A Simple look at why defense feels useless.

Gonefshn · 2013-02-10, 01:07 PM

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 · 2013-02-10, 01:26 PM

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 · 2013-02-10, 01:26 PM

no

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

Sledgecrushr · 2013-02-10, 01:35 PM

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 · 2013-02-10, 01:50 PM

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.)

Brusi · 2013-02-10, 07:22 PM

Originally Posted by 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.)

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 · 2013-02-10, 07:45 PM

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.

Vashyo · 2013-02-10, 05:17 PM

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 · 2013-02-10, 05:34 PM

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.

psijaka · 2013-02-11, 08:38 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

Continental lattices would be great; need more continents though!

Obstruction · 2013-02-10, 10:45 PM

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 · 2013-02-11, 07:21 AM

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.

Dkamanus · 2013-02-11, 08:53 AM

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

Mietz · 2013-02-11, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by Dkamanus

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 · 2013-02-11, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by Mietz

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.