MinecraftSide 2 | PlanetCraft 2 | Death of a Game

So basically, rather than state the Hives which can generate 20 VPs by themselves by virtue of sitting in a corner, take x3 the number of defenders to attack, don't have any possibility to lose progress or VPs, so you can lock the map while being warp-gated for the entire map's open time... is fine.
And he should instead just play mine sweeper with hives.

Try fighting for a base for a 1 single vp if that, when a Hive can grant 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20...
For nothing but existing.
And if you don't blow them all, it'll keep growing.
When you do blow it: They keep the progress & VPs.

Now lattice bases. You get 1 VP if that, and only have it & progress for as long as you keep those bases.
Which seems superior? The Temp VPs for increasing number of Held territory that must be kept per VP, or Infinite VPs for a single piece of land.

Do the math:
Infinity vs 0-1 VP.
Hive vs Lattice.

^ Well laid out LordKrelas.

counter suggestions

make every captured base give a VP value depending on how valuable the base is
and raise the overal VP needed for a continentlock accordingly

remove the unified refined cortium account so each hive has to refine cortium on its own and refined cortium on a destroyed hive can be lost

- bit more difficult to implement: turn hives into missilelaunchers that target the nearest enemy warpgate .. VP´s are generated on succesful impact - missles have high HP ( 2 to 3x galaxy?), fly slowish on lower altitude, can be damaged by everything and are always vissible on the map ...
making cores unusable for 2/3 of a alertduration ... that´s WAY too much

This is an interesting idea.

Awesome Idea but let's remember bf2142 and think about how well this game runs right now, before attempting that kind of mechanic.

haven't played bf2142

The titans crashed servers frequently, the admins on most servers basically just turned titan movement off it got so bad.
Planetside2 in it's current state has enough technical issues that it doesn't need to add more massive server intensive mechanics.

The VS Connery Asians have an absolute hard on for building/killing hives, like d bag mentioned. Enduing bad game play and taking out their hives isn't a quick thing you do then get back to combat, it's a full time job that's better off being ignored. It's great we have construction, as people like them obviously love it and are hopefully spending money on it, but now the key is to integrate it with the other 99.9% of players. A side game that .1% of players take part in that has the biggest impact on most continent locks isn't a good recipe.

Nope. The core purpose of a Hive is not to see combat. Opening up new locations would only let your buddies build hives in more crevices. That's not a solution.


Hive VP generation needs to go away entirely. Instead they should give a tactical advantage on the battlefield, such as being a SAM site, AI artillery, radar, anti-vehicle emplacement, or even just a MBT factory. That alone will shift hives away from annoying cervices in mountains and towards bases and choke points.

I think some good incentive to attack these bases would be to let them lose their generated VP on hive destruction. Not only this, but something can be done about the exploit base locations. The main thing letting them do it is the fact that WALLS are invincible when connected to a repair module. Redact that change that was made before, that made them like that, and we'll be able to destroy those walls and bases.

On top of that, bases shouldn't be able to be built too far into one's own territory. Sometimes all of the front-line fights make it nearly impossible to actually get to these bases, so the VP goes up uncontested, and we have to fight the zergs in order to get to a hive we may not be able to destroy. Fighting a pointless fight for very few VP, to just fight another pointless fight because we can't reduce the VP they've generated.

well as i said: "bit more difficult to implement"

someone else suggested to have hive's be limited to just one or a few vp's that needs to be constantly held ... i personaly wouldn't mind that as in that case it wouldn't be too dissimmilar with the regular way of capturing bases i think but it simply still allows the free placement of the core ...

1) Change of the situation.
2) Grouping of players on 1-2 continents.

In principle, the game is not so bad. This is not 1 and 2 years when on one continent there were fighting and on the other two small teams lazily pulled the flags.
In principle, there are just a few ways to win. So that the problem itself is not clear.

... (dublicate)

...

Any faction at 40% world pop is going to take any continent they focus on in short order, whether they choose to do it through hives or through throwing bodies down a lane until they have it all.

And when I hear "ruins a good fight" all I picture is a big SNA/biolab stalemate where kills are occuring but nothing of import in the larger picture is happening. It's like an evenly skilled Battlefield conquest map "good fight" ruined when the timer/tickets run out.

The only difference is the lack of lobby.

World pop was 40% but it was close to even on Amerish. Hossin held the rest.

At least in Battlefield you know that the end will come, you expect it to come, and maybe most important, you use the end to your advantage. Battlefield players understand this when they turn the game on. New or returning players in Planetside 2 don't.

HIVE mining for points forces an end(lock) that seems wholly artificial because Planetside 2, at first glance, is about territory control and conquest. There is no "World lock" timer present and no real warning other then a blip on your screen every so often. Getting new players into this game IS the only way DB will see growth. HIVE mining will kill any momentum Daybreak could gain because new players have no idea why the continent just locked. HIVEs are not clearly visible and not explained well. "Just logged in and spent 5 minutes pulling a vehicle and driving to a fight? Sorry, you should have checked the score first. Oh, those resources you used you don't get them back." This is how I feel sometimes and I've played for 4+ years. How do you explain that to a newbie who you're trying to convince to subscribe?

HIVE mining needs adjustment. It doesn't need to be removed. This is evident by the number of players on this weekend that knew what they were doing. HIVEs up then destroyed. OSs and EMP cannons in the right places. Each faction building HIVEs. HIVEs were meant to be contested. Not built for an easy lock.

I will admit that players can get stuck in a seemingly endless back and forth. Biolabs are a good example of an endless stalemate. But when a field fight between tanks, infantry, air starts between Snake Ravine\Xeno Tech\Crossroads, that is when Planetside 2 shines. It's what makes it better than Battlefield. But then it abruptly ends in a lock due to HIVE mining. What did HIVEs have to do with that combined arms battle? Nothing.

Except the whole "[Empire] only needs 3 (2, 1) Victory points." continent wide announcement thing. Clearly no warning whatsoever.

Or the fact that the tally is available on mouse-over EVERY TIME YOU RESPAWN.



Sure, it's possible (though difficult if ANYONE is paying attention) to grab 3 fast enough to skip the warnings, but those methods require totally owning all of the hives, or some other map-based objective grab. Which is why it's difficult if ANYONE is paying attention.

And maybe it capped because the SW Indar gate snuck a relatively easy Zurvan/Dahaka steal while the other two factions were derping it up at another crown clusterfrag.

I wish there were a way to see a history of how many VPs the winning faction generated, and whether that triggered the lock. My suspicion is many would be surprised that continents lock most often to a relatively even combination of hives, territory, and objective (including alerts here) VP, and not because the "Minecraft people" were dominating the overall VP total.

You mean the single notice, that by the time it fires, you have to assault every single hive on the map, stop any land grab, and prevent any hive from even going up (since that can grant multiple VPs just by popping hives up)...
If the Hives are close to a VP (which barely has warning) as well, all a Hiver needs is to delay any attacks on the Hive(s), and victory.

The tally is available, on mouse over, but does that mean you have enough time to react?
Like you do recall how you set-up hives, and zerg the front lines right?

You start with Hives, you then rap it up with new hives, and a final land grab with no intention of defense for the last VPs.
Due to having a literal Hard-number of VPs that can't be lost from Hives, you can start from the warpgate (with no land at all), at 10 or more VPs.
Anyone not using the Hive system, starts at basically 0 or 2.
Hives, can keep a 5-15 VP count, and increase it constantly.
Unless you Hive longer , you'll never catch up to said people in VPs or Hive Progress.

After all, it's pretty simple to 'land grab' 5 VPs or so, after accumulating 5-15 VPs using Hives.
Which take time to siege, which lets the Hives all get progress towards a VP - Repeat until VP is gained, that can't be lost.
Lattice? Cap a base, and you must hold the base to retain the single VP if any VP for that base.
After enough bases, you need to capture & hold more bases for a single VP more.

More Hives, means faster progress that can't be lost, for VPs that can't be lost.
Each Hive can generate an unlimited Number of VPS.

Infinite value vs fixed value.
Permanent VPs vs Conditions VPs.

Time wise, Hives are superior in every way to lattice bases.
You can't lose progress, unlike Lattice.
You do not lose VPs ever from Hives.
Hive value only increases, and is a constant - Lattice bases are 0-1 VPs.
You do not need to hold a Hive Indefinitely. You do for Lattice Bases.
VP generation increases over time for Hives - You gain nothing extra for holding Lattice.
Hives grant EXP bonuses for proximity - Lattice Bases do not amplify anything.

There is nothing the Lattice provides, that the Hive PMBs do not do better.
VPs? Hives can generate infinite VPs without increasing land control requirements.
Time? Hives reliably generate VPs, at a rate that can only be increased over Time & by number of Hives.
Defense? Hives can be built nearly anywhere, with repair-modules, AI modules, and as many turrets as you like.
Re-supply? Has vehicle, aircraft, and infantry spawn points, infantry terminals, Ammunition towers & air pads.
Detection? Alarm modules state enemy activity across a grand range.
Reinforcement? Allies can be called in map wide, with no blocks for allied sunderers as well - which can be housed in shielded boxes.

This is a land control game, where Victory points granted for land control are easier & faster to gain by never leaving a base's walls off in a corner.

Admit it.
Hives are too damn good.

Morpholine, no. Good fight does not mean a bio lab (I am not a fan of those, some are). A "good fight" means the continent has multiple battles of various sizes and types going--these INCLUDE Player Made Bases (but NOT HIVES). Territory is lost and won and the threat or promise of victory lay in the battles, not in turtling HIVES.

DBG put in a bad mechanic and have kept it in place. That mechanic is VP by mining cortium and by letting HIVES generate more VP. Their solution was to up the continent lock threshold from 15 to 20, thereby doing NOTHING to solve the issue. It was a doubling down on dumb.

DBG needs to remove the direct link between HIVES and Cortium mining to VPs.

They need to shift the reason for PMB's, ANTS and Cortium away from never lost VP generation and towards support and IMPROVEMENT of core game play (air, land, vehicle large, small, medium fights) They need to stop tweaking a terrible game-within-a-game that just distracts from core game play.

They failed to do this redirection when they let the first iteration of harrassers and ZOE Maxes and Strikers stay in game as-is for too long at the same time as lag/playability was suffering. During that time, they kept doubling down on dumb with their focus on MLG bullsh$t. I still shake my head at that--many players left the game then.

Some possible examples of redirecting the concept of ANTS and building (I know coding and server performance determines reality):

1. ANTS move with armor columns, they have abilities activated by onboard cortium like AOE shields, a mobile skywall, a 1:1 link to a friendly vehicle that up firing rate, or such.
2. ANTS could be equipped with Platoon or Squad Leader seat--if one such person occupies that seat and dedicates his role to command, he gets new actions fueled by onboard cortium like airstrikes, spotter drones, etc


You get the point.

As is, DBG has a game within a game. Hence:

Minecraftside 2, Planetcraft 2.

Turtle HIVES and exploit world geometry for the win!

PS: Morpholine is a beneficiary of the HIVE for t3h win on Connery.