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2012-07-15, 11:31 PM | [Ignore Me] #1 | ||||
Contributor PlanetSide 2
Game Designer |
I had asked Higby in the AMAA which seems forever ago about Squad Spawn beacons. Here's the question and Higby's response (in bold).
, Higby answers one of the questions about where people can spawn in drop pods. The entire answer was quite interesting to me, but the bolded parts stood out in particular.
For those who didn't play BF2142, you could spawn on a squad leader, and the squad leader could optionally carry a beacon that they could throw down and you would spawn on that beacon instead of spawning on the squad leader. This was later given as optional equipment for Recons in BF3. On the surface this seems like a great idea as a flexible spawn without the heavyweight Galaxy. Squad spawn beacons would also cost a lot less resources than a Galaxy, so they provide a spawn tool for a resource-starved empire. The downside is the hide-and-seek aspect of hunting down a squad beacon, but like the Battlefield games they could easily make them emit some form of audible sound when you are near them, or show up on certain types of radar, etc. Lots of options for dealing with them, but I think they are a great tool for keeping up the pace of the game and as a squad-level replacement for AMS / Galaxy. You get the AMS-style spawn but don't get an entire empire spawning out of it like you could with a Galaxy. Seems like it provides a much needed light-spawn source. It worked well in BF2142, and I think it could work very well here too. Glad to see it's in! |
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2012-07-15, 11:59 PM | [Ignore Me] #2 | ||
Sergeant Major
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I definitely liked it in BF2142. It's been years since I played that game, and I don't recall what the player pops were per map but I know it was pretty consistent with the typical FPS's of the day. That being said, I think it will end up being a good thing that bases will have a sort of dynamic SOI which prevents Squad Spawning for PS2. I say that because BF2142 had, what, 20 or 30 some odd players in a game at once? And even at that point (particularly in Titan mode) the squad spawning COULD be perceived as a little OP, rather than a boon to overall gameplay -- now imagine that on the scale of Planetside 2, with dozens of Squad Leaders in a single battle over a single base; it could make determining where the "front" is very difficult. Again, my opinion, but I think that would more likely be a hinderance than a help to gameplay. But I do see your point and I could see it working out like that; my gut feeling is not to agree, but we shall see -- and now we don't have to wait until "soon" anymore
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2012-07-16, 12:04 AM | [Ignore Me] #3 | ||
Colonel
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Eh... it depends. It works well in match based games like BF yes, but not sure about PS2. Honestly I wouldn't mind as long as you can't place them in a base's SOI. Having an infiltrator run in, throw one down and all of the sudden a platoon rains down from the sky doesn't sound like much fun.
It's too much reward for too little risk, is what I'm saying. Galaxies work because they're huge and you know where they are, just like AMSes you have to drive them in. (whoops just read that 'exclusion zone' thing and that's what I mean) But yeah, outside of bases is fine for me.
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ZulthusVS, 34/5 DARK Last edited by Zulthus; 2012-07-16 at 12:07 AM. |
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2012-07-16, 12:07 AM | [Ignore Me] #4 | |||
Sergeant Major
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I think it's much better to have it as beacon-only. That will at least have all of one squad only spawning in one area, instead of anywhere that a squad member happens to be at the time. It will also help the squad leader to guide the squad. Nothing says "fight here" like forcing people to spawn in that location, instead of spawning on the dumbass sniper way up on the hill :-P |
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2012-07-16, 12:13 AM | [Ignore Me] #5 | ||
Sergeant
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They are very good to have in BF2142. The only problem with them is that the RDX (C4) hoppers would boost into very high places and place them in places where it was hard or impossible for the other team to destroy them.
This on the other hand I dont see being a problem in PS2 because of the lack of RDX (C4) hopping. |
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2012-07-16, 12:28 AM | [Ignore Me] #8 | ||
Contributor PlanetSide 2
Game Designer |
With squad spawn beacons, Light assault and Infiltrators as squad leaders could be quite interesting. Light assault might have a unique role of being able to hunt down beacons in hard to reach places. Beacons may also have placement restrictions that make it hard to put them in bad places.
Also, the influence system of "exclusion zones" helps prevent abuse. Even if there's spawn beacons in crazy places they can be shut down by increasing influence (capturing surrounding territories). So unlike the BF games there's a dynamic way in which you can control enemy spawning through use of the exclusion zones. It's one way to add continent-level metagame and add importance to the influence and territory control system. And of course you also have aircraft that could help spot and blow them up... |
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2012-07-16, 12:33 AM | [Ignore Me] #9 | ||
Private
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He didn't specifically say that the squad beacon was deployable in that SOI question (and he was quite ADD the whole time, so easily to see how one can't rely on the subtle wording of that response). The "beacon" can still mean just the leader carried item that takes an equipment slot to allow orbital drops for squad.
Also, a dropped beacon could still be highly exploitable in PS2 as the defenders tend to loose air superiority so attacker can drop beacon at any nearby building roof to be unreachable. Last edited by DukeTerror; 2012-07-16 at 12:40 AM. |
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2012-07-16, 01:16 AM | [Ignore Me] #11 | ||
Corporal
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gonna make any kind of spec ops behind enemy lines almost impossible if you can't take a mobile spawn with you.
Can you imagine tryin to cap a base with that new ticket crap without being able to spawn at all on death? You'll have to take a hundred people and have them constantly shuttling in to hold out for the cap. |
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2012-07-16, 01:38 AM | [Ignore Me] #12 | |||
Contributor PlanetSide 2
Game Designer |
Might be important to note that Higby said the Exclusion Zones were around bases. They might only apply to the larger facilities and not territories in general, though it seems to me territories in general would be the way to go. We also don't know how they interact with overlapping influence. There's a lot of potential there to make it work.
Here's some clues as to how that might tie in.
Respawn times matter here too. Consider for a moment that Influence might have a certain range associated with it, and as long as you had any influence over an area at all, you could spawn there or set up a mobile spawn within range of the influence. The rate of spawn might then be tied to the amount of influence. If your influence is weak, then respawn rate is slow. If your influence is strong, then your respawn rate is significantly higher. They could do a similar thing to give you tools when assaulting border territories. Deep territories are intended to be more difficult to take, and to be taken by galaxy and sunderer drops of troops. You don't get to respawn but you do still have medics, so coordinated teams might be able to catch a territory by surprise and hold it long enough for capture. Once it's captured there's influence, and then you can anchor it with more spawn points. I'm just speculating/brainstorming that bit, but my point is that there's lots of potential for what they could do here to build on the influence concept and tie it into spawn rate and mobile spawn options. Galaxies and Sunderers should be used for assaulting deep territory. Plopping down a spawn point and then watching a zerg pour out of it is cheesy. I like the different levels of difficulty with deeper territories being more difficult but potentially a lot more rewarding - they could also scale capture rewards inversely with influence. And tactically adding an influence point deeper can create an influence swing in other areas and open up more targets and/or make another area significantly easier to capture. All sorts of metagame goodness with that model. |
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2012-07-16, 02:16 AM | [Ignore Me] #14 | ||
First Sergeant
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I've been playing a friends BF3 recently and I'm so glad they are doing the drop pod system for squad spawning. I get so pissed off right when I'm about to kill a guy, 1-2 people just pop right out of his ass and kill me. I'm not too thrilled about the squad spawning but atleast you can have some notification or some delay with the drop pod system before they just *poof* out of nowhere.
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