T.I. Alloys is not the problem

I doubt the problem is caused by the base itself but more how the "J" button / "Join fight" works. It sends the player to the largest fight but if repurposed the T.I. Alloys fight would probably die off by itself as players aren't automatically sent there. Often after a fight is over, players not interested in driving sunderers simply press that to avoid the respawn delays if it is possible to spawn at any front at all.

Instead "J" could be a "Join a fight with strategic merit". Various metrics could be used, such as minimizing contesable bases to defend and maximise those that can be attacked. To avoid sending all players to the Crown with the 5 connections and have the same problem over again, add a bonus for distance from the third factions territory; a base 2 conenctions from third faction territory is less valuable than one 3 connections away, and so on. An alternative would be to always send players to one of the side lanes, and change which side on the basis of which enemy has the most territory, or which faction is currently double teamed the most.

Ok, as for the argument "what about the people who don't join squads?", at a certain point it becomes fair to say that they aren't playing properly. This is a team game. It is massive multiplayer online, not massive single player online (Campaign not withstanding). You are meant to play with a team.

Regarding the point about a mechanic where the clock moves slowly when the defenders are outpopped, one that mechanic would be a bugger to balance properly, two, it would consume development resources which could go elsewhere, and finally, the same thing is achieved by having more of the bases have multiple control points with 1 of them being easy access for the defenders. A recent example being when I was leading a PUG squad I started by inviting randos off the map. Splitpeak Pass was under attack by a full platoon, but they were spread out. I took my PUG squad, had them take teleporter for a point hold on D point while I called on command for a platoon to help me. After a couple minutes I saw a full platoon pour out of the spawn room to the jump pad and head up the hill. We won, and my squad slowed the clock down by holding the one point closest to the spawn room. This achieved exactly the result of your slow clock suggestion. This is what I'm saying we need more of. Bases where even when severely outmatched, one squad can decide the get the fight started, then others show up.

That is actually an excellent reason to remove Squads and Platoons. They currently function to segregate players from each other and only interact with players in their squad/platoon, rather than view every single player as a potential team player.

Joining a squad/platoon =/= teamplay. The fact that you consider players not in a squad/platoon to be not playing properly is actually a perfect example of how easily you discard them. A squad player surrounded by 5 randoms and 2 squad mates should not ignore the potential teamplay those 5 randoms could do alongside their squad. A real teamplayer would instantly see an opportunity to work together with the randoms until they either die or move off to fulfill another task. Unfortunately Squad/platoon teamplay and even the game's mechanics aren't designed to really embrace actual teamplay like that, which is why one of the things we need to focus on is making that type of teamplay possible.
In fact PS2's gameplay isn't even designed for squads and platoons to stick together as easily, as players die and have to move back to the front in a constant stream. Teamplay should be possible with anyone at any time as long as they are nearby (and even when far off), not based on you having clicked a "join" button.

1. It's a complex problem and nothing we can do will be easily balanced. However you can start with simple things and dial it down with an update every week (or if you are really far off in a day). For example you could start with the simplest system: 1:1 population = no difference. 1:1.1 population = 10% more time. 1:2 population = 200% more time etc. This might be a bit excessive, but it does get the point across nicely: You try to outpop your players with twice as many then you get twice as much time before the base is captured. Let this ramp up slowly and take into account why the population changed. For example if it's 1:1 population and half the defenders leave to make it a 1:2 situation, the system recognizes that it's the defender's fault and will not take action until 5 minutes have passed.
2. Everything consumes development resources that could go anywhere. The point is to find a place where it's the most effective. Building sanctuary was a useless task for example, while this could be a key element for the future of the game.
3. Having more points does not balance for population, in fact it encourages zerging. If your 1 point close to the spawn is easily held by the defenders when they are outpopped it would become nigh impossible to capture when you have near equal populations, meaning that you are punished with longer capture times when you aren't zerging.

I don't see the relevance. If your enemy had been equal pop this would have been possible too. If your enemy had zerged harder they could have won instead. Result: the enemy has learned to bring more players and firepower the next time.

Current squads and platoons are a cancer to the game. Not because they don't fulfill a teamplay role, but because it makes a lot of players think it's the only teamplay the game can offer. The game has been held back by this as squad/platoon players do not recognize all the teamplay options that the game could have if it's not connected to squads/platoons.
I've proposed before the harsh idea to simply remove all squads and platoons completely, and only return them back in the game when a satisfying set of mechanics is available to teamplay with anyone, at any time, with still players being able to communicate and oversee the larger tactical gameplay (like the updates to the map I proposed like this one: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...uational-awareness-with-upgraded-maps.252249/)

What would be really very nice is if they told us exactly how we're playing the game the wrong way.

Also how we're supposed to play it and what they envisage the changes will make us do towards that goal.

I understand that with children you're supposed to lead them towards a desired end. Not keep hitting them with a stick!

They should just put power silos just like in the original Planetside, ANTs can drain and fill up the facilities, Galaxies also had 1 storage bay to be able to carry and drop off these units.

If there is one thing that infuriates me about this game it is all the potential it has with what it's got already. But they insist on implementing bad ideas instead of harnessing the potential.

It's like having a great canvas with beautiful paints and a partial picture. But instead of completing your painting with your high quality supplies you scribble on the canvas with crayon.

The problem is, the game doesn't reward tactical gameplay - it rewards grinding and farming.

People will stay at a big fight in the middle of the map simply because they'll earn more certs (and TBH it's more fun). Capturing and holding points, defending points, hacking terminals etc gives a minute amount of XP compared to what you can earn in a couple of minutes in a decent farm and isn't anywhere near as fun.

As already stated, another base will simply become the new TI Alloys. On Indar it used to be the Crown, and it will probably become so again (or possibly Ceres or Crossroads).

IMO, the game also would benefit from some sort of continent randomisation. There are bases that very rarely see fights (I don't think I have ever fought at Copper Ravine for example). It would help break things up a bit if people weren't so familiar with bases.

One idea I had a while back to break up fights is to allow bases beyond the immediate lattice link to be capped - but introduce a time penalty for doing so.

For example - take a base with a single capture point:

• with a direct lattice link it would take say 3 minutes to cap.
• one lattice link removed would take 6 minutes.
• two lattice links removed would take 12 minutes.
• three lattice links removed would take 24 minutes.
• etc

To go along with this - we'd also need a mechanic to prevent lone stalkers from ghost capping, or ESF jockeys flying from base to base capping them. For example, a point would flip back if left un-defended for more than 60 seconds and if there were no friendlies in the area.

This would IMO give a good compromise between how PS2 used to work at the beginning and how it works post lattice. It would in theory allow any base on the map to be capped and open up more opportunities for fights at rarely visited bases. It would also allow more tactical gameplay by allowing pincer movements, deployment behind enemy lines etc.

This post needs to be framed and mailed to every member of the dev team.

Ok, Demigan, you're being ridiculous enough that I'm starting to smell troll on you. Removing squads and platoons from the game would increase the amount of team play? The thing that allows the same players to communicate with each other, even if they get separated, plan ahead etc. Take that out? I think you know that you are being absurd, and this will probably be my last reply to you in this thread.

FLHuk, that would be nice. They have the dev streams, they could use the time to talk about their vision of the game rather they trying to build hype for the latest marketing tool.

OneShadowWarrior I never personally played PS1, but if it had mechanics which worked well, I'd be all for duplicating them in PS2. No need to reinvent the wheel.

MonnyMoony, I'm not personally big on the idea of being able to break past the lattice line. There are already typically empty bases on the front line as it is. This is part of why people go to the blenders. The empty bases have a much lower chance of producing a good fight. If we opened the attack options further, this problem would get worse.

Nope! Not what I said! I said that current squad/platoon gameplay makes people think it's all there is. The reason we should remove it temporarily is so that players and developers have to look more into mechanics that make teamplay easy between anyone, then when we add back squads and platoons they can use it to actually do teamplay between each other as well as within the squad/platoon.

Like I said, it's a harsh measure but in the current community a necessary one to get people to actually think about teamplay, rather than the forced segregation that Squads and platoons currently represent.

I get that you are passionate about this, but don't jump to conclusions and take your time reading what I present to you.

You perfectly make my point here. You assume that voice communications and the few beacons you can place is all there is to teamwork. That is just the barest minimum of teamwork, and not even the important and necessary part. PS2's teamplay has been hamstringed from the start and the insistance that squads and platoons are all there is for teamwork has held back any discussion and development into more depth. It's why we got the escalation update that leaned even more into the badly designed end-goals and rewards for stabbing your fellow outfits in the back instead of something that helped the game with teamwork.

You really want to punish the defenders that much? The developers havent even come around to making local vehicle pads useful when enemies roll up, let alone add methods for players to supply a base.

- If the defenders keep playing as they do now and dont do an ANT run they have a limited time to push the attackers off before the attackers win by default.
- if the defenders actively do ANT runs they need to siphon away players to pull it off.
- if the attackers keep playing as they do now and dont actively hunt ANT's they dont have any adverse affects. The standard vehicle superiority that attackers enjoy could even accidentally stop ANT runs.
- if the attackers do hunt ANT's they need less skill to do so. They can mine near the drop-off zones and use vehicle superiority to stop ANT's. The only way the attackers can lose in these situations is if they spend manpower to stop the ANT and fail to do so.
- the defenders need so much more skill and preparation to succeed compared to the attackers just to add time to hold off the enemy that they would be able to fend off the attackers before they would actually need an ANT run.

You can still make this a more fair system by forcing the attackers to also keep a cortium store in order to keep attacking. This store or the access needs to be more vulnerable since the attackers already start with vehicle superiority plus control of the outer edge of the base they have an easier time doing their ANT runs. This adds a similar time limit on attacking as defending, and also tactical possibilities that the defenders can exploit to stop the attack.

A different option would be to make cortium an important resource for both attacking and defending. If players can buy a variety of powerful and useful deployables to defend or attack a base it can become a soft timer. For example you could deploy alternative router-like spawnpoints throughout the base, or a system that creates a no-deploy zone for AMS's. Defenders could place it in advance and force Sunderers (and routers) to be placed farther away and first fight to clear such items before advancing.
Dozens of such items could do a lot of different things for your team in both attack and defense, making the cortium valuable and encouraging ANT runs.
But again care needs to be taken to make it fair for both teams to be able to effectively disrupt the cortium supplies, either when its being brought in or by attacking its storage container.

For those players who want to force bases to eventually be captured, that is just forcefully letting the defenders lose in order to get movement on the map. This just means that defending isnt as rewarded (and unless you create a farm defending is already under-rewarded). This in turn means less players are willing to defend and more players will be attacking. We can already see how well that went with Escalation: many people dont like it and it encourages bad gameplay like zerging and only attacking when you can avoid a fair fight.

This is one of the most stuipid things you have suggested but i can't resist:
What teamplay mechanics do you think there should be?

But you prove my point. You cant even think of something even though I've quite literally posted some in this thread!
I dont want to temporarily remove squads and platoons, which is why I keep saying its a harsh measure, but apparently its the only way people can even start thinking about the potential of non-squad/platoon related teamwork (which incidentally will become a cornerstone of the very squads and platoons you hold dear).

My upgrades to the map and basic situational awareness are one such idea. It would allow anyone, regardless of squad or platoon (S&P), to see what is going on with the continent and see where they are needed. You can even add a mechanic to see where a S&P is more or less located so players can spot what these are doing.
Ofcourse because S&P's exist people will make strange suggestions, such as making the map updates exclusive to S&P leaders, which would nuke 95% of the usefulness of this idea for the idea that this is somehow more tactical.

Another idea is more gadgets that help both the player and their surrounding players. For example if you have an item that can temporarily reveal enemies through walls for you and any friendly nearby you can make breaching or defending easier as you can acquire a target before entering. Dont try to say "but motion spotter!" As motion spotters only work on the minimap and not your main screen, but motion spotters are part of such teamwork.

Giving all players ways to communicate through the contextual placement of signs, such as holding Q over a target can let you select options such as "dont attack this one" or "airstrike/grenades/tank attack/whatever". Holding V could let you access area-related communication, such as "enemy AA here" or "vehicle column (approaching/necessary)". Add some mechanics to avoid clutter and you are golden.

The goal of these items is more organic teamwork. You have to be able to build on the knowledge of anyone, not just the few guys that can use voice-comms one at a time. You want any two players who meet to be able to work together no matter what they are. Taking stock of what your local allies are for classes and vehicles should be almost as important as knowing where the enemy is and what they can fire at you.

S&P's are holding the game back. We shouldnt need to temporarily remove them, but with the current in-game culture its a necessity until they can see the value of actual teamwork over a few guys screaming generalistic orders over voice-comms while trying to tackle the continents defense and offense on a grid barely a step more complex than tic-tac-toe.

The Defensive/Offensive request markers already do this, anyone can see them outside of a squad/platoon much like those coloured smokes people can throw down. Making them more visible wouldn't be a bad thing though, highlighting them like Squad/personal waypoints or something.

You still ultimately run into the problem of if the other players are actually going to respond to it. You can request that people defend Howling pass or Quartz Ridge or Crossroads but they might decide they prefer just jacking it at TI alloys instead.

A literal ESP is a bit much lol.

Having a "defend this doorway" icon would be handy to place, thought preventing people for placing too many to completely block visiblity of the door would be an issue. I suppose a bootleg way of implimenting would be a deployable that's just a floating defend icon you can plop down, make it immnue to explosives and it'd function good enough.

This still relies on the 2 people actually wanting to help each other. Medics and Engineers (should) already do this anyway, throwing ammo and revives, if they aren't doing this then they're playing badly. HA don't deserve anything if they want to remain the OP "killing class". Infiltraitors already have the motion spotter as you've metioned which can be an increibly powerful tool to the whole faction, squad or not.

I feel like you're ignoring the cause that ultimately, the only thing that can capture a base is people on the point. Telling people to not attack the turret or to form a useless armour collum doesn't really further that goal. You'd have to look into the past of planetside to try and sort that out, with destroyable spawn toobs and bases that can totally run out nanites to prevent spawning.

I'd just like it if every base had a command booth in the spawn room that a player who has earned a certification for that (not just bought with certs, but actually completed some course and test) and be the commander for that base, playing it like an RTS. Players who get sent somewhere will see their waypoint pop up there and they get XP for going there and bonus XP for anything they do while near that point.
Meanwhille the commander has a bit of a different map that only shows this base and some surroundings (can simply be a cut out image of the continent map, really) and the players are signified by their class icon, so the commander can send the right classes to do their tasks.

Most of the original PS1 and many of the early PS2 member's seem to be gone since most of the sieges I was in could easily be broken by pulling armor and aircraft from the next base over and flanking them, but this rarely happens anymore.

In PS1 in order to take a base it was to siege it, destroy the spawn tubes and wait for the cap to finish, Or you starved the main generator for fuel by destroying the generator and defenses until it went neutral then cap it. Bases in this game don't have main generators that require fuel which honestly shocks me to this day.

Bases in PS1 had defenses that were AI controlled unless a player was using them. The player could also modify the turret. PS2 the main turrets are just target practice and decorations since few people ever use them.

This could be a long list but things were in the original that were popular and somehow didn't make it over that should have.

No they don't do this. It's like saying we don't need the internet because we have landline telephones. Sure they work on much the same technology but one is more advanced than the other.
Defensive/offensive markers lack context. Some people use it to get people's attention on a Sunderer, others to request entire platoons to attack a particular base. There's no way to really ask for more nuanced things like "attack this doorway" or "there's a vehicle column here that needs to be attacked".
There is nothing wrong with adding a more detailed and capable map system, you just want to find faults in what I say because you oppose the idea that there could be more teamwork available outside of squads and platoons.

this is exactly why we need to expand the current teamwork systems!
Currently players don't get a lot of cues to work together, so when they finally do see a cue they have already formed a playstyle that asks them not to respond.
Squads and Platoons are there to support existing teamplay mechanics and gameplay. Unfortunately the game lacks most of that, so most orders are ultra generalistic with the most common order being "everybody go there". If players get reasons to work together all the time, rather than just when a squad/platoon leader is shouting in their ear, players will also be more actively looking for opportunities to work together.

Again you just want my idea's to fail, so you instantly assume the worst possible way my suggestion could be implemented. I've actually talked about that "ESP" before and how it works on this site:
It would send a single pulse and then go on cooldown (or subtract a single use from a magazine and then need to be "reloaded"). The pulse is visible to all players including the enemy, warning them they've been scanned as a downside.
The pulse reveals all enemy players with a wire-frame. The wire-frame will remain visible for several seconds but will not move along with the player. So if you are crouched behind some cover and get scanned and move, the players who scanned you will still see the wire-frame on the position where you were scanned.
You can still discuss different parameters, such as it's range or if it scans in a bubble around you or is directional in a cone in front of the player (I would go for directional so infiltrators have an easier time avoiding the pulse, assuming they can be spotted at all by this item).

This makes it a useful tool for seeing where your enemies are just before you enter, but does not make items like Motion spotters obsolete as it fulfills a different role despite being used to spot enemies. It also makes sense from a teamplay perspective to get players in the right position to scan, and to have other players nearby in position to actually make use of the information revealed before it becomes stale. Hey that's teamwork! And no need for being in a squad or platoon! Wow!

Like I said you can add some methods to avoid clutter. For example you only show a maximum amount of visual data within several distances. Within 50m for example you can show a maximum of 3. Then 50m to 100m you show another 3, 100m to 300m another 3 etc.
Add weighted values for how useful the information is. An airstrike request at 300m distance from an infantryman isn't as useful to show as a marker showing a sniper nest. The information from your squad/platoon members is likely more valuable to you than those of a random (that means that they show up more often, not that information of a random will be ignored as that would defeat the purpose).
Add some rules like how many a single player can place at once to avoid clutter as well, and a time limit for how long it's shown. Add ways to merge similar requests that are placed close to each other (which would come in handy if you had updated the map system) and let those have a heigher weight since more players ask for the same thing.

Don't try to discuss the exact numbers, these are just example numbers to spitball with. If you think that X meters or Y amount of shown information is better you can assume those instead. In fact I would add sliders for players so they can control how much information they can be bombarded with at once.

Yes it relies on the people to actually want to help each other, so we should be looking into ways to encourage them to do just that.
If you make a game where you never get a prompt to do teamwork beyond "everybody go there", people won't be encouraged to look for opportunities to work together. In fact PS2 does something worse: It rewards a kill much more than it does an assisted kill in both hard XP reward and in things like directives, ribbons and weapon medals. This means that all players near each other are more often contesting each other for getting the kill rather than supporting each other, resulting in things like players jumping in front of each other or even killing friendlies when they think they can get more kills that way.
We need more ways to encourage players to look at their allies and work together. We can't do that with the stunted squad and platoon system that actively encourages you to ignore anyone not in your squad/platoon. So we need to look for more ways to work together.

You are ignoring the fact that ultimately the current capture-the-point mechanics encourage players to destroy fights, rather than create them. To zerg, to grief, to ghost-cap, to shut down any potential to fight back and avoid the MMOFPS that this is supposed to be.
Just look at you! You are telling everyone that the armor column is worthless and should be ignored! Isn't that a giant red flag to you about how broken the gameplay is? Shouldn't we need to work together on every aspect of the game, need as many parts of the game from infantry, tanks and aircraft simultaneously to get to our goals? You try to tell me I'm wrong about teamwork but you advocate ignoring the entire vehicle game because it's useless!
If you want teamplay then the capture of the point should be the end-goal of each base, while dozens of sub-goals are in their way to that end-goal. You should need to work together to finally get to that point, to finally capture it (or defend it by pushing the attackers off). But ofcourse the game rewards you by just dropping a Galaxy or three worth of players on top of the point and then repeating that because why worry about tactics when you can cheese it so quickly? It's broken, and it needs fixing by adding more organic teamwork mechanics.

@JohannesKaiser That is probably one of the smartest suggestions I've seen lately. It would probably require some sort of mutiny option in case the base commander is inept, afk, or using it to troll. That said, I'm getting a BF2 vibe off the suggestion, and I loved being commander in that game.

I think you're both right and wrong.

You're right because potentially, these population sink fights that never end can happen on any base. The most obvious one being the biolabs, but these really can happen almost anywhere. So it's not an issue that is specific to Ti Alloys.

However there are bases which, by design, tend to promote these kind of fights, again, the most obvious ones are the biolabs, but this is true for Ti Alloys.

It's an issue that existed since PS2 was born, the most famous examples at the time was the Crown on Indar and the Tech Plant on Esamir.



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So there are more than one explanations for this, but I'll pick 4 :


1. Base design

2. How the spawn system works (for example, press "J" for join combat never sends you to where you are "most needed" like it says in the quick tip, it pretty much always sends you to fights like Ti Alloys

3. In the same way way as you could say that the population of a country is "aging" because older people live longer and there are less births, you could say that in PS2, the population is young, as in, there are more new players than old players, a lot more, and new and newish players tend to gravitate towards this kind of fight because the game itself guides them to it.

4. Something a little more abstract to grasp but which is in my opinion the most important reason; how the devs have supported the development of the "play to fight" behaviour rather than "play to win". Because at the end of the day, whatever the base design, and whatever the spawn system, players still choose where they go, no one is forcing them to go to Ti Alloys.

Which might make you think that that is what it comes down to, free player choice in a sandbox game, but the fact of the matter is, the game (in its current state, it wasn't like this a few years ago) actively promotes that gameplay.

To pick an obvious example, you don't see outfits on friday night special ops droping from a gal on Ti Alloys and fighting there for 3 ours at prime time. In the same way, you don't see outfits during friday night special ops droping from a gal into a Biolab and fighting there for 3 hours either.



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So it isn't simply Ti Alloys the issue, you're right, but the Ti Alloys design does promote this kind of fight more than other bases.