Bring back Galaxy AMS, as it was in beta, because it was fun.

[Tatwi]

You know what, that was really the most fun time I had in PS2. Lots of fights in different locations, from tiny to huge, all over the map. Something for everyone and it gave a fun vehicle a big, fun role to play.

Removing the Galaxy AMS and creating the adjacency system really sucked the life out of the game and I feel it did so for the wrong reason. What was the reason? They made adjacency to solve the annoyance of people taking hexes almost instantly and then leaving them. They called this whack-a-mole and they solved it completely the wrong way.

What they did was add adjacency and remove the Galaxy AMS, some strategy, nifty human randomness, options, and most of the small battles (despite the fact that many people prefer small battles). What they should have done instead is actually really simple:

1. Require 3 to 6 people for an Outpost capture point to be captured, thus solving the truly annoying "one dude keeps capping this when we leave" issue. It also makes capturing a point a strategic event involving positioning, situational awareness, and communication - exactly what small outfits keep saying they wish they needed to do in PS2!

2. Put a 5 to 10 minute lockout timer on all Outpost captures, such that once you cap it, it's yours and can't be taken for that amount of time. Now Higby called lockout timers "hamfisted" when I suggested this in beta (despite the fact that they actually DID THIS in beta), but if the ham fits... Truth be told, this would work fine and it suits the way game is supposed to be played.

Bringing back the Galaxy AMS and removing adjacency will give people the ability and the reason to spread out and use the whole map for fighting. That's a good thing in massively multiplayer online FPS game, especially one that tends to play very poorly when too many people are fighting in one area. :lol:


Ps. Also posted on the SOE foruns here (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/bring-back-galaxy-ams-as-it-was-in-beta-because-it-was-fun.89061/).

[Consumer]

Adjacency is an okay idea and I can't say definitively either way whether I like it or not because I see its purpose but would enjoy the freedom without it.

I'm not sure if it's me, but I did like the removal of AMS from the Galaxy. It centralizes the mobile spawn points to the Sunderer and spawn beacons. The Galaxy is already a tough bird that can drop in 12 guys into an area, which is a small strike force in and of itself to at least hack vehicle terminals to spawn Sunderers and set up beacons. If the AMS returns to the Galaxy, I'd say it would be an extraneous change rather than an improvement.

[Figment]

Tatwi, your suggestion would remove strategy, burn out resecure teams and make them apathic to conquest because it becomes impossibly demanding where they are already taxed to the brink of apathy.

The adjecency at least makes map conquest viable, even if it requires a huge pop advantage right now in the order of 55% or more.

Bringing the ams Galaxy back would remove the usefulness of walls once more and would make the ground fight too slow to compete due to traveling. An AMS supporting a larger group can be dealt with by small groups, but a Galaxy cannot. You would once more remove an already extremely small chance for small defensive groups to compete strategically without resorting to fleeing and bringing aircraft in a counter attack after having lost the base.


All in all, I don't quite understand how you dare use the word "strategic" and "fun" for this concept in this context, because it is a strategist's nightmare to have no control over the flow of battle at all and would give far too much weight to constant random attacks, making defense not only unattractive, but utterly frustrating, impossible to respond to everything and entirely pointless. Consolidating terrain would be near impossible and it would work horrendously in an even bigger map setup with more continents, simply because the amount of "links" you would create would be in the order of hundreds of options, far, far too many to respond to. It is already in the order of dozens with adjecency and we still ghost a lot.

Furthermore, lockouts only cause people to sit around to wait. They tried it in beta and it failed badly. It didn't do anything for the flow, it just caused a temporary lull in the fight where some infils hid themselves to reset the capture a few minutes later without having been detered or the fight allowed to move on.

It would mean less fights, more ghosting, more frustration, more boredom and would overall be tremendously less fun. Sorry Tatwi, but what you suggest is horrible and a nightmare scenario with utterly poor insight and lacks future vision.

[Sturmhardt]

The Galaxy AMS lead to totally unpredictable enemy movement thus removing strategy and planning from the game. It's good that the sunderer fills that role now.

But: I would like to see a Squad-AMS funktion for the Gal, that enables your squad (or platoon, but that might be too much) to spawn there. It would give the Galaxy some meaning in the game but would not be as overpowered as the Galaxy AMS in beta.

[Rolfski]

I can remember from beta the moment they introduced the adjacency system and the AMS module for the Sunderer while removing it from the Galaxy. It significantly improved the game play and allowed for much bigger and more focused battles.

[Boomzor]

The main reason the AMS was removed from the galaxy was that it completely ignored terrain features and natural choke points.
You could set up shop pretty much anywhere and it wasn't very hard to get there.
In conjunction with the no adjacency of before, it led to a massive whack-a-mole situation in which you could rarely make an educated guess of where the enemy would be likely to attack and from what direction they were expected come from.

Case in point were the constant warp gate cut-offs going on.

I don't ever want to go back to that.

Currently, due to the base layouts, it can be argued that the AMS are better spawn points than facilities, because of their mobility. The fact that you can put it pretty much anywhere you want as long as you can drive there (and that no one got there before you did) gives you a leg up over the defenders.

Put that power on to galaxies and your mobile spawn points are only limited to where you can fly and land a galaxy. That's pretty much every where. Balancing a base to be more defensible (something we're still in dire need of) on that premise is a nightmare.

[Rothnang]

Galaxy AMS wasn't all that fun to be honest. It made ground vehicles pretty much completely irrelevant.

[Canaris]

plus they were a bit hard to hide on the front lines, honestly Tatwi for myself I'd have to say the Gal AMS was more infuriating than fun.

[psijaka]

Adjacency is essential to stop the game being one giant clusterfcuk.

Having the Sunderer as the AMS is quite enough of an advantage for attackers, but this advantage is held in check by the need to actually drive the beast to where you want it, avoiding impassable terrain and the enemy whilst doing so.

A Galaxy can quickly go pretty much anywhere with minimal effort; having it as an AMS would give far too much of an advantage to the attackers.

I do agree with the principle of suggestion 1 made by the OP; even making it so that 2 people are required to capture a control point from the defenders would drastically reduce ghost capping. But I'm against an arbitrary lockdown period; this would achieve nothing.

[Figment]

I don't agree with the multiple players needed thing because it ups the requirements for an already advantaged larger group, while forcing smaller groups to have a larger percentage of their already disadvantaged group in a predictable location.

Furthermore, if the last standing isn't a medic, they'd still have lost.

It also isn't newbee friendly, as newbees tend to have to figure things out on their own a lot. Making things require multiple people without it being evident why or that it should be (opposed to say a vehicle having multiple seats and different controls) doesn't make the game more intuitive.

[raw]

No..

[SwiftRanger]

Squad spawn Galaxies would be too risky as well I think or it should cost a huge amount of certs to cert into in the first place (which was the plan according to the devs the last time I checked) and/or cost a certain amount of resources for the pilot per spawn that comes out of it.

In any case, having the Galaxy just as a resupply point/weapons terminal (but not as a spawn point) wouldn't hurt. I am curious why that hasn't been implemented yet.

[Figment]

Am skeptic about squad spawn Gal-AMSes as well, really depends on how it's implemented.

I don't believe in restriction by cert points when cert points are endlessly available. IF it's powerful, by the end of the week all that want it have it.

In any case, having the Galaxy just as a resupply point/weapons terminal (but not as a spawn point) wouldn't hurt. I am curious why that hasn't been implemented yet.

They could even strip some guns from it and make it an aerial refueling platform for ammunition - but given how easy it is to get to a repair pad, it seems somewhat redundant.

For ground vehicles, it's a likelier possibility. In that case I would make the Sunderer Ammo upgrade resupply infantry only, though at a slower rate than ammo packs (although I'm still no fan of ammo packs and would rather have larger munitions pouches and trading/sharing limited quantities of ammo between players).

[Canaris]

Squad spawn Galaxies would be too risky as well I think or it should cost a huge amount of certs to cert into in the first place (which was the plan according to the devs the last time I checked) and/or cost a certain amount of resources for the pilot per spawn that comes out of it.

In any case, having the Galaxy just as a resupply point/weapons terminal (but not as a spawn point) wouldn't hurt. I am curious why that hasn't been implemented yet.

Equipment terminal on a Gal is great idea for in field resupply, it is a giant transport after all.

[Bear]

I'm not sure what the right answer for the Galaxy is but here are my thoughts on the issue:
1. Allowing mass respawns on a Galaxy kills the "front line" game play
2. Deliverig troops is awesome, ditching your Gal after is not
3. Galaxies we be more fun with a AP Shredder in the belly.
4. Squad respawns might be ok but they'd have to be limited.
5. Driving everywhere in a Sunderer SUCKS.

[Hamma]

We won't see the classic Galaxy AMS come back but I do think they will add something spawn related to it.

[Micro]

Equipment terminal on a Gal is great idea for in field resupply, it is a giant transport after all.
That's what I want. But the Galaxy AMS was fun too. I loved it in Beta.
So... Well, I don't know. It would be fun, but possibly overpowered as it can land pretty much anywhere, though it would also be very easily killed by some C4 or a couple of rockets.

But having a Equipment Terminal at least would be great.

[Rat]

In flight squad spawning would be nice, it would bring the Gal drop back to its former glory...even if adjacency rules were enforced for spawning.

[ExplodingSilver]

my thoughts

in the beta a deployed galaxy as AMS for the whole team was too powerful and negated the sunderer completely

currently galaxies are one use taxis, fly to one base and ditch. As a vehicle they are not a real item in the arsenal right now

suggestions :-
bring back the AMS capacity but in a limited way
> as a cert, landed and deployed galaxy is deploy point for squad only (not platoon and certainly not the whole team)
> as a cert, pilot activates cert then for 4 mins an airborne galaxy becomes a deploy point for the whole team, players deploy in the galaxy and are immediately dropped to the ground, so a circling galaxy is depositing players over a target

[Tatwi]

We won't see the classic Galaxy AMS come back but I do think they will add something spawn related to it.

I hope so. They're a really fun vehicle and almost completely useless. I took one out for a spin last night just for kicks. lol... I ended up flying it around as a distraction, "tanking" small arms fire, until swooped in a little too low in an area that was a little too hot. I ate some tank shells and flack for my last supper. :lol:

Personally, I thought you're idea (that you posted months ago) about having them deploy as gun-fortress-supply-terminal was great and fun. The game needs more "fun" things like that.

Adjacency is essential to stop the game being one giant clusterfcuk.

Ah, but with chaos comes the deep human desire to bring order! Seriously though, while Figment seems to think people will "burn out" when having to go all over the map or actually have to hold all locations on the map, it's safe to say that other people will play the game just to do this activity. Everyone is different and we should respect that as a community.

Right now, a lot of places on the maps barely get used. Not only is that a waste, it's also pretty boring. That's why I don't understand how so many people seem to want "continent locking" - you folks seriously believe that it's fun to remove the ability play on large swaths of the playable area? That's like running a Counter-Strike server and deleting half the maps, "just because". This, I do not understand. Also, I guarantee you that Average Joe Justwantstoplaythegame won't understand it either, he'll instead log in to find that he simply can't play in the area that he wanted to and that's not fun. Why do that? :huh:

Anti-air is pretty good right now, the skies are always filled with aircraft, and the server populations are much better than they were in beta, so I highly doubt that the Galaxy AMS will all of a sudden "make walls useless". Like Canaris said, the damned thing is pretty much impossible to hide lol... Besides, if the Galaxy's ability to fly over walls was really so uber powerful, then why are they so rarely used to do this right now?

[Calisai]

suggestions :-
bring back the AMS capacity but in a limited way
> as a cert, landed and deployed galaxy is deploy point for squad only (not platoon and certainly not the whole team)
> as a cert, pilot activates cert then for 4 mins an airborne galaxy becomes a deploy point for the whole team, players deploy in the galaxy and are immediately dropped to the ground, so a circling galaxy is depositing players over a target

Galaxy as the only AMS was definitely bad... it was horrible in tech. There was no fighting between bases as the Gal would skip the fight... that or there was no spawns left (as they were huge targets) and you'd have to spend 5 minutes getting back to where you were attacking. 4-5 AMS's > 1 gal. (which is about the comparison of survival rate)


I do think they can bring it back as a temporary squad spawn or something along the lines of above. Maybe have it able to be activated by the pilot for 4-5 minutes, then have a recharge period of maybe the same 4-5 minutes and able to be activated again. This would give any defenders a period of time they could use to regroup or destroy the Gal.

Also, with the increase of AA and the adjacency system still in place... I don't think a higher cert cost Gal-AMS option would be overpowered. Especially if limited by time and/or platoon/squad only settings.

At the very least, they should allow the equipment terminals to be put back on. (maybe a lower cert of eq terms, higher cert of timed AMS... make it a full cert tree) Give some lovin' to the Gal... she's lonely.

[MaxDamage]

Nope.

[Rivenshield]

Yeah, let's have an invulnerable spawn point parked on top of every spawn-outhouse in-game, all over again.....

Let's have an enemy-occupied teleporter-spawn AND a fresh stream of reinforcements straight off the air pad at every biolab, and at the Crown for that matter, and fuck the defenders over even more.... Let's RUIN defense. Dynamic gameplay for the win! Huzzah!

Screw that, and screw Sony if they bring it back.

[Tatwi]

Yeah, let's have an invulnerable spawn point parked on top of every spawn-outhouse in-game, all over again.....

Let's have an enemy-occupied teleporter-spawn AND a fresh stream of reinforcements straight off the air pad at every biolab, and at the Crown for that matter, and fuck the defenders over even more.... Let's RUIN defense. Dynamic gameplay for the win! Huzzah!

Screw that, and screw Sony if they bring it back.

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/24322759.jpg

[thegreekboy]

Regarding the AMS gal rebuttals, Instead of making it available for EVERYONE to spawn in on, make it outfit/platoon/squad only.

[robocpf1]

I see plenty of Galaxy dropship usage during Mattherson primetime. Many outfits large and small use them for transport, some even use them as Gunships! We love GGs.

In addition, spawn beacons are amazing when you upgrade them. You can spawn at a fully upgraded beacon once every 60 seconds. It doesn't allow you to resupply, obviously, but that's still a very powerful and incredibly versatile spawn alternative to the AMS.

[Saintlycow]

Ah, The good old galaxy AMS.

It's really quite elementary, dear Watson (or should I say Waterson :) )

Squad or Platoon only

Give it charges. LvL 1 has 12 spawns, LvL 2 has 16, and so forth (arbitrary numbers)
These charges can be reloaded at an airpad, but take a long time to reload.

Toying with the Idea of making it hover in place or not, as well as spawning into the gal itself, or outside of it.

The charges alleviate the amount of G-AMS in an area, as they need to leave

[BIGGByran]

Should they ever bring that back, they need to restrict it to Squad ONLY, not platoon, not friendlys, not outfit. Plus by equiping AMS to a galaxy, it need to have draw backs like:
-Normal Galaxy: 100% Speed 100% Armor
-AMS Galaxy: 75% Speed 75% Armor (Removing armor and weapons to add "AMS Equipment")
-Deployed AMS Galaxy: 50% Armor (Opening up galaxies, reveals its weak points.)
- Maybe even adding a 30 sec undeploy timer

50% armor will allow it to be destroyed more easily, since it can take a lot of hits.

[MittrackRobama]

I'd like to see an ammo resupply station for vehicles and infantry. Since there is SO MUCH air I don't think it would be too far of a stretch to have your squad only re-spawn on a galaxy.

I'd like to think if the dev's made galaxies that are deployed "auto-spot" for everyone in a 200M vicinity, the lifespan of any galaxy would be around the same as it is in the air; not that long. I'm not quite sure about the AMS gal, even if it's only for squad.

[Reaver]

The only thing removing g-ams accomplished was making infiltrators useful outside of sniping. Instead of landing and deploying a gal you just hack a vehicle terminal and pull a sunderer, nothing really changed at all.

[Tatwi]

spawn beacons are amazing when you upgrade them. You can spawn at a fully upgraded beacon once every 60 seconds. It doesn't allow you to resupply, obviously, but that's still a very powerful and incredibly versatile spawn alternative to the AMS.

It's not half as fun or cool though and it doesn't make Hamma giggle. :P

The only thing removing g-ams accomplished was making infiltrators useful outside of sniping. Instead of landing and deploying a gal you just hack a vehicle terminal and pull a sunderer, nothing really changed at all.

So true.

Also would like to add that "influence" is a pretty silly system. Losing a location even when you're holding a capture point is pretty dumb game design. The attackers aren't winning, so why should they win? Makes no sense.

[Sunrock]

You know what, that was really the most fun time I had in PS2. Lots of fights in different locations, from tiny to huge, all over the map. Something for everyone and it gave a fun vehicle a big, fun role to play.

Removing the Galaxy AMS and creating the adjacency system really sucked the life out of the game and I feel it did so for the wrong reason. What was the reason? They made adjacency to solve the annoyance of people taking hexes almost instantly and then leaving them. They called this whack-a-mole and they solved it completely the wrong way.

What they did was add adjacency and remove the Galaxy AMS, some strategy, nifty human randomness, options, and most of the small battles (despite the fact that many people prefer small battles). What they should have done instead is actually really simple:

1. Require 3 to 6 people for an Outpost capture point to be captured, thus solving the truly annoying "one dude keeps capping this when we leave" issue. It also makes capturing a point a strategic event involving positioning, situational awareness, and communication - exactly what small outfits keep saying they wish they needed to do in PS2!

2. Put a 5 to 10 minute lockout timer on all Outpost captures, such that once you cap it, it's yours and can't be taken for that amount of time. Now Higby called lockout timers "hamfisted" when I suggested this in beta (despite the fact that they actually DID THIS in beta), but if the ham fits... Truth be told, this would work fine and it suits the way game is supposed to be played.

Bringing back the Galaxy AMS and removing adjacency will give people the ability and the reason to spread out and use the whole map for fighting. That's a good thing in massively multiplayer online FPS game, especially one that tends to play very poorly when too many people are fighting in one area. :lol:


Ps. Also posted on the SOE foruns here (http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/bring-back-galaxy-ams-as-it-was-in-beta-because-it-was-fun.89061/).

1. Oh yea because no one is able to actual check that there are no one there and clear the base out? :rolleyes:

2. We had lockout timers on bases in beta but those lockout timers where not long enough for them to do anything. If I remember right it was 5 min. But the consensuses was that they had to be 15-20 min long for them to have any effect. Probably need 60 min for it to have the desired effect yuo're after, so SOE decided to remove them instead. And trust me 5-10 min is way too short time for them to have any real effect at all you wont even have the time to regroup in 5 min. The fight will just continue on as nothing happened.

And your belief that Galaxy AMS is going to make players to spread out more was also proven wrong in the beta. All the Galaxy AMS does is rendering all ground vehicles close to totally useless.

Trust me the AMS from the galaxy was removed for a very good reason.

[Sunrock]

Also would like to add that "influence" is a pretty silly system. Losing a location even when you're holding a capture point is pretty dumb game design. The attackers aren't winning, so why should they win? Makes no sense.

What are you talking about? You think it's silly that you can loose lets say The Crown when you're fighting at Zurvan Amp station? Do you even know how the influence game mech even work or what it does?

Or do you mean if the attackers hold B and C but defenders hold A they still loose? IE influencing two capture points will win over some one that only influence one? Yea that's really silly :rolleyes:

[psijaka]

Also would like to add that "influence" is a pretty silly system. Losing a location even when you're holding a capture point is pretty dumb game design. The attackers aren't winning, so why should they win? Makes no sense.

"Influence" is a great system, adds a degree of strategy to the game. For example, NC were attacking the Biolab near the TR Indar warpgate last night; I didn't join the push but took a Sunderer to the nearby minor base and ghost hacked it - result - increased our influence over the Biolab.

Your example does make sense; seems right to me that you cannot capture a base to utilise it's resources if you have no link to your warpgate enabling your empire to actually use those resources.

Edit - Or as Sunrock says, do you mean losing when the attackers hold more points than the defenders? Either way, makes sense and works very well.

Edit 2 - in fact it is possible to lose a base even if you hold 2 points and the enemy only holds one. Happened about a week ago at Regent's Rock; I was involved in a minor push into VS territory, but we were out in a salient, surrounded on 3 sides; our influence was so weak that this is exactly what happened and our attack failed. I've no problem with this; a push deep into enemy territory should be a risky move. Time to regroup at Tawrich!

Edit 3 - I would like to see the Galaxy made a bit more useful; something like a short duration squad only AMS could fit nicely into the game. It needs to be a bit more than a one use flying bus.

[Mox]

No. Spawning in the gal is bad for the game flow. But it would be nice to transport vecs (e.g. Sundies).

[robocpf1]

It's not half as fun or cool though and it doesn't make Hamma giggle. :P



You and I may disagree on this point. Being shot out of an orbital shuttle in a small pod that you can maneuver seems a WAY COOLER alternative to jumping out of an airplane.

And, I can fit the beacon in my pocket!

[basti]

Gal AMS was indeed fun to fly, i loved it.

But the effect it had on the metagame was cruel. It pretty much destroyed all attempts to have a frontline, as you could just pass whatever defence was set up and deploy a gal wherever you wanted.


It shall not return.

[Tatwi]

Gal AMS was indeed fun to fly, i loved it.

But the effect it had on the metagame was cruel. It pretty much destroyed all attempts to have a frontline, as you could just pass whatever defence was set up and deploy a gal wherever you wanted.


It shall not return.

http://tpotca.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/galshallnotpass.png?w=917

[psijaka]

http://tpotca.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/galshallnotpass.png?w=917

Yeah but Gandalf is defending a narrow stone bridge, not a several km wide, 1km high airspace.

[Boomzor]

Clearly, that galaxy does what galaxies do best... ignore the terrain choke points and circumvent any ground defense.

[Sifer2]

Gal AMS was indeed fun to fly, i loved it.

But the effect it had on the metagame was cruel. It pretty much destroyed all attempts to have a frontline, as you could just pass whatever defence was set up and deploy a gal wherever you wanted.


It shall not return.


People say this but it simply wasn't true. Galaxies are huge, and easy to spot. Every aircraft in the sky, and every AA on the ground guns for them. It was actually often harder to get an AMS into position when it was the Gal than it is for the Sundy. All removing Gal AMS really did was make Towers/Biolabs much harder to assault. It used to be awesome to land on a Biolab landing pad, deploy an have people taking cover under it's shield wings, and a huge fight for the pad ensues. Now it's some awkward game of float up the lift, throw grenade, die an repeat.

You could argue it led to more ninja capping of outposts. But those are still ninja capped all the time now. Since anyone can pull an ESF, and just fly right to them anyway.

[Figment]

Sifer, you talk about this fight for the airpad, but you ignore that it meant there was no fight over the courtyard nor the outposts.

That the Bio Labs have silly elevators and teleporters is a separate problem. But towers wern't hard to take and certainly didn't need to be made easier. Harder in fact. The Crown being the exception due to the threeway occuring there that makes it impossible to approach because two sides prevent any advance of another side.

The Crown is one of those bases that should have a single capture point and instant flipping, if not a very short timer.