How strong is the incentive to live?

[BeastBuster]

When this game was first announced I immediately started imagining all these epic scenarios in my head. One of these scenarios plays out like this:

The factions have been fighting over a base for a long time and the attackers have managed to whittle away the defense. There is still a small pocket of defenders holding off the enemy, but they are ultimately doomed. It is only a matter of time before the attackers push through and finish them off.

In my head, the defenders would send out a distress call for an air evac, or maybe even some Sunderers could roll in and bail get them out of there. Realistically, I expect that they would just keep fighting, die, and then respawn somewhere else.

I didn't play PS1, but did these kind of evacs occur in the original? If so, do you think its reasonable to assume they would happen in PS2?

Finally, if the answer is no, would people like to see this kind of thing happening?

[DukeTerror]

Wasn't any incentive for an evac or to survive. In fact TR will pride themselves on fighting to the death to hold a base.

Don't see that changing much in PS2. There is a kill streak one will want to preserve for the bonus exp and pride, but not to the point of running away or insisting someone sends you an evac.

[GreatMazinkaise]

Only the weak request evac... get out under your own power or fight to your last remaining health point...

[Yasuo]

Loyalty Until Death!
(no Evacs, hold base untill you die, its the way of the Republic)

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by BeastBuster

I didn't play PS1, but did these kind of evacs occur in the original? If so, do you think its reasonable to assume they would happen in PS2?

The only place you'd be stuck in defending was a control term or a generator etc, if you're pinned in there there is no way out. You hold them off until more players arrive or you hold out as long as you can.

extraction would be a waste of time as it's faster to die and rez.

I spose we've extracted out of hot bases but it's normally just a gal coming in under fire to grab a squad and head off to another base

[Thunderhawk]

I haven't heard of ever having a team or group of players request an evac because it's getting to the point of being a hopeless case, you just die and respawn elsewhere.

Also, I highly recommend all you "I havent played PS1 so don't know" people to try out PS1 even for 1 month to get a feel of how Planetside functions, it would be a lot better getting experience in the field then asking on forums. And no matter how much PS2 is changing from PS1 (and it is), people that know how to play PS1 will still have an advantage over those that come in from other games having not experienced anything like it.

[MCYRook]

To quote the Defcon tagline, "everybody dies". Some more frequently than others, but dying is no biggie, nothing that you'd need to go at length to avoid.

Speaking of "it would be quicker to just die and respawn" - sometimes people in PS1 would suicide to spawn somewhere else ASAP. It really is the quickest way sometimes, so why not. (Only real downside - other than spawning in a spawn room, which may not be tactically ideal - is, your implants need some time to initialize after spawning. We don't know yet if there'll be anything like that in PS2 tho.)

The only time I'd despawn or recall out of a hot zone is when I'm pretty sure that dying is the only thing I can do there now, without doing any significant damage to them. Or if I don't want them to know I was there in the first place. Evac missions tho? They just don't happen, there's no need for it.

[ringring]

The only time we've evacuated a base was in the scenario when we look at the overall situation, realise we're losing ground and decide our best hope is to fight at that base over there rather than the one we're at.

When we do this it would be generally be before the battle started.

[Troika]

I'd like there to be enough incentive to live that players won't off themselves just to respawn to a different battle site. Maybe losing the exp bonuses from killstreaks and base captures etc. will be enough to do that.

[Baneblade]

The idea here is not to die for your empire, but to make that red fuckin dot die for his... repeatedly.

Adaption of Patton Quote

[DukeTerror]

Planetside is like the greatest tragedy story ever. How sad is it that a Galaxy or Sunderer are worth more than your lives? You even saw often in the E3 stream a TR morale boosting tactic: "Keep shooting the men until morale improves!"

[vVRedOctoberVv]

Originally Posted by DukeTerror

In fact TR will pride themselves on fighting to the death to hold a base.

Indeed Seriously, though... Unless you put a twenty minute respawn timer on somebody, there is literally NO reason they care about dying. This is why, generally speaking, people in war games behave like idiots and battles that would take two days in RL take two minutes in game... Because nobody cares.


Scratch that about the respawn timer. I look forward to the day we each wear a hi-voltage shock harness that zaps us when we die, leaving us briefly incapacitated and pissing all over ourselves. THEN you'll have an incentive not to die. Until then, it's never gonna happen.

[Nemeses]

Originally Posted by DukeTerror

Wasn't any incentive for an evac or to survive. In fact TR will pride themselves on fighting to the death to hold a base.

But all they did was die

[longfire]

Originally Posted by Thunderhawk

I haven't heard of ever having a team or group of players request an evac because it's getting to the point of being a hopeless case, you just die and respawn elsewhere.

Also, I highly recommend all you "I havent played PS1 so don't know" people to try out PS1 even for 1 month to get a feel of how Planetside functions, it would be a lot better getting experience in the field then asking on forums. And no matter how much PS2 is changing from PS1 (and it is), people that know how to play PS1 will still have an advantage over those that come in from other games having not experienced anything like it.

Ive been thinking of buying ps1 off gamefly but is it really worth it knowing its probably gonna be a month or 2 until ps2 beta?

[Ninjacalypse]

Originally Posted by longfire

Ive been thinking of buying ps1 off gamefly but is it really worth it knowing its probably gonna be a month or 2 until ps2 beta?

I'm pretty sure the servers are closed now and rarely open only for specific events. There was one recently I believe but I have a feeling there won't be many or more at all of those.