Important Question !

[Serbitar]

I have searched for a thread about "what to do against off time attacks" . But couldnt find any. Has this topic never been discussed ?

(Offtime attacks are squads running around during midnight or other "off" times and sacking all the bases because there is nobody there to defend them)

[�io]

Well that's pretty simple. Have "off time" defenders. :)

[Serbitar]

not really. If an outfit of 30 people decides to have some fun and attack bases at 4 o clock in the morning, then there just wont be enough people to defend against them.
Defenders have to be there all the time. Attackers can agree on a certain time and date and do a massive attack.

Ask some Dark Age of Camelot folks in RvR. They have this problem all the time. No solution . . . (and its a much bigger problem in Planetside, because its all about the fighting, with no roleplaying if fighting turns out bad)

[GreatDane]

We really haven't disscussed it in depth, and we don't know if there will be NPC's that help defend like in DAoC, but there will be turrets, and other base defences.

It was alos brought up that any force that came in and took a bunch of bases in the middle of the night would not be able to hold them, because they would not have toe man power necessary to defend them.

Then again, if they do get take and hold a few bases in the night I'm ok with that. It makes the game more realistic since most raids/attacks happen at night in Real life.

[Corbie]

well if ya think about it..they would have to hold those bases until 7-8 am when more people from their faction got online and could catch a ride over to the new bases and bind their spawn there. and really..if they do that..then just plan your own off time attack and take a few of theirs while they all sleep :).

anyway, if they were to somehow seriously hurt you during the odd hours of the night..doesnt holding less bases give your faction bonuses or something? so that no faction can be completely sealed off on their home continent?

I just dont think it will be a problem..it seems to me there there really is no way to "win" in PS.. no matter how many bases you take..your enemies will get stronger..and will push you back eventually.. and there is no real bonus for holding more bases right? really..the only reason to fight is for fun..there is no goal.

[Hamma]

I personaly dont think it will be THAT big of an issue, it could be a problem in areas that dont have a high concentration of troops. But there are always people playing hehe.

It would have to be a huge coordinated effort to make a difference - becuase they would have to HOLD the bases.

Its just one of those things we will have to wait and see ;)

[Serbitar]

hmm if you think it that way. capturing bases doesnt really do anything at all. except of getting you fame (and some minor things like dropships and such). And if you get the fame by capturing bases in off times nobody can see that in the statistics . . .

Maybe there should be something like a faction win when more then 80% of the bases are captured by one faction. After which everything is resetted . . .
(I think capturing 80% of the bases takes more than an offtime attack . . . )

Any thoughts on that ? was this discussed before ?

(sorry for all those questioning. im new to Planetside. Have read all I could but you always miss something)

[Corbie]

something that would REALLY give people some incentive.. it has been mentioned that more weapons, vehicles, certifications would be added into the game later right?

so, would it be possible then to give a new "item" to the faction that takes over say..50% of the bases on their server?

i dunno if it would be possible..since it would be different for every server.. plus..what if the fighting on a server is so close that it takes months for someone to take over 50%? do you eventually just give all factions a new item to keep people happy?

i dunno..just a thought off the top of my head.

[Hamma]

Im sure about anything is possible, they will build the game so they can add on to it. Once the game is played for a few months we will have a better idea on how everything runs - i doubt they would change anything till then

[�io]

Originally posted by Hamma
I personaly dont think it will be THAT big of an issue, it could be a problem in areas that dont have a high concentration of troops. But there are always people playing hehe.

It would have to be a huge coordinated effort to make a difference - becuase they would have to HOLD the bases.



http://www.planetside.info/forum/images/smilies/Stupid.GIF


Also giving certain bonuses to an empire that has 60-70% of the bases would be a great idea. Some bonuses would be permanent others would disapear if said empire loses their advantage. It would add a lot of depth to the game. :)

[GreatDane]

I thought holding bases gave your empire certian abilitys they don't have if you don't control the base. For example if you take a Med Facility your empire get's a little extra life, or you get some sort of weapon/ vechicle that only people that hold that base can make.

Has this been changed/Removed fom the game? Is there really no benifit gained from taking bases now?

[�io]

Yes you get that type of benefit but if you already have one med facility another won't change much (unless they plan on putting a limit on the range of it's effectiveness). The more vehicles bays the better indeed.

[Hamma]

If you get a med facility it makes all Med Stations heal armor as well as health.

Tech centers allow you to spawn air vehicles.

Dropship centers allow you to spawn galaxys outside of the Sanctuary

The others, I dont know - need to get the details on each type of base. :D

[Jinxmasta]

Another great benefit of capping a base: a whole lotta BEPs!

[Warborn]

I've been playing DAoC since it was released, and I was actually thinking of bringing this up. In DAoC, some people do what's called "alarm clock raids". Basically, they make it known to their own side (only some guilds of their own side, to prevent leaks to cross-teamers) that there'll be a Relic Raid (a big raid that gets your side an item that gives all players a bonus) at some godforsaken hour of the day -- usually when all people are asleep. Now, unless the enemy team hears about this in advance from a spy, they're pretty much screwed. Yeah, there'll be SOME people defending, but nowhere near enough. And even the NPC guards are worthless, as it'd be impossible to take a Keep during peak hours if the NPC guards alone could hold off the enemy. Suffice to say, Installations will change hands quite a bit during the evening during Planetside. Only thing I can recommend is that either a) the defenses get suped-up during late hours (2am - 9am or so), server local time, or b) Installations be outright immune to capture during those times. It's really stupid in DAOC when your side loses a Relic because you were all asleep, and I'd hate for that to happen in PS.

[afex]

in regards to the original post, if a bunch of people got together to take bases at nite, the hotzones would be very obvious.

when action is happening on the map, hotzones appear to show every team whats going on.

so i'm sure if one empire had 30 people at an empty base and that was the only action going on in the entire game, then everybody from the other two empires would RUSH to that base after it had been breached.

and in the 15 min it takes to hack a base, i'm sure there'd be lots of people there :D

[Comspec]

SmokeJumper posted on the workings of automated defenses in the official PlanetSide forum.

The short of it is that you need to be in control of the Amp station for the turrets to be automated and shoot at vehicles only. Else they'll just sit there.

Also, you need to deploy motion sensors for the turrets to target infantry. However, if the infantry is walking, turrets won't lock.

Here's the link to the post.
http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/planetside/Forum2/HTML/000727.html

[Serbitar]

matter of fact is, that when 1 faction is planning an of time assault, it WILL have more players than every faction who is NOT. Thats an easy calculation.

"Nomral load of offtime players" + "offtime assault force" >> "normal load of offtime defenders"

The problem in this discussion is that you can say:

OK theyve captured all the bases. So what ? We just get them back.

Then you admitt that capturing bases doesnt mean anything. (or not very much) Which means that motivation will not be very high (doesnt matter if you capture anything, when even capturing all the bases doesnt matter anything).

The point is: Capturing bases MUST do something, to keep people motivated. But THEN you have the "offtime assault" problem.


And if its all about fame ? Then Ill go and do some 20 offtime attacks, capture hundreds of bases and be the most famed super hero of the day.

So its all about motivation and offtime attacks.


My solution would be:

1st: Make sure that base assault takes enough time that no force could capture everything in an offtime attack.
2nd: Award a faction win if a faction controlls some ammount (has to be balanced) of all the bases for some time (say for 10 hours) . And then restart the game (not concerning BEPs but base belongings)

That keeps people motivated and keeps offtime attacks at bay.

[Incompetent]

2nd: Award a faction win if a faction controlls some ammount (has to be balanced) of all the bases for some time (say for 10 hours) . And then restart the game (not concerning BEPs but base belongings)
NO

[Serbitar]

NO

What I like most in this answer is the elaborate discussion of the topic and explanation of the reasons why he comes to his conclusion !

[Incompetent]

There is a reason i quoted that, its the only thing i'm talking about. Noone is supposed to win, its been that way for as long as planetside has been around. As soon as you put in a victory condition everybodys lives revolve around that and nothing else.

and god forbid someone just states an opinion, no, you have to get into the useless arguement.

[Serbitar]

Ah I found something. most of the things I wanted to say were already discussed here:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=526

But I agree with the poster that there should be something like an distant victory condition . . .

Second: I think this is a forum for discussion. just stating opinions helps nobody.

[Hamma]

I think victory conditions would kill the persistant world. And ruin the fun IMO. Its supposed to be a never-ending war.. its not going to be boring because your empire/team will still claim victorys, and suffer defeats in one way or another. Its just a matter of how people play the game, and what areas are of more strategic value to launch forward assaults.

I dont think your ideas are all bad however, but I would not want all of planetside to be like that, perhaps specific servers with victory conditions.

[�io]

Well the best thing is to do like any other subject discussed here. Wait till we play the game. :D

[Sputty]

Normally there's enough people on the server always(I sometime sleep from 8:00 AM to 5-10:00 PM or if not then I'll sleep 4:00AM - 2:00 PM-ish so I think that there'll always be people on defending important areas. The worst that could happen is an outlying base of little importance is taken so it's taken back the next day or something. If they put in a ruel if a base is taken there must be a certain amount of time until it can be retaken then they attack a different vbase and surround the old base so that anyone defeding the new base will abandon the hopeless battle.

[quiet]

Something I didn't see mentioned was the way less BEPs and CEPs are given when there are fewer opponents around. It doesn't solve the problem but shows the Devs are thinking about stuff like this.

Since every side could do offtime attacks it would be fair even if it did turn out to be a very effective strategy. It would just give insomiacs and Euro outfits an edge. Logging on to find out the enemy had launched a massive surprise attack and now held extensive territoy wouldn't make this game any less fun. IMO :D

[Flashingfish]

Originally posted by quiet
Since every side could do offtime attacks it would be fair even if it did turn out to be a very effective strategy. It would just give insomiacs and Euro outfits an edge. Logging on to find out the enemy had launched a massive surprise attack and now held extensive territoy wouldn't make this game any less fun. IMO :D

Well..... there is a European server too you know.