Ghost capping zergs - air domination everywhere else - wordt 2x event ever.

[MyOdessa]

Create Infantry Only (with Galaxies/Sundies/Flash to get around) or Infantry/Ground Vehicles Only continent and you will have a lot of small/large battles all over the place and a lot more enjoyment from PS2.

[Rivenshield]

Originally Posted by Arkanakaz

The problem I have as an individual is that unlike in PlanetSide 1 where there was the 'tactical overlay' and the base alert system (yellow, orange and red). In PlanetSide 2 it is much harder to tell where the enemy is.

Yeah, it's confusing as hell. Little burst of flame on the map that when I mouse over them tell me NO ENEMY ACTIVITY.... flashing hex-blobs in different-colored parts of the map... a pie chart that I swear to God the first two weeks told me the proportion of the population of the various combatants, rather than 'influence', which I can bloody well see by looking at the map anyway.... The old alert system was intuitive and easy to understand. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, guys.

And the however-long-it-is cooldown period for 'instant action', plus the I-can't-go-anywhere unless-the-green-tabs-tell-me-I-can dynamic means in a lot of cases I drop, either find nothing going on or get run over by the enemy zerg, fall back and find no co-defenders, and have to /suicide for the next few minutes to get to somewhere good. Or recall to the WG and swap conts, then /suicide-travel to get into battle. It blows.

Higby expressly took away our sanctuaries to *reduce* the amount of time it took to get into a fight. Oh, it's just another loading screen he said. We're streamlining things. Balls! It takes LONGER to find a battle and deploy now. A lot longer, a lot more often.

Originally Posted by Bocheezu

I think the maps are just way too big. They could cut the map size in half easily.

For Indar, move Suarva to where the J908 Impact Site is now and just junk the entire northwest side of the map.

I agree with practically everything you say, but you're kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Why not divvy Indar in half, from the Crown north? Call it North and South Indar, and link them together via warp gate. Add some rivers in a few canyons and maybe even a scenic waterfall while you're at it, once they get water to the point where they're happy. It could be a special siesmic in-game mega-event.... not a Bending, just a fuckhueg earthquake.

[Emperor Newt]

As there are already plenty of good posts here just my two cents.

- Defending is not rewarding enough (we had a way more rewarding and especially better visible system in beta)
- You have no bloddy idea where the enemy is attacking and how many. Without having scouts at the locations you have abssolutely no idea where you need to defend and where it is viable to sent troops to defend and where it is too late. And even then your information input is limited. The current system simply tells you nothing.
- Defending is too hard. I think this is most likely related to base layout, there are plenty of good suggestions in the official forums. Outposts are very often just a waste of time. There are too many and it's hard to defend those even when defenders are 1:1 to attackers. It's actually harder to defend then to attack, and that boggles my mind. It should be the other way round. No matter if base or outposts.
- For the larger bases it's the same, the only thing that is actually viably defensible are Biolabs, and those only because vehicles cannot spawn camp (big issue!) the spawn.
- Defense is difficult to hold up as that there are too many vehicles around and as cooldowns and ressources are not limiting enough. No matter how many HE Prowlers you are able to kill, they will keep coming from the next outpost while you cannot pull AV Vanguards because you are cut off from your techlab (because someone took it in like 10 minutes as nobody deems defense to be necessary). So defending something that does not have a connection to a tech plant is even more pointless.

Overall: people do what gives them the most xp to get certs. Currently that's playing medic, tank spam and taking undefended bases/outposts. In the past it has been rocket podding the s* out of everything.
The game needs a better xp distribution. People do what gives the most xp, and as long as there are gameplay options which are more rewarding then others, people will flock to what gives the most xp. Get this stuff in line and then it should be easier to see where the deeper gameplay problems are.

[Ghoest9]

When ever I want just a fight I go to what ever red areas is showing as a hot spot. if multiple ones are showing I go to the one with the biggest cap reward.

I go to red because im NC and i cant tell the purple from the blue.


Then after its down and if my timer hotspot timer isnt up I go to the closest sunderer in a red area. If there arent any I often go afk till my timer is ready.




Im can tell many other players do basically the same thing and its why the battles make no sense at all on a strategic level.

[Mietz]

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.

Here is my perspective, something slightly different from the other posts.

A lot of people have brought up the skinner box effect and how people seem to be only interested in gaining certs and XP.

This is only part of the problem, the second element that reinforces this behavior is the lack of permanence and failure conditions. Your design of PS2 seems to rely solely on incentives for activities without having failure conditions or penalties for those activities.

You take a base, you get rewarded.
You kill, you get rewarded.
You repair, you get rewarded.
You heal, you get rewarded.
etc.

Since all your incentives are rewards, people gravitate towards a min-max attitude: What gives best rewards/minute played.
There isn't any risk and no risk-vs-reward calculation, hence nobody really cares about objectives.

Right now the resource system isn't a strong enough penalty to be considered, this leads to people holding the Crown on Indar for hours on end while losing all territories around it.
The penalties must be severe to make players follow the design.

What if:

a. death wasn't inconsequential and higher death rates would mean higher respawn timers (with cap at X)
b. facilities had vehicles and consumables attached to them (like the Tech Plant with the MBT)
etc.

If you look at the gameplay for a while you will notice that Tech Plants are considered more important and are more often defended, its your only penalty that works. (Indar has its own problems with 3 tech plants and the crown not really requiring that much armor to take or defend, but Esamir has only one and the fight is always on)

Give people something to fight for (to avoid penalties and failure).

I hope you will consider this input.

[vipjerry]

Lets face it PS2 is pointless in state it is now. Incentives and meta game we have now looks like something created by 12y.

I personalty still having fun playing heavy in this few big battles here and there just killing ppl. But for how long? Also makes me puke when i see all this aircraft grinding and farming (i cant call this playing PS2) and as inf you basically cant do anything about it.

I was playing PS1 since early beta and stopped when i got my PS2 beta. There where many ups and downs with PS1 (CC, BFR-s etc) but you never had this problems with inf vs vehicles vs air balance. Also you couldn't get XP for capping empty base.

My prediction is that unless SOE decide to do something about meta game PS2 servers will be empty in less than a month.

No point typing any kind of solution because SOE devs knows this very well. Asking for players opinion is like asking persone who stands in front of white wall is this wall white and what they think about it. Yes its white and it taste as fcking wall there is nothing special about it. When this big battles wears out PS2 is just heh lets say nothing.

1) Where is command rank? Every idiot can be commander in PS2 and in 99% its usually case.
2) High battle rank and high k/d just tells you = farmer (no respect for this players at all).
3) Whats the purpose of outfits in PS2? Just another friend list...
4) Hex system is completely flowed. There is no easy fix for this.
5) Most of certs are useless. You could at least limit some certs depending on BR...
6) Base design is just horrible? Unoriginal and uninteresting also confusing.
7) Weapon models are all the same.
8) In PS1 there where good differentiation between TR, NS and Vanu (mini-guns, shotgun, disco lasher...) now its all the same.
...

I could go on forever but as i said earlier devs know all this from early beta better than we do...

[Rivenshield]

Originally Posted by Mietz

Right now the resource system isn't a strong enough penalty to be considered, this leads to people holding the Crown on Indar for hours on end while losing all territories around it.
The penalties must be severe to make players follow the design.

/groan

Dude. This is a game. You don't make people follow your God almighty game design by penalizing them. You simply make them go 'This blows' and they quit and then they go tell all their friends about it. And in the modern social media age, that's lethal poison.

You incentivize forms of gameplay by rewarding, not by taking away.

[Electrofreak]

Originally Posted by Rivenshield

/groan

Dude. This is a game. You don't make people follow your God almighty game design by penalizing them. You simply make them go 'This blows' and they quit and then they go tell all their friends about it. And in the modern social media age, that's lethal poison.

You incentivize forms of gameplay by rewarding, not by taking away.

While I agree with Rivenshield, at the same time, there is a reason for the resource system, and that's to prevent PlanetSide turning into VehicleSide.

The problem is that vehicles currently have 2 factors that prevent them from being reused, and that's resources AND the vehicle acquisition timer.

I say get rid of the timer so that you can ONLY spawn vehicles based upon resource limitations, and then tweak resource rate gain to compensate. Change the vehicle acquisition timer reduction certification to a minor reduction in resource requirements for vehicles.

When you start overlapping game mechanics like that, it gets hard to balance the game appropriately, and feels overly restrictive to the players. Keep it simple and elegant.

[JQuizzle]

On the point of trying to defend against a zerg, I remember two features from PS1 that gave smaller numbers a fighting chance against larger numbers.
(This will probably cause a few eyes to roll...)

- Orbital Strikes.
- Automated base defences.
___________________________________________

Orbital Strike
Hitting the spawn campers with an OS can provide some much needed breathing space, and knock back enemy resources and acquisition timers. Not so effective against air (unless they're really unlucky, or stupid), but all the clustered armour jostling and crashing in to each other while trying to get away are toast. Allowing time to address some of the campers in the air, or at least get to somewhere else in the base.
It's a shame the Command Rank system (to acquire the OS ability) was dropped in PS2. It depended, somewhat, on actual 'leadership' skills. The Leadership tree would be the most obvious place for such a feature to reside. Though, it would then be open to anyone, that either grinds xp in any old fashion or simply pay for it. An attempt not to be a Pay-To-Win model is probably why it was avoided this time around.
If OS was introduced, OS kills should not give xp, and be a purely tactical feature, but be reasonably heavy on cooldown duration and resources cost (using all 3 resource types).
Obviously OS wouldn't strictly be a defensive ability, but it lends itself better to defence.

Automated Base Defences
Although the automated base defences in PS1 weren't formidable, they did at least soften ground and air vehicles up. Flying behind enemy lines is then a dangerous manoeuver by default (if you're not careful where you fly), instead of there simply being a chance that enemy players may notice you and take pot shots.
This could help against ghost capping, by making empty bases a slight challenge to break in to, and by highlighting proximity alerts on the global map.
Though, it doesn't help that the way territories are displayed on the map is ambiguous - Territory ownership and troop activity covers a main base and all towers/spawns within it's influence. With no indication of who owns which spawns, or what state generators are in (when you're not in that territory, even one owned by your faction). It's next to impossible to tell what's happening in each territory when you aren't there.
___________________________________________

But these features alone wouldn't give players an incentive to actually defend.
A scaled reward for successfully attacking/defending has been mentioned a number of times, so there's no point in me elaborating on a system.

[WreckedM]

Historical land conquest wars have the proverbial "front-lines". PS2 doesn't really have these, although the maps make it appear as if they exist. I think SOE needs to find ways of channeling opposing forces at each other leading to more of an advance/retreat battle front feel -- as opposed to the roving mongol horde vibe it has now.

This could also create a meta-game for the smaller outfits too. They could penetrate past the front lines to compete with other small outfits away from the zerg.

Originally Posted by JQuizzle

Automated Base Defences
Flying behind enemy lines is then a dangerous manoeuver by default (if you're not careful where you fly), instead of there simply being a chance that enemy players may notice you and take pot shots.
This could help against ghost capping, by making empty bases a slight challenge to break in to, and by highlighting proximity alerts on the global map.

Auto-defense alone may not create the 'front-line' itself but it could be a big part of the solution.

[nailgun]

I honestly hate the boring, skillless, vehicle zerg steamroll monotony at the heart of PS2's design. The solution is easy.

1. Put Orbital Strikes back in the game.
2. Make them usable only against your own faction's blob.

Players will take care of the rest.

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by Electrofreak

While I agree with Rivenshield, at the same time, there is a reason for the resource system, and that's to prevent PlanetSide turning into VehicleSide.

The problem is that vehicles currently have 2 factors that prevent them from being reused, and that's resources AND the vehicle acquisition timer.

I say get rid of the timer so that you can ONLY spawn vehicles based upon resource limitations, and then tweak resource rate gain to compensate. Change the vehicle acquisition timer reduction certification to a minor reduction in resource requirements for vehicles.

When you start overlapping game mechanics like that, it gets hard to balance the game appropriately, and feels overly restrictive to the players. Keep it simple and elegant.

that would make the current problem even worse than it is currently, and the game is already VehicleSide anyway.

[maradine]

Originally Posted by JQuizzle

Orbital Strike
Things.

And then in a few years we'll be complaining about non-stop OS spam instead of vehicle spam. The problem with massive scale is that, sooner or later, everyone gets a pony, and that's a lot of ponies. Not knocking OS in general; I definitely think it's a missing feature. Just that it conceptually suffers from the same problem. And if we could find some way to limit it appropriately, I'd hope we could apply that same logic to some of our existing problems.

I've lost track of how many threads this same metaconversation is happening in. I'm long since out of value to add. What I'd like to see more than anything else is some sort of SOE roadmap. It doesn't have to be detailed, and I wouldn't ship poop in a box to San Diego if they changed it regularly and drastically to account for the realities of time and available development resources. But I do think we need to see that roadmap. More or less, now.

[boogy]

Simple question to ask about adding any combat element to the game, " Will the game be better with it, or without it? " I feel features like this are based on the whole "how cool would it be if we had x?"

I just don't see any device that will cause joy to one elite player with the result of frustrating a lot of players being better for the game. Orbital strikes, no way.
We don't need it. It doesn't offer anything I can think of that out ways it's negative. It's just a how cool would it be device.

I feel the same about liberators. The negatives they are causing this game to the many outweigh the diversity in vehicle play it brings. It causes more people to quit the game than it brings players into the game. Ditch it for another fighter variant or a even a helicopter. how cool would it be if we had an anti-ground gunship that could only be hard countered by air? Yeah a lib is a pretty damn cool vehicle, but the game is not better off with it.

[PoisonTaco]

I don't have a problem with defending if I know when an enemy is coming, but most of the time I'm defending bases that the enemy has already broken into. It can be very hard to predict enemy troop movement. If you had more information to tell you that the other side is about to attack facility x, you could prepare for that sort of attack. You can place mines and C4's in key choke points and get all the turrets ready for a fight.

A lattice system isn't going to work with the territory system so we need something new. Instead of a system that funnels players down specific paths, I say you add more mechanics for detecting enemy troop movement. Put radar towers in key outposts. The small ones, not towers, larger bases or facilities. This would add strategic value to these outposts. What would the radar towers do? They would reveal enemy troops within a certain radius. It would not be perfect, and it would not distinguish between vehicles or infantry types. Every few seconds it could ping the area and enemies would show up as red dots on the map for everyone on your team.

These radar towers would cover a very large area, would have generators in their outposts that power them and could be linked to a facility benefit. Perhaps the amp station benefit could increase their range. Either way something to help out with detecting the enemy could help factions prepare their bases for defense.