Victory with Less Pie?

[Aaron]

Just curious, has any outfit brought about a territory victory while having 40-45% population on the territory's pie chart during a two-way battle? If so, can you recall doing it more than once?

I'm thinking strategy/teamwork doesn't even make a notable difference on the battle field. So far, since I've been taking note of the various population charts on contested territories, I've noticed that the pop% is the single determiner for victory in every case. I know, no surprise, right?

I guess the game's mechanics are outplaying any advantage gained from playing tactically. Unless all of your allies are getting a kill every 10 seconds consistently for the remainder of the battle, you, having less pie, will eventually lose.

It makes perfect sense, I suppose. Imagine you have two apparatus that shoot particles at each other at a relatively fast rate. One shoots red, the other shoots blue. All particles have an average chance of 50% to eliminate the other particle during an encounter. Particles can also group onto a single particle to gain a higher success percentage. There are also "legendary" particles that have a very high success rate. However, logically, the apparatus that shoots a denser amount of particles will eventually overcome the other apparatus. Furthermore, assuming the particle spawn rate remains consistent on both apparatus, any moment of epic success on the weaker side will be rendered miniscule by the mechanics of the apparatus.

I really don't want Planetside 2 to be that type of game.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Aaron

Just curious, has any outfit brought about a territory victory while having 40-45% population on the territory's pie chart during a two-way battle? If so, can you recall doing it more than once?

I'm thinking strategy/teamwork doesn't even make a notable difference on the battle field. So far, since I've been taking note of the various population charts on contested territories, I've noticed that the pop% is the single determiner for victory in every case. I know, no surprise, right?

I guess the game's mechanics are outplaying any advantage gained from playing tactically. Unless all of your allies are getting a kill every 10 seconds consistently for the remainder of the battle, you, having less pie, will eventually lose.

It makes perfect sense, I suppose. Imagine you have two apparatus that shoot particles at each other at a relatively fast rate. One shoots red, the other shoots blue. All particles have an average chance of 50% to eliminate the other particle during an encounter. Particles can also group onto a single particle to gain a higher success percentage. There are also "legendary" particles that have a very high success rate. However, logically, the apparatus that shoots a denser amount of particles will eventually overcome the other apparatus. Furthermore, assuming the particle spawn rate remains consistent on both apparatus, any moment of epic success on the weaker side will be rendered miniscule by the mechanics of the apparatus.

I really don't want Planetside 2 to be that type of game.

PlanetSide was ALWAYS "THAT" game. The point is - the footholds, which the entire community was against, create "no win scenrio", thus the game seems to be what you just desscribed.

[Aaron]

Originally Posted by NewSith

PlanetSide was ALWAYS "THAT" game. The point is - the footholds, which the entire community was against, create "no win scenrio", thus the game seems to be what you just desscribed.

Yes, I think I've just realized that unfortunate reality. Although, I hope that one day Planetside 2 to will have some tactical relevance in it's gameplay. I mean, PS2 was supposed to be my dream game.

[diLLa]

That's basically what we're aiming to do every night, with succes..

[Assist]

Originally Posted by Aaron

Yes, I think I've just realized that unfortunate reality. Although, I hope that one day Planetside 2 to will have some tactical relevance in it's gameplay. I mean, PS2 was supposed to be my dream game.

In the end numbers win out. It's the way the game is designed, unfortunately there's not strategy in the FPS tactical sense in this game. If a group successfully takes a base while having less numbers, it's going to be a very small amount less. It's what drives most hardcore gamers away from PS2, the skill ceiling is very low. It's also what brings in a lot of casual players who would otherwise not play an FPS game.
It's also why a lot of us who were very 'pro' MLG competition design have completely backed off, because this game simply is not going to attract that style of player with the way it's being developed.

[LoliLoveFart]

My outfit does it quite often, all you have to do is tunnel vision sundies and get their spawn points down. After that clearing them off the base is really easy.

[Figment]

Less pie?! D:

[Kalee J]

Less pie is never good. More pie!

[maradine]

It's not necessarily about whether you can hold out against superior numbers - it's about how long you can hold, and how many they send to push you off. If you can take a squad of 12 and force twice that many root you out for 10 minutes, you've created a 12-man, 10-minute window somewhere else. If you have 4 squads doing that, you've created a full platoon-sized hole in an important fight.

Maybe you don't have the coordination into your faction's command structure to capitalize on that gap - we certainly don't. But we still work to make those opportunities for others. Reasonably certain you could call that strategy.

Punching above your squad's weight is one of PS2's great pleasures.

[GeoGnome]

My observation has been that there is a certain point of pop in an area, where numbers become the sole determining factor.

When your dealing with squad v. squads... typically a squad can hold off up to 2 squads, if it is dug in, and everyone knows what they are doing. But, when you scale that up to platoons, it just doesn't happen.

Thing is, there are all the tools needed, bar perhaps 1 tool, which would be more, useful placables. Some people can argue that it is base design.. but frankly I see placeables fixing that problem if properly implemented.

The other thing here too, about there being too low of a skill ceiling... What could be done to improve this? This is a genuine question, what would be something that could be done by the devs to improve this in the eyes of more elite players?

[Dragonskin]

Size. Always. Matters.

[Bocheezu]

Originally Posted by GeoGnome

My observation has been that there is a certain point of pop in an area, where numbers become the sole determining factor.

When your dealing with squad v. squads... typically a squad can hold off up to 2 squads, if it is dug in, and everyone knows what they are doing. But, when you scale that up to platoons, it just doesn't happen.

There is definitely a critical mass with medics where no matter how many people you kill, the medics just rez everybody right back up instantly and there's nothing you can do about it. I've had a case where I killed a guy, and four medics completely ignored me to rez him, and I couldn't kill the medics in time before the HA got rezzed and shotgunned me in the face.

I don't like the sheer number of medics in this game and how quick the rez time is. Advanced medic was fairly rare in PS1 (in the BR20 days, at least) and I don't remember PS1 having this ever-continuing wave of zombie HA meatshields just constantly dying and getting rezzed over and over again. PS1 was more a zerg game, for sure, but probably 95% of my rezzes were at the AMS.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Dragonskin

Size. Always. Matters.

Very true for Pie.

[maradine]

[Varsam]

I've routinely seen coordinated squads thwart the advance of entire platoons. Likewise, I've seen zergfits lose fights with as high as a 2-to-1 advantage. It's not commonplace, but it happens often enough to convince me that population is not the sole determinant of victory, just an important one.

The larger the fight, though, the less individual skill matters.