Originally Posted by robocpf1
Malorn, I'll throw out some examples I've found, hopefully they'll get the creative juices flowing. Without delving too deeply into "what the problem is", because people have nailed that, here are just some things from PS1 that made small outfits thrive, and a couple of "new" ideas.
1) Towers. In PS1, a "Tower" was either in the middle of nowhere and nobody fought there, was in the middle of a main thoroughfare for vehicles (like the one between Aja and Bomazi, it was the focus of some intense armor fights) or were "tied" to a base. They were important. You had to have the tower to take the base 90% of the time. In PS2, there are too many different outposts (and four different spawns per facility, one of which is a "tower"). Small outfits used to excel at denying these and starving off the large outfits that were trying to take the base. Without the tower, large outfits couldn't push in, and the assault would fizzle. In PS2, this situation doesn't happen.
2) Base draining / NTU. A way to hit a base that isn't linked. Imagine on Indar if a small outfit snuck behind VS lines and either captured Hvar, killing our tech, or neutralized it, causing nobody to have it but now it has to be both recaptured and filled with fuel. It doesn't matter if you're able to hold it very long, you've just killed our ability to pull tanks, and that both gives you a great fight and helps your empire. If our empire doesn't respond promptly enough, you can go back and kill us even more. This also stops the zerg from jumping so quickly. If we have to actually stop and fix what we break, defenders have more time to prepare. Usually, when I get ousted from a base, by the time I spawn at the next base up there is already a Sunderer deploying and a large tank force rolling in because the zerg doesn't have to wait. Let's make them wait a couple of minutes.
3) Generators were linked to the benefit, not to a shield. Gen holds were a huge draw to small outfits. You go and kill the gen of the only interlink on a continent, everyone's swarming to you. You might hold it long enough for your empire's larger force to push into their base though. Without that radar, their forces are weaker. You could kill tech or their dropship repair benefit, too. Nobody really killed gens for the biolab or amp benefit, but if they were more important that could work.
4) Cave Modules were a force multiplier. I think I can reliably say that when SOE released core combat, even though the BFRs weren't great, the mods you could harvest from caves made small outfits even more of a threat. They also gave small outfits yet another target - take out the enemy's mods so they have less benefits, or even better, STEAL the enemy's mods and take them as your own.
5) Make-Your-Own-Objective! In PS1, you could manipulate the lattice and the spawning mechanism to sort of pick an objective that wasn't an objective. The best way I know how to describe this is a "Medical Room Hold". You get a squad of guys and take the medical room in a PS1 bio lab and make a nuisance of yourselves. This is a base on the front line, people are spawning, and you and your squad are killing them all as they try to run out the door. Eventually the other empire notices and rushes you, but you've just delayed their vehicle reinforcements by several minutes and caused a pretty big diversion. Loads of exp as well. Or, if the NC is about to cap a TR LLU...maybe a small VS outfit comes in and camps the capture area so they can't. That was always fun.
6) A dynamic, mobile target - this is a new idea. Imagine a cross between an LLU and the rabbit event, except now instead of it being a rare event, it's up every few minutes. Small outfits move faster and with more precision, so how about a big blinking target that gives the empire some sort of benefit and the outfit exp if they capture it take it back to a certain base? It constantly changes where it spawns and the target base. Alert, enemy radar module located at Scarred Mesa. Capture it and bring it to Hvar, and we'll be able to see the enemy's radar signatures for the next 10 minutes!
7) Non-vehicle areas. A fortress where infantry reign supreme. The best footsoldiers survive. No tank shells or Daltons, no barrages from Lightnings, no roadkills.
8) LLUs / Capture the Flag - a faster way to take a base. Currently all base captures are by "king of the hill". I think many people have voiced their support for this and the devs have even mentioned they want to have more varied capture mechanics, I'm just noting it here.
9) Resource scarcity - I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm never low on resources. Ever. Unless I pull a tank and then immediately want to pull another one, I don't even keep up with how many resources I have. My infantry resources are important to me so I can keep refilling my supply of revive grenades and C4. Do we still get resources for fighting in an area? So if we fight at Ceres Biotech, which has infantry resources, and we get a kill, do we still get resources? Maybe that should be removed and we should only get resources during the "deposit" ticks, instead of accumulating them through fighting. That would give specific territories more value.
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