We need timers back....Badly!

This was a feature in beta that was removed to encourage battle continuity due to the base capture mechanics being funky at the time. The new tug of war mechanics have fixed this problem, and we need the timers put back in. The state of the game right now encourages cert farming above all else. Battlefield and Call of duty are great games, but this isn't a revision of those games, its a revision of planetside 1. So why it isn't treated as such is beyond me.

The meta game needs stability. I love the meta game aspect, but its nay impossible to implement a strategy. And even if you do, the opposing faction doesn't feel the hurt unless you cut of a major section of their resources. And that a shame, because it works against the leadership channels.

Why timers? Simple, they hurt. A mass of players (ZERG) doesn't forge beyond its resources just to get certs. And that's another thing, Is the focus of this game cert farming or strategy; OR battles on a scale unique in it own instance, that will never feel like a rehash on a similar instance. This is what makes each battle memorable.

Suggested timers:

Continent lock : 1 hour ( after that hour, all territories become neutral)
facility lock: 20 mins
large outpost lock: 10 mins
small outpost lock: 5 mins

why a continent lock, and not a continent benefit increase:

• There isn't enough time for players to gain the benefit of the resource buff nor for the opposing factions to feel its effects.

Communities thoughts?

The timers felt very artificial. The battle could still be raging with enemies running all over your base but then all the sudden the game decides to call a time out for 5 minutes? The flow is better like it is now where the battle lasts until you destroy the enemy.

And I don't understand at all how you think those continent lock changes are an improvement. They would make late night zerging of all 3 continents one at a time even easier. While also making it even more pointless to do if it just flips back to neutral after an hour.

The lock could be used to stop new enemies from spawning in the area.

Why not just make death timers longer, so when you kill some of the zerg, it actually feels like you killed some of the zerg.

cont lock should last untill you can nolonger defend it. the VS on waterson locked all 3 continents and it was 4 days until indar was pried out of our hands... what incentive do i have to coordinate and defend if i know that no matter what i do it will be gone in an hour?

also i think we would be better seved by olny allowing an empire to deploy to defensive hotspots.

it makes no sense that a place like the crown or the skydock should be lost to a platoon coordinating a pod drop in order to attack without being able to interdict it. galaxies are in the game for a reason

I liked the lockout on bases. If you cap a base, its yours for a bit, the enemy cant just immediatly retake it. I think this would encourage better defending, Right now if a base is lost "no problem" we can just roll in and retake it, get the XP again too.

while i appreciate the straight foward response, There is nothing substantially added that address the meta game mechanics...cause believe me its infuriatingly hard to direct strategy through broadcast channels.

The lockout system from the beta was a mixed bag. At times it was nice when we completely cleared out a base and capped it, to have it lock and have that breather before the inevitable counter attack came. At other times it was awful because the timer would kick in while the huge battle was raging at the base, and we would end up taking the base and camping the point waiting for the timer to be up so we could officially capture it and wait some more for the meter to fill.

But why ?

Some of the best fights are those when you take a base , the enemy instantly tries to re-take it and succeed's, followed by you re-trying ...
A battle should end and the base be safe when the other side give's up ..

what if all three factions lock one continent each at the same time? nothing to do?

no sorry,this is planetside,i dont want to to be like a bf3 or w/e,no is my answer

actually the ock is a great idea. i would design it to make any resource become neutral after the timer runs out. the timer starts when noone is within range of the capture point.
capturing a neutral base should yield no xp.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Capture lock timers made the game worse in every way.

Timers just kill good fight, they break the natural flow of the game and they help back-capers.

If a territory is locked there is no reason for people to defend as nobody will attack for several minutes, so all the defenders leave; A few minutes later, when the base unlocks, a single enemy comes to the deserted base and caps it back; Then, because of the timer, it's impossible to quickly resecure the back-capped base.

Why have a meta game if you believe that even losers deserve trophies.

"If a territory is locked there is no reason for people to defend as nobody will attack for several minutes, so all the defenders leave; A few minutes later, when the base unlocks, a single enemy comes to the deserted base and caps it back; Then, because of the timer, it's impossible to quickly resecure the back-capped base"

Bit of a leap there...considering that the map gives ample intel and forwarning before the territory is ever capped. Losing that territory would be a loss and it would affect resources. as of right now, losing territory is not as great an impact on resources as it should be. The reason for timers is to extend the timeline so that resources actually affect the battlefield...otherwise why bother with resources?

Besides its an embarrassment to the faction if 1 infiltrator locks a territory without a fight. And that infiltrator deserves a trophy for his accomplishment don't you think?

As for the one lone infiltrator capping an outpost...you're right. Every base that requires x people to speed up capture, should also require that amount of people to initiate and maintain the capture process. This makes back capping a challenge as developers had stated pre-beta on many occasions, and not a walk in the park as it currently stands.

Just an idea: what if you didn't receive XP for a capture on a facility if you lost the facility within x amount of minutes? This would encourage defense of the facility and prevent the constant circling of the empires around each other as they capture and recapture the same facilities?

Timers will only lead us to situation when attackers will be derping on the facility 2 times longer then now to capture it.

I just realised something. In PS1 we defended facilities because there were only a few places we could attack. So in order to attack and get capture XP, we had to defend first (not to mention how fun it was).
PS2 gives too much freedom with it's hexagon territories.

To be on topic: timers were removed for a reason. They were only good when we still had the whack-a-mole capture mechanics.

What if after capping a base, a countdown began to secure the base? After the countdown reached zero, the base would be "locked down" and secured for a set period of time. This would force the capper(s) to have to defend the base after a cap, or risk it being retaken if there are active defenders in the area or defenders on route to defend the location. Just an unexpanded idea.

I don't got no formal degree in... Enemy Territory Acquisition and Defense... but this gentle-a-man speaks the troof.

I don't see a benefit of this that possibly outweighs it's costs.

You know what it prevents? When you fight for a base for 30 mins, get in, the enemy gets out, gets their SH*# together, and comes back in and kicks you out of it's house.

I also believe it will really really interrupt the flow of the game as others have mentioned.

Meta game needs help in other areas. Primarily making EVERY territory valuable. Currently I don't give a SH#* who owns what or why. Continent lock bonuses are not anything to write home about, and resource regeneration is yawn at best.

We don't meta game because there's no reason to. We fight because it's fun.

*shrug*