Planetside PlayStyles - Deministion Importance of Tactical Ground Troops

[SuperSoul]

Hey Everyone,

Good to be here, I lurk on this forum far more than I should, working from home allows time for gaming and planetside has been my bread and butter since 2003 (beta).

Since I have played since beta and more often than I should I have had a chance to play a lot of various styles and I would like to bring up some points about the diminished importance of smart ... or shall I say tactical ground troops ...

I.E.

Me ;-)

When planetside first launched, many of the vehicles that are now in game were not, some include:

- Liberator
- Lodster
- SkyGuard
- Galaxy Gunship
- Phantasm
- And yes ... the dreaded BFR

And as each new vehicle was released, the importance of my job, which I think was kind of unique simply for the reason that not many people played as I did was diminished.

This playstyle I like to think of as the ambush, that is, back in the day, I would stake out the perfect location to set up shop with:

- My AMS
- Advanced Engi (mines, spits, ect)
- Cycler / Striker (TR Bitches)
- Steath Suit

With this type of a load out I could wreak havoc and deny the enemy of needed resources such as NTU, tanks, AMS spawn points and more.

I also slowed the enemy down (and made them swear a lot which is cool).
However ... with each new vehicle and update, the chances of success began to diminish and my effect on the overall battle was reduced.

However, I still play this way quite often, it is much harder, but at the same time I am not a 13 year old whiner, I suck it up and play. The point I want to make is that at the launch I had much more importance and as someone who rather be in the field rather than in a vehicle the balance was a bit more even.

Here is an example of a really fun (and quite helpful) three or four hour play session on Solar, when back in the day Solar was an NC home content.

Horus, first base in lattice link from TR sanctuary to the continent located in the south. If Horus was getting hit from time to time from either the VS or the TR, it will be logical (Spock) for an NC to jump into an ANT and head south.

This is where Snappy get's all warm inside thinking of the neat stuff I have waiting for that poor NC in his little ANT ;-)

I would be waiting somewhere between Horus and the warp gate with mines all over the road, spit fires up sometimes and what not.

I took down hundreds ... and hundreds of ANTS ...

This play style is also a hoot if Horus is hacked, the NC would roll AMS's, Tanks and such from their sanctuary and I would blow them up.

Bye ... Bye AMS (no spawn for you).

Boom Boom - Tank bustin fun!

Then came the updates, you know the ones PS players like to bitch about, core combat, BFR's and the new vehicles.

The loadster really changed the way squads would take care of NTU and transports, the amount of ANT's that were on the road dropped considerably.

And the vehicles became more and more powerful, liberators could easily however over my AMS and bye bye ...

I hope the new resource system give me an opportunity to once again
deny the enemy in someway shape or forum, with no more AMS in planetside2 this play style will be different for sure.

And I am ok with that ;-)

I just want to know that if I want to hang out between bases, maybe making sure the TR has control over a sector of land I can do it as an infantry man?

Nobody really knows how that will play out, but I did want to make mention of my ambush play style today. It was often times epic, fun and helpful to my empire.

I will probably post about the cloaker in the future here at planetside universe, thanks Hamma and crew for keeping this site up over the years.

Your thoughts on this "ambush" type play style?
Anyone here ever do this type of thing?

SuperSoul ~

[Talek Krell]

A lot of the changes the devs have made are geared to decentralizing battles from the bases, and increasing the diversity of the terrain and the combat in it. In answer to your specific question, there are supposed to be areas (thick forest, extremely rough terrain) where vehicles are unable to operate easily, allowing infantry to come to the front in those places I don't know what supply lines and spawn points will look like, but if you want some infantry field warfare then chances are you'll be able to find it.

[Raymac]

I've set up those ambush traps in PS1 before. It's fun, but I don't really have the patience for it especially if nobody comes by and the whole battle shifts to the other side of the continent.

I'm excited to see the skills they give to engineers because even though I didn't partake in it much, I'm a big fan of the game supporting this style of gameplay. Any time one of these traps killed me on an ANT run, I always gave a mental nod to whoever set it up.

[DviddLeff]

The play style you detail is an interesting one and as you say the Lodestar changed ANT runs to make the specific style less worthwhile.

Now is that a bad thing? Not really, as ANT runs themselves were frustrating, needing a decent escort to stand a chance against an aware enemy or one that had prepared an ambush. Even then a Lodestar still required escort to protect against enemy aircraft, so it still requires teamwork, but bypasses the threat of ground based forces.

Now the ambush site will still be a valid tactic, but with the granular territory system it will be a lot more interesting to set up and avoid, due to having to capture "every square inch" of dirt.