When people complain about population, they're probably not talking about world population.

Now... your asking the right questions... but as your sworn enemy, I can't help anymore than I have. good luck thou! and have fun!

+1 for this.

It's a very big issue that i'm fighting every day...
I'll try there to make a scheme of battles and then some (possibly) solution IMO :

Based on my 30d time played (NC mainly) with almost equal time every classes, and ESF : (Sry for my frenchie english)

1-12 battle : Managable ( meaning having fun + possibility to win ) with almost every pourcentage of local pop. Vehicules can be countered, MAX taked down, sunderer reachables, spawn camping breached out

They are, IMO, not a problem.

Side note: I love thoses fights, even out numbered, skills and organization CAN make a difference, because of the impossibility to be everywhere).

12-24 Battles: local pop begin to be meaningfull
It's an empiric and totally subjective POV, but it's manageable with a 60% imbalance, boosted to 65-70% with an organized squad facing random players.

That the moment when vehicules numbers are a being an issue (A.k.a : 3 libs, 3 ESF, 2 tanks, 10 infantry, hard to deal with infantry only)

24-48 battles: Numbers count. As well as the numbers of vehicules. Imbalance manageability drop to 60%.

Side note : Best "big" fight in my experience, tactics count still a lot.

48+ battles: That's the main problem, In this situation, a small 55-57% imbalance can be really hard to deal.
Why?
Because : Due to the number of people, threats are everywhere for defenders, and risk highly decreased for attackers.

What does that implie :
- Vehicules can be taked to cover quickly to repair = very few tanks/harassers/lightning get destroyed in this situation
- Spawn camping can't be breached
- Even Droppod Tankmine stupid method can't break the flow of reenforcement.
And it goes on and on...

I WAS pretty sure that it would be balanced by :

More than 65% pop advantage on a location (modulated by what i said on previous paragraphs) :
IT'S GODDAMN BORING ! For attackers/defenders both !

But i assume that the fear to die, that result in :
- Spawn duration being not fun
- Being defeated being not fun
- Being destroyed instantly as an unskilled tank/ESF pilots = colldown + wasted ressources = not fun

Force some players to be in massive ZERGS that crush in numbers opponents.

What i would suggest :

- Spawning from WG to others base possible until a nice balance achieved.

- Bonus exp, yeah why not? But those should be REALLY visible = Attractive (unlike the actual bonus exp in deserted continent)

- Denying spawn possibility in hexs with 48+ if imbalaced by more than 55-57 %, making logistic a deal, and being hard to call reenforcement.

(- Spawning a vehicule in the Hex and adjacents Hex can be possible only if you don't reach a certain number (fixed) then adapted to the opposite side vehicule number (5 Tanks opposed, you can spwan 7 tanks in the near territories). Big armored/ESF reenforcement should come from the warpgate (and thus being difficult to do))
This last one is really controversial, i get it, and full of issues. But still, i hope you get the idea.

Thanks for reading, i opened to any critics/suggestions

How's this for an answer:
A big pot of Exp for each base/outpost which is shared out evenly between all members of your faction that are in the area, this means that you'd earn more exp going to where you have less forces instead of just following the zerg around as each person following the zerg is getting less exp.
Then outfits are encouraged to break away and go do their own thing, working as a team with maybe 1-2 squads which is a bigger risk to you due to lack of numbers but also at the same time is a bigger reward if you pull it off as the share of exp will be much greater.
Makes squads get more organised and adds some risk and reward into the mix.

Also know as the "Tactics over battling around Xp" system, or Tobax for short

Fundamentally you need to make it so there are 'zerg' breaking game mechanics.

Often it doesn't matter how good you are, once you get to a certain ratio, that's it, your trapped in the spawn or being ground back to it. you don't get involved in these situations, simply because they are ****** game play. Why? So many situations, doesn't matter the terrain, doesn't matter the skill of your unit, after a certain point of being outnumbered, thats it resistance - often in that lane till the enemies numbers peter out, is pointless. There is no soft incentive you can give that makes loosing several battles in a row simply because the enemy has more people, engaging.

That enough infantry at present can pretty much overwhelm everything and a lot of bases are basically indefensible structures doesn't help. I also think the high infantry health is a problem here, as no matter how good you are per-clip, you can at most drop 4 people even playing at godlike mode, because the 5, then 6 etc overwhelms you. So in short, health was less important for infantry, positioning could make more of an impact. Bar Ncmaxes around a 90 degree corner, there are not nearly enough Thermopylaes in the game world, that is areas and structures that are actually defensible by small groups of infantry against larger.

There's also the issue that vehicles either
a) comes down to simply a game of who has the more of them a la a 16th centaury battle of Men of war, slugging it out.
b) If there are 2:1 infantry and enough HA - good luck getting near. Infantry in even light concealment are a lot harder to hit with MBT guns, or secondaries than they are to hit with lock ons.

Vehicles, especially now they don't get to go anywhere near most points, need to be more powerful against infantry to break up said large concentrations when they get close enough in (prehaps remove the HEAT nerf nad buff HE again, things have changed a lot since January) but also front armour needs to be strong sure, by a flanking maneuver by a smaller amount of vehicles on a larger amount really needs to have a profound effect on the battlefield. So perhaps increase front armour by 20%, reduce side by 10% and make most shots to the rear fatal.

But we'd need something like artillery or airstrikes that were particularly effective against infantry (prehaps a galaxy bombing system) in order to really break up large concentrations of troops. Such that, yes you could effect a 3:1 ratio at any give part of a base and really overwhelm people, but in doing so you'd put yourself at risk of suddenly all blowing up. I think this is certaintly something that needs to be looked into, I also think using the same mechanic that prevent sundies from being spammable in a certain zone, this need not also be worried about in this regard.

I honestly don't think you can do with small alterations like exp boosts, as theres no point giving me +1000% exp, if I can't make a single kill as going out the spawn gets 10 people shooting at me.

Basically the point after which 'numbers win no matters what' needs to go as a game mechanic. It's something PS2 is getting badly wrong atm due to a number of game mechanics working in compound.

I believe Ive seen this idea suggested before.. but here goes again;

If I am in a hex that is overpop'd by my faction.. and/or ghostcap, and we've got it in the bag, I would leave if I still got cap xp (perhaps even reduced)

eg; if I spend 33% of the cap bar time in the hex, got say.. 70% of the cap xp even if I left at that point, then I would leave.

specific examples; Tech plant with 7min cap timer.
- We've completely overwhelmed the defense, they were spawn camped by 1 minute into the cap.
- another 1minute; 18.6 seconds go by (33% of cap timer 1min +1min,18.6sec = 2.31minutes) and a little green dot appears near the cap timer bar on my UI; saying I am now eligible for partial cap xp (similar to alert partial xp lets say)..

now I can leave and go work on the next base, or go help actually BE an a2a fighter instead of staying near objective to ensure I get cap xp.. I HATE flying out to chase a mossie with 10seconds left on cap, and missing out on 1k xp (membership) because I went and did my job. I HATE IT. Pisses me off to no end.

so yes, please, partial xp for time spent capping//in hex; spend 5minutes in combat in a hex, GET cap xp, even if the cap was't started when you were there..

^ things like that, would get me///allow me to leave a hex before a cap, to go assist elsewhere... because once I saw that little green light that says I'd get something for my time spent here, even if I left, is the moment I would open my map and see where else I could help or be more useful, instead of spawn camping.

Furthermore, as someone who regularly SL and PL's, indeed occasionally in multi-outfit operations (as well as drawing from my colleagues comments in DL who do it nightly). A large problem defending forces face in a single lane, or continent, is the current inability under the spawn logic, to transition easily from lane to lane when we are out populated.

It would act as a great force mutliplier, if when acting as a flying reserve (DL do this a lot) if when a base was being attacked (so this would only appear as an option to a defender, not an attacker) you could move easily from parallel base to base. So for example when a certain level of enemies is close to a bases capture point, or when the base itselfi s being capped. Said base then appears as a spawn solution across that empire, or to bases towards the front in parraeal lanes. I know a simple UI is clearly a goal of the developers at a bit. But when moving from base to base across different lanes, takes up to allmost 5 minutes at times, and requires spawn jumping across multiple bases in order to get to it, any simplicity gained, comes at the cost of any redeployment of forces being a slow and messy process. The current system is quite frankly, the funnel a lot of people were worried about when the lattice system game in.

Moreover, to expand on 'zerg breaking' measures like artillery and galaxy bombing. Obviously if an allready overpopulated empire can simply spam these, the situation becomes worse. yet I think they would work best by functioning like HE as He used to be, thus to be under fire from them as infantry should be a withering process. Yet with spamablity remaining a concern. I think this is easily avoidable by a few simple measures.

With artillery, make it a attachment for MBT's or lightnings, that requires deployment, like sundies this sets up a certain zone of exclusion. however in such a way that within 500m (for example) only 5 artillery pieces may set up. thus in any one fight, only so much can be brought to bear, moreover, give them a really limited ammo capacity. Preventing just surrounding a base with them and annihilating any opposition. Also, much like artillery in real life, each shot should create a situation whereby their positon reveals them across a large section of the map (e.g. a really far ranged sound 'blip'). Thus to get the best effect out of them, you'd have to use a lot of team work, with forward observers feeding you info an ammo sundy resupplying you, and they would be at great risk from Airstrikes and counter battery fire from other positions.

With galaxy bombings, make it such that they are very inaccurate HE gravity bombs. Make it reduce galaxy armour significantly make them only a single load maxium per flight. Thus, even on mass they can only be used with proper air cover, little AA in the area and will require returning to a nearby airbase (tower, any other pad or warpgate, not simply an ammo tower) every single run.

By making them infrequent easy to use and highly inaccurate, you make them both far more effective against large concentrated forces, that small dispersed one and so they help with zerg busting, as opposed to giving a far larger force, just another stick to beat a smaller one with.


As I stress again, soft bonuses, won't do the trick anymore than they are doing now. As i've said make sure the resource revamp really gives a larger force an achillies heel in terms of logistics drain. But we also need 'zerg busting' moves that require high levels of skill, team worker and far more effective against larger forces than smaller ones.

Oh, wow, I got a dev to post in my thread. I didn't expect that.

But to address his question...

I feel that the lack of command tools is a culprit in the game. While there is command chat and orders chat, there is no hierarchy to go on. An outfit may field, tops, around two platoons. And coordinate with two more. That isn't the complete population, and given the fragmented nature of the game, likely doesn't happen. Not since the days of TE, anyways. So what you end up with is a large amount of people moving from objective to objective. Most are disconnected, so they're acting on their own intuition.

If there was a more centralized command, that would be less likely to happen. I understand that in PS1, someone would frequently step up and take command of a continent and issue overwatch orders with other commanders fulfilling the objectives with their own strategy. Basically...like how a real military command works. Filter out the big fish, put one biggest fish in the pond for a time, and let it direct the rest.

With that, your faction is constantly under the threat of having other factions have the command and yours gets rolled. So, there's more incentive to have it active.

Speaking of command, there needs to be more of a reason to actually...you know, lead. Currently, squad and platoon leaders get...nothing. There is no incentive. No pat on the back, no reward, nothing. And being a platoon leader is a real pain in the kiester, let me tell you. Herding cats that are distracted by shiny things while you're trying to even get a few minutes of the game that you're actually trying to play. A nightmare, sometimes. So it basically boils down to an act of love. I lead platoons so I could have people in my outfit have a good time and get something done but it burned me out heavily.

It doesn't need to be much. Give any platoon leader a small percent of any XP earned by his platoon in a hex he's in, in the realm of 1% or less. He gets a slice of the pie, which often goes untouched because any decent platoon leader is staring at the map often, trying to coordinate sundy placement or a whole host of other things. Further, any facility capture or defense XP earned by his squad leaders is given to the platoon leader too, regardless of his placement. Often you'll send squads to split objectives, so platoon leads would be still encouraged to split squads if need be to fulfill other objectives.

Basically, give us more tools so we can spread the populations ourselves.

And that is the reason that we had command XP in PS one and maybe reason why they should bring it back.

Oh, and to further expand that 'top command' role. While it would be limited, there could be a few to fill the role, in the realm of 1-3. Give them a special interface. They lose control of their soldier, get an updated map interface that feeds them ALL intel on any soldiers under their command. Meaning, spotted enemies, enemies on the minimap, etc. Could link with other commanders to share info, basically giving them a real time look at the entire map. Hard to keep track of, but they'd not have to render anything but the map, so it might be easier.

Their resource gain wouldn't be stopped but increased or tweaked. Instead of spending it themselves, they would be able to dole it out to any soldier in need, or in chunks. Have maximum resources? Give a whole squad or platoon a free tank at burning the entire thing. That sort of thing.

They could be the ones to generate missions. And give them, if anyone, the orbital strike. In the hands of so few, it would be a valuable tool. The cooldown would have to be global so someone couldn't simply cycle commanders to repeatedly strike. If there are three consoles to step into each could have a separate cooldown or the like.\

The first problem that springs to mind is some jerk getting the command and doing either nothing with it, trolling, or worse, being incompetent. I'm unsure how this was dealt with in PS1, so some illumination from that source would be appreciated. Perhaps a system of voting could be instituted? Anyone with the command rank could request a seat and it'd go to platoon leaders? Or if you outrank the other fellow it would weigh more heavily when you ask for a seat?

That would encourage the wrong thing, however...the elite. Rich getting richer, that sort of thing. But then, anyone wishing to ascend to that seat would simply have to lead squads and platoons. So they want to work their way up, earn it. Might work out. Wanna swing with the big boys, do the work, right?

Might finally get some use from BR, too. More BR, more command options, or benefits, perhaps...a wide world to taste.

Brining back command XP would not make people good commanders, I fail to see how it would really move away from the cacophony that is /orders.

And system that doesn't revolve around half descent commanders associations with their peers, and instead revolves around 'you have a zergfit, here's some stars and bars' or 'you've done random pubbie squad for x hours, here's some starts and bars' doesn't solve the problem. The number of times i've tried to organise on Millers /orders only to be shouted down by people taking a line similar to 'your not my mother, you don't tell me how to war' is uncountable. Command structures just don't work without enforcibility, which in PS2 just won't happen.

Descent organisation comes down to forming an alliance, and atm, getting a VIOP and organizing that.

Again, I contest as above. Its not just organisation, there are some fluidity issues with using troops as flying reserves due to the new (and very esoteric) respawn system, but the problem comes from the fact that there arn't enough systems to break up large concentrations of troops, especially infantry.

Resource revamp that, as I've argued for ages takes the logistics route, will as in real life give a larger force an Achilles heel, but (if we are using that argument) as in PS1, we need something that makes concentrating large forces in small areas, a currently unstoppable tactic, far more liabilities, on a moment by moment tactical basis.

have given and am giving a lot of thought to this, based on 1st hand experience and a lot of 2nd hand testimony, pretty confident by approach is worth exploration.

I cannot imagine a worse solution to the problem we both agree stands paramount of incompetent and disruptive people holding a command positon, than a popularity contest.

We really don't need it anyway, most Fraction alliances on the various servers allready more than fill the functional role your looking for. Prehaps intergrating fraction alliances more into the game so supra-outfit structures, but I again contest, the problem is OP is talking about, comes down to game mechanics as they are, and a lack of certain game mechanics that might counter it.

Having access to a hell load of vehicles

Just my opinion

Actually nothing will Motivated the ( organised Zergs ) like your fellow Ex outfits ( the enclave ) to spread the figths and create fair battles .... They create their own rules bases on their own goal outside the game environement

There is no need for motivation ,they want easy and fast win and Zerging procure just that , We need in game mechanics that Force players to spread the figths or restrict Zergs and punish them to create unfair figths , So they cant flood a figths already fully load of 50 % vs 50 %

Your TE outfit was a prime exemple of what curse this game ... I mean the enclave was perfect to ruins a fair figth and turn it into a 75 % tr versus 25 % nc crashing 1 to 3 platoon at once in the same region

You dont need motivation , you need in game mechanics that forces to spread the figths , Like Alerts based on capture and hold systhem ( king of the hills ) where specifics alerts dynamics objective as to be capture and hold all at once to make any progress , also having punishement in time capture bases on pops and spawn timers and Squad deploy/spawn becon timmer double or triple bases on pops


only these kinda YES limiting , mechanics will force player to spread the figths VS matherson want only one thing and its winning no matter how and the how is plain and simple its overloading a single regions with insane amount of players TE style , its infamous and yes Hyper efficient but it cant be conter properly and cant be avoided , Organised Zergs are infamous , brainless Zergs form at the warpgate and goes vanish after few hex/lattice

Organised zergs want one thing crush on a bases destroy/capture everything redeploy and massively crash on another bases overloading pops in any regions they are figthing on

Well the changes to resources in the manner of logistics, should give defenders per capita access to a lot more vehicles than numerical superior attackers in most situations.

thing is, as things stand, doesn't matter, all they need to do is swarm you with HA's. Nothing at the moment beats large concentrations of infantry, HE tanks come close, but we are still living in a world where vehicles are nerfed in regards to how they used to be.

And im not going to let up on artillery and carpet bombing as solutions. Let us not forget the old argument with community loves, If PS1 had it, its a good idea. PS1 had both.

I've only checked the first page of responses, so someone may have already covered this...

but I honestly believe that the first step towards solving this issue, namely encouraging players to not zerg, despite the considerable material benefits thereof, and instead encouraging them to create new battlefronts, requires identifying the several disparate mindsets of players you have in PS2

1 - players that want a strategic win - these are players that are less concerned about xp, and more concerned about watching their empire's control over a continent hold or gain - these are the "combined-arms-yay" fighters and so forth, and I count myself amongst them

2- players that are looking for xp - whatever their reason, cert farming, honest building up of character, or a personal impression that xp measures their definition of progress in the game, whatever...these players are looking for opportunities to score xp, thru kills and team support opportunities and so forth - theyr'e the ones most likely going to follow wherever the xp gains are going to be, or at least where they *perceive* xp is going to come from

3 - "BIG FIGHT YAY!" players - honestly not meant as demeaning, these are just players that find that they get the greatest entertainment out of participating in large scale battles - they don't care as much about the xp or resources - maybe they just like all the boom boom ratatat, maybe they really feel they make the biggest difference taking out a particular objective that moves the army towards capturing the zone in the middle of a frantic battlefield - whatever, these guys are looking for the BIGGEST battle experiences, and the biggest battle experiences are with the largest numbers of people, aka "the zerg"

4 - "GOOD FIGHT YAY!" players - these guys are *kinda* like the BIG FIGHT YAY players, but the fight doesn't *have* to be big. It just has to be active, skilled, and challenging - these guys are fine 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 6v6, 12v12, or bigger, so they'll be happy to go to a much larger range of places, but they're still looking for roughly equal (in numbers and skill, or with larger numbers and less skill) challenge, or harder (more number equal skill and beyond).

Now, you already have some incentives that cover #2 - xp for base captures, base defenses, underpopulation, alert wins and participations...

#1 - is mostly self-motivated (i.e. player motivated) as there really aren't any overall material benefits to the meta game, at least not currently - but there *could* be, and I think, as several people have mentioned, they lie primarily in rewards (xp, resource or possibly just tactical) given for squads participating near given orders. I *LOVE* battlefield games, and still hold them as some of the best examples of well designed fps's with strong tactical overtones, and one of the features I really *miss*, is that getting kills, support and taking objective *while* in close proximity to orders given by your commander gave bonus xp. The same could hold over for squad leaders and platoon leaders taking their squads to places where ARMY orders were given.

now, I know that the *range* of rewards need to be carefully managed, so that the game doesn't get flooded with certs and nobody has to buy station cash anymore...but these are keys to incentivizing group #1 - namely, giving squad members, squad leaders, platoon leaders and even army commanders, some material incentives for giving orders to particular locations and for people actually *going* to those locations to hold those objectives.

#3 - honestly, not much you can do directly for this group - they want big fights, and the biggest fights will be where the largest # of poeple will be - the only way to *move* them is to move wherever the biggest fights will be, OR...to give them some *other* sense of what makes a *big* fight. I don't really have a good answer for this one - requires a little more thought...

#4 - This is also hard to manage, but *might* be able to really play into the outfit/squad meta-game that we have going. Possibly allowing squads to *name* a territory as a position that they're going to fight in and hold (say, EXE claims *THE CROWN* as their area of operation) - that claim can now be pulled up on the map, everyone can see it, and everyone who wants a chance to take a shot at EXE knows where to go for the fight.

Now, I can imagine there are any number of griefing problems that might occur with this, so I'm more than happy to see what other people come up with, but, I'm thinking, in a very general way, you need *some* way of being able to communicate, across empires, which areas are being held by skilled players (or by players that *think* they're skilled* ) so that other *skilled* players can seek them out.

anyway, those are my thoughts to start with - take them for what you will

Ur right an orbital strike would be much better

The flip side of that coin was TR losing territory alerts because TE crammed a significant portion of the continent pop into one hex for an awesome 75/25 fight with crippling lag while other people just capped other hexes. Having huge numbers but always having them in the same hex is not fun for anyone and lost territory alerts.

TR seems to spread out more efficiently during territory alerts now compared to back then.

Would probably work pretty ok for facility alerts these days though.

I think actual on the ground artillery which would be powerful yet counterable would be perferable.

Thats not to say im against orbital strikes, I just think we'd get more of what we'd want whilst also adding to the tactical metagame of an individual battle, by including artillery positions as actual things that had to be managed to team work and skill (I was referring to the Flail) we'd add more to the game than just having the sky vomit lazors.

I also think gravity bombs on the gal, whilst only a loose translation of what PS1 had, would also work.

The issue comes down to concentrated amounts of infantry and tanks, being unstopable. Give an indirect way (thats still hard counterable) to deploy a large amount of HE in a short time frame on said position. Means thats not the swiss army knife of tactics.

there is NO flip side for organised Zergs , they will flip any regions as they wish , they Are basically a never ending Maxs crash Full of Fully certs HA NW resistshield / ZOe maxs with few medic engi ,Anywhere at any given time All they need is Few SL droping on zone and then Drop podding /beacon dropping on zone overloading the zone hack terminal and spawn sundy/ZOE maxs and they will flip anything in no time

Forget your side of the coin , there is one side of the coin here and its victory and no matter where they go they are victorious with insane numbers of players


They seams to not care about YOUR conception of the words ( FUN ) look at Yell chat on matherson VS side and youll understand they seams to be lease happy and very rewarded of their undeserved victory

they say We organised these massive crash , do the same and **** , but if we bring over 150 to 200 players as well on the same area it will end up in a 400 player match over some small outpost

Also the VS send some platoon the ( PRECAP bases ) enclave style while the bases is not even contested yet so they are basically ready to hack /detroy / capture anything as soon as the biggest zergs are done procuring the adjency Hex/lattice ... so as soon as the regular players back in the bases its already to late lol and they remain spawn trap and insanely outnumbers

IF they are loosing a facility , they call it , everyones redeploy and 1 minute later you have 3 to 5 platoon crash on a single objective taking everything back in few secondes or minutes by sheers numbers

Serious exp boosts for being hideously outnumbered.

Perhaps lower capture timers when outnumbered too.