PlanetSide Universe - View Single Post - Flaws of current PS2 Battleflow (Suggestions)
View Single Post
Old 2015-01-06, 09:19 PM   [Ignore Me] #23
bpostal
Contributor
Lieutenant Colonel
 
Re: Flaws of current PS2 Battleflow (Suggestions)


Originally Posted by Figment View Post
Regarding the rest of your post:

I warned for "spawn on squad leader"-zerg-squad leader swapping redeployside the moment they merely mentioned the ability to spawn "on top of another player in Alpha.

I mentioned logistical balance was at stake.









The thing is that logistics is everything in stalling. ANYONE who ever drained bases in PS1 should know EVERYTHING about the following logistics:

- Expected measure of response over time (size of enemy AND allied reinforcements)
- Likeliness of people showing up:
* Who is online?
* What are their push-buttons / fetishes?
* Are they preoccupied/tied-up/have higher priorities elsewhere?
* Who are their allies and will they call them in?
* How many people can I call in that might / will respond and when and how long will it take them from the moment they are convinced to show up to actually show up? ie. recall / redeploy by sanc: spawn, get vehicle, drive / fly to warpgate / load ANT / Load up ANT / fly over.
* When will they call them in / can I call in my reinforcements?
* When is my carrot big enough for my allies? (Hi Mercs, remember those midnight calls asking if you could be convinced to hold a base I just started/was in the process of / finished draining/energizing/holding for 8 minutes and constant status checks?)
* What's the NTU level on the base?
* What's the strategic value of the base?
* How far is it for the frontliners to get there?
* Would the lazy enemy go for it?
* What benefits / units does the base provide if taken?
* How few people would you need at minimum to hold it against a late response?
* How long could it be held against worse odds?
* Will it attract killwhores to extend the fight?
* Will it piss off the enemy right now making your empire a target next?
* Is it in line of sight of people watching the map closely for the current fight or just for the defense watch?
* Is it the empire I wish to hit right now or would it hurt my empire in the long run because of the likely next target of the NC / VS / TR zerg?
* How far is the base from the nearest warpgate / base certain people bind to for homecont defense?
* Has it been attacked recently?
* What level of hacking do they have and what is their resecuring speed?
* Should I engage the resecuring troops now and risk a resec or reset the resec a little later so by the time he gets back he lost just those 20s extra?
* Where would the ANT come from?
* How much time would it take the ANT to get here and thus would they have to use a Gal / Lodestar or send a loner?
* Are their chokepoints on the likely route their ANT would take?
* When would that ANT arrive and through which gate / passes under which bridge in base / uses a Lodestar?
* Should I save my OS for the ANT?
* Should I use a Router / AMS or should I rely on an AMS / backup AMS + Router or can I do with just the AMS?
* Can I place it somewhere that is both close enough to defend the CC/spawns/gen despite the run to it, but inconspicuous enough to not be noticed by
* Can I use decoys / stalling CE to keep enemies from reaching inside quickly?
* Should I bring the ANT myself or will allies/enemies bring it for me?
* How long would that take?
* If the base drains, where do I get my supplies?
* Should one of my allies carry supplies for me in his AI MAX that guards the CC?

And I could go on about this list of questions. Logistics. Was. Everything. And believe me when I say I could usualy estimate how quick a response would be.



You could easily tell if people who drained were amateurs or pros.

Some outfits would not use subtlety for one, they would just volume spam hacks and drains to make at least something go through, somewhere (usualy by focusing on one). An overwhelming tactic that also tries to strain the enemy logistics by having them disperse their forces all over the place, wasting time getting to the one that mattered or by keeping people preoccupied long enough at one that looked like it mattered, get one somewhere else by failure of the enemy showing up to resecure in time at all.




But yeah, the point is, I hear you BPostal. But it's not JUST about sentimental value. It's about strategic value, attractivity to fight in (as defender against the odds), worthiness of getting there (the people - allies you ask or enemies you incite - to come will wonder if it is a waste of time: will the fight be over by the time they arrive? Can they arrive in time to stop/win/stall/get something out of it?

It's a matter of cost vs gain.


Pride is secondary. It's there. But it's not a biggy. Pride only works on targets you or the enemy have a long term claim on and is hardly ever within reach. So yeah, as you say that can be a lure and draw, pulling something off that is hard to do. But most people go for realistic things and even more people underestimate what is realistic to the point they don't even try because it looks "too hard/impossible to do".


And I know what's impossible. I also know all my opponents are flawed human beings. Even if they are 30 Blood Legion with 12 MAXes surrounding a CC: they always assume someone else has Dark Light on. They always assume no infil would wait for their buddies to open the door to not set off alarms or trigger a Dark Light sweep, because hey, this ally of them was bringing cookies and checking the CC right? No way he could be an unwitting trojan horse.

Logistics. If all doors are sealed shut: use the front door and get yourself an escort.
I've put a portion in bold that I think is really the key element to logistics in PS2. Proper, well thought out logistics is oftentimes slower and much more vulnerable than simply hopping around using redeploy. That imbalance is what I view as the real failing. It's that lack of a real need for logistics beyond a couple token AMSes. Why bother with the whole combined arms bit when it's faster, easier and safer to redeploy a platoon into a spawnroom and MAX up?

As to the value of a given base, you're absolutely right. We can create value for a given base through it's strategic weight. A base's positioning on the continent, it's place in the lattice and of course its defensibility all play a key part in creating that strategic value. I've always held the belief that we can create the sentimental value by upholding the strategic value of a base.

I'll always have fond memories of fighting over places like SpecOps training camp and The Crown (worthless strategically, invaluable tactically). They were centers of epic, drawn out fighting. You can't get that same kinda of feeling (and thus you can't get the same kind of intensity) fighting over something like NS Material Storage when you can just steamroll the entire thing.
Outposts that have a fast time to cap are oftentimes not even worth defending if the attackers have already used their initiative to completely overwhelm an area. By the time an organized defense can be mustered the base is halfway capped and the spawns are camped. What's the point in bothering then? Oftentimes I've found that my squad (haven't had enough members for a proper platoon outside of events in ~1 year) can have a much more enjoyable time fucking about than playing for the objective. And after Two years, I just can't justify playing for a larger objective with no benefit other than "Fuck those guys".
__________________

Smoke me a Kipper, I'll be back for breakfast
bpostal is offline  
Reply With Quote