FNO 26 Recap

[NewSith]

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...ode-26.112123/

Originally Posted by Corey Navage

• Spawning inside vehicles a-la Battlefield.
• A new "invisible" beacon without areal limitations.
• "Sealing spawnrooms a little bit better".
• Spawnrooms are not gonna be moved inside superstructure.
• No plans to change tunnels.
• Battleship idea is "backed off from"
• Islands are gonna be most likely used for ESports
• The designs were always built with the addition of Artillery in the future in mind
• Searhus will have lots of caves
• The capture points in future designs will be getting into more enclosed positions
• Some facilities on Indar will be redesigned or removed.
• "New spanrooms will be easier to defend, so the defender can leave spawnrooms more safely"
• Facilities will get designs unique for the Light Assault ability, like "holes in roofs"
• Facilities around warpgates will be facing the direction opposite to the warpgate in the future
• Center of the map is always made to be "the best place to fight at" and is always a "signature place"
• Navage's wanted continent idea is "asteroid field were you can hop from rock to rock". Searhus has some of that in its core.
• New continents are gonna be more infantry friendly.

My impressions of the guy are negative, I don't feel like he is capable of doing the "defense" thing right.

[Hmr85]

I am extremely disappointed in a lot of these changes I am seeing here. I look through this entire list you have above and I do not see one thing that makes me go " yeah I am looking forward to that". Instead all I see is more holes in defense along with spawning for casual players.

I am slightly annoyed to hear that any future islands are going to be used for E-sports. Still baffled on their reasoning for not shoring up bases better for defense and moving the spawn down under the primary facility. I really just do not know what to think anymore about some of SOE's game design choices.

We have been hearing since tech test with people screaming for better designed facility's that are actually defensible. It just seems like it keeps going the opposite direction.

[Nathaniak]

•Spawnrooms are not gonna be moved inside superstructure.
•No plans to change tunnels.

Really? Tunnels add very little to the game, currently. They're just camped, so they add nothing to the actual fighting. Why don't they change the entrances to a shielded door, replace the SCU with a gen for the shield and the pain field, then move the SCU and control point inside the tunnels? Even better, remove the SCU, and allow the attackers to access the spawn room via the tunnels only, and make them destroy the spawn tubes to stop the attackers spawning? So much better.

[ringring]

Good bad and very bad.

Holes in roofs for LA's (with insta-gib shotguns)? What if you don't play LA, will you simply be fodder in indefensible rooms?

Actually the only good things are more enclosed spawns and capture points.

Hopping from rocks in caves in Searhus. Does that means LA is necessary? And again does it all negate structure and choke points?

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by ringring

Actually the only good things are more enclosed spawns and capture points.

This isn't also good exactly. With spawnrooms not having any direct access to capture points, with equal numbers it's all about who gets to them first.

Originally Posted by ringring

Hopping from rocks in caves in Searhus. Does that means LA is necessary? And again does it all negate structure and choke points?

I think this actually means more jumppads, hell knows...

[OctavianAXFive]

Well he didn't quite answer my questions as thoroughly as I hoped but he did somewhat verify my theory on why they put the spawn rooms outside the base.

Question: "Why are the spawn rooms in major bases located outside the main facility?"

We wanted the main facility to be where all the great combat is happening. If one team is spawning right there, it's not really much of a fight. That's too huge of an advantage. So we had to move the spawn rooms away so even the defenders, the owners of the base, have a little bit of travel time to get back into the fight, that's your penalty for dieing. You respawn, you run a few feet, then you're back in. Same with the attackers. They've usually got a little farther to run from their sunderer or from a forward spawn location.

Corey Navage
FNO Episode 26. 1:54:00
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...ode-26.112123/

He feels it's too much of an advantage to defenders spawning inside the base, even though that's exactly what happens with Biolabs. Though I suppose depending on where you sit, those are too defensible.

My immediate response to his answer, which I surmised was the case when I made my longer post about base defense, is that the fight happens around the spawn room, not inside the base.

The fighting happens inside the base only when a defending force has posted up inside with large numbers long before the attackers begin their assault. It's also why the AMS in the middle of Tech Plants and AMP stations is so crucial. Once those die, the base is more or less lost unless the defenders can spawn another before being overrun.

Otherwise, the proper procedure for taking a base is to deny spawn room reinforcements by camping it. The other problem of defenders inside the base will take care of itself as they die off bit by bit.

Also, when a defender dies, expecting them to run either on their own or with 2-3 other people back through enemy lines is just head scratching.

Luperza had a follow up question:

And how do the tunnels play in all of that?

Navage

We added the tunnels in to give the defenders more routes out of their spawn room. It's not an instant travel, you've still got that travel time involved, but it brings you to more interesting places.

He goes on to say that tunnels are doing what they are intending them to do.

Well I can't refute that the tunnels have been useful but in the end they are just another location to camp and don't really help give the defenders an edge.

Again, it's not that I find camping inherently bad. But it's the expected behavior and the right tactical choice given the situation attackers are faced with when assaulting a base.

I should have put down a third question asking about control points seeing as how those are what I have a particular gripe with. I just wasn't sure how to phrase it on Twitter since I only had so many characters.

As a side note: It's obvious that all major facilities are "environmentally agnostic" to paraphrase Navage, but it's disappointing that they don't plan on branching out and making them more unique.

[bpostal]

Originally Posted by OctavianAXFive

...
He feels it's too much of an advantage to defenders spawning inside the base,...

I'm just going to sit here and mutter 'motherfucker' for a bit whilst waiting for Clegg to come back. That's the kind of attitude that turns this game into a NASCAR style 'everyone flank left and assault' you just end up with everyone going in circles.

Originally Posted by OctavianAXFive

...
Well I can't refute that the tunnels have been useful but in the end they are just another location to camp and don't really help give the defenders an edge.

Again, it's not that I find camping inherently bad. But it's the expected behavior and the right tactical choice given the situation attackers are faced with when assaulting a base.

Agreed, tunnels are kinda useful but they would be better if you could see just what the hell you're jumping into. Also, it may just be me showing my age but spawn camping has always been viewed as inherently bad, the sign of a childish and poor gamer.

All in all I don't see much here that is overly encouraging.

[OctavianAXFive]

Well I suppose I should qualify what I mean by "inherently bad."

Spawn camping is not fun either for the camper or the campee.

What I mean to say is that it's not an inherently bad tactic. If it works it works. In this case it's the path of least resistance to securing a base so I expect people to do it. If it's in the game and is a valid tactic to get what you want, then I endorse it.

It would be foolish not to...

[Sturmhardt]

Wait a while they said,
It will be less like battlefield and cod they said...

.sent via phone.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by OctavianAXFive

Well he didn't quite answer my questions as thoroughly as I hoped but he did somewhat verify my theory on why they put the spawn rooms outside the base.

Question: "Why are the spawn rooms in major bases located outside the main facility?"



Corey Navage
FNO Episode 26. 1:54:00
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...ode-26.112123/

He feels it's too much of an advantage to defenders spawning inside the base, even though that's exactly what happens with Biolabs. Though I suppose depending on where you sit, those are too defensible.

My immediate response to his answer, which I surmised was the case when I made my longer post about base defense, is that the fight happens around the spawn room, not inside the base.

The fighting happens inside the base only when a defending force has posted up inside with large numbers long before the attackers begin their assault. It's also why the AMS in the middle of Tech Plants and AMP stations is so crucial. Once those die, the base is more or less lost unless the defenders can spawn another before being overrun.

Otherwise, the proper procedure for taking a base is to deny spawn room reinforcements by camping it. The other problem of defenders inside the base will take care of itself as they die off bit by bit.

Also, when a defender dies, expecting them to run either on their own or with 2-3 other people back through enemy lines is just head scratching.

.

Where I am the was a load 'clunk'. That was the sound of my jaw dropping and hitting the desk.

[Carbon Copied]

Got to go with the general consensus here and say "far from hopeful".

The one thing that's always bugged me about the base design from start as a whole is they just don't make any sense. Now I know striking that balance between playability and "reality" is key but simple things like base defenses as mentioned. It's like they're trying to solve an offense/defense situation structurally rather than game mechanic and structurally e.g enclosed defended bases that are hard to get into but rewarding when you break that hack point dead lock and keep that foothold to push in etc.
They're not bases they're just little more than Unreal Tournament - King of the Hill - team death match arenas.

Also some of the comments really piss me off so I'll pick a few out that jumped out more:

Facilities will get designs unique for the Light Assault ability, like "holes in roofs"

Ok so as a medic can I have instant troop death traps in this design "model" so I can rez people and feel included too? A base should bring out class qualities but again; we're back to the UT KOTH/TDM mode.

Center of the map is always made to be "the best place to fight at" and is always a "signature place"

Ok a signature place makes sense and is great - but the best place to fight at? Sorry what? That kind of mentality you should just save everyone the hassle and demolish the out hex bases and make an outstanding centre piece.

The designs were always built with the addition of Artillery in the future in mind

To be read as "we wanted the designs to limit recovery/sustainability from such a sequence of events"?

Overall: Not hopeful. Not impressed.

[ringring]

Thre's 1 more thing to add to the list. The return of the thumper, this time tied to a max.
(Not sure whether this is good or bad tbh. I'm not anti thumper but in this low ttk game, I don't know. I guess they'll try to balance it as best they can.)

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by bpostal

Agreed, tunnels are kinda useful but they would be better if you could see just what the hell you're jumping into.

Well they are getting SLIGHTLY better with this, I noticed the other day that Towers now have a sign indicating which exit leads to the stairs, so it stands to reason they'll get to putting something like this in the Tunnels eventually.

Originally Posted by bpostal

Also, it may just be me showing my age but spawn camping has always been viewed as inherently bad, the sign of a childish and poor gamer.

Perhaps...
My first MMO Shooter was the Second Life Military Combat scene, where for the longest time Spawn Camping was pretty much one of the few real "Win" condition due to how "Re-spawning" worked in that Game.

It was only when a few community heads started thinking more like game designers and less like egotistical, self-centered assholes that we started getting base designs with built-in objectives.

Originally Posted by OctavianAXFive

What I mean to say is that it's not an inherently bad tactic. If it works it works. In this case it's the path of least resistance to securing a base so I expect people to do it. If it's in the game and is a valid tactic to get what you want, then I endorse it.

It would be foolish not to...

Indeed, it's basically a logical extension of suppression tactics; If you know the enemy has to come through a specific passage to get to you, have a few people watch it so they can take them out before then can do any damage.



Really though, this resistance to moving the Spawn Rooms inside the superstructure of Major Facilities just belays a lack of real Tactical or Strategic thinking when it comes to base designs...

To re-use a modified diagram of Octavian's:


THIS is how bases in this game should be designed.

The most hardened Defenses should be focused around the Spawn Room and Spawn Controls, BUT the point or points that determine control of the Base should be located OUTSIDE the protection of that inner most keep!

Right now it's either the practically opposite, like with Tech Plants and Amp Station having a Spawn that's barely within the main buildings protection while the Control Point sits nestled within their cores, or both are within equal levels of the Defenses, like the dome of the Bio Labs.

[OctavianAXFive]

And THIS is how I think they should be designed.

I think Whiteagle and I will have to agree to disagree on the whole final objective thing.

To reiterate:

This base has a hackable console in the spawn room, not control points. The spawn room is only penetrated after the SCU, located in the triangle "line of defense," is destroyed.

I don't think control points are necessary because the SCU is the actual objective inside a base.



If you're interested in how or why we arrived here, there's a whole thread on it.

Here is a link to a nice tl;dr by ChipMHazard:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...t=53957&page=3

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by OctavianAXFive

I don't think control points are necessary because the SCU is the actual objective inside a base.

And this is where are disagreement lies...

I see the SCU as a Means-to-an-End where as you see the SCU as the End Objective...

Probably never going to sway you on this, but the difference is rather significant, with my experience telling me that your method will result in battles whose outcome rapidly fluctuates depending on who has (a mostly numerical) advantage.

That's why I'm such a strong advocate of keeping Control Points, without NTU's they become a siege mechanic that can break an otherwise deadlocked battle between two equal forces in favor of who plays more tactically.