You are pushing all the players who thought PS2 was more than a random fight away.

I understand why people want to retreat from being mass-killed by Air (I have to ask, though "what HESH-spam?", last time I remember being killed by a HESH was years ago), but Biolabs usually devolve into utterly pointless fights that ceenter around the spawnrooms (there ain't no spawncamping like three-dimensional spawncamping, yo) with the occasional foray to the actual capture points.
One is getting killed by unfun means, the other is an entire playground that is designed to be a cluttered claustrophopic ***********, ever since the addition of interior spawns accessed from the surrounding base.
More meaningful counterplay and interaction going both ways would help mend the first problem, and it would be my way of solving the "all go into Biolabs" problem. But alas, removing the Biolabs on one continent can be done, it will be seen how it plays out, and for all those who cry for the Biolabs, there are three other continents where they still exist.

Why don't the Developers ever revamp the reward system??? They'll redesign the gameplay but not the reward, Xp, 3 or 4 types of currency in their convoluted RNG monetary system.

It's all a side effect of the sandbox. We do the "choose your own adventure" right?

I've got 3x ASP 100. One from each faction. I'm kinda over the "be the battlefield commander and win the war!" adventure. I've played it enough. I've also played the "walk back from the spawn" adventure enough too.

So what adventure do I want now? Just the sheer madness of a 200 player "capture the point" with the scale that only planetside can provide. And I want to be good at it... make you do the "walk back from the spawn" adventure instead of me.

Nothing about this is really counter to the play-to-win folks. I'll still join your platoons. I'll still follow your orders and kill the people at your waypoint.

Tread carefully though: Those of us vets that have been around long enough to get this way are also supporters. Wreck our fun and we take our money elsewhere.

I will argue the opposite: It's a sad state of affair when people defend the capture-the-continent gameplay in PS2.

Biolabs are a symptom, and they are just the top of that symptom as we see the same thing happening at other permanent battle fixtures like The Crown or most Techplants and AMP stations the moment the open for a fight. If you switched all Biolabs with AMP stations and Techplants right now, those bases would see just as much action as current Biolabs. The only difference is that AMP stations and Techplants are easier to break the stalemate on.

Biolabs are among the most Planetside bases in Planetside. You want to fight tons and tons of people in an MMOFPS? Here it is! And while people will always claim that it's "just because everyone wants infantry" or some nonsense, the truth is that the moment you offer a safe place to pull and gather vehicles that people will do it. The most western Biolab on Esamir proves this, where the walls provide a safe spot for vehicles to gather and retaliate before they have amassed enough numbers. This base will almost always have a vehicle battle at it's feet. Similarly many other permanent fixtures in the game have almost permanent vehicle battles, like again The Crown. Which again has a relatively safe spot to gather and retaliate from. It seems kind of an important theme that people keep missing.
Biolabs and all these other bases that are almost always occupied with a fight give you the biggest chance on what Planetsiders want: Big battles,

Then look at the continent-capture mechanics which people like OP parade around as the "main" game. It's the least Planetside of all mechanics. It encourages players to avoid large fights, it encourages players to dump as many players on top of one area as possible and then just deal with a tiny bit of resistance, it encourages players to ghost cap, it encourages players to make fighting them the least fun thing in the world. It's a drag on the game, it's quite literally killing slowly right now. Compared to that, Biolabs are a Godsend. A last bastion against the Darkness of the capture-the-continent players who do everything in their power to make fighting them the worst and then complain when not enough people join them, requesting the fun of others to be demolished and removed with success might I add.


I do have to agree that your number 1) is correct. Most rewards are based on individual actions. The problem is that the "group" actions in Outfits aren't any better right now. Capturing bases for the group rewards only works for Outfits, and the way it's set up encourages players to avoid what makes Planetside, Planetside. The goal of rewards is to guide players, tell them "this is what we want you to do". And what they want is to encourage fair, fun battles. Kills as main reward doesn't work either, so we get some farmboys along for the ride as well.

2) is simply not true, even though it should actually be true. Most players will spend most of their time as infantry. Even a tanker like ColonelChingles spend more time outside a vehicle and inside one. Making sure the infantry gameplay is fun is vital to the game's survival.
That said, infantry needs to be constantly babysit to make sure they can actually have fun. They need to be segregated constantly from vehicles just so infantry isn't pounded to dust with little option to counter it. This is why almost every base in the game is now a walled bastion against vehicles. And until infantry is able to effectively and enjoyably defend themselves against vehicles there is no real way for vehicles to be active participants in the capture-the-base gameplay. Aside ofcourse from getting the Sunderers to their place, but that would require the defenders a fair shot at building their own vehicle force and retaliating which we see happen in any base that offers the opportunity but most bases just don't offer it and there's no vehicle combat there.

3) Yes.

Large battles is very much a part of planetside but without the scale and larger map it is just a really big TDM fight. However, planetside have always been about the tug or war + capping continents. In this regard, having learned it was only done to Esamir, I am kind of interested in seeing how things play out when people cannot get their farm on in Bio Labs. It can also serve as a testbed for what's next. Even if it is just Esamir, we do have continents which pose unique challenges for infantry and vehicles alike (Hossin comes to mind).

In a similar way you talk about capping-the-continent crowd, an argument can be made people go to Bio Labs because they're lazy and want easy certs. Sometimes you gotta rip the bandaid off to see what other solutions players come up with or "what is the next big thing?"

In a way, yes. So ask yourself: Why are people more interested in a large TDM fight than the overall game?

It's not as if the want isn't there. When the Escalation update came along literal thousands of players came back. They wanted large-scale battles across the continents, they wanted to be working together towards common goals. But since the Devs missed the target and missed it hard those players are already gone again. The people who remain? Those are the people who still get enough kick out of fights at Biolabs, AMP stations, Techplants and real estate like The Crown, Howling Pass etc.

We've already seen that there's enough players who want it, so make it fun enough that they can actually enjoy it.

What are they testing? Forcing players to join the very gameplay we've just seen fail spectacularily at keeping players engaged just to see if these players will stay if you force them into the very thing they are now avoiding? It won't bring all those players back who already left when they didn't find what they wanted, and the chance that enough players say "oh I like it now that Biolabs are gone" is pretty much non-existant.

The only viable solution here is the simplest to say and probably the hardest to execute properly: make it fun.

We've already seen the solution: Leave the game. The current capture-the-continent system does not work. It's not engaging, it encourages players to do everything in their power to avoid all the things that make it an MMOFPS by avoiding big fights, Zerging and griefing so they meet the least resistance possible. The only players still promoting it are the precious few who still enjoy that feeling of working to a seemingly large goal on the horizon even if the gameplay leading up to it is boring as all hell. And the fact that they find it boring as all hell is evident: Why else would they request the rest of the population to come join them, by deleting the fun those players are having if necessary?

These requests are always the same: "But what if..." .What if you remove Biolabs? Won't the players figure it out for themselves? They might have more fun!

No they don't.

There's no "what if", there is no "they might have more fun" or "they might figure it out". We've already seen how it works out! We've seen it in Escalation, we've seen it before during the HIVE period. Players have tried it, and they wanted to try it, and then they either left or joined the Biolab scrums. Their solution to the continent-capture metagame was to ignore it, avoid it, or leave the game entirely.

Make it fun or stop complaining.

This is the only thing left. You either make the continent-capture meta as fun as Biolabs, we know that players want it, or you stop complaining and let your continent-capture meta die in the rotten state it is. Don't ask for the removal of Biolabs, and then ineviteably the other real-estate in the form of any base that attracts people next. It won't work, it can't work. It'll just kill the game.

I think you might have me confused with someone else at this point. You liked a post in this thread which pretty much details that I do not think it is the best approach. I can still detest bio lab fights and feel they need to work on the end game meta (as was the premise of this thread, i.e. deleting bio labs as a "fix" for the meta without actually addressing it).

We're also talking about one continent not a complete overhaul + we haven't seen how the battlefield is affected as a whole since we've always been able to fall back on the farm. Since it isn't a game-wide change I don't see it as the end though. I'm not terribly optimistic but meh, it isn't as bad as I thought it be.

Locking of continents and who holds the most territory is really too entwined with faction balance. The Bio "Farms" that people never leave ... well ... let's just just look at the statistics and admit to ourselves that VS are invited to those a lot less than the other 2 factions and there's some real actual Infantry balance force multipliers mechanics at work behind that

You can't "FUN" your way around that glaring issue and you especially can't "FUN" your way around the TYPES of player who gravitate to that specific faction throwing off the entire "matchmaking" fairness that all online shooters must at least pretend they're maintaining to keep casuals casual'ing

I always hated bio lab fights, or any farm fight situation.
It is just run out and try to get as many kills before you die, sure it fine if you like the twitch factor but boring as heck.

It is more fun to try and out maneuver and capture basses than fight the same farm for an hour.

There are two counter for zergs coordinated outfit out zerg or hit the less defended flanks to capture basses. (There are times platoon leaders order us away from the zergs lane because we do not have the numbers to over come the zerg instead we hit other bases in squad size elements to capture territory and try to break up zergs. This leads to better fights.

So picture is one of many illustrations (I choose it specifically because it is NOT about a biolab fight).








85% of the VS population is in Ti Alloyds where they have 80% pop.

10% of the VS population is at the Crown, where they are fighting TR 50/50

That leaves 5%.

In those 5% you can break it down approximatly like this :

1% is pushing TR north (not in picture).

4% is desperately fighting NC, in 4 points; 2 o which are the main ones : Crossroads (which would have cut off NC) and Tawrich (which would have prevented NC from cutting VS off).





So to sum it up.

We got 95% of the VS population at Ti Alloys and the Crown, while 5% of VS population is either pushing the enemy or defending against the enemy.


Those 95%, that overwhelming majority, those are the players who couldn't care less about what happens on the map, who are only here "just to have fun", to grind their directives, whatever.

Those 5% are the playres who play this game for more than just a fight.


And my point is, roll back 4 years ago, and those numbers were reversed .

And my additional point is, the 5% have no chance in hell of succeeding whatever it is they are trying to do. That's because 95% of the NC population is NOT in Ti Alloys and is NOT in the Crown.

Those 5%, players like me, players like all my friends who quit the game, what do they do at this point?

THEY LOG OFF

Claimer : (opposite to a disclaimer, I dunno the word )

Appart from the % numbers, which are my personal estimation, though I'm pretty confident that they are close to the truth, the rest, the rest is all FACTS.

You'll notice, I did not argue at any point in this post. This is simply, what the french call a "constat".

These are the FACTS, this is OBJECTIVELY TRUE, there is NO DEBATING THIS, it is NOT a MATTER OF OPINION.

So we should just let Wrel ruin one continent because we have spares?
How long until he f**k the other continents over too?
It's clear he isn't going anywhere, and he's got the taste for ruining maps.

Another example.

I mean I could do this all day, I could have posted like 10 more since my last one. Anyway, this is still on Indar.

(see, I'm not just saying stuff, I'm backing up what I say with illustrations, proof, arguments, reason)




OK so because I zoomed in the screenshot, you can't see the pop stats on the right, but I'll tell you what they are.

1.
First off, you've got a medium sized zerg of TR capping Dahaka Uplink Hub. (the base immediately to the west of Dahaka Amp Station).

If they succeed, it'll cut off the amp station. There's like 12-24 of them, which for 14h isn't a small zerg. Not a huge one either, but still.

2.
Next you've got the Amp Station, to the East, that is being cut off.

There you find 48-96 NC defending it.

They are defending it against 6% TR who are coming from the east side.

That's more than double the numbers of TR cutting the amp station off.

But wait for it.


3.
Finally, you've got quite a fight at Dahaka Southern. A base usually contested by NC or TR but not by VS, cause it's to the far West side of the map while the VS warpgate is to the far East (and south).

Here it's an even fight, 50/50 with about 12-24 on each side, NC is obviously trying to take it back.


___________

Right, those were the facts, now a (don't worry, a simplified) analysis.


If anyone on the NC faction cared enough to look at the map, or cared about losing the Amp Station, (which most of them are defending against 6% TR with a 48-96 body count), they'd obviously be rushing to Dahaka Uplink Hub, to the west.

I mean it's not on the other side of the continent is it? It's directly a neighbouring base, not really far to walk or anything, and on top of that, if the TR suceed (and they do), the Amp Station which they are defending will get cut off.


That's point 1, point 2, what the hell are the VS even doing there?

Most of winning and losing in this game revolves around population and how much of each faction is busy doing one thing or the other.

Those players who took that base aren't there for any kind of strategical reason, there's no point in what they are doing, if anything, they are actively helping NC and TR by forcing them to fight them when they would instead have fought each other.

They didn't think about what they were doing, they never do. I'll tell you what happened.

The big huge zerg in the Crown and at Ti Alloys wiped the enemy, went for Ceres, took it, then moved north west. Like water flowing down due to gravity, they poured down the lattice.

(it's not just them, this happens all teh time now)

___________



So, to conclude, none of the players in this area of the map are actually trying to do anything at all.

They fight back if attacked, they move on down the lattice if there are no enemies, they hang around the amp station cause it's cool or whatever.

The guy who deployed the sundy, the TR guy, or the TR outfit, who deployed the sundy at Dahaka, he probably had the idea to cut off the Amp Station.

He was playing the game just like everyone else would play the game 4 or 5 year ago.

So 95% of the player base right now on Indar (and most of the time outside of prime time) is fighting here, there, over there, but not for the same reasons that players would fight in the past.

There's only like 5% of players left that actively try to conquer or defend territory with the objective of forwarding victory for their faction.

5%

And even then, most of those players only play like this when they are grouped up in their outfit or whatever.

A solo player (like me) who fights for his faction is unheard of these days. It doesn't happen, there's a few, I know most of them, but they are rare. It used to be everyone.

____


For the record, what happened next is that NC finally managed to cap Dahaka Southern Post, establishing a link with the Amp Station.

But you get the idea right? I mean, if you've read any of this.

THIS IS THE WORST UPDATE IVE EVER SEEN!

Must come back to Planetside 1 Emulator. Anyone reading this PSForever.net

Yes I liked a post of you in this thread, on many things I think we see eye-to-eye and on some things we dont. We shouldn't be afraid to tell each other that just because we agreed on things (or disagreed).

I have no problem with people who dislike Biolabs. It is completely fair to dislike Biolabs and how they function, it's not like they are perfect. Far from it. But the removal of Biolabs to encourage players to join the gameplay they've been avoiding is simply not the way to go. We have evidence that it wont work from previous updates, we have evidence that people do want to play it but in it's current iteration it's just not fun enough to keep them playing it.

I'm talking about all continents here because it's not just Esamir and Indar that have been altered, but how the Devs have been targeting specifically large fights and trying to encourage capturing-the-continent gameplay by making it harder for players to do what they enjoy now rather than making the capture-the-continent gameplay fun. It's not just Biolabs that suffer from this, it's any battle at all. The Esamir Storm is a great example as it's quite literally intended to end any fight. All Sunderers are practically insta-killed meaning the fight has to end and if you bring those Sunderers back online the storm will be mere minutes away from doing it again. Basically it puts a time-limit on any capture, meaning you have to out-zerg the enemy if you want a big fight, which makes no sense and is again a promotion for zerging instead of balanced fights.
Before that we had Escalation that also promoted capture-the-continent gameplay, with all the Zerging, Ghost-capping and griefing that got promoted with it.

The Devs don't like stalemates, they made that clear. And they are trying to systematically destroy the large fights that are PS2's most enjoyable and attractive features without actually updating the capture-the-continent gameplay that they are forcing everyone into. You may get your wish and they remove Biolabs altogether, and still the capture-the-continent gameplay won't be fixed. Eventually there's nothing left and you will be stuck with the playerbase that mostly loved the capture-the-continent gameplay to begin with, having gained nothing and lost most of the rest of the game. It's a dead-end.

I don't understand why they are trying to inject 2010-era MMORPG elements into a unique MMOFPS.

Make combat/bases/conquest/weapons/classes BETTER.

Don't make me go kill 10 rats. Don't make me go to waypoint and click on X. Don't make me do daily chores. If I wanted to do stuff like that, I'd play a different game.

PlanetSide 1 had virtually identical gameplay in the form of the original iteration of ANTs; their sole purpose was to gather energy from Warpgates and transport that energy to the static bases that need it. Literally nothing else; it was a glorified fetch quest. Granted, that power was actually used by the base, but otherwise ANTs were useless distractions from actual fighting.