[Suggestion] Spawn Limitations

If your value in a death, is to remove the ability to play.
Your death isn't valuable.

How exactly are you getting people to play, anything past Maxes, Vehicles & Heavy-Assaults?

Force Re-deploy: You can't spawn anymore, pick a random location.
Your best odds of keeping yourself in actual combat, is to... Redeploy around.

The War is short.
As the enemy is unable to sustain a front for any period of time, and the bases are so quick to be lost by sheer cap time.
The war ends in an Hour & an half on the dot.
As the first zerg will conquer that entire line easily, to the front of the enemy warpgate.
And Defense is near impossible, so Over-pop will just dominate the entire map.

The Capture time is less than a minute if reduced.
A respawn is time per death.
With a hard-cap on deaths; Straight travel time, to the point from spawn, Goes to Travel-time-from-the-opposite-hex.
To Save the base.

An Enemy zerg has less time spent delayed by having to stand out, without any combat, which will shed their numbers, waiting out a Capture Timer.
This means, they can capture more bases Quicker, and have less resistance, since the Enemy will be exhausted rapidly.

Re-Deployside would be the only Defense able to actually work.
As Local defenses will all be dead, and unable to fit or defend that base -- Unless they weren't fighting there at all.

An MBT shouldn't be.
It's not a God, we have Weapons in reality, that will kill it, and are infantry-mounted.
In this game, we also can't avoid Vehicle engagements as infantry; It is not fun, to be completely without options.
Nor is it fun, to be the victims of a mass slaughter, since someone went to a terminal.

Just since you're in a Vehicle, you shouldn't be completely immune to anything besides yourself.
Vehicles can not operate by themselves, against infantry, ad-infinitum, nor shouldn't.
Infantry aren't NPCs to be eliminated without any risk, just since You can see them, in a tank.

Base fights are all that matters. For vehicles to be relevant to the game, they need to be effective in base fights. Making open territory valuable gives vehicles a place where they can be in their element, which would allow infantry to be buffed so they have a place where they're top dog. Not only this, but since both sides would be fighting to control the open land surrounding a base, vehicles would spend more time fighting each other and less time farming. Think of A2G ESF. They simply can't operate until enemy air is dealt with. Promoting more numbers in the air with 1/2 off A2A ESF, as well as lessening the skill required to partake, would be the best thing possible for infantry on the ground. The exact same thing would happen if you provided a space that required a constant tank presence from both sides. Then with that new open field vehicle meta, you could buff rockets absolutely through the roof within 50 meters without obsileting tanks.

As far as the "more bodies" approach, that's a sad reality when you have to push through one or two fortified choke points. Squad fixes this by removing all choke points, and providing cover and concealment for infantry to outmaneuver the enemy. In PS2, you have to just push through, and combined with PS2's crazy high ttk, it turns in to a numbers game. A neutral base system combined with fewer choke points would allow both sides an equal opportunity to maneuver and approach from different angles. Without needing a WW1 style suicide push to get anywhere, a limited spawn system could actually work.

I'm not agreeing with any of your analysis on this.

Ok, so let's look at a particular example of how this idea would work.

If you set the spawn count to 0 that means you get 1 life per region. Now this will obviously give an advantage to attackers and overpopulated factions. So lets set the spawn to 1 for defenders and 0 for attackers. Well now, defenders literally are doubled in how many troops they can afford compared to an attacker and that seems to be an unfair advantage. So let's find a ratio that works at equal populations of the continent. Let's just say we want a 10% troop reinforcement buff to defenders with even populations by continent. Defenders can jump up to a maximum of a limitless buff graded out with respect to the difference in population or a 0% buff if their population is too high.

Now let's grade out the reinforcement costs of nanite based units. For every 50 nanites you increase the death count of your reinforcements by 1. So if we are at a ratio of 10:9::defenders:attackers then what ratio is going to even out the cost of dying in an MBT? An MBT will cost you 9 deaths in your reinforcements. What ratio should that have to your single infantry death? Well how many MBT's do you want people to spawn? Let's start with 1. That means you have a 9:1::MBT:Infantry death ratio putting your total spawn count at 90:81::defenders:attackers for any region given even population of the continent. That total seems too high, let's adjust the purchase power of death:nanite::1:150. Now we have a 3:1 ratio of MBT so we have a total of 30:27::defender:attacker spawns. Seems good.

So accounting for nanite cost to death count and defender to attacker spawn ratios we get 30 spawns per region for defenders and 27 spawns per region for attackers. You could change any of the associated ratios, like buff defenders to 15% and now you are at a 30:25.5::defender:attacker respawn count per player per region.

There are ways to balance it out. 30 lives per region will make for a great battle that won't last forever. Having 5 more lives than your opponent as a defender may be too much but it will be a clear advantage. How you grade out the buff with respect to population differences is also to be determined.

So if you die in a flash you lose 1.3 lives. If you die in an MBT you lose 4 lives. You always lose the life of the infantry but then you lose the life of the vehicle at a 1:150 nanite cost.

There are thousands of ways to implement this which is why I didn't want to specify any because then we aren't talking about it's general meta. But here's ONE example that could easily be tweaked until it shines.

No battlefield in PS2, has a fixed count, nor limit on either side's number of players involved.
It is a dynamic Number of operators on both sides of a battle, and shifts across regions even.

It also changes in an Instant, since we have Re-deploy.
Lives lost, only matter when you actually die in a Vehicle.

Bases are not properly designed, for notion that a Chokepoint will determine a fight in an instant permanently until retaken.
Every single Spawn, on most maps, past hedge cases, Put the Defender into Key one-sided Chokepoints on their own men.
Every single one of these bases, has barely any defensive line capabilities, nor holding positions; Walls around, are more effectively used by the enemy, than the owners of the base.
Weaponry is also not designed, nor are explosives, around the limited lives concept.
Nor is the Re-deploy system.

The problem of this is two-fold:
You want a Shorter cap time - This reduces the duration of a fight that reaches the bases interior, even further.
This also means, a Zerg is delayed by less, reducing response time, or time to gather reinforcements.
With Limited Lives, this Zerg has the advantage by sheer number, and how much attrition they can endure in the combat.
This Attrition, means the Defense can not keep pressure on the enemy at all, without vehicles
-- which they will be out-numbered with.
Zergs, when delayed by longer-battle, or cap times \ periods without battle, partially disperse from the idleness.
If you reduce the cap time, This dispersion doesn't happen.
With limited deaths, without the kind of Considerations, Adam Mentions, You also ensure Resistance against them: Is short.

Allied Infantry, can't effectively deal with vehicles.
They also will die, ten-fold, and without C-4, will not have a means to actually ensure one dies.
Now with a Zerg, that means a small-group has an incredibly limited number of attempts, on a massive force, with the least amount of time to act.
They also, have the most people to expend.

Add in, how any such system, has to be per-person..
As if its not, You can 4th faction into a hole, easily -- Or everyone has to play according to a script.
Anyone new, is likely hated, as they will waste the lives.

Add in Alts, and this Artificial hard-cap on respawning in entire regions, means any long fight is impossible.
The winning side will have won, drastically, in the first salvo.

Any 'life' cost, is only a consideration, upon destruction or loss of the asset.
If you ever faced a Zerg, or actual Outfit that is coordinated; That is actually rare to achieve.
The only ones killed, in even a badly done zerg, are fools, or infantry from said zerg, when facing an Overpop zerg.

When facing a large-caliber battle, this system Artificially kills the fight:
As any field engagement, isn't near the points, to allow it survive.
So the impressive & rare field battles of PS2, that are damn amazing, will be dead.

And those K people...
yeah now imagine it's not a useless number, but their ability to have fun in actual fights.
Now they're more unwilling to do anything, but farm people.
As now, there's a system locking out a fight , if they are killed, Not if they are out-played.

It is a simple issue for me - I pay to play (not terribly well) and being locked out of the only continent that is usually open after a short while is just not value for money to me.

As other people have pointed out, spawn limitations on both sides (attackers and defenders) represent just another incentive to go Zerg. You bring a massive local overpop and get the base merely by attrition.

I would instead put spawn limitations on the attacking side:

1) Respawn queues on Sunderers
and/or
2) A Sunderer cannot respawn more than X soldiers and then it runs out of energy and has to replenish doing a RTB

Personally I would be more drastic and allow re-spawning only in spawnrooms and use the Sunderers as IFV/Battle Buses but that would be too Arma-ish.

Here's another idea. Each hex as a nanite bar that gradually refills, let's say it starts with 25 points, and gains 1 point per second. Attackers and defenders each have their own. Spawns cost 1 point, and revives cost half a point. If you run out of your nanite bar, respawns take 20 seconds, and revives take 10 seconds. This punishes those cheesy suicide runs, and lets fewer good players slowly whittle down a larger force.

Dealth penalty in a game designed around farming, death, killstreaks and so on; whilst also already suffering from the problem of zerg surfing because of the fear of k/d and elite outfits with too much experience. Heh if we follow on with my 'cheat thread' tradition here, that would be such a boon to those that actually do tip themselves an advantage that I cant imagine how commical it would be if this thread appeared on some of their forums.

My my. This forum gets more and more impossibly dumb every time you read it.

Planetside is death. It's hard enough getting new players to stay with this game when they are killed in numerous ways and you want to add to that at year 6? LOL. Right dood. Keep smoking the good stuff.

Great idea. Casualties and poor use of resources have bad outcomes.

These forums would never tolerate more difficult and sophisticated gameplay.

Yeah, I mean having a buff for defenders will accomplish this. I don't think the buff should be unlimited by default for defenders and limited for attackers at all. It's got to be a proportionate buff with respect to population of the continent. So if 15% greater amount of spawn count doesn't do it for you, then try 20+%. If you follow my long post about how I determined how many spawns a single player would have, given his position.

The major thing I want to avoid with limiting spawns is timers. I do not want it to be a continent wide delay but I also don't want there to be any delay at all. I actually think there should be a 0 time delay in between spawns if it wasn't for the fact that you can be revived and so you need to give a chance for medics to do their job. So a full 5 second delay unchanging is good for that for every spawn but it should never increase by any means. With spawn limitation you know that sooner or later they will be dwindling out. There shouldn't be any need to reduce presence during a fight now. I think revives should take just as long to revive but you get a 5 second addition of spawn time when you accept their revive. Then, because deaths matter, you should revive with full health and shield and a speed increase. Revive grenades do not have to revive to full health and shield however or give speed increase. But there should be a better way to survive a single instance revive than they have now anyway, and especially if there are spawn limits.

Lastly, accepting a revive should cost less than a death in your spawn limit. So for starters make it cost 0.5 of a life, adding value to revives in the flow of battle and the continuous presence of troops.

In this system you wouldn't get locked out of a continent. For a brief time, if you died enough times in a given region, then you couldn't respawn there until the limits got reset. That's it. It's basically a dynamic matchmaking system that only momentarily curbs the flow of troops to give definite objective rewards for those who get kills. Kind of like how real fire fights would be. But it's fluid, so it will reset and the battle will start all over again. It won't ever lock you out.

EVERY TIME they add limitations, the game gets worse.
spawn limitations especially,
the vast majority of us aren't playing because we want small fights, we're playing because we want big epic fights,
and forcing people away from those fights is a terrible idea, however it seems to be an idea that you and the devs both share!

Quality over quantity every time. You can't push this to its limit all the time. This would allow for big fights, but the big fights die just like real people do. Infinite spawn is a problem when it comes to bio labs and any kind of choke point. The size of the fight isn't reduced, just the length of the fight. It gives meaning to meaningless kills and farming becomes a limited tactic rather than the WHOLE game.

that is the whole game though, that is what we are here to play.
an epic duration massive battle is THE BEST thing about this game.
if people want smaller fights or shorter fights, why are they playing a game which isn't that?
there are a million and one lobby games that people can go and play if they don't want to participate in lengthy epic battles,
but this is the only game that fills that niche and it would be suicide for the devs to remove what makes this game unique.

I think you overestimate how limited the spawns would actually be. It doesn't have to eliminate fights in 10min. You can make it whatever you want as long as its noticeably improving objective play. I gave an example of having 30 spawns per region. You don't think that's enough? I think that's a lot, even too high to notice a difference at all. I'm not sure on the statistics but in a given fight I think I die less than that and I'm a terrible new player who doesn't even have his mouse settings right yet. Even at 10 lives per region you would still have a good fight and it would only get better as the worse players die off sooner.

I understand what you are saying. You are used to Planetside 2. But I think this would improve it. Change it yes, but without it changing it won't improve.

The battle would get reset every time faction control changed and even on a defense. It is NOT removing epic battles, but its making each encounter count. It also would improve the value of squad play and I think this game seriously lacks good squad play. I've been better off playing solo many more times than I was in a squad or in an outfit.

We aren't here for match-based combat.
We aren't here for the most awkward matchmaking in history either.
Nor are we here, to have an Enemy Spawn point rendered useless by inaction on our part.
You want the enemy reinforcements to stop? You take it out.

Objective rewards? Farm this choke-point harder, or farm kills: Rather than certs, You farm lives.
You're rewarded for Farming, by removing your enemy's entire ability to play in that region.
In order to "play again", in that entire region, you have to lose or win that base's capture point.
You know what a stalemate is? You'll be enjoying that a lot, then be unable to spawn at all.

The Big fights, would be reduced to "Large number of people involved" not actually large battles.
Making it so people are scared to fight, doesn't improve the quality.
The entire point of the respawn system, isn't that "Bill died, so he's erased from here, till the next match"
We aren't in match-based combat; Choke-points are choke-points, not "If they go here, they lose Once & for all"
Bio-Labs shouldn't be a fight where "If you didn't lead an NC Max, you have no respawns"
We are also, in an Infinite war, with a Lore-based Respawn system, not a match-maker, where guys are meant to stay dead.
We are all literally Immortal in the Planetside Lore. Literally Immortal. A Literal Endless War.

Long Fights are not bad fights.
You also don't remove farming; As now they aren't farming certs, a Key element in this game.
You're farming people, to deliberately remove them from being able to play.
All tactics, are reduced to what Doesn't erase your ability to act in this fight; Brave actions are shunned.
Risky plays are Priced by "Locked out of Region"

You turn k : D saving into a Requirement, to earn certs.
New tactics, are how you lock out an entire region, rather than new gameplay.

Edit: Kills;Death Ratio is what turned into smiles? seriously? Dear lord...

It should be tested. It should be given a chance. I think your predictions are true for a no spawn environment, not for a limited spawn environment. Remember, this is the original post. But you are acting like all spawns are gone forever. It just won't work as you say if there are proportionate spawn limits across the board.

You haven't recognized the validity of the fact that limiting spawns by population is actually a key way to balance fire fights when there is high imbalance in population. You aren't trying to make it work or see its benefits and how it could be good. You are taking the worst scenario and applying it across the board. And that's just not going to cut it for a good argument.

EDIT: Did you know that if you limit spawns you could actually make every single fire fight equal, even against zergs? Just make their spawn 0 and automatically increase the spawn limit for the defenders until they have an equal amount of troops over all. You can make it whatever you need to, to improve the game. It will undoubtedly improve the game if done right. And it will not limit anything that makes the game great already, if done right.

We have a PTS.
The problem is, you wanted to pair it, with an entire other variable; Reduced Capture times.

You want to balance Fire fights..
With removing players from combat -- which is most likely to happen to the smaller side not the larger.

The best situation, results in fights be hard-limited, by death.
Any "long" fight after that, has to involve, a sheer lack of killing, and ineffectiveness to exist.

Every fight fight against Zergs, with a population difference, equal.
So those players reach a % of people; Via any means, and they are unable to play in that region.
So, Group A, leaves region, fires back from the slight range back, in another hex, which removes Group B's spawn ability.
Group A then fires upon all spawn-vehicles, and walks in, after having destroyed at range, without them being able to reinforce.

I dislike the concept entirely; as it puts Complete-the-objective in conflict with "Ability to play in this region at all"
It puts tanks, Maxes, and Aircraft , with the highest survival-odds, as are heavy-Assaults, Head & Shoulders over any class, any new player, and Any playstyle or new tactics, that doesn't favor a Severe K ; D advantage in a region.
In order to earn Any certs, which are the Key-stone of everything in this game, outside of Kills.
As you aren't slowing down reinforcement, you're trying a hard-cap, With the Mentioned intent of "Matches"

We aren't in a Match-maker style game.

The last thing, that is enjoyable in an open-world combat game, with dynamic territory control..
Is the equivalent of a Matchmaker system that only punishes people for death.
Someone flies in an Aircraft, You're straight dead; Congrats. They're now out of the combat zone, unaffected.
A tank rolls in, A zerg rolls in; You are now about to be punished hard.
You find an Enemy Max, or an NC MAX in a Bio-Lab, You can kiss your entire ability to enjoy that fight out the window.

Any tactic, that isn't preserving & putting your own "Lives" ahead of the Objective, Kills your entire ability to play, to grind, to make certs.
Anything that doesn't work out, now has a Cost that directly screws you for the entire engagement.
A force does a Max Rush, or drops them out of a Galaxy; Congrats, You are gonna be slaughtered, and no options that aren't likely to end in a Lock-out.
The fine-tuning, with only "Lives to play", is a hard as hell thing to do.

Done right: Yeah, that's pretty bloody hard to achieve, with such a drastic change.
Let alone with your reduced Capture-times.

As both large groups, and small groups, Squads \ Platoons & sololists, play this.
Some like large fights, Some like small fights.
Some like Long fights, which have a lot of cert potential, which we need thousands of. Same with kills.
Some like short fights, which can give enjoyment too.
Some like grinding orange rocks, to building fortresses.

Some like Match-making, and "You have 5 attempts" notions.
Some like the Freedom, to try new things, without paying a massive tax on their ability to enjoy a Base.
Some like to always be able to have a Fight on a base they know, rather than have to jump around, Just to earn certs or a fight.

Some days, every fight, is an Overpopped battle.
Some days, Air is hunting for opportunities, and massacres; Nothing you can do, to not be dead, past not walking anywhere.
Some times it's a Tank.

Base Design, is so badly configured, as is all the directives, and the reward system.
Not to mention the limited benefits to team-work, squad or not.
Just adding a Motivator to value your own life over All things, just demotivates anything that isn't a Guaranteed victory.
At least in this set-up.

Like have you fought across these continents, and went "I wish that fight was over in 10 kills"

This thread is not about reducing capture times. Increase them if you have to.

Cert gain would be increased for completing objectives and being a part of a fight even if your spawn count ran out.

If lives are more precious then killing power is more expensive. The vehicles need to be more expensive right now anyway. So this change would force the correction of another problem already at work.

What are you afraid of? Honestly? This is a game. You aren't actually dying. But game play that encourages fighting like a real man with real bravery is better in my opinion. Be brave boy.

I've never said there should be reduced capture times. Increase them if you have to. Not a big change or deal. And in fact, I could balance it out pretty easy with the right data. It is not hard to do if you are guided by principles and vision.

Everyone likes to respawn. Everyone likes that aspect. So I understand why you are all over trying to squash this idea. But limited spawns is one step closer to a more realistic, sophisticated game play just in the same way that friendly fire is. You could say all the same dumb arguments you are coming up with why friendly fire is so bad and no one would ever want to play with it because it's just not how games are. We want a game not a real life fight. Blah blah. This is the substance of all your argument.

Yes that's why I made this thread. When I kill someone I want to know that I've made a contribution to the objective. I play to the objective and if I have to kill people to get that done then that's what happens. Mindless killing cheapens this great game and gives it a stale air. Liven things up! That's what this game needs.

one of the greatest things in PS2 was the old crown on indar,
it was the jewel that all factions fought over, battles would last ALL DAY and they were epic!
that has already gone, due to DBG (actually maybe SOE) pushing for this "quicker easier fights" adgenda.
and the game got a little bit less interesting and unique.

i can tell you with a great deal of certainty, one thing that would come from giving people a limited number of lives in the fight they want to stay part of...
everyone would play safe, you want bravery? well you're going the whole opposite way!
i charge in all the time, i'm always on the front line, give me a limited number of lives and hell no,
i'm not pushing the front and getting booted out of one of the only decent fights on the map!