Continent Lock - The Holy Grail?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Dalek, Mar 5, 2014.

  1. Regpuppy

    Just from reading what the OP says and those whom agree with him, it feels like there's a lack of understanding as to what continent locking really means.

    Continent locking isn't a simple "win continent, it's locked for x time" system. It instead puts the continents on a continental lattice that you advance down like we currently do bases. The picture should speak volumes.

    [IMG]
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  2. Crashsplash

    Not sure exactly what you mean here but .....

    PS1 had more continents within the inter-continental lattice (10) and instead of the mooted single home continent as in the roadmap PS1 had two home continents (therefore if you were being stymied on one home continent you could switch to anther to make progress)

    PS1 also had working warpgates and sanctuaries and, importantly it also had a working empire command system and CR5's.

    PS1 had fewer bases per continent and also a smaller population cap (166 per empire per continent when I started). PS1 also had longer cap timers (15 minutes) and bases were a lot more defendable.

    Most battles on an individual continent in PS1 was 1 empire against another rather than the 3-ways we have in PS2. (PS1 saying: No one wins a 3-way). Often, in order to achieve some strategic goals commanders would often induce a 3-way in order to tie up enemy forces while progress is made elsewhere on a different continent.

    Overall there were differences between PS1 and PS2, but the essential point is that the inter-continental meta game in PS1 really did work to incentivise the gameplay in a way that hasn't happened yet in PS2.

    Now we know that the big issue with inter-continental lattice in PS2 is the lack of continents. The roadmap says that it will be introduced once there are 4 full sized continents plus three Battle Island mini continents. The question that is outstanding to me are, will those other differences I've mentioned above between PS1 and PS2 impact negatively on the world-wide battle flow and are 4 continents and 3 BI's, implying 1 home continent, really enough?
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  3. DQCraze

    Overpopped Faction X gets Indar, im probably not going to see Indar for 3 Weeks and if my faction is low pop it could be 6 weeks.
  4. Regpuppy


    Overall, a successful or overpopped faction will naturally have to spread itself thinner, underpop factions will be able to compact themselves to one continent or a battle island, and the third faction will have little to no option but to attack the overpop faction on one or more fronts. In the current system this tends to happen anyway, to some degree (high pop hitting more continents, low pop compacting to one) but there'd be less chance of the third faction just beating up on the low pop faction.

    So personally, I think it could work out better.
  5. Vikingo


    Excellent, so by the time this comes my main will be br100, my alts will be what ever lvl I reach before burning out and I will happily be playing Star citizen. Because the continent locking doesnt look fun at all, I like the fact that I can fight on whatever continent I feel like.

    Instead of "Indarside" we would have "whatever continent in the middleside" only that then it would even be enforced by game mechanics.
  6. Hobo Jack

    I hardly see continent locking as a bad thing people have been asking since the game launched for their efforts to effectively ...matter.

    If a player sees that the continent they want to play on is locked then all it takes is gathering his allies and pushing hossin to the warp facility wich is dead center of the map. it is not the GAME that is locking people out it is the players and the community. if they want to quit the game because other players are effecting their game experience then they should not be playing a MMO in the first place.

    Also this will make pushing a faction to their warpgate a true victory instead of just a stalemate/ i'm sure many people will see the good sides of continent locking like keeping their resource benefit for longer than a few short hours, or potentially funnelying a contintnet into a 1v1 two way fight instead of a three way cluster where many people complain that the other two factions gang up on theirs.

    Continent locking is not so bad and if you want access to your continent then all you have to do is get your faction to push to a base which should not be that big a deal because it is a new hotspot on the world so there should allways be heated fighting there at all times reguardless. so if they log on then their empire just got stronger just by their presence which is what you want in a pvp mmo.
  7. Kanil

    Cont locking will probably drive away some Indarside folks at first, but the second wave of players that arrives when PS2 leaves "beta" will probably not mind it, having never grown up with Indarside to begin with.
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  8. Pikachu

    My understanding is that continent lock is about capturing warpgates and thereby limiting the mobility of players. Capturing the 3 analogous bases (Luperza mentioned this as an idea) to a warpgate means you capture it (warpgating). This means you now own that warpgate in addition to whatever other warpgate you have on that place.

    I suppose you have to capture both warpgates for those that are connected in order to use them back and forth. Other wise you will have one that you can't use to get anywhere and the enemy has the one on the other side of the link which he can't use to get anywhere. Like if you want to go from Indar to Hossin you need south west Indar captured and north west Hossin warpgate captured. If a faction does not own both then both those warpgates are useless.
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  9. Crashsplash

    One other thing you guys may not have realised (if you have I apologise). Some, at the very least of the population imbalance issues would be alleviated by the continental lattice. If there is a lattice the three empires become self-balancing, so a certain extend and especially so if there is good empire leadership.

    Planetside strategy is about beating up on the other empire, so you work to avoid situations where it's the other two empires against yours. Also 2 ways on a continent give more scope for in-continent strategy.

    The meta game we have at present (the events) make empire imbalances worse.
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  10. NoctD

    I believe continent locking will ultimately lead to a more boring game, there will be less points of contact, leading to just a few large frag fests and progress anywhere will slow to a standstill.

    Its like the lattice, these things turn the game into an endless grind where neither side makes any real progress.
  11. Ice

    That doesn't make any sense if you haven't been on Hossin yet. How are you supposed to capture a territory on a continent you can't get on?

    Warpgates should be neutral world structures that connect lattice lines between continents. Re-purpose the existing warpgate "sanctuaries" into a last-stand base that sends a link across to the next one. Any empire should be able to use the warpgates to travel between continents even if their empire is not involved in the lattice link.
  12. Tycoh

    At least there will be a sense of victory when taking continents over....then there will be a true sense of failure when your faction gets holed up on a single continent. Mattherson TR better brace themselves.
  13. ncDieseL


    There will most likely always be 3 continents you could fight on:-
    • Your home continent, i.e. the continent with your home warp gate
    • Hossin - you only need to capture another WG on your home continent
    • Another continent you have a link to via either capturing a linked WG on Hossin or via a Battle Island.
    The warp gates would still rotate every 3 weeks, so every faction would get a chance to start from each of the current 3 continents.
    If your faction was doing really badly, there's a chance you may never get off your home continent and never to to play on Hossin, but in my opinion, that's fairly unlikely.

    At the moment we have 3 continents, and on most servers 1 of those continents usually has a pretty low pop. If we added a 4th continent, players would be spread even more thinly. This system essentially focuses the fighting on 2-3 continents at a time.
  14. Pikachu

    Ah that makes sense. Then I don't know how it works. Again Luperza spoke about capturing warpgates. Doing it by taking the 3 bases connected to them.
  15. John_Aitc

    Similar to Codex, I only want to play on Esamir and an less enthused about my play time if I am forced to go to another continent for some reason.

    I hope that Continental Lattice will somehow make the game better. I cannot picture how it will, though. I still think the most important change that will be made to the game will be the Resource Revamp. After that is put in place, we will all be playing a different game entirely, not just the same game with different colored terrain.
  16. Ancalagon

    Here's a simple fact which is quite obvious, but everyone seems to miss.

    Most people play on Indar because the populations are (for the most part) even between all 3 empires on Indar.

    On Esamir and/or Amerish there is very often one empire with a large population and people most just go there to get a change of scenery from Indar.
  17. Pikachu

    With continent locking will it still be possible to deploy at other continents? Or is it necessary to remove that feature?
  18. ABATTLEDONKEY



    it would have to be removed, as you no longer have a warpgate on that continent.

    We can only speculate, at this time, how it would work, but the popular theory is that once you are kicked off the continent, you must fight through the lattice (battle islands) that connect the continents, in order to regain a foothold on the continent you lost. if you loose the battle island, you would have to push the intruding empire back OFF your continent, and then push them through the battle islands until you regain a warpgate on the continent you originally lost.
  19. Pikachu

    That means no more skybug. The end of one of the best 'features' added to the game. :(

    Edit:
    Not even to Hossin if you own the warpgates on both sides of the link? If that was possible then sky bug could still be possible but more cumbersome.
  20. ABATTLEDONKEY



    Im not sure what the sky bug is lol.

    Again, this is purely speculation, as SOE has not announced how it will work, but my guess is that you will be able to warp to any continent warpgate that you own. If your faction is kicked off of a continent, then you will no longer own that continents warpgate which means you cannot warp to it.