You guys at Rogue after all this time finally figured out that Outfits would double up on the third faction to muscle them out on Connery server with an internal cease fire between two faction outfits? Uh????? I been telling you guys over and over again and I will say it again. The essence of the game is not in the Outfits which encourages exploits, harassment and bullying. The true spirit of the game is in the solo player. Allowing large outfits beyond 48 players which is a Platoon is ridiculous and you wonder what causes the biggest elements of camping, zerging and saturating a zone and there you go. Limit outfit sizes to 48 or get rid of them they serve zero purpose and giving meta elements has made playing the game sour for the vast majority.
Cooperation between players should be the goal. Not Outfits, not Platoons, not Squads. Players. It shouldn't matter if you are in any type of organization or not, you should be able to cooperate through teamplay and combined arms, and have depth to this. Organizations like Outfits, platoons and squads should only make it easier to do so, not be the thing that defines teamplay by hitting a button and seeing a colored number with your name somewhere while listening to someone say "everybody go there".
From a gung-ho lone wolf perspective as mine, this is the developer's focus that would, without changing anything else, improve the enjoyment of the game exponentially, without seemingly investing many developer hours. They should know we have hard cash burning a hole thru our pockets and that we're waiting for them to make a move to dump it.
The problem the way I see it is that there aren't enough macro counter measures to unbalance, when Daybreaks' primary focus seems to be more micro in how they go about things. When the games so massive such as planetside you don't need a scalpel in dealing with unbalance you need a sledgehammer, faction wide adjustments NOT bastions and collosi which are very selective in who gets to enjoy them. You need to look at the bigger picture and not expect outfits to solve your problems because we all know Outfits are bastards sometimes. Again we can look for the first Plantside for good ways they tackled the problem, probably the best method was the ability to push a faction out of the map, thus forcing the other two to fight instead of the constant warpgate bullying that goes on today. But after 8 years I don't think the pop is here nor there for such a mechanic. They also gave health/armor boosts to underpop factions, they could easily give a discount on vehicles/ consumables/ Maxs' to underpopped factions pushed to their warpgate. I'm also a firm believer on penalties to factions doing "Too Well", if your faction has 50% pop at prime time and controls 75% of the map then you're going to have to pay MORE for your stuff and have longer respawn timers. It may very well make player bases more viable as things get more expensive to pull you'd need cortium bases to resupply front lines. Daybreak really needs to stop giving outfits goodies in hopes that'll fix all their problems, they're only creating monsters good at farming certs to those who probably don't even need them. They need widespread modifiers because at the end of the day it's usually who has the mostest is the bestest, so force multiplier mechanics is in order to bring unbalance in line so fights aren't either walk overs or static messes for hours.
Ok, to the folks here who seem to be hating on outfits, please name for me, the successful MMO which did not have any outfit/guild/whatever name it had in that game. Name it, which game was it? I'll wait.
I am a solo player, have been since about the start of the game. But this comment about outfits is just slanderous and ridiculous. if you are a grown person and you find yourself being "bullied" in a game you need to go find yourself a new past time.
You are reversing cause and effect. A successful MMO provides good and fun methods for players to work together, to get them to meet and communicate. This in turn helps them see the value of getting into an outfit and have fun. An outfit can only do the teamplay that the mechanics and features of the game provide them. How about you name me a successful MMO that didn't have solid teamplay mechanics and features? Which brings me to my next point: Outfits will by default gain experience and start exploiting the mechanics and features of the game to reach it's end-goals. That's find and perfect if the mechanics, features and end-goals are all aligned with each other and well designed, but PS2 is anything but well designed and aligned with each other. Due to how you capture the continent outfits are encouraged to avoid fair fights, bring overpops and harass and bully your opponents to make them leave. Combined with the horrible lack of a proper communication system most "teamplay" will be "everybody go there" while ignoring their non-outfit/squad/platoon allies instead of working with them. Even within squads and platoons the most "teamplay" you can expect is pretty much "we are firing in the same direction competing (not cooperating) to get the same kill". Outfits can only be as good as the mechanics, features and goals the game gives them. If those are bad like in PS2, the outfits are bad.
Every single second of me being in an outfit disproves this statement. The largest outfits probably has a lower level of organisation but I also know that individual squad leaders do good work to ensure everyone's having fun. How about we try to define what teamplay is without s***ing all over an aspect of the game you don't fancy to explore? Rather than trying to uproot the outfit or platoon/squad system which many of us enjoy we should look at way to scale; Remain solo and still collaborate with outfits/platoons/squads. Remain solo and have a visualisation or agency in collaboration. Decide to connect with other players (add friend, create squads). Decide to join an outfit (friends, recurring collaboration). Multi-part collaboration between groups or players on a large scale (preferably with clear macro/micro goals/missions). There's room for everyone and deleting another person's fun is not worth it (or a luxury RPG can afford).
Outfits/Clans/Guilds will exist regardless if it is an in-game feature or not. The only thing removing outfits would do is deprive players of an outfit tag that represents their group of friends. It would also remove a lot of incentive for players to work together (as outfit assets would no longer be a thing).
Just keep in mind that, most of the skullduggery is actually performed by little clics pretending to be a proper Outfit. Also realize that, a proper Outfit kicks those clics out or else it will lead to the Outfits own demise. o7
There are exceptions ofcourse. I am in an outfit without enough members to zerg, finding a good fight was far more the focus than trying to screw over the opposition (also nice of you to assume I wasnt trying out outfit/squad/platoon gameplay). However because exceptions exist the problems current outfits, squads and platoons have dont go away. You did see how the changes of the Escalation update radically increased crappy behaviours right? Again, all those organizational structures are exactly that: organizational structures. They organize the players by assigning them the tasks and gameplay available in the game, without those the entire idea of outfits, squads and platoons becomes mute. I do agree with your ideas though. That cooperation and collaboration between any groups, individuals or individuals towards groups and vice versa should have a much larger focus than "lets give outfits some goals that reward avoiding the MMOFPS experience and attempting to make other people's gameplay crappy". You are assuming that the word "exploit" is inherently negative. Most of the time an organization like an outfit will have longer lasting players with more experience who try to take their gameplay to a higher level. They do this using their experience of the gameplay to come up with more advanced tactics and possibilities, often designed to streamline the path to victory. Just like you can exploit the resources of an area without necessarily destroying the area in the process. The problem is, once more, that the path to victory is best won by bad gameplay and avoiding particular gameplay.
Imo this all comes back to the age old discussion that the "instant gratification" path the devs went with is not a good fit for a game like PS2. The reason zerging is such a issue is because its the best and most efficient way to 'win'. Its the best and most efficient way to win because the devs decided that people cant survive if they have to wait longer than 5 seconds between starting the game and getting to shoot someone and they dont have the attention span to having to travel somewhere, so maps are packed with bases and everyone can teleport freely across the map. "Go there" "Ok, too much resistance here, lets go there instead" Repeat until you overpop the defenders long enough to casually hold the point/s until you win the base. Only possible because RedeploySide is not just a meme, its THE battle strategy of a lot of outfits because its also the best and easiest to use. If anyone asked me, the answer would have been to not feed the COD addiction of constant action 110% of the time and dozens of small bases that flip sides within a few minutes to feed the instant gratification crowd. Taking bases feel meaningless because usually its not a struggle to take them and its over too fast making the whole experience seem like a really minor achievement. Larger maps, less bases, more travel distance/time = forces more teamwork, you cant just chain pull Sunderers from a base 100m away = vehicles have purpose, guard and escort. You might need people to stay behind, enough to defend a base long enough for your own attack to start and flip points. Tactics, teamwork. Galaxies would have a role as 'rapid' troop movers, aircraft would have a role aside from dueling each other or farming infantry.. stop the enemy Galaxies and escort your own... I know there are people who would love to be able to bus around people in Galaxies, for some the 'logistics' are fun and im one of those crazy people. Quite a few things would have to be changed in terms of balance ofc and it would be a huge identity change for the game so it would never happen.. next best thing is to simply smash the redeploy function so hard with the Nerfs its basically faster to take a vehicle and drive to the next base/spawn instead of redeploying across hex borders... will probably never happen either. As long as we have RedeplySide, large outfits will be a 'problem' and a lot of fights will be very zergy because there is simply no drawback from dumping all the pop on a base to ensure its captured ASAP when you can still be back to defend a base in time if needed. Even if outfits got limited/smaller, they would just connect through 3rd party and still do the same as now so again, core problem is the ability to have planetmens all over the map at any and all times or focused on a single area at will and no cost.
Oh its a problem now when its the Vanu on the outside of cross empire co-op. This garbage has been persistent on Emerald since the ATRA days years ago. But if Wrel's pet faction gets the short end, woe unto those who infract. Wrel is part of the clown fiesta that keeps this game from growing.
