Openly declare when your outfit is going on a campaign(ops night, for example). When companies arrive, allow outfits of that company check attendance. As for the opposition, they could respond with a challenge, ie, that X outfit will meet them in glorious battle. This would help to bring back some of that competitive feeling and recognise certain outfits. Instead of being caught of guard, and being curbstomped, you can come prepared. I think this could result in some seriously epic outfit(s) vs outfit(s) play. Some way of tracking presence would be nice as well, for example, it shows which continent were the majority of the force is. Showing exactly where would probably result in griefing and would also remove tactical play and strategy. We already have the missions thing, I'm sure this could just build on that further, and bring back some of that wonderful faction/outfit rivalry. Feedback/suggestions?
Players can/do already do this simply by communicating with another outfit or by broadcasting it on youtube. Medium to large active outfits tend to have regular impromptu bouts throughout an alert as well. I really don't think the game needs to explicitly support or encourage this anymore than that.
I guarantee, for the most part, that this broadcast will be missed by the majority of players(I've never checked YT for anything other than videos of past events), and that alerts aren't so much fighting at the same time as much accidently having ops nights at the same night/continent. This would enable outfits to know when and where(thought not exactly where) their opposition are in order to enable outfits to get notoriety not just through: 1. Numbers, ie, large outfits being famous for redeploy/overpop. I have nothing against large outfits but a large part of them are simply "throwing increasing numbers at something till we win." 2. Not just because outfits say they're tacticool. Now they'd have to back it up. I know there are tons of outfits who want to actually fight something which isn't just a nameless zerg. 3. Outfits who want a more competitive outfit v outfit play are able to gain visiblity. For new players who are unaware of all the other channels and who to follow(reddit, twitter, yt) would more quickly be introduced to outfit play/combined arms, and so on. I don't want to come off as overly defencive but I do not quite understand how YT is filling this hole. As far as I know, YT is a great way of presenting past events, but constantly having to go through YT seems like an pointless extra step to achieve something which could be done in-game(large audience, more outfit, more rivalry = happier playerbase). TL;DR version: This would funnel new and old players into outfits who are actively organising events, and these outfits would be able to use an in-game tool to organise and challenge each other. Instead of having to keep track of several different forums and channels, you have it right there in the game.
Players of this generation don't want competitive stuff. It's too hard on their ego. They want to be rewarded just for logging in, or for getting a big amount of deaths. In other words, they want the same amount of rewards as a good player but without making any effort. So yeah, even though older players would love having more competition, majority are the young ones who will never let it happen.
What I meant, is that outfits can and do already accomplish this with simple communication. At least the really active competitive ones. I've seen anything from air squad skirmishes to full out alert battling between outfits. Most of the leaders, at least on my server, know each other and/or have ways to easily communicate with them. My main point is maybe this could be sort of neat, but I doubt it'd be as big a deal as you'd think. At best, it'd bring more attention to outfits that are already famous/infamous. At worst, it'll be ignored by the majority, like alert objectives on most days.
That would be the most epic thing in Planetside 2's outfit history. I could see TIW and GOKU fighting to the death!
I understand what you're saying, my approach tries to connect new players. Like the ones who's unaware of these channels. Rather than being overwhelmed and confused they'd be able to find outfits who are active and get in on the action quick. I think the reason a lot of new players leave is because of not knowing where to go or who to talk to. That said, I am pretty sure a lot of the competitive outfits would enjoy issuing challenges and taking them on, instead of relying on stuff like server smash to show how good they are.
