Simple idea to help players find a good fight

[Babyfark McGeez]

In planetside 1...lol sorry couldn't resist. Okok scratch that, i had my fun, here's the idea :p :

On the map screen there is currently a checkbox for showing enemy activity, enemy activity is further being displayed on the hexes themself.

How about to also (optionally or by default) showing activity of your own faction, preferrably also with stating allied "troops/squads/platoons" on the hexes themself.

With showing enemy activity and your factions activity you could better estimate if the area you are going to will provide a good fight.
Squads could check if the area isn't allready overflowing with friendlies, which would be a boring "fight" for them.
Solo players could check if they wouldn't be the only one in the area they want to go to.
It would benefit both squads and solo players and would reduce frustration about not finding good fights quickly.

Examples to further illustrate it:
a) You are solo, see that "Ymir" area is showing enemy platoons. You check your factions activity and see there is nobody there. So you save yourself time and the trouble of going there only to be mauled and check another area.

b) Your squad sees "enemy activity" in an area. You check and see that there are allready friendly platoons around, decide it would be boring for your squad and go somewhere with less friendlies around.

In a way the little "pings" we currently see on the map are supposed to provide that information, and experienced players can sort of "predict" your factions numbers by just checking the "big picture" of territory control on the map. But i think more explicit descriptions would be better, especially for "casual" players.

[Figment]

See the thing is - you're going to disproportionally spread ... I mean... guide people to The Crown.


>.>


*cough*



Tbh, when you know how many enemies there are, you're less likely to actually go there. In the early days of "some other game", there wern't base - in fact, there wern't continental - warnings on population. Which means you could go around a corner and go... "HOLY CRAP THEY'RE STAGING AN INVASION IN THE MOUNTAINS!".

We actually had fights over the mountains near Thoth's warpgate on Solsar back then.

Later it became either a very calculated "we need exactly 10 people to balance this fight" thing, or "It's a Red Alert, I'm not going to bother if other people aren't bothering", opposed to where each hacked based used to be at least scouted for enemy presence and response.

People started to stop going to probably low chance of succes fights, which made no fight occur and frequently people getting bored with guard duty in those bases.

And it's not like a zergfit will go and say "oh, red alert base, that's something for us to handle". They'll all go to yellow and orange alerts first, due to having a higher chance of success.

All in all, I think it's fairly difficult to do, because beyond convenience, the information will strengthen laziness and stimulate fear and conservative moves. Plus, the suction effect of "good fights" might worsen other fights.

I mean, all this information is well intended and especially for new players needed (to get a hang of it), but if it's ultimately adding to keeping all fights fun is a different thing.

[bpostal]

TBH, if you don't end a hard day fighting with a bit of a zerg @ the crown...where's the fun?

Anyway, getting on topic, I think would be great from an informational standpoint. If there's a red alert at Ymir, it could be 'downgraded' to Orange (or whatever) if there's a friendly platoon currently engaged at the bio lab to show that large scale combat is going on.

Separately, I don't think this (by itself) would discourage larger outfits to not to go a red alert base. The fact is, if a base is at red alert and there's no friendly forces there, the fight's pretty much over anyway. You've missed your chance at a re-secure a few minutes ago when the enemy platoon(s) rolled up, took the hard spawns, dropped the gens and hacked out some AMSs'.

Getting new players quality fights consistently should be the key focus. Keeps the new blood flowing.

[Kerrec]

What? People go to The Crown by choice. They are not funneled there. When I log on, I choose to go to Indar, or not. When I'm on Indar, I choose to go farm at The Crown. or not. Never have I told myself "I'm going to push the front on the west side and found myself at The Crown even though I didn't want to go.

I am 100% with Babyfark. I can see if there are enemies, enemy squad, enemy squadS, enemy platoon, enemy platoonS. When I decide where I want to go, I want a fair fight and a fighting chance.

If I had information that showed:

-Enemy Platoon
-Allies

I wouldn't go there.

But if I saw:

-Enemy PlatoonS
-Allied Platoon

I would risk it.

The end result is I wouldn't be wasting MY time finding something out the hard way, for nothing.

[Figment]

Ugh Kerrec, seriously. Learn to read maps and predict zergling moves.

The map layout and geography funnels them to The Crown and keeps them there. I already predicted this would be the centerpoint of all fighting back in january 2012, which was during PS2 Alpha and didn't even know just what kind of geography and base was there. We just had our first view of the Indar map, without grid still.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=38452&page=2

See the example fight in post #24 with an imaginary push north and west. Whatever you do pivots around the central area near The Crown. That means that it's like a whirlpool sucking in zergs to clash, which automatically generates a threeway stalemate along the shortest frontlines. Even if it's not as defensible in the dead center as it turned out to be.

In fact, my analysis assumed roughly equal defensibility everywhere, hence why a push north draws defenders and a push west would be viable due to a fight up north draining troops from the zerg stalemate. However, since the stalemate doesn't subside even temporarily, the TR get pushed back already after 3 and the ghost up north makes 6-7 happen quicker. It also assumed the border areas would be more open to movement. It's a bit silly the way it is now.


PS: It's also why Amerish has better flowing combat, with zergs moving in different directions, due to the canyons funneling people. But since that provides less consistent fights and less farming, the suction effect is much lower.