Confirmed: 9 Sanctuaries at launch.

[Nihil]

If we won't have Sancs, this sounds better.

The problem i foresee with Footholds is that you never really win a you never really lose.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by N1H1L

If we won't have Sancs, this sounds better.

The problem i foresee with Footholds is that you never really win a you never really lose.

It's Planetside. It's an endless war. You never "really win".

Like Malorn so eloquently put it. You can still have continental wins without locking players out.

[Khellendros]

First, no, a WG is not the same as a foothold, which is an uncapturable base. They are not equivalent.

Second,

They do not in any way create a 3-way stalemate - that is just nonsense. What they do is make it a lot harder to completely remove an enemy from a continent. And the bottom line with that is that its bad for the game, thus the existence of the footholds.

What they do is make it impossible to completely remove an enemy from a continent. The enemy doesn't go anywhere they are still there, still pouring out of their foothold, and now that the attacking empire has overextended itself, the third empire attacks their weak flank, forcing the attackers to retreat.

The thing is, could the attackers really have gotten anywhere near the foothold without the third empire capitalizing on the weak flank, thus stalling their advance? This is what I mean by rubberbanding around a central area.

The map of Indar, correct me if I'm wrong, has one amp station in the middle, and a few other bases ringing it. I don't remember about any footholds on that map, but I guess those are behind the ring of bases. So, for Indar, I think the main fighting will be around the amp station and probably a km or two out from it. How the contours of the fighting can vary much from that, I don't know, since any deep push will invite an attack on a weakened flank.

Because there are no chokepoints, as PS1 had via the lattice, the flanks are much larger in PS2. Therefore, the risk involved in diving into one of the empire's territory is greater than in PS1 where an empire could control that risk by holding chokepoints.

It's an interesting problem. And frankly, I think it is largely due to the nature of the footholds, namely that they are static and stationary, so each empire is always attacking from the same general direction, which was indeed a feature in PS1. Of course, the devs can change up the foothold ownerships, but what if the footholds weren't bases but those whatsits, airships(?) I see people bringing up every now and then? They slowly fly around the continent and hopefully change things up.

Dunno just my half-assed idea. Probably too late to implement something like that now. Still, would be cool. In any case, I can't wait to test whatever system it is the devs have come up with in beta!

[Stardouser]

What are the 6 side orange icons, and the swirly orange icons?

[Miir]

I believe those represent the different resources.

[Owalpo]

I think a simple fix to this(Even though we really don't even know how these work and are basing it off Alpha stuff) is if an Empire(TR) surrounds a foothold of another Empire(NC)that had just lost all its territory on the continent, and the Empire(TR) attacking defends the continent for 15 minutes allowing no territory be captured by NC then NC will be locked out of the continent for half an hour to an hour.

[LordReaver]

One empire needs a slight advantage each continent, otherwise the fight will always be somewhere near the middle of each cont. Sure it will vary slightly, but there wont really be any way to grab the majority of a cont. Which would thus create stale game play.

[Hermes]

Perhaps a stronghold for each empire on each cont which can only be disabled, not captured. You can hack it, power it down and kick them out of the base, but you can't spawn at it yourself.

Then to start an assault on the continent you have to fight your way from the warpgate to your disabled stronghold. Because only you have the ability to spawn there it makes the base fall easier into your hands, but you can definitely be kicked off the continent for that 100% red/blue/purple screenshot moment.

[Tasorin]

Part of the reason to play PS1 was push the other factions back to there Sanctuaries and lock them down. Actually locking a Faction down at the home planet Sanctuary was something you had to work for and during its prime, PS1 didn't have the problem of populations fluxing during the hours of day.

3 safe harbors for each faction on each continent gives each faction three separate fronts to start from. To me personally that pretty much takes the point out of capping a continent other then the resources and xp gained while doing it. Do you really want PS2 to be about resource swapping and unlocks, or do you want it to be about crushing your enemy factions back to a single start point.

I can live with the fact that the home planet concept of PS1 isn't going to transfer to PS2. I understand that Higgles and krew are looking for a faster game pace then PS1. Having 3 Sanctuaries per Continent supports that play style from what game play we have seen. I think with being able to spawn in on people the ability to be mobile in a organized squad is actually much higher then it was in PS1. I think that giving each faction 3 Sanctuaries on top of the higher mobility diminishes the end goals of capping a Continent. On top of that like others have said, that is 6 less hex areas to capture per Continent if 3 Sanctuaries are used instead of 1 Sanctuary per Continent.

This is also what a live robust Beta Cycle is for. Hopefully in the end after the community gets the stick time in and some sound feedback we get an improvement cycle with regards to Sanctuaries.

[Timealude]

Only thing I'm worried about is camping an enemy army at there foothold on a continent. That's what I thought the original purpose of the sanctuary was, to provide a safe place to spawn and act as a hub for transporting people to battles.

[headcrab13]

There are many great upgrades from PS1 to PS2, but I wouldn't mind if they left the Sanc system alone entirely.