PvP, PvE, PvPvE?

[CrystalViolet]

Originally Posted by DashRev

I may be mistaken, but I read "instances" as "occurrences" rather than individualized zones for small numbers of players.

yes, this was my intent. The alien ships would still be part of the persistent world, and anyone with a gun and some guts will be able to hop aboard the ship and make a dash for the core, though obviously a well organized squad would stand a better chance of achieving the mission. Depending on how the customization trees work, you'd also need to add conditions that would allow the vehicle specialized players to be on a similar footing as the grunt outfits since most of the fighting would likely be CQB.

[Death2All]

Nobody likes space turtles ?

[Hamma]

Ok guys seriously. I missed this thread most of the day because I was rather busy

Tool I do feel your pain on this topic.

The problem is this is one of those things the community is really passionate about. Some people DO NOT WANT it and cannot be convinced of otherwise. While I can see their POV this point is really a thread to speculate about what AI would look like in a game like PS. Not say NO I DONT WANT IT.

That defeats the purpose of the topic, a discussion of what PVE/AI would look like in PlanetSide.

It's probably to late to save this thread but please folks try to have a discussion about what something like this would look like in the game.

[Volw]

I might post it down in 'ideas' section later on, but for now:

[Warning! Contains unhealthy amount of 'Aliens' references!]

It could be a random monthly event, where one of the continents is taken over by Aliens, potentially overnight 'real time'. Some lovely moments checking forums in the morning only to find out - 'we've got invaded!'.

Rewards/penalties - the invasion could be on a 2 day timer. The faster we get rid of them, the bigger the resource bonus factions involved receive. If the invasion is not defeated, all of the resource nodes on the continent are disabled for, say, another 2-3 days.

Aliens should be somewhat similar to 'Aliens'. Fast, strong and OP. Obviously melee mostly to make them even scarier.

They could set up their nests in gen rooms and have some sort of a queen defend it. Potentially requiring to access the room via some other place within a base.

'They mostly come out at night ... mostly!'

A system which utilises day/night cycle, where it is only possible to advance during the day. At night Aliens get all sort of bonuses and player factions are forced to defend whatever ground they've gained during the day. I'm talking super OP here, encouraging player factions to ally if they don't want to be pushed off the continent.

It should obviously scale with server population.

Also, electromagnetic storms, preventing the usage of air vehicles. I'd be tempted to disable heavy ground vehicles as well and relay on footzerg for extra coolness factor.


Thoughts?

[Tool]

Aliens, that be pretty wicked. Made me think about the movie Pitch Black and having roving bands of dangerous aliens come out at night and attack whoever lol.

Or the remnants of the Vanu return.

[Sirisian]

I really like the idea of nocturnal creatures.

Okay new idea. In the weapons thread someone mentioned smoke grenades. We could have creatures that generate a fog in the forests. Newbs would wander in by themselves and there would be small sounds of gun-fire a v-v-h and dead.

[CrystalViolet]

I like the invasion scenario as well, as long as it's another rare occurrence. Imagine your sitting in a bass and without warning the lights go out, all terminals turn green, and aliens start pouring out of the spawn tubes and wiping the floor with everyone. This would be happening on a continent wide scale, and just escaping and regrouping would make for an interesting challenge. Only problem I can see is after the retake of land, the map of controlled areas would almost certainly be different, which would be unfair to the faction that worked to control specific resources.

[Volw]

Originally Posted by CViolet

I like the invasion scenario as well, as long as it's another rare occurrence. Imagine your sitting in a bass and without warning the lights go out, all terminals turn green, and aliens start pouring out of the spawn tubes and wiping the floor with everyone. This would be happening on a continent wide scale, and just escaping and regrouping would make for an interesting challenge. Only problem I can see is after the retake of land, the map of controlled areas would almost certainly be different, which would be unfair to the faction that worked to control specific resources.

Could be 'balanced' by having the most dominant faction invaded ...

Then everyone else would jump in to get a piece of their cake.

[CrystalViolet]

Originally Posted by Volw

Could be 'balanced' by having the most dominant faction invaded ...

Then everyone else would jump in to get a piece of their cake.

interesting idea. could also be used as an incentive to fight on continents where there might not be much going on.

[opticalshadow]

Originally Posted by Volw

Could be 'balanced' by having the most dominant faction invaded ...

Then everyone else would jump in to get a piece of their cake.

the most balenced way of doing it would for it to be random, not take place on locked conts, and effect all sides equally.

if one side gets invaded specifically it effects the entire empire, which again forces this on people who dont want to take part, i still belive the event should be like current events are, a 15-30 minute warning is given out

some kind of warnign message, an unknown ship is approching in the [insert quadrent] of [insert cont] in t-minus [minutes] requesting all troops respond , end transmision.

[Volw]

To add to my previous post:

4 types of aliens:

Firstly, looking at PS2 vanu max, Aliens should look like if 'Alien' had a threesome with Cylon and Predator.

- basic alien - strong, fast, 'Alienish' - melee attacks, can jump up the walls / towers. Also some sort of plasma spit ranged attack.

- infil alien - slightly more 'Predator' style, used to ambush players - medium hp, extreme melee damage, plasma power blades. Potentially some 'pull' ranged attack.

- heavy alien - MAX equivalent, LOTS of hp and frontal damage immunity, slow melee attacks and a ranged high damage cone firing plasma cannon with 2-3 second charge-up before firing.

- flying alien - think Cylon (TNS) raider with more spikes, mainly functions as AV

[Volw]

Originally Posted by opticalshadow

the most balenced way of doing it would for it to be random, not take place on locked conts, and effect all sides equally.

if one side gets invaded specifically it effects the entire empire, which again forces this on people who dont want to take part, i still belive the event should be like current events are, a 15-30 minute warning is given out

some kind of warnign message, an unknown ship is approching in the [insert quadrent] of [insert cont] in t-minus [minutes] requesting all troops respond , end transmision.

there is no 'affect all sides equally' in planetside.

Say, you have Vanu locked 6/10 continents and NC/TR 2 each and the most fighting is going over one of the TR conts. Aliens land on TR, meaning that for the duration of the event, Vanu will be almost 'locked' with their majority, essentially profiting from it.

Depending on the resource gain from fighting to invasion, they could as well focus on fighting the NC/TR on their continents and ignoring the invasion.

Having the strongest faction being invaded, adds a whole new game-changer to it, because the faction that's lost the most will also be interested in fighting over it.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by opticalshadow

the most balenced way of doing it would for it to be random, not take place on locked conts, and effect all sides equally.

if one side gets invaded specifically it effects the entire empire, which again forces this on people who dont want to take part, i still belive the event should be like current events are, a 15-30 minute warning is given out

some kind of warnign message, an unknown ship is approching in the [insert quadrent] of [insert cont] in t-minus [minutes] requesting all troops respond , end transmision.

Like i say, this has all been done and tried before, it always ends up failing, IMO Keep the E seperate from the P's.

[opticalshadow]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

Like i say, this has all been done and tried before, it always ends up failing, IMO Keep the E seperate from the P's.

ive made it firm and assertive in my first post in this thread my feelings of PvE in PS2, but beyond that first post i dont plan to go on about that opinion, becuase its not the point of the thread.

as for "not effect all sides equally" i agree, it cant be done. However attacking one side is specific forces a small cluster of players into an event either they dont want to do, or punishes other teams for being outplayed assumeing they do. it also takes the random out of it. "tr has half the conts, should be invaded any minute now"


what i suggest that if this is done, a non locked cont is chosen at random, the aliens or whatever are not discriminat to any one side, they attack all three equally, attacking all bases and what not, refering to my post on ideas with that.

the main benifit of this is two fold, first off so far the majority of spoken players are against this, by ensureing that it takes place with all three empires, it gives a larger pool of players to participate allowing for a grander event, and secondly it doesnt punish one empire for doing better.

[CrystalViolet]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

Like i say, this has all been done and tried before, it always ends up failing

Statements like this don't have any purpose, and only serve to stifle the ideas of people who are trying to brainstorm.