Topic: Wall Balance and You
Now due to a few recent events i am now going to have type a full post with supporting details on my iphone due to being out of town. please excuse any errors outside of my normal horrible writing skillz.
"Persistent Sandbox Universe" - A quote from the front page
I am beginning to wonder if we should add to the tail end of this "We pick your shovel size and set digging limits!"
The Principle
Walling, a player or faction in the games current state can wall with 2 philosophies behind there build plan and nothing more. These philosophies are quite simple and as followed, "Walling FOR PvP" as to invite and welcome it or "Walling AGAINST PvP". These simple yet staple principles when walling are the only two methods these structures have been used. However before I or anyone else can mount a logical argument around them i felt it was key to take note of these two principles used by any player ever considering laying walls.
What do walls achieve?
Walling FOR PvP- Walls allow you to funnel enamies in to terrain you find more suitible to other, numerious tactical advantages to sculpting player paths and traffic through means such as switchbacks, FoF (Fields of Fire), Travel distance to key location and much more.
Walling AGAINST PvP- Walls allow players to mitigate the ammount of pvp they recieve through layering and ample sense of alaram as well as a FALSE sense of security. Thus less active scouting.
Where walls have been over used: A Review
Forgive my bluntness but i feel it is a must in the current situation.
Lets Review the 3 following islands first- Kentagura, Norhoop, and Alsbale.
Kentagura walls- This island was overwalled due to excited players playing with a new feature (Thus wall Decay) these players are also no longer active on beta and never truely were "Active" on beta.
Norhoop walls- Due to a deteriorating player base and quickly becoming a minority in "Blob" race this island was sealed off at all teleporters to allow free internal island movement if the routes were known and a nightmare for any outside force that attempted to attack un-scouted. This is a example of walling AGAINST PvP as there goal here was to prevent roamers from attacking ill-prepared players and inexperianced players attempting to make a go at beta (Morte). A portion of there great walling can also be attributed to Chaos's dwindling active player base and a need for securing there beta island for the remaining players to be able to safely use there island for logistical and industrial purposes. The bulk of these walls will soon disapear due to decay.
Alsbale walls- Here is a special case of "Walling AGAINST PvP" as there is a real motive behind there use of walls and quite frankly NEED for walls in there current state. Alsbale is currently the most populated island and outside of STC also the youngest and most in-experianced beta players in the game. They have walled off and sealed most of the back terrain routes to there bases and sufficiently probed the island for ample alarm of any enamies trying to move in the back country to remove any non-combats and mobilize some defence force to investigate. They also walled in there core mining spots and made attempts at creating "Tactical" walls to help assist in there pvp.
From these 3 island examples we can see the A) over excited walls will be gone from Decay the B) Not enough players- Walls will soon fall to decay as no active residents and C) New player over the top defense is still standing and the route cause for a large majority of QQ.
How to COUNTER walls for Dummies:
1) Scout ahead of time a islands walls and determine there main routes to there terminals(EVERYONE has to have a way to get from Alpha to Beta - Now you know where to go freely, that was hard! With this counter you can now plant sufficient logg off traps as all traffic is now funneled and easily monitored by a single player from afar. You can also plan speed hit and run roams to get in and burn through these defences before a proper reacting force can respond and your gone.
2) The Planned roam- Going to a island a day or couple hours ahead of time and neuting a probe so there alarms are no longer effective and allow free movement by for the next 24 hours or until noticed (never noticed) you have free passage yahhhhhh!
3) Ghosting- Run a full masked fleet! Yes expensive and requires lots of EP
4) The smart way- Fit a Masked bot with a target painter, walk up to any walled in probe and commence painting. Congratulations your entire mech fleet may now lock and engage a probe outside of detection range and blow through any walls/probes from a safe distance.
5) blunt force- Using angles/mobs/probes/players/bombs and simply blasting your way through walls
Apply this to Alsbale where 9/10 probes are behind/In the wall you now have a GIANT HOLE and are undetected.
Why walls are awesome?
Because people are idiots and think they make them safe. Honestly they are the best thing for PvP i have seen in a long time. Players have stopped SCOUTING GATES < you are no longer detected upon entering... you only have to be smarter than your average ape and not be spotted by a probe to freely move and gank on a island as you please. People are walling them selves in under a false idea of security and are under a lower level of awareness and have basically disarmed them selves.
Player Element- For you Dev's
Go ahead and change walls again because the player element has not had time to adapt and adjust to the new feature properly. Great example of this before was the ERP nerfs after the first needed one, it was nerfed due to players in-ability to hold there fire while a target was being neutralized for using reactive builds designed for taking on mindless waves of idiots blindly firing at anything that moves on beta. Really? is it that hard to hold your fire while someone is neuting? no it isnt but we still see things nerfed because players arn't able to adapt.
Players fitting guns and going 'I WANT PPPVVVPPP" should only be able to get so far before not thinking outside of the box gets them bit.
To the Players
This is now being repeated because players who are no longer beta active and have much much MORE pvp experiance are unable to adapt and learn how to counter a simple object on the field.... Dude you cant out think a wall or probe? seriously it can only see like 500m....... thats a joke a trail on gate see's EVERYTHING a L10 detector skilled light bot with a T4 detector and 5% from outpost buff can see over HALF the island. and your complaining about 500m? or a blocked passage no one is watching?
Yes keep voting for this new crap that will bring back full gate scouts and instant in-active islands the second you jump in.
You cant blame the most active players who are NEW to pvp for doing everything in there power to stay on BETA and alive with virtually the WHOLE server attacking them on a constant bases as there are no other populated betas aside from 2-3 maybe hiding in the hills here or there ninjaing
Personal Notes
Seriously? you claim no pvp because a island has time to dock up non-combats and field what combats they can and judge a enemy force if they can engage or not? PvP= PLAYER VS PLAYER not Player vs no-gun indy toon.
You want miners or free kills you gotta work for it baby... you want a fight jump in blast the front door off and shoot anything that moves, it will come. Ask omen he knows full well ill walk on his island and just walk up to his outpost for a fight. I get no pleasure in squashing 5 with 20 or a Rivler. I do get pleasure from whipping a mining fleet and watching the rage, but that takes effort and finese not just blindly running around island with a TEEEE 4 SPEED NEXXXUSSSS. You all want to QQ lets focus on addressing real balance issue with PvP and focus on other things then attaining easier kills.
TL:DR- Stop balancing because a bunch of grumpy old men cant figure out how to adapt to change and work around somthing. Free kills take work, getting a fight doesnt. This was painful on a iphone
P.S. there go all my free kills from my planned roams when i get back in town
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle