Tactical Misconceptions Pt1: Bio Lab.

[NewSith]

PlanetSide 2 as of now is a unique game.

The uniqueness of it is that developers are trying so hard to eliminate any advantage defenders have, and provide an edge to attackers instead. How is that happening? And why is that happening? Well, let's take the structures, most indicative in that regard: Bases.

Bio Lab

Supposed Developers' Idea:
The original purpose of a Biolab was to create an enclosed urban combat amidst an open battleground. Now the thing about urban combat is that you never know where to expect the attack from. Developers most certainly had that in mind while developing the interior. In every urban combat - the objective is to isolate, secure, and push through the outskirts of the urban area, to prevent the enemy from entering the labyrynth and getting lost inside it.

Tactical Assessment:
Let's just imagine for a second 4 squads of people fighting a 2sq versus 2sq match on a biolab. The defending squad will try and take and hold the control of a satellite base that has a teleporter to the SCU shield gen. The rest of the defending team will hold the pads and teleporters. Devs had that in mind when the base was designed.

Truth:
What happens however is a whole different story. The game is supposed to force teamwork, but what it really does is it promotes zerging. Zerg has no brain, no coordination, and most importantly, no communication due to region chat being totally counter-intuitive. And as a result the base is a chaotic fight with enemies constantly popping behind your back, killing you and moving on to kill more. That's how it goes for most of the zerglings fighting for a Biolab. The situation is especially dire due to the scale fo the game, the coordination you need to have in place for a succesful BioLab defense is huge and in the current environment is unreachable at all.

Problems (From My Standpoint):

• Attacking side has an advantage over defending side, even at the CP placement. Defenders only have 1 point in the vicinity of their spawnroom, while enemy has free reign over the remaining two. This is something you can also find on any tower or a multiple-point outpost.
• Both airpads are easily accessible. You make only one pad accessible and the fight changes that instant. Zergling will fight for the reachable pad, while clever people will try to either use a ramp and make it around the dome for the prestine airpad or try and galdrop on it.
• The base design includes 2+ teleporters, the ultimate bane of any constructve fight there.
• It is "the bane" because of the effect 2 entrances with shields give. The shield that let people camp inside and shoot outside make it totally impossible to bottleneck the attackers in any way.
• Light Assault. It really seems like developers are forgetting about that obstacle-ignoring class they added. They rule the night on any biolab and only cause people to rage over senseless deaths. There is no way to stop them, while there should be.

Finally, it is totally worth to mention that Biolab is the only base that has the spawnroom situated INSIDE the superstructure. However a Biolab is in fact an outdoor environment, limited to infantry only. So the effect is ghostly, to say the least. Defenders are still getting camped inside without the ability to push out.




I'll bring the 2 other bases misconceptions to the surface later and 1 overall feedback that sums up the misconception common for all three and other bases.

[Sawboss]

While I do love this game I agree the base designs need changing and do not really feel like bases, also the layouts are mind boggling. There's jump pads, teleports and forcefields all over the place which really don't help the feeling of attacking or defending a base.

[Mavvvy]

Well said! Never have like fighting In them but for a different (yet related) reason, its the place people go to "farm".

PS 2 has got to be the only instance in which you need more defenders then attackers to win.

[Figment]

Due to the impenetrable shields, it can't be exited due to being insta-killed. Basically, auto-drive makes it impossible to use the bottom to push out, simply because it's too confined to organise, you role out of the gates and die to whoever camps it.

This same problem occurs at other bases. Shields are nice, but like teleporters and jumppads, contribute greatly to separating and breaking the flow of fights and induce two sides camping each end of the shield.

The base of the tower attracts a lot of attention while people don't understand that the way to get up there is by long distance jump/teleporting. And since these fights are so disconnected, you often jump/teleport in front of firing squads without any planned way of taking them out.

A gate shield can be circumvented by air and accessed by infantry. Now if we had old-school infils that could pass through shields and remained cloaked, we'd have had a chance to reach shield generators in otherwise unachievable locations (would bring back explosives for that).

Teleporters create problems for defenders since they automatically bypass the airpad defense. Immediately spreading defense over a large area and tons of corridors + as you said, the Light Assault routes.

If teleporters would require both sides under control, you'd get an infiltration or single wave objective. A job for infiltrators or Gal Drops for instance.

Next to that, the ground and top fight need to be connected better. Teleporters, elevators and jump pads shouldn't be too far from the airpads and could be acquirable linearly to create cuts in speed of accessing the top from bottom.

I proposed this a while back for that:



Apparently they did try that, but the stairs took too many polygons. I would then say use ramps instead and try to cut smaller sections rather than make these big gaps in movement. I'm no fan of them due to their predictable nature of arrival without a careful, controlled approach (using cover), but even ziplines/jumppads would help if the distances wern't too great.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Figment

I proposed this a while back for that:



Apparently they did try that, but the stairs took too many polygons. I would then say use ramps instead and try to cut smaller sections rather than make these big gaps in movement. I'm no fan of them due to their predictable nature of arrival without a careful, controlled approach (using cover), but even ziplines/jumppads would help if the distances wern't too great.

Yeah, saw that, and my opinion on them not telling truth about it, didn't change a single bit.

[Canaris]

I know we don't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff Fig but that design is fucking great. Similar to something I proposed back in TT for the labs with ramps from the surrounding walls into the top part, akin to the PS1 base layout, they really need to turn the bases back into fortresses.

[Sledgecrushr]

Base defenses need a buff. As a defender you should feel there is at least a chance at a sucess.

[PurpleOtter]

Simply put, bases in this game are designed from the start to not be defensible. Bases are arbitrary meeting places to fight. It's actually easier to pick a pile of rocks in the open some where to defend, at least you can see your enemy coming. Let me give you a few examples:

1. No doors that can be secured.
2. Non contiguous outer walls, these actually hinder the defense by providing cover to the attackers.
3. Multiple ingress/egress to critical infrastructure. You can never count on having your back covered.
4. Base layouts/floor plans that deliberately make no sense that are designed to confuse.

All of this is driven by the meta game philosophy of "game flow". I hate it.

[Miffy]

All that happens is people capture an outpost with a teleport straight in there, it then becomes camp the spawn until you lose or your forces come from some other base and kick them out of the teleport room.

[Qwan]

I dont know guys I have to beg to differ on the defence of the bio lab, 2 squads would be pressed to defend it, 2sq vs 2sqd, niether would be able to capture it, its just to big. But defending a bio lab takes tactics, my outfit has done it against a zerg, not to mention it took 3 squads and a few randoms. The object is to not get dug in, defending the ports and pads. Our tactic was pretty simple, while the zerg is pushing we would send a squad back to sanc (this is a continues move by the way), to get gals, libs, just by using air to ground tactics, like the first run can be a lib run, with air support. This desimates ground forces, we have used this technique in the past with success. Then after that we move to gal drop on outside bases, you have to remember if its the zerg there all over the place, and sparatic. Simply taking away there port you can give them either pads or gal drops. Then there is a heavy tank column with ground support. This can be done when we have a full platoon, the zerg is a simple beast to break sometimes. Just by applying to much pressure it will redirect to easier targets and sometimes even rage quit .

Now skilled outfits are a different story, You pretty much have to out smart, and sometimes in the bio dome its like pulling teeth. It depends on the courdination of the outfit, there going to try there techinqe and you going to apply yours. Weather its just taking away there access to the base, I.E. Pads and ports, or just holding and taking outside bases so they dont have hack ability anymore. The second one has always been the way during slow hrs on woodman server. When we knew we were up against an outfit we would simply hold the bio lab and slowly take away there ability to hack it, and with alot of these outfits it somtimes the only way.

Anyway I dont see the bio lab as not defendible, its just you have to find ways that will prevent the enemy from gaining access.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Qwan

Anyway I dont see the bio lab as not defendible, its just you have to find ways that will prevent the enemy from gaining access.

Well the Bio Lab isn't indefensible, I think what we're saying is it's unsecurable, from the inside.

Now, it's okay if you have enough people to fall back, but often times you don't. And even in that situation an even pop should result in either side being able to make a decisive move. Currently I feel only the attackers can because of the SCU being in the vicinity where ALL fighting occurs. You can't really gradually push back an attacker from the inside in every Bio Lab fight.

Defenders are usualy ultimately pretty stuck and especially if they have few to even hold all entrances against an equal number of players, they will in fact lose without the enemy having to play tactical.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Qwan

Anyway I dont see the bio lab as not defendible, its just you have to find ways that will prevent the enemy from gaining access.

Yes, what Figgy said, though I'd rather use the word "uncontrollable".

There is a Bio Lab, people defend it, but you never have that feeling that the base defense is under control, there is no "graduality" in it, indeed.

[Oroshi]

The force fields are the issue for me, you take a teleporter and people will prefer to sit in the shield room, and not push out, same with the spawn, I've been at several base defense, and the numbers of people in the spawn room, is greater than those outside, but they can get easy kills, while waiting for the base to change hands, then come back and cap it again later.

I love the idea behind this game, and looked forwards to it so much, but SOE designed it around the lowest common denominator (I know that makes easy profit). They don't want the bases to be defended for too long, its all about fast moving fights to appeal to players who log in for 30 minutes to an hour, that have to achieve something.

[Ghoest9]

Wrong OP.

Defenders could hold a biodome - if most of them played with that goal in mind.

But you earn more certs by only defending the choke points and trying to maintain the fight at the choke points as long as possible. If you do this you eventually will fall but you can drag out out and get lots of kills.

If you play smart drive the enemy back and shut off his access to teleporters you get almost no certs for all your bother.
Last night for instance for some reason we did all the right stuff and push back an invasion. It was actually kind of lame. A lot of messing around for little gain.




For the record I have a great deal of fun switching a biodome back and fort over time and earn a lot of certs doing it.

[DirkSmacker]

I see what the OP is saying, but I rather like fighting in biolabs. If they were to make them more defensible by eliminating an attacking TP, I'd hope they would only do that on one biolab per map to add some variety.