Improvement: Orbiting Sanctuary's (Replacing Footholds)

[JimmyOmaha]

Firstly, I'm a big fan of the sanctuary's from the original PlanetSide; giving a sense of a Home-base for the empire and not interfering with the battlefields directly. Footholds I feel don't cover that aspect very well; In fact are opposed to letting the war work itself out. Its too easy for an empire to hold ground and really not feel like they are at risk of loosing influence over a continent. I've been kicking around an idea in my head, thought I'd bring it here and find out what the community thinks.

Also I understand this would be a long ways down the road. After more continents are added in of course.

Orbiting Sanctuaries!

The Goal

The idea is to remove the footholds form continents, or alter them, to allow for a more robust region control meta-game; while still allowing an empire to regroup and stage invasions into continents they have no influence over. The footholds are a great fix for now, but it just doesn't mesh well with the grander territory control game.

In action

Each empire would have its on unique orbit and station. The Sanctuaries would be made of a few main parts; Spawnrooms/Barracks, Commons area, VR Training rooms, and an Invasion Bay. The spawns and commons would most likely be on the same level and have some equipment terminals to look though/customize load-outs. Maybe a nice bay window with Auraxis slowly rotating showing what continent you're over. VR center is pretty self explanatory; VR rooms that would throw you into a practice world to test weapons and vehicles.

The invasion bay would be a huge "docking-bay" like room with all 3 terminals. Think of it kinda like a warp-gate, but your commander presses a "Launch" key instead of everyone charging though. This could drop you on any friendly hex or your foothold; even if an enemy empire holds it. Although It would be at a resource cost, including a small tax on infantry. Squad leaders would be able to drop with the whole team. And platoon commanders would have a similar ability for their whole team. People in the bay, but not in the squad/platoon will not be affected. Anyone participating in the drop would get a cooldown timer so the tactic, if failed, could not be repeated over and over.

Some issues I've been working out in my head;
Air terminals would have to spawn vehicles parked and in some kind of pattern. Also would need some kind of mid-air take off, I could see terrain not agreeing with aircraft for take off after the drop.
Who gets to use this, everyone or Outfits only? If outfits only, individuals would need single drop-pods added to the Stations.
Who presses the launch button. (me me me me!)
Should your empire only be able to do this a few times per-orbit, or on a set timer maybe?
How many players can you fit in here? If u get continent-locked that's almost 700 people!

I'm not a game designer, so I'm sure I've missed things or not thought of something. Would love to hear what everyone thinks!

Related Non-Gameplay Ideas

I can see them now... A large space-station very rounded and professional for the TR. A large purple hive mothership with teal lights for the VS. And the NC can take a re-purposed asteroid mining facility, that they haphazardly threw into orbit.

A separate floor for outfits where they could maybe use resources to buy offices and plan invasions/missions. Have some cool 3d maps and tools for tacticians.

Also Thanks to Zekeen for contributing to my madness. :]

[Red Beard]

Initiating a drop pod animation from inside the bay, down to the surface of the planet (Google Earth zoom-in style) would be pretty awesome!

[Zekeen]

I actually have an idea like this in a word document, I was late up making an idea for an orbital command ship sanctuary... but couldn't think of many "viable" reasons to have it. Everything I thought of had better stuff on the ground. It's a painful subject to figure out.

[JimmyOmaha]

Originally Posted by Zekeen

I actually have an idea like this in a word document, I was late up making an idea for an orbital command ship sanctuary... but couldn't think of many "viable" reasons to have it. Everything I thought of had better stuff on the ground. It's a painful subject to figure out.

Agreed. One idea is that it could be a factor to Orbital strikes when we get their. Having to make sure your buddies are actually above you. Also pretty cool we're thinking along the same lines. Lends to the idea, that it fits in the game universe at least.

My main goal with this idea is to eventually drop the footholds. They just seem so dirty, almost like cheating.

[Zekeen]

This was my idea for it, salvage any ideas from it you need, it was 5 am when I did it that day, can't remember half of it or if anything made sense.

Originally Posted by Zekeen;

Alternative to Empire Bases/Sanctuaries: Orbital Command Carriers
I've been seeing a lot on the concept of outfit aerial cruisers and what not, and it got me thinking a bit on an old idea I've been bouncing around in my head. Since some of you dislike reading lots of text, I'll go ahead and state the idea so you can read on if you want to know details. I'm also going to bold and put the actual design improvements at the bottom, after
Instead of Several Non-Capable Bases or Sanctuaries, I propose the creation of Orbital Command Carriers, large spacecraft, that could function to allow players to jump into combat faster than a Sanctuary, but give a location for quick meet ups and what not.
This idea INCLUDES: Orbital Drop Pods to Empire Bases not under attack, command ability to designate drop pod landing zones, Squad Drop Pods, and MORE
It sounds almost the same as Sanctuaries, but I got a lot of stuff that would help players move to the battlefield faster than even non capable bases.
First off, I'm gonna take a look at the concept of non capable bases and explain why the devs added them (not speculation, things I've heard and are obvious). Sanctuaries were massive, hard to move out in, and players just hung around them too much. They'd spawn vehicles and just roll around, instead of being on the battlefield driving over the enemy. By forcing players to be in the battlefield, even if protected, they give them the bait of something to kill, just outside of that warp bubble.
The problem though, is their new system takes out the idea of locking a continent. I don't know why or how, but it could be because we only HAVE 3 starter continents (if anyone knows if they plan to eventually add in continent locking, let me know). For you greenhorns out there, locking a continent was where you would force all other factions out of it, they had no bases in there, and they had to have a base in the next continent that connected to a warp bubble to attack from, otherwise, if you had that base too, they couldn't (or rather, was really freaking difficult) to take over a base there. It was like a major victory, everyone feels great after that. It boosted so much moral that they usually kicked more ass for the rest of the day than any other faction.
That all aside, non capable bases is to keep the players actively seeking combat instead of sitting around. One major problem is we have 3 non capable bases on each continent, this makes it more of a match set that actual persistent combat. Really, there should be only ONE faction non capable base, PER CONTINENT. You can only lock your own continent, and it prevent combat from being broken up to 3 maps in such a way. Pushing and pulling is only good if you can make a significant victory.
As for the actual design of this idea, it's the existance of a sanctuary outside of the planet, but without vehicles. Rather than a typical sanctuary, it's a place to group and get the hell out of there. There is no test fire, there are no random vehicles running down allies, you use the Command Carrier to jump in a drop pod and head for the surface.
A few features for the Command Carrier
The Carrier is RIDDLED with hoard of drop pods!
The walls are almost lined with drop pod rooms and such. Basic solo drop pods are EVERYWHERE and various rooms allow for Squads to use a single drop pod for team based deployment.
Squad Drop Pods are only usable from the Carrier. They include space for 6 individuals. A MAX counts as 2 people, so 6 soldiers, or 3 MAXes, 2 soldiers and 2 MAXes, ect.
Commander Type Players can have access to creating Drop Pod Landing Zones. This is a spot to allow players at the Carrier to drop outside of a safe base's influence. These are established as "Safe zones" and will persist until a certain time expires, or there is a hotspot within a certain radius of it.
The Carrier won't JUST have drop pods. For those daring enough to risk it, a Matrixing Chamber is available to deconstruct a player to permit them to spawn at any local battle.
Apart from all these features though, a Command Carrier would give a feeling of significance to the players. If you merely start in a basic base, even if non capable, it feels insignificant. You feel like it's just a bigger form of battlefield. Planetside is not that and needs anything, however minor or great, that can impart that feeling once more. Sanctuaries were oversized, dull, and took away from instant combat, but to just start there feels a bit much. Even a match in Battlefield starts with you capturing the nearest base and preparing for the enemy. A few seconds to jump in a drop pod to the near safe zone wouldn't cause any real pain to a player. But it would give them another form of the scale of Planetside - The immersion of being a part of the war machine.
Now, I know there seem to be some holes in my logic and design, but I feel the general idea itself would at least LEAD to improvements that others can take from. I know a lot of things, such as the current system of being equipped when you spawn, poke even more holes in the idea of what positives there can be for drop podding onto the continent.

I found SO many holes in it, but you can tell I went ALL OUT, so I saved it into a text document until I could revise. Then I gave up, then I saw your post. Consume the flesh of this information ALLLLL you want, take it, I don't need the burden anymore lol. A lot wa disproved over the immense time it took to write it. That's right, it took so long to write that new information kept getting found and disproving most of the features.

[Saifoda]

I like the idea of the CR5[equivalent or whatever] created drop zones within enemy territory, otherwise having to drop only on your own empire's hexes. Pretty cool idea.


Jimmy, I'm not sure I like the idea of the ships rotating over the planet and only being above certain continents at certain times. This, to me, seems like it would promote the logic of "oh, we can't attack Oshur right now, the VS have their OS/OCC/whatever over it so it's useless to attack it." Also it limits your capabilities of deploying to whatever battlefield you want (I know there'll be other options to deploy basically wherever you want, but other than cont-locking I don't think players that are in the EMPIRE sanctuary should be prevented from deploying directly from there to pretty much wherever they want; especially once we get back upwards of 10 continents and you can only drop on 1 continent at any given time with that changing only every couple hours or so, and then it's still just 1 continent but just a different one).





Overall I really like the idea and we can nitpick and nerf/buff argue balancing for stuff all day, but as per usual I'll put in the "wait till beta" (and for this one, even wait till launch/1 year after launch) to see what might work or not. The thing that I honestly like most about the idea is that it'll be the first real step towards putting planetside 2 IN SPACE! I'm hopeful (and want to start a thread on this soon) that planetside 2 will eventually expand into space battles: Think Battlestar Galactica encounters, along with ship-to-ship docking/fighting. Frigates, Cruisers, Patrol Craft, Fighters, Carriers, Battleships; all of them maneuverable, multiple firing points/positions, ship docking, breaching, assault, and capturable!!!!

[Zolan]

I like the idea of orbiting home stations from which you could launch pods.

They could make three unique home locations for the empires and it would still fulfill the "foothold" they were interested in.

In addition I think it would be nice to give each faction a single foothold on a home continent which can be associated with the faction as a home world, similar to those home worlds in the original Planetside. So in other words, 1 station for drop pod launches and 1 foothold (on home continent) per faction.

It would be fascinating if they could create an animation that started when you pressed the launch button inside the pod at the station and allowed you to watch a complete drop onto the surface of the continent, but that might be too far fetched of an idea.

One thing I would add to the orbiting stations would be virtual shooting ranges, driving ranges, and air locations for trying out different weapons and load outs. Something similar to the training area in the original Planetside.

They could always add all that spiffy plaza area / meeting area stuff as well in an orbiting sanctuary.
Maybe a bar and dance floor too, everyone (maybe not TR) needs a dance floor. /em cabbagepatch

[Johari]

The initial idea strikes me as good. I am too ground in with the idea of total continent control to just let footholds stay forever. Sure my opinion could change come beta but until then.

Approval of orbiting stations or just any kind of sanc in general but I think we need to take in account that this area might have to support the entirety of a faction should then get locked out of a cont. So 600+ people in a tight area at once? Might have to rethink how large these sancs would have to be.

I also like Zolan's idea of 1 perm foothold on one cont instead of all three. Makes it difficult to choose though because out of the 3 conts Indar Amerish Esamir the last 2 were originally VS home conts. HOW DO YOU MAKE ME CHOOSE!

[Dagron]

Originally Posted by Saifoda

I'm not sure I like the idea of the ships rotating over the planet and only being above certain continents at certain times. This, to me, seems like it would promote the logic of "oh, we can't attack Oshur right now, the VS have their OS/OCC/whatever over it so it's useless to attack it."

Agreed. It would also suck to have orbital strikes limited to one part of the world at a time. To me the way it should work (story-wise) was that they came from a satelite network... coming from a single ship would be too restraining.

Originally Posted by Saifoda

The thing that I honestly like most about the idea is that it'll be the first real step towards putting planetside 2 IN SPACE! I'm hopeful (and want to start a thread on this soon) that planetside 2 will eventually expand into space battles: Think Battlestar Galactica encounters, along with ship-to-ship docking/fighting. Frigates, Cruisers, Patrol Craft, Fighters, Carriers, Battleships; all of them maneuverable, multiple firing points/positions, ship docking, breaching, assault, and capturable!!!!

This is an awesome idea and it's something i talked about in another thread. They told me space was already discussed at length and i have yet to search for those threads, but i've been busy trying to score a beta key.
But i'd also love to see a low gravity, continental sized space station with a 64km² hex map of it's own.

[Saifoda]

Originally Posted by Dagron

This is an awesome idea and it's something i talked about in another thread. They told me space was already discussed at length and i have yet to search for those threads, but i've been busy trying to score a beta key.
But i'd also love to see a low gravity, continental sized space station with a 64km² hex map of it's own.

Awesome, I'll have to search for that and possibly necro it

[Immigrant]

I support this idea, this would solve the need for rotating footholds what some guys were suggesting and that is quite not smart.

Anyway it would be good that the Sanctuary could float only above parts of your territory (hexes) that aren't on the front lines.

[JimmyOmaha]

Originally Posted by Saifoda

Jimmy, I'm not sure I like the idea of the ships rotating over the planet and only being above certain continents at certain times. This, to me, seems like it would promote the logic of "oh, we can't attack Oshur right now, the VS have their OS/OCC/whatever over it so it's useless to attack it." Also it limits your capabilities of deploying to whatever battlefield you want (I know there'll be other options to deploy basically wherever you want, but other than cont-locking I don't think players that are in the EMPIRE sanctuary should be prevented from deploying directly from there to pretty much wherever they want; especially once we get back upwards of 10 continents and you can only drop on 1 continent at any given time with that changing only every couple hours or so, and then it's still just 1 continent but just a different one).

My thinking here was that they would have an edge, and a layer of logistics, but not a win button. Plus you can't just instant swap a territory to your empires side. It will take a good chunk of time to make a new front. I'd hope it'll play out more like; We're fighting the NC on the south end of the continent almost have it locked. But the TR sanctuary has just begun its orbit, so we'll have to keep an eye out for back-hacks and maybe consider bringing more over to the continent.

Agreed the more continents the better, the idea plays out much better with 4+ continents.

Originally Posted by Zolan

One thing I would add to the orbiting stations would be virtual shooting ranges, driving ranges, and air locations for trying out different weapons and load outs. Something similar to the training area in the original Planetside.

Forgot about this, excellent idea. Adding to OP.

Originally Posted by Immigrant

Anyway it would be good that the Sanctuary could float only above parts of your territory (hexes) that aren't on the front lines.

6-13-12 - Disregard: Yea, been thinking of more restrictions for the launch bay, its hard to do with out removing its use. It has to be usable on enemy hexes in case your empire is continent locked.

Been thinking lately that it would be any border hex, and extra hexes on the corners. No main bases.

[Fanglord]

I think having a non combat orbital sanctuary would be an awesome addition, but leave the foot holds in.

For me part of an MMO, FPS or not is to have some sort of social/chill out area (cities in WOW ect). Having an orbital base where you can possibly tune customisations, training zones for RP sake an actual cash shop. However I guess ultimately this would be 'extras' only additions; as the only real function I could see being game play centric would be a neat way to change continents.

[MedicDude]

Having an off-map sanctuary is a necessity if they want to enforce the continent player limits, as well as a place to drop AFK players. No MMO is complete without a social area for respectable smack talk and downtime.

Problem with the original sanctuary was that it was SO DAMN BIG, they should make it a LOT smaller and instance it to allow less congestion for platoons or when sanctuary playerbases spike.

An orbital sanctuary would be cool, maybe I could finally get to see what the orbital strike cannon looks like up close ^^.

Also, it would allow 24/7 drop-pod access for shuttling into the battle. The current implementation of drop pods as squad spawning is open to abuse and will simply not work. I loved the idea of hurtling into a fresh battle via a giant fireball in the original PS1, and this should return in PS2.

[Lanka]

Originally Posted by Johari

--
Approval of orbiting stations or just any kind of sanc in general but I think we need to take in account that this area might have to support the entirety of a faction should then get locked out of a cont. So 600+ people in a tight area at once? Might have to rethink how large these sancs would have to be.
--

I'd rather have 600+ players in a sanctuary station than inside the foothold gate.. Even if it's unlikely for all the players of one faction to roll in to start taking one continent at same time, it is possible - and it'll be a damn rushhour out of the foothold.

Dropping groups (with their basic vehicles?) out of a sanctuary might even be more useful tactic than trying to roll hundreds of people out of the foothold gate area. Should probably be within reasonable radius of the foothold so you couldn't drop groups other side of the continent for backstabbing - but they definedly can move there once on the continent.