[Suggestion] Making base capture times more sensible, pleasant, and strategic

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Phazaar, Apr 19, 2013.

  1. Phazaar

    Okay, so whether you like or lump the new generic capture times, I have what I believe is a better idea, that would foster more inter-squad co-ordination, help out the big guys, help out the little guys, and bore everyone to death a little bit less...

    Starting from a Tech Plant. The base capture time with 0 people in the base but a flipped flag is 20 minutes (for arguments sake). At the capture point, we have two different radii.

    One radius (the current one) for attackers. This bonus is capped at 48 people, though it becomes less useful all the time (so 5->6 people is 5% speed, 47->48 people is 0.1% or something.); 48 people unopposed would have the timer reduced by 75%, let's say. This would mean less standing on the point when there's no opponents, and more getting on to the next bit. Why? Well, read on:

    The second radius would be MUCH larger (I'm thinking the size of the Tech Plant + 50m) for a 'cancellation' effect.

    Every 1 person on the opposing team in that radius drops the bonus by 1. 48 is never exceeded though, so if there's 48 defenders in the area and 58 attackers on the point, they still have a 0% bonus, rather than 10/48.

    This is to ensure that small groups can slow the attack whilst their friends form a counter attack. It would minimise standing around waiting-time, and add a strategic element to defensive play. You would need to co-ordinate squads to stay in the area whilst others are forming up to counter-attack, then the first squads could fall back to get their cohesion/vehicles/aircraft etc into play.

    Essentially the TL;DR conclusion of this idea is that:

    Any ghost cap will be just as slow as a full sized battle, giving plenty of time for it to be addressed.

    A platoon-sized unopposed force will not have to stand around twiddling their thumbs.

    Any sized battle with even forces would take the same amount of time.

    A small battle with one side outnumbering the other will give a small boost to speed, enough to incentive the defenders to bolster their number and push hard for the point instead of shooting from the spawn room.

    A medium sized battle with one force outnumbering the other (and the other having no success in the defense) would be over faster, whilst still giving the opponents time to counter-attack, and the aforementioned sense of urgency.

    A large battle where there is more than one platoon on each side will take the same amount of time as one with even forces, REGARDLESS of whether one side is outnumbered or not, so large battles will be fun and long so long as there is resistance. As that resistance gives up and leaves, the attackers will not be left twiddling their thumbs, and the conflict can move on to the next attack/counter-attack.




    What do you think?
  2. Jaes

    Interesting idea, but I think the number scale is a bit too large, especially during the off peak hours. With the way you have your idea set up now, attackers would have to completely annihilate defenders in some cases in order to capture facilities. Yeah, no one likes spawn camping, but a lot of people miss interpret the strategic value of having a safe haven to sit in if your original force was overwhelmed. It gives the defenders a nice advantage if a secondary force comes in to break the attackers lines to distract them and give the players trapped in the spawn room a chance to break out and repair generators.

    Back to what I was originally getting at, what is there to stop a smaller defending force form running back into the spawn room when the attackers try to clear them out and simply run back into the defense radius to hold the cap off until reinforcements arrive and repeat the processes. How large is the defense radius and where? The attackers, depending on how many, would obviously have to send most of their numbers out into this defensive area to clear them out so they can resume capturing the facility and move on to the next objective. Penalizing players for doing what they're pretty much doing now isn't totally fair. I also get you're trying to solve faction population imbalance, but there are just too many factors that can make attacking very frustrating.
  3. UrMom306

    dude the TL:dR is almost the same length as the long post lol
  4. Phazaar

    Sorry, I think maybe I wasn't clear enough. The point for capturing stays exactly the same; the numbers of people and the extra large radius is just about speeding up or slowing down the cap. So even if they put 48 people in the spawn room (IF that was included in the radius) and none of you were even in the area anymore, unless one of those 48 went to the point and flipped it, it would still cap in the normal X minutes.

    The only way to STOP a cap is to get to the point and flip it, just like now.

    Hahaha indeed my friend; I couldn't really TL;DR it, and was actually trying to write some conclusions the change would make in game, which ended up being just as long as the post. Anyway, if you can condense it enough to make a TL;DR worthy of reading, be my guest :)
  5. CombatScholar

    I rather like the idea, it incentivizes attackers guarding the capture area rather than cap, leave and spawn camp while giving defenders a means to hinder attackers without having to throw themselves headlong into the attacker's fire while awaiting reinforcements. The diminishing returns for additional people is a nice touch, it gives a reason for even platoons to guard an area without devaluing smaller scale encounters where there's only a squad on each side.

    I think you could expand the attack area a bit though, especially in the large facilities. Keep the totem pole and its small capture radius to flip it but that's a bit cramped to be squeezing in 48 guys so once a point has been captured, it could have a larger influence radius from which additional attackers would affect the facility's capture speed. I'm thinking something that makes tactical sense, something room based that makes a full capture posse less of a giant "place explosion here" target. The interior of a tech plant's main building (everything below needing the big lift), the interiors of the little sub buildings the points are in in biolabs (or the courtyard some of the points wind up in as the case may be) and for amp stations, the interior of the main building, excluding the area normally protected by the SCU shield and the areas up the lifts. The totem poles centralize the action when the place is in danger of changing hands and provides a clear objective but the larger influence radius gives attackers more flexibility in how they hold it while spreading them a little thinner for the defenders.

    I really like the larger defence radius too but my initial concern was that it could too easily devolve into a bug hunt with a light assault or two hiding in some obscure crack in the wall mucking up the works but not actually contributing otherwise. Then I remembered scout radar vehicle upgrades and infiltrator recon darts and I got a little excited, these tools would prove much more useful with this system and it would encourage a bit more diversity in vehicle equipment and infantry class. Toss in some more tunnels, teleporters or jump pads so defenders can come from different areas of the base and attackers will have cause to sweep the area and run patrols instead of just camp the spawn room and defenders have a chance to actually make it outside so they can be productive without having to come from another base.

    I'm long winded and I know it, thanks to those who read my ramblings and well done on a good idea, Phazaar! I hope the devs take some of this into consideration, I think it could really help the dynamics of these base fights and not much really changes from a coding perspective, it's mostly just changing the size and shape of existing zones and tweaking the numbers of players they respond to. The additional paths for defenders to use would represent the most work but I'm sure the map design and art teams would be up to the task.