Huge Outfits and PlanetSide 2 - Page 17

Duckforceone · 2012-12-22, 12:28 PM

well to respond to your first post Hamma.

No i don't think this game needs everyone to join these outfits. And here's why.

Before i joined the 666, i was in a tiny outfit, that rarely had many people online on connery, due to almost everyone else in our huge outfit, moved to briggs (yes might sound confusing)

One of my solutions, to make the game more fun, for those of us left behind, was to be where the good action was, when i was running a squad for my outfit.

I went about this, by doing a few things.
1 : getting the command channel, so i could ask, and talk to other leaders.
2 : Starting to contact the larger outfits, to ask them if there was a way i could get in contact with them when we were online, so we could know where they were heading, and perhaps what we might be able to help them with.
3 : Finding a good assault, and then tagging along with my squad. Seeing what they did, and then thinking about what we could do to assist. That could be to fly a lib to bomb for the assault, or take out and guard a shield generator, or provide AA support and other things.

So in short, i found it rather easy to play without being in a large outfit (i changed for other reasons)

But you do have to work a bit for it... but so does the big outfits, and they have to work harder.

I know smaller outfits, that does nothing but specialize in tanks and air support, they just fly most of the time to bomb, and then they deploy tanks when air is on cooldown.

CrankyTRex · 2012-12-22, 12:46 PM

Of all the things discussed regarding taming the zerg, I think actual doors will do more to solve the problem than anything else.

FireWater · 2012-12-22, 01:22 PM

Hey all,

FireWater from the Sentienls here, we are a mid-sized (around maybe 50 or so active members, maybe less) but we are a very powerful force on Watterson Vanu.

It seems that small outfits have challenges that large outfits do not. This is an FPS MMO, that advertises large multi-weapon approach (i.e. airforce, armor, infantry) as well as CQB. I'm sure planetside 1 players would even agree that the large scale combat was why they were drawn to the game in the first place.

It seems that there are combination of things that need to occur to assist with the solving of the problem.

Lets talk about what the community can do to help themselves, to 100% blame the developers for the challenges of small squads is ineffective.

1) Small outfits can network with other outfits that share their values on their server. The Sentinels have joined a Vanu Sovereignty alliance on Watterson, with some pretty good outfits that vary in size. We are usually able to network pretty effectively most nights to assist. We or another outfit comes up with a Macro plan (i.e. which territories to go after) and each outfit comes up with their way to take their respective territories.

2) Development of better squad tactics. This game is still young. I'm not confident that both squads large and small have found not only necessary the best tactics or class compositions, but the best load outs etc.... My point is there is a lot to learn in this game still. The key is to absorb effective tactics from outfits, both large and small.

3) Individual Combat Skill. There is always a way to improve combat skill. I see a lot of players that I go up against that I murder 1v1 with very little damage. Granted I have a large amount of PC FPS experience (16 years, competitive) there is room for improvement and I try to learn from every encounter I both win or lose. I'm curious to see how individual players complaining here do in 1v1 combat situations that exist whether you are fighting a zerg or not. There are different weapon tweaks and tactics, as well as training raw aim that occur for all players. In my opinion, planetside 2 has a higher skill cap due to adding locational damage that was not present in planetside 1. Reflex aiming for the head, and knowing when to get out of combat is a useful thing to learn as an individual player. The reality is that there are a lot of gamers out there that will make excuses for their own poor play. The developers can only balance the game, not the players.

The reason why I mention these things is to empower the community and give them ammunition when presenting a potential game change to the developers.

At the same time, there is only so much the community can do, and I do believe that the developers can assist as well.

1) Make Sundy spawn timers longer for each person that wants to spawn at a sundy. For example lets say the base sundy spawn time is 15 seconds, and 5 people spawn in, each of those 5 people would add 1 second of time to those who want to spawn in as well. The sundy would add that time to its base time as people spawn in, and as less people spawn it would tick down back to baseline of 15 seconds.

The reason I suggest this is because a lot of people mention that its not the initial push of a zerg force that is the problem per se. It is the multiple waves of zerg that pose a problem when defending. Capping Sundy spawn times would limit repeat reinforcements. However it will not stop the initial zerg.

Still though, I think it would be valuable to tweak sunderer spawn times when attacking, giving the defenders a break, especially since a defending squad is usually much smaller than an attacking squad.

2) Take out the Adjacency rule, allow smaller squads to attack any territory with out a major penalty. This could potentially force either a zerg force to split up AND/OR force smaller outfits to defend against smaller deep territory strikes, which would give a role to smaller outfits, that can contribute to the overall fight.

3) Put back defense lock down timers. I know a lot of players have challenges with that, but I feel it would give a sense of completion to a battle, and give a break to the defenders from an endless onslaught of zerg, in combination with redoing mobile spawn timing, give defenders time after a rough battle to regroup and clean up and prepare for rounds 2 3 4 etc.... I would suggest a lockdown timer of 1 minute for single point outposts and 30 seconds for each additional cap point in the territory.

I think its ineffective to expect the developers to solve an issue that is somewhat social (i.e. stronger networked outfits work better than outfits working in silos). That is a community issue that can only be solved by us.

There are some game balancing issues, particularly sundy spawn timers that can greatly effect the outcome of a battle and minimize multiple waves of zerg. A combination of both community and developer solutions I believe is the key to giving smaller outfits a stronger role in Planetside 2

tkoreaper · 2012-12-22, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by GreatMazinkaise

Edit: A thing about zergfits: I don't care if you think you're tactical and organized. It simply doesn't matter... the game's organizational and tactical requirements stop at "bring all your numbers to converge on a small area" and "bring flak and aircraft". Nothing else has any bearing on an empire's success in a fight. You're winning with numbers, not with organization, because organization really doesn't have any significant effect.

This is a bit hypocritical... Smaller groups/outfits do THE EXACT SAME THING. Organization does have an effect... every single person plays differently. If we all played the same and thought the same way then there would be no reason to group up and organize. Organization brings structure and focus... I'm sorry you feel that it's just zerging, but really it's not.

Your post would hold much more merit if you gave examples of things that would require higher "organizational and tactical" skills.

Punker · 2012-12-22, 02:04 PM

examples of things that would require higher "organizational and tactical" skills.

As i said earlier people should be reading all of the posts in this thread instead of cherry picking quotes to reply to.

Just as an example, these are also things your zergfits can do. Nobody is saying nerf large outfits.

Edit: In fact, that post i linked was from a member of one of the largest VS outfits from PS1, it seems that everyone is on the same page except for one particular zergfit that has put themselves on the defensive.

Saintlycow · 2012-12-22, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by FireWater

Hey all,

2) Take out the Adjacency rule, allow smaller squads to attack any territory with out a major penalty. This could potentially force either a zerg force to split up AND/OR force smaller outfits to defend against smaller deep territory strikes, which would give a role to smaller outfits, that can contribute to the overall fight.

I dunno about this. It could be exploited by larger groups of people who could easily back cap.

Personally, I think resources should be world wide, perhaps gaining 75% (ball park figure) of other continents give outs. Of course, resource pricing would need to be adjusted, but at least the team getting steamrolled has a chance. Usually, when we're getting warpgated, is that it is extremely difficult to get the vehicles needed to gain resources. Which does make sense, but what happens is people find they can't combat the enemy, so they switch continents. If the resources were distibuted my way, the defenders would still have a disadvantage, but they would still be able to fight.

raw · 2012-12-22, 09:09 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

* Do resources need a bigger role? (in theory, a small outfit can better do resource denial with small territories)

Yes, I even made a thread about that in the beta forum back then. What I'd like to see is that cooldowns go the way of the Dodo and we're only limited by ressources. I am obviously not assuming current ressource gain/drain rates. OBVIOUSLY.

The idea of ressources is great, but it's absolutely not leveraged by the game itself. They are redundant to cooldowns and are so quickly gained that by the time your tanks (or whatever) blows up you can pull a new one.

It should be possible to deny the enemy a certain ressource (infiltrators?)

I have no idea how to bring ressources into the game right now, many people need to think long and hard over that; chain Higby to his desk when he comes back from vacation, put someone with a whip behind him.

A quick thing that could be done is zeroing ressources when switching continents. that would make ressources that much more relevant and would make locking a continent more like actually locking it. That would specifically address the problem of large scale platoon operations being unable to effectively drain enemy platoons of ressources and warpgate them. What I've seen happening right now is that should one side run out of ressources, that side will simply switch to another continent, fill their ressources up and switch back. That means, currently the only way to warpgate an enemy is to have higher numbers than them and it also means that all those ressources mean even less than shit all.

* Does territory capture need to be slowed down to allow for response, regrouping, and to wear down a zerg?

Double edged sword. If you slow down the capture rate, the waiting game gets worse than it already is. Capping an empty enemy base takes too long as it is already.

A quick change here: If, say, A reads [A]0/6, I want to actually need 6 people attending the CP, otherwise the CP gradually reverts back to the previous owner. This will cull the one man ESF cappers and should make zergs clash more often. Consider, under this system a 3 point techlab would at least need 3x6=18 people just at the CPs to cap. Makes defense easier, faciliates big battles, prevents lonewulf capping. Win.

* Does defense need to be more rewarding XP-wise?

I'd go with a tentative 'yes' here, though the old beta problem of AFK farmers needs to be solved first, if you should reintroduce XP gain on successful defense.

* Do vehicles need to cost more resources to help reduce spam?

Complicated issue. What you are currently doing to reduce the spam is allowing us to quickly dispatch tanks. (Rearshots, tank mines, ROCKETPODS

) This is somewhat fair game, considering tanks genocide infantry, but on the other hand it means that there are a lot of frustrating situations for the tank driver and even more so for infantry going up against a tank.

PS1 did it best. The overall less volatile combat ment you could actually position your tank and on the other hand allowed infantry to engage tanks with some effectivity. Also, let's not forget a PS1 tank required two people...

...and honestly, therein lies the problem. You're not going to bring back the dedicated driver of PS1. Ok, I get that. But why on earth is the main gun STRONGER than the top mounted? That's like rubbing salt into the wound.
The presence of HE weapons is the main trigger for tank spam. Easy and lots(!) of kills are just a click of the mouse away. Why would you not spam tanks under these circumstances?

Reduce the blast radius on the standard gun, make the HE gun SUCK ASS vs. armor and probably reduce their blast radius and dmg vs infantry too and nerf the damage output of the main gun vs. the top gun, so the gunner actually becomes a gunner and isn't just the janitor. I want the gunner weapons to be more powerful than the driver weapons.

Oh and buff the damage of the AP gun!

* Do deployment options need to be reduced to encourage more natural concentration of force? (I'm thinking PS1 here where you had 3-4 options on where to spawn and it kept forces together so you weren't steamrolled as much and opened up opportunity for small outfits to avoid the concentrations)

I think this is more an issue of coordination. I would not touch this for now.

Whiteagle · 2012-12-22, 10:45 PM

Originally Posted by basti

1. Right now, resources are eighter completly useless (you get to much to really care), or just annoying as fuck (you dont get enough to do anything. Depens fully on the capture status of the continent your on.
I think the whole "you get X resources for this territory per tick" system just doesnt work. It rewards the empire that is doing good a lot, while punishing the empire that is doing bad. Now, thing is, the empire that is getting pushed back usually just lost a bunch of vehicles in the process of being pushed back. Now they also get less resources. At some point, they cant even defend anymore, and just get steamrolled. No idea how to fix that tho, any idea i come up with breaks right away. :/

Well I did have that Resource Pipeline lattice idea back in Beta...

...It would also be nice to be able to transfer Vehicles from one Continent to another as well.

Originally Posted by basti

2. Yes, absolutly. The whole capture mechanic right now needs to change. A Flat out timer a la hack and hold is likley the solution. It gives everyone a clear idea about how long they got time to get a resecure going, rather than having a completly random ticker. Seen Buzz yell quite loud once on the stream about that, as a outpost you guys tried to defend flipped within seconds, way to fast to mount any attempt to resecure.
So, Hack and hold, please. The more surrounding territory you own, the lower the time needed to hold the hack. But, once the hack is on, the time doesnt change, even if surrounding territorys flip owner.
Should work well for Techplants and Amp stations, as they need a resecure from the outside, rather than a push from the inside like biolabs.

Honestly, I wonder if that wasn't the plan to begin with, in order to spread the hoards out instead of allowing them to clump up on a Major Facility as soon as they had Adjacency...

...Might explain the moronic base layouts that favor counter attacking over defense, attackers come in to cap a point but then the defenders can come in and flush them out easily.

...Still bassackwards thinking though...

Also think I saw someone mention something about how the capture progress should automatically reset when all the points are re-secured...

Originally Posted by basti

3. The defense XP bonus is good, but people dont realize that its there. So, it needs to be more obvious that you get a bonus for defending.
Maybe, instead of giving the bonus to all XP right away, save it up to give it out whenever a defence is over (whenever you leave the territory / loose the base / dont get any XP for x Minutes while still in the territory). People would still get exactly the same, but it would be more obvious to them what they get.
I bet after such a change, people would yell that they now get to much XP for defending.

Eh, I don't know if that's do-able...

I mean, the multiplier sees to apply to each individual tick, so I don't know if its possible to collect all the bonus XP and gift it on a successful defense.

...I threw out earlier the idea of a successful defense giving 40% of the that bases Capture bonus, which I think would be about right when coupled with the current defensive XP bonus.

Originally Posted by basti

4. No. Thats not helping to fix the problem, it just annoys people. A vehicle zerg only exists for a short amount of time, till it gets taken out. Usually, people then dont just jump into tanks right away again, but instead spawn at the nearest AMS.
What we need are more effective ways to slow down a vehicle zerg. More CE tools maybe. I would suggest a drastic change to mines: Cut the damage down to 25%, up the amount of Mines Engineers carry around. The idea is to create big minefields again that dont kill vehicles right away, but hinder their movement. Well placed minefields could then work quite well together with HA and Tanks to quickly take out a vehicle zerg.
Also, maybe nerf The standard guns infantary Damage. If infantary has a better chance against Tanks, the whole issue may go away completly.

Honestly, while I wouldn't mind way more Mines even if they did less damage, a bigger issue is that most bases are just worthless when it comes to protecting against Vehicles, let alone fighting back against them.

That's another big issue, there is no overhead cover protecting against Air Camping of the spawns, so Air Superority is winning all of the Outpost fights before they can even begin...

Originally Posted by basti

5. Yes. Closest 2-3 AMS within 500M (to avoid the AMS hopping that happens quite often), Closest Outpost, closest Place to spawn big vehicles. Thats it.
Prevent people from spawn hopping around, and you should be good.

Eh, I honestly don't think spawn hopping is much of an issue with the Zerg...

Plus that would cripple any remaining Spec Ops behind enemy lines...

Dkamanus · 2012-12-22, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by HiroshiChugi

i couldnt help it, they just don't know how to run themselves lol

I guess I know which outfit you are talking and YES, they don't know how to organize anything with those massive numbers. We from Comando Brasil ([COBR]) roll with 20 people tops most of the time, and I'm a huge Hard-ass on my guys, but we achieve stuff. When we go and see that the *** doesn't do its job, mostly due to a total lack of brain, we go there and we TAKE that shit.

The first thing into resolving this would be a Outfit Tree, where you would increase members size and funcionalities. Something akin of EVE Online. Devs wanted to make things too open and that is taking its toll now. This Outfit Tree would be a first step on the right direction, with only being able to call upon 150 members MAX (its an outfit, not a grand army of the republic).

Second, YES, Quality can beat quantity. We've done it. Pulled three Vanguard with Sunderer and infantry support and blew 10-12 tanks before being overwhelmed due to the lack of support, between Magriders and Lightnings zerging in Eisa Tech plant. The problem is the fact that ANYONE can take a vanguard these days, and since everything is a sidegrade in the dev's minds, this makes those things VERY dangerous in massed numbers. A hard counter towards this would be to reinsert certifications to allow people to drive and fly stuff.

It happened just today. 40-50 air units, with no way to destroy them, because AA is just too weak. EVERYONE is complaining about the size the zergs are getting. The strategic value of the game is diminishing the more the zerg is uncontrolled. DEvs must stop being afraid of "hurting some players feelings" and establish some checks on this.

It's highly frustrating to see 30 rocketpod scythes on the air just ROFLStomping all the AA defense, which can't be that much, since not everyone buys AA thanks to the lack of destructibility it gives. I can't say about Devil dogs, since they seem to be a legit outfit with tactics and stuff, but *** in waterson just zergs stuff and takes nothing.

Hell, my guys seem to do the job 4 platoons seem unable to do sometimes its just silly. Not saying [COBR] is the l337est outfit on NC, but I guarantee, we take stuff. Its the least an outfit with almost 2 full squadrons should be able to do.

Eduard Khil · 2012-12-22, 11:06 PM

You and SOE dream, Hamma.

Even if you were to disolve large outfits, make them smaller even, that will still not stop zergfit steamrolls.

Too late, what favors zergfits is their ability to gather people, you cannot do anything about that, the entire game is a zergfest if you think about it, the only thing a zergfit does is focus that zerg into one point and move from there.

Fortress · 2012-12-22, 11:12 PM

Give me a building with less than nine access points and seven HE catching windows, to start.

Actually, just put two entrances (on the ground) and no windows. Make the entrances HE proof. Use a shield that doesn't allow vehicle fire or something. That'd be swell.

Then put the capture point in it. Then connect that building to a spawn room.

Then maybe I'll consider sticking around to defend it.

ringring · 2012-12-23, 05:49 AM

I'd also just like to point out something that probably contributes.

Nobody uses the 'leader' or 'command' channel. It's similar to PS1 where nobody used the sl channel, which was equivalent.

However, cr5 channel was very important and coordination did happen thru that.

The other thing is that there has as yet been no formation of empire communities. I think no coordination and lack of community can be traced straight back to the lack of cr5 channel.

Devs to do:
Stop the chat channel from fading out after something is said in there - most often you don't have time to read it when it appears then when you do it has faded away and you have to press 'return' or something to see it rather than just leaving it there to be read at leisure.
Bring back CR5 channel .... perhaps a different means to qualify for becoming a member but something with essentially the same job.

**edit: suggestion for a qualification to be part of the new cr5 channel; must be br30 or above, must be in an outfit and be within the top 2 ranks. (in my outfit this would include outfit leadesrs and officers) - this could expand is more granularity in ranks are provided at some stage.

Crator · 2012-12-23, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by ringring

**edit: suggestion for a qualification to be part of the new cr5 channel; must be br30 or above, must be in an outfit and be within the top 2 ranks. (in my outfit this would include outfit leadesrs and officers) - this could expand is more granularity in ranks are provided at some stage.

Interesting suggestion. Might promote some players to break off of large outfits so they can have the opportunity to be involved in the CR5 chat more frequently. I'd also like to suggest that the outfit leaders are allowed to give permission to different outfit ranks to talk in CR5 chat. A hard limit, per outfit, on the amount of players who can actively speak in the CR5 chat would need to be implemented to control spam as well. So in case those in the outfit that are ranked higher are not online the ability would fall to the next lower ranked person in the outfit. Could also allow the higher ranked outfit member to temporarily pass the CR5 chat ability to someone else in the outfit if they are online but don't wish to lead at the time.

Blynd · 2012-12-23, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by Crator

Interesting suggestion. Might promote some players to break off of large outfits so they can have the opportunity to be involved in the CR5 chat more frequently. I'd also like to suggest that the outfit leaders are allowed to give permission to different outfit ranks to talk in CR5 chat. A hard limit, per outfit, on the amount of players who can actively speak in the CR5 chat would need to be implemented to control spam as well. So in case those in the outfit that are ranked higher are not online the ability would fall to the next lower ranked person in the outfit. Could also allow the higher ranked outfit member to temporarily pass the CR5 chat ability to someone else in the outfit if they are online but don't wish to lead at the time.

I agree with allowing outfit leaders and 2-3 officers to have cr5 chat before they actualy get to cr5 but I don't agree with letting it go to lower ranked memberw cause someone isn't online. As it would lead to suuestions from people who may not be that experianced with leading and they go and give an outfit a bad rep by speaking in command chat nd suggesting stupid things. So each outfit dependant on size can have the ol and 2-3 officers but only 2 have access at a time to avoid spam as most outfits will discuss objectives internally before saying stuff on command chat (cr5 chat) so there is no need for all outfit officers to be in that chat cause you will end up with the clutter that was gemini's cr5 chat after the mergers of all servers

Crator · 2012-12-23, 12:40 PM

^ Oh yes, I don't disagree that the outfit member must be CR5 (which shouldn't be an outfit exclusive ranking). I do agree, to control the amount of global chat, that only CR5 outfit members can use global command channels. And also have a timer to use it again after using it.

I guess what I was getting at was a way to give outfits a command rank system of thier own to internally tier the CR5s in the outfit. A way to control which two in the outfit can use global at any time.