Construction items can be spawned and placed with DBC ($)

This is what I do not understand about the argument you are presenting: the construction system does not invalidate the elements of the game that allow it to be a "MMO combined arms FPS."

sure it does, it completely changes the game.
the objective is no longer to own as much territory as possible,
it will be to construct as many victory generators as possible and spam AI controlled AV/AA towers around them.
then spend the whole time running resources from nodes back to your fancypants base.

they should have held a poll before going ahead and asked the players what we all think of such a massive shift in direction.

if even 30% of the playerbase don't want it then it shouldn't go forward, because this game survives soley on the playerbase,
if not enough people are playing, then the game becomes pointless for the remaining players,
and it'll be a snowball effect of less and less players.

It might just be me but that doesn't sound like it addresses my proposition that it doesn't change the basic aspects of the gameplay. The fights still revolve around bases, whether static or player generated; and, it requires Armor, Air, and Infantry to push into them to either capture or dismantle them, one or the other.

Considering the current player channels, it seems like it would generally have been positive results.
In the meanwhile, I do hope people with concerns and misgivings have been making topics about such in the appropriate outlets.

I agree with all of you. But what I'm DYING to see is the first Server Smash stream after this is implemented: "Alpha Squad, hit those credit cards and start getting those Anti-Gal Drop AA in place"

Yes, they'll have to sort their team members with access to credit cards/SC, so they can route build orders through them. That is if Contructibles are any good at the high end level. If they are not, then it probably won't matter much: SS will skip building and just stick to Air Dropping Infantry Directly on Base Caps.

Remember, this is the group that brought you the Star Wars Galaxy overhaul.

"Many of you ask, “Why did you have to make such a sweeping change rather than just fixing the things that were wrong?” Well–to put it bluntly–everyone had different ideas of what we needed to fix. Trying to balance 34 professions [the number was reduced to 9], and add compelling content to make everyone happy proved to be a very large challenge. … Many design decisions made early on in the game's creation were boxing the team in to the point that we were never going to be able to really make this game rise to the level it needs to as both a great experience AND as a business."

"From our standpoint we have to look at the game for the long haul. EverQuest will be <insert age of EQ> years old on March 16. We HAVE to think that long-term. With the game the way it was we knew we would never be able to attract enough people to really keep <insert game name> viable as a business."
source: http://www.geek.com/games/sony-defends-star-wars-galaxies-changes-561707/

SOE/DBG does not know how to fix their career faults (as in the same stuff they do wrong over, and over, and over). That some of its peers do not share its career faults provides clear examples that these career faults are self imposed. But they have no running notes on "what we are doing poorly" and no companion running notes on "ways we can improve on what we do poorly".

And one of these career faults is "ignore non-hysterical player feedback" and "bet the farm if you smell the chance to dump the current players and win a potential bigger player group". DBG noticed more people being curious about their RTS Construction system, so it smells like they've upgraded Construction from "basic feature" to (what looks like) "game overhaul".

Even after DBG had such a recent success building a sandbox game with EQ Next?

Agreed. This goes from playing through a carefully designed playground, to playing through a haphazard (and probably redundant) build of a Tower Defense Game. Not only will cracking the base be a potential pita, but it also will lack any of the crafted variety and interaction (w/ terrain, w/ gameplay, etc.) of a "carefully designed playground" base.

The P2W aspect just complicates that trainwreck even more. Not just in anchoring the new feature to P2W, but in:
1) showing DBG does not care about the current playerbase
2) showing DBG is out to lunch on rational thought on this feature (they are not building a sound system that has synergy with, and enchances the game they have; they are building a giant new gimmick to overhaul their game with)

Now, SOE/DBG/Verant ARE great at giant new gimmicks (this describes most their game ideas), but they have a poor track record at:
1) overhauling existing games with a giant new gimmick
2) sandbox style game (EQ Next)

I wonder how many people who worked on EQ Next are putting their ideas into this. Nothing worse that when a poison spreads.

I'm not really worried about bases being too well-constructed to take, for two reasons:

1: Design limitations. The pieces we have to work with consist of a straight wall segment, a bunker that can't be too close to said wall segment, and a roof that infantry can pass through. We're not going to be making Vienna with this.

2: All the components are destructible, so Maxim 6 applies: if violence wasn't your last resort, you didn't resort to enough of it.

I see this less as a sandbox thing, and more like a an opportunity for tactical depth in the style of Project Reality: bases aren't going to become the core of the game, but they will be a hardened position to provide logistical support (spawning, repairs, ammo) and fire support (turrets, possibly arty in the future) to assist in taking a nearby primary objective (map facility). They will also help stiffen the area between bases, so that zergs don't instantly roll from base to base but instead can throw open-field battles into the mix.

Building with cash is absolutely out of the question though, because it would throw the whole thing out of whack.

While it does seem like another step in the P2W direction I do find it amusing that I can basically "destroy their money".

We have a system that will go in place to ensure if you have spent DBC and haven't had time to place the item you've purchased, you'll get your money returned.

Lol, haven't even been back for a month and I have good reason to leave and never come back. Why can't we as a collective leave P2W in the dumpster where it belong?

This.... this isn't P2W.


Actually go on the PTS and see for yourself.

I'm not really a fan of being able to spawn construables with DBC but at least they take the same amount of time to build as ones bought with Cortium and fortunately ever if you buy a base with DBC you still have to go out and get the Cortium to power said base.

Honestly there could be a worse way DBG could have decided to monetize the construction system, I'm still not to much of a fan of ti but it could be worse. I am interested to see if people actually end up using DBC spawn buildings frequently.

people pay money to place a bounty that they likely won't even get the benefit from....

Also, this just bypasses harvesting... Considering BDG is probably hurting to keep PS2 profitable, I'm not sure it's a bad idea to let players spend money to create what looks to be the most interesting combat scenarios, particularly since as a free player I can still just harvest to build for free and it's not required to spend money....

Also, it seems like you're going to need Cortium to make base defenses work anyways, so it's not like an outfit can just spend money and build a hundred turrets.

We'll see... I hope it will make gameplay interesting and maybe even help keep the game financially stable.

Hopefully if it becomes a problem they'll remove the ability to buy construction, and leave only the option to buy the cert lines to allow them

I wish this game was subscription only so I didn't have to listen to the P2W Welfare Whiners complain.

Seriously, what do you think runs this game? Certainly not your cheap ******* ***, but it takes money to run a ******* company and keep servers online, develop content, fix old bugs and market the game to bring players in.

And you crying ******* scrubs just want to whine about P2W and how you should get all the benefits for none of the sweat. Suck it, Trebek.

Considering everyone on your empire gets the advantage of someone with DBC to burn, I don't really see the need to get all wound up. I don't begrudge DBG creating a new scheme for making a buck and I am absolutely thrilled to see what the final release of the construction system is like.

So your counter-argument to the fears of a game going pay 2 win are...that we should pay if we want to win?

We simply can't have people using DBC in place of cortium if cortium is ever going to mean anything. In a way we've already been over this with nanites: the devs have had to set the nanite costs/regen rates in such a way that nanites are nearly worthless, because if battles could actually be won or lost on nanite reserves then the 50% boost members get would be a huge problem for game balance.

If we're able to buy or substitute cortium with DBC, cortium will either become another worthless phantom resource that can't really add depth to the game, or send PS2 straight down the road to Pay2Win. Situations like this are part of the reason why F2P RTS games are often P2W wrecks (Tiberian Alliances, anyone?): people keep seeing timer reductions and resource boosts as "convenience", when in fact time and resources are the very lifeblood of an RTS and being able to buy them results in being able to buy victory outright. (the other reason is they keep trying to make the bases and units persistent like an RPG, which completely screws over newcomers because the early buyers are already sitting on heavily built-up accounts, but that doesn't apply here)

As soon as a resource is able to actively influence the outcome of a match, the ability to buy that resource stops being "convenience" and starts being "paid advantage". HP is probably a good example of one of those resources you should never be able to buy, because having more HP has a very direct influence on the outcome of fights. In a game where you can bring new units into the field mid-fight, whatever resource you use to buy those units falls in the same "you shouldn't be able to buy this" category as HP.

I never said it's a bad idea. I just prefer to spend my money on something that can remain: camos, extra loadouts, weapons etc.
But I'll be more than happy if dbg manages to get some money out of this. Btw this doesn't look p2w at all to me.

wait.. so either you spend Cortium or DBC to pull a structure, or you spend DBC to unlock those structures?
I'm confused.

From what I understand, territory control becomes more important than ever.
I haven't tested it, but the VP generator that is closest to an enemy warpgate is the one active, or at least the one that's generating points the fastest. This encourages gaining as much territory as possible and building VP generators near an enemy warpgate. However, the closer you get, the more likely that the 3rd faction will also get closer and you'll be forced to fight on two fronts to protect your VP generator, if the 3rd faction doesn't place one himself to beat you.

The length of time it takes to generate VP points is also important here. The farther away you are from an enemy warpgate the slower their point generation. So yes, a VP generator near your own warpgate is better protected if you have more territory between it and your enemy! If there's not enough players defending the VP generator at all times, a small group could easily move passed the frontlines and blow up your generator or silo before it does anything, it's not as if those automated turrets are any good when the players attacking have the time. Also keep in mind that the Silo disappears when the owner dies... This is a terrible mechanic, because anyone who placed a silo that's powering a VP generator will have to stay alive for the entire time the VP generator is working or it will reset and go offline until a new silo is build and filled, not to mention the entire base shutting down around it. This heavily discourages anyone from actually participating or defending their own work if they do participate.

Fortresses near the frontlines might be the best suited. They are closest to the enemy warpgate, there's a ton of players that might come to your aid if you are attacked and it's harder to get there unnoticed. Still, it also means that the enemy doesn't have to spend a lot of time or effort to start an attack on the fortress, and you have a more limited area you can safely farm resources in.

having to spend time to keep something running equals less players wanting to do it. Especially the player that places the silo needs to be incredibly dedicated because he can't join in the defense of his base, any respawn will instantly cause the silo to disappear.

I looooooove iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. And I think that they should release more data rather than have players mine for said data. As we can see, there's a lot people that have to fill in the gaps within the info with what they think, and if you are thinking this is good you fill it with good info and if you don't want such a change like you that info gets filled in a bad way.

I think that this change could easily be the milestone that gets PS2 a cult status and keep it alive for at least a few more years. However, they do have several mistakes in how they are implementing it. For instance, the current idea discourages anyone from going to build stuff solo, making this feature almost exclusive to well-organized outfits and leaving everyone else in the dust. The whole silo thing disappearing upon respawn is also a problem, the player building the base and placing the silo should be able to fight as hard to defend his stuff as anyone else, if not harder because he/she put all that time and effort into it. The lack of base-building inside bases is also a problem for me since I was so looking forwards to fortifying existing bases with toys and equipment the ANT offers, both as defenders before an enemy arrives but also as the attackers by fortifying their Sunderers for instance.

Not a feature of base design. The side with vehicle superiority will have an advantage regardless of base design.

Again, not a feature of base design. And often you'll see defenders with multiple sunderers in addition to default spawns at places like Crux HQ.

A point being easy to defend is at best neutral between defenders and attackers. In fact if the defenders do their job the attackers will never even take the point, so I'd say it is more of a defensive benefit. And some points are easy for the defender to defend and hard for the attacker to defend. For instance, in some towers A is almost directly under the defender's undestroyable spawn room, and can be held by a skeleton crew of defenders but attackers require a large overpop to have a chance.

Some truth to this, but the flipside is that it is either impossible or a lengthy process to destroy the defender's spawn, giving the defender several opportunities to respond. By contrast it only takes seconds to destroy the attacker's spawn.

Unless I'm really misunderstanding the construction system the point is that only the defenders will get access to base design, which will introduce imbalance.