I'm back after 4 years hiatus and sad to see bases are still indefencible and mostly devolve into zergfests. The strongest defence is out-spawning the enemy with more and more numbers. If your side is outnumbered, you may as well give up because of the onslaught. Cannot even move from the spawn tube, to the capture point without dying in a hail of bullets and explosions. Where is the fun in this process? For both sides, it seems rather pointless and mindless. Lacks strategy or anything interesting.. besides the cert farming which I certainly hope that isn't what this is what it's all about. Look at Planetside 1 bases for some inspiration developers. It is opportune time we evolve Planetside into something more than it is today.
What are you talking about? Defense has the advantage in virtually every even-pop scenario. The Attackers don't have the advantage, hence zergs. If it is a squad who doesn't mean to zerg, they usually bring in extra infantry because they are preparing for a defense. To say a base is undefendable is wrong, because they are. In even pop situations, they are. They are harder to defend against a zerg, which would be the real problem. Is the flow of the bases also a problem? Yes, but it isn't the problem you are trying to focus on.
I'm talking about the slogging match that every base fight turns into. How to win over a base? Camp the spawn building on all sides and cap the point. Everything is about capping that point.. a point which is in many cases just out in the open air, or a building with open doorways for just anyone to walk on in and cap it. I mean you'd think something as important as that would be better defended in such a facility. This is hurt further by the fact the area between the spawn room and the cap point leaves you open to snipers, tank rounds, harassers that run you over for fun. Not only is it not very compelling, it doesn't make any sense at all why a base would be setup this way. From memory, in Planetside 1 spawn tubes were part of a main complex, which were generally locked down with heavy doors and other systems. In Planetside 2 currently it's just spawn tube > run to point > fight die > repeat process over and over and until 1 side wins. Find the enemy sunderer take it out - etc. It all comes down to who can respawn faster and with more numbers. A simple tug of war. I want to see more depth and strategy needed to win a base fight. The engineer class should be essential for base management. Why can't engineers have more things to do that are non-combat oriented? Right now all they can do is repair base turrets and terminals. We should have engineers being able to set up reinforced doors to replace open doorways, for example. Set up laser grids that set off an alarm or perhaps damage an enemy, or vehicle stopping forcefields so that nuisances such as harassers don't so easily get to reign over everyone parade.
Bases are designed with a Swiss cheese approach full of convenient holes from where the attackers can enter without troubles, garages for Sundies and overlooking spots all around from where snipers and armor can pound the defenders. It is a part of the game philosophy, making it easier to attack than to defend. Someone said "a base can be defended with a 1:1 pop ratio" (not really true if the attackers are competent but that's another issue) and that speaks volumes because structures should allow the defenders to be able to resist against a far more numerous enemy.
I like the idea of Engineers being able to fortify bases but think that should be reserved for the faction that is severely outpop'd and those bases near a warpgate. Currently it is easier to defend a base than attack but being outpop'd and trying to move without coordination just isn't going to work regardless. Most times the Defenders ALWAYS have the advantage for the following reasons: 1/Defenders usually get advanced warning of the next base a zerg is heading (you may not be able to fortify doorways or add additional forcefields etc but you have Vehicle Mines for that garage and prox mines/barriers for those objectives, grab a bunch of lock-ons and break up their approach, pre-deploy a Sunderer etc.) 2/Defenders know where attackers will head (those objectives are the objective, if you're outnumbered you have the option of fortifying the objective or key approach vectors and making them come to you, grab a bunch of grenades, mana turrets and Maxes etc) 3/Defenders have a spawn that is persistent for as long as the base isn't captured [WHEN THE SPAWN SYSTEM ISN'T TRASH] (if you're getting spawn camped you can mostly go around by using the teleporter or slipping out the back, don't funnel into a breach over and over and go a different way, drop a spawn beacon and use the drop pod to get behind them) The universal problem will always be getting outnumbered or disadvantaged mainly by a lack of individual adaptation and team coordination. Just look at the next spawn farm when you see a stealth class hiding in the spawn instead of sneaking out the back and taking out spawn beacons or spotting the Sunderers. With the high survive-ability Maxes & Assaults standing next to them using their launchers on infantry instead of vehicles and never pushing out. Light assaults dropping their bricks of C4 to get those sweet sweet infantry kills instead of taking out their only spawn. TLDR; This isn't a base design problem, it's a player adaptation problem
I think players can adapt if you give them the tools to be able to do so. Currently the only tool they have is brute force.
You should read my post.... I mentioned avoiding a bottlenecks and breachs and even went as far to mention Infiltrators stealthing out the sides. Not brute force tactics AT ALL
Agrees with this post. Offense is rewarded, a good defense is not. As long as you get a proactive attack you hold the advantage, the days of reactive or reflex fighting are long over. They tried a spawn system revamp and it solved nothing. People just drive or fly to the zergs. He who can farm with the most numbers inherently wins. The spawn rooms have always been a issue because defensively they hold no value. It makes no sense that a enemy can see a spawn room visibly on the minimap, the shields to the door should be one way visible by those on defense, the spawn rooms need more space and a superior field of view. A great example is when vehicles or aircraft camp it and you can’t even get proper anti vehicular shots or lockons because of allied players obstructing your shots or no ability to lockon. Futhermore, engineers and base constructions are not being used to their full potential, to enhance better fortifications on inadequate base designs, properly upgrade out dated turrets, frankly 5 mines or 1 spitfire turrets pale in comparison to the original Planetside were they had basic engineering and advanced engineering that towards the end of the allowed you to put 40 mines down, 15 spitfire turrets, there were even shadow turrets that had cloaking, cerebrus turrets that were anti air, you could also put a ton of motion sensors down, they also had tank traps. In closing, the tools of the game are there with base constructions and if they use them right to existing bases with capture points which is where the fights really belong. Even the Elypsium tubes in the bases would serve a more viable purpose randomly in a base than the predictability of the spawn rooms.
Technically you're thinking of Routers, which basically function as Respawn Tubes anyways and are placeable near anywhere from the get go. But yes, pretty much any MODULE benefit alone applied to a Static Lattice Base could greatly bolster it's defenses! The problem is that they'd need to be custom applied to each Lattice Base before hand, and then we'd need a system to "Insert" a particular Module to toggle its effect and to "Power" it via a Bases' Cortium Silo.
