Sunderer No-Deploy Zones: Show

The root of this evil is poor base design. In Planetside 1, you had to park outside the base, get out, and fight your way to the capture point. The game was good at separating vehicle and infantry combat when it mattered. In Planetside 2, bases are so wide open that there is no longer this separation. Vehicles go wherever they please in bases and it really ruins the experience of taking a base.

I hate to say it, but no-deploy zone is a feature that should go in the game without regard for players' opposition to it. It is simply better for the gameplay and is a band-aid for terrible base design.

I usually attempt to respond to the claims made within a post in the order which they are presented, but in this case I cannot avoid making an exception. This is a game, the purpose is to enjoy it. If you make the decision to ask what will be enjoyed, and the playerbase provides a solid case that something will not be enjoyable, it is your obligation to proceed in a manner that is at least a little more agreeable than the one SOE proceeded in. Even if it were the best thing since sliced bread, to throw it in without making any attempt to address the playerbase's concerns or even previewing it on the test server was an exceptionally poor choice, period. No amount of good that could come from this can ever outweigh that fact.

That being said, though, the amount of good coming from this is staggeringly nonexistent regardless. With sunderers pushed to the outer edges of bases, there are a daunting total of two to five defensible locations to park at near any given base, and most of them are voided once the first sunderer's no-deploy radius goes up. Of course, you could argue that less sunderers means better odds for defenders - but you would be wrong; defenders who cannot effectively defend are still losing to attackers who prove to be better than them. What it means is that the one person who takes that one good place will invariably get TK'd by at least one other sunderer who would rather be acquiring the spawn XP, and at larger bases, it means a very large pile of sunderers all sitting in the same place either TKing the deployed one or standing by and allowing the enemy to destroy it so they can deploy theirs. You could argue that this was always an issue, but again you would be wrong; while the old restrictions of sunderers being unable to deploy near each other would cause this issue to transpire, it occurred with far less frequency, and those who did it were few enough so that it was far less of an issue. Now this happens at practically every large facility fight, and with the grief points from doing it not being enough to cause a weapon lock, it goes effectively unpunished.

Of course, as I have previously stated, these were all ramifications that were well considered and spoken for back when this was proposed - yet, they were ignored, and now we are where we are today. While I do agree with you that certain base designs could do with a bit of help, these zones are not a band-aid; they're only widening the metaphorical wound.

just remove the no deploy zones .. its stupid !

I don't disagree with you, and I think I worded my opinion poorly. Ideally, the bases would be designed well enough to where no-deploy zones are not needed. Unfortunately, the bases are horribly implemented and now SOE has to rely on shunning its customers in order to quickly fix what they broke at the start. The best solution is to redesign all bases so no-deploy zones aren't even a thought to anyone. However, that takes too many resources (time/money) to accomplish compared to the solution they decided upon. It was the cheapskate decision and it reflects their competence poorly.

I really don't understand why this went in. Sunderers in those locations were generally quite easy for defenders to get to and destroy if they had a chance of a successful defense in the first place. In most circumstance they were stupid places to deploy. However sometimes they could be used to great effect, with good defenders around them.

These changes just cater to the mindless zerg who will continue to throw themselves at the nearest defender until their mass pushes the defense into the spawn room and they cap the base.
Give us some tactical freedom, soft counters instead of hard/fixed counters!

uhm... the defenders will have to spawn further away... sure.... but once attackers move on the CP, they'll blow the sundy anyways, and then set up their own, allowing Attackers IMMEDIATE reinforcement while defenders still had to foot it all the way (only 80m but still) from the spawn building.

With the no sundy spawn zone, attackers will ALWAYS be 100m from the objective, meaning defenders are closer (and you can still put a backup spawn location on the outside for a backup if you want) to the objective when they spawn... as they should be... and now dying on top of the objective isn't meaningless, and revives aren't meaningless, as respawning will force you to foot it back that 100m.

This makes gameplay FAR FAR FAR more significant and this is an EXCELLENT modification.

They could tie the No-Deploy zone into some kinda generator... but for now I think it's fine as is and not sure that's really necessary nor even a good idea or not.

Good news, everyone!

Here: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...-hotfix-july-12-2013-6am-pdt-3pm-cest.140460/

On top of that ADD the fact that colour-blind players cant even see the circle because it's light RED and normally on a green or brown background- SOE shafts it's customers again! - very professional

So, in summary, your argument in favor of the no-deploy zones is that now instead of one team having to walk a distance which you deem utterly preposterous, both teams do..? Because clearly, the best solution to one team having an issue is to give the same issue to the other team as well..?

By the fact that you reference footing it 80m, I am going to make the assumption that you are proffering these generalizations directly to tech plants and/or amp stations, and not any of the other bases which this feature was forced upon. In which case I will remind you of that crazy thing called tunnels, which oddly enough makes those 80m go by remarkably fast - in the case of tech plants, you will (on average) reach the point through the tunnels faster than from a sunderer parked in the bay, due to the locations of the lifts and stairs. Of course, the exits to those tunnels can be camped, but again, if the defenders cannot even make it out of the spawn, putting the enemy sunderer farther away from them isn't going to decrease their exigence; it will only cause those of us who are attacking to have to spend less time playing the game and more time running those 100m for no discernable purpose.

I've stated this before and I will continue to state it; defenders who cannot defend a base with the enemy sunderer close by will be equally incapable when that same sunderer is further away. This addition only serves to make bad defenders feel like they can stand a better chance, even though nothing has changed except for making everyone walk more, which is entirely pointless, ultimately detrimental, and certainly not doing anything legitimate to make defenders' lives any easier.

Personally, the biggest problem I find with the no-deploy zones is the limited freedom; one of the things that makes Planetside great is the freedom to roam, quite literally, an entire continent in any way you want; this, in itself, opens up many tactical routes, plans, or even just fun roaming. I find that the very concept of the no-deploy zones infringes on this concept of freedom within the game, by literally restricting sunderer movements and, by effect, tactical approaches. It could even be argued that implementing no-deploy zones creates a degree of unfairness (based on the difference in geography and layout of bases), rather than simply allowing players the freedom to deploy where they like (since, in this case, everyone has the same level of freedom).

I do, however, see SOE's point in implementing these zones; it shouldn't be too easy for one sunderer to slip past a defense and, from it, spawn an entire squad or platoon in seconds. However, that being said, that sunderer should not have been allowed to slip past the defenses in the first place. In many cases, "overwhelming" an objective, as some have put it, can be easily attributed to the fault of the defenders, rather than the mechanic of the game. In other words, if someone managed to drive a sunderer past your defenses into a tower's vehicle bay, then, quite frankly, that's "your" fault to a varying degree.

Perhaps, in the future, this mechanic can be attributed to a side-objective, as others have suggested. An "AMS Jammer" in certain bases, which could be destroyed as any other generator, would give the defenders some time to respond to an attack, while not completely preventing an attacking force from deploying where they please, in accordance with a planned attack.

roadmap is worthless, ive given up bothering to look, doesnt matter what people vote, doesnt matter what people say, they just do it anyway

pointless to even ask and get our hopes up, they arent listening to anyone but themselves

It is rather simple really... you have an infiltrator in the vehicle you use to shield break, said infiltrator hacks the vehicle terminal(s), and someone spawns an AMS sundy from said hacked vehicle terminal(s).

This is simply incorrect.

With a sunderer on the point and several dozen attackers holding it and defending the sundy, killing the enemy is even pointless since they'll be back before you kill enough to push on the sundy and/or cap point.

By the sunderer being forced off the objective, those kills MATTER, and you actually have a much better chance at clearing out the cap point before the respawning soldiers reinforce them on the point.

No, you think those kills matter more because they feel less challenging, when in all actuality they are not.

To give an actual example of my point, earlier today during an Amp Station alert on Esamir, the NC were attacking a VS-owned station. They piled a few Sunderers under the point and were effectively pinning down the route from the tunnels up through to the bay. The NC were roughly 65% of the hex population with both sides at 24-48 players in the hex, and the VS were effectively stalled in the spawn room. This went on for about five minutes before myself and a few other VS got some coordination going, went out the back door from the SCU room - which the attacking NC did not bother to guard, because nobody bothers to use it - and circled around the base, allowing us to come in from the sides, overwhelm the NC which had still outnumbered us by hitting them from directions they did not expect, and lay waste to their pile of sunderers long before they could use them to retaliate. The NC never recovered enough to make another good offensive push, and the VS held that Amp Station all the way to the end of the alert in spite of the vast majority of our forces being allocated to either Indar or the other Amp Stations.

I tell you this story because I am attempting to make a point; if your idea of a defense is throwing numbers straight out of the spawn room and expecting to win, then yes, you're going to be disappointed when their numbers stop your numbers from winning. If you expect to be able to accomplish anything at all in this game by just running at the objective and then wondering why you died, you're not going to have a very fun time regardless of whether or not there are no-deploy zones. However, if you actually enjoy having to think your way out of a problem, if you actually like to play against the odds and have a coherent idea of what you're doing before you do it, then you can have a successful attack or defense even with the enemy's sunderers right outside your door - and this, above all else, is why these zones are a terrible 'addition'; they are attempting to make people feel more confident in not thinking ahead, and that is never a good thing - not in reality, and definitely not in this game.

Eff it,

We're not going to agree.

Thankfully, SOE implemented the zones anyways.

Good day sir

(and yes, I know how to flank and use tactics... that doesn't change what else I was saying... but thanks for your pointless story)

Fair enough. You have the same right to your opinion as I do to mine, and for whatever it's worth, thanks for caring enough about your opinion to voice it; as the saying goes, it takes two sides to convey all of the aspects of an issue, and it's nice to run into someone who can represent the opposing side without resorting to name-calling, petty insults, and the like.

That being said, pardon me while I go die laughing at the official Planetside 2 Twitter account mentioning GU12 and asking us to care about the Roadmap in the same sentence. I'm honestly not hating on SOE here, but come on, after what they just did that tweet is in hilariously terrible taste for obvious reasons.

This is almost the same forum argument that happens every time an unfair advantage that the underdog used to come out on top gets reduced in effectiveness.

That SOE didn't do what the VOCAL majority voted for, in what amounts to a forum thread, really has nothing to do with anyone getting screwed over, shammed, shunned, insulted, or over-looked. Despite how ever a company, designer, or programmer decides to facilitate community input, it is still their decision to make. And I have to support this one in all fairness. Even if it makes some of my assault spawns a bit more relatively difficult than they were.

Parking a spawn point directly in the bowels of the thing your supposed to be assaulting SHOULD in EVERY case be prevented... as long as a situation is specifically designed to be fought THROUGH, why would you allow people to circumvent, and essentially take advantage of a loophole of, content that so much was invested in as a part of the creators design?

And given that SoE already gives us a few "quick drop" spawn types (sunderers up close to the enemy base, and squad spawning even closer than that, and revives anywhere you can toss a medic), I most certainly believe that such a thing should be very strictly moderated.

The base is designed to be attacked from the outside we would all agree I hope. And we would all agree that once we reach the depths of the thing we're assaulting, we should be able to fight from where we are... but to BEGIN a fight (whether its your first instance/life of the fight, or your thirtieth) from the bowels of the thing you're assaulting is likely to be quickly unbalancing because of how the more abusive players take advantage of it. The decision to employ no-spawn zones really only hurts people who were taking unfair advantage of what should be seen as an unintended loophole in the fight mechanics which was left open by the base design in my opinion (being so open that in some cases you can nearly drive a tank up and onto the central control point).

I don't think they simply didn't care about how the players felt. Even when things I truly hate, which totally nerf the loophole I may or may not have been abusing, get implemented into a game I love....I accept it. Its their baby, and for that matter, it was their loophole, to leave open, or close. And I know the proponents of such unfairly balanced mechanics such as this (whether intentionally included in gameplay or not) might hate it being called a loophole. But I personally attribute no negative connotations to the term because I myself have used many such mechanics as well. I just never feel good about it.

As for it not hitting the test server... I don't understand what that has to do with anything ever really. Other than perhaps being surprised by the changes if they didn't. The test server is really only at its worst, a novelty. It CAN be utilized for player input, quality assurance, and member approval of additional content. If there is a clause somewhere that states "All new content will be run by the playerbase for approval." as if we're shareholders of the company (in more than our given revenue.) I wouldn't be so quick to assume any role of entitlement for a creative works' progression, despite this creative works' entertainment membership agreement.

But then...some of the biggest countries in the world were founded on ideas such as "I found the loophole first, I own it now, and you must suffer for my having found and or owning it. HA! Trademark." It just seems Indar and Amerish aren't part of that group of countries. =)

Ite! That satisfies my forum-siding for the week

Not sure what you mean here...

I mean, I know I'm not alone feeling a lil disappointed with GU12, and GU13 doesn't look like it'll have a whole lot either...

but sometimes, crap takes time, ish happens, and there are delays. RoadMap is not a "This is what we're doing when" but more like "this is the stuff we plan on working on, in roughly this order and time-frame, though any and every hiccup is going to push everything down the line as well"

Sure, a large portion of the community voted against No-AMS zones and they did it anyways, however there are several other downvoted ideas that haven't even been mentioned again, and I still hold by the notion that the no-deploy zones is a good mechanical change giving defenders another advantage in a game overwhelmed with attack focused pubs.

I know I don't really have much to argue as a pro other than that the attackers can no longer set up a better spawn point to the objective than the defenders, but I really really do think that that is the only reason necessary....

As I mentioned though, I am entirely open to the concept of some kind of SOI generator in bases that blocks attacker AMS & hot-drop within the specified zone that could be destroyed to allow attackers to then deploy within said radius.... maybe a 2-part generator, or a generator behind a shield wall that an infiltrator (and only infiltrator) needs to hack to get past... something... after all, more base objectives would likely only be a good thing, but I also think we should let them play out as is for a lil bit longer.

Anyways, thanks for at least being respectful and for acknowledging a good discussion rather than, as you say, resorting to pointless name-calling as so many others

I'm not colour blind, but I tried to deploy my sundy today and I saw the error message saying that I was in a no deploy zone, looked at my minimap to try and see if there was a visual cue and couldn't see anything.