This game can't come out fast enough. This is my personal answer to WoW, and ESO won't be different enough, IMO. 40k + action MMO = dream come true. However, two things that bugged me about Planetside are the following: Players just formed rolling zergs and opposing players did nothing to stop them. There were 3 continents when I played and each faction just took each continent as theirs, rolling all the bases in it with minimal resistance. Clearly players gave up and learned that maximizing their point/xp/credit gain was just joining into the zerg and capping undefended bases. IE the path of least resistance. How can you possibly prevent that? There will always be the outfits that WANT to fight the battles and don't mind going against the rolling zerg... but most just want to accumulate points to "level" their character. Will you have faction NPCs, say computer controlled guardsmen controlling Imperium Stations to slow down any attack for PCs to at least have some time to join the defense?
Step one would be making fortresses something that can actually be defended. That was one of my biggest gripes with PS2, there really aren't that many bases that are designed to be defensible, and the ones that are are like that because of the terrain around them, not the layout of the actual fortifications. The smaller bases... well, you really shouldn't even bother, their more shooting galleries than actual facilities.
Well, this game goes for a more strategic view of the conflict, as things look ATM. 1)There's the playerbase voted council, so that there's a overall strategy for the faction, not just zergs going around grinding XP... 2)There are the regulators (The NPC Tyranids)... 3) As shown in the alpha preview video, bases are defendable (the one shown in the video has chokepoints, battlements and all the nice stuff to make it defendable). 4) NPC garrisons is an idea proposed sometimes in the past, but there is not a official response to it yet, as far as I know, and it is too early for one to be asked.
Which is defensible because it sits on a mountain. If you took the same fortress and popped it somewhere more level, then there wouldn't be a point in defending it because the enemy can just jetpack in and lay C4 everywhere. ... Or at least I think you're talking about that one fortress on the original continent. It's been a really long time since I played.
We don't know how spawning or other mechanics will work yet but Planetside tries to combat this problem with the 'Jump into the battle' button or whatever it's called. Essentially it shows you where there is active fighting on the map and lets you spawn there. A system similar to Planetsides Lattice Lines may help consolidate the fighting. It essentially forces a front line by prevent a base capture unless you already own a connecting base This stops lone wolves from 'back capping' and gives people a general idea of where the fighting will be. Some people argue that the Lattice Lines take away from the large scale strategy though so perhaps instead of preventing 'back capping' all together, they could just increase the time it takes to capture so that a base deep behind enemy lines will take 5x longer to capture. You could also allow the faction leaders (player council?) to assign missions or areas of operation that provide significant xp boosts for combat in that area. This will give players the incentive to follow orders and fight as a team.
Zerging will always be present in huge pvp games like this. People just love to gather together and run around mindlessly. I have yet to play any game of this sort that doesn't have zerging. The interesting question will be if you can still have fun on the factions that are getting zerged? The devs spoke a bit about having a lot more missions than Planetside did and that the goals of the factions will be to accomplish these various missions rather than conquer the entire planet or whatever like you want to do in Planetside. So the hopes are, I assume, that even if an enemy faction is rolling around in an unstoppable zerg you'll be able to get together with your friends and avoid the enemy zerg-blob and achieve certain tasks anyway like sabotaging a control unit behind enemy lines or capturing a base before the enemy gets there or holding a tower/fort for a specific time against the onslaught and actually get rewarded for such actions unlike Planetside where capturing/defending a base meant nothing at all etc. They've also spoken about the Tyranids, the NPC faction which will work as a balance factor in the game. Planetside had no such thing as the Tyranids. So the more powerful factions will have to deal with more Tyranids as well and this is supposed to even the playing field for the out-zerged factions. I assume the Tyranids will help break the dominant factions supply lines and halt their resources, forcing a lot of their players to go deal with the Tyranids and giving the outnumbered factions an opportunity to make a push while the dominant faction is split up etc. It'll be very interesting to see how the devs go about this because it's a pretty important issue
Also, something else to consider, this game will have 4 factions ( at least) as apposed to just the 3. So that could make for some much more interesting conflicts. And if you think about it (depending on server pop sizes) that could help prevent larger zergs from forming as the overall player pop is divided amongst more factions. (Hopefully anyway lol). I'm seriously intrigued to see how the Tyranid will function. Hopefully they'll have some events related to tyranid spawns and what not. Be interesting to be rolling up to a battlefront then BAM Tyranids in the way!!! Damn tyranids... always messin' up everything.
True But what about afk zergers we need a timer for these things so if their is like and afk zerg holding off the cap so we can't get that base
I'd hope that most of the "afking" is more due to just how long it can take to cap some of those bases. Which overall in the mechanics of the game I think is a necessary evil. Base caps that go to quickly don't give the defenders much of a chance. As far as just general "afk farming", that's an issue in any online game. I suppose mechanically it's a matter of how much leeway do you want to give players for being idle? Say you're at a safe spot in a base that's capping and you want to grab a sandwich. Do you get a minute? 5 minutes? What realistically constitutes "AFKing" or just waiting for the event to wrap up? Either way, "true" afker's annoy me. Why "play" the game if you aren't even going to play it?
