What Happened To The Bases...

[Karrade]

Originally Posted by T MAN

I remember seeing this a long time ago and thought it looked great. A better improved PS1 base with buildings inside, etc. Now what im seeing is not like that at all, they gotten rid of the walls and sheilds and just better placement of things imo. Now looks more like team deathmatch as people here have been mentioning.

Maybe, im hopeing is that we have not heard all the infomation about upgrading bases, that would call from space and help fortify your base.
I remember Smedley pointing out the landing feet on that building in the first reveal.

Well see with coming soon beta i guess, can't wait.

Upgrading bases would be significantly awesome, the longer you hold it the more entrenched you become.

Like large CE only done by the base/resources or whatever.

[sunzen]

I hope there will be some walled bases, soon we will learn more. The walls add a raid or storm the castle feeling to the game which I like very much and really dont want to miss.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Zidane

I agree, by making all the bases different it will always allow for different types of assaults and defenses.

True, but the downside is that you will be lost for longer and have more layouts to learn.

I give you caves - lots of people didn't like them because they couldn't find their way around
Even in current bases, how often have you been asked "Bio Lab, that's the one with the CC on the roof, right?'

**just pointing out an upside has a downside hiding somewhere**


Personally, I like the variety. I am not sure about the lack of walls but whether that is good or not I'll only come a solid opinion once I've been in game a seen and fought over it.

[Shadowrath]

Originally Posted by Otleaz

I disagree. The more walled bases the better. You can find deathmatch areas at the lower tiered facilities.

More walled the better.

[Erendil]

I'm all for unique and varied base layouts, but I'm a little concerned about the lack of defensive capabilities some of these bases. Zurvan Amp station from the E3 footage has me particularly concerned.

The base is so open you can drive ground vehicles pretty much anywhere within the compound, meaning there is no solid defensible position for the defending empire to draw a line in the sand and stop an enemy advance, no place to safely repair/rearm their own vehicles upon retreat, and no place to safely rally up for a concentrated counterattack to push enemy forces out of the base. The surrounding terrain may serve to herd and redirect approaching attacking forces, but it's way too open to really stop them like PS1 base walls did.

More importantly, the base spawns are right out in the open just begging to be camped by vehicles. My biggest concern is that such open bases will make even slight pop disparities the deciding factor in base conflicts, and if the defenders are at all outpopped they'll be quickly spawn camped by vehicles until they're forced to spawn elsewhere, like in the caves.

I'm fine with towers and smaller outposts being of open design like that, but I wish the large facilities were more like well-defended fortresses.

It'll certainly make for different gameplay. With the huge number of respawn points available for troops I suspect base defense might be as much about spawning elsewhere and gathering forces for a counterattack on an overwhelmed base as it is standing your ground in the base itself and keeping defenders out from within.

I Can't wait to try it out in Beta.

[Ivam Akorahil]

i think it depends if an outpost is considered a military outpost or not. I would not shield, and wall an oil refinery in you know. while i would put strong emphasis on defensive positions on certain outposts that "overwatch" them.

to be honest there should be deploy-able permanent (but destructible)defenses such as low walls, sandbag barricades maybe ? - they never get old, even in the future

[Dart]

What I think we all want to avoid is the "PS1 Amp Station" style capture where you get the base because you managed to camp the doors to the 'CC' rooms with Tanks. I like the combined arms combat and I'm looking forward to see open terrain tank battles, but I don't want to see vehicles camping troops inside tiny, one-room buildings.

[Hmr85]

Originally Posted by Erendil

I'm all for unique and varied base layouts, but I'm a little concerned about the lack of defensive capabilities some of these bases. Zurvan Amp station from the E3 footage has me particularly concerned.

The base is so open you can drive ground vehicles pretty much anywhere within the compound, meaning there is no solid defensible position for the defending empire to draw a line in the sand and stop an enemy advance, no place to safely repair/rearm their own vehicles upon retreat, and no place to safely rally up for a concentrated counterattack to push enemy forces out of the base. The surrounding terrain may serve to herd and redirect approaching attacking forces, but it's way too open to really stop them like PS1 base walls did.

More importantly, the base spawns are right out in the open just begging to be camped by vehicles. My biggest concern is that such open bases will make even slight pop disparities the deciding factor in base conflicts, and if the defenders are at all outpopped they'll be quickly spawn camped by vehicles until they're forced to spawn elsewhere, like in the caves.

I'm fine with towers and smaller outposts being of open design like that, but I wish the large facilities were more like well-defended fortresses.

It'll certainly make for different gameplay. With the huge number of respawn points available for troops I suspect base defense might be as much about spawning elsewhere and gathering forces for a counterattack on an overwhelmed base as it is standing your ground in the base itself and keeping defenders out from within.

I Can't wait to try it out in Beta.

Well said and I agree with what you put.

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Dart

What I think we all want to avoid is the "PS1 Amp Station" style capture where you get the base because you managed to camp the doors to the 'CC' rooms with Tanks. I like the combined arms combat and I'm looking forward to see open terrain tank battles, but I don't want to see vehicles camping troops inside tiny, one-room buildings.

LOL exactly. Right now bases like Zurvan are looking to be a vehicle camper's paradise.

I remember watching the GDC footage with the nice, semi-scripted firefight they had going on after they rolled vanguards into the Amp station. Then I saw a Reaver and Mossie fly overhead and I thought, "If those were PS1 pilots, all these softies we're watching would be dead right about now."

[Boomhowser]

Im liking the new look to base styles tbh, I find them pleasing to the eye and plenty of choke areas where large vehicles will not be able to pass through.
The buildings seem varied with mutiple entry/exit points on differing levels will make camping fun as you'll need to be on the ball to cover all exits.

I did however hope for a few of the original style bases until I sat down and thought about it.. back in the day we used to have 3-4 -6 hour fights over one base... ants would be dropped in and it was great fun.. typically if the base was taken in one of these fights it was due to the energy being depleted this couldnt happen in ps2 as thier is no longer worry about draining a base, this could mean a fully walled base could effectivly not be taken and slow the pace of the game to a standstill not something the devs are aiming for in PS2 I believe.

Another thing to take into account is we have yet to see much of the combat engineers tricks of the trade, will vehicles willing charge into open walled bases once say 10 engineers have mined the area /set up spits!!

All these are what ive geamed from the vids so beta will probally change my view point

[Jomo]

I'm skeptical till I see more. I like the idea of walled bases as a feature to enable the defending team to put a barrier between them and the attacking force. I was a big fan of sniping from the walls and keeping everyone out.

With that said, open bases could present more opportunities for the environment to play a part in the bases which could be nice as well.

I'm all for variety in base design. As previously mentioned, people eventually memorized all base layouts and attacks became the same thing over and over again. Switching it up with different designs could hold this off for awhile and add a little flavor to what happens.

I'm all for flavors.

[Jamini]

Originally Posted by Boomhowser

Another thing to take into account is we have yet to see much of the combat engineers tricks of the trade, will vehicles willing charge into open walled bases once say 10 engineers have mined the area /set up spits!!

All these are what ive geamed from the vids so beta will probally change my view point

I'm pretty sure spitfires are out, and mines are going to be much less prevalent. Think more battlefield and less PS for gameplay and you won't be disappointed later.

[Flaropri]

I think it's important also to keep in mind that bottlenecks should probably be larger/more numerous simply to accommodate the number of players available. If all you have are two small entrances with 4 fold the number of players defending/attacking you'll end up with defense being too strong.

It could also result in it being pointless to fight at those facilities with more than X number of players (where "X" is particularly low in relation to active population), as people stand around mostly bored waiting for the front lines to die off so they finally have line of sight and can shoot something other than the backs of their team or indestructible structures.

Obviously, some small facilities are already going to have inherent population soft "caps" in the same way as described above even without walls due to size, and given the number of locations, it is not an issue to have some bases with few/small defensible locations, but it shouldn't be the majority. Striking a balance between base layout and the number of players that will generally be involved in a battle at it is important.

Finally, I think that whether or not the size and number of entries is acceptable will depend on play-testing. So far we've primarily seen just Zurvan and a little of Hvar and I think a random Bio Lab exterior; and while E3's fight over Zurvan was a cluster-*, part of that was: new players/unfamiliarity with the map, E3 specific things like equidistant bases, and that all three factions were consistently there making it a 3.5 way fight (the 0.5 is for friendly fire).

I think we need to see what it looks like in the real game before we get too concerned, and see more than 3-4 bases in action at that.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Jamini

I'm pretty sure spitfires are out, and mines are going to be much less prevalent. Think more battlefield and less PS for gameplay and you won't be disappointed later.

Ah but spitfires are in ... I'm sure there's a screen shot of an engineer skill tree somewhere.

[Karrade]

I've said a few times that defending some of these bases will be pointless or rather extremely difficult - does that mean I am saying its a bad thing - no, just stating what I see. Some places empires will defend, others they will attack and leave some alone utterly.

Picture this, for the 20th time Base A is under attack, Base A is open all over the place, no choke points, no way to form a solid defense, you can be hit from all angles (spawned on from anywhere with SL's). Do you go there, or do you go support the attack on Base B, which gives those exact same advantages to the attacker?

Its human nature to go where they will win, but beyond that, organised groups are going to go where they can make a difference. If Base C has lots of walls, and makes it difficult to attack against, why not make a stand there rather than the open, very tough to hold base?

People will camp the spawn tubes ALOT in these open setups, this needs to be addressed imho, maybe drop a warning if the drop zone is -hot- that way you can make it look swish as well .