All bases must mean something

[Roy Awesome]

This post is a bit long, but it's been something burning in my head since beta. I've floated it to some people in the community and it's always been met with good discussion, so I figured I'd post it to reddit, as well as cross post to PSU. This is probably going to be the first of a number of posts I'm going to make on Planetside 2's design and how I think it should be improved. Also, I wrote this for the reddit community, so I apologize for the parts that explain how PS1 worked.

tl;dr: Give all bases some benefit that only effects it and it's neighboring bases. Read below for examples and details.

There is has been a lot of back and forth recently about how useless it is to defend bases and how there is no incentive to really do anything but kill the other team. In Planetside 1, each captureable facility had some level of benefit for your empire to hold it. Tech plants allowed for advanced tanks and aircraft. Amp Stations gave your vehicle extra shields, and so on. This is all well known, and something similar is implemented in Planetside 2. However, they missed something, in Planetside 2, there are only 3 types of bases that have any usefulness to your faction, beyond resources. On Indar, there is only 9 pieces of territory that mean something. Esamir has 7, Amerish has 9.
I feel that this is a serious problem, and one of the largest contributing causes to it being stupid to defend bases. Each base, regardless of it's size, should influence how the battle progresses.

On an aside, I think each base having resources is SOE attempt at doing this. It's not visible enough and resources are really irrelevant to many of the decisions you make when trying to find somewhere to go after taking a base. Resources, in their current form, suck ass (but that's a topic for another time).

My proposal for a solution is for each non-facility base on the continent to have a local benefit that only effects it's neighboring territories. These benefits don't have to be amazing or super powerful, but it would be cool to see bases like Xeno Tech Labs give a 10% discount if a tank is pulled from a neighboring base (stacking with the continent benefit). Other bases can do things like give localized radar (500m-1km radius from the base have 30 second pulses displaying enemies on the minimap). Another possible benefit is to control walls and generators in distant places on that bases's territory. For example, Vanu Archvies can have walls and turret towers spread around the assault paths leading beyond that base toward the VS warpgate, focused on limiting the movement of unfriendly troops.

Having benefits spread out to every base would not only give a reason to attack a certain facility, but would also give you reason for a group to break off and defend a certain area, keeping that benefit for the rest of your team who is attacking out of another territory. Most importantly, keeping the benefits local to neighboring territories means that re-using benefits would keep it meaningful. For Example, if XenoTech Labs had a 10% armor discount, we can put the same benefit on J908 Impact, and they both have meaning in attacking into that territory.

Anyway, this is my suggestion for territories. It directly adds to the metagame, giving you reason to attack certain bases, and also gives you meaning to defend certain areas.

[Qwan]

I guess that would help alot, right now the only thing that seems to make these smaller bases really important is the XP and the fact that you might loose the link to the tech plant if they take it. I like the enemy detection, and stuff like that, bases need to have meaning or they will not be worth fighting for. The devs need to know that just killing and taking ground to get resources will get old fast, they have to ad some importance to these bases. Players need to be able to log on and look at the map and think, "ok lets get the boys together and resecure these bases". I think this will keep players logging back in knowing there is a mission to undertake, to better there factions cause everynight, and by assigning importance to smaller bases there can be more goals added to the game giving the player a reason or a meta as these end game searchers like to say. I mean this is how the game works for me, I log in at night on TS and say whats the mission tonight boys. By then im logged into the game and im checking continents and looking for the mission for that night. Now if the smaller bases gave small benifits then I would have alot more options then just resecuring esimer or indar, or just a tech plant or amp station.

[gunshooter]

Even if smaller outposts meant something nothing would change gameplay-wise unless they were made into actual bases rather than 4 small houses and a cap point with no walls or anything.

[Roy Awesome]

Even if smaller outposts meant something nothing would change gameplay-wise unless they were made into actual bases rather than 4 small houses and a cap point with no walls or anything.

On Indar, I agree that this is a very large problem. On Esamir and Amerish, I feel like this is not an issue because most of the bases don't look like this. Esamir has other problems, and I feel that Amerish just needs the flow out of the VS waprgate looked at for it to be nearly perfect.

Indar has some major flow issues, but the 3 shacks and a tower is not a base. This is actually the topic of another one of my design posts, but I want to write that one up later.

[SeraphC]

Interesting suggestion. I think making it here is kind of useless though. Unless SOE has very dedicated devs they won't be reading it.

[Roy Awesome]

Interesting suggestion. I think making it here is kind of useless though. Unless SOE has very dedicated devs they won't be reading it.

This is a cross post from reddit. I made it there, but I appreciate this community quite a bit so I brought it here too.

[Hamma]

Great idea! I agree that would make territories a bit more viable. Also SeraphC, Devs read both Reddit and PSU every day it's very likely they will see it either place.

[Vashyo]

As good as your idea is, I don't see how it would change anything. Majority of people would still just move to the base that gives the best XP and stay there.


There's no benefit from any base that will ever come before personal XP gain. Getting cheaper tanks won't make people bother to move to that base just to buy the 10% cheaper tank over the location they're currently at. Heck they won't even care, You can roll a tank once every 15 minutes even without any bonuses and most people survive that and over with 1 tank so they essentially have infinite supply of tanks.


What we need imo is more focus which means long captimes and less bases so a clear frontlines emerge and battles last.


I'd like if they'd make it a real task to cap any base, not just the big ones. You know, to allow lot more time for the defenders to regroup and counter. Would make the battles more dynamic isntead of the current rubber-banding whack-a-mole back-and-forth gameplay. As it is now, there's no time to save a base like there was in PS1.



Your thread gave me a gameplay idea btw!

How about they make the vehicles finite? And you get more vehicles by capturing bases? Like capturing a base like TI Alloys would give you 2x MBT, and capturing crossroads watchtower would give you 2x ESF. This way, there would be real interest in all bases on the map not just crown and big facilities. And it would make it so that camping at one facility 24/7 would mean no air/armor, so the gameplay would become more dynamic.

So if you got 3 vanguards from a base, you roll em. they die, you couldn't roll any more vanguards until you capture a base that gives you more.

This would also make infantry battles happen more often and there would be less tank/air-spam.

Ofcourse this is a change that pilots/tankers might dislike, but it would give more purpose for the infantry players and would help against the vehicle spam against cornered faction so they feel less inclined to jump to another continent.

[bpostal]

Even if smaller outposts meant something nothing would change gameplay-wise unless they were made into actual bases rather than 4 small houses and a cap point with no walls or anything.

Agreed, if bases/outposts/towers mean something then it can only follow that they would be things one would want to hold on to, and in turn, fight for.

[SixShooter]

There's no benefit from any base that will ever come before personal XP gain.

How about bases that give XP bonus as a benefit?

I know it's a dumb idea but given that XP realy does seem to be the only motivation...

[Methonius]

See my post below about the ideas ive came up with for the benefits smaller outposts could have to larger bases.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51612 (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51612)

[Tatwi]

I thought one day that a good way to make each base feel important was to make a simple "crafting" system that anyone can use to "craft" things rather than buy them with certs or station cash. Really more of a scavenging system. Works like so,

- Players have an inventory for items they find. There is enough room for 100 of every item.
- Players find items automatically when they kill an enemy player. No pop ups, it just goes into the inventory.
- Each base or region supplies different items.
- Items cannot be traded (too easy to exploit).
- Players can combine various items to create stuff that is available for purchase with cert points. The combination process is only available in certain outposts while are owned by the player's faction. These outposts change randomly (roleplay: as the people running this thing move the equipment around).
- "recipes" for what item combination creates what cert will not change, but they also will not be listed anywhere and players will have figure out the combinations on their own. This worked well with SWG's reverse engineering and spawned a few good player run websites to track combos, good community building activity.

This isn't complicated or strange, but it gives folks a bit of a passive bonus and incentive to fight at different locations. Owning the handful of "crafting stations" (I'm thinking one per cont) would also be something worth fighting for. And given that the parts are tied to killing enemies, it doesn't change how the game is played. In fact people could play and not even notice this system being there, yet the smart folks would use it to cert things faster! :)

[Tatwi]

I've been away from PS2 for a few months, so I've been reading some of the dev stuff that I had missed. Pretty cool that Malorn's resource revamp is quite similar to what I suggested above. It was a pretty straight forward, yet interesting concept that's used quite well in other games. I think PS2 players will enjoy something similar too.

Anyhow, for the "haters" out there: See, SOE does listen. :P

[Selerox]

I actually really like this idea. I think it'll be a balancing nightmare to set up, but I think it's something that's worth doing, even if only for a few bases to start with.

It certainly might be a good way of pulling fights towards bases other than the "usual suspects".

[Ertwin]

If you're looking for meaning in the bases, why not impose your own meaning? On Indar for example, I will always try to capture Vanu Archives because it rightfully belongs to the Vanu. No matter where the VS warpgate is, I will try an push towards Vanu Archives.

I'll do the same for TI Alloys, because in the early days of PS2, I'd defend that base for hours from ghost capping, and I became rather fond of it.

Do the same, pick a couple bases you like, and make them yours. Hell every time you log on, pick a base your empire doesn't own, and don't log off until it's been taken.


TL;DR

Don't force SOE to give bases meaning to you, give them your own meaning.

[HelpLuperza]

On paper err... digital bytes... err... you know what I mean... on ""paper"" this idea sounds like a really good idea. In practice however its like the best laid plans of mice and men because players and developers do not see eye to eye.

Also on Ertwin... sig... those poor Vanu... I mean kyttens... Q_Q

Also, I pretty sure that Crux Mining Operation is like a Connery TR base.. based on how ridiciously they will fight over and camp that single base even without adjacency. For some reason if prompted too... that base is worse than the crown....

My theory is its the only area that TR actually had any industry as all the other mining operations and area were owned and secured by the NC at the start of the war.

[ChipMHazard]

I've always agreed whenever someone, including myself (Yes, I know that means that I agreed with myself... Shut up!), makes this suggestion. So yes it goes without saying that I want all bases to mean something besides just being the next link in the chain towards a facility. As others have noted they would have to do that design pass on Indar before adding something like this in.


Don't force SOE to give bases meaning to you, give them your own meaning.

Hasn't worked thus far and the majority of players don't give a second thought about roleplaying anything.
The only example of your suggestion that I've seen on Miller is the VS always wanting to keep Indar under their control.

[Taramafor]

If you're looking for meaning in the bases, why not impose your own meaning? On Indar for example, I will always try to capture Vanu Archives because it rightfully belongs to the Vanu. No matter where the VS warpgate is, I will try an push towards Vanu Archives.

I'll do the same for TI Alloys, because in the early days of PS2, I'd defend that base for hours from ghost capping, and I became rather fond of it.

Do the same, pick a couple bases you like, and make them yours. Hell every time you log on, pick a base your empire doesn't own, and don't log off until it's been taken.


TL;DR

Don't force SOE to give bases meaning to you, give them your own meaning.

And of course the response from most people is "stop fail roleplay please" (it's happened to me). Bases have to have meaning as a game mechanic for people to focus on them.

Regardless of how it's done what's clear is that all large bases need empire wide benefits on all continents while smaller bases could just be continent wide. Why? Because em and am are underpopulated as hell and this would give people a reason to fight on ALL continents. Right now it's pretty much just Indar.
Of course, that's not to say the other continents don't need to be improved. They certainty do (bugs, glitches, base balance, etc) but people complain about how this isn't planetside because there's not enough continent to continent fighting. Well guess what guys, YOU'RE NOT EVEN FIGHTING ON OTHER CONTINENTS! Sheesh.

Anyway, big bases must mean things. LARGE things. Shields for tanks, access to faction vehicles, gals from air bases. IMPORTANT things. Not just crappy resources. No one cares about resources unless they're really short on it and have been pushed into a corner (so maybe add mines as a new "base" to fight for?). A good example of how resources fail for me is civ5. Almost every building has a resource which ultimately makes them feel less important, because they're all the same. When I built an airport, I immediately got a building that did more then that. I could deploy troops to friendly bases and parachute into enemy lines and have planes and helicopters. That's an example of an IMPORTANT BUILDING (in PS, replace building with base). If you make EVERY base important, it becomes dull real fast. So either they all have to be differently important or only have a few really important bases. On a side note, I still ended up bored with Civ5 but that's mainly due to lack of not being able to stack units on the same tile, which of course made war too much of a chore.

Anyway, make of that what you will. Just don't use resources as a solution for everything. It's a resource and can be important but only if made to be important with mines and such (heroes of might and magic proves this).

[MrMak]

Not ALL bases would have to have this either. Some already are essentialy fortified choke points that are necessary to progress and are particularly hard to attack (Quartz Ridge for instance) or resupply bases (any tower + a few specific ones like Scared mesa skydock). Having thhose is a benefit of its own. Some other bases could benefit from them ore active things like the mentioned radar or heavy gun turrets or other clearly noticable benefits (dont think local discounts are a good idea). Another thing that could work in such a local manner could be a radar jammer that counteracts radar bases, priximityy/scout radars and sensor darts.

Discounts should be left to facilities and/or continent benefits. For instance if you hold more than one tech plant your faction gets a ground vehicle discount on that continent.

[Carbon Copied]

While I agree with most of the things you say Roy; I think it'd be one too many "carrot on the stick" mechanic. Why can't there be solely a negative impact for not having these bases? Why would I care about a cost reduction if I can still get these items anyway regardless? A reduction is pretty meaningless (globally) I mean you don't see people celebrating a cont domination because they just earned a 10% reduction in armor type. The difference between these intermittent bases in PS2 and PS1 (not to be interpreted as me lecturing "at you") is that in PS1 they did effectively reward/punish the push and pull flow of a battle with the ability to spawn there if you controlled it; it was a huge incentive on the support of moving to the next major POI because it gave you that operating point as much as making life difficult if you failed to secure and hold it.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying "satisfy and cater to the hardcore, elitist crowd exclusively; etc etc." I just think this game as it is rewards too much for doing too little and as a direct result these generate no commitment because overall it doesn't matter - there's got to be some middle ground somewhere.
There's always a pat on the back; you repaired a terminal "hey have some xp", you spotted an enemy "hey have some xp", you stepped out the spawn room "hey have some xp"; ok the last one was pedantic but you get my drift.

TL : DR - Yes bases need bigger and badder meaning but I don't like the blatant carrot on the stick style mechanics that are currently employed to get you there.

[Rumblepit]

I have to say I completely disagree. I think these bases should be worthless, and the reason I say this is because they are just stepping stones to major facilities.

The players in ps2 already put way too much emphasis on these smaller bases/outpost ,and that in turn causes these major facilities to fall undefended all the time.This is where the big fights should be happening.I know there can always be viable reasons to defend these small bases/outpost, and in most cases it can mean stopping a enemy from advancing altogether, denying them a way to flank,or the ability to pull armor.But people often forget the other faction isn't looking to take a small base/outpost from you.They might need to ,but the goal is the major facility.

The major base benefits we have in place now don't mean much at the moment. This is do to the lack of continental lattice ,and continental captures.When this is implemented having ,and holding these bases will determine weather or not you can capture a continent.You have to look at the big picture,except it's not in game yet.The goal is to capture the continent ,and when you look at it this way a small base really dose mean nothing.

At some point i'm guessing we will see a extreme overhaul of all the major facilities.Meaning they will have to put Inter link bases on Indar,Amerish,and Esamir. I also remember them talking about the addition of the Dropship center. These will also have to be added in as well.I assume they will just remove some of the triple bases we see today. Remove 1 Biolab,1 Amp and insert 2 Inter links so on so forth.

[camycamera]

good post. this will be great coupled with the upcoming resource revamp.

[Taramafor]

Idea. Neutral bases that are only active when people are there (or recently there). We could have this applied for the none large bases.

Thoughts?