[Suggestion] Make bases MORE defensible, not less.

i've noticed a trend over recent years of DBG repeatedly showing favour for the attacks over the defenders and i'm heavily in the mindset that this is entirely the wrong way around.

look at the purpose of castles and keeps throughout history, they are defensible positions designed to allow the few to repel the many, and in this game it is always "the many" (zerglings) who will come knocking on your door.

over time we've seen bases become laughably indefensible:
we seen many bases having their capture points moved further and further from the base.
for example The Crown (which in my eyes was how a base should work, being a stalwart defensible position)
have 2 of its capture points moved half a mile from the base...
(HERE is Crown in its former glory during an epic 25 minute battle to claim it)

we've seen A points removed from towers, not only did the staircase fights used to be epic,
but they'd give the defenders time to launch a counter attack.

we've seen shield generators being placed OUTSIDE of bases, in some cases even outside of the walls...

we've seen capture times reduced massively, once the zerg rolls in the base is there's within 3-4 minutes.

we've seen sunderer bunkers added to provide safe spots for the zerg to spawn at,
and these are usually placed MUCH closer to the capture point than the defenders spawn.

and now we have the reveal of "hardspawns" so that the zerglings wont need to fear you somehow destroying their sunderers, they can now spawn at the base too.


i'm probably missing a few, but you get the idea,
DBG have repeatedly show that they want bases to favour the attackers instead of its owners,
and they're STILL working on that goal with attacker hard-spawns... this is laughably backwards.

when was the last time you saw your base get attacked and it wasn't something like 30% defenders V 70% attackers (or usually much worse), when was the last time you actually saw a base get zerged and the zerg get repelled? last year? never?

DBG, the zerglings DO NOT need your repeated mollycoddling,
the defenders DO NOT need your repeated nerfs.


i'm not sure on suggestions to put this right,
but reverting all/most of the changes above would be a fantastic start!


TLDR
stop hating the defenders DBG.

Oh please yes.

So many bases, it's choke point after choke point that is funneling defenders into the attacker's scopes..
Or Anti-vehicle turrets positioned so they can aim at the local vehicle terminal... and in some cases the spawn.
Other times both.

This is more useful to the bloody attacker, this defensive gun.

Like it takes so much less effort to secure a base from the defenders, than to secure it as a defender.
The number of times, having even equal numbers has doomed a defense is absurd.

Multiple exits that can't all be blocked as easy by only 3 people would be lovely.

Teleporters that don't send you all of 15 meters at best, in sight of the spawn often enough at that..

Defender exits, and teleporters that don't lead into the perfect killing field with no defensive position to push out of, just to hold the defenders back...

Like my gods.
It's easier to defend the points when laying siege to a base, than defending it.
That is one damnable contradiction: Defense of a base is easier by being the attacker? What in the...

Wow, exactly my thoughts!
On the none-lattice old Indar the Crown was defensiveable, and epic fights happened. It actually ment somthing to have it. It was worth attacking. That is a feeling i miss now for a long, long time...

Other than that, more open field battles happens if you can defend, which are also some of my favourite moements. But now we have lattice (not letting us fight where we want and cutting tactical captures) and bases that are garanteed to loose when the attacker reaches a certain position.

To be honest, i dont fight at those undefendable bases at all other then farming from spawnroom or farming some wannabe defenders, with ******** of backupcover. Meanwhile i realy enjoy the biogrind, vehicle play and building my own, defenseable base...

It should not be optional for attackers to bring support and numbers, but necessary. Like OP implied: Its easier to defend a bases by attacking it...

I agree with the general idea: Bases have become too indefensible. Just the fact that the defenders are guaranteed without vehicle superiority and will have in 90% of the bases only one set spawnpoint and that the attackers can win by holding the extremely defensible points while the defenders never win by simply holding the points etc etc make it that the attackers have just about every single advantage.

A base defense/attack should be build up out of more phases, and the defenders should start with a massive advantage. Add (unhackable) Phalanx gattling turrets to pointrooms to defend them, add tons of ways for the defenders to get around, such as extra faction-specific teleporters, gravlifts, jumppads and localized drop-pods that can be accessed from a terminal in the spawn, more shieldwalls, doors blocked off with shields only the defenders can walk through, extra turrets that overlook important area's (such as the courtyard of an AMP station) etc etc. Then start adding ways for the attackers to slowly destroy these advantages and turn a few against the defenders. Destroying the advantages shouldn't be required, but it would make it much much easier to beat the defenders.

I certainly find that some bases will fall far too easily, but then there are things like the biodomes which are meatgrinders for attackers.

IIRC a lot of the unfortunate changes for defenders, like moving cap points and generators was to encourage planetmans out into the open in order to defend their bases. Maybe those change have gone a bit too far?

One thing I do find to be a nice enough balance is the Towers where one cap point is in the main tower but the others are in buildings outside it. The epic fights in the Tower can still be there but a successful defence ultimately depends on a counter attack whilst also holding the Tower point.

Mind you, we are on the verge of Bunkers being launched soon, with spawn areas for attackers to try to cap and hold - I guess this will push defenders to have to reach out still further in order to defend their bases. In fact, I can see the distinction between defender and attacker continunig to become less apparent. Right now, the only major distinction appeasr to be between those who have an unbreakable spawn point on site (until the shield generator goes donw in some cases) and those who have to bring their own spawn points with them.

TL;DR I am not arguing for attackers or defenders, just saying that there appears to be an inconsistency between bases that are too hard or too easy right now but the trend appears towards pushing fights more out into the open where the only difference at the moment is where you spawn from.

The best way to defend bases is to prevent the enemy from investing them.

The devs have nothing to do with the solution; the players everything.

even the biolabs have become simple for a zerg now that they can destroy the SCU,
they zerg in, drop the shield and blow the SCU while camping the spawn room, there is nothing to be done.

i think you've outlined one of the biggest issues,,
we need something like "Curtain Walls", a main outer wall/vehicle obstacle which will be the closest point where the attackers can spawn (since sunderers can't deploy any closer) and then also an "inner base" away from this outer wall/obstacle which is were the capture points and defender spawn room is,
this would always ensure that the defenders are spawning muchcloser to the capture points than the attackers.

many old fortifications had this design, this for example (ignore the moat)

in PS2 sunderer's would only be able to deploy outside of the outer wall, meaning the defenders (who'd spawn in the inside building) are spawning much closer to the capture points which are inside the inner base, perhaps several capture points could be in those large inner towers and one in the centre of the courtyard.

kinda like how Heyoka Chemical Lab is an island inaccessible to vehicles without first activating a bridge terminal on the island.
so attackers must spawn off the island and attack over chokepoint bridges, while defenders spawn on the island giving them a distinct advantage.
it is one of THE BEST bases to defend in the game and a difficult task for attackers to conquer, as it should be.

I agree with the vast majority of these points from a logical point of view. They would make sense in terms of "real" warfare etc.

However....... as a veteran of Planetside 1 and our infamous 6+ hour Interlink farms, I'm well aware of the problems of stagnation, and this (I think) is why DBG's made the decisions they have. Planetside 2 is designed to be a much more "casual friendly" game. It moves a lot faster than Planetside 1. One of the decisions they made, in order to make this happen, is that bases are going to flip quicker and easier.

Back in PS1, once you'd reached the control point you had to actually hack it - you couldn't just stand around until it flipped. Once you hacked it, you had to hold it..... for 15 minutes. And if the defenders managed to get ONE GUY there long enough to rehack, even if the timer was up to 14:30, it would cancel the whole thing and you'd have to start again. Base fights, in PS1 were long-term affairs, potentially lasting several hours (as noted above with the Interlinks - which were extremely defensible). In fact, the most common way to "win" an Interlink fight was to simply keep it going until the base resources ran dry and the defenders could no longer fight effectively - to literally starve them out. This was also one of the biggest gripes people had in PS1. You could log on, play for 3+ hours and, when you logged off, your faction had made absolutely no progress for the evening.

I know that it's annoying to be facing a zerg, pushed back seemingly without a means of defence, losing base after base as they just roll in and camp you into the spawns. But, and I'm sure I'll get flamed for this..... this is as much your fault as that of the zerg - if you/your faction just sit in the spawn trying to farm kills. There are, however, a number of ways to break zergs. I'm not going to get into details here - it would turn into another of my trademarked mega-posts and it's all been discussed before, numerous times.

Instead of trying to make DBG change bases to be more defensible (and thereby usher in a return to the stagnation of the past, never mind the fact that DBG probably doesn't have the resources or skill to do it properly) I would suggest that, perhaps, it might be better to embrace the new system and use it to your advantage to create more interesting content for you, your outfits and your squads / platoons.

When an unstoppable 96+ zerg is rolling down a lane, don't try to directly oppose them with your not-quite-a-full-platoon. You'll just lose and get farmed. Instead, embrace the opportunities they offer you.

• If you're a vehicle-centric group, pull back to the previous base, roll out an armored column and trash the zerg's vehicles and spawns. You're coordinated, they're not, so the odds will often be in your favour in each engagement, even if they outnumber you overall. Alternatively, if rolling heavy tanks isn't your style, run Harassers or Doom Flash's and whittle away at their numbers.
• If you're an air-centric group, well.... given how crap G2A is and how uncoordinated most pubbies are, you can pretty much farm that zerg at your leisure. I don't even need to give advice here.
• If you're an infantry-centric group, play to your strengths.
  • Select a single important and defensible building in the base to hold as your own. Maybe one with a Gen in it, or one that is a staging area between the pubbies spawn and the point. It's uncommon that they'll attack you as a coordinated group, and they'll tend to dribble in in small numbers. Use that to your advantage to crush them piecemeal.
  • Alternatively you can set up camp on their vehicle terminal. Put a cloaked sundy nearby and prevent them pulling any more vehicles. Eventually they'll lose the ones they have attacking your base and, with you preventing any new ones being pulled, your pubbies will have a chance to push out.
  • Wait until they've held the point for a minute or so. By that point, most of the pubbies will have gotten bored and gone looking for excitement (usually camping the spawns). Drop the point. By the time enough pubbies respond to kick you out, you'll already have pretty much undone all their work, and you can usually do this several times before they catch on and start setting up actual defences.
• Alternatively, you can back-hack the zerglings. Most zergs go through "churn" as people leave and new ones join. Cut off their options for redeploy, and that zerg is gonna dry up real quick. ESPECIALLY if you can do it before they encounter a hard-to-break base. The zerg will die and break up into smaller units as people go elsewhere for "better" fights.
• Finally, the "best" option is probably some combination of the above. Use your side's air and vehicle power to break the zerg's vehicles and spawns, while a small squad of your infantry prevents them pulling more, while the rest of them drop points or hold buildings.

The above are just some of the ideas you can do instead of sitting in a spawn feeling hard-done-by that your base isn't more defensible. Because, remember.... if it's hard to defend for you, it'll be even harder for the attackers. Use that.... and counter-attack their attack!

bases in PS2 used to be defensible too, i hate to keep harking back to the Crown's glory days,
but there was something epic about the hour-long campaigns to conquer it.
that simply doesn't exist in the game now.

the annoying thing is that they've actually spent vast resources AND ARE STILL SPENDING to make the bases utterly undefendable,
the game was working fine until they started to focus money into making it worse.

i think it is likely the main reason that all you see now-a-days are overpop zergs of each faction steamrolling over underpopulated bases, because DBG have succeeded in making defending unfun and borderline impossible now,
everyone has decided to simply play the attacking role.

not everyone has the time or interest to engage in a full hour batle ..
i could play say a one hour+ 5v5 match in game like supreme commander or i could play 3 or 4 15 to 20 min long 1v1 matches in starcraft instead .. EPICally long .. may not be consistent fun .. you may eventualy start to think "how long is this still going"


as for defending being unfun .. imo and that has been said before defenders need more ways to quickly get around the base without being constantly spawncamped .. make spawncamping more difficult .. the action should be were the capturepoints and generators are not at the opponents spawnroom ...
maybe have indeed difficult to bring down turrets (maybe aiturrets even) at a spawnlocation to support defenders getting out ... incurage players to fight at capturepoints, discourage players to stay at the spawnroom both attackers and defenders ...

most base battles back in the early days didn't take hours, but they were much more competitive than they are now.

good suggestions
i do hate the spawn camping just as much as you, but spawn camping is the symptom of the bases being undefensible,
we shouldn't go after the symptom, we should go after the cause.

i like your idea to let defenders move around the base faster, that'd be a massive help.

I kinda feel like you completely ignored my points, but let's move on.

I remember the "glory days of the Crown". I remember that I hated them and pretty much fought anywhere else. I remember that they were fantastic kill-farms, but almost completely useless for anything else. I remember alert victors being decided by who didn't have the Crown - because whoever had it would defend it to the death, with 96+ holding it against 12 people, while all the rest of their territory got backhacked around them.

That's certainly not how I remember it.......

To put some basic numbers to it - It could take around 5 minutes to drive between two bases uncontested. This was seldom the case, so let's say that you spend 20 minutes fighting your way to the next base. Let's also assume that your attack goes really well and you completely outskill the defenders. You can be at the control point in 10 minutes. Finally, there's the 15 minutes that you have to hold the control console to actually capture the base. So even an optimistic set of numbers puts you at 45 minutes from base-cap to base-cap, and it could easily be a lot longer if the defenders were holding well.

As for "competitive", that's not how I remember it either. What I remember is banging my head constantly against a brick-wall of choke-points, achieving very little until somebody organised one of the few tactics that worked - like a MAX crash - to break the deadlock at the choke, only for the deadlock to resume at the next choke, until somebody broke that one. What I remember is camping at the same spots for 20+ minutes at a time, spamming Lasher at the choke.... or camping the corner next to the choke with my Jackhammer set to triple-shot..... or a wall-'o-MAX's all locked down at the top of the stairs, with 2 engineers a piece keeping them permanently repaired. Planetside 1 was stagnation incarnate and, at the time, we were fine with it, because nobody knew better and there was nothing else like it.

There's still nothing else like Planetside 2.... but these days we do know better.

Agreed for the most part but I want to comment on a few things:

First of all, it makes sense both lore wise and battle flow wise that not all bases are keep or castle levels of defensible. I mean we're fighting over bases ranging from communications stations to hydroponics facilities and from solar panel farms to corporate offices to actual fortresses. Would be logical for a fort to be more defensible than a facility that grows plants. Not to mention those forts actually are ridiculously defensible. Fort Liberty, The Stronghold, SNA and Mani Fortress are just a few examples.

Sundy garages and hardspawns is the other thing I disagree with. I agree that it's important to empower the defenders but it's also important to have a spawn point for the attackers because otherwise you don't have a fight. As of right now, Sunderers are ridiculously fragile. A single random light assault or ESF/Lib can solo kill a deployment shield Sundy and single handedly end the fight. Sundy garages and hardspawns are there to mitigate that to some degree.

Take for example Mattherson's and the Octagon. Great bases, great fights, however neither fight lasts for as long as say a biolab fight. Why? Because biolabs have hardspawns while Octagon and Mattherson's don't even have garages and the fight can be ended by one defender dude pulling an AP lightning and killing all attacker spawn points. Now imagine if holding a point in those bases gave the attackers a temporary hardspawn like in 3 point AMP stations. Fight longevity and tactics just got a lot more interesting, didn't they.


Other than that I do agree with the post. Taking 'A' point out of towers was a mistake. So was neutering the old Crown. Tower bases are zerg breakers and the biggest reason for their success is how easy it is for the defenders to re secure 'A' point and prolong the cap from 7 to 15 minutes, allowing for more time for reinforcements to show up. Take the 'A' point out of the tower and it just becomes easier for the zerg to cap. As if we needed to make it easier to drown a base in bodies.

Just can't agree with you on this one. There are bases that are ridiculously hard to take in the game still. Fights stall out at these bases and players log off or go else where. I think the blend of bases you can take with even population verses the bases that favor the defenders and you have to have significant pop advantage is pretty good overall.

What generally happens on my server is one faction will mount an attack on a lane. They gain momentum and push territory for a few bases that are relatively good fights but favor the attacker. The defenders fight for a bit then redeploy out of the lane after losing; presenting less and less defenders at each base.

1 of 3 things happens. Either the defenders will regroup and counter attack at a link in the lattice that will cut off the attackers.

The defenders will fall back until the attackers run into a base the defending empire knows is an easy defense farm. The meat grinder ensues until the attackers momentums broken and the defenders reach critical mass at the defensible base and push out becoming the attackers at all the hard to defend bases they just lost.

Or the last thing is they completely ignore the attackers and just move on to a different side of the continent all together. Ghost hacking is boring so the attacking force loses momentum from ghost hack attrition. They reach the enemy WG, lock the continent or become the defenders as the enemy pushes out of their WG.

Either way the game is more of an endless 3 way tug of war with 1 or 2 factions always advancing while the other(s) lose ground. It's more fun that way. You're never stuck in 1 battle on 1 continent for days on end because it's impossible to flip a bunch of impenetrable fortresses. Which is why esamir is one of my least favorite continents. Too many stalemates.


BTW, the crown sucks, has always sucked and is still the deciding factor of who loses the alert on PS4 (no hive VP). It's still an endless mindless infantry farm with the occasional vehicle push to kill AMS's if the attackers look like they might be able to hold a point. Crown battles still last longer than any other fight on my server and I go there once in a while if I'm grinding a directive or its the only fight but it's terribly monotonous and I can't stay there for long without getting bored.

Yes more bases should be like biolabs & sub nanite analsis. Those are such fun bases.

Which bloody bases?

For every base that needs a zerg, there is like 5 bases that can't even handle an even pop of defenders & attackers.

I can't see the fun in literally either being outpopped or outpopping just to hold a lattice point.
And even then, as a defender, like say the side that was targeted again that week, your gameplay is just "Attrition warfare from the spawnroom to try to bore the attacker to stop their 147 killstreak"
While as the opponent, it's just, get to base, watch equal or smaller force die due to the base itself.

Personally, that's boring as sin to me, from either side.
As either it's too easy, or just impossible to win.

Well, you went from 0 - 100 pretty quick.

Besides, don't forget those hard-spawns capture-able by vehicles are coming.

Most bases are actually very defensible if you don't rely purely on the spawn room and don't let the enemy control everything outside the base walls.

I think that this is at least a part of the problem. The vast majority of "defences" I see are almost solely infantry-based (i.e. running around inside the walls). I seldom see vehicles pulled, especially outside of the big-bases where you can pull from shielded areas. Ideally, a base defence would be built around infantry, spawning inside the base, and a vehicle column from the previous base zipping around killing the enemies vehicles.

But the vast majority of players aren't that smart or coordinated. They'd prefer to camp in the spawn-room hoping for the occasional kill rather than falling back, pulling vehicles and hitting the enemy from behind to resecure the base.

Every Biolab/Amp Station for starters.

Even with changes to tower capture points most towers can be held indefinitely with even or slight under pop. Think 60/40 attacker/defender.

Mekala Auxilary, Watersons Redemption, Nanite Substation Analysis, Auraxis Firearms, The Ascent, Ravens Landing, Heyoka Chemical to name a few non tower bases off the top of my head.

I think you're misinterpreting my post. I mean defending with even or slightly under pop. There aren't many if any bases currently that will stand for very long when outnumbered 2 to 1. Even biolabs.

From reading the Original Poster I get the idea that somehow he feels most bases should be defensible when outnumbered 2 to 1, or as he put it 70/30.

Imagine if most of the bases in PS2 were defensible in 2/1 fights. No one would ever capture anything without more than a 2/1 mega zerg...sounds terrible.

Forgot to quote. See previous post.