Dear Sony: Fix bases first

[Beerbeer]

Dear Sony,

Please fix bases first. Please prevent vehicles from shelling the spawn room doors and move important elements away from vehicle access. In fact, moving spawn rooms closer to the objective would be ideal.

This game has a huge problem: no one defends, because no one can and it's easier capping empty bases. One part of that equation is: no one can. This can be fixed by fixing the bases. I love to defend. I'm sure many more would defend (even if it is easier to cap empty bases) IF the bases afforded the protection they are supposed to.

There will never be equal encounters; things will always be imbalanced across the map, from base to base. The burden should be on the attackers; bases should not be a liability.

Put it this way, if I'm in a zerg, I would much rather have a good fight with a few dug in defenders than no fight at all. Make me work and coordinate to overtake bases. Let those few defenders defend. ANY fight, prolonged as they may be, is better than tiny or no fights at all.

Bases should be force multipliers. Button them up already.

[Beerbeer]

And the only reason I say this before they add a meta game, is that things will turn out badly if people are forced to defend the existing bases. It will be spawn camping heaven by people like me. And while it will be good for my kill count, this will not turn out well in the long run.

[Legolas]

They don't want them defensible.

[GLaDOS]

Agreed. Metagame is important, but base design needs to be fixed first. The fight needs to be fun before you give it a purpose, or else people won't play.

They don't want them defensible.
And you know this because...

[Beerbeer]

At this point, people are leaving because they can't even find fights. The zerg sets out, finds a few defenders, and eventually they leave completely. Then we're left with thirty people attacking undefended bases because no one is stupid enough to defend.

It's boring. I want a hard fight. I want a sense of accomplishment, by either taking over a well defended base or repulsing a large attack. I don't get that at all now. No challenge. Fixing bases would help to remedy this.

[Paperboy]

Smedley is running the show, all hope for change in this game is lost, it is already how they want it to be, so don't get your hopes up, he's got his hands covering his ears and his eyes closed while yelling "lalalalalalala".

He's singlehandedly ruined many SoE games, he won't stop with Planetside 2.

How can the devs be playing the game but never run into the problems we are all having? maybe they dont know how to fix it and they hope for the best.

[Crator]

How can the devs be playing the game but never run into the problems we are all having? maybe they dont know how to fix it and they hope for the best.

How do you know they don't? They have more info about game state then anybody else. They have data/metrics, players don't. They have feedback from players. Players are just walking around with their heads cut off when it comes to what SOE thinks because SOE doesn't open direct bidirectional communications with the player base. This should soon change since they stated they will post future plans that they want the players to comment on to tailor properly.

[Beerbeer]

We really don't need data to see the state of things. We are assuming things, of course, which is never good, but things aren't well.

I remember reading an article about swg where he reportedly blamed the players for not liking the game and ruining it.

I thought to myself, huh?

It's like making cars and blaming the consumer because no one is buying it. Sony will make a car with six wheels because Sony knows it's better than four, then promptly blame everyone else for not realizing it's better, infuriated it's not selling well. I'm being facetious of course, but this is what it feels like sometimes based on some of their decisions.

[Paperboy]

How do you know they don't? They have more info about game state then anybody else. They have data/metrics, players don't. They have feedback from players. Players are just walking around with their heads cut off when it comes to what SOE thinks because SOE doesn't open direct bidirectional communications with the player base. This should soon change since they stated they will post future plans that they want the players to comment on to tailor properly.

I hope you're right, but so far my pessimistic thoughts have been confirmed again and again and again, this game has so much potential, too bad it is being wasted with so many annoying funstopping bugs.

Even with bugs everyone knows that are all over the forums and yet the moderators tell us to make a support ticket while some bugs have been going for months, unacceptable, it's like they have their heads in the sand.

[Paperboy]

I remember reading an article about swg where he reportedly blamed the players for not liking the game and ruining it.

I thought to myself, huh?

It's like making cars and blaming the consumer because no one is buying it. Sony will make a car with six wheels because Sony knows it's better than four, then promptly blame everyone else for not realizing it's better, infuriated it's not selling well. I'm being facetious of course, but this is what it feels like sometimes based on some of their decisions.

Indeed, thats the thought process of smedley.

[Crator]

I hope you're right, but so far my pessimistic thoughts have been confirmed again and again and again, this game has so much potential, too bad it is being wasted with so many annoying funstopping bugs.

Even with bugs everyone knows are all over the forums and yet the moderators tell us to make a support ticket while some bugs have been going for months, unacceptable, it's like they have their heads in the sand.

Totally agree. IMO, SOE needs to listen more. Maybe they are but just taking their time to gather substantial info and putting it together in a plan that allows them to make the right changes. They are the game developers. They have a 3 year plan (although we don't know what is contained in it) so perhaps we the players just don't have enough info to make an appropriate suggestion for solutions. ~shrug~

[FreeSpeech]

(1) Fix the bases so you can't spawn camp them - i.e. how about putting some MORE spawnpoints in?!

(2) Fix Reavers so they are actually competitive with other factions, they suck royal at the moment and their rockets/guns do next to no damage.

(3) Ban the hackers!!! Seriously a Vanu guy was able to take 4 direct shells from a Bulldog today and anti-tank kill my Sunderer. I'm sorry but blatant hacks like that ruin the game.

[Beerbeer]

You know who I really blame? The early, early alpha/beta people who didn't throw a fit when the bases were changed, as I believe they were more stout and protected at some point during development based on reports from Sony's forum. I saw a picture of a base in ps2's skin that looked good, a beefed up ps1.

Just getting tired and more cynical of some of things that seem so obvious to me. What the hell was their reason for the change? Could it be something sinister and not game related at all as these changes were made to prevent/hide limits to their forelight game engine? I have no idea, but it was and is a poor decision, whoever made it.

[Palerion]

I don't know what Planetside 1 was like, but I do see what you mean about the vehicles raping everything. I get so tired of being pummeled by a liberator, rocket podded, or sniped by a tank every time I exit the spawn room. I also think more close quarters combat in bases would be nice, but that's just me. I personally get tired of so much openness, where there seems to be two giant walls of people shooting at each other. It would be nice to have more areas that catered to tactical gameplay (aside from biodomes), with more cover and obstacles.

[Legolas]

And you know this because...

Because of that infamous Mosquito screenshot where we can see a defensible base on Ishundar, pre-beta, and yet they and completely redesigned them to be these lackluster lego pieces we have now. Why did they do this?

Because they put shield generators outside the actual base which is like putting locks on the outside of a house; moreover it appears to show a deep-rooted lack of sense in their current design philosophy, alot like single player MBTs does. I can let most things slide by, but others are just too much.

And because PS1 had defensible bases and they either misunderstand or abhor anything remotely to do with that game even where it worked. Even when it did not work.

Afew other things I've noticed:

- They have led to spawn camping by MBTs.
- They can leave you feeling unsatisfied when attacking and frustrated when defending. Less emotional connection.
- They render all the work put into buildings rather useless when people breeze by them, as scenery and nothing else.
- They undermine the offensive side of the game (as in, no defense aids the ghost-cap problem etc).
- They punish smaller outfits (20-40 people).
- They encourage the uber-zerg problem.
- The Crown (defensible!) is more popular than other places (because it works as an actual base?)
- They make some things like mines and engineer turrets useless for defense.

[MoreShiraz]

You know who I really blame? The early, early alpha/beta people who didn't throw a fit when the bases were changed, as I believe they were more stout and protected at some point during development based on reports from Sony's forum.

No, they weren't. They were even less defensible than they are now. See those walls? See those shields? They were not there in tech test or even very early beta. It was even more ridiculous and the only reason why there are any walls at all is because of the early tech test/beta players screaming and pointing to the really very early concept art and saying "why don't we have walls?".

But don't feel I am putting you down, you have a very good point and I agree 100% - we need to be able to defend bases otherwise, whats the point?

Attacking zergs should crash into the bases and be held back - not just stroll through the doors and enjoy the prolonged wait until the base flips. You should be able to hold a base with at very least half of the numbers of forces attacking and for gods sake - PUT THE DEFENDING SPAWN POINTS IN THE BASE - NOT ON THE PERIPHERY!"

SOE need to think less of the Maginot Line (pointless fixed positions overrun by mobile troops) and more of Roukes Drift (defensible positions held by smaller numbers). Likely poor example but you get my drift (see what I did there?)

[Ghoest9]

The biggest reason that people dont defend is that average players earn more certs capping than they do defending.

You would need to kill 60 players for the defensive bonus xp to match what you get out of capping 1 large base.

Most people play for certs - the certs are in offense not defense.

[Beerbeer]

Anyways, if bases are never fixed, this game will fester, no matter what they change.

It's already infected, lymph nodes swollen, fever is arising. Lets see what happens.

[Figment]

Even when it did not work.

Ohoho! That's just not true! They used cave Redoubt's flaws as a basis for outpost spawn design (including the inability to kill the spawns so forcing a building camp) and then complemented it with cave Module Building flaws for demanding the defender to make a perrilous journey through a camped crossfire in an attempt to get to a Control Console room with a short hold time capture!


Do pay attention! :p ;)




@Beer: look at the posters pre-beta here defending every design decision by the devs by default. From Galaxy spawns to base mutilation to driver=gunner (even if it was just 30% of the posters).

We don't know what the people in that closed pre-beta session said. We can be sure at least some of them would have provided the same feedback we did though. Certain core vision and design philosophy were simply placed above player scrutiny by the devs and/or Smedley, including driver/gunnery. :/

[maradine]

You know who I really blame? The early, early alpha/beta people who didn't throw a fit when the bases were changed, as I believe they were more stout and protected at some point during development based on reports from Sony's forum. I saw a picture of a base in ps2's skin that looked good, a beefed up ps1.

People have thrown a fit of some variety at every single stage of development, from the pre-tech preview squads, through tech, beta, AS paid beta, and now here. The problem, as I see it, is that it's a different pile of fit throwers for each change.

Bases are farms! Open them up!
Bases are indefensible! Put them under ground!
Hack and hold takes too long!
Bring back hack and hold!
Air is too powerful!
Nerf AA!

Honestly, I'd hate to be Sony. Every time you make a change, a brand new group of mongols shows up at the walls with spears and torches.

Agree with root assessment, though - bases first, and then see what shakes out. They just don't have many of those cycles left to them, so they need to start hitting popular changes soon.

[RykerStruvian]

I understand what you're saying, but as far as I'm aware of the only major changes since the initial beta (post tech test) were:

Galaxies could not be used as spawn points
Bases were given walls and shields
Capture point timers were decreased (faster base flips)
Reduced number of capture points per base (maybe I am forgetting but I could've sworn some bases had five?)
Auraxium was removed
Squad size increased to 12

I know I have some stuff wrong and I am sure I forgot others, but for the most part these are the only real major changes in the beta in comparison to the product we have now. If I remember correctly, another major change was that the tech test had hackable control points? I will compare this list to rumors / things SOE has said they wanted to implement:

Deployable defenses/fortifications
Outfit ownership of bases
Flying carriers
Mission system based off of Command Rank/Command Certs
Crafting system

The above list is just a few items which Higby/Smedley have mentioned they wanted to do or had ideas for with PS2. With that, do these conflict with the current 'demands' being made by Planetside 1 players? The reason why I ask is because SOE has their own idea of what Planetside 2 is even if it is not remotely familiar to what PS1 was. In Higby's own words during an interview:

We have all the modern-day bells and whistles you'd expect to - real-time reflections, real-time shadowing, HDR lighting, physics... you'd expect these in a modern FPS title, and attached to that we've also added modern day... deep character progression, outfits... all that sort of MMO progression.

Planetside 2 takes place on these massive battle-fronts that are dozens of square kilometres. It's an entirely over-world, non-instanced combat game. You can have hundreds of players fighting against hundreds of players fighting against hundreds of players in these massive cluster-fuck battles that allow you to have tanks coming in on one side, aircraft coming over the ridge... such a massive scope.

He goes on in the interview to say:

Oh absolutely. Planetside 2 is much faster paced. We're moving a lot... we're basically making it more like a modern shooter. Planetside was a more slower game it took a lot of bullets to kill somebody. We have a mission system now, one of our big learning curves from the original was that new players jumping in for the first time will need guidance on what to do. Players that are experienced and have played the game a lot need a way to organise, so we created a mission system that serves both fronts.

If you are a new player and just want to join in, and just want to have that FPS experience and not mess around with all the coordination and leadership stuff, then we have missions that let you have that kick ass FPS experience. IF you are an experienced player, than you can create your own missions that depend on what rank you are, whether you're the leader of you 'outfit' or guild, and players who log in can see these missions and can really coordinate. The mission system was a key component mission from the original Planetside.

This in particular should be proof, without a doubt, of what SOE intends PS2 to be. This is not a death post or anything like that, but what I am trying to get at is that the design philosophy and what they potentially might do, for instance deployable defenses, has more weight in their decisions than pure base structure, even if base structure is an integral component considering it is one of the most basic formulas regarding gameplay. It almost seems as if we're getting an unfinished product because they intend to fill in the gaps later and I am not disputing that is the case, I am trying to push the idea that we do not know what Sony may do.

[Beerbeer]

Agree. The desertion of this game has nothing to do with what we're asking in regards to bases or vehicles. On the contrary and its why we're suggesting them.

Although we did ask for these changes in beta as it was obvious back then.

[Fujilives]

Not that I view it to be a 'major' problem, considering how many possible spawn locations there are as it is (sunderers, squad spawn points, adjacent bases, hot-deploys etc), but I've seen the idea of a "spawn room" as archaic for years.

When I think of Planetside, it's hard not to think of Tribes 2 (The game I was playing when I joined PS1, and probably the one game I've invested the most real life time into). I bring this up, because Tribes 2 is a very old game, but they came up with what I saw as a very solid alternative to the spawn room called the "spawn sphere". You basically spawned anywhere in this giant (imaginary) sphere, and this sphere could contain buildings, terrain, etc - and you'd spawn anywhere within those, or on top of those objects. It made "spawn camping" a virtual impossibility so long as the map-designer wasn't stupid enough to create very-small spawn spheres. Sure, you didn't spawn invincible, but what good is spawning invincible if the second you try to "play" you get insta-killed by mindless spam?

Personally I think the "spawn rooms" are an O.K. place to fall back and change loadouts, but I think you should spawn anywhere in the general vicinity. I would suggest drop pods, but then you'd just see offenses get slaughtered by drop-pods destroying vehicles as a reward for poor defense.

The answer is in there somewhere, and I guarantee it's not "put them all in a small box where everyone can shoot the 1-2 tiny-ass-exit doors"... friggin' archaic design.

[Phantomdestiny]

this was higby an hour ago:

:We're sorting through a lot of great @Planetside2 community feedback & planning some big changes to address major issues being brought up.

[Rivenshield]

this was higby an hour ago:

:We're sorting through a lot of great @Planetside2 community feedback & planning some big changes to address major issues being brought up.

/prays

Please, O God of Gamers. Please, PLEASE let 'dynamic defense' and all that accompanies it go the way of the dodo bird. Please with bacon on top. Amen.

[Hmr85]

You know who I really blame? The early, early alpha/beta people who didn't throw a fit when the bases were changed, as I believe they were more stout and protected at some point during development based on reports from Sony's forum.


I really don't want to hear this shit. Week 1 of Tech test I posted on the forums and just about every week after that bitching about base design along with some other outfit members. Don't place blame where it shouldn't be. SOE did what they wanted in regards to base design regardless of what we all said.


Originally Posted by MoreShiraz
No, they weren't. They were even less defensible than they are now. See those walls? See those shields? They were not there in tech test or even very early beta. It was even more ridiculous and the only reason why there are any walls at all is because of the early tech test/beta players screaming and pointing to the really very early concept art and saying "why don't we have walls?".

QFT!!

[Figment]

I really don't want to hear this shit. Week 1 of Tech test I posted on the forums and just about every week after that bitching about base design along with some other outfit members. Don't place blame where it shouldn't be. SOE did what they wanted in regards to base design regardless of what we all said.



QFT!!

^ That.

See? Figgy can make short posts too! And yes, Peris for instance only had walls in the south. Oh crap. Longer than average forum post! D:

[Archonzero]

I really don't care if the major facilities look practically identical.

MANY players, myself included (ex-Esport from OGL up the CAL ladder) WANT TACTICALLY defensible + tactically assault worthy bases.

I don't want to sit in a vehicle (not that I do, but lets face it, that is how it's done) an camp the base cause the defenders couldn't get out even in an organized attempt from the carpet bombing/tank spam locking down the main spawnroom. Nor do I want to get to the point where it's, oh crap.. they have vehicles locking down the spawn.. I'm F***d.

I want the base design layout to give me that notion in the back of my mind.. that if all these grunts can focus an push out.. we can overwhelm those infantry groups locking down the spawnroom.. I want to know that with some real effort (an shooting skill) we can retake the Command Control Room. Not because we were able to destroy the 20 tanks in the way.. but because the tactical shooter game was the level field we had to work through. FPS skill/tactics vs FPS skill/tactics, plain an simple!

There's been plenty of locked down spawnrooms in PS1, they were only locked down by infantry/MAXs.. an with some real effort an die hard fighting, the defenders pushed out.. resecured the CCR. Capture averted, but the fight wasn't over. Still had to formulate a push out strategy to clear the base, cause the attackers poured the pressure on.. these fights could last minutes.. or they could last hours. IT didn't matter, cause the fighting was intense. You got your xp reward for kills/recaptures/repairs/heals an so on. The longer the fight.. the bigger the final reward chunk was.

Make the outer defensive layout actually have a layered approach for gaining footholds/access an overwhelm the defenders, the current system has WAAAY to many holes.

Make spawn room areas campable, but only by infantry, it's only fair. They're reduced to infantry, they should have to face infantry in order to push back out. NOT a gauntlet of Tank/bomber + infantry spamming it.

Make the interior courtyard more Esport/arena style friendly, if it takes placing a biodome like dome over top of every base to prevent air bombardment saturating it, or a shielded bubble. UNTIL the attackers overrun the outerwall an open the base for GROUND vehicles. This coupled with interior catwalks, multiple defensible building an limited vehicle routes will still give defenders a chance to PUSH ground vehicles out of the inner courtyard. A centralized multiroom, multi level main structure, the SCU should be in the BASEMENT (underground) and below the MAINSPAWNROOM, with a network of rooms and corridors that have access points to buildings inside the bases inner courtyard. This way.. defenders can muster counter assaults, coordinate efforts to take back the base from attackers and push them back out from the facility.

Likewise these elements will make attackers have to coordinate their assaults, maintain pressure, need groups to focus on defense/control of vital choke points while other elements continue the zerg/assault. This will create dynamic gameflow in all directions, it will increase the potential for both larger protracted fights, epic long sieges. It will give more opportunity to those organized skilled outfits to show off (both large an small) at how murderously efficient they can be at overwhelming defensive points quickly and locking down of a base, despite the odds. This is also a great way for outfits to gain actual reputation of their prowess in the field.

It will create a more rich experience and foster more tightly knit teamwork for success. THESE were the things that made my outfit from PS1 enjoy training for. A small tactically skilled platoon of players could overrun a larger less organized defensive group and lock down a base.

Change the capture reward mechanic to how the PS1 capture dynamic worked, rewarding more for a larger fight an less for a small fight/ghost cap. Keep rewards for tactical objectives inside of facilities for securing/destroying.

[Beerbeer]

Amen.