The Esamir Disaster And The End Of Combined Arms

You forget the part where they put them back later for beautification.

I feel like those large walls should be destructible, as well as repairable by engineers.

That way vehicles can works towards butting into the infantry zone. And of course, engineers would work against allowing the vehicles inside.
Enemy infantry would work towards capturing the base, and stopping friendly engineers from repairing. Multiple objectives and whatnot.

They'd need to have a lot of HP and a fast repair rate, though. It would kind of defeat the purpose if 3 shells would demolish a wall.
Those walls need to be able to withstand a pretty large vehicle force for a considerable amount of time.

I guess they could add a resistance modifier that makes HE shots more effective and AP rounds less effective, to give them a niche as the state of HE is kind of dire right now, and this would be an okay way to make them more attractive without actually making them better against infantry or armor.

You didn't watch the video did you? They have their own garage next to the dome.

Putting forth the notion that something needs improvement does not infer that any and every other alternative is immediately and unconditionally perfect.

Because they're doing that to every single base, right?

The only way to get killed by a Phoenix in an ESF is if you're AFK.

If you were killed by one then the fault is entirely your own, it's much easier to be killed by the ground than a Pheonix.

You guys are annoying.


1. Watch again. A bunch of bases on Esamir get this, not all of them.

2. Esamir will likley remain its vast open areas. With the lattice, those vast open areas will now actualy see some proper fighitng, especially combined arms.

3. Wait and see. This can play out in many ways.




It certainly is a good idea to give Infantary some areas where they dont have to worry about Libs, tanks or whatever. Biolabs are a prime example there, they usually have rather interresting battles in them,but the entry points to biolabs are always the same. THe dome shield pretty much creates a lot od different bilolab fights, with vastly different areas etc.


What do tanks do in that situation? Well, first of all, vehicles are going to be needet to even get to that base. Then, once you are there and the infantary battle happens, vehicles are likley still be needed, in theory even more than you may imagine.

The very first thing That came to my mind when i saw the entry points to those bases with dome shield was this: "Easy to resecure. All the combat will be inside, so just grab a squad of vehicles and push from the outside to kill the sunderers. Let the infantary clean up inside, push back out and against the enemy again."

This was a very valid tactic in Planetside 1, where ALL bases were infantary only zones. But it was hard to pull off for the defender as they could only spawn at the nearest base (the one they are defending right now!), nearest tower (usually somehere in the open field) and nearest AMS (usually didnt exist at all after the defenders lost the outsides of the base). But whenever you had the oportunity to pull a squad away from the defence to form a Air or Tank counter attack, it was usually quite effective.


Means, your tanks and Air will be needed to stop that from happening. It could mean that you have some hefty downtime while you wait till your infantary takes the base, or it could mean that you have to defend against quite a number of enemy vehicles and Infantary, while most of your infantary is away inside the base.

Could go eighter way, wait and see. I expect to see very different results on different servers.

Domes are the rooftops to underground facilities, without actually carving out an underground. The difference here is that aircraft CAN still play a role, CAN still get involved directly with the infantry fighting beneath the dome. Tanks and the like are completely SoL due to the walls. So why is it only really pilots are complaining? Entitlement much?

Infantry need their own little fighting arenas because most vehicle users kit out their vehicle to primarily hunt infantry. Rocket pods don't engage tanks nearly as often as they do infantry. More tanks than not pack HE or HEAT if they can't, and still opt to target infantry over enemy armor. Why focus on infantry? Easy kills. Easy certs. Infantry counter-measures had to be strengthened, because armor and aircraft weren't doing their jobs.

On the flip side, AA capabilities on the infantry level can be rendered less effective, as now vehicles should have a greater emphasis on kitting out to target each other in the large, open spaces between facilities. Further, small outposts could probably afford to at least allow lightning and harasser deployment in conjunction with sunderers and flashes, just to encourage more in-field vehicular combat. Part of the reason tank vs tank battles end so quickly is because one side as local access to tank spawning capabilities while the other doesn't.

This is basically what ~90% of PS1 players have been asking to have for close to a year now. Walls to protect against tanks. The air shield (while silly looking) is basically there because bases in PS2 are not underground like the PS1 bases were where there was a physical roof stopping air from having a major impact on the infantry portion of the base fight. Upside is making infantry AA having to move more than 3 feet away from their spawn shield to perform their role.

It's a step in a direction that is worth checking out, at the very least. They can always change things if it bombs super hard... but I imagine infantry combat being the final step in taking a base (as opposed to "go flip the point while 2 dozen vehicles bomb every enemy in sight") will be at least a little popular.

Will almost certainly weaken HE as an option more than it already has been, but whatever. Adjustments can be made if need be.

Looks like a castle.............Sucks actually

They are ruining this game each day that goes by.....Why do they still have a job ?

Epic fail.
Those shields are going to be changed as soon as my pilot precisely descends me just far enough for my Dalton to shoot through it. If we take any damage (and I doubt we will with our reduced target area) we ascend 1m and repair to full with nanites. Lockons wont hit us, and MAXes wont waste time pulling bursters for a single plane that becomes instantly invulnerable at the pilot's whim.

SOE should have coutyards for vehicles and interior bases for infantry like in PS1. This shield system is going to be a complete failure.

P.S.
Wow, they really do hate Liberators, don't they?

There are important differences between the way infantry only zones were implemented in PS1 bases and this change- the indoor fighting usually took place after the defenders were pushed back into the interior (or around the back door) but until that point the fighting over the exterior- the court yard, walls and top structures did allow vehicles to affect the battle. With the current implementation that was shown, vehicles take little to no part in the actual fighting over a base.


Allowing the shields to be disabled might help somewhat but in many cases that would happen once the battle was already won for the most part.

I'm not against creating infantry only zones (that are bigger and more diverse than the Bio Labs) or better fortified bases but I believe the dome concept takes those ideas too far if it's implemented in most of the outposts.

So by your logic, Biolabs are a disaster and will destroy this game?

I'd like to add that all these changes to protect infantry from vehicles (changes going back to post-live) are also very anti-sniper, a class that also has a host of issues.

I don't mind was or dome shields, per say, but will be upset if these are universal changes (as many of the previous ones have been) as opposed to specific bases being changed to create variety in game play. In other words, a couple of bases with more walls and/or dome shields creates variety and that is good, but all bases having these changes will start to feel hostile towards snipers.

[PSA] Esamir Battle Flow & Updated Layout
my thoughts on the upcoming changes, which i love, so treat it like the opinion of a man who took side with the developers ghgh, along with a recap in the first post (which you might wanna read, too many people in this thread still thinks you can shoot the air with bursters from below the dome)

this sound scary, but thanks to this post and the Test Server/PTS forum we'll see it sorted out before having it live.

I presume the base shields will have a generator which can be destroyed/captured thereby deactivating the shield? Otherwise this would be absurd.

Yea these are some hilarious quotes. You can tell they have no clue what they are talking about at all.

YEEESH! Its not even ready for PTS and your giving them one hell of a bashing. They said that hadn't planed on the domes having generators, but they would consider it.

EDIT: and I'm pretty sure that they also said that the domes where placed to show players an idea that they have and to get feed back on what we think. slow your roll man.

They said they:

1. Plan on having domes over most bases
2. Are right now geared to release them without means of taking them down.

Watch the video more carefully. And what you quoted IS my feedback.

Actually I think this doesn't sound half bad. With destroyable walls and methods to get the shields to fail it would be even better.

Why I think so? Because the fight will still be outside of the base as well, to get rid of the sunderers. Enough combat for vehicles. But more importantly, the spawn room won't be camped by countless vehicles without a chance to fight back (except having an equally large tank force arrive from a different base.)
Sounds like a good change to me, that will improve importance of vehicles (getting to bases, securing bases on the outside) and infantry as well, while promoting actual fighting for a base and not just spawncamping.