[Suggestion] New Continent, the nothing continent!

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Max121212, May 21, 2017.

  1. Max121212

    Yes, yes... making a new continent would be a lot of work right? Not this continent! : D
    I want a new continent with nothing on it and I think it would be a great idea!

    No bases, no towers, no sporn rooms.
    No A points, B points or any of that!
    No hexs, no lines, no alerts. No back capping.
    Only warpgates, some basic hills and valleys and lots of cortium!
    Sporn only at player made bases, Warpgates or vehicles.
    Win only by HIVE.

    Maybe set the win to 10 points only, just so it's not so long.
    I'd love to play that continent.
    There would be no 'no deploy zones' or 'no construction zones'.
    What do you guys think?
    • Up x 1
  2. Demigan

    PMB's are currently the worst things to attack. They take too much effort to break and are massive farmtools for those that build it.

    All this would do would attract farmers. Players would stick to their PMB's in the hope to get attacked, but not to attack themselves.
    • Up x 3
  3. Eternaloptimist

    The idea of a completely empy continent has some appeal although I'm not so sure it would be as easy to create as OP thinks, codewise.

    The capture mechanic doesn't really work for me though. Why would anyone trek across a whole continent (quite probably) to attack other bases when they could simply get into a base-building race? Biggest pop with most contruction qualified players wins every time?

    Maybe an empty continent that requires you to get to somewhere and destroy/capture the enemy landing zone/WG or whatever, or capture their supplies, or cut off their SCUs?

    Demigan posted a number of alternative cpature methods in another post some time ago, which could work on a continent like the one OP suggests.
  4. FateJH

    What exactly do you achieve by going to this continent?
  5. velie12

    I doubt wether enough people will play that continent
  6. Zagareth

    Well, the goal could be do conquer the other warpgates, while the HIVES that you build up, are the energy for the warpgate shield. So you can only win this continent by destroying ALL HIVES of the enemy and THEN you have to invade and hold their warpgate and then, when you conquered one warpgate, this faction is out of the continent, completely losing the bonus you get from it. (maybe a 20% bonus to XP and resource while the continent is unlocked, while you hold a warpgate on it)

    Locking this continet can only be done by getting the other factions warpgates.

    As a bonus for conquering another factions warpgate, you get temporary access to their unique weaponary, including all vehicles of this faction even on all other continents. When you are able to lock the whole continent you will have full temporary access to all weapons and vehicles in game under your own flag AND you keep the 20% bonus.

    Is THAT an interesting incentive to fight on that continent?
  7. Max121212

    Because you can not guarantee winning that race
    (...and there are only so many cores).
    Yes of course, this would be a 'kind of' building race.

    Sorry it's not in my original post but in my imagination I was thinking of the old HIVE system were the % gos up as you approach an enemy gate (not hex by hex).
    So players would trek across the continent, risking conflict, trying to get their % up (and maybe win the race).

    Your thinking of attacking a completed base.
    In this continent I would expect the first wave of attacks to start long before anything is completed.
    I would expect, over time, bases next to there own friendly warp gates to be completed (and to be earning 1% or 2%) but most of the time the game would be about building under fire, defending bits and pieces of a base in construction.


    If all players did this they would only have a 1 in 3 chance of winning.
    But it's more than that, it would change the play style. Lets pretend no one attacks at all.
    What do you think would happen? How could you win over the other 2 empires doing the same thing in this building race?
    The answer is get the HIVEs up first before defenses and get it closer to the enemy.

    No defenses? Well then of course players will attack it.
    So it becomes a balancing game, risk/reward.

    For winning it? Whatever you want man, just make up some reward.
    For going to it? Well... you get to shoot things, good enough? : )

    Nice! Would be a good climax.

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    I imagine matches where no bases are completed ALL the way.
    As soon as the game starts players pull libs or fighters and their off ANT hunting.
    I imagine other players pulling skyguard and escorting those ANTs. Convoys moving with only 1 or 2 ANTs.
    I imagine ambushes, big vehicle fights over premium cortium deposits or premium building locations.
    An unpredictable, ever changing frontline of player bases.

    I'd love to play that map!
    Maybe the vehicles would need to be half price and give half XP
    to keep it going and to keep it balanced.
  8. Demigan

    I am also thinking of force buildup, scouting, necessity and ease of communicating locations and the goals players want to achieve.

    Currently force buildup is a natural thing. Players spawn, know where the fight is at, know what to do to win or lose the fight and continue on.
    With this system, there's nothing to guide you from one place to another. And there's nothing that decides exactly where the bases will pop up. So once you are done fighting, normally you concentrate that group on the next objective, but with this system the entire group spreads out and scouts for new bases, which might not even be anywhere near, or there might be several and the entire group disperses as it starts dozens of small battles they can't win because the PMB's are so in favor of the defenders.

    But let's imagine those first fights... The continent starts new and fresh. ANT's leave the warpgate, as do a contingent of vehicles, mainly aircraft, to hunt down those first players.
    As time progresses, ANT's find cortium and suitable spots, most of these ANT's will probably have used the stealth options to avoid air-detection. They start building. Especially with the comming changes where building new stuff is far less costly than keeping it active, you can build a solid base with a single vannilla ANT load in just a few minutes. Even if we assume that 80% of these ANT's is somehow found and destroyed within that incredibly short timeframe they start building, and that they didn't have any support that followed them and that no other ANT's tagged along to build a bigger and mroe solid base quicker, then you still have half a dozen almost full-fledged base's ready to go.
    and really it's extremely unlikely that 80% gets found that quickly or that none have support. So these bases would be up at enough strength to take out some scouts or small attacks.

    Ok, so some scouts find such a small base. Now what? If you attack it, the nearest friendly PMB might not be anywhere near, so you have to succeed on that first attack or have a massive downtime between attacks. So you have to call in friendlies!
    But how? Spotting these bases doesn't work, and communications in this game is woefully inadequate. At best players converge on a base because they see a lot of hotspots there, which causes massive zerg-forming and loads of free time for the PMB builders to get those bigger bases set up.
    Ending with what I said earlier: No one wants to attack because most of these bases are simply too much in favor of the defenders, and only the people who like farming attackers will really enjoy the entire continent.



    What could you do differently?
    Well first of all, create goals to complete. For example you still add capture points and regions, but you give them hardly any buildings, if any at all. This creates the most basic goal to complete, and the most basic way to create contested area's. It also means that the developers can create strife on more even ground. Rather than players being forced to fight against a PMB in a ditch that uses the powerful air-domes to protect itself while freely retaliating, the bases would be found around the capture points. There would still be bases in ditches and off-the-grid, but these would have far less importance now. Especially since HIVE building isn't the only way to win anymore.
    Second of all, change the way PMB's offer protection. Currently when a PMB can keep enemies outside the walls it's pretty much OK for a long time, offering an extremely passive playstyle that gives huge benefits to the defenders while screwing the attackers. This is already being worked on by the devs with the introduction of Cortium Nodes (not sure if that is the name). These Nodes will transfer cortium to the Silo. But the Silo will be able to carry less cortium, and these Nodes will carry a large portion of the total cortium supply. If I remember correctly they couldn't be placed too close to the Silo to prevent just spamming them near with only a single one outside for easy collection. This means that destroying these Nodes can make it easier to leech a base and force the defenders to actually control the area, rather than keep attackers outside.
    To that end, the attackers could also receive the ability to build siege-equipment with Cortium. The artillery to take out the shields is one, but what about actual drive-it-up-there siege equipment? Like a siege-tower that allows players to get over the enemy walls and protects them against an air-dome at that point? What about gun-turrets that can be slowly driven up to the walls to shoot into the base and turn the base defenses against it? Or just explosives that after a timer goes off will destroy the wall it's placed on, regardless of repair-modules nearby?
    This also means the defenders need more ways to control the area outside, and prevent siege equipment from rolling up (or creating multi-tiered walls so that if they breach one wall they still have to get through the next one). Most of that is actually already there in the form of vehicle spawnpads and gates to get outside, it's just that there's no incentive to use that to defend your base's outskirts if you can farm anyone trying to come in easily. But the defenders could probably need a few extra gadgets to help support them in controlling the environment. Maybe the ability to place a low-yield minefield? Say you place an invisible mine-generator a little ways off your base (or in front of your walls). The generator will create mines that deal minor damage, but launch them into the surrounding area it's in. It won't be destroying vehicles unless they drive through half a dozen mines full-speed, but it's a great area-denial weapon that keeps enemies outside until they find and destroy the generator.
  9. CNR4806

    You mean player-made bases are actually defensible compared to the laughable swiss cheese pre-built ones?
  10. Demigan

    I mean you have pre-build one's on the undefensible end, and PMB's all the way on the other end of the spectrum. The middle-ground is missing, and that's where PMB's could actually shine.

    For example I posted an idea somewhere else. The reason we have no-build zone's is because of the performance, with the ability to build stuff right inside bases the performance would drop due to the amount of structures around. But this would probably not be a problem for small bases. So let players build PMB's up to 30m or so from the edge of these bases. That prevents problems with players building a Silo+repair module+walls to make places like the point invulnerable, but does allow players to reinforce a base. It also allows the attackers to build their own protection for Sunderers and fire-bases to start an attack on enemy constructions.

    This instantly removes the swiss-cheese defenses of the existing small bases, and since the "heart" of your base can't be build upon it leaves more than enough room for alternative approaches to capture the base or destroy parts of the PMB reinforcements.