[Devs please read!] Construction is balanced, but there is just one small thing destabilizing it

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by karlooo, Jan 11, 2020.

  1. karlooo

    Currently all my bases end in pathetic failure and I mained construction ever since I joined PS2.
    Sometimes I complain about some bug I noticed, something seems unbalanced to me, drain, etc.

    When I think about it from a different view, I notice construction is really strong. For a single player I can do so much from supporting, to stopping, but then where is the problem?


    Why do I always get decimated without a fair fight? Why do I receive support too late? Why can I never stay at my own base due to constant resupplying and supporting?
    Orbital Strike is mainly responsible for all this...

    'Well if that's your issue then don't build it' you may say. Well I tried it and it's impossible to survive without it. One person with OS notices your base, all he has to do is Silo + OS in a good spot, and that's the end for you.

    I know the Orbital Strike possibly may be the key selling point of Construction after the changes to it. It became a must have weapon but I noticed it does much more damage to construction and the game in general than benefit.

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    1. I'll start off with why does everyone build the Orbital Strike? Generally, because of the no restriction update it received, created many small reasons to purchase it but mainly because it's a brutal territory claimer with a radius of 800 meters (500 meters for allies)!


    -> In the past the main structure 'HIVE' which was used to assure victory for the team, required the player to be really invested in construction.
    The current main structure OS is the complete opposite of the HIVE. It doesn't require you to invest a single cert into construction, neither does it help allies achieve victory.
    The Orbital Strike players main intention is to get certs and kills for himself. That's the truth about all OS users including me, it's a selfish weapon, which claims extreme amounts of territory and doesn't work well in a team based game.

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    2. This structure causes extreme drain. To power up this selfish gun you need to constantly resupply. This adds again to the reason why players do not want to invest in more structures.

    Also because I can never keep my Silo full, the drain keeps me having to non stop move out of my own base, leaving it un-manned, pretty much leaving it exposed to incoming attacks, which can destroy my base in seconds.

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    3. The Orbital Strike shows your location on the map for enemies. With the selfish tag your OS base has, it doesn't gain much interest from your own teammates.

    Instead your marked base is a dinner bell for the enemies. So at the end your base gets quickly destroyed without a fair fight.

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    These 3 points are the reason why every single one of my bases end in disaster, with absolutely no way fix this problem in game.


    The Orbital Strike is probably the most bough structure but the devs got to ask what is worth more?

    Player purchasing an OS worth 1500 DBC, which claims and restricts 800 meter radius territory (4x more than the Silo!!!), discourages players from purchasing the other structures, ruins lattice fights, turns construction into a solo and selfish gameplay, makes it harder to maintain your own base.

    --> Or instead encouraging players to purchase the other structures (needed for complete base designs) worth approximately 9000 DBC.
    Without the OS - encourage more construction teamwork....cooperating and joint bases who's intention is to stop/defend off enemies and not a competition of who builds their OS first and claims the 500m radius territory.


    You can guess where I'm going with this....I'm requesting for the OS to be removed lol. It is not necessary after the defense nerfs. A couple of armor can penetrate the Player made base.
    The OS is just a money grab which is not beneficial for the game at all. It ruins construction, takes over 4x more territory than the Silo would (2.5x for allies) and doesn't encourage players to invest in and play the real construction gameplay.


    Edit: Need a structure like this pls: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...tion-to-the-decoration-faction-banner.252311/
    • Up x 4
  2. Demigan

    HIVE's might make points for the team, but they didn't do it with the team. It's connection to the core game was such that you might as well be solving sudoku puzzles in a murder hole and get VP's for your team that way. It was the antithesis of all that PS2 stood for.
    OS's are a bit better, they encourage players to build within a certain distance of bases and influence battles. But what is missing is a good motivation to do things.

    The core of PS2 is fighting, it's what attracts people to 24/7 Biolab fights. The things these fights center on is the points because even in Biolabs where they don't expect to capture the base it gives you a place to fight around. Sunderers are placed because it is so convenient compared to chartering people to taxi players between bases after each death, which in turn gives the defenders something to attack when they hold all the points. This encourages vehicle combat as placing a Sunderer requires vehicular control of the surrounding area, which kind of fails at it's purpose because both the terminal and the vehicle pad are too open to attack while the bases are too close too each other to make a good vehicle fight possible.

    The point is that there is a motivation behind things, and that motivation always has to encourage a good fight. Construction doesn't do that, so only a few people who enjoy building will stick with it while the rest avoids it. If you want players to be more invested in construction it has to somehow tie in to that will to fight. So what could construction offer to support fights, and through it encourage players to help build and defend construction?

    I've said before that PMB's should become logistical hubs to teleport infantry, vehicles and aircraft around the continent and that redeploy should be reduced in effectiveness. Similar to a Sunderer it encourages players to build and maintain them, up to a point. One of the best things about this is that vehicle columns would now have a way to respond to far-off battles as they can teleport across the continent and then engage a beleagered base without the need for a super-safe spawn zone or all the coordination and time required to get players to spawn one base back and start spawning vehicles with the hope they aren't discovered and destroyed before they equal the enemy vehicle column.

    To complement this, PMB's would also get supportive roles for fights. For example if they get a miniature flail weapon to attack or defend a base. PMB's could also generate special items, like a faction-wide drop-pod beacon, an item that when placed in the vicinity of the point locks it to your team untill it's destroyed, A teleportation terminal that allows you to buy telepads that you can teleport to by accessing the main terminal etc. Not only would this encourage players to build PMB's, it would also encourage them to make use of the teleportation grid as the PMB with the item they need might be farther away behind the frontlines, giving a purpose to bases farther away that aren't on the frontline anymore or are build as backup should the frontline be pushed back.
  3. karlooo

    You didn't rly reply to my argument but whatever.
    Btw your idea could be great but do you really think the devs or should I say one dev would do such a big meta change like that? Even one of the biggest updates to construction - construction reconstructed didn't change much.


    Ok so the core of PS2 is fighting, that's true of course. So you said the OS encourages players to build in a certain distance near the objective but it's missing some collaboration if I understood correctly.

    What can one dev do who is only allowed to work with the tools he has? Remove something, change numbers or add in some mechanic that's already in the game.

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    The easiest, simplest thing and something which makes the most sense to me from my construction experience, would be turning the main use of construction to stop enemy zergs or just in general block some road, halt the enemy advance to the next base.
    All this requires is change in numbers.

    I also came to the conclusion that the OS is a big reason why it's impossible for front line bases to be effective and ultimately should be removed because of how it effects construction in a negative way, and I also requested a very simple necessary addition (if the OS would be removed) that would mark your Player made base on the map only for your teammates.
  4. KillerXDLZ




    This is true, i've noticed the most efficient way to use the OS is by destroying PMBs with it, every construction/module destroyed will grant you roughly 5 certs and the OS instantly destroys all constructions in its impact zone. I've managed to OS a PMB and got 50 certs. The fact that it destroys all constructions instantly is really shocking for me because a sunderer in the middle of the OS laser will survive with roughly 25% health and considering the enormous delay for the OS, taking out vehicles is impossible. Also using it in the middle of a big battle is a terrible idea because the huge knockback radius will send your allied infantry flying away. The only options left are Infantry in confined spaces (with the risk of killing allies) and PMBs.

    Using the OS makes me feel like im trolling people. Sure i've blasted 25 infantry in that house after charging my OS for 30 MINUTES, but they'll just respawn and worse it's very likely i've killed allied infantry as well. Using it against vehicles make em just move from point A to B. And nuking a PMB base after they've spent 40+ minutes building it with a single effortless dart.

    You only play construction to fight construction: Glaive, Flail and OS. You need to build all of these and their only purpose it to attack other bases. All of them being too slow to hit any moving target or restricted to not attack inside territory bases.


    "
    logistical hubs to teleport infantry, vehicles and aircraft around the continent" - How would it exactly work? And what it would look like?

    "
    PMB's would also get supportive roles for fights." - Sounds good
    "
    like a faction-wide drop-pod beacon" - Yes
    "
    an item that when placed in the vicinity of the point locks it to your team untill it's destroyed" - This would be either OP or useless, it all depends on the size and effective range of the item. Also how would this Interact with the same item from the opossing team? Would it nullify the effect?
    "
    A teleportation terminal that allows you to buy telepads that you can teleport to by accessing the main terminal etc." - A Router?
  5. Demigan

    Logistic hubs: it would work by moving to a terminal for infantry. There they get a view of the map around them with logistical PMB's close enough to teleport too. You just see those green things as if you are respawning except its limited to just logistical PMB's in range.
    Vehicles would need something else. For example they drive on a platform and a prompt comes up. "Press X to access teleport screen". You press it and open up the same screen as infantry would except it only shows vehicle teleport bays.

    Point-lock item: lets say it has a 30 or 40m range (3 or 4 Sunderer lengths) and is visible on the map. It would mean that players could place it outside a pointroom and defend that first.
    You can set the rules that it only takes effect when the point is under your control, and as an additional rule that 2 devices of different factions cancel the effect. It means you can rely on it to offer extra protection, but the one's holding the point need to exit and destroy the opposing device when it is brought up.

    Teleportation terminal: completely different from a router. Routers allow direct spawning on the target area, but have longer respawn times and are destroyed when the pad goes.
    These teleporters would be one-way, but you have as many options for teleportation as there are pads put down. Destruction of one pad isnt as important as destruction of the router. The range of the teleporter can be limited (300m sounds enough).
    Even if you still think the teleporter and Router are similar, you cant be against the variety and options this would bring right? Routers are more of a solo thing, the teleporter would allow randoms to buy a telepad for some resources at the terminal and then place one, meaning more people are involved with a well placed teleportation terminal than a Router.
  6. karlooo

    More than half of the PMB's I see are silo + OS bases with little to no defenses. Like have fun building in this environment lol, you have to keep an 800m distance from all these spammers.

    The OS is also a no brainer PMB counter. A couple of times I experienced some player non stop placing an OS after I destroyed his last as an attempt to hound me out of my own base (which could have taken 30 minutes to design) and also to drain my Cortium out (which was probably not his intention but it does the job well), which is how I always end up losing to this type of gameplay.

    In the objective the Router is better and cheaper than the OS by a ****t ton.
    The OS is an inappropriate gun after the construction defense nerfs and is nothing but a filthy money grab which doesn't even do the job well because it discourages players from buying the other structures worth like 6 times more than the OS, is also a toxic anti construction weapon and takes up brutal amounts of territory.
  7. karlooo

    Don't you think the last thing this game needs is more teleportation? Like what's the point of the open world?
    • Up x 2
  8. Clipped!

    Personally, I think orbitals have desperately needed a increased in damage they deal to vehicles as deployed sundies simply should not survive a nearly direct hit with it if everything else at a construction base or other vehicles nearby are destroyed by ether the damage or the fall from the the blast force. And as for the directive for getting kills with orbital (1160?! REALLY DAYBREAK?! REALLY?!), it needs to be ether significantly reduced (and also reduced for the Flail/turrets), adjusted to have an added directive option for to get a much smaller number of construction on construction kills (siege), or made easier for infantry to die from the direct damage, even if it isn't guaranteed to kill outright (750?).

    As for my personal experiences with making OS bases, I ALWAYS have bad luck with them, with one or more of the following almost always happening:
    A) some random person or group of A-holes decides to and/or succeeds in heavily damaging/trashing it, even with/without proper defenses, modules, and placement (my main is BR100 ASP)
    B) I get no kills at all or less than 5 when I use it on a non-construction base
    C) a good half or more of the kills don't count toward the directive despite me seeing multiple enemies in my kill feed
    D) I knew the fight where large numnber of my faction mates are heading/at I knew was going to last for at least half an hour (Bastion, Ti Alloys, etc) gets repelled/cut short 1-3 minutes of my OS being in range
    E) I repeatedly die on my way to my target due to random encounters with people and/or vehicles anywhere in between me and my target when my OS is charged, usually while in my ant or flash (I have and use cloak on both).


    Oh, and I've solo shelled an OS before with an AV MAX enough to kill it and hear the kill sound, only to have it not blow up, even after I did the entire process it again two more times with the same bugged result.
    • Up x 1
  9. Demigan

    Currently we teleport around anyway through the use of redeploy. Vehicle's can't teleport and it shows in how little they are used outside of going in a straight line to the next base. People will rarely split off the beaten path and move a few bases over because it takes too much time.

    So you nerf (but not remove) redeploy and then by introducing logistical construction you make people drive or walk towards them. Since some of these bases won't have a lot of time or cert investment the owner will have tried to place it away from the usual combat. Which means that now players will be moving towards an unusual spot. There they teleport, possibly a few times in a row to get where they want to go, and will subsequently have to walk/drive to the base they want to get to.
    So this teleportation system would see more use of currently unused terrain and more traveling specifically because the travel times are shorter and the possibilities larger.
  10. karlooo



    Perfectly said with the damage and directive part. The Orbital Strikes deals minimum direct damage but the most damage comes from the knock back.
    I noticed that the OS directive that requires you to get 1160 OS kills, doesn't count knock back kills (which is 80% of OS kills)....I once Orbital striked a bunch of infantry in an open field (could have been 40) and got something like 25 kills (Most where saved by the Implant 'safe fall'). I checked the directive progress and I only received 10 kills to the 1160 kills directive.

    Apparently for me to complete the directive I need to Orbital strike mass groups of unprotected infantry in the middle of an open field 116 times, and I'm not done yet - You actually have to spam this weapon (Silo+OS only) in each fight for you to advance in the directive a little bit.

    The other directives which require turret kills are impossible. Each time enemies arrive your turrets get taken down instantly, which are also weak and have trouble fighting a single target, most of the time they cannot even shoot back with AI module.
    I most respect the Anti infantry turret and my base design always hides it from enemy fire....but you know, it doesn't kill. It deals damage which makes enemy infantry panic and get out in any way possible, where either I or the pain spire takes them out.

    Game shows I have 1800 construction spawns, I mostly build front line bases so I'm guessing 800 spawned on my 'Spawn Tube'. My AI turret kills is 20/1160....how the hell can 800 ppl spawn at my frontline base and the AI turret that I purposefully hide from enemy tank fire gets only 20 kills?

    AV turret kills: 14/1160
    AA turret kills: 2/1160
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    But I am for the removal of the OS. I already explained why.
  11. karlooo

    So a nerf like: Each redeploy costs 200 Nanites, with a time increase?
    Redeploy needs to be nerfed really hard for it to be worth it.

    And could you pls explain me how the entrance and exit teleport would look like and how do you place the exit teleport? I just can't imagine it.
  12. Vanguard540

    If hives makes it back to the game, the game dies.
  13. NCLH

    Off Topic: Placement of structures is generally to restricted and too difficult in mountain terrain.
    Example: in reality most bunkers will be underneath the surface but planetside will prevent you from trying something else than flat earth placement.
  14. Demigan

    I would actually just limit your amount of redeploys per time unit.

    If you start the game you get 3 redeploys for example. They regenerate at 1 per 5 minutes for example with a maximum of 3.
    If you use all 3 redeploys you can only (re)deploy to bases and spawns within 1 lattice link from your position.

    This allows you to quickly get to a fight you want to be at, but when pressed you cant keep redeploying all the time.
  15. karlooo


    Your redeploy nerf gave me an idea. Btw I wouldn't give it a separate resource use.
    For your teleport idea I would make it cost the resouce called Nanites. I'll say why in a different way.

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    ->What if the cost of all weapons that cost Nanites increased? Then the resource would be lacking. Somebody will need need to bring more resources to the front line.
    This is how construction could be redesigned into something useful for the team.

    So remove the OS and HIVE nonsense and don't make it come again. Instead the player will have access to some structure, some heavy vehicle terminal structure, which will allow teammates to purchase all vehicles, including MBT's for the resource: Cortium. So it will be like bringing unlimited amount of tanks to battle if resupplied, until the player made base falls.

    I would not make this show on the map for enemies, only to allies....Cause everyone who does construction knows what happens to your base when it gets shown on the map for enemies - it gets zerged and destroyed in seconds.

    But it shouldn't even show on the map for enemies....Like why do the hell do we have vehicles like flashes that can turn invisible and fast vehicles like Harasser in this game? They should be used as scout vehicles, not some front line AT vehicles.
    Give infiltrator binoculars so he can have a better view of what he is looking at from range.

    --------------------------------

    This actually could be a very decent concept, but it has a lot of flaws and will require some small or large construction rework.
    What could be done is combining the HIVE effectiveness with this new heavy vehicle terminal. The closer this base is to the enemy warpgate, the cheaper the vehicles are, but not cheaper than x amount....the further it is, the price becomes extremely high.

    And another rule that would be needed is: this structure would require x amount of Silo cort drain in order to have the ability to place the heavy vehicle terminal down --> If you can't defend it, you shouldn't receive it.

    The current walls actually may need to be extended a bit.
  16. karlooo

    You know what, I think this OS spam has something to do with the directives because I noticed some of them are impossible and the player is forced to do repair, flail kills, and OS kills as the last choices.

    The strategic, construction directives are very badly made.
    The best and most important directive is construction spawns...This should have been divided into 2 sections.
    A 'Router Spawn' is completely different from a 'Spawn Tube' spawn, I don't think this should be together. Gather and dump cort are 2 free directives.
    AV, AI, AA 1160 kills is impossible.
    The player is left with 2 last directives: Repair, Flail, OS. Most pick the OS over Flail because it's too restricted.

    I noticed the OS kills directive takes forever anyways because it only counts direct kills and not knock back, so some players decide to spam an unprotected OS just to advance in the directive a bit, which is necessary if you want to finish it....but what does this have to do with strategy? It's the complete opposite of strategy...like there is more strategy in gathering and dumping Cortium lol and I'm not joking.
  17. Demigan

    I'm against forcefully changing the current gameplay just to shoehorn in PMB's.

    I'm ok with having redeploy nerfed because it already hurts the current game. It's function is to make sure players can always get to a good fight for them at the start or if they get stuck in the middle of nowhere, but it's used in redeployside or to just leave any fight that looks like it might be tough for two seconds.
    But to purposefully screw everyone out of their nanites just to make PMB's more important? No I'm against that. You can make PMB's offer other unique services to the game without restricting players in their current resources. For example you could allow the light vehicle pad of the PMB system to apply special mods to the vehicles. Or allow it to generate some of the items I proposed. It could function as a fire support base, create a radar item and/or building that detects vehicles and aircraft, create specialist vehicles like the Colossus, have an alert dedicated to them by letting the Silo generate an item that needs to be brought somewhere like at the largest enemy PMB silo or the enemy warpgate etc.
    The options are numerous, there is no reason to hamstring the current gameplay just to shoehorn in PMB's. We've already had that kind of thing with the Router for example which removed the Forwards Station that could have brought about a massively positive change to PS2's gameplay and I don't want to see that kind of thing happen again.
  18. karlooo


    I'm against forcing something, all I want is to advance the gameplay.
    What about the new update that gives the team VP for completing an Alert? Is this forcefully changing the gameplay? I would call it advance. Arial Anomaly is in my opinion a good addition which allows new players with little air experience to actually be able to compete in this alert with their team and not get decimated in air to air combat with no way to learn.

    Remember the HIVE's? When the enemy VP generation became rly high the opposing teams decided to hunt down these HIVES. Basically the meta was everyone picked the MAX unit, and galaxy dropped under the skyshield where they destroyed the HIVE from the inside with mass numbers. You had to do this cause it was far behind enemy lines.

    It wasn't fun to deal with this most of the time but I noticed the players didn't hate it. It was actually a bit relieving. Relieving to get out of the repetitive, capture the point, infantry vs infantry gameplay. Do you think nonstop fighting infantry and capturing the point is fun?
    The Air Anomaly sort of gives the same feeling of relief. It's sometimes fun when we have a fair and coordinated fight in the sky.


    I don't think construction should be an Alert thing. Way too many investments just to be usable only in some small alert. It should be implemented into the core game and not be a solo thing, where if you get lucky, maybe...whatever.
  19. Clipped!

    The currently ****y spawn system already annoys people quite a bit, something this drastic would kill the game.
  20. iller

    Yah I hate it, A LOT, when enemy players build their Bases near mine and then plop down an Orbital just to 1 - shot my entire Silo

    But I'll never unlock the Orbital just to cope with the Bad design. This is the entire Gun argument in this country and I refuse to be Rhetoric-bullied into becoming such a Lazy a one-Click problem solver. I'd rather just suffer the wounds then become an Inflictor.

    But the Solution is a lot simpler than removing Orbital *(and having to Refund EVERYONE who bought it)... You just make a tiny Damage calculation change in the Strike to leave a half Full Silo with a lot of Assets around it with like 20% health remaining so that a Strike never 1-shots a properly maintained base. While abandoned silos will still be as easy as they always were to delete with a Basilisk