Over-pop and planetary bonuses

Do people even care about the xp bonus? Not a single time in 4,5 years I've left a fight because the xp bonus wasn't high enough.
I feel many players simply play for fun and kdr padding, they do not care about xp bonus / malus.

But if I should make a change I would definitely make bonus per territory, not per continent. And it should also affect nanites.

I want more logistics and less spam. I think Planetside 2 can have logistics in the form of PMBs and supply routs and let the CoD kids get non-stop action on the front lines. I see it working in Arma and I know it could work here. You get guys that get transported constantly to the front lines to constantly kill and die, then you get the guys who get a kick out of enabling them. I'd like to see PMBs and cortium be more like that, more like Planetside 1 from what I hear.

I get the snowball effect, I think everyone here sees that. That trolling kid is a perfect example of someone who plays the game for different reasons. Some guys find fun with cheesy tactics and winning at any cost, some people like beating overwhelming odds, some like the certs, and I like a good fight. Locking continents is great, it's an end goal. Getting a strategic bonus is great, it's a tangible reward for the next tight. Balance that with an XP bonus to the factions who don't own a continent. That's a way to try to balance things without punishing the winners. I obviously won't attract everyone, but it might attract enough. I get that Daybreak has to make money, and subscriptions and squad bonuses are income, so the idea is to have bonuses at a level where players balance things out so we never get to the point of a drastic over-pop to begin with. I see it as an easy change, which I think is all this game is going to get.

Planetside is a wargame.

There are 32 v 32 games out there. They are arena games with great graphics. You can memorize the maps and rek people 1 v1 all day long. Perhaps the same thing over and overt would suit you better than a wargame where you are presented with many different situations.

I've been playing online PvP since 1993. One thing I've come to learn: Balance is boring.

Great reply. Thank you for finally joining the conversation. I absolutely want Planetside to be unique. But you have to admit, even with equal pop, and even if skill were magically matched, with the infinite amount of units and loadouts battles would never be balanced. I think this game really comes in to its element when each faction poses an equal threat. I want more of those battles where you don't know who will win until the end. I love football games that go in to overtime and I love MMA fights where both men leave bloody and beat. This game rarely has that. It's not that I don't want a challenge, it's that I don't want to coast along as my faction cruises to victory, and I don't want to fight uphill knowing that victory isn't even close to an option. I don't want this to be a lobby game, I just want better competition, and balancing pop is an achievable goal that will help bring competition.

Our platoons leaders generally try to avoid zerging, if you think you were zerged by Trident it was probably some random TRID members not in any platoon.

Capping a base with your platoon or squad while (severely) underpopped is really satisfying, if not the best part of this game. Balancing the population in bases will remove ability to cap bases with underpop.

I was only proposing a continent balance. But I do think there should be something to keep zerging from being the go to option. It just sucks for everyone.

One problem with more balanced pop is that we're always fighting in the same bases even more. Since the faction balance queue was introduced this problem may have been worsened.

I like great contests too. In sports, it's impossible to have great games if teams aren't balanced in numbers. But where does the balance breakdown to create a winner? More yards rushing, more significant blows? At some point, the numbers go to favor the winner. Imbalance.

You're right about balance never being 100%. But what about variety?

I am as bored/frustrated as others when numbers go awry. For me, it is not a game breaker. Up in numbers? Do something 'you wouldn't normally do. Down in numbers? Get with a good platoon and gain local victories. Build a base across the enemy's advance. Drive a Harasser; get 3 and really bite into their rear.

32 v 32 in memorized maps is played out for me. I like variety and the opportunity to be creative; come what may. I'm not the only one.

This is more a symptom of the battle nanny (lattice) I think.

I have seen a lot of these threads over the years, and people always want more bonus xp for fighting underpop. Why does nobody ever suggest nanite cost changes in addition to / in place of bonus xp? For example, if the TR are attacking an NC base with 75% TR pop in that hex give the NC like a 50% nanite cost reduction (and/or 50% increased nanite cost for TR) for a slight tactical advantage to combat the TR population advantage. If the TR wants to throw massive amounts of people at a fight, let NC throw massive amounts of grenades / vehicles / maxes etc. Don't give incentives (bonus xp) for doing an underpop fight that (many) people don't want to do, give some way to level the playing field.

The experience bonus is not much good if you are just getting your **** stomped in by insurmountable numbers. Give the under populated faction a resource boost. Give them more tools to fight against the odds.

Here's a question: Does the logistic system require players who do not want to be involved to be present during the transit? And does labeling the average player who just wants to join, shoot something and log off again as a "CoD kiddie" really help anything? Shouldn't players just be capable of enjoying their niche regardless of what it is assuming it doesn't actively ruin the enjoyment of others? (other than the "haha I shot you first").

I don't think it needs to be like that. You could for instance throw the logistics system on scarcity of materials and specific equipment. For example you have a general resource that's used as fuel/energy/basic building material. Most easily we can use Cortium for that. You can then have basic equipment be build out of that. If it's not present spawns, repairs, healing, reviving etc will all go slower. This can then be vital for both attack and defense, where the defenders try to keep their base stocked, and the attackers try to set up ways to deliver the required energy for spawns to their Sunderers and perhaps even shut down parts of the defenders to allow easier access.
Then you can have advanced equipment that needs to be produced and brought to the bases, let's just keep it relatively simple with infantry, vehicle and aircraft equipment being the 3 things you can either produce in a PMB or transport to and from a PMB.

How that transport is handled? Depends on what works. Having the game change into a driving simulator where you might fail randomly when an aircraft or enemy tank suddenly murders you isn't enjoyable for most people and having the game lock up on you simply because too few people are interested is a bad system, so most of the actual transport by players need to be done near the frontline, and behind the lines it might be solved with AI drivers (use the tactical map to map out routes the AI will drive for example, or make the player drive the route once after which the AI will drive the same route). You might also solve it through a teleportation grid that's build up by the players, which could incidentally replace a portion of the redeploy feature.

The trolling kid's reactions aren't what he "wants". He's just trolling. He'll claim anything as long as it gets an annoyed response, more often than not contradicting himself or resorting to meaningless sentences.

Having continent locking as an end goal is good, but why does that mean the end-goal needs to be something like a reward that continues to pay out long after you've won? Look at deathmatch games like UT, people play for blowing people up and getting to a certain amount of kills first, then after the win they don't expect to get a bonus that will make it easier nor do they get their enjoyment out of that.
And that's what the goal should be: Make the locking enjoyable, perhaps add it to the metagame. And with metagame I don't mean "it should give you a reward after locking", I mean "if you capture the continent, you come closer to an overall victory condition". Again there's no reason to add bonusses to 1/3rd of the populace especially if it makes the game less enjoyable for the opposing 2 factions, who might prefer to log out or fight each other instead. "balancing" this with an XP reward for the opposing side isn't going to work either, because regardless of you being on the winning or losing faction many players will want a specific reward and many will also feel it unfair if the losing factions still get something. Better to avoid all that and to simply make locking the continent something people enjoy doing, rather than the reward be enjoyable.

XP rewards won't be the easy change. XP bonusses haven't worked so far to balance populations, and once a snowball has began you aren't going to stop it. Drastic overpops simply will happen. Better to make those fun for all sides involved than try to prevent the invevitable.

yes, but without it, it would become a mess

I don't think so.

As you can see, you're going to get crying about anything and everything. Hex system was no different. The favorite scream was "ghost capping". It should have been called "I can't be bothered to investigate enemy activity".

Back in the days of hex, a smart team could peel off troops from the large enemy groups, giving a lower popped faction an opportunity to win through creativity. Lattice removes that option altogether.

Removal of player options results in threads like this: arbitrary solutions to a problem caused by an arbitrary change.

It's never ending. Candylanders are appeased, and so they expect more. The only constant is players taking responsibility. Sadly, responsibility is out of style nowadays.

It's unfortunate that people still use the term "metagame" in the wrong way. Metagame refers to what players do, not what the game does. If metagame was truly important, then we would see threads discussing how to attain metagames, not how to remove the need altogether.

In my experience, it was "I'm at the point where I don't give a damn about enemy activity anymore," and it took me a while before I got that far from "happy." Most players could only stand one or two sidequests per session.

I can understand that. It wasn't the funnest duty for me either, but when part of a great team, the burden was shared and thus not so bad.

It was great when fights developed because of it, and even better when we could earn a better chance against the enem's main force by diverting some of their power.

Anyway, I think my point stands: hex mechanics are a way to break up large enemy forces when one side is underpop. The taking away of an in-game solution led to the perceived need for (another arbitrary) solution.

And this is the motive of almost all my posts: change the player, not the game.

This can't ever be achieved for so many reasons. You'd have to force so many arbitary mechanics to fix this that it'd create it's own sub-game.

The 2nd best approach I can think of would be to force-swap the top players of the overpopping faction(s) to play at the underpopped faction(s).

The best approach I can think of would be an arbitary slow-down mechanic, slowing down the outnumbering faction in everything so that the outnumbered faction could catch up with their actions per amount of time. But that would be anarbitary mechanic already.


Being overpopped always means that you're forced back to your spawn room, being camped and shot from all sides by everything. So the only valid option is to jump to another base but not staying there.

Even the drop outside idea doesn't change any issues being outpopped causes but may just yield some kills while also being fully usable to kill vehicles near and inside of bases easier than having to get across the base yourself.

You're defending a scenario in which one faction is locked down so that less actions per amount of time can happen between the competing factions than it would be possible if both factions could still fight at full potential.

Sadly I see no way to balance numbers in this game without either altering the way it plays or potentially annoying people.

A clever idea would be needed that improves the situation, overall.
Also games should primarily focus on playable fun. Searching that should be encouraged, not talked down.

How about: Instead of granting the continent capture bonuses that currently exist only to one faction once the continent is taken do apply those for all people fighting on this continent while the battle happens ? You'd have one cheap aircraft continent, one cheap vehicles continent, one cheap infantry supplies continent and one repair pads / ammo towers heal continent.

It's not a whole, big change but as I read they want to remove the continent capture bonuses I thought of making them continent specific for everyone opposed to not existing at all.

Explain, please.

I doubt most players would realize a change in time as there's so much going on in this game that it's easy to get distracted by anything more relevant than a number on the bottom of the screen.

Bonus per territory is actually a bad idea because each faction would be weighted differently how this takes effect. It would also blindly grant overpopping factions bonus access while they shouldn't be buffed anymore.

Same.

PMBs ? What's that ?
I'd try the Planetside 1 approch too but feel like that wouldn't be enough.
Viewing PS2 like a strategy game I feel like we need more unit- and base structure types. There are just so few the battles are made of what shows up, not of using strategies much.

Good points.

I guess that depends more on the time and people online.

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Hex mechanics were before my time.

lot's of ghostcaps by individual players at random bases. It did some ghostcapping myself when the hex system was still uses cause I was crap at the game back then, and my pc sucked so I couldn't play the game very well.

In PS1 a smart team could peel off troops from the large enemy groups by actively disrupting strategic locations on other parts of the map .This would cause either a break in the attacking forces ability to supply MTB/Liberators (tech plant) or disrupt auto-repair\shields (amp station) or map recon (interlink facility). This would give the lower popped faction an opportunity to win through creativity.

See what I did there? We didn't need HEX in PS1 because lattice does EXACTLY what you are saying HEX did. PS2 implemented it wrong. Higby didn't understand why lattice worked but implemented it anyway and now we have this back and forth about how good HEX was and lattice is a game nanny. HEX is just a extremely dumbed down version of PS1 lattice and PS2 lattice is a half-***** version of PS1 lattice.

HEX was bad not because of ghost capping. It was bad because Zergs actively avoided each other because they had too much freedom of movement. There was no reason to fight a difficult fight because you could just circle around large groups and get just as many points. The video I have of a Hvar fight is a great example of this. NC\TR circled around a VS owned tech plant because the alert gave them points for it and it was easier than actively fighting for other territory. That happened during prime time on Connery in mid Febuary 2013 and continued until I stopped playing a month later. There was no one to fight when there were tonnes of people on. It made no sense.


Now that we have a mine-able resource we could implemented some of the things you and I both want. Use the PS1 meta game above as an example. This meta is player driven as it should be but allowed because of game mechanics. One cannot live without the other.