Possible upcoming changes to Spawn Rules

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by phungus

I have done alot of thinking on spawning, and what I would to if I made a game (I really need to actually just figure out how to compile and start building something from the torque engine, my damn laziness and procrastination has always ruined my life, but that's another topic).

Throttling spawns is the answer I came up with and theorized about. The player should have feedom to deploy to bases they see they can help at, but having a dynamic timer would give you guys, the designers, the ability to control spawn rates and really shape border battles.

WWII Online tried that with spawn timers for the force that greatly outnumbered the other. It just provided a lot of frustrations and didn't solve much. During a huge battle numbers on the field would stabilize but along the less populated fronts where the outnumbered side wasn't engaged in heavy fighting, they would be able to easily overrun the smaller amount of defenders.

It was always an issue.

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by phungus

I hear you, and agree in part. There is a need to limit and impede massed movement around the map. However forcing a player to spawn hop across a map to deal with a squad at an important base is just frustrating. I spend alot of time on dead continents (usually trying to accumulate air resources), so if I see 1-12 guys attacking an amp station on Amerish I should be able to go there. It wol't just be better for me, but it'll be more enjoyable for the attackers since there will actually be people there to fight, and people play this game to shoot people in the face, not to spawn and ghost cap.

There needs to be limitations and logistical considerations on battle flow in terms of how spawning works. There are more limitations that are needed, for instance something I think is desperatly needed is a timer/energy pool on Sunderers so you can't just instantly spawn in 100 people to an area. But these restrictions shouldn't stop small engagements from happening on dead continents and they shouldn't force a player to spend 2 minutes or more spawn hopping across a dead map.

Well in the future the whole "dead map" thing will become kind of non-issue when we have a connected world. Right now we have 3 unconnected continents. That's an issue that should take care of itself with continental lattice, battle islands, and lattice systems on the continents. There will be logical chokepoints to stop an enemy attack on a weaker front.

Even on Indar an attack on a weak front can be halted thanks to well placed chokepoints. Esamir and Amerish need the lattice and then when we have a continental lattice system the warpgates will provide very good chokepoints, especially on the battle islands.

Should be a problem that kind of works itself out. I would rather the devs keep working on this new content and building spawn mechanics that work with a lattice system and implement restrictions to prevent hopping around the lanes rather than them work on a temporary fix for an issue with the old hex system.

[phungus]

You make good points wasdie.

I still think I should be able to spawn into a battles that is smaller then 12v12 and within 1 players of being balanced instantly. This would let small battles form and frontlines being defendable from ghost caps by people like me who look at the map. I also think I should always be able to spawn at the closest tower, since the closest air terminal spawn is often useless - I'm better off going to the warp gate then spending 2 minutes running to the aircraft terminal from the Tech plant spawn - just let me grab my ESF from a nearby tower quickly. I also think sunderers need to be more limited in terms of spawning instead of allowing unlimited spawns instantly.

[SadlyJack]

It's nice to know you are actually working on this. I hate when my outfit leader sneaks up behind a sunderer then yells at us all to squad deploy simultaneously; totally cheesing the sunderer and it's occupants.

I mean god damn it is so unsporting.


It would also be nice to see these changes maybe make galaxies not redundant.

[Roy Awesome]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The trick is preventing overwhelming response, which might be achieved by throttling the spawns.

I really don't like this. There is nothing that kills an outfit Op like half the platoon getting into a continent and the other half being stuck in queue. Throttling spawns may do the same thing here.

[NewSith]

I'm going to say this:

Continental Commander with an ability to define where reinforcements are needed would be a good alternative solution to the existing logistical extreme freedom.


P.S. The extreme, which I don't really see, since the main mean of travel in PS1, Mozzie, was available at any facility, didn't cost resources and had very small cooldown timer. An ESF in PS2, on the other hand, doesn't fit the description, so limiting the spawn mechanics may have negative effect on defensive side of the game, meaning, the amount of Effort Required will overwhelm the amount of Care for players.

[Malorn]

Perhaps "throttle" wasn't the right word. Feel free to interpret that word as "some form of limited-use mechanism that discourages abuse of large groups." And feel free to offer suggestions. Goal is stabilizing the fronts and trending towards population equilibrium along a front.

Outfits of course will intentionally bypass that because that's a clear and obvious way to gain an edge. Nothing really stops one person from going to an area, putting down a spawn beacon and having the rest come in, and that's what organized groups will do. For moving large groups transport vehicles should be the most efficient solution and the preferred method of front-shifting.

That's where a resource cost for long-distance spawning makes a lot of sense, because the resource cost of one vehicle is a lot cheaper than a spawn cost being paid by an entire squad. And you can't guarantee that everyone in the squad will be able to pay that cost, thus transport vehicle becomes your most reliable and efficient solution of moving a large group. And that transport vehicle takes time to move, can be spotted, and can be destroyed. That adds depth and reduces the volatility. So if you want to go against the grain and shift fronts en masse you do so with a tradeoff. I think that's the general idea of how to correctly solve the problem, but it has it's challenges. I think it could solve the mechanical problem quite well but doing so without making the game more confusing is difficult. Also making it work for large organized groups without screwing over the casual/solo player is essential.

[Canaris]

glad to see your trying to put some thought back into the game Malorn, I think the instant gratifcation (as in just hopping all over the planet via spawn system without needing to do any travelling) is hurting the game.

[bpostal]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Perhaps "throttle" wasn't the right word. Feel free to interpret that word as "some form of limited-use mechanism that discourages abuse of large groups." And feel free to offer suggestions. Goal is stabilizing the fronts and trending towards population equilibrium along a front.

Outfits of course will intentionally bypass that because that's a clear and obvious way to gain an edge. Nothing really stops one person from going to an area, putting down a spawn beacon and having the rest come in, and that's what organized groups will do. For moving large groups transport vehicles should be the most efficient solution and the preferred method of front-shifting.

That's where a resource cost for long-distance spawning makes a lot of sense, because the resource cost of one vehicle is a lot cheaper than a spawn cost being paid by an entire squad. And you can't guarantee that everyone in the squad will be able to pay that cost, thus transport vehicle becomes your most reliable and efficient solution of moving a large group. And that transport vehicle takes time to move, can be spotted, and can be destroyed. That adds depth and reduces the volatility. So if you want to go against the grain and shift fronts en masse you do so with a tradeoff. I think that's the general idea of how to correctly solve the problem, but it has it's challenges. I think it could solve the mechanical problem quite well but doing so without making the game more confusing is difficult. Also making it work for large organized groups without screwing over the casual/solo player is essential.

Would it be feasible to increase the timer on squad beacons by a given increment (to increase at some rate with more people in a squad) and shift the squad beacon certs into something that decreases that increment?
For example (numbers are made up and arbitrary) a squad that consists of two people has no penalty on their beacon timer whereas a squad of three has a 3 second penalty and a squad of 12 has a 30 second penalty on their beacon timer. A fully certed SL can drop the penalty to 1 second per squad member.
It stills gives the potential for one solid drop as the timer penalty is not in effect, but seeing as each member of the squad that is dropping into a contested area is placed in a potentially precarious position (I don't know how many people I've shot who were just hopping out of a drop pod but in most every instance they were extremely vulnerable(Also, sorry to all the BR 1's I've killed, if I knew you were new I would have given you a running start)).
If a squad wants to move to another front in a more cohesive and 'safe' manner than Gals or Sundies would be a much more viable option.

Also, as for squad deploys costing resources; I think I personally would just enact a 'minimum resource limit' that platoon members can not dip under in the event that a squad drop is needed, mostly invalidating the direct impediment that the proposed idea presents. I can always get more resources, I can't always get 30 seconds (or more) on a cap timer that's going south and needs to be cleaned up ASAP.

[raw]

Originally Posted by Canaris

glad to see your trying to put some thought back into the game Malorn, I think the instant gratifcation (as in just hopping all over the planet via spawn system without needing to do any travelling) is hurting the game.

I think it's kinda neccessary. Nothing makes PS2 worse than running around with noone to shoot. Noone likes that. It's not instant gratification.

With regards to giving outfits an edge, I go back to my suggestion from beta to remove cooldown from vehicles alltogether and limit their availability by resource cost alone. A coordinated outfit can pool resources as they need it, while the random pubbie will most likely waste them on pointless stuff that blows up afer a minute or two. Add higher resource costs across the board, done.

That would create some WW1esque front-lines where the random footsoldiers blaze through their resources to die a pointless death, but when coordinated forces arrive they have the firepower to accomplish what needs to be done.

I think we can take resource pooling quite literally, too, why not have some kind of a "resource pool" where I can put it my resources and make them available to the rest of the outfit?

Most important is to make the world resource starved, because only then all this will matter and coordination will retain an inherent edge. With the endless supply we have now there is little point in forming an outfit at all, apart from shooting with friends.

I don't think it's possible to make outfits more desireable without "hurting" the random casual. I mean, being in an outfit is or should be the exact opposite of being a random casual. You have to put a load of incentive under a casual's ass to stop being casual and join an outfit. Nothing is a bigger incentive than being shit at the game and the will to change that.

[phungus]

Originally Posted by raw

I think it's kinda neccessary. Nothing makes PS2 worse than running around with noone to shoot.

This is my thing. If my ESF is on cooldown it takes far too long to get to a battle, especially if I want to fight at a spot to get air resources. Also often I see s place to attack, so I'd like to grab a sundee or maybe harrasser to get to the battle, but I can only spawn at the battle (which is a spawn room that is camped).

I think there are alot of players who can see the map and the info it has to determine good places to spawn and assets to grab, but they are being limited. I also don't see the big outfit thing as being an issue. In my experience large outfits mass players, then spend most of their time waiting and camping spawn rooms. If outfits were really organized half of those players would hit redeploy and would spread out to take multiple territories, but they don't - they just sit there and "wait for the points".

Also at every large base defenders should be able to deploy there to defend or even grab assets. There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to redeploy from the warp gate to Allatum biolab at will. My team has that asset, let me use it. Where battles are going on I think it would be a good idea to throttle mass deployment to defend, but I think it would be more fun for everyone if players could deploy to border skirmishes to defend if the defenders are outnumbered by 50% or more - be more fun for everyone to be able to defend and have people to fight.

[raw]

Originally Posted by phungus

I think there are alot of players who can see the map and the info it has to determine good places to spawn and assets to grab, but they are being limited. I also don't see the big outfit thing as being an issue. In my experience large outfits mass players, then spend most of their time waiting and camping spawn rooms. If outfits were really organized half of those players would hit redeploy and would spread out to take multiple territories, but they don't - they just sit there and "wait for the points".

Yup, pretty much. But - what *else* are outfits supposed to do? You have that shitton of highly organized elite players to do what? where? The same shit as the big zerg, woop woop.

[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.

[Canaris]

Originally Posted by raw

I think it's kinda necessary. Nothing makes PS2 worse than running around with noone to shoot. Noone likes that. It's not instant gratification.

With regards to giving outfits an edge, I go back to my suggestion from beta to remove cooldown from vehicles alltogether and limit their availability by resource cost alone. A coordinated outfit can pool resources as they need it, while the random pubbie will most likely waste them on pointless stuff that blows up afer a minute or two. Add higher resource costs across the board, done.

That would create some WW1esque front-lines where the random footsoldiers blaze through their resources to die a pointless death, but when coordinated forces arrive they have the firepower to accomplish what needs to be done.

I think we can take resource pooling quite literally, too, why not have some kind of a "resource pool" where I can put it my resources and make them available to the rest of the outfit?

Most important is to make the world resource starved, because only then all this will matter and coordination will retain an inherent edge. With the endless supply we have now there is little point in forming an outfit at all, apart from shooting with friends.

I don't think it's possible to make outfits more desireable without "hurting" the random casual. I mean, being in an outfit is or should be the exact opposite of being a random casual. You have to put a load of incentive under a casual's ass to stop being casual and join an outfit. Nothing is a bigger incentive than being shit at the game and the will to change that.

balls, if you are defending the west side of continent and a front opens up on the east, you should not just be able to snap your fingers and arrive at the spawn room to stop them, you should need to form up at either a nearby base in the west or back to warp gate in order to set out and stop the attack, it is instant gratification to just use the respawn system to instantly arrive.
Like it or not travel time is very important to these types of games.

That said they could put in place something similar to the matrix system of PS1, your PL or SL goes to a base and manually sets that to be your special recall point.

[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?