[Suggestion] The State of the Game : Bastions

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by strove, Apr 7, 2020.

  1. strove

    Hey there. Been a while since i dove into the forums but here goes.
    Bastions are here and provide a whole new context for fights. As far as ways to describe the things, "oppressive" is perhaps the most apt and rightly so. These things are the culmination of an outfits efforts to even build it let alone running and supporting the thing, it should be an oppressive bit of kit. I do however have some issues with it.
    Currently, i, like many, tend to simply redeploy from bastion shadowed fights, friend or foe. If a friendly bastion is overhead theres likely to be so little resistance that the fight ends up dying out pretty quickly, if its enemy, the odds of pushing out of a base are next to none. Once these things are supported by the raft of repair galaxies they become almost untouchable to all but the most organised air ops as youll need to remove the galaxies to hit the weak points, while the galaxies repair eachother and shoot at you. Thats not even including the enemy air and turrets available to stop you.

    Im going to cut to the chase and list some of the actual gameplay issues which stop bastions from being an net positive to the game.

    1. The ability to repair-galaxy spam to block the weak points makes taking down a bastion near impossible
    2. The surprising speed of the Bastion allows it to demolish resistance on one lane, then switch to another before that one can get set up. With the current speed, a bastion can stop progress in half a continent and those looking to avoid a bastion are at a loss since one can decide to swing by any moment without warning.
    3. In cases where bastions clash, they automatically take to different elevations, the issue here is that the big guns and supporting gunships are most effective pointing down and most of the weakpoints are on the top. In every case ive seen, the bastion that rolls lucky and gains the elevation advantage wins the fight
    4. Most outfits hold onto their bastions for peak time, weekends. As right they should. This, however means for most of the week, you would be lucky to see one in a night but during alerts on a weekend, odds are there are three bastions going throughout the alert duration. This, as mentioned above, can really make the game feel like Bastionside 2, once there are three of them flying about, its impossible to get away from them for more than 5 mins.
    5. A bastion from one faction can, at will, decide to crash the party in a far flung part of the map where the opposing two factions are fighting, which frankly, ruins it for everyone since no one faction can focus on removing the bastion without interference from the other.

    That being said, here are some suggestions that may remedy the above issues:

    • (1) Set a minimum range for galaxies proximity to the weak points of the bastion, this could be done via the infamous "get out of that area" notification but perhaps more thematically, the weakpoints could repel craft of all sizes at short ranges. In either case, the galaxies being further away would leave more openings for counter attacks.
    • (2/5) Make bastions move slower... Or Bastions follow lattice links within a large margin of error. IE if you want to change lattice you have to go back into friendly territory to a junction that allows you to change to the lattice link you want to fight at, this gives ample warning to existing fights when one is rolling down a lattice, stops the 3rd faction bastion appearances and also puts more significance on "cutting off" lattice links as any unconnected lattice limits a bastions potential presence and allows an indirect control of bastions movements to those on the ground. Counterplay!
    • (3) Bastions simply cant occupy the same coordinates thus cant stack up. Or, attacking the engine of a bastion causes it to have higher odds of dropping to a lower elevation, again, counterplay
    • (4) A time limit between bastion spawns for your empire combined with a reduction in cost and HP for bastions spawned during off peak times may allow bastions to have a presence outside of friday and saturday night without being overbearing.
    Theres my two cents. These are my opinions and i obviously dont know the workflow or what is and isnt possible behind the scenes but i figure i offer my opinions on the Bastion gameplay here. I know for sure that some of these suggestions would take some doing to get to work but i do believe that improving on the bastions as they currently stand is ultimately for the betterment of the health of PS2

    What do you think?
    • Up x 3
  2. Liewec123

    best fix for gals covering weak points, remove the weak points...
    just give the whole bastion one big healthpool and let any AV damage it.
    it already has "100,000 health", thats equivalent to more than 16 vanguards,
    so i think that seems about right.
    you just cant currently damage the health directly.

    this will also make them think twice about mindlessly hovering invincible over fights between the other 2 factions,
    because they will likely be taking fire from both factions.

    bastions should have never been added as a summonable vehicle,
    but now that the can of worms has been opened it cannot be resealed,
    so DBG should atleast do something to balance these fight ruiners.
    • Up x 3
  3. strove


    Possibly though i think during primetime those things would go down like a lead balloon which would kinda defeat the point. Perhaps allowing damage outside of those weakpoints but at half damage or lower or something so there is still a reason to engage the weak points. Can you imagine if theres a platoon and 40 odd people just switch to heavy and fire a rocket up. The Bastion should be oppressive but theres ways to balance it that dont make it basically invincible...
  4. Liewec123

    Sounds balanced to me.
    It should be like everything else, if I pull a tank it doesn't make me god, if I take on 5 heavies by myself i'll lose.
    Despite my vehicle crutch, i'd just take too much damage.
    Someone pulling a bastion at primetime and hovering over TI Alloys should expect it to die fast.
    • Up x 1
  5. strove

    I like to think that bastions can be more than just another force multiplier where numbers are the answer. As best as i understood it, thats what the intention is. A grander player objective that cant be solved by having 200 players drop on a base, that needs a little more coordination to pull off. Theres a balance between the two i think.
  6. Den

    Yes, it would be nice if ground troops can continue to fight back until the end instead of becoming useless once the bottom hardpoints are out. Perhaps the damage model could be one where continued damage to already-destroyed hardpoints will chip away at other hardpoints.
    For example, you take out a point on the bottom, shooting at it afterwards will impart 1/4th or 1/8th the damage to one of the other still-intact hardpoints. And since the above ones are far more volatile, attacking an already-destroyed top hardpoint would confer 1/2th the damage to another intact one.

    That should dramatically reduce the effectiveness of would-be Repair Galaxies. Coving up those bottom points would have the Gals easily torn apart by AA. Bastions would be far less likely to hover directly over a base as it would slowly be whittled down; they'd rather have to scoot over a couple hundred meters into their own territory, making them a slightly less effective superspawncampmegavehicles.
    • Up x 2
  7. strove

    Side note, just got killed by a mauler cannon from 700m away through an entire building... Functioning as intended?
  8. Glenndal

    They're mostly fine in their current implementation as a slow moving strategic weapon, and if players deploy strategically they should be able to fight around the bastion and still make headway against the outfit that pulled it. In that case the only balancing factor it would need is movement speed. Keep it slow so it can hold a position, but can't quickly move across the map to catch up with redeployed ground forces before they cap around it. And maybe issue a warning to enemy players whenever a Bastion enters the hex, similar to how they are warned whenever an orbital drops. The game is telling you, do not try to fight the Bastion, you will be outgunned unless you're coordinating to kill it.

    Challenges are fun. I don't like it when I can just pull a tank and kill anything, that means I don't need to think about what I'm doing. I just need to keep doing the same thing, and do it better than the other guy, and if there's too many, just get more friends to help and we win. Its neat that this a powerful weapon that can only really be countered by coordinated air, and is best countered by another one of itself. It actually feels like "Hey guys the enemy fleet just deployed an aircraft carrier and is aiming our way. Unless ours is on its way, we better get out of here." And it leads to thoughts like, "huh instead of pulling our Bastion to farm planetmanz, maybe we should hold it and deploy it when someone else tries to farm us."

    But it feels like as a player base we kind of don't appreciate the strategic elements of this game. Which is a shame, because that's part of what makes it more than just another shooter. There's a thousand ways to speculate on what the correct implementation is here, which we won't know because we haven't dug through the code, but I think in a vague sense its most reasonable to say that Bastions should be killable from the ground. They should be very hard to kill, but killable. Like, still tough enough to attack TI alloys, but vulnerable enough that it needs to actually mind its facing and position to not get blasted out of the sky while doing so.
  9. TRspy007



    I would love to go back to the beta days where strategy mattered, instead of today's orbital dumps and mindless hovering around setting waypoints of death in a bastion.


    Something also should have been done to prevent larger outfits from chain-pulling these vehicles. The same people just always end up in a bastion, and most of them are complete fools who just seek an easy farm.

    And really, shooting through spawns was a good idea?


    Either let ground have the possibility of killing a bastion, or don't let the bastion attack ground in the first place. The bastion should have been a spawn-point for the whole faction, served a strategical role (maybe dropping unlimited anvils with cooldown), equipped only with defense mechanisms. Not an instant kill-streak machine. That players can kill thousands of players in one run should be a little indication that something's off. If that's not enough, every fight ends as soon as a bastion comes near it. Is that the point of the game? Can we not have something that creates fights instead of destroying them all one by one?

    And to the people manning the bastion who abuse of the shooting through the spawn mechanics, you're really despicable miserable little beings, with no shame or skill whatsoever. I wish you all the worst.


    I don't mind a challenge, I'm usually the guy that stays behind to fend of zergs/ghost-caps. What I do mind is stuff that is practically invincible, ruins gameplay and brings absolutely nothing to the game. At least reverse the CAI if you don't mind adding stuff like this. Really, having launchers/tanks that can kill things is too powerful and must be nerfed, but adding OS spams and invincible bastions that shoot even through the "safe" zones is fine?


    Can we not set our priorities straight? Are we stripped of reasoning? Why dbg, why?
  10. Liewec123

    Now replace the word "tank" with bastion.
    Because that is exactly what the fight ruiners are, a nigh invincible, easymode killstreak generator that lasts a freaking hour...

    Yes they NEED to be attackable from the ground, but I disagree that they should be able to attack Ti Alloys
    without expecting to take heavy damage (like everything else at that base)

    As to your comment about the player base and what we enjoy,
    the youtuber lead designer needs to start reading the damn room...
    There is a reason that the perpetual three-way meatgrinder at ti alloys is so popular,
    Because that is what WE the players want, but Orbital strikes/bastions come along and ruin it for everyone.
    (Apart from the zergfit that was blessed with it...)
  11. Glenndal


    Ah, but that's not what bastions are, bastions have a 1 hour cooldown at minimum, it might actually be closer to 12 hours I'm not 100% sure how it works. Additionally, a bastion without 8 buddies to man the guns is dead in the air, and without the fleet of galaxies and fighters will actually die very quickly.

    Tanks are baseline powerful with one person, and if you have more tanks no matter what the opponent throws at you, infantry, armor or air, you win with more armor. If your tank dies, pull another one. That doesn't work for every base, where sometimes infantry are dominant, but for the most you win the vehicle game ground or air. That doesn't work with the bastion. you NEED to switch to an air force on par with an armor zerg or another bastion to take it down. Once you do, the same outfit can't pull another one for at least an hour. And don't forget, your outfit can pull one to counter it as well.

    TI alloys is definitely not my favorite part of this game. Like its fun every now and then, but I could very much get my fill of that sort of gameplay from other games. Combat flow across the map is much more interesting to me at least. This is one of the few games that even allows that to be a thing, and its really cool! Actual strategic warfare! What other game lets you fill the role of footsoldier, tank pilot, and air pilot to control multiple continents? The combat IS fun in three way fights, but sitting on one facility for an entire play session just out of habit feels like we're wasting a lot of this games' potential.

    Probably not everyone's into that sort of strategic combat flow the way I am, so I concede that overwhelming ground force should probably be able to kill a Bastion, but it should still be much harder than killing it with air or another bastion, and it should be able to, with proper positioning, break a deadlock and turn the tide of a three-way.
  12. Liewec123

    there should never be a vehicle in the game that connot be taken out by shooting it with AV...
    that is just utterly ridiculous, the fact that (as you put it) "you NEED to switch to air" to even attempt to plink the thing is ridiculous.
    and you're bringing paper planes that cost half of your resources, while the bastion is covered in a ball of FREE esfs.
    you can pull 2 esfs and then you're done for 10 minutes,
    goodluck getting anywhere near that bastion and its infinite endless free fighters.

    the ONLY way to destroy one of these fun-ruiners is by bringing another fun-ruiner,
    throw as much regular air as you like at it, you won't win.
    they will simply hover INVINCIBLE over the most populated part of the map getting 500 player killstreaks
    and the other 2 factions can't do a damn thing about it unless they bring their own and replace it.
    is that the meta? bastionside 2? bring a bastion or get the hell out of the fun fight, go ghostcap.

    and the PTS "balance" is making them faster to acquire...
    this is what happens when we have a youtuber with no game experience as the freaking Lead Designer.
  13. Glenndal


    I don't agree with everything you say, but you make some fair points. If a decent-sized coordinated team of air can't take it down, then there's a problem and the bastion fighters probably need to have a lower cap or a wait timer added or both. I'm not sure what "decent sized" is but I would guess 12 fully manned Libs in their current state. There's a secondary problem right now that because every problem in the game other than the bastion can be solved by sufficient application of ground armor, there are very few people that know how to fly.

    If the bastion shows up a a three way deadlock, it doesn't force everyone to go ghost cap. There's usually a lot of people at those fights. If they all leave and go somewhere the bastion isn't, they'll effectively be taking the fight to a different point along the lattice. That's why I say the primary balancing factor on the bastion should be mobility. It should not be able to follow that movement with enough speed to prevent capping around it from occuring.

    I don't think it would be correct to go live with something that makes Bastions faster to acquire. That is one of the things that makes it different than just another bigger vehicle. I could see them doing that on the PTS specifically for the sake of testing though.