Lack of Base Defense

Backhacking was in beta. It was terrible. It absolutely goes against the idea of defending and big battles.

Secondly, no amount of reward for defense is going to make people sit at an empty base waiting for something that might never come. Why? Because there is an even greater cost, and that is time out of the limited minutes of your life. Sitting at an empty base is a waste of time and not why people play games. Virtual points rewarded to do b_itch duty is not the answer.

What's the answer?

It's pretty damn simple. We need more information.

Let's say I wanted to defend a base. I'm a rational thinking human being so I want to defend somewhere where I'm not completely out-numbered, but If there's already a ton of my own allies (we outnumber the enemy) I'll go somewhere else that needs my help. That means I need to know where the enemy is, where the enemy is moving, how many there are and I need to know where all my allies are.

YOU DON'T HAVE THAT INFORMATION IN THIS GAME.

All you can do is zerg. If there's a random 13v14 battle at a random outpost across the continent and my side needs one additional man (me) to win that conflict. I'd love to go defend. EXCEPT I HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT.

ALL YOU CAN DO IS ZERG. You can't make decisions with zero information. The game is designed that way. It gets played that way. Simple. People would defend if they could be ensured they were going to get a "Good Fight" (tm).

Squads, platoons, and outfits are how you gain recon, communication, and coordination. You also need a minimum of 6-8 people to mount an effective defense.

Squads leaders should be using the /ORDERS channel to issue reinforcement requests and noteworthy intelligence on major enemy movements.

Today I spent two hours repelling four seperate attack waves on Howling Pass Checkpoint. The attacks were lead by a major NC outfit. Probably a total of 20 NC sunderers were destroyed, among other vehicles. We also repelled backcap attempts on NS Offices and NS Refinery, as well as a vehicle wave spawned out of Mao South Gate.

So to turn that post into straightforward tasks to fix the game with actual strategy here's what the devs must do:

1) Make everyone join an outfit

Well, that's not going to happen. In fact the majority of people will never join an outfit so...

2) Give numbers on enemies and allies on the map. Yes, show blobs of troops movements and give approximate numbers too. Tie it to the bio-lab as a benefit.

This is the ONLY way the HUGE amount of randoms will ever make any kind of strategic decisions. Right now you have a choice with zero information. Follow the zerg, or go somewhere else and potentionally get zero action which means zero certs. With the above information you can choose to not follow the zerg and still know you will get some action.

People have this idea that if we knew enemy numbers and troop movement the game would somehow be worse because you "lose the element of surprise". But guess what, you also lose the element of "any defenders what-so-ever". After taking so many bases with next to zero resistance, you'll log off and go find another game that gives you action. It's human nature.

Well, at least you agree that the problem isn't a lack of reward for defense. That's what' the OP and lots of people are putting forth. The truth is, you just need information so you can defend intelligently. Obviously if you have an outfit you can send scouts. But what if you don't? Just say "screw you" to the majority of players? We need them to continue to stay and play.

We need to determine why the deployment map works so inefficiently, for starters, and bases that can actually be defended. There's a lot of ghost data when accessing the map that can lead troops astray, and there's no incentive to defend or stay at an empty base.

This is also tied to transportation problems. The deployment via a drop pod to anywhere is mostly fine for individuals, but I should also be able to use the nano-whatses to properly spawn in an owned facility. We'll be completely disorganized and probably chewed up once we land, if by drop pod. But what about equipment? we could never get through any armor that the attackers brought with them to get to our own vehicle terminals, and those might not even be working. What about dropping ground vehicles with us if we need, for an expensive cost? Not only is the current transportation grid a terrible hindrance to actual functioning deployment and logistics, but it lends credulence to the tank zerg approach because that seems like the only good way to get around and get to a reasonable fight. Generally boring, but at least the terrain varies.

A scouting class that actually does real scouting sounds good on paper but realistically the Infiltrator should already serve some of that purpose, and doesn't for various reasons, some class-based, some gameplay-based, and some player-based. Who cares about those scout ships you spawn in some other RTS games and then send off to their deaths as long as they find meaningful information about the other teams? Infiltrators should get some experience just for Spotting, but if that's the case, it needs to be a more stationary action while not making them any more vulnerable or obvious to the enemy.

Nail on the head here, imho

This is a dilemma, everyone on the forums wants huge action movie style epic battles, reality in game terms, go for easy mode and find the weakest resistance for instant gratification character rewards.

I suspect a lot of people simply give into the popular choices regardless of best convictions.

The answer lies in the reward system mechanics I feel, though I don't really have a miracle how to best change it to offer incentive to people to face off against each other. It may seem too obvious to change the proportion of capture rewards to be more associated with effort taken to do so.

e.g. small base capture normally worth 500xp and a cert.

You could start the capture battle off with the reward starting at say 250xp and then with each subsequent kill made by the attackers the rewards add on to this running total until their nominal values reach 500xp. Normal cert rewards as in the scheme of things these aren't so significant from the capture rewards by comparison to all activity.

To mirror this a similar scaled reward scheme could then be applied in the case of a base defense for the defenders again with an appropriate ceiling though in this case perhaps less so of a reward as in theory it is easier to defend. In the case where a defense occurs bringing it back from a virtual capture (the enemy managed to get colour on the capture bar) then appreciably the defenders could receive a cert also.

The values and weightings could all be adjusted as needed and scaled according to different sites as appropriate. Also emphasis on these rewards will help to determine behavior. You could even add on small adjustments where proportional representation issues are against you due to the intrinsic increased challenge.

Not only is there not a reward, there isn't a reason. Losing a base means nothing, it can be 1 man ghost capped when the zerg-herd moves on.

Until instant-empire-swapping and XP for capping empty bases are done away with, the problem will persist.

As it stands, this game is broken. Full stop. And all for want of two very simple common-sense game mechanics we had in place ten bloody years ago.

Bases are already " about to easy " to win over for a Zerg, if this is already huge enough. And now,

the Bases even got "WEAKENED" - Yes, WEAKENED - so Zergs have it even easier to kill every Fool

trying to defend them!! I say only "Hvar" on Indar and every other Base like it. The whole Mindset with

"Shieldgenerators "OUTSIDE" of the Shields they create" is alreay unrealistic and dumb enough. I can

understand and accept that this is in Order to make Attackers assault Certain Points and work themself

forwards to win over a Base this Way,




but now it looks like: " The Whole Game is being changed in Order to please the (mindless) Zerg!! "

Is the Zerg the Mainstream now? I mean: The "absolute" Main Stream!!! I know they were already the

Mainstream before, but not entirely! I wonder - are these Players the Ones buying most Stuff for real Money

or why is Sony Online Entertainment polishing their Shoes so carefully? It's like the "Zergers" are their

Upper Gods now they can't bow deep enough down before. -.- And No: This is not meant as an Insult.





Well, let's see what the Future brings - and if the Potential of Planetside 2 will further get worked down,

or more up again... ... like when M.A.X. Suits were REALLY powerful as soon as only "One" Engineer

supported One, who had Two Weapons of the same Type.

Howling pass Checkpoint is the name of it ( http://ps2maps.com/indar ) i'm normally on Esamir but i'll make a char and go check that base out... it looks a LOT more defendable then.... well anything... except maybe that place in Amerish?

So .... still no major consensus within the community yet for solutions?
I have no idea what to do either... just remarking on what a sad state of affairs this is...


Yeah we could turn every base into a more defensible meatgrinder but that will only grind the pacing of the game to a halt and burn people out a lot faster as the scenery for them changes a lot less often.

We could suggest changes to CERTs which NEEDS to happen anyway, but SOE's been pretty vocal that they're in this for the CashGrab so it would have to be in a way that continues to net tons of impulse buying.... IE: F2P's get bigger incentives for defending while P2W'ers get to buy $50 worth of stuff that costs 2000 certs & r*pes "Defense-stacks".

Could also scale the Capture-Reward of bases by the Ratio of players recieving the reward to the number of players in the area over the last 5 minutes who were defending it. <--- someone else's proposal IIRC.


I think all of these things could be done and it still wouldn't change the Meta enough. Continent Lock-outs won't fix it either because this isn't PS1, this is a spammy Vehicle & CQC fest with huge Grind. Nothing short of a magic bullet is going to account for that mess of factors. It's the entire reason that finding solutions to this is so difficult. They dug themselves a hole and now they get to lie in it for the next 6 months just like they did with DCOU's potentially awesome yet horribly disappointing PvP.

Well, I put in about 15-18 hours this weekend and I still love the game

I get in, get a squad rolling, and start doing stuff. Cap bases, defend bases whatever. Sometimes when things get too boring, i jump in a Mossie or Lib and go bombing around for a while. Usually while waiting for a base to flip after all the defenders give up.

I think that the worst thing going on right now is when you start getting pushed back and a population imbalance starts. For some idiotic reason the TR always abandon the continent.

I was fighting on Amerish yesterday. When i logged in we had pushed the NC back almost to their WG and the VS were doing pretty good. Even pop between VS and TR but the NC were down by about 15-20%. We got NC pushed all the way back, then got VS almost all the way. This happened 2 times in the 3 hours or so i was on. The 3rd time, for some stupid reason all the TR just gave up.

They decided that the population was too imbalanced (we were down by less than 10%) and everyone just left. Completely stupid.

I think this is all part of the same issue. No one wants to defend. If we had XP to gain from defending bases I think that people would be more willing to stick it out when they start losing. As it is now, too many people just give up and go to another continent.

Of course then it forces the other faction to abandon their continent and come to this one... Just one more of those Chinese Firedrills except this time instead of outposts, it is continents.

Just give us a reason to defend and i think it would change.

Any word yet from Smed? At least acknowledge the problem. Let us know you are working on it.

PHX does not lack base defense. Join an organized outfit.

Well i could never join a Smurf Squad!

I am not sure how it goes on your server but on Waterson it is hard to get people to stick around for defense of an outpost, base, or CONTINENT! As soon as the opposition starts putting up a serious defense, they leave. It gets pretty annoying.

I think it is mostly due to the zerg nature of the servers right now. Most people are not thinking in terms of tactics and overall battle plans. It is typically a lone wolf type of battle, even when you are in a squad.

Last night on Amerish there were a couple of great battles I got into with my Squad over The Bastion, Splitpeak and Onatha Biolab. The NC and VS were actually defending and it was a great battle over every one of them.

Then the NC got together at Splitpeak with at least 50 tanks and who knows how many air vehicles and started rolling over the TR. Of course that is when TR started abandoning Amerish....

I hope that as time goes on that people start getting smarter about their tactics and how they play. I would love to see real squad formations being used during base attacks and defenses like we did in PS1. I know my Outfit is not there yet.

This is a great idea, and you even pointed out why it wont happen. To many spot light heros, blue falcons, John J Rainbows.

Thank you, all to true! There NEEDS be a reward for successful defence.

Not really...

There needs to be a reason. Knowing the enemy needs a base and denying them that, holding the base so the area behind it is safe and you have a point to launch attacks from, taking the base to open access to more of their land. There needs to be a front line where the action is. As it is the bases are designed to be indefensible and most are nothing more than a spawn point or XP bonus to flip.

When you need an outfit to tell you where on the battlefield is important to take and hold that's an indication of failed game design.

From what I have seen there arent that many G.S. Pattons out there that can see that stratigic bit of insight before it happens. Most of them have the stratigic thinking of a squirrel.

I see the same patterns as you and I play on Connery.

Its a shame that most outfits simply abandon the whole side or even the whole continent as soon as they get overrun. Lots of outfits do it. Mine does all the time. I wish they wouldn't, but they're following the path of least resistance. It's a chronic problem. But I seriously don't think throwing more exp at people will motivate them to stay in a position where they're being heavily farmed. It hurts your K/D ratio too, which some people care about.

Thing is, the tank zerg that you described.... I bet the defenders never knew it was coming. Imagine if there was some kind of indication of armor on the map or alerts WAY ahead of time. Then defenders would see it and have time to organize a defense. Then you actually get a battle instead of a constant faceroll. I seriously think that "no information about enemies on map" approach to this game is wrong when it comes to strategic elements. Think of any strategy game. You always know when a major force is coming. If you want to use stealth you should have to explicitly use stealth items or cloaking items and limit the size of your force. Instead, in this game, of all of your actions (including 40 tanks) are completely stealth until you're literally in engagement range.