Systems: Possible Sanctuary System

MasterChief096 · 2011-07-14, 10:35 PM

I was a bit alarmed when I read that there would be no sanctuaries in PlanetSide 2. I understand their reasoning behind it, but I do not understand why it has to be such a harsh solution as removing them from the sequel altogether. After all I was one of those CR5s in PlanetSide that enjoyed forming raids in sanctuary after our empire was done finishing a continent. I enjoyed using it as a staging ground between outfits and squads. I want to see this same type of safe staging area in PlanetSide 2.

What I propose is that have a sanctuary in game, as well as the spawn on squad mate system, merely have the player choose at log-in or in-game which system he or she would like to use. If you want to spawn into a sanctuary and take your time getting to the fight, then use the sanctuary. If you want to instantly be spawned into the action, use the already discussed squad-spawn system.

I can't see any possible draw backs to having optional sanctuary usage in PlanetSide 2. The players who do not enjoy spending possible 5+ minutes to get to the fight will not have to use it all. In addition, outfits, the empire, squads, and platoons will have a staging area to regroup, form up, and roll out.

Having a sanctuary would also allow for easy access to all terminals, pads, and VR training that are present in-game. SOE has stated that weapon lethality is increased in PlanetSide Next, and there are thousands not hundreds fighting. Some players might appreciate an area where they can leave the fight, gather themselves, and then head back into the fray. To me, having you always spawn into combat seems like a bad idea for some people, (again not all).

If it were up to me, I would just say implement sanctuaries in PlanetSide 2 the same way as they are done in PlanetSide 1. A zone that can't be accessed by the other empires. Having this also allows for a HART system as well (getting 20+ people in my outfit to HART drop into a fight was always a good experience).

In order to make sanctuaries not effect the territorial control system present in PlanetSide 2, just make sure that you leave sanctuary in the same way that you would enter combat if you were NOT using sanctuary. What I mean by this is that you could spawn into/recall your group to sanctuary, but in order to LEAVE sanctuary you would use the pre-existing methods that are already in the game, such as spawning on squad mates or however SOE plans to make vehicles travel between continents.

But what if you have no squad-mates to spawn into with your group since you all recalled to sanctuary? Well I don't have a good answer for this because I don't know how SOE plans to have someone who wants to solo spawn into the battlefield. I would need more info to be able to offer a solution to this.

Overall sanctuaries I think are a must for a game of this scale. It provides a staging ground that potentially thousands of players (in the new game) can gather at before setting off to wreak havoc. It just makes sense.

Bags · 2011-07-14, 10:37 PM

I'm guessing that the footholds will function like sanctuaries. I can't imagine they'll be open to enemy attack.

Tool · 2011-07-14, 10:42 PM

Originally Posted by Bags

I'm guessing that the footholds will function like sanctuaries. I can't imagine they'll be open to enemy attack.

I think so as well, instead of an area in it's own zone, they'll simply be closer to the contested areas. All the convenience of home without the morning traffic

Death2All · 2011-07-15, 07:18 AM

What they said. Footholds will probably function identically to sanctuaries. My only concern is how there will be on on every continent. They still haven't stated how they exactly work in regards to what happens when you spawn in, but I'm hoping to get some information on that in the coming days since they've been so open to questions from the community thus far.

Oh, and one thing I think you may of overlooked is warpgates. As far to my knowledge from seeing screenshots, they are still apart of the game.

XeoWolf · 2011-07-15, 09:55 AM

I agree...

I just don't see where Sanc's slowed you down anyway. IA got you to a fight pretty quick. And Having the Sanc for gathering troops for a coordinated attack is something I always enjoyed,

Personally, I will hate to see the Sanctuary excluded from PS2.

Firefly · 2011-07-15, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Bags

I'm guessing that the footholds will function like sanctuaries. I can't imagine they'll be open to enemy attack.

No, most likely not.

However, what you CAN do is summon large amounts of coordinated players, thereby massing firepower, and camp the living fuck out of it. As soon as anyone leaves the exclusion zone...

Without suitable defenses, such as overpowered Level 55 Champions carrying one-shot mega-weapons of death, or sufficient quantities of turrets that players cannot man, each turret dealing raging quantities of doom, foothold/uncapturable bases will be camp fests. Ever seen a warpgate camp in PS? I plan on doing exactly what I did in the early months following PS's retail launch: rallying a bunch of coordinated players and laying down enough firepower to stop anything from coming out. Only, instead of a warpgate camp this will be a foothold camp.

Logit · 2011-07-15, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by Firefly

Without suitable defenses, such as overpowered Level 55 Champions carrying one-shot mega-weapons of death, or sufficient quantities of turrets that players cannot man, each turret dealing raging quantities of doom, foothold/uncapturable bases will be camp fests. Ever seen a warpgate camp in PS? I plan on doing exactly what I did in the early months following PS's retail launch: rallying a bunch of coordinated players and laying down enough firepower to stop anything from coming out. Only, instead of a warpgate camp this will be a foothold camp.

Nail on head. I don't know how SOE doesn't see this coming. Unless of course they do have something in mind for Uber defense.

But in any case, the feel of conquering a continent is taken out simply by these bases. Why not just have a damn sanctuary. Were talking about minutes of travel to get back to where you want to be.

Tool · 2011-07-15, 11:24 AM

Capitals had domes, why couldn't these bases have some similar mechanic to prevent that base rape you're worried about. They said they aren't capturable, it seems doubtful they would be attackable in a game like this.

But who knows? Perhaps they aren't ground bases at all, but those mega cruisers like suggested in that other thread?

Logit · 2011-07-15, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by Tool

Capitals had domes, why couldn't these bases have some similar mechanic to prevent that base rape you're worried about. They said they aren't capturable, it seems doubtful they would be attackable in a game like this.

But who knows? Perhaps they aren't ground bases at all, but those mega cruisers like suggested in that other thread?

Warpgates had domes too, doesn't mean you can't camp there and wait. Especially if they don't have many other options.

Firefly · 2011-07-15, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by Tool

Capitals had domes, why couldn't these bases have some similar mechanic to prevent that base rape you're worried about. They said they aren't capturable, it seems doubtful they would be attackable in a game like this.

But who knows? Perhaps they aren't ground bases at all, but those mega cruisers like suggested in that other thread?

You don't seem to get the point. I'm **NOT** talking about base-raping and spawn-camping and invading your uncapturable base.

If you/I can't do this...

Then you/I can certainly do this:

Tool · 2011-07-15, 12:56 PM

I was trying to say things in a nice way but you two are just obviously unable to see my point or acknowledge the fact that such a design oversight by the PS2 team is extremely unlikely.

Your pictures aren't funny and your thinking like a child about this.

Firefly · 2011-07-15, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by Tool

I was trying to say things in a nice way but you two are just obviously unable to see my point or acknowledge the fact that such a design oversight by the PS2 team is extremely unlikely.

Your pictures aren't funny and your thinking like a child about this.

Thinking like a child? Why, because I'm not some carebear Canadian Liberal tree-hugger with a mind towards farming daisies and tree roots in an effort to make dyes and potions for other players? This isn't Hello Kitty Online, old bean.

This is a warfare game. Thinking like a child because I drew unfunny little pictures in an effort to take a bite off my words? Okay. Let me put this to you in grown-up terms. Let me put this to you in military terms. But first, let me explain a little something to you, from a game developer standpoint (Bioware-Mythic taught me everything I know). It doesn't matter what a developer does - a game-player *WILL* find a way to use it in just about any way, shape, form, or fashion. If it can be abused (abuse meaning, legitimately... not exploited), it will be abused. It doesn't matter what I as a developer intend for this nifty little hammer. Please, MrGamer1337, use it to build a house. No fuck you, developer, it's a weapon. SMASH SMASH!

I'm sure the original PS developers did not intend for bailing out of a Mossie to be used as a quick exit from a perfectly-functioning aircraft. I'm sure they intended it as a means of possibly escaping a fiery crash and subsequent respawn. I'm sure the original PS developers did not intend for BFRs to be used inside of a base's courtyard where it would essentially park right outside a door and dump red-hot destruction into the door every time it opened. I'm sure they intended them to be neat-oh 'Mech vehicles that we'd fawn over and fap to, whilst engaging in 'Mech-on-'Mech combat in spacious areas. If a gap in logic exists, you can bank on players finding it and turning it to their advantage. That is a HARD AND FAST rule of game development, and is one of the primary reasons why they have beta-testing.

Now granted, developers can do all they can to prevent such pornographic sodomy from occurring, but in a warfare game there are bound to be soldiers playing. I'm one of them. So I will find a way. Because that's what I do. Otherwise I might as well go kill rabbits and cows in an MMO-RPG or craft fruity little potions. So unless you stick this base way the hell up in the sky... like some of the images suggest... a ground base can be besieged. If it can be besieged, it WILL be besieged. Any questions so far?

Here beginneth the lesson. Why is there a dome above a warpgate? Why is the dome so large? Well I don't know, I'm not an SOE/PS developer. To give players a chance to spawn without being fired upon, and also to manoeuvre around for a better exit position in case someone's buzzing about in their Mosquito.

The first four months of Planetside, do you know what I did? I organized my outfit and similarly-minded outfits in well-planned warpgate camps. It was my bread and butter for four months until I got bored. We would pick a warpgate and sit there for hours, destroying just about every single thing that dared to stick its head out of the dome. We're talking two to three squads of MAXes parked between the gate and the nearest tower. Two to three squads of Reavers and Mosquitos sitting at the top of the warpgate like a hawk searching for prey. A squad of people in the tower, which has been hacked for our purposes, manning the guns and setting up enough CE to kill an outfit. A squad of engineers laying down enough CE to crash a zone, dumping mines and Spitfires over every acre of terrain around the gate. Two or three squads of tanks and other vehicles at strategic points around the gate for anyone daring to bring armour. Motion alarms to try and snag rogue foot-borne cloakers. It would literally take a massive force to go all the way around to another warpgate on continent and then try to come at us from behind. At which point our cloakers at the other warpgates would signal that we were about to have company.

So yes. You can put a pretty little force dome on the base and you can make it impassable terrain except for a single road or two leading down from the mountain and you can set it way off on an island that has a single long bridge guarded by massive gun turrets and you can stack gigantic mountains around the base so nobody can get close. At some point those end, otherwise nobody can get out. Whatever you devise safely to ensure people can hole up inside because it's not a Sanctuary, I and others like me can devise a suitable method of besieging your uncapturable base.

That's how siege warfare works. You surround the fuckers and you make it impossible to get out. It can be done in every single location on this planet. Why? Because a stronghold is a single point on a map. That single point on the map will have exactly three hundred sixty degrees of circumference. Occupy those positions and you seal it off. Then it becomes a waiting game. And I guarantee you, griefing the shit out of our enemies is a lot more pleasurable of a wait than random people trapped inside wanting to get into the fight somewhere. These are lessons from time immemorial, dating back well before Caesar's well-documented siege of Alesia in 52 B.C. I suggest you look it up, as it's one of the most famous sieges in the history of warfare. 50K Romans versus an estimated 300K Gauls, outnumbered at 4:1 odds at some points, with another ~200K in the Gaul's relief force (which was also wiped out).

I have paused.

Logit · 2011-07-15, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by Firefly

You don't seem to get the point. I'm **NOT** talking about base-raping and spawn-camping and invading your uncapturable base.

If you/I can't do this...

Then you/I can certainly do this:

I think these pictures were actually hilarious.

kudos.

Tool · 2011-07-15, 01:44 PM

It was simply an example, your multi-paragraph tangent is irrelavent to an unknown game mechanic. You are being childish in many ways, simply not seeing an example as just that, an example, is one way. You seem to think the same mechanics from PS1 will apply to PS2, there may be un-enterable zones for enemy factions near these bases, who f'n knows.

I do find a bit funny when people try to bring military service into these arguments then refute the concept of more realistic gameplay elsewhere. Also your not the only who served here, my left leg can attest to that so just get over yourself please.

And sure players will use things as were not intended, does that mean restrictions wont be in place to prevent them from doing anything detrimental to gameplay at least initially or even further in development? Of course not.

Firefly · 2011-07-15, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by Tool

It was simply an example, your multi-paragraph tangent is irrelavent to an unknown game mechanic. You are being childish in many ways, simply not seeing an example as just that, an example, is one way. You seem to think the same mechanics from PS1 will apply to PS2, there may be un-enterable zones for enemy factions near these bases, who f'n knows.

I do find a bit funny when people try to bring military service into these arguments then refute the concept of more realistic gameplay elsewhere. Also your not the only who served here, my left leg can attest to that so just get over yourself please.

And sure players will use things as were not intended, does that mean restrictions wont be in place to prevent them from doing anything detrimental to gameplay at least initially or even further in development? Of course not.

No, this is childish - "LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAA LALALALALALA AALALALALALAAAA I'M NOT LISTENING LA LA LA LA LALAALALAA I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU LALALALALALA"

You don't seem to get it, AT ALL.

For fuck's sake. I've never seen G-d and I've never been to Heaven. That doesn't mean I'm not concerned about Hell.

It doesn't matter if it's a base or a zone or a whole goddamned region. It can be camped. It has a 360-degree perimeter. It can be fully enveloped. It can be encircled. It doesn't matter that we haven't seen these "uncapturable bases". It doesn't matter that we haven't seen valid and relevant info/footage of Planetside 2. Simply because it isn't visible doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

You can cry about 'restrictions' all you want. Go ahead, put all the shit you want inside it and around it to make it a safe haven, like a dome or a bunch of gun turrets. Unless those defenses have unlimited range, they will have a finite quantity that says "it does not track this far". And some guy is going to figure out just how far that is, and if he's anything like me he will wait outside with as much firepower as he can muster with as many likeminded people.

This is called "CAMPING" in a video game, and since you seem to think it's only relevant to Planetside 1 let me disabuse you of that notion: it doesn't matter what game it's in - camping is universal. Whether I'm a gamer or a civilian REMF or a soldier or your mother's panties is irrelevant - camping exists and it happens. It happens in many many games regardless of whether or not that game is Planetside. It isn't rocket science - you sit and wait with your DPS-stick or your pew-pew gun, and when a player from an enemy faction - be it Vanu, elves, drow, dwarves, Covenant, Spartans, Protoss, Zerg, Reapers, Terran Republic, Order, Destruction, Horde or Alliance - comes along, you start trying to kill it. Just because we don't know Planetside 2's mechanics doesn't mean camping isn't a valid concern.