SKY's Blueprints Vol.1: Metagame & Base Design

[SKYHEX]

SKY’s blueprints vol. 1: Metagame and Base Design

Just a quick few notes: This project took over 3 weeks to assemble and I will be releasing the portions as I complete the visual aids, hopefuly getting them to look better as well. The written content is all finished and some of these changes have actually been already implemented, so try not to stone me for old news. Also, out of all the Volumes, this is the shortest one, so individuals with tl;dr policy are hosed. Based upon input, I may revise and polish some bits and release the whole thing again with the last volume.


Hello! For those of you who don’t know me, I am SKYHEX, a member of The Vindicators outfit operating on Mattherson. I decided to do this project because I see many great ideas or simple tweaks done by this community disappear into the abyss amidst a myriad of complaints about even the smallest of things. Thus, I will be reposting this project on 3 main communication channels for our community: Official Forums, Planetside Universe and /r/planetside. Twitter linking will also be utilized. Now, let’s get to work, there is a lot to cover.

Preamble

I am creating this project in order to put in my ideas and summarize other people’s suggestions to the development team in hopes to make Planetside 2 successful and enjoyable for many years to come. This project is by no means insisting these changes to be executed exactly as written and that they have to be done immediately, it is for the consideration of the development team and playerbase alike.

The format of this project will for now be in written form with as much visual aid as possible from sample pictures from various sources as well as ‘blueprints’ of my own creation. Those blueprints and visual aid are the sole reason for the title of this project, as I don’t lay claim to a vast majority of these ideas. I hope this format will be easy to understand and clear in all of its aspects so that no misrepresentation is possible. Provided enough time and experience with the software, I may make these either into single-image infographics or perhaps even video format for ease of digestion.

Main Idea Sources:
Official Planetside 2 Forums
/r/planetside
Planetside Universe Forums
Planetside Upgrade Project
Vindicators Teamspeak
Youtube content of: Spadar, Faint, MattiAce, Wrel, ZoranTheBear and Belthazor
And since I frequent PSU, Official Forums and reddit alike, all of you who comment there in detailed paragraphs should consider yourselves contributors in some manner.




Table of Contents
I. Vol. 1: Metagame & Base Design
II. Vol. 2: Factions & Asymmetrical Balance
III. Vol. 3: Classes & Equipment
IV. Vol. 4: Vehicles & Armaments
V. Vol. 5: Resources & Consumables
VI. Vol. 6: Monetization & Competitive Scene
VII. Vol. 7: HUD & Miscellaneous
 


Vol. 1: Metagame & Base Design
1) Grand Scale Goals
2) Continent Capture and Benefits
3) Overall Base & Outpost Design
4) Spawn Rooms
5) Capture Mechanics
6) Additional Defences & Objectives
7) Facility Benefits

Grand Scale Goals

Planetside 2 is one of the most unique games in existence and its potential is extreme. It has a solid FPS base, interesting mechanics and astonishing battle size considering the genre. To a common consumer however, it lacks one important aspect: reason to play, to care about decisions beyond simple cert acquisition. Territory control is meaningless as of now, both from game and lore perspective. While lore is much more important for single player games, people in general need to see a goal and subsequent rewards for said goal and a story is one way to drive them. Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to entice the populace to prefer playing objectives instead of just grind to progression, which is infinitely more important in games with persistent worlds rather than match-based ones.

First option is to utilize the broad developer interaction with players. As in, tracking the worldwide progress of factions and rewarding those with the most territory control by showing exclusive previews or even perhaps releasing faction specific weaponry a day or two earlier, using the game launcher’s splash screen to advertise this. This social method can give the players heavily interested in the gear and game a grand incentive to not just sit and farm.

Another option is to use in-game mechanics and rewards of progression as well as lore. The first great step, the alert missions, has already been taken and with player generated missions, the per-continental incentives will increase greatly. However, possession of all territory on all available continents should be much more greatly rewarded, perhaps with a combination of XP, lore fragments, art, collectibles, special decals/other minor cosmetics, achievements or, albeit a bit cheesy, a Vocal Praise from respective announcers that could perhaps even taunt the remaining empires.

All and all, you want to get as close to a “You Win” state as possible, without actually having to roll the credits. It is very resource draining and perhaps not as important as other aspects of the game that will be covered, however if you want to achieve a complete, wonderful experience customers will gladly support with their funds, it would be a mistake to overlook this.


Continent Capture and Benefits

Capturing a continent: Yields the XP incentives akin to what is given with recently added Alerts, while Alerts themselves pertain to more specific tasks such as holding bases for X amount of time, conquering set amount of bases etc. and they do not provide as big of an incentive as a Continental Domination. Of course, it will be better to add this as continental locks are implemented as well, so that it may not be simply exploited for humongous amounts of experience.

Continental Benefits: As of now, the incentive to hold a continent is meagre at best, because 10% off of one type of resource that replenishes so quickly is not something players cannot live without. Thus, all continents give 10% decrease to all resources (more on a resource revamp in Volume 5), which stacks up to a maximum of 33%, therefore requiring a control of 4 continents to have such an extreme benefit. Other benefits include a specific resource gain bonus that allows supplying of counter-offensives even if a faction has a very small amount of territory on other continents. More on the resource handling is in Volume 5. Timer-less deployment in any base on a locked continent can also be implemented to incentivise exploration and map knowledge.

Overall Base and Outpost design

Common Ground:

Any facility, big or small, has an onion-like defensive design. From walls and AT turrets near entrances, AI turrets strewn across the courtyard to AA turrets mounted on the buildings at the core of the complex. Thankfully, it seems the PTS has an example.

Walls are of course not the only way to secure a base, using terrain is another great idea, which seems to be put to use on Amerish in large quantities.

Outposts:

While easier to capture even for small squads, it is necessary they maintain a degree of defensibility. Even though they may lack the sheer number of turrets, they should more than enough equate that with the amount of cover. Also, utilizing their position (Vanu Archives, The Crown) or degree of penetration resistance (The Stronghold) will prove as an additional defence mechanism.

Towers:

To offset their compactness, additional buildings are to be placed around, both for more cover and to house additional objectives (Volume 1, part 6). On the other hand, more access routes are required to allow infiltration, at the moment there is one chokepoint only – the staircase, which now can also be fired at from the safety of the teleport room.

Tech Plants: The AA turrets are to be placed along the runway leading to the resupply pad, to obscure them from shelling from the ground. Additional AT and AI turrets may take their place.

Amp Stations: The exterior may remain unchanged except for adding AV shields for back entrances, governed by a single generator placed in the conglomerate of buildings near them. Placement of the generator may vary from station to station.

Biolabs: Elevators to be placed inside the biodome leading to small platforms protruding through the dome itself with AA and AT turrets emplaced (image pending). Additional buildings around the base of the Biolab, similar to Saurva are also required.

Internal reconfiguration will be explained in Capture Mechanics.

Spawn Rooms

Current design of spawn rooms is less than optimal. It is still, like its previous iteration, a box surrounded by a death zone. The difference is now everything inside the box can be seen and its path predicted in exchange for the inhabitants to actually know where from and what is about to doom them.

It is possible to introduce spawning safe from vehicular abuse without constructing spawn fortresses. The Spawn Room is just that, a room that is a part of a bigger building that has 2 or more adjacent buildings right next to it and also leads to an outpost courtyard. Example below.


To prevent aerial lockdown of the spawn room, an entrance leading to the roof stairs as well as several shield windows should be placed on the top.

The windows are to have these properties:
no entity or projectile passes
see-through from the inside
obscuring the view from the outside
cannot spot players inside

The roof should not be shielded save for side railings and perhaps some clutter in order to prevent splash shelling.


Main Facilities have internal spawn rooms leading to the bowels and outside as well to maximize their defensive capabilities.

Interior – pertains mainly to main facilities

Divided into 4 elements:

Access
Corridor
Choke Point
Quarters
Arena

Access: Connects the interior to the exterior, spacious but smaller than Arena, exits in multiple directions and/or levels, may be phase shielded if leads into vehicle bay.

Corridor: A hallway or stairwell, similar to size of the current tunnels. Cover clutter optional. Connects larger areas with objectives or courtyard, can be used for intersections. Used primarily in large bases.

Choke Point: A small room placed between other elements or at intersections to either prevent attackers from advancing or establishing footholds before objectives.

Quarters: A medium room placed parallel to the battleflow path. Single exit, may contain Secondary Objectives or a Terminal.

Arena: A large room, 2-level in height, filled with cover, interior balconies and ledges with stair access possible. Houses Main Objective – Spawn Control Unit



Towers

The small room currently housing the points themselves to be removed, the entire floor becomes Arena.
Ground floor (Vehicle Bay): The two Vehicle Pads are next to each other, teleporter room elevated, the floor sectioned to allow better infantry/vehicle division.


Capture Mechanics

General

Timer-based Security Protocols corruption and override coupled with SCU destruction. The capture happens through the Control Consoles that are hacked manually (preventing accidental capture triggers) and a capture timer is started. The timer is fixed and dependent on the proportion of Control Consoles held from the total of 1, 3 or 5 and its first half – Protocol Corruption – lasts 3-10 minutes.



Once this first part completes, the Data Override is engaged with a timer of 5-15 minutes. At the same time, SCU shield is dropped and this objective becomes accessible for destruction. SCU shielded by a cylindrical shield and positioned in the centre of the room, surrounded by cover.

Base may be taken by attrition through the timer or the SCU can be destroyed, though its timer may have to be extended compared to current form. Destruction causes the following: capture timer is reduced to 40-60 seconds; Spawning, Spawn Shields and Painfield are disengaged 5 seconds after, allowing for a last-ditch defensive push.

In order to save performance in large fights, some buildings/elements may be moved underground or in larger complexes and Corridors of certain length near entrances may be used as culling points to separate the rendering for Vehicles outside and Infantry inside.

Outposts

SCU is located in an Arena-type building adjacent or close to Spawn building, Control Consoles are located in Arena or Quarters-type buildings either close to the Spawn building or across the courtyard.

Towers

SCU is located on the same floor as current capture point, but more to the centre. Control Consoles are on the same level and in adjacent buildings.

Main Facilities

Both SCU and Control Consoles are located in the main body of each facility (see Interior elements above).

Additional Defences & Objectives

Passive:
Auxiliary Terminals – Outposts and Facilities all have 1-4 external terminals. This is used by defenders for quick resupply close to the front or by attackers to establish a foothold via hacking the terminal.
Perimeter Generators – May be hacked or destroyed in order to open up new passages into base buildings.
Power Conduits – May be hacked to temporarily disable base defences. Require timed assault to be efficient.
Resource Silo – May be destroyed in order to cut off the flow from a nearby Resource Node (covered in Vol. 5) and thus deny resupplying of items or vehicle spawning.
Security system – May be hacked or corrupted in order to deny information or misinform about region activity, capture status, or enemy numbers.

Active:
AI turrets: Located in courtyards facing insides of the bases or near entrances to courtyards facing slightly outside the perimeter, mounted on the sides of buildings. Current chaingun form with ability to lightly damage vehicles. Cannot elevate past 20 degrees above horizon. Medium velocity, tight spread, high bullet drop.
AV turrets: Located at the edges of a base, mounted on walls, cliffs or base ledges. Cannot elevate past 15 degrees above horizon. No splash radius, high velocity, very high shell drop.
AA turrets: Located at centres of roofs on base buildings. Cannot elevate below horizon, but protected from non-retaliation air attacks by railings and other buildings. Current projectile model.

Facility Benefits

Tech Plant: Allows MBTs to be spawned in connected territory and Galaxies to be spawned in other connected Facilities. Spawning Flashes, Buggies, Sunderers, Lightnings and ESFs is 5% cheaper.

Biolab: Passive Regeneration. Extends SCU destruction timer by 10 seconds, adds 2 seconds of spawning after its destruction in connected territory. Medkits and Restoration Kits are 15% cheaper.

Amp Station: All Active Defences receive 30-40% damage reduction shielding against shells and rockets. Vehicle timers reduced by 60 seconds.

I look forward to your input and I shall see you in Volume 2, hopefuly sometime later this coming week!