Why bother with tactics at all: what we can do to encourage and improve tactical play

My thoughts on why tactics aren't as common as they are and what we can do to make tactics happen more often in PS2.

Tactics died when soldiers didn't stay dead, and near everyone on the field is an undisciplined, unthinking slab of meat.

Bad guys got an AMS set up in the AMP station garage? Leave it alone > repair a generator > trap the poor bastards inside > resecure the SCU > kill the AMS while the poor bastards are still hopelessly trapped inside the garage.

Most people don't even realize there are tunnels, let alone think to follow this sequence of events.

Fair enough, but we can still try to use our numbers in a more efficient way than just throwing bodies at the objective. If we really ask for it I'm sure the devs would gladly implement things that encourage tactical play without discouraging lone-wolfing it and casual play.

Not possible anymore, thanks to the (hamfisted, silly as hell) addition of no-deploy zones.

In a game where 4th factioning (and other things) allows constant zerging supported by unlimited death there is little need for tactics.

Now and again, I get to fight little gems of battles. Not necessarily small battles, but a battle that plays out as something that suspends disbelief... at least for a second.

Epic play is where it's at, but this aspect is slowly be driven from PS2. With no new content, no new meaningful content, no reason why we fight leaves everything to devolve into simple a spam fest.

Thus far, all solutions to "stimulate" game-play have been ad-hoc with little real thought put into them. Like putting Band-Aids on a sucking chest wound.

Adding new maps like they propose will do nothing but delay the inevitable I'm afraid.

People will still zerg and 4th faction in the crusade for xp/certs. Can't blame anyone for that since this is all there is in PS2.

There is a lack of tactics because of this game's high TTK. Most weapons take 3 or more headshots to kill a person. That's a glacial kill in combat terms. Why bother with cover when it is so much better to run-n-gun and tear the enemy apart with bullet hoses? Why bother checking corners when you can just throw bodies at the enemy? They'll probably run out of ammo before they kill the zerglings *cough*scatmax*cough*

If you want tactics, then you need a game with a short TTK like Red Orchestra. Most rifle caliber or above weapons kill in 1-2 shots to center of mass. Even the smallest caliber weapon is a 1-hit kill to a headshot or heartshot. Weapons in general are far more precise, bullet velocities are nearly twice as fast, and engagement ranges are much longer. Run-n-gun is a good way to get yourself killed, tactics and cover are king.

If a full squad charges a doorway defended by a man with an LMG in PS2, the first guy in dies while the rest of the squad murders the machine gunner. If a full squad charges a doorway defended by a man with an LMG in RO2, you get a dead squad because charging an LMG is suicide.


PS2's weapons are unrealistically non-lethal, so realistic tactics do not work. That's ok. PS2 isn't trying to be realistic. But you asked for why we don't see real tactics, and that's because real tactics don't work well when guns blow kisses at the enemy.

I keep saying, they need to change the art work so PS2 looks more like TF2!
That way players won't think PS2 is a mi-sim and therefore expectations aren't confused.

Tactics do work, but require a completely different, one could say "alien" mindset to us.

When people refer to tactics, they don't refer to tactics, they refer to stuff they've seen soldiers do and were told that's "tactics". The problem is, as you've said, that Planetside 2 has a different kind of warfare going on.

Bringing weapons up to real lethality levels would not help the situation at all, though. You see, there's a very good reason RL fights now happen in squads of a relatively few men. Lethality of our weapons essentially creates a direct opposite to any kind of large scale warfare. Taking a cue from real history, upping the lethality of weapons in the game would result in a WW1 scenario. We have massive armies (a relic of the past ages), but the guns ensure neither side can do anything with them. We don't want that.

This game is weird. It has ADS but you can't go prone or peek around corners. It forces you to go in guns blazing. The only way to not get killed while attacking is to flank because of the weird TTK/hit boxes if there are any. Its not like counter-strike where a good player can enter a room and completely clear it. And smoke grenades are negated by night vision, and flash grenades are really iffy, etc.

PS2 has tactics but they're "PS2 tactics", not "real world tactics". As such, you can barely recognise them as tactics. Like Armchair said, if you make the gameplay emulate the real world more, the closer the tactics will get to real world tactics and the more recognisable they'll be.

INI Elite uses tactics.
That's why win.
You should use tactics
That's how you could win.

When just throwing bodies at an objective works 90% of the time why change ? Tactics normally only kick in for that 10% when it doesn't work.

I'm sure some of the blame for that can be aimed at the age old issue of base design, they are to open and offer little variation .. Attacking one Biolab is pretty much the same as attacking another for example.

There is very little need with most bases to think out side the box ..

It would be nice if facilities offered variations on the common theme ..

Such as a Double Biolab .. 2 cap points in each dome , Different terrain in each, a wide covered walkway connecting the two etc etc




Also issues such as Medic Necromancer play there part in the lack of need for tactics.

And still half of the people are unable to do it properly - like going for the points instead of shield/SCU in a lab filled with enemies (although this may be also caused by this incredible stupid guide "how to cap a biolab" SOE brought out).

I don't think the new cap time helps .. Hold all the points and the base caps quicker than the SCU timer

we had terran's "tactical superiority" on ceres again yesterday night when they had 40% of the server pop and tank-zerged their way to victory.

i would like to see some tactics in this game, but nothing works better than just throwing tanks tanks tanks and overpop at things...

Ultimately it's all mindset. People want to run out and fight; call it the 'COD' mindset if you will, where you log on, the match begins, and you're off. Just think what would happen if, after a hard fight of 48-48 the losing side regrouped at another base and took sundies or gals back...as opposed to what we NC do all the time. Run out as individuals on flashes and on foot. And get massacred individually. Then log on here and whine about how the other side is 'zerging' and SOE MUST do something about the 'pop imbalance'.

The other day I saw a fantastic TR strategy at one of the satelites to a Biolab (forgot which one...has the stone arch near it). NC had a crap load of sundies, tanks, and air...all aimed at the satelites spawnroom. A TR gal came in with a full load and did a drop. Of course, none of our ESFs saw it coming because they were focused on the locked down spawn room. Nor did any of the sundie gunners. They destroyed several sundies, a couple of tanks and a crap load of infantry. THAT was a good use of tactics.

Tactics are definately usefull here...but sadly way to many people just don't care. The only solution I can see is...team up with those who are tactically minded.

increase spawn times to 2 minutes at the location or instantly from the warp gate.

Without meaningful death it is just zerg versus zerg.

Make all vehicles free to spawn from Warp gate.

Certs drive this game.

You get more certs for killing people than capturing anything or winning the alerts over a 2 hour period.

Why tactics when TDM = more certs.

quote="HadesR, post: 2185904, member: 61895"]
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Wait, these are on the live servers!?

*Checks date*

Have I been in comatose this whole time? I know I've been gone from PS2 for a couple of months.