Audacious suggestion to stop tank/air spam

Zerging has become a "game mechanic" and will not disappear unless there is a revamp of the entire system.

Even a resource revamp won't solve this problem without damaging the viability of the game. Many folks like to tank and if you make it impossible to roll one as you like, they'll leave.

Keep that up and you'll just have the spammy/bouncers running around with small teams, little maps and little bases hemmed in by high walls firing their shotguns or SMG's...

...and you can find that kind of thing elsewhere.

Zergs are a pain in the ***. I understand the plight of the infantry, but I will tell you, it's mostly those folks that can't get their minds around the game, have had a "bad day" on the field (most often caused by a lag spike or two), or those that just want to spam against other infantry.

Guys and gals that have been here a while (like myself) don't mind the zerging so much as it offers MANY opportunities cause general mayhem and great gaming experiences worthy of a vid occasionally.

Vehicles were haphazardly added to the mix without regard to overall balance of the game in order to comply with the original vision of epic game-play and not well thought out.

PS2 is not PS1 and isn't the direct descendant of that game. PS2 is a different vision entirely...

...and that vision has morphed since beta trying to be all things to all players.

graph --> paragraph... sigh... a common idiom

mmmm the thread that won't die... i thought we had put this thread to bed

zergs in and of themselves are not the issue, it's tanks/air tossing thousands of pounds of explosives into spawns and other doorways, which suppress the capacity of defenders to fight incoming infantry who are capping.

but zergs are created, i believe, by the capacity to cap small bases easily through massive explosive spam.

easy solutions that would cause zergs and explosive spam to dissappear?

one is to stop tanks from getting cap XP... elegant and easy to implement. zergs would disappear tomorrow.

another easy solution to explosive spam is to leave everything as is and put up base level shields that can be entered by infantry, much like the shields across some roads, or shields that can be entered through limited numbers of 'holes' hacked by infiltrators (my favorite idea, as these would have to be guarded so they weren't closed... perhaps six holes per hour could be hacked open). tanks and air would control the countryside, protect sundies and allow the infantry the time to do their work. want a big tank battle? get some tanks and attack the tanks and sundies outside the small base. want infantry battles? go inside the base. infantry moving through open country or on high overlooks would be subject to air and tank attacks. unless you're ghost capping, tanks and/or air would be needed to protect sundies. all fights would resemble biolab fights which are the most intense in the game, imho

thanks for your long term perspective... i find a lot of game add weapons and features without assessing the effect on gameplay. Hawken is a good example... the game is a mess because of constantly added new weapons and internals that make gameplay unpleasant.

ta!

that's we're, btw, not were...
*facepalm*

and no that's not my main complaint. being outnumbered is not an issue. I was in a biolab fight a few minutes ago in which the defenders were outnumbered. the fight lasted over an hour and everyone had lots of fun and got lots of certs, defenders and attackers. the difference was that tanks weren't camped on the walkways firing explosive rounds into spawn doorways.

seen that complaint a million times? perhaps there's a reason. game flaws tend to generate the same concerns again and again.


ta!

No, graph is an already well established noun. Graf is a common contraction of paragraph, though by 'common' I mean 'common to people who've spent any time in a news room... Completely alien to anyone fortunate enough not to have.'

If you're rolling with 'sigh' and 'ellipsis', suggest you get your facts straight first.

EDIT: Whilst we're talking about failures in your linguistic understanding, an idiom is a phrase, not a word. Just to point that out... I might be taking the piss (idiom) though, but I'm (contraction) happy to play grammar police from time to time...

I'm not sure people unable to use capital letters are qualified to comment on absent apostrophes... Apostrophes are taught LONG after the difference between upper and lower case for a reason.

What ever happened to them dome shield they were going to put over all the bases?

Pernickety.

It's not a game flaw, it's a player perception flaw. Namely infantry who believe that because they are infantry the only people that should be able to kill them should also be infantry. (There are also numerous postings in these forums from vehicle/air players who have the same perception flaw).
Whilst I agree that dying repeatedly to large amounts of incoming fire is rarely fun it is your choice whether you remain to endure it. This is a combined arms game if you are of the aforesaid mindset then I would suggest you play a different game ie one that has only infantry (or vehicles/air).

You cannot fire anything 'into' spawns because of the shield. If you choose to remain in the spawns when you are overwhelmed (read beaten), that's your choice you have other options available if you redeploy.

The whole point of the barrage is to allow your ground troops to cap the point without being swarmed by defenders so this is working as intended.

Zergs are usually created by a large outfit (or group of) conducting their ops and not splitting up their forces to direct them into more 'equal' fights although when we are talking about a single platoon or outfit it is not a Zerg since it is being coordinated and directed it only becomes a zerg when randoms and other outfits decide to tag along and the direction is no longer cohesive and coordinated. The bases and designs are largely irrelevant in Zerg formation.

Firstly explosives and spam are part and parcel of any game featuring explosive weaponry, the only way to make that disappear is to remove the weapons which is never going to happen.
Large outfit platoon/squad leaders should direct their forces better by splitting them up and sending them to places where their numbers would be more useful. Smaller outfits/squads should redeploy and setup an AV nest behind the attackers lines, or bring vehicles/air to the party, or go elsewhere if the heat is too much for you to handle.

So now tanks=zergs? And denying other players XP because they choose to play in a vehicle when supporting a base assault is fair because? The flip side of this argument would be something along the lines of prevent infantry from getting vehicle kill XP because they are not in a vehicle. Crazy.

How does this counter infantry explosive spam? RL's, Grenades, AP mines etc? It doesn't.

When was the last time you were killed by a vehicle or aircraft while sitting on the point in a large facility? Large facilities already have gate shields to stall vehicle entry and the points are in pretty well defended areas that are mostly free from vehicle spam, you only get killed in these places if you are inside at the outer edges looking outside them.

Small facilities are purposely less well defended since they confer no benefit other than the resources and lattice link once captured. If small facilities also had base shields surrounding them then continental capture progression rate would be reduced to an extreme crawl and vehicle/air players would often be left with nothing to do.

Base shields were on the test server for a few weeks and were largely not wanted. A simple search in the forums will reveal many threads discussing the pro's and con's of these. Consensus (among forumsiders) was that they were not needed, not fun, not happening.

They could probably start by no longer designing bases that make HE spam into spawn exits from elevated positions a thing but who am I kidding

DeadlyPeanutt,

Well, while I understand your reasoning, it is not the solution.

Preventing cap experience to armored vehicles is a ham-handed way to make people get out of their vehicles and become infantrymen.

The game is not about the infantry, but is supposed to be about all three branches at work.

There have been many solutions to the Zerg and none, thus far, have worked.

The real reason it gets so bad is because it's far to easy to cert a vehicle, far too easy to pull a vehicle and with bases so close, they become "battle-taxis" in many cases.

The bases were designed in such a way that they allow tanks to function as light artillery and at the very worst as hyper-powered rifles. All bases in this game were poorly designed from the start and are only now going through a period of change to cater to the infantry getting spammed at every turn. Included in those changes are the, yet again, clumsy attempts at preventing camping from behind the spawn shield; turning every passage into "infantry funnels" capable of being spammed by INFANTRY even from the walls.

Zerging and spam are a game mechanic. It's not intentional, but due to very poorly thought out design.

The zerg is also related to the nature of the game. It's free to play and a "drop-in" experience require little to no attachment to the game as a whole. The zerg tends to be made up of a few core players and a bunch of random "hangers on". Some to just play "farmville" and some who try and meet other folks to get "stuck in", as it were.

The game is shallow and has nearly zero ability to draw the player into it and establish that attachment to your faction and its members.

I stay because I still see promise despite the start. I want the "epic" game experience I saw in the ads and have a lot of hope the devs (and SOE) will deliver. The game is over a year old now and many people have been put off. Tragically, those are the folks who came because they were drawn to the epic game experience hyped at the start. Whether those folks would come back and give it another look I have no idea.

I have read Higby's promises and I really hope they come through and prove to us that the game is still a priority for developement.

If you turn every base into a biolab, then tanks/air would have nothing to do. Kinda lame if you ask me.

That a good thing or a bad thing?

That argument didn't save WWIIONLINE from being squishy infantry farm-fests for tanks either.

Neither did AI
Neither did redesigning the spawns
Neither did redesigning towns
Neither did putting in more spawns
Neither did changing the cap timers
Neither did putting in more flags to cap
Neither did the lattice
Neither did cap delays
Neither did the cap heriarchy to prevent simulcaps

The one and only thing that got players out of their tanks/planes, and into infantry meat suits was the Mobile Spawn.

Any weapon used in mass numbers is op. Infantry platoons all using rocket launchers (dumbfire or lockon), AV turret nests taking pot shots from 900m out, flak nests, max crashes, coordinated concussion/flashbang/emp/revive grenade spam, you name it. At least tanks and air units cost resources unlike rocket launchers or av turrets. And it's not that hard to counter a tank or air zerg. Just get your own faction to pull their own and crash the other guys.

The ONLY way SOE will ever be able to stop the spam of tanks,ESF's, lock-ons etc is to implement a specialization system to the game. This will also tone down the amounts of weapons being used/pulled enmasse....

SOE have to get away from the mind frame of everyone can do and pull anything and everything....that is what is leading to all these issues.

HA's would have to specialize/cert into EITHER using AA rockets at the expense of NEVER being able to use AG rockets or vice versa.
ESF pilots would have to specialize/cert into EITHER AA or AG weapon use at the expense of NEVER being able to use the other
Infiltrators will either have to specialize/cert CQC (SMG's etc) or Long range sniping (Sniper rifles) etc...cant do both or use the other after choosing
Tanks/Vehicles will have to either be Anti-Vehicle specialization or Anti-Infantry.

Just a few rough examples above...no more you can do it all stuff...with this you will be limited to your "class" setup you choose.

As for vehicle pulling that will also come to picking one type you want to use and that is all you have...example a NC player picks the Vanguard specialization...now he is locked to that and cannot use Lightnings, except for the Flash which will stay usable by all.

This will allow the devs to balance things a bit more easily...buff tanks and ESF survivability. Anti-Vehicle based main weapons can be made to do no to little damage to infantry,that is what the secondary weapon is for and would help get people to work in 2/2 tanks to have that other guy protecting them from anti-vehicle infantry.Anti Infantry based weapons will do little to no damage to vehicles.

Like I said the above is just a rough idea that can still be tuned and fleshed out...but it gives the idea I am going for.

Or instead of sitting in your spawn room or trying to get out from it. You fall back, pull armor, or air, and force their vehicles out.
(Assisting via armor or air to regain control OMG what a concept)
And if you don't have the tech plant on esamir. Gal drop your men on a facililty that the current tech plant owner holds, and hack the tank terminal pull your MBT's etc. and Flank them.

However from recent experience less than semi-competent players who take forever to go to where they were told to forty times... Makes for a less than fun or successful pull of armor for flanking..

The Spawn farm exists because you infantry are incapable of intelligent thought or use of tactics or USE of the vehicles provided for you.
Stop giving us your lives by trying to fight from the spawn room and START playing This like it is. A COMBINED ARMS GAME.