[Mordelicius]

Planetside 2 has been steadily losing players since launch. And there are several reasons for it. But, first, i'll point out the ones I won't be discussing. And these are already much discussed as you can see:

- Performance
- Griefing/Hacking/Exploiting
- Overpowered Units (used to farm helpless newbs)
- Faction Imbalances leading to server imbalance
- Lack of Metagameplay

However, there is one aspect of PS2 that's fundamentally rotting away the core gameplay and driving away game's population. It's the conflict of conceptual PS2 vs the actual/applied PS2. What does this mean?

Planetside 2 concept: Persistent warfare in a massive scale and map. That is ideally what PS2 is and should be.

Planetside 2 applied: After they lure new players in, they turn around and not foster, support, encourage this kinds of massive fights and in many cases even discourage it (with the new rulesets and mechanics they've been implementing).

All of these swirling points can be distilled in their philosophic approach: The developers much rather limit gameplay than limit cert gain, as opposed to limit cert gain instead of gameplay. Again, what do I mean by that?

I'll explain this by giving many cases and examples of how they tinker with the game mechanics. Obviously they don't want players to farm too much certs easily. You can see this in the first generation bases they've released (and I've noted this before in the forum), which didn't allow chokepoints, turtle and awash many unmitigatable flanks (windows, doors, stairs, etc.).

Examples:

Degrading the Crown - When we were testing the lattice on the PTS, all we're asked was which other bases are too good. They would rather kill a good base than improve the other bases. And so they killed the Crown (iirc it was already changed at that point) rather take the good points off it and apply it to other bases.

Lowering Biolab Cap: Here is another example. They are so averse to Biolab farms that they would lower the cap to 3 minutes. Combined with the new SCU/Shield gen mechanic, resecure/rescue and recovery is screwed.

No Deploy Zone: This is another great example. The NDZ has not done anything good for gameplay but debase it. I call it the WWW (wipe, walk and wait). Attackers will wipe because Sunderers are much harder to hide. Attackers will walk back from the last base and Defenders will wait. That's triple tedium. All this does kill the battleflow.

And what this tells me is they don't want players spawning close to each other and killfarming. Such as in Towers where you can park the Sundy downstairs or on Amp Station/Tech Plants where they park next to A.

Easier Continent Cap/Uncap - They've went too far with this as well. The old rivalries and bragging rights/taunting are gone. I understand one base to farm players over and over again is excessive, but the current Continent capping is moot, because it is utterly pointless to hold it being practically impossible to defend.

All the has been evident since they limited the redeploy/hotdrops to several bases. They simply want to decrease the fights and increase the nonfighting activity like transportation. Now, this overarching concept has completely taken over PS2.

Let's check the other side of the coin: Decrease the cert gain and keep the massive fights. Roll back all the destructive stuff like NDZ, and bring back the good bases such as the Crown.

I also understand they check local/specific hotspots where players get to kill alot and make changes to them. I noticed it small changes in the Biolab rock elevations/cover placements as well as rock covers out in the open map.

Suggestion:

Now, how does PS2 can regulate cert and still have sustained, meatgrinder fights that everyone loves? How can the Devs' disdain for sustained fights be mollified?

This has been discussed before Dynamic XP was implemented. Before Dynamic XP was implemented I was suggesting XP gain cooldown upon death, meaning everytime a player dies, a timer ticks. Until that timer ticks down to zero, that player cannot gain/give xp from kills using a fired/activated weapons (perhaps they can still gain xp from mines).

I've been arguing that the Developers don't want players farming and earning certs at a high rate. The best compromise is to limit the cert gain, allowing them more room to accept and design meatgrinder mechanics. Aside from the lattice system, the Developers are very averse to farms and meatgrinders.

Hence, the Kill XP cooldown upon death.

- Recently killed players cannot gain kill XP until timer cooldown
- Recently killed players cannot give kill Xp until timer cooldown
(not counting suicides as death)

My suggestions is experiment how long is a viable cooldown time. Rather than gain certs for every player just respawning or rescuscitated, increase the xp per kill. Even it's just a minute, so long as we can have our massive meatgrinder fights back. If all you rez, die, rez, die, the fight is still on, but we're more focused to the objective. In addition, they can tinker with base cap XP to reflect the enhanced importance of base capture.

The timer will also condition players to not die all the time if they want to get kill xp and same time not reward spawn and choke campers with free xp and finally allow Devs room to back away from their embrace of artificial-gameplay-limits-as-means-to-regulate-xp-gain. How about do it the other way around, limit cert gain through death xp timer and leave the gameplay untouch and improve upon it rather than rack their brains to find not-so-ingenious means to scale back the fights.

Here are some of my old posts on the subject before Dynamic XP on December 17, 2012 (and i've posted this before having to read/know what the Dynamic XP concept was:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=51359

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

Planetside 2 players overwhelmingly want a meaningful, sustained base fights.

SOE want nonstatic, nonpervasive, elastic, wide-open frontlines to avoid base turtling and in turn kill farming (which in turn will hurt their business, due to high rate of earning Certs).

Here's the practical solution to both: Add a cooldown to kill credit everytime a player dies.

Example:
Player A kills Player B. Gets XP points for the kill.
Player B will not get XP kill credit for the next (say) 2-3 minutes.
Player B will also not be able to give XP everytime he dies the next 2-3 minutes.

Every time Player B dies, the cooldown is reset. What will this mechanic do?

1) It will allow SOE to contruct or reconstruct tighter bases without the fear of xp kill farming.

2) It will prevent kill farmers for the sake of gaining cheap XP. That goes for Air units and even exploiters.

3) It will rewards a community that simply wants great balanced, competitive pvp.

4) Players will still get kill credits but the XP farm simply won't be there. If Player A kills Player B 10x every minute for the next ten minutes. Player A gets XP credit for first kill but still get 10 kills.

5) The onus will be on players not to die and reward strategy to kill and not die repeatedly.

SOE will have to adjust the amount of XP per Certs, including the ones already owned by players, but it will solve the divide between SOE and the players.

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

I'm sorry but imo SOE will not change their base designs to benefit defenders. In fact the opposite is happening. They are systematically eliminating all the farming hotspots (look at the outrage at the Mesa and Techplants). I think the Biolabs are next. Look at the ramps they added. Pretty soon, they will note the Crown as well.

There's a reason why the bases are so wide open, with no place to turtle. They designed it that way. But you're right on one thing. My suggestion shift the focus on base fights rather than pure kills. But it's no different from what is going on right now. Most base 'fights' are just capping empty bases.

The only places left to fight are really the Crown and Biolabs. If they implement this, they can restructure their base-capping, base defense mechanics around the concept.

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

I doubt SOE would acquiesce to that because again, they simply don't want base turtling that will evolve to cert farming. What SOE is trying to avoid is easy Cert farming for players.

That will just speed up the demise of the Crown because it would be even more prime area for defense farming. They destroyed the Techplants for that very same reason. I wouldn't be suprised if they add loads of jumppads toward the crown.

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

It seems I wasn't clear enough why I made this post . I made this post after reading so much Base Design threads.

My point is, the only way to convince Sony to change their open-ended Base Design is give up fast XP farming.

The current base design favors attackers not defenders. Hence you have cries of "nobody is defending". You have cries of "Zerging empty bases". You have cries of "where's the fight?" While the suggestions on changing bases are arguably well-meaning, it's all player-centric. Sony's position wasn't even part of the discussion or equation. It means SOE ain't gonna bite because the faster players farm their kill, the less they sell the Certs and XP boosts.

The only way for Sony to bite and change their base design philosphy to allow turtling, camping and heck even kill farming (different from xp farming), is to incorporate a Kill-XP cooldown mechanic. I lifted this mechanic from my favorite MMO where it worked wonders over there, by focusing players unto objectives (The GMs found a way ruin the game in another way but that's another story ).

Players prefer:
Defensive Bases (favors defenders) + Easy kill farm

Sony prefer:
Open Bases (favors attackers ) + Slow kills

The current system is a mix of both:
Open Bases (favors attacks) + Easy Kill farm

What I'm suggesting is a reverse. If Sony is to ever make highly defensible base, then the kill farms has to go:

Defensive Bases ( favors defenders ) + Slow kills ( Kill XP cooldown mechanic)

Now that doesn't mean getting XP is now impossible. Sony still has to adjust the XP per Certs ratio. Suppose, put it at 50 XP per certs. This system also shift focus on the objectives themselves. That means the priority is kill for the objective. The current system forces to players to go to a base to farm. It's never about objectives anymore. Also, 2-3 minutes may also a bit too high for this type of gameplay. Perhaps, 1-2 minute cooldown would be better?

Lastly, I still think they are systematically removing all the kill farm zones because it will hurt their Certs and XP boost business.

So yeah, take a pick. But I don't think we will have a defensible base and easy kill farming. Just look at how fast they took down the Techplant. They could have turned the Amp station to an easy version of the Techplant by adding two doors on each side of the main building. Instead, they made Tech plants an easy version of an Amp station.

I think the time is now while they are still constructing the new continents to give out our best suggestions. Because, if not, we'll be stuck with the same ole base concepts.