Hidden Ridge Mining Revamp: Walls on Amerish

Except that doesn't actually fix the problem of the tank zerg that roams from base to base, camping the base and spamming the crap out of it.

It may make it SLIGHTLY inconvenient for one or two guys that lose their tank right towards the end of the battle but otherwise, it doesn't actually change anything.

The ONLY solution is to provide infantry a place to play that vehicles can't hose with explosive spam. This is done by putting walls up and making sure there isn't ANY high ground near by that vehicles can mount themselves on.

This doesn't solve the issue of tanks camping at bases. Look at Indar towers now. MOST of those tanks are 1/2 and unless they are C4'd or AT mined, they just switch seats (which takes all of 1/2 a second) and drive off. Unless they make switching seats take like 5-10 seconds, then there will be little to NO change in what's happening when it comes to base camping. Even a LONG seat switch time won't change the base camping THAT much. Proof of that is with Prowlers using Anchor/Lockdown (whatever it's called). They just fold up and drive off without any bother and that ability takes like 4 seconds to switch into/out of.

But they aren't "God mode". There is absolutely nothing stopping you from getting out of your vehicle and walking inside to shoot them in the face (unlike current spawns). Plus the way I meant it, tank secondaries could still go through shields, you just wouldn't have 50 tanks pointing at one window anymore since they could get shot a lot easier than they could shoot back, but they wouldn't be defenseless.

But I do agree. the major issue currently is overall base design, but there is almost no way we are going to convince the devs to take the maps back to terrain only and rebuild every base. The time investment would be huge, especially when the map creators are working on other maps. We need a way to use the majority of what is already there and make it work in a balanced fashion.

You also talk about PS1 style progression. I never had the opportunity to play, so I can't speak for base design then, but why do you have to have a hard "you shall not pass" line for tanks? Give them a courtyard where they can shoot the average dumb player, but when a good platoon posts up in the buildings the tanks are screwed without backup.
Think about the Techplants on Esamir. Certain walls do a good job of keeping tanks from camping the spawn, but there are still enough egress routes to not funnel all the defenders through one tiny door (the two catwalks from the SCU building for one). Tanks are free to wander into that area and probably get plenty of kills, but the defenders and bypass virtually every area with tanks and flank them easily without ever giving a easy shot to the tanks.

By all means, put some walls up. Most of the bases need more cover. But don't just flip the bird to the tankers and say "screw you, you are OP around buildings because you've been spammed".

TLDR: Tanks v tanks outside and Inf v Inf inside a base is not combined arms. Make bases where they require combined arms to take effectively.

I spent a month making this and getting feedback from players to make it, worked with others to fine tune the thread ect.https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...ltimate-combined-arms-gameplay-thread.114504/ Even if you didn't agree with the entire concept of the MBT section there are certain elements that would hands down help deal with vehicle spam such as making MBT's only pullable from the Warp Gate, Tech Plants, and Amp Stations after you captured a Tech Plant. Making MBT's crewed 3/3 Vehicles would also easily cut down on this issue.

The walls are great addition the the game, it makes the gameplay feel much more dynamic. You use armor to push the defenders inside their base and ensure that sundies can be safely deployed so that your infantry can start capping the base. While infantry is fighting inside, armor guards the area around the base to prevent enemy armor trying to push them away or destroying their sundies.

This is just how it should had been in the very beginning, the walls just need more tweaking like catwalks that many have already mentioned, but also more small entrances for infantry to get in and out and some random clutter like boxes, rocks etc. where infantry can take cover.

That's just how it was in PS1...I loved it. Though they needa fixup the walls to be more useful to the defenders rather than just putting in random slabs of concrete everywhere.

Three things:

• Tank spam are generated after base captures; always. I'm not talking about outfits pulling 30 tanks at the same time, can't fix that. It's more about that lone zerg who captured the tower and rushes to the vehicle terminal to get a transport; his own armored transport with a powerful cannon in this case

• Even if the base was tank zerged, you could expect half of the tanks to be dead. So lets say you have 20 tanks, 10 of them died. The next base will face a first wave of 10 tanks, and eventually 10 other; DEFINITELY BETTER to have 2 waves of 10 than having to deal with 20 tanks upfront.

• The zerg is lazy and won't bother waiting/redeploying/driving. This will separate all the guys who use MBTs as transport from those who use MBTs as weapons.

It would definitely reduce tank spam.

That and:

Separating driver from gunner will force them to be either mobile or have a gun, and therefor make them more vulnerable. It's not a hard concept to under stand. On top of which it makes them doubly vulnerable to enemy vehicles and aircraft. Catching an unawares prowler in lockdown mode puts the prowler at a severe disadvantage.

As far as tanks camping bases being such a detestable evil; is it any better when ESFs do it? How about infantry, since they both do it, too.

You sound like an individual who just wants the game to be infantry-only with no vehicles. Ie, not Planetside.

On Amerish excluding vehicles from fight should at all be made by rough terrain and mineshafts. Like in the example the base is called a mineshaft--> logicall conclusion: Mines for us.

I rather have domes than walls any day. The walls make it easier for air vehicles, you can't lock them or really get a good clip onto them before they're out of line of sight. The tanks aren't as bad because they move slow and there is lots of cover on Amerish already to prevent tanks from spamming spawns and capture points. The walls are a cage and better suited for Esamir/Indar because there is little cover for infantry. Give Amerish domes!

As an infantry player, I hope we never actually see domes on live servers. I enjoy using AA missiles too much, even if they mostly just get me Assists. Sure, I'm going to be outside the dome spamming missiles from a mountain top, but if the aircraft aren't distracted by farming people in the base they'll be able to focus on me!

I also hope they leave *some* bases without walls, since the game needs a wide variety of bases to keep things interesting and encourage tactical flexibility. I wouldn't mind seeing one or two small bases that are just open fields with a capture point, just for kicks.

I would also prefer that walls had levels/catwalks, firing ports, and turrets, so that they can be an active defense (fun) rather than a passive defense (boring).

Walls ...

Lazy base design


They could achieve the same effect by using natural terrain and building placement AND make the bases interesting to fight at in the process

please tell me this is a really really really bad attempt at a troll and they are going to tweet just kidding tomorrow and tell us we'r getting the optimization patch and Hossin on the 23rd. Tank spam has never been an issue on Amerish because of the hostile terrain towards vehicles, this reeks of an optimization ploy to reduce draw distance or something, the level designers can't be that clueless are they even playing the same game we are?

Clegg must own stock in EA because if this goes live I'm seeing you all in BF4

The effect of walls on gameplay inside bases has not been mentioned yet: shorter distances.

Or because we saw their work on esimir

Oh great, they take my favorite base on my favorite continent and put a feature on it that i highly dislike on the ****hole that is Esamir. Wooho.

I didn't know I signed up to play Stronghold Kingdomside 2?

Why the hell are they turning PS2 into some cheap corridor shooter? Terrible.

The Battle Isle, etc will be good for that already. Amerish is my favorite continent and I'd hate for it to get
fudged overall like Esamir.

Note: Excuse the 5 minute MS paint job purely an example How I would prefer terrain and buildings are used and not walls ( So ignore the walls that are their from the original )

BLUE = Ground floor corridors interconnecting buildings
RED = First floor corridors / cat walks interconnecting buildings with access to pass underneath
Orange = Fire escape type staircases ( Breaks up / interferes with LoS )

A = Trees added to break up LoS from outside the base
B = Trees added to the central open area to allow cover from Air
C = Two storey buildings that offer height to break up LoS
D = Single storey buildings

Could also add some of the good changes from Esamir such as buildings raised off the floor and raised walkways


Now I'm not claiming this is perfect by any stretch of the imagination .. It took all of 5 minutes and I'm not a base designer.

But to me you end up with a less forced restrictive base that still allows the infantry to move around .. Vehicles are not entirely kept out ( but you break up their LoS ) and you give infantry various options in their movement choices.

1) By giving infantry those options for movement that doesn't mean they have to venture outside AT ALL times you make vehicle play risk vs reward rather then just removing them from the equation.

2) It allows infantry to choose how and when they interact with said vehicles. If people are not forced by base design to constantly have no option but to run into HE / lolpod spam then you will find less complaints about it.

Just my opinion anyway

Less castle / fort
More shopping mall

It is a bad idea. Unless they are willing to make walls destructible objects

Hopefully, once walls are up everywhere tanks can get somemost all of their power back and then some. I, for one, would welcome tank spam that wasn't just annoying, but actually dangerous. I, for one, would like to see tank spam be the real counter to tank spam.

Though I do agree with some previous posters: The Stronghold is "walls done right."