Uncappable Bases

Zulthus · 2011-07-09, 04:55 PM

Apparently PlanetSide 2 is going to have an uncappable base on each continent, thus removing the need for a sanctuary. I truly believe this is a terrible idea, for several reasons.

1. There will be no sense of completion of success on a continent.
2. Backhacking will be such a major problem.
3. Organizing a "raid" in a small uncappable base will alert any enemies that happen to be scouting the area.

I really believe that sanctuaries are the way to go in PS2, as they allow an empire to fully capture a continent that they have earned, and allows much easier mobilization of a raid.

---On a completely different note, don't allow people to send tells to a different empire. It'd be such a help.

BorisBlade · 2011-07-09, 07:29 PM

Yeah the cross faction chat needs to be axed, no clue why they left that in ps1.

And yeah they dont want sancs, but they put sancs on every cont. Makes no sense. But we havent heard all the details yet so hard to say too much. We do need areas to train in peace, to practice with weapons/vehicles (like VR training) and we need areas to group up to organize assaults in large scale where the enemy cant see us. If its just behind some transparent shield dome then these cont sancs wont work, esp if they are small. Plus if it trips population number meters then it also wont work. So not sure what they have planned but should be interesting.

MgFalcon · 2011-07-09, 07:32 PM

I loved cross empire chat (shit talking obviously). But I can understand to get rid of spies from another empire or what not. I have made friends in the past though from other empires and it was nice to coordinate a double-team(empire) attack on the other faction

BorisBlade · 2011-07-09, 07:43 PM

Well it can get nasty in a hurry in pvp games and then you have to get gm's and what not involved and its just a huge headache. It will save them alot of time and manpower to just turn it off. yeah it stops some chat spies. But anyone doin too much of it will just use a second acct or chat on voice progs etc so thats not a huge reason to do it as much as just to limit the bad social interactions that can get outta hand in a hurry and just cause nothin but grief.

Zulthus · 2011-07-09, 07:48 PM

Originally Posted by BorisBlade

Well it can get nasty in a hurry in pvp games and then you have to get gm's and what not involved and its just a huge headache. It will save them alot of time and manpower to just turn it off. yeah it stops some chat spies. But anyone doin too much of it will just use a second acct or chat on voice progs etc so thats not a huge reason to do it as much as just to limit the bad social interactions that can get outta hand in a hurry and just cause nothin but grief.

If people are going to spy and we can't stop them, might as well make them pay to do it.

Firefly · 2011-07-09, 08:17 PM

Uncappable bases, to me, without further info, sounds like continent locks are a thing of the past. It also sounds like uncappable merely means they can't be captured. They can still be camped, whether that be inside or outside of the base is irrelevant. Ergo, without having any further info and not having played the game, I cannot make an informed decision. My gut instinct is that I am against this.

Zulthus · 2011-07-09, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by Firefly

Uncappable bases, to me, without further info, sounds like continent locks are a thing of the past. It also sounds like uncappable merely means they can't be captured. They can still be camped, whether that be inside or outside of the base is irrelevant. Ergo, without having any further info and not having played the game, I cannot make an informed decision. My gut instinct is that I am against this.

I was also thinking this, sort of like battlefield uncaps. These bases wouldn't work in the slightest to form raids unless they have some sort of shield the size of a SOI. Which would be kind of stupid too.

Rarntogo · 2011-07-09, 09:53 PM

Not having Sanctuary would be strange if we were playing PS1 because we're used to having it. Many a great victory was planned out in sanctuary. Mobs of Libs, tanks and Gal's storming the warp gate. This is a new game. I'm an older player who's gaming skills have long since gone by the wayside and playing for killing sprees matters little let alone ever happens. I just want to play the game, frag a few enemies and do my part for the greater good of the faction. It doesnt matter how I get there as long as I get there and without sanctuary maybe I'll get there faster. I'll just wait and see how it plays out before I judge.

opticalshadow · 2011-07-10, 02:34 AM

soudns bad to me.

i mean sancs in ps now a days are near useless. but i remember loading up 200+ man invasions in sanc, sometime more, sometime so many that more then a 1/4th of the army sat in queue. sanc let us have these d-day scale invasions.

removing sanc removes this, i cant see an area of the map large enough to be closed of per cont to allow this, and if they did, it still would just be a waste, concidering they could have made that battle field and just given the sanc anyways.

it really sounds like these are going to be "spawn zones" and they are going to be perma camped by the dominating empire.

atleast going off of what we know.

Bags · 2011-07-10, 02:37 AM

Originally Posted by opticalshadow

soudns bad to me.

i mean sancs in ps now a days are near useless. but i remember loading up 200+ man invasions in sanc, sometime more, sometime so many that more then a 1/4th of the army sat in queue. sanc let us have these d-day scale invasions.

removing sanc removes this, i cant see an area of the map large enough to be closed of per cont to allow this, and if they did, it still would just be a waste, concidering they could have made that battle field and just given the sanc anyways.

it really sounds like these are going to be "spawn zones" and they are going to be perma camped by the dominating empire.

atleast going off of what we know.

because you totally can't be camped coming out of a way gate in ps

Sirisian · 2011-07-10, 03:05 AM

Didn't think anyone would be averse to this. I never saw the point of sanctuaries. You can get a group ready at these new uncappable bases it sounds like.

Regarding the back hacking it sounds like they want that in the game. The hexagon based maps with blocks of hexagons for each territory sounds like it's designed to be traded back and forth at a fast pace. They mentioned I believe 30 seconds to 30 minute captures. Makes me think that if no one is around it's 30 minutes and if people are fighting it's fast back and forth contested areas.

Hamma · 2011-07-10, 10:01 PM

I'm a little concerned on this uncappable base thing myself. Time will tell, maybe it will change

**Malorn** · 2011-07-11, 12:11 PM

Conquering a continent was a great achievement in Planetside and unlocking access to other continents kept the game flow current.

My concerns with uncappable bases on each continent are as follows:

1) Static gameplay.
VS/TR/NC will always be attacking from the same uncappable bases. They will almost always be assaulting that continent from the same direction. They will always have one empire attacking from one direction and another empire on the other direction. Mixing it up is important and I don't want to always be fighting the VS from the same direction at the same base every other night. After a few months that's going to get very boring.

At the very least the location of which empire has what static base needs to rotate around periodically to keep the game fresh.

2) Shifting the front around the continents
As long as a static base exists there will always be link into a continent that the other empires can use to attack. I think this will result in the battles being thinned out since there could be an attack on any continent regardless of who owns it. The lock mechanic was good because it gave a sense of accomplishment and finality to a long struggle. And then it shifted the front to a new continent.

Unless PS2 has a really, really large population on each server there will be only a few large engagements going on at any one time. Having ghost-hacks all over the place due to these static bases does not seem particularly fun.

3) No sense of victory.
Capturing a continent was a good victory and while capturing the world was extremely rare and only happened a few times, those continent captures were a great sense of accomplishment for a night of hard work. As long as the static bases exist it'll never really be captured and it'll be have more like a domination map of a battlefield game where you have all territories captured for a few minutes and then some random guy goes and takes one of them and you go chase him down.

4) Diminished strategy.
One part of choosing good targets in PS1 was picking continents that could not only have favorable invasion routes (ones where the chances of getting back-hacked by the other empire were minimal). This changed daily as different empires held different continents, which opened/closed different warpgate links. If there's always a static base at every continent then all of these strategic options for attack are lost and the game gets a bit dumbed down.

On the other hand, having a static base with which to always have a foothold when invading a continent is a good thing. I like the idea, but I would propose something a little different:

Instead of having static bases, make the warpgates themselves the "static base" with basic facilities with which to continually assault the continent as long as you had a valid warpgate link.

The challenge here would be to ensure only one empire could control that link at any one time. I have to think more on this, but I really like the idea of having dynamic static bases and connecting it with warpgate links.

But at that point we may as well be back to having Sanctuary w/ broadcast gates.

You could give each empire 1-2 static bases on a few continents or warpgates that they always control that rotate every few days or once a week to keep things fresh and mix up the gameplay, but keeping static uncappable bases that never moves on every continent is very bad.

Coyote · 2011-07-10, 10:12 PM

I'm not quite sold on the lack of a 'staging area'. You gotta meet up with people somewhere, right? Dropping into hell is cool the first 20 times but on that 21st time you're going to want to get back, reset, and walk into hell in a coordinated combined arms attack.

These footholds. I don't like the taste of it in my mouth. I actually think Uncappable conts would be BAD for making a solid frontline. It would now just be "Well I died x amount of times here, insta-go to the next place where there is nobody there", it will thin out the lines too much imo. (maybe there will only be 3 continents in release. Maybe there will be 13.)

Still too little info. I wish they elaborated on this more. HART removal I don't mind at all. Sanc removal you got me staring at you funny. Inventory removal my eyebrow quirks, and lastly, not picking up weapons off of the floor has me locked in a Fry voice saying 'Not sure if Trolling...."

Evilmp · 2011-07-10, 10:16 PM

I think a sanctuary similar to Atlantis from Stargate would be pretty cool given some room for vehicles and aircraft.

Obviously without the cheesy teal themed set props and massive amounts of hair gel that are mandatory in Atlantis.