Why are we fighting for? Why should we defend this base, when we make more certs by loosing it and recapturing it? I may have the answer to those questions, and it fits with the lore: It comes down to resources. We all know that NS (Nanite Systems), makes all the bases, rebirth technology, common pool weapons and gear. So, who makes the faction specific vehicles and gear? The answer is each faction, which is why you need to capture a tech plant to make MTBs. But what do they make them out off? Do you really think NS would give away nanites to the competition? And if they don't, where do the nanites we need to make our faction gear comes from? So, here is what I propose: The passive resources we get for controlling territories would be used to "purchase" common pool vehicles, weapons and accessories, just like now. This is because you would be paying NS for them. Empire Specific weapons would need to be created with nanites the factions would have to bring with them from the warp gates. This mechanic would be just like in PS1. You would have a truck that you would have to move from the warpgate to the base you want to produce faction equipment at and fill the Nanite Storage Silo. Making things would gradually drain nanines, so you would have to restock it on a regular bases. Each base would specialize in producing one type of item, in order for you to produce that item in another base, the bases would have to be connected by territory. Tech plants. You would need to hold and supply nanites to tank plants in order for your faction to be able to produce MBTs. Amp stations. You would need to hold and supply nanites to amp stations in order for your faction to be able to produce ESFs. Bio labs. You would need to hold and supply nanites to the bio labs in order for your faction to be able to produce empire specific infantry weapons and accessories? Warpgates. Warpgates are owned by NS. So only NS gear can be made on the gates, unless you have control of bases that allow for the production of faction gear on the map already and they are connected to the gate. We would have to have inter-gate travel possible, so a faction could mobilize at a controlled map and travel to a new one to make a push for territory. This small changes would give PS2 the much needed so called metagame. It answers the question: Why are we fighting for? So we can have cool toys. It answers the question: Why do we need to defend? Answer: because it would be a pain in the *** to retake that base without access to Faction Specific weapons or vehicles. It answers the question: Why should I take good care of my vehicle? answer: Because sometimes, the closest place to replace it would be 2 maps away. It would also open the game to smaller outfits to be crucial in this war. Small outfits would have the chance to specialize in logistics, and be able to provide the much needed nanites to the facilities. They could specialize in escort services, to protect those truck convoys that need to travel over land from the warp gates to the bases. They could also specialize in special ops. Where they would go behind enemy lines and harass or destroy the supply lines. I believe it would crack the game play open as well. It would provide for epic battles to take strategic bases (tech plant in esamir), it would provide for smaller scale conflict (keeping the connecting Hexes controlled), and it would provide for small scale operations, both with the transport and escort of resources, and in the attack and destruction of said convoys. I think these recommendations fit within the lore of the game. They would not require any major redesign, and it would give a sense of purpose to the fighting. It would provide something to do at the fighting level, and at the logistics level. It would also require Outfit leaders to work better together, since they would need to keep track of supply lines to all bases. Thank you for reading through that wall of text...
And what about those of us that don't want to buy the NS guns and prefer to use faction specific? Knife only?
You would have to help conquer, defend and supply the bases. If you really want your empire specific gear, don't you think you should have to actively contribute to it? That is why you would defend that amp station to start with, instead of chancing not being able to take it back 10 minutes later. Do you want the extra 1000xp for taking over the amp station or the ability to pull out ESFs? The choice is yours. I see what you are asking. The stock weapons (the free ones) would have to be common pool, with faction flavored weapons coming as upgrades starting at the 100 cert mark, if you chose to do that.
Unfortunately, we had this discussion before in another thread and the other problem is... It doesn't work out nicely. One, the game promotes armed conflicts. The 'logistics' part was in the original Planetside 1 game and most people didn't like doing the logistics part because it was more of a chore than to be one of the ones attacking. The only reason the NTU bit was not completely taken out, was that it had a viable alternative, that being that a faction could sneak onto a continent they had no link to, drain a base by destroying stuff and then hack it. The problem with that though, it was a major time sink. Two, resource wise, people are craptastic at maintaining vehicles in general. This would also make the whiny Air jockeys who bitterly complain about how expensive their vehicles are are too easily destroyed by other people. Same with the Tank drivers and also infantry will complain about the inability to fight in general as some of the non-common pool weapons are ineffective against certain kinds of conflicts. While initially, the idea of having a proper supply chain is ideal, the problem is, no one wants to play the 'convoy' or be in the 'logistics'. People play this game to do one simple thing. Play war and kill people virtually. I will quote from you one thing I heard while playing this game running with a Platoon... "This is boring as ****..." And this was a platoon moving around trying to cap various places with little resistance. There are several other players who would rather be going to the front lines fighting the enemy... Now putting in a logistical management system where you have more of these people who don't even want to do base capping without fight == Less likely to follow through. While you also state that it would be incentive to hold onto areas, again... I reference to the people who's best answer to defense is not to improve how bases are to be defended, but to 'leave the base, you lost it if you are getting camped.' These are the people who don't CARE. They care about the same thing as the guy above, to FIGHT, to ATTACK. You can say "IF we don't hold this, we won't be able to get this..." Well, we did that with Planetside 1 and people found it rather tedious and even then, we still have that to a degree, but in the end, people don't hold onto places for the 'gain'. People still want to fight. The weakness in Defense right now is that there are too many weaknesses in providing any sembalance of defense at any give control point because of the way spawn rooms are designed and open to vehicles to easily camp them, regardless of where you go and in the end, the side with the most people fielding the most toys will end up winning over people with the least people and the least toys. By denying one side the toys because another side took advantage of a population lull will also make it literally unfun for people to play because the only way to gain an advantage is to wait for the population lull or hope the people with the most toys and population are too bored not being able to play because the other side doesn't want to play with a major disadvantage. The problem you have to understand about any sort of PVP game, is that you don't force an imbalance as a means to an incentive. While in war, the idea is always to gain an upper hand over the enemy and deny him, in this game, there is no way to prevent an imbalance of people or what toys they bring to the fight, but to balance out how no one toy is going to be a 'IWIN' button. This idea, unfortunately will throw things more lopsided than actually encourage standing ground or making things 'more meaningful' in my opinion.
You bring up some very good points. I do think that limiting production of toys people really want to certain places will place a higher value on those places, therefore changing the equation where it is better to leave the base being attack, and them retake it 10 minutes later. Since there are no real benefits to holding it, and lots of benefits to retake it. If loosing the amp station would mean those flyboys would not be able to pull out their ESFs, I am sure they would be the first ones in the front lines defending it tooth and nail, when needed. In PS1, the Silos always got filled. It was not a glorious job, unless it was the last minute rush to re-supply an sieged base. But it got done. People would rather do it them to let the bases go neutral. Nobody made them do it, but I do not remember many times we lost a continent because nobody bothered to refill the bases. Also, those convoys are subject to attack. They will need escorts. Enemies will be laying traps to blow them up. You only need a few people to run them for it to work. There are plenty of people in this game that love playing support. You look at their rank and you can tell they got more repairs/rezes, piloting them they did actually fire at other players. You, personally, would not need to ever do a supply run, if you chose not to. You are not forced. It would be a choice, with consequences for the faction if everyone chose to not deal with it.
Except the Amp station does not provide that. Plus the fact is, there is only 5 places you can get Aircraft, 2 places where you can get a galaxy. The Skydock towers, the Amp Station, the Biolab, the Tech Plant and the warpgate. While there is maybe 1 or two satellite bases that actually have an air pad, the simple fact is, there is no real reason for air to really GIVE a crap about holding an area. Also, Air jockeys are not too worried about grabbing areas, they are more interested in what they can hunt and kill, be it in the air or on the ground. They will not defend. Tank packs are the same. It's the infantry that ends up being the ones who 'hold the ground' and most of the 'people' (And I use that term loosely because I have a much stronger, non-forum acceptable term for them) don't give a hoot about defending or holding their ground. Capping a place is about getting XP and cert points, that's it. And yes, I understand convoys are subject to attack, but again... You do realize it is the most boring job ever. In PS1, the silos only got filled when people ASKED and partly because there was some XP out of it, but again, that was when people feel like doing it. It was also only done to prolong a fight at a base that was slowly getting drained as the attackers kept blowing up things around the base before the BFRs were included to have NTU siphon weapons to help speed it along and even then, we had Galaxies and Lodestars that provide the transport of ANTs to be hot dropped to feed that. Galaxies here don't do that and there isn't going to be a likely chance of having vehicles loading into vehicles for transport sake. As for the me not being personally needing to do it... I disagree. In order for something to be taken care of, it asks ALL players to do something. Again, it will call upon people to go do it because someone else will expect someone that isn't them, to do it. Like being the AA MAX or Skyguard while others want to be the HA or LA or Tanker or Air Jockey. AA is unrewarding, yet it is needed to keep the other ESF and Liberators from F-ing you up. Meanwhile people who are in Tanks or ESF or inside with HA or LA get to F things up. Engineers, when they bother to be around, get the occasional XP in supplying ammo, but most of them tend to be repairing something or driving one of the very vehicles that gives them the kills/points. Again, the problem with supply chain, while it should be something.... Is also ignoring the other aspect of it. An attacking force will also be coming or respawning from something not 'tied' to it. Planetside 1 had this problem also which is why they made NTU no longer based on Respawning or pulling hardware, because towers next to the base were used as infinite resource pulling along with the AMS... So that puts the defender at a disadvantage because the defenders would tap out their base before the attackers actually made the cap, so it would frustrate the game play as base captures were literally a joke. See, the problem I keep seeing that comes up is how to properly balance it that would do this. I mentioned this idea before in Planetside 1 that if it was an automated system, that would be great, but then realized there would be a few problems with it. One, it is very easy to break. AIs at this time are not 'smart' enough for things that could be easily disrupted, such as some griefer plopping something in the AI path that it won't make an effort to go around. Or get steered into being derailed. This would also be an easy to farm, even if you were tasking people to do guard duty, the simple fact is, a guarding convoy can also be ambushed easily and be 'easy xp'. Also, guarding in general is boring, even on the oft chance that it gets attacked, it is still boring to follow a convoy.
I purpose a different idea. Instead of having to bring nanites to places, how about the resources themselves need to be brought back to the warpgate. AI controlled vehicles would bring the resources from those bases back to the warp gate in some form of modified sunderers (Faster and more durable). Larger convoys for the larger resource gains from bases and they spawn periodically. This gives the opportunity to escort these convoys big and small but also gives the other side of the game. To be behind enemy lines. Instead of always having to fight on front lines spec ops could be done to take down enemy supplies. Obviously a new idea would be needed from 10 libs camping warpgate roads like AI escort defenses. But with a mechanic like this there could be escort missions objectives like "Bring this target to this area" and then if the faction kills the target they get a bonus and if the faction gets the target to the objective than they get a bonus. Something along those lines instead of the monotonous cap this area.
Devs need to look at WW2OL or Battleground Europe. That is how you create a game around supply/attrition/end game/ actual objectives to fight over. /Thread.
