Who built this place?

[MajorTom]

I was defending a base today and one resounding question kept repeating in my mind.

As I made attempts to defend the base, it was like a blow by blow summarry of why the Auraxis engineers should all be gathered together and pushed of a cliff.

I am a sniper, so I gear up and head for the roof to thin out the crowd streaming from the nearby tower to our base. I step outside the door and receive a bolt in the head, about a half a second later, another and I am dead. The next time I go roof-side I approach mre cautiously and get a look around first. The base is surrounded by cliffs higher then the walls of the base! They where battle cresting the hill (meaning they where poking just their heads above the hills) and had a better possition on me then I had on them! This is absurd, I said to myself. But I didn't have much time to get annoyed as low flying reaver sent me back to the tubes.

So then I get the idea in my head that I will brave the sniper rounds and try to get our turrets up and running to deal with the enemy aircraft, quite a big mistake. Those turrets are pretty much useless. They are always down the entire length of fights.

Ok then, forget it, I said, I am gonna get assault their tower. Once again, big mistake. The towers are about 18x harder to assault then the bases!

This is when I just gave up and joined up with an attack squad on another continent.

Know this is no news flash to me, I have always known the bases where the hardest thing to defend, but for some reason it just got on my nerves an extra amount today.

Have the devs said anything about changing the location/layouts of bases? Putting bases in the middle of box valleys may work for Halo, but this stuff really needs to go.

Here is how I have the bases immagined:
*In a strategic location, like a hill or overlooking a major bridge or something.
*Whith one entrance into the courtyard
*All base entrances are within the courtyard so that the enemy must take the courtyard in order to even get a crack at taking the base
*Few if any superfluous entrances.
*Few if any Roof Top entrances
*Phalanx turretts in more advantagious spots, maybe more of them.
*Sheilding over the Phalanx turrets that regenerates over time, both adding another layer of turret protection and also allowing for engineers to come back after the turret has destroyed, but the sheilding is back up, and repair the turret. Soldiers would be unnable to fire inside the phalanx sheilds, but the phalanx could fire out.
*Blast doors or maybe longer hack times on the doors to sensitive areas, like the CC or gen or spawn room.
*AA guns in the courtyard with a limited upward facing range. In the courtyard so that they aren't as prone to enemy fire and with a limitted range so that it is a deffencsive measure to discourage bombers and the like, but not keep all enemy planes out of the SOI.

Heck, if the devs don't want to go through all the work, they could just put the base CC in a tower and put the tower in the middle of the base...

[ChewyLSB]

Yeah, I have to agree with that. Whoever designed the bases needs to learn how base defense works. This game has the second worst designed bases in a game I've ever seen (the Blood Gulch bases in Halo take first)

[Keebler]

Those count?

Ok. say we implement your plan that basically creates one choke point to get in the CY. If your in your attack force, and your forced through a doorway to see all the base defender's CE, tanks, MAXes, etc. waiting for you, you would not appreciate that.

The key to defending a base is defending the basic doors. The BD is easy to cover with maels and SA. the front requires CE and most of your forces. A few skygaurds are needed, as well as some people doing DL sweeps of important areas, and a few watching the roof, and you can hold off a yellow (so used to saying large) force for quite a bit until enemys come or they wise up and roll armor.

[MajorTom]

Originally Posted by Keebler

Those count?

Ok. say we implement your plan that basically creates one choke point to get in the CY. If your in your attack force, and your forced through a doorway to see all the base defender's CE, tanks, MAXes, etc. waiting for you, you would not appreciate that.

The key to defending a base is defending the basic doors. The BD is easy to cover with maels and SA. the front requires CE and most of your forces. A few skygaurds are needed, as well as some people doing DL sweeps of important areas, and a few watching the roof, and you can hold off a yellow (so used to saying large) force for quite a bit until enemys come or they wise up and roll armor.

So you think the base desing is ok as it stands?

Look, I know if all my ideas where implemented it would make it damn near impossible to attack, but you have to agree it is damn near impossible to defend as it stands now. The bases at least need to be put in advantageous positions, instead of in big holes surrounded by cliffs and the like.

Bassically I just want to make it so that defenders are at least on equal ground with attackers, and not at a disadvantage. I think everyone can agree with me on that...

[Keebler]

Most people dont like stalemates. I know I dont like trying to get the same base for an hour, it gets boring and fustrating. Defence is fun, if you have the right tools and mindset. Patience is key.

[BUGGER]

bases are ok, all you got to do is take away the enemys spawn points and its all down hill. If that isn't possible to reach from inside the base, remember this is an outside world/spawntube.

[MajorTom]

Originally Posted by BUGGER

bases are ok, all you got to do is take away the enemys spawn points and its all down hill. If that isn't possible to reach from inside the base, remember this is an outside world/spawntube.

I undestand that the way to win any conflict in this game is to deprive the enemy of their spawn points. The only problem is that there are 3 ways to go about robbing a defenders spawn point:
1.) Blow the gen
2.) Blow the spawn tubes
3.) Hack the CC

And only one way to stop the attackers spawn:
1.) Hack the tower

Ask anybody, it is alot easier to accomplish one of the things on the first list then to accomplish the second. Towers, assuming roughly equal force and numbers, are much Much MUCH easier to defend then bases. This makes the attack/defend scale slanted towards the attacker.

But all of this is rather abstract. When you get right down to it, this game requires a significantly larger number of defenders to stop an assault. Now with equal numbers you will be able to slow the assault quite a deal, but it will not be stopped.

Liek I said before, the ground ought to at least be equal, so that the assaulter will either need larger numbers or better tactics in order to take a base, not the other way around.

As I have already said, all of my ideas implemented at once would be to realistic and not fun enough, but bases ought to at least be in easy to defend locations, like hill, or even backed up to impassable mountains or something, ANYTHING!

[BUGGER]

For some reason i think blowing the gen should leave the spawn tubes up.

I dont care, I dont want to argue either. Would you be glad to die every single time you attack a base? Most times bases are attacked by more people than what you got. can't help it. Really, the attackers respond with zergs. A monster with so many legs he just flops them around hoping to squish something (yes, very korny). Beating a zerg is something you can never do. Up a defensive base to hold a zerg will make it impossible to capture a base with just a platoon.

[Davik Dakari]

I may not have played 1 min of this game YET (I will soon, once my Win Professional arrives) but reading this just appalled me. Bases in valleys??? that has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, if Patton heard that he would roll over in his grave. I'm going into the military straight after I graduate college but with the training I have already recieved from ROTC I know that has to be the biggest no no in strategic base planning. Are these dev's related to Gen. Burnsides (one of the worst strategists in history)? The purpose of a base is to be able to hold off superior numbers for long durations of time until reinforcements arrive. I know what MajorTom said would make base capturing harder but I have seen videos on PSMovies and base caps are a cakewalk. I think more stalemates would make the game a whole lot more entertaining than just running in and cap'ing in <10 minutes. What I do know about how spawning takes place in this game would have to change though.

Sorry if I mispelled, or if my thoughts are out of order but it is late.

[MajorTom]

Originally Posted by BUGGER

For some reason i think blowing the gen should leave the spawn tubes up.

I dont care, I dont want to argue either. Would you be glad to die every single time you attack a base? Most times bases are attacked by more people than what you got. can't help it. Really, the attackers respond with zergs. A monster with so many legs he just flops them around hoping to squish something (yes, very korny). Beating a zerg is something you can never do. Up a defensive base to hold a zerg will make it impossible to capture a base with just a platoon.

I guess I can see that, but the fact is that it isn't even equall yet. Before anybody talks about allowing bases to defend greater forces of people we first have to make it so that if I have a platton defending vs your plattoon attacking (assuming equall skill and all that rubbish) that it will be an equall fight.

Something is wrong when defenders have a horrible a strategic possition, many more entrances then they need, and just gennerally worse defence then the attackers!

There is only a handfull of bases I will even try to defend anymore. Tired of walking out the door and getting death rained down on me from the freakin hills.

But, they designed it like that for a reason so I guess this is how they wanted it. I guess getting it balanced was to hard for them and having the attacker constantly win is more "fun" then the defender constantly winning...

[Eldanesh]

1: Unless completely outnumbered or outmanuvered, base defenders can hold almost indefinatly.

2: Stalemates really do suck.

3: Bases with inpenetable defenses would really suck. (almost as much as trying to take a capital with the shield up)

Honestly, its not so much the ground that makes defending hard, base placement imo is not as important as lattice.

Its also supposed to be a game. And are you kidding about defenders never winning? base hacks are not always a cakewalk, be it spending hours trying to take one base, or defending against resecures.

I have also yet to see any bases in valleys, there are some near cliffs and mountains, however the amount of difference snipers make while camping a high spot is next to nothing.

[Vis Armata]

Defense is about picking and choosing your battles.

If a defending force can make it to the vehicle pads, they must deploy CE, heavy vehicles and aircraft to control the SOI and everything in it - AMSes, streams of infantry from towers, airspace, etc. If a defending force loses effective control of an SOI, outside defense is finished. Teams should then deploy to doorways and interior chokepoints, if holding the base is still a good idea.

The bases could use some tweaking (better turrets, some form of base control panel, a few more IFF doorways), but at the same time they are not necessarily indefensible.

[Paragon]

I love defending Bases, because that means i get lots of kills. I always organize a squad, and we always set out and hide somewhere away from the base if we know that there is an assault coming. Then we send a scout out, most of the time a sniper, who then tells us when most of the enemy is gathered around our base, and that their backs are towards us. Then we strike. I have ranked up thousands of exp points this way. Awesome strategy. That is all it takes to mess up the assault. Then once you have decimated half of the unexpecting attackers, the defenders come and clean it up.

I love BD

[FatalLight]

Well bein a VS on markov I am almost always defending and it is not that hard. Just this morning 30% defended against 50% NC and 20% Tr for like 2-3 hours and we won, we got the tower and moved on (after we moved on NC bak haked the base n got it but thats past the point).

I really dont have a problem with the bases except for the turrets, ya they suk, dont do too much damage and get destroyed with 2 decimators. Backdoor... who came up with that! Should move that inside the cy like where the stairs to the wall are. But ya bds are pretty easy to defend its just the concept of the thing...

[martyr]

according to the anniversary ATD, new bases are on the way.