Spawncamping Is Inevitable

Dynamic control points is the only way IMO. Battles vary tremendously in number of players involved. It is hard to design a base for both 200v200 and 24v24

You are now completely ignoring the fact what the absence of the outposts would do to the player distribution. You are applying the current game mechanics to it which is an obvious mistake. If you look at the maps right now you should see that each empire has about 8-10 different lattice lanes to follow in average. If we have only major bases in the maps that number will be around 4 or 5 which means the empires are not going to split into as many groups as we currently do which in return means the groups facing each other are larger. Thus less uneven.

Also, look at the bases where you can advance to two different enemy bases. Suppose your empire splits and pursues both of those bases. One of the groups starts to lose the battle and it has to retreat to the base. That ofcourse affects the other group advancing in the other lattice lane. The battle at your base will force the other group to retreat to the base as well, because that's the base where they spawn Sunderers and other vehicles from, right? This is not the case in PS2, because we have these stupid chained lattice lanes. The other group is not affected by the battle raging at the base, because they rely on the closest outpost. It keeps the most of the battles in PS2 separate and creates this sorry gameplay.

Also, no, you don't need those CE toys to make this work.

Did any of you even play Planetside 1? The spawn rooms in that one had their issues but were much better compared to the spawn rooms in PS2. Why? Because they weren't so god damn small. They had multiple COVERED exits where it was infantry vs infantry only.

That's right, you could never camp spawns with vehicles and aircraft in Planetside 1. AMAZING CONCEPT, I know.

Letting the defenders shoot out of spawn was the dumbest thing ever. Where's the big hallway fights with 3-4 different exits to allow defenders and attackers to duke it out with INFANTRY only? That was one of the best parts of PS1 was everyone getting out of the vehicles and going in for a big infantry fight. No vehicles allowed.

In this game, you have every player (vehicle and all) shooting at one focal point: the spawn room. Its too easy to because every spawn room is completely exposed without any cover to offer the defenders. Its beyond stupid.

Are you honestly that clueless? The next time you enter the game, take some time and look at what goes on in it with a critical eye. Just see what happens for the most of the players. You see nonstop camping. You see people sitting inside the spawns trying to shoot outside. You see people sitting outside shooting at the stupid spawn room. Ask yourself why should these guys enjoy the game? Why should they have fun doing that ****? For me it is blatantly obvious it's super boring - it's down right frustrating. I don't have to ask their opinion about the matter. It's too obvious. So, please do not try to belittle the problem and claim it's ONE person asking this change for him/herself due to selfish reasons. I'm sure the most of us are all above that crap anyway.

This is actually what a game designer should be doing. They should monitor what happens in the game and they should spot these obvious problems and try fixing them. Not to point the finger at the playerbase like some self-proclaimed game designers tend to do in their utter wisdom..

When the game first came out they couldn't do proper tunnels and stuff because this is a EQ:Next engine test they wanted to monetize with an old ip they found laying around and the engine wasn't (And still isn't) developed far enough for a convincing, immersive experience (Hello Hossin "water", hello that one moving prop they now have).
When they finally were able to do cuts into the terrain layer and thus be able to create proper underground spawn rooms and tunnels i can only imagine they started and then realized how many bases they have and said "**** it, this would be actual work". And that's where we are now with PS2, in this particular case and in general; A few halfly implemented good ideas and a lot of potential but nobody can be arsed to commit himself to it because the cash shop is apparently generating enough revenue and they are working for a horrible company so why show initiative.

And that's part of the reason why i decided to go away and watch from a distance as PS2 slowly withers away, occassionally glancing over and thinking "Hey so it's still twitching apparently, maybe going to poke it with a stick tonight and see what happens".

*Poke*

"Nope, nothing exciting happens. As i expected. Maybe next time!"

Let's not pretend that vehicles are the problem with spawncamping. Everyone who has set foot in a Biolab knows that you can have just as much spawncamping even when there's no vehicles in sight. Infantry are just as guilty of it as vehicles are.

let's not pretend vehicles don't make spawncamping orders of magnitude easier. Pure infantry without any force mutlipliers can be overrun. Some smoke, some nades and a coordinated push and it's done. Vehicles are relatively tanky, highly resistant/immune to most things infantry coming out of the spawn has to offer.
Also there is only a dozen biolabs in the game (i hate them, i avoid them, i consider them an utter waste of map space) but there is no place where PPAs won't find you.


Back to the main point - yes, spawncamping is going to happen because it controls the entry point of enemies but the base design is atrocious and makes it way too easy. Some bases literally have spawns in a corner surrounded by cliffs with a single funneled exit. No **** there is going to be massive camp at the chokepoint plus LAs sitting at the high ground. Once the perimeter is overrun in such a base, it's game over right there.
Defenders should be able to control the immediate neighborhood of the spawn and have some place to go after crossing the shield without being instagibbed no matter which exit they choose. Death grip on the spawn should be possible but exponentially harder with each meter. That's not the case.

the spawn room roof where designed to ward off explosive... that was said in some dev blog video... can't remmeber which one but it was the same where they first showed the first gen SMGs

the thing is, any skilled lib or HE tank can splash the rounds off the weird angular placed "shields" so the splash goes inward and hits almost every place on the whole roof... cute concept but failed execution

one big thing to stop the farm is to add an SCU to EVERY SINGLE BASE, so people actually have an intention to leave the spawnroom and the attackers are rewarded for overpop or get bored without any enemies being present, also this forces the people who would just have run against a wall for several minutes to go to another base where they actually make a difference and maybe even can get some points

1. There's no disagreement over the fact that I see a lot of players playing badly in-game.
2. I CAN'T say whether those players "should" enjoy the game.
   • If they enjoy playing badly, there's nothing I can say to stop them playing badly because they enjoy losing.
   • If they don't enjoy playing badly, I can inform them of how not to play badly (pull vehicles from a rear base and actually make a fight out of it!)
3. I CAN say that rewarding bad play would be bad for the game. PS2 is a deep shooter, but it's only deep because skill matters. Skill is both decision-making and execution, and if these players are failing the decision-making side of things then they deserve to lose. The alternative is a shallow game where bad decisions are rewarded.

Just stop making bad decisions. Help your teammates to not make bad decisions. If all these bad players would stop making bad decisions, the game would be fixed immediately. And it'd be a helluva lot more competitive and interesting too!

True, but the Sunderer has the advantage of not being in a location revealed on the map even if it has not been spotted. Spawn rooms do - and at least the Sunderer has a *chance* to relocate, even if that chance diminishes the bigger the enemy force gets.

And a broken game mechanic is not the same thing as a player mistake.

Argh. Nobody is saying that retreating and coming back in an ESF is somehow a bad idea. What's being said is that the need for it is symptomatic of the problem: Which is that spawn camping is a problem due to the way the game works.

Also, if we want to talk about player skill, seriously, what percentage of them do you think can even fly an aircraft with any level of combat effectiveness? Very few. Spend a few minutes standing on top of the base in the VR training area and watch people crash, and crash, and crash. That's because the flight mechanics and controls in this game are totally counter-intuitive and (as can be seen in many other threads) you can't rebind your keys to make it work in a sensible way because the game blocks rebinding Yaw to the mouse.

So yeah, would it be a spawn camp stopper to have everyone bail, retreat to the nearest plane spawn, and come roaring back with a mass air attack that would look like that helicopter scene from Apocalypse Now? Sure, but since flying is such a pain in the rear end that most players can't do it, that just ain't gonna happen often, if ever.

If you've mastered the flight mechanics in this game that is pretty impressive, because they and the controls are just really, really bizarre, and mastering them is a real accomplishment. Most people can't do it or don't have the time to re-train their brains to think in the strange way required for this game's flight controls. And I say that as an avid player of flight games like War Thunder. I do well there but I can't fly in this game worth a darn. Neither can most players - like I said, watch the VR room some time and check out what happens when most people try it.

If Paper feels that Scissors is overpowered, that's not a legitimate problem. It's how the game is supposed to work.

The game takes place over a giant continent. Players are going to spawn somewhere, and there's literally no way of preventing the enemy from creating a perimeter around the most advantageous spawn. Which is why the game offers multiple spawns, so players can choose one that isn't surrounded.

The best tool for the job doesn't care what skill level you are. If you're bad, aircraft are the strongest counter to enemy air and if you're good aircraft are the strongest counter. The fact that aircraft are much better when you become skilled is all the more reason to pull them often when the battle demands it!

The controls are like every jet fighter ever, and it's simple to uncheck "inverted flight" if you don't like that (like me.) So this is something specific to you as a player.

I haven't mastered the flight mechanics. Which is testament to what I'm saying: even without flying perfectly, the best tool for the job is still the best tool for the job!

Just because you're the defender doesn't mean you are restricted to a single spawn room + teleporter(which most people forget to use anyways).

You can always redeploy a base back to grab a sunderer and set up another spawn or to grab a couple of tanks to break the spawn camp.

Just yesterday, NC was losing indar excavation and the TR outnumbered the NC 2 to 1. However the TR had a large number of people in vehicles, mainly prowlers that were shelling the tower.

Using 2 AP/halberd vanguards pulled from warpgate(VS had our tech plant) and focusing fire on 1 vehicle at a time, we broke all the TR armor and wrecked most of their sunderers from long range, saving the base.

A small amount of creative teamwork will always do way more than any new toy SOE introduces.

Lastly, recognize that you have a whole continent from which to choose spawn points. I consider having your warpgate completely surrounded by infantry, armor, and air to be the only time when you are truly spawn camped.

Reducing the lattice lines does nothing to alter player behavior.

Believe it or not when you only have 2 lattice lines your empire will zerg one and get rolled in the second.

And what's the difference between (bases are close) Hossin and (bases are far away) Amerish? The difference is that on Amerish the zerg spends about 30 seconds longer driving between one spawn camp and another, there is no more fighting betwen bases on Amerish than there is on Hossin.

The purpose is to rebalance a base in a defender's favor, then obviously it's balanced against the attacker's favor.

....except for the first ESF/Liberator/GalaxyWithSpawningSquaddies that flies over it it's dead.

True...and in fact Biolabs are the biggest camps in the game.

The game is fine when it's 200v200 or 24v24 regardless of "base design"

The problem is when it's 200v24

In reality it was far easier to camp PS1 spawn tubes than PS2 spawn rooms. First of all there were only 3 doors out, and the defenders had no idea what was on the other side, and when they opened and nobody came out you knew a cloaker was coming out so even cloakers got screwed. You could also destroy 3 out of the 2 spawn tubes so it makes camping the 3rd one easier, and we did. Shoooooot you can kill someone before their computer even rendered the world.