I agree that closed-world 32 player matches are a good place to start testing the game. Better than underpopulated open-world sandbox, where 70% of the stuff is not ready yet...

Very good point, but it is still not clear how they would implement the loosing condition for the attackers in an open-world environment. If it is a timer, when does the timer start and what exactly happens when the timer ends?

The missile launch scenario sounds convincing: you capture the base or you get bombed. This explains the time limit and also what happens when attackers lose. But this means that the defending faction are the ones who trigger the fight, not the attackers. The attackers are forced to try and capture the base to avoid the bombardment!

But what if a faction leaders decide to go and attack some fortress for no apparent reason (e.g. 'cause da boss said so, you gitz! ), will there be timer too?

+1 to this

Mostly agree with your assessment and theories Joram. It's still a little early for me to judge this method but with a very basic outline I think it's a rational approach and not outside what I've been fortunate enough to experience with Alpha/Beta tests before. I honestly think the 'win conditions' are mostly there to make the game enjoyable for us to keep the testing rolling, rather than having a straight up team DM. Could be wrong. Q&A thread is up atm, it's worth asking about imo.

Anyway, you have Nathan expressly saying in the 3HG interview that they're planning to test both the core architecture of the game mechanics (reason from 21:58) AND additionally the social systems like squad-finder and guild tools (plus he & Brent talked about testing comms systems during ItW twitch this week). That's a lot more complex than just testing the swing radius or damage balance of the classes.

@BikerTroll can attest to how effective melee classes are in the current pre-Alpha build btw.

I dont really know what you mean here. The long fights almost always means that the forces are equal and to me being in a fair fight is a lot of fun. Even better if we are slightly outnumbered the fighting is glorious. Planetside is a fighting game, Eternal Crusade is going to be kind of a similar fighting game. I hope you arent disappointed.

I want some back and forth, not just 100 people ducking behind cover shooting anyone that tries to move... I'm ok being stucked in the entrance of a fortress because the defenders are outplaying me not because of bad game and level design.

I have a feeling thats what they will start with, and then slowly up the limit till Founders Beta (Closed Beta).
At that point when we are in the actual Founders Beta im positive we will be having hundred player battles.

And then when open beta starts we will probably be testing if their vision of a thousand player battle was a pipe dream or something that Patrick and the team can actually do.

Well Joram again from the pre alpha i played in the small (us)6v8(devs) i can tell you this. Assault marine make the game not become PS2 by a huge scale, I mean yes it was smaller so seeing it work in the end with more defenders is gonna be interesting. But one good assault squad can literally mess the shit out of the stalker bolters and lascannons that try and hide in the background, thus making the middle troops turn around to help the back line and leaving the front group by themselves. Im excited in melee will play a huge role in the game and will help make the game in action instead of just 50 guys staring at eachother spraying bullets at whatever moves 100m from them. Now from what i can see the devs doing now is trying to avoid the bad maps that will restrict the assault movements to certain paths that enemies can guard without worries. and slaughter anyone trying to flank from there.

Hmm war leader ... Summon the devs !

Yup, I agree that in small numbers jump pack melee classes (fuck eldar ) can turn the balance of a fight, but I'm not convinced it will be the same once you multiply the number of players by 5 or 10, I don't think that assaults can get even close to a wall if it's defended by several squads of devastators and tactical marines...

It's the math though mate: You're not a Stormboy/Raptor/SW/ASM trying to solo 5-10 defenders. 5-10 defenders should take around 5-10 coordinated attackers to crack, and no party is playing the game smart if they don't use a blended squad makeup.

Flanking tactics, grenades, suppression and sniping have always been go-to when purging dug in defenses, but it's typically in the defenders favour of course. I think airborne shock troops are only going to add another tool in the arsenal.

But that thinking is close minded. If the one side has a bunch of people standing around gunning the assault in the air, Where da fuk are the assaults teamates?If enemy is focused in the air, ground will advance, if they are focused in the ground, Strike from the Heavens now ofc if the assault are coming in head first its gunna be stupid but when i played, I let the tacticals and the apoth lead the charge get the enemy full attention and i was able to go around walls and flank them all the time. or kill the 1 guy in my way. With backpak i was able to kinda parkour the walls with the jetpak using one wall to backflip on the last burst to get me over, Epic style on the last wall ^^, Yes on a large scale means more enemies around the base and i dealt with it, but there was 1 or 2 of them in the path i was taking and i got them out of the way. even if you multiple the defense there and the assault marines there its still make good flanking options