PLEASE don't forget the tower roofs!

So, I was just in a fight at crossroads watchtower (we poor VS were futilely trying to defend against the red tide ) and for a while we were holding out well.

My beef is that there were only a handful of us up on the top of the tower (the air-pads) and we were being repeatedly ***** by a few LAs and drop-podders. After dying once or twice I found their nest on the top of the tower (nestled in the sensor array) and I attempted to flush them out. However, I was the only one... C'mon people! Three out of four times you die on a roof of a tower it's because people are shooting you from the rings further up. PLEASE try to keep an eye out for them up there when you are in a tower defense.

Their armor was out in the open and could've been destroyed or pushed back if we had access to our air pads, hell I destroyed 3 of them as my MAX unit before I was C-4ed from behind. Those airpads are a much larger help to the defense of the base than some players seem to give them credit for, never give them up without a fight!

Hope to see you all on the field of battle!

Personally, i don't like to go there because its further from my targets.

1st level gives me an advantage over them and a decent range to engage in

You know what the real underlying problem here is? Drop-pods, and how they can so easily be abused.

Why on earth would you attempt to fight your way through defenders into a tower when you can drop in behind them at will? It renders walls, defensive chokepoints, turrets ect. entirely moot and is a LARGE part of why there seems to be no defenders advantage in base-fights.

There really needs to be a system that prevents drop-pods to deliver you INSIDE enemy bases. They are supposed to be a quick-deploy tool, not an infiltration tool. They should deliver you right outside the base at best.

-Stigma

The airpads are a great defensive point for engineers with AV turrets, AV MAX units and HAs on AV duty. Not to mention AA A few well provisioned and positioned troops (the aforementioned troops) on an airpad at towers often can halt or outright destroy a an enemy tank zerg and their sunderers. When you leave the airpad alone, the tanks and sunderers have an easier time getting into your defensive ring and allowing their troops to advance.

I'm not downplaying the other levels, just stressing the importance of the airpads and the roof. Don't forget they're up there

Never thought of it that way, but yeah. The game is continuously being structured to make battles faster and make defending pointless and aggravating. Hell, even after the spawn room buff spawns get camped like mad, with new and inventive ways to spawn camp being made everyday. Make bases back into bases, with rooms and corridors that can't be farmed from the air or ground. Make some of those pilots get out of their aircraft or tanks to cap the base and kill us.

Drop pods are just as useful for defenders though.

No Sundy is truly safe, and in case of being spawn camped, the campers might just get a platoon drop podding on top of them as the defending squad leaders stay safely in the spawn.

Drop pods can destroy pretty much every battle plan but the one with several ESF's hovering at 1000 meters, looking upwards to blow up the pods before they start falling.

Could be worse . You could be playing TR . Been playing my TR alot lately trying to finish some medals and cert a vehicle . Betwwen the TKs and the lack of basic understanding of the game of the average player I would say you got the better end of the deal . Engies that dont know what a ammo pack is and have no certs in it . Infils that think recon darts are a sport you play in a bar . Heavies that stand under a Lib and shoot rockets at it . etc etc etc
On average VS has better players . Every so often I will see a newer VS player get pawned or do something silly but not as often as TR .

Could be worse . You could be playing TR . Been playing my TR alot lately trying to finish some medals and cert a vehicle . Betwwen the TKs and the lack of basic understanding of the game of the average player I would say you got the better end of the deal . Engies that dont know what a ammo pack is and have no certs in it . Infils that think recon darts are a sport you play in a bar . Heavies that stand under a Lib and shoot rockets at it . etc etc etc
On average VS has better players . Every so often I will see a newer VS player get pawned or do something silly but not as often as TR .

Thing is this seems to be intended. If you watch the launch CGI Trailer it is entirely about just this. Getting a Beacon behind the lines to allow forces to pod in.

Drop pods need to be disallowed while the capture bar of a station is moving (in either direction).
You can come in this way before (or after) the fight but not during.

Hm not sure if you've noticed yet but there's only ever 1-3 people per battle ever trying to actually DO anything. Everyone else just moves towards the closest tracers/gunshots/clear objective or follows someone/wanders aimlessly until they get shot or shoot someone. These people don't think about who they should shoot at any point, unless they all happen to be on their screen, in which case there's like a 25% chance.

Basically to 99% of the playerbase it wouldn't occur to them to so much as attempt to determine what course of action would be the best one. It's only once they've killed enough people around the tower and have enough friendlies on the flight pads that they'd notice the people shooting from the roof, and possibly attempt to deal with them. You know it's true.

Also there's the effect of prescribed actions without any tactical mentality, but keeping it simple.

If even a small fraction of players approached battle intelligently we'd see a total paradigm shift of the metagame (and forming a metagame)... pretty sure they were anticipating this with the initial release, but disappointingly it didn't happen =/

It took you how long to look up?

Well, except that you don't need to put down a beacon... if a single squadmember is in or even near that base you can just squad deploy. There is no counter to it. Also there is instant-action, although that is not as easily abused just because it can be a little more random of course.

If you HAD to use a beacon it might be a tad bit better (unrestricted squad-deply is a big part of the problem) but still you'd have an issue with beacons being so easy to place in inaccessible locations where only LAs could even hope to get an angle to shoot at it (and the best locations even that isn't possible and you need an air unit to take it out basically). The fact that beacons also don't render past a very short distance and are thus "half-cloaked" for all intents and purposes - as well as the fact that they are really hard to hit and kill due to being sooooo tiny does not help matters.

In any case, game balance should not be decided based on the content of some promotional trailer. Just because the LA in that game was able to jump on top of a galaxy and shoot out the pilot does not mean that this is a "missing" core feature somehow. It is a bit of a moot argument in the same vein as "but it would work like this in the real world, so therefore it should work like this in your sci-fi game".

-Stigma

Did you /re this to everyone?

Yeah, sadly I know. I figured if enough people got killed by the same guys and gals over and over in the same way, they'd begin to figure it out... but no. It was just me and my lone squad-mate fighting a loosing battle.

It took me 2-3 deaths to find the nest, I knew they were trolling the lower rings

Not /re, I was broadcasting in prox chat though. There were enough people up there in the shielded room to pull LAs and finish the nest off once and for all, I didn't think at the time that I should pull anyone else from other places that needed defending... Guess I was wrong

/re is just /yell for your faction only, it's not /orders .

In planetside 2 90% of players NEVER look up. Trust me my LA gets tons of kills using height as an advantage.

At the same time, I get a ton of kills clearing the towers of campers up on the roof as well. Hint, use a suppressed weapons so the others don't hear you when you sneak up on their buddy and shoot him in the back. I use suppressors on EVERYTHING now. I can't count the number of times I get big kill-streaks because my enemy doesn't know where they are being shot from.

Silencer.. and you love the top of the tower.. You should have seen me today on miller few times.. Never had so much fun playing, never runned almost out of ammo either this time.. TR really has ****loads of bullets in their guns!

I have never been part of an outfit, I fight solo most of the time.

Even so, I have been in quite a few tower defences where an intense coordination morphs from chaos.

All it takes is a few consciencious individuals that lead by example and make sure they praise the engis and medics that keep the maxes going and ammo for the troops to keep them on station.

There is nothing worse than having to leave that sweet spot to go find ammo in a tough fight or knowing you're left for dead without the possibility of a rez.

When all of these events come together, where people seem to inherently know their job, are consciencious about their teammates and above all, are willing to address a request such as clearing the top of a tower, it makes for a brilliant gaming experience.

I have been led, I have led others and even dropped my key farming xp to support the group by doing things that need to be done even if left unsaid. Things like swaping out engi for medic or heavy with AA etc, etc...

All it takes is a few of these folks, some well placed praise, then, all of the sudden, others follow suit and things happen...

It's an awesome sight to see.

Story of my life when pubbing with the rest of the rubble and trying to target enemy Sundies...

Not to mention the thirty spawn beacons sitting around up top that no one but me ever sees...