Game seems little more than a zerg-fest

Really sucks when there are no more fights and you are left with this

Would be cool if they implemented some of the stuff from Planetside 1 that were alternatives to just shooting at people, and get zerged or log off.

A few coordinated people could make a difference against a zerg with stuff that relied on "skills" not related to just combat awareness and aiming.
Things like AMS/router couterattacks, gen drop and hold's, module stealing, NTU draining, AMS hacking/deconstructing, Clever CE deploying, quick LLU run counterhacks, to name a few.

It really felt good knowing that if you are going up against 80% enemies somewhere, there was always something that could be done about it.
Also spawnpoints besides AMSs in PS1 was very limited if you didnt have the tower at the base you wanted to attack.
There was alot of open ground (maybe 3-5 times more than PS2) between bases/towers (aka spawnpoints), so 1-2 people hunting AMSs would stop the entire zerg if they were successful.

Welcome to the lattice. Well, I guess there's no way everyone could have known this would happen.

....wait. we told you.

Why only look for 50-50 fights? While not directly pointed at you OP, why does every fight, at all times of the day, needs to be 50-50 as some people desire on this forums? Also why, in exact equal terms, should every infantry class be able to 1x1 every infantry class? Same question for vehicles and aircraft. Why this obsession with complete equal 1 on 1 balance on a game that sells itself as a representation of a massive chaotic warfare?

Indeed Call of Duty would not be fun, but because the design phylosophy is different. While still due to the lack of a proper metagame system in place and also some Developer decisions surrounding the game - one can at first consider it as so - in "spirit" Planetside 2 is not an arena shooter, therefor it should not be bound by the exact same rules.

Due to the sheer scale of the game (number of people allowed/vehicles/aircraft/classes/skills/different weapons, all occupying the very same place), "imbalance" is bound to exist. In fact I dare say, is what "should" be expected because that's exactly what makes this game different from the competicion and therefor, "fun" in it own way. Once again, if I and other were looking for 10x10/30x30 fight's with some vehicles around, and just that, we would probably be playing Battlefield since when it comes to just that, it is a better game than Planetside 2.

Getting zerged? Redeploy to the next base, set up pre-defences and make every inch of your territory as miserable as possible for the attackers to get it, make their morale drop - they may have the numbers to get it but having the will to move foward is a different story. Sooner or later the zerg will come to a halt.

While I did took a few months off, I've been playing Planetside 2 since tech test day 1 and the most memorable times comes from those chaotic "imbalanced" experiences. Making a push out spawn with 10 guys, breaking and pushing the line of a particular zerg somehow and recapturing the point at the very last second, or seeing a small number of defenders hold your entire platoon at the door because we just don't want to advance. These along other's, are just small examples that were only possible due to the so called "imbalance".

I'm not saying that what we have now is perfect, very far from it actually. There can be improvements all around. But the spirit of the game revolves around said imbalance and the randomness that can come from it.

When you're outnumbered 2 to 1 or even more (48+ pop mind you), you're not going to hold up to the spam of enemy fire from troops and vehicles. Teamwork only gets you so far when you're so outnumbered and they have as many as you do spam you to death with firepower.

Lord vanu, this thread is a cancer.

Heck, it's even attracting pro-hex people.

Lock plz.

Oh I move on no problem - it just becomes blatant that the one strategy that beats all others: just mindlessly flood the area. And win or lose, being that this is a game, it's just ruins the fun of having good fights that remain good fights, again win or lose.

It's easy for the game to notice that one side has 48+ POP and 55%+ population advantage. The only thing left is to find a viable way to keep the fight interesting and yet fun.

Longer spawn times would be one.
Not being able to respawn in that location, but still explore the entire map on your own by vehicle, and even come right back into that very region by spawning just outside it (again a way of slowing down the ruination of the battle) would be another.

Just yesterday I ended up moving about 4 times every time you actually got a chance to win/lose an attack/def in an even fight. The other 4 ended up being "Nah nah! We have 60%+ population! Slaughter time!", even if I was on the winning side: BORING!

Welcome to Farmside 2 OP, gotta get those auraxiums, gotta get em now!

Sadly OP you hit the nail on the head, once you realise this you either join in or play less and less.

No, up to 55-45. You still have an advantage, but once a fight gets to 60%+, it's almost always a slaughter and quite pointless and not fun.

I never said a word about vehicle count restrictions. It can be 100% vehicles vs 100% infantry for all I care .

The one specific imbalance of one side just firebombing the other to death in a slaughter b/c of 60% POPULATION odds can be avoided. If you think it's fun to sit there and firebomb the other team that can't do a thing about it but cower in the spawn room, shoot through the shield at those dumb enough to be in sight, while those few who come out die instantly, I'm here to point out many do not find that fun, even on the winning side!

Of course move to another base. But when you start to notice that 4 out of 5 fights you leave b/c the zerg has kicked in as the only winning strat, again, you realize they need to address this so you can actually spend more time playing, less time base jumping b/c the zerg is the end all of anything else.

"set up pre-defenses"? When they come at you 2 to 1, your pre-defense is worth a few kills until you get steamrolled.

Sorry I've yet to see someone outnumbered 2 to 1 ever do what you claim happens. The only way to "break through" a zerg is when now your zerg is 60%+ by reinforcements, and I would call that making the point: zerging makes all other strategies pointless at that base.

There's still plenty of randomness to be had when you can have 55%-45% advantage, and others can stlll come in if they insist, or go find another fight where their faction is losing the population war to now have two good battles, instead of two useless zergs, NC winning one, TR winning the other, and both battles a boring slaughter.

Not every out numbered fight is a loss. Just ask the TR/VS on Connery what happened when they outnumbered NC 82%-18% at a techplant multiple times over the last few days. I am sure they are still cursing Recursion (and the devs that bugged the shield gen code). Best defensive fights of the year. Even when there were huge pushes and they got the point, we were able to push back to resecure it. Even retake the spawn generator and get it back up. **We were not there to defend, they already had the point and SCU down each time we dropped in to resecure and then held until they gave up** The Killboard was glorious.

At a smaller base, We even took a base with <20% pop, not sure what the hell the defenders were doing, i assume sitting in their vehicles thinking we would exit the point building or something. While the other half of their pop got slaughtered.

Zergs can be broke at multiple places (typically choke points) good platoons take advantage of these. Hossin has some excellent zerg break points. And bases you can break them.

A great tactic our platoon lead uses is splitting forces to force the opposing zerg to defend multiple bases. Coordinated platoons can move and deploy faster than zergs. Divide and conquer. Turn 4-1 fights into 2-1 fights and its manageable. We never look for 50/50

Was it 48 vs 10? Because I'm only talking about when one side has 48+ population. And if it was 48 vs 10, most of them must have been AFK, b/c no one's going to win any such thing otherwise.

You know what? Before this thread gets locked:

OP: what do you think SOE should do?

You can put limits on who can join a faction.

You can put limits on how many people may be on a continent.

You can give crazy XP boost to the underpop people, and fortify spawns till every one is a darn bio-lab.



When someone rolls twice your number down a lattice lane, you are boned. The devs can't change that.


Your options are:
-Orginize a platoon to counter them or,
-Fall back to the next base, stick mines in the good sundie spots, and pull your AV-turret/tank.

OP is right in every way. merge after merge just confirms the constant loss of players. I wanted to play 20 min ago, I had the choice between Hossin where VS and TR pop was even (I don't like Hossin) and Esamir, which had a total NC overpop, exactly like in the pics posted ITT. NC captured Esamir this way and continued to do the same on Indar then. I logged out.

simple solution would be, in addition to the XP multiplier for the underpopped faction, if the overpopped faction has like 25% more pop than the next faction, give them something like a -50% XP multiplier.
If its 50% more, give them NO XP AT ALL!!!

guess how quick pop would balance out...

60-70% is still very doable depending on the base loadout. 80%+ is when things get to the 'almost/nothing that can be done part', unless there are reinforcements.

As I said the questions were not directed at you.

I did not said that that particular situation was fun per say, I said those situation's are part of the game and that they can lead to some crazy "fun" situation's. Spawn camping is one of the areas in the game that needs rework - pretty much everyone on this forums agrees with it.

Not sure I get it, in this situation you are defending - you are playing, due to the redeploy system however "base jumping" is a main part of the game in both the defence and attack (which also need's more refinement). If you get tired of the defence just head to a location where your faction is attacking.

Apologies but I and I'm sure other's will heavily disagree with this part.

You shouldn't limit populations at a hex but balance them with spawn timers instead. So that the overpopulated faction's spawn timer increases as their population grows.

Nope this was a huge fight. 2+ squads of recursion + pubs and (showing 48+VS one time 48+TR another. at 80+%) so thats over 2 platoons of enemies. It shows that skill > numbers in some situations. If it had been FCRW/BAID/.... etc well different story.

The reason Zergs are so prevalent in PS2 is because they are an easy solution. Most of the time any alternatives require forward thinking, patience & potentially a few minutes of ghost capping before the enemy can counter. Unfortunately we are greedy creatures & just want to farm certs. (I am speaking in generalities so if you have never "farmed certs" I apologize, but your probably a lair.)

I used to lead a mean platoon every night. Multiple squads over multiple bases all w/ combined arms & support but that required constantly monitoring the map & competent/willing squad leaders to carry out objectives effectively. After a year, I eventually got burnt out & I was tired of people complaining because they hadn't killed anything for a 5 min cap while we worked our way to primary objectives.

It's alot easier & people are (slightly) less likely to complain when you simply drop a platoon point on a base w/ similar numbers & tell people to bring sunderers. However by grouping up you quickly approach the magic 12-24+ marker & the enemy zerglings can smell you.

**PLEASE NOTE that I am not arguing that the zergs are a huge part of PS2 & they are often lame-sauce, but to claim there are "no options but to zerg or be zerged" is a pretty narrow minded perspective.

Just out of curiosity, you do know that if you have a nice even 20 vs. 20 fight, with no respawn, at some point the pop will shift and one side will end up at 60% and climbing? Respawn creates the possibility for an even 50/50 fight to keep being 50/50. Redeploy is what lets it shift to 60/40 or higher.

This isn't a comment on whether respawning is great or wrong or redeploy is great or wrong, just pointing out the mechanics here. A fight will only be perfectly even (without respawn or redeploy) if everyone is of exactly equal skill and the death rate remains constant across both factions.

Yes, Planetside2 battles are determined by population, as they were in Planetside 1. This means the game is extremely well balanced. (Even if you feel like it isn't under certain circumstances - but that's a different discussion.)

In a large scale battle, this is the only way to really do this. If not determined by population, then what? The devs have control over how things work, not how you use them. They can't base it on "strategy" or "skill", for example, two things that are subjective and completely out of their control.

What do you want? Battles that last for hours on end when one side has a 60% pop advantage? Imagine the forum spam that would bring. The battle stalemates at about 55%, when you get an hours-long slugfest, which really does get boring.

The thing to realize is that you are either on the offense or defense. Both sides of the fight entail different priorities and limitations. Learn to know which mode you are in and fight accordingly. You will have more fun. Just because you're losing a battle does not mean you can't enjoy the fight. How you lose has implications. Can you delay the enemy? Can one outfit exploit a weakness while another holds enemy forces in place in a defensive fight? How many bases do you have to fall back until the other forces will link up with you? What are the tactical priorities for each mode? (Hint: "It's the busses stupid.")

The other thing to realize is that you can switch between modes in the same fight. Hold on long enough in a defense and you might find your pop increases until your on the offense.

The ONLY way to have the underpop side win is to unbalance the weapons, which is exactly what real world military forces try to do. Real warfare is about unbalancing the equation. But that won't work in a game. You must balance the abilities of all sides.

More soldiers = more bullets = win.