Dear Sony: Fix bases first

[MoreShiraz]

Originally Posted by Beerbeer

You know who I really blame? The early, early alpha/beta people who didn't throw a fit when the bases were changed, as I believe they were more stout and protected at some point during development based on reports from Sony's forum.

No, they weren't. They were even less defensible than they are now. See those walls? See those shields? They were not there in tech test or even very early beta. It was even more ridiculous and the only reason why there are any walls at all is because of the early tech test/beta players screaming and pointing to the really very early concept art and saying "why don't we have walls?".

But don't feel I am putting you down, you have a very good point and I agree 100% - we need to be able to defend bases otherwise, whats the point?

Attacking zergs should crash into the bases and be held back - not just stroll through the doors and enjoy the prolonged wait until the base flips. You should be able to hold a base with at very least half of the numbers of forces attacking and for gods sake - PUT THE DEFENDING SPAWN POINTS IN THE BASE - NOT ON THE PERIPHERY!"

SOE need to think less of the Maginot Line (pointless fixed positions overrun by mobile troops) and more of Roukes Drift (defensible positions held by smaller numbers). Likely poor example but you get my drift (see what I did there?)

[Ghoest9]

The biggest reason that people dont defend is that average players earn more certs capping than they do defending.

You would need to kill 60 players for the defensive bonus xp to match what you get out of capping 1 large base.

Most people play for certs - the certs are in offense not defense.

[Beerbeer]

Anyways, if bases are never fixed, this game will fester, no matter what they change.

It's already infected, lymph nodes swollen, fever is arising. Lets see what happens.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Legolas

Even when it did not work.

Ohoho! That's just not true! They used cave Redoubt's flaws as a basis for outpost spawn design (including the inability to kill the spawns so forcing a building camp) and then complemented it with cave Module Building flaws for demanding the defender to make a perrilous journey through a camped crossfire in an attempt to get to a Control Console room with a short hold time capture!


Do pay attention!




@Beer: look at the posters pre-beta here defending every design decision by the devs by default. From Galaxy spawns to base mutilation to driver=gunner (even if it was just 30% of the posters).

We don't know what the people in that closed pre-beta session said. We can be sure at least some of them would have provided the same feedback we did though. Certain core vision and design philosophy were simply placed above player scrutiny by the devs and/or Smedley, including driver/gunnery. :/

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Beerbeer

You know who I really blame? The early, early alpha/beta people who didn't throw a fit when the bases were changed, as I believe they were more stout and protected at some point during development based on reports from Sony's forum. I saw a picture of a base in ps2's skin that looked good, a beefed up ps1.

People have thrown a fit of some variety at every single stage of development, from the pre-tech preview squads, through tech, beta, AS paid beta, and now here. The problem, as I see it, is that it's a different pile of fit throwers for each change.

Bases are farms! Open them up!
Bases are indefensible! Put them under ground!
Hack and hold takes too long!
Bring back hack and hold!
Air is too powerful!
Nerf AA!

Honestly, I'd hate to be Sony. Every time you make a change, a brand new group of mongols shows up at the walls with spears and torches.

Agree with root assessment, though - bases first, and then see what shakes out. They just don't have many of those cycles left to them, so they need to start hitting popular changes soon.

[RykerStruvian]

I understand what you're saying, but as far as I'm aware of the only major changes since the initial beta (post tech test) were:

Galaxies could not be used as spawn points
Bases were given walls and shields
Capture point timers were decreased (faster base flips)
Reduced number of capture points per base (maybe I am forgetting but I could've sworn some bases had five?)
Auraxium was removed
Squad size increased to 12

I know I have some stuff wrong and I am sure I forgot others, but for the most part these are the only real major changes in the beta in comparison to the product we have now. If I remember correctly, another major change was that the tech test had hackable control points? I will compare this list to rumors / things SOE has said they wanted to implement:

Deployable defenses/fortifications
Outfit ownership of bases
Flying carriers
Mission system based off of Command Rank/Command Certs
Crafting system

The above list is just a few items which Higby/Smedley have mentioned they wanted to do or had ideas for with PS2. With that, do these conflict with the current 'demands' being made by Planetside 1 players? The reason why I ask is because SOE has their own idea of what Planetside 2 is even if it is not remotely familiar to what PS1 was. In Higby's own words during an interview:

We have all the modern-day bells and whistles you'd expect to - real-time reflections, real-time shadowing, HDR lighting, physics... you'd expect these in a modern FPS title, and attached to that we've also added modern day... deep character progression, outfits... all that sort of MMO progression.

Planetside 2 takes place on these massive battle-fronts that are dozens of square kilometres. It's an entirely over-world, non-instanced combat game. You can have hundreds of players fighting against hundreds of players fighting against hundreds of players in these massive cluster-fuck battles that allow you to have tanks coming in on one side, aircraft coming over the ridge... such a massive scope.

He goes on in the interview to say:

Oh absolutely. Planetside 2 is much faster paced. We're moving a lot... we're basically making it more like a modern shooter. Planetside was a more slower game it took a lot of bullets to kill somebody. We have a mission system now, one of our big learning curves from the original was that new players jumping in for the first time will need guidance on what to do. Players that are experienced and have played the game a lot need a way to organise, so we created a mission system that serves both fronts.

If you are a new player and just want to join in, and just want to have that FPS experience and not mess around with all the coordination and leadership stuff, then we have missions that let you have that kick ass FPS experience. IF you are an experienced player, than you can create your own missions that depend on what rank you are, whether you're the leader of you 'outfit' or guild, and players who log in can see these missions and can really coordinate. The mission system was a key component mission from the original Planetside.

This in particular should be proof, without a doubt, of what SOE intends PS2 to be. This is not a death post or anything like that, but what I am trying to get at is that the design philosophy and what they potentially might do, for instance deployable defenses, has more weight in their decisions than pure base structure, even if base structure is an integral component considering it is one of the most basic formulas regarding gameplay. It almost seems as if we're getting an unfinished product because they intend to fill in the gaps later and I am not disputing that is the case, I am trying to push the idea that we do not know what Sony may do.

[Beerbeer]

Agree. The desertion of this game has nothing to do with what we're asking in regards to bases or vehicles. On the contrary and its why we're suggesting them.

Although we did ask for these changes in beta as it was obvious back then.

[Fujilives]

Not that I view it to be a 'major' problem, considering how many possible spawn locations there are as it is (sunderers, squad spawn points, adjacent bases, hot-deploys etc), but I've seen the idea of a "spawn room" as archaic for years.

When I think of Planetside, it's hard not to think of Tribes 2 (The game I was playing when I joined PS1, and probably the one game I've invested the most real life time into). I bring this up, because Tribes 2 is a very old game, but they came up with what I saw as a very solid alternative to the spawn room called the "spawn sphere". You basically spawned anywhere in this giant (imaginary) sphere, and this sphere could contain buildings, terrain, etc - and you'd spawn anywhere within those, or on top of those objects. It made "spawn camping" a virtual impossibility so long as the map-designer wasn't stupid enough to create very-small spawn spheres. Sure, you didn't spawn invincible, but what good is spawning invincible if the second you try to "play" you get insta-killed by mindless spam?

Personally I think the "spawn rooms" are an O.K. place to fall back and change loadouts, but I think you should spawn anywhere in the general vicinity. I would suggest drop pods, but then you'd just see offenses get slaughtered by drop-pods destroying vehicles as a reward for poor defense.

The answer is in there somewhere, and I guarantee it's not "put them all in a small box where everyone can shoot the 1-2 tiny-ass-exit doors"... friggin' archaic design.

[Phantomdestiny]

this was higby an hour ago:

:We're sorting through a lot of great @Planetside2 community feedback & planning some big changes to address major issues being brought up.

[Rivenshield]

Originally Posted by Phantomdestiny

this was higby an hour ago:

:We're sorting through a lot of great @Planetside2 community feedback & planning some big changes to address major issues being brought up.

/prays

Please, O God of Gamers. Please, PLEASE let 'dynamic defense' and all that accompanies it go the way of the dodo bird. Please with bacon on top. Amen.

[Hmr85]

Originally Posted by Beerbeer

You know who I really blame? The early, early alpha/beta people who didn't throw a fit when the bases were changed, as I believe they were more stout and protected at some point during development based on reports from Sony's forum.

I really don't want to hear this shit. Week 1 of Tech test I posted on the forums and just about every week after that bitching about base design along with some other outfit members. Don't place blame where it shouldn't be. SOE did what they wanted in regards to base design regardless of what we all said.

Originally Posted by MoreShiraz
No, they weren't. They were even less defensible than they are now. See those walls? See those shields? They were not there in tech test or even very early beta. It was even more ridiculous and the only reason why there are any walls at all is because of the early tech test/beta players screaming and pointing to the really very early concept art and saying "why don't we have walls?".

QFT!!

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Hmr85

I really don't want to hear this shit. Week 1 of Tech test I posted on the forums and just about every week after that bitching about base design along with some other outfit members. Don't place blame where it shouldn't be. SOE did what they wanted in regards to base design regardless of what we all said.



QFT!!

^ That.

See? Figgy can make short posts too! And yes, Peris for instance only had walls in the south. Oh crap. Longer than average forum post! D:

[Archonzero]

I really don't care if the major facilities look practically identical.

MANY players, myself included (ex-Esport from OGL up the CAL ladder) WANT TACTICALLY defensible + tactically assault worthy bases.

I don't want to sit in a vehicle (not that I do, but lets face it, that is how it's done) an camp the base cause the defenders couldn't get out even in an organized attempt from the carpet bombing/tank spam locking down the main spawnroom. Nor do I want to get to the point where it's, oh crap.. they have vehicles locking down the spawn.. I'm F***d.

I want the base design layout to give me that notion in the back of my mind.. that if all these grunts can focus an push out.. we can overwhelm those infantry groups locking down the spawnroom.. I want to know that with some real effort (an shooting skill) we can retake the Command Control Room. Not because we were able to destroy the 20 tanks in the way.. but because the tactical shooter game was the level field we had to work through. FPS skill/tactics vs FPS skill/tactics, plain an simple!

There's been plenty of locked down spawnrooms in PS1, they were only locked down by infantry/MAXs.. an with some real effort an die hard fighting, the defenders pushed out.. resecured the CCR. Capture averted, but the fight wasn't over. Still had to formulate a push out strategy to clear the base, cause the attackers poured the pressure on.. these fights could last minutes.. or they could last hours. IT didn't matter, cause the fighting was intense. You got your xp reward for kills/recaptures/repairs/heals an so on. The longer the fight.. the bigger the final reward chunk was.

Make the outer defensive layout actually have a layered approach for gaining footholds/access an overwhelm the defenders, the current system has WAAAY to many holes.

Make spawn room areas campable, but only by infantry, it's only fair. They're reduced to infantry, they should have to face infantry in order to push back out. NOT a gauntlet of Tank/bomber + infantry spamming it.

Make the interior courtyard more Esport/arena style friendly, if it takes placing a biodome like dome over top of every base to prevent air bombardment saturating it, or a shielded bubble. UNTIL the attackers overrun the outerwall an open the base for GROUND vehicles. This coupled with interior catwalks, multiple defensible building an limited vehicle routes will still give defenders a chance to PUSH ground vehicles out of the inner courtyard. A centralized multiroom, multi level main structure, the SCU should be in the BASEMENT (underground) and below the MAINSPAWNROOM, with a network of rooms and corridors that have access points to buildings inside the bases inner courtyard. This way.. defenders can muster counter assaults, coordinate efforts to take back the base from attackers and push them back out from the facility.

Likewise these elements will make attackers have to coordinate their assaults, maintain pressure, need groups to focus on defense/control of vital choke points while other elements continue the zerg/assault. This will create dynamic gameflow in all directions, it will increase the potential for both larger protracted fights, epic long sieges. It will give more opportunity to those organized skilled outfits to show off (both large an small) at how murderously efficient they can be at overwhelming defensive points quickly and locking down of a base, despite the odds. This is also a great way for outfits to gain actual reputation of their prowess in the field.

It will create a more rich experience and foster more tightly knit teamwork for success. THESE were the things that made my outfit from PS1 enjoy training for. A small tactically skilled platoon of players could overrun a larger less organized defensive group and lock down a base.

Change the capture reward mechanic to how the PS1 capture dynamic worked, rewarding more for a larger fight an less for a small fight/ghost cap. Keep rewards for tactical objectives inside of facilities for securing/destroying.

[Beerbeer]

Amen.