New Outfits Are Pointless

[Baneblade]

Zerging is effective, just not at getting something done efficiently. I prefer the hammer approach. A united wave of overpowering force that breaks the back of the enemy front. We call that, moving the line. That is what War Machine will do. Make decisive fractures in the enemy's organization and then reap what we sow and relish the chaos of a broken zerg. Then when they are cohesive again, we do it again. I call it Thor Strategy.

[VaderShake]

Originally Posted by Soyokaze

For the few established groups that have posted, please read:
"(The only possible exception to this would be for established clans with pre-existing player bases that will be new to the PS series.)"

I fully welcome groups coming in from outside games. Hell, I look forward to the issue of individual skill becoming more important in PS2. Due to PS1's low ability ceiling, you never really saw any major outfits recruiting based on individual player skill. That'll be an interesting trend to watch.

That being said, I feel that a team of 10 guys really good twitch-play deathmatches are not going to walk into the game & run shit. Effectiveness in this game is going to require management of human resources, which means doing alot of social interaction without ever touching a mouse.

Also, I would NEVER suggest a mechanic preventing people from creating new outfits. That would be ridiculous. Enforcing a minimum player count, sure, but never an outright lock. As previously mentioned, Outfit/Clan politics alone make that ridiculous.

No, what I'm asking the community is not should people be allowed to make new Outfits, but weather or not their doing so is a good idea.

---

SKYeXile, 20 people is, I'm betting about as many as some of the smaller vet-fits still have active. I'd say that, if you're looking to expand, that's the point at which I'd say you have enough players to consider growing your own organization.
That being said, if you AREN'T looking to bring more folk under your wing, or your looking to be as effective as possible, I'd be looking around for an existing outfit that has a community & MO your group jells with. It's a simple matter that 320 coordinated guys are more effective than 20 & 300 guys. If you can't find a fit though, do your own thing until you run into people you naturally mesh with in-game.

With some of the point you touch on about larger outfits I'm not to convinced an influx of new players to PlanetSide 2 will want to take the time to coordinate or even bother with coordination instead opting to jump right into an existing fight to support the other players with the same uniforms on. I would imagine it will be fairly intuative to figure out who needs help and where to get into the fight. I know with over 30 years of gaming behind me I am really looking for ward to the beta to run PS2 through it's paces and find my own way around before commiting to an outfit or deciding on how I will play PS2. Also even though it looks to tremendoulsly awesome to fail...I always leave some doubt in my mind until I can try it for myself, been burned to many time$ in the past.

We will see, everything I ahve heard or seen about PS2 so far says it's an industry benchmark and gamechanger in my mind.

[Pine]

I think it has been aptly proven that new small outfits certainly can succeed and even be a game changer. Good or bad TRX, impacted gameplay on Emerald and created such an impact that we had to look hard at our own tactics and adapt. I look forward to seeing a game full fresh new ideas, new leaders, and new tactics. Will many fail? sure but often as not, its not thier leading, or ideas, its the protracted backend work to make stand-alone outfit survive over time. This can be overcome but it takes the realization that power and responsibilty must be shared. Large outfits, also had to learn this and have delevoped different models to support thier structure over time.

To those having created, or wanting to create a new outfit: GO FOR IT! Remember to keep the game fun for yourself, and recruit those that you can disperse the labor to and then do so. Best of luck.

Pine, Sturmgrenadier member since 2003

[Nemeses]

Originally Posted by Soyokaze

For the few established groups that have posted, please read:
"(The only possible exception to this would be for established clans with pre-existing player bases that will be new to the PS series.)"

I fully welcome groups coming in from outside games. Hell, I look forward to the issue of individual skill becoming more important in PS2. Due to PS1's low ability ceiling, you never really saw any major outfits recruiting based on individual player skill. That'll be an interesting trend to watch.

That being said, I feel that a team of 10 guys really good twitch-play deathmatches are not going to walk into the game & run shit. Effectiveness in this game is going to require management of human resources, which means doing alot of social interaction without ever touching a mouse.

Also, I would NEVER suggest a mechanic preventing people from creating new outfits. That would be ridiculous. Enforcing a minimum player count, sure, but never an outright lock. As previously mentioned, Outfit/Clan politics alone make that ridiculous.

No, what I'm asking the community is not should people be allowed to make new Outfits, but weather or not their doing so is a good idea.

---

SKYeXile, 20 people is, I'm betting about as many as some of the smaller vet-fits still have active. I'd say that, if you're looking to expand, that's the point at which I'd say you have enough players to consider growing your own organization.
That being said, if you AREN'T looking to bring more folk under your wing, or your looking to be as effective as possible, I'd be looking around for an existing outfit that has a community & MO your group jells with. It's a simple matter that 320 coordinated guys are more effective than 20 & 300 guys. If you can't find a fit though, do your own thing until you run into people you naturally mesh with in-game.

yup definitely Stew in disguise, no way there can be 2 people this stupids on one site

[Blue Sam]

OK, in that case, tell me, how many really dedicated air-superiority VS outfits are currently recruiting actively? (Hint: I haven't found one yet, and if I haven't found them with how much I've been looking, they aren't doing a very good job of recruiting.) If this hasn't changed by the time I get access to beta (or release, if I don't get access to the beta at all), I'll damn well be making one. If not, I've got a bunch of friends (most of whom have never played PS, and who don't represent any kind of outfit/guild/alliance/whatever the hell else you want to call it to make your game look different by any conventional definition (in fact, I don't think there exists a game which every member of it has played, at all, though there are a couple that between them cover a good majority of people) who I'll be grouping up with, and we'll probably go combined arms, purely because of how wildly varied we are. The one thing all of these people have in common, though, is that they all come from games where large-scale coordination of one kind or another is absolutely vital, and they are all the people that were very, very good at it in those games, so you can be sure that we wont just be running around like headless chickens (if I go for the dedicated anti-air, I'll probably be running around with them a lot anyway, to be honest).


Either of those sound pointless to you?

[zomg]

Can I suggest we block all old outfits from playing the game because they have silly opinions like this (/sarcasm)

[Saieno]

Originally Posted by Soyokaze

No, what I'm asking the community is not should people be allowed to make new Outfits, but weather or not their doing so is a good idea.

I feel bad for the people that just want to have fun in Planetside 2. They'll be downloading and registering expecting to play a game, you know since you are supposed to have fun when playing a game, but then they'll come to realize its actually war and they were just drafted.

Soyokaze it's a game, people are going to play the way they want, so you play the way you want. If someone wants a Zoo Outfit and everyone is in animal print camo, who cares? It's free, it's fun, it's awesome. If you want to run your outfit with that attitude then by all means please do, but keep it in your outfit.

[Winfernal]

I really hope that people like you are the minority in the original PS community.

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by Saieno

If someone wants a Zoo Outfit and everyone is in animal print camo

Making an alt outfit for that specifically just to make the OP raeg..

[Khrakhan]

Chances are pretty good I'll create my own outfit just for the hell of it. I dont think I will be joining an outfit just because I want to play as I want to play and dont want to be told when to join up and where to go, and not to mention my impatience at just standing around waiting for a large group of players to form up. I remember trying to get groups for WoW and it just got incredibly boring. I'm shooting shit in the face, if they want to all wait and then come as one that's great. I'll just have to survive until my backup arrives in force :P

Im gonna be a mercenary, and will probably just find 9 other players to form my outfit. If they wanna leave and join a more 'uniform' outfit thats fine.

It doesn't mean I'm gonna be hindering my faction in any way just because I'm not with some well organized group. I will still be able to see where the missions are, what bases we are attacking, if one of ours needs to be defended. And whereever I go I will be able to find others in my faction and roll with 'em.

I believe this game will be just fine for the more lonewolf type. Might take a little more skill to survive, and its still highly advisable to remain near teammates and provide fire for them, and then if you feel they have the enemy distracted enough you can scurry off to the flank and start hitting them from the back/rear, just causing more confusion for the enemy. If you have a good fps mindset, and know to go from cover to cover instead of trying to be some rambo type of lonewolf, you'll be just fine.

There are going to plenty of 'ragtag' outfits out there, and yeah a lot of them will just be people (myself included) who just want to be in charge of their own playtime. And make our own logos/decals for our outfit and whatnot.

so in the end, your theory is false.

[Nemeses]

Originally Posted by zomg

Can I suggest we block all old outfits from playing the game because they have silly opinions like this (/sarcasm)

Originally Posted by Winfernal

I really hope that people like you are the minority in the original PS community.

Of course he is, as most people I have met on PS2 forums have being brilliant, and even now that I have played PS1 a bit the people I have met there are great, you always going to get idiots like this in every walk of life.

[Soyokaze]

Wow guys, really? I ask the community how it feels about the strategic effect of startup outfits and that makes me the biggest idiot in the Planetside community? Jesus.

Anyway, perhaps I should have phrased the title as a question.

I'd never suggest we lock people out of creating new outfits or anything so ridiculous. The question wasn't weather or not we should allow people to make new outfits, but weather these small startup outfits are strategically beneficial or not.

In hindsight, PS2 is going to be a whole new ballgame. So, while I feel that consolidation of authority into fewer large, organized outfits is more efficient than many loosely affiliated ones - we've yet to establish who those large outfits will be. Many of the new outfits will never get off the ground, but I'm sure a few will grow and, likewise, some of the old vetfits aren't going to make it either.

[Blue Sam]

In hindsight, PS2 is going to be a whole new ballgame. So, while I feel that consolidation of authority into fewer large, organized outfits is more efficient than many loosely affiliated ones - we've yet to establish who those large outfits will be. Many of the new outfits will never get off the ground, but I'm sure a few will grow and, likewise, some of the old vetfits aren't going to make it either.

How many large outfits fit any reasonable definition of the word "organised", really? I can't think of a really large one that is anything other than a zergfest.

[Soyokaze]

That's inaccurate. I can tell you, for one, that the A#1 thing that people who didn't make the cut for my outfit would complain about would be our level of discipline. It's simply not possible to accomplish that level of organization without separate com-channels and occasionally insisting that people maintain radio silence.

But, let me provide some objective data to support the claim that organization = efficiency.



Here we have a list of outfit point & member totals for some of the more influential Emeral outfits during PS1's high pop days.
Now, if we do a bit of math, we can determine the # of points per outfit member for each outfit.

Vanu Sovereignty
Xen of Onslaught = 1,143,101
Ghost of the Revolution = 760,153
Immortal Sovereigns = 710,086
Azure Twilight = 644,460
Forty Deuce = 538,274.
Prox12 = 391,233
Knights of Sovereignty = 318,644


New Conglomerate
NCSF = 1,148,003
Sturmgrenadier = 1,137,384
Renegades = 355,742


Terran Republic
ELH = 1,380,525
HIMX = 1,098,362
C22-k = 801,452
Enforcers = 741,591

Those #s indicate that population is not neccessarrily directly related to effectiveness. Some of the top population outfits aren't even on the map in outfit points.

What these calculated values represents is how efficient the outfit is, how well they exploit their human resources. The Renegades were the 3rd most populated NC outfit at the time, but compare them to the efficiency of Sturmgrenadier which has about the same population. Looking at that, which group would you prefer to be in?

I know for a fact WHY Sturmgrenadier was able to achieve that kind of efficiency, why I always considered them a threat. They were organized. They used their people effectively.

So, I'm not saying that there's no place for small outfits. You guys are right on that. I came on a bit too strong. I'm just saying that organization makes the individual soldier count for more and should be something the community promotes.

[SKYeXile]

Ahriman Corps: over 4m.