Preface: This thread will not discuss weapon balance, rocket pods, how the Prowler stinks, or the cash shop. That said, here are some constructive ideas for "fixing" PS2's big picture gameplay. In this thread I try to provide common sense, easy to implement changes that would require minimal new dev work. Please add on constructive criticism or other ideas as you see fit - let's all try to make PS2 the game it has the potential to be! Problem 1: PS2 has a progression system that specifically discourages defense, because capping bases as quickly as possible is the quickest and easiest way to gain XP. As you all know, PS2 awards a flat XP amount for the capture of bases, but it gives a bonus % of XP to defenders. However, the "break even" point for XP (the point defense becomes equally as rewarding as offense) is approximately 60 kills for a large base. That is, you must gain the XP equivalent of killing 60 players before you either lose the base or get the "base defensed" status to make defending equally as rewarding as attacking. Common sense tells us that this just does not happen very often due to several factors, which will be discussed later. This all means that attacking provides far superior XP gain, and players know it, so no one plays defense. Solution: Simple. Make defense provide the exact same XP reward as offense. Also, to discourage the capping of empty bases, the XP reward for attack and defense should be scaled to the amount of combat that takes place during the capture of the base. These changes should go a long way toward encouraging the massive battles PS2 is made for and discouraging the circular capping of empty bases. Also, defense should be easier. The location change to tech plant generators is extremely worrying to me because it seems pretty clear that not much thought went into it. What on earth is the point of putting the shield generators OUTSIDE of the shield itself? Why even have the shield at all? In one fell swoop tech plants went from being the most defensible base to being completely impossible and futile to defend. I definitely see the same SOE hand that ruined Star Wars Galaxies with drastic, schizophrenic, poorly thought out changes like this. A little thought provides a few far better alternatives: Putting the generator on the roof or in a room on the middle outdoor platform so it is vulnerable to galaxy drops (like the PS1 biolab), or putting it on the ground level just inside the access doors. Either of those options makes tech plants easier to attack without making them a joke. Amp stations feel about right and all biolabs need are better interior organization to make them less zergish. Problem 2: There is no common sense map progression and bases are extremely easy to take, leading to a chaotic effect in that there are no stable fronts; a faction makes good progress until it is cut off because it loses empty bases to a few back hackers in the rear. Solution: In the absence of a real metagame to direct the zerg, one easy addition is base lockout timers. That is, an amount of time after the capture of a base (say, 30 min for large bases and 15 min for small bases) in which that base is invulnerable to re-capture. This would mean that there would be a logical progression to continental warfare. No longer would a faction be able to re-take territory simply by flipping empty bases behind enemy lines. Warfare would be more ordered, with more defined front lines and rear areas, and better battles due to more focused attack and defense. Another common sense solution would be the introduction of a PS1 style lattice system in which the bases all interconnect; a connection from an friendly base is necessary to take an enemy base. While more rigid, this also gives the devs more control over the flow of battle. Problem 3: Continent Population Imbalances. Each faction seems to take over a continent of its own, meaning there are few even populations. The consequence to this effect is that good quality fights are hard to come by, especially during non-primetime hours. Solution: This is largely an effect of problem one: since capping empty bases provides such good XP gain, there is little incentive to seek out the enemy. Solving Problem 1 will go far towards fixing this as well. That said, a few more ideas: XP / cert gain penalty for factions that outnumber their opponents by more than 10% on a given continent. This would give players an incentive to avoid continents where their faction already extremely outnumbers enemy factions. Second, a rotating continent lock that effectively makes only two continents available at any one time. This is admittedly a more drastic solution, but it would help focus the player base and would ensure that players actually see all three continents (a week away from Indar? yes please.) Last, there really needs to be a lengthy lockout timer (at least 6 or 8 hrs) to faction switching on the same server. Planetside 1 had this and it is troubling that faction switching made it into PS2 without any sort of timer. This would also cut down on exploitative TKing done by faction switching outfits. Last, meaningful, global rewards for continent locking and meaningful penalties for being continent locked. Not only does this encourage players to attack and defend in an orderly manner, it would help spread out player population because no one would want the penalties associated with being continent locked. In conclusion, thank you all for reading and I hope these suggestions are at least considered. I think they are reasonable, realistic, and easy to introduce while being extremely beneficial for the health of the game. Thanks.
They did base lockouts in beta, people cried. They are no more. Plus 30 min is too long anyways. I think the old lockout was 5, but i agree they should put the lock back on. as for 3, I find plenty incentive for grabbing my friends and planes and hunting down enemies, no fighting = boring xp, if you want to sit at a cc all day, well your choice. Timed Cont. lock, personally i think would and wouldnt work, some servers are capped while others are not. it's really a matter of server population, and do not forget the mystical maps that will come out eventually, btw Searhus better be an active volcano, spice things up a lot... hehehe
Some interesting ideas, so here are some comments. Firstly, base capture lockout timers would make the back capping worse. In your example those lost bases can not now be quickly recaptured. Secondly, most of the people who will use a second character of a different faction on the same server would have just created another account to do whatever underhanded things they are up to.
1: sounds good 2: please no timers. the best patch in beta was the one where they took those out. 3: penalty for overpop - why should i be penalized for logging into my faction when it happens to have the highest pop? Pop bonuses are good but need tweaks (IMO they should be cont wide not world wide)
One problem is you *want* to allow counter attacks. If the enemy swoops in quickly and takes your only Tech Plant, you want to quickly put together a large force and take it back, ASAP, before they get dug in and comfortable.
