Avulsion posted:

The solution to zergs isn't to make it mechanically difficult for zergs to accomplish objectives because that will just encourage bigger zergs to bruteforce the obstacle. Instead SOE needs to encourage players to break off on their own and go to smaller fights. Some ideas:

1) Population bonuses based on hex population, not continent pop. If you have 33% of the pop in a hex you get double xp, 50% pop = 100% xp, 66% and higher gets half the normal xp. In a 33/33/33 fight, everyone gets double xp. The population calculation should be based on the total population of the hex + all adjacent hexes (even those not connected by lattice links) so people don't get screwed for having a big battle on the border between two hexes. The bonus should also be on a slight time delay, perhaps an average of the last 3 minutes or so, so attackers don't get screwed when the defenders redeploy en masse 10 seconds before the base flips.

2) No flat xp payout for flipping a base, this just encourages bad players to hang around watching a timer count down so they can collect their 4 certs/hr. Instead, when you gain xp in a contested hex (if the capture bar is visible) a percentage of that xp is placed in a bank. If your team gains control of the base, the accumulated xp is given to you, regardless of where you are when the base finally flips. If your team loses the base or the enemy manages to resecure it for 1-2 minutes, your bonus xp is lost. Players who just show up and do jack poo poo get paid accordingly.

3) Killing people with vehicle weapons should give less xp than killing them with an infantry weapon. Farming infantry with HE is not challenging and should not pay as well (actually better due to streak bonuses) as killing people in a "fair" (ha) fight. Likewise killing a vehicle while you are on foot should give you a bonus. Same with MAX suits. This would hopefully curb the abuse of "force multipliers" in large battles and motivate people to get out of their vanguards and walk towards the control point.

4) Xp rewards for squad/platoon leaders based on how much xp their followers are getting, even while they are looking at a map or arguing on command chat. This would drive leaders to look for more active fights and it will encourage more people to lead actual organized squads instead of just following whatever open squad they fall into when they hit insert.

5) Faster spawning at under popped bases. If a squadless pubbie dies in a fight and sees that they can spawn 3 seconds faster on the other side of the continent, they're less likely to hang around staring at a spawn shield. This would also give the outnumbered faction a slight advantage by allowing them to replace losses faster than their opponents.

6) Allow long range redeploys to any base that is linked to an enemy hex if both bases combined have less than 2-3 allied squads in them, regardless of pop percentages. Maybe adjust the numbers according to the size of the base.

7) Intermediate bases. Things like the urban area around the old old Esamir Munitions Corp and that ghost town north of Howling pass add flavor and strategic variety to the game. These would be groups of buildings in between bases and contain useful things in them like infantry consoles, vehicle pads, hackable ammo towers and maybe a few turrets. No spawn rooms and no control points, just a place with lots of cover and a good location that allows whoever controls it to easily attack the next base. Imagine Indar Ex/Quartz Ridge with a small city between them instead of one building in the middle of a killing field.

edit: reorganized things.

o muerte posted:

Public Service Announcement

The Angry Joe Army appears to be playing in force today

quote:

Avulsion posted:

As an addendum to Idea #1, the deploy screen should show the xp bonus for available spawn points, and should have an option to sort spawns according to the xp bonus.

Segmentation Fault posted:

Valkyrie's on PTS.

BadLlama posted:

The xp awarded for killing a dude in a MAX should be 4-5 times higher than what it is right now in my opinion.

Blasmeister posted:

In that vein, you should get XP bonuses for killing poo poo with grenades/C4

Blasmeister posted:

In that vein, you should get XP bonuses for killing poo poo with grenades/C4

Arghy posted:

The solution to hell zergs harkens back to PS1's complicated bases and SNA/bio labs. A hellzerg will not take those bases if theres a semi competent number of defenders because it needs discipline for the attackers.

kidRiot posted:

Base design is huge, but it wasn't the only solution to zergs in PS1. IN PS1 there were a ton of ways to manipulate zergs via Tower holds, dropping bases behind lattice, removing benefits, etc.

With the way the continent game was setup in PS1 you could drive the enemy or even friendly zerg around any way you wished, as long as you had a competent Platoon behind you.

Fast forward to Planetside 2 and there's minimal ways to redirect the flow of the zerg. The major influence on zergs in PS2 is through denying Sunderers and making GBS threads on them so hard with a strong vehicle counter-attack or holding a point so tightly while killing their spawns that you break their backs.

It's incredibly difficult to do but it's highly rewarding from a David vs Goliath perspective.

When you look at the PS2 map the bases are just too close to each other. With the introduction of a more complete resource system (Nanite crystals or whatever, ANTS) and the potential for non-base objectives you may see a more varied approach to combined arms in Planetside 2. Zergs won't go away. I actually think zergs are an integral part of Planetside. They form quasi-fronts that you either deal with directly or indirectly. The average player exists, in this case, within the zerg to help define outfits that refuse to take part in any serious way. "Elite" or "top-tier" outfits would be vastly different if there was no zerg mentality in Planetside.

Xae posted:

They've managed to break jetpacks even worse with the last hotfix.

Previously sometimes they wouldn't start when you jump.

Now they also cut out randomly mid jump.

Gonkish posted:

ATTN: Tartan: The coin camo is either British, or Canadian funny money coins: http://imgur.com/a/QAQIn

BlueDestiny posted:

I'm just wondering what the rumble seat dudes will be doing since they'll be facing away from whatever the nosegunner is trying to shoot at.

BadLlama posted:

Can the rumble seat people toss C4 out of the plane? Engineers with max C4 capacity, nothing will be safe.

Segmentation Fault posted:

I'm unsure if I want to go with the rocket launcher or the minigun for the Valkyrie. Rocket launcher is incredibly versatile and has more range than the minigun, which matters a lot on an aircraft, but the minigun apparently has a shitload of power behind it.

Lassitude posted:

the bricks will stick to the valkyrie itself and you'll end up killing your plane.

Tempest_56 posted:

Do we know if the Valk uses the Liberator or ESF damage resist models? (IE is it vulnerable to small arms? I expect not, but you never know with SOE.)