Metagame - slowing the zerg

[SpottyGekko]

More continents may alleviate the "faction concentration" problem. With only 3 continents currently, it's almost inevitable that each faction will concentrate on only 1 continent at a time.

If the continents increase, it will dilute the current force concentrations, because the same amount of people will then have to spread themselves further. Instead of 1 blob of zerg circulating on a single continent, they will probably move from continent to continent. But that will open up huge swathes of territory for smaller group action.

[Miffy]

The problem isn't the zerg, they're fun but the problem is there are never any stalemates like Planetside because of the hex system. In Planetside you'd meet base to base and constantly have giant battle after giant battle. In Planetside 2 the Hex system just means you bail on defending a base and just attack somewhere else.

Make it linear and then people have to defend.

[Rahabib]

Originally Posted by Miffy

The problem isn't the zerg, they're fun but the problem is there are never any stalemates like Planetside because of the hex system. In Planetside you'd meet base to base and constantly have giant battle after giant battle. In Planetside 2 the Hex system just means you bail on defending a base and just attack somewhere else.

Make it linear and then people have to defend.

Thanks. You highlighted real problem - there are no stalemates. If you are out numbered you will lose. I would love to see it take longer to capture a base and when you do, you dont have to worry about it being taken back 10 minutes later. When they can bail and go anywhere they want, there's too many avenues to have to defend, making holding ground impossible. But lets be honest - lattice isnt coming back, so we have to find a way for the hex to work.

I have no problem with the zerg, I just want it so that they are not unstoppable.

[Whiteagle]

Well hopefully more Continents will alleviate the ambiguous approches avalible to the Zerg by bottle-necking them at the Warpgates, creating a "Meta-lattice" that connects Continent-to-Continent instead of Base-to-Base.

[Fujilives]

The core problem I see is with the "Take base / Abandon base / Lose base immediately" scenario we see right now. This is what drove me to eventually leave Planetside 1, as every victory felt incredibly small.


I propose the following four changes:

1) After a major base is captured (not the outlying mini-bases) put a 30 minute lock on small (500 xp) bases, and a 1-hour lock on large (1000 xp) bases. This would let forward momentum actually mean something other than ZERG ZERG ZERG and allow for strategies other than "roll in with 3000 tanks/birds" (it wouldn't eliminate it, but with defensive incentives we might even see infantry make an impact in 'the war').

2) After the capture-protection timer is exhausted, I think the game should begin ramping up experience points obtainable by taking a base, for example, if a base is captured immediately after it becomes unlocked, it's worth 1000 xp (same as it is now). If it's captured 3 days later, it's worth 3000 xp. I'd love to see how this would result in added incentive to push against the TR at the Crown, but there have been times where they hold it for days on end and committing the suicide that is climbing up the hill gets to be ridiculous. If that incentive to take it over grew

3) Defensive XP should be tied to a similar concept, where every 30 minutes you get a % increase in xp for kills at that base. I.E. if you held the base for 30 minutes past the point of unlock, you'd get 125% xp per kill, 60 minutes: 150% xp, 90 minutes: 175% xp, 120 minutes: 200% xp (200% is a decent place to cap it) - this would add incentive for long-term defenses.

4) Finally, if a base your faction owns is in "limbo", where your faction does not have more than 50% control anymore, I believe you should be rewarded 50% of the original capture bonus if you manage to reclaim and defend it. In Example - if you are NS and you lose half of your blue faction control bar at a place that originally awarded you 500 xp, you'll gain 250 xp for fully-recapping that base with a 100% blue bar. 1000 point original bonus bases would award 500, etc.

[AThreatToYou]

Originally Posted by Crator

Addition of more continents with true continental locking along with removal of 3 empire footholds and addition of empire home continents will change this drastically.

Yep.

I'm not sure how else to solve this. Going back and forth over a base for points is awesome because it gets you more points. Doing something else gets you less points, so it's boring.
As soon as you cap a base to push it out, the zerg dissolves and it's really hard to farm until the zerg reforms, and then you have to find the zerg. That sucks! It's boring.

The biggest problem with the game right now is player behavior patterns caused by flaws in the game itself.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

Yep.

I'm not sure how else to solve this. Going back and forth over a base for points is awesome because it gets you more points. Doing something else gets you less points, so it's boring.
As soon as you cap a base to push it out, the zerg dissolves and it's really hard to farm until the zerg reforms, and then you have to find the zerg. That sucks! It's boring.

The biggest problem with the game right now is player behavior patterns caused by flaws in the game itself.

Once you get leaders that wish to play the global meta-game and you put in a few more conts that connect to other empire's home conts that give a nice benefit if owned, you will see players start to focus more.

[Seafort]

We just have the barebones now. SOE have done a disservice to themselves and their fans as many gamers will play PS2 and think, "is this it?", and quit after a few weeks/months.

The game should have been delayed till 2013 but money rules all. It will be their undoing.

Their only advantage is that it's F2P and some people may come back when it finally has a metagame and not this massive team deathmatch we have now.

Lets hope SOE get their heads out of their collective arses and add some depth to the game sooner rather than later.