Bring back Galaxy AMS, as it was in beta, because it was fun.

Tatwi · 2013-02-04, 02:59 AM

You know what, that was really the most fun time I had in PS2. Lots of fights in different locations, from tiny to huge, all over the map. Something for everyone and it gave a fun vehicle a big, fun role to play.

Removing the Galaxy AMS and creating the adjacency system really sucked the life out of the game and I feel it did so for the wrong reason. What was the reason? They made adjacency to solve the annoyance of people taking hexes almost instantly and then leaving them. They called this whack-a-mole and they solved it completely the wrong way.

What they did was add adjacency and remove the Galaxy AMS, some strategy, nifty human randomness, options, and most of the small battles (despite the fact that many people prefer small battles). What they should have done instead is actually really simple:

1. Require 3 to 6 people for an Outpost capture point to be captured, thus solving the truly annoying "one dude keeps capping this when we leave" issue. It also makes capturing a point a strategic event involving positioning, situational awareness, and communication - exactly what small outfits keep saying they wish they needed to do in PS2!

2. Put a 5 to 10 minute lockout timer on all Outpost captures, such that once you cap it, it's yours and can't be taken for that amount of time. Now Higby called lockout timers "hamfisted" when I suggested this in beta (despite the fact that they actually DID THIS in beta), but if the ham fits... Truth be told, this would work fine and it suits the way game is supposed to be played.

Bringing back the Galaxy AMS and removing adjacency will give people the ability and the reason to spread out and use the whole map for fighting. That's a good thing in massively multiplayer online FPS game, especially one that tends to play very poorly when too many people are fighting in one area.

Ps. Also posted on the SOE foruns here.

Consumer · 2013-02-04, 04:09 AM

Adjacency is an okay idea and I can't say definitively either way whether I like it or not because I see its purpose but would enjoy the freedom without it.

I'm not sure if it's me, but I did like the removal of AMS from the Galaxy. It centralizes the mobile spawn points to the Sunderer and spawn beacons. The Galaxy is already a tough bird that can drop in 12 guys into an area, which is a small strike force in and of itself to at least hack vehicle terminals to spawn Sunderers and set up beacons. If the AMS returns to the Galaxy, I'd say it would be an extraneous change rather than an improvement.

Figment · 2013-02-04, 04:27 AM

Tatwi, your suggestion would remove strategy, burn out resecure teams and make them apathic to conquest because it becomes impossibly demanding where they are already taxed to the brink of apathy.

The adjecency at least makes map conquest viable, even if it requires a huge pop advantage right now in the order of 55% or more.

Bringing the ams Galaxy back would remove the usefulness of walls once more and would make the ground fight too slow to compete due to traveling. An AMS supporting a larger group can be dealt with by small groups, but a Galaxy cannot. You would once more remove an already extremely small chance for small defensive groups to compete strategically without resorting to fleeing and bringing aircraft in a counter attack after having lost the base.

All in all, I don't quite understand how you dare use the word "strategic" and "fun" for this concept in this context, because it is a strategist's nightmare to have no control over the flow of battle at all and would give far too much weight to constant random attacks, making defense not only unattractive, but utterly frustrating, impossible to respond to everything and entirely pointless. Consolidating terrain would be near impossible and it would work horrendously in an even bigger map setup with more continents, simply because the amount of "links" you would create would be in the order of hundreds of options, far, far too many to respond to. It is already in the order of dozens with adjecency and we still ghost a lot.

Furthermore, lockouts only cause people to sit around to wait. They tried it in beta and it failed badly. It didn't do anything for the flow, it just caused a temporary lull in the fight where some infils hid themselves to reset the capture a few minutes later without having been detered or the fight allowed to move on.

It would mean less fights, more ghosting, more frustration, more boredom and would overall be tremendously less fun. Sorry Tatwi, but what you suggest is horrible and a nightmare scenario with utterly poor insight and lacks future vision.

Sturmhardt · 2013-02-04, 04:46 AM

The Galaxy AMS lead to totally unpredictable enemy movement thus removing strategy and planning from the game. It's good that the sunderer fills that role now.

But: I would like to see a Squad-AMS funktion for the Gal, that enables your squad (or platoon, but that might be too much) to spawn there. It would give the Galaxy some meaning in the game but would not be as overpowered as the Galaxy AMS in beta.

Rolfski · 2013-02-04, 06:29 AM

I can remember from beta the moment they introduced the adjacency system and the AMS module for the Sunderer while removing it from the Galaxy. It significantly improved the game play and allowed for much bigger and more focused battles.

Boomzor · 2013-02-04, 07:06 AM

The main reason the AMS was removed from the galaxy was that it completely ignored terrain features and natural choke points.
You could set up shop pretty much anywhere and it wasn't very hard to get there.
In conjunction with the no adjacency of before, it led to a massive whack-a-mole situation in which you could rarely make an educated guess of where the enemy would be likely to attack and from what direction they were expected come from.

Case in point were the constant warp gate cut-offs going on.

I don't ever want to go back to that.

Currently, due to the base layouts, it can be argued that the AMS are better spawn points than facilities, because of their mobility. The fact that you can put it pretty much anywhere you want as long as you can drive there (and that no one got there before you did) gives you a leg up over the defenders.

Put that power on to galaxies and your mobile spawn points are only limited to where you can fly and land a galaxy. That's pretty much every where. Balancing a base to be more defensible (something we're still in dire need of) on that premise is a nightmare.

Rothnang · 2013-02-04, 07:48 AM

Galaxy AMS wasn't all that fun to be honest. It made ground vehicles pretty much completely irrelevant.

Canaris · 2013-02-04, 07:53 AM

plus they were a bit hard to hide on the front lines, honestly Tatwi for myself I'd have to say the Gal AMS was more infuriating than fun.

psijaka · 2013-02-04, 08:03 AM

Adjacency is essential to stop the game being one giant clusterfcuk.

Having the Sunderer as the AMS is quite enough of an advantage for attackers, but this advantage is held in check by the need to actually drive the beast to where you want it, avoiding impassable terrain and the enemy whilst doing so.

A Galaxy can quickly go pretty much anywhere with minimal effort; having it as an AMS would give far too much of an advantage to the attackers.

I do agree with the principle of suggestion 1 made by the OP; even making it so that 2 people are required to capture a control point from the defenders would drastically reduce ghost capping. But I'm against an arbitrary lockdown period; this would achieve nothing.

Figment · 2013-02-04, 08:08 AM

I don't agree with the multiple players needed thing because it ups the requirements for an already advantaged larger group, while forcing smaller groups to have a larger percentage of their already disadvantaged group in a predictable location.

Furthermore, if the last standing isn't a medic, they'd still have lost.

It also isn't newbee friendly, as newbees tend to have to figure things out on their own a lot. Making things require multiple people without it being evident why or that it should be (opposed to say a vehicle having multiple seats and different controls) doesn't make the game more intuitive.

raw · 2013-02-04, 08:11 AM

No..

SwiftRanger · 2013-02-04, 08:28 AM

Squad spawn Galaxies would be too risky as well I think or it should cost a huge amount of certs to cert into in the first place (which was the plan according to the devs the last time I checked) and/or cost a certain amount of resources for the pilot per spawn that comes out of it.

In any case, having the Galaxy just as a resupply point/weapons terminal (but not as a spawn point) wouldn't hurt. I am curious why that hasn't been implemented yet.

Figment · 2013-02-04, 08:33 AM

Am skeptic about squad spawn Gal-AMSes as well, really depends on how it's implemented.

I don't believe in restriction by cert points when cert points are endlessly available. IF it's powerful, by the end of the week all that want it have it.

Originally Posted by SwiftRanger

In any case, having the Galaxy just as a resupply point/weapons terminal (but not as a spawn point) wouldn't hurt. I am curious why that hasn't been implemented yet.

They could even strip some guns from it and make it an aerial refueling platform for ammunition - but given how easy it is to get to a repair pad, it seems somewhat redundant.

For ground vehicles, it's a likelier possibility. In that case I would make the Sunderer Ammo upgrade resupply infantry only, though at a slower rate than ammo packs (although I'm still no fan of ammo packs and would rather have larger munitions pouches and trading/sharing limited quantities of ammo between players).

Canaris · 2013-02-04, 08:35 AM

Originally Posted by SwiftRanger

Squad spawn Galaxies would be too risky as well I think or it should cost a huge amount of certs to cert into in the first place (which was the plan according to the devs the last time I checked) and/or cost a certain amount of resources for the pilot per spawn that comes out of it.

In any case, having the Galaxy just as a resupply point/weapons terminal (but not as a spawn point) wouldn't hurt. I am curious why that hasn't been implemented yet.

Equipment terminal on a Gal is great idea for in field resupply, it is a giant transport after all.

Bear · 2013-02-04, 08:40 AM

I'm not sure what the right answer for the Galaxy is but here are my thoughts on the issue:
1. Allowing mass respawns on a Galaxy kills the "front line" game play
2. Deliverig troops is awesome, ditching your Gal after is not
3. Galaxies we be more fun with a AP Shredder in the belly.
4. Squad respawns might be ok but they'd have to be limited.
5. Driving everywhere in a Sunderer SUCKS.