Why are defense structures designed to be useless?

In my picture below you can see the basic tower split into three levels, green, blue and red.
Each level in a functional fortification would serve a specific function.
Green = a barrier to halt advancing ground assault
blue = assault level to attack ground units
Red = assault level to attack air units



Why are these towers useless?
Green = a deep recess under the tower with walls on either side - this allows the attackers a place to seek shelter and lob grenades into the higher levels.
blue = literally no defense, there are no walls, no parapets, no shields at all - this allows the attackers to snipe, barrage and jetpack into the tower with no hope of resistance from the defenders
Red = literally no defense again -this level is for Anti Air yet is completely open to be attacked from tanks as well as having no roof, top shield or rear shield for the Anti Air, so aircraft can hit the anti air from any blind spot or from straight above where the anti air cant aim.

These towers (and the base walls are essentially the same thing with no turrets) are so badly designed no part of the tower has an actual defense structure for the turrets or infantry.

They are basically reverse chokepoints where the defenders (if using the towers) actually corner themselves into an area where the attackers have a massive advantage.

Why is defense in this game so aggressively designed to be useless?

I would like the game makers to remove these towers and replace them with wooden boxes because they would actually provide defense.

I know.
Same reason Infra-Red has limited range and actually has LESS view distance at night than with your bare eyes.
Same reason Thermal has limited range and DOESN'T let you see through smoke.
Same reason they use FLAK in the far future on another planet with alien technology, flak rounds that are fired with such a low rate of fire to make a WW2 M60 seem like the better anti-air option, and where each round does so pitiful damage that a WW2 flak battery seems more potent. Not to mention that they have the projectile speed of an arrow shot from an english longbow.

Because the devs don't understand realism. It's not even about realism, it's about suspending the players disbelief, something they fail at in many aspects.
I can't believe the world i am in, if it has so many physical inconsistencies that make absolutely no logical sense from a military establishment point of view.

What army in their right mind would allow such bases to be designed?
And what cost-cutting fool would allow such pitiful disadvantageous IR / Thermal / Flak to be deployed against their mortal enemies, in a war that spans an entire PLANETS worth of resources and ALIEN ARTIFACTS. Worth more than anyone can possibly imagine.

Nah, you know. We can't afford the same IR or Thermal that they had back in 2001 on Earth.
Sure, cars back on Earth could use cheapest-supplier Infrared monitors to view a kilometer in the distance during pitch black nights to prevent car accidents. But come on man, car, future tank. Different. We couldn't possibly equip that kind of state of the art Toyota technology here, hundreds of years later. Come on, be reasonable.
We also can't manage to manufacture a flak battery with the same effectiveness as during WW2 on Earth, because u know, the Earthlings had such high technology back then, we can't possibly hope to replicate that effectiveness.

Alien technology with infinite energy and magnetic revolutions allowing a tank to hover on open ground?
Yeah sure, that's fine. But we can't possibly hope to replicate actual railguns that existed on Earth in 2010 that is capable of thousands of rounds per minute. (Check for Metalstorm on youtube)
You know, it would be impossible to find enough ammo for that.
Oh, nanites that can manufacture any vehicle from scratch? Yeah but, come on, vehicles, ammo, different things.

*sighs at the fail lore in this game*
I do still love the game more than any other shooter, it is just that.... It could be so much better. If they just took off the brakes and dared to be bold with it.
I don't want sissy WW2 flak cannons. It's the future. I want 1000 rounds per minute multi-barrel railguns that fill the sky with lead.
Why is real life more advanced than a sci-fi game?

One of two things happened. Possibly both, actually.

• They brought on a bunch of people who had no idea how to design defensible bases
• The designers were specifically instructed to leave the bases incredibly porous to avoid battles bogging down

Given the change they made to tech plants a while back, my inclination is to say the latter happened.

There really should be walls around the side, specially by the turrets so an engineer has a fair chance to repair them. Right now, a single tank can take out a single turret in a 1:1 fight. A tank also does more damage than an engineer can repair so the turrets are more like death traps than an actual defence feature.

The AA turrets are a bit too slow to track aircraft at close range. They are also hard to aim since their COF is freaking huge. They are hardly even a deterrent. I've been shooting at a moving liberator only to have it stop in mid air, bomb me to smithereens and then fly on like nothing happened. Not much of a deterrent if the pilots know they can always tank the damage. They also seems to lose in a 1:1 face of with an ESF with rocket pods which is just plain wrong.

As for the towers themselves. I don't mind LA being able to jump them since that's supposed to be their thing but the terrain is often so bad that even a HA can walk up the wall and assault it. I've even seen towers with the big stair facing away from the base...

Also, they really should colour code the jump pads so they only work for the team owning the base. Right now, they are more useful for enemy infiltrators than anything else.

The bases are quite horrible indeed. This is the defense doctrine of the future? Make the bases so indefensible that the enemy won't be able to hold them in the event of capture?

I really don't like the flow of this game. I'm happy I didn't invest any money in it. At the moment it's an aesthetically and gameplay-wise inferior BF2142 with very big maps and no victory condition.

Worst of all, scale doesn't matter. An arena deathmatch shooter is still an arena deathmatch shooter no matter how big the maps are.

walls actually provide more cover for attacking light infantry and snipers than for defenders.

The bases are designed so poorly from a defensive point of view because they are petrified that anything that requires even a modicum of strategy or effort will scare away all the ADD kiddies and their parents credit cards.

So we get instant gratification, even the fat slow kids get a winners medal and in return we lose any scope for strategy or skill being the deciding factor.

It might be as deep as a puddle but the kid with 10 thumbs and the IQ of a glass of water is happy.

Every base is just awful in design gameplay wise. The only exception are more of less Bio Lab and The Crown.
More infantry combat, no tanks, more or less no air.

Every other base is just tank and air, spam at the base which has no defensive walls or anything.
Just spam the hell out of the base and take it over.... no infantry needed.

The bigger bases like the picture are dumb for defense, LA can get on level 1 easy.
If you build a wall with turrets and you know the enemy has jetpacks wouldn't you make the wall higher?

What this game needs is major choke points at every bases so you have to advance to the next choke and in the end get the base.
Tank and air should not be able to get close to the base and spawn to avoid spamming.
The only base which has this is The Crown. If you battle there it feels good, offense and defense.
Also the spawn locations are almost next to the wall, so once the enemy enters the base its spawn camping time, the spawn should be inside the center building. The battles will be more fair and last longer.

I also love being shot THROUGH walls by tanks if I stand too close to the wall ^^

First thing I noticed from the start was the design of the bases.
They are obviously made this way to make it much easier to get into than a logically designed base.

Bunkers like that may work in Fantasy MMOs, but not in futuristic warfare....

That's exactly SOE's design plan. They want to support zerg play style because I guess they figure that large units will stick around longer if they can easily move from one base to another. It's almost like raid night in a MMO in a lot of ways. Move from one small installation to another until you get to a "boss" mob which would be a large installation except unlike raids you can just bypass anything that presents a challenge to you.

What's needed isn't just base redesign, but also more dynamic vehicle roles. Out in the open field, vehicles have an assaulting role. However, when getting close to a large base that role should shift to more of a support role. Best way to fix it is to add more cover for infantry and limit vehicle maneuverability inside bases as well as moving the spawns around so only infantry can reach them and increasing the number of spawns. That way, sunderers can move up inside the bases providing AMS. Meanwhile tanks are left outside laying siege to contain infantry inside the base instead of the spawn. Moving tanks inside the base should be almost suicidal without heavy infantry support. The cover prevents ESFs from effectively attacking infantry so they're left hunting vehicles, while AAA batteries defend the base from bombing runs.

Bases should be intense urban combat. Narrow streets, crossfire and the like with good cover for infantry. Assaulters focus on enemy infantry and AAA batteries as well as objectives and protecting the AMS Sunderers. Tanks can only move in single columns and are severely limited in mobility. Meanwhile, defenders focus on enemy infantry and armor while defending objectives and AAA batteries. Only when the interior is safe can you focus on the exterior forces. Likewise, the assaulters must first focus on the exterior defense with siege tactics before moving in.

That said, jump pads and holes in walls isn't the problem. Other games with vehicle combat have them and work fine with them. It's the poor spawn design, lack of good cover for infantry, high vehicle maneuverability inside bases and too much focus on a vehicle's assault role during base assaults that is the problem.

I build military fortifications as my employment, first in the military and now as a defence contractor.

You know that boring guy at parties who is a complete nerd about his job, well thats me. It bloody annoys me to see such ill thought out...or intentionally badly designed structures. Probally the same as any real-world proffesional picks points and declaims loudly when their specialist subject is abused in films or games.

No real-world base is ever constructed that a single point becomes a critical defence pivot ie...you take that point and the base effectively collapses. Towers ,or Sangers will be covered by the other sangers on the base in case they are compromised. A layered defence is built that allows you to fall back to another engagement line if they fall.

All CRITICAL STRUCTURES are contained within the perimeter..seriously, why build a sodding big wall only to put anti-matter trampolines outside the wire so you can jump over it...utter rubbish.

Dead ground is cleared around the base and covered by direct and indirect fire, to try to shelter up against a tower would just mean that the other towers would fire on you unhindered.

Yes it is a game, but a bit of bloody common sense let alone realism should see a major rethink on the layout and design of most ingame bases. If these are going to become choke points for battles....let them, then you can cater for both types of players, those that love hard fought seiges can man these bases....those that love zerging can bypass them and play pass the zerg at other ill thought out but easily zerged structures.

I would be happy with some sodding doors and sandbags to hide behind to be truthful..its not hard, you do not need nano-gloop/astral hamster built/ future materials....just a hessian bag, 5 shovels of sand and pat it down...bloody winds me up this game.

I'm sure the developers understand realism. What you don't understand is this isn't about realism. This isn't ARMA. This game is about fast-paced action. You shouldn't be able to turtle in an impenetrable fortress.

In real life, defenses are force multipliers. Defensible positions actually encourage zergs because you need more attackers to overtake entrenched positions; that's the entire point of entrenched positions.

The point of this game isn't to have bases which could work in the real world. It's to have fun and a good flow of action. If you want realism, go play ARMA and run around for twenty minutes only to get sniped from 900 clicks away. I have a good friend who runs a Wasteland server if you care to play there.

So let me get this straight, a person wants a game he likes to be believeable, to be able to actually immerse into the world he's playing in. You know, that whole 'massive battles on a massive scale' thing? And you tell him to 'go play arma' in a condescending manner. Yes, such arguments always hold so much weight, don't they.

There's being realistic and there's just completely disregarding the whole universe and its laws.

What's the point in playing a game like this if the vast majority of content was designed not with a balance of realism and gameplay but with shallow gameplay, and believeability as an afterthought?

Realism takes a backseat to gameplay. This is a game, and gameplay is key. This isn't a historically accurate film, book, or text book. It's a game.

The point of playing a game is to have fun. Defensible bases which allow you to turtle turn into unfun zergfests. If you want an immersive, realistic environment play a game like ARMA. That's what those games are therefore. Nevermind the fact that screaming immersion and realism in a game with jetpacks, hover tanks, and laser LMGs is silly.

The old tech plants were highly defensible. Attackers basically couldn't zerg them. the result was that attackers had to be more strategic to succeed (hold the roof/tower, organise attacks on all 5 entry points at once, use GSDs, etc). The result of that strategic attack is that defense also became more strategic - ensuring there was always tank mines in place where they were needed, making sure players always had appropriate numbers covering every point, etc. Then they put generators outside the place, and it just because another zerg base.

I like this game, but base design is terrible, and it's actively gotten worse since launch.

How is immersion in a game world different from the real world such a ridiculous concept to you? Have you never played a fantasy open world RPG? Or even a regular fantasy or sci-fi game? The point of immersion is to make the world believeable, to make it fun to play it in it. SOE spent a great deal creating this world, they even hired a writer specifically for it. Why they go and disregard everything they've built in such a manner is beyond me.

And why would you prefer open, undefensible bases to functional military installments that actually involve strategy in both attacking and defending? Both can boil down to zergfests, but only one of them is not about who has got the biggest zerg.

And really, if you want just pure arcade gameplay go play tetris.

Most bases seem designed specifically to allow attacking tanks to splash you with HE shells by providing nice backstops for their fire.