Redeployside: this must stop NOW.

PS1 AMS/CE would fix this little problem as well. Well not against mega-zegs obviously, but the majority of the last minute redeployzergs.

"How would it fix the redeploy problem?" you say.

Well here's how it works. 40 of you arrive at an empty base. You either spend the next 5 minutes starring at your naval, or you spend it putting down about 500 PS1 mines, 250 PS1 spitfires and 50 motion detectors.

2 minutes left on the cap and here comes an enemy zerg of 80 spawning in to save the day. Now that's 80 vs (40 players + 500 mines + 250 spitfires + 50 motion detectors).

Disabling redeploy during an alert will offer players a much more challenging experience. An experience where the need for squads and infantry tactics actually make a big difference. Basically this can be viewed as "new content" for all players, whereas the need for competent outfits are important. Not only does this promote squad coordination but also among outfits of the specific faction. More tactics and less lonewolfs.

Think about it, the pride of capturing a base because of you and your squad will return.
The need to defend a base will be more important and outfits will recognize you for that.


One alert for players that want the challenge. The other continents basically for the beginners, lonewolves and people who enjoy unlimited redeploy.

Basically play arcade mode with unlimited respawn or play simulated mode where you have no respawn or limited to 3 , having one life really means something.

No I want a game that rewards or penalizes players for strategic and logistical choices. Attackers are forced to make logistic choices, when they pick, organize and assault a target. Defenders should also be required to make logistical strategic choices as well.

If you make the choice to leave your west lattice lane undefended, while you attack the eastern lattice lane of a continent and your opponent see's this weak spot and takes advantage of it, you shouldn't be able to simply hit redeploy and instantly zerg-defend that base on the opposite side of the map.

Choice must have consequences...You do not have to wait, you can spawn an ESF, flash or other vehicle and fly or drive directly to where the enemy is attacking you if you chose or you can keep attacking from the location you are.

A Valkyrie or Galaxy can get across the map in maybe 5 minutes? I haven't timed it but it doesn't take long to get my Valkyrie (with Evasiveness 2, top speed about 180km/h for level flight, 200 if I'm going down a bit) to a base halfway across the map. ESFs are obviously going to be even quicker.

Getting around quickly is not an issue unless the base is already half captured, in which case you had your chance, you lost it.


So I'm going to get on board with "Disable during alerts". I'd also propose adding a timer for anything except going backwards down a lattice line. Like 2.5 minutes cooldown on anything else.

And in the moment player with weak computer enter this zone he will have so huge spike that it will crash the game.

More stuff on the map, means bigger performance problems.
Don't get me wrong, you proposal will be great, if that performance problem was not an issue. It is so I do not see that we get posibility to place 12 mines and 6 automatic turrets per players.

But can't the same be said in reverse? So your saying redeploying to defend is bad but redeploying to attack is okay?

It's going to be tough to fix. I don't mind waiting and organizing rides but there are plenty of people that just want to spawn in and shoot mans, then press a button and go shoot more mans. Before any changes are made to redeploy I think SOE should have newly logged-in players spawning in at a populated warpgate instead of the map screen.

I mean its only for alerts. The other 3 continents would be open to those who are new to the game and have no idea what a sunderer is. Or for those who like pressing " u " to get to a fight.

I think he means spawning in a vehicle from the warpgate or a base near that lattice and driving/flying to the destination that needs reinforcements.

I was going off this comment here "If you make the choice to leave your west lattice lane undefended, while you attack the eastern lattice lane of a continent and your opponent see's this weak spot and takes advantage of it" Sounds like he is totally fine with the other faction just picking up and going somewhere else. I mean how could they take advantage of it? By redeploying to an undefended base knowing their opponent can't do the same? Seems like a derpy idea.

Lots of bad stuff happens with weak computers.

thats what he meant by consequences imo. If there are no outfits in your faction defending the opposite lane then thats a very grave consequence to leave it undefended. Therefore the type of gameplay without redeployside will promote more communication and teamwork among outfits of a specific faction.

Defend base A with 2 squads while 2 other squads take gals to base B farther away to reinforce/defend. Instead of the usual " ok guys once Base B is 30 seconds away from being capped we all press U and redeploy and zerg. "

Weak computer!?....at this rate the fans on my computer will be need replacing before the components need upgrading.

#1 - All spawn rooms need SCUs, protected by a SCU shield generator. Both should be close to the spawn room, but not right on top. The generator itself could be on the far side of the small building that houses the SCU from the spawn room (i.e. outdoors) or placed in a building nearby.

(This enhances game play because it gives the factions something else to fight over. Attackers can then prevent defenders from being able to spawn in easily after only 2-3 minutes of occupying the base unless the defenders push out and keep them away from the SCU.)

#2 - The range on redeploying needs a large nerf bat.

- Squad beacons should have a range of about 900m.
- Squad vehicles (galaxies / sunderers / valks) limited to 1200m.
- When you die, you can only spawn at any spawn tube or sunderer within 600m.
- "Reinforcements needed" no longer affects spawn range, it should be an informational message only.
- Spawning back at the warp gate should always be an option (and instant).
- When players login, they should spawn at the VR or warp-gate (enhances player interaction, avoids exploits).

Basically, if you want to move your platoon more then 2000m (i.e. from the left-most lattice line to the right-most lattice line) - loading into valks/galaxies should be the fastest option. Especially since one person in each squad can pull a galaxy at a major facility, fly overhead, and the rest of the squad deploys into the air vehicle. That requires resources + time + a minimum amount of coordination.

I have said no such thing nor have I implied it, we call that a fallacy, the use of poor, or invalid reasoning for the construction of anargument...
Yes, if you are on one side of the map and hit redeploy, you should not be able to instantly appear on the other side of the map, regardless if you want to attack or defend, that is why we have vehicles and squad logistics. The one exception, would be if you are in a squad and you use squad deploy or the squad beacon, that would require a squad leader that has strategically put themselves or their beacon in the area of interest, thus the logistics of transportation has been satisfied. If you are in an area and the fight is done and all you want is some action, then hit instant action, its random and on a timer.

something very important is being overlooked in this discussion; it is also not very fun to play as the constantly redeploying force. i would rate it as equally unfun to camping empty spawnrooms. so yes it should be basically eliminated.

the solution would be better overall map design, but that ship has sailed. maybe they could do it with a new continent, but again they've already proven with Hossin that they're unwilling/unable to produce a quality map with the right features. in my opinion of course, they had something very close with beta/launch Indar in Nov-Dec 2012 and steadily ruined it with every update.

maybe they should take a page from EQ3's playbook and give out the design tools to the playerbase. i'm pretty sure that we could create a better map than anything they've managed, within about 6-8 weeks, given the right tools.

we'd need:

1. map design tools distributed to the playerbase
2. a way to view and vote on submissions
3. 6-8 weeks of live playtest for the top 5 submissions
4. a venue for feedback and a method for subsequent design iterations during testing

the result would most likely be 5 superior continents produced in 5% of the time it took them to do Hossin. and it would be done at nearly 0 cost in man hours since dedicated players will do all the work simply for the enjoyment of being involved in creation of content and time spent playing. the only cost to SOE would be server related man hours, staging updates and monitoring performance during testing.

This is probably the main issue with PS2 as of now. PS2 was supposed to be a rather in-depth game where "shooting enemy dudes in the face" would've been only a fraction of the game experience with planning the attack route and taking advantage of the weaknesses in the enemy front lines would've been hugely emphasized. But alas, Higby & co decided to cater for people who are used to a BF/CoD-style perpetual run-and-gun gameplay. For this kind of players, even a couple of minutes when there's nothing to shoot at is an unbearably boring experience. Thus, redeployside was born.

Now I can't say that trying to introduce all those people to PS2 was an inheritantly bad idea, after all PS2 needs a rather large playerbase to function. But the problem is, instead of trying to teach new players to appreciate the less hectic PS-style gameplay by limiting the "quality of CoD life" features(quick respawn, almost unlimited resources, lack of logistical limitations etc), a lot of gameplay elements were balanced around such features, leading to the situation we have now, where the majority of players feel that unlimited redeployment and zerging is the way PS2 is intended to be played and people actually coming to PS2 specifically for this kind of gameplay.

Can this be countered without the significant negative impact on the playerbase count? I honestly don't know. My best guess is, we should start by gradually toning down some of the features that are causing the most outstanding issues, namely the weak resource system and the almost unlimited redeployment across the map.

So redeployment, how can we tackle that? I think the basic spawning should work like that:
* Player can always spawn at the friendly warpgate on any continent.
* If player dies(including suicide), he can spawn at the base he last spawned from AND any mobile AMS(sundie, gal etc) that was spawned at that base. To change a "home" base, layer have to access an infantry terminal on a new base(OR a Sundie that was spawned at this base) and select a "link to spawn point" option(sort of like PS1 dealt with the spawn but a bit more forgiving).
* Once every say 10 minutes(actual number should be tested and tweaked but should not be too low) player can redeploy to a different base without the manual linking. The tricky part: if empire control at least one AMP station on that continent, player can redeploy to any friendly base, that is linked to the warpgate via the lattice. If however, there is no friendly AMP station or it itself is not linked to the warpgate, layer can only redeploy to major bases(i.e. Tech or Bio).
* Drop pods will work a bit differently as well. They will share the cool-down timer with redeployment but allow player to have an option to droppod to any friendly base(including ones that are not linked to the warpgate) or an enemy base if the spawn beacon is active. The downside however is that until he will link himself to the spawn point of that base via terminal or one of the friendly sundies, he will not be able to respawn at the new location and will have rely on friendly medics to stay alive.

This way players can always have a range of points to spawn at and don't have to manually link themselves to every new sundie; they will even have an ability to quickly retaliate if the distant base is under attack. But at the same time the redeploy hopscotch will be severely limited and combat logistics will actually matter.

I would actually suggest presenting newly logged-in players with the selection of the continent they want to spawn at, as waiting for the continent to load can take a significant amount of time on a slower PC while in many cases players may want to spawn at a different continent(because of the alert or to get to the place their outfit mates or just RL friends are at).

Do you do that as a solo player?

If you're not part of a mass redeployment then you're not really harming the game. That's why many suggestions only ask for limits to redeployment that affect large numbers of players - I.E. those who could and should be relying on transports.

Just a brief picture of the last alert on Amerish, because according to their replies some have no idea what we're talking about here. I hit redeploy and these were the options available to my platoon (4 full squads).


Most of these bases are extremely far from where we were. Have a look at Sungrey Amp Station: Vanu were already overwhelmed by TR forces, nevertheless it was still available as choice. Why on earth does redeploy allow to spawn in territories so far and already overpopulated?!?!

Of course in such a scenario it's worthless to mention that spawning a transport vehicle or organizing anything is just a waste of time and nanites that would probably lead to losing the alert.
It's completely idiotic to let big masses of players teleport at will around a continent when the only current form of long run objective is capturing as much territory as possible within 2 hours. It took months to have lattice implemented on all continents so that battles got a little sense of "flow", and then they implemented this crap because SOE gurus decided CoD / BF users do not want tactics, they want pew pew.

That's all alerts are about: roll the highest number, exploit mass teleporter at will. No strategy, no logistics. And that's pure s**t.

I still don't get the problem. They redeploy on the other side of the map... ok... and what? The opponent can do it too.