The real reason Planetside is unbalanced...

Jagd · 2004-02-10, 01:13 PM

Ok, so this is just a theory that I came up with last night, and it may be way off. I'm sure you'll me glad to tell me why it's wrong, so please do.

Anyways, I was soloing trying to fend off incursions on locked (or recently locked) continents. I would recall and HART to the next continent when necessary, and I played on Forseral, Searhus, Hossin and Esamir through the course of a couple hours. What struck me was that even with this new population system, there was not a single engagement with even numbers of attackers and defenders. Either the defenders had a numerical advantage and repelled the ghost hacker/squad, or the offense simply overwhelmed the skeleton crew trying to keep the continent under lock.

Planetside is in a near perpetual state of one-sided battles, and while being outnumbered can certainly get the adrenaline going when you get on a killing spree, it sure isn't fun when you realize you won't succeed overall unless you follow the herd. The sad part is, I just can't think of a way that this could be overcome with programming since the standard FPS model of auto-balancing the teams will never fit into a game that has character development as one of its key ingredients.

Well anyways, that's my theory. What do you think?

Veteran · 2004-02-10, 01:16 PM

The HART can turn a retreat into a rout.

Blame the HART, Surge and Heavy Assault in that order.

And drink your daily ration of mineral water. The TR is watching.

Jagd · 2004-02-10, 01:25 PM

I dunno Vet, the HART allowed me to make pull off some pretty decisive counter-hacks as well as letting me get out of the way of an NC steamroller and on to somewhere I could be productive. Of course, 9 times out of 10 I hotdrop at a Tech Plant far back from the front, where I can matrix and keep my Reaver up, so I'm not *exploiting* the HART, as some would call it.

I don't understand what surge or heavy assault would have to do with this though. It just seems that skill and tactics are rendered irrelevant most of the time, due to sheer enemy body count.

Veteran · 2004-02-10, 01:32 PM

Jagd, you proved my point with your speculation. You used the HART as a NPC tactical-insertion vehicle.

This is supposed to be pure PVP. The HART is the equivalent of an NPC that helps you get close to your enemy with absolutely no counter-measures.

The HART sucketh. Surge sucketh also. Heavy Assault sucketh the least of the three, but still enough to take the chrome off of a trailer-hitch.

And no, vodka isn't part of my rant. It's beer by the gallon today, and the fact that I watched Tombstone twice in a row.

You'll be a daisy if you prove me wrong about the HART's broken nature.

noxious · 2004-02-10, 01:46 PM

I've been finding even battles. Granted you will never find even battle's that are not zerg fights (when there is no pop-lock, one side is bound to have more than the toher) but over the last couple of days I've found plenty of stalemates that last so long I get frustrated.

TheRagingGerbil · 2004-02-10, 01:54 PM

HART is broken.

Broken to the point where it needs to be removed entirely.

In its place, we need sanctuary broadcast gates. These gates would allow you to warp to any gate that is on or connected to a friendly locked continent. This will do a mutitude of things.

1) Promote the idea that this perpetual war we are in has some semblance of a battle front.

2) Allow you a fairly quick response to an enemy invasion.

Liquidtide · 2004-02-10, 01:56 PM

I have the solution....

HART = Gone

In its place... duhn dun dahhhhh

A large Spawn room where you can deconstruct at the Sanctuary and reconstruct in any Empire owned (not enemy hacked) base on any continent.

Comments, ramblings?

MidnightDave · 2004-02-10, 02:03 PM

well, i dont know about the hart, my experience with it last night was that as we (tr) were fighting my outfit dropped near a tower on a base that had just been captured, and we bascially stopped an NC incursion into the northern part of the cont. We had been fighting the VS up there already and if the NC had gotten a foothold, we would have been toast. We used it to tactically drop, organize and move out, im not sure if that makes it suck, but it provided a rescue that we would not have been able to perform without it.

AS for even fights, on searhus we had some dang even fights first with the NC in the afformentioned battle, then we took the NC's last base way to the south with a toe for toe, inch by inch battle. Then we took on the volcano cluster (we were on searhus) which was controlled by the VS. It was a pretty even fight until the last VS base when the majority of the VS bugged out and we rolled over the 23-24 who decided to stay. It was quite a battle overall, and was very even until the VS realized that they were toast and chickened out.

Speaking of that, my philosophy (sp?) about that is simple. Unless my outfit orders tell me otherwise, I would like to stay and fight until the very last tower is captured, unfortunately the zerg never does. Im one of the guys who in real life would go down in a blaze of glory lol. I never give up until we have no place to spawn cept sanc. That is until I get a recall order from the outfit leader. (when that happens I go on a suicide run and take down everyone I can and when I die just spawn at sanc)

And thats my thoughts, all of em, I have no more, whats my name again? where am I? what am I doing here? GAH! . . . . .

Happy lil Elf · 2004-02-10, 02:08 PM

Surge isn't the problem. Being able to fire a weapon with little to no handicap while surging is the problem.

Veteran · 2004-02-10, 02:08 PM

I'd love it if your squad medic could use his Medical Applicator on you and store your matrix, only to upload it at a friendly facility later.

This would make medics with a Mosquito into effective HARTs. Solos would have to rely on Instant Action or warpgates.

It's a tough call. The HART would be so perfect if it only dropped you around friendly SOIs. The devs have been so good at anticipating our needs that I wouldn't be surprised if this were some day implemented.

Fenrys · 2004-02-10, 02:08 PM

With all the griping about stalemates, I guess our questions about balance are answered.

infinite loop · 2004-02-10, 02:15 PM

Jagd - I would have partially agreed with your theory before the last patch, but not now. I've found that the battles are more even now than ever before. I haven't seen a zerg roll a continent since the patch. The 3-ways so far have been really entertaining.

That said, I still think there should be a better way to enforce an even-sized battle. I read an idea on the OF a while back that SmokeJumper liked also. Basically, you would start with a base number of players for each side, say 50. You can get up to that number of guys on a continent with no restrictions. Then, after that base number, you can only get a certain percent population advantage over the next populous empire. Let's set it at 10% for now. So, if one empire has 50 guys on a cont, you can only get 55 on. Then, the other empire would be able to get up to 61 on, and it leapfrogs, etc., etc. until you reach a total pop lock. I really like the basics of the idea, and would love to see it refined and implemented. Would this solve your theory Jagd?

Rbstr · 2004-02-10, 04:17 PM

the hart is the biggest problem in the game i would say

ChewyLSB · 2004-02-10, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by Liquidtide

I have the solution....

HART = Gone

In its place... duhn dun dahhhhh

A large Spawn room where you can deconstruct at the Sanctuary and reconstruct in any Empire owned (not enemy hacked) base on any continent.

Comments, ramblings?

That sounds... absolutely... brilliant!

BadAsh · 2004-02-10, 05:36 PM

Originally Posted by TheRagingGerbil

HART is broken.

Broken to the point where it needs to be removed entirely.

In its place, we need sanctuary broadcast gates. These gates would allow you to warp to any gate that is on or connected to a friendly locked continent. This will do a mutitude of things.

1) Promote the idea that this perpetual war we are in has some semblance of a battle front.

2) Allow you a fairly quick response to an enemy invasion.

Sold. Nice idea.