Tactical Misconceptions Pt1: Bio Lab.

[NewSith]

PlanetSide 2 as of now is a unique game.

The uniqueness of it is that developers are trying so hard to eliminate any advantage defenders have, and provide an edge to attackers instead. How is that happening? And why is that happening? Well, let's take the structures, most indicative in that regard: Bases.

Bio Lab

Supposed Developers' Idea:
The original purpose of a Biolab was to create an enclosed urban combat amidst an open battleground. Now the thing about urban combat is that you never know where to expect the attack from. Developers most certainly had that in mind while developing the interior. In every urban combat - the objective is to isolate, secure, and push through the outskirts of the urban area, to prevent the enemy from entering the labyrynth and getting lost inside it.

Tactical Assessment:
Let's just imagine for a second 4 squads of people fighting a 2sq versus 2sq match on a biolab. The defending squad will try and take and hold the control of a satellite base that has a teleporter to the SCU shield gen. The rest of the defending team will hold the pads and teleporters. Devs had that in mind when the base was designed.

Truth:
What happens however is a whole different story. The game is supposed to force teamwork, but what it really does is it promotes zerging. Zerg has no brain, no coordination, and most importantly, no communication due to region chat being totally counter-intuitive. And as a result the base is a chaotic fight with enemies constantly popping behind your back, killing you and moving on to kill more. That's how it goes for most of the zerglings fighting for a Biolab. The situation is especially dire due to the scale fo the game, the coordination you need to have in place for a succesful BioLab defense is huge and in the current environment is unreachable at all.

Problems (From My Standpoint):

• Attacking side has an advantage over defending side, even at the CP placement. Defenders only have 1 point in the vicinity of their spawnroom, while enemy has free reign over the remaining two. This is something you can also find on any tower or a multiple-point outpost.
• Both airpads are easily accessible. You make only one pad accessible and the fight changes that instant. Zergling will fight for the reachable pad, while clever people will try to either use a ramp and make it around the dome for the prestine airpad or try and galdrop on it.
• The base design includes 2+ teleporters, the ultimate bane of any constructve fight there.
• It is "the bane" because of the effect 2 entrances with shields give. The shield that let people camp inside and shoot outside make it totally impossible to bottleneck the attackers in any way.
• Light Assault. It really seems like developers are forgetting about that obstacle-ignoring class they added. They rule the night on any biolab and only cause people to rage over senseless deaths. There is no way to stop them, while there should be.

Finally, it is totally worth to mention that Biolab is the only base that has the spawnroom situated INSIDE the superstructure. However a Biolab is in fact an outdoor environment, limited to infantry only. So the effect is ghostly, to say the least. Defenders are still getting camped inside without the ability to push out.




I'll bring the 2 other bases misconceptions to the surface later and 1 overall feedback that sums up the misconception common for all three and other bases.