http://dk.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/16sx3z/metagame_design_meeting_idea_resources_cont/ Resources at this moment are inarguably in overabundance. Infantry resources are closed to balanced in terms of income, because there are a lot of things to spend those resources on and they are used frequently. The resource income needs to be lowered massively, at the least. Tanks, at the moment, are not too strong (Barring High Explosives shells). It’s that they can be accessed so easily at any time. This leads to massive tank zergs. There is no issue with tank columns, in my eyes, but the issue is that you can put one down, and those same people can put it out again within 5-10 minutes. As a result you end up with a snowball nigh on impossible to stop which can only be stopped by an equally large zerg of tanks, or Liberators. This is due to the easy availability of resources. The availability of resources has a number of knock-on effects; 1.Base capturing can in most cases be done entirely by tanks with minimal infantry support. Tanks should be there to support infantry. As it stands now it is the complete opposite. Infantry are only there because they are needed to stand on the capture points. This is alleviated to a certain degree in Towers because the spawn room is slightly more sheltered than in other bases, but Liberators and tanks firing from certain angles can still have free reign. 1.1.As a result, bases are abandoned and any number of infantry can take them uncontested. There is no way infantry can currently break a camp by Liberators or Tanks. While tunnels are going to be added to main bases such as Tech Plants and Amp Stations, outposts and towers will still be subject to this treatment… 1.2.Even with the new spawn buildings in outposts, infantry are still going to have to venture outside to get to the capture point, and in a large amount of outposts the single [A] capture point is placed outside and exposed to Liberator bombing. An example of what I am discussing is Ti Alloys 2.Continent locking is virtually impossible except in a situation of extremely overwhelming force and numbers. Due to the ability to time resource-ticks and switch continent, combined with the ability to pull your Main Battle Tanks from the Warpgate, regardless of Tech Plant ownership, make it impossible to continent lock against an even-numbers force. 2.1.This is because people can time the resource tick, go to a continent they have a good income in, get a good level of resources and repeatedly spawn vehicles. When you have an entire faction doing this to you, plus attempting to lock down the other faction, gate locks become very difficult when factions actually fight against it. It is not that vehicles are overpowered. They most certainly are not. Yes, a handful of weapons are far too effective on infantry. But that isn’t even a major issue. It is the quantity of tanks. Tanks are an issue because anybody can pull them at any time in most places, as long as you own a tech plant on the continent. Now, I am not against this in principal. Sure, let everybody pull vehicles, the issue is how often they can be pulled. Let me bring up the elephant in the room – PlanetSide 1. Only one person on the dev team currently worked on PlanetSide 1. I’m sure the current dev team hate “PlanetSide 1 this, PlanetSide 1 that”. We are not saying your work is inadequate. We are seeing present problems and relating to what was in PlanetSide 1. Let’s look at vehicles in PlanetSide 1(Just PlanetSide for neatness). PlanetSide, vehicles had a 5-10 minute timer, and no resource cost. Why weren’t they an issue? There are several reasons; •You had to cert into vehicles to start with to be able to use them at all. •Vehicles weren’t actually effective in the base capture itself. The vehicles were used to fight to a base. While they had impact on the base outside in holding down the courtyard, infantry were needed to go inside and take the base. •Bases were closed and protected. The actual inside was not open to attack from vehicles like current bases now. Now, let’s look at vehicles in PlanetSide 2 and see why they are a problem; •Anybody can get them. •Bases are open and extremely vulnerable to vehicles. Spawn rooms are vulnerable to camping from Liberators, and other vehicles such as HE Lightnings. There are no doors, only shields. •Resources are too abundant, this means that I can pull a tank over and over again and I wont run out of resources. Maybe after several hours, and if I let my tank die repeatedly. •You can pull them from a Warpgate despite having no tech plant on continent So, I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons why vehicles are an issue in PlanetSide 2; •Acquisition method •Large resource income •Base design Base redesign is going to be a gradual process, and I’m not a base designer. But I can mention one or two things I think could alleviate this problem. Ask yourself, in real warfare, why do infantry garrison buildings? Because when facing a superior force, or a force with greater fire power – like let’s say, a tank – a building allows infantry to project their strength and is a force multiplier. In PlanetSide 2, buildings are the reverse and are coffins for infantry inside. Add shields to all the windows using the same kind of shielding the ground floor of Bio Labs already have – nothing getting in or out. To deactivate the shield, simply destroy the generator powering them placed conveniently inside the building it is powering. Have a quick arm time, a quick repair time, and a quick defuse time, give a small bit of XP for the task and we’re all be happily on our way. I know SOE has taken notice of the issue and will probably be working on something along these lines, but I made this suggestion in a post several weeks ago and I thought I would reiterate it here. Another suggestion would be to move all the capture points into a building. Ofcourse this would be pointless if there were no shields on windows. As it stands some capture points - an example being Ti Alloys - have the only point [A] right out in the middle, vulnerable to consistent shelling. To add, room with capture points inside them are far too vulnerable. They should be almost entirely closed off with a maximum of 2 entrances. As it stands, ordnance spam is just making battling for control points a mess of explosions. An example of what a potentially closed off tower *could* look like can be seen here; Another picture of an old Alpha base; [Credits for picture go to blueEyedIllusions] The other two issues lead to one simply thing: Abundance. Abundance can be good in some cases. Like when two platoons of infantry work together move and work together towards a common goal. That is a good kind of abundance. The abundance we’re talking about here is simply the existence of too many vehicles. There are simply too many. I can use all sorts of anecdotal evidence, videos, pictures, and I will draw the same conclusion over and over again. There are too many vehicles in PlanetSide 2. The resource system and methods of acquisition lend to this heavily. Thus, I make a suggestion. Decrease resource gain on aeronautic and ground vehicle resources, dramatically. I’m talking less than half. Increase the base acquisition timer to thirty minutes, but rescale the acquisition certification so that the final rank will still ultimately end with the same end product in acquisition timer. This will differentiate the serious player who has handicapped himself in other roles to heavily invest in that vehicle from the player who just spawns it because he can and it will get him from A to B. With a decrease in resource gain, and increase in acquisition timer, along with the base adjustments, I believe we’ll still be seeing tank zergs, but killing those tanks will actually mean something after blowing up that guy’s tank for the 3rd time in the space of 10 minutes. My final suggestion on this front… Don’t allow Main Battle Tanks to be pulled from the Warpgate unless the faction controls a Tech Plant on that continent. At the moment, this is the true bane on a continent lock. A faction should not be rewarded for being pushed back to their warpgate by allowing them to spawn their MBT. Too many times have I been part of a Platoon that pushed all the way and secured the region around the Warpgate only to have a literally endless wave of MBTs flow out. Forces locking down a warpgate will be, in the long term, a primarily infantry force due to the inability to organise an opposing tank force to those coming from the Warpgate, due to the distance from the Warpgate the nearest MBT spawns are. Now, let's assume Resources get to about 1/4 the income of their current rate. What does that make the Continent Lock Bonus..? More valuable. 10% off when your income(Compared to now) is small change is *going to mean something*. And that is what every player in PlanetSide2 wants. Right now you have people sitting in bases or just looking for a farm instead of moving towards the ultimate goal of Cont Ownership. It's because Cont Ownership is virtually worthless right now except giving us "prestige" - which is meaningless due to 4am Cont Locks... To progress this idea further, bring back total continent locks. Let us capture the enemy Warpgate. To accommodate for potential player displacement, create a small Warpgate-like Sanctuary off-coast, and only allow the locked faction(s) to fly over the water. This would allow factions to organise an invasion entirely uninterrupted. The only territory factions can capture back in this situation would be a warpgate. Any warpgate. Capturing the warpgate itself is the same as any other territory. Except you need to have all of that faction's territory on the continent(Unless the faction is cont locked and is taking back a Warpgate). Just have 5 capture points dotted in the buildings around the base, have the warpgate shield remain active so that fire from the outside doesn't get inside, and then ofcourse traditional capture mechanics after that. The capture would have to be quite long to accommodate for the gravity of the cap and give people time to regroup in other warpgates before defending.
