Bases need more incentive? [Merged]

[Tieom]

Okay, so one of the big complaints is that there is no point to defending bases. I figure the easiest way to make people defend is to attach value to a base and instill a "We don't want to lose this to them" mentality. So, giving the bases USEFUL functions or empire advantages sounds good.
Here are my ideas:
First, the amount of each type of bases on each continent needs to be such that there is at least two of each type, except dropship. Since there at least 8 bases on every continent, this should not be too much of a problem. Each base provides a benefit if you own ONE of them on the continent, and another benefit if you own TWO of them on the continent.
Second, a base would only provide benefits if the generator in the base was ACTIVE, i.e. NOT BLOWN UP, and the base was under full control, not hacked or out of NTUs. So going around behind enemy lines and toasting generators would be a valid tactic. That might mean an increase in generator health, tho.

Tech plant
One owned: Allows MAXs to be bought at towers
Two owned: Current benefit (Reavers, tanks, etc)

AMP station
One owned: Dramatically reduces time required to transfer NTUs to/from ANTs, increases ANT NTU capacity, reduces NTU cost of purchasing vehicles/whatever.
Two owned: Halves NTU cost for autorepairing, increases Generator health.

Interlink Facility
One owned: Wall-turrets auto-fire on hostile (occupied by enemies) vehicles.
Two owned: Wall-turrets auto-fire on enemy MAXs, improves wall-turret accuracy/damage/rate of fire/range.

Biolab
One owned: Allows use of Medical Terminals in towers, reduces spawn times at bases.
Two owned: Medical terminals -> Adv. Med terminals (which heal armor too)

This would A) mean that fighting against a continent lock would be HARD since you have none of these benefits and they have them all; B) would reduce reaver/max spammage, at least a little bit; C) would (hopefully) provide defense incentive; D) would provide more strategy. "Knock out their interlink facility so those turrets stop mauling our MAXs," etc.

If someone would be so kind as to put this on the official forums, since I don't actually have the game yet I can't post there.

[EarlyDawn]

Dropship centers will eventually activate rearming and repair landing pads. :thumbsup:

[kerosene31]

I like the idea a lot. It gives advantages to the realm taking more bases, without making them really more powerful by a big degree. :thumbsup:

I assume you mean by allowing people to buy Maxs at towers, that we would take this away (you can do that now).

[Tieom]

Yes, the buying-of-MAXs-at-towers would be taken away under this system.
Edit: As would the usage of medical terminals in towers.

Also, yeah, it does encourage both attacking (Deny enemy benefits, increase your own benefits) and defending (keep benefits, deny enemy benefits). But because there is already a lot of incentive for attacking (XP) the incentive for defending would be bigger by comparison.
Edit: Another benefit would be that some of the shine would be taken off of towers. If you don't have the bases to support them, they'd be pretty useless.
Bases always have medical terminals and MAXs available, can get respawn time advantages, and have vehicles available (sometimes advanced ones). They also provide benefits, of course...

[simba]

like the idea very much :D

[ajohn505]

The ideas here rock... I'm sure they would be eventually balanced and rehashed slightly after playtest, but the basic ideas are great.

I still like the "bonus kill XP for killing enemies in a friendly SOI" scheme for boosting the desireability of defense as well.

[Masurao]

Man thats a good idea :D You should post this in the offical site so the DEVs can get a gander, since they don't watch PSU religiously like we do.

[Slice]

lol masurao, your gunman in your siggy really sux at shooting lol. But on topic, I like those ideas a lot! Someone tell the devs!

[Doppler]

I love all your ideas save the one about the max's at towers. my complaint with this is mostly a balance issue, a faction without max's assaulting a faction/squad with max's is most likely just kindof screwed. I dont play a max currently but I must concede that they fill a very important niche in the combat structure. However because the ideas is not flawed just needs a little tweaking.

It whould require some tweaking but suppose we introduced a portable generator. Basicly this very large item has a fixed amount of ntu's, is the size of an agile's backpack (almost forcing you to be in reinforced to carry them). Can only be purchased at the sanctuary/tech center, and finnaly can only be deployed by combat engineers. In essence what this allows a combat engineer to do is either give the towers or AMS's the ability to produce max's. I know it sounds a little powerfull but taken in the context of a finite energy supply it could provide balance while still giving the team the ability to fight and move. The other benefit to this whould be bringing the power back online of facilities where the gens are destroyed but you dont own the facility yet to repair. Just a thought.

Hard to impliment? yes
Intresting new tactical considerations? Definitly.

[DarkDragon00]

I dont like the idea about owning 2 of the same facil for bonus benifets. What about those continents that dont have more then one? They just need to fix the benifets up and make them better. Turrets DO NOT need help!!! Thats a NO-NO.

"U SHOT CHURCH U TEAM KILLING FUCKTARD!"

http://redvsblue.com

[Hamma]

Curious what everyones thought is on this subject. It was originally posted at the OF

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/planetside/Forum7/HTML/003957.html

The Current Base System Sucks
Right now, bases mean absolutely nothing and serve no function aside from being a place where battles take place. The battles are great and all, but it would be nice if there was another level to the game. I mean, Sony could replace all bases with piles of horse crap and people would still fight over them. It would achieve the exact same effect, and commanders would still be barking the same orders, �WE GOTTA HOTSPOT ON HORSE CRAP PILE OMEGA ON ISHUNDAR, LETS GET OVER THERE!�. Tis a sad day when a fortress serves it�s purpose no better than a pile of poo.

Sony needs to jack up the importance of bases so that players actually care about the territory they are fighting over. My suggestion is to jack up the rewards of holding a base and implementing a system that allows players to claim them. Before you decide, �Heard this before�, read on.


The Master Plan


--Take five or so of the more geographically interesting bases on a continent and turn them into �outfit bases� which may be controlled by an outfit. To achieve ownership of said base, the outfit must raise their flag over the base and hold it for three days (The outfit must have enough points so that it actually has a symbol for the flag). After these three days additional defense is attached to the base and outfit members may spawn there at any time. If an outfit wanted a base that was owned by the same empire as they, they could challenge the controlling outfit to a capture the flag match. The defending outfit would only be inclined to accept one challenge every week, but could accept more than one if they chose to.

--To each of the five outfit bases per continent, add one significant bonus that is given to the outfit that owns it. The bonuses would vary in importance and the more powerful rewards would be located in the more central continents. Some ideas for these bonuses: A mini-HART station, a vehicle speed/armor/firepower bonus, an infantry speed/armor/firepower bonus, a unique vehicle, a unique weapon, a respawn time reduction, galaxy production, improved radar, etc. This would cause outfits to strive to control the more powerful bases and encourage competition.


So what do you think? (Hint: REPLY)

Sporkfire's reply:
We are looking at ways to enhance the value of bases, part of which will include restoring facility benefits. I've also had some interesting conversations with designers about increasing the competitive attraction of bases, by adding some elements of fame, fortune and glory to a successful capture or defense. I can't specify and don't really know if this involves any "ownership" benefits, as you suggest, but we are looking at the issue.
What do you guys think?

[WildEagle]

I THINK THEY SHOULD CHANGE IT. ALL U HAVE TO DO IS WALK AROUND A FRIENDLY BASE, STUDY THEN GO TO ANOTHER AND CAP IT. IF THEY MAKE SO THAT NO BASE IS IDENTICAL TO ANOTHER THE GAME WOULD BE BETTER.:D

[BlakkyZ8]

A long time ago a point system was mentioned. When one empire held a base long enough points would be earned that could go towords the production of base deffences and/or base related improvements (could even be purely aesthetic). As points would be earned only ppl with CRs would get any share of the entire "pool" of points. People with higher CR would get a larger share. There was also something about the longer a certain base was held the higher the flow of points would be. This would add incentive to defend bases. Over time impenetrable fortresses would be made inducing huge battles (AGO anyone?) to overthrow the owners of such and such base. Wow catchy nicknames for the fortresses would begin to be passed around:D:D:D.

[WildEagle]

that way idea is better than mine.

[Nitsch]

As it is now, towers are much better at providing defensive value than a base. If i want to trench in a spot and defend.... I don't pick a base to do it, i pick a tower.

There really needs to be a more substantial defensive benefit of trying to defend a base.

In DAOC, the defender of a keep could hold off forces 3 to 5 times their size (which you can do with a tower). To defend a base in PS you actually need equal or greater numbers.

I think that wall turrets should be much more automated. There need to be fewer entrances into a base or have the current entrances much more difficult to breach.

Why does it take 10 minutes to take a base and 2 hours to route out the people in the neighboring tower? It should be the opposite.

Rewards for keeping bases would be icing on the cake (I still think defenders should get kill bonuses). Make bases places you run to for defense. In DAOC, I always felt a bit safer once i was able to make it inside a keep, I feel more paranoid in PS bases.

[JackBoCracken]

I'd rather not have outfit bases. I'd rather have bases that gave your empire more power in one way or another, were strategically important, and were geographically relevant.

[TheJingle]

I honestly think the easiest way to give more incentive to defending bases would be to have some sort of exp multiplier when fighting in your own SOI .

[Tieom]

Darkdragon: I dont like the idea about owning 2 of the same facil for bonus benifets. What about those continents that dont have more then one?

First, the amount of each type of bases on each continent needs to be such that there is at least two of each type, except dropship. Since there at least 8 bases on every continent, this should not be too much of a problem.

Moving on...

Fixing benefits up/Making them better: Thats what this does. It is very easy to occupy one base of a kind on a continent, so the real bonuses are when you hold TWO on a continent.
Also, on some continents it would improve base variety. Example: Ceryshen has 3 biolabs, 4 tech plants, an AMP, and a dropship center. Making that into 2 bio, 2 tech, 2 interlink, 2 amp, and a dropship center would, perhaps, be better.

Turrets means WALL TURRETS, which are apparently doing JACK right now. They are weak in both firepower and armor, and have such a limited range that reavers can easily rocket them to death. They are basically a NTU drain, from all the autorepairing.
Spitfires would remain the same.

Doppler: The no-maxes-from-towers problem would be rather easily solved - get a tech plant. If you don't HAVE a tech plant the MAXs can either run from the nearest friendly base or have them hauled there by galaxies or sunderers. One more reason defense would be easier (as it should be) - they have MAXs, you don't, or at least not many.

PS.
Looking at the lists of bases on each continent, it would seem that there are usually a LOT of tech plants, making up between 1/2 and 1/3 of the total basecount. Now that I'm looking at it, there seems to be very few times when you would NOT have techplant on a continent, and thus have access to reavers, tanks, etc. These are very powerful vehicles, by design, and making it so easy to achieve the requirement for getting them seems a little... eh...
I mean, how many more skeeters than reavers would you see if you needed to own TWO (which in most cases would be either 'both' or two-out-of-three) tech plants on the continent to get one? That would certainly cut the bitchin' about reavers - if they have to be flown from a nearby continent most of the time, then killing one = achievement. They could stay hard-to-kill because they would be hard-to-make.
The empire specific buggies would also see more use, as would the deliverer since IIRC the sunderer needs the 'tech plant' benefit at this point.

PPS
I can't post this on the fricken official forums, since I don't have planetside. Besides, it likely gets a better chance here...

[Tieom]

*cough* (http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9531)

[Lise]

I personally think that outfit bases are a blank invitation for mass TKathons. Even if you put some kind of "competition" stucture in, in the end the various "1337 outfits" will simply fall to killing one another out of pure hate. We already have two sides to fight, why should we give empires a very good reason to fight themselves? Not only that, but in the end the Uber Outfits would take over all the bases (read: ELH on Konried. I'm sure all the Konried people will agree with me that such a thing would be a nightmare.)

Base bonuses (or continent-lock bonuses) are very cool, but Outfit Bases are a mistake.

[justmust]

you should at least get an Exp bonus for kills made in and around a friendly base.

[Streamline]

All i wants the moneh plus the fame im a simple man.

Stats showing who did what and any particular base cap recorded over a period of time. I think thats what Sporkfire is hinting at. That would be huge to me. Restoring facility benifits would be awesome too.

I have always considered the time we are in now to be the learning curve stage. Since it is p2p i am hoping/expecting improvements all the time. Right now is not a time for outfit bases. As is the idea has many wrinkles. "TKathon" comes to mind for sure. But when DEVs know more about the game and how things can be improved then implemented then i'm sure we'll see things like this in the future.

[Doppler]

Ugh...

Frankly i'm against this idea in it's current incarnation, maybe if the bonus was delivered faction wide but I personaly dont wanna see the uber outfit scenario played out more. I support and condone outfits getting together tacticaly but i really dont want to see it go farther then that it should always be us vs them not us vs us.

In addition the dev's have always stood by the concept of more time played equals a more rounded soldier, not necissarily a more powerfull soldier, this could jeapordize that.

Someone (i forget who) posted a really kicking idea on how to bring back base benefits and I really stand by that as the way to go, morever a bonus for kills in your sphere could not possibly hurt.

[Doppler]

I do concede that as it stands now getting a tech plant is not that hard but if you juggled the base count tech plants whould be of much greater value, on continents with three way fights going on the faction without max support might as well pack on off to greener pastures I'm not saying max damage is godly (considerable but not godly) but their ability to take a beating makes them a helpfull ingredient in short ingagements and essential in long ones.

[JackBoCracken]

This + zones of influence would turn PS into a real war, not just capture-and-run with 300 people at a time. There'd actually *gasp* be a thought put into what to cap next...

[MJBuddy]

ah yes, i can see it now

the gateway conts would be locked and requiring extreme forces to penetrate the conts from the warpgates. Once overun there would be huge battles fought on the conts of the weaker of the 3 empires.

truth be told, i think a wall system would be the way to pull it

every 24 hrs you have control of the base, a small wall encircles the base with turrets placed on its corners

after a week, the bases closest to the warpgates would be incredibly locked down. of course, you could drop past these walls, rocket over them, or go thru them via doors right in the middle...the wall to wall combat would be great, battles would rage on for days, not hours and at the end, to the victor goes the spoils. Then they have to defend the base to get their own personal walls up

However, probably only 5-7 walls limit would be fair, until it encumferences the towers. We cant have large walls taking over entire conts

[Endodroid]

We are looking at ways to enhance the value of bases, part of which will include restoring facility benefits

bout freak'n time, though speaking of time I get the feeling it's not going to be any time soon.

[Doppler]

The most retarted way to revise the system will be implemented I'm normaly pretty patient witht he dev's but I'm begining to hav emy fears especialy with the fact that the liberator was sposed to be released in a month give or take and what we're seeing is concept art? Plus i whould rather see the skyguard before the liberator.

[Hamma]

This is one of the few faults in PS right now, IMO people just dont want to hang around and defend a base. So you end up with the "teeter todder" effect of bouncing back and forth between bases. Nobody really hangs around to defend. I dont think more EXP is the answer because eventually we will all be BR20. Something else needs to be done. I am sure they have some cool ideas because I havent been let down yet when the say something is being worked on hehe.

[Hamma]

I went ahead and merged the 2 threads on this subject.

[kerosene31]

I also don't like the idea of an outfit holding a base. I like the way the game is right now in the fact that you do not need to be in an outfit to have fun and be effective.

I would like to see some sort of general benefit to the team holding bases, without going too far. The problem lies in the fact that if a team takes a bunch of bases, then they should not be given better weapons. If anyone ever played the game Allegiance" which was a multiplayer space shooter. In this game, each time you got a kill, your weapons got slightly more powerful. Sound cool, it was. Until what happens is an elite player logs on and gets a bunch of kills and gets powerful. Then you logon later on and meet him 1 on 1 and you have no chance.

My point is, and I can't offer any great suggestions on how to do it, is that the benefit must be something that gives the winning team some benefit, while not making them invincible to anyone else.

[PR24]

The whole "can't buy a max at a tower" is a horrible idea. Here is why I think so:

1. w/o a max you will lose the tower in short order if the attacking team has max forces.

2. It only punishes the people with MAX certs not the 1000's w/o a max cert

3. Towers are the lifeline for large base battles if you restrict the hell out of towers the the "massive" battle aspect will go away in some areas.

[Happy lil Elf]

I agree that the defenders should have the advantage. MAXs vs no MAXs is too big of an advantage though imo.

[Nitsch]

If i were a full max cert (not high enough to have any other certs), there would be no way in hell would i go to a continent that wouldn't allow me to get my max suit.

Why would i want to fight in an agile suit and a supressor? Hell i would just choose another continent to go to.

[Dharkbayne]

I like it **Bump dance**

[Hamma]

I remember when towers didnt have invs at all.

ahhh the good ol days..

[Dharkbayne]

Woah, how long were you in beta Hamma?

[Hamma]

First week.

[Dharkbayne]

Daaaamn, how often were you crashing?

[Hamma]

Quite frequently :D

[ajohn505]

Originally posted by BlakkyZ8
A long time ago a point system was mentioned. When one empire held a base long enough points would be earned that could go towords the production of base deffences and/or base related improvements (could even be purely aesthetic).


What an incredibly cool idea.

[Tieom]

Hmm... yeah, perhaps the maxs-at-towers thing would be too big of a disadvantage since on a lot of the smaller continents there would only be TWO tech plants (Possibly three) the tanks and such would be a good one-base benefit... But what else would be good?

One tech plant: Reavers, tanks, etc. can be purchased.
Two tech plants: Medical terminals heal armor as well.
Then the 2 biolab benefit would be changed to something else.

[Lise]

Originally posted by Hamma
I remember when towers didnt have invs at all.

ahhh the good ol days..

Having listened to the old Smokejumper interview, I don't understand why that was changed to begin with. Towers with lockers ONLY? Gee, it'd make lockers useful. There's a thought.

[Kaikou]

I kinda like the outfit base idea. It would strengthen the teamplay aspect. I think one of the problems of the current system is the towers. They are the deciding factor of who is going to take a base. Today on forseral, the NC took one base on forseral, then 20 minutes later they had more bases hacked than the TR owned. This was due to the fact that they had every-single-tower on that continent, minus 2 or 3. I think they need to add another tower to each base, so there are 2 towers within the SOI of each base. Some could remain 1, such as dropship centers to make them the hardest to cap.

I agree with the fact that base captures have become repetitive not even a month into the game. There are 5 types of bases, and though each type has a subtle difference, its all generally the same. Tech plants and Amp stations have the CC on the top level, the rest are in the basement...big deal...They need to add some versatility to bases. They would remain the same 5 types, but they would all have different looks, maybe depending on which continent you're on...

I really like that outfit base idea. That way whenever you're fighting different outfits, there's something about them that may be different from others. Later into the game they could add special vehicles that outfits would get when they take a certain kind of base. 5 Types of bases, 5 types of special vehicles ONLY accessable to the outfits that have control of the corresponding base. Interlink facilities being the least powerful (I guess..) and Dropship centers giving the most powerful of those unique vehicles. This would add lots of versatility to the game in my opinion.

[Tryndamere]

This thread should be stickied. The original poster is EXACTLY on the right track for what types of changes need to be made to provide incentives to defend and to add a sense of purpose to the game.

This is a huge issue that I really hope is addressed soon. Game play would be drastically improved. It should not be as easy at is it is to take a base. Not only does no one defend in the current setup (thereby making the game not as enjoyable because masses of people all on offense roll through continents), but people also are not incentivised to play due to the lack of variety in combat scenarios.

The game has all the tools to be awesome, the key things that need tweaking are the game play. There needs to be a sense of purpose to the combat or else it will not hold people's interest for long.

[Tryndamere]

And btw, Outfit bases would be terrible.

There are three teams. Not a whole bunch of mini-l33t teams.

[Unknown]

There's 2 extremes possible when considering base layouts:
1.) Theres only a few basic base layouts, most bases are the same/similar. Newbies to the game can adapt quickly and get the hang of it, but as time goes on it can get repetitive and stale, degredading the longevity of the game. This can cause people to get bored and quit and that's a bad thing, the game needs to keep it's subscibers.

and:
2.)There are alot of base layouts, hardly any of the bases are the same. This greatly increases the longevity of the game and ups the learning curve, but at the cost of being extremely unfriendly to newbies, to the point of being so frustrating they might quit. This can be a bad thing, the game needs new subscibers.

Right now I think they've done an ok job at finding a middle ground, but it is pretty simplistic and can get old fast. Hopefully as time goes on they'll add new base layouts to spice things up a bit. I mean, I've only played the game for around 2 1/2 weeks of beta and I was already getting tired of the same old bases, but then again it woulda been really frustrating getting lost in every single base I entered. It can also make it hard to plan strategies and cap bases. Essentially, I think they can definately add more base layouts. Probably at least double them before it starts getting too complicated. Or better yet, each continent type (snow, lava, lush, etc.) has it's own base types. That'd add to the immersive element of the game and help people from getting too lost, they can just stay on familiar ground if they find it too confusing to learn new base layouts.

[Slice]

Sounds good Kaikou, but there is one major problem with outfit bases. There have already been problems with inter-empire fights between outfits. Adding outfit bases would multiply the problem majorly.:(

[Tieom]

One of the more major "all bases are the same" complaints is because on the 9-base continents 3 or 4 of the bases are tech plants and 3 or 4 are biolabs, with the remaining 2 or 3 bases divided up (Not equally, either!) between amp, interlink, and dropship. One of the continents doesnt even HAVE an interlink facility... Talk about shooting yourself in the foot for base variety!

Other than that... They could always do what tribes 2 did - 'cookie-cutter'/prefab walls, doors, etc. but with different layouts of spawning, CC, equipment rooms, vehicle pads, etc.
So bases of the same type have the same entrances, there's always stairs to the roof three doors down on the left, etc. BUT the spawn tubes are over there instead of here, the CC is in the basement instead of near the roof, etc. etc.
New CR 1 ability - see floorplan of selected base.



Tryndamere - Thanks!

[1024]

The idea sound good to me. The fact that MAXs wouldn't be able to be purchased at towers would make attacking harder, if you didn't own the right facility.