Do you like BR40?

[Bags]

Since most people arguing with me seem to be under the impression that myself and anyone who shares my views are in love with BR40, I'd like to see how true this actually is (for the record I don't like BR40). So I ask you, do you like BR40 (infinite certs) and do would you be interested in an equivalent form of it existing in PS2?

[Malorn]

By BR40, are you referring to having all certs or having 40 battle ranks?

[Bags]

Having all certs. Sorry, I thought that was fairly obvious.

[Kalbuth]

How can you like something which destroys the whole point of having BR and customized, role-defined character? :)

[Aractain]

The equivelent of BR40 in PS2 would be having 5 different classes stacked upon each other.

Srcew BR40 I had everything i really needed before BR10. Med, Eng, Guns and AV. Now I can do everything important. So to solve that problem its either give you nothing or draw hard lines between the core groups.

[wildcat140679]

Somewhere along the path of advancing and having your avatar become better, I start loosing interest on using them. Its not just with planetside, but also with other games. There is a turning point some where, where my avatars advances to such a skill level and unlocks abilities or powers that the game play shifts from being a challenging, to longer being challenge for me.

For me with planetside this was somewhere around the time I got my second implant and I've created several avatars simple to relive that challenge again, the handicaps of being limited by your abilities. I had a maxed out battle rank of 20 and when the battle rank caps got extended higher, I never felt the urge to play and pushed them to a higher rank.

I might be a rare breed or have an odd way of thinking, who gets his kicks from the lower Battle Ranks instead feeling the need to max out everything.

[Crator]

The equivelent of BR40 in PS2 would be having 5 different classes stacked upon each other.

This is how it should be. No, you shouldn't be able to cert everything like you could with BR40 in PS1. I don't think PS2 will be like that anyways because they are doing more defined roles and load-outs this time around.

[WarChimp130]

I like the idea of more intense role based training personally. I don't like the idea of being able to have everything in the game or be the best at everything in the game. Keep in mind certing will be different, so it won't be as simple as dumping 3 points into this or 2 points into that. If you want to get the best stuff and be the best at it, it sounds like you are going to need to focus your training.

I'm sure as time goes on people will have the time to train some sub-specialties but I also hope that as time goes on they open up higher and higher training levels that give you cool new abilities.

[Quovatis]

I like BR40 because I have it. I'm going to miss being able to do whatever I want in PS2. That being said, I think BR40 was a stupid idea and should not be in PS1 or PS2.

[CutterJohn]

I see nothing wrong with players having access to all tools and abilities. I think PS1 was inadequately balanced with this in mind by making infantry inventories too large(or tools/ammo too small, either way). Oh, and CE proliferation since it would stay up regardless of what you were doing.

The vehicle game was certainly never hurt by too much access.

[WarChimp130]

I just like the idea of more focus'd game play. Of course on a basic level people should be able to do some other things, but I think the game should reward people who focus into an area more than people who spread their points all over the place to be jacks of all trades. If somebody wants to really devote to being a top notch engy or medic or pilot or whatever, they should be able to access things other people just won't ever get access to. That should be their reward for their commitment to their craft.

[Logit]

Stupid ideas are stupid.

It was a ploy to get people to stay subbed longer to suck more $$ out of the player base.

It most definitely will not be in the sequel.

[basti]

I like BR40 because I have it. I'm going to miss being able to do whatever I want in PS2. That being said, I think BR40 was a stupid idea and should not be in PS1 or PS2.

And heres the thing: You will still be able to do everything, just not at the same time. You wont be able to be a sniper medic engi HA rexo guy, just one of those at any given time, but you could just die and switch.

[Hamma]

BR40 was bad.

[DOUBLEXBAUGH]

Based on the information we have gotten so far PS2 sorta has BR40. While you wont be able to carry everything at once, you have access to everything. Stay close to an equipment term and you can just switch your role instantly. Its been said that the early stages of each cert tree will be short training timers, so if you just do the basics of them all and don't specialize you wont get all the flashy benefits (which Higby said are more sidegrades than improvements) but you can do it all.

You can lay some mines until some enemy air shows up and then switch to you AA Max. When they bail out, switch to a grunt class or AI Max. Zerg shows up, grab your SA class with a thumper and spam your way to victory (or grief lock). Its already been shown that the 20% increase you get from maxing out something isn't really that much of an improvement. So with what we know so far, it seems to me making your self a jack of all trades is the best way to go. Then once you have everything baseline, you can start focusing on maxing for your preferred role.

[Crator]

Um, where did you read that it says what you will get if you just train "a little" in each cert tree? I haven't seen anything about the cert tree at all yet.

[Graywolves]

I voted for BR40 because I don't know.

I don't think it matters in PS2. From what it sounds, even if there is a BR40 it won't effect gameplay much since everyone is forced into one chaste at a time.

[Erendil]

Based on the information we have gotten so far PS2 sorta has BR40. While you wont be able to carry everything at once, you have access to everything. Stay close to an equipment term and you can just switch your role instantly. Its been said that the early stages of each cert tree will be short training timers, so if you just do the basics of them all and don't specialize you wont get all the flashy benefits (which Higby said are more sidegrades than improvements) but you can do it all.

You can lay some mines until some enemy air shows up and then switch to you AA Max. When they bail out, switch to a grunt class or AI Max. Zerg shows up, grab your SA class with a thumper and spam your way to victory (or grief lock). Its already been shown that the 20% increase you get from maxing out something isn't really that much of an improvement. So with what we know so far, it seems to me making your self a jack of all trades is the best way to go. Then once you have everything baseline, you can start focusing on maxing for your preferred role.

This is what I was thinking as well. Sure, you may not get that fancy Pulsar with a scope, double-sized mag, flash suppressor, laser sight, and tactical light. But you will still get to use a baseline pulsar. You just can't fulfill multiple roles at once like PS1's BR40's can.

My only real concern with this is how much of the playerbase will refuse to push forward and instead simply turn into "term-huggers" so they can keep swapping out to different classes as they see fit.

More on topic, I don't like the concept of "BR40" either. When I got BR40 it took much of the challenge out of the game since I now always have access to the best option available for a given situation. I no longer have to worry about a charge of 3-4 enemies because I can just pull a quasar and mop up all 4 of them. I can now pull all types of air where b4 I just had mossie. I can now CE/upgrade a base to hell where before I just had basic Engie and pain field boosting.

The extra power u get from BR40 is too much.

[Death2All]

I hate BR 40, personally.

However, this late in the game it's nice to be able to do whatever you want. This game isn't going be balanced or patched in the future and if an individual invests that much time into the game in this stage of it's life you should be rewarded. Essentially, this game is completely trashed so you might as well have access to everything to hold you over in the meantime.


So I guess in a way I like BR 40 (in this stage of the game) but I would not like to see an equivalent in PS2.

[Chaff]

I stopped worrying about it before I got to BR30. Never gave myself the luxury of playing as a BR40. I went the other way and made at least 4 or 5 toons in TR & VS. It helped me fight the BOREDOM-factor that this game gave me after the first year of playing.

I think capping it at BR30 would have been fine. Just because a LOT of people don't like something is no reason to kill something (well, not in this case). Most of us did not have the time, or the willingness to devote the time. So what ? Someone who chose to do so is great. Let people define themselves in the game. I don't understand why people are SOOOOOOO against it ..... but (far as I know) , I had left BEFORE BR40s came on the scene. How many were there anyway ? Was it enough to matter or change the game balance ? If the POP had stayed high, I doubt a few BR40s would have made a difference.

For my personality, spending the time to hit BR30 on ONE toon was TOO TEDIOUS. I did put in PLENTY of hours to get all my toons between BR18 and BR25 ? (don't remember anymore).

I'd vote to cap BR at 30, but make it take YEARS to reach. Then, it's an ego thing that will appeal to very few players.

I wonder if a significant portion of the players against BR40 are against it simply because they're jealous of those few guys obsessed with that goal enough to get to BR40. That's my assumption.
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[Rokazulu]

BR40 was just implemented to have players stay in the game.

I'm sure that's why it won't be in PS2.

[Mezorin]

The idea that one guy "could do it all" infantry wise is just a terrible game design to begin with. Planetside to me was at its best when you (and everyone else) were restricted to roles via scarcity of cert points, and each guy in the squad had his own unique load out and job. You actually needed to bring a varied group of people with you in a base assault, rather than it being a legion of near identical HA/AV/Adv Medic/Engineer/hacker/aircav assault super soldier clones mass grown in vats.

A modern Battlefield game style certing system that lets you eventually get everything, but you can only carry one 'class' of stuff with you at one time is the best way to keep the game balanced, and I agree with the devs on the new direction the PS2 class system will take.

[DOUBLEXBAUGH]

Um, where did you read that it says what you will get if you just train "a little" in each cert tree? I haven't seen anything about the cert tree at all yet.

I never said what you get, I was just pointing out everyone can do everything like BR40. You can pull all that stuff, just not at once, just like BR40s in PS1. So if you stay close to an equipment term you will always have access to the right tool for the job.

My reasoning behind suggesting a little into everything being better is that its been said the earlier certs in a tree will take less time to train. Also Higby said a lot of them are more like a side grade, in that they are more trade offs then straight increases. So while one player spends all their time working on getting all the possible attachments for their MA rifle, player 2 can get a few basic upgrade/sidegrades for everything.

EX. say the time to train increased like this - first cert in a tree takes 3 hours, next one take 7 hours, next takes a 14, 4th takes a full day.

So while it will take someone 2 days to make it 4 certs deep in a tree, someone else can get all the baseline stuff for 16 different things. Why specialize in something that is only good for a few situations when you can make everything else a little better, so no matter the situation you have something decent to use.

[Crator]

^^^ I understand that but what makes you think you'll be able to train in all the base certs without limiting yourself to something that is really desired as your main training cert tree course. I'm just saying, we don't know yet how it will be with the cert tree.

[Talek Krell]

They've used EvE as an example of how the skill training will work. In that game you can choose to invest large amounts of time into a particular skill set, like flying a cruiser. Or you can spread that time through a wide variety of skills and get the ability to do a large number of things, but not all that well. I'm not sure if I've understood the question right, but hopefully that makes sense.

[PrISM]

No. BR40 was one of the worst additions (in a long train) to the game. If they wanted to do something special for BR40 players, they should've made it so they could pull other empire-specific weaponry.

[Malorn]

I don't see how BR40 of PS1 maps to PS2 given what we know of PS2 or really why the question is relevant.

BR40 unlocked and enabled you to do everything simultaneously, being limited only by armor type and effectively made certs meaningless. PS2 is moving to a class-based system to prevent exactly that sort of thing and to make specialization meaningful.

While PS2 will allow you to switch and easily train the main roles, you get the BR40-ish ability to do everything but since its class-based you can't do everything at once.

The question of seeing it in PS2 is rather meaningless. If you took BR40 and then put in mutually exclusive finite subsets of certs you had to choose to play at any one loadout then you'd basically get the PS2 system.

[Crator]

Is there info from the devs that says we will be able to train in all base certs? If so, does it also say what abilities we will get with those base certs? I've seen a few people say that already.

[DOUBLEXBAUGH]

Is there info from the devs that says we will be able to train in all base certs? If so, does it also say what abilities we will get with those base certs? I've seen a few people say that already.




"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 Concerns the hell out of me, you have to be able to recert at some point, that was the great beauty of the original planetside, you where never stuck or funneled into anything and when you add RPG esc elements that effects how your weapons and other such things perform. You need to be able to change them to see what fits you and not be stuck.

You're never stuck, capped or locked in to anything with the PS2 cert system. Recerting isn't necessary because there's no restrictions on how many certs you can have trained at a time, just how many you can take advantage of on any given loadout.

Does this mean in some way that BR or Cert points are shared across classes? (BR 7 means BR 7 Engy/Medi/Heavy assault) So if me and my air cav group start owning this base then EVERYONE in the base can just roll AA maxes to counter us with no re-cert timer or equivalent? If so then I must point out that this will heavily influence gameplay for the worst as it is too easy to just change from BR7____ to BR7____ that easily upon spawning at a terminal..

Matt: If you're BR 10, that's on your character. Classes don't really have RANKS, they have CERTS which are locked or "gated" by the player's overall rank. So, if you're BR 10, you aren't automatically a level 10 AA Max since a level 10 AA max doesn't actually exist in a meaningful way. But, you have access to unlock level 10 AA Max CERTS, those CERTS would still require time to train and unlock.
- So, while you can switch into a variety of roles, you'd be playing them completely untrained until you put some time into advancing all of them.



So you can train all the base certs if you want, you don't have to pick a tree and max it out. Once you learn it you know it forever.


- 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.


Matt: I have for years used the Planetside cert system as an example of an absolutely ingenious and well-executed system, so I'm right with you on it's brilliance. It works incredibly well to let players grow in meaningful but horizontal ways. Our system does a lot of the same things, but we've got a lot more stuff to unlock and the depth lets us have some power growth (~20% total potential power growth from a 5 minute player to a 5 year player is our goal) and long term reach goals for players.