Huge Outfits and PlanetSide 2 - Page 6

maradine · 2012-12-20, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by robocpf1

What do we have to do to stop being labeled as zergfits? We want to show the rest of the game we aren't just throwing 150 people at a door and steamrolling it because of our numbers. Our leaders and officers put a lot of time into training and coordination, but nobody sees any of that - they just see "zerg".

I don't think there's much you can do about that. Your comms are out of game, and your coordination is opaque to most. Not a bad thing, just a thing.

Hourglass · 2012-12-20, 02:08 PM

Smaller outfits simply need to do what I've been doing in EVE Online for seven years; make good use of force multipliers.

Pull MAX suits. Use upgraded MAX suits and have a dedicated, fully certed engi keeping them alive. One MAX suit is easily the equal of 4-5 enemy especially one with engi backup who knows when he's taken too much damage.

Speaking of engies. Claymores are one of my favorite tools. When you jump on a base and start taking it as an outfit, have your engies jump into their claymore outfit, and start marking chokepoints and entrances with them. Then they can switch back to whatever class they want. Claymores don't disappear if you swap classes, so use them liberally.

Light Assaults with C4. Place your LA up high near chokepoints if possible. Tell them to hold their fire until the enemy is past them and shooting at your HA, then have them open up on their rear with C4. In the military we use this tactic of drawing the enemy in, then surrounding them.

Grenades. I make the vast majority of my xp every day from grenades. If you find yourself heavily outnumbered, then you're absolutely 100% guaranteed to find your enemy all bunched up in small pockets. Fill those pockets with lethal death pinecones.

There are also a few other ways to multiply the force of a smaller outfit, but I don't want this to turn into a TL

R post.

boogy · 2012-12-20, 02:22 PM

I think large outfits actually ruin the pop balance in this game. The only time they don't are during the 2 prime hours of the day when they can't continent hop due to pop caps. Other than those brief prime time periods, they are a detriment to game balance.

Miir · 2012-12-20, 02:33 PM

At first glance it is easy to put the blame on large outfits for unbalancing the game. But really it's the games design that's at fault here. Getting steam rolled all the time is not fun. Not for the smaller group and even over time not for the larger group either. Unless the intent was to make a game that only a few large outfits play and everyone else just sits on the side lines they have a lot of work to do.

They really need their mission system to be able to pair up outfits based on size so fighting was more balanced that way.

They also need a way to coordinate with alliance members. I posted this back in beta. Still applies.

Originally Posted by Miir

I would like SOE to consider adding in some sort of multi-outfit Alliance organization features in game. Sort of like the a Platoon feature for squads but at the Outfit level.

This Alliance feature would allow leadership in each outfit to merge into an Alliance and see where the other members of the Alliance are on the map and coordinate better.

Suggest feature list:

- Map markers to request air/armor/infantry
- Map markers to flag enemy locations (air/armor/infantry)
- Alliance way points for each outfit. (Perhaps with outfit logo on the map)
- Alliance voice chat (only leadership levels of each outfit would have access)

I know likely some of these feature are coming down the pipes for high level commanders. However given the large gap between smaller outfits and large outfits in the games current state. I think for the sake of keeping the smaller groups happy this would be a great addition to the game. Even if it costs a little station cash to purchase on day one.

However there needs to be a cap on the amount of members you can have in an alliance. If there is no cap what would likely happen with a tool like this is it would be allow larger outfits to form into even larger groups and we'd continue to have the same issues we are having now. The alliance feature needs to be for the smaller groups to organize at the same level as a large outfit.

A large outfit might have 100 members online. So an alliance should be capped at 100 members. Maybe this could be dynamic based on the largest enemy outfit online at the time?

Whiteagle · 2012-12-20, 02:33 PM

Originally Posted by Bocheezu

And zerglings couldn't drive tanks. Well, they could drive them, but they couldn't shoot them.

There's been a lot of conversation about lack of defense and how people just cap a base and leave. It's because there is literally no way to defend that base. Lay mines? So you blow up 3-4 tanks. There are 12873013710928 zerg tanks right behind it. You would need just about every player in the area to lay mines for it to be effective and I don't think that many people have the cert.

All those people that complained to no avail about driver/gunner were right. In PS1, MBTs were pretty much outfit-only. You could run a single tank with your buddy, but you wouldn't be very effective. In order to get a big convoy of tanks, you needed an outfit. In this game, you don't need that at all. The zerg is way too powerful and just completely dominates the game.

Yeah, there may be something to this...

One man MBTs are a bit too much of a force multiplier all things considered, strong enough to hold there own against Heavy Assaults long enough to get to cover and repair...

...I was won over to this argument by the redundancy of the Lightning though.

Originally Posted by Bocheezu

This is sort of an aside about base defense, but really I feel the lack of base defense is the core of the issue. I feel the addition of the light assault class was stupid. There should not be an infantry class that just completely bypasses defense and jumps over walls. Everyone should have to walk through that outer shield, and that shield should not have a fucking generator 10 meters away from it that will make it go away. In PS1, the generator that made the shield go away was usually buried 2 floors underground. Good luck getting in the courtyard, assholes.

Eh, honestly Light Assault isn't a problem...
I'm a veteran of the Second Life Military scene, so I know that 15-20 seconds of Jet-packing isn't nearly as bad as say, Grav Packs that can easily let you jump 100 meters in the air.

No the problem is most bases, especially Major Facilities, are poorly designed at best when it comes to a defensive standpoint.

Spawn buildings seem to be placed as FAR from the objective as possible or, like Amp Stations you were no doubt referring to, one of the first things presented to attackers as they roll up on a base.

Hell it was even worse in the Beta, where Shield Gens were located at the satellite points!
I'm not saying they shouldn't be the easiest objective to accomplish, but

They don't want people to turtle, but damn it THIS IS WAR!
Sometime you need to entrench and stand your ground, not run all over the place like a chicken with their head cut off...

Originally Posted by Oroshi

To me it seems to be the reward mechanic, all those big XP deposits, outshine the lots of small one. Then on top of that farmable spawn rooms, that keep popping out fresh XP, and you don't need to get out of your vehicle of choice. These form the zerg, add world population bonus, making there no point to playing on a low faction pop continent.

I would add these features in to give bonus to people doing things in smaller numbers.

Population XP bonus should be based on continent, and much more noticeable, encouraging a spread of population across the continents. This would reduce the Zerg size.

Reduce the bases cap XP, during the last double XP weekend when it did not effect base cap XP, I saw more fights, and less Zerging. Also limit the base cap XP verse region population, get too many people, then the amount of XP received drops, have far too many then no XP if given for capping the base.

Say when attack a small outpost, the ideal amount is 50 people, over that the XP per person for capping goes down, if it was to reach 100 people attacking, they don't get XP at all for the cap. Does not force the Zerg to split up, does how ever make them think if I follow all these people I'll get no XP.

Eh, I wouldn't do something like this, just because large battles will have a tendency to inflate as they draw ether factions Zerg's attention.

Originally Posted by Oroshi

Added in additional objectives, I would remove the resource bonus away from the capture nodes, and added in new targets, that need to be defended to keep your resources coming in. These new targets would always be attack-able, no mater how far from the front lines they are. Basically they represent the empire logistics.

Imagine a resource silo, that fills up with resources say air, when its full it starts to give out air resources to your empire members, a hostile force could raid and steal these resources, and added them to their own empire's, and you'ld lose yours till it refills again. You give it a multiple step process so a team has to do it, 3 to 4 steps would do it, while they are emptying the silo they can not fight, so they would need some guards. While under attack it would flash and allow people to respond to it. The Zerg could be capping territory to their hearts content, and suddenly find they can't pull any more vehicles, as all their resources had been stolen.

Just some thoughts, once you start adding objectives and start to encourage zergs to split up, smaller outfits have a places, along side the larger ones too.

Eh, I don't know about making Territory completely worthless when it comes to Resources, but making bases actually play a part in your Faction's infrastructure would definitely be welcome.

Like say there were a few Air towers with "Air Resource Processors", Generators that are what actually give your Faction its Air Resources depending on what Air Resource territories they are connected to.

So say you have five Air Resource territories, if they were connected to one Generator they'd give you fifteen AR, but two would give you 30 and so on.

These bases would be constantly being infiltrated by enemy Spec Ops trying to disable your Infrastructure by destroying those Gens.

Originally Posted by Hourglass

Smaller outfits simply need to do what I've been doing in EVE Online for seven years; make good use of force multipliers.

Pull MAX suits. Use upgraded MAX suits and have a dedicated, fully certed engi keeping them alive. One MAX suit is easily the equal of 4-5 enemy especially one with engi backup who knows when he's taken too much damage.

Speaking of engies. Claymores are one of my favorite tools. When you jump on a base and start taking it as an outfit, have your engies jump into their claymore outfit, and start marking chokepoints and entrances with them. Then they can switch back to whatever class they want. Claymores don't disappear if you swap classes, so use them liberally.

Light Assaults with C4. Place your LA up high near chokepoints if possible. Tell them to hold their fire until the enemy is past them and shooting at your HA, then have them open up on their rear with C4. In the military we use this tactic of drawing the enemy in, then surrounding them.

Grenades. I make the vast majority of my xp every day from grenades. If you find yourself heavily outnumbered, then you're absolutely 100% guaranteed to find your enemy all bunched up in small pockets. Fill those pockets with lethal death pinecones.

There are also a few other ways to multiply the force of a smaller outfit, but I don't want this to turn into a TL

R post.

Great advice man, thanks for the Protips!

CaptainTenneal · 2012-12-20, 02:35 PM

I agree with the need for more tactics. I miss MAX-crashes, Gen drop-n-holds, last minute base hacks. We need smaller scale objectives like these, to give a viable use to smaller skilled squads (and thus smaller outfits). The zerg should be unbeatable in battle, but vulnerable to a skilled team taking their XP away by saving a base if they get lazy.

EVILPIG · 2012-12-20, 03:20 PM

Real busy and not much time. Missed first 6 pages. Sadly, there are large outfits that give other large outfits a bad name. The 666th is very organized, does it's best to contribute to the empire and has never randomly invited anyone in game. Everyone in this outfit, applied on our website. We coordinate multiple divisions of combined arms and spread our forces across the map to hold, shape and break enemy lines. We conduct many training courses throughout the week on tactics for our divisions and command strategy, as well as providing hands on leadership to guide commanders in training as they practice live. We coordinate with other outfits and promote civility and respect amongst all other players, friend or foe. Our goal is not to be "huge", it is a byproduct of what we offer and we continue to develop our organizational structure to our current size. Our goal is to 1 have fun and 2 organize to win, which is more "fun".

Busy at work though, so gotta go.

Westy543 · 2012-12-20, 03:29 PM

I dunno, I run with a small squad of friends (about 12 of us!) every once in awhile apart from my outfit (it is a large 1000+ member one). I don't feel I am hurt by the presence of large outfits on the enemy team, or them on our team. Planetside scales as you do... if there are 300 people at a base, I would rather 80% of them be organized from the same outfit than 240 pubbies that are all working towards their own objective.

The beauty of being a small force is if what you are doing isn't effective... go somewhere else. My 12 man squad has put a dent in several platoons worth of guys because they were so steadfast in pushing to the NC warpgate on Indar that we encircled them and cut them off. That bought the rest of the NC time to completely smash their offensive.

I don't think they're a problem.

Edit: Well said, Robo.

Mox · 2012-12-20, 03:39 PM

My outfit is really small. We have 1or 2 squads in the field and we are running different ops that fits to the size of our gang. We arent joining the zerg most of the time.
One of our big focuses is aircombat. That means we take all mossis or libs.
We are also performing alot of galdrops over major bases.
For me and my outfit pals these kind of ops are fun but i have to admit that there are better ways to make a lot of xp in short time.
I think there are loads of possibilities for small outfits to perform actions which really can help your empire to dominate. Just imagine 15 ESF which play together securing the air over a base... Thats for certain a good thing for our faction.

Kracken · 2012-12-20, 03:40 PM

I rarely post here. I'll say this.

There are in reality very few large outfits
It's just two months after launch
There are only three continents to go with three Empires
If you cannot be effective with a squad examine what you are doing and how your are doing it
Go to the PS2 website and count the number of times it states MASSIVE SCALE

BiggLouFiftyFve · 2012-12-20, 03:50 PM

Someone pointed out earlier in this thread that it's not the quantity, but the quality of the numbers... I'm a member of a very large outfit on Connery, and I can tell you that we are definitely do not zerg. We have Command on nearly 100% of the time (yes nearly 24/7) and to be active in the squads, voice comms are required. Not only that, but we have a membership process that requires recruits to sign up on the forums, fill out and application and then be screened by outfit leadership.

Everything we do in game is highly coordinated. What you see at a base might only be a fraction of our forces online. We don't just will-nilly hop from CP to CP, command has a strategy and orders are given to the various units. As others have said, there as some large outfits that try to suck up all the nubs as they come into the game. People come to us looking for large, organized operations, and they get it.

I played WWIIOL (2001 - 2004) in a small French regiment, and we got steamrolled the majority of the time by the larger German ones (partially because we were playing French or hard mode, but due to our size as well. Despite all that, we still had fun and there was a place for the size of our group by working with other groups in-game.

Maybe forming alliances between the smaller outfits is key. Platoons are not restricted to outfits, so that would essentially increase numbers while allowing the retention of identity. Just a thought... Even having an alliance interface in game would be cool... Restricting the size of outfits are not going to break up the larger outfits. All it will do is break up the in-game membership. They'll still join voice comms, squads and work as one unit. The in-game outfit system is more for grouping players and showing tags than actually working as a unit...

basti · 2012-12-20, 03:52 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I had a great discussion on Twitter last night about this and wanted to bring it here.

First off let me start this thread by saying this is NOT an attack on specific outfits. I will not allow people to argue about specific outfits, this discussion is about the size of outfits in general and whether or not you think they hurt the game. Also, I don't want to hear bs like "ohh you're doing it wrong" etc.

This has bothered me since late beta and is becoming more and more of an issue (imo) as of late. I don't have solution for it because there really isn't one but I want to see what peoples thoughts are.

My outfit is smaller in size compared to most. We typically run about a half a platoon or so. We are finding it difficult to find a solid role for us in the game that isn't boring and doesn't involve getting steamrolled. This is becoming more and more difficult as time goes on. Huge outfits are able to put 100 or more people or more on an objective and essentially win with numbers in almost all fights. We are able to hold off, but it's simply a matter of time until we are struck down due to sheer numbers.

Smaller outfits are finding that they have to disband and join larger outfits if they want to even have fun, causing them to lose their own identity and be absorbed into massive teams because there are no recruits left to take. For me community is more important to a game than the game itself, hence why I've been doing this all these years.

Is having one massive outfit per empire what the developers intended? Is spam inviting every no outfit person in the game really a viable recruiting effort? How many of these people even know what they are joining?

What is everyones thoughts on this issue?

Hold your pants, this will hit your hard: I HAVE A SOLUTION!

Its called an alliance. Grab other Outfits of your empire, get your asses together on the same TS3 server, use channel commander to communicate with each other.

its what we are doing, and its working like a charm. Vanu Corp only holds a platoon in a good night, mostly only a squad or two. We wouldnt be able to do much on our own. But with a simple press of a button, we can call help when we need help.

Meecrob · 2012-12-20, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by Kracken

I rarely post here. I'll say this.

There are in reality very few large outfits
It's just two months after launch
There are only three continents to go with three Empires
If you cannot be effective with a squad examine what you are doing and how your are doing it
Go to the PS2 website and count the number of times it states MASSIVE SCALE

^ this. Tactics and strategies for planetside 2 are in their infancy stage and like stated so very very often the metagame is in its infancy stage too.

I think the addition of more continents is a big part to the solution of this "problem". When the zerg is more spread out its easier as a smalll group to avoid them or only fight a small part of it.

Let me also state for the record (it's only my opinion). I see people referencing to the good ol' days of interlink facilities and doors. This i really don't understand. You really want the situations back where you sit infront of a door where the only way u may get through is to walk through aoe spam? Talk about a situation where a small group will never be effective. Interlinks you had to have atleast twice the amount of people to stand a chance to take it.

In closing, War, when the factions are sort of equal, is alot about numbers. I don't want artificial mechanics so that a small group can own a large group if the skill level of the two groups is sort of equal.

Westy543 · 2012-12-20, 03:59 PM

Originally Posted by basti

Hold your pants, this will hit your hard: I HAVE A SOLUTION!

Its called an alliance. Grab other Outfits of your empire, get your asses together on the same TS3 server, use channel commander to communicate with each other.

its what we are doing, and its working like a charm. Vanu Corp only holds a platoon in a good night, mostly only a squad or two. We wouldnt be able to do much on our own. But with a simple press of a button, we can call help when we need help.

Watching a couple outfits work together is a great thing. I've seen two or three stand against something twice their size because they had superior coordination and more diverse use of resources. One outfit bringing their time tested armor while another brings their veteran infantry platoons to support them? Together they'll smash faces.

RykerStruvian · 2012-12-20, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by Mox

My outfit is really small. We have 1or 2 squads in the field and we are running different ops that fits to the size of our gang. We arent joining the zerg most of the time.
One of our big focuses is aircombat. That means we take all mossis or libs.
We are also performing alot of galdrops over major bases.
For me and my outfit pals these kind of ops are fun but i have to admit that there are better ways to make a lot of xp in short time.
I think there are loads of possibilities for small outfits to perform actions which really can help your empire to dominate. Just imagine 15 ESF which play together securing the air over a base... Thats for certain a good thing for our faction.

This is what I've been doing a lot of too. I only field about one squad at a time and the best way I've seen us offer help to the rest of the empire is by fielding an all reaver squadron with the primary focus of AA. Mossies --> Libs --> Gals are our priority and we've felt this is the best way to contribute. We would like to do more like ground battles but it's not very easy to do unless you have the numbers.

If we absolutely -must- field as ground units, what we typically do is use an AMS and attack strategic objectives rather than a particular area. So for instance we will attack the western generator at a tech plant, take it down, and then hold it to make sure the enemy doesn't bring it up. Or we will attack a tech plant and blow all the air terminals, generally anything we can do to hurt the enemy at large through indirect means as opposed to straight-up gunplay.