Alpha - Bases Weren't Always Poorly Laid Out

Base design definitely needs to be improved. But something else needs to be improved at the same time: strategic value.

Right now the only thing with any real advantage to holding are Tech Plants.

What if bases required power? There could be small power stations branching across the map and, in order to power defenses, a faction would need to have a power station close enough to the base. An Amp Station could increase the range that power could travel, allowing a faction to push farther into another's territory. This way, some sort of plan would be required to capture territory and would give strategical value to a lot more locations.

I can't really think of anything for a Bio Lab.

I fully support bases being more defensible, but there needs to be a reason to want to defend that base, other than XP.

That's another game mechanic that was trashcanned -- the Advanced Nanite Transport.



You'd have to drive one of these little buggies into a warp gate, deploy the flaps, sit there until you were fully charged, drive it back, sit next to the NTU silo in the base, and recharge the bugger until it was back to 100%. It was boring and thanklessly dangerous at the same time, which is why they left it out... but my GOD it added a lot to strategic gameplay.

You could actually besiege bases, starve them of energy, then move in. Galaxies would be making wild runs with full ANTs (they'd fit in a Gal, along with buggies and quads) trying to hot-drop them into your CY, with the attackers trying to shoot them down. It was h*lla exciting for everybody except the guy driving the thing.

We -- well, all right, *I* plus a few others who endorsed the idea -- suggested bringing back the ANT as an aerial vehicle, or as a cert tree for empire-specific fighters. Naturally nothing ever came of it.

Your idea sounds fine, but I can't visualize how it'd be implemented. Maybe the brain trust over on Planetside Universe would be willing to help. You have people there putting in hours on sketches of alternate base designs and such. Try them.

If they brought back anything that moves resources, it'll probably be AI controlled and automatic; a new, moving objective to attack and defend.

That's my opinion.

Wow! I can't believe they had those things in place and removed them. There's no fun in capturing a base easily, and there is no fun in trying to defend these open bases.

Nor can any of us.

Both this thread and Buzz's need to stay on the front page for another week, so that the message sinks in. Make it so.

even port -a- johns are easier to defend than the bases we have now.

I, and a lot of other people, would appreciate continuous discussion to keep the thread on the front page as well.

I attacked a base with like 3 other outfits. It was a tech plant. The vanu were defending, and held us off for over an hour before we capped it. It was some of the most fun I've had in planetside.

I'm not sure why the devs think a "stalemate" is a bad thing. Constant fighting is a lot better than a two minute fight that ends in a base capture, then a few minutes of downtime while you move to the next base, only to take it in another two minutes.

Hour+ long fights are *incredibly* fun.

And they serve a more useful purpose too, so you actually want to hold on to the ones you own!

ANTs seem like a great idea, but the fact that a player had to operate them really was a bad decision.

Obvious solutions that come to mind are:
- make them AI-controlled vehicles, moving on the roads, leaving the Warpgate to all the bases you own in regular intervals
or
- make the whole energy supply/transfer a connected territory thing. As long as the facility is connected to Warpgate via your territory, it never runs out of power. But when it becomes cut off, you have, say, 10 minutes to connect it back before it dies.

Everything about this game has been designed to appeal to the ultra casual. They wanted avoid PS1 style engagements, namely, fighting over a base for too long or having choke points like corridors. Everything about the current game screams of this philosophy taken to the extreme to the point of it being detrimental. The bases are simply too open. Bases mean nothing because bases cannot be defended. The walls mean nothing and it is pointless to try and stop anyone from outside getting in because its simply impossible. It then becomes a game of just defending the generators.

You'd think a military base designer would have a generator room ACTUALLY DEFENDED with doors, windows, forcefields, or even turrets but nope. Instead gen rooms are wide open. A ******* cow could wander in there and disable them. Instead of you know, putting the gens underground or somewhere defensible, they decide to put them right next to a wall that mass light assaults can simply jump over.

Everything about this game is ultra easy, ultra fast base taking & killing. Even the "grav lifts" kinda scream cheesy. Like a retcon. It's just so convenient that they chose grav lifts, probably because its cheap on the level design. Instead of designing intricate stairways or elevators, they can just make a giant square shaft. Feels more like an arcade game than a military installation.

I could go on. I feel your pain

Speaking of gravlifts... the only reason they're not a massive killzone is that you cannot aim straight up or down as infantry..

But the gravlifts with the PhysX effects are sooooo cool. This isn't sarcasm. I can't wait for PhysX to be enable...able.

Skip to 1:11

Are you kidding.

Absolutely not. This includes the Burster MAX too, btw.
It's harder to aim down (the un-aimable cone is bigger) than up.

While it's absolutely ridiculous, it's not unique to PS2, and I'd guess has to do with animating the character models. Some might say that aiming directly up or down could be disorienting, particularly when you also turn at the same time.

The problem with bases is that they designed them to feel like a cod map. Very open, with multiple entrances/ways to access any room/building, and near to no safe spots whatsoever. The kind of gameplay encouraged by current bases layouts is to be on the run at all times, sprinting from building to building, racking up as many kills as possible till you inevitably die cause someone shot you from the side or in the back. Sounds familiar? It should if you ever tried any cod game.

Now, the problems are these:
1) planetside infantry combat isn't supposed to be played like a deathmatch, and shouldn't feel like one. In the first game you'd get the feeling of "we are coming from a, the enemy is coming from b, and we're fighting in the middle pushing one way or the other. In ps2 instead, it's a complete clusterfuc with people running all over the place, no frontlines, no advancement (towards a cap) feeling whatsoever. They tried to make it better with generators, but that doesn't help at all when said gens are scattered all over the place (in ridiculous undefenisble places no less).
2) planetside has loads of vehicles around at all times, having really open bases that can be camped by vehicles is just a terrible design choice. I mean, even IF they were going for the cod gameplay they failed, because you can't even have that, cause vehicles are butchering and camping people all over the place, which doesn't happen in cod cause, well, it has no vehicles.

Solutions: First, close the goddamned bases, put roofs over them, make them PROPER indoor areas, add underground parts spanning the entire area of the base and put the ******* generators THERE, not outside in the open in random shacks scattered all over the place. Second, funnel attackers into 1-2-3 maybe 4 paths, not 983745983745984357 paths made of 945789837453957 buildings with 928437592837423 doors each, that is just stupid, fights don't feel good at all but only frustrating. And third, remake the layouts in a proper way, getting to the defenders' spawns should be the hardest thing to do in a base, even harder than getting the capture point, until this is sorted, people will ALWAYS go spawns first and camp and get the capture points as a consequence.

For all those that are linking TB's preview of alpha... You do realise that AMP station (Zurvan) "defenseness" was several time WORSE than what we have right now? The tower were just a bit bigger but still completly open to tank and aircraft. The base wasn't even half surround by wall! It's was just 2 non connected section of wall on the sourthern section of the base. The place now known as "camp" were actual point to capture de base before.

Please stop praising that video for the better base design ffs. You are making it look a Placebo effect.

You must kidding, cause i got killed in elevators countless times, from above and bottom , and not after landing , no. MAXs cant shoot something kneel in their front. Some ******** players have noticed this and use it against you.

From what I can tell, people are praising are the covered walls and darker nights. No one can see the bad overall layout.

Oh Abashi is back with his "Vision(tm)"?

Nice. I used to have all out slug-fests with him on the EQ forums in the first few months of launch.

Secondly, eSport?

Hahahahahaha! Sitting on your *** for anything is not a sport and never will be. They tried to pull this **** with Tribes and there will never be any such thing as eSports. There is no skill involved in video gaming, stop trying to boost a weak ego with nonsense like that.

Well just look at the facts, we have shild tech , but use it like morons, we have doors and windows, but nothing to cover essencial stuff inside. So , we cant have lockable doors cause, yaya, let us laugh about, the engine cant handle. Well then build in ******* shields, the shilds at doors windows can be hacked by infiltrators. Or wth should this be , gens outside in cheese buldings with holes that big that you can drive in a flash with a mortar. Its like come to the future, and all architects went to *******.