Gameplay: Oh look another thing about outfit bases or whatever.

[Warborn]

Here's the general characteristics:

1. Bases/etc are built on territory that exists on continents set aside for the purpose of base-building. Having base building or control occur on regular continents means your outfit's structures will last approximately 1 day at absolute most before they are destroyed or taken from you. There can't be any real sense of ownership in a continent that is always experiencing a shift in territory control. Furthermore, there will always be far more outfits vying for spots to build than real estate available. Having separate continents for the purpose of outfit bases allows the balance on regular continents to remain unchanged, while having much more open construction by outfits.

2. The outfit continents don't physically exist. The continents would have map representations, with territorial ownership and structure placement and resource generation shown, but you could not travel to the continent and fly around. Only your outfits base would be a place you could physically visit. Reason for this would be two-fold: First, the necessary territory for outfit continents would be far larger than any actual continent in the game. Second, the continents would not be fought over in same manner as regular continents.

3. Base-building, territory acquisition, and inter-outfit warfare exists as a metagame. The idea is that your outfit builds up its main base, takes territory and constructs facilities on them, and wars against other outfits for ownership of territory. This process would exist as a combination of Global Agenda's guild vs. guild system, and the World of Tanks systems. When your outfit develops enough to purchase a base, you select your timezone of choice and a basic base is constructed on a vacant spot on a continent. From there, at any time the appropriate guild officers can manage the construction of base buildings and assets. Every new day, your outfit acquires resources dependent on the performance of the members in the main game, and the outfit's control of territory on the outfit continent(s). When territory is attacked by an enemy, or when your outfit attacks enemy territory, the battles are scheduled to take place at a pre-determined time. The entire thing becomes a metagame played alongside the core game.

4. Constructing bases relies on success of the empire and the outfit in the actual game. It's important not to distance the two facets of the game. They should compliment each other. For example, laying claim to bases and other important structures on the contested continents should generate a resource that is necessary for certain functions on the outfit continent. The longer you can hold a base or what have you, the more resources your outfit generates. Furthermore, other resources required in quantity for every aspect of outfit base development should depend on resources earned and taxed by members during the course of their fighting. So an active outfit with members supporting their empire well in a fight would generate more resources than a barely active or poorly performing outfit.

5. Outfit bases as the means of specialization. Outfits would use the resources they generate through various methods to construct buildings and research upgrades which would translate into bonuses for their empire. Buildings would be typical things, from power generators to resource silos to research labs to factories. Depending on what is built and researched, players in that outfit would have access to perks for certain weapons and/or vehicles. The idea is to make the advancement and specialization of outfits Higby mentioned in the PC Gamer article as being direct consequences of outfits building up their bases.

6. Outfit warfare and territorial battles become a new take on the game. The controversy has staggered me already. Oh, I can feel your choler rising. Don't be so hasty with that reply button, young man. Just relax.

Territorial battles between outfits would be resolved in small, balanced engagements similar to standard multiplayer battles. You would have a number of people involved dependent on the territory in question, but they'd be no bigger than 24 or 30 per side. The maps the fights would take place on would represent the territory being fought over. So if it's a temperate territory with a mining facility built on it, then it would be a grassy area with a generic mining structure on it. The idea would be to have a fairly large map with both infantry and vehicle combat options, but balanced around smaller engagements.

The kink in this is that the vehicles and infantry you bring to the fight are dependent on your outfit's choices. In addition to building structures and researching upgrades, your outfit would also use its hard-earned resources to build tanks, planes, and infantry gear. So maybe your outfit is all about being reaver-whores, and your buildings and upgrades make your outfit members have bonuses when using reavers. Naturally, then, your outfit spends quite a bit of its resources constructing reavers. And when you attack a territory, maybe you allocate 30 reavers, 5 galaxies, and an assortment of infantry kits. Thus, when your scheduled battle for that territory takes place, you are able to pull a max of 30 reavers from your air pad, but because you didn't bring any tanks, you can't field tanks.

Now, some of you are thinking that Planetside isn't about small 30 v 30 fights. I agree, but remember, these are battles over territory that would occur a limited number of times per week and they'd only be for outfits. They would not be the core gameplay, but they'd let outfits fight for territory in a fair manner which doesn't make it so huge zerg outfits could just steamroll smaller, more "elite" outfits.

7. Other ideas.
- Vehicle requisitions, calling in vehicle drops from your outfit's inventory to a place on the contested continents.
- Mercenaries. Players who aren't in an outfit could sell their services to fight for another outfit temporarily.
- Diplomacy. Having a fully-featured diplomacy setup available for inter-outfit relations would be nice. I kind of like the idea of outfits of the same empire being able to attack each other and their territory. To get around team recognition issues, outfits could set a uniform for their players so that during outfit fights, all their guys have the same, outfit-customized patterns and cosmetic gear setup.
- Junk like orbital strikes could likewise be tied to outfit bases.

[Lonehunter]

I like everything but Point 2, which is kind of a big one. Why reduce Planetside's size? What you're describing isn't a continent to me, it's a small personalized instance.

I'd love to literally have a huge empty continent with some public vehicle pads/spawn points but most of the structures should be outfit generated. Distance, maneuvering, time of travel, are all big elements I want in this.

Outfit Competition doesn't have to be CoD/BF scale, so I just prefer to stick with PS scale constantly.

But again, everything else is excellent

[Warborn]

I almost did a 2a., 2b., etc because there are several ways to do it and I wasn't sure which might work well.

The reason I suggested having limited areas with BF-scale fights or something like BF scale fights is two-fold: First, to give a sort of mini-game that people can play within the context of PS2 which switches things up a bit and provides a new experience; and second, so that outfit fights are balanced.

If you allow outfits to basically field as many guys as they want in fights, you cause serious issues in terms of placing smaller outfits against zerg outfits. Even a small group of very good players would be overwhelmed by a bunch of shitlords if the numbers were too stacked against them. A solution to that is to allow outfits to form alliances and defend each others territories, using mercenary players as dubious fill-ins when needed, and that might be a better solution, but I have to wonder.

Similarly, I honestly think outfit fights would be just less cool of an experience if they weren't as balanced. I really like the idea of outfits being able to pick twenty or thirty members, give them a custom set of vehicles and infantry kits, face them off against a similar opponent in terms of army size and equipment value, and let the best group win. That would be a new thing for Planetside, and would create some cool outfit-level metagame stuff. I definitely understand wanting to keep the gameplay consistent, but on the other hand I wonder if this wouldn't be an opportunity to really broaden the PS2 play experience a bit.

Oh, and as far as being able to fly around the outfit continent, I'm really on the fence about that. The reason I suggested no physical representation of the entire thing is mostly about the work that'd be required to hand-craft the entire thing. It would be easier to have a selection of maps balanced for 20v20 gameplay or whatever, and to have those used and re-used to the purpose of outfit v. outfit gameplay.

An alternative would be for them to make a single outfit continent and then just clone it however-many times are required to facilitate the server's warring outfits, but that's less than ideal too. In this case, I don't think smaller maps made for the purpose of limited engagements would be a bad thing, as then they could have a really big and interesting map depicting the... moon, or whatever, where all the outfits are fighting over territory and it's a huge area that plays like a game of Risk or Axis and Allies something similar.

[Talek Krell]

Well constructed post overall. I don't much like having to instance the outfit bases, but I admit it's a handy solution to a lot of the problems.

I think there might be workable solutions in using outfit vehicles of some sort (ships, starships, what have you) and/or balancing all outfit bought structures and bases with the *intention* that they will quickly be destroyed on the battlefield, but I haven't put as much thought into those ideas as you have into this, so I'll pursue it no farther for now.

Edit: On another note I like this wargaming-esque "point buy" system or whatever that people have been suggesting for balancing small group PS2 matches. If we do end up having battles of restricted size, I think I'd like that to make it in.

[Warborn]

Why do you believe outfit structures which are intended to be destroyed quickly would be preferable to more permanent or at least harder-lost structures? I'm just curious. Personally, I feel territory and structures which are lost very casually ultimately have no real weight to me. It seems to me that, if territory comes and goes overnight, then so what if you win or lose it? That feeling undermines any sense of gravity that fighting over territory or building structures would have otherwise.

Not instancing this stuff would be really problematic. But I really do think having smaller, instanced areas designed for smaller outfit vs. outfit fights would be a really cool parallel to have. I honestly love the idea of outfits being able to go head-to-head in a fairly fair manner. Having fun and interesting maps built specifically for that purpose would be an important step to realizing such a game parallel, however.

[Talek Krell]

I say quick as a relative term. Instancing outfit bases would, to me, rob the sense of owning something and impacting the world. I experienced Global Agenda's AvA system and I don't think that sort of thing qualifies as persistance.

I feel like we should be trying to integrate outfit constructions directly with existing or future battlefields, lest they become a novelty or worse a distraction. Structures would have to be destructible though, so that land was continually available to build on. Anything destructible on a Planetside battlefield is going to have a finite lifespan, which means that the expense needs to be balanced with that inevitable outcome in mind. I don't mean that they should be designed to be easy to destroy, just that they should be balanced with the expectation that someone is going to come blow it up at some point.

I prefer spacecraft or titan style vehicles as more permanent assets. Structures have to be destructible, but ships can just be forced to retreat.

[Anubisstargate]

I was about to post an idea about this but found this instead, so I'll just reply and throw in my own view.

I like the idea's the concept is very much to what I was thinking, though to make the lives of devs and everyone else a bit easier. I would suggest that a continent like a sanc would be made, this is a faction based continent and you have your own area of how you can acquire your own outfit settlement.

Rules for acquiring a settlement are as follows:

1) If they bring the point system back into outfits, a minimum or say 1 million or 2 million outfits points are required to obtain your outfit settlement.

2) Your outfit must have a minimum amount of people in that outfit, 60 would be an ideal number for the members required, that would be two platoon's worth. On top of this to stop kids or whoever from making multiple accounts and having their own settlement, each member of the outfit must contribute or how a certain amount of outfit points in a form of contribution. This means you will be required to play if you are multi accounting and therefore would be time consuming to those that do want to cheat their way into a settlement. In addition to the number limit of the outfit settlement requirement, a rough total of 30-40 settlements can be made with the current setup of continents. Therefore the landmass can be worked on according to that number. Less settlements will actually be made due to people joining outfits and outfit numbers exceeding 100-400 people, therefore settlements will probably be 10-20 in total.

3) A settlement cannot be griefed in any way or form. Once it's built that's it and can only be accessed via a outfit member. Even then the outfit member is limited to what he/she can do in this settlement due to the ranking system of the said outfit leader.

Can't really think of anymore rules at the moment as its pretty late and wanted to throw this up lol.

Now why is this important or what role does it actually play?
It's important to have because the outfit can pool in their resources for that outfit members. Lets say 10% of the outfit NEVER use vehicles, upgraded all their weapons and don't use grenades, infact they just do not want resources. They can pool in their resources for the pilots, tank drivers and so forth. Maybe a transactional deduction should be made during the process, like 20% of the pooled resources is taken, the remaining 80% can be taken by outfit members. This will also be governed by the outfit leader and in outfit vice-leaders.

The role this would play is more or less for the lore and novelty.
I'm sure loads of people would like their outfit to have their own base, everyone loved the sanctuary due to that being like your own private land, it had that sense of officialism to it, made the war feel authentic.

I came to this idea because of the thought of a base of intelligence, how awesome would it feel if you went to your outfit settlement and had a 10 minute briefing on your next mission that your outfit would do. With the idea of being able to co-ordinate your outfit's movements by a virtual in game map displayed infront as if it were a proper briefing room.

Anyway, that's enough from me

[Karrade]

I'd prefer to have an outfit base in the actual game set up that we had to defend, making our home continent really our home. Not to say that both wouldn't be fun. Somewhere in the game we can call home, and fight over, plus any additional off map facilities.

Not a fan of instances at all as they shrink the gameworld/popbase and I've always thought them a cheap work around to an actual map design. So not a fan of mini battles or arenas for the same reason.

[Anubisstargate]

An outfit settlement on a contested area that's 24/7 consistent play is a bit silly. Your outfit sleeps and your settlement gets a beating, you guys wake up to find that all your resources were wasted for some zergs to have fun with.

Also I'm not agreeing with the instances part nor outfits vs outfits. Too many variables and ways to take out the meaning of Planetside.

[Baneblade]

Just a General Statement here, but I think the chief problem with most outfit ownership ideas involving ground bases are the exclusivity clauses. In PS2, bases are sectored and multi facility. There is no reason one single outfit should have a whole base to themselves. Let different outfits own sectors of a given base. This would also give alliances another reason to exist.