WDS awareness?

[GeoGnome]

There has been something rolling around in my head since last night that I wanted to put up here. This isn't meant to bash the efforts of the SOE team, but quite frankly it's just something I feel I need to say.

Malorn: You say that you want the WDS to drive strategic thinking and whatnot. The problem here is that there is no planning or strategy or anything in the WDS that can be used. You log on and play. The battles are largely shifted up and down the lane by taking points, which Can be accomplished by some tactical movement... but because the bases change hands so easily, each base capture is just Meaningless. To keep assigning arbitrary values to the bases will not make people start caring about capturing Quartz Ridge camp or someplace else. What will make people start to really consider how, where, when, and why about base captures is for each base to have some kind of use... something that helps them in a realistic way. Strategically the Lattice is limiting (Tactically it has improved things though), and that is alright as the chaotic mess that was the hex did need some limiting factors, but it needs some kind of way people can actually make those big strategic decisions in an unforgiving environment in order for things to improve.

An example, but not necessarily a great one, would be a system by which you need to knock out power stations in order to take another facility. Or maybe you need to take out a communications array in order to move undetected through a valley. The only bases currently that embrace this, are the bases surrounding facilities, where you have to Take the base in order to get into the larger facility. Those kinds of things are actually exciting and make people think about how they want to approach. The current system stiffles that somewhat, because you are pretty much restricted to one approach because of the lattice, but an easy fix would be to bring back those outlying bases like there were, before the lattice... maybe don't make them full bases with a spawn, but a mini tower or underground facility, so that you have to take and hold a 30 second cap point, in order to move up through teleporters. People have to take out those strategic targets, it requires though, in order to advance. You can't take the base without a lattice link, but interaction within the base requires something different.

That covers attackers having some need to think to get in, for defenders holding a base should impart something to the owner. Again: Comm arrays could mean a sensor sweep of an area. Or you could do some kind of thing linked to implants where people need to hold a base to make and implant implants. This imparts a tangible value to the base and makes people want to take or hold these bases. These also need to be things that can't be done from the warpgate... everything can be gotten from that magical impenetrable dome. I understand that is so that people can get everything from go... but what reason then, do people have to advance down lane? They get nothing for their accomplishments. Giving people things In the world that they need to fight to achieve will be Much more of a driving force than XP or WDS or Alerts or cert points or BR EVER will be.

I Like the WDS. I get that it can help with a few things. But it will never captivate people until the world itself has some kind of reason to exist. It's all so empty and meaningless; and no amount of XP or WDS score is going to fix that underlying problem. When those kinds of things exist, so that people are actually challenged to do something... Then having those rewards in place, will mean that people will be that much Happier to get something: "Hey I worked really hard to take this, now I get a ton of XP and a ton of WDS score, yay me" but right now, it's like those consolation trophies you get for participating. You tried nothing and accomplished nothing but your still getting all this fluff. It carries No weight what-so-ever.