To find out where people are you have to ask on leader channel because of the failure of the map.
Overall terrible support for coordinated gameplay. I believe because of these shortcomings some outfits are setting up teamspeak servers to try and co-ordinate this stuff... but really... is that necessary.

Bring back the tactical overlay from PS1. Press M to bring up map. Map T button to Tactical overlay and you give your squad leaders an instant view of where the threats are, where the zergs are and where we need to respond.

Bring back proper status indications on the map so I dont have to visit a base to see which of the outposts have been taken. What status the gens are. What status the SCU is at.


Give us the tools to make the game live.

Properly revisit the map. Dont make us hover over things to try and find what status they are at. Show us first.

Let us reduce the intensity of the hex colours so that we can actually see indicators on the map. Hell let us overlay a tactical view of where the populations are over the top of the map so we can see both who owns the hex (e.g. in PS1 the base ownership) and also see the status and the amount of population on it.

People don't understand the importance of this tactical play, but it makes all the difference in the world. Allows for squads to get an overview of what they are going up against so that they can prepare an attack or a last minute resecure. Even the lonewolf can use his intuition to support a squad that they see going to resecure a base. But for outfit squads it makes them ten times more effective.

Defensibility.

The bases are just not defensible. I actually liked the base defenses at the tech plants because with a stubborn defence you had to work out strategies or rushes in order to gain the base. At the moment it is throw enough waves against the defence that you will win due to respawn strategies.

[SpunkyKuma]

I totally agree with the title, nothing but air now and it's not any fun and AA is a brutal waste of time.

I hope SOE identifies the issue soon.

[Beerbeer]

I like how Malorn at least takes the initiative to try and see things from different perspectives.

I sometimes get the feeling that everyone at Sony sits in an ivory tower and is completely disconnected with their customers.

[SpunkyKuma]

My outfit is guilty of capping empty locatioins and we end up falling back when we do meet the enemy. There's very little you get out of defending a base anyways, let the enemy take the base and then retake it after which yields much better xp/certs thand efending does and not to mention much fewer deaths.

There's a ton of flaws in PS2 I'm seeing but that's not a topic for this thread, PS1 was just a much better experience overall.

[Bocheezu]

I think the maps are just way too big. They could cut the map size in half easily.

For Indar, move Suarva to where the J908 Impact Site is now and just junk the entire northwest side of the map. Get rid of the myriad of outposts by the warpgates and make it so there's only 1 outpost between the warpgate and a big base. This would be like moving the NC warpgate to where Feldspar Canyon is now.

Make it so there's only one outpost between big bases. This would get rid of that line of VS crap between Vanu Archives and Peris (Highlands Solar Station, Ayani Labs, NS Research Lab). Galaxy Solar Plant, East Canyon Checkpoint, Abandoned NS Offices, Howling Pass Checkpoint (I know they just made it, but nothing happens there), all gone. Keep the Crown and Crossroads.

The population cap per continent is just too small for the map size and it causes people to concentrate in one area and leave another area completely vacant.

[MyOdessa]

Create Infantry Only (with Galaxies/Sundies/Flash to get around) or Infantry/Ground Vehicles Only continent and you will have a lot of small/large battles all over the place and a lot more enjoyment from PS2.

[Rivenshield]

The problem I have as an individual is that unlike in PlanetSide 1 where there was the 'tactical overlay' and the base alert system (yellow, orange and red). In PlanetSide 2 it is much harder to tell where the enemy is.

Yeah, it's confusing as hell. Little burst of flame on the map that when I mouse over them tell me NO ENEMY ACTIVITY.... flashing hex-blobs in different-colored parts of the map... a pie chart that I swear to God the first two weeks told me the proportion of the population of the various combatants, rather than 'influence', which I can bloody well see by looking at the map anyway.... The old alert system was intuitive and easy to understand. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, guys.

And the however-long-it-is cooldown period for 'instant action', plus the I-can't-go-anywhere unless-the-green-tabs-tell-me-I-can dynamic means in a lot of cases I drop, either find nothing going on or get run over by the enemy zerg, fall back and find no co-defenders, and have to /suicide for the next few minutes to get to somewhere good. Or recall to the WG and swap conts, then /suicide-travel to get into battle. It blows.

Higby expressly took away our sanctuaries to *reduce* the amount of time it took to get into a fight. Oh, it's just another loading screen he said. We're streamlining things. Balls! It takes LONGER to find a battle and deploy now. A lot longer, a lot more often.

I think the maps are just way too big. They could cut the map size in half easily.

For Indar, move Suarva to where the J908 Impact Site is now and just junk the entire northwest side of the map.

I agree with practically everything you say, but you're kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Why not divvy Indar in half, from the Crown north? Call it North and South Indar, and link them together via warp gate. Add some rivers in a few canyons and maybe even a scenic waterfall while you're at it, once they get water to the point where they're happy. It could be a special siesmic in-game mega-event.... not a Bending, just a fuckhueg earthquake.

[Emperor Newt]

As there are already plenty of good posts here just my two cents.

- Defending is not rewarding enough (we had a way more rewarding and especially better visible system in beta)
- You have no bloddy idea where the enemy is attacking and how many. Without having scouts at the locations you have abssolutely no idea where you need to defend and where it is viable to sent troops to defend and where it is too late. And even then your information input is limited. The current system simply tells you nothing.
- Defending is too hard. I think this is most likely related to base layout, there are plenty of good suggestions in the official forums. Outposts are very often just a waste of time. There are too many and it's hard to defend those even when defenders are 1:1 to attackers. It's actually harder to defend then to attack, and that boggles my mind. It should be the other way round. No matter if base or outposts.
- For the larger bases it's the same, the only thing that is actually viably defensible are Biolabs, and those only because vehicles cannot spawn camp (big issue!) the spawn.
- Defense is difficult to hold up as that there are too many vehicles around and as cooldowns and ressources are not limiting enough. No matter how many HE Prowlers you are able to kill, they will keep coming from the next outpost while you cannot pull AV Vanguards because you are cut off from your techlab (because someone took it in like 10 minutes as nobody deems defense to be necessary). So defending something that does not have a connection to a tech plant is even more pointless.

Overall: people do what gives them the most xp to get certs. Currently that's playing medic, tank spam and taking undefended bases/outposts. In the past it has been rocket podding the s* out of everything.
The game needs a better xp distribution. People do what gives the most xp, and as long as there are gameplay options which are more rewarding then others, people will flock to what gives the most xp. Get this stuff in line and then it should be easier to see where the deeper gameplay problems are.

[Ghoest9]

When ever I want just a fight I go to what ever red areas is showing as a hot spot. if multiple ones are showing I go to the one with the biggest cap reward.

I go to red because im NC and i cant tell the purple from the blue.


Then after its down and if my timer hotspot timer isnt up I go to the closest sunderer in a red area. If there arent any I often go afk till my timer is ready.




Im can tell many other players do basically the same thing and its why the battles make no sense at all on a strategic level.

[Mietz]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Here is my perspective, something slightly different from the other posts.

A lot of people have brought up the skinner box effect and how people seem to be only interested in gaining certs and XP.

This is only part of the problem, the second element that reinforces this behavior is the lack of permanence and failure conditions. Your design of PS2 seems to rely solely on incentives for activities without having failure conditions or penalties for those activities.

You take a base, you get rewarded.
You kill, you get rewarded.
You repair, you get rewarded.
You heal, you get rewarded.
etc.

Since all your incentives are rewards, people gravitate towards a min-max attitude: What gives best rewards/minute played.
There isn't any risk and no risk-vs-reward calculation, hence nobody really cares about objectives.

Right now the resource system isn't a strong enough penalty to be considered, this leads to people holding the Crown on Indar for hours on end while losing all territories around it.
The penalties must be severe to make players follow the design.

What if:

a. death wasn't inconsequential and higher death rates would mean higher respawn timers (with cap at X)
b. facilities had vehicles and consumables attached to them (like the Tech Plant with the MBT)
etc.

If you look at the gameplay for a while you will notice that Tech Plants are considered more important and are more often defended, its your only penalty that works. (Indar has its own problems with 3 tech plants and the crown not really requiring that much armor to take or defend, but Esamir has only one and the fight is always on)

Give people something to fight for (to avoid penalties and failure).

I hope you will consider this input.

[vipjerry]

Lets face it PS2 is pointless in state it is now. Incentives and meta game we have now looks like something created by 12y.

I personalty still having fun playing heavy in this few big battles here and there just killing ppl. But for how long? Also makes me puke when i see all this aircraft grinding and farming (i cant call this playing PS2) and as inf you basically cant do anything about it.

I was playing PS1 since early beta and stopped when i got my PS2 beta. There where many ups and downs with PS1 (CC, BFR-s etc) but you never had this problems with inf vs vehicles vs air balance. Also you couldn't get XP for capping empty base.

My prediction is that unless SOE decide to do something about meta game PS2 servers will be empty in less than a month.

No point typing any kind of solution because SOE devs knows this very well. Asking for players opinion is like asking persone who stands in front of white wall is this wall white and what they think about it. Yes its white and it taste as fcking wall there is nothing special about it. When this big battles wears out PS2 is just heh lets say nothing.

1) Where is command rank? Every idiot can be commander in PS2 and in 99% its usually case.
2) High battle rank and high k/d just tells you = farmer (no respect for this players at all).
3) Whats the purpose of outfits in PS2? Just another friend list...
4) Hex system is completely flowed. There is no easy fix for this.
5) Most of certs are useless. You could at least limit some certs depending on BR...
6) Base design is just horrible? Unoriginal and uninteresting also confusing.
7) Weapon models are all the same.
8) In PS1 there where good differentiation between TR, NS and Vanu (mini-guns, shotgun, disco lasher...) now its all the same.
...

I could go on forever but as i said earlier devs know all this from early beta better than we do...

[Rivenshield]

Right now the resource system isn't a strong enough penalty to be considered, this leads to people holding the Crown on Indar for hours on end while losing all territories around it.
The penalties must be severe to make players follow the design.


/groan

Dude. This is a game. You don't make people follow your God almighty game design by penalizing them. You simply make them go 'This blows' and they quit and then they go tell all their friends about it. And in the modern social media age, that's lethal poison.

You incentivize forms of gameplay by rewarding, not by taking away.

[Electrofreak]

/groan

Dude. This is a game. You don't make people follow your God almighty game design by penalizing them. You simply make them go 'This blows' and they quit and then they go tell all their friends about it. And in the modern social media age, that's lethal poison.

You incentivize forms of gameplay by rewarding, not by taking away.

While I agree with Rivenshield, at the same time, there is a reason for the resource system, and that's to prevent PlanetSide turning into VehicleSide.

The problem is that vehicles currently have 2 factors that prevent them from being reused, and that's resources AND the vehicle acquisition timer.

I say get rid of the timer so that you can ONLY spawn vehicles based upon resource limitations, and then tweak resource rate gain to compensate. Change the vehicle acquisition timer reduction certification to a minor reduction in resource requirements for vehicles.

When you start overlapping game mechanics like that, it gets hard to balance the game appropriately, and feels overly restrictive to the players. Keep it simple and elegant.

[JQuizzle]

On the point of trying to defend against a zerg, I remember two features from PS1 that gave smaller numbers a fighting chance against larger numbers.
(This will probably cause a few eyes to roll...)

- Orbital Strikes.
- Automated base defences.
___________________________________________

Orbital Strike
Hitting the spawn campers with an OS can provide some much needed breathing space, and knock back enemy resources and acquisition timers. Not so effective against air (unless they're really unlucky, or stupid), but all the clustered armour jostling and crashing in to each other while trying to get away are toast. Allowing time to address some of the campers in the air, or at least get to somewhere else in the base.
It's a shame the Command Rank system (to acquire the OS ability) was dropped in PS2. It depended, somewhat, on actual 'leadership' skills. The Leadership tree would be the most obvious place for such a feature to reside. Though, it would then be open to anyone, that either grinds xp in any old fashion or simply pay for it. An attempt not to be a Pay-To-Win model is probably why it was avoided this time around.
If OS was introduced, OS kills should not give xp, and be a purely tactical feature, but be reasonably heavy on cooldown duration and resources cost (using all 3 resource types).
Obviously OS wouldn't strictly be a defensive ability, but it lends itself better to defence.

Automated Base Defences
Although the automated base defences in PS1 weren't formidable, they did at least soften ground and air vehicles up. Flying behind enemy lines is then a dangerous manoeuver by default (if you're not careful where you fly), instead of there simply being a chance that enemy players may notice you and take pot shots.
This could help against ghost capping, by making empty bases a slight challenge to break in to, and by highlighting proximity alerts on the global map.
Though, it doesn't help that the way territories are displayed on the map is ambiguous - Territory ownership and troop activity covers a main base and all towers/spawns within it's influence. With no indication of who owns which spawns, or what state generators are in (when you're not in that territory, even one owned by your faction). It's next to impossible to tell what's happening in each territory when you aren't there.
___________________________________________

But these features alone wouldn't give players an incentive to actually defend.
A scaled reward for successfully attacking/defending has been mentioned a number of times, so there's no point in me elaborating on a system.

[WreckedM]

Historical land conquest wars have the proverbial "front-lines". PS2 doesn't really have these, although the maps make it appear as if they exist. I think SOE needs to find ways of channeling opposing forces at each other leading to more of an advance/retreat battle front feel -- as opposed to the roving mongol horde vibe it has now.

This could also create a meta-game for the smaller outfits too. They could penetrate past the front lines to compete with other small outfits away from the zerg.


Automated Base Defences
Flying behind enemy lines is then a dangerous manoeuver by default (if you're not careful where you fly), instead of there simply being a chance that enemy players may notice you and take pot shots.
This could help against ghost capping, by making empty bases a slight challenge to break in to, and by highlighting proximity alerts on the global map.


Auto-defense alone may not create the 'front-line' itself but it could be a big part of the solution.

[nailgun]

I honestly hate the boring, skillless, vehicle zerg steamroll monotony at the heart of PS2's design. The solution is easy.

1. Put Orbital Strikes back in the game.
2. Make them usable only against your own faction's blob.

Players will take care of the rest.

[p0intman]

While I agree with Rivenshield, at the same time, there is a reason for the resource system, and that's to prevent PlanetSide turning into VehicleSide.

The problem is that vehicles currently have 2 factors that prevent them from being reused, and that's resources AND the vehicle acquisition timer.

I say get rid of the timer so that you can ONLY spawn vehicles based upon resource limitations, and then tweak resource rate gain to compensate. Change the vehicle acquisition timer reduction certification to a minor reduction in resource requirements for vehicles.

When you start overlapping game mechanics like that, it gets hard to balance the game appropriately, and feels overly restrictive to the players. Keep it simple and elegant.

that would make the current problem even worse than it is currently, and the game is already VehicleSide anyway.

[maradine]

Orbital Strike
Things.

And then in a few years we'll be complaining about non-stop OS spam instead of vehicle spam. The problem with massive scale is that, sooner or later, everyone gets a pony, and that's a lot of ponies. Not knocking OS in general; I definitely think it's a missing feature. Just that it conceptually suffers from the same problem. And if we could find some way to limit it appropriately, I'd hope we could apply that same logic to some of our existing problems.

I've lost track of how many threads this same metaconversation is happening in. I'm long since out of value to add. What I'd like to see more than anything else is some sort of SOE roadmap. It doesn't have to be detailed, and I wouldn't ship poop in a box to San Diego if they changed it regularly and drastically to account for the realities of time and available development resources. But I do think we need to see that roadmap. More or less, now.

[boogy]

Simple question to ask about adding any combat element to the game, " Will the game be better with it, or without it? " I feel features like this are based on the whole "how cool would it be if we had x?"

I just don't see any device that will cause joy to one elite player with the result of frustrating a lot of players being better for the game. Orbital strikes, no way.
We don't need it. It doesn't offer anything I can think of that out ways it's negative. It's just a how cool would it be device.

I feel the same about liberators. The negatives they are causing this game to the many outweigh the diversity in vehicle play it brings. It causes more people to quit the game than it brings players into the game. Ditch it for another fighter variant or a even a helicopter. how cool would it be if we had an anti-ground gunship that could only be hard countered by air? Yeah a lib is a pretty damn cool vehicle, but the game is not better off with it.

[PoisonTaco]

I don't have a problem with defending if I know when an enemy is coming, but most of the time I'm defending bases that the enemy has already broken into. It can be very hard to predict enemy troop movement. If you had more information to tell you that the other side is about to attack facility x, you could prepare for that sort of attack. You can place mines and C4's in key choke points and get all the turrets ready for a fight.

A lattice system isn't going to work with the territory system so we need something new. Instead of a system that funnels players down specific paths, I say you add more mechanics for detecting enemy troop movement. Put radar towers in key outposts. The small ones, not towers, larger bases or facilities. This would add strategic value to these outposts. What would the radar towers do? They would reveal enemy troops within a certain radius. It would not be perfect, and it would not distinguish between vehicles or infantry types. Every few seconds it could ping the area and enemies would show up as red dots on the map for everyone on your team.

These radar towers would cover a very large area, would have generators in their outposts that power them and could be linked to a facility benefit. Perhaps the amp station benefit could increase their range. Either way something to help out with detecting the enemy could help factions prepare their bases for defense.

[Helwyr]

And then in a few years we'll be complaining about non-stop OS spam instead of vehicle spam. The problem with massive scale is that, sooner or later, everyone gets a pony, and that's a lot of ponies.

A few years? How about a week after it's added to the game. It isn't a problem with "massive scale" it's a problem of everyone having access to everything. Orbital Strikes was done horribly wrong in PS1. If SOE had done leadership abilities as they had done vehicle access ...costs certs, be in the same cert pool as everything else, and have a low Cert/BR cap it would have been fine.


[...]I say you add more mechanics for detecting enemy troop movement. Put radar towers in key outposts. The small ones, not towers, larger bases or facilities. This would add strategic value to these outposts. What would the radar towers do? They would reveal enemy troops within a certain radius. It would not be perfect, and it would not distinguish between vehicles or infantry types. Every few seconds it could ping the area and enemies would show up as red dots on the map for everyone on your team.

These radar towers would cover a very large area, would have generators in their outposts that power them and could be linked to a facility benefit. Perhaps the amp station benefit could increase their range. Either way something to help out with detecting the enemy could help factions prepare their bases for defense.

Words cannot express how much I hate this idea of yours. It's as though I just received a special parcel from Maradine. The last thing PS2 needs is more Radar. It's the exact opposite of what is needed to address Vehicle vs Infantry balance and to discourage players from only zerging the enemy.

Anyway... Merry Christmas everyone!

[Ironside]

Bases/Towers poorly designed, to open, to many ways in, makes it impossible to defend against the zerg and the vehicles spam.
Who in their right mind thinks right we need a base here lets make it open and accessible to the enemy, attacking should be harder than defending, knock ps1 and its choke points but it made for epic fights, i miss fighting for hours for a base,that's why everyone loves the crown, they are long hard fights most of the time

[TheBladeRoden]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

"Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.
So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak." - Sun Tzu said that

[Mietz]

/groan

Dude. This is a game. You don't make people follow your God almighty game design by penalizing them. You simply make them go 'This blows' and they quit and then they go tell all their friends about it. And in the modern social media age, that's lethal poison.

You incentivize forms of gameplay by rewarding, not by taking away.

That is simply incorrect and I'll chalk it up to years of "indoctrination" by Skinner Box and talk about how games need to be "fun" (i.e. disposable entertainment) rather than engaging.

Negative Feedback and Perceptual Control Theory are modern, far superior models compared to Skinner.
These design elements work in many modern games that are not CoD or Zynga/Facebook designs.

Dark Souls is a game that uses negative feedback to condition players, the game sold ~2M on PC alone and has a dedicated fanatical playerbase that will throw money at From Software for anything (even a completely broken PC port).

Imagine if the playerbase of PS2 was this dedicated, SOE would make a killing.

F2P games can't rely on positive feedback as it ends in power-creep with the player demanding ever better rewards to get the same fix.

Moving the reward to a purely personal level works wonders.

[bpostal]

...I just don't see any device that will cause joy to one elite player with the result of frustrating a lot of players being better for the game. Orbital strikes, no way.
We don't need it. It doesn't offer anything I can think of that out ways it's negative. It's just a how cool would it be device.
....

I've actually put some thought into that and have come up with the following, it's not perfect but it can help what you're thinking of:
Just like how AMS are abused for their XP, remove the XP from OS and AMS, make them cost resources/whatever and give nothing back. No XP for spawns/kills, no massive OS killspam in the list at upper right...make them tactical tools for the tactically minded.
Like I said, it's not perfect but it's one way to A: reduce spam by removing the incentives and B: ensure that they're not wasted.

[p0intman]

"Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.
So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak." - Sun Tzu said that

Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man. Anything built by man, can be destroyed by him.
General George S. Patton.

See? I can quote military legends too.

Actually, Ive got a better one
I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!
-General George S. Patton

and to use Sun Tzu to demonstrate your own idiocy to you and to that of anyone else who wants to defend the status quo with Sun Tzu quotes, as it pertains to the giant zergfest idiocy right now:

In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War. c.400-320 B.C.

the point is, quotes mean fuck all, so stop using them and acting like you've got a clue.

[velleity]

The game is being played exactly as the devs intend it and you are all naive to think otherwise.

[p0intman]

The game is being played exactly as the devs intend it and you are all naive to think otherwise.

then the way they intended it is god-fucking-awful.

[boogy]

I've actually put some thought into that and have come up with the following, it's not perfect but it can help what you're thinking of:
Just like how AMS are abused for their XP, remove the XP from OS and AMS, make them cost resources/whatever and give nothing back. No XP for spawns/kills, no massive OS killspam in the list at upper right...make them tactical tools for the tactically minded.
Like I said, it's not perfect but it's one way to A: reduce spam by removing the incentives and B: ensure that they're not wasted.

I can see removing xp from AMS as a counter to spam if the spawn radius restriction was also removed. I never liked the spawn radius but I know it's needed.

i do think removing xp and kill count from OS may help reduce everyone wanting to abuse it. Or maybe making orbital strikes non lethal. Make them giant concussion bombs, that also disable vehicles. Or make flak armor very effective against OS. I've never played ps1 so I don't know how it worked but just the very concept of os makes me cringe and think its not worth the headaches and problems associated with balancing them into the game. God I hope they get scrapped.

[p0intman]

I can see removing xp from AMS as a counter to spam if the spawn radius restriction was also removed. I never liked the spawn radius but I know it's needed.

i do think removing xp and kill count from OS may help reduce everyone wanting to abuse it. Or maybe making orbital strikes non lethal. Make them giant concussion bombs, that also disable vehicles. Or make flak armor very effective against OS. I've never played ps1 so I don't know how it worked but just the very concept of os makes me cringe and think its not worth the headaches and problems associated with balancing them into the game. God I hope they get scrapped.

in PS1, an os was a tactical nuke that destroyed anything outdoors within a 15-25m radius, with very few exceptions. it had to be launched within the sphere of influence radius of one base area of the target (meaning, not from the other side of the cont, you had to be relatively close). once launched, it took 10-15 seconds to spool up before unleashing its destructive power. it became a learned skill to react quickly and seek cover from an OS or get out of its blast in the later days of PS1.

a little known fact is that if you were lucky, and smart, you could actually stand inside the blast zone and survive, if you were on its very outer edges or were in heavily armored vehicles in the same area. I had at least a dozen ams units i was driving survive with half or less health left over the course of PS1, after being struck with an OS nearby.

given everything, I do not support the introduction of orbital strikes to PS2 at this time. it would take a day and a half before they became as regular as in the later days of PS1.

[maradine]

Words cannot express how much I hate this idea of yours. It's as though I just received a special parcel from Maradine.

Hey, I haven't even shipped those yet. UPS, apparently, has "health standards".

My point re: massive scale was that it magnifies power availability issues. 32 dudes with orbital death ponies is spammy, but when 500 can show up to the same fight, you might want to stay indoors and away from flammable materials.

[boogy]

in PS1, an os was a tactical nuke that destroyed anything outdoors within a 15-25m radius, with very few exceptions. it had to be launched within the sphere of influence radius of one base area of the target (meaning, not from the other side of the cont, you had to be relatively close). once launched, it took 10-15 seconds to spool up before unleashing its destructive power. it became a learned skill to react quickly and seek cover from an OS or get out of its blast in the later days of PS1.

a little known fact is that if you were lucky, and smart, you could actually stand inside the blast zone and survive, if you were on its very outer edges or were in heavily armored vehicles in the same area. I had at least a dozen ams units i was driving survive with half or less health left over the course of PS1, after being struck with an OS nearby.

given everything, I do not support the introduction of orbital strikes to PS2 at this time. it would take a day and a half before they became as regular as in the later days of PS1.
Thanks for the explanation. Yeah adding that to the game sounds disastrous.

[PredatorFour]

What p0intman doesn`t say about os`s from PS is that they were on a timer, 3 hour i think. You couldnt just keep pulling tactical blasts everytime you met the enemy, altho in the end nearly everyone had them so they were widely used.

[TehCandyMan]

I think this all boils down to one thing and one thing only and that is Vehicles are a bit overpowerd in this version of Planetside.

I should not take 10 guys shooting at a tank or 10 guys shooting at a Plane to take them down. And please don't talk to me about certing C-4 to dispatch with tanks.. Because any retarded with a pair of eyes will see you coming from a mile away, now you add the ZERG factor in there and goodluck with getting near them.

These Devs need to give AV and AA more of a bite so we will be able to deal with these Zergs of vehicles. Right now it's almost impossible to deal with them because your having to fight them and soldiers at the same time, and trying to kill tanks and planes is a full time job as it is.

[Sledge]

Here are my two cents:

1. It is still "difficult" to find where the fight is actually happening. You can easily see where the enemy is or heading, but finding your own forces is much more difficult. Because of this, it's easy to head out to a base thinking you're supporting a defensive action and finding no one there but a squad of enemies.

2. There should be shared experience within squads to encourage selfless behavior and team play. A medic always healing people should be rewarded when his squadmates kill enemies too. Perhaps medals for rezzing people or repairing maxes.

3. I usually run with a small squad of 5-7 people. It can be challenging for us to get to behind enemy lines without being spotted. Gal's are too big, Sunderers too slow, and not everyone in my group can fly. Having those buggies that were promised would be a huge help.

4. Defensive experience needs to be boosted. Each defensive kill should have a portion of it's experience sent to a common pool, when the base is successfully defended, the experience is shared amongst the defenders.

5. Defensive layouts of bases are horrible for Tech Plants. Once the enemy has breached the outer gates, chances are they own the air. This makes running out of the spawn and trying to repair generators a near impossible task. Having to run THROUGH the attackers to get to your defensive position is just awful design. The old PS1 bases had many kill zones and hallways to fight over. Most internal space in bases is open to being shelled by tanks.

6. People take the path of least resistance because they see big chunks of exp flash across the screen. They don't realize they get better experience in actual battles (two kills is more experience than taking an outlying base). It's not displayed properly though.

7. It's challenging to find the proper small squad loadout for taking bases. If a Heavy takes an anti-air rocket, he's not going to be able to deal with the tank that shows up. He's also going to be unable to defend the squad from two people with ESFs. The "deterrent" options are not able to deter anything by themselves, which makes sense on a grand balance scale, but makes small unit operations much more difficult.

8. Leadership is cert based. Anyone can get into leader/orders chat, especially people who have no business being there. When one person in your faction is organizing "Flash mobs" which roll out of the base and get annihilated in a few minutes, it hurts those trying to actually play the game.

[Rivenshield]

2. There should be shared experience within squads to encourage selfless behavior and team play. A medic always healing people should be rewarded when his squadmates kill enemies too. Perhaps medals for rezzing people or repairing maxes.

That's another minor mechanism from the old game that I sorely miss. It really encouraged you to pitch in and do your part.

[maradine]

How about Winner-Takes-All facility fight XP?


Remove existing cap bonus and defense bonus percentages.
First kill in a location's hex set starts an invisible timer and counter.
If the timer expires without another kill taking place (call it 30 seconds, haven't thought too hard about it), the timer and counter reset.
If another kill occurs, increment the counter and reset the timer.
Fight continues until facility capture or successful defense, counter incrementing with kills and timer continually resetting.
At capture or defense, distribute bonus XP to winning faction proportional to magnitude of the counter.
Reset counter and timer.


What this would do is provide no value for ghost caps, marginal value for lightly defended or lightly attacked facilities, and a steadily growing motherlode for the big fights as they drag on and more people call in reinforcements - but only to the faction that seals the deal.

On the other hand, this still serves to clump the continent's fighters up into a big cluster. Probably worse than that; I can see people jumping continent just to get in on the big fight somewhere else that's about to end.

You know what, leaving this here for posterity, but forget I suggested it. Not the best idea.

[p0intman]

What p0intman doesn`t say about os`s from PS is that they were on a timer, 3 hour i think. You couldnt just keep pulling tactical blasts everytime you met the enemy, altho in the end nearly everyone had them so they were widely used.

near the end, the timer really didn't matter anyway because i could just tell a buddy where a target was over comms and it'd be dead a minute later.

[Ghoest9]

There should be an option for a squad leader to set half of all experience to be shared.
Theres no need for it in a pick up squad just attacking stuff. But would greatly improve the fairness of organized activities where some important jobs offer small rewards.

[ringring]

Dynamic base defense XP, the longer and harder the fight the more you get. This would be a powerful incentive to fight and seek the enemy.

This is it (added to short cap times).

If you want to get xp, go on a bus tour and collect 500xp at each stop off.

[Sturmhardt]

There should be an option for a squad leader to set half of all experience to be shared.
Theres no need for it in a pick up squad just attacking stuff. But would greatly improve the fairness of organized activities where some important jobs offer small rewards.

That sounds awesome, why is this not in yet SOE?

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 4 mit Tapatalk 2

[RykerStruvian]

I ran with a dual-outfit platoon of 12-18 people over the past four days of my vacation and we tried to do everything we could to go where our zerg wasnt. We found some really interesting fights but each fight, if our side lacked the population (which it didnt mostly) ended up with us hiding in buildings and spawn from a single liberator and/or ESF.

Regardless of what anyone says, it isnt an issue of skill, l2p, not enough AA, etc. The current form of this game does not allow small non-zerg squads to be combat effective against all forms of vehicles even if they are in small numbers. This is what happened:

We take an outpost, hold it, secure it, and it flips. Enemy comes in with ESF, we pull AA MAXs and HA w/ Hawks/Annihilators. Scythes take damage, fly off, repair, come back. This repeats.

Enemy brings in a liberator. The liberator -demolishes- any infantry we have and MAXs can't do nearly enough damage to it because it has a zephyr and maxed out composite armor. By this time a 3-man galaxy w/ maxed out armor and bulldogs comes. Now we're being camped by a liberator and galaxy. At this time we just redeploy at warpgate.

So we tried not to fight with the zerg and had more than enough AA, but because we didn't have any ESF support we were rendered practically combat ineffective. We didn't encounter any initial resistance, but the enemy was able to farm us. And this is something that repeats over, and over, and over again if you try not to follow the zerg.

So you have two options: Get your ass kicked by OP air or ghost cap with the zerg. Hate to say it, but ghost capping with the zerg brings in massive certs and is a lot less frustrating. :\

[Emperor Newt]

That sounds awesome, why is this not in yet SOE?

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 4 mit Tapatalk 2

I have no idea... this was suggested during beta several times and I cannot think of a single time the devs actually responded to the idea. But I think it should be restricted to outfits or the option restricted to high BR players.

For publis squads it has some problems of being likely to be abused, but who want's to share his xp with leechers anyway? As long as there is something telling you that xp is shared I doubt people would stay in squads with leechers or not kick those out.

[MyOdessa]

I ran with a dual-outfit platoon of 12-18 people over the past four days of my vacation and we tried to do everything we could to go where our zerg wasnt. We found some really interesting fights but each fight, if our side lacked the population (which it didnt mostly) ended up with us hiding in buildings and spawn from a single liberator and/or ESF.

Regardless of what anyone says, it isnt an issue of skill, l2p, not enough AA, etc. The current form of this game does not allow small non-zerg squads to be combat effective against all forms of vehicles even if they are in small numbers. This is what happened:

We take an outpost, hold it, secure it, and it flips. Enemy comes in with ESF, we pull AA MAXs and HA w/ Hawks/Annihilators. Scythes take damage, fly off, repair, come back. This repeats.

Enemy brings in a liberator. The liberator -demolishes- any infantry we have and MAXs can't do nearly enough damage to it because it has a zephyr and maxed out composite armor. By this time a 3-man galaxy w/ maxed out armor and bulldogs comes. Now we're being camped by a liberator and galaxy. At this time we just redeploy at warpgate.

So we tried not to fight with the zerg and had more than enough AA, but because we didn't have any ESF support we were rendered practically combat ineffective. We didn't encounter any initial resistance, but the enemy was able to farm us. And this is something that repeats over, and over, and over again if you try not to follow the zerg.

So you have two options: Get your ass kicked by OP air or ghost cap with the zerg. Hate to say it, but ghost capping with the zerg brings in massive certs and is a lot less frustrating. :\

I have exactly the same experience, a squad or two take small outpost or try to out flank enemy, have couple good ground fights, EFS/Libs come in. Game Over.

Until there is MAJOR nerf to air power, this game will continue looking like migration scene from Ice Age. Zerg crowd attracts its own air and enemy does not put up much resistance. If you lucky you get one or two kills and a few certs when base is capped. BORING.

[RykerStruvian]

I don't think air power necessarily needs to be nerfed but I think ground assets versus air need to be buffed. For one thing, the HAWK/Annihilator DO NOT WORK 3 out of 4 times. ESF either A) pop flares B) bank a little while flying C) Do absolutely nothing. The guided missiles from both the HAWK/Annihilator have terribad tracking and dont even do damage when they make contact. I bought both the HAWK/Annihilator and have fired at ESF from multiple angles with them diving at me, flying away, flying vertically, etc. The guided missiles are easily thrown off course, die prematurely, or do absolutely no damage at all (they make contact, I see them explode, the hit indicator flashes, yet no damage was actually dealt). There is that one missile which manages to actually make contact and do damage, but the damage is so little that it doesn't make a difference.

However, I am not saying buff the damage. I understand one G2A shouldn't take out an ESF but something seriously needs to be done. None of the rocket launchers have anything available to be certed in to to improve them as well.

The skyguard still seems to suck as well. It does very little damage to ESF and seems to only be good at being scary and blinding bombers. AP rounds seem to be better versus air because they actually hurt a lot and typically three shot libs and one shot ESF from long range. I've killed more air units with the AP turret than the skyguard this way :\

Sorry went on a tangent. ;[ FYI, I am also a pilot. When heavy assaults lock on to me and fire off their rockets, I just lol knowing they will do nothing and keep farming the bajeezus out of them with rocket pods.

[gunshooter]

I think this all boils down to one thing and one thing only and that is Vehicles are a bit overpowerd in this version of Planetside.

I should not take 10 guys shooting at a tank or 10 guys shooting at a Plane to take them down. And please don't talk to me about certing C-4 to dispatch with tanks.. Because any retarded with a pair of eyes will see you coming from a mile away, now you add the ZERG factor in there and goodluck with getting near them.

These Devs need to give AV and AA more of a bite so we will be able to deal with these Zergs of vehicles. Right now it's almost impossible to deal with them because your having to fight them and soldiers at the same time, and trying to kill tanks and planes is a full time job as it is.
Vehicles are easy to kill, there's just too many of them. Anyway, I think the main issue is just poor base design. Outposts are all universally poorly designed, period, aside from the Crown/Skydock which are cool and unique.

[RykerStruvian]

The skydock is one of the easiest places to farm if not the most. Infantry and MAXs can camp/rig the landing pad while a smart lib pilot can hide under the length of the ridge of the plateau only to rise, bomb the infantry, and then once again go below the base to repair and cause infantry in the base to lose LoS.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

SWEET! I'm gonna do that later today.

[james]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

There is no reason to defend, do to most of the points come from capping bases, and kills. Plus an average player, can get just as many points zerging from undefended base to undefended base as they can grinding. I think i can do around 15k an hr capping. I do around 10k an hr when grinding it out in fights with my outfit. Thats with premium tier 6 and 50 percent boost.

The only time we get a decent fight is when the zerg hits us, and when the zerg hits us, most times they just leave

[igster]

Lots of very good constructive points here. One point that I would like to counter though is on the resource system. People saying that it needs to be made so that it is useful.. also a way to counter vehicleside.

1) Resource System
For me, the resource system is a 'dogma' introduced by the planetside 2 team themselves. PS2 must have a resource system. End of argument. Now as it was pretty poorly thought out in beta and then modified into another pretty badly thought out and implemented system in the live game... my personal point is that this is one of those 'yellow post it notes' written in really big writing at a design meeting that has never actually had any deep thought or effort put into it.

Don't introduce a headline game element if it hasnt properly been thought about and weaved into the gameplay at a micro and macro level. What is it there for? If it brings nothing to the table other than bringing a tactical element into the game then it shouldnt be implemented. What happens to resources when a side is dominating and what happens when a side is being massively outgunned. Boundary conditions. What is my motivation to fight on.

I don't think having 2 systems to deny people playing the class or vehicle that they want to play is a good idea. Have a timer system... fine... this does work... people don't equate time to money... we know it works. Alternatively have a resource system... not so good in my opinion since people equate resources to money... fine but don't have both which are both working against me playing the class or role that I am specced to play and want to fulfil. Or am asked to fulfil.

The problem I have with a resource cost on spawning vehicles or classes is that as an outfit we might be zerging a base one minute and the call comes over outfit chat or on the leader channels to defend Base X on continent Y.

Everyone stop what you are doing or you lose your left nut.. this is your squad leader calling. In a dynamic exciting game you want to be doing this. Change the pace responding to tactical events under the command of your leaders. If you have spent everything you had on a vehicle... does that match with being able to react with what your SL is demanding.
I've just pulled a burster max and have no max certs left... my SL wants 3 maxes to join this assault and I'm the max specialist.

We get this now in the game. I've just pulled a scythe. I've had to wait 10 minutes to pull it because of the timer. I love flying. As I've selected the scythe from the menu my squad leader calls for everyone to jump into a galaxy to assault a base. What do I do. I want to smash my head against the table.
PS1 had a much smaller timer and didnt seem to have a problem with max spam or reaver spam or tank spam. Why is it such a problem now that we also need a resource system to counter it?

This is a fundamental problem that means that the resource and timer systems are designed around the solo player and not against a team player. I play in a team and want to be a team player. Don't put systems in my way that mean that I can't. It seems to be designed to force someone to rotate what they play over time.

Don't get resources and timers and ability to pull a vehicle or class you want to play mixed up. The meta game should not be solely based on stopping people play what they want to. Resources in PS1 were also about giving you a super radar.. giving you auto repair facilites from bases, alien tecnology, piggin flails!! NTU Resources as a way to siege a base.

This was the reward system. It enhanced your game as well as penalised your game. When you were being dominated.. u got a bonus to make the hurt go away. When you spawn camped you got little XP. When you killed someone who'd been alive for a long time, you got a cracking chunk of XP.

Penalties/Rewards more like PS1. This isn't starcraft. The resource system that we have is just vespene and minerals from starcraft without any thought out reason for it. It doesn't make any sense.

2 - Tactical Response

This resource system goes against one of the key gameplay elements that I have seen completely get lost in PS2. Something I really miss. Responding to the enemy operations.
We spent 9 years responding to hacks and special operations in PS1 and loved it. (BTW if someone doesnt know what this is about then they never properly played PS1 and you should ask one of the guys who did experience this to explain how much epic fun is to be had in resecuring bases and denying enemy attacks)

From my point of view this element of the game just didnt get considered in the PS2 design meetings. I may be wrong but I suspect that the designers didnt fully experience the game at this level. The focus was on epic large scale battles. Which has resulted in the current Zerg herding focus.

The poor map system doesnt help this element of gameplay that has been lost since it is no longer possible to determine what the enemy is up to. You lose power on your bases and you know nothing about it. Someone is prepping a base for a cap and you have no way of knowing since you are fighting in a different hex.

We had squads who you knew specialised in prepping a base for an attack to open up a new continent in a way that meant that you wouldn't detect what they were doing. Then the hack would go on and the tactical response players would hopefully spot what was happening and try to organise a response. Respond well and u'd hopefully stop them in their tracks. Don't respond and you'd be at a gameplay disadvantage - forces were pulled from where you wanted them to be. A whole meta game right there.

The relief and excitement you'd get when you'd resecure a base at the very last second was great. Something for the smaller outfits to do. It wasn't about numbers necessarily. It was about teamplay.
On offence a small team holds off a much larger response from the present owners of a base.
Or on defence a small team of well co-ordinated players resecure a base that is being captured by a bigger team.


This was the real chess game and strategy of PS1 and why the meta game here was so much richer. Add on top of this surgical strikes and defences of key resource generators (e.g. tech plants for air + tanks, interlinks for minimap radar) And then the lattice overlays this and you can see how us PS1 players are generally disappointed with the PS2 meta game.
PS2 meta game is tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses for us Anglophiles)
PS1 meta game is Chess

It did have it's downside in that it was hard to explain at times. It was rich. It could be abused also. It did mean that you could play it to avoid the eternal 3 way battle that are impossible to avoid that we have in PS2. It also had major issues where you were engineered into ghost capping continents.

But given a choice between the ghost capping zerg that we have now and the PS1 system I'd choose the PS1 meta game anytime.

Summary Fur Coat and No Underpants
PS2 is the game of the year. The graphics, the mechanics, the weapons, the vehicles and to some extent the maps and bases are stunning. Without the deep rich long game that we can still be playing in 10 years time it will lose population to the next big game.

PS1 graphics and mechanics were bad (not at the time) but people played for a long time despite this. It wasn't because of the meta game that it lost population. We still had great times for 10 years.

Put a meta game of equivalent depth into PS2 and it'll be the game of the decade and I'll buy all of the cuban hats, 6 inch heels, tiger print leotards and studded codpieces that you put into the PS2 Shop for the next ten years.

With only a Shallow meta game as it is now hardcore players will be bored and move on. The shop is gonna have full shelves and empty tills within the year. Along with many others I'll probably be looking for my fashion accessories elsewhere.

[bpostal]

...Lots O' Stuff:
Summary Fur Coat and No Underpants
PS2 is the game of the year. The graphics, the mechanics, the weapons, the vehicles and to some extent the maps and bases are stunning. Without the deep rich long game that we can still be playing in 10 years time it will lose population to the next big game.

PS1 graphics and mechanics were bad (not at the time) but people played for a long time despite this. It wasn't because of the meta game that it lost population. We still had great times for 10 years.

Put a meta game of equivalent depth into PS2 and it'll be the game of the decade and I'll buy all of the cuban hats, 6 inch heels, tiger print leotards and studded codpieces that you put into the PS2 Shop for the next ten years.

With only a Shallow meta game as it is now hardcore players will be bored and move on. The shop is gonna have full shelves and empty tills within the year. Along with many others I'll probably be looking for my fashion accessories elsewhere.

I agree with your points, not as much with the resources hampering the gameplay, but that's probably a matter of perspective as my cooldowns and resources are generally available unless we're WG'd. I especially agree that rapid response isn't viable and seems to exist only for frustrating and burning out players who wish to try it.

The real problem I have though, is that so few played Planetside, real proper Planetside, that the majority of players are satisfied with the game we have now, regardless of it's hollowness and it's lack of long term sustainability. I can't fault them for not knowing better, as most have not played PS1 and as such don't have a yearning for a deep, strategic, tactical game that one can play for years.

[elidion]

This is interesting to me, I play on the Genudine Server and for us it seems to be the opposite during the 2x Exp periods. I'm not sure if people realize that base caps don't offer the double exp bonus or not...but on my server they do...which means people go where the fighting is because it's a farm fest with double exp on everything. If I go and ghost cap I get about 11-12k score per hour if we move quickly enough. Right now I am getting 35k SPH by defending an amp station for the last 4 hours.

[igster]

BTW I don't want the zerg to go away. It is a nice introduction into the game to follow the herd and pickup the complexities of the game mechanics.

A large Zerg is not a bad thing at all. When a Zerg properly meets a Zerg it does result in epic fights. However, permanent Zerg becomes dull and repetitive. And results in stalemates, first world war sausage grinders and stale gameplay.

Even the most tactical teams want to zerg at times. But they also want the opportunity to take off the restraining bolts and step it up and go off piste.

[GraphicJ]

The moral of this story: Don't fight in small groups.

[bpostal]

The moral of this story: Don't fight in small groups.

A good discussion for http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51436&page=22 but I see no reason this game can not support smaller units and promote them by being effective.

[LexDecon]

Here are the issues my outfit and myself have seen.

1. Aircraft aren't aircraft. they are flying tanks. Situation as follows.

We are a small outfit no more then 10 on at any given time, so we usually do side caps, to help with the larger attacks. We move into say Spec-Ops training camp to retake it. Hit VS, we'll we know toe to toe in close range with VS is going to see us torn up, so we stay back at distance pick them off then move in quick. We move in, set up defense to recap, and here comes the scythes and liberators. as usual. The following tear us up.

1. Liberator.
1. Scythe.

They fly in, we all pull our AA weapons, couple duel bursters and within three or four minutes we've scared off the Scythe, Scared off, not destroyed, it returns to its dock repairs and is inbound before we can even dent the Liberator. Not mentioning, one Lib run and we've pretty much been dumped on our heads. a single cloaker comes in for the VS after that, caps the point before we can get back into the area.

Repeat this scenario, over and over and over. Currently PS2 isn't about Infantry on a large scale. Its about "I can't win with infantry so I'm going to spam tanks and aircraft because our numbers mean we can."

2. Aircraft aren't used to combat Aircraft, or are rarely used as such. I've seen extremely few set up for Air to Air combat. Every one I've seen are set up for Air to Ground. That tells me there is a problem with Aircraft and equipment. Its far to easy to farm infantry with aircraft. Between Liberators and the ESF's. A single ESF can wreck havoc on any squad with its rockets.

Suggestion: Close Air Support needs eyes on the ground to work. implement some system that requires any ESF or Liberator to be in working conjunction with some one on the ground in order to effectively deploy air to ground weapon systems. Make it something more then just a "spot"


3. Defense. It doesn't happen, has no point to happen. Zerg go from Biodome to Tech plant, to Biodome to the Crown on Indar, the other Conts. its just Biodome to Tech Plant to Biodome. No point in grabbing or defending. No front lines. No push and hold. Its rather old, boring at times and frankly getting to the point the fun is gone. Its completely frustrating to try and take and hold an area to have One Liberator come over head so high you can't hit it with rockets or flak and it just bombs your squad to oblivion. And it keeps doing it till you stop spawning there. Doesnt even try to cap the point because they are getting more XP by farming your squad then they would capping the point.

Make Front lines, and Defense worth something. Hell we would love to see the ability for an outfit to claim a location as their own, and get Defense bonus to the outfit as well as the faction as a whole by KEEPING that area. More so then just cost to Tanks, Infantry and Air resources. Make it terrain associated or something. Slow the front lines down. Make it more worthwhile.

Right now honestly PS2 plays so fast, there is no point in even setting up a strategy or doing anything other then zerging.

While I'm at it. Please add some visual indicator to mines when placed, Something on the map, or even on the HUD that will show when your mines are placed and when they go off even if they don't kill. and Increase the amount to be deployed! Mine fields would cause alot of changes and slow down the front lines alot!

Thank you.

[typhaon]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

I swear this has been covered in literally hundreds of threads....

:cry:

[SturmovikDrakon]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

My opinion is that there are way too many places that you can attack at once. Usually when looking at the map I can find 10-15 hexes to attack on the frontline, and most of them are abandoned. People are too spread out

Hex system needs a look at or a replacement is needed

Bases design and layout needs to be re-evaluated. Way too big, way too open. I'd rather have more of PS1s smaller, condensed bases than the chaos that we have now.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Currently PS2 isn't about Infantry on a large scale. Its about "I can't win with infantry so I'm going to spam tanks and aircraft because our numbers mean we can."

2. Aircraft aren't used to combat Aircraft, or are rarely used as such. I've seen extremely few set up for Air to Air combat. Every one I've seen are set up for Air to Ground. That tells me there is a problem with Aircraft and equipment. Its far to easy to farm infantry with aircraft. Between Liberators and the ESF's. A single ESF can wreck havoc on any squad with its rockets.

Thank you.

Killing 1 freshly spawned infanteer earns you 100xp (plus or minus, bonuses etc. whatevs)

Killing 1 sunderer gets you 300.

Why would I ever kill the sunderer when I can farm the infantry? If dead infantry XP was based on length of time they were alive (PS1) I wouldn't bother farming, I'd go straight for the sunderer, THEN clean up the infantry. K/D is less important than certs or xp/h

Killing a liberator should be worth 1000xp, plus 100 for each guy inside, plus vengeance bonus, plus killstreak stop. Then you'd see some A2A setups.

[Sunrock]

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Make it more valuable to defend your own territory. IMO it's just that simple.

[Sunrock]

Killing a liberator should be worth 1000xp, plus 100 for each guy inside, plus vengeance bonus, plus killstreak stop. Then you'd see some A2A setups.

HAHAHA:D Liberators is not that hard to kill if your a ESF pilot.

[Rivenshield]

HAHAHA:D Liberators is not that hard to kill if your a ESF pilot.

Some of us can't fly for shit. Sorry. Some of us don't enjoy being repeatedly victimized by airborne instagib area-effect direct-fire point-and-click, either. I just posted a longish screed on the official forums about it.

Tired of Liberator spam. Tired of grenade spam. Tired of being unable to do anything constructive for longer than two seconds. My beloved Republic persists in its fetish for support -- we still have heals and fixes galore, and small knots of CE's willing to go up with a vehicle or turret under fire.... and it never does any good. Never. Sufficient firepower means tactics are a moot point, even in the interior of a biolab. Whole knots of people patiently kneeling and keeping discipline get wiped out by multiple bouncing grenades and aircraft firing directly through the gate into the interior.

Time to kill is meaningless anymore with the proliferation of area-effect instadeath. The skirmish lines that ran across hilltops and combined-arms battles of early release are a pleasant memory. It's taken just a few weeks for everybody to figure out what gets you XP and start doing it. Planetside 2 is cannibalizing itself. It's not a first-person shooter anymore, not even much of a wargame... and won't be until they unfuck it. Rotten base design merely exacerbates all of this. Oh, I can always instantly swap to the winning side if I feel like, but I'm old fashioned enough not to want to.

Long story short, I'm throwing in the towel for now. In the midst of this hyperactive fragfest, there's literally nothing for me to do. Nothing at all.

[Velkkonen]

Alot of very good points made in this thread, I would just encourage everyone not to simply complain. At least contribute something, even if its just a good critique with no solution. That said,

The TTK in this game is just fine. Its really in my opinion one of the best things going in this game. Weapon balance issues aside, everyone goes down in an appropriate manner. At the same time, there is simply not enough cover in this game. Often times you have no choice but to run up a hill or across an exposed area and hope you don't get blown away by the 600 people shooting at you. By the way this problem would still exist even if the TTK was longer. It has to do more with your options for staying alive rather than the fact that your TTK is realistic. I also think this game breeds impatience tactically due to the zerg-centric nature. I can stay alive in hecktic situations for a long time but again, no real cover/options to advance my position in this games current state. I really think a longer TTK would make the game worse as it doesn't address the real problem. You should be worried about getting dropped by a few shots, thus causing to think more soundly and work as a team (there is that medic class you know) but you shouldn't be restricted to 1 or 2 firing positions because relocation almost gaurentees death.

Why not give engineers or some class some kind of deployable cover? Or give the sunderer some kind of cover ability that absorbs almost 100% damage (perhaps at the expensive of something like total functionality, and give undeploying a massive cooldown). Those are just off of the top of my head. As it stands this game is really an infiltrators dream. I play that class the most and I find combat most satisfying as that class because you can easily navigate terrain without worrying (in most cases) about being blown away as you are seeking cover again.

Also, as many, many people have iterated here, defense in this game is basically meaningless. There should be some kind of passive cert bonus to defending even a desolate base. Bases also need redesign as many have stated here. I consider myself a very forgiving and patient man when it comes to, really anything, but I caved on zerging in this game. There is really no other way to earn certs at a reasonable rate in this game other than dropping at crown and just killing. I think everyone intrinsically realizes this, even if they don't like it at least they are earning certs. That shouldn't be the case. I didnt play PS1 by the way.

Cert and exp earnings should be more dynamic. How about exp simply for getting a lock with a grounder? Another thread was complaining about how weak AA is. I beg to differ, very strongly. Simply locking onto an enemy aircraft will send them off mission, and as apparently SOE wished, it works great as a deterrent to air. Certs for that? How about certs for scouting with a ESF? You should basically get certs for any contribution to your faction, no matter how modest. There are many design issues all over, I cant list them all. But this game has a very strong foundation I believe, somehow I am still up late playing this game despite the issues it has, and I will continue to be. But there needs to be tons of tweaking done to pull this game away from zerg fests. Game still feels like a beta unfortunately. Love the game though.

[Itsatrap]

I can't help but wonder how things might be different if capping-XP was scaled based on the enemy/friendly ratio in the hex when you entered.

[Sunrock]

*snip*

Long story short, I'm throwing in the towel for now. In the midst of this hyperactive fragfest, there's literally nothing for me to do. Nothing at all.

Yea it sounds like the concept of planetside is not for you as you want a game with no vehicles nor utilities.

[Flycutter]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

The zerg has too many different directions to go and since capture XP is the most obvious reward that is where they go.

My suggestions aren't perfect and they are just off the top of my head and not all of them are related to the game's current problems. Some of these may seem ridiculous, but hopefully they will foster some new ideas and discussion from the PS2 design team.

I would take the major bases and increase the size of the surrounding territory to include some of the small outposts. With less paths to take the zerg will have to attack each other. The main base itself would be an impenetrable fortress but the outposts would have objectives that would help open up that fortress to the attackers.

The base benefit would be maintained by a gen that could be taken down, removing the benefits but without flipping the ownership of the base.

The outposts surrounding the bases would have SCU's that would not stop the defense from spawning but would increase their respawn timer. You would need to take down these SCU's to make the defense more manageable. The defense has one way teleports to protect these outposts.

Increase all vehicle resource costs by 25 to 50%. Don't nerf the damage just nerf the availability. The first tech plant that a empire owns provides them liberators and MBT's. The remaining tech plants that they own on other continents would provide a cost reduction to pulling vehicles worldwide as long as they maintain a link.

The more certs you have in a vehicle increases its resource cost.

Nothing on the ground can get through base shields. Galaxy drops and liberators are used to soften up the exterior base defenses while tanks and infantry take the outposts. Once the shields are down the fight moves inside the main base while smaller squads continue to hold the outposts.

Base XP is granted both on offense and defense based on the size of the fight.

Players that switch empires on the same server would have some sort of timer or stiff punishment to prevent them from immediately TK'ing.

Up to 25% XP boost for the under populated empire. This coupled with the worldwide tech plant resource benefit would hopefully spread the fight to other continents.

Special artillery (Flail) that can shoot at a zerg formation from about 1km away. Requires a 3 man team to operate with 30sec to 1 min reload. Two infiltrators designate a target while the driver operates the vehicle. Puggers will have a hard time blindly firing this weapon but a small squad can slow down the zerg's progress. It can carry AV or AI ammo but not both at the same time. I see it as basically a ground based liberator.

The skyguard becomes a two person air killing death machine and requires the same resources as a MBT. Two weapon systems are available, either the current flak cannon or a lock on missile launcher.

Any major changes to a particular weapon in the game gives players a cert refund for that weapon only.

Spawn tubes are moved to the larger buildings hopefully preventing or reducing the current spawn camping by vehicles. I would rather break a defense by crushing their spirit than just spaming my HE prowler. Yes, I spawn camp and yes it feels cheap.

[stordito]

i can't say anything new except that there is no reason to defend.

no reason

-because if you are the "defender" means you are outnumbered already, therefore you need a "fort" to hold position.

-because you are basically defending a spawn, not a facility, you don't understand what you should die for. (not enought incentives)

-because you don't "feel" being protected by anything, you just feel to bail to save your virtual life.

because defending has been surgically removed from this game
from windows & doors with no shield/IFF (useless infiltrators?), to sensible objectives that spread the already outnumbered defenders, from the huge CY with a lot of obstacles and useless walls to Huge choke points placed to move the conflict outside the bases.
In PS2, since early beta, i NEVER EVER HAD the feeling of being protected or holding something that could protect me.

While in other "hold the position" games i feel like every secured position must be patrolled, here in PS2 my attitude comes from years of competitive FPS arena games like Unreal or Quake.

Here the only mean of defending yourself is to avoid the need of defense.
Attacking empty bases, scouting with a mossie and rocketspamming atvs,or just follow the zerg for easy meat grinding while it lats.
Even the zerg is not a real zerg. it looses direction and has no scope.
the first base it's 100 soldiers, the next base 50 have choosen another path, and conflicts just randomly occur.

Devs, you must give players a chance to resist and defend.
Give player motivation (bonuses,clearer capture mechanic,better battle flow) and instruments to do so (AKA: better defenses, shields, IFF doors & windows,safer CY with less crap in it, for a change).

just my 2c.

[stordito]

i can't say anything new except that there is no reason to defend.

no reason

-because if you are the "defender" means you are outnumbered already, therefore you need a "fort" to hold position.

-because you are basically defending a spawn, not a facility, you don't understand what you should die for. (not enought incentives)

-because you don't "feel" being protected by anything, you just feel to bail to save your virtual life.

because defending has been surgically removed from this game
from windows & doors with no shield/IFF (useless infiltrators?), to sensible objectives that spread the already outnumbered defenders, from the huge CY with a lot of obstacles and useless walls to Huge choke points placed to move the conflict outside the bases.
In PS2, since early beta, i NEVER EVER HAD the feeling of being protected or holding something that could protect me.

While in other "hold the position" games i feel like every secured position must be patrolled, here in PS2 my attitude comes from years of competitive FPS arena games like Unreal or Quake.

Here the only mean of defending yourself is to avoid the need of defense.
Attacking empty bases, scouting with a mossie and rocketspamming atvs,or just follow the zerg for easy meat grinding while it lats.
Even the zerg is not a real zerg. it looses direction and has no scope.
the first base it's 100 soldiers, the next base 50 have choosen another path, and conflicts just randomly occur.

Devs, you must give players a chance to resist and defend.
Give player motivation (bonuses,clearer capture mechanic,better battle flow) and instruments to do so (AKA: better defenses, shields, IFF doors & windows,safer CY with less crap in it, for a change).

just my 2c.

[MrBloodworth]

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Sure.


Cert gain seen as the "Fun" of the game. By design.
Base design cripples defenders. Askes them to cross an entire base and fight a better equipped attacking force to even defend. Then it asks them to defend for longer ( No instant re-secures ) then the attackers did in the first place.
No direct, unmistakeable gain from defense ( Does not matter if its there, people do not know. )
Due to air and Vehicle proliferation, Infantry play suffers ( MBT being one man is a huge part of this ), also base design.
No direction on a global/empire wide level indicator for where fights must/need/should go. Its just to easy to avoid all forces, with no downside.
XP gain for attacking is not attached to how much fighting occurred in the area, its a flat rate. ( Other than discrete actions )
Spawn camping is the first thing that happens in a base assault, only those that want to get blasted every time they step out the shield wall will respawn there. Game over on action one. Bad counter play. Fresh spawns are worth as much as a long life player.
Vehicles able to capture points. WTFISTHAT?
A lack of GOD DAM DOORS.


I'm sure I could go on, but at this point, I am repeating things I said in beta.

[Seafort]

Not much else to say what hasn't already been said.

The bases especially defending needs a complete redesign if SOE wants PS2 to have any longevity.

There needs to be consequences for losing an important base i.e. tech plant u lose the ability to spawn MBTs from anywhere including the warp gates.
A base should be added for ESFs as well so you can't spawn them if you don't own that certain base.

Dynamic XP for capturing and defending bases has to be introduced ASAP.
I'm guilty of this as anyone else. I come in to a base 5-10 secs from being captured and I get full XP for doing nothing. That's just wrong.

SOE get it out of your heads this is a console centric game like CoD/BF3.
This is PS2 a PC centric game which should have strategy, metagame and some bloody consequences.
Many of us don't want easy mode XP gain but we do want some substance to the game. What happened to all the tactical play from PS1? The metagame? I know this is F2P but that doesn't mean it should be dumbed down so a 5 year old could play it.

Most of us do have some tactical intelligence so stop treating us like we are stupid.

[Pimm]

Oh so you don't want people ghost capping in huge roaming zergs.

Then you need to do two things

1) Reduce the cert point cost of items (I can't afford a sub [ I love this game i really do I WISH I could afford a sub i would do it in a second] nor can I afford more than a few bucks a month in SC so I can't just "pay to win" for all the good equipment that is owning me on the battlefield (IE I have been getting mowed down with LA carring shotguns and i really want one but survey says "no money to buy SC so no shotgun for Pimm", I HAVE (read as I have no monetary recourse to buy whatever I want) to fight for my gear)

2) Provide some sort of exp/cert bonus for successful defense of a base. Why would ANYONE (notable exception here: the crown) want to waste time defending a base when they get no real tangible reward for it. A few kills does not equal the amount of certs you can get zerging these empty bases. Already even in platoons that are operating "as we intended them to" they will often discuss defending and pass it up because defending gives them no real reward for actually doing it and could potentially be a protracted war of attrition (read as faceplanting the wall of attackers and adding ot their cert point collections) with the d losing as many others have stated here.

IN ADDITION TO THAT: These zergs are in fact helping to provide resource gain for their factions. So it isn't like taking these bases actually ONLY serves to gain quick easy certs.

Look I know you set cert point unlocks high so you can get more people in the pay to win store. Some of us can't pay to win so the best strategy for us is to do these zergs and farm as many easy, quick certs as possible (while stocking up on prox mines, c4, tank mines, grenades and an occasional max kit or two) to pay those 1k cert points for this or that item.

If you don't want these zergs then you need to reconsider the business model or stop whining about them. Your choice really. (<.<)

[p0intman]

give me a fucking rek and stuff to use it with. proper jammers too tbh.
http://mason.gmu.edu/~adice/loadout.JPG

[VaderDSL]

Would love to see better spawn rooms in big bases, rather than some tacked on building outside of the main facility, at least if you had an exit into the facility that vehicles can't spam then you'd have a better chance at a coordinated push out (flak armour :p)

As it is as soon as a couple of tanks/libs start covering the spawn room I simply leave the area and go somewhere else, I refuse to be in a meat grinder just because a few vehicles are spamming HE at the shields.

Back in PS1 the enemy could have had hundreds of tanks and aircraft at the base, but it came down to boots on the ground. In PS2 it's whoever gets air power/armour to the spawn room who wins.

Sadly I think the only thing we'll end up seeing is shields covering the entire base due to the limitations of the game engine (not currently possible to make underground structures)

[Fear The Amish]

Yea it sounds like the concept of planetside is not for you as you want a game with no vehicles nor utilities.

seems like PS in your opinion is only for people that want to roll vehicles... so WoT and WoWP is that way us that want a COMBINED arms game will be here.

[p0intman]

Yea it sounds like the concept of planetside is not for you as you want a game with no vehicles nor utilities.
You must be new to the idea of combined arms...

[Misato]

The zerg has too many different directions to go and since capture XP is the most obvious reward that is where they go.

Nothing on the ground can get through base shields. Galaxy drops and liberators are used to soften up the exterior base defenses while tanks and infantry take the outposts. Once the shields are down the fight moves inside the main base while smaller squads continue to hold the outposts.



Though I never seen it in action, I am pretty sure the shield diffuser on the sundy is exactly what that is designed for, to get 12 people through a base shield, or is there any other vehicles that can get through shields. I hardly ever see them utilize. Everytime I go to a tech plant, you see a line of armor waiting for the infantry to take down the shield generators. I was contemplating in seeing how well this works with 2 surrenders full of peeps I would like to keep that though that's just me.

AS for Galaxies, we did a drop when teh NC and VS were duking it out over a tech plant and we took the plant out from under them. It was a last minute kind of let's do something crazy before logging. Have an infiltrator hack the terminals and spawn an ams sundy and it was game over. only 12 of us, and yes the pilot bailed as he was light assault. SO I love Galaxy drops, just pick your targets wisely :) Speaking of liberators, they have a special place in **** when I am running infantry lol and I think they are fine they way they are.

The problem I see is incentive. There is no incentive for defending, until that part is addressed defending will be a moot point right now. Don't get me wrong, I have racked up some great xp during a defense, but really I could have gotten the same from the zerg if I wish to participate in the zerg but at a much faster rate. NOt all points need to be defended but the important points like MBT plants for example as you pointed should be an incentive to defend.

[p0intman]

Though I never seen it in action, I am pretty sure the shield diffuser on the sundy is exactly what that is designed for, to get 12 people through a base shield. I could be wrong though.

thats exactly what its used for, and you can actually get through both the main gate sheilds AND the inner superstructure shields of an amp station with a diffuser if done correctly and at high speed. do it with enough people and you can seriously fuck people over inside bases. very few people expect it still.

[Misato]

thats exactly what its used for, and you can actually get through both the main gate sheilds AND the inner superstructure shields of an amp station with a diffuser if done correctly and at high speed. do it with enough people and you can seriously fuck people over inside bases. very few people expect it still.

yea, I was wondering what certs I was going to get next for my sundy and I am going to give that a whirl tonight. So far I was told its not effective and I was like really because it seems like you can bust through an amp station with no problem lol. Thanks

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Last night it seemed to me that there were two games going on. One was "Capture Amerish and Esamir so we get mad benefits and the planet is mostly blue" and the other one was "kill kill kill kill kill"

The cap game was just irritating. Some lone VS-with-a-scythe was running around capping points but not staying to defend. We were capping as a squad and waiting it out so that we actually scored. My score/hour was about 13k doing this which is pretty lame. (subs, boots and double xp)

Finally, after we capped them both, we all poured into the crown and I got 13k score in about 10 minutes before I got the shits at 000000000000000000000000000's cheating so I logged off.

Since the only benefits to capping Amerish and Esamir is a 10% reduction in costs, there's zero incentive for me to fight there. Indar is where the high scoring fights are - but then 000000000000000000000000 comes in and ruins the game totally...

So why play at all?

[Pimm]

Though I never seen it in action, I am pretty sure the shield diffuser on the sundy is exactly what that is designed for, to get 12 people through a base shield, or is there any other vehicles that can get through shields. I hardly ever see them utilize. Everytime I go to a tech plant, you see a line of armor waiting for the infantry to take down the shield generators. I was contemplating in seeing how well this works with 2 surrenders full of peeps I would like to keep that though that's just me.


The reason why is because it takes up the utility slot AKA the same slot that is used for the AMS. What would you prefer a 12 person drop inside the shield where most of you and your sunderer probably will die.... or a mobile spawn which you can park outside, spawn as needed from AND resupply at. personally I would take mobile spawn over the shield disruptor. Shield disruptor is a cool idea, but not as versatile or useful as the AMS.

Where it might be handy is if you have multiple sunderers one for ammo one for deploying and one with the shield disruptor.

[Tapman]

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Fewer PS1 vets who know how to organize and follow orders compared to the new(er) players who go after a K/D ratio, I draw a line between this and the game still missing a mission system and deeper metagame, plus there are MUCH fewer continents to play on currently than what Planetside opened with.

I put Alpha Squad and a year's membership on my card already despite having little to no time to play because I truly believe that this game can evolve into the type of epic experience that Planetside 1 delivered regularly. With the population and scale of the game, the opportunity for this is ripe if the resources are properly motivated and focused. There will always be the zergs hitting each other and setting up meatgrinders but these should be focused in areas of combined arms i.e. Ground AND Air Vehicles in addition to Infantry where organized groups can dominate their respective areas of expertise.

I also believe that there should be a major focus on developing indoor combat. Facilities are horribly easy to capture, not having the Siege battles is truly tragic. One of my favorite memories was early on in Planetside when we were defending the NC crater against the TR, their bursters and snipers positioned themselves around the crater walls and they laid siege upon us. We responded with our Phoenixes, snipers, and OS's as the fight for the sky alternated between being bombarded by high altitude Libs and annihilating full Gals riding in to attempt an op. Vehicles pushed against each other but eventually the TR overran the courtyard. We were pushed into the corner but we responded by mounting organized, dynamic defenses throughout the facility. We dug in and pushed the TR back out of the base, the courtyard, and soon after back out beyond the crater and into the rest of the continent. In Planetside 2 you may have a few particular spots that are always high population but most of the other facilities are relative pushovers comparatively. What I also remember is that if I participated in the capture or defense of a base, the experience scaled upwards towards the bigger fights. Not as in the amount of standard BEP/SEP but in the capture itself, larger accomplishments resulted in larger rewards. A high amount of focus seems to be directed at the K/D ratio and this does not promote the teamplay required to take this experience to the next level.

[Rivenshield]

A high amount of focus seems to be directed at the K/D ratio and this does not promote the teamplay required to take this experience to the next level.

I dunno if you've seen it yet, but Buzz has a surprisingly lucid, detailed essay over on the official forums that's getting a lot of positive feedback:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/problems-with-planetside-2-as-i-see-them.73820/

Higby's seen it. He responds:

>I've read it. Good points, and ones that will be addressed with some substantial score, xp, and reward changes in the next few months.

In brief, no base redesign, no revamping of HE spammage... just shuffling XP incentives around. They already have the answers to what they think the questions are and have already allocated man-hours to them.

I fear this game is headed towards the same chasm that swallowed SWTOR.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

A high amount of focus seems to be directed at the K/D ratio and this does not promote the teamplay required to take this experience to the next level.

Many many many people on these forums have spent a large amount of time and energy (during development, alpha and beta) saying that in a team-based game with infinite respawns and no time limit, there is absolutely no point at all in tracking a KDR as an important stat. But we knew that our point of view would never be taken seriously because the "target audience" doesn't know what life is like without a KDR and barely knows what 'teamwork' means.

it's all very sad.

[Crator]

I dunno if you've seen it yet, but Buzz has a surprisingly lucid, detailed essay over on the official forums that's getting a lot of positive feedback:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/problems-with-planetside-2-as-i-see-them.73820/

Higby's seen it. He responds:

>I've read it. Good points, and ones that will be addressed with some substantial score, xp, and reward changes in the next few months.

In brief, no base redesign, no revamping of HE spammage... just shuffling XP incentives around. They already have the answers to what they think the questions are and have already allocated man-hours to them.

I fear this game is headed towards the same chasm that swallowed SWTOR.

I actually don't get how the following he is proposing will work properly tbh.

FROM: Problems with PlanetSide 2 as I see them (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/problems-with-planetside-2-as-i-see-them.73820/)
Right now, a big problem with the game is that we don’t get a whole lot of XP for capping
a base; you get a non-insignificant amount, but it pales in comparison to farming kills at a
deployed enemy Sunderer. Linked to this problem is that you get a bonus for capping an empty
enemy base.

The solution to this problem comes straight from Planetside 1; in Planetside 1, your XP gain for
a capture was based upon how much fighting was on that base. If it was a heavily contested base, the reward scaled appropriately to reflect that. If the base was empty, the reward for the capture was insignificant. Basically, you were rewarded for taking risks. High risks held the promise of high rewards and encouraged players to always move towards the areas with the heaviest
fighting.

So somehow the players are supposed to force themselves into offensive battles without defensive measures? Who will be there to fight the offense to produce the larger XP gains? I don't really see how this is any different from what the current system provides really. The incentive defend or attack a location should be for domination of territory. The byproduct of that should be the XP gains. I agree that the PS1 dynamic XP system was good in this regard but the base designs allowed for the battles to persist or be responded to in order to defend territory and take new territory. Not everyone attacked a base for the XP gains in PS1 although that was a part of it. Locations were attacked because they offered an advantage to capturing territory.

Oh, I read further. He states that removing adjacency and putting hard timers on locations will fix that. But then later says:

And just as an aside for those who are worried about sitting around and waiting: what do we do in the game right now? We sit around and wait anyway! Sometimes, you can start a capture with 100% influence only to have the capture slow down to a crawl thanks to that same influence
system. Being stuck waiting for 45 minutes for a capture just because the surrounding territories constantly keep changing hands is not fun.

What does he think base defensibility does? Never mind, Buzz does go into needing more base defensibility later on in the post. You're just saying Higby didn't say anything about that so it's screwed up right? I think you already know that I think it's screwed up with my above rant. :P

[DaiZero]

Players can be incentivized to do (or not do) just about anything you want. Obviously, certifications are currently the primary concern for the majority of players, and their behavior is dictated by this principle. Wherever the XP is easiest/fastest/greatest, the players will follow. If you want to keep the ground rules the same as they are now, then minor changes to the XP delivery system will significantly alter the gameplay. One easy fix to a lot of problems with zergs avoiding each other would be to tie XP gain to the number of enemy present in the hex. There are myriad minor tweaks you guys could roll out one at a time to gauge the community response and reaction. Trial and error is the name of the game, and as always, minor tweaks and changes are going to be the key. Any major upsets will inevitably cause more problems than they fix. As they say in the Army, "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."

[Scorpion Six]

Well I think I may be in the minority on this one but I'll get to what I disagree with in a second.
What I DO agree with is that ghost capping should give NO xp. It is a tactical option but gaining the xp you get now from it is too much.
Now to make people mad..lol.

1. Dont give me all the information I need on my map. I LIKE seeing "enemy platoon(s) present" and having to figure out what my opponent is thinking. I like having to send out a recon team to tell me what the make up of those enemy platoons are. I like having to rely on intel from the field on the status of SCU's etc. It makes it more interesting for me.
2. Lattice. Well we already have this but it has no functionality. The hex system is fine but we need to add functionality to it. i.e if you control all the hexes to your tech plant then you can pull armor. If that connection is severed then you lose that ability in the hexes that are no longer connected.
3. "I want to be viable as infantry, nerf everything else". Sadly for these folks there are people that only want to be viable as Armor or Air. You can't take their playstyle away from them for your. PS2 should be dominated by infantry no more than it should be dominated by air or armor. If you are running a PUG of all infantry then you better know when you have run into a force you cant contend with or you better be flexible enough to pull bursters or heavies for armor.
4. Lack of defense. The population does defend because there's no benefit to it I agree but on my server (Mattheson) the zerg doesnt want a fight anyway. The want minimal resistance for maximum gain. I can't count how many time The Enclave has pushed a continent in force, found they had stiff resistance AND FLED TO ANOTHER CONTINENT, not redirecting the TR to another side of the same map..just another easier map altogether. The larger outfits and zerg are not out to help their alliance but out for the certs and xp. This may change once every hits max lvl and theres nothing else to gain from this. To be honest though, If i run into a far superior force, I am not sacrificing my guys to them. I will redirect and go around, out flank etc. I will fight for the map but on my terms (Sun Tzu says so :) )
5. Coordination and Communication. The number one thing I see different in PS2 vs PS1 is the coordination between outfits and squad leaders. It's typically non existent. If youre not on a specific teamspeak server youre out of the loop and that teamspeak server is typically useless. That PUG infantry squad? I bet it would do ALOT better if it had a PUG air squad to go with it...

Bottom line: Don't ask to be hand fed by the devs. Change YOUR mentality in game. Devs DO need to give us some tools to lead and work with though.

[AThreatToYou]

To this from the above poster,

Dont give me all the information I need on my map. I LIKE seeing "enemy platoon(s) present"

Can I at least see where all of my allies are?

[Scorpion Six]

To this from the above poster,



Can I at least see where all of my allies are?

I see nothing wrong with matching the "enemy platoon(s) present) with a "friendly platoon(s) present".