The reason why PS2 is shallow is not metagame. - Page 3

camycamera · 2013-03-11, 08:00 AM

okay sir, i see your point. but how do you propose you fix this?

and i am going to throw this question in here as well (note: i have never played PS1):

how did spawning work in PS1? was it any different? was it the same? if different, could it be implemented into PS2? also, if it is the same, didn't PS1 have the same problem as well?

because i don't see a solution to this problem, really, unless someone comes up with one. go, do it plex.

EDIT:

i read some of the previous posts, but not really (tldr)

i guess some sort of ticket system could be implemented somehow...?????

Ailos · 2013-03-11, 08:22 AM

I agree with about 90% of what's been said in the thread so far.

I don't much care for the whack-a-mole issue that spawning sundies at all terminals has created. It's annoying, and it really does detract from the logistics it should take to bring an empire-wide spawn point to the front lines.

I'm not sure that this doesn't reward tight-knit squadplay though. I guess that really comes down to what you think is rewarding about the game. To me, the rewarding part is undertaking improbable tasks like stopping a massive enemy assault push with only a six-man squad, denying capture, or isolating the current target of the zerg with a similarly sized group. What detracts from that sense of achievement though is the knowledge that in approximately 5 minutes everything will return back to the way it was before because inevitably, someone somewhere will pull a sundy and catch up to us.

I don't think that respawn tickets are a good solution to this problem. The last thing this game needs is another mechanic from BF3. Do not misunderstand me - BF3 has its own merits in many cases, but I do not think this particular mechanic can be transplanted to PlanetSide. The whole ticket thing works well in a 16vs16 foot match, it really starts falling apart in BF3s 32vs32 matches where vehicles become more prevalent, and the side that starts out with managing to pilot their vehicles a little better gets that advantage multiplied and end up dominating the match for the short duration of the tickets running out. That problem will only be amplified in PS2's population numbers, but no one will ever get a reset and a fresh start to try again. Not that it can't be balanced, but in PS2, where it's a 3-way instead of a 2-way battle, the last thing we need is another thing to balance. Implementing a spawn ticket system in PS2 will end up monopolizing servers for a given empire, IMO, and that rather defeats the point.

I think the simplest solution is to make bringing a spawn point forward a much bigger compromise. AMS sundies should not be still able to carry a full squad. They should not be available everywhere as a basic unit of transportation (i.e. Sundies pulled from outposts should not be able to be equipped with the AMS module). I could even get behind the idea that AMS-equipped sundies should only be spawned at warpgates. I also think that if sundies remain as available as they do now, they should be available to squadmates only.

Figment · 2013-03-11, 08:22 AM

It can easily be argued that making K/D matter more encourages farming behaviour and less risk taking, not depth.

Considering the TTK being so low, this would embolden the largest group with short TTK weapons. The only way for a numerically smaller group to win is by removing the spawns of an opponent and then spawn sufficient times to take them all out (since the low TTK assures even the best of players will die when faced with poor numerical odds).

Especially tickets on fixed positions would be horrendous to defense viability, considering HE spam. Sitting back at long distance and control the outer terrain would mean the defense would run out of tickets without even breaking a sweat.

Tickets on AMSes would be entirely arbitrary numbers that would cause a lot of frustration. It would even cause frustration within an empire as people would have "ticketstolen their respawn point and disallowed them to be in a fun fight".

What needs to be done to limit people spawning, is to limit the people with spawning equipment access.

For crying outloud, do you realise how easy it is to get a S-AMS under the current cert system? Do you have any idea how few S-AMSes are stopped from getting to an interesting position unless they have to move through a camped area? You couldn't possibly stop the attrition of an attacking empire by introducing tickets if each attacker can bring their own S-AMS in the first place. All you would introduce is a greater volume of back up S-AMSes at every fight. :/

The other thing is that a ticker system is a match based system where it is expected that one side ultimately wins a round and rounds have to end. We're talking a consistent war here though, so to introduce a life ticker system could very well be a bit shoe horning it in.

One might as well introduce "1-up mushrooms" or "100 coins for a 1-up", it's equally arbitrary.

Qwan · 2013-03-11, 08:24 AM

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Sure a small force can win under the right circumstances, but the point I'm making is that a shooters primary focus when it comes to mechanics, skills and tactics is on killing people and avoiding to be killed. You can play in a way where you harass a larger force and wear them down, but the game doesn't do anything that allows you to win that way.

If a base had a limited number of spawn tickets for both sides for example, which is even between the two even if the number of people in the base is not you'd see people actually building strategies based on what ratio of kills to deaths they need to attain to win.

I feel ya, but there are tactics besides just having a larger number to over whelm the enemy at his base. If they have the spawn room and you have a sundy, then it comes to who can get the most people on the ground fastest. Then you count the medics, who slash respawn time down by ressing. It really comes down to influence, regardless of how big your force is, if you have higher influence, and skilled players (medic and engi's included) then you can take a base faster with a smaller force regardless of the force thats spawning in. This is were the skill of the medic, engi, and your squad make up over all comes into play. Granted when we would kill the enemy they would spawn back in, but we would resupply, lay mines, claymores, C4, and man the points to help the capture along. The K/D hores would stop spawning in, they didnt want to mess up there stats, the zerg which is un skilled and un corridinated would simply spawn in and run to the points blindly. We didnt camp the spawn rooms I rarely send more than two men to do that, I max out the points and keep an eye on influence. Because I know that speed of the hack makes the difference between dealing with a hord or dealing with randoms.

ChipMHazard · 2013-03-11, 08:48 AM

I agree with Basti's assesment and I don't agree with the thread's premise that making deaths more meanigful would make the game less shallow.

I don't think that introducing a ticket system would benefit the gameplay in a positive manner, quite the opposite. I don't see it has having any other real effect than promoting farming/camping tactics, making it possible to actually sabotage enemy faction efforts by faction jumping and punishing newer players even further.

A change that I do think would help would be to limit where you can spawn sunderers from (not from every bleedin terminal) and how easy it is to cert into the spawner option; not that this would really matter in the long run (given that enough players will eventually have enough spare cert points to dump) but it would help out against players being able to field them as easily.
Also changing how the spawn timer works for defenders and attackers looks like a reasonable suggestion i.e. attackers having a longer spawn time than defenders by upping spawn times on sunderers. Could perhaps even go further and have the spawn timer be somewhat based on how many sunderers there are in a given hex i.e. make spawn times slighty longer the more sunderers there are.

Thunderhawk · 2013-03-11, 08:51 AM

Forget Planetside 1 totally, our (old Players) arguments are no longer hinged on Planetside 1 fanatacism but looking at Planetside 2 as a game on itself with nothing to do with previous iterations.

Now, the OP's post:-

First point I have to make

Planetside 2 is a game where it basically is all about Spawn point control.

That is it, plain and simple.

If you take out all the spawn points of an enemy, you win.....even if they have a platoon of people with medics all over the place, you will still win, eventually.

The faction with the most spawn points will win every single fight, no matter what the fight is, what the facility is or what the outpost is.

So, looking at it from that point of view (Spawn point control) you need to look at the way that's provided in the field:-

1. Base spawns (be it outpost or main base).
2. Sunderers (S-AMS).
3. Medics (revives).

Out of those 3, the only thing that had a radical change was the Sunderer S-AMS being freely available to everyone with 50 certs (gained in 30 mins or less) and at ANY terminal.

This is the issue, AMS should not be pulled from Every single vehicle terminal in game, and once you change that back to what it was before, you will see a monstrous shift in the way battles move.

------------

Second point I have to make

K/D ration was bad if you are trying to treat Planetside 2 as a strategy shooter and not a FPS kill wh0re's paradise.

To that avail, removing K/d (well, making it less prominent) is pushing us closer to what planetside 2 Goal is (or should be) about which is taking territory.

To take Territoy, people have to die, look above to my first point as to the Person with the most spawn points, wins, and you will get my drift.

To make the game like that, you cannot punish people for dying, because that would mean people will not rush in, or attack bases for fear of being shot dead (TTK comes into play here as well, but I dont have time to go through that also).

So, The game is about the following (imho - others my argue otherwise)

1. Win the Spawn point battle.

Everything else follows from that one point........ and Worrying about deaths is irrelevant if you treat that as the main point.

Hmr85 · 2013-03-11, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by p0intman

You know what would be awesome?

An actual AMS with a cloak bubble, and the ability to kill spawntubes instead of spawncamp til somebody bothers to kill a gen.

also map design that encourages defending bases in such a way where you aren't retarded for doing so.

Fucking key paragraph right there.

I've been saying that a for a long while now.

But no, its "too much like PS1 and too linear and not open enough". Neither myself nor the OP have a point. Nope.

QFT

I agree 100%

Figment · 2013-03-11, 09:09 AM

Originally Posted by basti

The real problem is the Spawning itself. Planetside had it in a good direction, but not quite right. In Planetside, spawning at a base was faster than at an AMS.

Spawning at an AMS was actually 5 seconds faster: because defensive positions and choke points provided more defensive killing power, attackers needed this logistical benefit over defenders to push deep into a tower or facility. It helped ensure that the longer a siege would last, the greater the spawn advantage of the attackers. After all, it took quite some time to get deep into the facility and took less time for defenders to reach the same objectives and choke points.

Bio Labs reduced the time to spawn on hard points however. This was usualy overlooked as a strategical benefit due to the increasing spawn timers ending up at 30 seconds as the more you died, the slower you respawned. This element of attrition is currently missing in PS2 completely, what with standard spawn times that are significantly shorter.

The time of keeping an enemy out of the fight is greatly reduced in PS2, although there are some differences in spawn time, they're not really big enough to warrant a choice. You'll just wait for the closest one.

Sonny · 2013-03-11, 09:15 AM

Originally Posted by Pella

If you played BF3. You will recognize the much loved Metro Map. An all out frag fest. Little Tactics. Just get your farm on.

Now add in x2 of the amount of players on your screen. And you will arrive at PS2.

And im certain its where higby got his inspiration for PS2 from.

Fast paced. No Nonsense. Shooters. With Kill streaks to Boot. Thats what FPS players love. And that's what PS2 has been designed specifically for.

Sorry to say for the armchair generals here. But your out of luck.

Have to agree with you there. PS 2 was specifically designed for the instant action player, not those interested in slow, protracted wars involving logistics, meaningful deaths etc.

Although it would be interesting to imagine if PS 2 had been designed as a war simulator - it could probably work as they would pick up a different player base. Maybe they could do a 'hardcore' server where all spawns take 30 seconds longer, sunderers can only be spawned from bases and we have logistic concerns put back into the game?

Sonny

Figment · 2013-03-11, 09:21 AM

Originally Posted by Gonefshn

How long do you suggest a player should sit there and do nothing after every time they die?

Maybe for a lot of people your idea would be more fun but if you made it so that you had a huge respawn timer 90% of the people would not play anymore.

How would this be a good idea if it takes out all the fun for probably over 3/4 of the population?

I would be pissed if I had to wait a really really long time to actually be in a fight, probably would quit playing.

Your idea isn't bad it's just a totally different and totally niche game.
It might seem like this has huge approval from people posting but that's because those 90% of people that would leave are the people who don't care enough to be on forums.

You might be right about it lacking depth but the reality is most people don't want a game with that much depth.

Don't know about you, but I'm a bit annoyed with the amount of assumptions made here about what 75-90% of the pop would do/want and suggesting that same group of people doesn't care enough to post on forums. I mean... There's no way for you to verify that without doing a survey on it first.

Anyway. "Sitting around" downtime is something that will happen in a game of this type period.

For instance, the problem with waiting at a CC to turn, is that there is no fight. Why is there no fight? Because it takes to sides to fight. Why aren't there two sides? Because one side has next to no incentive to attempt a recapture due to the system and challenges involved being too time consuming with too little support (too great a pressure) to be succesful in most situations. Hence you don't for instance see a last ditch Gal Drop attempt and people give up on attempting a capture, making sitting around at a CC nothing but moot.

Spawning after death of course has a bit different down time. The game forces you to not play as a reward for the person killing you, while you are punished as a consequence. That can be key to gameplay. Yet that can indeed be frustrating. On the other hand, the game could at the very least provide something to do with the downtime. For instance, give people a chance to gain more situational awareness of the continental and global conflict and provide information to base future decisions on.

You could also incentize spawning a bit further away as reinforcements. Of course, if that's too far away, that disrupts the local flow entirely.

Maidere · 2013-03-11, 09:28 AM

To make death more meaningful they have to increase TTK first.

psijaka · 2013-03-11, 09:36 AM

Some kind of respawn timer could perhaps be introduced on the AMS Sunderer; say limit the respawn rate to one respawn every 15 seconds or whatever, with cert improvement. EDIT - not sure about a ticket system; Figment and ChipM point out some flaws in such a system.

But, as things stand, I wouldn't be keen to see spawning limitations introduced on outpost spawn rooms until such time as action is taken against tank AoE spam, for obvious reasons. We don't want one person sitting in a tank behind a tree some 300m away to determine the outcome of an attack; that would be incredibly lame. Until farming of this type is restricted then infinite and fast respawns at outposts are necessary.

Suicide spawn hopping is highly undesirable, and could be easily prevented by allowing suicidees to respawn at the warp gate only. Simple.

almalino · 2013-03-11, 09:38 AM

Originally Posted by Sonny

Have to agree with you there. PS 2 was specifically designed for the instant action player, not those interested in slow, protracted wars involving logistics, meaningful deaths etc.Maybe they could do a 'hardcore' server where all spawns take 30 seconds longer, sunderers can only be spawned from bases and we have logistic concerns put back into the game?

Sonny

Or may be they should introduce less Sunderer spawn points in a new coming continent so that battles there are more about avoiding to die because it is painful.

Thunderhawk · 2013-03-11, 09:44 AM

Suicide spawn hopping doesn't even affect your K/D ratio if you use "Redeploy" in bottom right corner of the map.

It doesn't count as a death.

psijaka · 2013-03-11, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by Thunderhawk

Suicide spawn hopping doesn't even affect your K/D ratio if you use "Redeploy" in bottom right corner of the map.

It doesn't count as a death.

Thought that it did. Thought that I've had a death or suicide message of some sort in the past when I have clicked "redeploy", so I never use it now.