[Suggestion] Remove Continent locking!

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Liewec123, Apr 20, 2017.

  1. Liewec123

    this has been talked about by players for so long and never mentioned by devs,
    continent locking really does kill primetime and ruin your session,
    here on cobalt the continent lock kicked in and the server took a huge blow to its population,
    i had to go get the stats...
    i used "PS2Alerts" to check the time that the alert ended.
    i then checked out the "world population tracker" and the exact moment that the alert ended couldn't be more obvious, the steady up and down of the population took a colossal nosedive...
    [IMG]
    as you can see the alert ended at 9:21, at 9:20 there were 1,316 players online,
    5 minutes later and almost 200 players had logged out.
    please DBG, do something about continent locking, its been killing primetime for long enough!
    • Up x 10
  2. Campagne

    I just logged out because of a continent lock! :eek:

    Hossin or Amerish? How about another game!
    • Up x 2
  3. Liewec123

    exactly XD
    one moment you're in a big fight, having a blast.
    the next moment "continent locked" booted to an empty map,
    14% of the playerbase simply decided to go do something else.
    (including me apparently, because i came to the forum to complain about it! XD)
    • Up x 4
  4. LordKrelas

    Wouldn't that mean result in only specific maps ever being played?
    Like say Indar or Esamir.

    Wouldn't it be more effective to just raise the number of VPs needed, and prevent hives from locking Continents?

    As well, Alerts aren't locks.
    Some people login & stay just for the bonus rates during the alert, not about if the alert helped lock the continent or not.

    Hell, I'd blame hives for locking out every major battle rather than continent locks, which at least means every battle isn't just Indar.
  5. LtBomber1

    I know this feeling, earlier in time the continents did not lock, but just shifts the bonus. This lead to Indar and Esamir beeing played a lot more then Amerish (Hossin wasnt out at that time). If you had certain mapcontrol, you gained the bonus, if you dropped under a certain value, it went neutral.
    The good thing about it was: You played where you wanted, and it meant something to have the bonus, cause it was hell of a fight, even with 45% overpop. Before ppl say only the same bases were fought at: Remeber, no lattice, but fights were smaller, since Zergs avoidied each other.
    Other good point here was, that if you had server underpop, you could still fight with overpop at an uncontested continent, but it also created that "Homecontinent", so each fraction had overpop in one continent.

    Somehow miss this, and ofc the crown
  6. Eternaloptimist

    Yes, I've also noticed the big drop in pop after a lock. For me the thought of starting all over again is a turn-off, especially when I'm cut off in the middle of a big, sustained fight (and even moreso if we are finally gaining the upper hand).

    So is finding that all my avatars are being redirected to Hossin, which I happen to hate for lack of decent sized fights even after it has been open for a while (on the EU servers). It often feels like the 1-12 vs 1-12 team death match continent, which is fine if that's what you want. I know you can usually transfer to the other open continent but it is a PITA to do, especially with queueing and all.

    I realise the locking system is about trying to concentrate numbers of players but then why did they introduce another continent?
    • Up x 1
  7. Liewec123

    yep it was exactly that feeling yesterday,

    it happened right in the middle of an epic vehicle war between the quarry and tower on indar, it was a really good game,
    and then we're left looking at empty amerish and hossin, who really wants to go from one extreme to the other?

    within 20 minutes a quarter of the players had logged off.
    i look at all of the nerfs, buffs and changes DBG are trying, and i think this should really take precedence.
    all the buffs and nerfs mean nothing when we're losing a quarter of the playerbase during primetime
    due to being kicked out of active fights.
    • Up x 2
  8. Tankalishious

    Liewec, While i hear where you're coming from, could it be that the 200 that logged, hanged in there until the alert and/or continent lock was done, and if alert/continent locks weren't a thing, they would still have logged, just one by one and earlier?
  9. Liewec123

    perhaps for a minority, but several things make me want to say no,

    firstly it was fairly early into primetime,
    the factions were going steady, NC and VS were actually more active than they were 30 minutes earlier.
    after the huge dive when the fight stopped the player levels stayed kinda steady.
    also alerts don't really matter much,
    if you're getting tired or can't be bothered playing i don't feel like anyone is really inclined to grind it out. :p

    lastly it was genuinely fun, those kind of rare big evenly matched fights that don't happen too often anymore,
    and then it ended suddenly and you're left looking at empty hossin and empty amerish,
    Campagne above said he logged off after that alert, as did i,
    so just in this thread we have 2 of us who logged out after that alert based on the forced ending of a great fight.
  10. UberNoob1337101

    Before :
    "RUSH B, RUSH B, RUSH B, THE ALERT ENDS IN 3, 2, 1... YEEEES, WE GOT THE CAP :D :D :D :D"
    or :
    "Derp, we'll get them next time"


    Now :
    "I'm having a pretty nice time, oh boy, about to go on a kill streak- Wait, what? The continent got capped? I guess I'll find another fight or do something else then..."
    or :
    "Just logged in, all sides have only 5 VPs, fights should last for a while" ~30 mins later "How the hell did the continent cap this fast?"
    or :
    "Just logged in, time to jump into the fight- aaaaaaand the continent locked and a lot of people left. That sucks."


    I agree that it's a problem, but I don't think that we should remove it outright. They should either bring back the old continent cap system that at least didn't cap super fast, or do something similar to what Demigan suggested : Once the side gets 20 VPs, you can attack the Warpgates and end it with a good fight by kicking one of the three factions, and then the other two have a nice, quick fight. I doubt they're gonna remove continent lock, but they should at least make it a massive fight and a cool event instead of being something random and something you forget about.

    Continent locks can be a tool to get a lot of players into the game, if done right. But if they think it's better to keep the lock system as-is, then it's better to remove it, I agree.

    Though I also don't think it's cont lock that's killing the prime-time pop by itself, it's that creating a fight yourself is pretty boring and not quick. Sometimes I feel that I spend much more time driving a sundy into a spot and deploying it rather than fighting after a lock.
    I know the vast majority of the community are Dildar/Wallamir diehards, but at least give Hossin and Amerish a try. They're a blast to play, especially Hossin with decent pop.
    • Up x 1
  11. Campagne

    Ugh. Hossin and Amerish are just awful. I can't remember the last time I had fun fighting on either continent.

    My main gripe is the absolutely abhorrent terrain system in this game. Last week, I slid down a hill and died. The revamps of Indar and Esamir really brought them down a peg in my opinion, but as long as they contain mostly flat/traversable ground they will continue to be my preferred places to fight, and that's not even taking the actual bases into account.

    At least they don't have the @ss cancer that is Subterranean Nanite Analysis.
  12. Diilicious

    what makes me laugh is when the continent gets locked before the end of an alert that would have locked the continent, like a few minutes before. giving you nothing...
  13. Demigan

    I think the problem isnt with the locking, but with the time it takes to reëngage after a lock, as well as how unsatisfying the sudden lock is.

    For shortening how long it takes to reëngage, the game needs to be divided into quadrants based on where the player is in relation to their own warpgate and a hostile one. This is already done for HIVE's. Then once a continent locks, players are dumped on a friendly territory on the new continent, as close as possible to where they were previously compared to the opposing faction. This would mean that you would end up in a base, with all the guys that you were fighting right on the other side, ready to resume combat. Assuming those guys went to the same continent after death/redeploy.

    As for the locking itself, it needs a proper endgame. A sudden "now you cant spawn here and everything is owned by <faction> because they got a prerequisite score" is basically a big middlefinger to a satisfactory end.
    I dont know, allow players to use the VP's to assault and capture/blow up a Warpgate for one nice big push, put something somewhere in the territory of the highest VP faction that they need to defend (super orbital strike that blows up enemy warpgates?) causing a nice 3-way battle. For example, drive your VP's to a specific spot to power it up. Get all 20 VP's there (or less) and you win. Enemies can reset the powered up VP's by attacking the site properly. It doesnt matter what, but make it feel earned that a continent is locked, both by the losers and the winners.
    • Up x 1
  14. VeryCoolMiller

    continent locking destroy the game late night.
  15. Pikachu

    Perhaps shrink playable area from the edges to keep player density instead of locking. Make some regular bases the new home base and put the dome shield around it. Tweak lattice too. Have 3 levels of shriking that changes once an hour with a warning first.

    Keep 1 continent unshrinked at all times.
  16. BrbImAFK

    The thing that nobody seems to address is..... if we don't have continent lock, how do we ever get the **** off Indar?! Some of us are sick to death of Indarside, and would love to see more playtime on, for example, Hossin.
    • Up x 2
  17. Pikachu

    Pictures to visualize my idea above.

    Low pop map shrink.
    [IMG]

    Even lower pop map shrink.
    [IMG]
  18. BrbImAFK

    Had an idea for an alternative to instant continent locks, but I can't be bothered to develop it fully unless people actually like the basic idea.....

    Simplistically, we'll keep the two locked / two open continent system we have now, but we increase the VP's required to lock a continent to 25. When the VP's hit 25, the continent fully locks exactly like it does now. However, once the VP's pass 20, the respawn timer starts increasing and everything costs more nanites. At 20 VPs it's 20 seconds and +10% nanites, at 21 it becomes 30s and +20% nanites, 22 is 40s and +30% nanites, 23 is 50s and +40% nanites, 24 is 60s and +50% nanites, 25 is lock.

    I think that this system would slowly wind down fights as people start going elsewhere for shorter spawn timers and cheaper toys, and that once the continent actually reaches full lock status, there'll be fights going on other continents for people to join. The "fluff" / rationale for this system could be something along the lines of "nanite flows" meaning that the locking continent is becoming more restricted, hence slower respawns, while the new "priority" continent is getting the majority of the nanite flow resulting in "normal" spawn operation.
    • Up x 1
  19. zaspacer

    I agree current the Continent Locking system is horrible because it kills player momentum and fun gameplay.

    On the other hand, leaving all the Continents unlocked has traditionally been a horrible system because it tends to end up with each Faction's Population moving to a different Continent where they can dominate.

    Also, players whine when they do not have an actual impact on the game if/when they win a large formal objective. They want their actions to have consequences.

    The next step is for the Dev to try (or players to think up) different things to try to make all of the above work. I'll start...

    Some possible things to try:
    1) try a system that Locks the *least populated* Continent after a Continent VP Victory
    2) after a Continent VP is won, change the gameplay but keep the Continent up and going. Flag the Continent as being controlled by the winning Faction. The do one or more of the following: (a) give control to the winning Faction, and have the other Teams have to capture it back (no Lattice), (b) spawn some Super Unit (or make them available to spawn at Terminals) for the winning Team, (c) change all the buildings to have design types of the winning Faction, (d) other
    3) don't lock a Continent unless any single Faction controls 70% of the Continent OR it's Pop is super low and all Continents have been up for a long time
    • Up x 1
  20. No0T

    Good job man hope they listen. There are many vvorks around about this in my mind... hope they have the imagination they need because they could hire me to do so if not.

    I think they could just slovv dovvn respavvn time instead of locking.
    • Up x 1