Do people really think zerging is bad ?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by FABIIK, Aug 9, 2022.

  1. FABIIK

    If so then I have a question for the old timers:

    why did were the AT turrets removed from the tech plants' upper floors ?

    They were a pretty good defense against zergs...
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  2. MonnyMoony

    The Devs are morons sometimes. Base turrets were badly nerfed a while back and some were removed entirely - makes absolutely zero sense. It's not like they were OP to begin with.
    • Up x 5
  3. TR5L4Y3R

    zerging is not a problem of lack of base defenses .. even if there are enough "effective" basedefenses the issue is to respond in time to an incoming zerg with appropriate numbers (that also includes quick ways for the defenders to get around the base to counter the zerg) ...
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  4. MonnyMoony


    Whilst that is true - removing or nerfing those base defenses is only ever going to make zergs more difficult to counter.
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  5. JibbaJabba

    No they weren't.

    Zergs would obliterate those into dust in about 5 seconds upon arrival. Same with every other base turret in the game.
  6. Demigan

    Because the devs arent Gods of Gaming.

    Take spawnrooms. Early on they identified them as problematic so they changed them, and changed them again, and again, and again. And while they solved some extreme peoblems like the Hallway of Death they never truly solved the problem and just stopped trying.

    They removed those turrets because, if I remember correctly, they supposedly had too much control over the fight (despite barely being able to attack anything near the base itself). Although the actual problem between the lines seemed to be that the crews at those turrets were almost impossible to get rid off until you basically owned the base so the turrets could be repaired and manned infinitely.


    Although I find it strange that you use that as an example for Zergs being favored. The Devs have stated to want the stragetical gameplay* of base captures where you see movement on the map rather than extended stalemates. To enforce this they've made a lot of bases increasingly easy to capture so defending them becomes an increasingly unrewarding and unfun task which helps form Zergs as defenders just become attackers somewhere else instead.


    *nothing stragetical about it. Tic-tac-toe is about as stragetic as the map movement.
  7. DarkQuark

    Fun fact, having more forces in your army than your opponent to ensure military victory was invented by Alexzander the Great. He used this tactic of a larger army to win many battles. Back in the 300's B.C. they used to call him "Alexzander the Zerg".

    I am being silly yes but simply a larger army is not a zerg. I say this because I see this accusation tossed around almost as much as cheating.
  8. Johannes Kaiser

    A) In a game, people want to have fun. Planetside is a game.
    B) Being outpopped 5 to 60 is not fun, because the game does not make it so.
    Thereby follows C) It is absolutely okay to be annoyed when a game hands you the unfun card, and call that derogatory names. And seeing as this is player behaviour - not that any steps are being taken to mitigate this from the developing team, far from it - it is also consequently understandable to be annoyed at the groups who do that and call them names. As long as it doesn't get out of hand, of course, but calling them zerglings, zergfits, or mocking them in yell chat for requiring a platoon to even find their breakfast (or an air squad to tie their shoes, or whatever) is absolutely acceptable.
  9. BlackFox

    I think the whole zerging thing goes hand in hand with balance issues.

    The easiest way to zerg is with vehicles, simply because infantry AT weapons aren't effective enough to keep even one tank at bay by their own. Same goes for aircrafts of all kind, it takes way too much manpower to fight such things in any effective way. And that's only low numbers condidered, not in the 2 digit amounts that often happen in the game.

    When it comes to infantry it's the implementation of most automatic guns with their relative high TTK and low range. Flanking for example is less effective than in similar games because it takes longer to bring a single enemy down, which in return requires "zerging" a position for counter attacks. With the low ranges defenders need to let the enemies come way too close to the own position. There are options like shotguns and scoutrifles, I know, but whio really wants to use them as maingun all the time?
  10. MonnyMoony


    If they weren't a problem - why remove them?

    Base turrets could have easily been made more effective to counter zergs. They could have been buffed with more health, placed in better positions (e.g. not directly behind trees). Some of them could have been given shield bubbles with generators that needed to be hacked and destroyed (much like base shield doors) to make them less prone to zergs.
    • Up x 1
  11. MonnyMoony


    Isn't that kinda the point though? Isn't that what base turrets should be for. You shouldn't be able to just rock up to a base completely uncountered.

    Getting up to and into the base should be a fight in itself. It's why we have shield doors and generators on Amp Stations etc - to stop vehicles and infantry simple waltzing straight in.
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  12. JibbaJabba


    Zergs (the thing we're trying to not have) eliminates them in a heartbeat. They are not a problem for zergs.

    For a non zerg they were problematic. A single Engie and a repair gun could keep sundies at bay pretty well. The buffs you describe would cause a real problem during smaller fights.
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  13. Liewec123

    If I remember correctly the tech plant AV turrets were removed because they just weren't doing what they should,
    They couldn't defend the tech plant because they were too high up without the ability to aim downwards very far.
    While at the same time their height let them poke vehicles in adjacent hexes.
    So rather than fixing the problems (moving them to the lower floor, reducing their range etc) SOE removed them.

    But yes, slowly overtime bases have become more and more impossible to defend.
    • Up x 1
  14. BlackFox

    Don't expect any logic regarding counters from the developers, they messed so many things up the last few years
  15. Demigan

    Yes it is the point, but in for example a tower fight you can frustrate the crew and attack them while it was a lot harder to do anything about the people topside.

    I think there was a second agenda though: AA turrets. As long as the upper part of a techplant had people manning the AV turrets there would essentially always be AA readily available. So removing the AV turrets for flimsy reasons was easier than removing AA turrets for bad reasons, and the upper deck of the techplants see very little use now.

    The devs havent really got a track record for doing the smart thing.

    They wanted to stop cloak flashes from decloaking and eliminating tanks with explosives or their guns. So they added a cooldown before you can cloak again, which made most cloak flash playstyles harder except for the ones where you can almost instantly destroy an enemy vehicle.
    Similar "well executed idea's" include:
    - engagement radar (supposed to help newbies but was turned into a newby hunting tool)
    - AA turrets having their range reduced because they were oh soooo powerful (not)
    - randomly buffing Harasser resistances and backseat repair rate even though the Harasser was in a pretty good spot before
    - one of the several times that Liberators randomly got buffed, once with so much resistances that even as a newb crew we could attack 4 Skyguards, eliminate one, get out for repairs and eliminate the rest one by one. Cus balance.
    - keeping obviously OP weapons like the Betel or Vulcan Harasser in that state for years.
    - adding pocket orbitals to players
    - making a continent capture system that goes directly against the main point of the game (large scale warfare with tons of players duking it out) and encourages players to avoid fights and only engage in unfair fights that they make as unfun for their opponent to be in. The only "large scale" that is left is that you color a large section of the map in your faction color, oooh the entertainment.

    Just buffing health wouldnt be good. You'd end up with turrets that can just tank enormous amounts of damage which isnt fun.

    My idea has been to add a hardlight rails to turrets. Let turrets move along those rails in order to change position and dodge shots. A simple example would be for the AA turret on top of towers to be able to circumnavigate it entirely. The AV turrets could have a rails that first takes them up the tower and circle below the AA turret.
    This also solves another thing: an engi inside the turret wont be able to safely repair it just by exiting it at the right moment. There needs to be more strategy when using the turret in such a fashion.

    It would also be great if players can change the type of turret it is, if necessary for nanites. In some cases you want an AI turret, in others an AV and others still an AA turret. It lets you adapt them to suit your needs.
    • Up x 1
  16. MonnyMoony


    Unless the sundy was outside the cone of fire of the base turret - in that case they are totally ineffective.
  17. MonnyMoony


    Perhaps - but by the same token, being shelled by HESH spam from a hillside, where the tanks can just reverse a few metres, repair and resume shelling isn't fun either - yet it persists in the game and has done for years.

    Base turrets should be more resilient to such attacks - a couple of prowlers can take out a base turret in a matter of seconds, and with HESH splash damage, there is little chance of the turret being repaired once destroyed as any engie caught in the open is instagibbed.
  18. Demigan

    "Because X is bad Y can be bad too" isnt exactly a good argument.

    Yes turrets need some upgrades to be more interesting and useful, but just making them shell sponges doesnt seem that good to me.

    I'd rather go into the "a bit weird" realm. For example the ability to shoot a cable to prevent enemy vehicles from escaping, forcing the tank to maneuver in the limited space of the cable's lenght when it hit him until a time limit is up and the cable releases, the turret is destroyed or the occupant leaves.
    Or a concussive shell ability which causes your next shell to create a concussion grenade effect on a vehicle. Or other similar ideas.

    Also infantry should get the tools to protect themselves from vehicles. Non-lethal tools that make them harder to hit/kill and lethal tools that make them dangerous.
    Imagine a utility that when it hits a tank causes a weapon sway, preventing accurate fire (it inserts a virus). Or deploying a gravity field that can catch small high-speed objects (shrapnel from HESH shots) to reduce AOE damage in its area. Or just deploying a high-strength shield as temporary cover that regenerates until the generator itself is destroyed.
  19. BlackFox

    The ability to destroy certain parts of a vehicle could also be a good counter - like destroying tracks, engines, the turret ring etc. with the obvious effects. Not one hit kills of course.
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  20. AuricStarSand

    Zergs manhandle AV turrets, not able to repair them either. They get sniped after the first enemy tank arrives. Out of like 40 enemy tanks arriving. Only takes 1 out of 40 to shoot your turret down & that's the first thing a zerg scouts for.

    Having more turrets wont do much. Anymore than giving me as a solo silo player 1 more AV turret to defend a silo, won't do much, when outnumbered, almost zero help.

    The problem is zergs is they all ghostcap too much for outfit resources. & most of the Outfit Leaders are noobs if not all of them, when its about that theme. The theme of, do we make a big battle happen, or do we ghostcap zerg for outfit resources. 98% of the entire day of week or month or year, they pick the ghostcap zerg route. & not the big battle route. So essentially every hour is 100% more boring than it has to be, due to ghostcapping zergs.

    I on the other hand solo'd 4 collosuses worth of resources, 1 bastion yet to use, have stocked steel rain, & other deployables. Yet I don't need to go out of my way to ninja bases for outfit resources. So I don't know, tho these zerg leaders behave like drug addicts or monopoly lords with how often they ghostcap for outfit junk.

    Having a bigger farm battle is 1000000000% better than ghostcapping for outfit resources. I almost want to ask the devs to ban these leaders, due to them making hours upon hours of gameplay less engaging.

    These outfit leaders have probably dragged 1,000 alerts to the level or dullness of absolutely avoiding all medium to big battles across the map for 1,000's of alerts. Avoiding. Ghostcapping. Avoiding, Ghostcaping. Repeat. Till the hour is dead, "maybe next alert a big battle " tho nope, same plan next alert. I don't understand why zerg outfits exist, they have made more Alerts boring than they have made them entertaining. Overall alert, per year.

    Big battles still happen once awhile, tho rarely are they planned for. I like to plan or dig to them territory explore speaking. & where they happen at, I favor unique region over the usual regions for 3 way fights.

    10% of the time the zerg outfit helps out for a win, which is entertaining. Tho you can't tell if they are trying to win to win, or just trying to win as a pretend cause to hoard more outfit resource bases. Since tech they are always trying to win, which splits the map to 24 man fights most of the time, & 24 man fights aren't all that to me, I prefer 48 to 98 man fights. Only if the other 2 empires were trying to win, is it fun to win. As winning while the other 2 empires are farming, isn't worthy. Or honorable. So really winning is pointless too, if you did it behind enemies backs. Or had to ninja the whole alert with no farm action.

    Why aren't outfits lead by the main map pros of the server, who also don't need certs from a alert win, nor act like outfit resources are worth throwing the whole entertainment of the hours alert over. They aren't lead by such, as it's possible to recruit without a outfit pop limit that's severe. Like 100 members at most, per outfit.

    The amount of work it takes to make a outfitwars map, is probably 100% more effort than the 1% of effort it takes to make a outfit pop limit. To some degree the zerg outfits are good for new players to join, to be fair, tho so is any outfit really.

    I'd honestly give more leadership abilities to pub platoon leaders, rather than outfit leaders. Favor pubs over outfits.
    • Up x 1