WDS Preseason 2 Changes and Feedback

The only way I can see to promote good fights instead of overwhelming zergs and ghost capping would be to base the personal rewards on something combat related. Keep the WDS points for factions the same, but grant personal reward points based maybe on a percentage of xp earned while fighting in the contested territory. Players will have incentive to actually engage in a battle, rather than just go along for the ride, and team killing incidents shouldn't be any worse than bonus xp events.

Not really, because this has nothing to do with "Playing the game." There really isn't a situation currently where you are given a huge reward for ghost capping with a zergball, beyond the WDS. Even back in the hex, you Only had real issues when you were on an unpopulated continent, there would always be something to do on populated continents and even then, the lack of defense was never this bad, and no one capped abandoned amerish with 45 people grouped up to curbstomp 5 others, at least not for an extended period of time. Hindsight is 20/20. Also this is the first time they really have used rewards like they are to incentivize play. The only time they came close was with providing rewards for testing during OMFG, but even then the number of people who came to help wasn't enough to fill the server, and that was just for Showing Up... unlike now where the reward are tied to pretty easy to accomplish goals. Given how minor the prizes are, I at least never expected the game to devolve into a primer on objectivism inside of a week, I don't think anyone really did. People could have said: "Oh, this point system, ghost capping all day every day" but people on forumside say at ton of things, and finding the one correct prediction made therein, is akin being one of those people that looks through Moby Dick to find end of the world predictions. The fact that pretty much everyone in the game, at once said: "I am going to go about this, the easiest way possible, even going as far to disregard my certs and score" given that certs is all most people fight for, is in and of itself rather amazing to me, because again: This required no coordination between groups, it was just something everyone agreed to on their own.

What is the difference if you have alts on the same or on different servers? (except the ping time). If you change faction and swap to another server or you stay on the same server... same thing. Pop changes on this server where you changed to.

The thing is that multiple characters are fully supported by SOE, because every chars generates money when somebody buy something with station cash for them. (Which is ok btw)
So they wont even think of faction locks or only one char per Account.

IMO, one way would be to introduce a penalty during gameplay if somebody choose an faction which is already overpopped on that server. Like less WDS and capture/defend/hold points. Not only in WDS...

Zergballs consistently dodging each other has completely no precedent in this game, right?

Besides, what did they think players were going to think when they saw a bunch of 25+25+50+100 capture bonuses sitting nicely on a lattice line and compared them with ~3-32 bonus for re-secures (I'm not saying 'defense' because actually effectively defending the hex grants absolutely nothing)?

Pardon my french, but I call bloody BS on not being able to predict this kind of outcome.

Agreed! This is what I was getting at in post number #24.

I only want fix for game crashing for me reward lose point because of constatly crashing after 20 min of playing i have over 200 dies because of crashing for me game is broken its can be very depress to play like that i realy start to think about uninstall a game i realy enjoy playing game but in same moment becues of crash i start to realy hate a game its geting more and more depres to play

It's not focused on defence at all. It's meant to be focused on holding territory i.e. dominating it.


Good luck winning WDS defending 10% of the territory. Factions will earn the majority of their points from holding territory. You need to capture it to hold it.

How many people are actually aware that captured territory gives your faction WDS points for every 30 minutes it's held?

This is why I think they should scrub capture/defence points entirely.

It is not zergballs ignoring each other, it's the zergs having no Counter what-so-ever for Hours. You can get a pretty decent zerg up a lane and get maybe a base or 2 in, before it gets bogged down. We're having a situation where you are getting a zerg never getting countered, because no one is defending. At least 2 bases down a lane, the zerg will have pushed back enough defenders, that it's reasonable that they could be stopped at that point by the number of people falling back. And at the very least, SOMEONE tries to stop them, even if it's difficult. And even then, if no one stops them on a dead continent, at least there are fights on Indar.

I took a 15 man squad IG on Saturday, we captured a biolab, an amp station, and 6 bases... and we never got countered except by 5 BR 20> people. There were No counters and the players who I almost always see countering us when we do stuff like that, were Nowhere to be seen. This was during prime time. On Waterson.

in the spirit of constructive criticism: rewards for WDS are prettyyyy cheesy this time around even for us lowly F2P players.

one hour XP boost is nice, but nothing to get too excited about (5 pack of various 1 hour boosts would be much cooler), and a 1 time use UGLY CAMO is pretty worthless (give us the choice of permanent character camo or six month full camo including weapon and helmet... better)

And this is new how? I've seen such behaviour in the game since launch. People capturing empty bases for xp because the amount of xp awarded does not differ between a completely empty base and hard-fought three-hour struggle has been a thing at least since november 2013. Beta players I play with say it happened even before launch.

And now with the chance of free shinies piled on top of that what exactly did they think players were going to do?

If the people charged with organising this circus have indeed dun goof'd this much, then they probably should spend less time compiling statistics and more time playing their game.

I am not complaining about VS overpop specifically, Mr. Touchy . I just gave a recent example. I'm complaining about overpop in general. I don't care if it's NC (my empire) or TR/VS. Population imbalance is BAD however you put it. It's the only thing killing the game for me. It amazes me why SOE hasn't done anything about it, to me it seems they don't care about the game ("it's F2P, who cares" attitude like many forum warriors have).
If this continues I will probably quit and I don't want to.

What if they were able to adjust capture scores according to say... strategic value or geographical location on the map, of course, but also how populated the base actually may be by said faction during the time it was held. In other words, say Hvar is NC's, but they haven't even touched it since they capped the place. TR captures Hvar, but since the time it was held by NC it was relatively barren, and all while capping it TR met little to no resistance, they receive a small reward for all their trouble.

On the other hand, if Hvar is getting constant foot traffic, air craft are flying through, landing and rearming, engineers are repairing turrets, basically if the base is alive and populated during its time held, and assumed populated while being attacked, the attackers capture reward would be significantly greater. (Possibly even also effected by the size of the defending force itself).

Now this isn't intending to downplay certain parts of the gameworld, I enjoy all three of the continents, but just as the maps are designed, there will always be certain bases that are more popular than others, and some bases that hold no real strategical value, (despite being either major or minor base types). Certain bases just shouldn't be worth the 100 WDS points, just because that is what the base type is rated and this alone. With defending and capturing both equally (yet uniquely) valuable options, we'd hope to see more balanced, less zerg-like attacks, and more organized, formidable defenses.

If plans worked out all okay, we'd maybe see (for once) an actual, organized, defended, frontline in battle, in a way to start to truly claim territories. To not only obtain land, but obtain and occupy it. Factions may actually start to establish their borders, and take interest in the continued ownership of a captured territory, instead of the usual wait, cap, redeploy, gal ride, wait, cap, etc. (That is of course if the land is worth the trouble as I mentioned before)

The other (hopeful) change we would see is the increase in interest in territories actually occupied by the enemy, instead of trying to avoid zergs, ghost cap surrounding bases, and waiting for the zerg to leave before making a move. The only other thing I could think of of any significance would be suggesting a reduction in WDS points gained for any one action, either faction-wide or on a individual scale, be it capture or defense, if said faction has a large population advantage in that specific territory, not continent- wide.

For example (last one ), a 48v48 battle is going on at Quartz Ridge. For convenience, say the capture will be worth 20 WDS points for those already in this ongoing battle. The attackers population in the territory starts to rise drastically to 66% of the population, and now the available WDS points are only 10, halved from the original 20 an even population would give, based on the force they have now that is doubled the defenders forces. This could also compensate for the mass flooding of troops into a soon-to-be-captured territory, just to boost your factions point gain from what it would have recieved had only the forces that actually took the base remained at the end of the capture. This same concept could be applied to the defenders as well, and I see no reason it shouldn't be.

At the end of the day it would accentuate territory control, and army coordination faction-wide (which I feel a lot of people wish there was more of). Attacks would need to be planned and coordinated between outfits, more so then just "wait for the zerg to leave and go ghost cap the place". Delegation of your forces between important territory and your main attacking forces would be fairly important. It would depend on what goals your faction's trying to achieve. Are they interested in personal goals like the rewards? Or maybe they are working on the bigger picture, getting more points for the entire faction? Having defense point gain being more slow, steady, constant source of WDS points, captures can be huge payoffs, at the obvious risks, or they could even be very simple, dull ghost caps that are worth just enough to seriously consider if it is worth the time to sit there or maybe it's better to move on.

Now this isn't a bulletproof idea of course, and there is a few... um.. logistical issues to work out , but I think it makes sure everyone gets their fair share of what their faction put into the battle collectively (speaking in terms of effort involved), and I think it could work., but fear it might be too noncasual for SOE's taste...

Thanks SOE for your efforts to provide good intense battles, which are not only more fun, but are more 'profitable' in terms of certs to spend on pretty new toys.

General Feedback:

Zergs are bad for the game. I've hung out with zergs and been zerged* like everyone else. in zergs the attackers and defenders seem bored (attackers are sniping at spawn between the tanks that have driven up on walkways squishing infantry in order to point their cannons at spawn doors point blank... defenders stand at doorways hoping to take the head off a board attacker who zigs instead of zags). Also zergs are less profitable (in terms of certs) than intense fights (without tank spam interfering).

In zergs, although attackers make certs without much effort, the rate at which you make certs is MUCH slower than in intense battles. In a good biolab fight as an engie main, F2P player, i can pull 40 to 50 certs an hour/two battle, repairing every MAX that walks and passing out millions of rounds of ammo. In a zerg I'm lucky to pull 20 certs in a hour even capping large bases.

So anything you can do to defuse zergs AND create intense battles where both sides have a fair chance is better for the game.

Also, PLEASE keep tanks/air spam OUT of bases, as NOTHING stops a good fight inside a small base like six tanks and three libs spamming spawn. If you want a good fight inside a base (like a biolab fight, which are the most intense in the game) you can't let tanks inside. Tanks need to be kept in open country where they can move freely, fight other tanks and where the spawn points are MOBILE and changing.

Base Spawns are fixed points that can't be moved. If tanks and air are allowed to spam fixed base spawns with explosives, it stops the fight... simple as that.

(I can hear the tanker tears now, booo hoooo: poor babies, you'd have to fight other tanks not point your cannons at doorways and windows)

thanks SOE for creating an interesting and very deep game!!!

*zerged, is that a word? is zerg a noun or a verb?

Dear SOE,

In regards to the "4th Faction" and the pop spikes, you should (if you haven't already) consider the other online communities, such as friend circles and chat groups. I know it basically boils down to friends calling friends, but most of the more established Outfits host chats, when an alert pops and their faction is in the prime time, or winning/losing. For the sake of an example, say outfit XYX sees thats it winning and alert (or about to) and outfit XYZ has some good players, and an active chat on Teamspeak/Raidcall. The guys in XYZ jump over to the other game channels in that chat room, blows the Horn of Gondor, and bam. There is a squad/platoon of reinforcements for the cause. Out of every 50 players that play id venture to say 5-10 of them at the least are on such channels, and they would get maybe a few buddies to switch over.

Anyways, as for that kind of "alert insta over pop" idk how youd fix it. GLHF

My own two cents is to equalize attack/defense values, but make them both smaller compared to the 30-minute "drip" value for holding a base over time. I would also change the 30-minute cycle to 15 minutes.

This would remove the current heavy incentive on fastcapping at the expense of everything else, and add incentive to defend territory without getting into the cheese-it mentality of trying for a tap-and-stop. It would also still allow for some of the occasional deep pushes that we've been seeing of late, which in moderation I think can still be a good thing.

Roll with the punches. Alerts, WDS, Zergs.....It doesn't change a thing for me, because no matter what, I'm here for the game, period. Which translates to sniping. Glad that Luperza & Co. are responding with a serious quickness on player suggestions.
SO: Lets ride this out guys, and see where it goes. Cheap players and lazy bastards are always going to be there to cut corners. That's what makes the rest of us so great, right? : )

It's the spawn camping that ruins the game most for me. If you want to fix spawn camping, I say put the spawn areas underground with tunnels/teleporters leading out to various parts of the base like in the original Planetside. No more constant bombardment from tanks and aircraft against spawn doors.

YES. THANK YOU.

From all 4 pages of this thread, everyone should be aware of the 2 above quotes before complaining about today's announcement. One is a very valid point in favor of SOE's announced "hotfix" for the present preseason, while the other is a very good suggestion. In any case, I'm more than happy with the present fix. Good job SOE

ok so i have some problems with the personal rewards:
1) the prizes sux i mean single use camo rlly? i have 15 signle us digi. Solution give better prizes, if not then allow the player to select the camo that they want for the single use from a list
2) a total of 2k for tier 3 rlly? u can get that in 1 day Solution: increase the weekly points needed to get the final tier it should be hard and the prize should match, and even out the gap in points for tier packs ie 200-800-2000 seems random at best. i suggest 500-1500- 4000 t1 would be the cheap prizes t2 prizes not much better then t1, and the true prize that would have no less then 1 market item rather that be a perminate camo gun vehicle weapon or gun with highr chances then other tiers to get more market items
from my exprience is that ALL of the prizes have been disapointing, the points r to easy to get and once u hit t3 whats the point? better prizes and larger point req for t prizes so u dont finish in a day