A new Hardcore Mode/Server thread.

[Rbstr]

As much as we love to hate on Bronzy he did hit on an idea that makes some sense.
The idea of servers that have differing mechanics might be a solution to the constant "I wants PS2 to be the same as it was" "No, it should incorporate modern fps accoutrements" back and forth bickering.

Those that love the old game as is can be on their "PS Classic" servers where it takes a month to blow up a tank.
While us heretics that want changes can play on "New PS" servers where random bullets from two continents over hit you in the head and you die!

[Bags]

I support nothing that segregates the community, besides servers localized for decent pings.

Also, less strawman; no one wants tanks to never die.

[Vancha]

Oh god no. No. Just no. No!

No...

[Crazyduckling]

I think there was more to that thread than hating on Bronze. No one liked the idea. That seems to be a consistent theme to his threads.

Splitting up the player base with multiple game types on different servers is a bad idea, especially when the goal is to have a thousand players per battle.

[WarChimp130]

I imagine localization of servers will dilute the pops enough, I do not want to add different types of play to that mix also. And they already said TTK's will be lowered anyways so unless you want to be able to solo a tank with a pistol, I think they got ya covered anyways.

I am strongly against anything that chops up populations and changes the game from Massive into Mini.

[SavageB]

No, just cause of the fact of pop reasons.

[xcel]

No! If you split the player-base then you destroy planetside! Plus all the new players that come to planetside 2 without ever playing planetside 1 will just pick your so called "new server" without even understanding what the difference is. Thus causing a server imbalance.

You're basically creating 2 different games.

[Desoxy]

Optimizing one set of game mechanics is challenging enough (if you don't settle for local minima).. so let us first focus on that, please! :)

And if the population really sky-rockets so much that more servers are necessary, at least let me access my long-time-levelled up character on each of them...

[Rbstr]

Also, less strawman; no one wants tanks to never die.

I was obviously being serious.

[Aractain]

No I want veterans in my server to kill me so I can get all mad and send them hate tells.

Then stalk them. Watch them. Wait. AND POUNCE! Take that AzK!! Err... I mean Ask anyone one - they would think that is a good idea.

[CutterJohn]

Its good idea. Half the people in EVE just want a PVE game, and hate the harsh pvp mechanics. The other half think all the PVP stuff is amazing. A third half prefers one or the other and deals with it.


I'm a fan of alternate ruleset servers. Why piss off all players with a compromise gameplay? Have a couple servers for major archetypes.

I concede it is easier to do with a lot of subscriptions. A game like wow or eq in its prime had no issues with splitting off alternate ruleset servers because they had to have many servers anyway. If PS somehow manages to acquire that level of popularity, then it would be fine.


I doubt the server populations will be enough to support many extra servers though. Instead I support the idea of alternate environment continents. Why have the same gameplay on all the maps? Bring in different, alien environments with very different properties and balances and available equipment.

[Goku]

How about no? lol. Massive waste of resources like I said in the other thread.

[CutterJohn]

Anything you don't approve of would be a massive waste of resources, it seems. If you highly disapproved of the planned gameplay, you'd likely sing a different tune.

And balance changes are pretty easy. Tweaking some numbers in a file. A slight waste of resources to hire an extra balance guy or two.

Its stupid to say no. The smart response is 'we need to see what populations will be like'. If(and obviously its a big if) populations are beyond the highest expectations, they'll probably need new servers anyway to support the populations. In which case things like this become reasonable and something the population can support, and a cost effective means to add new variety to the game.


I personally would highly support a 'to hell with rpg elements' server with zero leveling or certs. I'm just here for the fights, not character building. :)

[Goku]

You can think what you want of me. My opinion just so happens to be the opposite of yours. How about we just get one version of this game out first? Having multiple versions of a MMOFPS meant for huge battles with numerous servers in one region sounds like it will kill the population and leave people confused as to what kind of game PS2 even is.

You are wrong on balancing as well. It is one thing for ONE dev team to handle balancing one MMOFPS with three factions having empire specific weaponry on top of common pool. Then taking those weapons and tweaking them for several different versions of the game just adds way more testing to the game. That is a waste of resources. Hell one unique weapon may make sense for one version, but is impossible to apply to another. I just do not see this working. At least in the standard FPS you can actually switch between servers regardless of what kind it is.

[SKYeXile]

Its alot of extra development time to put in something like that i would think, i would not beleive its as simple as changing some TTK numbers, because that would totally change how the game is played(im aware thats the idea) but they're designing the game and the maps to be played a certain way, you alter kill times it will effect the flow of battle, you will see more camping and stalemates.

not to mention, this is an MMO, TTK's of under 1 second are not excactly friendly when you're hosting such a large number of players with varying pings.

[Bags]

Its alot of extra development time to put in something like that i would think, i would not beleive its as simple as changing some TTK numbers, because that would totally change how the game is played(im aware thats the idea) but they're designing the game and the maps to be played a certain way, you alter kill times it will effect the flow of battle, you will see more camping and stalemates.

not to mention, this is an MMO, TTK's of under 1 second are not excactly friendly when you're hosting such a large number of players with varying pings.

I'm tempted to get a bunch of people together in a tower, weaken everyone so they'll die in 1 - 2 MCG bullets, and have them get mowed down in a second or two by one MCG user to prove to people that COD TTK won't work, at this point.

[CutterJohn]

So just straight upping the damage by several hundred % while touching nothing else wouldn't work? Never would have figured that..

Theres a lot of places PS can improve ttks without bringing the bottom end lower. Yeah. HA had a 1s ish ttk at point blank range. And MA had a 20s ttk at 100 yards. One of these things can be greatly improved on without affecting the other.

[2coolforu]

Decreasing TTK's below a certain level devalues skill and values connection and latency. From experience of CoD Hardcore matches dying in 1 shot to nearly every gun means that camping is the only way and latency is king.

[Senyu]

The only way I would accept multiple servers is if the other had giant bobble heads, lunar gravity. And people dieing caused them to explode with confettie

[Malorn]

This is a silly thread, implying PS2 won't be hardcore, therefore we need a hardcore mode. Apart from that being utterly ridiculous, it splits the community and it splits the dev resources. Lame and unnecessary. This is bad. PS should be the vision of what the devs want it to be and that is it. If you want more hardcore too bad.

[SgtMAD]

a lot of these guys never played when the servers were busy and the fights were hardcore and all over the place.

they are going to be in for a huge shock when some of the old outfits return in full force but with all the inter-outfit bullshit already worked out unlike it was in PS where it took some time to find the right ppl that could work together and a lot of outfits never made it past the first month due to these sorts of problems.

this time around outfits will be pulling vehs and going after the enemy immediately at release and not have that large learning curve in the way

I can't wait to see the reaction

[headcrab13]

Negative, for two reasons:

1) It's hard enough to balance and add content to one game, and you'd essentially be developing two at once.

2) The community would eventually shift more to "New" or "Classic," destroying the opposite mode in the process.

-HC13

[CutterJohn]

Negative, for two reasons:

1) It's hard enough to balance and add content to one game, and you'd essentially be developing two at once.

More like 1.1 games, considering literally everything aside from stat files would be identical. Balance is not easy, but its also not a very labor intensive job. There are plenty of quite balanced mods out there that are mostly done by one or two people. Theres several people on this forum I'd feel confident could handle the task of reshaping the combat to a different dynamic.

2) The community would eventually shift more to "New" or "Classic," destroying the opposite mode in the process.

-HC13

So.. the community as a whole decides which they prefer, and thats supposed to strike one as a bad thing? That would be awesome.

[Goku]

a lot of these guys never played when the servers were busy and the fights were hardcore and all over the place.

they are going to be in for a huge shock when some of the old outfits return in full force but with all the inter-outfit bullshit already worked out unlike it was in PS where it took some time to find the right ppl that could work together and a lot of outfits never made it past the first month due to these sorts of problems.

this time around outfits will be pulling vehs and going after the enemy immediately at release and not have that large learning curve in the way

I can't wait to see the reaction

When exactly did you consider the servers busy? Just curious. I started in October of 2004 there was good population in my opinion back then. Though I always wondered even if there was good population I missed out on all the true grand fights PS had during its first year of release. If so I am psyched to see it in its glory even if I am WTF.

[Malorn]

Should put this into the idea forum and see what happens.

[Raymac]

Simply, no. Please.

If PS2 becomes the next WoW with millions of subscribers, then maybe we can start entertaining this idea. Until then, no.

[NCLynx]

I remember when Runescape did this, the people who wanted to continue playing Runescape Classic got left in the dust. Anything that would split population is a terrible idea. The only thing I can understand splitting population up is where the server is located US West/East Europe etc.

[Kurtz]

Anything that would split population is a terrible idea.

^^ that

[Dreamcast]

Planetside Community is thin last thing they want is split the community and not get epic battles lol.


Keep Planetside the same, this is WOW with pve or pvp servers, etc.......

[Miir]

I hope the combat model is vastly different to the current game. The dev's have already said it will be more fast paced and you'll be able to spawn on your squad outdoors. If it's not easier to kill vehicles and players this time around it would likely unbalance the game. So I favor a more hardcore type gameplay.

I'm not against the idea of having two server types. It would be a solution if there is a demand for the classic PS combat model. I just don't see the classic mode as what the majority of players would want these days.

But like others have said splitting the population (unless we are talking 100K+ players) is not the best course of action.

[headcrab13]

More like 1.1 games, considering literally everything aside from stat files would be identical. Balance is not easy, but its also not a very labor intensive job. There are plenty of quite balanced mods out there that are mostly done by one or two people. Theres several people on this forum I'd feel confident could handle the task of reshaping the combat to a different dynamic.

So.. the community as a whole decides which they prefer, and thats supposed to strike one as a bad thing? That would be awesome.

Nah it would definitely be two radically different games, and SOE doesn't exactly have the manpower for that. Maintaining separate stats is one thing, but you'd also have to squash twice as many bugs, and just think of the multitude of small changes that were made in each PS1 patch. With a "classic" mode, you'd almost double the work when patching, as well.

I see your point as far as balancing small mods, but PS1 has an immense number of facets to balance, and the butterfly effect generated by changing one single weapon's damage is a balance nightmare. There's no way you really think one or two guys could balance every aspect of PlanetSide in such a small timeframe.

As far as your comment about letting the community choose between "classic" and "new" servers, I think the devs and most of the community realize that it's time for PS to be overhauled. PS1 is amazing in it's own right, but we're ready for a completely new game that revisits the excellent "universe" of PlanetSide while simultaneously bringing so much more to the table. I am totally psyched about everything that the PS2 team has touched on thus far.

-HC13

[Logit]

:stoppost:

I wonder if it's possible to respond without actual arguments and use this sweet emoticons instead.

usually my babble is worth just as much anyway.

[Rbstr]

I think the devs and most of the community realize that it's time for PS to be overhauled. PS1 is amazing in it's own right, but we're ready for a completely new game that revisits the excellent "universe" of PlanetSide while simultaneously bringing so much more to the table. I am totally psyched about everything that the PS2 team has touched on thus far.

What forums have you been reading? Including/not including nearly every facet of potential combat mechanics has been argued over. Location-based damage is controversial on these forums!

(I agree with you about the direction things are going being good)

[Malorn]

Jetpacks are also controversial, for reasons that completely evade me. FFS they were on VS maxes...

[headcrab13]

What forums have you been reading? Including/not including nearly every facet of potential combat mechanics has been argued over. Location-based damage is controversial on these forums!

(I agree with you about the direction things are going being good)

Haha, yep, while there is certainly some heated debate on the forums, I think most people agree that sticking with a "classic" mode (same old TTK, stale gameplay, BFRs) is a bad idea. I was simply stating that it's good to see things moving forward ;)

-HC13

[CutterJohn]

but you'd also have to squash twice as many bugs

Literally the only thing that would need to be different are the weapon and vehicle stat files, which are trivial to alter.


I see your point as far as balancing small mods, but PS1 has an immense number of facets to balance, and the butterfly effect generated by changing one single weapon's damage is a balance nightmare. There's no way you really think one or two guys could balance every aspect of PlanetSide in such a small timeframe.


You realize that hardcore mode in bad company 2 is quite popular, and is an extremely simple set of changes. Damage is doubled, no reticle, no minimap. Thats all that is different from the base game. People still like it.


I'd bet you good money that you could take PS, double the damage of all weapons and halve the heal/hack/repair/respawn times, and some players brand new to the game would generally like it, and think the slow game is kinda crap. The balance they will prefer is the balance they are used to. Even if the relationships are imbalanced, they'll accept them to a degree because it is what it is.

[Soothsayer]

I would love for PS2 to be popular enough well into its release for something like this to be able to happen. I would probably play on the HC server. I'd be even more likely to play on it if my characters were mirrored between the servers. If there were large enough populations to maintain the truly massive element of PS2 then it would be great.

With a less optimistic opinion though, I doubt it would work or be a benefit to the unity of the community at launch.

There was talk in the dev panel about eventually merging all servers into a single shard server like EVE Online. If you had HC and non-HC servers that would be really difficult.

[Coreldan]

I would love for PS2 to be popular enough well into its release for something like this to be able to happen. I would probably play on the HC server. I'd be even more likely to play on it if my characters were mirrored between the servers. If there were large enough populations to maintain the truly massive element of PS2 then it would be great.

With a less optimistic opinion though, I doubt it would work or be a benefit to the unity of the community at launch.

There was talk in the dev panel about eventually merging all servers into a single shard server like EVE Online. If you had HC and non-HC servers that would be really difficult.

Hopefully they are smart enough to not do that. Point&click moved ships with autotargeted abilities in comparison to free movement with more dimensions and usually more people in the same place than in EVE, not to mention latency being a way bigger factor in an FPS game...

The idea could do nothing but fail :D Well, it's not too bad currently with just one server (playing from EU myself), but it would be a stupid decision as long as theres population for diff servers on diff continents.

[SKYeXile]

Literally the only thing that would need to be different are the weapon and vehicle stat files, which are trivial to alter.





You realize that hardcore mode in bad company 2 is quite popular, and is an extremely simple set of changes. Damage is doubled, no reticle, no minimap. Thats all that is different from the base game. People still like it.


I'd bet you good money that you could take PS, double the damage of all weapons and halve the heal/hack/repair/respawn times, and some players brand new to the game would generally like it, and think the slow game is kinda crap. The balance they will prefer is the balance they are used to. Even if the relationships are imbalanced, they'll accept them to a degree because it is what it is.

a face based game isnot all about TTK, look at Unreal and TF2 yea you can be instantgib and killed rather fast but most of the weapons require serveral shots. Its more about the runspeed and movment and also the gametype rather than TTK. you up the TTK in planetside, based around domination objectives all you will see is camping, and to counter that camping people will spam whatever does not need LOS to kill...eg maelstrom, thumpers, frags PLASMA or they will push in max suits so they're not instantgibbed when attempting to push into a lobby.

And like people say, hardcore isnot that skillful, it all does is mean you can spray and pray your 30 rounds, maybe hit one shot and kill something.

[LordReaver]

Seems like a lot of people have already forgotten that there used to be more than 1 server.

[Soothsayer]

Seems like a lot of people have already forgotten that there used to be more than 1 server.

True, but there were only three servers shortly after... then two... then one.

[psychosiszz]

If we have a hardcore server Perma death (1 life) and full loot have to be in. Also it should only take 1-2 bullets to kill another player.

[Goku]

Can anyone enlighten me on this whole perma death mechanic? I do not see how this would work in a FPS especially one with a hardcore mode. What are the chances of even leveling the char at all when you die from one bullet? If you die are you blocked from ever going back to the server? Sounds like a massive camp fest.

[cashfoyogash]

Hopefully they are smart enough to not do that. Point&click moved ships with autotargeted abilities in comparison to free movement with more dimensions and usually more people in the same place than in EVE, not to mention latency being a way bigger factor in an FPS game...

The idea could do nothing but fail :D Well, it's not too bad currently with just one server (playing from EU myself), but it would be a stupid decision as long as theres population for diff servers on diff continents.

You do realize EVE has had major lag and latency problems right? It has a lot of animations going on and actually demands a lot of performance from your computer. Plus alliance PVP battles are massive im talking hundreds of ships and POS stations and what not.

@ EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT CAMPING

How can anyone complain about camping in a game where your there to defend territory?? You do understand when you dig in and fortify a position to defend it you have to camp it. If you want a game that doesnt support camping PS2 will not be your game. I plan on holding my ground, finding some cover, and digging in or camping as you put it.

[Goku]

There is a huge difference camping a corner getting easy kills vs defending a base for tactical reasons.

[cashfoyogash]

There is a huge difference camping a corner getting easy kills vs defending a base for tactical reasons.

Did you know in real life warfare the corners are the most commonly camped area? It is why in MOUT they teach you to clear your corner when you first breach a room.

[Vecha]

I don't mind if it is added in later on...much later...when they see what Pops they have.

And they'd have to have pretty large Pops...Rather have as many players as possible on the three, four, five servers....then have two separate game types that split up the player base.

[Goku]

Did you know in real life warfare the corners are the most commonly camped area? It is why in MOUT they teach you to clear your corner when you first breach a room.

Obviously that is true. Though in gaming it can hurt game play to a large extent. I am playing a game, so I do not want everything to be like what it is in RL. Camping is just lame, slows down game play, and gets players mad.

[cashfoyogash]

I do see where you are coming from and sometimes I get too caught up in how things are in real life, but I am sure people do it in games for the same reason people do it in RL. Just safer. Although you could possibly use the RL counter to it and breach the room in the same way. Never really tried that though and it may be hard to get the timing right in a game as you need to breach fast and smooth.

[Goku]

Yes I know, but there is way to make camping the best way to get kills in a game. That is never implementing a game mechanic that makes it clearly the best way to get kills that makes everyone do it. In a 1 shot kill game even people who dread camping will be forced to do so to stay alive.

[Raymac]

I like campers in Planetside, because it's easy to get revenge since you know exactly where they are after you die. If you die to a camper in PS more than once, you probably deserve it.

[Bruttal]

I dont really like that idea i think that ps is ment to have factions for a reson if u want to shoot every one go play one of the other 100 fps games

[Rbstr]

EVE vs PS lag comparisons just don't make a heck of a lot of sense. EVE mostly has to worry about the inventory system and database throughput because weapons fire is simply an animation, but each bullet fired is an inventory item...and there's 6-8 guns on a battleship and upwards of several hundred of those on field at a time sometimes plus all the other junk.
PS has to calculate trajectories for guns but has no where near the inventory problems. It also has a hard upper limit on populations per continent. EVE will let you keep cramming people into a system until it fails.

I dont really like that idea i think that ps is ment to have factions for a reson if u want to shoot every one go play one of the other 100 fps games
Wat.
The only difference between the servers would be the amount of damage done by a bullet/missile/whatever, probably less HUD information and likely quicker spawn times.

Permadeath has nothing to do with it, free-for-all has nothing to do with it.

[MasterChief096]

It appears that everyone who is advocating different server types, faster TTK's, etc, did not play PS when there were multiple continents poplocked WITH smaller secondary fights happening. You didn't need near-instant kills in PlanetSide when there were hundreds in a battle, and now that there will be thousands, you even more so don't need near-instant kills.

IMO PlanetSide Classic's combat mode is the best one I've come across. Obviously it starts to fail when there are only 50 people online in the server, but that's because it was designed for hundreds.

I don't want different server types, if people want fast 1-2 hit kills, there are seriously hundreds of FPS options out there for you. PlanetSide didn't need different server types. And before you go into the, "But the game died didn't it?" argument, you need to realize that the game didn't die because of the way combat worked, it died because of bad implementation of new ideas.

Trust me, you will see how this all works when beta launches, with a possible thousand people in a fight, you are going to get kills and die so fast that you'll look back on this whole idea and thank god it wasn't happening any faster.

[Rbstr]

It appears that everyone who is advocating different server types, faster TTK's, etc, did not play PS when there were multiple continents poplocked WITH smaller secondary fights happening. You didn't need near-instant kills in PlanetSide when there were hundreds in a battle, and now that there will be thousands, you even more so don't need near-instant kills.

You are absolutely wrong. I played beta through 2005 plus my recent SOE-Hack free time.

you need to realize that the game didn't die because of the way combat worked, it died because of bad implementation of new ideas.

This can be argued over, but I didn't leave PS because of BFRs but mostly just forgot it because other shooters were simply blew past all of its mechanics save map size and player count.
Playing again, now, I can't stand how I have to lob 19 fucking missiles at a tank before it blows up, a guy with rexo can tank over 10 gauss bullets, no matter how meticulously aimed.
The reason I still love the game is the scale and premise, in spite of the particulars of the mechanics.