Alpha - Bases Weren't Always Poorly Laid Out

Here. Have some more delicious alpha screenies of Zurvan amp station, courtesy of PSU. Original sources are apparently some of TB's early vids plus snapshots at a game con.

Posting to support this absolutely - bases must have safe zones for infantry to prevent vehicle spam, and bubble shields too. Tower outposts as well need far better external defense cover to prevent tankspam.

Try linking this to the devs on twitter. I just sent a link to Higby so hopefully he has a look at it.

Im sure the developers have their reasons for sticking with the open layout because as said earlier, corridor fights which did not move for a prolonged period of time seems to be an outcome for the game they do not want to see happen. BUT, they do need to see that by swinging back the design of bases a bit to provide safer infantry zones in both outposts and main facilities from direct vehicle influence will provide the game with a higher player satisfaction as defenses are more tactical instead of numerical.

Keep up the posts and awareness of what was ONCE in the game and we should at least see a response from the devs again, seeing as how holidays is winding down and they are looking to make changes for the game from the community, now is the time to strike!

Making the bases actually worth defending - providing some real cover and indoors for infantry - should be top priority for devs. And infantry render distance fix.

What a shame that SOE apparently consciously and actively decided against defensible bases.
Perhaps if we can rally enough support we can sway their mind?

Because I personally sure would love to see bases be made more defensible instead of even less so.

That is the hope. If we garner enough support, maybe we can get a response or even a change. Please "like" the original post.

At some point developers will realize that it doesn't matter what THEY want the game to be, as they are not even a minority. It matters what the PLAYERS want a game to be. No players=no game. A lot of games failed over the past years because the Devs 'knew better' :/

We tried in beta for this exact thing they simply said NO

Beta is a time when they focus on fixing bugs and getting stability.

Developers typically wait until post-launch to do balancing so that they can see how the game runs under ideal load. In other words, during beta they have too small of a population to make large balance decisions like base defense changes.

NOW is the time to start giving input about things like base design and expecting changes.

YEP.

Here's my 2 cents http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/ps2-base-design.76915/#post-980357

I agree with this completely we need more defensible bases. When watching the live steam during either late Alpha or Early Beta I noticed this as well. Take a look at what I think is Zurvan the walls don't encircle the entire base.



This kind of open base design is completely contrary to the bases in Planetside 1 which had tons of choke points and all critical points like the generator, control console, and spawn room were all indoors. I have constantly asked for more defensible bases.

This game should be accessible but still not cater to the lowest common denominator. People in Call of Duty and Battlefield figure out defensible positions all the time. Where to put mines, c4, where to camp I don't understand why the Developers are assuming that the player bases is too uncoordinated and stupid to figure out how to take a defended bases. Half the fun is figuring things out, the other half is perfecting the tactics you invented.

Unless the game challenges us to figure out things then no one will get smarter or have any fun trying new tactics with their outfits. Team play is the entire point of this game but right now the only team play that is supported is everyone go in the same direction till you hit a wall.

For the original design of tech plants all you needed to do was load up a couple Sunderers with gate diffusers to crash the enemy sunderer and clear the lower levels. Having the Gate Diffuser already designed and in game was great and they had a very specific purpose. Now having a gate diffuser is completely pointless because the only thing on the other side of base wall shields is tanks... waiting to kill you.

Please give us more outposts, towers, and bases that are interconnected and defensible. If you could get around outposts through a basement and pop of out windows to hit tanks It might not be so bad, or give them walls like the stronghold make people get out of the tanks. The towers need more walls as well. Both exits to the spawn room are easily camped by tanks or air barely giving the defenders a chance to get out alive let alone make it to the 2 cap points outside the base. The bases need to be more defensible as well. Zurvan which pretty much always has a fight going on have 4 openings with only 2 of them shielded making walls useless because the sundy drives right in.

The reason the Hex system would work so well with defensible bases would be because you can always go around them. There isn't just one option on where to do. Yes good base fights will develop around defensible locations but just like the Crown holding it doesn't mean everything. You could lose the rest of the continent and get drained of resources.

Please SOE design better bases.

Surprised they simply didn't implement a mixture of low-defense, medium-defense and high-defense bases and let the playerbase avoid what they hated and head to what they liked.

Better bases? I am all for it.

thanks for sharing my screens was about to post them myself

Please for the love of god bring back defense, the whole idea of a base is that the base is supposed to be a force multiplier, It should take significantly more attackers to overun a defense if the defenders are competent. Every book on war and strategy says that these aren't even bases, these are areas to be avoided at all costs due to the fact they offer no benefit to the defenders.

I think a lot of us are hoping that's exactly what we'll get. Realistically? I'll settle for a good round mix, rather than just The Crown (nigh invulnerable) and everywhere else (Swiss cheese).

All proper thanks for these pics go to Sturm. (And SOE, I guess.)

I'm glad they were posted as well. It's annoying that we can't edit posts more than 35 minutes old or I would put them in the OP.

Even just replacing current walls with early beta ones would make things move.
More cover for defenders inside & less cover for enemy trying to hide under it.
Isnt that way defensive structures should be built?

Here are the related pieces from Higby's update on the January 30th Patch (Game Update #2)

• New spawn buildings with more exits, protected balconies and easy roof access to make them less campable.
• Tunnel systems for amp and tech facilities to give access from spawn rooms to interior of bases and base walls without having to go above ground.

And changes that are somewhat related:

• AA improvements, notably flak changes for turrets and skyguards, giving them some better ability to aim, although not drastically impacting their DPS.
• Air vehicle weapon tweaks

One of the many reasons people want better base layout/defense is to protect against vehicle spam. It seems some of the spaminess is being addressed via direct vehicle weapon tweaks.
We're also getting some genuine base layout changes including beefier spawn rooms and UNDERGROUND TUNNELS. Extra emphasis on those underground tunnels.
In light of this new information, how do you guys feel? I think it's a great step in the right direction and personally, I'll have to see how the game plays out after these changes before I am certain if I'd like to see more.

Needless to say, this is a victory for base defense.