[Suggestion] FIX SCARRED MESA SKYDOCK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

See that title name? That's in all caps, because that is what I scream at my computer monitor every single time. SOE, please take a look at Indar on Mattherson and notice the VS lock. The ONLY reason that that lock still exists is because Scarred Mesa Skydock is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to capture once the entire defending population is there. It CANNOT BE TAKEN!!

The VS have the Continent Lock because of something that they did MONTHS ago. They have not cont-locked Indar since the first time because it simply cannot be done. And the reason that they have not lost it? Because, unlike what you guys at SOE would like to claim, 2000 people CANNOT be in the same Hex without the Server crashing for half the people. This is what happened at Ultimate Empire Showdown at the Bastion; the Vanu Sovereignty held the Bastion to begin with, and once 2000 people crashed onto, the connections went to COMPLETE ****. 40 second lag, FIELDS of unexploded grenades, no hit reg for entire minutes, it was absurd. The reason that they won that challenge is because it was PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to take with 2000 people in the Hex.

The same is true of Scarred Mesa Skydock. This base holds such a commanding position that it can only be attacked by Jump Pad and Gal Drop. Such assaults are unsustainable even in good conditions. When it is the last base needed to be taken before a Cont Lock is lost, EVERYONE on the defending side is going to go there, and EVERYONE on the attacking side is going to go there. Then, when 2000 people are there, it's over. You CANNOT attack this base because the lag is so bad, if you have lag at all; you could just get disconnected with no error message, as has happened to me multiple times.

Now, obviously, I am mixing the concepts of Fixing Skydock with Fixing the Network, but the overall problem is the combination. The Continent Lock system is BROKEN on Indar because of this problem. On Mattherson (I play on Mattherson, so I can't speak for any other server), the VS have held their lock for months because every time they lose every other territory, they crowd into Skydock and just camp there until the attackers on both teams just say "I hate this so damn much that I'm just gonna go play something else." The only reason that the Terran Republic Cont Lock on Indar, the first Lock, was broken in the first place was because of a HACKER!! A hacker that was CAUGHT ON VIDEO by dozens of people. The fact that the map was not reset and that lock was allowed to stand speaks to another problem with SOE that I'm going to leave unargued.

The question remains: Does the Continent Lock on Indar mean ANYTHING anymore?

The answer remains: NO! (echo: NO!, NO!, No!, No!, no!, no!, no, no)

The Continent was captured months ago. It has been held because of Scarred Mesa Skydock and its inability to be capped. The reason that Scarred Mesa cannot be taken is because the Server itself cannot handle the situation that it is put into, it cannot handle 2000 people fighting over it. In other words, the Lock is not held because of skill, but because of a flaw in the system that makes it impossible to break.

So, new question. What do you call a flaw in the system, a flaw that requires no skill to use, that a side can use to dominate the opposing force indefinitely with no possibility whatsoever of being countered?

Answer: an EXPLOIT!!

SOE, you ban-hammer people at the slightest indication of them hacking, even if it's an automated hacking detection program that sees a slightly-unlikely KDR. You fix exploits in the game that affect the game in an adverse, unfair manner, such as when you could poke your gun barrel throw a shield and shoot through because of where the bullet rendered. For God's sake, you determined that the Crown was too defensible, so you've spent months and months making it easier to attack. You endeavor to solve these problems, but you completely IGNORE the most BLATANT EXPLOIT IN THE GAME!!

The only meta-game in Planetside 2 right now is Continent Locking. The Scarred Mesa-Network Lag duality completely break the meta-game that only barely exists at all. There are 3 Continents to lock, and one of them is unLock-able, meaning that the meta-game in Plantside 2 is fully one third deficient. Honestly, it's more than one third deficient because at least 50 percent of the combat in PS2 takes place on Indar, since that's the only continent anyone gives a damn about.

The worst part, in my mind, is that this problem is easily solved. Pathetically easily solved. As in, could have been solved months ago. As in, in fact, WAS SOLVED because of a "bug" that SOE "fixed". Back in the early days of Continent Locking, if you as the attacker completely took away all territory immediately outside of an enemy Warpgate, as in, surrounded the Warpgate and cut off all other territories, the defenders lost the Lock. In this manner, an attacking Empire could force a Lock to go Neutral without completely removing the Lock itself. It was strategic genius to go for this objective. And it MAKES SENSE. If an Empire has no connections to its ownings on a continent, then they obviously don't have control of that continent as the Cont Lock would indicate. In that case, they lose it. It's only logical, especially considering that they aren't getting any resources from their territories.

SOE determined this to be a Bug, so they fixed it. Now, as it has been for a long time, you need to remove an Empire's ENTIRE holdings from a continent before the Lock is broken. And, as I've said, this cannot be done given the problem at Scarred Mesa Skydock. It's impossible to break a defense at Scarred Mesa, so it's impossible to break a Continent Lock, so it's an impossible objective to capture the continent of Indar. It isn't because of skill or tactical superiority that the Vanu have held the lock on Mattherson for so long; it's because of an Exploit, a blatant Exploit that there has been no effort to fix.

Now, SOE, I understand your position on this. You don't want to bring back the bugged system of breaking the lock by immediately removing territory adjacency because of how you want to force people off of continents once they are locked. Except, that ISN'T A PROBLEM. Removing the territory connection forces the continent to go NEUTRAL. It removes the existing Cont Lock, it does not impose a new one. The only change is that the defenders lost their Bragging Rights because they were unable to defend the connection to their territory. They just lose what they have, no one gains anything else.

That's it. That's ALL you have to do, and the problem is solved. Admittedly, what I said is that the Problem is Scarred Mesa and the Network. However, calling them the Problem is the misnomer. They are really the Reason for the Problem, the Problem being that it is impossible to break a Lock on Indar. It's impossible because of an Exploit, and that's the reason. The problem is that the Lock is unable to be broken. So fix the Problem. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do something about it.

My Suggestion: When an Empire has lost all connection to their territory, IE all of the territories around their Warpgate are owned by the enemy, a Timer is initiated globally that slowly counts down. When the Timer hits zero, the Continent goes Neutral. If the defending Empire manages to break through the blockade on their Warpgate, the Timer is abolished and disappears. However, if the defenders are unable to break the blockade and the Timer runs out, the continent goes neutral. To be fair, the Timer can be extremely long. It can be 30 minutes if you like, it would still solve the problem. On May 23, 2013, a combined assault by both NC and TR against the VS managed to remove all Vanu territory control on Indar except for Scarred Mesa Skydock. The Warpgate was locked by TR forces for more than 1 hour, uninterupted. At the end of the night, the Vanu Sovereignty still held their Continent Lock. 30 minutes is more than fair enough to render a continent Neutral.

What does this do? It creates a skill-requirement for holding your Cont Lock. It is not easily exploitable, as you have a set amount of time in which you can break through. If you do not have the ability to do this, you lose your control of the Continent. The continent then goes Neutral, and it is able to be captured by the other Empires. It brings back meta-game components by giving Empires a goal to achieve that is different from simply capturing the entire Continent; even if you can't win yourself, you can keep the enemy from winning, which is a different kind of victory, a kind that is not yet present in Planetside 2. Moreover, if a defender cannot break out in 30 minutes, it proves that they no longer have control of the Continent.

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There, that's it. That's my rage post. That's me venting all of my hate regarding Scarred Mesa Skydock. Bottom line, do SOMETHING!!! If you don't want to give thought to my suggestion, then just remove Scarred Mesa Skydock. Replace it with a base that isn't 4 times as defensible as the Crown ever was. Failing that, just render the Continents Neutral with each Game Update; it's a new game, they didn't Lock it on the new game, they shouldn't keep the bragging rights. You need to do SOMETHING about this problem, because it is really, really (expletive) your (expletive) game to the point where it is un(expletive) playable.

DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's OK. It's not the end of the world just because someone held a continent you wanted.

might I suggest priotizing it's capture before you have a giant "we're attempting a cap!" flag waved?

Mad because no infantry bonus for him.

The fact still boil down to the point way to defendable and needs to be rebuilt.

That's funny, it was fair and balanced when it was the last base before the TR lock was broken.

Good post...will fall on deaf ears.

Get rid of one of the few easily defended bases left in the game.

Wait so it's the Skydocks fault the VS have held the cont lock for so long ?

How's that work then ? Since before the latest WG rotation the VS were in the North , no where near Skydock.

Add teleporters like at Vanu Archives.

Problem solved, attackers have a place up top to organize their forces. If they can't attack from there, then I don't feel sorry for them, it's their own fault at that point.

Scarred mesa can be taken with an organized push on the jump pad, but even then, it can still easily fizzle out.

That's weird, Mattherson TR is on the other end of the problem with rendering issues and lag and all of a sudden it's a problem. You mean lumping up 2 platoons worth of foot troops into a giant ball so that none of them render didn't work in assaulting this base? Did you try pulling 150 rocket podding mosquitos to come in at the same time? Surely something could've worked.

Yeah, the "final base" problem is a real pain and now that you can't just take skydock immediately the VS are never going to lose the cont lock.

But you know what? Who cares, the cont lock doesn't mean anything.

No it wasn't Many of us said we only held it off cause it was exploitable, it still need a change.

Except the few occasions when VS pushed from the North warpgate directly South to the skydock and troll camped it for hours a few times, completely losing and neglecting all territory around their own warpgate. This has happened more than a couple times.

just delete the damn place it have no right to be on the new lattice, PTS already begged for that and nothing change. and now remember the reason why the place is broken. it need to go

You have to compare it to the other changes. SOE "nerfed" the crown becasue it was too easy to defend. If they nerf the crown they need to nerf Skydock as well or just DELETE it.

You know, for a faction that constantly says that taking territory doesn't mean anything and big fights are the only thing that matters......when they finally get a big fight and constantly get their ***** handed to them because they can't steamroll a "meaningless" territory, they throw a hissy fit like the 12 year olds they are.

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe... Galaxy ships on fire off the shoulder of Skydock. I watched lancer beams glitter in the dark near the Rock Ridge Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like tears... in... steel rain. Time... to deconstruct...

Sooooo ..... How about taking that base before the whole enemy faction is stuck there ?

Its only a problem when playing Indarside, bring on cont locking and continental lattice so we can play Planetside.

Agreed the NC should... but cause of the LATTICE system we TR have to run into the NC in order to get a path to it, so basically it like hitting a brain dead bee hive, To dumb to keep the point kept, to dumb to realize we need to make sure you can't get it.