So, while there is no bigger fan of the new amerish than myself, there was one thing I was worried about during it's development: how close together the bases were. I was concerned that there would be very few fights between bases because of the short travel time in between them. We see this problem on many bases on Indar, and I even put a link in my sig to a thread discussing the problem. Then, a curious thing happened. Many of the positive posts I've seen since amerish dropped have discussed how much fun the battles in between bases are. Indeed, it seems like people are having many open field battles on the road from base to base. I too can attest to this: the most fun I had last night was launching missiles at an NC armor zerg rolling from Crux headquarters in the fields just outside of araxicom substation. (I think that was the place). So, I guess my question(s) would be: Are people really getting good fights between bases? Or is this just me misunderstanding things? If you have been experiencing good field fights, can you describe why they were good? What do we think the primary factor for creating good field fights is? Is it the terrain between bases instead of distance, as many here always thought? Please keep posts constructive and on topic please. I don't want this to devolve into "hex v. lattice" or "infantryside v. HEside v. airchav".
the new bases are definitely cool, especially the way the ascent and the three bases around it are associated. I really like what they did there and I wish there was more stuff like it. Unfortunately they don't seem to have addressed what the problem with amerish ultimately was and is: bases are mostly connected by long, uninteresting roads through the mountains. This leads to a lot of pretty boring driving between bases (less so than before the update but still) and creates a lot of easy checkpoints. Kinda like the road from quartz ridge to hvar, but all over the place. I haven't spent a ton of time on the west side of the continent yet, but fighting on the east side last night felt pretty similar to old amerish (again, aside from from the ascent.)
You mention what I noticed, there were a lot of fights between bases. imagine that. Vehicles don't feel welcome in bases anymore and you know, that fits in with the design goals and upcoming (someday) energy transport changes. Vehicles fight vehicles outside, infantry fight infantry inside. This works for me. I like the new Amerish and found plenty of vehicles to take on outside... I feel like I am hunting with my tank now, not just parked and button mashing around a base. Instead of looking in the direction of a base, I am patrolling outside and finding vehicles to destroy.
Good fights between bases are largely up to the players. People that leave a base after it is obviously captured (but before the cap turns) have a better chance of deploying in the enemies transit lanes, thus creating an open field battle. People that wait for the cap to turn before redeploying will spawn in with almost no hope of creating a battle in the enemy's transit lane, and will have to fight from their spawn.
Wow. How could something so rigid ever thought to be fun? Repetition, repetition, repetition. BORING. Perhaps 10-15 years ago, segregation was a necessity because technology couldn't give us good combined arms play. Nowadays, technology is ready to deliver, but players are so much in a rut that they have no idea what to do when faced with asymmetric challenges. This is a good example of how the gamer community as a whole suffers from lack of vision and evolution. Combined Arms play seems to confound these people to the point that the only solution they can find is segregation.
Not to defend some of the changes that have in some bases made them less interesting.... but in real life a tank can't clear out an underground bunker, nor move through small alleys between two buildings. There are places where certain assets simply cannot be used.
Exactly! In real life a tank can seal an underground bunker. That's why fortifications are obsolete. What happens to unsupported tanks in urban environments? They are defeated by more mobile units that take advantage of tank immobility. The answer is not to create segregated arenas. The answer is for the players to punish weapon systems that leave their envelope of effectiveness unsupported. I've got nothing against alleys and the like, but creating arenas (who builds a base that vehicles can't access anyway?) is contributing to the decline of player growth because the opportunity to solve the riddle of combined arms is lost.
