The effect of large numbers (scale) on combat

Figment · 2012-02-06, 07:00 PM

Oddly I have not seen any discussions yet on the effect of having 2.000 players fighting down the street on overall combat.

Some subjects I'd like you to ponder:

How dispersed will the populace be during:
1. Offense
2. Defense
3. Invasion
4. Getting kicked off
Law of leverage
1. Firepower/Endurance differences between two groups
2. AoE weapon spam
3. Class use (Heavy Assault/MAX)
Unit acquisition
1. Waiting lists -> Amount of vehicle creation pads needed
2. Amount of units pulled -> Amount of heavy vehicles -> impact on battles
Building dimensions requirements
1. Internal (spawning / movement / choke points)
2. External (CY - gathering)
Outfit size / Crew size
1. Amount of troops you need to accomplish something
2. Amount of enemies you can handle
3. Shift in gameplay when outfit does something 'silly'
Duration of battles
1. Impact on other battles
2. Variation of combat environment

I'm sure you get the drift. Any ideas on what we can expect?

AshOck · 2012-02-06, 08:00 PM

I can imagine that even though we might be seeing a lot more players on one continent, given the resource value of each hexagon and a clearer view of where the front line really is, the battles will be more spread out over a variety of locations. Some big battles in and around hexagons leading to or that include bases and a lot of smaller battles in open territory and around towers.

It might also help figure out what exactly the enemies intentions are as you will be able to see them advancing in hexagons towards your own empires bases etc...

As for vehicle acquisition, I doubt there would be any more waiting than in ps1 .. also because the empire would be spread out over many regions and also because the bases will perhaps have enough vehicle terms for that not to be a problem.

Of course this is all highly speculative..but still fun to think about

polywomple · 2012-02-06, 08:16 PM

i want to know if we can do sanc raids but 10 times bigger

Tasorin · 2012-02-06, 08:37 PM

No one knows right now. The lucky few that may have got some in-game stick time shouldn't talk about it openly on a community form. So until they have a NDA lift we are all still mostly in the dark on the inner workings of actual in-game fps mechanics.

The effective range of rendering targets with visibility modifiers for weather and time of day and how that plays in with effective killing range of a factions weapon, be it vehicle or soldier. Will play an interlingual role in answering your questions for outdoor combat. Being able to be tank sniped over the horizon by something that the Client didn't render due to resource limitations is not going to be a hole lot of fun for squishes.

From what we have seen in the videos and the stills it looks like PS2 will employ a versatile outdoor environment with plenty of room on the Z-Axis for Air combat and terrain for tactical insurgency. The indoor layout has not really been seen besides stills to my knowledge. We have seen placeholder and Alpha Stage complex's in videos that are far more expansive then PS1 to lend for more urban style fighting.

Hmr85 · 2012-02-06, 08:38 PM

Originally Posted by polywomple

i want to know if we can do sanc raids but 10 times bigger

Ah, the good ole days. I remember when raids use to be that big. That's one of the reasons I cannot wait for PS2. They will make a return in full glory along with max crashes. With Sanctuary's out this time though will have to form up behind friendly lines to make those raids. Which runs the risk of exposure. Should be fun.

DayOne · 2012-02-06, 08:47 PM

It will have the effect of AWESOME!!!

Although with 8km x 8km continents there shouldn't be 1000 player zerg rushes into one corridor. With the size of bases, hopefully the implementation of a good command system and the mission system I think we should get pretty epic battles with everyone doing their part.

Brusi · 2012-02-06, 11:44 PM

I expect that there will be some awesome 3-way clusterfucks, which for the most part start to get frustrating as you die out of the blue over and over, from threats that spiderman couldn't have even seen coming.

The net effect being smaller skirmishes along the front lines and around the place due to small groups regulalry breaking off the main fights (perhaps also tempted away from the larger fights throught the mission system).

Tamas · 2012-02-07, 05:47 AM

Wow that looks cool. I hope for that epic feeling of "OMGWTFAWESOMESAUCE" when in large/huge battles and I mean fun I get when playing 128 BF maps and bigger - just massive massive battles. I miss them so much, tired of the 3vs4 small engagements that occur in all games now.

Shogun · 2012-02-07, 06:10 AM

the devs should skip the vs weapons week and replace it with a "massive multiplayer mechanics" week!
nobody wants to see that purple crap anyway.

but it would be great to get a real idea about the scale we are going to see.
t-ray always says FORGELIGHT BABY! but all we have seen is great graphics with only a few soldiers onscreen.
what i really want to know about forgelight is the number of players it will be able to show onscreen at once!
we hear of thousands of players fighting on one map and that´s great, but we got no info yet, how much of that action we can actually experience and behold!

ringring · 2012-02-07, 06:38 AM

One of my thoughts on seeing the sheer size of the bases was "they are going to take a long time to capture".

But it really depends on things we don't know ... for instance, you're defending the walls along with 4-5 of your mates ... an OS comes in and it happens that all your mates and the enemy you were shooting at are all taken out.
Now, how long does it take you to spawn and run back to the battle as compared for the enemy to do the same from their spawn point?

DOUBLEXBAUGH · 2012-02-07, 06:46 AM

Originally Posted by Hmr85

With Sanctuary's out this time though will have to form up behind friendly lines to make those raids. Which runs the risk of exposure. Should be fun.

Every empire has an uncapturable warpgate/city on every cont. You can form up in the bubble and they cant shoot/os you. They can however, spy on your forming raid and prepare themselves for it.

Qwan · 2012-02-07, 07:39 AM

I figured it like this from the start, the makers of PS2 can see alone and get a general Idea of what there in for by looking at there fan base, they have to know that they are going to get 25K plus users initially just looking at the FB likes alone. And when and if they start pre order, this will give them even a better idea of what they might be dealing with as far as server loads. My personal oppinion the initial release is going to be alot of DC's and laggy ness. In PS1 you couldnt even drop on a continent because of population count, they would liturally lock continents because of the number of players fighting in a area. I cant remember what the number of persons allowed on a continent was, in PS2 they say 1000's of players at the same time fighting on the battlefield, will there be continent locks because of the number of players in one area. I guess well see when they launch the game, I actually do have one question, I live in the US East Coast, my outfit members are all from EU (i started playing PS back in germany) will i be able to join the EU server and not feel alot of lag and DC issues during big battles.

Hmr85 · 2012-02-07, 07:49 AM

Originally Posted by DOUBLEXBAUGH

Every empire has an uncapturable warpgate/city on every cont. You can form up in the bubble and they cant shoot/os you. They can however, spy on your forming raid and prepare themselves for it.

Which makes perfectly good sense. Especially with them saying will be able to pull Galaxys from the Warpgate. I am assuming there must be small facility's in them now.

Qwan · 2012-02-07, 08:02 AM

Hmm i wonder since there making this a F2P game, were are they going to get the money to pay for the bandwith, and bug fixes and updates. I really feel that they should have kept it P2P, at least i know there is someone working on keeping my game running smoothly.

exoteror · 2012-02-07, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by Qwan

Hmm i wonder since there making this a F2P game, were are they going to get the money to pay for the bandwith, and bug fixes and updates. I really feel that they should have kept it P2P, at least i know there is someone working on keeping my game running smoothly.

They will have options to purchase cosmetic items and such I belive, they may also have a subscription option for things like multiple skill queue.

I don't belive they have announced how it's going to work but personally it's the better option. I remember when they had planetside reserves and free players started playing, the games felt better because of the sheer numbers.