[Suggestion] Countering zerging and encouraging even fights

Yeah I know what you mean, I just can't think of an easy way to even attempt to balance out a 12 vs 48 fight that doesn't involve just getting another 36 people. Fair enough in a 1v1 fight, the enhanced soldier would always win, but it would be a 1v4 when outnumbered and you might not even live long enough to fire a single shot.

I don't think damage would need to be scaled up, just survivability. Hell even if defenders had 50% damage resistance they would still go down pretty fast.

Anyway, i'm sure SOE will think of something.

Problem is, those 50/50 battles are not all that common. When I log in I can usually find at lest one even fight, but that's still (est) less then 1/3 of the currently zerging population engaging in even combat. I'm worried those players are not enjoying the game and PS2 are losing players as a result. It sould also be nice to have more then only 2 choices across all continents for a enjoyable fight.

Through all the imbalance, lagg, render distance issues, teamkilling etc, the steamroll fights are by far the biggest culprint for killing the fun in the game for me, regardless of which side I'm on. I believe this is quite a big issue that SOE needs to prioritize.

Understand this that large battles of zerging forces only happen because of the distance between bases. In PS2, the distance between lattice bases is tiny compared to Planetside 1. In PS1, two zerging forces could square off at a bridge. I am not talking about a bridge base like "The Traverse" on Esamir - I am referring to a non-base related bridge. And the only reason they are fighting there is to gain control over the bridge to expand our supply lines and assault a tower for forward hard spawn access. And these battles would rage for 5+ hours, or even a couple days.

So the type of zerging you see in PS2 is just a result of base distances along the lattice link. I hope they correct some of these on Amerish, Hossin and future continents.

This is what SOE likely intended to happen with the lattice... how do you get those large big battles, even with declining populations? If you limit the progress paths, you'll eventually get those big zerg vs. zerg clashes, thus ensuring they can continue with the PS2 mantra of massive scale battles, even if the rest of the continent is totally empty.

These problematic alerts that cause so many issues are also another product of SOE chasing after that scale. They're around to promote bigger fights.

SOE isn't interested in smaller scale tactical type action, they want a big crazy fight.

It's not tactical if you have a large force of 3 platoons and avoiding the enemy's 3 platoons by going to a different hex. That's not even strategic. Down right lack of testicular fortitude, if you ask me.

People that enjoy complaining about the Hex vs Lattice always use tactical, tactics, strategy, and similar words. Yet, they never use them correctly.

Strategy is an overall plan to achieve a goal "Our plan is to attack X via Y and Z. Then defend Z."
Tactics is an action implemented on how a task is to be completed. "We will defend Z by deploying AI turrets to form a wall with medic and heavy support behind them."

Pro-Hex people: "Enemy platoons are at Tarwich and moving to Arroyo Torre. We will Gal drop our platoon at Red Ridge while no one is defending it, cap it and move into Tarwich behind their back."

Pro-Lattice people: "Wow, it's great that Ghost Capping is gone. Let's take the point at Hvar and--- Why can't we take the point? Great, some A-hole is on the point at Hvar North Gate. Someone redeploy and stop them."

What I'm trying to get at is that Hex does not promote strategy or tactics. It just allows ghost capping and the ability for arm-chair commanders to avoid the big clashes. Lattice did NOT get rid of ghost capping, unfortunately. What Lattice did do, however, was allow people to know where they need to defend and how they need to defend. No more guessing where the enemy force will move. If you get your butt kicked at North Point Station because of Prowler/Mag spam, you know the enemy is coming to Mani Fortress next and you can be ready with AV turrets and all kinds of nasty surprises. People can find the fight no matter what time of day it is.

I hope they dont think of something regarding this matter, anything artificial like that would only ruin the game.

As it should be, the only way to try to defeat a larger force is thru better cordination and higher level gameplay. It is not easy, and face it, enemy should normally with if they commit 4 times the number of troops. There is nothing wrong with that. Thats the way it should be.

You should try to slow down the enemy the best you can and try to get reinforcements to do the actually stopping of the enemy.

And this is why in platoon gameplay you allways leave one squad behind on guard duty till you have started to cap on the next target.

Adapt or die.

The problem is that even though it concentrates the Zerg vs Zerg by limiting strategic options, it hasn't solved the problem of a Zerg not wanting to face another Zerg.

What I am seeing now is that one Zerg will simply go to another continent in which they have the majority, and steamroll the minimal resistance there, or even 'ghostcap' undefended bases themselves.

Then the Zerg chases the other to the next continent, has a short spat and clashing of heads, no progress is made, and then they exit once again to a continent they can bully.

I've run with several outfits, and time and time again, when the going gets tough, a lot of them just get going.. to another continent that is.
So much like what happened with the HEX system, the Zerg just circles each other; this time not in territories but continents instead.

I've come to love the population imbalance. You can't win alerts nor capture bases but with 50% XP bonus and some smart 'guerrilla gameplay' one can earn more certs and have more fun than in regular zerg vs zerg fights. You just have to know how to harass the zerg and not face it head on.

So what SOE should do is release a number of special abilities like the Stalker cloak to promote guerrilla type gameplay.

^ This.
Defending when outnumbered just RAKES in the certs/XP and provides a decent challenge too.
The trick is... leave the godforsaken spawn room, flank and keep moving.
*Wrote this while the barrel of my Cyclone cools down.

When HEx was active, I was making 3 X the Certs because of the varied strategies and gameplay styles I could utilize.

Stuck with the Zerg litterally cuts my XP/hr in half or even by 2/3.

[quote="snip.[/quote]
https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...te-a-distress-beacon-for-anti-camping.145924/
My partial solution to the camped spawn room problem - (when the Zerg) hits a poor beginning post but you get the general idea.
just to say it better here
after players can not get x distance from the spawn room with out getting kia because of a large enemy pop sitting out side there spawn room. That way and instead of forcing players to spawn into that spawn camping if they want to get to the front lines open up the spawn room a lattice link back and note the camped site on the main map.
how the "distress beacon" should be activiated is a matter of discussion
the reason I would love to see something like this implemented is it would encourage FLANKING the camping Zerg which is the most profitable way to attack it that I have seen.

If I plant a tree,
I may change the world.
If we all plant a tree,
We will change the world.

It's not that zergs don't want to face other zergs (for those of you claiming this,) it's that people aren't organized enough to go face another zerg. By this, I mean you KNOW you alone can not fight against a zerg, but you know if everyone else went with you, your zerg could fight that zerg. The problem is that you can't trust 48+ strangers to go with you to fight that zerg, even if you told them to. People just don't have a reason to trust other people to follow that command request. The lattice has helped bring zergs together however.

As for lopsided battles, the only FAIR thing to do is to reduce spawn timers for both infantry AND vehicles for the defense when they're outnumbered, but only in a region, not empire wide. UNFAIR would be increasing their life spans or damage capabilities. The only way to get populations to balance out however is to encourage players to move to those other empires. The best way to do this is to allow a temporary character transfer. Temporary, because someone mains a VS for a reason, and a lot of people just don't care to help out the NC for example, because they want to play and progress their main toon, not an alt that's starting off with zilch. A whole lot of good that will do. Again, people can't trust anyone else to do something productive. Basically, they may like to help, but they don't want to commit. If balancing populations requires someone from the higher population empire to sacrifice something, it isn't going to work because they have preferences to where they spend their time and money.