Meta game problems and proposals

[Twido]

I would like to spark some discussion about the upcoming meta game and some of the problems it might have. My understanding is that the meta game will be some method of continent locking allowing the domination of more territory.

Before Planetside 2, I got my MMO PvP fix from Guild wars 2. When I played, this game had effectively four continents with three opposing servers and no way of continent locking. Soon after launch it became apparent that the winners were the servers with the biggest off peak player base. It was not uncommon to find all the progress made during the day was completely wiped away every night and they would have an insurmountable lead in the score. This caused much angst on the forums and by the time I left that game, it had not been resolved.

This could potentially be a problem for Planetside 2 once continents can be locked, and it is not a problem that is easy to fix. I play on Miller and I don’t see one faction dominating all the continents overnight but it could well be a problem on other servers. Furthermore, when we have a good reason to dominate the continents, this could be more of an issue. One shouldn’t underestimate the dedication of some players to win; in guild wars 2 people played every night against no real opposition capturing all the maps and then camping at their “warp gate”.

In the end, the player led solution was to try and bring guilds from different time zones onto your sever so that you would have a presence at night. I guess if enough people did this then things would even out, but it relies on people willing to play on servers that are further away. Of course, many people did not see it as a problem, but more of a feature; war is war and one should do whatever it takes to win. Unsurprisingly this is the view of people who have a larger night time population.

I have to admit that I would find it very frustrating if when we are pushed back to our final warp gate each night regardless of how well we play during the day. A suggested solution was to limit score (or maybe in the case of PS2 continent capping) to prime time hours. However I believe this will ruin the game outside of prime time and therefor a direction best avoided.

So how do you see this playing out, will it be an issue, does it even matter and what could be the solution? I have played on both east coast and European servers and not noticed a performance difference. So could it be an answer to have non location specific servers?

My other proposal for the meta game is counter intuitive and perhaps unnecessary but hear me out! Currently in Planetside 2, if your faction does well and captures continents then it gets some kind of bonus as a reward. This makes it easier to then capture the next continent and so on. If your faction was losing because it has a lower population (or was underpowered) then it just gets harder and harder to compete and so in theory you fall further and further behind. This isn’t so important with only three continents and a fairly worthless bonus, but these things will hopefully change in time.
I propose that as one faction dominates the continents then the other factions get the bonuses. This means that if one faction is under populated and gets pushed back, then it becomes easier for them to push out again. Now obviously there needs to be more of an incentive to capture the continents, I just don’t think it should be bonus related. For example we could have a worldwide (or server wide) leader board showing faction statistics, who is winning the war and giving us all the chance to wave our E-peen around.

Personally I would like to see a random piece of propaganda on the character selection screen based on the performance of the factions. This could be quite sophisticated with a little bit of effort. What I really want is a reason to fight that isn’t bonus related, a few paragraphs of humorous propaganda would be enough for me and very easy to implement. What is your opinion of this?

Sorry for writing so much, TLDR: go back to school!