Major flaw in base design

I've thought over and over about what makes the base designs flawed right now, and this is the answer I came up with:

The bases are made to be fought over, like CoD maps, not defended like real bases.


All of them have like, one layer of defense (point control) or two (generator which protects the point+point).
No bases are thought through defending them, never. And depending on the numbers, can be incredible pains to defend or attack. The ascent, for example.

My suggestions:

Make every base on Auraxis replicas of the assault maps of unreal tournament. Unreal tournament, the first of the name. What it means:

-Every place in the base is accessible from the spawn of the defenders at first.
-When attackers complete an objective (blowing a generator, capturing a point) defenses relative to this zone shut down (no more teleportation here, etc.)
-Every base capture is divided in several layers, with different points. Every time one is captured, the next is vulnerable, a bit like lattice. Plus, secondary objectives, like disabling all the turret in an area via an exploding generator, etc.
-Every time a point is captured, the attackers get a spawn in the base, and the defenders lose one.

You mean like Subterranean Nanite Hell?

I'm all for revamping the bases to be more conducive to attack/defense roles. I don't think the dev's will have the time, nor the will they want to put the effort into redesigning the bases though.

There are a lot of bases and proportionately just as much work to do in order to implement this.

Think about how much they have cared about answering our calls to basic balancing issues which could be solved with little more than tweeking some numbers....let alone redesigning every single base.

It's amazing when they even acknowledge our presence here on Forumside instead of some third party forum..

In modern warfare, you usually don't fight over bases. Because in our day and age of heavy artillery, explosive airstrikes, and massive tank cannon, defensive structures just aren't so hot anymore.

Instead you fight outside of bases, in the land around a base so the enemy cannot get in striking range of your base. A layered defense if you will.

The flaw with bases is that we can't fire upon the buildings and reduce them to mounds of rubble. Doing so would greatly reinforce the fact that bases aren't what you fight in, they're what you fight around. In turn, this would promote more interesting mobile warfare, rather than the room camping we have now.

Yeah but we will never have interactive terrain, so good bases was the next best thing!

At least they are better than they were during beta/at launch. I swear they didn't have a single level designer that had ever played a non-run and gun FPS... like cover? why would you want cover from the 150 HE lockdown prowlers outside?

No bases with real interior has always been a major flaw. We need bases with more complicated underground sectors, with lots of cover, and wide spaces for LA.

One thing the game lacks IMO: Signs on the walls or on the ground indicating where to go to the next objective, like a faction colored arrow indicating nearest generator, control point, and the path to get there. Much easier for newbies to figure out bases.

We need Helms Deep in PS2.

That sir, would be awesome.

I fully agree;
However,
you cannot do this with every pitiful little outpost etc.

This type of thing is how it should be for Amp station, biolab & techplants;
Maybe a few more bases, but the maximum amount of "unreal tournament assault maps" in one continent would be something like.. 12? Probably less.

Btw: there have been more recent unreal tournament games, and in unreal tournament 2003 or 2004 there were also assault maps with vehicles. Some "gates" etc could only be destroyed by a big tank, took several shots etc;
after that, back to infantry.
A remark would be that the tank needs to get pretty close to be able to fire at the gate due to layout (no LoS), and of course, everyone shoots at that tank of yours.
PS2 equivalent: a barrier with 100% dmg resistance to everything except AP rounds. (maybe normal tank rounds too.. )

By my understanding, if bases were meant to be fought around, as opposed to inside of, we would need much bigger bases. Which brings me to a point that some people have been calling for: less base density on the map. Seeing as this would require a complete and total revamp of each continent, it's not going to happen. Oh well.

Or they could just make the next continent (already neck-high in wishful thinking) more sparse with land around bases to fight in.

Remember old towers? Vehicles spawn in the middle of the bottom floor right where people run all the time. Constant team killing. No way of getting back to the spawn room once out of it.

They did something like this for a certain version of Biolab spawn rooms. The forums were not pleased.

You mean the Pit of Despair?

They should have kept that name on that base.

Boba Fett killed the Planetside base experience long before design even took place. Eliminate Boba from the walls and it will be a whole new game. Massive automated fly swatters should do the trick.

There is actually a lore reason behind that. Something to do with the nanites reinforcing things with time. The trees which have been there the longest are basically indestructible.

Also with destructible buildings ect. it wouldn't take long before the entire landscape looks like the Nevada Test Site.

My biggest problem with PS2 bases is that they're too damn small. 20 people standing in a single stairway gets old, fast. Why are they in that stairway? Because it's one of only two entrances to the building - the other one being directly opposite the spawn room. Why the meatgrinder design?

Also, slightly off-topic:

In the RPG Dungeon Siege, there was an optional area in the multiplayer campaign called The Pit of Despair. It was a big, circular mine shaft with a path winding downwards around the sides, multiple signposts everywhere saying things like "turn back now!", "this is your last chance!", "I mean it!", "don't say I didn't warn you!". At the bottom of the pit was an elevator that took you to an ENORMOUS MAZE that was dark, winding, partially three-dimensional, completely devoid of enemies and loot (except for one, maybe two random chests), and had a locked door at the end that needed three skulls to open. The best part was once you opened the door, you discovered that it was only the first of three mazes (the final being a full-on three-dimensional *********** of bridges), with the second one requiring yet more items to raise bridges and open doors. Thankfully there was epic loot at the end, but it took a good hour, hour and a half to get through with not a single enemy to fight.

*ends offtopic rambling*

PS2 maps are trying to turn an open world game and battle system into a Battlefield 2142 Camp Gibraltar approach to each base. walls, 1 or 2 narrow corridors.

Bases were alot better when you could approach from near any direction and get to the caps and take them from almost anywhere.

LOL, I went into the Pit of Despair...I ended up reloading a previous save after going just a few floors in. I think I had a walkthrough I had read, but was still like...nope....and I was seriously edited up and bad ***...the insane darkness I was like..lolno.

What needs to be done, is make sure ALL spawn points for defenders cannot even be looked upon by vehicles. Which means they need to be INSIDE a LARGE structure. A structure that the defending team can easily shoot out of, and push out of without any vehicle interference. So only enemy infantry could get into the area in which the defending team spawns.