Why Are Logistics Being Eradicated Instead Of Embraced?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by MrJengles, May 28, 2014.

  1. Corporate Thug


    "a lot" is a subjective term, he can't cite what is in his head.
  2. Axehilt


    There's no way to get a significant portion of those players back. Given that the game sustained for a very long time with a moderate amount of logistics gameplay, the OP's complaint is completely on-target: taking steps to make this game Just Another Shooter is a bad idea.
    • Up x 4
  3. Kriegson

    We should be embracing logistics. This is about a WAR, operating on a scale that dwarfs other games. We have entire continents to fight over, we should exploit that rather than trying to herd everyone into arenas. If people want to do nothing but jump immediately into fight after fight, you have instant action.

    Eventually for those who enjoy a simpler unfettered experience, we will have battle islands. We already have features ingame AND planned that allow you to get into action almost immediately, we don't need to continue expanding it.
    • Up x 2
  4. doombro

    A significant portion of those players have stated that they'll be back with either hossin, continent locking, or the resource revamp. All things that are scheduled to happen.
  5. Bardock-Sama

    I wholeheartedly concur with the op. We need strategy on a global/continental scale, not an arena shooter.
  6. MrJengles

    Exactly.

    SOE obviously aren't trying to compete with most shooters directly or they would've made a similar game from the outset.

    It's all well and good trying to make things easier for new players and casuals, but not at the cost of the very type of game you were trying to create or you'll lose the crowd it originally appealed to.
    • Up x 1
  7. MrJengles

    What happened to the physics tuning they planned? I don't remember whether they finished or pushed it back.

    Liberators vs small forces is a whole other debate all over the forums right now. ESFs are easier to scare away. And C4 won't be much of a concern on the way to a fight, only once you're at a fight same as it is now.

    I agree flashes are pathetic, any time I pull one it's practically guaranteeing my own demise. I prefer Harassers even if it's just to get myself somewhere.
  8. MrJengles

    People would continue to spawn hop - closest base first, then the next one along etc.

    This is why if any adjacency system is involved you may as well be able to spawn everywhere. Basing timers on distance makes the most sense. Although facilities could be prioritized in some way as others have mentioned.
  9. MrJengles

    I feel this would go too far and make things much more difficult for new and casual players than they need to be. We can still see plenty of benefits without entirely removing those options.
  10. MrJengles

    I like it. The ammo Sundy would reduce armor's reliance on an ammo tower but wouldn't remove it entirely.

    Also tanks might be a bit more conservative in their shots.
  11. MrJengles

    What SOE are doing is seriously damaging gameplay by ignoring, or worsening, different problems instead. Battles in-between bases are less important, vehicular gameplay has nothing to do other than farm, few objectives force everyone to pack into small bases, and the "redeploy surge" meta removes strategy, breaks down front lines and encourages overwhelming odds.

    In a game of this scale, logistics are essential to spread out the fighting, create strategic space and time, and to fully use the terrain and vehicles. Without it, the game doesn't make sense or function well at a fundamental level.

    This is the cost when everyone can teleport everywhere.


    Of course, that doesn't mean we should ignore the newer or casual players. As I proposed at the end of the OP, redeploy, instant action and similar functions can be designed in a way that individuals can use but whole squads and platoons would be better off finding transport.

    Players will also help out with logistics, just as they started to when PS2 launched, if it is worthwhile for them to do so. People are willing to now but the reason we don't see it is because it's unnecessary. It would also be a lot clearer and streamlined if it were built into the mission system.
    • Up x 4
  12. MrJengles

    For some outfits finding a somewhat even fight is incredibly important. Same with managing comm space. I can't stand platoons where everyone is talking, I need to concentrate on what I can hear around me. My outfit limits platoon VOIP to leaders only, and battle comms are kept brief and clear. Downtime comms can have some chat.

    It's all about finding the right outfit though.


    Most of your issues appear to revolve around being outnumbered, also exacerbated by the use of force multipliers such as Gals and MAXes.

    I'd like to point out that these are the very issues people feel logistics would help to solve by limiting zergs and creating vulnerabilities that smaller forces can take advantage of. Instead of being forced to fight a zerg head on, as there's no alternative currently, smaller groups would have the option to separate and deal with transport, resource carrying ANTs (or PS2 equivalent), protecting those units and ambushing the enemies. All of which provides mobile objectives for vehicles to be involved with.

    As long as the game tells us all we need to care about are a handful of objective points we'll continue to have the entirety of 2 armies converging on a tiny base with very little room to out think or out play your opponent on the strategic level.
    • Up x 1
  13. MrJengles

    I don't believe that.

    Redeploys can be limited to only be effective for small groups and instant action would allow people to get straight into a fight when they log on.

    My example system tried to show that you could close those loopholes. I guess I missed Squad Leader spawn but, since it redeploys you to the nearest base, it would be treated the same as redeploying to that base and incur the same timer. Same with Sunderers and Beacons unless you're close enough.


    People are too used to the current redeploy meta. You shouldn't have to redeploy to defend all the time. Every time you redeploy you leave less people on the old front and you're likely to have to come back anyway.

    With logistics, people would stick to their front for the most part and factions would even out their forces. None of this "redeploy overwhelming forces, win, redeploy back where you were before you lose it" mess we have now. That only works because you're taking the forces from multiple fronts and focusing them on one base at a time. If you couldn't do it, it would break up the zergs.

    Yes, sometimes a faction would shift their forces to put more pressure somewhere, or attack an undefended base. However, the whole point of them doing so is to try to catch the enemy off guard. Right now, that strategy is completely worthless since the enemy will redeploy in seconds.

    Timers are long enough to transport forces over if you're paying attention. Maps aren't that big, it takes less than a minute to get to most fronts in a Galaxy.

    And so what if they DO take the base? That force is just as constrained as you so they're unlikely to try to shift front again. They'll head to the next base on the lattice and you'll be waiting for them.
    • Up x 3
  14. LibertyRevolution


    Yes, I know I lump all outfit together.. I know there are some exceptions to this but they run closed squads.
    When you join them from the open platoon list, they are all fallow the platoon waypoint, lattice fallowing zergfits, they are all terrible.
    This is my experience with 90% of outfits on the 3 us servers.

    Logistics creates the zerg...
    Everyone grabbing a tank after a base cap and rolling down the road to the next base makes the zerg..

    We can talk about ANTS and giving vehicle users a purpose if they ever get around to implementing such a system.
    That has nothing to do with the current issues.

    Current issues are everyone grabs a tank and rolls 30 deep to the next base.. this is a reason I refuse to play in indar.
    What is the point in either spawn camping a base with 30 tanks, or being spawn camped by 30 tanks.

    What is the point in having 4 gals dropping 40 people onto a base that is defended by 1-12.. in what way is that fun?
    This is how a majority of the battles go right now, overpop the base and you win.
    It doesn't matter how skilled 6 guys are, they are not going to stop 40+ people from taking it..
  15. Pathogenic

    I can just go hop in a number of other games if all I wanted was to worry about a single fight and pewpewpew, and they do it better.


    The game just seriously needs these things:
    Resource Revamp
    Macro Lattice, or another variation of a more dynamic capture limiter.
    Continent Locking with Hossin and the Islands
    All Spawning only from gates, except Sunderers and hot drops for infantry (changed to at least be able to pick from deployment zones).
    Defensive transportation options for vehicles and infantry (For example, a train or Futurama tube thing.)
    Squad and outfit recruitment tools

    SPAWNING CHANGES

    When every kill matters more, every fight matters more. People stop endlessly running into the meat grinder because there's no downside (they may still run into the grinder, but they'll pay with downtime if they don't have a medic handy). A controlled instant action would be enough to let lone wolves get into attacks without vehicles. Shared cooldown with squad beacon deploy will keep it from being a major impact in organized play. Some classes and EXP rewards will need to be reworked.

    Galaxy spawning for infantry would be removed. Sunderer infantry spawning would have less efficient production tools resulting in increased resource costs for spawning things from it.

    For air, this barely matters. For vehicles, the below limits walking.

    DEFENSIVE TRANSPORT

    The train/tube thing would take time based on the distance from the warp gate to travel to any non-contested base in an unbroken line from the gate. This means its harder to defend bases farther away, which will make capturing a warp gate feel even better once locking is in game, and reinforcements can be cut off by attacking forces (touched on more in macro lattice). It evens up the deployment problems of vehicles without something as banal as just letting vehicles be pulled from anywhere. Finally, it'll stop spawn room wars when both sides have to get to the fight.

    I get that lack of object permanence in the PS2 universe means the trend towards lack of logistics *can* be explained, but it's not a reason to do so nor the only way. Just say that warp gates contain the construction facilities that can do the more complex nanite operations. Things like the Med and Engi tools are simpler uses that build upon operations already performed, which is why they have limitations.

    RESOURCE REVAMP

    This one is pretty obvious, and I'm pretty on board with the stated plan of SOE here.

    MACRO LATTICE

    We've had lots of posts on the benefits of removing the lattice as we know it, especially when the resource revamp comes in and makes attacks and larger forces have more resource concerns. This means deep attacks will be softly discouraged already, so it's kind of pointless to have the lattice system to stop that as well. "Macro Lattice" then would be the buzzword for any more free capturing system.

    My personal take is that the system should be made entirely "soft", so you can attack any location. Bases behind the resource lattice would have a number of penalties to taking them, such as requiring a resource costing device or having a 1m-2m period a la destroying a gen to actually make the point vulnerable (making cutoffs harder to do quickly that way). This with longer capture times and the resource problems imposed by the Sunderer and revamp all scaling up the further behind lines you are means any deep attacking force is going to be dealing with enough risk to make the reward of skipping past bases worth it.

    TL;DR: Yeah, I'd like some frickin more logistics, strategy, and *options* in this game and less mindless meat grinder. I really like the ideal that is PS2, but the game I play is not what that is. It's just combined arms KOTH on a predictable map sequence, which is fun at times but not engaging long-term..
    • Up x 1
  16. MrJengles

    The reason they can grab so many vehicles and keep pulling so many vehicles faster than you can kill them is because of individual resource pools. This is precisely what the Resource Revamp addresses so that large populations will be much more constrained in resource use than smaller ones. Either they bring a large force without so many tanks or grenades, and have a hard time replacing them, or they split up and can use more. That way, the force multipliers even out the fight instead of making it worse.

    Really, the resource revamp IS part of logistics but the developer's efforts seem to have firmly sectioned off resource flow from vehicle acquisition and transport - they move resources in one direction and the rest of logistics in the other. It leaves PS2's gameplay in a bit of an identity crisis.

    If they were to expand that approach to vehicle acquisition and troop transport as well, again, the results would be to restrict zergs and create additional vulnerabilities and tactics that smaller forces can take advantage of.


    For vehicles, the goal of escorting an ANT to make sure it can bring supplies to your army is almost exactly the same as escorting troop carriers to the front line. Or indeed, ambushing the enemy ANTs or vehicles / troops. It all gives vehicles new purpose and spreads out a faction's forces.
    • Up x 2
  17. starstriker1

    Just want to comment on this sentiment in particular: that IS logistics, it's just crappy, boring, shallow logistics. Logistics is the job of getting people and materiel from point A to point B. There are a lot of possible variations on that theme and a very interesting possibility space that ties in very nicely with the strategic layer of the game, but the current setup makes many of the the interesting solutions to the "get X from A to B" problem obsolete in favour of effortless, instant teleportation of troops, universal availability of materiel, etc.
  18. LT_Latency

    Cause the game is dieing.

    People want fun high paced action not hours of driving around until to get blow to 10000 pieces by a liberator on your way there
  19. Kid Gloves

    What I think we need from a logistics perspective:

    1) login spawning only at WG; when you join the game, you start at WG.

    2) something like the HART: a system that lets you transport your butt from the WG to any territory your faction controls via drop-pod, but on a global timer. Not a personal one. You show up at WG just after the HART timer expired? Tough, wait 5mins for the next one.

    3) in-game spawning limited to the base you are in and it's attached satellites, or WG, or a pre-saved specific location. For this to work, a base-and-satellite cluster cannot 'merge' into the next one. So you can spawn merrily between a base and its satellites all you like, but if you want to spawn at the next base over you have to get your butt from where you are to there by some means that isn't teleportation

    4) some removal of in-between bases

    5) vehicle terminals at small outposts only spawn flashes

    6) aircraft only spawnable from WG or major bases, but all existing re-arm pads remain

    7) if the squad-leader throws down a spawn beacon, every squad-member's beacon goes on / resets its cooldown simultaneously


    And now for the reasoning behind each item.

    1) because we need a hub. With the recent change, it makes finding gunners for pub-vehicles or assembling a pub-crew in a galaxy go from 'hard' to 'impossible.' If new players start in a WG full of activity, it sends a far better message. Logging into a hub that is a ghost-town sends the wrong message.

    2) because it needs to be a system that can penalise the player but put the responsibility for the delay on the player. If the timer is personal, people get annoyed at the 5-min timer. If the timer is global, people get annoyed with themselves that they missed the bus. Or sometimes they spawn back and the bus is leaving in 30 seconds so they run and they catch it. It also creates groups of people waiting for the bus, which then plays into the advantages of #1 (above)

    3) because otherwise people can suicide-hop, which is a slightly slower version of teleportation but remains just as safe. People won't use unsafe transport logistics unless they have no other option.

    4) because we need to be able to clearly distinguish between each base-cluster. Magic-invisible-line is kinda crap, so if the invisible line is a long way from anywhere players care about, it is far less likely to become either an issue or exploited.

    5) because everyone hopping in their favourite vehicle from anywhere is the opposite of what logistics is trying to achieve. flashes so if you do get caught out somewhere random, you do have an option to grab a flash.

    6) because aircraft are very fast moving and can get to darn near anywhere from anywhere. this further encourages WG populations, and it also encourages expected lanes of approach for air - allowing other air or AA nests to make predictions based on expected enemy air behaviour

    7) to stop spawn-beacon-hopping by changing squad leader; the idea being that beacons are to help squad cohesion and to put a 'we are fighting here' mark in the sand. Placing a beacon should be like a throw-down; it's a squad staking turf. If you can just go stake turf over there moments later, it trivialises the throw-down. It also encourages people into squads (even pubs), which again helps the game.
    • Up x 3
  20. Raka Maru

    Well, I'm not BR 100, so any farming helps, but I do find interesting fights about 3x a week and stay there to defend or attack. It's easy to farm as engie with ammo packs, infiltraitor with motion detectors, etc...

    The Planetside I remembered (PS1 again), we would take the base (or be pushed back), then jump into sundie or gal, or hoof it to the next one. The TTK was not as extreme as this one and you would survive encounters and be able to play as if you were a real soldier trying not to die (yes, I was in military). If I survived a base takeover, I would try to escape that base and get to safety without re-deploying.

    Good fights are worth staying at even in PS2, and that means you don't follow the zerg with cap after cap plus the 1k "ding" of xp at most each base. So basically, you have to choose what you are wanting for that play session XP or a good fight, usually not both unless it's an exceptional fight.

    I really don't have a complete solution, but it seems to me something is not right, I'm finding myself more bored and watching TV rather than playing more often, ... or playing as I described, redeploy, farm, redeploy, farm, repeat...