Question from Malorn: Continental Lattice Mechanics

[SgtMAD]

none of this will work until we have more continents.

the way the game is now, you could have an empire completely locked out of the game,you have to go back to the (dirty) planetside model,but then they have to add sanc's so ppl have somewhere to log into all the time.

this game isn't built for any of what I just wrote LOL

and there isn't anything in the dev's timeline about completely retooling the game

[MrMak]

Originally Posted by SgtMAD

none of this will work until we have more continents.

the way the game is now, you could have an empire completely locked out of the game,you have to go back to the (dirty) planetside model,but then they have to add sanc's so ppl have somewhere to log into all the time.

this game isn't built for any of what I just wrote LOL

and there isn't anything in the dev's timeline about completely retooling the game

You do realis this will only happen AFTER Hossin iand 3 battle islands to serve as buffors between the current 3 continents wil lbeo ut right? The current continents wil lbe home continents assigned to specific emppires a they il lnever be completly kicked out of those.

The issue is where to put the overflow on a full server.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by MrMak

You do realis this will only happen AFTER Hossin iand 3 battle islands to serve as buffors between the current 3 continents wil lbeo ut right? The current continents wil lbe home continents assigned to specific emppires a they il lnever be completly kicked out of those.

The issue is where to put the overflow on a full server.

That isn't an issue. PlanetSide handled it perfectly fine.

[Timithos]

Originally Posted by Calista

Someone asked Matt in the last CC about warpgates actually warping vehicles etc and he said it was not planned anytime soon. It kinda sounded like to me that even after continent linking you would have to use that terminal to spawn over to a new cont.

Yeah, and that would suck. "Vehicle Zoning" as they call it is set as unscheduled on the roadmap. Vehicle Zoning would throw off the balance of the Resource Revamp since players don't need to use up new resources, but just drive their vehicles through warpgates. So the entire Resource Revamp might need an additional revamp again just to accommodate Vehicle Zoning. It makes sense for them to first introduce Vehicle Zoning before the revamp is finished, and to coincide Vehicle Zoning at the same time as continental lattices.

[Timithos]

Originally Posted by SgtMAD

none of this will work until we have more continents.

the way the game is now, you could have an empire completely locked out of the game,you have to go back to the (dirty) planetside model,but then they have to add sanc's so ppl have somewhere to log into all the time.

this game isn't built for any of what I just wrote LOL

and there isn't anything in the dev's timeline about completely retooling the game

Yeah, I've always found it silly to talk about Continent Locking when we only have 3 continents. Planetside 1 had 10 continents at launch using continent locking. Their plan is to introduce Hossin at the same time as Continent Locking, so we'll have 4, but if each empire locks one continent, we're only fighting on the single continent left over, and maybe a couple battle islands. It's silliness. Their resources should be focused on Hossin, resource revamp, continental lattice, vehicles zoning, Searhus, and then leave continent locking for last. It's a little less silly with 5 continents, but it's still silly.

[Timithos]

Originally Posted by GeoGnome

Quote from Malorn from the main forums, in regards to how you would capture continents in the upcoming continental lattice.

Where is this post on the official forums? I can't find it.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Timithos

Where is this post on the official forums? I can't find it.

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/.../#post-2435518

[Redshift]

I'd like to see an actual hack and hold base connected to each warpgate, like PS1. That way if you go through the warpgate and they backhack you it only takes 1 good offensive to retake the CC and restart their timer, that should discourage repeated zerging back onto the same cont.

The warpgate link should be active even if you've lost control of the CC on the old cont, so the whole push can't be scuppered by 1 guy in a mossie.

The ghost hack to finish conts can be rectified with a conditional timer, ie. if your pop is over 100 theirs is under 10 and you own 80% of the cont hack timers are halved... or whatever values work.

Give us sancs back, ie. clone the shooting range and put in dancing girls....(or whatever) On those rare occasions we get sanc'd allow for the sanc'd team to have queue priority so they have superior numbers to push out. Or allow us to drain bases so we can open up our own new fronts.

[Rolfski]

I posted my continent lock ideas already in the 4-way continent locking proposal. It seems that some of them (control 3 outposts to capture a Warpgate) are very much in line with Malorn's ideas.

[Baneblade]

I believe there should be no specific continent locking mechanic other than the natural lock that would occur when an empire has wrested control of the warpgates from the others. In other words with what we have now, and keeping the warpgate = sanc thing, only one empire could truly lock one continent at a time and only by actively invading the other two.

[Stanis]

Mostly 'needs more continents'.
Also the concept of 'neutral' bases.

The ability to actually fight an immersive war rather than a terminal driven game requires warpgate traversal. We need to fight on enemy territory we don't otherwise have links to, to avoid population lock out - we need a drain mechanic.

Q0. What does a warpgate look like when they are latticed?

If we don't have warpgate traversal yet HOW do we get to another continent if we don't have a spawn there .. we really should be going through the warpgates to reach enemy territory.

This means that the home continent warpgate is faction locked.
Other warpgates are just weapon locked - so the zoning capability has to be faction neutral.

Originally Posted by Malorn

1. Downtime. If an empire abandons a continent what to do with the downtime of gobbling up undefended territories? It was a boring part of PS1.
2. Warpgate camping. If the opposite happens and two empires fight hard to control a gate, what does that fight look like?
3. Non-static gate assignments. How would you like to see warpgate positions handled? Do you want to fight for them, or do you want assigned gates that rotate on a schedule?
4. Empire compression. What happens if an empire gets reduced to 1 or 2 continents? Those players have to go somewhere. Folks on Connery have been seeing the limits reached, and that's with 3 continents!

A1. There should be fronts between Empires. Whether they are actively fought over or not. Someone went to the trouble of contesting them and may have chosen to either sacrifice them or use the buffer they provide to make gains elsewhere.

'downtime' is modern speak for lack of patience. They can hack the bases back as slowly as they were taken. If a squad wants to do that rather than throw themselves into a fight - fair play to them.
If we have to incentivise that by handing out rewards .. we havent got the rest of the game structure right yet. Capturing territory, increase in resource income, security of lattice lanes. Should be reward enough.

A2. Well PS1 warpgates were no-combat zones. If the warpgate as-is because attackable it will be a HE camp fest unparalleled elsewhere.
The 'foothold' will have no ability to regroup. Low to minimal resource income.

The warpgate should remain intact. The 3 satellite methodology seems logical. The terrain, placement of towers, Line of Sight .. probbably needs to be revisited. Trees or mountains blocking turrets is a bugbear of mine.

A3. In the long term I would like many more continents.

The rotation of 'home' continents has to happen. I remember the days of rarely seeing a continent because it was the TR or NC home .. if we can't all play on Indar there will be severe withdrawal.

In PS1 the opening and closing of caverns created windows of opportunity.

I would rather see a system where warpgate linkages are 'vulnerable' or 'modifiable' during (server) peak times so that players can plan their attack or defences rather than 24/7 off-peak ghost caps or alarm clock raids.

If this means either by certain warpgates being active/inactive or their link nodes 'swapping' if captured .. fine.

A4. Sanctuary. Sorry to say that the offline rearm and regroup point was a key element to faction and empire identity in PS1. I miss it. And the Hart.

We have VR make that a room/subset of Sanctuary.
Sanctuary could be an Orbital Platform in which case 'HART' and Orbital Strike make sense.

As for being kicked out .. compression of players should lead to an intense fight and struggle and PURPOSE to the fight.
Oh wait .. it'll also lead to logging out and 4th factioning due to lack of identity.

4 continents is the issue not player compression. So fudge the mechanic.
Inactive warpgates. Vanu Crystalline nodes. Orbital Insert timers (2min hotdrops).
Whatever the fudge is : use it to get players back into the fighting.

Finally .. introduce the concept of a neutral base. With a drain mechanic.
We can get back some spec ops, behind the lines stuff. Start fighting in enemy territory.

[Ohaunlaim]

Another bandaid...

Since we cant "gate" our vehicles: All players of the winning faction on a continent that has just been locked should receive 350 air/ground/grunt resources in order to continue their momentum on the next continent.

I would also like to see....
(assuming WGs are static-linked to other WGs)

A fairly obvious button/option, when accessing the continental warp terminal, that allows one to simply jump to the WG linked to the one the player is currently in. Even better if the players can run to the center of the WG on the platform there and this option pops up on their screen ("Would you like to warp to Searhus South East Warpgate? Y/N")

[Baneblade]

Being able to refund your vehicle at a warpgate terminal for resources and a timer reset would probably be easier than continent transitioning them. But it could only be done at the warpgate connecting to another continent.

[Hetman]

How about Sancutuary beeing a Space station With limited ability to drop you on continent controlled by enemy. Give To site that lost too many territory possibility to start guerrilla war. Limitation depends on how much you lost.

I dont think it would be difficult to do, just building with alot of windows and no ability to go out(if you do you die) cool view on plante and space, few embellishments like shooting range, mabey someday something usefull will be added.

[Dkamanus]

Why the hell are we even STILL discussing this? The devs won't give the basic Sanctuary because they don't want "downtime" for the player. Well guess what, 24h action makes the game dull as well.

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE DOWNTIME! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS SOE!

There is no work-a-round on this matter. Not when we are talking in gutting core mechanics that would make the game more meaningful. People don't mind 1~2 minutes downtime, they mind 10 minutes downtimes (which there isn't unless we are talking an alert, where people want to get in that continent because there's great fighting.

Giving sanctuaries solves half the problems continent locking brings. Just do it. Stop fighting it.