Tired wall of text, apologies if I repeat myself or my reasons for these changes make no sense. 1- Flipping Control Points In early alpha, to capture a control point you needed to hold 'E' in order to hack the terminal. Towards the end of alpha this was changed to the current 'King of the Hill' mechanic, where simply standing in the vicinity of the control point would begin to flip it. I don't recall the exact reasoning for this, but it seemed like it was something to do with making the game more friendly to solo players. I could be wrong though. With the removal of the 6/6 control point system, now seems like the perfect time to revert back to the 'Hold E to Hack' mechanic. There needs to be more risk involved with capturing a control point. Currently a single player can just hop around the control point like a bunny on crack, and either shotgun anyone who comes through the door until the point flips. To overload a generator you need to bring backup to cover you or risk being shot in the back. It makes no sense that you don't need to do the same to flip a control point. 2- Resecure Time The second thing is resecure time. I love that base capture timers are now long enough to give defenders a chance to mount a resecure attempt. However one problem I noticed on the test server yesterday after resecuring Zurvan with less than 1 minute left on the timer, is that that in order to ensure the base was completely secured I had to wait 10 minutes for the bar to flip all the way back, with no enemies around. Sure I could have left and let the bar revert on its own, but all it would take then is one sneaky infiltrator to re-flip the point and finish the cap. Make resecure time much faster than capture time. Not only would this make the above situation more bearable, but would also help in large attacking force vs small defending force scenarios. Currently attempting to resecure a point against a force vastly outnumbering your own is pointless. Sure you can retake the point if you're sneaky enough, or if the attacking force is careless, but then you have to hold the point for as long as they have, which is unlikely to succeed if it's just your squad vs an enemy platoon. Attackers need to be more severely punished for being careless and leaving the capture point inadequately guarded, and defenders rewarded for being able to break through. Making resecure speed (at least) 2x faster than capture speed would accomplish this nicely, as allowing the defenders to recap the point even for one minute would add two minutes to the capture time. (For bases with multiple control points, the resecure speed would only kick in if the defenders recap all control points) TL;DR -Bring back 'Hold E to Hack' for capture points, current 'KOTH' mechanic is out of place now -Make defensive cap timer faster than attacking cap timer if defenders hold all points As I said, I'm tired and these things might not make sense. If you agree with these changes and can think of better reasons to implement them, please share.
About the "Hold E to hack": If it were me, I'd go a step further by only allowing Infiltrators to hack capture points. It would make Infils needed to cap a base, and a lone ghost capper would be much more vulnerable compared to a HA, medic or engi. Just my addendum. The resecure time should be faster, as you said. A lone capper almost caps a base, you get it back but need to babysit the point for the remaining 10 minutes. Very tedious.
Couple things: 1) Higby mentioned possibly making the SCU invincible until the base is half-capped (so essentially the Neutral Point) 2) It would be nice if they did a system like in PS1 where if you took control of all 4 flags at the same time as the defenders, the base should completely reset back to fully owned by the original empire. It would make it easier to defend, and give more people hope that defending a base can be fruitful.
I believe you have a good point with the "hold E to hack". I think it should be brought back for the exact reasons you stated. It makes more sense if it only takes 1 person to cap a point. Make them vulnerable. People are already vulnerable attacking generators, why not cap points?
1. I would love to see how this mechanics plays out. I was always in favor of the SCU slowing down spawn rates instead of killing the tubes and this solution feels like a middle ground to what we have now. 2. One of the ghost capping deterrents in PS1 was the 15 min cap time vs. the practically instant resecure time. I miss last second resecures that cost the attackers another 15min, great for demoralizing the enemy. My oufit specialized in that tactic, and we did it well.
Only issue is that we would need more points than currently are in place for this to make sense. Especially in the large facilities.
I could see giving infiltrators faster hacking based upon how far they've certing into their hacking "tree" but not giving them the exclusive ability to hack a base.
Everyone should be able to hack points, but maybe Infiltrators' hacking skill (and certs, ofc) should allow them to perform the job much faster than other classes.
Take it one step further. Do not think of this as hacking more like reprogramming. Everybody has the ability to reprogram the main control unit (or if it set up with multiple servers = multiple capture points). Heavy, Medic and Light Assault are the baseline of all the classes for reprogramming, a fixed speed, say 30 seconds. Engineers are faster but this is fixed speed of 20 seconds. Infiltrator who's speed will be depending on how many levels he/she has on their hacking ability (now called Advance Terminal Hacking and Reprogramming). Maxes cannot reprogram because their weapon systems get in the way and their hands are too big - all thumbs. STEEL
