Possible upcoming changes to Spawn Rules

[Malorn]

Of course this isn't the only thing we're looking at. Battle flow both macro and micro is an important area for us to improve upon. Need to be careful with this sort of thing though due to the subtle but very significant impact it can have.

Mentioned this last week but we have some drop pod changes coming too. They won't be as steerable and defenders and for instant action attacker pods will come down in different parts of a facility. Defenders will come down in the interior and the attackers will come down around the outside for better flow.

Squad deploy is a tricky one, but I'd like to have that function more like instant action and follow the above rules.

[Palerion]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Mentioned this last week but we have some drop pod changes coming too. They won't be as steerable and defenders and for instant action attacker pods will come down in different parts of a facility. Defenders will come down in the interior and the attackers will come down around the outside for better flow.

That would actually be great. While I admittedly love steering my drop pod onto the top of tech plants as an LA and wiping out the entire force held inside, I could see this having a very positive effect on the game.

[Timithos]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Defenders will come down in the interior and the attackers will come down around the outside for better flow.

Yay! A defender advantage! They're so few and far between, celebration is necessary!

[GeoGnome]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Of course this isn't the only thing we're looking at. Battle flow both macro and micro is an important area for us to improve upon. Need to be careful with this sort of thing though due to the subtle but very significant impact it can have.

Mentioned this last week but we have some drop pod changes coming too. They won't be as steerable and defenders and for instant action attacker pods will come down in different parts of a facility. Defenders will come down in the interior and the attackers will come down around the outside for better flow.

Squad deploy is a tricky one, but I'd like to have that function more like instant action and follow the above rules.

Whats the point of having squad deploy? I mean it's basically making your squad leader into a mobile spawn beacon as is, it's an option you use when your spawn beacon timer is too long, or your squad leader forgot to drop a squad beacon.

That said, the above changes you mention, I had missed last week (Or if I hadn't I had forgotten about them). That said, they look really good, bar the question of: Will sunderer respawn speeds continue to match those of bases?

Something else, is that while the sunderer respawn speeds are mitigated somewhat by no-deploy zones, this means sunderers further out in the open away from the base being less defensible. That in turn is somewhat covered by there being dome shield and cloak deploying sunderers. BUT, and this is a rather large but (Which yes, is wandering a bit off topic, but I think is applicable to sunderers in the future of PS2), will the changes to spawning in galaxies that was discussed by Higby, where you can respawn in your squads galaxy instead of there being deploying AMS galaxies, carry over to those other kinds of sundies. That is to say will the following become a reality: AMS Sunderer: Anyone can deploy there at any time; Cloak or shield sundy: only your squad can deploy there, but it has more protection. Or will those special kinds of sundy deploy protection things, occupy a defensive and not utility slot, so that an AMS can carry a special kind of protection with it in addition to it's AMS?

[bpostal]

Aww, drop pods not being as manuverable? I love aiming for enemy libs on my way down.

[Rahabib]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Squad deploy is a tricky one, but I'd like to have that function more like instant action and follow the above rules.

So placement won't matter?

[Root Hade]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Of course this isn't the only thing we're looking at. Battle flow both macro and micro is an important area for us to improve upon. Need to be careful with this sort of thing though due to the subtle but very significant impact it can have.

Mentioned this last week but we have some drop pod changes coming too. They won't be as steerable and defenders and for instant action attacker pods will come down in different parts of a facility. Defenders will come down in the interior and the attackers will come down around the outside for better flow.

Squad deploy is a tricky one, but I'd like to have that function more like instant action and follow the above rules.

When the player missions go in, it'd be cool to have automatic missions that alert AA units (MAX, lightning, etc), and people near terminals including those on Sunderers, of enemies that are about to drop pod in the vicinity. Sorta player driven version of the automatic AA drop-pod-spawn denial over enemy bases in Section 8.

[BlazingSun]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Mentioned this last week but we have some drop pod changes coming too. They won't be as steerable and defenders and for instant action attacker pods will come down in different parts of a facility. Defenders will come down in the interior and the attackers will come down around the outside for better flow.

Here is a crazy idea: How about having people spawn in the nearest spawnroom when using instant action - like it was in Planetside. There was no problem with that, but there is a problem with people falling from the sky all over the place messing up the combat. Isn't it enough that one has to worry about Light Assaults and people bailing from aircrafts when trying to defend a base/tower? Why do we have to put up with all the drop pods raining down as well? On the other side, it's not so great for the players who use instant action either, because often enough they just drop in the middle of an enemy force - The action they asked for was instant, but so was death.

Reduce all this drop pod nonsene to a minimum and make transportation more meaningful. Drop pods should be a strategic element and not something you can do every 3 minutes if you feel like it. But I guess if you stop attackers from droping right ontop of bases and towers, where they should NOT be, then that's a start at least.

[velleity]

Players spawn into towers, biolabs, and to a lesser extent amp stations because they are looking for a fight, and those facilities are defensible. Zerging and ghost capping empty bases is boring. In fact zerging is boring, there is no tension at all.

To make my point, let's look at what isn't worth my time;
-Tech plants- by the time of any response, the opposition has downed the shields, setup a sundy surrounded by repair sundies and logged in an engy alt to rep the shields.

Sundies spawn faster then base spawns, then you have a huge slog to get there since you can't use the laughably bad and harasser camped tunnels. Making the only "defense" the banana room and scu.

-small bases are almost to a base , laughably bad, and indefensible, only good for shield heroing, except the ones with banana rooms. Terran crash site on esamir being the best example of terrible with the capture point being miles away and the spawn is not even in the same territory.

SoE is afraid of any sort of fighting that might interrupt zerging and done it's utmost to nerf defending as far a possible and is doing so yet again, but what are you doing to promote fighting? People logout of this game because there are few fights and nothing to do.

How about some spawns inside buildings near cap points where tanks can't spam players into jelly so real fighting happens? How about a cloaked ams so a greater attacking force isn't despawned out of the territory by c4 podding and shotgun fairies? So a defending force can have a spawn outside a spawn room for more then 30 seconds?