Huge Outfits and PlanetSide 2

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by Hamma

One man shouldn't be able to deny vehicles to a whole cont

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! DO YOU EVEN PLAY CLOAKER?

Sorry, that was my knee jerk reaction to hearing that line. The one man not being able to make a strategic difference on the field goes against my experience playing as a cloaker and as a leader. I'm going to give two stories that are examples where one person changed the global situation.


For those of you who haven't played the original, each empire had 2 "home" continents. These conts were linked to your sanctuary and if an enemy captured both they would be able to spawn your vehicles. One of the TR's home conts is Ceryshen. No one really likes playing there because it's so high up that aircraft can't really move and there's lots of twisty nasty roads (I actually like it but then again my favorite cave is Annwn). I was bored of whatever I was doing at the time and set myself to the task of capturing Ceryshen. All of it. On foot. A couple hours later after running into no resistance the whole cont had turned a nice purple shade. So time to move onto the other TR home cont Forseral. About half way through that cont I ran into about half a squad worth of resistance so I made a call for backup and my outfitmates showed up and we finished off the rest of the cont giving the VS TR tech for the night.


Cyssor is the cont that everyone loves to fight on. That is a fact of life, so much so that the game earned the nickname Cyssorside. So here's the global outlook. VS are underpopped and TR/NC have a poplocked zerg fight raging on Cyssor. The VS want in on the fight but don't have any good warpgate links into the cont. So the VS really is just milling about fighting smaller battles on other conts with the TR and NC's leftovers but it's not really fun.
So I'm looking at this and decide that I really don't want to roam around with the other VS because that's dull. I'm looking over my map of Cyssor when I notice a base in the Southwest, Nzame, was very close to running out of power and losing it's TR ownership (the main fight was up NE). Grabbing a drop pod out to the south so I could hack out a spawn point for myself I went over to the close to neutral base. I find maybe one or two under prepared NC milling about the TR base so I setup some defense expecting some good TR to try to refill the base. While I'm sorting out my own refueling I make a call to an old friend to come and back me up as the base was in the 10% power left range. So the time comes and a few TR as well but by that time the tubes had been destroyed and the tower taken. At this point I make a global call for VS to show up and we start our 15min hack to retake the base.
For those of you who've never had to deal with the hacking/filling/capture of a neutral base allow me to give some detail. It takes 15 minutes for a base to be captured, however, if the base has no power at the end of the 15 minutes the base reverts to no owner and you don't get any experience. However, if you fill the base and the enemy hacks the base their hack will use the fuel you put in to make the base theirs. So the goal is to refill the base only after you've gotten close to holding for the full 15.
Remember earlier how I mentioned that the VS wanted to be on Cyssor but didn't have an opening? Well part of that lack of opening was the TR and NC killing any force we sent to take a base. That force was now coming to our little piece of heaven. Luckily VS drop pods started raining down and we started holding the base against the significant forces sent our way. About a half hour later the whole VS zerg was now infesting the Southwest of Cyssor.


One person can and should be able to make a difference. It is always a matter of finding where it can be done. To mandate that teamwork is needed to do anything clips the wings of players who make sabotage their line of work. I have more stories ranging from cat and mouse games to assassinations to intel gathering but those two exemplify how an individual can change the global scene. Game should be a sandbox, not a carnival ride that necessitates that you must have this many people to ride.

[ckatech]

maybe for say tech plants and amp stations, put in underground tunnels to generators that can't be vehicle accessed. I would say from the spawn room at tech plants, and from the main building of amp stations. Either that or make the staircase to jump pads at amp stations covered with direct access to the side generators--and a clear path.

It would also be really really nice to be able to keep up with say other aircraft if you are running an air to air only squad such as TE's off hours Talon squad. Teamspeak helps, but sometimes it would be nice to have on UI indicators of your squadmates--you can't find them on the global map easily due to vehicles only showing up in green. Maybe a distress option could be added that would put a moving indicator of squadmates under attack while in a vehicle.

The major problem with PS2 other than the no-meta game is that this game NEEDs to be infantry focused, but it's not--it is vehicle focus v. infantry focused. I really missed certing into vehicles. It made you feel unique moreso than just having to put certs in does. I was a PS1 Vet up until about 2-3 months of core combat & BFRs.

I really do miss continent locks, but their really really needs to be about 5 more continents for that to occur, 3 is not enough. Continent locks + Lattice + somehow being able to sneak in a hack on an unsuspecting continent. I miss driving around blue & yellow magriders too--I was NC mainly in PS1.

My final point/rant: MAKE HA EMPIRE SPECIFIC WEAPONS VIABLE AGAIN.

[ckatech]

I was TemperdSteel in PS1 for you old timers-Emerald I think, may have been Konried at first I forget .
sig added. I haven't really posted here.

Can't we just get cyssor back with a limited supply of magriders.

[Rothnang]

My giant problem with Hamma's assessment of the situation is that he seems to think vehicles need to be restricted, which I think isn't the right approach.

A lot of people enjoy playing with vehicles, and want to use them as much as possible, so any change that deprives them of the ability to use vehicles isn't an improvement, but just pushes the pendulum in the other direction towards people who like infantry combat.

I also don't believe in making the resource system more important, because I really dislike the idea of giving the faction that's already winning all the advantages. The more land you control the more difficult it should become to hold on to it, it shouldn't become easier and easier because your opponents can't mobilize powerful units anymore.


What really needs to be addressed is population imbalance, spawncamping, defense, XP distribution and combined arms

There needs to be a really substantial XP bonus for going to a continent where you're outnumbered, so people WANT to fight there, and the population balances back out. The 2-3% you get for server wide imbalances is laughable, and meaningless since population per continent is what really matters.

Spawncamping is IMO the biggest problem with vehicles vs. infantry. When a vehicle gets destroyed it isn't back in 10 seconds, it takes much longer than that. Even just damaging a vehicle sends it packing for longer than infantry takes to recover from death. This whole advantage that infantry should have is unfortunately much too easily shut down by spawncamping and knocking down Sunderers. Infantries ability to spawn back into a fight is unfortunately easily shut down by vehicles, so they can rarely capitalize on their strength.

Defending bases isn't rewarded enough, and they flip much too quickly. The whole domination system doesn't work, because there isn't ever time to mobilize a meaningful defense. The defensive structures in the base are always constructed like swiss cheese, contain none of the vital parts, and aren't adequately protected. Like in an amp station, nobody wants to stand on the wall, you're just an easy target for enemies moving around the very same walls, and you're not even helping to defend, since what you really need to protect are generators housed in small buildings, the walls are just for show.

XP distribution is just off in this game. Infantry dies in one hit from a vehicle, respawns and is back maybe 20 seconds later. A vehicle gets hit and goes to repair, that often takes longer than 20 seconds. However, killing the infantry gets you 100+ XP, shooting the vehicle gets you absolutely nothing, the driver of the vehicle gets XP for repairing though! I think that every time you damage a vehicle for 20% of its HP you should get 50 XP or so, and if you kill an infantryman in a vehicle you should only get 50 XP instead of the full amount. That little change alone would already make a huge difference in how people perceive the competition between vehicles and infantry - because right now it's all about kills, and vehicles kill more and die less.
If you look at the survival scheme for the two different units Infantry is meant to die and respawn until their respawn point is destroyed or captured, vehicles are meant to run and repair until an enemy manages to destroy them before they can do so. There is a reward for killing, there is a reward for taking out spawn capabilities, but there is no reward for making the vehicle run and repair, which is why vehicles rack up such absurdly huge XP themselves, and give very little back to all the people who fight them.

The Combined arms concept currently is a mess, because the only vehicle that effectively bridges the gap between vehicles and infantry is the Sunderer, and it's mostly just used as a spawn point. The Galaxy is too big to be worthwhile as just a taxi and requires too many gunners to be usable once the passengers disembark. The Sunderer isn't really much of an infantry fighting vehicle, but more of a support unit that happens to have a lot of seats too. It's too big and unwieldy to really be good in a fight, despite massive armor and solid firepower, and it simply isn't fun to drive. Also only MAX units really rely on transport vehicles to get around, regular infantry can redeploy/suicide to move from one viable spawn to the next.
I want to see vehicles that really emphasize the combined arms concept, where a tank driver or gunship pilot can have a vehicle he can have fun with when its empty while at the same time providing support and transportation to an infantry squad when they need it. We're just lacking units that really bring the two together.

[p0intman]

I'm agreeing with Hamma. What?

Let me see if the earth has actually been destroyed by an apocalypse..



I think its broken.

[Hamma]

I don't think vehicles need to be restricted but they need to be a bit harder to get. It's a big picture issue with lots of moving gears and it's going to be complicated to fix.

[Tatwi]

Great video Hamma. Summed up my experience and feelings as well. The game can be so much more than it is and than how people are playing it. I still really want to love this game, it has a lot of potential, but SOE does not have time for a "five year plan" to start focusing on the "right things" that have been discussed here. The game will be empty, soon, if these issues aren't addressed.

The sky isn't falling; the game simply missed the mark.

[Ironside]

Good video, raises lots of points that concern me and have always concerned me since beta.
We all know there's no substance to this game, yes it looks good and the gunplay is far superior to ps1 but ps1 had depth.

I think there's a couple of watersheds approaching that could lose a lot of players if not done right.

First is the optimized client they are promising, if they don't get this right they will lose players, hopefully the devs will release a new client that improves the game on all machines, infact lets hope this new client is the real ps2 release, optimized and bug free, the client that should of been released in the first place if they hadn't rushed to get the game out far to early.

Second is the bones of the game, the game that holds us for years to come, it needs far more depth many of you have highlighted these problems already so i won't bother. Will the devs rip out large chunks of the game and start again? because i doubt it.

Base and tower design is awful, apart from the crown and biolabs all other fights are boring and forgettable, bases and towers need redesigning, they favor attackers, they are to open and sprawling. Also there's far to many pointless installations dotted over the maps.
Taking continents seems like an after thought, there's no fanfare or sense of achievement.
Devs need to drop their battlefield mentality and look at the original game more closely.
PS1 dev team were ahead of their time in so many ways, ps2 team have basically stole large chunks of bf and made it bigger, vets get critisised on alot of forums but we will still be here playing after the fps crowd move on to their next game, maybe they should listen to us more

[Rothnang]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I don't think vehicles need to be restricted but they need to be a bit harder to get. It's a big picture issue with lots of moving gears and it's going to be complicated to fix.

Yea, but what does harder to get mean? If it means people who like playing with vehicles are forced to spend more time playing as infantry it's still just annoying to people.

Restricting the number of places where a vehicle can be spawned is a possibility, but for aircraft that makes little difference, and even MBTs are frequently pulled at the warp gate after the Techplant requirement was added. It would increase the amount of time it takes to get a vehicle back into action.

Making resources harder to come by just leads to people running out and getting frustrated, particularly since vehicles can still very easily die in the current game if they run into a unit that's pretty much a hard counter.

Increasing the respawn time or tacking the respawn time on after you die, rather than starting it when you spawn the vehicle will once again lead to people who want to pull a vehicle and can't.

Restricting the number of players who can spawn a vehicle leaves people without their favorite unit again.



Ultimately in order for everyone to have their fun the game just needs to let you play what you want and have everyone be useful in some regard while doing so. There was a time when the devs could have put really harsh restrictions on vehicles and just completely said "Vehicles are just a tool in your toolbox, you should never expect to be a specialist in them", but they didn't do that early on, and changing it to that now would just anger thousands of people who are playing with a different expectation.

Instead of more segregation of infantry and vehicles, and more systems that take from the fun of players that enjoy one over the other there needs to be a more elegant coexistence between the two.

I honestly think if they fix the spawncamping a lot of the issues will start to look more friendly, because the biggest thing that makes infantry gimpy is the fact that they are built around die/respawn instead of take damage/repair, and the respawning should be far safer and more reliable than the repairing, but its the other way around currently. Spawning is the infantry's Achilles heel because when they are all herded together somewhere its easy to keep them down.

[Roy Awesome]

One thing I would like to see is more bases that aren't directly tied to territory capture. Large facilities have 2-4 of these (Outpost bases, or as TEST calls them, adjuncts), but why are they only limited to facilities?

Planetside 1 had these in the form of Towers, but I think the concept of a capture able mini-facility with a spawn point and some equipment terminals could drastically benefit the 'small outfit' play.

It can be something as large as a PS2 Tower, or something as small as a WallTower with some turrets on it (these would be -really- cool along roads between bases, or at the end of a long bridge road). These objectives benefit your empire's attack and defense, and something that the zerg would probably avoid as a large objective (unless the other zerg is there, then you have a stupidly large fight over a very small object... much like the bridge battles in PS1).

Capturing these doesn't influence the territory capture in any way, but helps the fight move around the map, and give small strong points that aren't shitty little bases.

The biggest problem is that objects like these are too similar to the T3 Facilities (the single cap bases with only a sundy spawn). Perhaps any facility that governs the territory it sits on should be either a T1 (amp/bio/tech) or a T2 (Tower, Quartz Ridge, 3 cap bases with tanks). Then we can have more T3 outposts spread around the map diffusing the conquest and providing more things to fight over.

[Rago]

Newest Video is great, i hope this to be heard.

Sometimes you get this Planetside Moments after fighting 2-3 Hours over Allatum and it is much more rewarding , then Zerging 20 Bases and empty Amp Stions,...

[JesNC]

Vehicles, both ground and air, need to be restricted in the sense that their ability to influence a base capture should be reduced.

(the next 2 points apply mostly to small bases)
- spawn camping

Roll an MBT in front of/park a Liberator above a spawn shed and you instantly contained any respawning defenders. This needs to change - either by placing the spawn underground like PS1 or by adding a lot more cover to existing spawn buildings.
Or allow an alternative exit for the defenders - Why were the spawn teleporters in tech plants removed again?

- capping/burning points

Countless times I have sat/hovered next to a cap point in one of my favourite vehicles, capping the base while farming any infantry defenders who actually managed to brake through my buddy's spawn camp.
Vehicle occupants (even aircraft) can burn points while MAXes can't. This should change.

- accessibility to/mobility of vehicles inside bases
This applies to all bases, but moreso to the big facilities. Even with the decreased traction, it is far too easy for vehicles to navigate inside an enemy base.
Especially at AMP stations and Tech Plants (now ), it's very hard to try to retake the control point when the enemy has heavy armour in the courtyard.
I've seen people secure the AMP station cc/garage with 6+ Magriders, and once you lost the courtyard area you also lost any access to high-ground cover for infantry, stationary AA - well, once you lost the CY you basically lost the base. You just can't get to the CC to try to resecure when there's any amount of enemy armour/air support.


I remember Higby stating that they want you to have 'boots on the ground' in order to capture terrain, but this is just not the case atm. It is too easy for vehicles to dominate the infantry tug-o-war inside a base.
Vehicle vs infantry balance is fine otherwise IMO, but vehicle vs facility design needs to see some big improvements.

To get back OT, I feel once facility design has improved to the point where it's viable for a squad of infantry to try and defend an outpost against a larger force we'll see a lot more meta centering around the 'non-zerg'.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by p0intman

I'm agreeing with Hamma. What?

Let me see if the earth has actually been destroyed by an apocalypse..



I think its broken.

No, just a shift in the matrix.

[robocpf1]

I was on Esamir yesterday trying to find a small fight, in the area around Old Shore Checkpoint and Everett Supply.

I saw a hotspot so I spawned in, noticed 2/6 enemies on the point. Great, I thought, a small skirmish.

Stepped out the spawn door and got my face melted by a Dalton I couldn't see far above my head.

Spawn buildings being separate from the rest of the facility or buildings is a pain. Attach them to a larger building, closer to the capture point.

Vehicles should have meaningful effect on capturing bases, not the ability to completely shut down defenders from mounting a defense.

Enemy vehicles excel at keeping your own vehicles away, killing those AMSes, stopping Galaxy drops or Sunderer insertions, and keeping friendly tanks away from the point. They don't need to be able to access the spawn area at all.

I think someone mentioned that earlier in the thread - put the spawn area inside one of the bigger buildings to prevent vehicle spawn camping.

A pretty good example of this is Chimney Rock on Amerish (which is one of my favorite outposts in the game). The large spawn building and several exits allows defenders to find an open spot and fire some flak or a lock-on missile to scare away enemy vehicles or damage them, then retreat back into the building. The walls and elevation of the building itself prevents vehicles from camping every exit, and the roof access helps for AA. Still not perfect, but definitely an improvement over the spawn sheds in many of the other outposts.

[ThePackage]

The major meat and potatoes of each base needs to be almost completely inaccessible to vehicles, air and ground alike.

I don't know what they're vision was when creating the maps, but it isn't working, plain and simple.