Bear with me, this is a very fresh idea I haven't fully hashed out. Personal attacks and anything remotely resembling condescending, disrespectful or generally abrasive comments will not be responded to - only reported for whatever the offense is - including non-constructive posts. I want to keep this thread clean and free of trollish behavior. There are two ideas here that can be combined, but Im presenting them separately. 1) Redeploy Queue. They wanted emphasis on logisics. They dont want to hurt solo players and small squads who cant constantly pull Gal, Valks and Sunderers. But on the other hand, mass redeploying is kind of stupid. So my solution, a seat of my pants kind of thing, is this: The more people redeploying to a base, the longer the redeploy timer is. Make it so its faster to get there via vehicle in most cases when 100 guys try to redploy to it simultaneously or in quick succession. Add to it a distance based timer, so the further away you are, the longer you have to wait. In a nutshell, make it undesirable to constantly redeploy en masse. It would have an exponential effect so that a few guys can get there but the more that tries it, the longer the Queue grows by a magnitude. Squad deploy would be overridden by said timer. This solution would force leadership to pay attention to the map and actually plan movements. That is probably too much to ask, but it could work. 2) Redeploy Timer. Similar to the queue but not quite the same thing. Every couple minutes or so depending on the base cap timer's duration, it allows any number of players to deploy, but not in between. There can even be a timer in each base that displays on the player HUD, counting down the next 'delivery'. This would put an end to massive redeploy zergs seeing a base cap happening and fighting their own battle until the last 60 seconds, then redeploying with twice the force of the enemy and crushing two bases at once. Being able to instantly spawn on a base under siege isnt exactly a fair way to treat players who had to go through the logistics of getting their men to the base. Attackers cannot just randomly deploy on an enemy base en masse at will, and instead have to physically move their troops there in most cases. Even if squad deploying, 4 guys have to get there, get their beacons set up, and then they have to have a respawn location outside of the beacons to maintain the same rate of influx of players as the defenders can. Not only would this solve a current imblance in attack vs defend, but would heavily promote more spectacular vehicle battles. Conclusion: The current deployment mechanics heavily favor the defenders. Even I dont attack bases half as much as I defend them, because defending gives you an inherent advantage. You have a static spawn that cannot be destroyed until the base is already lost in the case of SCU bases. I will defend a base against 6 guys alone, sometimes succeed and sometimes not - but I dont attack nearly as often. And this is the main reason. At any moment a massive number of troops can magically appear and totally crush an attack before your own reinforcements can arrive. This either forces a faction to ghost cap a base with 48+ in anticipation of a retaliation, or be crushed by 2x-3x their numbers at the last minute. If that 48+ is there, maybe the defenders dont even show up because they know it will be harder to recapture the point - leading to a waste of troops. They know exactly how many troops to bring because enemy numbers are right there on the map for all to see. Base under attack by 12-24? No big deal, they can keep doing whatever they are doing for the next 4 minutes and still likely save the base with 24-48 or 48+ in under one minute - at the last minute. Effective? Absolutely. Fun? Absolutely not. In a nutshell, it forces all of the logistics and map awareness on the attackers, making it incredibly easy to defend, and not only defend but to defend multiple bases in short succession all over the continent. It is impossible for an attacking force to play 'whack a mole' fast enough to defeat defenders doing that same thing. Final Statement: While my ideas could be heavily flawed, the general reason I came up with them is accurate. We need both defenders and attackers to have to exert the same effort in logistics as one another; not allow one party to teleport to a battle that another had to physically transport to. I prefer option #2.
I think a simpler approach is to make a base appear in the redeploy options only for those in the base hex itself if the friendly pop exceeds enemy pop by say 60% to 40%. So people can't redeploy directly into that base anymore from further out. I hate the idea of crippling redeploy options cause they work perfectly fine for the individual player, its only mass organized redeploys that break the system. And if you break redeploy for the individual player, watch as more of them leave the game. Cause the redeploy is already frustrating enough for individual players, its just a chore not being able to get to a fight of your choosing easily enough.
I would be happy with Biolabs being as important to a faction as tech plants are. Right now if you don't have a tech plant you can't pull your factions MBT except from the warp gate. How about we make it so if you don't have a Biolab you get your redeploy radius reduced to only to the next base along the lattice line (or directly to your factions Biolab) and when you have a Biolab you can only redeploy 2 bases away along the lattice line. No idea about what role Amp stations should play since air is easy enough to pull from the warp gate. Maybe an empire wide reduction in implant energy usage when you control one?
I am one of those individual players most of the time, and when other members of the Outfit are on, its at most 3 of us. We still usually bring a vehicle to the battle. I only redeploy a lot when alone, and typically not to huge battles. Also, those huge ongoing battles are typically the same 96+ deploying at the spawn room and sunderers over and over again. One redploy gets you to the fight and then you can continuously spawn there without consequence. Thats why I put these ideas here; because they dont affect the random lone player much. It doesnt break redeploy for them, and when it does make them wait a bit, its affects them far less than a massive force all trying to get there together. The timer or queue is unaffected by how many players are already there; only affected by how many players are trying to get there via redeploy. Lone wolf players dont enjoy being crushed by three platoons of redeploy warriors and would likely enjoy a slight wait (if one at all) much more than suddenly being absolutely dominated by 96 dudes who magically appeared there in the final seconds of a base cap.
Well they did change it so that you couldn't redeploy clear across the continent to bases where the pop was 50/50. We also know the bases will have resources in either phase 2 or 3 of the resource revamp which could also use to limit redeploy. Originally in PS1 every player spawn took some resources but was removed as they had the value set to high in conjuction with everything else that drained NTUs. Each spawn could drain a very small amount of NTU and if the base hits zero NTU spawn times increase by 2 or 3 times. So instead of say 10 seconds it becomes 20 or 30 seconds respawns, time spent waiting for a revive counts. Other things would be limit spawns to 1 near facility, 1 near small/large base, closest spawn sundies, any squad/platoon(has to be deployed) sundy, 1 base you or your squad/platoon leader bound to.
Hmmm, thanks to SOE removing the Idea's section my old metagame update thread is long gone form these forums. However, I posted on the outfit forums and well here is my old concept that would work. Though slightly outdated. Meta-game update concepts * Over the year we have received some Meta-game improvements, however Planetside 2 has a long ways to go. Currently there are three facility types and a fourth on the way only for Hossin at the moment, the current facility bonus is extremely weak. Techplants are required for the Medium tank anywhere, and the only place except the warpgate to spawn the Galaxy. Biolabs provide a small out of combat health regeneration function, and Amp Stations only provide a small boost to the already range weak Phalanx turrets. This needs to change to drastically need to be improved to make these bases worth own and holding. * Techplants are the easiest to change by changing a few vehicles to tech class vehicles and even making certain weapons for vehicles to require techplant access. A great example of weapons with tech requirements would be in my post about Armor warfare improvement concepts; were I added NS Medium and an NS Heavy Tanks that doesn't have tech requirements to pull the tank itself. However, the tanks would be limited to the Default main gun (HEAT) for its primary weapon, LMG for the Heavy Tanks Coaxial, and M20 Basilisk/M12 Kobalt. The reasoning for this is for when the devs put in intercontinental lattice, removal of the warpgate bases, and implantation of some sort of sanctuary system. Further more Pilots which techplanets don't matter to pulling any of their vehicles, to make them of use to pilots by changing the Liberator to require techplant access; as well as limiting weapon use on ESF to basic gun and Afterburners when a techplant isn't owned. * Biolabs in Planetside 1 had two benefits one was changing all Medical Terminals to Advance Medical Terminals, and decreases the respawn timer. Now Planetside 2 doesn't have a really long respawn timer so the decreasing repawn time wouldn't help, but the Medical Terminal would be a good one if they add a Medical Terminal spawn rooms and odd spot to facility (not small/large base). How the Medical terminal could work in PS 2 is having Multi targeting terminal that will heal up to 4 people (no MAXs) that are in a 4 meter radius at the rate of a level 3 medical device. A biolab bonus would increase the radius to 6 meters, up to 8 players at a time (MAXs included) at max medical tool rank. (Players taking Damage, or firing their weapon will not be healed by the terminal) Locations for placement: -/- All Spawn rooms -/- Biolabs: Vehicle bay -/- Techplant: Down in the little room under the large gun in the Techplant -/- Amp Station: In the little buildings by the Ammo Towers * Amp Stations in Planetside 1 had no real benefits till the first large game update which added allowed all vehicles to receive shields which was equal to 50% of the vehicles maximum health. Adding this to PS2 would give vehicles extended survivability in the field, however to balance this shields can be only regenerated in a certain range of facilities (Techplant, Amp, Biolab), and they have a flat 25% damage mitigation instead of vehicle's damage mitigation type.
A resource revamp might help this problem a lot. However, I still deploy cross-continent fairly often so it must be partially broken. The times I cant I just double hop there or maybe triple hop - which is still faster than grabbing a vehicle and travelling there. However, you raise a good point. What is redeploying costed resources? Say 100 resources per redeploy. Cheaper than most vehicles, but expensive enough to not totally abuse it?
Maybe for field redeploys being 100 resources. In PS1 there was a way to redeploy by going into the spawn room, and use a spawn tube to deconstruct your avatar which was nearly instant. As PS1 is now Free to play and still downloaded via SOE's web site check out the game's mechanics and meta.
Redeploying is a problem now. It's just boring as hell, because you can't lead small squads in a good way. You can't plan a good strategy. Planetside 2 is now just a grasshoping platoon game. No strategy at all ... This ! No queue needed. Just allowing spawning to bases around the hex people are. Otherwise spawn at warpgate, then take a vehicule to go where you want to. Like it used to be before. Eventually, for solo players, even for all, transport vehicules cost no resources at warpgate (valkyrie, liberator, galaxy, harasser or sunderer). There generally are no fights around a warpgate. So it won't be that much a problem True ! No timer needed if spawning at warpgate. Leaders just have to check the map. Being wiped out by a platoon redeploying on the base one minute before the cap is damn boring. There are no frontlines anymore. I even heard on chan lead tonight on Cobalt a PL saying "we left the continent, fights are no fun" because of this. We did the same just a few minutes before. What did the grasshopping platoon ? They went to the same continent we did, and kept on grasshopping. The current deployment mechanics heavily destroys the metagame, if there ever was a metagame. - As a SL ou PL, I have no more fun leading. Fights will always be broken by platoon just appearing from nowhere. - Making my squads public, pick ups come and go and don't see the impact of an organised teamplay. They have no fun. - As an outfit leader, my guys have no fun. They're always wiped out by a platoon appearing just before the cap. Why bother trying to play ? SOE should go back to what it was before. Wanting to make it more friendly for soloers, they're just breaking the game. Theses mechanics will not make the players stick to PS2. You're right submitting this problem. On a tactical side, Planetside 2 is a wargame. And, in a wargame, you need to have frontlines that don't move too quiclky.
