[actual discussion] How can we promote more field fighting?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Van Dax, Oct 23, 2013.

  1. Vastly

    I think you've mis-assessed part of the "whole point" aspect of vehicle warfare. They can be equipped with weapons that will massacre infantry at ranges well beyond those suitable for infantry vs infantry combat.

    Let's say that infantry AV is limited to 300m, so a tank could role backwards and forwards at 300m and be pretty much invulnerable to infantry AV. However, infantry need to get within 100-150m of each other to even start to have a proper firefight. See the problem?

    There is only one thing that will encourage more infantry in the field and that's ALOT more cover from fire, especially with regard to restricted LOS for long range fire. Additionally, it needs to be recognized that infantry need Sunderers so restricting vehicle access isn't necessarily improving infantry or field fighting friendliness. In this respect, bases which are closer together are better at promoting field fighting than those that are far apart because the terrain is more readily accessible on foot.
    • Up x 2
  2. Backf1re

    I would simply change small outposts into neutral NS buildings; like Indar was pre-lattice overhaul, they where the bases that evidently got deleted. I would have the few still in existence all disconnected from the lattice, and those links reconnected with towers (large outposts) and major facilities only. This allows you to still have cover to battle through along with landscape fighting all the way to a lattice controlled base.
    • Up x 1
  3. Van Dax

    tanks have extremely limited splash damage and velocities, they are very inefficient at 300m. Vehicles, especially tanks are built to outlast opponents, currently they die incredibly easy before the battle even starts, they only "slaughter" infantry after friendly infantry have already taken the area other wise they'd never get there.
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  4. Littleman

    A good fight requires four things:

    1: A point of contention, aka, something that draws people together like moths to a flame. A control point on a bridge that MUST be captured to press further works, for example.

    2: A defensible position. More literally - lots of potential cover. Even if it's just trees and rocks, the point of contention needs lots of cover. Rolling hills don't really cut it.

    3: A local spawn location. This means at least an AMS for both sides. Ideally, an AMS that can go invisible so that it isn't so quickly and easily spotted and sequentially destroyed.

    4: Roughly equal player numbers. 45% to 55% odds are pretty much the limit before things start to go glaringly well for one side.

    Additionally, an in-field strategic location should probably have some choke potential primarily because, in this scenario, neither side is really the defender, but the aggressor. This is meant to be the counter attack location for the retreating empire. It might take a minute to cap tops just to maintain force movement flow in case there is little resistance for the advancing army however.
    • Up x 3
  5. deggy

    Tanks haven't been able to massacre infantry since the HE nerfs.
    • Up x 1
  6. Boomotang

    Expanding on the capturable objectives idea. Benefits you could tie them to in the future could be outfit/larger scale weapons life the Orbital Strike they might be putting in. Make it so that you can only launch and Orbital Strike if you're within range of certain captured satellites, which would be placed in between bases, far away from spawns.
  7. Pikachu

    Make events with objectives to capture in the middle of nowhere rather than a base maybe? Special meteor lands in middle of nowhere and players are to capture it to get it because it contains special stuff.
  8. axiom537

    Yes, that is correct. If infantry wants to kill a vehicle beyond 300m, then they should get into a vehicle that can hit another vehicle at 300m+ or get into a vehicle that can deliver them with in the 300m range to take out that tank.

    I do not want to encourage more infantry into the field, the field should be the domain of the vehicle. Infantry fights should occur in and around bases or in the field, but only with strong vehicle support.

    As a side note to another of your comments about Tanks killing infantry at range. I think that can be easily addressed and should be, by limiting the range / accuracies of Anti-Infantry tank weapons, especially on the main gun, it should be the secondary weapon that is the primary anti-infantry weapon in a tank and it should be limited in its range to engage infantry to under 200m, which would force the tank to get into range of infantry based AV weapons if it wants to kill infantry.
  9. Ryme

    This would have to be staged in some sort of large cavern, otherwise aerial domination will rending the effort moot. Given their mobility and ability to flat out ignore the lines of battle set by tanks, what stops wings of Liberators and Galaxies from just carpet strafing across the field?

    More than tanks, most infantry are at the utter mercy of air assaults. Rocks, trees, and even ledges offer some modicum of defense against ground vehicles, but do nothing against aerial enemies that float above it all. You want to know why infantry prefer buildings over rocks and trees? Buildings have roofs.
  10. axiom537

    Then you should have your own compliment of liberator or ESF to counter the enemy ESF or liberators, in conjunction with Skyguards. Infantry are far at the mercy of Air Assults, in fact most areas that are dominated by infantry are no fly zones, until friendly infantry move in and then the Air comes in to box the enemy in.
    • Up x 1
  11. deggy

    Pretty sure most infantry prefer an open field with a ledge overlooking it.

    That way there are no obstructions to MANA AV and lock-on weapons.
    • Up x 1
  12. CptFirelord

    I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but I'll put my rendition of what you're saying in a small summarized paragraph here..

    Essentially, territory owned is based on the front line. Think 'Battle of the Bluge'-esque here, where pushing back and forth from both parties conquers territory behind the front line, and when the enemy pushes back they regain their territory. It's similar to what we have in the sense that there are bases, but instead of focusing on capture points, you're focusing on the push. Keeping the fights alive. Scrambling to get those 12/12 Galaxies to the front lines to aid in the fight, actually needing to bring tanks forward in order to combat other tanks. Air battles, MASSIVE air battles that would push against armor, allow one faction to push for a bit and then be countered by an equally massive combined forces push from the enemy. War is evolving, constantly changing, and putting it into the capping of one point seems a little melodramatic.
    • Up x 1
  13. Ryme

    I've rarely seen back and forth exchanges between aerial forces, like you do would with ground forces. It usually plays out as one side either sweeps the other. There is some back and forth exchange around bases due to the availability of cover from aerial assaults. In an open field, whichever side pushes off the other's aerial forces will quickly decimate the opponent's ground forces.

    In a small skirmish, you might have small outfits or squads that are properly equipped with anti-air, but in a large scale battle, the majority of infantry simply aren't. That's why aerial forces can box in the majority of infantry at tower sieges, forcing of them hide inside buildings, instead of just rushing out with lock-on launchers or dual burst MAXs.
  14. Ryme

    Yes, everyone prefers the high ground. But then an ESF or Galaxy will always be higher. Not saying aerial vehicles are OP, just that it will be problematic in including them if the objective is to push combat away from buildings.
  15. Vastly

    They don't need to be efficient. Two opposing sides of infantry still need to close the distance to <150m to engage. There's your new dead zone. Tanks only need to prevent infantry from moving forwards to prevent the field fight.

    I'm afraid I'm struggling to see how reversing this situation leads to infantry field fighting improvements and so far you've failed to explain it.
  16. Giggily

    SOE should just modify base defense/capture effects to include an entire hex instead of just the area around an actual outpost or facility. The reason people fight on top of points instead of around them is because you don't get cap points unless you're right inside the base, and I'm pretty sure you don't get defense XP unless you're just as ridiculously close. It encourages people to stick indoors.

    Tanks barely having a reason to exist within the game doesn't really help the situation.
  17. Van Dax

    tanks won't BE 300m away though, if they get a survivability buff they will be where they can kill things like 200m, remmber you can still use lock-ons and av turrets and your own armour.
    • Up x 2
  18. CrimsonDaemon

    I would suggest engineers having access to a more flexible ACE. The ability to deploy tank traps, turrets, incredibly durable mini bunkers or pillboxes, portable shield generators. Things of that nature.
    • Up x 1
  19. EliteEskimo


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    Van Dax I like that all these ideas have the ability to improve the game or at least add some more depth to make it more interesting.

    1. It made me happy that the only numbered solution that wasn't optional for improving field fighting was reducing the distance of infantry AV weapons to Max infantry render distance/ 300 meters. It doesn't matter how much we buff tanks if they are getting hit from invisible entities that they can't damage. Even if they somehow made infantry render at 500 meters away tanks would either need their splash damage back in full or a major velocity buff to engage infantry at that distance , both those solutions are ones I don't want with the way current bases are designed. It also wouldn't be a good idea to make things farther away render or else it will increase the amount the game has to render causing the game to lag and giving us FPS decreases nobody wants.

    I also want to point out that if the range of AV weapons is reduced to Max infantry Render Distance we cannot buff the actual damage of AV weapons to compensate for this range decrease or else tanks go back to being made out of paper again. For those of you who don't remember how paper thin a MBT's armor used to be, I present to you the following video.



    What people need to realize is that in scenarios where both a tank and infantry can fire upon each other results in much more balanced gameplay then infantry that are sitting in an invisible God mode like state firing upon vehicles that have no chance of engaging in any sort of counter play but to leave the battle.


    2. I don't know if increasing the distance between bases would happen except maybe on Esamir where they made bases really really close. It might happen a year or so down the road, but we need short term solutions that can be implemented quickly (Like number 1) .I think open field combat needs to be centered more around vehicles so infantry can't just zerg from base to base as they do now without tank and air support. Bringing back proper splash damage for all MBT's and then adding more protection around all spawn rooms and certain bases (Which doesn't mean adding giant indestructible derp walls around everything!) would be a great idea. Lets be real, shelling spawn rooms is literally one of the most boring parts of the game for a Tanker. I feel like I speak for the tank enthusiasts out there when I say we wouldn't mind if the activity of shelling spawn rooms disappeared forever if we got back our epic open field battles back, and MBT's becane more meaningful units again.

    3. I don't think decreasing speed would be the right way to go unless it was done slightly, the buffs for armor were significant since tanks already can't easily escape an ambush or bad situation, and as long as it didn't hurt the Vanguard's base acceleration too much. While it's true that the Vanguard with Racer 3 only goes 5 KPH slower than the Racer 3 Prowler ,which makes no sense, without Racer 3 the Vanguard is a snail of a tank that isn't to fun to drive. I shudder to imagine a slower accelerating Vanguard and even more so at the thought of how horrible the stock Vanguard would be even slower than it is now. I still hold the opinion that the Vanguard is a great fully certed tank and the worst stock tank, so making that stock tank worse than it is now would be mind numbingly bad.:eek:

    4. Mini bases and bunkers would add depth, and they could actually be useful if they were built into the sides of walls and hills like the pill boxes on the beaches of Normandy and Omaha. Anything to make open field battles more interesting is a plus. For those of you old school online FPS PC gamers you probably remember the original Medal of Honor Allied Assault Game, and how fun the pill boxes on the Omaha Beach Map were to defend and take.
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    5. The only way I could see the developers removing bases is if they were the small outpost type bases that have almost no cover, and the ones that just get shelled to kingdom come (sorta like Ceres Hydroponics:D ). I would hate to see cool unique bases like howling pass go, but I doubt people would miss the crappy outposts that zergs eat for breakfast.



    Keep up the good work Van Dax.:cool:
    • Up x 2
  20. Linus

    This game needs seriously less spawn rooms.
    Warpgate, tech plants, biolabs and amp stations should be the only places where you can spawn.
    So to be able to fight for small bases, attackers or defenders will have no choice but to do more field battles and to play smarter.
    Spawcamping outside or inside is just so ridiculous, but it is currently the most common thing.
    • Up x 1