Huge Outfits and PlanetSide 2 - Page 20

Rothnang · 2012-12-25, 09:41 AM

The thing is, when enemy vehicles have such a massive stranglehold on an area that your own vehicles can't come in and help you the problem isn't overpowered vehicles, the problem is population imbalance.

Also I generally agree that all the important stuff in bases should be in interior spaces that you can't access or easily shoot into with vehicles, but it needs to take longer to flip a base, because otherwise that just makes ninjacapping way more annoying than it already is if you need to dismount and head inside of a bunker to stop someone from capping.

Personally I would love it if they changed the tug of war system to not be the last thing you need to do to capture a base, but the first thing. For example when you have a Biolab, just make all the entrances heavily shielded and impossible to get through, and the way you take those shields down isn't by generators, but by capturing the satellite bases and getting on point there. If you win the tug of war over the shields the shields go down and stay down until the defenders have taken back all the satellite bases.

That would just make a lot more sense, because in facilities like the Biolab or Amp stations, by the time the tug of war is invoked that already means that the enemies have busted through all your other lines of defense, and you're probably locked in a spawnroom somewhere. Then you can't do anything about it anymore (Not to mention, that's when defense XP kicks in, not before) and the enemies need to sit there and wait for the base to flip which is boring.

The tug of war needs to happen early in the fight, not at the very end when it's pretty much already decided.

Hamma · 2012-12-25, 01:05 PM

I encourage everyone to share out the video I made and this thread to make sure we get ton's of awareness on the issue. Does anyone know if there is an official forum thread on this thread?

Shogun · 2012-12-25, 01:40 PM

i just had an idea how to put more incentives into defending:

get rid of the base capture xp!

instead owning a base gets you xp over time. if your empire owns more bases, you get more xp every tick. and make it intercontinental to avoid that every empire stays on one continent on its own.

AND put every available dev into the new continent team to give us a fourth cont as fast as possible.

then watch, if people understand and try to defend their bases to get more xp. there is still enough incentive to attack, because a successful attack will rise your xp income. there is no need for a big in your face xp reward at the end of an attack because this will always draw the most attention and mislead new players as it does now.

but most important: close some windows and doors to make bases defendable with a tactical teamworking platoon against a mindless zerg!

EDIT: another even better idea: the number of owned bases acts as an xp modifier! the more bases your empire owns, the more xp you get for every kill you make! instead of my previous idea with a tick/timebased xp fountain.

another EDIT: it could even be more dynamic, that there is a small basic xp modifier for every base the empire owns, and a much higher modifier for every base you have been involved with taking during your actual playsession. this would encourage to defend especially the bases after you attacked and took them!
yes, noobs may have a hard time understanding this system, but when they finally do, they will adept to it and have fun defending.

duomaxwl · 2012-12-25, 01:48 PM

I pretty much agree with all the points you drove in this video.
Hopefully something will come of it. I really REALLY miss being able to deny enemies tech by doing gen drops, because a relatively small outfit could do so much for the continental offensive/defensive. But it's a different game now..

ringring · 2012-12-25, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by Shogun

i just had an idea how to put more incentives into defending:

get rid of the base capture xp!

instead owning a base gets you xp over time. if your empire owns more bases, you get more xp every tick. and make it intercontinental to avoid that every empire stays on one continent on its own.

AND put every available dev into the new continent team to give us a fourth cont as fast as possible.

then watch, if people understand and try to defend their bases to get more xp. there is still enough incentive to attack, because a successful attack will rise your xp income. there is no need for a big in your face xp reward at the end of an attack because this will always draw the most attention and mislead new players as it does now.

but most important: close some windows and doors to make bases defendable with a tactical teamworking platoon against a mindless zerg!

EDIT: another even better idea: the number of owned bases acts as an xp modifier! the more bases your empire owns, the more xp you get for every kill you make! instead of my previous idea with a tick/timebased xp fountain.

another EDIT: it could even be more dynamic, that there is a small basic xp modifier for every base the empire owns, and a much higher modifier for every base you have been involved with taking during your actual playsession. this would encourage to defend especially the bases after you attacked and took them!
yes, noobs may have a hard time understanding this system, but when they finally do, they will adept to it and have fun defending.

Nah, but you should get no xp for capturing an empty base, ie award xp proportionally to the amount of fighting a la PS1

Shogun · 2012-12-25, 02:19 PM

Originally Posted by ringring

Nah, but you should get no xp for capturing an empty base, ie award xp proportionally to the amount of fighting a la PS1

i didn´t read the whole thread and expected that the "ps1 system was great, revive it!" argument would already have been mentioned on the first page ;-) that´s why i wanted to come up with another totally different alternative to think about. i agree, that a lot of really good ps1 systems should be given a try in ps2, but for some reason the devs are afraid to put too much of ps1 into ps2. since the actual systems really needs to change, we have to think outside the box and give new ideas to the devs to play around with.

thegreekboy · 2012-12-25, 02:20 PM

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=51357

^ read it

It works imo, at least for amp stations, but the principles mentioned apply to all bases. That, and closing off some open spaces in order to preserve indoor infantry combat.

Rolfski · 2012-12-25, 07:34 PM

I'm on the fence on this one. On one side I do think small teams need more dev love to make them more meaningful and I can agree with a lot of the suggestions here.

On the other side: The differentiator and promise of this game is that size matters, it's the closest thing you can get to war. Besides Eve Online, their are not many games that can provide these large battles. Any change that discourages zergs is therefore a bad one imo. They just need to make it so that zergs clash into each other and that small teams can make a significant contribution to the war.

Rolfski · 2012-12-25, 08:52 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I encourage everyone to share out the video I made and this thread to make sure we get ton's of awareness on the issue. Does anyone know if there is an official forum thread on this thread?

Ho, ho, ho. Xmas is also coming to you, my friend.
Don't be shy to step out of your own forum, ask for help to take your hand if it feels daunting

p0intman · 2012-12-25, 09:37 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I encourage everyone to share out the video I made and this thread to make sure we get ton's of awareness on the issue. Does anyone know if there is an official forum thread on this thread?

I know it has been tweeted to higby and smed via at least one PG member, if not yourself as well.

ghst also has a reddit thread here if anyone wants to go whine about it there. the louder we collectively are on this issue, the better.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/c...s_can_be_made/

Infact, if everyone who posted in this thread sent one tweet or email to smed or higby, they'd be forced to acknowledge it as a problem. I took the somewhat extreme step of actually bothering to log into twitter and doing just that. If we're loud enough, they'll be forced to either actively ignore it or answer with something solid.

firestrike · 2012-12-25, 11:23 PM

i with a small NC gal outfit on mattherson we use to do deep gal drop just to force some of that zerg to us (mostly for a big outfit on the TR side) but that was in beta now we are force to do on the line cap. my outfit wish is that smaller outfit can do a cap behind the vs or tr line

outsider · 2012-12-26, 03:31 AM

BASE DEFENSE:

Yes I believe the key unbalancing factor in the game is the lack of defense. Interestingly enough during the tech test we saw some of the biggest and most intense base defense fights ever in the whole game. My first few days I spent in Zhurvan on defense, all turrets were manned and they were heavily contested fights.

Of course capture mechanics were different and also base defense XP was really good but prone to AFK farmers.

Originally Posted by Malorn

* Does defense need to be more rewarding XP-wise?

In a way Malorn bumping the XP for base defense, and changing the way base defense is calculated ( so people get defense xp as soon as the enemy is in the base SOI ) would work. But you'd be stuck trying to balance the same carrot ( xp gain ) for both offensive and defensive play. I think its a tough balancing act which will cause outifts to flip back and forth depending on the content of the day and how much XP gain/hour each option gives them, it would need to be constantly tweeked and revisited. So alot of work to keep current and a cause for alot of QQ and little HOORAY.

I think you need another type of carrot, call it outfit XP. outfit XP works the same a player XP in that X amount unlocks outfit certs and Y amounts unlocks outfit levels.

Outfit benefits have been promised and there's alot of stuff coming down the pipe that outfits can unlock and spend their resources on like: outfit bases, orbital strikes, that big destroyer Smed tweeted, Heavy Battle tanks etc. I imagine as this feature gets fleshed out we will have assets, buffs, decals, uniforms and stuff for our outfit leaders to unlock.

Whatever resource is needed to unlock these outfit perks, make it so it can only be gained via base defense, fixing gens, repairing turrets under attack etc

The way i see it:
Outfit offense gives the outfit higher cert gain allowing it's member base to skill up, be more versatile and benefit the empire via conquest.
Outfit Defense gives the outfit members slower cert gain but is the only way to unlock outfit perks and benefits, while still providing great benefits to the empire in keeping their territory secure.

The only way for base defense to work, when an organised outfit is attacking is for an organised outfit to be there willing to defend it, so the incentive has to be there to keep the outfit from surging off. I also see sense in this model as outfit base placement is a defensive posture and shouldn't be achievable to outfits who only know how to attack.

SMALL OUTFIT ULTIITY:

There was a really good thread in the PS2 beta Forum about making small outpost hexes into bigger hexes that covers multiple outposts. these "mega hexes" would not only make a bigger meal of it, but also allow the creation of a more structured Lattice network.

I can't help but think if a "mega hex" had 3 Control points that had to be capped simulatously ( for it to start ticking down ), with 3 interconnected spawn points, a smaller outfit could be more effective by striking at the weaknesses of the supperior forces deployment while also being more of a challenge to the attacking outfit.

We all agree that stopping people from coming out of 2 doors may be challenging for 50 chickens but us human beings actually yearn for more.

I think simulataneous caps would not only stop the lone wolf but provide more of a challenge for the attacking force and possiblilities for the defending group to turn it around.

BASES:

Didn't we have forcedomes in PS1 ? what about having forcedomes around the tech plants and amp stations preventing vehicles from being able to enter or shoot through ? force domes are controled through the Biolab and all the forcedomes of that empire come down when that empires last Biolab Spawn Gen is brought down.

I think it has greater benefits than the slow heal and also creates a strong metagame focus point that serious outfits both large and small will want to keep control of or deny.

This also means that not much of the base layouts need to be changed. Personally I think the bases are alot of fun if there weren't so many vehicles. The only saliant concern I have about this idea is managing the defending empires vehicle spawn capability under an active forcedome, and what people will do with their vehicles inside the forcedome even if they cant shoot ( perhaps an auto despawn function after 10 seconds ). Also if the bases are too defensible without the forcedome than that really defeats the importance of protecting/specops on the Biolab.

[QUOTE=Stanis;869578]I would like to submit we have a "no grenade" weekend. In turn the lower TTK makes defence harder without defense friendly design present.
QUOTE]

Man you just don't know how excited I got when I read this, because no frag grenade zones would actually allow for the use of other grenades and the different gameplay options that would open up when more people look at what they can do with flash bangs/smoke grenades/concussion grenades. atm frag grenades are just too good not to bring into a base fight and is the default for most.

It could be tied into the amp station empire benefits, making that base type of great value to the empire ( This idea is very much unformed )

All in all a good thread Hamma

Yetskii · 2012-12-26, 06:29 AM

On Mattherson, there is the NCcoalition, which is several NC outfits working together as has been discussed.....my short 2 cents before I leave for work...\

It works well most nights

firestrike · 2012-12-26, 06:44 AM

the NCC are made out of big NC outfit on mattherson my outfit can't put a big army like what those guys can do plus my outfit is in NCA and right now it's made out of smaller outfit all we can do is hope the big NC outfit put their weight on the big TR and VS outfit while we go around and cap those area.

Emperor Newt · 2012-12-26, 07:27 AM

Another issue that I see more and more of a problem these days which might factor into the defense issues and the dominance of vehicles is that many weapons are too effective against everything.

HE weapons obliterate infantry, but also do decent damage against armor, so in big numbers HE tanks can kill smaller tank groups (at least keep them under control) and defense buildings. I rarely choose my AP Lightining over my HE one. Rocket pods are another example as they are effective against armor, defense buildings, infantry (less after patch) and air (especially since you still have your nosegun).
The counter example is max bursters where people argue that it should do more damage against other targets. And I think that this is exactly the wrong way.

Very often I see HE tanks sniping defense turrets and also kill any engineer that comes nearby to repair. Another weapon (playing VS) is that almost all our tanks use the Saron HRB as secondary because it's pretty scary against everything, even infantry and Maxes. There is no real downside to the weapon if you can aim it. Which is not that hard to learn.
And there are always one or two weapons per vehicle which make the "balanced" weapons redunant, especially due to huge numbers. There are "balanced" weapons and there hard "counter" weapons. Leave counter weapons excelent at what they are supposed to do but less effective against everythning else. For some weapons this is already the case, but a lot of them are simply too good of a deal.

And infantry in defense situations gets screwed the most currently, as this issue is most obvious in the HE guns as they keep your own armor at bay and also deny infantry the field. Combined with spawn camping and the like there are only rare situations where another weapon would be a better choice.