Long story short, it felt like a different and better game. One of the things I don't like is how the sattelites/outposts around main facilities connect to each other and allow you to bypass the facility. I feel like this undermines the rush lane's intentions, and I saw it happen often around Tawrich. Our outfit got a couple squads and we met a similar resistance at Scarred Mesa Skydock. We defended it, then after about 5 minutes or so we grabbed a couple sundies and marched to Regent Rock, and the enemy was there waiting for us. It was awesome! We lost that assault, and went back to Scarred Mesa, and after a few minutes those guys came back and assaulted us. It was some decent fights in that lane, which is a swell change compared to Live. It actually meant something when we took Broken Arch Road, and it actually sucked when we lost it. Contrary to live server, when we lost a territory, it had a feeling of actually being pushed back. I couldn't just go around the enemy, I had to dig in and defend and that felt awesome because the enemy couldn't just fly around us with gals or something, they had to come there and it was great. Main point, it created CONSISTENT fighting. Having consistent fighting made the game feel completely different, I was actually having fun the entire time I played. The NC and TR zerg seemed to be focused around Tawrich while my few squads fought another couple squads in the Scarred Mesa/Regent Rock lane. Had some awesome battles there. On all battlefronts the fighting was consistent and even more persistent. There did seem to be some issues with a lot of bases and their capture points not working, or misplaced. Also, when we died at regent rock, we couldn't respawn at scarred Mesa even though that was the connecting lane. I think there needs to be a system in place that allows you to spawn to the lane behind you no matter how far it is. There seemed to be an issue with lock on weapons sometimes not registering hits. I feel like large outposts need SCU's to make them better fights. Small outposts not so much, since there's only one capture point, but large outposts have three and I think it would make it much more engaging to have SCU's in them. I also think it would be really cool if SCU's brought down the spawn shields and pain fields in the spawn rooms. That way, once you destroy the SCU, you can prepare for the next assault rather than sitting there spawncamping. Other than that, I had a great time TL;DR: Fighting was consistent, and more structured. Need to fix cap areas. Need SCU's for large outposts. Sattelites connecting to facilities need to be disconnected from each other, so you can't bypass facilities.
Overall, not too bad... Although a lot of fights devolve into spawn camping with a zerg until the capture timer runs out. The little outposts attached to the bigger ones (like the satellites around the AMP stations) take ENTIRELY TOO LONG to capture. Just taking one of those is a horrible chore. Also, the generator timer bug is back and annoying.
Yeah that's why I think we need SCU's at large outposts. Small outposts only take 4 minutes to cap, no big deal really. And to your second point, I agree. I think it makes more sense to have the outposts around facilities not connect to each other, the facility should be the junction point. I noticed a lot of ring around the rosie at Tawrich today.
Good positive points, fighting was more constant, but it also became a numbers game, more so than before. I'd dread to see what happens if this would go live now. Simply because the population balance issues, and the fact that I don't think the lattice right now fits in to PS2. It fixes some of the downsides to hex, but at the same time introduces so many more that it can't be overlooked blindly. We have to think of all the repercussions that might happen. Also, fixed cap timers are good and bad. Maybe capping should be more interactive? Initially Terminal needs to be hacked by a certain amount of people (Pressing E), and every set time the capture terminal is in danger of reverting itself, to prevent that you have to hack it again (This can be done by one person, but it will take a longer time then) Defenders could get 33 % faster hacking on the terminals that are in the base they currently own, so they have a better chance of retaking. of course, all of this should come with an XP reward, to encourage atleast some people to stay near the cap point. Also, please don't give XP to people who enter in the hex at the last second, that just encourages travelling around collecting XP. Make it time based, those who haven't been that certain amount of time near it during the capturing period need to fill a certain quota of combat action, like 2-5 kills or certain amount of heal/repair/resupply/score ?
I agree with disconnecting the satellites around larger bases (like at Tarwich), I believe there was another post on the forum about that. It would improve flow, actually making people go through the main base in order to proceed, rather than just bypassing all the defense. On your other note about spawn camping, I agree something does need to be done. Either we do something like in ps1 with spawn tubes, that once destroyed, the spawn would be clear and attackers would be fine. Also, instead of having attackers have to wait in the SoI (sphere of influence) to get the capture xp, have a system that if you were part of the attacking group, you were they for the point flip, you could move on to attack another base, and when that base flipped, you would get the xp. That way, you wouldnt have a massive zerg just sitting in a base not doing anything, and actually have most move on.
I really enjoyed the fighting tonight, was a lot more focussed than the usual fare. I also agree with the points above: a) Spawn camping needs to go, shields should drop when the SCU is destroyed. b) You should not be able to bypass main bases via its satellites. c) The capture timers on the small outposts should be looked at. The biggest offenders are the old satellites to main bases.
/signed I agree with everything that has been said. Also the satellites around the main bases need to have their cap timers reduced slightly. Other than that Great improvement battles felt much more epic
If the satellites did not connect to each other they would effectively be like any other small outpost, so would the timer still need to be reduced? From the feedback it seems as though the main issue is the ring-around-the-rosie with those outposts, and the long-feeling cap time is a symptom.
Sorry about making the other thread, just noticed I could have just posted here So im reposting what i said Crown is now too easy to capture. Only one of the points should be down on a bridge. Scarred mesa is still too hard to capture, needs a sundy terminal at the base of the mesa along with one cap point. Atleast. Galaxy solar plant has fairly stupid lattice connections, but it's nothing major and probably serves the system better than connecting it to Hydrophonics. I spend most of the two hours back and forth around Broken Arch. That thing needs more bridges. Consider raising the spawn room against the mountain wall up high to make it harder to lockdown, but also making it harder to camp FROM and taking the defenders about as long to get to the capture point, but not having to run past an insanely huge number of enemies. Didn't get to experience a huge number of bases during this test, this is just my humble two cents.
I feel like disconnecting the outlying outposts from each other is the solution. The long cap timers on them is okay, as long as you only have to take one of them. However considering the main objective here is to take the facility, I think the outposts surrounding it should be on a 4 minute timer, rather than a 7 minute timer.
I really feel like there is no reason to venture outside of the lanes, that the neutral territory is being wasted. I would love to see those areas turned into resource zones (which would have no impact/influence on lattice connections) with small mining outposts that would have to be owned by a faction with connecting territory to receive resources rather than resources being based on the lattice connections you own. Perhaps the mining outposts could have pieces of equipment that could be destroyed, repaired, and hacked to disrupt supply lines rather than acting as just another outpost with a control point.
This is a big one for me. Planetside 2 was about "Fighting for every inch of land" along with big battles, and we just dropped one out of the equation. It's Portable Toilet Capturing Simulator now, rather than huge open war.
I also didn't get to experience a huge number of bases during the test, which personally I think is a good thing. There was a lot of "tug of war" style battles going on in the lanes, which was really fun imo. I fought in the Scarred Mesa/Regent Rock lane most of the test, and I believe there's supposed to be a sunderer/vehicle pad at the bottom, I think the pad and terminal are just missing. I make that assertion because there's a flat slab of metal down there next to the pad. There's also a rock formation that you can deploy a sunderer under to break LOS from the base on top. We actually had to push down and get to the sunderer when it was parked there. I think Scarred Mesa would be balanced a lot better if the jump pad took the enemy to the north face, rather than the northeast corner.
While I don't feel it being wasted so much, the gray areas really break the immersion that we're taking over the continent for me. I really have been missing the full hexes in that regard because it really makes it feel like (in the current WG rotation as VS) you own the upper half of the continent. If the "neutral" areas would turn a different shade of the color of the surrounding empire it would go a long way for me personally. Also, as some other people have pointed out, friendlies & enemies can "hide" in the neutral territory; I think every region, even the non-lanes should be associated to some base not only for coloring, but so you can accurately tell the army strengths. Besides the neutral territory I don't have strong feelings either way - didn't feel terribly different to me than live, but I realize that for the reduced connections to really be felt you need large population all around to see how the sideways attacking has changed. But considering the VS and TR zergs fought over Zurvan for at least an hour and a half just now, I'd say it's definitely having it's intended effect of funneling fights more.
I think the capture time should stay the way like it is right now for satellites, it allowed the NC(though outnumbered) to keep the VS at Hvar and Allatum at bay. The only bad thing that happened was the bugged spawn at Allatum Botany Wing, since if you were standing at the cap point and died there you could not spawn there and had to take the Allatum Teleporter to get back. And the lack of shields there made the base indefensible for the NC. Going around a major base should still be possible in my opinion, atleast for Biolabs. It allows to break the silly defense you can put up in those. Otherwise bases like the techplants either need to get more defensible to justify going around them or you lock the lattice that you can not go around them so easily. Meaning there should be a side line at those leading to other bases around it. In case of Hvar, the Hcar Northgate Garrison should have a link to NS Secure Data, which is connected to Hvar Southgate Garrison, which allows to bypass Hvar proper to go to Hvar Watchtower.
To address your neutral territory comment, I wonder if they could refine the lattice into making it a very clear line or path between the bases, and then put in the colors of territory similar to how the hex system does it, around the base just to signify that you own that area of land.
Something like this should at least be tested. I think the satellite cap times should be reduced and their connections broken, something like this that I posted before People didn't seem to be too interested in it but I do think it's worth testing to see how it works in practice. I was in the AT defense of Zurvan today and the skipping around done by the TR was a bit ridiculous, and on top of that it allows you to bypass the facility on the lattice path if you wanted to.
Azure Twilight had a bit of this with Black Widow Company around Zurvan. The fights were fun, especially since we could just run from one base to another but we also weren't really concerned with securing the area. Looking back it was a little silly how we were basically running around in circles. I'm not sure that cutting those points off from each other is the solution though. On the one hand I like the idea of being able to encircle and entrenched position and cut it off, but on the other I like the idea of being forced to fight through an enemy strong-point like a Biolab to progress further rather than seeing people skip large bases entirely in favor of capping past them and leaving them for someone else to deal with. I think adding in the requirement to have an uncontested connected base would help with this a bit (this was originally mentioned as being part of the Lattice system in the original post but hasn't appeared yet), as would not being able to capture from a cut off base or area so if you do end up running around in circles you're forced to watch your back rather than just pressing forward indefinitely. This sort of setup where cut off bases can't be used to directly secure another base might work well with cutting off the large base outposts from each other since that would increase the difficulty of cutting off a large base but make it worth the effort, say when the enemy has packed several platoons into a strong point like Zurvan or a Biolab because once you've capped two bases in any direction it doesn't matter that they hold that cut off base, they can't cap anything from it. The one potential problem with this is Rashnu Southern Pass which would be un-capturable without capturing Rashnu itself, given the complaints with the south-eastern Indar spawn though this might make for a nice bonus for that warp-gate. I also think re-securing a base with all cap points in the owner's hands should go a bit faster than actually capturing the base. This has been tossed around a lot and I think it would do a bit to make clean-up defense against single players or small squads harassing your flanks more rewarding and less frustrating since it would be easier to deal with them without pulling in a much larger force since they would need to hold the capture point for longer than you to make progress.
I think disconnecting them would be a good idea; Part of me thinks a shorter cap time is still in order since they are (in my head) just footholds to attack the real target. The Biolabs would be change dramatically with that though; in general that would reduce the available teleporters to just 1 for attackers. On the otherhand, it's also kinda cool for defenders in that there would be two points of defense; the spawn room, or the connected footholds - which could make for nice continued fighting even when the generator goes down. But I worry that a single teleporter won't be enough for attackers on a well-defended biolab
I agree with all of this post. The part about when you're cut off, you can't proceed further, that's a great idea. I also like the part about re-securing a base, defenders should be able to capture their own base faster if they have all the cap points, so that they can swiftly put pressure on the enemy at the next base.
