[Suggestion] Any way to deal with trench warfare in PS2?

The answer is massive max pushes, since everything else is just about useless against masses of infantry except masses of infantry.

Everyone who b---ches about this should have to spend 3 months playing PS1,

With enough iodine, this change could provide all of planet earth with a lifetime supply of salt.

Nothing is needed to fix this "problem"

90% if the time these situations develop its because the majority of players are simply taking the shortest path back to the fight. Not bothering to flank.

There's been numerous times in large firefights where I find all I have to do is walk for 5-10 extra seconds and usually I can attack from a different flank.

Aoe spam is not what we need. Most if not all is already ingame to combat this supposed problem.

I'm going to reply to all the things you said in this thread.

First of all, introducing artillery that can kill people inside buildings is a bad idea. As you say, you force infantry to move out into the open where vehicles reign. And the teeny little problem there is that vehicles completely obliterate infantry in the open. Infantry doesn't stand a chance, period. There's a reason walls were added to bases, and that's to prevent vehicles from utterly dominating infantry.

Then your solution to Trench Warfare with more resilient tanks. Why would you need more resilient tanks? Trench warfare isn't really a problem for vehicles who usually just punch through any infantry on the ground until they hit a wall surrounding a base and are only prevented further progress because they can't reach the points themselves. The only Trench Warfare that stops vehicles is large groups of AV infantry on high places like a tower, but to beat those you need specialized weapons like long-range AI on tanks rather than making tanks more resilient.
The problem here is that you are trying to compare actual trenches to the complete misnomer of Trench Warfare the OP used. PS2 doesn't have any trenches in that sense. And the whole Mobile Warfare is already in the game. It's not much used since most players including vehicle players just make a beeline to the closest objective instead of flanking, but it's there. There's rarely anything preventing players from just circling around or attacking from a different direction.

There's many forms of artillery, and one that I'm against would be an artillery where you can just point at a specific section of the sky and land massive shells on enemies.

There need to be failsafes or ways to protect against artillery. Simply dumping a new weapon against Trench Warfare, even though it's barely existent in PS2, is pretty harmful because of all the alternate ways it can be used.

That said, having shells that can damage infantry through obstacles like an EMP weapon might not be the worst thing, assuming again it's not capable of insta-killing 3 people per shot and doesn't take any skill to use repeatedly on the same area.

Right now if Heavy Assaults roll their eyes and explode in a hail of rockets a tank just say "well that's cute" and will either kill the Heavies or move out of effective range/behind cover and then start killing them from nearby the cover they picked. Swarms of C4 fairies? I still have to see that mythical thing, but the reaction of every single tank pilot should be "free certs!" when they see a swarm of C4 fairies. Because you know what? A C4 fairy has already failed if he's spotted before he finishes his attack run.
Also you do realize that killing someone is actually very worthwhile?
I've tried to explain this to Chingles, but he simply refuses to listen. Resources are based on time. Time is the most universal resource you have in the game. 50 resources equals 60 seconds. So killing 6 guys means you have already done at least 50 resources of damage to your opponents. If you add the time required to get back into the fight, such as travel time and maneuver time to prevent getting killed instantly, every kill becomes much more valuable. In the meantime every minute you survive is another 50 resources regained until you are full again. So simply killing enemies and staying alive while projecting your power over an area is already much more worthwhile, especially since a C4 fairy has to sacrifice 3 minutes worth of time to destroy you on top of the time it took to get to you and the time's he was killed beforehand.

The only true solution is to give tanks long-range AI weapons like auto-canons. Additionally you can buff the current AI weapons to wield far more power against infantry than the AP variants. As I already mentioned you could upgrade the elevation of HE weapons and add a co-ax canon so it actually has a solid way of dealing with infantry. Additionally you can add a new AI autocanon for long-range AI combat without the need for continuous pinpoint shots. For example an auto-canon with low drop high velocity (600m/s for instance), 10 shots per magazine and a 3-shot kill on infantry would do nicely.
Secondary AI weapons like the Kobalt also need to have more roles to play. The reason people stick with AV weapons is because those weapons don't **** you over when you encounter enemy vehicles but the AV weapons can still suckerpunch infantry if you have enough aim. AI weapons barely manage to be better at AI than the AV weapons and are usually 100% useless against vehicles. Therefore besides getting more dangerous against infantry these weapons need to have something against vehicles to make them useful. My suggestion would be to give secondary AI weapons abilities that nerf enemy vehicles. Slow your enemy down, reduce their maneuverability, reduce their turret traverse speed, lock up their abilities, that kind of thing. That way the AI canons serve more purpose in AV combat without taking the spot of AV weapons. And even if you can't win the AV battle you at least stand a chance to escape alive.

Unfortunately we can't just add these weapons and be done with it. While the auto-canon is definitely required to beat the OP Lancer Squads/other high-range-high-accuracy-good-DPS-weapons on a high position the other additions like more powerful AI secondaries would unbalance the game (even more) against infantry.
Vehicles are for a large part outside of the metagame. They have a very short role to either defend or attack a base so that you can provide a safe spot for your Sunderer/defend against a Sunderer being placed. Upgrading their direct damage potentials will only make them farming tools, and if we want vehicles to join the metagame we need to remove the walls around bases. The only way to remove the walls around bases is to make sure vehicle vs infantry fights are balanced. Since without walls the vehicles curbstomp infantry we need more ways for infantry to deal with vehicles. Especially since the defenders usually don't have access to enough vehicles to really mount a counter-offensive against the attackers. So after the new AI weapons are added, infantry needs to get a ton new ways to deal with vehicles. New utilities, new non-lethal weapons, new lethal weapons.

Absolutely horrid idea. It would mean the biggest battle on every map would be around 48 vs 48. Alternatively only the attackers benefit. The attackers have the opportunity to place multiple Sunderers in the area, allowing them to overpower the defenders with more spawns.

The stalemates happen because the bases they fight at have the right infrastructure to create chokepoints. And that's good for the game. It allows the defenders one of the few advantages to halt an overpop. At the same time this also creates Zergs when they do break through, but Zergs are another problem altogether. Defenders in this game have practically 0 good advantages compared to the attackers. The only logistics I want to see is one where you have to traverse terrain to get to another base, not to get to the base you already were at.

I'll keep this one short.

This thread is about entrenched warfare. If any tanks can keep twohundred metres distance and still hit something meaningful its not what this thread is about.

Also chokepoints are the absolute worst thing to have ever. Great to have as military guy on defense, but it kills any kind of gameflow and turns it into a stalemate until one side can overpop enough.

Then the solution would be to change the gameflow, create new objectives and secondary objectives to complete and make it a continuous fight between the two factions over these objectives rather than the "everybody run at the 1 to 4 capture points and hold them" that the attackers have to accomplish, and the "run at the enemy Sunderer and destroy it" objective that the defenders have to accomplish.

So your idea's for adding artillery mechanics and changing the spawn mechanics were on the right track. However I don't think artillery would be that useful for changing the current Trench Warfare unless it deals damage through walls and obstacles, since most chokepoints exist because they are an entrance to enclosed places like buildings and you wouldn't be able to hit at least one team with your artillery without this addition. But having shells that simply kill you no matter where you hide isn't exactly my idea of "encouraging engaging play", especially if infantry are forced out in the open where vehicles can mulch them without a second thought. The spawn mechanics change simply won't help. At best both teams have trouble getting people to any fight and players will be traveling around most of the time, at worst the attackers simply out-spawn the defenders and Zerg-rush them to death while the defenders have to spend a monstrous amount of time more to travel back to the base.

But yes, you were closer to a solution than I was with my vehicle changes. I thought the trench warfare they described was mostly one where vehicles could actually matter or had a problem (Lancer squads on a hill), which isn't the case in 90% of the chokepoints we have in PS2 because vehicles are completely warded out of almost every single base with walls and impassable terrain so they rarely even have access to the chokepoints that cause this Trench Warfare.

tldr: I don't say anything. I just say everyone is wrong, but nobody will enjoy or benefit from that actual correct cause/solution on the issue. So I elect just to shut up.


I'll start off by saying I disagree with just about every suggestion on how to fix it. I also disagree with just about everyone's perception of what is causing the issue.

In addition, the causes and solution I do feel would be pertinent, involve Units and Gameplay that are wildly popular (at least to most the people on these forums) as they currently are (in their currently game warping state). And I don't think the vast existing PS2 population is ready to accept (or recognize the existence of) any change that would threaten the empowerment and entitlement of their intensely beloved Units and Gameplay.

Furthermore, I think the Devs are incompetent, driven to personal agenda, or both. And cannot reasonable be relied on or expected to acknowledge, understand, care, or otherwise deal with this issue. Except maybe to use it as an excuse to engineer even more partisan empowering gameplay or overhaul existing systems to ignore the issue but be turned to create some different bad issue.

So, rather than weighing in and trying to make a dent. I will elect to shut the heck up.

I have only seen anything resembling WWI battles in old footage of the beta. It looks AMAZING. It's such a shame that we have these massive maps but all that actually gets used for fights are corridors and a small courtyard with a few crates in it if you're lucky. Almost all infantry combat is cqc, which hurts the nc in particular as their arsenal is more range orientated.

Why do large fights outside the narrow confines of bases basically not happen? Because any group of infantry in the open is immediately roflstomped by vehicles. OP's idea of buffing splash damage would be the final nail in the coffin of largescale infantry combat in this supposed massively multiplayer fps.

The solution would be to close off more of the maps from vehicles, which could be easily achieved and is in fact the case in parts of hossin. But the vocal minority of vehicle-only players won't have it so everyone else is stuck with corridorside.

I agree that it's a shame that many battles occur in the same type of places.

Meh ? When I encounter groups of heavies with shotguns, and particularly Jackhammers, I really don't have the impression that NC are bad in CQC. They may have the worst Carbines and SMG, but that's why NS stuff is popular among them. And their MAX still holds the first place in (very) CQ fights. Bonus for shotguns as vehicles' secondary weapons, even if it sucks for greater ranges, they have other weapons to fill the gaps. Yeah, I really think they're not that much in a bad place.

Like vehicles are immediately roflstomped when in corridors ? To each class its role. Exceptions happen when infantry holds a higher ground over vehicles with enough AV (Indar & Amerish are the best examples here, Esamir on some points), only aircraft are able to remove them from their position ; and when vehicles have sight and can control spawn points, nothing but a push from another base is efficient.

This solution is both useless and ruins the overall aspect of the game, as infantry will go fight against infantry without having to bother with vehicles (I consider aircrafts in this part), and it's the contrary for vehicles. In this case, just make maps only for vehicles and other only for infantry, no glitch problem then. Although, having more "vehicle safe" places wouldn't be a bad thing if the base patterns were innovative and not widespreaded. Hossin is the best in this regard.

The very first reason why "large fights outside the narrow confines of bases basically not happen" is mostly due to the fact that there is absolutely no point in holding a place in the middle of nowhere if it doesn't give an obvious advantage in capturing a base. i.e. : only bases matter.

Many people have suggested/required that the whole map was filled with little checkpoints far from bases to increase the purpose of lattice links and give a real objectives for vehicles. I bet that 90% of the vehicles' dedicated players prefer to fight anywhere on a map than shelling a base to death (a base that doesn't get destroyed by the way).

The Hive system gives a half-solution to this problem by encouraging people to focus a place out of a base (an invicible one). But as these Hives don't take part in the lattice system, it can be completely ignored if the Victory Points are not at a critical level. It's a move in the right direction, but it's not enough yet. If Hives were able to securise the Hex, or even the lattice link, where they were, it would certainly increase their appeal, both for constructors and demolishers.

The other possible solution discussed was about adding more "control checkpoints" on bases. Such as bridges, doors only destroyable by vehicles, and this kind of things. It would be a cool idea, but requires a freaking huge amount of work in comparison to the first solution, and fights would still happen almost exclusively in bases and directly around.

Step 1: Introduce artillery.
Step 2: Remove Air's AI weaponry.
Step 3: Balance flak and give air the optional role of being a counter to enemy artillery.
Step 4: ?????
Step 5: Profit.