Alpha - Bases Weren't Always Poorly Laid Out

Bring back at least some of these old bases please.

Defensible bases make for epic fights.

Oh my... that picture, from the first poster..... does that look like an actually defensible, MILITARY STYLE operations base???

God forbid!!!

Could you imagine what fighting in those bridges would have been like, with how closed off they look to outside elements, and if there were places to take cover, O MY GOD.. Imagine being involved in a trenched fight, trying to push you enemy back inch by inch inside those bridges, freakin want it. Something I have yet to honestly experience in this game.. But on the flip side, if it was just a meat grinder, like the Bio dome currently is, I would have passed on it for fights elsewhere..

Weren't Galaxies the mobile spawn in beta, though? That alone would've affected base design. Just thought I'd point it out.

One of my biggest gripes with the current base designs is that most good positions for defending infantry (particularly against ground vehicles) are that way by accident and not by design. Flight pads, tech plant roofs, certain spots around the upper level of amp stations because of the vantage points they offer. External walkways have no cover. Exterior wall towers have no cover. Much of cover you can find in other places are just doodads (like the nonspecific boxes on outpost building roofs and in many interior spaces) and some of it is counterproductive as cover because it channels splash damage. Base interiors are too exposed.

With the latter I'm mainly talking about stuff like being able to lob tank rounds straight into the little rooms you drop down into from spawn in flight tower bases as long as there's some elevated terrain around, not to mention the spawn room exits that go straight out into the open to the delight of the waiting zerg of HE tanks. No base really gives you the feeling that someone somewhere ever asked "how can we improve this base for defenders?". It's feels more like they only asked "how do we slow down attackers?".

If I recall correctly Grey Heron Shipping on Esamir is a good example of a more defensible small base with exterior walls, narrow streets and mostly two storey buildings with good window placements from a defender's point of view. Don't think that particular base design shows up anywhere else, which is a shame.

Why? Because SOE thinks that to cater a game to casuals/lone wolves, bases had to be like these. Makes any sense? Nope.

And to be honest, those bases look 10x better, if not 10x defensible. They should be that defensible by the way, taking some strategy instead of vehicle spamming all the day. And instead of adding biodomes, they should've added more bubble-shields in the areas where defending vehicles can't access.

You cannot turn a game which allows zergs into an eSport game. The whole mentality of eSports is completely against zergs. If people watch a strategy being played out, that's the keyword there; watch strategy games, not zergfests that claim to have a "grand strategy"

this game cant handle those fights. not yet anyway. rendering problems and lag have proven to be a big issues with massive long battles. i dont think they wanted to have them like this,its just something they needed to do to help with the games performance.

remember fighting over bridges for days? or farming interlinks and gen rooms for hours on end. those were the days

Unless the vehicle spam is what they're after and it's a "tank n' airplane" warfare they're promoting as "eSport" as by the design and easy-mode usage currently in the game

I think they should definitely add the bubble shields back in, at least. Attach them to a generator that has to be blown by infantry and call it a day.

I made a thread about it the other day before I even saw these alpha screenshots.

eSport? what kind of idiots are those guys, lol and starcraft are something like arenas, A few players fight inside a map. Planetside 2 is a ******* mmofps, there is no place for things like this.
GIVE US BACK THE GOOD BASES.
Its a joke to defend actually ones, if the zerg grows to a uncountable number, or all 3 faction clash in each other, its a spawnroom campfestival.

Last night I was in an awesome infantry battle in which VS were defending a tech plant and it took over an hour to take it. They were doing a surprisingly good job, post tech plant nerf, defending it. It was one of the better times I've had in the game.

I'm not sure why the devs think having to attack a base against a team doing a good job of defending it is somehow a bad thing. Do they think the only fun to be had is TAKING the base? I have way more fun in long fights such as the one I described regardless if we finally take it.

Making bases more defensible means longer fights which means less boring downtime.

Cause the devs and the map designers have issues.
It was a deliberate choice to quit with the creation of well defendable areas and choke points and i agree that this is bad. However: bubble shields around respawn areas IS a balance issue. The only way that wouldnt be true is if nobody at all would be able to shoot through the shields since with a bubble shield that the friendly forces can use as a bunker, they can effectively protect 3/4 of the base while being unkillable. Not to mention AA maxes lol
Deploy yer azz inside the spawn bubble shield and voila: You can shoot all you want without any form of risk cause you cant be killed.

This can be argued and rebalanced in a several hundred ways such as conecting shields to the reactor of the base, making all shields generator dependant and/or destroyable, designing spawn areas to have underground exits that lead into buildings, etc etc etc etc.
But!
The overall diversity and fantasy involved with our maps is on the level of the sahara: sand sand sand
No chasms, mountains, cliffs, natural extremities, instead copy pasted bases and rooms with recycled doodads and shopping mall design with 48 entrances to it.

I like how we are now extremely happy if a facility fight manages to last an hour or two, when in some older game it could last a day(s). The continents and bases change color so quickly that there is no real pride in ownership or a sense of achievement. The last few days I found myself just farming xp, so I could max out my vehicles, just in case there'll be more meaningful fights in the future...

In beta defending a base gave a reward, i mean i defend cause i dont want to lose space to other faction , but some just play for rewards. Thats why they keep sunderer alive, never try to take out the enemy full. I do it. But like i said, after the zerg grows too big , you cant even go out the spawnroom. Which mental ill person would build bases like this, which give attackers a advatage?

and undefensible bases result in mass vehicles farming infantry.

Game made to appeal to 2012 console gamers who just want big battles and lots of explosions. That simple.

How about bubble shields that can't be shot through in either direction, but which block visibility from outside to in and cannot be walked through except by the defenders... who need to use it as if they were hacking a terminal (press E, watch a little circle fill to get through). That way defenders could exit the shield from a myriad of places instead of being camped at one or two small doors and the attackers wouldn't know the exact position, but at the same time could not be shot at without the ability to shoot back?

And of course some generator that can disable the shield.

It's like all the problems in the game currently (aside from bugs/glitches/exploits) are because bases are indefensible.

I know they said they wanted to do destructible objects in PS2 eventually to add more strategic elements to base assaults. It would be interesting if the unshielded gaps in AMP station walls were actually filled with a small, destructible wall, that attackers would have to use explosives to destroy in order to use it as an entrance into the courtyard. Repairable by Engi's of course but would take like 3x as long as repairing a turret or something. On Bio Labs, you could make one or 2 of the glass sections on the dome destructible.

As for defense, I wish they would take a similar approach as Tribes Ascend, where you can spend in game resources to upgrade base defenses. Like using 100 tank resources to add 10 more seconds to generators before they explode, giving defenders more time to reach them and save it. Or maybe 100 infantry resources to upgrade the amount of hit points base turrets have. Could put these upgrades on a cool down and expiration timers to prevent them from being spammed or staying up for ever. Could also lock types of base upgrades to battle rank.

Guild Wars 2 does something similar to everything you described for their World pvp. There are caravans that move from supply depots to bases, bringing resources. These resources are used to upgrade the quality of the base (wood walls become stone then iron) and add weapons to the base.

I proposed an another thread (plug: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...namic-teamwork-focused-objective.73507/page-1) that a new objective be added that involved trains that would spawn and move from one large base to another as long as a faction had both bases. All factions would be told that it was spawning and the faction who owned the train would have to defend it en route while the other factions would have to destroy it. If it reaches its destination, it grants instant resources to the faction who owns it. Some people suggested that instead of it going from base to base, these trains should spawn at bases and run back to the warpgate and this is how factions should receive their resources. Either way, the idea is neat.

The design of the current bases is whats killing my want to play this game. You have dark corner mcdoogles sitting in every nook and cranny with there heavy assault wasting people as they pass by without any problem. They have that shield they can pop to take reduced damage and if there was no health damage was done there fine to stay there. People just keep popping up out of nowhere and theres no point to this game defense wise. I haven't been in a defense since the start of this game. We try but they just jam a few grenade into our faces and noob tube people and take the base. PS1 would have some risen and repeat moments but in PS2 i was doing the same repetitive thing and non of it felt like ti mattered. No choke points because theres 5 ways to get in, Aircraft and vehicles just spam into doorways.

I just can't find anything to like or love about this game. I've given up hope. PS2 has let me down.