Confirmed: 9 Sanctuaries at launch.

[Wanderer]

I will happily be able to exploit whatever system SOE and the Devs devise if they aren't going to embrace some chaotic persistence. Any system described where all sides have to be in balance can only ever end in Stalemate (of some kind), if only through fatigue of constantly getting no-where. Even if your Empire locks down every Sanctuary and essentially Spawn Camps and lays down sieges at every non-capture base, that is still a form of Stalemate... and only fun for the Campers, for a while.

Like a game of GO or Chess, simple rules should allow for the Human chaotic mind to find intrinsic meaning in moves and counter moves that actually lead to nothing. Initially PS2 can have that feel. But in 6 months, maybe a year people will see that they aren't really achieving anything, especially if they have "achieved" all the unlocks and ranks.

Unlike Chess and GO though, Planetside 2 never has a victor... hell by design, it has NO end game, no actual POINT to it all. People game to win, and in the broad strokes SOE are asking us to win for our-self; unlock stuff, gain levels and social respect... winning on the small scale. That is not enough for anyone to keep doing anything competitive like an FPS. It barely works for MMORPGs where it's all about loot drops. PS2 will have exactly the same problem as EVERY MMO EVER - End Game is just more treadmill like gain with no actual victory because victory implies stopping eventually. We probably just need to take PS2 as a series of small battles that we win or loose... oh wait, that's BF3.

What is best... "To Crush your Enemies, See them Driven Before You and to Hear the Lamentations of... the players of the other two Empires"

[Physed]

I don't mind each empire having a foothold on each continent. But I would like to see a mechanic that allows an empire to "lock out" those enemy footholds upon capture of a continent. For example, if TR takes the entire continent, the enemy footholds are "captured" for one hour. The enemies can still come in through the warpgates, but they can't use the footholds for a while. You could even go one step further and bring in a mechanic to lower that lockout time through strategic ops.

I think a capture mechanic like that would keep the battle from getting stale, while leaving plenty of options open for all three empires at any given time.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by acosmo

miir is right though, raymac.

with one foothold per continent, it's set up to be a continental stalemate
with three footholds per continent, it's set up to be a stalemate on each continent

though, consider three footholds on only one continent, how about that?

But that's not how it worked in Planetside. Using that logic, that would mean that the home continents would be stalemated in Planetside 1, but we all know that's not how it worked, even with bigger populations.

That's why I'm sure, especially with the new hex territory system, that this will not happen in PS2.

[Stardouser]

How well could 1 of these continents handle the population if everyone decided to fight on one of them at one time? Ranging from 1(crash) to 10(very easily).

[acosmo]

Originally Posted by Vancha

As if there were hypothetically only one continent in the game, or three footholds on one continent and two continents with none?

yes, three footholds on one continent and two continents with none.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by acosmo

yes, three footholds on one continent and two continents with none.

That would play very strangely, and you'd end up with empires getting pushed into their foothold.

[Stardouser]

I really don't have any examples of how they would be used, or even balanced, so I'm just going to throw this out there: Has anyone thought of whether teleportation units would be of use? Ie, kind of what a warpgate does but can go to a non-fixed destination point?

[acosmo]

Originally Posted by Vancha

That would play very strangely, and you'd end up with empires getting pushed into their foothold.

elaborate? empires already get pushed into their foothold in the planned version. in a 3foothold on only one of three cont setup, two conts are freely contested and have NO footholds.

[Malorn]

How is it people think that because a foothold exists it will be a perfect 3-way stalemate?

In PS1, an empire could always come back through a warpgate and attack a continent, be it a direct sanctuary link or a broadcast link. There is no change from that other than saving you the loading screen and making it a lot easier to wage an effective offensive by giving you easier access to vehicles. Cutter said it best: foothold = sanctuary + warpgate - loading screen. The only thing this hurts is the footzerg that used to erupt when an offensive lost its vehicles and couldn't bring more due to a poplock on the continent. Having to go back to sanctuary to get a tank and then go back through the warpgate was just time consuming and slowed down the game and discouraged people from bringing tanks. That lack of vehicles often led to a failed offensive and a continued locked continent.

All a cont "lock" did was give the lock benefit and prevent HARTing in. There is no HART in PS2, and there's plenty of other ways to introduce a benefit without capturing every piece of territory or without locking out other players access to the continent.

I love all these 3-way stalemate diagrams - the foothold has no impact on that result whatsoever because in all those diagrams each empire has 3 or more facilities, and the existence of those footholds doesn't change that. It's fundamentally flawed thinking.

Another thing not being considered is the impact of resources. An empire who has a foothold (and nothing else) on the continent will be resource starved and likely limited in what sort of vehicles and upgrades their troops will be using compared to the other empires that might be present. In PS1 if you didn't get a tech plant on a continent there was a strong chance you'd get pushed back to that warpgate. Resources fill that role in PS2. Not enough resources => fewer tanks and other upgraded vehicles.

And of course population. 3 continents - is every empire going to be poplocked on ever one and evenly balanced all the time? Hell no. It's going to shift around and some empires will ahve higher populations on certain continents but not others. Those population differences will change how the continental battles play out. Late-night play will likely see lots of territory changing hands on lesser-populated continents.

Between shifting populations and resources (not to mention strategy and tactics of the outfits present) you will see a lot of territory changing hands. If an empire loses too much, they will have a competitive disadvantage in resources and could likely be pushed back to the foothold.


And lets go back to the reason they added the footholds - to keep each continent meaningful and NOT lock out huge chunks of content from other players. With the footholds, it's always possible to have a battle on any continent you want to. That doesn't mean you'll be on even ground with your opponents there, but you aren't locked out of it.

Locking out is bad. It limits the game and funnels people into only a few fight options. Not having footholds on each continent would similarly be bad. Its hard enough to break into a continent dominated by an empire who has all the resources. Its always easier to defend. Footholds give the attackers a bone so we can keep interesting fights going all over the globe in PS2.

Seeing a map of 3 continents nad having 2 of them locked and the third has the entire population of a PS2 server on it is just dumb. There are other ways to get the sense of accomplishment that you seek without locking out the content to other players.

[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.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by acosmo

elaborate? empires already get pushed into their foothold in the planned version.

Yes, and then they have another 2 at which to spawn at...They have other locations they can choose to expand from. With just one foothold in the entire game, they're stuck there for as long as the other two empires keep them there. Yes, they'd push out eventually, but it could become incredibly unenjoyable, especially if the empire stuck in their foothold start logging off in frustration.

Originally Posted by acosmo

in a 3foothold on only one of three cont setup, two conts are freely contested and have NO footholds.

The vast majority of combat will take place on the continent with the footholds, then. Any time an empire gets pushed off one of the other two continents, they'll draw the battle back to the home continent.

[Khellendros]

Originally Posted by Raymac

But that's not how it worked in Planetside. Using that logic, that would mean that the home continents would be stalemated in Planetside 1, but we all know that's not how it worked, even with bigger populations.

That's why I'm sure, especially with the new hex territory system, that this will not happen in PS2.

The thing is, we didn't have footholds in PS1, so there was no comparable situation.

In PS1, you didn't really push an empire back to the WG, rather you eliminated their spawns at the last base, then they were largely gone. In order to come back, that empire then has to either go back to sanc or to their linked cont to pull vehs. The time and effort cost of doing that is much higher than for a foothold where the spawns, equipment and vehicle terminals are all right there and so unlike in PS1, there will be a constant stream of reinforcements from the foothold. For PS1 WGs, it was more like a trickle due to the aforementioned time/effort cost.

So in PS2, I can see there being a steep difficulty gradient descending from each foothold, where, if the pops are equal, there could be a point before the foothold past which the attacking empire simply cannot push. So assuming similar pops and skill distributions, it is not implausible that we could see a good deal of rubberbanding around a certain central area on the cont.

Is that bad in and of itself? I don't know. I do feel that it is somewhat less dynamic than the PS1 model, BUT if they execute everything else well; the combat, the scale, mechanics, etc, this could very well not be much of an issue.

We might simply be having too much fun to care.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Khellendros

The thing is, we didn't have footholds in PS1, so there was no comparable situation.

In PS1, you didn't really push an empire back to the WG, rather you eliminated their spawns at the last base, then they were largely gone. In order to come back, that empire then has to either go back to sanc or to their linked cont to pull vehs. The time and effort cost of doing that is much higher than for a foothold where the spawns, equipment and vehicle terminals are all right there and so unlike in PS1, there will be a constant stream of reinforcements from the foothold. For PS1 WGs, it was more like a trickle due to the aforementioned time/effort cost.

We had Footholds in PS1 - broadcast warpgates which were connected to sanctuaries. The only thing different is the loading screen. That loading screen is quite significant though, as you point out, it makes it much easier to return to the fight and bring armor / aircraft. In many cases in PS1 the only reason an army was defeated was because they were reduced to a footzerg and were getting farmed by vehicles. That led to them giving up and leaving.

It's the "giving up and leaving" part that is shitty that they are fixing. You don't want people to give up and leave. That leads to downtime, and parts of the world that are effectively cut off from approximately a third of the population. It leads to stagnation and the requirement to have a "raid" formed up to break into a continent to try to get a real foothold in order to effectively wage battle. That part is being removed in PS2 with the footholds.

The consequence is never truly being able to kick an empire out of the continent. Why is that a bad thing? The only reason I have is that it removes the sense of accomplishment of "victory" on that continent. But in reality, victory was had long before they were physically removed when their back was broken and they started losing territory. Thus there are other ways to grant the feeling of "Victory" without locking the continent and kicking people out.

This is a GOOD change to Planetside. I didn't believe it at first myself but when I took the time to really think about what was being lost I realized what footholds actually give back to Planetside.

1) More battle options - that's right, everyone has more battle options with footholds.

2) Less attacker handicapping - in PS1 Attacking a continent was severely against the attacker due to not having a resupply base. In PS2 attacking is more fairly balanced against defending and so there will be more action and movement.

3) Less downtime. That last part of a continent cleanup was terrible. There were often cases where an empire would give up because they knew they were in an unwinnable situation and just leave. Then you sit around waiting for the continent to be cleaned up.

4) Less wind-up time. The other side of the downtime is the wind-up time before you can begin a new offensive and competitively wage war in PS2 - you had to crack into a continent. Usually that required CR5s and outfits to coordinate and hit a specific location, ideally with as much secrecy as possible. Unfortunately there wasn't much to keep secret because they generally only had 2-3 viable targets. Either the defenders were there waiting for them and you had a failed assault, or you gobbled up huge amounts of land with little to know opposition. More boredom.

In all the downtime + wind-up time could easily span an hour or more of not-much-going-on.

Less wasted time, more options, more action, more progress. That's what footholds bring to the table.

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.

If you want victory conditions, that's a great discussion on how those can be added in without breaking the foothold model. Lots of ideas have been proposed about that, many of which are perfectly viable without continent locks and blocking off huge chunks of territory.

[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!