I am not a fan of the current sunderer package. In very many cases the no-deploy zones allow for the attackers to position their spawn points closer or in a better position then the defender's own spawn room. And that will not do. The defenders should ALWAYS have the advantage, but that is a bit of a different discussion about base design. This topic is about the oversimplification of the sunderer package. And how the current system with the sunderer has a potential negative impact on player mentality. Sunderers are becoming too relied on. And that is bad. People seem to lose their will to fight when they find that their spawn sunderers are down. Why? Because they have come to rely on it too heavily. It's a case of player mentality putting too much importance on something other then their own tenacity, skill and willingness to survive. The last part being what sets a good fighter apart from a "meh" one. The willingness to sacrifice oneself for a cause is commendable. But currently, with the ease one can respawn into the fight, it creates a mentality where people are not afraid to throw themselves at anything and everything for the slightest benefit. And since mentalities can't change fast enough or at all, the loss of such respawn options causes the attacking side to die out very fast. Without the will to survive, people throw themselves at anything and end up dying without consideration if they'd be of better use trying to stay alive. I'm not going to argue that a sunderer is not useful or not important. That would be a lie. But I will not say that it is REQUIRED to be successful. Nor am I saying that against an overwhelming defensive force or one more organized/skilled then the attacker should you be able to keep a fight going. We have more then one way to get people to a fight. And by further emphasizing the personal skill and mettle of a single fighter and thus the fighting group rather then the ability to restock on meat faster then the other side could, in my opinion, promote the development of more creative and fun tactics and strategies then simple soviet mass-assaults. Zerging will never be gone. No mater what you do, but by suggesting people to put more effort into personal skill, and organizing that skill into a larger unit I believe we would see an improvement in the overall "meta". I always opposed the idea of making S-AMS a passive. It broke the requirement of choice. A hard choice of what you want out of your sunderer. And now since it is in for free... The sunderer has lost it's main task. It was a transport vehicle. In my opinion it has lost that primary aspect of its identity. Sure you can load up but that's not what too many think when they pull one. A sunderer is pulled purely for the AMS capability. I can't think of a single person who drove a sunderer towards a base not hoping to get that one sweet spot closest to the capture points for that "Sweet XPz!". Not counting the rare cases of "trolling" like massive battle sunderer columns that seem to be more and more common. But that is an issue with the price, durability and damage potential of said sunderers. Most notably the price. I would much rather see the S-AMS unlock be a certification unlock again, but one that came with a downside along with a high certification price (500+ certs). For example if you equip AMS, your sunderer loses both weapons. That would, in some ways, recreate the spirit of what the old AMS was like and differentiate the role of a "battle bus" IFV (infantry fighting vehicle) from an "AMS" APC (armored personnel carrier). There is overlap, seeing as both versions are based on the sunderer, it's just one is designed more offensively and the other as a support vehicle. But the downside is that one lacks reinforcement spawn options (passive squad spawn should be tied by the Squad Spawn timer since they both fill the same role) but can engage targets, the other lacks such self-defense options but deploys reinforcements. I'd also go as far as to not allow spawning of MAXs on sunderers. Many would be happy by this change and trust me when I say that this change would hurt me, personally, as I love my MAX. Another option, is to limit when you get an AMS sunderer. For example a sunderer spawned at an enemy base from a hacked terminal will not provide an AMS equipped sunderer. You get a sunderer, but not one with an S-AMS on it. But then again this change is very insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
While i do think that scifi armies depending on a bus to sustain the attack doesn't make a shred of sense in a world where a single heavy bomber can gib it in 10seconds, as long as mobile spawns are the only way to replenish numbers this is unavoidable. Loss of sunderers means the battle is done and nothing short of a huge, fortified blob full of robocops and green mages can resist. This is not tactical nor skillful. In balanced battles pop wise there is no way attackers can designate enough people to guard sundies against targeted attacks, especially in midsized battles, eg 24v24. In majority of cases sundies are completely exposed from 3 directions + sky. Air or few flanking tanks and it's done and it takes maybe 3 smart people pulling vehicles to make a sundie 100% dead. Once the soft spawns are down, crashing the point is a formality. That means the attackers need to have a significant sundie supply overhead to accomodate losses and to buy time to bring in the replacements. Your point about sundies being often a better spawning point than a hard spawn usually tucked in a funneled corner of the base is sound. What i don't like about current sundies is that you can have a gate diffuser no sweat, which means that all the anti-mech gates lost 80% of their utility. Bypassing layers of defense with a trick accessible to everybody with almost zero opportunity cost doesn't sound good. For that reason i dislike teleporters and jumping pads - all these things make spatial control less meaningful.
only thing i miss for the sunderer are weapon modules that extend its effectiveness, like a mortar/howitzer module or surface-to-air missile module as a tradeoff, this would get rid of the sunderer's spawning and infantry transport as well as any support capability
Let me stop you right there by saying that defenders can and should nullify this by using a Sunderer of their own. Proximity of the vehicle terminal and no no-deploy-zones means it's much easier for them.
The the problems you mention in why sunderers are necessary is all just the messed up base design along with the capture mechanics promoting this type of gameplay and nothing else. Furthermore, you are wrong about it being the only way to replenish forces. It is not. We have the galaxy, we have the valkyrie. The harasser itself is classified as a transport vehicle with the upcoming ES variants letting you carry 4 people, not 3. We have options, it just no one bothers to use them because you got a magical, discount spawn point right there and any other option is just "too much effort". To be perfectly honest I am more scared of galaxy drops then sunderers. It's just you can deal with a gal drop by proper communication and reaction. And though you never know what you'll get, you know how much you get. I'd like to make the argument that despite this is a persistent, never-ending game, there needs to be a defender victory point for a single battle. And the argument "the fights must always go on" in the sense that there must be a sunderer 100% of the time is an attacker biased argument. Not once have I seen a serious argument where the defenders are considered. I mean currently the most I have read seems to suggest that giving attackers 2 tasks is too much. Right now they have 1: cap points. Defenders, to win, have 2 tasks: Cap points and eliminate enemy spawns. In that regard the defenders are actually at a disadvantage, especially in a multi-point base where they not only have to push the attackers out of caps, and defend. But delegate forces to try and cut off the source of enemy reinforcements. That's all fine and dandy, but to consider that the attackers would not have to worry or delegate forces to maintain those supply lines is unfair and attacker biased. Now reality is a bit different. There's always someone trying to defend the sunderer but usually it's someone who just spawned there and rarely with the express purpose of it. So I really wouldn't count them as active sunderer defenders. And also, as you said, sometimes with time permitting, the defenders to the smart thing and go for the spawns first. Furthermore, if someone were to take a more militant combined arms approach to the game, they'd remember that nearly every thread about base design there has been mention that for a "balanced" battle to take place, the bases should be built in a way to require 3-to-1 odds with you needing 3 attackers for every 1 defender in a properly made base to capture it. That is a bit too messy, I know. But the point still stands, the bases and capture mechanics should always provide the home advantage to defenders, even if it's 3-to-2 or 2-to-1. But that it should always take more effort to capture a base, then to defend it. Why this would work in planetside is simply because this game has non-linear army buildups. You never know what kind of a force you are up against. There is no max number of enemies or vehicles, and trying to balance any part of this game around this mechanic will run into hurtles. Especially base designs, needing you to consider small fights of less then a squad and more then a company (3+ platoons) and being somewhat playable by everything in those brackets. Which just does not work and is a much larger and different discussion. In this thread I am simply against the oversimplification of the sunderers roles and thus causing the other forms of reinforcement to be less used, thus watering down the available combat scenarios to a handful few, making the game more stale over time. So a compact "TL. DR" would go something like this: The sunderer is too convenient. Too easy to use. Your point on GSD and jumpers is also something I share. Though I do find that the GSD has a much more defined and specialized role when it was in the same slot as the AMS in the "good old days". Meaning you had to choose to either have a spawn point this side of the defenses. Or get your 12 guys behind enemy defenses and make your stand there with no chance of reinforcement unless the same trick was used again. It was an option. A tactical choice that sometimes worked, sometimes not. But you made a choice about what your sunderer was for. And that's something I am preaching. You are withing all your rights to believe that. But I simply think that this game might be much more enjoyable in the long run, if some things were made less Mary Sue. Good point. But I will also say that the no-deploy zone should ALSO apply to the defenders. I say the defenders should have the home advantage. But that does not mean they get a free pass with a sunderer parked right next to the capture point. Though I do say that this has sparked the idea in my head of a capture mechanic that sees you, as an attacker, not capturing a terminal, but the actual spawn room itself. Meaning the moment you capture the spawn room is the moment you win the base. A multi-option assault needing your side to hack terminals to, for example turn off nanite inflow that means the defenders have a limited number of spawns left, a battlefield style ticket system. Once those tickets run out, the defenders lose and the base flips. With the second option of destroying select generators that open up a path to the well defended spawn room deep in the bowels of the base (primary exit is via teleporters to multiple teleporter buildings around the facility). Your forces have to crawl through corridors PS1 style to get INTO the spawn room and hack/destroy a thingy which flips the base. All the while the defenders are spawning in that room. To stop spawn camping, one of the generators the attackers have to destroy is the pain field. It will weaken, but not turn it off to a state where you can get in and do your business, but you will die if you just loiter in there.
OP has one thing right here since im to tired to read the entire text. Sunderers at this point in game. Spam as many as possible towards and base when all is lost abandon fight and find a new place where someone else as spawned a lot of sunderers. Rinse and repeat. Then go to forums and whine that the spawn system is to restricted in redeployside 2. which is quite typical of the casual plebeians but i don't hold it over them i mean they are only there to serve as my meatshield. At least i can take the time to give them a point to spawn at. . . Darn i miss beta just lots of galaxies in warpgate ready to transport people all over the place. The chat was filled with calls to join a battle somewhere and all the noobs didn't need any training or nice spawn they just ran and hopped in and was brought to battle properly or got shot down on the way. Then we got the drop pods and the fresh start drop. right into death for anyone just starting the game....Yes SOE we still remember those free cert pods of new players you dumbed into fights. It just went from bad to worse there. And now we have sunderers with default AMS To many options in the Defence module And to few in the whatever the name is i only run fire suppress anyways. And sunderers are all over the shop giving us free certs are they improving the battles nope. You had to add that shield instead. <.< And everyone is a sundy killer expert at this point. We got the Valkyrie but it needs work. It's not to bad but the map design in heavily against it. That and tanks <.<
If there is a big churn, the base design is immaterial. Yes, base design doesn't help but if lots of people die every second, which they do, there needs to be a convenient way to get back to battle either way. There can't be too much hoops to jump through, it's not a game made solely for tryhard outfits. ok, spawns available to all at all times to everybody. Sunderers are a staple, everything else is a fluff. If there is one deployed in 1km radius, most likely you can spawn there just like that. Everything else is squad only if i am not mistaken and most people just don't want to fly. harassers just don't matter as a mode of reinforcements. Also why would people blow resources on harassers time and time again if sunderers are dirt cheap and provide a potentially infinite number of spawns without any cap on the rate and you don't waste time driving? Just look at the killfeed in a massive meatgrinder. It scrolls so fast you barely can read the names. What's 4 people? You would get all allied mech terminals queued up so it's not like there would not be a hard cap on how much people you can bring to the frontline. That would mean the defenders win by default. About whales: i personally think the spawn option should go away. Massive drops are as potent "alpha strikes" of base attacks as it gets, is there really the need for sustain on something that can sit under the sky ceiling? If you want meaningful logistics... yeah... I wanted too, like 1.5 years ago but i understood what PS2 is and there was no point feeling that sour taste of disappointment for months and years to come. It's not a game where strategic mastery matters much, too many things are pointing toward personal achievements in this game for it to be something else. Farming would have to stop being a thing. After 2 years most people stopped caring about strategy if they ever cared about it.
