Biolab got butchered (PTS)

[Babyfark McGeez]

Oh gee...the only good thing i saw in that video were the arrows.
Those are admittedly a VERY good thing though and need to be put into every base, with short a short "info" added as to where you end up going ("vehicle gen" ->, "cap point" ->, etc.).

But why "fix" what wasn't broken? Biolabs were fine, nobody complained about them. This new design once more shoots defenders in the foot (like so many other bases) and butchers the whole place into a "might aswell spawn elsewhere" spot. Blergh. I'm also glad i barely log on these days when i see that.

[ChipMHazard]

Nobody complaining about the previous Bio Lab design? Uhm, ok...:/

There were a lot of complaints about the old level design.

[Stanis]

Having jumped on the PTS to take a look at this ..

There is an annoying time sink. Running from new spawn room to teleporter .. to get to base of building. WHY ? There is no fighting in this area.

Move the spawn room to the base/ground level and add 5 seconds to the respawn timer if that's what you want.

The teleporter mechanics and yellow arrows .. pretty naff.

Further it seems like every other area has had additional cover added, removing line of sight - making the fights very much CQC focussed.

Once again the 'spawn room' on the main biolab level is now surrounded by an open killing field. Without any good lines of fire to key objectives : like the spawn generator.

It might be fun to fight over. Testing will demonstrate that. It might make satellites far more important. GSD will have a HUGE impact now.

But overall it seems like a timesink and a big win for an aggressive attacking force. The defenders have to play whack-a-mole once again without what seems like a clear 'home advantage'.

[bpostal]

Originally Posted by Calista

What the heck? Do they seriously have those arrows painted on the walls and floors or was that someone's magical video effects?

I'm not a fan of those arrows. To me if feels almost condescending. Of course, I'm also not a fan of the extra 20 seconds walk/teleport time they added to defenders.

The spawn room is slightly better than the teleporter rooms in the biolab, but I still like to refer to stuff like that as 'rape rooms' because that's what happens.

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Nobody complaining about the previous Bio Lab design? Uhm, ok...:/

There were a lot of complaints about the old level design.

I think that's mostly the player mindset shift that occurred with the launch of PS2. In Planetside a fight that lasted for hours could be referred to as 'epic' (also, boring as hell if you can't get into the lobby after several hours because thumper) whereas in PS2 any fight that lasts more than a half hour (45 min for the patient people) is too tough and needs to be nerfed right meow!

I'm gonna play it out and see what happens.

[KesTro]

I swear I have to be one of the only people that likes this change. At least the idea of this change. I say that being primarily an infantry player. The problem with biolabs is that there was so many bodies in them and they could get there so quickly that a lot of times attackers couldn't get a foothold in a Biolab. Were this still the hex system, no biggy we'll push around it enough and force them to start spreading out.

Maybe it's just me being bitter but I see this change as a direct cause of the lattice, where you can't avoid the fight (And to the people who will comment, why would you fight something you're horribly outmatched with if there was another option? There is no option now).

That being said it does seem like the defenders are being put at too much of a disadvantage as is. Perhaps if the vehicle bay shields couldn't go down it might be a little more fair - and while I doubt this would ever make it in game it would be interesting to see what might happen with the removal of the FOB teleport rooms and the return of the opening at the tip of the Biolab with this spawn change.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Nobody complaining about the previous Bio Lab design? Uhm, ok...:/

There were a lot of complaints about the old level design.

Oh? I gotta admit i wasn't aware that there were a lot of complaints about them.
The only complaint i remember was that people preferred to go to them and thus drained the population a bit like the crown did. However in this case i saw that more as a compliment that fights actually lasted there because biolabs as "major" bases should have more lasting fights.

Biolabs felt like one of the few bases that actually provided defenders with a fair chance. I dunno, maybe it was a bit too extreme, never felt that way to me though. And judging by the video posted in here we are now at the other extreme, defenders having a harder time getting to the objective than attackers.
...much like all the other roflstomp-fights-over-in-three-minutes "bases" we have. I actually got to a point where i simply refused to spawn at certain bases and instead went elsewhere or a base further back and just waited three minutes.

EDIT: I gotta point out that i'm just going by what i saw in the vid though. I have to playtest it sometime to see how exactly it plays out (but my impression is "bad").

[Carbon Copied]

I'll broach the question of "How is this going to make bio-labs any more enjoyable / balanced / interesting when continental lattice drops in excess of 500 players on a bio lab?" once again; because I'm yet to see a valid answer from a design perspective.

Arrows guiding people look amateurish re-inforcing that deathmatch arena guise.
Spawn coffins. Subject has been done to death.
Didn't think it was possible but somehow there's even less suspension of disbelief that this is a functioning facility and is now no more than a collection of huts under a dome instead of on the surface of Auraxis.
Looks to be reduced clutter around the main area which creates a no man's land and time sink for defenders on their primary denial target.

Just seems like a substantial waste of time and resources when they should be working towards something polished and definitive. Rather disappointed so I'll hang on for Rev. 3.5 after continental lattice forces it I think.

[Boomzor]

I'd rather see this in Amp stations and Tech plants, cause it is a better solution than the tunnels. That is, if it weren't for the spawn coffins they end up in.

But in Biolabs?

[GraniteRok]

I never saw an issue with the current Biolab design. Why the need for the change other than the safe access to the vehicle terms? Simple fix for that would be to move the vehicle teleporter into the spawn room and it's all good.

[SolLeks]

Originally Posted by KesTro

I swear I have to be one of the only people that likes this change. At least the idea of this change. I say that being primarily an infantry player. The problem with biolabs is that there was so many bodies in them and they could get there so quickly that a lot of times attackers couldn't get a foothold in a Biolab. Were this still the hex system, no biggy we'll push around it enough and force them to start spreading out.

Maybe it's just me being bitter but I see this change as a direct cause of the lattice, where you can't avoid the fight (And to the people who will comment, why would you fight something you're horribly outmatched with if there was another option? There is no option now).

That being said it does seem like the defenders are being put at too much of a disadvantage as is. Perhaps if the vehicle bay shields couldn't go down it might be a little more fair - and while I doubt this would ever make it in game it would be interesting to see what might happen with the removal of the FOB teleport rooms and the return of the opening at the tip of the Biolab with this spawn change.

to be honest, I am with you on this one. I like the intent of the change, the defenders no longer can just step outside to their SCU and have a direct line of sight to it, instead, they have to take as much time as the attackers to get back into the fight and there for it makes for a better sounding battle flow. Before you would need to kill each defender about 2 to 3 times for every attacker killed to get an equal effect as they use to spawn just about right next to where they just died. Maybe this is partly an outfit-x thing as we all hate biofarms, its no fun to farm and no fun to get farmed, and the current lab leads directly to zerg gameplay and has no room for small squads that really make a difference outside of the generator point. once you get to the SCU, defenders can send a hand nade, walk back in their spawn, send another nade rinse and repeat.

[HereticusXZ]

I absolutely -hate- the current Biolabs because only attackers suffer gross bottlenecks creating stupidly frustrating long sieges that waist the Empires time, resources and manpower that could be used at other fights. I avoid Bio-Labs like the plague, I refuse to fight at them.

I love the new changes because it makes Defenders have to run the same distance attackers have to in order to get to the objectives and it makes defenders face bottlenecks similar to what attackers have to face to get into the Bio-Lab.

My critique of it however is the Dome area itself looks a little empty, I want more cover, and the Defenders need more teleporter pods otherwise they will face a extremely stupid spawn camp in the form of Gate-Shield Diffuser Sunderer w/ Fury x2. Because of the bottleneck in the garage that defenders might face they might want to increase the Bio-Lab cap time by atleast 1 more minute.

I might actually touch Bio-Labs again

[ChipMHazard]

Originally Posted by Babyfark McGeez

Oh? I gotta admit i wasn't aware that there were a lot of complaints about them.
The only complaint i remember was that people preferred to go to them and thus drained the population a bit like the crown did. However in this case i saw that more as a compliment that fights actually lasted there because biolabs as "major" bases should have more lasting fights.

Biolabs felt like one of the few bases that actually provided defenders with a fair chance. I dunno, maybe it was a bit too extreme, never felt that way to me though. And judging by the video posted in here we are now at the other extreme, defenders having a harder time getting to the objective than attackers.
...much like all the other roflstomp-fights-over-in-three-minutes "bases" we have. I actually got to a point where i simply refused to spawn at certain bases and instead went elsewhere or a base further back and just waited three minutes.

EDIT: I gotta point out that i'm just going by what i saw in the vid though. I have to playtest it sometime to see how exactly it plays out (but my impression is "bad").

From what I remember most of the complaints seem to have been centered around a few different issues.

• Bio Lab fights could become too hard for the attackers to win mainly because of the layout allowing for defenders to camp the attackers' entrances too easily. Just becomes a question of camping the teleporter rooms and pads.
• On the flip side it was too easy to camp the defenders inside their spawn.
• There being too many open killing zones with not enough cover.

The Bio Lab suffers from the same issue that every other base/facility suffers from.
Like you wrote Bio Lab fights attract a lot of people, probably because of the farming prospect (Much to the detriment of the war effort). Ending up with too many players in one spot. It clearly wasn't designed to hold so many players. Only thing that can possible fix that is the revamped resource system.

Overall I'm not terribly fond of Bio Lab fights... Or rather I don't like them when they become too big, especially when they are NC held. At that point I think they just turn into farming fights. I like them just fine, well ok'ish, when the size is more reasonable, since they offer an isolated environment for infantry to fight in.
I would still prefer to see something more interesting being done to the flow, akin to what Figment has suggested in the past.

[AuntLou]

This is what happens when they let the whiners get to them. There are plenty of people including myself that think the bio labs are fine as is. They are going to ruin the only good infantry fight in the game.

The only thing a bio lab needs is to have the outposts be taken out of the lattice allowing them to be all capped and used during an assault.

[PredatorFour]

Im sorry but i don't get people moaning about bases being 'too hard' too attack. Is that not the point of a base ???

The bio lab is the last frontier of 'defendable' bases. Please don't change it.

[Rolfski]

Tbh, I think it's a bit early to already put the bitter-vet hat up and stomp this design into the ground. I'd say let's see more how it plays out before jumping to conclusions. What's the point of condemning something beforehand if you haven't played it?

As for my initial impressions, they are not too bad actually. The long walking distance from spawn for sure feels artificial and annoying, but on the other hand I definitely noticed already less camping at teleporter rooms. And the low open area gives potential for more ranged and therefore varied infantry fights, which is welcom imo.

Time will tell.