Three long overlooked problems with this game.

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by shaql

no, wasdie, when he says "instant action drop pods" he means "instant action drop pods", as the stuff he mentions when talking about the IADPs concerns IA-specific stuff, like dropping on a specific facility, not point, and squad deploy and beacons drop people on a point. When he's talking about all drop pods, he says "drop pods in general".

goddamnit, why is today's youth unable to read...

Well I'm only asking because the Squad Deploy without a beacon could just act like an instant action to get you in the same hex following the same rules as the instant action.

I don't like the Squad Deploy function right now. That's part of the issue. It could have the same rules as instant action. The only way you can get your squad mates right on you is if you place the beacon. That would be an improvement.

[EvilNinjadude]

Originally Posted by wasdie

Well I'm only asking because the Squad Deploy without a beacon could just act like an instant action to get you in the same hex following the same rules as the instant action.

I don't like the Squad Deploy function right now. That's part of the issue. It could have the same rules as instant action. The only way you can get your squad mates right on you is if you place the beacon. That would be an improvement.

Exactly. You squad deploy on the leader, the game looks which base the leader is at, and then goes through the instant action sequence for that base.

I agree with these statements, spawn beacons and squad deploy allow attackers more access to the base than defenders in the current implementation.

As for squad beacons... they're hard to see since they don't always render. A lot of people also ignore them, which is straight up dumb but not the game designers' fault. I think a beacon should be the only way to drop on a specific point on the map, and that the beacon should be a lot more visible than it is now. I'd say easily always visible at several hundred meters.

[ghnurbles]

@Malorn

Having faster dropping, less manoeuvrable drop pods will be an improvement - dropping infantry behind enemy lines should be the role of a Galaxy, not a beacon.

I don't think the Instant Action changes are going to help a whole lot, however. People are still frequently going to be dropped into terrible and awkward positions. What I'd like to see, and what would pretty much guarantee good drop positions, would be to change beacons from squad items into public items:

• Anyone can carry and place beacons, not just squad leaders.
• Anyone can spawn at a beacon that has been placed.
• Beacons only last a few minutes (or less), and have a resource cost to compensate for their new power.
• Instant Action is weighted towards heavily used beacons (the more a beacon is used, the better its position is likely to be).

Such a change would also put an end to the business of constantly swapping around squad leader to whoever is in a useful place to put down a beacon, or to avoid the beacon cooldown. Squad leader should be purely a communicational role, not a mechanical one.

[wasdie]

Avoiding beacon cool down and squad deploy functionality working just like a beacon with a longer cooldown are both issues.

Beacons need a few more limitations. You should not be able to avoid the cool down. Transferring squad leader should not reset any beacons. Once one is placed down it's tied to that squad, not the player who placed it.

I also wouldn't mind seeing some sort of a beacon timer on squad leader change. Right now you can transfer ownership of the squad to anybody and that person can place a beacon down wherever they are thus using the beacons for beyond their intended use of getting the squad together. Real easy to hand it off to an ESF pilot who can quickly land, place the beacon, and then go.

Also you shouldn't be able to do a squad spawn off of a dead leader. Let's put some emphasis on leadership with that role, not just make it a combat role with the ability to call in reinforcements on top of you and place waypoints down. It would also be awesome if a little star or something appeared next to the name of a spotted enemy squad leader AND friendly squad leaders. Let them stick out a bit more and be larger targets. They've got more tools that make them more valuable on the battlefield. They should play that role a bit more.

I would love if the squad deploy followed the same drop pod mechanics as the instant action and the squad beacon had a few more rules to prevent it from being used as a primary way to bring your troops into battle.

I would prefer to see Galaxies and Sunderers as the primary method of bringing troops to the battle with a squad beacon being something you can use once in awhile and the squad deploy as something used to make sure players can get to the same hex as their squad leader. Doing this would still achieve the original goals of the squad deploy and squad beacon while reducing the ability to abuse it.

[DviddLeff]

Malorn those look like some good changes. Currently drop pods and instant action are far too effective at taking out attacking Sunderers. While it is one of my favorite things to do, it needs to be tougher.

Any thoughts on restricting squad deploy further - way too easy to move entire platoons across a continent in the time it takes a Scythe to fly squad leaders to the target?

[wasdie]

Tons of bases that are too impenetrable? Which ones? Light assaults can already hop over every defense in this game and if you want to land large amounts of players behind the line use a galaxy, not something that can teleport people behind the line.

Yesterday I watched as an outfit would have 2-3 squad leaders fly in a liberator or ESF, jump out, and then their entire squad would do a squad deploy and litter the entire area with droppods by the dozens.

How the heck can you defend against that?

[AuntLou]

Originally Posted by wasdie

Tons of bases that are too impenetrable? Which ones?

I'll just start with every tower there is. Plenty of others but yeah if your going against a force that knows what they are doing you shouldn't even get close.

Originally Posted by wasdie

Light assaults can already hop over every defense in this game and if you want to land large amounts of players behind the line use a galaxy, not something that can teleport people behind the line.

Yesterday I watched as an outfit would have 2-3 squad leaders fly in a liberator or ESF, jump out, and then their entire squad would do a squad deploy and litter the entire area with droppods by the dozens.

Light assaults can't get to the walls if the sunderers can't.

Oh a galaxy can get behind enemy lines????? Better nerf it!!!!

Originally Posted by wasdie

How the heck can you defend against that?

You get out from behind you mana turret and shoot them. Also while your at it shoot the beacon with the huge shinning light in the sky. They will stop coming if you do that.

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by AuntLou

Light assaults can't get to the walls if the sunderers can't.

Oh a galaxy can get behind enemy lines????? Better nerf it!!!!


You get out from behind you mana turret and shoot them.

You make it sound so easy when in practice it's not.

You can see and hear a galaxy coming and you have active base defenses that fight against that. The only thing preventing a squad beacon from raining down 11 over soldiers behind your defense requiring you to abandon your defenses making them completely irrelevant is if somebody can see the squad spawn beacon, which can pop up at any time anywhere throughout the base completely unannounced and silently, and destroy it before all 11 other squadmates fall within the base. As others have pointed out, this isn't an easy task. You don't even know which players have the capability of spawning troops so there is no possible way for you to know where the droppods will start raining down from. The entire strategy is reactive to the droppods which gives the droppods a major advantage that is easily exploitable.

You're supporting a mechanic that makes bases pretty much irrelevant and makes it impossible to sustain any real attack as zones of control are completely useless. Walls, buildings, turrets, shields, gens, engineer turrets, and mines are all almost irrelevant with the ability to easily drop within the confines of a base or on top of an enemy sunderer without any real counters or warning for the defenders. It's simply not a good mechanic and it's working against the flow of each battle.

During a large fight the interior of a base is pretty much chaos with droppods falling on top of the base constantly from many different squad deploy and squad beacons. The outside of the base similarly chaotic thanks to defensive squad deploys falling behind the attackers point of attack. This is a far cry from the nice flow each base had back in Planetside 1 and it's a key reason why people call base design terrible. There is no real way to defend against the constant stream of drop pods falling behind you. There is no reason to cover your flanks since the enemy never has to physically travel to reach them, they just have to fall out of the sky with no counters.

There is no real concept of controlling sections of a base with mechanics like the jump pads, teleports, and drop pods. Both attackers and defenders can utilize these various mechanics to get behind the enemy constantly. This ruins any sort of flow we would generally see in Planetside 1 and it's something this game would really benefit from.

If you want to drop a squad behind a line you should have to use a galaxy. There the defenders at least know where you are coming from and that you're coming at all. You can't just teleport behind them with virtually no warning. You have to work a bit if you want the element of surprise.

I'm not one for static defense myself, thus I rarely man turrets or lay mines, but the ability for an attacker to spawn closer to an objective via a sundy, squad deploy, or squad beacon, ruins base defenses in this game. Even an active defense is difficult if you constantly have to resweep over every objective just to clear out the enemies who have appeared out of nowhere. Small outposts can be overrun a matter of seconds with absolutely no warning from the squad beacon or spawn deploy and objectives at large bases can be overrun with no real defense from the dop pods falling from the sky.

In no way is it good design. I know people think it's all "good tactics" to get behind the line, but the methods used to get behind the line are not the same as actual flanking and cause more issues with the overall flow of battle than they benefit the game. Galaxies are severely underutilized and every base fight has become a TDM until the attackers can camp the terribly located spawn rooms all aided by the ability to continually drop right within the confines of an enemy base ignoring logistics and defenses.

[AuntLou]

I’ll start by saying I'm all for allowing beacons to render at a farther distance and I also wouldn't mind if they removed squad deploy. All I’m defending here is the squad becon.

Originally Posted by wasdie

You make it sound so easy when in practice it's not.

You can see and hear a galaxy coming and you have active base defenses that fight against that.

You can also see the mode of transport the squad leader took the get the beacon down. Also you can see a big bright beam in the sky and it can be destroyed allot easier then a galaxy.

Originally Posted by wasdie

The only thing preventing a squad beacon from raining down 11 over soldiers behind your defense requiring you to abandon your defenses making them completely irrelevant is if somebody can see the squad spawn beacon, which can pop up at any time anywhere throughout the base completely unannounced and silently, and destroy it before all 11 other squadmates fall within the base.

As others have pointed out, this isn't an easy task. You don't even know which players have the capability of spawning troops so there is no possible way for you to know where the droppods will start raining down from. The entire strategy is reactive to the droppods which gives the droppods a major advantage that is easily exploitable.

Squad beacons don't just "pop up". The squad leader has to penetrate the base to put it up. It’s a far more difficult task then you are making it sound. Yes there is a good chance 11 other squad mates will fall into your base behind your precious defenses. Not sure what the problem is with that? Are your guys not taking care of that? Not putting up sensor webs? proxy mines? Drop pods are large metal boxes that usually make a player a sitting duck when they first land. It's really not hard for a few defenders to handle drop pods. It might not be Planetside 1 but in remember in Planetside 1 anyone could just bail out of a aircraft and drop down wherever they pleased with no damage and WITH NO HUGE POD showing.

Originally Posted by wasdie

You're supporting a mechanic that makes bases pretty much irrelevant and makes it impossible to sustain any real attack as zones of control are completely useless. Walls, buildings, turrets, shields, gens, engineer turrets, and mines are all almost irrelevant with the ability to easily drop within the confines of a base or on top of an enemy sunderer without any real counters or warning for the defenders. It's simply not a good mechanic and it's working against the flow of each battle.

During a large fight the interior of a base is pretty much chaos with droppods falling on top of the base constantly from many different squad deploy and squad beacons. The outside of the base similarly chaotic thanks to defensive squad deploys falling behind the attackers point of attack. This is a far cry from the nice flow each base had back in Planetside 1 and it's a key reason why people call base design terrible. There is no real way to defend against the constant stream of drop pods falling behind you. There is no reason to cover your flanks since the enemy never has to physically travel to reach them, they just have to fall out of the sky with no counters.

Poor base design makes bases irrelevant NOT squad beacons. Every base in Planetside 1 was surrounded by walls. Towers were pretty easy to defend as well. Most importantly every spawn was internally connected to the main objective. If bases were anything like this in Planetside 2 we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Planetside 2 needs revamp every base to force an indoor battle. Moving the objectives into tiny little buildings, adding little tunnels and adding cute little walls does not make up for it. Once again all this having nothing to do with the squad beacon.

Originally Posted by wasdie

There is no real concept of controlling sections of a base with mechanics like the jump pads, teleports, and drop pods. Both attackers and defenders can utilize these various mechanics to get behind the enemy constantly. This ruins any sort of flow we would generally see in Planetside 1 and it's something this game would really benefit from.

If you want to drop a squad behind a line you should have to use a galaxy. There the defenders at least know where you are coming from and that you're coming at all. You can't just teleport behind them with virtually no warning. You have to work a bit if you want the element of surprise.

If they removed squad deploy and left beacons as is I believe this would solve this. Defenders would know for sure when there is a drop pod there is a beacon and they should seek and destroy it. The beacon timers do prevent this from being spammed to an extent that it makes base defense impossible.

Originally Posted by wasdie

I'm not one for static defense myself, thus I rarely man turrets or lay mines, but the ability for an attacker to spawn closer to an objective via a sundy, squad deploy, or squad beacon, ruins base defenses in this game. Even an active defense is difficult if you constantly have to resweep over every objective just to clear out the enemies who have appeared out of nowhere. Small outposts can be overrun a matter of seconds with absolutely no warning from the squad beacon or spawn deploy and objectives at large bases can be overrun with no real defense from the dop pods falling from the sky.

Here you are stating negative factors to the beacon that also hold true to the galaxy. You could reiterate that you know the gal is coming but then I’ll just reiterate that the spawn beacon is a large beam in the sky yadda yadda yadda….

Originally Posted by wasdie

In no way is it good design. I know people think it's all "good tactics" to get behind the line, but the methods used to get behind the line are not the same as actual flanking and cause more issues with the overall flow of battle than they benefit the game. Galaxies are severely underutilized and every base fight has become a TDM until the attackers can camp the terribly located spawn rooms all aided by the ability to continually drop right within the confines of an enemy base ignoring logistics and defenses.

I think it’s great design, amazing tactics and most of all they are fun as hell! Laying beacons, destroying beacons and dropping down in pods has become a large tactical aspect in Planetside 2. I enjoy using them and I don’t mind defending against them. Destroying a spawn beacon to me is just as rewarding as destroying a sunderer.

Get rid of the squad deploy, increase the render distance of the beacon or even increase the XP for destroying one. But please don’t remove them, make drop pods faster or less maneuverable. It will ruin a very fun and amazing aspect to Planetside 2.

[Ghoest9]

Everything the OP is complaining about - I see as a strong point of the game.

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

Everything the OP is complaining about - I see as a strong point of the game.

How is it a strong point of the game?

Everybody complains that the bases are terrible and there is no metagame and it's largely due to these systems. How is that making this game better? These mechanics ensure a terrible battle flow.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by wasdie

How is it a strong point of the game?

Everybody complains that the bases are terrible and there is no metagame and it's largely due to these systems. How is that making this game better? These mechanics ensure a terrible battle flow.

This statement is false. The only reason - is base/facility layouts and that's it. Not like I agree with ghoest, but making a villian of the system that works as a good auxiliary to a broken design is not doing any good either.

[KarrdeBRBU]

I'd be good with SOI type stuff so long as we can still use it with the functionality it has now. First, my outfit uses beacons to set AV/AA picnics on rocks and other weird locales. Either to delay an advance on a base or to create a no fly zone. Basically it gives the zerg breathing room. Second, and this is especially true for defenders, sometimes the beacon is pretty much the only way to knock out a sunderer. There's just too much crap between you and the spawn point. So pod in a kill it. To this day, I still don't get why ppl don't run mineguard though.

[Senorblanco]

Instead of wrecking the beauty of the drop pod, just make them take no dmg and do no dmg, that stops all the ppl bitching about dmg to the vehicle. Please don't change a wonderful element to the game.

[Rahabib]

I don't know about you but lately I haven't been able to hit anything with a drop let alone a hovering lib. Although if they are just hover spamming they kind of deserve it.