Crowd control: How to tame the Zerg in Planetside 2

[Kerrec]

Please allow me to play devil's advocate...

Avoid it altogether
It works. It's a solution I often use myself. HOWEVER, what I WANT is a hard earned fight where I spend my "valuable" resources wisely to counter what I am facing. Avoiding a zerg, which has the large majority of the opposing team's population, is akin to saying, go ghost cap all night. BORING.


Make it split
I have to say that it is not likely going to happen. Zergs are all about getting XP for taking bases. You can completely cut off a Zerg's location from their warpgate, and they can still move forward and cap more bases without ever needing to turn around. Not to say they won't do it, but you're more likely going to get the entire zerg, than a split.

Redirect it towards the other enemy
Tactically, this is a losing strategy. Every kill grants xp and certs. You are basically advocating the other two teams to go and get stronger by feeding off each other, while you stagnate.

Bleed it dry
I don't understand. Zergs almost always conquer continents. That means they gain increased resources and benefits, as well as several more locations to pull vehicles from. The way the maps are designed, a new vehicle is a nearby base away. So how does that drain them? How do they lose their ability to spawn vehicles?

The way I see it, as a Zerg slowly dominates a continent, the opposing team population steadily declines, often seeing the zerg have 90% of the population for that continent. This is basically your #1 in action, ie: dont' fight the zerg. By the time the zerg reaches the enemy warpates, there are almost no bases left to conquer and definitely no enemy to kill (in any kind of satisfactory quantity). So the zerg either logs off for the night, or moves to another continent. THAT is why zergs lose steam as they approach enemy warpgates.

Ambush it
From my experience, Zergs are not just infantry, or just armor, or just air assets. They are an abundance of all of them. You can set up AA nests to counter air and you'll get steamrolled by armor and infantry. You can set up ambushes to take out armor but you'll get steamrolled by Air and Infantry. You can try to set up ambushes to take out infantry.... lol, yeah right. Most zergs only jump out of their vehicles or /suicide/redeploy once a new base has been reached.

Start your own Zerg
As a zerg forms for one faction, the population on the continent declines for the other two factions. You can form a nice column of armor as often as you want, but zergs influence continent populations such that they are often 70%+. You think you're going to zerg a zerg with your 30%? Assuming they all wait in line patiently while everyone "lines up"?

Annihilate it
No comment.

I think the one thing you fail to account for in your solutions, is human nature. IE: the path of least resistance. It is a nightly occurance to see VS zerging on one continent, NC on another continent and TR on the last one on my server. Why don't zergs ever hop into the same continents and face each other?

Make ghost capping give ZERO XP and I assure you people would choose NOT to defend bases when severely outmatched, giving the enemy no XP for their efforts. THEN people would spread out, looking for fights that will net them some benefit.

[Rolfski]

Believe me or not, I have seen all tactics working in the game otherwise I wouldn't have wrote them down. It's based on my experience playing in teams, not some theoretical exercise.

Your assumptions on how zergs work are way too generic imo and there is a big difference between a casual zerg and a continent overpopulation as these are not necessarily correlated to each other.

Zergs often have organised outfits in them and these will for sure split off from a zerg to prevent a cut-off. Making a zerg fighting your other enemy does not make you weaker at all, it's an excellent "economy of force" that allows you deploy your troops towards objectives that give more rewards.
And yes, zergs do loose steam a lot. You obviously haven't experienced them enough. Vehicle timers can have an influence in the strength of a zerg for sure but most of the time empires will start their own zerg from the warp gate that will stop the remants of a zerg in its tracks. I see this happen all the time.
Many times I have been involved in zerg ambushes (receiving and performing), especially at Quartz Ridge Camp or at the ravines near the NC Warpgate at Indar. Ambushes really can stop a zerg.

A zerg doesn't automatically mean a continent is instantly lost. Most of the time they will gain ground only to be halted at some point. A typical zerg flow is the thug-of-war between TR and VS between Hvar and Indar Excavation. You will see zergs going back & forth a lot between these points. At least on Miller server.

[Kerrec]

What else can I say? I play on Jaeger. I have about 53 hours played total on my TR character and maybe 20? on my NC.

Out of those 73 hours played, I have either:

1) been part of a zerg or playing on the outskirts of one as it sweeps across the continents, or

2) been part of 10% population my faction has on a particular continent, trying not to pick off more than I can chew.


I don't know if you consider 70 ish hours "enough" time to have an opinion, but if I didn't expect the gameplay to change with future updates/patches, then I wouldn't keep playing. Because ALL I have seen in 70 hours is ZERG facing insignificant resistance, from both ends of the stick.

Zerg by definition, in its roots as a Starcraft "race", is overwhelming with sheer numbers. I can't possibly see how you'd convince me that population imbalances on a continent isn't tied to the "zerg"?

The way it plays out on my server, is each continent has a different color zerg. You choose to fight against it, be part of it, or play "near" your faction's zerg. I don't see any other choices.

I'm not part of any big Outfit, but it's blatently obvious where the zergs are. If some Outfit is looking for tactical play, why don't the Zergs face off against each other instead of just dominating their one contient? The reality seems like pretty good evidence for my "generic" assumptions on zergs.

I do applaud your efforts to try and find ways to fight. I suppose I've just become cynical and don't expect it to happen unless the game mechanics force the issue.

[Rolfski]

Continent overpopulation isn't the same as local concentration of force or zerg. Check this topic on what is defined as a zerg in PS2. You can be severely outnumbered on a continent while still maintaining a steamroller of 25+ vehicles. In the other way around it's certainly not impossible for a faction to have a population of 50%+ but still fighting on so many fronts that neither of these fronts has a zerg going on.

And I guess there are differences based on server. Miller is fairly competitive. You will often see continent population in relative balance and zergs duking it out vs another or outfits using these tactics to deal with zergs.

[Kerrec]

Well, if account wide unlocks get put in the game, I'll abandon Jaeger because all I see are hugely imbalanced fights solely due to continent population imbalance.

As for the definition of Zerg, the way I've experienced it on Jaeger, is the more value a base awards, the more concentrated the attacking force becomes. For example, a base that awards 1000 xp will have hundreds (hard to guess real numbers) of people swarming all over it, while the outlying bases that give 500 or 250 xp will have noticeably less. UNLESS one of those smaller bases has a larger defending force, then the kill xp of those bases raises the prospect of "more XP" and it gets swarmed.

Without tooting my own horn, I will say that I reliably predict the path of the Zerg. I don't like being in the middle of one, fighting over scraps. So I'll often leap frog ahead of a zerg, predicting where it will go next and hope to have a good battle against whoever is defending. Either I succeed, and the zerg catches up to me to cap the base, or I fail and find the Zerg there by the time I get back. I'm not often wrong. So I feel justified in stating what seems obvious to me.

[Morsong]

This is awesome! I was in a random full platoon today and was wondering why our zerg was avoiding the enemy zerg. If I was the leader I would have done exactly what the OP is trying to convey. We need more zerg hunting PUGs!!

[Rolfski]

This topic has made it into an official published article so thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion. Unfortunately, I had to ditch my MS Paint artwork for something more boring and formal.

[Kerrec]

Congratulations on your article. Sincerely. Both of them, actually.

Also worth noting, that in the comments, the first couple comments are from people that are pretty much saying the same thing I've said already in this forum.

I do applaud the attempt to find a way to tackle zergs. Wish my server would pit zerg vs. zerg instead of the continent merry go round that is currently the status quo.

[Rockit]

Do something like this and I will be impressed. Who won outfit wars back in the day? FC? I don't know who these clowns are in this vid but they are organized. Sorry ASL I know you but just for dramatic effect.

[Rockit]

This is how we used to play. Personal.

[PoisonTaco]

Just need to build some Colossi and the zerg are no problem. All that splash damage is too much for a ground zerg. If they start massing air we'll get blink stalkers to deal with it.

On a more serious note, would adding more death penalties help reduce the zerg? Like in PS1 if you died too much you had a longer respawn timer. That could help a lot.

[Rockit]

If you want to interest small spec outfits like UMVS, DT, ASL, give them a purpose. They don't zerg but rather kick the enemy in the balls where it hurts. Problem is where is that ballsack? Oh and via my friend Checko. Why in the hell is the TTK so damn low?

[Rockit]

Please get Dave Georgeson on this project Smed!

[Rockit]

I may get told to fuck off but I asked for Dave.

[Hamma]

Dave is awesome.