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.

[Rivenshield]

Originally Posted by Tapman

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.

I dunno if you've seen it yet, but Buzz has a surprisingly lucid, detailed essay over on the official forums that's getting a lot of positive feedback:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...ee-them.73820/

Higby's seen it. He responds:

>I've read it. Good points, and ones that will be addressed with some substantial score, xp, and reward changes in the next few months.

In brief, no base redesign, no revamping of HE spammage... just shuffling XP incentives around. They already have the answers to what they think the questions are and have already allocated man-hours to them.

I fear this game is headed towards the same chasm that swallowed SWTOR.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Originally Posted by Tapman

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.

Many many many people on these forums have spent a large amount of time and energy (during development, alpha and beta) saying that in a team-based game with infinite respawns and no time limit, there is absolutely no point at all in tracking a KDR as an important stat. But we knew that our point of view would never be taken seriously because the "target audience" doesn't know what life is like without a KDR and barely knows what 'teamwork' means.

it's all very sad.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by Rivenshield

I dunno if you've seen it yet, but Buzz has a surprisingly lucid, detailed essay over on the official forums that's getting a lot of positive feedback:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...ee-them.73820/

Higby's seen it. He responds:

>I've read it. Good points, and ones that will be addressed with some substantial score, xp, and reward changes in the next few months.

In brief, no base redesign, no revamping of HE spammage... just shuffling XP incentives around. They already have the answers to what they think the questions are and have already allocated man-hours to them.

I fear this game is headed towards the same chasm that swallowed SWTOR.

I actually don't get how the following he is proposing will work properly tbh.

FROM: Problems with PlanetSide 2 as I see them
Right now, a big problem with the game is that we don’t get a whole lot of XP for capping
a base; you get a non-insignificant amount, but it pales in comparison to farming kills at a
deployed enemy Sunderer. Linked to this problem is that you get a bonus for capping an empty
enemy base.

The solution to this problem comes straight from Planetside 1; in Planetside 1, your XP gain for
a capture was based upon how much fighting was on that base. If it was a heavily contested base, the reward scaled appropriately to reflect that. If the base was empty, the reward for the capture was insignificant. Basically, you were rewarded for taking risks. High risks held the promise of high rewards and encouraged players to always move towards the areas with the heaviest
fighting.

So somehow the players are supposed to force themselves into offensive battles without defensive measures? Who will be there to fight the offense to produce the larger XP gains? I don't really see how this is any different from what the current system provides really. The incentive defend or attack a location should be for domination of territory. The byproduct of that should be the XP gains. I agree that the PS1 dynamic XP system was good in this regard but the base designs allowed for the battles to persist or be responded to in order to defend territory and take new territory. Not everyone attacked a base for the XP gains in PS1 although that was a part of it. Locations were attacked because they offered an advantage to capturing territory.

Oh, I read further. He states that removing adjacency and putting hard timers on locations will fix that. But then later says:

And just as an aside for those who are worried about sitting around and waiting: what do we do in the game right now? We sit around and wait anyway! Sometimes, you can start a capture with 100% influence only to have the capture slow down to a crawl thanks to that same influence
system. Being stuck waiting for 45 minutes for a capture just because the surrounding territories constantly keep changing hands is not fun.

What does he think base defensibility does? Never mind, Buzz does go into needing more base defensibility later on in the post. You're just saying Higby didn't say anything about that so it's screwed up right? I think you already know that I think it's screwed up with my above rant. :P

[DaiZero]

Players can be incentivized to do (or not do) just about anything you want. Obviously, certifications are currently the primary concern for the majority of players, and their behavior is dictated by this principle. Wherever the XP is easiest/fastest/greatest, the players will follow. If you want to keep the ground rules the same as they are now, then minor changes to the XP delivery system will significantly alter the gameplay. One easy fix to a lot of problems with zergs avoiding each other would be to tie XP gain to the number of enemy present in the hex. There are myriad minor tweaks you guys could roll out one at a time to gauge the community response and reaction. Trial and error is the name of the game, and as always, minor tweaks and changes are going to be the key. Any major upsets will inevitably cause more problems than they fix. As they say in the Army, "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."

[Scorpion Six]

Well I think I may be in the minority on this one but I'll get to what I disagree with in a second.
What I DO agree with is that ghost capping should give NO xp. It is a tactical option but gaining the xp you get now from it is too much.
Now to make people mad..lol.

1. Dont give me all the information I need on my map. I LIKE seeing "enemy platoon(s) present" and having to figure out what my opponent is thinking. I like having to send out a recon team to tell me what the make up of those enemy platoons are. I like having to rely on intel from the field on the status of SCU's etc. It makes it more interesting for me.
2. Lattice. Well we already have this but it has no functionality. The hex system is fine but we need to add functionality to it. i.e if you control all the hexes to your tech plant then you can pull armor. If that connection is severed then you lose that ability in the hexes that are no longer connected.
3. "I want to be viable as infantry, nerf everything else". Sadly for these folks there are people that only want to be viable as Armor or Air. You can't take their playstyle away from them for your. PS2 should be dominated by infantry no more than it should be dominated by air or armor. If you are running a PUG of all infantry then you better know when you have run into a force you cant contend with or you better be flexible enough to pull bursters or heavies for armor.
4. Lack of defense. The population does defend because there's no benefit to it I agree but on my server (Mattheson) the zerg doesnt want a fight anyway. The want minimal resistance for maximum gain. I can't count how many time The Enclave has pushed a continent in force, found they had stiff resistance AND FLED TO ANOTHER CONTINENT, not redirecting the TR to another side of the same map..just another easier map altogether. The larger outfits and zerg are not out to help their alliance but out for the certs and xp. This may change once every hits max lvl and theres nothing else to gain from this. To be honest though, If i run into a far superior force, I am not sacrificing my guys to them. I will redirect and go around, out flank etc. I will fight for the map but on my terms (Sun Tzu says so )
5. Coordination and Communication. The number one thing I see different in PS2 vs PS1 is the coordination between outfits and squad leaders. It's typically non existent. If youre not on a specific teamspeak server youre out of the loop and that teamspeak server is typically useless. That PUG infantry squad? I bet it would do ALOT better if it had a PUG air squad to go with it...

Bottom line: Don't ask to be hand fed by the devs. Change YOUR mentality in game. Devs DO need to give us some tools to lead and work with though.

[AThreatToYou]

To this from the above poster,

Dont give me all the information I need on my map. I LIKE seeing "enemy platoon(s) present"

Can I at least see where all of my allies are?

[Scorpion Six]

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

To this from the above poster,



Can I at least see where all of my allies are?

I see nothing wrong with matching the "enemy platoon(s) present) with a "friendly platoon(s) present".