A Simple look at why defense feels useless.

[Gonefshn]

I'll keep it short, we need continent locking.

In PS1 defense meant something and was important.
Here is why. In the current system for PS2 we have a never ending three way with indestructible spawn locations for each empire. If you are losing a base your empire can decide to leave because losing players at one location means a bump in players somewhere else. You will always be winning somewhere (theoretically with even pop).

With continent locking you often have only a 2 way fight depending on which empire is attacking you. If you chose to leave a fight in PS1 it meant you could lose your ability to spawn at that continent.

Simply, without the threat of losing your foothold on the continent you have no real threat to losing territory.

[ColdCheese]

I think xp is the only way to motivate people to defend while leaving the option open to continent hop that continent locking would prevent. Make a base that is being counter attacked have an xp timed base meter and the longer the battle the more xp is up for grabs, the winner wther you defend it or take the base collect the reward. Thats just my suggestion, the game revolves around certs and that would surely motivate people, not everyone wants to feel forced to do anything nowadays and might turn off alot of players calling out a supposedly open game is becoming too linear.

[Ghoest9]

no

If they add more continents then a lock out would be fine - but it will have no efffect on base defense.

[Sledgecrushr]

I love the idea on continent locking and I do believe it would make losing bases and then an entire continent hurt. It would make the importance of bases greater, make wanting to defend a priority. I cant wait for the new continent and continent locking.

[ringring]

Cap times are too short for resecure teams to operate, mostly.
Because cap times are short we all know that even if we lose a base we can get it back very easily, therefore lose/capture has no meaning
Most bases do not have a meaningful reason not to lose it, with the notable exception of the Tech Plant, the best recent change added. (this also implies that cap times need not be that much longer.)

[Vashyo]

I don't see how locking a continent would have much effect

There's really no real meaning to defense unless you either get rewarded for defending bases (small XP boost isn't really enough to entice players obviously)

or punished for losing bases. (Losing resources kinda does this but it can be countered by leaving the continent and infantry only players are largely unaffected and even still, it will only add minutes to the wait to get a new vehicle anyway so everything is kinda built to negate the effects of losing.)


I myself wouldnt care at all if a continent would be capped at this stage of the game, I would continue on collecting XP at crown, then move to another continent to continue, cause I don't like to travel all the time. Now if they added a big bonus on some bases that have to be defended, I would be there. Standing, doing nothing, as long as I get something for my personal character progression.



If it was all upto me, I would make it so that bases that have just been capped are locked for atleast 40minutes from all attempts of capture, this way the battle would move in unpredictable patterns around the map and would make defending vital. If u keep losing, you defend. If you win a fight, it's your turn to go offensive. Would add much needed focus in the game, when you don't have to guess the enemy attack patterns every 5 minutes which usually ends up as separate zergs roaming around, hoping to collide in battle. This would also add lot of meta-game in the game, simply because you have time to plan for the next phase of battle.


Frontlines dont exist in this game simply because there's too much ground to cover and the game is all about numbers and short capture times (2-10 minutes is nothing). So even if they keep improving base defendability, it will never be enough.


I hate the constant three-way battle too, everytime those happened in PS1. I just went elsewhere. Simply because they were a strategic/tactical mess...

[thegreekboy]

Continent locking can be done well or horribly. It can make or break the game.

Bad: If you capture a continent you lock it, and it can't be played or spawned on for X amount of time.

Good: CONTINENTAL LATTICE FFS. You get kicked off a continent, it is unplayable for X amount of time, you must defend the next facility in the lattice-PS1-esque.

[Brusi]

Cap times are too short for resecure teams to operate, mostly.
Because cap times are short we all know that even if we lose a base we can get it back very easily, therefore lose/capture has no meaning
Most bases do not have a meaningful reason not to lose it, with the notable exception of the Tech Plant, the best recent change added. (this also implies that cap times need not be that much longer.)

I agree with this.

There are some towers that are just a fucking pain in the ass to lose, as recapping them, as a possible 10 min boring, no opposition ass ghost hack is a terrible thing to consider. Crimson Bluff, Indar Bay, etc..

I'm not sure i'm agreeing to make the timers longer for other bases or not, but i do agree that i am more willing to take my squad to defend these towers to avoid having to possibly sit on our asses ghost-hacking it back later.

[Sifer2]

We need back Sancts it's true. The 3 way endless stalemate gets a bit dull. However the problem goes deeper I think. The bases are so wide open to ninja capping it's unreal. I tried playing late at night once, and discovered one man can capture half a continent in like an hour. The points actually flip even if no one is there you just walk up to it until it's yours then leave. It eventually flips itself. Not saying we necessarily need a lattice back but the bases flip very easily.

Personally I think the solution is less outposts. Just too many of them. Rarely a good fight at them anyway.

[Obstruction]

first off i bolded the TL;DR for you guys

defense feels useless because it IS. the xp incentive is set up such that the "best strategy" for the common zerg player is to keep moving on to the next fight, next capture. the "best thing to do" is let the enemy take areas, so that you can go back and re-take them. there is no reason to sit on some location, even if it would be good for your faction to hold it.

current defense incentives give a bonus % to actions taken while defending, but when there's no action taking place it is a % of 0.

there needs to be a reason to set up shop with your group and camp a territory for invaders. it should be a set rate of xp per minute along the same lines as the limits for resupply or repair xp per minute.

in addition, there should be incentives to go deeper behind enemy lines to seek out and destroy said defenders. perhaps a sliding scale similar to the threat based xp where people who have been defending a territory for some time create an opportunity for greatly (200 or 300%) increased xp gain for bringing the fight past the line of adjacency.

a simple "patrol mode" using an interface similar to the voice macro menu to activate and flag nearby territories or choose options would do the trick.

for example: a small to mid sized outfit sets up a good mixed-unit defense of an area behind their own lines that is strategically useful to their faction; an air resupply tower like crux headquarters on amerish, or maybe scarred mesa skydock on indar. these fights do happen to occur organically in game as it is, but often they are so far behind the front that it becomes stale and boring for half an hour to an hour at a time.

would be defenders then leave, and at some point a non-fight for capture takes place; after which attackers move on without opposition, also bored of the game at this point and wondering why they don't just go farm the middle of the map, where the action is.

with a patrol system in place, the defenders can set up in a good location and wait for the fight to come, with assurance that they aren't wasting their time, since they have the xp/minute trickling in and the knowledge that SOMEONE will want to come get the large bonuses for trying to break their defense. meanwhile attacking forces will have incentive to push past the center-map stalemate farm and go for a real challenge and a real reward where hardened defenders wait for a good outfit vs outfit matchup in an interesting locale of their choosing, and a formation designed to maximize their effectiveness there.

this would also allow for solo play to be much more rewarding. infiltrators would have more reason to actually infiltrate and camp in interesting places, waiting in ambush for patrol units. air units would have reason to lurk around behind the front and actually patrol bases and empty territories, or sneak past enemy lines and strike defending forces, rather than just lurk on the edges of the center and try to last-hit limping enemy units. armor teams would have reason to set up in good positions and maintain them, rather than simply try to drive to the center or get caught moving territory to territory and exposed/abandoned/destroyed in tactically inferior positions/locations.

like any game, not all players are motivated by points/exp but you can't design for the exception. the game must be designed to reward the kind of behavior that will create interesting play.

[Qwan]

I dont know guys, defense is no longer in my outfits vocab. We only go back for tech plants, or if connection to the tech plant is threatened. Since base defence gives no xp, and since the xp is always the same, regardless of the size of the fight, we chose to wait for the base to flip then go kill the ghost hacker and take it back. Its part of our daily operation (thats only if the base or outpost has significance). We usually stick to the frontline battles, and pushing into new territorys. The word tactics has completly been removed from game play, I believe the only time we think about tactics is when we, want to cut off another faction from there tech plant, because these seem to be the only bases that matter. Things we usta do back in the day like gen bust, back hack, making the base go nuetral, stuff like that is useless now, for us its just a front line meat grinder which ends in alot of dead NC and TR in our wake.

P.S. event night its awesome as well, if you see a butt load of VS cloakers on quads its probably us.

[psijaka]

Continent locking can be done well or horribly. It can make or break the game.

Bad: If you capture a continent you lock it, and it can't be played or spawned on for X amount of time.

Good: CONTINENTAL LATTICE FFS. You get kicked off a continent, it is unplayable for X amount of time, you must defend the next facility in the lattice-PS1-esque.

Continental lattices would be great; need more continents though!

[Dkamanus]

There is no real punishment for failing a defense. That's a huge problem.

[psijaka]

As a habitual defender (1027 defences, 322 captures) the consequences of the lack of a decent incentive to defend dismay me.

Time and time again we capture somewhere like Zurvan Amp and then everyone fcuks off up the valley to get involved in a pointless battle for the Crown, little realising that they are the filling in a shit sandwich, caught between the VS at Crossroads and the TR defending the Crown. Meanwhile the VS sneak in from the south, overwhelm the few remaining defenders, myself amongst them, get the generators down and spawn a Sunderer below "A"....

I don't know whether introducing meaningful incentives to defend would actually make much difference in circumstances like this, but it might at least cause a few to pause and think before they fcuk off elsewhere.

Most people don't really think about the implications of losing resource generating capacity, so I don't see the point in tinkering with this, unless it is something really radical.

I'm also against arbitrary time locks on a newly captured facility; this is one way of guaranteeing that everyone will move on, leaving the base completely undefended when the timer expires. A very clumsy mechanic.

The only thing that might make defending more attractive to Mr Average is to reintroduce an XP reward for the completion of a successful defence. I like the idea of a dynamic system, but I think that a simple flat rate reward would give the best results; perhaps half the rate of the capture XP, say 125, 250, 500 XP, dependent upon base size.

[Mietz]

There is no real punishment for failing a defense. That's a huge problem.

This, and there is no real defense.

Defense is camping a facility until you get bored.
All you do is delay the attackers who -will- take the facility at some point because you will wear your faction forces out by being tied to one facility.

If you are playing defense you will have to stay there forever, because the second you leave, the facility is going to either get ghosted or zerged again.

Defense (playing defensively) doesn't suck (only) because of lacking consequences, defensible base design, lacking rewards, it sucks because playing defense has no mechanic that will prevent the attackers swarming the place if you don't keep your guns pointed at them at all times.

Hence why playing musical chairs with facilities is preferable. It is better to attack all the time because attacking keeps your forces moving and provides a possibility for progress.
"Securing" a facility does nothing unless you stay there and keep shooting the waves of enemies. Staying in one place ties your forces up and prevents progress in map-control.
This is the current meta game. If people "defend" its because they want a target-rich environment with a 15% boost to XP, not because they want to defend the facility, as that is impossible by default.

[psijaka]

If people "defend" its because they want a target-rich environment with a 15% boost to XP, not because they want to defend the facility, as that is impossible by default.

Not true; I like to defend, and I don't even consider the 15% XP boost. Really enjoy pushing the attackers back, or ripping the heart out of their attack by blowing their Sunderer. Doesn't always work out that way, of course, but if defending were impossible, I wouldn't have 1027 defences to my name, compared with 322 captures; that's a ratio of over 3:1.

[Figment]

Compare the layout and with it the flow between these two versions of a Bio Lab:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5011/biolabflow.jpg (http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5011/biolabflow.jpg)

And then compare it to PS1 layout and flow:

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1821/ps1baseflow.png (http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1821/ps1baseflow.png)


The reason why nobody defends, or defense is as Mietz put it, a stalling effort, is simply down to flow. PS2 flow heavily favours the attackers (even after the most recent game update, though there's some hope for defenders now).

Defense should be layered like an onion, where the courtyard is but one of the layers and each layer has decent two-directional flow, with more choke on the inward flow than on the outward flow.


Currently, defense is layered like a polka dot shirt surrounded by a wall. It's a game of connect the dots through the courtyard, where the wall is the only shell you have. At least the tunnels provide some form of passage that negates enemy tanks, even if they make you come out through killing zones in front of firing squads and the current tunnels may as well have been teleporters. Before the jumppad change, the wall wasn't even a line of defense, but a line of offense.

[Mietz]

Not true; I like to defend, and I don't even consider the 15% XP boost. Really enjoy pushing the attackers back, or ripping the heart out of their attack by blowing their Sunderer. Doesn't always work out that way, of course, but if defending were impossible, I wouldn't have 1027 defences to my name, compared with 322 captures; that's a ratio of over 3:1.

Thanks for proving my point, its exactly what I said.
You just said yourself you enjoy the -combat- of defense, not the strategic side of defense, because there is no strategic side of defense.

Defense is what you do on a personal level because you either enjoy the combat, the situation or the XP gain, not because its useful to actually hold the facility.


I enjoy the combat of defense as well (i have also a 3:1 def ratio), it still not really useful for my faction at all. I'm wasting my time holding Amp when my faction is pushing into enemy territory.

The fact is you can not actually hold on to a facility because there are too many front-line facilities to hold at any given time and the only way to "lock" them is to -take- the outlying territories to reduce the enemy influence to zero. Which is rarely ever done except for zergs as beating back any sort of attack on a facility is nigh impossible.

It's a constant back and forth of territory.

It's shit.

PS:
Because this might be unclear, when I'm talking about defense I mean this:
- The defense of an objective for the sake of the objective.
When I talk about securing:
- The successful defense of an objective that frees up actors to play offensively

Being attacked and shooting back is not by itself defense and neither is holding a facility.

[Figment]

but if defending were impossible, I wouldn't have 1027 defences to my name, compared with 322 captures; that's a ratio of over 3:1.

You do realise that a base defense is tallied the moment a single guy makes the counter tick a few seconds and it's reset back to full bar? That counts as "base defended" as well, even if the next hack attempt works. :/

A base is not defended till the battle is over and the attackers have been forced to make a full retreat.

[psijaka]

You do realise that a base defense is tallied the moment a single guy makes the counter tick a few seconds and it's reset back to full bar? That counts as "base defended" as well, even if the next hack attempt works. :/

A base is not defended till the battle is over and the attackers have been forced to make a full retreat.

Well aware of that.

Edit - you do realise that someone can look at the map to see which base is about to flip, redeploy there and get the 1000XP without lifting a finger. That counts as a "base conquered".

[psijaka]

Thanks for proving my point, its exactly what I said.
You just said yourself you enjoy the -combat- of defense, not the strategic side of defense, because there is no strategic side of defense.

Defense is what you do on a personal level because you either enjoy the combat, the situation or the XP gain, not because its useful to actually hold the facility.

Not proving it at all; you are putting words into my mouth. There is a strategic side to it.

[Gonefshn]

I take my ideas from planetside 1. The most tangible reward for defense was maintaining territory. Especially when each team had 2 unnoficial home continents. It was hard to take a home continent from an enemy. People didn't leave when things when south, they fought harder because that home continent mattered to them.

[Figment]

I take my ideas from planetside 1. The most tangible reward for defense was maintaining territory. Especially when each team had 2 unnoficial home continents. It was hard to take a home continent from an enemy. People didn't leave when things when south, they fought harder because that home continent mattered to them.

You are skipping a few steps though.

It should be possible to defend, hold and push back, without having to leave and mount a counter-offensive first.

Otherwise people have to leave.

[Mietz]

Not proving it at all; you are putting words into my mouth. There is a strategic side to it.

I never said there isn't a strategic side to defense. I said defense isn't played for strategy.

And you provided why you play defense, which looked exactly like you weren't playing it for strategy.

I'm not putting words in anyones mouth, FFS I quoted you, it's there for everyone to see.

[Figment]

Well aware of that.

Edit - you do realise that someone can look at the map to see which base is about to flip, redeploy there and get the 1000XP without lifting a finger. That counts as a "base conquered".

Yeah, I've seen many aircav groups dedicated to flying to the next cap someone else pulled off actually... :/

Hope the *cough*PS1*cough* base hack exp system rewarding exp by effort in base cap (time spend in vicinity, people spot, enemy presence, repairs, assists and kills) are calculated into a capture and resecure score and that this would replace mere numbers and flat rate experience point awards.

Ie. a reflection of invested time, effort and difficulty.


PS: That said, I currently play defense because my PS1 ethos demands it as commander: don't ask others to do what you wouldn't do yourself. It is done despite hope that the effect has any significance. It is done despite gering utterly frustrated with how easy it is for your squad to get cut off and zergcamped, even by insignificant numbers (by PS1 standards, say a 2:1 ratio). It is frustrating to be skilled enough to escape a deathtrap camp, dodge three tanks, get to the enemy AMS and drop C4, to blow it and toss a grenade just in case and then to get instakilled while three new AMSes pull up, along with 13 more tanks to complement the 30 stationary instakill units already there, standing between you and one of three CCs you need to hold with multiple people for eons after the hack started and went on a bit.


If we had different resecure systems (instant, or almost instant), more defense oriented base layouts (yes spawn room is far more defensible now, but I'm defending dozens of meters away from where I need to get to and only have a few seconds, so it is pointless unless I have a zerg at my disposal) and sure enough, some sort of region link blocking to control the links and thus what happens on both ends.


It's just not encouraging defense right now. Luckilly they are starting to make positive base design changes. I'm hoping they see I'm not talking bullshit here and that previous suggestions did a lot for defense in terms of anti-spawnfarming.

[psijaka]

Yeah, I've seen many aircav groups dedicated to flying to the next cap someone else pulled off actually... :/

Hope the *cough*PS1*cough* base hack exp system rewarding exp by effort in base cap (time spend in vicinity, people spot, enemy presence, repairs, assists and kills) are calculated into a capture and resecure score and that this would replace mere numbers and flat rate experience point awards.

Ie. a reflection of invested time, effort and difficulty.


Yeah, once people get the hang of the map, it is easy for them to spot which base is about to flip and get there just in time to bag the easy XP. Poor game design that encourages such behaviour.

I would certainly welcome something like the PS1 system you describe, both for attack and defense.

[psijaka]

Compare the layout and with it the flow between these two versions of a Bio Lab:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5011/biolabflow.jpg (http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5011/biolabflow.jpg)

And then compare it to PS1 layout and flow:

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1821/ps1baseflow.png (http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1821/ps1baseflow.png)


The reason why nobody defends, or defense is as Mietz put it, a stalling effort, is simply down to flow. PS2 flow heavily favours the attackers (even after the most recent game update, though there's some hope for defenders now).

Defense should be layered like an onion, where the courtyard is but one of the layers and each layer has decent two-directional flow, with more choke on the inward flow than on the outward flow.


Currently, defense is layered like a polka dot shirt surrounded by a wall. It's a game of connect the dots through the courtyard, where the wall is the only shell you have. At least the tunnels provide some form of passage that negates enemy tanks, even if they make you come out through killing zones in front of firing squads and the current tunnels may as well have been teleporters. Before the jumppad change, the wall wasn't even a line of defense, but a line of offense.

You've done a lot of work here, Figment, and it illustrates well why Bio Labs are such a clusterfuck. AMP stations aren't much better, despite the recent improvements.

[Figment]

You've done a lot of work here, Figment, and it illustrates well why Bio Labs are such a clusterfuck. AMP stations aren't much better, despite the recent improvements.

Quite. You didn't play PS1 iirc right?

I trust you can see how big a difference it is with PS2 though:

If I'd draw up a flow chart for PS2, next to none of these would be concentric defense perimeters but pretty much every vital thing would be in E-F as stand alone objectives, with true A-D levels missing. Spawn buildings and some of the other buildings would count as C-D, but they'd be more like tiny polka dots on the courtyard, rather than a single large keep.

[Figment]

Actually, here we go:

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/23/ps2baseflow.png (http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/23/ps2baseflow.png)

Same color coding as for the PS1 bases has been used.

PS: note that the walls are not complete, since infantry can cross them and they regularly contain "holes" like snow allowing a tank to drive in or tunnels for infantry. Or the walls are simply non-existent on certain sides. Often holes in the wall exist 20-40 meters away from the actual shielded gates, making those completely pointless.

[psijaka]

You didn't play PS1 iirc right?

I trust you can see how big a difference it is with PS2:

If I'd draw up a flow chart for PS2, next to none of these would be concentric defense perimeters but pretty much every vital thing would be in E-F as stand alone objectives, with true A-D levels missing. Spawn buildings and some of the other buildings would count as C-D, but they'd be more like tiny polka dots on the courtyard, rather than a single large keep.

No, my PS1 experience limited to Youtube unfortunately. And yes, big difference!

Edit - interesting to see your latest diagrams. Large outposts are far too porous.

I'm not even convinced that the AMP stations have been much improved; sure the spawn room changes are good, but the bases are still far too easy to infiltrate and the discontinuity in the perimeter jump pads hinders the defenders as much as having their exclusive use helps them. Two steps forward, one step back.

[Figment]

What I find interesting is that the closest thing to a PS1 base is the tower when it's part of a larger base region.

It's just... really compact, which makes it a bit more easier to siege.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Just played a bit strictly defense mostly using the "reinforcements needed" tab.

And besides a DEFENSIVE XP REWARD (i think i will just mention this in every thread now hehe) i have a suggestion for that defensive spawning;

It would be a quite nice tool if the chosen spawns would be the "bases under attack closest to the warpgate". Because for the most part i had really silly locations avaible that were completely overrun and/or in a remote location that we should ditch anyways.
For example, we were being cut off at allatum on indar, but the "reinforcements" were going to the crown, hydroponics (? the other one east of allatum) and a remote outpost of dahaka deep in enemy territory. But the enemy platoons behind these spawns were neglected. Therefore a more complex spawn determination would be helpful to distribute the random solo soldiers like i was one just now. And the easiest quick fix would be what i wrote above.

Oh, and i also noticed my +XP percentage wildly changing from +5 to a maximum of +23 i shortly had. I even saw it going up and down realtime at one point. What's up with that? o_0

But besides that i also think that a DEFENSIVE XP REWARD would help to make some more people consider defending instead of ghost hacking remote outposts. ^^

[wasdie]

Two way continent fights won't happen until we get more land to fight over. Continent locking right now would still mean that every fight is a 3 way fight.

The biggest issue with the metagame here is simply that there isn't enough content. We have 3 continents which have nothing to do with each other and each has a permanent for each faction. In PS1 each faction had a permanent base linked to 2 separate continents and then 10 full continents to fight over. 6 were "home" continents and 4 were neutral. It made for a lot more meaningful fighting.

I'm convinced that the hex system, base design, and all of the other major complaints about how the worlds are laid our are simply because they were designed with PS1 style continent locking in mind, not this forever 3 way. This is also why they have been extremely hesitant to change the system because they know in the long run it will be better.

I wish we got sanctuaries back, but a single "home continent" would work just fine. Each faction gets a permanent warp gate on a continent and the other warpgates link the continents Planetside 1 style. I think that would make a lot of sense if they don't want to spend the time to build 3 new continents for some sort of a permanent base.

[Rahabib]

wait... there are more continents than Indar???!!!! :p