Do we have an Effective Anti-Zerg Method?

It doesn't really matter who does the Zerg, but the fact is that they can literally just mow down territory on underpopped faction(s) without much resistance. Zergs I feel are also rather boring because of the fact that I suppose myself, just want an equal battle for a point. I find myself loving small 12-24 fights much more then fighting a wave, because there's a chance at least for both sides.

TLDR

Do we have an effective method/strategy for halting/countering zergs that doesn't involve a self-zerg?

Zerg is a fairly old issue and was a main factor of the demise of the Warhammer MMO. However at the last year they have added AAO against all odds buff to the under pop faction which increased XP gain between 200-600%, this could be a good start to cull the zergs.

well DBG have been nerfing the defensiveness of bases for years,
this meta-state of all factions simply zerging empty bases and avoiding eachother is a direct result of the bad changes DBG has made.

currently there isn't really counterplay to zerging, you simply can't defend the bases.
one thing that sometimes works however is to anticipate what base the zerglings will hit next and set up a sundy by the capture point, its about the only handicap that defenders have left now.

If smaller forces are rewarded better (not reducing larger forces \ groups), then you have zergs being less profitable.

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For present, Construction can delay a Zerg usually.
If done right.

Or Just use aircraft to nuke the living hell out of it, if it doesn't have skyguards, bursters, and lock-ons everywhere.
Then just use Galaxies to run over it.
No, I'm serious.

Orbital strike uplink can take out clusters of vehicles. Without vehicles the zerg-train halts.

Yes. Well... kind of. All the major facilities- towers, bio labs, tech plants, amp stations and large 3 point bases are really good at breaking zergs.

Depending on how many people you have on your side and how organised you are, the defenders of these facilities can hold off many times their numbers.

Like Liewec said, park a Sundy as close to the point as you can. Throw some mines on the main roads leading to the base, pull vehicles and AV MAXes to delay the zerg from getting spawning capability in the base. /orders chat is pretty good when preparing to defend these large facilities too as it rallies your faction's lone wolves and elites looking for a good fight. Speaking of which, I noticed that if you can stalemate the zerg at the gates of the base you're defending, all the 4th faction heroes of the zerging faction will switch to your side to get in on the farm.

zerg control by a squad of organised players could do something

Spawn hopping and Join Combat are the number 1 and 2 reason the Zerg exists in PS2.

I think far too many people also yell ZERG when reinforcements just show up and disrupt your plans... when in all actuality it was a platoon effort that was coordinated.


And yes... the NUMBER ONE strat for countering a zerg is to just mark all the enemy Sundies with smoke or verbal... then Valkyrie drop LAs with C4 onto all spawns at the same time and blow them up... the zerg ends in less than 20 seconds, because the random players have no where to spawn and lose interest.

There is almost ZERO defense from just finding spawns with a Valkyrie and C4ing them. It's not hard, it's just coordination and getting people in your platoon to stop spawning medics and infiltrators and use C4 // Tank mines.

You just don't see it that often, because there is just no coordination left in the game... The Enclave used to do that 100 times a day... and it worked every time.

IT IS THE WAY TO DO IT, it works 100% of the time.

Another way is to organize an armored platoon with proper support. Find a solid choke point along the lattice where the zerg must push through and set up the best defenses you can can. As long as you can keep your people cohesive through the wait then focused during the inevitable battle of attrition, eventually you'll wear down the zerg.

Zergs are sustained by quick victories and immediate gratification while succeeding due to weight of numbers. Armor used away from bases negates that advantage in numbers and the protracted nature of a field fight results in the zerg bleeding numbers as people leave due to fustration. At worst you'll end up in a stalemate that ties up a large portion of the opponent, at best you'll break the zerg and be able to launch a counter offensive back up the lattice against a demoralized opponent.

I don't think that's true... having your factions Zerg tied up at a biolab fight or some stupid crap like Quartz Ridge while your faction loses an alert is still the Zerg doing Zerg things... its just the fight... that's all they care about.

I think its fair to just blow up Zerg spawn points in order to control where the zerg goes as well... just take out friendly spawns if the zerg won't go where you want.

How many times during an alert does command scream for help, but every kid just keeps fighting at the bio-lab // tech plant... for NO REASON other than to shoot things?... just blow up their spawns with your mines and have them go somewhere else.

No there is no counter-strategy. Allegedly the downside of zerging is a faction leaves some lanes underdefended because many soldiers are focused in the same place.

In practice it does not happen because of Redeploy. This makes people relocate to other lanes so quickly that disrupting a zerg and forcing it to split is really not realistic. You try to open a new frontline in another lane and 20 seconds later the same old huge zerging outfit (typically the guys who claim they are great tacticians) teleported out of nowhere with 50 soldiers. You give up and 20 seconds later the same guys are already back to other side of the map: without vehicles, without investing resources, without coordination.
In many cases the avalanche effect is such they already have a Sunderer deployed to the next base as soon as they captured one. So they just Redeploy and skip the trip completely. You cannot even try to stop them between the structures.

In this conditions Planetside 2 can be nothing else but zerg and if you're being zerged just redeploy until you end up in a fight where population is more fair.

It's because players do not play per objectives. They play to farm their KDR. It will hopefully change with the new alerts because Iso-4 and cosmetics will.be awarded to the alert winners.
But the problem is always the same: ps2 is designed like a team deathmatch for kids who want to feel cool because they have a good KDR. Instead of people playing smart this took us to stat padders hidden in the corners of the map. It's not surprise to me many do not even look at the map. They should scrapped the KDR stat years ago when it had been requested for the 1st time.

If it's a critical mass zerg. One that forms from a constant influx of more and more players to overwhelm a tough to crack base. After the zerg reaches critical mass the base falls(usually 2-3/1 odds). The zerg then rolls onto the next base(s) picking up steam from easy wins. The easiest and most effective counter is to get completely out of their way. Bases have long enough timers that ghost capping a couple bases will disband the zerg within 15 minutes out of boredom. Trying to defend against the critical mass zerg just causes it to snowball.

If it's a zergfit. Like a 3-4 squad platoon that follows WP's and picks up randoms along the way it's much harder. Basically you have to find the hardest to take base in the lane and try to muster enough players to wear them down. Zergfits suffer morale issues if they get farmed at easy defense grinders or get beat down by superior players. Some commanders are aware of this and will try to redirect before it gets too bad but most just rely on easy wins from superior numbers. Deny them wins and their numbers fall.

Guerrila warfare against sunderers can make a zerg difficult enough they lose their momentum without directly engaging the full force. Most zerglings play redeployside, depending on more concerned players to pull sundies while they soldier on. Hamstring their spawns and large amounts of the zerg will disperse to other lanes and battles.

Biolabs. They can stop even the most massive zergs in their tracks.

Exactly!

You can't blame players who play just to increase their KDR if it is the most rewarding thing they can do alongside medals and certs and special prestige weapons for ... guess what? Killing others.

Give them medals and certs and iso-4 and implants and weapons and armor for winning alerts and locking continents instead,

• Valkyrie + LA + C4 + A pilot with some balls + LA who's a demolition and adrenaline junkie = zerg halted. Can be done solo if you lack social skills.
• Valkyrie + tank mines + engineer = apprehensive zerg
• Battlebus filled with engies and HAs = apprehensive zerg

Fake gal drop for baited back cap will send some of it's forces back the way they came, having a decent infil screw around hacking all the vehicle terminals while the 'gal drop' happens overhead. Everyone stops what they're doing when an infils around. At least on paper it seems like a good idea.
Has anyone tried this?

On the EU servers I find that zergs tend to peter out after taking about four bases - they either split up or come up against tougher resistance/larger numbers of defenders eventually.

As a confirmed lone wolf player who is just in it for the loud noises I personally like Redeploy and Join Combat as ways of finding decent sized fights of any kind.

I like the target rich environment of defending against a zerg...........and switching to stalker as the base goes down so I can hang around and do some mischief like re-capping and hacking terminals just after the zerg moves on, to interrupt the supply/logistics of the zerg (as well as forcing some of them to come back to hold on to their gains).

Well, have small groups of player hunt them. like
3 harrasser or MBTs.
Long range AV nests.
C4 Valks, Libs.
A player made base (with OS)

This will not dissolve the zerg, but it slows them down, cripples them. Aim for their spawns. Often a zerg is uncoordinated, and you can take important positions one by one...

Base in an effective choke, AV pros.

Lets say you have 24 people, that's 12 tanks, those 12 tanks can take out 96+ of zerg by killing sunderers, however, the effectiveness of vehicles plummets when dealing with sunderer garages, guard maxes, and 15 engies repping under the bus to nullify the focus of 5 tanks. Not to mention vehicles are also more expensive if you're trying to clear a zerg, libs cost a ****ton, MBTs cost a ****ton, lightnings cost more than a sunderer and harassers get pegged by any asshats that know how to hold a rectangleover a jeep.

But this does not cover some of the more important parts of a zerg: beacons. As long as someones up, they can be in a squad and put down a beacon for an instant spawn of 11 other people. So unless someone goes back, kills 12 people per beacon and kill the beacons themselves and make sure no cloakers stick around, then you're gonna have to deal with that too. Lets also not forget all of the AV can be circumvented by either galaxies or valks or even just the squad leaders on cloak quads putting down beacons soon as they reach the base.

So let's say for the time being, nothing is as surefire as killing a zerg than a zerg defending.

You guys seem to be misunderstanding part of the OP, or the problem in game.

Rewarding overpop factions for being the overpop faction during an alert isn't going to do anything but cause more fourth factioning imo. For instance, Emerald NC was the underpop all day yesterday (every time I checked in anyways) and getting crushed in alerts. So being the underpop while everybody else gets free goodies doesn't exactly encourage me to stay NC and try harder when I can get free stuff playing TR/VS during these low pop times.

Otherwise, I agree with others the best way to stop a zerg is target their sundies from behind with tanks or above with air/drops. Pretty easy to get a few LAs to sneak around the base together, as in not shooting the attackers and just being sneaky, and pop at least one or two sundies before people catch on.

Discouraging zerging in the first place is entirely different from breaking a zerg. Breaking a zerg is mostly up the players but the former falls into the developers hands. If only because trying to prevent a specific behavior (zerging) requires the sort of consistent application of discouragement players stink at.

Easiest way I can come up with to keep a zerg from gaining steam is to make everything pulled - vehicles, MAX's, grenades, med kits, aka everything that costs nanites - by the over-populated side in a hex or (for extreme cases) continent cost more and that increase scales up as the imbalance does baring small numbers. Obviously a threshold value for population would be needed as well as a minimum ratio before the penalty would kick in to prevent one stalker from making a single squad pay huge amounts. So, for example, if you try to pull a MAX from a base with a 96+ vs 12-24 fight as part of the 96+ side you had better be ready to lay out say, 750 nanites immediately plus another oh 1500 in debt. And until said debt is paid off you won't be able to resupply anything that uses nanites so no grenades, med kits, etc. Plus if the imbalance gets really bad its possible to hit the side with the biggest population with increased respawn timers that get even nastier the closer you are to heavily imbalanced fights while less annoying when in uncontested areas. That would pretty much kill most zergs and leave the rest very exposed to attack by vehicles.

Just looking over the posts and you can see the salient points. That is possible to break a zerg, but there isn't a single strategy that works against every zerg every time. What there is a central requirement. Denying the zerg what it wants. It can be denying them certs by simply refusing to fight so all they get are ghost caps, making them have to expend the time to get to a fight by blowing up their spawns faster than they can be put down, or getting them into a highly unfavorable fight (ex. disorganized infantry with minimal armor vs organized armor holding a strong position) that causes them to give up. What each of those - or any plan for fighting overwhelming numbers - takes is also the same. Persistence. You won't break the zerg in 30 seconds, and possibly not in one base. You have to keep forcing them to take empty bases, blowing up their spawns, and forcing them into fights where their lack of organization works against them until they give up.