Uncappable Bases - Page 3

Lunarchild · 2011-07-11, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by NCLynx

My first thoughts as well, one perma base per cont seems to much

If that's the case I seriously hope it has two warp-gates to other areas as well!

**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.

2coolforu · 2011-07-11, 12:15 PM

I think this could be fixed as people said before, by having only 1 home continent which has the uncappable base on it.

**Malorn** · 2011-07-11, 12:35 PM

The problem is I believe what they are trying to do with the uncaps is foster combat in more places and that whole 'get to the fight faster' bit, though I'm not entirely convinced an uncap helps with that.

waldizzo · 2011-07-11, 12:51 PM

I think they are planning on the new resource and terrain control system to replace the current lattice/cont lock system.

Didn't they say somewhere that under certain conditions, an area could take an attacking empire 30 minutes to hack while the defending empire could hack it back in 30 seconds? Seems like it would have the same effect as a continent lock, but would make it so the defenders can't totally neglect captured areas.

I also think that the resource system will be what moves people off of continents. Didn't they mention that where will be "rare" resources which is something people will probably want to get instead of camping these foothold bases.

moosepoop · 2011-07-11, 12:57 PM

how can you capture a continent if theres an uncappable enemy base on it? can anyone explain this??

Hamma · 2011-07-11, 04:01 PM

We don't really know.

Good assessment Malorn I agree with what you said.

hippieschuh · 2011-07-11, 04:15 PM

From what I understand is that you have to capture regions, not bases.

wich leads to the conculusion that there will be no links, only like 6 resources everyone fights over and this resources are accessible via capturing a region.

You can capture any region at any time, no more links or none-accessible regions.

basti · 2011-07-11, 04:22 PM

I think the basic idea of SOE is to have multiple pop locks during prime time, rather than just 2 or 3. That would work with uncappable bases, very well actually. But the big problem is that once a continent lacks population, ghost hacks will be everywhere.

We know to little about the entire system to be sure if it will work they way they want it, or if it will crash on day one. Keep it mind that Planetside had the same issues during beta, the lattience was actually put into the game because of ghost hack issues. If it happens again, im sure they will change stuff. They have to, they want this game to lift off into the sky.

Haro · 2011-07-11, 04:45 PM

Like Malorn said, the main reason for this is probably to allow people to move quickly from one uncap base (fuck it, I'm calling them sancs) to another. To be honest, I'm mixed about old school sancs. On one hand, having a safe base was fun, I did like Harting if I was going alone for a bit, and it was a great coordination zone. On the other hand, so much of it felt unnecessary. Large outfit platoons usually had pre-selected targets, so it didn't necessarily have to been in a sanc, just a protected area with the capability of producing all vehicles and weapons. Plus, most of the sanctuary was useless and a waste of space.

But I believe there is another reason for having these new sancs. I haven't found where I may have heard this, but I am almost positive I heard subtle talk about removing daily resets. At least, something about territory being held for hours, days, or weeks. If this is the case, continent locks become a whole different beast altogether. If this is the case, and again, I CANNOT confirm this, then having sanctuaries on each continent means that if a particular continent has been dominated by one empire, you can easily switch your emphasis on other continents. As others have said, a sanc on a continent is likely to be vulnerable to camping, but if you can switch to another continent quickly, then that doesn't become a problem. If an empire does take over all the bases on the continent, maybe they can all lock down for 6, 12, or 24 hours or something like that, to give that lasting satisfaction, as well as avoid ghost hacks. With new technology, I think PS2 can be a lot more flexible with how it programs bases and conts to work.

As for predictability, that could be a problem if we still use the lattice system, which I think is unlikely. What could happen, for example, is that bases under your control generate a field of influence, and that enemy bases within a certain distance can be attacked, while those behind the front line are locked. You get a similar battle line effect as you did with the lattice system, but it's not as fixated on specific routes. This is a vague and not completely thought-through idea, but it could be one of several ways the lattice system gets changed to make gameplay more dynamic.

Ultimately, it is too early to make judgments, but I believe that, reflecting the possible changes that the game could see, this could actually work out. But who knows?

Death2All · 2011-07-11, 05:02 PM

Originally Posted by Kouza

Also, this beckons the question.... One base as the starting point for every one in planetside.... THAT'S GOING TO BE ONE CROWDED BITCH.... or, are the Bases going to be giant? We saw how much bigger the tower got, how much bigger are the bases going to get?

My thoughts exactly

So when everyone logs on will they be sent to the same foothold? Or does it send them to the one on the cont they were last at. It seems to me that would just promote people to fight on whatever continent they just started at and go from there.

With no staging ground like a sanctuary to organize and ready troops it sounds like one chaotic mess where people spawn wherever and attack everything. ESPECIALLY without the lattice system.

I'm very confused. Information has been very limited on how they work so far, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. (I'm saying this a lot lately)

Zulthus · 2011-07-11, 05:04 PM

Heh, on day one if everybody spawns into the same base with three spawn tubes...

Death2All · 2011-07-11, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Heh, on day one if everybody spawns into the same base with three spawn tubes...

That reminds me of the day of the server merge with Gemini when the server finally came up.

Hundreds of people crammed in the HART building waiting for the first shuttle of the server. It's sad to see that it didn't make it into the new game because people found it "annoying". I always thought it was a great way of travel for newbies.

Death2All · 2011-07-11, 05:51 PM

Snip

morf · 2011-07-11, 06:27 PM

Guys I think we may be jumping the gun here. I understand the concerns but right now, we don't even know what a "continent" is. They have stated "yes we will have multiple continents at launch" - multiple could be 2 or 3. Also they have stated that a continent will support "thousands" of players. If you put thousands of players on a PS1 continent, it's a clusterfuck. Reading between the lines, I'm thinking a continent in PS2 will be HUGE. Perhaps the size of a continent in a game like WoW or even bigger. Having a sanctuary city on the outskirts of something of this scale would hardly make a dent in the map. Maybe instead of locking continents, you'll lock down sub-continents. Sticking with the wow theme, a subcontinent might be the size of say, the barrens. This would be further broken down into smaller control points (a tower here, a facility there, a mine here etc.)

This is complete speculation on my part, just based on the things that they have said regarding continents.