[Malorn]

On the effectiveness of large vs small. Size says nothing about organization. I've seen horribly organized small outfits, and well organized large outfits. Size does not guarantee skill.

Having had the prototypical rapid response leetfit in PS1 (I founded and ran Liberty, NC Emerald back in the prime of Planetside), I know how these outfits survive. I know how they operate. And I have had some insights over the many years of running such an outfit in not just Planetside, but also WoW, EVE, and WAR.

These outfits are capable of great feats in PS1, but only because the mechanics of PS1 allow it.

1) Compressed Specialization

In order for a small group of players to stand a chance against a larger number of foes they must be efficient and compress specialization. In PS1 this was possible due to efficient management of the certs a group took. As the game expanded and more and more cert points became available, this further helped the smaller outfits and allowed them to do more with less people. This created essentially the "one-man-army" capable of doing anything. Put several such players together and you have a strong force. This is precisely what I did with Liberty. And it worked, in part, thanks to the compressed specialization that PS1 offered and the increase in cert points over time and the erosion of necessary specialization.

In PS2 this will be much harder for small units to achieve because specialization cannot be compressed. The class system prohibits that. You can't run around with everyone being a medic and an AV soldier and a hacker and a heavy assault. You have to pick roles. That means teamwork becomes a LOT more important - and organization does too. It also means that size becomes relevant because a single player might be the only medic on a small squad. They might completely lack a class. If they dont' properly spread out the specialization they will have weaknesses which groups can exploit. For example, if they lack AV, MAX will be a serious problem, unlike PS1 where every soldier carried decis.


2) Defending was Easy

In PS1 you could do great feats, especially with defending, with a small number of players. Attacking a base was a lot harder than defending it. As a defender all you had to do was secure the spawn room, and the only spawn points of the attackers were an AMS outdoors or a tower. It took a lot of manpower to secure all of those locations simultaneously. So a force of 30 might put 5-7 in the tower, 20 in the base, and 2 or so guarding their AMS in a skyguard or AA max or aircraft. Those in the base would be split among defending the CC and the spawn room because they had to. So now this force of 30 was highly divided in order to secure the hack. Enter small group of a single squad. They can easily overpower the tower defenders. With air cav they can easily destroy any AMS and cut off reinforcements. They could hack out an AMS of their own to add insult to injury. Now the attackers are down a third of their force and unable to get reinforcements while defenders hold two spawn points. Now that squad pushes into the spawn room and/or generator if necessary, once again fighting only a fraction of the true attacking force and cutting down their number some more. If they respond to the spawn room attack they could end up losing the CC so they need to keep a reasonable number of defenders there. Once the spawn tubes are up it's effectively game over, as the squad of 10 is now respawning in the base and the attackers are down a huge number of men with no ability to respawn. Eventually the CC defense gets chiseled away. After a while we started to see larger outfits not even bother defending spawn points and just kept all of their force together guarding CC and possibly spawn room. Still advantage is to the defenders who can leverage the spawn room to chisel away at the attackers in the CC.

There you have a surgical operation where a small group of 10 just "owned" a group of 30. Even if the group of 30 had more organization. The mechanics of Planetside favored resecures over hacks. Its even worse for defending a base like an Interlink where you have the spawn room from the start. It was a killfarm for the killwhores as attacking was once again very hard to do, but easy to defend and rank up kills.

Stopping hacks and defending bases like that could sometimes stop entire invasions into a continent because that's how they usually began. That's why we started doing that, partially because we could do it. And of course getting the fame of being great at resecures helps you recruit more killwhores because they see the success and great things you do. That's vital for the survival of a small outfit. And so it continues, with these small groups skirting the main zergs and fighting at bases and towers on the periphery of the battle, influencing things as only a small outfit could. And of course those small outfits have to talk trash and primp themselves up in order to maintain their status as "the best outfit" so they continue to attract killwhores. I know this system well, I've been running it for years across multiple games.

Now what of Planetside 2? Well we know a few things that work against small outfits doing the great feats that they did in PS1. Much like the mechanics of PS1 favored small outfits, the mechanics of PS2 appear to be not so favorable.

* Bases have 5-7 capture points.
Higby described them as "control nodes" that fight for influence over the base. That sounds like a Tug-of-war type system, not a simple hack-once-and-you're-done. That does not favor small outfits. While small outfits might be able to attack any single capture point and contribute, they won't be singlehandedly reversing it like PS1. They would need to wipe out all of the capture points and then maintain a hold over them (which would require them to split up). The most likely outcome is that small outfits will band together and each take different capture points, rendering them as effectively the same as a large outfit that sent different squads to different objectives. Only a large outfit has the advantage of better coordination and not having to negotiate alliances and other crap like that and deal with other outfits not cooperating with the plan. Its harder to organize like that than if they were in the same outfit.

* Bases have capturable spawn rooms
This one is huge. Unlike PS1 where attackers had to rely on AMS and the tower and the defenders always had the repair-spawnroom option, PS2 gives the attackers the ability to capture and use the spawn room. That gives the attackers an anchor in the base and will make uprooting a larger force much, much harder.

* Squads have squad-spawn
Most of the bases have outdoor areas, meaning squad spawn is an option to keep squads alive. So eliminating squad from the base is going to be harder. This helps the small outfits, but I think it helps the bigger ones more. A larger outfit could for example cross-pollinate its squads so each squad could be a spawn point for another squad. Eliminating one squad would cause it to relocate elsewhere. It is one tactic that will be hard for small outfits to mirror, and it is something innately easy with a larger outfit to implement.

* Bases are outdoor urban areas
The typical tactic of PS1 was air-whore with air cav and clear out AMS and the courtyard, then bail in and retake the interior of an area. Since the interior and exterior are the same only there's lots of cover, simple air whoring will not be enough to clear out a squad, which means teh small outfits have to choose whether they are going to stay in their aircraft and let the hack go through and try to farm kills (which many may do), or ditch the aircraft and try to save the cap. Whatever decision they make makes them vulnerable to the other. If they stay in the air over an urban area, infantry-based AA and MAX-based AA will eventually creep up and attack them (remember infils can hack so they can allow squad mates to swap out loadouts to handle the aircraft). IF they bail then they are then vulnerable to any attacking aircraft that may be supporting the capture attempt.

* Lack of choke points.
The bases from PS1 often had 2-4 major choke points, with towers having mainly 1. This allowed a small force to defend and attack (using grenades and other efficient weaponry) very effectively. The bases in PS2 clearly have a much more open layout. Add to that Light Assault, which can bypass what barriers exist, jump over buildings & walls, etc and you won't have anything like the interfarms that exist in PS1.

* No 3rd person
Ya 3rd person was quite a crutch that allowed someone defending a position a big advantage. That ain't there anymore and good riddance.

* Different AMS mechanic
Lets not forget that Galaxies are the new AMS, and they are no longer cloaked. This too favored small groups in PS1 where a single person could pull an AMS, park it and rely on its cloaking shield to protect it and secure the spawn point. When you need to park a galaxy it isn't going to defend itself. That means to secure the spawn point you need active defenders around that galaxy, which once again requires more manpower.

* More AA options
Air cav was the bread and butter of the leetfits in PS1, to the point where they almost never pulled tanks because aircraft were always more efficient. And tanks couldnt' defend against aircraft. In PS2, tanks are 1-man vehicles making them more viable and they can pack optional AA guns making them capable of defending against aircraft. Lightnings fill the skyguard role as the most viable AA as well, plus there are infantry-based AA options. While we won't have every TR running around with a striker, we can bet these AA guns are going to be effective at what they do and if a group starts running lots of aircraft you will see the enemy adapting by having more AA guns.

Between the attackers having more spawn options, larger outfits having more spawn options, the capture method being a tug-of-war type thing and not a simple one-shot hack, and having a more exposed and urban defensive environment its going to be a lot harder for a small group to be resecure heroes or adequately defend bases like they could do so well in PS2.


Not only does this mean it'll be hard for a small outfit to singlehandedly retake a facility, but it means they'll have a very hard time capturing one without help. If any defenders show up they're sort of screwed because they need to hold multiple strategic points and they don't have the manpower to do it sufficiently.

Does this mean small outfits are worthless and useless? Not at all, and I'm sure the new outposts which are smaller and likely easier to cap than a facility will be prime places for smaller outfits to make their mark. But are they going to be the heroes that come in against all odds, wipe out a larger force and save the day? No, I dont' see that happening. Highly unlikely.

The big message here is things that worked well in PS1 may not work well at all in PS2. From what we know so far I see capture mechanics being very different. The small leetfits that thrived in PS1 will need to do some rough adaptation if they wish to survive in PS2. If they relied on a cult of eliteness that might well be eroded quickly if they don't find new niches to occupy in the PS2 world. The likely niches I see are capturing and defending fringe territories which dont' have some of the strict capture requirements of facilities. They'll still have their place, but it will be different and not as influential as it was in PS1. Smaller outfits could specialize too in things like air cav and avoid capturing territory all together. I see this as a tempting option for many of them.

Over my years I've seen the merit of a larger and highly organized & disciplined force capable of doing multiple objectives and making a real difference. That's why I merged my awesome leetfit with the Enclave. Together stronger than either alone with strong leadership and superb organization. Ready to face the brave new world and adapt to the new mechanics of PS2.