Is PS2 going to be intercontinental enough?

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Considering the other empires would have more assests at their disposal, a pure infantry drop might not stand much of a chance at surviving.

Looking at some of the facilities, there's going to be pure infantry combat without tanks or air support at all, so I do think mass infantry drops could quite easily counter.

As for the problem of it defeating the point of cont locking, you perhaps have a point, though people would cont lock anyway for the respect and to say that they did.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Most continents had at least 3 Tech Plants so in theory each empire could have one. I think only Forseral only had 2 Techs.

I think the idea of a special base that produces a special unit is pretty cool and adds a layer of strategy. It certainly goes along with what we know about capturing resources so far.

The only problem is how do you come up with a special unit that is not crippling not to have, but not overpowered when you do have it?

Also, if there were going to 1 tech plant near every foothold on each continent, that's 9 tech plants. It would be damn hard to think of 9 different special abilities. However, they don't all have to be full vehicles...they could just be 5% boosts to tank shields or something like that.

Or, there could only be 3 unique weapons/vehicles (1 per empire) and the more you have of the tech plants, the more powerful or available it becomes.

For example:
1. All 3 tech plants near VS footholds could enable one thing
2. All 3 near TR could allow another thing
3. All 3 near NC could allow something else

By default, the war starts with you holding all three of the special tech plants near your own footholds. Lose one, and they become 33% less available, or less powerful, whatever, lose 3 and you lose it until you recapture one.

On the other hand, if you capture an enemy's tech plant, you gain that ability at 33% of capacity. These tech plant bonuses could even be designed to work together in some way, thus working as an incentive.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

As for the problem of it defeating the point of cont locking, you perhaps have a point, though people would cont lock anyway for the respect and to say that they did.

This is very true, that is a great point. But it's also why I think that they will try to capture all the hexes, just to do it. Forcing somebody back to their foothold while you color the entire contient in your empire's color would give (imho) the same feeling of victory as any continent lock.

[Brusi]

If everyone in your empire benefits globally from the resources gained by empire held territory, regardless of which continent you are fighting on, then people will make sure that there are decent fights spread across all conts.

[Lord Paladin]

Sorry guys, first time poster, and old planetside 1 vet from the very beginning; so please bear with me

I really like this idea, and here's the major reason.

Homeland.

Think of it this way. Instead of having 3 footholds on each continent, you have 1 foothold, and then 2 warpgates (I actually kinda like the "backdoor" warpgate idea too, perhaps it's one way?), but what this idea does it gives you something to "Take back" from the enemy. You don't care if hex B-4 on Indar is lost to the enemy, but if Indar is the VS home continent, then you can be damn sure that they're gonna wanna take it back when those damn Red TR peeps start encroaching. It gives you a sense of entitled "ownership" on the continent. This is OUR land.

Also, I like the idea of being able to cap the warpgate station without having to own all facilities, because this creates the tactic of attrition. You cut them off from being able to get a large amount of backup, and then start finishing them off. Also, say one faction is able to lock both of the warpgates, this creates a situation where the other two factions want to team up to take on the third faction, and force a battle at both of these warp gate stations as a massive choke point. These would be truely epic battles.

Not to mention, the idea of not being able to cap/own/lock a continent really does take away that grand scale that PS1 had. You can no longer "drive off the enemy." I think this is really what Higby was looking for when he was trying to find this "end game" he was talking about.

Also, it gives the ability to have Outfit airships as a possible work around to the warpgates an awesome addition later in the game :P

I do think, though, that this continent "locking" ability would be better with 4 continents, because then there would be one where everyone was on common ground, and the faction that was able to lock everyone out of the center continent would make for an awesome "win" scenario, even if it couldn't be held for long.

[Ailos]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

What kind of map scaling are we expecting for distance between things? For example, in the drawing above, you've got a WG and 2 "facilities" nearby. What kind of distance would there be between those 2 facilities? 500m? more? less? Can answer based on PS1 if PS2 not known.

I guess I should've pointed out that those drawings aren't to scale. Based on past answers from Higby and team, distances between facilities on Indar is similar to that in PS1, it's just that each facility is quite a bit larger now. None the less, it's at least 2 km between facilities, with minor capture points (like outpost and bunkers) every km or so.

Originally Posted by Raymac

It's likely I'm not understanding this, but how do you get around the problem of getting pushed off of one continent while your "home" continent is pop-locked? You would literally have nowhere to go if you don't have at least 1 spawn point which means you'd get booted out of the game.

If you notice, I mentioned that the shield doesn't totally block enemy travel - it just requires a squadmate with the special skills of an infiltrator that can temporarily incapacitate the shield. So a even a whole outfit could still cross over into a continent to wreak havok behind enemy lines if they wanted to, even hack the WG outpost on the other side if they wanted to (thereby opening the gate for travel to the general public).

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Orbital stations as a spawn point and staging post for organising massive counter offences on any continent. Allow people to drop pod anywhere on continents that they have no territory controlled.

What you'll see from this is massive counter offences dropping from space onto continents that are controlled by an entire faction or just 2 factions, and it would be a glorious sight to behold.

I like that idea, too.

My idea with the gate locking is that it's something I actually woldn't expect to happen very often. In my entire career playing PS, I've seen the NC sanc lock other empires only twice for any meaningful period of time (more than two days). The reality is that actually owning a disproportionate amount of terrain doesn't happen very often, but it's the possibility of that happening is what makes the game fun for us. So having these kinds of mechanics that allow dedicated outfits to have this sense of territory securely owned by their empire is what makes it fun, even if in reality the conditions to make that actually come true may never happen.

I wouldn't expect warpgates to be locked in this fashion very frequently, but I would expect outfit commanders to consider it as a tactical opportunity - to lock the gate for 15 minutes to allow some foreces to securely pass over to another continent to fight there or to deny that opportunity to the enemy commanders. Having a foothold on only one continent makes it all that much more momentous when you go fight on a continent that isn't your "home".

I mean... imagine the tactical prowess required from an outfit that has just decided to sneak two platoons of troops for a base assault from the NC home cont of (just an example) Indar to Esamir... but it involves sneaking the 6 galaxies around a massive TR-VS clusterfuck near the northern Indar warpgate that is the actual link to Esamir. That outfit is going to NEED some reaver escort... and that also creates a need for empire patrols of territory away from front lines.

I feel like the way we've been describing it here is like a sandbox element that does have some minor negative things, but also brings a lot of additional depth and immersion and scale to the game with a very marginal amount of extra design/development cost.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Ailos

I guess I should've pointed out that those drawings aren't to scale. Based on past answers from Higby and team, distances between facilities on Indar is similar to that in PS1, it's just that each facility is quite a bit larger now. None the less, it's at least 2 km between facilities, with minor capture points (like outpost and bunkers) every km or so.

Wow. Coming from Battlefield, the idea of it being that far between bases is awesome.

Approach lanes aren't usually tunnel-like valleys or anything crazy like that, are they?

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Why can't people understand the concept that if you don't have a spawn point on a continent, and the other ones are pop-locked, then you get booted out of the game?

I might be misreading your point, here, but that's why EZ stated that one foothold per continent remains, in addition to the "backdoor" warpgates. You always have a spawn on each continent, so you never get booted off the continent (and out of the game if the others are pop-locked).

All this is is taking the current 9-foothold system and tossing warpgates into the mix to make the fights both seem more connected and have a little more tactical variety by using them as "backdoors" to access hexes deep within enemy territory if you catch the leadership on one continent napping and not considering the status of the fights on other continents.

Originally Posted by Skitrel

As for the problem of it defeating the point of cont locking, you perhaps have a point, though people would cont lock anyway for the respect and to say that they did.

This is exactly why I think people complaining that we can't cont lock are jumping at shadows or clinging to old systems for the sake of clinging to old systems. We don't need to lock empires out of continents to have accomplishments to be proud of. Beating people back to their foothold (on all 3 continents, if you prefer) is no different than a sanc lock except that the losing faction doesn't have a loading screen every time they die.

We'll find new difficult goals and be proud of them. What will they be? I couldn't tell you yet -- perhaps there will be missions that are tough as nails to complete, or maybe "foothold lock" will become a term in the common parlance and an objective that carries the same "we did it because we can, and I was a part of it that one time" cachet. Until we start playing, we won't know what's hard.

Hell, perhaps some facilities will just be such tough nuts to crack that a simple territory capture will have that sense of accomplishment. Let me tell you, my favorite memory of Planetside was from beta, when we were fighting over a *bridge*. Why? Because it was an epic stalemate; a siege of mixed arms that was so solid and so furious that it lasted for hours and was (and remains) unlike anything else I've ever done in a computer game.

Originally Posted by Raymac

This is very true, that is a great point. But it's also why I think that they will try to capture all the hexes, just to do it. Forcing somebody back to their foothold while you color the entire contient in your empire's color would give (imho) the same feeling of victory as any continent lock.

I completely agree.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Ailos

If you notice, I mentioned that the shield doesn't totally block enemy travel - it just requires a squadmate with the special skills of an infiltrator that can temporarily incapacitate the shield. So a even a whole outfit could still cross over into a continent to wreak havok behind enemy lines if they wanted to, even hack the WG outpost on the other side if they wanted to (thereby opening the gate for travel to the general public).

I see, but I guess my point is that the empire needs to have a permanent spawn point on each continent. If you are on say Indar, and your empire is already pop-locked on your home continent of Esamir, if you lose all your spawn points on Indar, where can you spawn? You'd have to get booted from the server.

It's not about being able to travel through the WG, it's about where you can start from. That's the question I have.

Now, if it's like what kaffis said and Vancha's drawing where these warpgates are in addition to the permanent footholds, then obviously there is no problem.