Huge Outfits and PlanetSide 2 - Page 15

Kail · 2012-12-21, 12:40 PM

I know many people before have posted about outposts having benefits, but I wonder how merging that concept with something like LLU's (if that's the PS1 thing you could move between bases, its been awhile) would work out. For example, consider three boosts:

Shielding, Cooling, and Heating.

Each one can be applied to an interactable object (generator, turret, SCU) and control points. On interactable objects they last until replaced or the object is destroyed, and on points until the base flips / replaced.

Shielding provides engineer-turret like shields on turrets, on generators more or less doubles the time defenders have to resecure (as the overload must break the shield first), and on control points provides artillery shielding in a tastefully sized globe around it.
Cooling reduces the buildup of heat on turrets, makes generators require at least one attacker to stay nearby or it self-stabalizes, and passive health regen near control points.
Heating increases fire rate for turrets, allows defenders to near-instantly stabilize generators, and increases the flip rate of control points for defenders.

Only three, so its easy for a player to quickly get a handle on the options. Now the devious part: They can only be picked up at outposts, and doing so replaces your weapons.

Controlling adjacent territories isn't required, but helps because you can supply boosts quicker and safer. What boosts to apply where could add interesting strategy, and since boost are tied to points / turrets / generators, having a large squad doesn't help (except for having a bunch of people standing around worthlessly for when things get destroyed.

Anyway, just a random musing I had today while hopped up on cold medicine.

Figment · 2012-12-21, 12:57 PM

If you want to somehow restrict large outfits more than smaller outfits in terms of resources, you could go do that in an extremely drastic manner and have outfit resource rates, rather than personal rates.

Of course, most big outfits would just split up into smaller sister outfits to reap the benefits anyway.

p0intman · 2012-12-21, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

If you want to somehow restrict large outfits more than smaller outfits in terms of resources, you could go do that in an extremely drastic manner and have outfit resource rates, rather than personal rates.

Of course, most big outfits would just split up into smaller sister outfits to reap the benefits anyway.

Can't be a mechanic like that. Its just easy to be gamed to have an artificial ceiling where effectiveness mechanically drops off the face of a cliff. Instead, objectives where it isn't cost/time effective to devote large numbers to unless the enemy is dead set on taking it back and must drop the hammer on it. Its more about discouraging through subtlety the large zergs rather than outright saying FUCK YOU. Leave them to their own part of the game, and maybe center searhus, oshur and hossin on smaller scale warfare type stuff where armor and aircraft aren't as effective.

any mechanic needs to be developed with the fact that players are infinitely more clever than a set of developers ever can be, and if it can be gamed, it will be, in ways the developers don't intend or simply never thought of. So instead of creating mechanics, create a set of tools for players, and let us figure it out.

Remember how I was howling pre-beta about it being zerg side all day every day and that it was a large scale bf2/3 game? Look at where we are now. Team deathmatch-side.

MrBloodworth · 2012-12-21, 01:08 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

If you want to somehow restrict large outfits more than smaller outfits in terms of resources, you could go do that in an extremely drastic manner and have outfit resource rates, rather than personal rates.

Of course, most big outfits would just split up into smaller sister outfits to reap the benefits anyway.

I don't think anyone wants to restrict large outfits, only gain more opportunity for small outfits to participate.

Tatwi · 2012-12-21, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by MrBloodworth

I don't think anyone wants to restrict large outfits, only gain more opportunity for small outfits to participate.

I would like to limit large outfits from using the "everyone suicide and..." device. Malorn really sung up the praises of The Enclave, but this is their primary tactic, which is both lame in general (death traveling) and far too effective of a power multiplier. I loathed taking part in it, because it felt spastic, abusive, and flat out boring (win win win and maybe have someone to shoot at with 50 other people shooting at them too...), but the tactic worked so who was I to say anything. The trouble is, it works for all large groups at the expense of the game.

The trouble isn't the large groups, but how they use the game to achieve the easiest route to "victory", ie. Death travel, vehicle spam, and superior numbers rather than superior skill.

The stuff in this thread is why I don't play - the game is boring in a zergfit and boring not in one, so why bother doing more than logging in to shoot stuff and blow stuff when the mood strikes? Fix these issues (and the performance issues, as beta played smoother...) and PS2 will be worth playing. Right now there's just no point nor any variety to the game.

Hamma · 2012-12-21, 01:21 PM

Yea, what MrBloodworth said.

Hosp · 2012-12-21, 02:34 PM

Except we wouldn't be gaining it...We'd be regaining it. Remember, PS1 had it and it has yet to be implemented in PS2.

angryphoenix · 2012-12-21, 04:22 PM

I'm going to flip this conversation and lay blame on the small outfits for zerging.

Most big outfits are organised. Take multiple points across the map, communicate and work as a team. They strike fast and move on to their next objective. They are not the zerg.

The zerg are all your small outfits that have no ability to communicate properly. You all gather up and like lemmings, battle your way from one base to the next.

Look at the combined force of a zerg attack. Do you only see one Outfit tag? Probably not. It's just a bunch of solo players and small outfits rolling along with the flow because they have no idea what else to do or how to make a difference.

Now with that said I also think it's a problem with the games design that has made it impossible for the majority of the player populous to work together other than in a Zerg way. More tools are needed.

So when it comes to the zerg I think everyone here bitching that it's the big outfits fault I really think you need to look at how you, as a small outfit, play the game. Big outfits make the game more fun when they are well organised like the one I am in.

ringring · 2012-12-21, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by angryphoenix

I'm going to flip this conversation and lay blame on the small outfits for zerging.

Most big outfits are organised. Take multiple points across the map, communicate and work as a team. They strike fast and move on to their next objective. They are not the zerg.

The zerg are all your small outfits that have no ability to communicate properly. You all gather up and like lemmings, battle your way from one base to the next.

Look at the combined force of a zerg attack. Do you only see one Outfit tag? Probably not. It's just a bunch of solo players and small outfits rolling along with the flow because they have no idea what else to do or how to make a difference.

Now with that said I also think it's a problem with the games design that has made it impossible for the majority of the player populous to work together other than in a Zerg way. More tools are needed.

So when it comes to the zerg I think everyone here bitching that it's the big outfits fault I really think you need to look at how you, as a small outfit, play the game. Big outfits make the game more fun when they are well organised like the one I am in.

Nobody is saying it's the big outfit's fault as far as I can see. If GOTR, Devildogs and The Enclave can organise themselves, good for them.

DirkSmacker · 2012-12-21, 02:45 PM

Large outfits will have issues if/when they start having outfit leaderboards.

When it happens, the game needs alliance level organizations to allow for outfits with different play styles to easily form up when they have to.

TheFirstOmen · 2012-12-21, 02:53 PM

To answer the original question of the thread: No. Larger outfits do not hurt the game.

If a large outfit exists, it is because players enjoy being a part of something greater than themselves and that outfit is clearly doing something right to be recruiting so many people.

That being said, I'd like to address something that has been mentioned before but I would like to reiterate again on this thread:

Planetside 2 tactics are a joke. There I said it. Planetside 2 tactics are 110% a complete and utter piece of crap. In a larger outfit, I can tell you those leaders always send air, armor and infantry together or rolling close together.

Does this make them a zerg rush? It's debatable. I've heard both sides of the argument so many times I can tell you it largely depends on the situation. When you've got 1 infantry platoon with an armor platoon and air squads all on small outpost, I'd call that a zerg rush. However, because some of the outfits are more organized, they can redeploy in a pinch to attack an enemy force of equal-greater numbers.

However, the point still remains that the sure, guaranteed 100% fool proof way to win is overwhelming numbers. There's simply no counter to numbers and I do not believe that should EVER be any counter to being over-run with enemies. What there needs to be is more secondary objectives, as mentioned before, for smaller outfits or squads. I'm not exactly sure how these secondary objectives play into the overall meta-game, but it's something that is desperately needed in the game right now.

tkoreaper · 2012-12-21, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by TheFirstOmen

To answer the original question of the thread: No. Larger outfits do not hurt the game.

If a large outfit exists, it is because players enjoy being a part of something greater than themselves and that outfit is clearly doing something right to be recruiting so many people.

That being said, I'd like to address something that has been mentioned before but I would like to reiterate again on this thread:

Planetside 2 tactics are a joke. There I said it. Planetside 2 tactics are 110% a complete and utter piece of crap. In a larger outfit, I can tell you those leaders always send air, armor and infantry together or rolling close together.

Does this make them a zerg rush? It's debatable. I've heard both sides of the argument so many times I can tell you it largely depends on the situation. When you've got 1 infantry platoon with an armor platoon and air squads all on small outpost, I'd call that a zerg rush. However, because some of the outfits are more organized, they can redeploy in a pinch to attack an enemy force of equal-greater numbers.

However, the point still remains that the sure, guaranteed 100% fool proof way to win is overwhelming numbers. There's simply no counter to numbers and I do not believe that should EVER be any counter to being over-run with enemies. What there needs to be is more secondary objectives, as mentioned before, for smaller outfits or squads. I'm not exactly sure how these secondary objectives play into the overall meta-game, but it's something that is desperately needed in the game right now.

I agree with most of what you said. Large outfits simply don't ruin the game for me. I believe we're all just creating a problem that doesn't really exist. YES, there are large outfits. And YES there are many smaller ones, but we're all trying to achieve the same goals on the same side. There is absolutely no way to prove that when you see a ton of people, they're a zerg. Yes, it's a crap-load of people, but there's nothing to say that they aren't actually organized... Hell, it's more of a zerg when you have many many smaller groups each organized differently than a much larger group containing several platoons which are under a single command. And there's absolutely no way to prove that an single organized platoon is better than a much larger group when they can be just as organized... People need to pull their head out of their ass and grow up.

This is all just an excuse IMO. Should there be more to do than there is now? Hell yes, but don't blame the lack of things to do on large outfits... They're just trying to consolidate the empire and bring a fun/organized atmosphere to the masses. It's better that we stand together as an empire than differentiate ourselves... it does the empire no good when people harass and belittle one another. So forget all this garbage about larger outfits... look at the real problem!

Sledgecrushr · 2012-12-21, 03:45 PM

What Tkoreaper said.

Hosp · 2012-12-21, 03:52 PM

I'll go so far as to agree zergfits aren't necessarily the problem.

The problem is more of:

PS1 = Skill >= Numbers
PS2 = Skill <= Numbers*

*(with extreme bias in favor of numbers).

Hamma · 2012-12-21, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by Tatwi

I would like to limit large outfits from using the "everyone suicide and..." device. Malorn really sung up the praises of The Enclave, but this is their primary tactic, which is both lame in general (death traveling) and far too effective of a power multiplier. I loathed taking part in it, because it felt spastic, abusive, and flat out boring (win win win and maybe have someone to shoot at with 50 other people shooting at them too...), but the tactic worked so who was I to say anything. The trouble is, it works for all large groups at the expense of the game.

This should not be a viable tactic this command shouldn't even be in the game anymore.