Just another one. It'll be flamed to hell and ignored, but at the very least I get to say I made a suggestion rather then grumbling in /yell. And I get to stay warm. Basically, two things should happen. 1: All respawns except for Warp Gates work on a wave timer. 2: Vehicles are supplied from a slowly regenerating pool, per base. 3: Bonus change ideas. Now the details. Wave Timer. Rather then using a personal respawn timer, every spawn point spawns based on a wave timer. Basically when you choose a spawn you enter into that wave and everyone in said wave are spawned at the same time. This would also positively affect combat as people will push in larger groups, rather then moving out in piece-meal. However, at a certain threshold the timer will start to get longer. So for example a squad or two won't cause the timer to increase by any more and you get 2 second increments added on per person. This would discourage redeploy-side as simply dropping a lot of people onto a base through this method will cause them to be stuck in an ever-stretching spawn timer. This would be considerably more severe on Sunderers. Where either the timer increases in larger increments or starts earlier. A sunderer should never be a more efficient spawner then a dedicated building. The ideal result to this in my eyes is the encouragement of logistics. Incentivising larger units to move around via transports, rather then redeploys. This would also allow opposing forces to at the very least have some chance to intercept or register the fact that they are being dropped. In smaller and less organized fights, the wave timer would naturally group up random players into a tighter group by proximity. This would, in theory, make the fights bigger without actually involving more people because rather then one by one, people would be moving in groups. The ONLY exception to all this would be the Warp Gate that is available on demand at all times. Armor Pool. The idea is that every base that can spawn vehicles has at slowly regenerating "pool" of vehicles. Each pull of an available vehicle would take one out of that pool and then be regenerated over time. The core of this idea is creating scarcity. Basically in small skirmishes, these timers and pools would essentially be meaningless as the pools would be big enough and/or timers fast enough to be able to keep up with the needs of a platoon if they are a frugal. However, this would play into massive fights where this would both help break stalemates as one side might simply run out of crucial vehicles in nearby bases and thus be forces to bring them in from further away. And it would also, in theory, slow down armor zergs because as they keep pushing onward, the defenders will have used up most if not all of the vehicles available in that base's pool. Possibly even through a form of "Scorched Earth" tactic. So the assault might stall simply because they ran out of armor. Naturally this would not apply to Warp Gates which would in turn create a "Home field advantage" as vehicles are always available there. In theory, this would add additional defensive options to those being zerged and creating an interesting layer of difficulty to large forces doing the zerging. Miscellaneous Ideas. Revive Cooldown. After a revive, you need to stay alive for a 20-30 seconds before you are viable for an another revive. Soft-nerf to revive grenade spam and also putting more emphasis for everyone involved to keep themselves alive, rather then relying on the services of a necro-ball. The self-revive implant is the only exception. Alternatiely: Anti-Revive Grenades. Grenades that create an area of effect for 10 seconds where if you die, your body will instantly disintegrate and you will become unrevivable. Does not discriminate between friend or foe. Works on everyone involved. Heal, Repair and Revive grenades don't discriminate. You throw any of those and it will heal, repair or revive EVERYONE, including your enemies. Reason: consistency. These three are the only grenades that seem to come with an IFF function. Also make them less braindead to use, put some consequence into play for dumb actions. Vehicle repair pause when taking damage. AoE repairs from sunderers, galaxies and repair grenades will be disrupted for a few seconds when taking damage, much like with nano-repair. Repair tools will need to be "restarted" (let go of LMB, click it again). This is to combat the "outrepair" trend. Mostly aimed at combating sunderer nests. Vehicle Spawn lists revisited. MBT's are available ONLY from tech plants and Warp Gates. Same with Galaxies. Major bases and towers have access to lightnings and Liberators. Smaller ones can only pull the remaining three and if a tech plant bonus, an ESF if air terminal present, otherwise only Valkyre. AMS is reverted into a utility unlock. An AMS sunderer can't have weaponry. Alternatively, leave the sunderer functionally as is, just double the price. It's far too important and far too tanky to be this cheap and easy. Cloak Flashes are unarmed. Think of it as Stalker Cloak for the quad. Galaxies and Valkyries need to stay a certain low altitude (50m, for example) and slow down to drop people safely. Drop too high or move too fast and the safe fall function will not engage and everyone dies. Something to combat the frustration of flight ceiling whales. Also it's considerably more epic this way. Let the rage begin.
It appears that many of the suggestions would impede any individual or group, not specifically or exclusively a large armoured column (zerg). I don't mind hanging around for a short while in Koltyr due to faction balance or max pop queue but having to wait for a wave timer or have rezzing not able to work for a period of time would annoy me a lot after I have eventually got into a battle (and especially if falling victim to the deliberate team killers who still pop up from time to time)
This wasn't just about armor, but I admit a lot of it did end up center on it. Yes, solo players and small groups would be affected but unfortunately unless the game starts running parallel rules depending on a unit's size (solo, squad, platoon, combination mass of all) I don't think any kind of an answer could be found that wouldn't piss someone off. Furthermore, I mostly mentioned ideas of functions, not of values. Though I did bring some, they were only for example. In the very end, how any of these would work and to what extent is most likely a pipe dream. And to be fair, in zergs, a decent portion of players are just there by chance. Not part of any organized unit, just people who found a flashy bit on the map and went there. So to have any kind of effect on a zerg, you need to affect the individual. And besides, I am not entirely ok with how the game flow itself goes. Personally I think the game should be sped up when it comes to base fights. Caps should be faster, engagements more decisive. Rather then sitting five minutes on a point, thumbs up the backsides, taking blind shots at spawnroom warriors, I think it'd be more interesting to keep the fights more mobile.
