Facility Capture Timers

In the midst of 95 threads about flash radar, I've yet to see anyone concerned with or even notice that there was a major change to facility capture times.


"All Amp Stations and Tech Plants on Indar, Esamir, and Amerish, cap in 7 minutes instead of 10

Biolabs on all continents will cap in 7 minutes if you own the majority of the cap points (2/3 or ¾). If you own all CPs, it will cap much faster"

This is a huge change to just toss in, and as someone who plays with a quick response/resecure outfit, this is massively detrimental to our playstyle. Captures were quick enough as is, god forbid anyone actually have to defend a hack. I'm sure SOE will just say this is being done to "improve the flow of combat," but at some point they have to draw the line and stop catering to people with ADHD. Where's the reward in capturing a major facility that flips nearly as fast as an outpost?

This change wasn't required. Ten mins was too short as it was, hell ps1 was 15 mins.

What's next? 5 min captures? It states even less if you hold all points, how is this the right direction - seems great for attackers and brutal for defenders.

3 mins may not seem a lot on paper but in game that 3 mins can make a huge difference.

Not a good step forward at all.

For Amp stations and Tech Plants, it should have been something like, 'once the SCU is down, the timer drops 3 minutes'. So at least the defenders get 5 minutes before they are in real danger; and often, if the SCU is down, its almost over anyways most of the time. Now with the SCU shield dropping in 3.5 minutes, defense will be even harder.

Also they could have added an instant win terminal (like the ones in the 'externals') that's in the tunnels under the Amp/Tech base, that once flipped swaps control over immediately. So you still have the time before the SCU is down, and there's a last ditch fall back place to hide in and try to hold as the attackers charge into the spawn room and down the tunnels. It also means that the attackers aren't sitting round waiting for 5 minutes doing nothing while the base finishes flipping.

An for biolabs, at 7 minutes or 'much faster' why even have the shield gen and SCU, it'll be capped almost as fast as you can overload and destroy them both anyway. Seems like a reduction in both complexity and depth; now all you need to do is hold the farthest 2 points from the spawn room for an easy win.

All to cater to the ADD kids. There was never a problem with 10 minutes since most of that was fighting. The last three or so minutes could be a bit slow when the enemies had given up but they won't be fighting for longer just because the cap timer is reduced. The only people complaining about the cap timers are the ghost capers. I guess they'll love being able to ghost cap more quickly now because standing around with no enemies sure is dull.

I was also somewhat surprised when reading this. I also think it may have a negative impact on "the flow of battle" because people might spread out more. If you see a facility that's just being attacked and don't even have time to grab an ESF at the WG and fly over there before it flips then what are you gonna do? Likely grab that ESF and fly to the closest unmanned hostile facility and ghost cap it (because no defenders will have time to get there within such short time frames).

Will this change not decrease the amount of actual "battles" (as in one faction defends and the other(s) attack) and increase the amount of ghost capping?

I'd prefer massive epic battles that take 30min or more to be decided. I don't see how 5 minutes is supposed to give defenders enough time to even move from one cap point to the other to re-secure them.

Maybe I'm way off though....

See, I'd like to see this, but basically the other way around. Resecures were so much fun in PS1 because you could fight your way to the control console against massive odds, resecure, and buy the defense another 15 minutes to reestablish itself. It was never easy to do, unless the empire hacking the base was just lazy, but it made it so much more intense and rewarding. The problem in PS2 is that even when you do manage to bring the SCU back up and clear the point, you resecure at the same pace the base is hacked, which means there's a good chance you'll get overrun by numbers before putting a significant dent in the cap timer. Easy fix for this without any major facility or mechanic changes, especially if these new cap timers stay the way they are, is to make the resecure times tick up faster than hack times tick down.

Spot on, like I said before, where is the excitement in taking a base that flips as fast as an outpost? People will take the path of least resistance, and this is just going to increase the amount of back and forth ghost capping, particularly on lower population servers.

Wouldn't surprise me to see this changed down the road, with timers going back up, or maybe some new element being added. Remember they just redid Esamir, maybe Indar is next and they are going to make bases much harder to capture. This could be a first step in that process. Kinda backasswards if so, but that is how SOE works.

I'm just concerned that this is a massive change to put in without any real testing. It won't be felt as much on higher pop servers, but on low pop servers where all the fighting is concentrated on one continent, this will just increase the amount of ghost capping. My other issue is that this isn't some mechanic change like dome shields or new base designs that could majorly affect how bases are attacked and defended, it's a flat out decrease in capture time on every facility in the game.

No I get what your saying, and I'm not dismissing it. I'm just trying to figure out SOE's logic behind this. I figure either they are catering to the complaints of "The SCU is down and I'm bored for 3-5 mins with nothing to do FIX IT!!!!!". Or they must be about to change/introduce some other new element like redesigned bases, or............or I don't know...

I know....trying to discern SOE's motives or logic...not a smart move. This is just a really big change to throw into the mix randomly. I have to believe SOE has some logic behind it. I fail I know

You could, like, you know, see how it goes after the patch before complaining... Just a suggestion...

I'm not complaining about the change. I'm just wondering what prompted it.

Bases cap fast as it is, cutting another three minutes off the time and even more on bio labs isn't really just a "see how it goes" situation. If the notes also said they were just going to drop all MBT health by 40%, no one would sit around saying "well let's just see how this goes."

Well I'm down to "see how it goes". Personally I was getting way too bored waiting for the timer to go by so I could get my 1000 exp before moving on, just waiting doing nothing while little-witted teammates run in front of one-way spawn shields. Or waiting in Indar where spawn shields drop so I could do even more nothing for 5 minutes. Really, I see this as a good change

I'd like to be optimistic and hope that it's a sign of sweeping base designs, but I'm pretty confident this is just catering to "I'm booooored, ten minutes is toooo loooong."

I dont have an opinion one way or the other. I will want to see how this affects alerts. Also I suppose they just did it because once you get the SCU down youre just standing around doing nothing waiting to get your hard earned XP.

How is it hard earned if it takes all of 7 minutes? There has to be a viable window for squads to come in and resecure. People need to learn to defend their hacks, how is 10 minutes too long for people to pay attention?

You're making it sound like it's a chore to defend a base. Really, I just want to get on and have some fun after work instead of standing around doing nothing time and time again. Just wait for the battle island, maybe you'll even have them 15 minute timers there or whatever. You can even go make an early suggestion on that, you know SOE reads player suggestions

Because in the battles I am usually in you are scraping and clawing for every inch of that base.

I know they read player suggestions, that's why I made this thread. Base fights that end in 5 minutes are just going to increase the amount of time you stand around. I'm not sure what you consider fun in this game, but given it's an FPS I'm going to assume it involves shooting in some capacity. Defensible bases are what make the fights interesting.