Can we get an incentive for fighting against the odds plz :D

Such an addition would solve a lot of problems IMHO. Do think PS2 would benefit from this?

Im a firm believer that people want a fair and challenging fight wherever possible. No-one likes their five man squad to get rolled by a massive platoon redeploying 1 min before their hack goes through, and equally no platoon really likes to redeploy to attack a lowly 5 man squad about to flip a territory. The game is more interesting when the numbers are equal, fights are long and protracted and it feels like more of a win when you take it under these conditions.

An MMOFPS is always going to be a numbers game first and foremost. Why not embrace the fact and fully integrate an XP incentive for fighting at underpopulated bases. Something thats clearly visible onscreen above the minimap informing you of an XP bonus/reduction depending on friendly numbers vs enemy numbers in your hex, applied to XP earning activities.

The dead-zone would be 55%-45%, any pops within this number would get the standard XP. Outside of this range multipliers could start kicking in depending how outnumbered you are. 2x if its 2/1. 4x if its 4/1 outnumbered etc.
Equally a divisor could be applied to the overpopping faction in the hex suggesting to maybe re-allocate their resources a bit better.

Players/outfits/zergs could still play just like before, the only difference being a reward in XP for players that actually deserve it by creating more actual CONTEST.

Mousing over hexes on the map would say about bonus/defecit to XP gain so you would be incentivised to redeploy to bases that actually really need reinforcements instead of joining the already overpopped bio-farm etc.

It makes sense really... a command structure would not reward a platoon for such a misallocation of resources as to take 30 men to defeat 5.

Highly skilled cert-farming players would naturally be drawn to underpopped fights as their potential XP gain would be higher, which quite honestly is where a faction really needs them. You could enable the XP bonus outside the spawnroom only if you didnt want to compound that issue.

A knock on influence would also be felt in the warzone between bases, as gaining kills in the next territory would be worth more than defending in your own.

Currently there is very little reward to redeploying to an underpopped fight as a lone-wolfer unless all you are going to do is spawn-kill from the shield room.

I would be happy to hear your thoughts on this!

There is the flaw in your logic...

People actually don't want a fair fight, they want to win.
If you don't believe me, just look at the map, every fight's pop graph looks like Pacman..

I dont believe that. Its about XP first and foremost. If you got XP loosing fights, thats what players would do.

If XP was incentivised correctly Im almost ceirtain the pac-man effect could be curtailed.
With against-the-odds XP incentive's you'd want to remain in the small wedge of the pac-man equation to get the most certgain.

• No sane command structure would reward suicide. It would reward smart strategy. Entering into a 1:2 is not smart strategy.
• Encouraging bad strategy doesn't create more of a contest. It sends more players to useless, doomed battles that they shouldn't even be at in the first place. This means less players are free-floating to join the battles that actually matter. (We already have far too many players wasting time throwing their lives away on useless, doomed fronts.)
• Battles in the sweet spot (45-55%) are the best rewarded currently. There are enough enemies to earn lots of XP, and there are enough teammates to not be slaughtered. This is a good thing.

One player entering a 1:2 is the first stage in reaching a 1:1 fight. If you like 1:1 fights you have to go through the 1:2 stage unless both forces arrive with exact numbers on the same hex simultaneously.

Axehilt, you are advocating for a system where players AVOID each other. Is that what players want?

Contesting for any base in Planetside 2 is good strategy IMHO. Bad strategy is the afforementioned pac-man.

My point is its only a useless-doomed front if players dont turn up to contest

They cut XP from spawn kills to 1/4 of the XP of a normal kill awhile back, did you see any drop in spawn camping??

Players are going to steamroll bases as long as they can, because for them the goal of the game is winning by taking bases.
If you look at the bigger outfits average players SPM, you can see they are not playing for certs, they are playing for land...

There really are 2 groups of players playing this game with different goals.
One group is playing for land, to steamroll and crush the oppostion into submission until they log off.
The other group is playing to make certs and kill as many people as they can, and land is just a setting for the killing.

One group wants to kill the enemy sunderer and move to the next base.
The other group is enjoying the fight and content to leave the sunder up and farm them as they try and attack.

I think the game is fundamentally torn at its core...

Not necessarily. If you're camped into your spawn room (the way most pac man fights play out) your XP boost isn't going to do jack because you won't be earning any.

I like to fight outnumbered myself but it's utterly hopeless most of the time. You spawn in before the zerg arrives, throw down whatever deployables you can, kill a few guys as they start piling in and then sit in the spawn room while two dozen tanks and aircraft shell it constantly. You might get the odd kill on some poor sap running by the shield but that's it. Meanwhile the guys fighting in the 96+/96+ Biolab are racking up XP like crazy.

To turn these fights around you need to attract a lot of people all at the same time, and I think the only way to do that is to attract outfits. I've got no idea how to do that though. It seems to happen on its own but usually not until that zerg has steamrolled 3 or 4 bases.

I don't fall in to either of those groups. Maybe I am the exception. Perhaps you could comment on which group you fall into.

I seek out a challenging fight. I'd rather fight against the odds because I get a more interesting gameplay with a more target rich environment. Far more interesting than following the Zerg 70%-30%.

Not only that but zergists benefit from characters like me playing. No1 really wants to roll over bases without incident so atleast zergists get their targets from players like me instead of turning up at a base and watching the enemy pop drop like a brick.

Don't you think the suggested fix would go some way to fixing the situation?

One other thing, there's a whole lot of people in this game who aren't part of an outfit who get absolutely no direction. At least on Miller /orders is hardly ever used, and when it is it's usually something like "get the f out of that base and help". We need more people to step up and try to herd the masses into helping where help is needed. That means things like:

• /orders Tons of enemy armor camping at NS Material Storage, pull some tanks and air at Crimson Bluff and take them out
• /orders lots of enemy at Galaxy Solar, you can spawn here from anywhere so lets push them out!
• /orders big fight about to happen at CoraMed, pull some vehicles at Dahaka and lets set up a defense

What to do and where. Not everyone is going to listen of course, but it can't hurt to try and it might just make the game a little less bewildering to new players.

Like I said I totally agree, but for me that fun stops when I'm hopelessly camped into the spawn room. And when you're on the receiving end of a 70/30 zerg that tends to happen really quickly. That's when I redeploy to the next base, where I have just enough time to throw down some mines before the horde rolls in again.

Pulling a vehicle there is suicide because the majority of defenders don't show up until the previous base gets capped, and at that point there just isn't enough time to mass enough vehicles before the zerg arrives. Not enough room between bases for that and usually there's already a few enemy tanks or aircraft loitering outside the base that would blow you up the minute you roll off vehicle platform.

PS1 fixed this issue by giving a large XP payout when capturing a base, but only if there was enough opposition to warrant the XP. It was granular meaning you would get a small amount of XP if there was very little fighting throughout the hack. You would get a large amount of XP (capped at a MAX #) if a lot of fighting at the base happened during the hack... You also did have to stay at the base to get the XP once it was captured... You could move on to another base and as long as the hack went through at the base you previously hacked and fought at you would get the XP...

Individual kills didn't give all that much XP. Base captures is where you would get the majority of XP...

At least combat is fun

Steamrolling is god awful boring and I don't understand anyone who does it. They seriously seem mental to me.

You get crap XP, you spend most your time sitting around doing nothing, vbery little actual action, and the "win" is even meaningless in the game! All a win (or loss) does is change the setting for a fight.


I'd GLADLY fight 1:2 odds if I got +50% XP or more for it.

Got a good real chuckle out of the Pacman part. Funny cuz it's true.

I just roll ahead of those zeros and lay tank mines, bouncing Bettie's or proxy mines down, and then set up a C4 trap. Once the C4 trap and/or mines are blown, head to the next base up he line and do it all over.

I think a real solution to overpop zergs is to actually reduce XP for attackers based on how far they out populate the enemy. The only problem with that is the bases that pretty much require 2:1 odds to take. And there are quite a few of those. Why reward an easy victory of 96+ vs 1-12?

In my previous post I said did when I meant to say didn't... For some reason I'm unable to edit my original post...

30 minute time limit on edits.

Why fight for minimum wage

Not even NC but I still want my bloody bonus check

I actually did a write-up a while ago on trying to fix population imbalances in fights by changing up the way instant action and population XP bonuses work. It's kinda a long read since it tries to address little details in implementing it, but it should answer some of the questions on how to do something like this. Take a look if it interests you, linked it to my sig.

I like the ideas in the design doc, very much what I was thinking before I read it. I guess common sense leads peeps to similar conclusions. The tie-in to instant action sounds well thought out.

You could even tie it in to the character stats database.
You could put stats relating to how long players spend in underpopped/overpopped conditions, so we could determine a safe zergfit player from a lone-wolf rambo player on their page, and you could even link medals or directives in to further incentivise fighting against the odds.

The biggest change to players mentality would be if each underpopped hex read "2x XP BONUS" when you mouse over it.
Ofcourse people would drop in for that.

Ofcourse people wouldn't have to play different in any way. But some people definately would. I would guess alot of people will play to get as much XP as fast as possible, and if it moves this group to underpopped areas than so be it. Its a start.