Ghost capping zergs - air domination everywhere else - wordt 2x event ever.

[Tapman]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The OP isn't crazy - I've observed the same behavior lately, especially late at night. I like to occasionally join random squads and try to be a typical casual player and see how different types of players and outfits experience the game.

This is what I typically see in larger groups - players roll around in a blob from territory to territory getting capture XP and avoiding the enemy. When the blobs meet it is by chance, not intent. When players try to stop the blob they usually get rolled and have little choice but to find their own team's blob and roll with it. Larger outfits have the numbers to chance this behavior, which is why I don't see it on ops. Seen several reddit threads pop up about this sort of thing too.

Seems to be a combination of playing the territory control game + path of least resistance....but it isn't fun...at all. Its the exact opposite of what I experience in outfit play where we intentionally go after the enemy and pick fights because that's where the entertainment is.

Any feedback from the PSU community on contributing factors to this behavior? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to learn what y'all think is going on here.

Fewer PS1 vets who know how to organize and follow orders compared to the new(er) players who go after a K/D ratio, I draw a line between this and the game still missing a mission system and deeper metagame, plus there are MUCH fewer continents to play on currently than what Planetside opened with.

I put Alpha Squad and a year's membership on my card already despite having little to no time to play because I truly believe that this game can evolve into the type of epic experience that Planetside 1 delivered regularly. With the population and scale of the game, the opportunity for this is ripe if the resources are properly motivated and focused. There will always be the zergs hitting each other and setting up meatgrinders but these should be focused in areas of combined arms i.e. Ground AND Air Vehicles in addition to Infantry where organized groups can dominate their respective areas of expertise.

I also believe that there should be a major focus on developing indoor combat. Facilities are horribly easy to capture, not having the Siege battles is truly tragic. One of my favorite memories was early on in Planetside when we were defending the NC crater against the TR, their bursters and snipers positioned themselves around the crater walls and they laid siege upon us. We responded with our Phoenixes, snipers, and OS's as the fight for the sky alternated between being bombarded by high altitude Libs and annihilating full Gals riding in to attempt an op. Vehicles pushed against each other but eventually the TR overran the courtyard. We were pushed into the corner but we responded by mounting organized, dynamic defenses throughout the facility. We dug in and pushed the TR back out of the base, the courtyard, and soon after back out beyond the crater and into the rest of the continent. In Planetside 2 you may have a few particular spots that are always high population but most of the other facilities are relative pushovers comparatively. What I also remember is that if I participated in the capture or defense of a base, the experience scaled upwards towards the bigger fights. Not as in the amount of standard BEP/SEP but in the capture itself, larger accomplishments resulted in larger rewards. A high amount of focus seems to be directed at the K/D ratio and this does not promote the teamplay required to take this experience to the next level.