Gameplay: Counter Ghost Capping While Giving Infiltrators A New Support Role.

[Sarmane]

I forgot to post this idea on PSU until someone reminded me so sorry!

Just a repeat of an idea to help change base capture mechanics and help give infiltrators some utility within the squad makeup.

A proposal to:

-Lower/remove the ability of lone player/small 3-5 groups of people walk into unoccupied enemy bases and begin a cap on bases.

-Remove the current ticket meter depleting without players on the Capture Point. Require that at least one person be on the point

-Require that Capture points only begin flipping ownership when maxed out. i.e 2/2 for a three base or 6/6 for a major facility.

-Give infiltrators a certifiable tool that allows them to drop a "transponder/virus" that adds "1 point" to a Capture Point (maximum of one per CP.) Can be removed/destroyed by a counter infiltrator hacking. This will enable free movement for attacking players in a base but not replace faster capturing completely.

-Tweak level of ticket meter "burning" to reflect level of enemy activity at a base/allow possible defenders to react in time.

Thoughts?

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i.../#post-1307688 original thread here.

[zulu]

I like the idea of giving infiltrators more to do. Some of the most fun I've had in this game came when playing as an infiltrator and actually infiltrating an enemy base -- hacking turrets so I can blow up the enemy's fighters and tanks, blowing up generators, planting claymores around choke points, playing cat and mouse with the defenders.

But I think the infiltrator is best as an attacking class -- something primarily about offense and taking territory (albeit usually indirectly). I think defensive abilities might be better-suited for engineers.

I don't like the ideas of only starting to capture something while maxed out. That limits gameplay, I think, when we're in off-peak hours.

I think a better system would be to have some sort of alert system ("Snake Ravine is being attacked!" and then give defenders an experience bonus for operating in that hex. That would hopefully give some incentive to actually defend some of the smaller outposts.

The larger problem is that the map doesn't really matter right now. Resources are numerous enough that they don't matter to most people (and when spawning vehicles, the timer is usually the bigger issue than resources unless you're spawning lots of Sunderers). The main thing people want is to get into a fight and get certs, and the best way to do that is to head to guaranteed battlefields (the Crown and, to a lesser extent, the hexes around the Crown like Allatum, TI Alloys, and Crossroads).

Every time I see someone on the orders channel screaming at everyone to reinforce outside of the Crown, I laugh a little -- they don't understand why everyone is there, and so they don't understand why the mass of players would rather stay at a guaranteed hotspot and lose the map than go rush into a handful of minor battles so that they can breathlessly wait for a timer to tick down.

I think one way to make defense more interesting (as well as offense) would be to drastically reduce the amount of time necessary to flip a territory if it is totally undefended. If there is no one there (or if there is an enormous disparity between attackers and defenders) then perhaps the influence counter should tick down very, very quickly.

If we combine that with what I talked about above, what we'd hopefully see is people having more incentive to actually defend, but if they don't, then capping won't be so tedious. The combination would hopefully make map play more interesting and lead to fewer people just hanging out at the guaranteed hotspots.

[Sarmane]

First off thanks for replying!

Originally Posted by zulu

I think one way to make defense more interesting (as well as offense) would be to drastically reduce the amount of time necessary to flip a territory if it is totally undefended. If there is no one there (or if there is an enormous disparity between attackers and defenders) then perhaps the influence counter should tick down very, very quickly.

I think we see the issue opposite.
Current and even quicker base captures are something I want to combat against. As a squad lead/platoon lead, noticing a base that is about to flip only when I had checked the map 5 minutes ago is amazingly annoying and difficult to deal with.

Why? Because in the main example, the capture was carried out by a single person who doesn't blip on the map previously as they journey towards that base. This isnt going to warrant a response by me or any SL in general unless it is VITAL that the base flipping stays ours. Im not putting people on guard duty against ghost cappers. why? because it is detrimental to fostering smaller tactical battles at outposts or even, Vanu forbid! Facilities (and is boring/unfair for people to do that). Solution would be to ensure that only small teams or larger are allowed to begin caps on bases. I would send back in that case, what I would deem an appropriate response team, usually a half squad to full to make battle with what I know is at least another small squad. Faster caps I feel only make bases feel less important to whom owns them and the idea of natural territory.

Also Im not saying you need the point to be maxed out to burn/flip the base to you, I am saying that to BEGIN the flip of the point is what requires maxed people at THAT capture point. (Sorry for the caps, I like to write as if I would be saying :P) What you need, is at least one person OR the proposed transponder/virus to be active at a point, for it to be contributing to the flip. If no one is on the point, it is still owned by your empire, just not helping flip. THAT, would be even a great counter to current ghosting cap and run mechanics at the moment.

[zulu]

Originally Posted by Sarmane

I think we see the issue opposite.
Current and even quicker base captures are something I want to combat against. As a squad lead/platoon lead, noticing a base that is about to flip only when I had checked the map 5 minutes ago is amazingly annoying and difficult to deal with.

Well, I think there are basically two separate issues with defense right now:
1) Ghost-capping
2) Normal battles

Ghost capping is annoying but not really a HUGE deal to me, perhaps because territory isn't especially meaningful right now. Something needs to be done about it, though. I'm fine with setting up some sort of minimum number of people needed to take a hex (only, say, four -- just a small squad should do it; would rather it not need a full six people, though this would be more possible now because of the mergers), which I think would be more than enough. I think that suggestion is a very good one. And, as I wrote about in my first post, I'd like to see some sort of alert system that gives defenders a better way to see what is being captured while they're playing.

The really big problem I see is that battles settle down into this very boring phase towards the end. Once the defenders have been pushed back to their spawn room, everyone just sits around and camps the spawn room. This isn't a big deal in itself, but it's really rather boring if you're an attacker. All you can do is resupply troops or repair tanks. And so for the five or so minutes that you're spending watching the timer tick down, that's just wasted gameplay time. I suppose this time COULD be used by a defender to bring a relief force from another base, but realistically speaking that never happens (why try to reinforce a lost defense when you can just attack elsewhere and get more XP?).

I think these problems are symptomatic of a larger set of issues, though:
1) Poor base design. Defenders, particularly at small bases, get rolled over very quickly. There's no way they can defend effectively, and so the spawn-camp phase of battle starts almost as soon as the first wave of attackers shows up.
2) Lack of incentive to defend. People defend the Crown because it is a guaranteed source of certs. Defense doesn't award any extra experience, so all in all you're just better off attacking rather than defending. The only exceptions are the handful of defensible facilities, since in those you can be certain that you won't be pushed back and spawn-camped in the first few minutes of battle.

I think we share a frustration with defense in this game -- in its impotence and the feeling that attempting to defend the map just isn't worth the effort. That's true of defending outposts against concerted attack from a zerg, and it's true of defending random hexes from attack by a single infiltrator.

[camycamera]

oh, yes; that virus thing can act as a decoy while you stap em in the back.....

[Rothnang]

Not a big fan to be honest. What we really need is bases that have internal sensors and show the position of enemies inside of them, then have some kind of console that can be hacked to turn those sensors off. Only infiltrators wouldn't show up on those sensors.

That way there would be a significant benefit to actually infiltrating a base and knocking out its sensor grid before going in full force. The really big thing that makes the concept of "infiltration" stupid in PS2 is simply the fact that if you're the first one to a base it doesn't matter what class you are, you can get around in it easily purely because the enemies aren't around to defend yet, and may not ever show.

[Sarmane]

Agreed.

My thoughts on spawn camping are that once spawns are camped the only real response from defenders would have to be a new rally point and counter attack IF there's enough time. Generally I just hope the new prototype hex system comes along with tweaking capture times so that longer base captures occur if the point isn't maxed (like 1/6) but if it has 6/6 it speeds up greatly. Maybe some other mechanic combined with that like all generators and SCU are down for facilities (tech, amp & bio). I think outposts (towers, small bases) just need a capture time increase since they do flip quicker generally at the moment. Facilities that are already won over need like you said, a faster period once it has been locked down.

[ThatGoatGuy]

I think that every base should have SCUs. Then, when an SCU goes down at a base, it will display an alert on the top of a screen just like the base cap/loss.

[Silent Thunder]

Originally Posted by ThatGoatGuy

I think that every base should have SCUs. Then, when an SCU goes down at a base, it will display an alert on the top of a screen just like the base cap/loss.

Back in Beta we had SCU's at every base. What happened was instead ghost capping became even more of a problem, as a single person could roll up to an undefended base, Pop the SCU, and then solo cap the base with no fear of retaliation.

[Itsatrap]

I agree with a couple of the suggestions.

Solo players should not be able to capture bases. Require at least 2 players to initiate a capture.

I also like the suggestion that cap points need to be manned in order to influence ownership. If you want to capture a base, you need to stay there. This also guarantees that defenders responding to a capture attempt will have someone to shoot at.

[Sarmane]

Originally Posted by Itsatrap

I agree with a couple of the suggestions.

Solo players should not be able to capture bases. Require at least 2 players to initiate a capture.

I also like the suggestion that cap points need to be manned in order to influence ownership. If you want to capture a base, you need to stay there. This also guarantees that defenders responding to a capture attempt will have someone to shoot at.

Even if just these points were implemented I think defence would be made a much more attractive and thought out form of play. Adjusting the system from its current mechanics wouldn't be difficult for the developers since it was present during beta.

So the idea is that if you're sick of following a zerg around a continent? Break off with your squad and begin a capture at a undefended base on the frontline and end up meeting a team of defenders that responded since they know there are actual enemies. This creates a new defense and attack for a base since defenders KNOW that there are enough enemies to face for the base and they have TIME to react.

EDIT: Its all about "jump starting" smaller battles instead of seeing zergs occur for most bases slowly. This game would thrive with seeing a more active frontline with several bases being contested instead of just where the gravity of more players are at. That cant currently be achieved for most the time since base captures (outposts, towers) go too quickly for any meaningful defense to be set up.