Why you don’t need to worry about PS2

[DviddLeff]

Reading these forums worries me, as the most vocal people seem to be saying that almost anything that changes PS1 is going to ruin the game, especially any changes that make it feel more like a standard FPS. In particular people are worried about:

class system
offline levelling
specialisation trees
loss of sanctuaries
jetpacks
lower time to kill overall
instant, one button knife kills
squad spawning
sprint
Head shots


I will address all these points in this post but first let me say this:
Every one of these changes and additions seems to have been implemented to make the game appeal to more people, thereby giving the game a larger audience which will in turn mean more money, more post release development and therefore a longer lifespan for the game.

First let me address the class system. People see the new class system as taking away one of the fundamental aspects of the game, stopping us from customising our load outs to allow us to be as effective as we were. This was a bad thing. Why? Take my outdoor load out which I have used in PS since 2003 and with it I was a medic, engineer, rifleman and AV soldier as well as a commander with various powerful tools at my disposal. That’s five roles, each one effective, each one a totally different aspect to the game. Now with the new class system I will be able to choose one of those (well, I imagine rifleman as well) each time I spawn or use an equipment terminal. This is a good thing as it encourages you to focus on a role and excel at it, in the process making it much easier for friendlies to identify who is the medic, who is the AV guy, etc. No longer will one man be able to do many things at any one time.

Offline levelling I initially thought was a terrible, terrible idea. However having experience constantly trickling in allows you to stop worrying about how to earn it most effectively. This means that there is little need to follow the zerg to the massive base fights and then milk the fight for experience, little need to whore kills in towers on a continent where you have low population. It also rewards those people who don’t get much experience because they are setting up defences (which may not be needed as the battle lines change) or those who protect uncontested base hacks just in case the enemy show up.

Specialisation in different roles I was again worried about, however again my fears have been somewhat allayed by the developers. This system allows you to customise your gear to suit the situation or your play style, tweaking the equipment in this way may give you a 20% accuracy enhancement, but as a trade-off other factors will be harmed such as damage or bullet velocity according to the devs. You see this system working very effectively in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 where the various unlockable specialisations are balanced against each other very well.

The loss of sanctuaries I complained about back when Smedley first mentioned it but now I see it as a good thing. Why? It speeds up getting into combat, and makes it a lot easier for new players to find a fight quickly. Sanctuary for most is an extra loading screen and wasted time when they just want to get into a fight and play. Yes it is very useful for raids to assemble in but with unconquerable bases on every continent there will be plenty of space to do this.

Jetpacks are something I suggested in my upgrade project as they will give players a whole new role to play in the game; that of fast assault. Jetpacks if done right will give the player more mobility in the new games more vertical environment, allowing them to use their speed to attack their more heavily armoured and probably armed opponents from unexpected angles. These troops must rely on this speed and surprise to survive as if they get into a drawn out face to face fight their low armour rating will mean they go down quick. Plus it gets the Tribes community an alternative if Tribes Universe sucks.

Lower time to kill is something I have been asking for since the Rexo buff. The Rexo buff near crippled low damage per shot weapons such as the pistols and MA rifles; they simply needed more shots to kill Rexo at any range. This meant that HA weapons had a much greater advantage at close range, still being able to kill in a little over a second yet the MA rifles needed 2-3 seconds of sustained fire to kill, which then left you with a near empty clip so the next guy you ran into took you down, while HA weapons could kill 2-3 people with a single clip and still have ammo left over. One thing that I simply do not understand is people who complain that lower TTK will remove tactics from the game; it will massively add to it as no longer will players be able to simply have the best weapon for the range and rely on it alone to get them kills. Skill and tactics will be the most important factor, skill because quick aiming becomes paramount and tactics as once you flank the enemy it will be easy to destroy them, not simply have them turn around and take you down anyway as they have HA and you don't.

The knife in Planetside was near useless for anyone but an infiltrator with melee booster. Knives should be a powerful weapon, but only if you are foolish enough to let the enemy get close enough. As long as we do not get the Modern Warfare warping attack from 20 feet away, and instead get the knife from Battlefield it will be fine. Lower TTK will also mean it is much harder for the enemy to get close to you to use the knife anyway. Also bear in mind that PS2 will have much bigger and less claustrophobic environments than even Battlefield, making it much less likely that you will get as close to the enemy before combat engages.

Squad spawning is something that will make the game much better for a lot of people who simply want to join up with their squad out in the field. It has been stated that it won’t work indoors, and people are saying that you will arrive via drop pod; so it’s just the same as jumping in the HART in the existing game.

I cannot believe people are complaining about sprinting… just because it is in a game you don’t like does not mean it does not belong in PS2; it allows you to cross open ground quickly to avoid enemy fire which is especially important with lower time to kill.

Many people are near enough wetting themselves with rage over the addition of head shots. People seem to have a few common concerns with the system:

Aimbots will ruin the game
Some kid will shoot 6 people in a row
A hundred people shooting at you at once someones bound to get a head shot
Any rapid fire, area of effect or shotgun will get a headshot instantly

To address these one at a time:

Aimbots will ruin the game. Just like COF hackers and speed hackers do now? No they don't, as a credit card is required to play the game. Even if the game does have a free to play element just get people to put down credit card details when they sign up; then just ban them and the card if they are caught hacking. Oh and not to mention PS2 will have a dedicated anti cheat system and active GMs come release at least.
Some kid will shoot 6 people in a row. So you are complaining about skill being a factor... wait what? Almost every FPS game of the past 15 years has had head shots, if you haven't learn to aim by now you never will.
A hundred people shooting at you at once someones bound to get a head shot. In that situation you made a poor tactical choice to stand in front of the entire enemy army; you will die whether there are head shots or not. In most fights you will have 3 or 4 people aiming at you at most unless you are the only target they can see, its up to you to take cover. If you get caught in a cross fire you have been flanked and deserve to die.
Any rapid fire, area of effect or shotgun will be more likely to get a head shot. Rapid fire means low damage, and no one has said its one hit kill on the head. Area of effect can be checked for once per explosion, if the heads hit then more damage, but again no need for one hit kill for all weapons. Shotguns individual pellets wont do much damage either, so again unlikely to kill.


Overall these changes should work well together, and if they do not we have beta to hopefully adjust things, and remember we don’t want a simple Planetside clone that effectively dies within a couple of years, we want a game that will still be going strong 8 years on.

[Elude]

I agree with everything you've mentioned except the knife, I think the knife should be removed, and bashing with your weapon should take its place.

[basti]

Agreeing with almost all, just no the knive.

Insta kill is bad. It should be just another weapon, not powerful enough to kill with one hit. Otherwise you will end up with cloakers farming people. Yes, infil is in, got confirmed during FF, they even where in the trailer. YOu just didnt see them. ;)

[SKYeXile]

Yea I was in the same boat with classes, off-line and leveling, after they gave us more details on it, it seems like less of an issue and features if don't right, could be a benefit, aslong as i can still wear my rexo, with HA have a medical and and bank to heal and repair myself, i think everybody will be happy. Planetside was built as a solo friendly and a team game, lets leep it that way, but also enhance the benefit of running with an proper medic in your squad.

I would still like the sanc, personally i dont have much of an issue with pressing M, seeing where a fight is, getting a reaver and flying there, infantry and ground users may.

If they have jetpack ingame, im sure that will shut everybody up about people bailing with agile on a tower when a rexo jetpacks up there.

The lower time to kill, well i think thats a tough cookie, you have your views, i dont agree with them, quick aiming or reflexes, sure some people have them some dont, i always thought it took more skill to aim in planetside that other game because you had to hit your target several times, rather than just spray and prey like in COD, especially in hardcore mode. lowering the time to kill would increase camping and make taking towers with the lack of zerg busting equipment quite a living hell, in planetside you can atleast now pop your head into a tower of lobby take a look, maybe throw a frag at somebody and runout, with a faster TTK it will likely mean that breaking those vital defence points without some sort of flash bangs or stun grenades or something will be difficult. and nodoubt a max push willbe needed to break those lobby or tower holds, MAXSide 2!...pass.

kinfe should not be quick or instant kill, like every other scifi shooter you should have to switch to it. we dont want infiltrators running around stealth, instant gibbing people. darklight is overpowered anyway and should not be in the next game. i dunno what game you have been playing though, but there is nothing open about a base in planetside. its way more enclosed that and battlefield map iv ever played.

squad spawning, well if its via heart, only outdoors i see it been fine aslong as there is a timer.

as for sprint...ITS CALLED SURGE!!!

[CutterJohn]

Offline levelling I initially thought was a terrible, terrible idea. However having experience constantly trickling in allows you to stop worrying about how to earn it most effectively. This means that there is little need to follow the zerg to the massive base fights and then milk the fight for experience, little need to whore kills in towers on a continent where you have low population. It also rewards those people who don’t get much experience because they are setting up defences (which may not be needed as the battle lines change) or those who protect uncontested base hacks just in case the enemy show up.

My only beef with the offline leveling is..

No cue. Have to log in once a day to set them up. Annoying. At least make it two or three days.

And you still need battlerank to unlock higher tier stuff/get cert points. And they said you will improve your training time by playing. Meaning.. The system won't work for its stated purpose, since you still need to grind bep, and can advance faster anyway.

No deal breaker, but I fear it will be just be an annoyance with no redeeming qualities.


The knife in Planetside was near useless for anyone but an infiltrator with melee booster. Knives should be a powerful weapon, but only if you are foolish enough to let the enemy get close enough. As long as we do not get the Modern Warfare warping attack from 20 feet away, and instead get the knife from Battlefield it will be fine. Lower TTK will also mean it is much harder for the enemy to get close to you to use the knife anyway. Also bear in mind that PS2 will have much bigger and less claustrophobic environments than even Battlefield, making it much less likely that you will get as close to the enemy before combat engages.

Not so much a fan of instakill knives just because knife kills, unless by surprise, are a long, bloody affair. And any way you look at it, a bullet is more damaging. I guess its just some hollywood ninjas are awesome and swords can fight bullets! bleeding into gaming.

I would be fine with a battlefield2 knife though. Its not my preference, but having to switch to it made it much more situational instead of an instant out panic button like the knives in BC2.

Halo had it right imo. Melee took several hits from the front. Back hits killed. The 'knife' was a fearsome thing that looked like it could do what was advertised.



But thats minor stuff really. The sky isn't falling. PS1 had a plethora of bad balance and poor ideas, and no small number of awesome ideas. PS2 will be different than PS1. I've no doubt some things will seriously annoy me(like increased asymmetry and 1 empire per server. :( ), but other things I will love.

[SKYeXile]

My only beef with the offline leveling is..

No cue. Have to log in once a day to set them up. Annoying. At least make it two or three days.

And you still need battlerank to unlock higher tier stuff/get cert points. And they said you will improve your training time by playing. Meaning.. The system won't work for its stated purpose, since you still need to grind bep, and can advance faster anyway.

No deal breaker, but I fear it will be just be an annoyance with no redeeming qualities.




yea its still early with this system we dont know much about it, im assuming though you can only put skillup into certs you have trained. and that those skill points cannot be refunded they're stuck there. lets say you get BR4 the first day, you buy your MA, Rexo and an ATV to get around.

Im not quite sure how the class system fits in here, but for the sake of argument we'll say you selected assault because you plan to skillup MA.

in the MA tree you would have access to:

Punisher
sweeper
ES MA
spiker

now im going to presume their are multiple levels of each of those, say at least 4 upgrade or mods you can get for each. the first 1 for each might take a day, the second perhaps 3, the third perhaps a week, the fourth, perhaps 3 weeks to get, so by just getting BR4 and picking up MA, you have acouple of months worth of options to go for there, but its stupid putting points into all of them you put a day into ES MA, login the next day and get BR8, you drop your rexo and pickup HA, which allows you to spend more skillpoints in other certs.

THAT IS MY INTERPRETATION OF THE SYSTEM, IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER THEORY OR KNOW REAL DETAILS I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR THEM.

Also they said their maybe a mobile app to spend points.

[Forsaken One]

If I have to deal with anything like Tribes that would be a dealer breaker for me. Planetside for me is no-little monkey movement. being able to jetpack+firing a weapon at the same time would count to me as monkey movement.

I hope there is something where everyone can group up in a big place. even if its a VR like place inside the foothold.

The one shot kill knife to me is good only when its under certain rules. Like you are trading your ability to use any ranged damage stuff for full Melee power. (aka if you are carrying the said kinfe you can't carry a gun of any type at all. you would spawn with the knife and won't even be able to pick up anyone elses guns.)

[Aractain]

The way they explain it, its rather impressive and actually an improvement over Planetside 1. Im actually excited. I like that Higby guy as well, good hair.

He said quick knife but is that actually a instant kill meele attack or is it just a one button basic meele attack?

Btw I think he undersold/valued the offline leveling thing in the panel vid I watched. Not needing to actively go out an earn XP all the time to advance means you can play the damn game rather than farm kills. Exactlly what I wanted! It also means crap players will still advance at a resonable rate which is important for player retention (assuming they will get the BR which will probably not be that hard?).

More edits: CutterJohn got it right, having to log in each day to setup a queue is going to be frustrating. Make it 3 - 7 days. There will be plenty of weekend warriors who don't want to log in every day just to maintain their character.

[Death2All]

So we shouldn't worry that a lot of the mechanics that made Planetside what it is aren't present in the game because you like them? Hmm.

I know they literally JUST unveiled all this info to us and the game is still in development but when you hear these drastic changes to the game you can't help but worry. We all love Planetside and want the second to be just as amazing if not better so of course we're going to criticize the things that dishearten us because they don't at all resemble Planetside.

PS has a really strong and passionate community. Everybody loves the game, although they'll openly bash it (and rightfully so at times.) they still love it deep down inside.

On the bright side however, SOE is notorious for making amazing games at launch and then fucking them up down the line...So I guess we have a year and half of great gameplay until it's inevitably fucked up down the line. So there's that!

[Rarntogo]

I dont have a problem with knives being more powerful. My favorite game before Planetside was Counterstrike. Knives were a good weapon but you had to get close. In my opinion it was the best deterrent to camping because it was embarrassing to get knifed. I loved knifing someone camping with an AWP while he was looking thru the scope, unaware of what was around him. Either way, knife or no knife. doesnt really matter all that much to me. If you can get close enough to an enemy to knife him you should be rewarded with a good kill. As for Infiltrators.... I can see your points but that has a simple solution. No knives available if you use an infi suit?

[Wakken]

About the knife... What about cloakers? Will we have people running around as a cloaker and knife everyone for lots of youtoobe views?

EDIT; got ninjad :P

would be kinda weird to me if we start baning certain items for different suits.

[xcel]

If they have jetpack ingame, im sure that will shut everybody up about people bailing with agile on a tower when a rexo jetpacks up there.

Keep in mind ....they said they were JUMP JETS not JET PACKS....there's a difference. I'm thinking like the storm jet pack trooper from Star Wars Battle Front 2 (if anyone has played it).
If the jet packs only have a short burst and don't sustain in the air for long, I would be fine with that.

[DviddLeff]

If I was implementing jet packs for agile suit only I would make it half the strength of the VS MAX suit; enough to get you onto a base wall or first storey of a tower, but that's it.

One hit kill knives and infiltrators are a problem, but it really depends how good the guy using the stealth suit is. If anyone played the Steam mod The Hidden, you had a invisible guy with a knife (and pipe bombs) against a handful of normal players... it was incredibly hard for the lone invisible guy to win.

[Bags]

You are wrong about the class system. They are just general guide lines, and you can cert whatever you want if Matt Higby is to be believed.

the cert system is really, really free-form. You can be as specialized or generalized as you want to be. If you want to put all your advancement time into Reavers you can do that, and you'll have a more maneuverable, durable and powerful vehicle with plenty of options for secondary weapons and fun gadgets. If you want to spread your certification across lots of different things and be more of a jack of all trades, go for it.

And I'd like to add this about squad spawning:

Squad spawning is really tricky to balance, no doubt. What we haven't talked about are things like the requirements to do it (needs a relatively advanced spec'd squad leader in your squad to use) and it will be on some kind of cooldown based on the squad leader. It's definitely not designed to be your primary respawn method.

We're definitely going to be making a huge push around Planetside 2, have no doubt.

But yes, as long as knife isn't OSOK, and TTK doesn't get as low as 2 - 3 bullets from every weapon I'm not terribly worried.

[IceyCold]

I agree with pretty much every point you made.

Just 2 things:

Knife-
Personally I like knife kills in a game, but in Planetside 2 this is something they REALLY need to be careful with. I would prefer an equipable knife that takes 2-3 hits to kill with, or maybe allow for back stabbing where you have to be directly behind the person in order to score an instant kill. Just my thoughts, but the Knife in Planetside wasn't that bad to me.

Low TTK-
I want LOWER TTK than Planetside 1, and I stated this often, but I don't want them too low. For instance, I would think that a guy in heavy armor being able to take 8-10 bullets before dieing from the average assault rifle isn't a big deal to me; it sounds pretty fair to be honest. But there is such a thing as TOO LOW; if you played WWIIOnline you know this. NOTHING is more infuriating to the average person than being killed instantly after walking 5 minutes.

[Aractain]

WWIIOnline dosn't have TTKs... just black screens.

But PLEASE can we take thier skill based anti-air combat into Planetside 2? PLEASE? OH HOW I WANT TO RIDE A SHILKA! IN PLANETSIDE!

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1027/717326425_5bc2ab5f1e.jpg

Agghem. Yes.

[IceyCold]

WWIIOnline dosn't have TTKs... just black screens.

But PLEASE can we take thier skill based anti-air combat into Planetside 2? PLEASE? OH HOW I WANT TO RIDE A SHILKA! IN PLANETSIDE!

Agghem. Yes.

No no, You... MIGHT survive a grazing wound...

Maybe...

[DviddLeff]

WWIIO is awesome... but travelling for 40 minutes to get to combat just to be wasted by an unseen foe is more than a little frustrating.

Still I did get into one good fight in the week I tried it out...

[Death2All]

I agree with pretty much every point you made.

Just 2 things:

Knife-
Personally I like knife kills in a game, but in Planetside 2 this is something they REALLY need to be careful with. I would prefer an equipable knife that takes 2-3 hits to kill with, or maybe allow for back stabbing where you have to be directly behind the person in order to score an instant kill. Just my thoughts, but the Knife in Planetside wasn't that bad to me.

Low TTK-
I want LOWER TTK than Planetside 1, and I stated this often, but I don't want them too low. For instance, I would think that a guy in heavy armor being able to take 8-10 bullets before dieing from the average assault rifle isn't a big deal to me; it sounds pretty fair to be honest. But there is such a thing as TOO LOW; if you played WWIIOnline you know this. NOTHING is more infuriating to the average person than being killed instantly after walking 5 minutes.

Um, no. No backstabbing in PS2. Backstabbing (and all instant killing for that matter) encourages people to throw their life away just so they can get one easy kill. Everygame I've encountered that had a backstab option always ended up being frustrating. Whether it was Assassins in Monday Night Combat who all they had to do was run up behind you and right click you to win or the Spy in TF2 (which is a slightly more balanced version of the backstab, but still frustratating) that will run up behind you and backstab you for the cheap kill and then instantly die.

They did an event for Halloween I believe one year where they made knives a one hit kill for about a week. It was the most infuriating week of PS I've ever had. No to one hit kills, including headshots in PS2.



As for Lower TTK I'll also have to disagree. As Exile said many times, a longer TTK always showed more skill because you had so consecutively shoot your opponent and maintain accuracy to win rather than spray 2 shots and get the kill like you can do in every other game out there nowadays.

Shooters need to stop being dumbed now and rewarding players for spraying everywhere because 2 out of their amazingly accurate assault rifle with an extended clip of 50 just happened to hit someone. It's stupid. All that does is add a luck factor into the game and that is idiotic.

[Bags]

TF2's backstab is only frustrating because it is beyond buggy.

[Warruz]

"10 - I think you'll find that the base game is pretty open in what it lets you explore, the time you put in will be to specialize down those paths. Right now there's no plan to allow for recert."

This is what concerns me

[Sifer2]

If I was implementing jet packs for agile suit only I would make it half the strength of the VS MAX suit; enough to get you onto a base wall or first storey of a tower, but that's it.

One hit kill knives and infiltrators are a problem, but it really depends how good the guy using the stealth suit is. If anyone played the Steam mod The Hidden, you had a invisible guy with a knife (and pipe bombs) against a handful of normal players... it was incredibly hard for the lone invisible guy to win.


Not really a good comparison since the Hidden was round based an the six guys knew there was a cloaker after them and were hunting him. I'n Planetside obviously there are plenty of distractions to help the cloaker out. You will die to them about as often as you get backstabbed by a Spy in TF2. But more annoying because of slower respawn.


Also the problem I have with lower time to kill would be that the scale of the game may not fit it. In Battlefield for example the maximum number of guys that might be shooting at you is 32. In Planetside that is far far higher. With low time to kill you will die really often just from random fire an not know why. Pushing through camped choke points will be a nightmare. An Medics will be fairly useless. Even more so if squad respawn is fast.

[Redshift]

In Battlefield for example the maximum number of guys that might be shooting at you is 32. In Planetside that is far far higher. With low time to kill you will die really often just from random fire an not know why. Pushing through camped choke points will be a nightmare. An Medics will be fairly useless. Even more so if squad respawn is fast.

That's what i'm thinking too, you can currently get pasted before you know whats happened in a choke point as is, if they lower the ttk any more choke points will be impassable

[Redshift]

Also 1 shot knives is redonkulous, knives are hard to use in PS1 and thats good, 1 shot would be abused

and agiles with jumpjets sounds fantastic, they'll only be carrying MA anyway, just adds another dimension to base defenses

[Hamma]

Well said in your original post DviddLeff.

I think it's very important to realize this is PlanetSide 2, not 1. And we don't want a reskin of PlanetSide 1 or at least I don't. This was something that was beat to death in the Tribes community everyone always wanted 1 with reskinned graphics.

[wolfkrone]

Reading these forums worries me, as the most vocal people seem to be saying that almost anything that changes PS1 is going to ruin the game, especially any changes that make it feel more like a standard FPS. In particular people are worried about:

class system
offline levelling
specialisation trees
loss of sanctuaries
jetpacks
lower time to kill overall
instant, one button knife kills
squad spawning
sprint


I will address all these points in this post but first let me say this:
Every one of these changes and additions seems to have been implemented to make the game appeal to more people, thereby giving the game a larger audience which will in turn mean more money, more post release development and therefore a longer lifespan for the game.

First let me address the class system. People see the new class system as taking away one of the fundamental aspects of the game, stopping us from customising our load outs to allow us to be as effective as we were. This was a bad thing. Why? Take my outdoor load out which I have used in PS since 2003 and with it I was a medic, engineer, rifleman and AV soldier as well as a commander with various powerful tools at my disposal. That’s five roles, each one effective, each one a totally different aspect to the game. Now with the new class system I will be able to choose one of those (well, I imagine rifleman as well) each time I spawn or use an equipment terminal. This is a good thing as it encourages you to focus on a role and excel at it, in the process making it much easier for friendlies to identify who is the medic, who is the AV guy, etc. No longer will one man be able to do many things at any one time.

Offline levelling I initially thought was a terrible, terrible idea. However having experience constantly trickling in allows you to stop worrying about how to earn it most effectively. This means that there is little need to follow the zerg to the massive base fights and then milk the fight for experience, little need to whore kills in towers on a continent where you have low population. It also rewards those people who don’t get much experience because they are setting up defences (which may not be needed as the battle lines change) or those who protect uncontested base hacks just in case the enemy show up.

Specialisation in different roles I was again worried about, however again my fears have been somewhat allayed by the developers. This system allows you to customise your gear to suit the situation or your play style, tweaking the equipment in this way may give you a 20% accuracy enhancement, but as a trade-off other factors will be harmed such as damage or bullet velocity according to the devs. You see this system working very effectively in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 where the various unlockable specialisations are balanced against each other very well.

The loss of sanctuaries I complained about back when Smedley first mentioned it but now I see it as a good thing. Why? It speeds up getting into combat, and makes it a lot easier for new players to find a fight quickly. Sanctuary for most is an extra loading screen and wasted time when they just want to get into a fight and play. Yes it is very useful for raids to assemble in but with unconquerable bases on every continent there will be plenty of space to do this.

Jetpacks are something I suggested in my upgrade project as they will give players a whole new role to play in the game; that of fast assault. Jetpacks if done right will give the player more mobility in the new games more vertical environment, allowing them to use their speed to attack their more heavily armoured and probably armed opponents from unexpected angles. These troops must rely on this speed and surprise to survive as if they get into a drawn out face to face fight their low armour rating will mean they go down quick. Plus it gets the Tribes community an alternative if Tribes Universe sucks.

Lower time to kill is something I have been asking for since the Rexo buff. The Rexo buff near crippled low damage per shot weapons such as the pistols and MA rifles; they simply needed more shots to kill Rexo at any range. This meant that HA weapons had a much greater advantage at close range, still being able to kill in a little over a second yet the MA rifles needed 2-3 seconds of sustained fire to kill, which then left you with a near empty clip so the next guy you ran into took you down, while HA weapons could kill 2-3 people with a single clip and still have ammo left over. One thing that I simply do not understand is people who complain that lower TTK will remove tactics from the game; it will massively add to it as no longer will players be able to simply have the best weapon for the range and rely on it alone to get them kills. Skill and tactics will be the most important factor, skill because quick aiming becomes paramount and tactics as once you flank the enemy it will be easy to destroy them, not simply have them turn around and take you down anyway as they have HA and you don't.

The knife in Planetside was near useless for anyone but an infiltrator with melee booster. Knives should be a powerful weapon, but only if you are foolish enough to let the enemy get close enough. As long as we do not get the Modern Warfare warping attack from 20 feet away, and instead get the knife from Battlefield it will be fine. Lower TTK will also mean it is much harder for the enemy to get close to you to use the knife anyway. Also bear in mind that PS2 will have much bigger and less claustrophobic environments than even Battlefield, making it much less likely that you will get as close to the enemy before combat engages.

Squad spawning is something that will make the game much better for a lot of people who simply want to join up with their squad out in the field. It has been stated that it won’t work indoors, and people are saying that you will arrive via drop pod; so it’s just the same as jumping in the HART in the existing game.

I cannot believe people are complaining about sprinting… just because it is in a game you don’t like does not mean it does not belong in PS2; it allows you to cross open ground quickly to avoid enemy fire which is especially important with lower time to kill.

Overall these changes should work well together, and if they do not we have beta to hopefully adjust things, and remember we don’t want a simple Planetside clone that effectively dies within a couple of years, we want a game that will still be going strong 8 years on.


You might be right, you might be wrong but I'm too excited about the game to let any of these things bother me anyway.

[DviddLeff]

Head shots
Many people are near enough wetting themselves with rage over the addition of head shots. People seem to have a few common concerns with the system:

Aimbots will ruin the game
Some kid will shoot 6 people in a row
A hundred people shooting at you at once someones bound to get a head shot
Any rapid fire, area of effect or shotgun will get a headshot instantly

To address these one at a time:

Aimbots will ruin the game. Just like COF hackers and speed hackers do now? No they don't, as a credit card is required to play the game. Even if the game does have a free to play element just get people to put down credit card details when they sign up; then just ban them and the card if they are caught hacking. Oh and not to mention PS2 will have a dedicated anti cheat system and active GMs come release at least.
Some kid will shoot 6 people in a row. So you are complaining about skill being a factor... wait what? Almost every FPS game of the past 15 years has had head shots, if you haven't learn to aim by now you never will.
A hundred people shooting at you at once someones bound to get a head shot. In that situation you made a poor tactical choice to stand in front of the entire enemy army; you will die whether there are head shots or not. In most fights you will have 3 or 4 people aiming at you at most unless you are the only target they can see, its up to you to take cover. If you get caught in a cross fire you have been flanked and deserve to die.
Any rapid fire, area of effect or shotgun will be more likely to get a head shot. Rapid fire means low damage, and no one has said its one hit kill on the head. Area of effect can be checked for once per explosion, if the heads hit then more damage, but again no need for one hit kill for all weapons. Shotguns individual pellets wont do much damage either, so again unlikely to kill.


Added to first post.

[Logit]

Reading these forums worries me, as the most vocal people seem to be saying that almost anything that changes PS1 is going to ruin the game, especially any changes that make it feel more like a standard FPS. In particular people are worried about:


Planetside isn't a standard FPS. Which is why it was awesome.

[Manitou]

Planetside isn't a standard FPS. Which is why it was awesome.
Also, PlanetSide 2 isn't PlanetSide - it is a re-imaging. In other words, a new game.

[Logit]

Also, PlanetSide 2 isn't PlanetSide - it is a re-imaging. In other words, a new game.

Than they should call it Planetside:Battlefield Edition

Clearly they did something right with the original

Alot of the changes they are making work in standard FPS' because the battles are on a small scale.

Head shots with 1000s of people? Sounds pretty lame to me.

[Rbstr]

Clearly they did something right with the original

Clearly they did many things wrong or the game would have more than a token number of subscribers today.

PS for me was never about the specific mechanics...which many people find to suck rather bad...but the scale, persistence, and potential you get when an FPS game is no longer fragmented over a billion server instances.

[DviddLeff]

Exactly Rbstr, exactly.

PS is not about not having sprint, head shots, low TTK, etc, its about massive battles, tactics and strategy. PS did something wrong fundamentally and the sub par combat mechanics, the meat and feel of the game, are probably it. It had the massive scale which on its own appealed to many, and its those players that are left still playing 8 years on because they cannot get that anywhere else.

Over the past 5, 10, 20 years the FPS has evolved into the games we seeing released now and for PS2 to be successful it must look at "standard" FPS games and use those same features, but add the massive aspect that makes PS unique.

Logit, why do head shots sound lame just because the populations are bigger, what reason are you basing that on?

[Forsaken One]

Over the past 5, 10, 20 years the FPS has evolved into the games we seeing released now

maybe one or two things have evolved. but most have devolved to cater to the ever growing amount of stupid people in the world.

this pretty much talks about the type of people most gaming caters to now. YouTube - ***x202a;Dee Dee Dee song (Official Music Video)***x202c;‏

watch it. be enlightened.

[DviddLeff]

Half the people in the world have a lower than average IQ :p

Who's to say that they shouldn't be able to play games? It means that games are more accessible and engaging, and that's surely a good thing for an MMO.

[Malorn]

My only beef with the offline leveling is..

No cue. Have to log in once a day to set them up. Annoying. At least make it two or three days.


There is a queue, and it's 24 hours just like EVE online. And like EVE you can make it last beyond 24 hours by putting a long-training cert at the end of your queue.

For example, fill 20-23 hours of the queue with cheap fast skills, and then throw a 1-2 day long skill at the end of that queue. So you still have the next 24 hours planned but the end of it is a long skill that will take a day (or weeks) to finish. You can do that everytime you play to make the most of the queue system.

It worked out very well in EVE online so I'm not worried about the skill queuing being an issue. It will also help to have data exports that Smed mentioned in one of the Q&A's. If they have a system like EVE where you can export your character's data a phone app can read it and show how your skill training is going so you know if you need to log in and change it or not.

It used to be a major pain in the ass with EVE but once they had the phone apps & the 24 hour queue it was quite reasonable and easy to manage for days/weeks at a time.

[Dragoneye]

Well spoken.

As an old Planetside player/fan, I'm actually pretty impressed with the model they've put forward so far, and I am very happy with the idea of making post-release development more transparent than it was before.

Honestly, I couldn't count the number of times back in Planetside's prime that we saw requests for things like headshots come through Discussions/Suggestions, so I can't imagine that most Planetside vets are really shocked/offended by the idea.

PS: Heya Dvidd :D

[DviddLeff]

Dragoneye!

Get back to Auraxis, Vindies are having somewhat of a revival!

And be sure to stop by our forums and say hi :)

[Malorn]

I don't quite get the fear around adding modern FPS features to PS.

I do get the concern that the pacing change will affect the game in a negative way. If lethality increases and speed of returning to the fight doesn't increase by a very significant margin we'll be in bad shape.

I'm a little concerned that the BF games and what not have a good pacing because the respawn is never very far away, medics res'ing is quick, and there's always squad-spawning (on any member). Those aren't all true in planetside so my biggest concern is not being able to get back to a fight and having the actual engagements happen so fast you can get knifed, shot, etc and die before you knew what hit you and end up spawning a long ways away.

The only significant means by which this could be prevented is by having a lot more hard spawn points on the map, shortcutting the typical respawn time and time to re-acquire gear and vehicles. Or by having a lot more frequent spawn-on-squad mechanics and faster transportation from spawn room to vehicle terminal.

It's entirely a logistical issue.

* Time to get from respawn to being in a vehicle on your way
* Time to get from respawn to being fully geared and ready to go
* Time between spawn point and the front.

Unless there's some serious router-like mechanics or a ton more spawn points I have a hard time believing the combat pace can be upped AND we can have rapid return to the action. If there were a lot more respawn points it'd just be that much harder to ever fully conquer a territory.

Spawning already geared seems like an obvious shortcut and would be necessary for spawn-on-squad to work. In the bases, we could have little one-way elevator /teleporter or something that takes the player straight up from the respawn tube to the vehicle terminal area. Or the bases could be like Tech plants with underground vehicle terminals. Perhaps players can remotely queue up a vehicle for construction using a terminal away from the actual pad and then pick up the vehicle at a designated parking stall? Just some rough ideas on how to speed up getting vehicles back to the fight and respawn in general.

If it were slower you could take a few hits and have time to react, saving you the run-back where in a higher lethality world you'd simply be dead. Same goes for anyone who would res you.

I'm still having a hard time seeing how they're going to fix the problem of getting out to a territory and fighting, especially fi they are simultaneously upping the lethality of weapons. That means it'll be easier and faster to die, and more likely that any medics that could res you will also die.

Think i'm just rambling now, but I think you get the point if you read this far.

[Rbstr]

That's certainly right, to some extent. No need for respawn timers to hit 25 seconds. Increased # of mobile spawn points with help a tremendous amount. At the same time, easier deaths without incredibly easy spawning also makes people more cautious and makes them value each individual life more. The extreme end is SWG's original Jedi mechanic or EVE's permenent loss opposite is TF2 and other arena games. Gotta find a place in the middle.

I think they're working on balancing that, with squad spawning and galaxy spawns for example.
More potential points about which you can balance is a good thing. It adds to the potential for player customization and allows very fine tuning to the balance. You can make a single weapon do more, or less damage on a single hitbox if you've got the dedication.

[DviddLeff]

The clarification Higby provided regarding head shots shows that they are making the game much more adjustable than the first; back then a Mosquito and Harasser gun both did the same damage, and any changes to one would change the other.

Now we can have an individual gun which can have different damage values depending on the hit box, which will allow the developers to adjust it at any point. Yet another reason to not worry about head shots.