I feel that currently defense is really under defined in this game and rewards for a good defense are minimal. For this reason the game consists of a capture mentality with only real considerations being placed in tech plants or areas directly linked to warp gates being regularly defended. Is there no way to offer incentive other than the almost invisible resource incentives so that maps are more hotly contested and the zerg are actually willing to defend strategically important areas on the maps? Now I'm not talking huge exp for killing one player who is capping a base alone but can't parameters incorporating capture counter, number of attackers and defenders in the area and time be used to create a level of experience for successfully defending any base? It's fun when the base almost turns to the other side then a counter occurs and successfully recaptures for both sides but then so it attacking and capturing and yet exp is rewarded? I feel that an exp reward should be attached to a sterling defense and would offer improvement current tactical game play also providing a viable role for some less underutilized units in the game such as the Galaxy and the Sunderer shield breaker.
On my server if it is almost capped by the enemy they will let it cap then recap it. Drives me nuts when I run in to save the place and everyone gets all POed that I didn't let it cap. They could care less about what they own they are more concerned with how many certs they have.
I agree, currently there is little incentive for a base to be defended. I considered a system where people got an increasing bonus for defence actions at a location that they had stayed in. For example, say you stay behind to defend a Bio Lab. After say 10 minutes you get a 10% defence bonus for any actions taken in defense of that base. So kill an attacker and you get an extra 10% bonus. This increases the longer you stay there. There would probably be unforseen issues and these numbers are just conjured up from thin air.
Thing is it needs to promote defense but not farming so the capture counter would definitely need to be involved somehow.
Okay, let's take a deep breath and consider this: The game is the carrot. Playing the game is what makes people play. Not Certs, not XP gains. No incentive is going to fix flaws, other than having not enough people in a base (and again, they join too late). I don't think everybody leaves like a swarm of locusts flying off to the next XP field. It's about action. There is nothing to do once you capped a base, so you just go away.
Its not about making people play the game its nudging them towards certain play styles & behaviours once they are and in this regard affecting their ability to progress their character is a very effective way of achieving this. What makes the most sense to me is a scaling bonus based on the cap progress, so at 1/4 captured (defenders bar half depleted) you get X% bonus, and half capped (defenders bar depleted) 2X% and so on, in fact I'd give the last moments before capture a MASSIVE EXP bonus, make that last stand as frantic as possible as a pose to people just spawning elsewhere because they know the fight is lost.
I totally agree. Only place where it happens now that people want to defend is The Crown. Most other places, attackers rush in, cap, and move on, leaving the base for another attackers to take it back with little or no resistance. What might be a little solution: game periodically markes zone X "hot zone" as bonus zone for a period of time (maybe 1 hour, or something like that). Now attackers will get big bonus if they manage to claim it, and defenders will get big bonus if they manage to keep it for a period. Bonuses can be in form of XP, achievments, etc.
The only incentive should be "winning" in this regard, otherwise you are influencing the means of doing so too much and creating a mental barrier. Anyway, if you could share all of the XP within a squad, the playstyle could be greatly improved. It's really hard to get people being useful when they get no certs from it.
...really? Because that seems like a pretty good description of what drives PS2 population distribution to me.
With the cert model so ingrained in the game, we can only alleviate the pain. That would be a nice Prozac Just saying it's really difficult to get even your squadmates play a role that does grant XP.
Part of the problem is having a server populated by people that can't stand to hang around for a few minutes pulling guard duty.
SO MUCH THIS. Dear god, the amount of times we (The NC) take Haven, and I'm the ONLY person who remains to fend off the TR who will no doubt roll in from the East where we always seem to be fighting to get the Biolab. Two or three show up in a Sundy or ATV's, I can't kill them all. Suddenly it becomes a Spawn/Die fest for me because even a /yell for help doesn't summon any NC for backup, and they just retake it again. Sometimes I can get lucky and fend them off, but usually it's the same **** every day. Why can't my empire take and actually Hold the ******' outposts, ffs. It's no wonder I haven't seen 75% of the continent despite living on it since I started.
The solution is to redesign the other bases to make them defendable - that's why people play at the crown, it's the most defendable point on the map and gives the best fights (and from there alloys to the south gives another pretty good fight). The crown is an obvious example of "see what happens when you only have a few ways in" not this swiss cheese moronic base design everywhere else (well it still is swiss cheese but it's on top of a mountain. The fact that SOE can't improve the base designs, or made them the way they did show's a distinct lack of imagination Ctrl C.... Ctrl V.....Ctrl V.....Ctrl V.....Ctrl V.....Ctrl V.....Ctrl V.....Ctrl V.....Ctrl V.....Ctrl V.....Done! Have the art department finished those awful character models yet?
Totaly agree. I play NC on EU Miller and the concept of defence, holding captured bases, are non existant. The Zerg keep on moving until it dies. Then everybody disapears and the TR/VS move in. And because the NC never defend armor and air spawning points we tend to defend minor bases with no air superiority or armor against TR/VS combined assaults. Happens every night. If i look at the map there allways seem to be enemy platoons defending important TR/VS bases. Whats up with NC C&C? Are all NC outfits Zerg spamers?
