Tweak Instant Action

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by JustGotSuspended, Jan 5, 2022.

  1. JustGotSuspended

    Make the instant action drop players where there's either the largest fight, or the fight that contains the most friendlies but where pop isn't more than 10-15% greater or less than the other faction.

    This would help players spawn in actual fights, and not just with zergs against like 2 defenders.

    They could even use the same conditions from the storm if they kept the code.
    • Up x 5
  2. RabidIBM

    I fully support this, IA needs a complete rebuild. It currently doesn't look for any kind of a balanced fight, but rather the largest fight with an available spawn. I've had it try to drop me into a giant blender between the other 2 factions because mine had 2% presence. That, and the fact that it sends everyone on a faction to the same fight is highly abusable. Entire outfits can all press J at the same time to dump multiple platoons on a single battle.
    • Up x 1
  3. JustGotSuspended

    Were you playing during off hours?

    Because currently the system sends you to the hex with the most allies. If you're already in that hex, the one with the second largest concentration of allies.

    If it dropped you to that fight even though your team only had 2% that should mean it's where all your allies are.

    My issue with this ofc is that the hex with the most or second most allied pop doesn't mean there's a fight, much less a fun one. It's more of a join zerg button lol.

    Agreed it just further incentivizes/facilitates mass overpop.

    And also it should ensure there's at least one way to respawn in the fight. Sometimes it just drop pods me, I kill some dude, die and that's it. No spawn in sight. It's silly.
  4. RabidIBM

    I do remember the 2% or whatever incident pissing me off enough to be worth a screen cap and a forum post. I remember it was trying to send me to TI Alloys even though my faction wasn't there in any force.
  5. Liewec123

    i haven't used Instant Action for years, and from what you folks are saying, i'm quite glad that i haven't! XD
    i'll support any tweaks that make it even remotely desirable, so you get my thumbs up!
    • Up x 2
  6. JustGotSuspended

    oh maybe from an earlier time then. They did tweak the instant action a couple times before. Though it wouldn't be surprising if it was a bug as well lol.
  7. csvfr

    Somw tweaks are coming on PTS now which means our voices are being heard

    This might be a good change, if players get the expectation that they must do their own transport to get to the front they want. Currently players may choose to wait 30-60 secs for desirable spawns to open. Even then it seems like some spawns never open leaving players to wait more until they get bored and accept a less desirable spawn or do their own transport.

    The Join combat function sending players to the largest fight has not changed for several years (ever?). The meta game to lock continents was different before where each faction had goals to accomplish in order to attain Victory Points. One such method was to connect to the enemy warpgate similar to how it triggers alerts today. To achieve this effectively it was good for everyone to just press "J" creating a zerg snowballing down a lattice lane.

    The meta game today is completely different with the winner of alerts being the faction with the most territory as the alert timer expires. The snowball effect join combat induces is a severe weakness that can make a faction lose alerts due to attacking the wrong territories and not defending the right ones. As such the functionality of instant action is obsolete and irrelative to the current meta.

    An overhaul to join combat making it complement the overarching goal of the game is not easy either due to alert winning strategies being more complex than simple lane-zerging. One suggestion would be to make it contingent on being in a squad/platoon and sending the player near the squadleader/platoonleader. This would make squads more coherent and fit nicely with the upcoming spawn tweaks of encouraging players to do their own transportation.
    • Up x 1
  8. RabidIBM

    Some changes which would be nice:
    -add some rng with weighting and have it determined client side so that instant action is not a mass redeploy key. This way individuals could still jump into a fight with it, but it would have no strategic value.
    -have it prefer defensive fights to offensive fights so as to counter the pile driver effect instead of contributing to it
    -have it prefer fights where the player's faction is underpopulated
    -have it prefer fights with close to even population
    -have it prefer mid range population fights. IE 48 draws the most weight to this check with weighting falling off to nothing at 0 or 100 population. In one of those cases there is no fight, in the other performance starts grinding down.
    • Up x 2
  9. synkrotron


    exactly the same here

    I used it a couple of time when I started playing and my problem back then was, I invariably died within seconds of exiting the drop pod

    but, even as someone who does not and probably will not use IA, what is being said here makes a lot of sense... I may even give it another try one day
    • Up x 1