as of GU04 they made IA random in an attempt to reduce the organised drop podding, unfortunately this has ended up sending people to empty continents and or empty bases with zero fighting, i knew it would, and if they made it have zero cooldown it would just lead to people dropping constantly over bases which for me is more of an irritating fact of this game, as that was one of my main gripes with the way IA worked, I know I have been lazy and should have posted this a few weeks ago but ill post it now hopefully people like it What is Instant Action? Instant Action , was introduced into this game to allow New and casual players to find a fight quickly, you could open your map and Hot Drop Over a base once it has enough people fighting there to generate a hot spot, when it was initially introduced it had no cool-down, and a flaw in the system was quickly found , basically it was easier to re-spawn with a drop pod and hot drop that it was to re-spawn at a "Hard" spawn point , this is useful for deploying on-top of rooves for both attackers and defenders, SOE quickly introduced a Cool-down in an Attempt to stop the Issue, personally I didn't think this would solve it as i said many times during beta i would just get my entire outfit to time a hot drop for an attack on command , I use it often to attack large bases that are already being attacked "Steel Rain" as we call it, is my main gripe with Instant Action, that and the Constant stream of enemies behind your lines of defense its like you can never fully push them out until the hot spot disappears. as I said instant action is to help casual players, not to be Fast, Efficient transport for outfits who want to quickly cap a base, that is the whole reason Gal drops exist, but 8/10 its easier to IA hot drop. Let me Start by saying that the Sphere of Influence(SOI) for Planetside 2 differs from and would operate differently than in the one from Planetside 1. It is not a visible circle or aura its more of a change to how Instant Action Operates its Main purpose would be to Block Enemy Drop Pods Dropping Over the Top of Facilities and Behind the lines of defense. Essentially what I would like to see is for only defenders only able to drop on a base(As another perk for owning the base) and attackers dropping outside the walls somewhere between the base and the Forward Spawns(outposts), Now the SOI is able to be penetrated to allow Hot Dropping inside Bases with a Squad Spawn Beacon acting as a signal booster allowing squads to quickly reinforce themselves, as they currently do. Down to the nitty gritty, how I believe Instant Action works, once this is explained you can quickly see how a SOI can be implemented, without much work at all. From a players perspective as a base gets contested and the fight gets larger a hot spot is generated and you get the option to deploy (Hot Drop/Drop-pod In) when you click deploy a timer begins after which you see the view from a drop pod and you fall towards the facility guiding the drop pod slightly and the rest is history. How i believe this works is that while fighting at a base it becomes contested and when the fight reaches a certain capacity or marker a hot spot is generated and with the hot spot a vehicle spawn is also created above the base at the game ceiling(1000m) it could also be possible that the vehicle spawn is always there and it is "activated" when a base becomes contested enough, essentially when you open map and see a hot spot, and click on deploy you a requisitioning a drop pod ( just like any other vehicle in the game MBT/Sunderer/Liberator etc etc) and when the timer runs down you are spawned inside your Vehicle(Drop-pod) at the vehicle pad @ the game ceiling and you begin dropping towards the base. In this Image, Picture the Spawn Icon as a Vehicle Spawn Point above the base. Now that you Have Imagined the Vehicle Spawn here are some images of how SOI Could be implemented for Instant action From the images above you can probably work out how it is to be implemented. As a player you do not notice any real change(from pre-gu04), you find a hot spot you click deploy and the countdown begins , when it ends you Drop. But what happens behind the scenes is that after clicking deploy during the countdown the game determines whether your faction owns the contested hex or not, if your faction does your Drop Pod is spawned from the defenders Drop spawn like we currently are, if your faction does not own the Hex you spawn at one of the attackers drop spawns. These would be different depending on the base they are above for instance I used the crossroads to illustrate possible locations for them small outposts like snake ravine / xenotech labs etc will have maybe 1 attackers Drop. For Major Facilities (Biolabs/Techplants/Amp Stations) I would consider that the attacker drop spawns would be placed closer to the Forward Spawns(Outposts) . As an attacker you should focus on capturing these small points to secure a foothold and a re-spawn location before you begin capturing the major facility. Now Imagine base fights without the enemy dropping on-top of you or behind you atop of the Amp station Core building or on the steeple of towers like the Crown for instance, would there be a need for a large CD on IA or could be be Lowered to say 10 minutes maybe even 5 minutes? So lets think about it, Defenders can still quickly reinforce the base, the only thing that needs to change on this front is when a base is captured to stop the defenders quickly using IA after it flips to start the attack straight away is that when a base cap it removes the hot spot for 2-5 minutes thus eliminating people abusing it and giving the new defenders time to setup, and Attackers still get to choose the type of fight they want to go to, they can still use it in mass but they will only end up in the same hex not close together. TL;DR Less Cooldown for Casual players still sent to reliably big fights or the type of fight you want, Defenders wont have to worry about constant stream of drop pods that keep dropping just to harass you and big outfits wont be able to drop and crash your base, they will be outside your defenses and will have to attack the base just like anyone else. Far More effective that making it random or simply lowering the cooldown
i like the idea of only spawning at a forward outpost. it might be nice if each big base had some sort of gen for hot drops so you could knock it out, preventing enemies from reinforcing that front
thats not a bad idea, i was just thinking orginally about how to make IA work without breaking it like it currently is
thanks man, i just wish i posted it earlier so that it if people think its a good idea , it could have been implemented before they borked IA, so many drops pods now, like almost constant enemies dropping on the crown. its an epidemic i think it just make the crown fight even more of a people sink. please read and comment people if you have any suggestions, im not saying this is the ultimate fix everything idea.. im open to constructive criticism
Cheers, like i said i regret not putting up before changes maybe they would have done something better.
I remember instant actioning into a fight between the other 2 factions, the TR were nowhere to be seen.
Drop pods should only be for squad beacons right now. Perhaps in the future they could find other mechanics for drop pods to be a part of, but right now the only effect which drop pods have upon a battle are to severely disadvantage and frustrate the defenders by saturating the base with an uncontrollable, unpredictable flood of enemy troops, and to mildly inconvenience the attackers by placing defenders in otherwise unconventional or secured areas. They should instead allow troops to respawn at any base/tower/outpost/forward spawn owned by their empire if they are worried about players getting around. The fact that we are not allowed to promptly reinforce our own bases is completely asinine, and is often the reason ghost capping is allowed to occur.
the change to IA has not stopped me using steel rain i never used it off the IA deploy i always sent in 1 inf from each squad ahead, and they would hack out sunderers hack base turrets etc, and then make them leader then use squad deploy, same result the changes to IA changed nothing really, just made it irritating for anyone whos rolling around with a couple of friends or running solo, its basically un-usable im not saying my idea was perfect, but it basically boiled down to all attackers dropped outside base defenses and near forward spawns / outposts giving them no real advantage over someone who ran up on foot, it would work for IA and Squad Deploy with only Spawn Beacons allowing people to drop in the matter we currently do which is fair because you can destroy squad beacons relatively easy. this change to IA is what i call an Instant Suicide button , i have yet to be dropped into a fight where my faction is attacking or defending, either an empty base or where my faction has no adjacency so i get 2 kills and have to spawn 1000m away... what an utter waste of effort. im not a casual player but i can imagine them getting super frustrated and leaving new players would be like WTF , at least before with IA i could see what bases my faction is fighting over ie by the color of the hot spot blinks ( they all the same color now) and drop there i would never drop where my faction wasn't fighting because i know id have nowhere to respawn. i remember when BCP suggested this in his thread and on his stream religiously i said multiple times it wouldn't work. and its a flawed idea with no real though into how it would affect the game ( ie small change can have a ripple effect changing the game play in ways you cant imagine). but oh well hopefully devs can think of something where IA works like it used to but cannot be abused by squads / outfits etc
