Air/Armor should NEVER have a direct LoS to spawn exits

This point comes pretty much standard as a zerg moves along the lattice taking bases. Defenders need some chance to deal with a vehicle camped base or the lower resource-gaining faction(s) are just going to lose to the larger armor zergs most of the time. It exacerbates population balance dramatically since more vehicles = more territory = more vehicles and less tanks for the other factions. Part of that is the dumb resource system, but tanks bombarding a base shouldn't pretty much be game over.

Just don't be lazy. Get out our redeploy and blow them up!

I hate being spawn locked, but this is the whole point of having huge tanks with big guns. Dumb stupid kids sit inside spawn rooms. Smart men redeploy and blow the spawn campers up.

Tanks and artillery are made to provide an overwhelming suppression effect. As infantry, we have enough tools to make them whine. We just need to use them instead of acting silly and trying to farm a couple certs from inside a spawn room.

Planetside 1's spawns worked pretty well.
Not sure why they created this whole new problem specifically for Planetside 2 instead of improving on what worked.

In Planetside 1 the spawnrooms were in the basements. They had no shields, but still had "restricted area" damage to enemies to prevent spawntube camping.
Enemies could walk in and kill everyone if they wanted. Each spawnroom had 2 exits leading to corridors and 1 leading to the back of the base.
(Towers had 1. But then again. In Planetside 1 towers didnt have "rooms". It was basically a long spiral staircase)
Each spawnroom had 3 spawntubes that could be destroyed (and repaired). When all 3 were down, you couldnt respawn there.
They had quite alot of health and took less damage from bullets and more from explosives. Think ~3 C4 bricks per spawntube.
Oh, and spawnrooms also had locked doors (locked for enemies) that could only be opened by hacking a small panel on the sides.

When a base got steamrolled so hard that you couldnt keep your spawntubes alive, you lost the ability to spawn there. No more 30 versus 130
It just felt more dynamic and more natural than "Here's the spawn shields. When the times goes to 0 you die. If you step outside you die. The end"

And it's been said many times that vehicles should not have any direct say in base fights which should be infantry only. I would much rather see them make outposts designed for vehicle combat as in them being open and serving as depots etc.

It's really rather sad that many vehicle users think the point of tanks and aircraft is to farm infantry at bases. I've even seen people argue that the Prowler was designed speficially for farming bases, it's supposed to be a MBT not an artillery piece.
SOE really does need to stop with their asinine approach to vehicle gameplay and level design. The role of vehicles should have never become to farm bases and it's obviously never been the primary role for which they were intended, hence all of the vehicle nerfs and level design changes focused on reducing the farming.
Not even to mention the terrible level design choices that's resulted in supposedly defensive bases having hills around them that completely negate the purpose of the walls that were added around them to prevent just that.

Eh? One of the little nuggets I still enjoy is Claymore + C4 the hell out of the spawn room just before it's taken over. Throwing grenades as the other side moves inside and shotgunning their ***es puts a smile on my face every time. I am amazed at how folks still pour inside when its taken over.

Why? They have a role: they support friendly infantry and suppress enemies. If defenders are so lazy, so dumb, so unorganized -- they deserve to get farmed. Redeploy, grab your C4, RL, tanks -- and hit spawncampers in the ***.

Spawnfarmers just want everything handed to them. Why use actual tactics and teamwork in a combined arms game when you can just complain from the spawn room?

YOu don't get it... infantry doesn't need to be a mile away to camp your exits. They just stand within a few meters; usually around any nearby cover. Then shoot anything that dares come out.

People have to exit the spawn / shield SOMEWHERE.... and that place WILL be camped. Giving people more options spread further HELPS but if you are vastly out numbered you just get every spot camped and still have no real way of defending the points.

We see this with bases that already have these features. Even if you manage to get a few people past the spawn campers and get to a point they just get slaughtered by the overwhelming enemies at the point.

What people are failing to realize is they lost the base long before the timer hit zero.

I think the SCU mechanics for major faciliteis are a much better way of dealing with this. SCU goes down and so do the shields; base is lost before the timer even gets to zero. You lost the base guys; retreat and regroup like you should have done a few minutes ago.

Totally agree. SOE even agrees! They've done it to a few shields in a few bases. One way bullet shields are just stupid. Either force the people out and engage so they realize "damn, we lost already, beter redeploy" or force them to rally a real push to try and defend the base.

I know I sit there shooting morons trying to 'camp' the spawn room. Why not? They are stupid enough to stand out in the open and let me kill them. If I couldn't shoot through the shield I'd redeploy and flank. However that's far more risky so obviously I, and many others, take the path of lease resistence... farm the morons until there'd 15 seconds left and THEN redeploy.

Take away that option and I'll choose a different path. Until then it's just too easy for me to rack up a bunch of XP; I can't ignore it.

Is that their supposed role? Are you sure? I doubt that's what SOE had in mind when designing them, although that's certainly how they've been used by players. Is that really what MBTs are supposed to be used for? Farming infantry? Judging from the nerfs that vehicles have recieved over time when it comes to farming capabilities I would venture the guess that SOE did not in fact want vehicles to be used almost solely for this purpose.
Granted SOE hasn't exactly done that great of a job at defining the role of certain vehicles.

I would argue that vehicles should be used to get infantry to where they need to go, take down exterior defenses, clear the area and keep enemy reinforcements, especially enemy ANTs, away until the infantry captures the base. As in the combat having different stages, just like... Oh, I don't know... PS1?
I should state that I want the interior of bases to be infantry only, not the entire base itself.

Dumb and lazy, really? Do you have such a disdain for your fellow players or did you really think that was a constructive statement?
Some times you have to run the spamming gauntlet to get to a capture point, withstand said spam while holding some indoor points in order to hold or take a base. You might see that as players being dumb, but if you want to get **** done then you will have to expose yourself to it.
Wouldn't the lazy thing simply be to deploy somewhere else? I don't see how it's lazy to try and play the objective.

Deserve to get farmed? I've always thought that was an interesting point of view. Why do players deserve to get farmed because the level design is so that they can't prevent from being so unless they actually stop playing in that area? How exactly do players deserve to get farmed while fighting in a tower because the level design allows vehicles to fire into most of the interior? How do players deserve to get farmed because someone on the level design team made a mistake that allowed tanks to fire into a capture point? How do players deserve to get farmed if the map design put hills around a walled base, said walls being there to prevent just that? Do you just want players to give up as soon as vehicles show up on the hill?
Oh, I know what you want players to do instead. Go to a different base, load up vehicles and move out in force against the enemy. Outfits do indeed do this, but it's still the same poor reasoning that early Lib pilots and lolpodders used to legitimize their farming. Which basicly boils down to "Don't take away my farm!" and it's frustrating for a lot of players.

I would wager that a lot of the NC/VS got pretty tired of Prowlers spamming HE rounds all over the place. It's a strange thing, when something isn't fun people tend to complain about and want it to change.

Edit: You will never be able to get rid of camping, nor should you. But, you can limit what is capable of performing said camping. Hence why spawn rooms should be out of reach for vehicles.

As well as all that very few, if any at all, spawn rooms were directly campable by either Air or Ground vehicles.

No, I want there to be as little spawn camping as possible and not allow players to simply stay inside their spawn room doing **** all, besides racking up kills just like those spamming the base currently do. As long as the spawn rooms are outside in the open and the level design favors the current farming nothing is going to change in this department. When bases/facilities become overrun to such a point that the defenders aren't capable of fighting back any more then it should be possible to take down the spawn room.
Imo, combined arms doesn't equate to just taking everything and throwing it together into one big ***********. I don't consider that to be fun, simply frustrating a lot of the time.

Let's see how stupid this answer you just gave here...

C4 - Requires being within 5 to 10 m of the target, so inside a base, surrounded by tanks blasting the exit from 50 to 80m away... Yes, this is an option. Oh wait, no it isn't. And attacking from the outside takes not only time, but also assumes the force outside is completely stupid and not checking their perimeter... Which BTW, if it is a large zerg where they actually spread out to several locations...

Launchers - Great idea... Except it takes more than 3 shots with a DF launcher to take out most heavy vehicles. However, if the tanker is a SMART one... Which obviously, you aren't one of those smart tankers cause you would realize how stupid this answer... You would plant your tank that places that user in a bad position to make use of that weapon, where AOE shelling would *gasp* prevent that. And again, doing it from the outside against a large zerg, does little unless you are a zerg yourself doing that, which most times, does not happen.

Tank Mines - Same as C4, but WORSE. The only ones who can do it are Engineers, which means instead of 10m... They have to be at point blank range and drop it. Regardless of being the defender or outside attacker.

MAX - Same situation with Launchers, with an even slower means of movement.

AV Turrets - You presume in the camped situation there is a way to engage targets long enough to make a dent. At range, you have to have LOS to do so.

Totally my thoughts and feelings too although with much less swearing,
It's sad

Amerish has swung back toward the spammers it seems.

You will see the people who are ruining the games potential in this thread. They will claim it ruins combined arms!!!!!!.... get out of your spammobile and use a gun... combined infantry and armour tis amazing... try it.

Armour fights to the base and controls the area around it infantry and yes even those in vehicles can get out and help here should be fighting for the point.

I wish they would do away with spawn rooms already. It's like SOE copied Battlefield's Conquest gameplay, but stopped halfway. Spawn rooms just don't work as 90% of the gameplay during a siege revolves around the spawn rooms / teleport rooms rather than the actual objectives. For the battles to flow correctly, seeing that this is very much like Battlefield's Conquest gameplay design, they should allow defenders to spawn around the objectives. This way people would actually defend the objectives, and fight over the objectives. You want your team to spawn at the objective A? Well flip it, voila, now your team can spawn at objective A.

This will minimize camping because attackers can't win without flipping the objectives...and at the same time attackers can not spawn camp you once they flipped the objectives as you won't be able to spawn there. I much rather have the gameplay revolve around objectives than the usual boring spawn/teleport room camping. Battlefield isn't perfect, but if SOE wants to copy BF Conquest gameplay, they need to also copy the spawn system in the Conquest gameplay.

I've gone back to play Planetside 2 a couple of times during BF4 maintenance nights recently. It took only 1 minute before I was being spawn camped at the spawn room. So you say go elsewhere? Yup I did, I went to a place with a larger friendly force, and guess what I was doing? I ended up spawn camping the enemies, playing whack-a-mole and spent 30 minutes rolling through a couple of bases without really killing too many enemies. It's just...not fun, for either parties, attackers or defenders, to have so much of the game revolve around spawn/teleport rooms.

Needless to say I didn't stay logged in for long, because it just wasn't fun. I login to fight, kill and be killed, to play the objectives, to have a chance be attacking or defending. The way it's designed now (and has been since day 1 of launch), it's just too much about spawn rooms and not enough about actual objectives and game flow.

And yet the C4 fairies tend to do just fine for themselves.

Everything takes time. In fact, a horde of armor moving to a base you want to defend takes time. Try prediction rather than simple reaction. And don't get bent out of shape when you lose a point after being outnumbered by two-to-one or more. There is only so much an individual can do. We aren't superheroes.

Despite the many solo play accommodations made in large part so new players wouldn't be so overwhelmed before finding an outfit, this isn't a solo game. You are not a one man wrecking crew, you are one man on a wrecking crew. Either bring friends or become very VERY cunning. Either way there are fights you will lose and opponents you just cannot beat with consistency.

Tank mines are sub par, I agree, but I can still get armor kills with some regularity just by doing what one should be doing with them. Placing them on possible vehicle paths BEFORE the enemy arrives. Prediction.

MAX suits en mass tear armor up. If one hops into a MAX suit at a whim and immediately run out to take on the entire armor zerg personally and expects results, they will be very disappointed.

There is if you predicted the enemy attack (not hard) and got positioned while the last minute or two on the previous base ticked down. Me and two other engineers set up shop on the mountain across the road from Frostfall on Esamir. One blockade armored Sunderer parked on the opposite side of the mountain kept us from losing position if we dropped, and over time some more devious allies saw what we were doing and added to our firepower. We destroyed more vehicles than I cared to count with our MANA AV turrets and the random guys in the base proper did their part keeping the infantry out of the cap. It was no small zerg, and we were over matched in sheer population but without the Sunderers to leverage it, they were forced back until an outfit or two got wise and started securing points a couple bases deep in the lattice.

He didn't make a terribly stupid answer and neither did you, but I worry about that sense of hopelessness I get from your post.

These are the types of posts that will lead to the decline of PS2.

Instead of figuring out how not to be camped, the players are focused on the map design changing to enable them to continue their terrible habits.

Great game. Terrible players.

Yes, C4 fairies tend to do just fine when they are able to GET OUT. If they can't get out, C4 amounts to crap when more than one vehicle is out there as well as infantry out there. The C4 Fairies fair better when *gasp* people are spread out to the four winds and not covering the possible avenues of attack.

Again, it would be the 'bad tankers' who get C4ed easily. It still takes more effort to take out a zerg of tanks even with a horde of C4 Fairies to do it.

Yes, except the magic answer from people is the belief that C4 attacking is 'easy' and 'magical' as pointed out by your own foolish statement of LAs being C4 Fairies, which isn't limited to just LAs, but Medics, Heavy Assaults (Which technically shouldn't be using C4, but it is more effective in the short range in damage) and Engineers who don't have tank mines on them. As for prediction, again, spawn potentials are limited. The main fight location, you get only the surrounding spawn points and then the Warpgate. The failure of 'getting it' for most of you is also the fact that some groups do something of 'predicting' as well, which is moving to bases nearby, suppressing them or people trying to make it out, which again, defeats the point of also pulling back and trying to attack from the outside because again, the major foolish assumption is that groups don't do this 100% of the time. And that is the fallacy of the argument, because they do this and defeat that ability.

The other foolish fallacy is the point of fighting WHILE at the affected base as a defender... The fewer trying to do this also means the less need to focus on holding the point from people inside and making sure there are no reinforcements trying to come in from the outside increases, which then also decreases the ability to actually do the very thing of clearing them out because the attackers now have a solid foothold to pull resources due to a lack of one thing that Planetside 1 had... A base generator that makes pulling other things at that base impossible to bolster THEIR FORCES at the base as far as Armor and Air is concerned.

I am not one saying we should, but the argument of stating the C4, Mines, Launchers or the like are the answer to the issue is plain stupid. Even I yell at people at Planetside 1 who stupidly open the door to pot shot a tank because I know for a fact it doesn't do squat. But HEY, the Magic answer is LAUNCHERS against spamming vehicles. Actually, NO... The magic answer is NOT launchers. Any tanker with a brain is not going to park themselves to make it easy for one, or MANY heavy assault people to fire a launcher at them. They will park themselves in a position where they can fire HE or HEAT where you will be exposed and flattened by shelling. And if you survive the first shell and maybe someone else as well, how good is your resolve to take that shot, knowing maybe it will do nothing at all. I'm willing to bet, you will either bolt so that the next shot doesn't kill you or you will spawl your shot. Maybe, just maybe hit, but doubtful. Again... This has nothing to do with being a one man wrecking crew, but don't even play the "Launchers will save the day" when it takes 2 to 3 guys to hit their target, most of which won't resolve themselves to suicide with the attempt or more like get you killed by the splash damage because you were clustered tight enough to make a nice little present for that tanker.

And again, that is fine and dandy... Except many places have much more than a few possible vehicle paths, and smarter tankers also aren't all going to blindly rush to positions. Also, 'predicting' is a guessing game at times and still fails under the previous point made of *gasp* people pre-positioning to the places you are going to fall back to and then you getting ganked there, so you are constantly falling back even more and piecemealing your defense because again, you have to 'predict' the actions of your own group doing a regrouping somewhere that isn't orbited by the overflow zerg.

Note, you say 'en masse'. Which is great, except, like vehicles, the MAX armor does have a timer and resource cost as well. And while they can be revived, the limitation is again whether or not the Medics are there to get the MAX up and an Engineer taking the time to repair you to take 2 to 3 hits from the enemy. This also presumes again people actually BOTHER supporting the MAX so again, the limitation comes in on how well you can do this as a slowing action before hand, let alone a push out.

Again, predicting where the enemy attack is not the 'answer' as you like to point it out. The point is also what the attack knows how the defense can be placed as well. For instance, a good example as an ESF pilot on the southeastern part of Indar... Knowing that an attacker is coming towards Iridium from Tawrich, you try to setup defenses on the higher ridges... hard on the armor, but once you get to a certain point, AV turrets are useless because they cannot aim further down. There is a road that some tanks, especially VS Magriders, will find a way to get to your position and tear you up. AV turrets does NOTHING against moving ESF and Libs, which will hunt you down and tear up your defensive line there. Even if you use it to try and be a back stabbing attempt at defense while Tawrich Tower is being taken by armor forces (Which by the way, is a good example of even trying to defend a base where the spawn isn't necessarily easy to shoot at with vehicles, but getting to the point is next to impossible while several vehicles are there), it is still viable for the attackers break that attempt without really losing stride of spam suppression.

Again, the answers aren't exactly the 'magic bullet' he likes to paint it out to be. Some people make it sound so 'easy' and it does exactly what you think I believe should happen, a 'one man wrecking crew'. Except it doesn't work out that way. In Planetside 1, base captures, even tower captures boiled down to infantry. Vehicles camped around the towers, but that didn't capture the tower, it still required infantry to try and push in and capture it, and those were the 'easy to flip' towers. With bases, once they got inside the base walls, the fight was still infantry versus infantry unless it was an Amp station or a Biolab, because the Amp station had exposed ways to the CC room which forced defenders to go through a field of death to flip it back and the Biolab had an open way to the Generator which would kill the base entirely unless people were in there trying to hold off people.

Very rarely did vehicles get involved in the overall fight of a base, even once the attacker had control of the courtyard. And it was possible to hold out much longer in those bases and do even more interesting fights, like Air dropping ANTs to keep the base going and make that zerg spend more time trying to flip that base while the other bases suffered in the process.

Here... Less so. Defender suppression can be accomplished with vehicles way easier than it should be, and the defenders have way too much to cover. Prediction, as you like to make it sound as being a 'great' thing only works with small forces, but large groups and spam campers will still defeat it, especially smarter, more experienced players.

If by that you mean secure the survival of PS2, then sure.

I know how not to be camped, by having the level design change as to not allow vehicles to farm bases. Funny how that works.

You're right. Terrible, terrible players.