[ITOS]

I apologize if this has been brought up before, I looked around a bit but couldn't find any recent threads about it.

Many seem to worry about faction balance on a continental scale with territory and resource control. I regard that as a relatively easy thing to balance. What has me worried is the balance in the actual battles and, more importantly, how fun it will be to fight a losing battle?

First I'm going to state that it is important to motivate people to fight a loosing battle. For the winning team, getting a challenge and overcoming it is very rewarding. How fun is it to set up a tank raid and find the territory empty because the defenders saw no point in sticking around to lose?

Secondly I'm going to state that most players will not defend a territory for resources only. I'm basing this statement on the assumption that a majority of the players will be people who jump in for an hour of fun and pay little attention to continental strategy.

Thirdly I'm going to tell you about some of my fondest memories from PlanetSide. These memories are from those hectic assaults on bases or towers where neither side would give up. Where the chat would alternate between warnings about MAX crashes at the BD and gal drops on the roof. The memories of finally breaching the interlink of tower hold and sweeping away the rest of the defenders like an unstoppable wave.

Maybe it's just me but I enjoyed those moments in PlanetSide, perhaps more so when I was the one on the receiving end. They gave me a reason the stay and fight a losing battle, the simple reason of being fun.

Planetside 2 seems to be going for a much more dynamic, flowing battle. From what little I've seen there doesn't seem to be many choke points where you as a defender can bite in and hold back an opponent with a large population advantage. With faster capture when holding surround territory it would seem less likely that we are going to see the type of sieges that were in PlanetSide 1.

All these changes will obviously be for good and for bad but the key point, what I want this topic to discuss, is how it will affect the fun of losing. Will I as a mediocre support oriented player be having fun while getting pounded by a superior enemy?