Huge Outfits and PlanetSide 2 - Page 21

firestrike · 2012-12-26, 08:12 AM

i was hoping for a NPC control in base gun

defend is a hard thing as the put off sure we have door shield but that not going to stop a whole zergfit for steamrolling the place as some of you guys have said a over base shield will stop the big outfit for overrunning the base in 10 sec and let small outfit who know what to do and are great at this type of ops be a part of the whole cap instead of the whole zergfit going in and the small outfit can't do a thing but regroup and go other area to try and outrun those outfit

Assist · 2012-12-26, 08:39 AM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I had a great discussion on Twitter last night about this and wanted to bring it here.

First off let me start this thread by saying this is NOT an attack on specific outfits. I will not allow people to argue about specific outfits, this discussion is about the size of outfits in general and whether or not you think they hurt the game. Also, I don't want to hear bs like "ohh you're doing it wrong" etc.

This has bothered me since late beta and is becoming more and more of an issue (imo) as of late. I don't have solution for it because there really isn't one but I want to see what peoples thoughts are.

My outfit is smaller in size compared to most. We typically run about a half a platoon or so. We are finding it difficult to find a solid role for us in the game that isn't boring and doesn't involve getting steamrolled. This is becoming more and more difficult as time goes on. Huge outfits are able to put 100 or more people or more on an objective and essentially win with numbers in almost all fights. We are able to hold off, but it's simply a matter of time until we are struck down due to sheer numbers.

Smaller outfits are finding that they have to disband and join larger outfits if they want to even have fun, causing them to lose their own identity and be absorbed into massive teams because there are no recruits left to take. For me community is more important to a game than the game itself, hence why I've been doing this all these years.

Is having one massive outfit per empire what the developers intended? Is spam inviting every no outfit person in the game really a viable recruiting effort? How many of these people even know what they are joining?

What is everyones thoughts on this issue?

I think it isn't their intended design for outfits but I think it is heading that way. I play against you guys on Waterson and I can tell you that personally I notice when I'm up against CDL. In the larger TR fights(which is often lately) I know when you guys are there as my magrider usually goes boom. So while you may not be making a impact on which side wins the base, it's obvious to me at least that your coordination is making a difference in how the fight plays out. So to your point, if you were in a larger outfit would you be making a larger difference? I really don't know, I think that comes down to the commander. I would think that if your outfit knew it's role in a specific fight you would be fine, the problem is(at least for VS) that there is no commanders. No one steps forth, no one wants to give orders, no one wants to attempt to have organization. Would you gain that in an outfit? IMO not on the VS side. If there were a guild on our side that I felt went above and beyond with their outfit and whom I saw attempting to work strategically I'd be more interested. The size of the outfit doesn't really intrigue me, more the ability of a leader. I've always found in games that having a good outfit leader is far more important than the quality of the players in that outfit. Some of the best clans I've been apart of I would actually consider the guild leaders to be horrible players individually but they could manage the group well enough that their player skill was completely irrelevant.

/rantoff
So in my opinion, yes the game is catering to huge outfits. But not because they're better in any way, only because the game currently lacks strategy. I think it lacks strategy because of the community and not because of the game design. The current strategy for every single base in the game is to zerg it down. The Crown is the best example, it's one of the easiest bases in the game to conquer. It has a horrible spawn point for defenders and can be approached from three different directions(for VS). All that is required is to have a spawn sunderer on top, yet day after day VS sits on the hill/bridge by crossroads and shells The Crown. Why? I haven't a frickin clue but I'd bet my house they'll be doing it today when I get off work. When you break down the fight at The Crown, numbers don't really become a factor(except for player draw distance). It comes down to strategy that a dozen people could execute to take the base. The advantage of a large guild is you can multiply that strategy and it just becomes more effective. That's where the design of the game comes in but I'm not sure there's much that can be done without reworking base design.

But to me, outfit size isn't the end-all of fights. Will your outfit have to play tag-along with a larger outfit to get things done? probably. Organization is what it comes down to and personally I feel like that is what the /leader channel is for. VS on Waterson appear to not feel that way as mostly it's people bitching at each other. There are a few outfits on VS that have their own little alliance, and they tend to stick to that when they do operations, but to put it nicely they're not very effective.

I'll be very surprised if someone can read through the above and make sense of it. I re-read it to try and fix it, but some things are just a lost cause.
edit: Just a side note, I'm solo/duo/trio 99% of the time in PS2. I feel the outfits on VS don't have enough coordination to warrant joining one, as I can get the information I need through /leader and /orders well enough to make an impact on fights.

Masahiko · 2012-12-26, 08:49 AM

If the rendering wasnt a problem big wouldnt be a problem as you could bring in better support logistics. However, with rendering the way it is makes it a bigger issue when power zergs roll through.

Sledgecrushr · 2012-12-26, 09:53 AM

If it wasnt for the rendering issue it would be a lot easier to farm infantry with rocket pods. I recall the purple baron getting shot down after sixty kills in a row and then bitch about the rendering problem. I hope they dont fix that problem until the relationship between air and ground untis has been repaired.

cryosin · 2012-12-26, 10:17 AM

I' have to disagree here. If you are a smaller outfit, you really have to know what you can actually achieve with your numbers.

Can you assault a well defended base with completely inferior numbers? Even large outfits have trouble assaulting bases when they are outnumbered. Same with defense.

I am currently a member of AT, a large outfit, but i played the game with smaller outfits and IRL friends. Capturing an objective like "Th Crown" with twelve people, even if they are all amazing, is pretty difficult.

You really have to fine tune what it is you like to do and what is that achievable.

Here are a few things that two squads can accomplish really well:

Any kind of cavalry: Air/Armor etc. You have the benefit of being in direct communication, and picking out targets and clearing the outsides of bases is something you can accomplish much more easily than a larger outfit. I have personally witnessed a squad of Magriders stop the Enclave dead in its tracks.

Deploying and keeping sunderers alive. Imagine two squads who do nothing but bring sunderers to a fight? You assist the zerg, larger outfits and the empire overall while getting loads of XP.

Going for one specific objective, rather than an entire base. Maybe "taking a gen", or holding one area from the enemy. You don't have the numbers to really take the entire base(sometime AT doesn't either), but you can assist the rest of the zerg by making sure a gen stays down.

It's really hard for smaller numbers to outweigh large ones in all areas of war, real of virtual. That's just the way it is, and most games are very similar, even planetside 1.

I do agree with you on the idea of there being a "side" objective, however. We are definitely missing the old "gen holds" of planetside 1 that where so fun.

At SOE live i told Matt Higby about a "Power Plant" idea, basically a generator-themed base that, instead of being captured, can be destroyed. I'll probably make a post about now that you brought this up.

TwinkySN · 2012-12-26, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Masahiko

If the rendering wasnt a problem big wouldnt be a problem as you could bring in better support logistics. However, with rendering the way it is makes it a bigger issue when power zergs roll through.

I'm starting to think of this as a multifaceted problem. Along with the rendering problem there is the base designs (one of them "fixed" recently, a la Tech Plant), where the base design practically calls for a zerg if you want to cap the base in a decent amount of time against a decent sized defense force. While the ability to defend against a mass number of on-comers is nice, there needs to be more points of entry so that fights don't become grind fests and there is a winner sooner rather than several hours later. Along those same lines, certain bases need to be more easily defensible against larger numbers of people, instead of being camp fests waiting for the base to flip. Granted that would require some hefty fundamental redesign to fix, it will need to be done eventually or give better tools to the infantry side to counter the zerglings. As well, I feel if they took away the ability of armor and air to camp infantry areas, we would see less zerging, as we currently know it, and move to where infantry skill and team work determine the winner and not who had enough numbers/armor to camp the spawn points from every angle possible.

Whiteagle · 2012-12-26, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by MCYRook

(As an aside tho, I wouldn't mind seeing the "facility defended" XP return, in a different form such as: Don't award it just because one enemy held one cap point for 5 seconds and then the base was resecured. Reward it only when the base was actually in danger of being taken, like when the defenders' cap bar was half or fully taken off, and then the defenders managed to fully secure it again, that would count as a resecure and yield XP. Unfortunately, that rarely happens, because once you've lost control of a base to that extent, you rarely get it back.)

Hmmm... perhaps Experience points should be given for actively reverting capture bars?

I don't agree with you that Defense shouldn't have visible rewards, as a majority of new players (In the Mercz we called them "Grunts") only do things based on how rewarding it is.

Originally Posted by MCYRook

As an aside tho: Looking purely at the fight for the courtyard, I'd say that Amp Stations right now aren't in too bad shape. You've got vehicle choke points (gates); you've got shields blocking the gates whose generators must be taken out by infantry; you've got high ground for the defenders (which however can be circumvented by Light Assaults - the whole class makes defense harder in PS2); you've got defenders reinforcing the cy with vehicles easily (tho ofc the spawn room is in a stupid position, but defenders mitigate that by putting a Sundy in the central building).
Not all is terribad.

Eh, I don't know...

The problem with the Amp station court-yard is how big of a clusterfuck it is right now...

Literally the same walls around a Bio Lab are an improvement over their Amp Station counterparts simply because the court-yard isn't full of clutter that benefits Attackers more then Defenders.

Originally Posted by Jackyl

The SCU for every base actually helped a lot with the spawn camping problem in the early beta as it gave a base capture a clear point at which falling back was required. I still do not understand why it was removed.

Well the biggest issue with that was people just blew the SCUs first...

Of course, this was back when you just shot them with a clip or two instead of an overload interaction...

Still, a bigger problem with Outpost are their horrible spawn shacks.
The SCUs just prevented the terrible base layout from becoming apparent until far too late...

Originally Posted by Hyncharas

First, one functionality that should be removed is allowing people in vehicles to capture points. I've seen plenty of instances where enemy players, or even members of my own outfit in a heavy tank, Lightning or even a Galaxy can be in proximity of a node, fully protected by its armor, as it safely changes ownership! Now I understand the studio's concern about MAXes being allowed to but, essentially, enabling someone in a vehicle to do it when a MAX cannot is utter nonsense. Second, I don't think any outpost should allow a single player to take it; instead, at least two soldiers per node should be required.

I thought they took this out already?!

I remember a while back rolling up to a point on a flash and needing to get off... but did they revert that with the rollback and never restored it?

Originally Posted by Hyncharas

Next we have defenses. In PlanetSide, typically an outpost's or base's defenses were such that, if they detected a nearby enemy, they would engage them without player intervention at all. It would be good if every outpost had self-repairing, hack-proof "auto turrets" that need to be destroyed in their perimeter, possibly separate from their manned counterparts, adding moderate protection from another empire taking it over with impunity. These could also be structured so that the larger or more elaborate the facility, the more deadly these unmanned turrets would be to an invading force. Once the area was captured, commanders could then change the nature of these turrets to AI/AV/AA. This would thus provide more of a challenge to players than them simply walking into an outpost and ghost-hacking without resistance.

Yeah, this is one of those things that has me on the fence...

...On one hand, automated defenses would probably increase the load server-side and gunk up the system...

...On the other, bases are pretty much abandoned after a successful capture anyways...

Originally Posted by Hyncharas

Another useful mechanic would be that, depending on an empire's population-influence on the continent in relation to their rivals, a hitpoint bonus on armor and shields was provided to defenders' territory, so it is harder and requires longer for the enemy to capture them. Then if allied players successfully defended a facility, all turrets and shields were automatically repaired to full strength, to prevent overwhelming enemy forces from just invading after losing that particular capture phase.

I like the idea of a "Rally Bonus" that buffs Defenders when they are being pushed back to their Warpgate.

...Don't know about Instant repairs, but including a Repair Speed buff to the "Rally Bonus" would also be nice.

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

One person can and should be able to make a difference. It is always a matter of finding where it can be done. To mandate that teamwork is needed to do anything clips the wings of players who make sabotage their line of work. I have more stories ranging from cat and mouse games to assassinations to intel gathering but those two exemplify how an individual can change the global scene. Game should be a sandbox, not a carnival ride that necessitates that you must have this many people to ride.

Indeed, this is the tight-rope which further balance has to make it across...

Catering to solo players may have been what got us these ghost-town shacks for bases in the first place; the developers thought they would give an advantage to lone wolves trying to fight their way through organized Outfit defenses...

...Only to fail to understand that the Zerg would decimate this through the sheer volume of individuals assaulting a particular point.

Originally Posted by Rothnang

My giant problem with Hamma's assessment of the situation is that he seems to think vehicles need to be restricted, which I think isn't the right approach.

Well honestly, it depends on the "restrictions"...
I'll agree with you that increases to Timers and Resource cost don't actually solve anything, they just make things more frustraiting for dedicated vehicle operators.

...Which is why it's a bit confusing that Hamma kept spouting off about Resources needing more importance, since they aren't a good carrot to reward individual players and are a much better suited to being a meta-game strategic mechanic.

Still, more lines need to be drawn where vehicles can and cannot go.
Right now there are only a few places where ground vehicle territory doesn't overlap with Infantry's, while Aircraft are only limited by firing angle.

...I was also long ago won over to the side of separate Drivers and Main Gunners on MBTs due to how vestigial they make the Secondary Weapons outside of those that could pass for Main Guns themselves, why the drivers can't be given control of a secondary is beyond me...

Originally Posted by Rothnang

XP distribution is just off in this game. Infantry dies in one hit from a vehicle, respawns and is back maybe 20 seconds later. A vehicle gets hit and goes to repair, that often takes longer than 20 seconds. However, killing the infantry gets you 100+ XP, shooting the vehicle gets you absolutely nothing, the driver of the vehicle gets XP for repairing though! I think that every time you damage a vehicle for 20% of its HP you should get 50 XP or so, and if you kill an infantryman in a vehicle you should only get 50 XP instead of the full amount. That little change alone would already make a huge difference in how people perceive the competition between vehicles and infantry - because right now it's all about kills, and vehicles kill more and die less.
If you look at the survival scheme for the two different units Infantry is meant to die and respawn until their respawn point is destroyed or captured, vehicles are meant to run and repair until an enemy manages to destroy them before they can do so. There is a reward for killing, there is a reward for taking out spawn capabilities, but there is no reward for making the vehicle run and repair, which is why vehicles rack up such absurdly huge XP themselves, and give very little back to all the people who fight them.

Very good points!
You are right, there is a large amount of skew between Anti-Infantry and Anti-Vehicle combat Experience gain wise...

Really, it just isn't worth it to fire on a tank with Rockets, because even if you do and every other Heavy Assualt score a hit, only one of you will get the kill and maybe a few others the assist.
Seriously, does anyone know what the criteria is for assist?

Meanwhile, said tank could easily match and more then likely exceed the Experience gained from taking it out with a single well placed shot on a crowd!

Perhaps there SHOULD be an XP tick nerf on Infantry kills made with Vehicle weapons, just to counter the ease with which they can be used to farm.

Originally Posted by Rothnang

The Combined arms concept currently is a mess, because the only vehicle that effectively bridges the gap between vehicles and infantry is the Sunderer, and it's mostly just used as a spawn point. The Galaxy is too big to be worthwhile as just a taxi and requires too many gunners to be usable once the passengers disembark. The Sunderer isn't really much of an infantry fighting vehicle, but more of a support unit that happens to have a lot of seats too. It's too big and unwieldy to really be good in a fight, despite massive armor and solid firepower, and it simply isn't fun to drive. Also only MAX units really rely on transport vehicles to get around, regular infantry can redeploy/suicide to move from one viable spawn to the next.

Well I don't think the transports are completely useless, but you are correct that they aren't being used much for actual transporting.

The Sunderer is alright, it just requires nearly a full coherent squad to be useful.
The Galaxy though could probably use some more seats, considering it requires nearly half a squad to fully man to begin with it lacks an ability to drop enough Infantry to be of much use.

...Would be nice if Vehicle Equipment could change their characteristics... like Modules or something...

Originally Posted by Rothnang

I want to see vehicles that really emphasize the combined arms concept, where a tank driver or gunship pilot can have a vehicle he can have fun with when its empty while at the same time providing support and transportation to an infantry squad when they need it. We're just lacking units that really bring the two together.

That would be nice, like an IFV with a small autocannon and front mounted flamethrower that seats six.
Hopefully the Buggies will provide on this front.

Originally Posted by Roy Awesome

One thing I would like to see is more bases that aren't directly tied to territory capture. Large facilities have 2-4 of these (Outpost bases, or as TEST calls them, adjuncts), but why are they only limited to facilities?

Planetside 1 had these in the form of Towers, but I think the concept of a capture able mini-facility with a spawn point and some equipment terminals could drastically benefit the 'small outfit' play.

Actually Figment came up with something kind of like this, except instead of having spawn tubes or terminals it just had a fortified garage to park a Sunderer AMS.

It was pretty much just a bunker complex from which Infantry could effectively fight Vehicles on the road from.

Originally Posted by Rothnang

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.

Another good point, since this would spread the fight out from the central facility instead of a clusterfuck over the central Control Console like we have now.

It would also take the edge off of the inherent bonus Attackers gain with their initiative.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2012-12-26, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I had a great discussion on Twitter last night about this and wanted to bring it here.

First off let me start this thread by saying this is NOT an attack on specific outfits. I will not allow people to argue about specific outfits, this discussion is about the size of outfits in general and whether or not you think they hurt the game. Also, I don't want to hear bs like "ohh you're doing it wrong" etc.

This has bothered me since late beta and is becoming more and more of an issue (imo) as of late. I don't have solution for it because there really isn't one but I want to see what peoples thoughts are.

My outfit is smaller in size compared to most. We typically run about a half a platoon or so. We are finding it difficult to find a solid role for us in the game that isn't boring and doesn't involve getting steamrolled. This is becoming more and more difficult as time goes on. Huge outfits are able to put 100 or more people or more on an objective and essentially win with numbers in almost all fights. We are able to hold off, but it's simply a matter of time until we are struck down due to sheer numbers.

Smaller outfits are finding that they have to disband and join larger outfits if they want to even have fun, causing them to lose their own identity and be absorbed into massive teams because there are no recruits left to take. For me community is more important to a game than the game itself, hence why I've been doing this all these years.

Is having one massive outfit per empire what the developers intended? Is spam inviting every no outfit person in the game really a viable recruiting effort? How many of these people even know what they are joining?

What is everyones thoughts on this issue?

Totally agree 100%.

We're trying to keep our outfit together because we're an ex-military, highly trained group of PS1 vets. But we don't have the numbers.

The only outfits we can find to merge with are "Lowest common denominator" groups with tag lines like "cater to casual or pro, hardcore or social players" with 50 people in one teamspeak channel telling fart jokes and having burping competitions and the rare ones that we find who think they're hardcore military strategic/tactical always turn out to be 15 year olds who watched full metal jacket and think they have a right to be Gunnery Sergeant Hartman just because they clicked the "create outfit" button.

Depressing.

Helwyr · 2012-12-26, 04:21 PM

I just watched Hamma's AGN video and read a dozen pages of this thread... While I generally agree on almost all the concerns, there's one part of this I find both disquieting and ironic. Hamma and other "small outfit" players complain the game mechanics favor large "zerg" outfits and want things changed so there's things small Outfit groups can accomplish, while simultaneously complaining about solo players and wanting more game mechanics to limit what that section of players can accomplish. So to me a portion of this is not about making the game better for everyone, but for a particular subsection of the community at the expense of others.

That said the lack of meta game, poor base defense, resources being largely meaningless, Vehicles being easily spammed and OPed I completely agree with. I just see these as problems, not particularly the existence of huge outfits.

Hmr85 · 2012-12-26, 04:23 PM

Originally Posted by Helwyr

I just watched Hamma's AGN video and read a dozen pages of this thread... While I generally agree on almost all the concerns, there's one part of this I find both disquieting and ironic. Hamma and other "small outfit" players complain the game mechanics favor large "zerg" outfits and want things changed so there's things small Outfit groups can accomplish, while simultaneously complaining about solo players and wanting more game mechanics to limit what that section of players can accomplish. So to me a portion of this is not about making the game better for everyone, but for a particular subsection of the community at the expense of others.

That said the lack of meta game, poor base defense, resources being largely meaningless, Vehicles being easily spammed and OPed I completely agree with. I just see these as problems, not particularly the existence of huge outfits.

I'm not sure what part of the video you where referring to? I'm stuck at work and could barely hear the audio but I am assuming its the part where he said solo players should not be able to cap outlying outposts on their own?

Brian TR · 2012-12-27, 02:49 AM

Hey new to the forums. I was a very avid poster durring PS2 Beta under the same tag I actually was one of the first people to point out the problems of Big Organized outfits later to be known as BOOS I will reiterate here what i had created than.

First How did outfits work in PS1

1. Outfits were large medium and small group of gamers whoes play style complimented eachother. Whether it be Spec ops, Gen Drops, Galaxy last minute re-secures, NTU Drains or Ghost hacks,that sneaky, one might say annoying type of gameplay was able to be achieved with Outfits of all sizes and it had an impact on the overall game. Larger outfits may want to lead the battle and they could do this by organizing their large contingent of players and beginning a raid on a base. The beautiful thing about PS1 was how it was able to balance Large outfits. As soon as an attack happened it was usually immediately countered and who countered maybe a smaller outfit saw the attack diverted to defend than you would see the influx of smaller squads and random players join the fight. Pretty soon that spot became really hot a red alert and more people joined the fight to stop that large outfit, eventually stopping them in their tracks. That large outfit in a very short order ended up going against the whole or most of an enemy faction In a progressive battle that built up to that of which were never seen in a game. That faction may not of been coordinated with team speak but fought for the common goal of ousting the invaders. Giving you that feeling of being a small part of something greater. It was your EMPIRE you were fighting for it was where you sole allegiance was dedicated to. This is what created our strong loyalties to our faction and why when our faction succeeded we succeeded as well.

Now that I explained a scenario lets examine why it worked

1. The dreaded lattice system. Many might say its a hindrance for progression ie. Matt Higby but what did the lattice do

1. It Created large battles
2. gave us a meta game LLU (capture the flag)
3.created tactical involvement predicting where an enemy will attack and gave ample time to set up a defense defend
4. Created Structure and flow

While sometimes there were stale mates there were ways of breaking stalemates if you had a good group of guys that knew how to play the game

The good way outweighs the bad. Now there's no reason we had to go back to an exact LLU structure im sure they could have designed something similar that addressed the issues they had originally, but to scrap it entirely and to leave the map wide open with no structure or flow is a detriment to the game.
It also makes Large Outfits very powerful as they ave free roam and are very unpredictable as to where they will strike next making it almost impossible to counter them with empire strength alone.

How Outfits work In PS2

Its all about strength in organized numbers. Theres about 3 or 4 BOOS in PS2 with 100s of active players. Now to me it seems SOE never thought out what the role of an outfit was gunna be, just that it was in PS1 so yea we want them in PS2. They never really thought about the logistics or the consequences they may have in the current model.

The game currently has no way of organizing solo or small squads to fight for a common goal like in PS1 Instead these large outfits get all their forces together very organized air, ground, infantry, command structure teamspeak what have you the whole 9, A well oiled machine. To go against a guy and his few buddies and maybe another guy and his few buddies and me sniping by myself. We just go online to have some fun shooting some enemies for a couple hours. Next thing we know this wave comes killing us many times we spawn someplace else that place is under siege every where we turn its death. This isn't fun for us especially when no skill is involved in this massacre. Its pure numbers and coordination. Next thing we know we are sitting in our warp gate wondering what the heck happened. This is a common occurrence in PS2. How this is fun for the attacking Outfit is beyond me yea there going to get alot of kills but with minimal work or effort. How is that rewarding. Many times there's nothing to kill if your not the first wave in. It just so happens our faction is owning another continent spawn there to the raid of another opposing outfit our main outfit must of left because we are getting massacred here buy a different faction What does this breed just like some of you have said your outfit your squads are futile we have to join the BOO to have any relevance in the game what does this create individual players controlling your gaming experience following there orders this gives the leaders of these outfits Way Way to much power over the game itself. The current way will eventually be join us or your are totally irrelevant. The worst part of this whole thing is the big outfits on opposing sides avoid each other and prey on everyone else. Why should one person control an entire empire and the design of the game and how outfits are in game will ultimately lead to this, There will be No Terran Republic, New Conglomerate or Vanu Sovereignty. The game will become all about these outfits the camaraderie and loyalty felt for ones empire will now reside in an outfit and their leaders. Is this what we want for PS2. I for one dont but if changes arent made this game will become more of a niche game than PS1 ever was at least in that game you were free to game how you chose but In PS2 the Players will control you. One more thing most of these outfits dont work with randoms or smaller squads its all about them and there notoriety in the game and alot of these guys excuse my french are Assholes no names needed but you know im TR so you know who im talking bout. Also it looks to me as SOE will be catering to these Outfits more by eventually creating Outfit Bases??? SMDH at this, Before long PS2 will be a circrus for all the clowns to play in not the serious skilled FPS gamers like myself.

Kate · 2012-12-27, 04:35 AM

Good thread, just read the whole thing, and I also came to many of the same conclusions that have been expressed here. I don't think the huge outfits are a bad thing, but I recognize that smaller outfits are feeling somewhat irrelevant due to the current game design.

My thoughts on making small outfits more relevant, and generally improving PS2:

Offensive and defensive holding of terrain needs to be more feasible, vehicles should not have influence on almost all terrain.

Bases should be more enclosed, and should provide better cover. Walls should be more useful, and jump pads and lifts possibly eliminated. Reducing exposure to the enemy better defining attack vectors would make massed troops easier and more interesting to take on, by making enabling defenders to encounter them in smaller and more managable groups at once.

Internalized/underground obectives and spawn areas could would be good as well. This would promote longer and more interesting battles, would delay the onset of farming the spawn, and again would enable a smaller defending force to engage attackers in a managable way. Currently at the spawn you can be instagibbed from almost any angle or distance, which is hard to counter as infantry and quite frustrating.

Outposts and towers should have internals which are safer from air and armor, and structures should maybe be more linked. It'd maybe be cool if the tower was physically linked with its curtilage buildings and they had content of strategic importance in them, or if outpost buildings had underground tubes or something. IMHO, the elevators are lame and encourage wild flailing and spraying and hopping about, but I may be wrong about that.

AI automatic but gimpy turrets. Makes defending a little easier, gives air less uncontested air, makes back capping more interesting, gives small groups a target or role.

Bringing back PS1-style CE would be awesome. I also think pillboxes, bunkers, weapon emplacements, trenches, and tank traps would be great (not constructable stuff, but CE related). Why? It slows down the zerg, makes defending more viable, and could be interesting for large and small oufits.

On capture mechanics:

I agree with what others have said about the possibility of instant resecures, hack and hold, LLUs or CTF, maybe requiring >2 to start a cap, and no capping by vehicles. They'd add some variety, ease defense, and empower smaller units.

Cap/def completion score being mostly based on actions during the cap/def and for a few min after would be better I think. Also, maybe you should still gain exp from the actions part of that even if you've left SOI. This would discourage swooping in or hanging around for exp, and would reward attacking and defending even if the player had to go elsewhere prematurely for strategic reasons. (Maybe bonuses up front would be better though, and that'd reward hanging on even if being eventually overrun was inevitable?)

RE lack of resource scarcity, and vehicle abundance.

I think vehicle costs should increase, but gain from sanc and other conts should increase a little to give factions a chance to push out if gated. Possibly boost veh kill exp, or add some for causing severe damage. Effect: While vehicles still powerful, they become rarer and more valued. Large swarms still possible, but an endless vehicular onslaught becomesless feasible. Deterring vehicles becomes more tangibly rewarding, and more lucrative for smaller groups. Note: Being able to warp vehicles might make pilots and drivers more okay with this, and could make this less of a burden for smaller outfits with limited resources.

Organization:

Create a system whereby platoons may be linked with the other outfit squads and platoons, and allow for a command team to direct and see them. Create a similar system for alliance-level coordination. Helps make outfits more coordinated, promotes teamwork.

Create Outfit listings ingame with links for leadership contact, stats, a summary, and recruitment. Reduces relative influence of spam invites, gives a starting point for outfit cooperation.

FFS, make an option to let SLs change leads and kick, make their WPs visible to PLs maybe and let PLs swap squads between a/b/c/d, or even set color, or name other than alpha/whatevs. Letting PL's drop smoke or use SL cmd chat would be nice, as would being able to directly set yourself as SL when PL, or maybe being able to give SLs ordered targets.

Make outfit roster searchable and sortable, and more informative. Improves outfit management, promoting better community experience.

Outfit decals (and maybe related swag) would be nice. Fun and cool, improves identity and cohesion, advertisement too?

Bonus and/or optional somewhat shared exp/resources with squads, platoons, outfits, and alliances. Promotes teamwork and maybe proximity, gives people in thankless support roles some reward so they're happy and don't complain/want exp from every possible action.

Some sort of continent and global command chat, with an easier to access read-only level. Should be accessable to more than just OL, but also with standards (e.g. no single person outfits, no spam, slurs, or recruiting, some form of moderation). More coordination and community, less mobs/zerg.

Outfit points or challenges for outfit objects or abilities, maybe computed by per capita with some things. Promotes teamwork and reduces value of spam inviting?

Targets and roles for smaller outfits and spec ops teams:

Give all territories some sort of special/unique bonus/ability/facility/trait, which if not posessed may be hampered by breaking things, hacking, occupying a building, or stealing things. Add some objects to mess with. For example: Place a well you can blow up, harvesters you can sabotage, a cache you can destroy or steal from, or a comms station you can hack or occupy to debuff the enemy's logistics, or mildly tweak the enemy's intelligence (delay cap progress bar display slightly, change "Platoons" to Platoon"). This gives more meaning to territory, and would make for an interesting side game appropriate for small groups, with strategic value.

Rare resource metorites and downed satellites (modules). Every once in a while (30m-a few H?), one will randomly drop on the map. "Cool off time" after which it can be picked up and transported will vary. Depending on "weight" (value) it cannot be held by a Gal and a Sundy must take it. The bigger, the slower the vehicle can go. May or may not be extremely volatile. Must be taken to a base for processing, then maybe a facility for placement. Can be stolen by opfor on the way or after install, or maybe expended for a special ability, gives significant xp. May need replacement over time. Maybe meteors can only be spotted while inbound while landing if a tracking station equipped territory is owned, which will be a target for competeing enemy teams. Maybe rarely some could be used offensivelf for buffs, or to nuke areas. Effect: Sounds like a fun competative side game, which might appeal to small teams.

Gens provide base benefits, and can be blown/hacked/held. Would be nice targets for small teams.

AI automatic but semi-gimpy turrets - It's something useful to blow up and might be interesting.

Defensive NPC drones/vehicles that aren't *too* bright - See above.

NPC harvester/worker robot vehicles - Killable, hackable, with a few bits of resources to loot.

Raidable/hackable NPC supply convoys - If you have a comms tower hacked or whatever, you'll get notified of them. They meander from base to base, and are modified sundies with lame automatic turrets. Ambush and blow them up for points, then salvage the resources it carried with engies and pick them up (holding them makes you slow and defenseless or only able to use a pistol), return to friendly processor in base with them for reward (sooner deposits for all maybe, or extra resources, atd exp). Alternatively, hack them and drive them home, or just slap C4 on the back of them, which will kill the enemy processor when they arrive eventually. Losing a convoy causes delayed deposit or mild reduction in next deposit. There could be ANT convoys as well, or maybe some of them would blow up like gas tankers and could be used as IEDs. IHNFI. Effect: Another potentially fun side game, and a way for underdogs to steal resorces.

Here and there, maybe add a few cappable small emplacements with ammo stations and terminals, but no spawns or limited spawning probably, and rarely give them light vehicle terminals. Hide them away and have them be staging spots for groups behind enemy lines. Design them to be very small, and maybe built into terrain like bunkers. Could give them a modest resource benefit or ability, and make them subtle/not shown on the map. Not effected by influence, doesn't cause influence. Effect: Kinda cool spots that help fill empty but interesting areas, and allows for resupply and regrouping. Subtle and meant for small group usage.

Obviously that's a lot of ideas and the chances of change are low, but I think it's worth discussing given how SOE seems relatively responsive to input. What do you all thunk of that?

Note: I thought of some of this back in 2007 when I was a young teen interested in game design. I realize it might be hard to implement. Also, the last legit English class I had was in 6th grade and I wrote this on my phone, so there may be typos. My perspective may also be biased from playing PS1, and being in a certain large NC outfit on Connery...

Sturmhardt · 2012-12-27, 05:26 AM

You wrote all that on your phone? Holy....

Crator · 2012-12-27, 07:32 AM

Originally Posted by Brian TR

The good way outweighs the bad. Now there's no reason we had to go back to an exact lattice structure im sure they could have designed something similar that addressed the issues they had originally, but to scrap it entirely and to leave the map wide open with no structure or flow is a detriment to the game.
It also makes Large Outfits very powerful as they ave free roam and are very unpredictable as to where they will strike next making it almost impossible to counter them with empire strength alone.

To be fair, the capture requirements are not wide open. They do require hex adjacency. The hex system is the similar design to the lattice that supports resources, something SOE wants in the game to support the F2P model, as well as control amount of vehicles however we all know that resources don't exactly control amount of vehicles properly for various reasons. The hex system is also a way for SOE to promote spreading out the players on a map in order to control amount of players in a single location to avoid lag issues which are caused by too many players in the same area of the map.

I haven't heard anyone else in this thread blame the lack of a lattice on this issue tbh. Most blame the missing game play you mentioned in your post to lack of base defensibility.

Assist · 2012-12-27, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by Kate

Obviously that's a lot of ideas and the chances of change are low, but I think it's worth discussing given how SOE seems relatively responsive to input. What do you all thunk of that?

That's a hell of a list. I like most of the changes you propose, but as you said I think 99% of that will not happen. For one, most of the changes you propose are content being added which takes a lot of dev time. I'm all for everything you propose though, call smedley up and get the ball rolling.