Drop pods, and the lack of SOI.

[MrBloodworth]

With no SOI, there is no need for any support vehicles. Just drop on the base, by yourself, or with friends. Its weakens the siege game play, and waters down the role of all support vehicles, that were designed to break, or circumvent troop movements and front lines. This seems to have all come from session based shooters, and the overall design goal of never having any downtime. That's great for a session based game that reset after 30-one hour later, its terrible for a Persistent war game. Its a case of going to far to react to the issues of the previous title.

Originally Posted by Sifer2

That would work but it would largely negate squad spawn as a useful mechanic as well.

This is incorrect, as proven by Section 8. The difference is someone had to go behind the defenses and disable the Denial system ( The turrets ).

However, due to the PS2 developers insistence on no automated systems, its unlikely to happen. SOI fixes it, and its a system that was not broken to begin with.

It could also be turned into another feature, Hacking to remove SOI for a duration. Again, the difference being, someone had to go do that, and its another tactical option. A much better option than every base being a spawn-FFA death-match, rather than a war game base siege.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by MrBloodworth

With no SOI, there is no need for any support vehicles. Just drop on the base, by yourself, or with friends.

Its weakens the siege game play, and waters down the role of all support vehicles, that were designed to break, or circumvent troop movements and front lines.

This seems to have all come from session based shooters, and the overall design goal of never having any downtime. That's great for a session based game, its terrible for a Persistent war game.

Squad leaders can die, and do, and they can only spawn their squad, not their entire team. It doesn't negate the need for support vehicles.

And I'm pretty sure SOE has a goal of reducing downtime, so it fits perfectly.

Again, to be clear, you are arguing for a SOI, and I'm not disagreeing with it, I'm just arguing against squad spawning being overly nerfed in addition to SOI.

[Knightwyvern]

The thing I'm a little worried about is it seems currently there is the ability to spawn on all squad mates, not just the SL. This is a bad thing IMO.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Knightwyvern

The thing I'm a little worried about is it seems currently there is the ability to spawn on all squad mates, not just the SL. This is a bad thing IMO.

Yes, agreed. To those who are not experienced with squad spawning you might think it makes no difference and they are both bad, but after 3000 hours in BF2(squad leader only spawning), I can tell a marked difference in BC2 and BF3, which let you spawn on anyone in your squad. BF2 squads have to play carefully in case the leader dies, and with teamwork, BC2 and BF3 all you have to do is have one guy not die.

[infected]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

Squad leaders can die, and do, and they can only spawn their squad, not their entire team. It doesn't negate the need for support vehicles.

And I'm pretty sure SOE has a goal of reducing downtime, so it fits perfectly.

forgive me if i'm wrong but the ps2 footage we've seen allows for you to drop in on any squad members. and thats 10 players per squad, which in fact does negate the point of transport vehicles, especially since they are being allowed to drop in inside of enemy territory.

i'd say that drop pods should be only used for gathering up outside of a base for a coordinated push, or allowed if inside a friendly base, but not be allowed dropping on top of an enemy base.

its ridiculous with the scope of this game. you will be unable to defend anything. as the number of squads, 10 player squads, that's just a ton of drops on an enemy base in a coordinated attack. it would be first used over transport vehicles, and only then when the ability is on cooldown will the vehicles become at all relevant.

because as of now, a small squad of 10, you could literally get one one guy in an atv to go approach a base from the side wall and jump jet over and order the squad to drop in.

now, imagine an outfit of 100 people, that filled up a transport vehicle with one member from each of 10 squads. say 10 people all in one galaxy or sunderer... once that vehicles gets to the capture point then the other 90 people in those squads just drop pod in on their squad mate? think it won't be done?

edit: this is the definition of cheese tactics. the game shouldn't allow drop pods inside (or on top of) base walls of enemy captured points. make the vehicles and real infantry transport come into play. drop in outside the base all you want, but not inside. and yeah, max units should not be able to use drop pods at all.

[T MAN]

Section 8 did this very well i thought, it had a soi that you could still spawn in but you would get killed by AA by the base AA or player built AA turrets. So you had to spawn outside soi to be safe.

Engineers could build AA turret that would also create a soi to keep bases or territory safe but only one could be built.

[Ertwin]

In Air Rivals, one of the planes had the ability to summon a squad member (basically squad spawning without having to die.) People organized spawn chains. Basically naming their squad `spawn here`people spawn then leave the squad. I can see that happening here.

However I have a solution that doesn`t involve spheres of influence. Simply make the squad spawn timer global for the SL. So if someone spawns, nobody else can spawn on that leader until the timer is up. It prevents abuse and drastically slows chain spawning without eliminating it as a tactic.

[Envenom]

Also bear in mind that you're a giant noisy beacon for every enemy player in the base to see when you drop. It's not exactly subtle, giving away your position and that of your squad. I don't really see it as much of a problem.

[Jeepo]

SL only would be the best. Personally I would prefer no squad spawn at all but am realistic enough to know thats probably not ideal.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by infected

forgive me if i'm wrong but the ps2 footage we've seen allows for you to drop in on any squad members. and thats 10 players per squad, which in fact does negate the point of transport vehicles, especially since they are being allowed to drop in inside of enemy territory.

i'd say that drop pods should be only used for gathering up outside of a base for a coordinated push, or allowed if inside a friendly base, but not be allowed dropping on top of an enemy base.

its ridiculous with the scope of this game. you will be unable to defend anything. as the number of squads, 10 player squads, that's just a ton of drops on an enemy base in a coordinated attack. it would be first used over transport vehicles, and only then when the ability is on cooldown will the vehicles become at all relevant.

because as of now, a small squad of 10, you could literally get one one guy in an atv to go approach a base from the side wall and jump jet over and order the squad to drop in.

now, imagine an outfit of 100 people, that filled up a transport vehicle with one member from each of 10 squads. say 10 people all in one galaxy or sunderer... once that vehicles gets to the capture point then the other 90 people in those squads just drop pod in on their squad mate? think it won't be done?

edit: this is the definition of cheese tactics. the game shouldn't allow drop pods inside (or on top of) base walls of enemy captured points. make the vehicles and real infantry transport come into play. drop in outside the base all you want, but not inside. and yeah, max units should not be able to use drop pods at all.

I am opposed to being able to spawn on any squad member. It should be leader only. And, once it is changed to leader only as it should be, and, regardless of whether it is, transport vehicles are not negated. Squads get wiped with high frequency even in BF2 and 3's 64 players, and with the huge scale of PS2's battles, it will happen even more. You have to have transport vehicles to get there in the first place, you have to have transport vehicles once the squad wipes, and frankly, a lot of people might choose to regroup at a vehicle spawn and take an armored transport into the base anyway even if their squad leader is still alive. Infantry attacking prepared defensive positions are a bit squishy sometimes.

That said, it is not abuse or cheese tactics to use drop pods to land on a roof. That boat sailed the day SOE chose to use drop pods, your issue is with drop pods, not squad spawning. Again, however, despite the fact that using drop pods to land on rooftops is not cheesy, I am agreeing with you all who want a sphere of influence to prevent it from being used that way. Not because it's cheesy, but because it's simply necessary for gameplay.

All I really am lobbying for is for squad spawning to be fully tested in beta, including at short cooldowns of 30 seconds. I am very concerned that SOE will allow the preconceptions of squad spawning being bad by people who aren't experienced with it to influence them to only even test it at huge cooldowns, and then we'll never know the truth of the matter. For my part, I am quite confident that if tested at 30 or 45 seconds, especially with a SOI in place to prevent dropping straight onto rooftops, and evaluated objectively instead of with blind hate for "OMG, he spawned on the squad without having to walk back 500 meters!", that it will work out fine. Objectively means people honestly answer the question "Is what I was afraid would happen with squad spawning really happening, or is it just keeping a persistent pace flowing?"

[The Kush]

Please put back SOI the game really needs it

[thegreekboy]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

God damn it, is this another one of those things that we have to wait for beta to know for sure? Cut the hair already!

Someone needs to make a list of all the stuff we need to wait until beta to discuss

[Shinjorai]

Didnt higby say in an interview something about the control points controlling various parts of the base and one of those was shields? Maybe thats what the shields are they block drop pods from being spawned in on rooftops etc. That would make sense too because it would give the infiltrators some other use and make the bases have actual defenses and make a little bit more sense. I dont have the source of what im talking about since ive only watched about a thousand interviews about this game but im pretty sure he did say something about base shields. Whether or not those have anything to do with preventing drop pods coming in i have no idea.


EDIT: Here it is i found it http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/02/23/pl...e-2-war-story/ right at the top there under the EARLY BATTLE section.

"The shields are up, the turrets are back online so that the base isn’t completely defenseless."

[Synapse]

Originally Posted by thegreekboy

Someone needs to make a list of all the stuff we need to wait until beta to discuss

I did. This is already on it.

:theMoreYouKnow:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=42316

[Atheosim]

I'm honestly far more concerned with the design of the bases. Like OP said, they just look like deathmatch arenas and don't have proper chokepoints. I mean, let's take a look at the tech plant in PS1: There were effectively 4 places to defend: FD, BD, Air term, and V term. These bases look like they're impossible to defend but by creating choke points with walls of people.