[Suggestion] The Changes I Think We Need

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by IVIobius, Sep 21, 2021.

  1. IVIobius

    No game can compare to the sheer scale and grandeur that is Planetside 2. It has no true competitors in its genre. Because of this and what it advertised I was immediately drawn to it when I read an article in I think it was PC Gamer way back in the day. Planetside 1 was my all time favorite game of my youth and into my young adult life. When SOE announced a sequel I was excited. I performed in all tech tests and betas and at launch day I was excited to see what all the work went into. Granted it was a rough launch and there have always been some questionable changes made that broke aspects of the game or made them better. Since its original launch years ago Planetside 2 is a far different game now. In some ways better but in other ways not. Despite this Planetside has always been a game I come back to constantly over the years.

    Currently I am in my most recent Planetside 2 kick and as always I am enjoying the game as I always have. However, despite this game going on 9 years of post launch development some of the same problems we had back in day one are still present and no changes have ever been made or “fixes” were simply bandaids on what is a major issue with the gameplay and overall goal of Planetside 2.

    If this is too long for you then skip but I believe many of these concepts/changes are needed to make the game better.

    The concept of Planetside has been 3 factions vying for control of the various continents of Auraxis. It's a massive conquest game. Or that is what it is supposed to be. In the original days your empire would conquer entire continents and by doing so you would get perks based on the continents captured and they would remain yours until an enemy empire captured it. Massive bragging rights was to take all the territory belonging to an Empire forcing them in their Sanctuary. Doing so would give you access to that empire's Main Battle Tank which was pretty fun to see TR and NC colored Magriders and so on. In addition, when you did get stuck in your sanctuary your empire would regroup and form a massive air and armour column and push back out onto a continent.

    Due to the number of continents and how the lattice worked in the Original game it was not always common to be in a 3 way fight on a single continent (This doesn’t include Cyssor which I swear was always like this). You may be fighting a VS advance on Esamir and pushing the NC back on Amerish but not always both empires on a single continent. Sure it happened but it was not always the case. This was both good and bad in some ways. Sometimes you would enter a continent with no resistance and would have to Start a fight. This made the gameplay slow but once a fight did get going it would be fantastic and made for some memorable battles. This was also in part to having too many continents.

    There were also a few meta games that could be done within a continent regardless of who owned it or was fighting over it. You could drain the NTU silo to make it neutral or advance behind enemy lines to destroy base generators and Spawns (more on this later).

    Some of this used to be the case when the game was launched as you could go around destroying base generators without a direct link to them but over time a lot of that was removed entirely. However, most of the complexity that Planetside 1 offered was removed entirely in an effort, I believe, to cater more towards CoD players and Battlefield players as those were and still are some of the number one First Person Shooters and they had money SOE wanted. While this is good for the initial player base, keeping servers full and fight numbers high it does nothing for the overall long term strategy that this game could and should have. Currently this game is always about the zerg and turtle (sounds like an Auraxis Childrens book). There is no real alternative.

    So the real problems and possible solutions.

    • 1-Territory

    There is entirely too much of it to capture and during peak hours very little is often if never used during fights. I can’t remember the last time I had a fight on Indar at J908 impact site. In addition, many of the bases are massive turtle cert farms that rarely change hands at peak hours such as TI Alloys. Due to this fights are almost always done over the same dozen or so territories out of the magnitude of others. If you look at a map at any time of day the same fights will almost always be going on. This is due to poor base design in addition to too much worthless territory. Sure some maps have seen some territories removed over the years but I think more needs to be done.

    So remove about 20 percent of the bases on a map and have more open area for base building (see number 3 Construction). For example, when player count is really low its just a single lane from each Warpgate to the center. When more players come in some of the edges open up. Maps should look more like that.

    Potentially remove trouble spots on the map where fights don’t or rarely ever advance such as TI alloys or see Number 2.

    • 2-Base NTU silos and Neutral territory

    Planetside 1 had this awesome mechanic called NTU silos. Every base had one and the more you spawned, the more parts of the base were destroyed such as turrets and generators, and the more vehicles you called from it the lower it would go. When it reached zero the base became neutral and all systems shut down. You could no longer spawn there and couldn’t use terminals. The only way to fix this was to hack the base and then have someone fill an ANT at the warp gate and fill the silo. THIS COULD BE DONE BY ANY FACTION. Meaning if NC was attacking a TR base and it went neutral, VS could come in and steal it even if they didn’t have a link to it.

    Why is this important? Because this would prevent those Turtle bases such as TI alloys from never changing hands. Sure they could hold out a siege but if they didn’t keep the silo full they would lose it. We already have these mechanics somewhat in game. It would function like the Construction system silos.

    • 3-Construction
    It's a great concept and has some poor implementation but could actually provide some awesome game mechanics. If removal of some bases was conducted as per Number 1 then in those empty areas factions could build a base. While this is already somewhat done it provides no real change to the game other than a minor inconvenience or annoyance to advancing teams.

    Which is why a base builder should have access to a new item. Called the Logistical Lattice Unit or LLU. This is some form of object they build that when constructed spawns a small item. They then take that item to the closest base they own and it changes the lattice permanently until their base is destroyed. For example, say you have a link between Tech Plant A and Tech Plant B. The LLU device means that in order for the faction that owns Tech Plant A to take Tech Plant B the first have to destroy or capture your base. Provides more meaningful and gameplay changing effects to construction and makes player made bases actually matter.

    In addition, bases would be semi-permanent meaning if you captured a continent and your base is still standing with the LLU installed then it will always be there. Bases with LLU units would potentially have to be outfit specific and there would also have to be a cap on the number of LLU bases a continent could have

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    • 4-Sanctuaries, Intercontinental Lattice and Continent Locking
    This game has desperately needed this since launch and I honestly after all these years always thought it was coming. We need this. Each faction should have their own Sanctuary and that should link to at least 2 different continental warp gates. Not the weird orbital thing we have now but an actual small piece of land. Use the old Koltyr maps for it. Warp Gates should be just that. A warp gate and not a base. No spawning stuff in from them. You are supposed to form your Armor column or fill your galaxy at your Sanctuary and then drive into the warp gate that goes to the continent you are attacking.

    This system if implemented correctly you could remove or lessen the constant three way battles on a continent and actually allow you to capture a continent without the stupid alert gimmick.

    In addition, if your empire warp gates a certain faction then you should get access to Empire Specific items such as Tanks and ESFs for a certain amount of time (24 hours or something).

    In regards to continent locking it doesn’t mean you can’t still access it. Anyone using warp gates can still go onto a continent and drain base NTU silos or build a player made base.

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    • 5-New continent.
    Honestly a long shot but in order for the above changes to work better we could use a new continent. Stuff had been teased and worked on in the past but appears to have been scrapped. I feel that some development went in the wrong direction and added features that were not really needed. But, due to how the provided territory changes would be made as per number 1 with less bases being on a map, not as much development and testing would be needed as they wouldn’t need to be as complex and intricate.

    • 6-Alerts
    They suck. Hands down. They were implemented as a band-aid on a broken system. Basically no one was ever capturing a continent like in the Planetside 1 days. This was a system that was made so who-ever owns the most territory wins. But it never really feels like a win or loss to me. Every peak hour alert ends with one faction owning 1 or 2 percent more than the other faction. That’s it. Sure during off hours it can be a little more but they feel so shallow. Capturing a continent should mean we actually work our butt off and capture the whole darn thing. Not 34 percent of it.

    Alerts could still exist but I am unsure of potential options that would make sense with the proposed systems. However, they should not currently just lock down a continent kicking people off and resetting everything.

    • 7-Redeploy
    Way too many options. It should only give you Sanctuary, all AMS in your available hex, closest tower/small outpost, closest large base and an option to bind to a second large base anywhere on the map. That should be it. Currently you can just redeploy almost anywhere on the map at any given time. Sure it makes it so you can find a fight real quick but removes any of the tactical and logistical aspects of the battle. You should be coordinating with your squadmates, outfit, faction and redeploying to a base to all get into a gal or form an armor column to rescue a base. Not all just hitting redeploy and spawning at any given base at a time. This system kills fights and is also a major contributor to the constant stalemates you see on a map.

    • 8-Faction Loyalty
    In Planetside 1 players were pretty loyal to their factions. Sure I had characters on all empires but I always had my favorite. However, It sometimes is the fact that when players log on, see their empire is underperforming then switch to who is doing better. I get it but some sense of loyalty should be there. First, if you are playing on TR, decide they are sucking and to go VS you should be locked out of TR and NC characters for a certain amount of time. It was implemented in PS1 and I honestly still think it should be here. In addition, if your empire is under populated globally, not per continent or hex, there should be a massive XP incentive. Such as 15-20% more XP per percentage point meaning if TR and VS are at 34 and NC is at 32 then NC gets 30-40% more experience points globally regardless if they outpop their attackers at a base or not.


    Conclusion

    Currently the gameplay and its issues are still the same as they were at launch. No empire ever actually captures a continent. We simply fight over the same handful of territories day in and day out with no real end goal in sight winning alerts by a single percentage point as if it's some sort of major victory. We argue with opposing factions as to who is double teaming who when in reality there is no real alternative and we are all doing it simultaneously. The new recommended systems would add new meta-games for players and outfits seeking it as well as add empire wide goals. It would reduce the three way battles on a continent and allow for unique approaches to the game as a whole. These changes also allow for future expansion of the game such as module installation and stealing.

    I would like to hear thoughts from the community on whether or not the changes could even work.
    • Up x 1
  2. Demigan

    Since this is going to be a long post I'll first I have to tell you the most important thing so you dont miss it: your solutions are exactly why we need to steer hard away from the very gameplay you love. You are actively asking for blatantly popular fights to be removed in favor of gameplay you want. This is a sickness that is only fueled with each step closer like the nerfing and removal of TI Alloys.

    instead of asking to remove and nerf other gameplay just to boost what you want, ask for your gameplay to improve without sacrificing what others obviously like. Make your gameplay fun enough for players to join you instead of forcing them into it.


    1: you want to see more of the continent, so you cut content? That just makes you cross the continent faster and ignore much of the terrain (I'll get to construction).

    2: this idea ignores and supercharges the other side of the coin: when we do see other parts of the continent it flashes by without any good fight happening as a Zerg goes down a lane. this is an entirely one-sided idea. It is based on the assumption that the continent has to flow, so you deliberately stab the defenders in the back by introducing forced endings. Heres a list of what it does:
    - punishes defenders going to a large fight. More defenders=faster NTU depletion. Bring a Zerg and ANT to take any base easily regardless of the opposition.
    - encourages farming. More kills instead of taking rooms and areas speeds up depletion.
    - helps the attackers take bases as the defenses degenerate along with the NTU.
    - lets attackers take bases simply by persistance, as long as they are capable of defending the Sunderer. Who cares about tactics capturing a base if you can just sit around and eventually win?
    - PS2's attackers almost always have vehicle superiority. If the defenders had the opportunity to do an ANT run they would be able to stop the attackers anyway. Many Hossin would be the reverse: its nigh impossible to stop an ANT run from the defenders.

    What use is seeing the rest of the continent if you force bases to flip and fights dont get going well because defending isnt half as useful as attacking anymore? You might as well just add a timer the moment attackers arrive and say "the defenders have a maximum of 10 minutes to push off the attackers and then it just defaults to them even if the attackers suck".

    This is part of the discussion around all bases like TI-Alloys: these bases are obviously popular by a large section of the players, what makes you think that it is OK to cut that content just to get more of the broken Capture-The-Continent (CTC) gameplay you like?
    If you want CTC gameplay to be played by others you need to fix the problems with the gameplay flow first. TI Alloys is popular because it provides a continuous battlespace with actual challenges to overcome (that is why it is a turtle base, because both sides have trouble overcoming the others). CTC gameplay is haphazard and encourages bad behaviour like zerging, ghost capping or making it so unfun to fight you that players leave. Once you spawncamp the defenders theres a waiting period, then theres another one as the attackers pack up to leave to the next base where they'll repeat it. The base where such zergs finally stop and encounter a more even fight? Turtle bases. Players flock to defend them, they are popular and fun.
    Fix that CTC gameplay flow and players come out of turtle bases since they can enjoy a more continuous battle anywhere then. Additionally fix the rewards that encourage bad behaviour so players will seek to create more balanced fights rather than zerg it.

    3: the big problem PMB's suffer from is their cost/effectiveness. It takes time to build one and there is no guarantee they'll be used. We see this in the existing PMB spots which are more often than not empty or build by a single person. There is a lack of information available to allied players, a lack of spawn incentives, a lack of incentives to defend or support it.
    Your idea would only help if you knew beforehand that the lattice link would be attacked soon and if you can get people to actually help. Even then PMB design is bad since it encourages the builders to make impenetrable bases that arent fun to take over and encourages attackers to make defending it as unfun as possible by simply shelling it with a bunch of tanks.
    Worse: you now have more area's to build PMB's. Most of these spots will be empty or hold a single-player base, thats not going to add a lot. In the meantime we sacrificed a lot of content in the form of bases to get it.

    4: nope nope nope. We need this as much as merging all servers into one singular one. Continental lattice means spreading all players across multiple continents at once instead of just 1 or 2. It also means that large fights are even less, that zerging across the continents happens faster than it does now meaning less time to actually enjoy a fight at bases, it encourages ghost capping like pre-lattice did and generally is basically designed to kill PS2 by tickling your nostalgia.

    It gets worse ofcourse: imagine if your faction has Hossin as one of its starter continents. A continent so badly designed that it triggers mass logouts when it comes online. This means the owning faction will prefer to ignore it and attack the other faction instead, and the faction that has to get to them through Hossin will also prefer to ignore it and attack the other faction instead. You just reinforced double-teaming.

    Again the disadvantages on a row:
    - less 3-way fights (you might like less 3-ways but as bases like TI Alloys show many do not).
    - more spread out populations
    - easier zerging
    - less time with each base, less time to actually have a good fight at bases.
    - more rampant ghost capping
    - more double-teaming by continent avoidance

    The advantages... nostalgia?

    5: oh god no. We need to make sure we actually use all the real estate on current continents rather than waste time on a new one. A new continent would just suffer all the flaws of current continents and become another Hossin to boot. In fact the continent they were building was designed to be a worse Hossin as it was designed to favor aircraft, the worst balanced aspect of the game.

    A new continent takes too much effort for too little gain. For the same price as one new continent we could add 2 variations of current continents, each with a different starting warpgate and frontline to make use of currently low-use bases. And by adding better gameplay flow or things like new capture mechanics that can randomly rotate between bases each time a continent unlocks to make fights at them more varied.

    New continents are the lowest priority, they would be nice after we've fixed all the other problems like gameplay flow, balance overpopulation being not fun etc. But before that its a time hog that will take longer to build than it generates interest in the game.

    6: alerts are a problem because they encourage the exact CTC gameplay that is harming the game. You say alerts suck, but the intercontinental gameplay you propose sucks more as it is an Alert but with less large fights and more spread out populations.

    The solution is to improve the CTC gameplay flow (which means the flow of capturing and moving on to individual bases, not the overall capture of entire continents).

    7: limiting redeploy somewhat is a good idea, but PS2 is not designed for extensive logistical paperwork. If you want that go play a milsim instead. Redeploy should be limited so you can create value in PMB's for example. PMB's could easily become important logistics hubs for spawning and teleporting vehicles across the continent (and perhaps to another continent). With buildings to also get away from the PMB you could foster a logistical edge without instantly hamstringing player abilities to get around. This would also help keep newbies around who would suddenly require to know half a dozen rules just to get to each fight. Spending your first few hours in an FPS fiddling with the UI trying to find a fight (if you even realize you should) is not good.

    8: bullcrap, the amount of players who switch is neglegible. During alerts for example you can see losing factions lose population, but that population does not appear at the winning faction. So while the winning faction does get "more players" its because their opposition is leaving rather than faction switching.
    Your solution would simply hamper people from playing what they want while solving virtually nothing.

    In conclusion:
    A lot of nostalgia, screwing other people's enjoyment because you want them to join you and trying to force idea's that do not fit PS2 because they were in PS1. Normally I would try some respect for trying to come up with a lot of idea's, but since you are using toxic idea's to rip apart other people's enjoyment because you are too busy with your own you do not deserve it.
  3. YellowJacketXV

    I like the idea of an LLU but the rest I have concerns with. Even the LLU I have concerns with.

    Right now the game is still in it's autumn years and your want to essentially restart everything top down on some pretty crucial points. Now I like the concept of some of these points, but the problem is player expectations and NEEDS.

    Due to the experience system, players NEED huge fights. They NEED constant things to shoot. I'm not being coy, experience is still a bit of a slog fest. Some of these changes would break up battles into smaller battles. Right now that's only a good idea on paper. Huge battles are a thing that both casual and competitive can agree on. If battles were broken down too far and too numerous it would only really benefit the MLG style small squad outfits. I have fought with and against these people. It's not fun. It's NEVER fun. It feels horribly mechanical at times and this is coming from a robot main.

    If you made it so base battles had to be broken up with LLU then you're actively inviting people, large groups even, to suddenly waltz in with an enormous builder squad and basically play "TR at the Crown" but with extra bases people have to give a damn about. This means it's going to be exponentially harder on attackers, even more than it has to be, even more than it is right now. Bases have always been structures of utility, providing spawn points and terminals for nanite-free vehicles. People who lock their stations, shame on them greedy guts they forgot why they're even implemented. Adding a base you have to blow up before you take an already slogging long base battle is just adding insult to injury. It's just not fair. Its far too much coordination needed for too little payout.

    The base NTU design is just no. 100% no. Have you ever played against Emerald VS? They have all the competitive folk on one side. I don't see how some of them even find it fun. We don't need a "let's give people a chance to steal a base they haven't worked for" mechanic. There's already too much tilt in this game as it is.

    Your #4 suggestion also won't cause a reduction in 2v1 as it wi cause a rise in necessity of higher competition. Having entire continents as majority 1v1 will simply add too much space and cause the victor to be funneled even harder into the competitive crowd. Imagine how slow Hossin is in the morning, but the player base is split between four continents and this fifth continent. No. Thank. You.

    The only thing I can relate to is the redeployside issue. You want people building more important bases? Well there you go, answer is right there. Reduce redeploy range but make it so players can deploy easier to PMB. Done and done. Now you've also improved the PMB importance and you haven't deviated too far from the core game.

    Over all I gotta agree with Demi, these ideas are not going to help anyone and just because it works in PS1 doesn't mean it works now.