The fallacy of the Ghost Capping argument

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Sapare, May 26, 2013.

  1. Sapare

    This will be a bit ranti, so if you wish to post "Too long, Did not read" or "learn to spell" you may leave that at the door, I just did that for you.

    Now, to really understand "Ghost Capping" we have to go back to what it is defined at, because there are actully two definitions of it.

    The one which defines what it was meant to be, and the one that is what it is normally .

    (this deffintion is totally made up by me, but if you think about it logically this will make sense. In the end, no one person is allowed to coin a frase, unless he invented it, which non of us here did.)

    Ghost Capping: The act of going to an enemy base, flipping the point(s), leaving the base and coming back just before the base flips to pick up the free xp.

    Normally achieved with ESF's.

    I would dare say the term derived from "capping"(which I doubt I have to explain) and "Ghosting" which is a term in stealth video games used to describe a playthrough that defines not being seen, and not leaving a single trace.(or that is the Thief version of it)

    So, this defines Ghost Capping, as the player literarly went in and out unspoted, he "ghosted".


    And let me state here, NO ONE says this is not a problem, as a dedicated defender(I do what the ghost capper does, but in the oposite direction) I am the first type of person to get very annoyed to go to a base only to find it empty with the point flipped.

    Now, what do you guys actully refer to when you say Ghost Capping.

    You talk about something that I think was never coined because of how wrongly Ghost Capping is used. I would define it as "Blitz Krieg" capping. But I doubt that will stick, but let us define it so we are on the same terms


    Blitz Krieg capping is the act of an attacker(1 or more) going to a base and fliping the points there. Then staying there and waiting till the base flips. If this is achieved with minimial effort it will often be called "ghost capping" even though it should not.

    Ghost capping would imply he as ghosting. Blitz Krieg capping is actully(often) done by large groups of people where a single deffender shows up only to be stuck in his spawnroom and leave again.

    I have seen cases of this with whole outfits where the outfit leaders decide that instead of spliting their forces up they have 80 players sit on a single base and wait for it to flip.


    This isnt ghost capping, it is simply catching your enemy offguard with your movement.


    Now: As to why the first is a problem, the 2nd is a compleetly different problem.

    Ghost Capping can not be effectively stoped by the defender, unless you have a person willing to fly from base to base flipping uncontested points back, with literarly no reward for his actions.

    It is very frustrating and often isnt even fun for the Ghost Capper, most times it is done is late at night by people who are just simply bored.


    How do you fix it? The solution was brought up months ago:

    It was implemented in beta actully. One of the beta patches made it so that if a point had no one standing close to it it would always flip back to neutral. People were opposed to this and it was removed.(I was not in beta, but I looked it up) Seemingly SOE and the players failed to see that it would have been fine with some slight alterations.

    Two options:

    Make the point flip back to province owner if there are no more enemies in that province.

    OR

    make the point flip to the province owner the moment all enemies leave the capture area.(this wont work for multiple cap points area, so idk how to solve that, but someone smarter then me can work of it. The point was to stop"hiding" till the enemy leaves, not that I think anyone does that.)

    Even if for some reason you disagree with both of these choices, as you can see, Ghost Capping does not require a massive change.

    Now, to Blitz Krieg:

    First fact to consider Blitz Krieg is actully NEVER the attackers fault.

    Do to how we define it, it is simply the fact of the defender not responding to an assult, it be akin to blaming Germany for there being little interested to write about Germany invading (a prepared) France and the french simply not having all of their defenses manned.
    (Tha parrelel was kinda far grasped, I could not think of anything)

    Point is: your map is telling you the place is under attack, you can easly spawn there while the attacker can not withtout outside help, it tells you how many enemies(and allies) are there, and how long it will take for the base to flip.

    What ist the defenders excuse for taking 5 minuets to show up to a fight?

    Mine tends to be that the game simply won't let me spawn at that location, which has been a problem since launch.

    Again, months ago people said that we need to redo the spawning system, so that you are allowed to spawn in all allied bases.(if that is too much, let us spawn in all allied bases under attack)


    If there is a large group of people capturing this single base and even if you go there you can't do anything anymore?

    I am pretty sure we call that a zerg, and your zerg is purpesly avoiding their zerg to capture uncontested territories, this still happens on latice maps.(I have seen it, all the time actully. Every time I was on Indar the past few days the TR had the most pop and yet were losing the most provinces at the same time)
    That is a fault of the players, it simply is people not caring about meta game, because there is non.

    (And if you post some stupid comment about meta game I'll make a topic for that too, thankyou very much)

    Well, if you can't fix it because it isnt really broken, what do you change to help make it less problematic?

    Make provinces which are cut off not allow further capturing(as we have now on lattice)

    Make province which are cut off disallow respawning by the base systems themself.

    Build in many of the ideas that were made months ago(some uncaptural provinces which act like "mountain ranges" do in real life wars, a system of (forgot the word, my mind is lapsing. Whatever the managment of supply over long distances was).

    There are many of these, some of which have been implemented with Lattice and some which are actully planned to be implemented after lattice is done.

    Overall, my rambly post of ramble is done: Maybe now we can have proper discussions without people throwing around Ghost Capping like it actully had any meaning.


    lol... as if, GJ to the one person who read this(there is always one)
    • Up x 12
  2. Sapare

    Shameless bumb, and now I am off to sleep.
  3. Teegeeack

    Yep. I can't tell you how many times I sat on a point while it flipped. I was the only one there, and not a single person tried to stop me. Too lazy or perhaps more interested in farming certs. Now they don't have to worry about it.
    • Up x 3
  4. UberBonisseur

    Either certs, either because I'm one of the 1% who go beyond proposed spawn points.

    The redeployment system is so tedious no one will bother /suicide two or three times in a row to defend isolated outposts.
    Now we have the lattice, and the spawn points are still horrendous
    [IMG]
    • Up x 7
  5. Jac70

    The issue as I see it with this so called 'ghostcapping' is the fact that once some territory is taken, every single person who was in that base rolls out and onto the next one. Then they whine when a small force finds it and takes it back. I don't see this issue much at all during an alert because people are more focused on holding onto territory but it does still happen.

    There are those in the game that just want to keep moving forward, capping points, sitting in bases with 200 allies while 3 or 4 enemies shoot at them from the spawn rooms. For me when there is no alert then I really couldn't care how much territory we have.

    As for changes I would make a few suggestions...

    1) To start the flip process for a base, each point must have people on it simultaneously. Once the flip is initiated it will tick over to the attacking faction unless the defenders flip a point back. So you would need a decent sized force to take a major facility but a small team or even one guy could still take a small outpost

    2) Make the bases flip faster if there are people on the points. Allow the caps to be influenced by more people. If the attackers can get 4+ people consistently on the point then it is likely that the base is overwhelmed and this way you don't have forces sitting around in bases that the defenders have no chance of securing.

    2b)I had am idea about cap mechanics that might or might not be a good change - It could be that those holding the consoles have to actually use them so they have no weapon held but would get XP for it.

    3) Re-instate the SCU spawn shield generator but relocate it to be in a place that is more easily accesed by the defending team. As an example, the Spawn room at Andvari has a small floored area between the spawn room and the [C] point. Putting the Spawn shield generator there would give the defenders more of a chance of repairing it and then getting into the SCU room to secure it. Make the SCU shields block fire again. Put the SCU destruction on a larger countdown to give defenders a chance to regroup and secure the base.
    • Up x 5
  6. bodmans

    indeed, read entire OP. agreed. i do have the tendency to forget what i want to reply with(if i not write it down whilst reading...) which happened now. ill be back
  7. Bobby Shaftoe

    Because watching the map like a hawk, travelling to the contested hex, killing the 1 person ghosting, recapping and securing is about a 20:1 ratio in terms of time doing nothing, to time of action. Repeat ad nauseum and you've got the least compelling aspect of PS2s Hex system imaginable.

    Hurr the defenders are lazy... no, if they want to defend they've got to waste 90% of their time doing nothing but waiting for a ghost capper to think to themselves 'oh, I feel like ghosting... *closes eyes and points at map* this hex', then goes off doing something else after they get killed, meanwhile Mr Defender is now back to scanning for the next ghoster to be struck by the sudden insipiration to be 'strategic' and ghost something else.

    Christ, the 'influence' system was the most contrived method of making hexes that had absolutely no value, fit the Dev vision of 'everything being contestable'... despite not being worth the system memory they take up. Oh no, I've lost +5 aerospace resources per tick... oh look, some guy 1km away swung influence 50% at the ACTUAL fight.

    A BR1 player could end up ghosting by accident! They could literally drop somewhere and accomplish your 'strategic' play without having a clue. A defender would have to actually know what to look for and how to respond. How is that, in any way, comparable to a well thought out balanced mechanic?

    Oh and for the record, I have 285 facilities capped and 1901 facilities defended because I actually did the above (90% of which was cleaning up soloers), I bet the vast majority who went around ghosting never bothered defending.
    • Up x 9
  8. Macchus


    no one was resecuring those bases 95% of the time anyways .. so i guess you were in the 5 % rushing back and complainign that no one comes to help as you uselessly chase an infiltraitor around in a circle jerk repping gens? its like you chose to do something you hate , and you complain all the time that no one help's but it wsa YOUR CHOICE, AND SOE'S FAULT FOR SHODDY BASE DESIGN .

    ALSO when are you guys gonna stop tying the lattice to the removal of ghost capping ? that was something that was gonna happen regardless of lattice implementation ...
  9. 13lackCats

    The most revealing thing to me is that pejoratives such as "ghost capping" are used. It is a most juvenile attempt to censor a confounding tactic used by the enemy.

    Imagine American Football: The long bomb beats someone for a touchdown. That person starts calling a long bomb "poopy face", and then everyone else that hates long bombs does too. Eventually, long bombs are removed from the game.

    Ghost capping = Poopy Face
    • Up x 3
  10. Teegeeack

    I check the map constantly, and often travel to small bases where there's one or two people ghost capping. I enjoy it. I redeploy if I can, or get a flash if it's necessary.

    You don't need to watch the map like a hawk. It's not as if your set role is to defend against ghostcappers. But anytime you do check the map and you see a base being ghostcapped, you have a choice - go defend it or ignore it. Choose to ignore it if you want, but don't blame the ghostcapper for your failure to act.

    If he manages to swing influence 50% away from where the big fight is happening, then he has done a great job and should be thanked for his efforts, and the enemy should be laughed at for being stupid enough to let one lone guy, who was probably pretty bored sitting on the point doing nothing, change the outcome of the battle.

    All ghostcapping needed was a system where the point would flip back to the enemy if the player left the area. That meant players would be rewarded for seeing the cap through to the end, and enemies would be punished for not doing anything to stop the cap.
    • Up x 7
  11. jessewhat

    Clearly you just like ghostcapping empty bases
    • Up x 3
  12. Teegeeack

    Well if we're going to throw stats around, I've defended more bases than I've captured, by a margin of 154.
    edit: Besides which, if I want to ghostcap an empty base, that's my choice. Just like whether you try to stop me or not is yours.
    • Up x 2
  13. Bobby Shaftoe

    He has stood still at a location for 30 seconds...
  14. Teegeeack

    Thus, capping the base and turning the tide of battle. And you had 5 minutes to stop him, but didn't. He didn't mind leaving the cert farming for a while, but you did, unfortunately for you.
    • Up x 3
  15. Bobby Shaftoe

    You should check the rest of my stats then.
  16. Patrician

    Nice post, however, I class, as do most PS players I suspect, ghost capping as the process of going from empty base to empty base capping them against no opposing forces. Whole at the same time ignoring the more important, bigger, battle.
    • Up x 2
  17. Tamas

    Too long didn't read.
  18. -Zlodey-

    OP ARE ghost capper.
  19. Bobby Shaftoe

    Yes 5 minutes, to die/redeploy, pull vehicle, travel over to the hex, root them out, kill them, resecure, sweep area, then go back to where there's an actual fight, please stop implying some mechanic that is subject to simple happenstance, as 'strategic' it isn't and is unbelievably contrived, most the time they don't even attempt to contest, it is simply stand in area for 30 seconds, then move on.

    Someone has to do ALL that, whilst the ghoster just turns up. It's pretty obvious you guys don't have any understanding of reward/effort, barely any reward for securing compared to effort expended, whilst ghosting = reward with barely any effort.
    • Up x 2
  20. Teegeeack

    Under the hex system, capping smaller surrounding bases was just as important as fighting in the main battle. It allowed for single squads to feel like they were making a difference rather than being just being cannon fodder for the zerg. Now, while I can still attack from whatever direction I want, the direction I want must be facing the zerg.
    • Up x 6