Confirmed: 9 Sanctuaries at launch.

[Zulthus]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Time yourself. From spawning at the Sanc to getting into the fight, even if you are using a Wasp at full afterburn, it will take you more than 2 minutes to get into a fight.

Less than one minute to get out of the sanc, less than 1-maybe 2 minutes to get to a fight. 3 minutes is no time at all. The numerous pros outweigh this maybe half of a con.

Originally Posted by Raymac

On top of that, if you want to form a raid against a pop-locked continent, you are unable to do it in the safety of a no-fire zone without everyone losing their spot. So you either have to wait who knows how long for everyone in the raid to get through the queue (which in the golden days could take over an hour) or go attack some less meaningful side skirmish. That basically neuters the raid before a shot is ever fired.

There will be multiple fights going on at any given moment. If that continent is pop locked bring your raid to another continent and help them out. It's not going to be a case of 666v666v666 on one continent and 30v5v18 on the second. (if that's what you mean by battles being less important) Every base and territory is going to have value. There won't be any shortage of things to fight over.

[basti]

With just 3 continents, the home cont concept doesnt work. It would be quite possible that the battle ends up on only one continent, and the empire that calls this continent its home would not be able to attack any other continent, means its quite possible that a large chunk of their population has no where to go.


With 4 conts, (the 3 homes connected to each other, and a central continent), it starts to be more likley that the thing works. More than 4, and there is just no reason why the game shouldnt be set up like this.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Less than one minute to get out of the sanc, less than 1-maybe 2 minutes to get to a fight. 3 minutes is no time at all. The numerous pros outweigh this maybe half of a con.

It takes about a minute just to run to the damn vehicle terminal or the HART, then you have the HART timer. Then once you get on the continent you have to make it to the fight. 5 minutes is much more likely, but you're right that isn't a huge amount of time. If that can be streamlined and trimmed down, that would be an improvement though.

Originally Posted by Zulthus

There will be multiple fights going on at any given moment. If that continent is pop locked bring your raid to another continent and help them out. It's not going to be a case of 666v666v666 on one continent and 30v5v18 on the second. (if that's what you mean by battles being less important) Every base and territory is going to have value. There won't be any shortage of things to fight over.

But THAT'S the point. Why be forced to go to a different fight? For all the crying about strategy I've seen, that's a terrible solution. You plan this attack to change the tide of a certain battle. Oh too bad, just go somewhere else. F*ck that. I hated that in PS1 and I don't want to see it in PS2.

That's like saying, oh Normandy is too busy so let's just invade Italy again. Talk about doing away with strategy. Geez.

[Ruwyn]

Originally Posted by Raymac

But it sounds like the resources won on Continent B will also go to the players on Continent A, so they will be connected. The only real connection the continents had in PS1 was the benefits, and I'm probably wrong about this but I think those were added after launch.

The benefits and the appearance of progression. You could progress a fight from Hossin to Cyssor while losing ground on Solsar. With this new set up we are going to hit walls sooner rather then later. There is no give and take if people are on top of population changes. You know like if 100people leave Cont A suddenly and appear on Cont C, you need to move people to counter. Or you could just trade land on each Cont.

I foresee initial battle lines being set and then not moving a whole lot. I picture a circle divided into 3 sections. The areas that you will fight over are the middle of the circle and a couple territories on either side of the dividing lines. I believe huge swaths of ground will not see battle until the shift changes(the daily empire pop. dominance times), or the player base inevitably decides one continent is more important then the others.
The resources are an attempt at that. However, this doesn't work if EVERY empire doesn't require that resource. For instance, "Hey Resource X over there!". "Forget it, we just sat on Resource X for 3 days. We have plenty, so just go capture some Resource Y".

I truly hope all our fears do not come to pass. I'm a pessimist by nature, which is good when it comes to design because you don't just rest on things.

[Zulthus]

Originally Posted by Raymac

But THAT'S the point. Why be forced to go to a different fight? For all the crying about strategy I've seen, that's a terrible solution. You plan this attack to change the tide of a certain battle. Oh too bad, just go somewhere else. F*ck that. I hated that in PS1 and I don't want to see it in PS2.

That's like saying, oh Normandy is too busy so let's just invade Italy again. Talk about doing away with strategy. Geez.

OK, that wasn't a very good argument on my part. However, if you don't want to lose your spot on the continent, you can still stage your assault at a dropship center on cont or something of the like. I was proposing the sanctuary for when you want to stage something where the enemy can't see it and they don't know where you're going. That way it works both ways and everyone can get what they want.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Ruwyn

I foresee initial battle lines being set and then not moving a whole lot. I picture a circle divided into 3 sections. The areas that you will fight over are the middle of the circle and a couple territories on either side of the dividing lines. I believe huge swaths of ground will not see battle until the shift changes(the daily empire pop. dominance times), or the player base inevitably decides one continent is more important then the others.

But if you didn't know anything about Planetside 1, you could easily assume the same thing. In fact because the lattice restricted where you could attack, you could predict that the battle lines wouldn't move at all. And yet we saw plenty of movement. Sure there would be bottle neck battles that lasted a long time at bridges and Interlinks, but all in all, the battles flowed across the map.

With the new territory system it will be that much easier for the battle to flow since you arn't restricted in only being able to attack 1 base from 1 direction.

Originally Posted by Zulthus

OK, that wasn't a very good argument on my part. However, if you don't want to lose your spot on the continent, you can still stage your assault at a dropship center on cont or something of the like. I was proposing the sanctuary for when you want to stage something where the enemy can't see it and they don't know where you're going. That way it works both ways and everyone can get what they want.

True, you could stage it at another base, but that isn't always safe. You are still open to attack. The foothold would give you a safe no-fire zone to form up. Lord knows forming a raid can be difficult enough already without OS's or bombing runs taking out your troops.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Raymac

But it sounds like the resources won on Continent B will also go to the players on Continent A, so they will be connected.

As best we know resources are continent-based, which is what Higby said last July. He also gave an example of going to another continent to get resources so you could make headway on a different continent.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

Will you be able to choose to spawn at any base within controlled territory?

What we know of spawning...

1) you can always respawn at your foothold on the continent.
2) you can always respawn at the nearest facility
3) you can spawn at multiple options nearby - if there are no spawn options near by the search radius increases and it goes further and further out until it finds you a set of spawn points.

So basically you have local spawn points, however many there may be, a nearby facility, and the foothold.

That's a lot of spawn options but it doesn't exaclty allow you to spawn on another front - you'd still have to get a vehicle at the facility or foothold (whichever was closer) and then drive/fly to that front.

[EVILPIG]

For clarity:

Benefits - In Planetside, a "benefit" is gained from the ownership of a planet. Such as, the Cyssor Benefit (Armor Bonus) or the Oshur Benefit (Repair Pads). There are also facility benefits, such as the Tech Plant Benefit.

Resources - Resources will be gained through the ownership of certain facilities or territories. Resources will either be paid out, or "supplied to", when you capture the facility or territory, or could be paid out over time in intervals. If paid in intervals, you will continue to gain that resource as long as you own the facility or territory.

Resources may be supplied to outfits who can store them for future use, or simply supplied to the empire as a whole, which could be drained by the creation of equipment or vehicles for that empire. Resources will likely be the control over limiting other powers, such as the Orbital Strike.

[Folly]

I would be in favor of a cross between the 2 options in the OP. Give each team 1 real Sanctuary, which is completely incontestable. But also give them lesser footholds on each continent, which are incontestable only so long as they have at least 1 other hex on the continent.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Originally Posted by acosmo

With Amerish, Ceryshen and Indar planned to have three empire footholds each, there will be a total of nine sanctuaries.

The answer here though is that less is more. Right now there is no sense of a home continent. There is no way to even win 1/3rd of the game.

The 1/3 of every continent near your foothold should be the same area of land as your "home cont".

Sure your empire may be able to take X number of hexes, but in the end what does it amount to? Leaderboard scores and resource farming? New weapon and vehicle unlocks? That's not why we want to play this game. We want to play this game because of the massive scale of it. We want to play this game because of its persistence.

I want to play this game for massive, widespread battles with long frontlines, backhacks and logistics trains. If everybody is camping warpgates to keep their home conts secure, this will not happen. The whole game (assuming equal pops) will devolve into home cont defence.

9 sanctuaries will prevent us from having the game we want. With each empire having a foot hold on each continent, the soil near the warpsanc shields edges will hardly ever be contested by another empire.

In a 3 cont game, home conts will hardly ever be contested. With 4 conts on offer, only the "middle continent" will be contested in the same way as any given "foothold" continent is in the current model. We lose 2/3 of the frontlines.

The battle will shift on a much smaller scale. There will be no home continents. What kind of home is a home you share with an enemy? Even if you wipe them off of every hex, two enemies will always have a techplant behind a star wars force field on your continent. In this kind of world, why bother fighting if not for unlocks and resources? There is no strategic progression.

But if you have a home continent, you're only going to be repelling invaders from the warpgate and trying to assault the enemy home cont (who are only repelling invaders from the warpgate and trying to counterattack your home cont). They will have the resources of an entire continent instead of just a techplant. Also, in the foothold model, if they lose a cont completely, they can migrate to one of the other 2 conts and have a very significant population advantage until you leave to secure the land you are now losing, at which time they will leave to grab their "home zones"

This problem has a simple fix. Only one empire foothold per continent with the other empires only having transit gates.

This way, more of the map is fought over

No, it's the same. possibly less because everybody is stuck near a warpgate. Shorter frontlines near warpgates of maybe 8 hex edges vs 30 hex edges in the middle of the continents. On 3 conts, that adds up to about 120 hex edges around the middle of the continents, or 24 hexes around warpgates.

and there is greater room for strategic progression. In a one empire foothold per continent setup an empire's effectiveness can be judged by whether or not their home continent is secure and not just by the number of hexes they have. What hollow satisfaction is gained from a larger number of controlled hexes or a larger number of acquired resources is dwarfed by the pride gained by keeping one's home continent secure.

Or, you could change your thinking and imagine the 1/3 of every continent closest to your foothold IS your home continent. That way everyone has 3 home conts

This setup also elegantly solves the twofold problem of continent locking. No empire will ever be locked out of the fight, but at the same time, every empire has an opportunity to have an inch of security to hold on to.

The current model has this. pop density near you footholds is going to be higher than the enemy and your supply lines are shorter. you will push them back unless your empire weapons suck.

The battle is given weight and value with all of the good aspects and none of the bad. If your empire is doing well and has bases on each continent, your empire is rewarded by ease of deployment. If you empire is doing poorly then your are punished by only being able to deploy to your home cont. These punishments, however, do not affect the 30 minute player negatively. They actually put the casual player in the most intense (last stand/alamo-esque) battles while forcing more experienced players to help their empire out fight alongside their colors where it matters most.

tl;dr 9 sancs vs 3 sancs.

TL;dr:

My point? if populations are the same, square mileage owned per faction will be the same - as it should be if the game is balanced correctly.

If you have "home continents" then that's all the land you'll get and you;ll be restricted to defence. By having footholds, you will have to fight over longer frontlines to keep your "home zones" secure and at least you have the possibility of attack.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Malorn

What we know of spawning...

1) you can always respawn at your foothold on the continent.
2) you can always respawn at the nearest facility
3) you can spawn at multiple options nearby - if there are no spawn options near by the search radius increases and it goes further and further out until it finds you a set of spawn points.

So basically you have local spawn points, however many there may be, a nearby facility, and the foothold.

That's a lot of spawn options but it doesn't exaclty allow you to spawn on another front - you'd still have to get a vehicle at the facility or foothold (whichever was closer) and then drive/fly to that front.

Well, there is a point to this once we get it all fleshed out, though I've lost track of it since I've been to the gym for the past hour. So here's the question I ask you: As you have confirmed "it doesn't exaclty allow you to spawn on another front", none of those options you list confirm that you can logout/die at one place in the game world, and then directly respawn at any owned and fully secured base in the game world. Then question then is, should a player be able to do that? Or, in order to change your operating area, should you always have to respawn at the foothold/home base/etc first?

I'm trying to put a very very fine and specific point on this, a point which I do not believe has been discussed though it probably has, like everything else...but the ultimate consequence of what I'm saying is, if word gets out that a certain base is under attack, should people be able to immediately choose to respawn there for defense? Or, to immediately spawn at a front line base to form up for an offensive? You see, when I was plugging my idea for "a limit on the number of people that can spawn at any one base at any given time", I was not realizing that there was ALREADY a limit on that by the simple fact that you have to respawn at your foothold/etc and then take transport to your final destination.

[Goku]

I'd rather players not be able to spawn into any area they see fit even if it is secured. In PS you were able to bind to specific facilities regardless of your current location. Say you binded to Andvari, Esamir and you were playing on Amerish somewhere. When respawning you can select that point even though you are not near it at all. I think something along those lines is doable. If a group of players is concerned a area maybe attacked they can bind to a facility there in order to get there quicker. Being able to have entire empire pop spawn into a potential base target would be OP.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Goku

I'd rather players not be able to spawn into any area they see fit even if it is secured. In PS you were able to bind to specific facilities regardless of your current location. Say you binded to Andvari, Esamir and you were playing on Amerish somewhere. When respawning you can select that point even though you are not near it at all. I think something along those lines is doable. If a group of players is concerned a area maybe attacked they can bind to a facility there in order to get there quicker. Being able to have entire empire pop spawn into a potential base target would be OP.

Ah...but now that I've got you thinking about it, what if players could instantly spawn somewhere like that, but subject to some limit...say...10? 20? Enough to present a defense, never enough to repel an invasion. And since it's basically a free bonus for emergency defense, no one should be complaining that their whole squad wasn't able to make it before the limit got reached.

Or what if there was such a thing as an outfit bind point? ie...individually you can bind somewhere...and you can still respawn at your nearest base etc...but your outfit can also set a bind point that will let members spawn there as well, independently of their individual bind? And in order to reset the outfit bind point, maybe it takes say, at least 5 Outfit members?

[Goku]

There was a "home base" for a squad, but that was still the individuals bind also. I rather people just plan ahead in order to defend certain points to be honest and bind to the base they see best to head out from. If a group is properly organized and has proper air transport they should be able to get to the location being attacked rather easily anyway. Vehicles are not going to have hard limits like in BF3, so that shouldn't be a issue. Just get some liberators, fighters, and a gal you should be set...