I really hope Planetside 2 doesn't turn out to be a bigger Battlefield game.

[EVILoHOMER]

I loved Planetsides fast paced action and that was because you could soak up bullets like a Quake, Team Fortress 2, Tribes or Unreal Tournament. The main reason I'm worried is because headshots might be put into the game and that slows the pace down drastically. Now I'm aware that these games have headshots too, they're just done in a way that doesn't make them over powered. In TF2 you have lots of items that take disable headshots and snipers are very vulnerable to Spies. In Quake and Unreal Tournament you can only get them from Rail guns and the pace is so fast that it is very hard to be accurate with them.

I'm worried as Smedley loves Battlefield so much that this game will just turn out to have that boring style of more "realistic" combat to where two shots and you're dead. In the case of headshots I'm worried that every weapon will be able to do them or you'll have everyone going sniper and camping just to get up their K/D.

Planetside never had any of that, yeah the Sniper Rifle was kinda shit and the animations, lag and netcode made it hard to get kills with it. However it also wasn't a one shot kill and that makes the difference to if you will just make the game a campfest or not.


I'm sure we'll have a beta for people to moan and SOE to not listen to work out if the game plays well or not before release. I just want Planetside 2 to be Planetside and not Battlefield.

[NCLynx]

They've already said the pace will still feel a little slower than BF, and a lot slower than COD.

[Traak]

Not my preferred gaming mode:
A) snort a pound of meth
B.) run around bunny-hopping like a flea on, well, meth
C) get killed and kill 30 times per minute, so the respawn spot is the most familiar part of any map
D) repeat over and over and over and over and over and over ad infiinitum

Oh, and use aimbots.

No, thanks. If you want Battlefield: Unreal Call of Duty Tournament, find another game. Don't ruin Planetside.

[Graywolves]

Not my preferred gaming mode:
A) snort a pound of meth
B.) run around bunny-hopping like a flea on, well, meth
C) get killed and kill 30 times per minute, so the respawn spot is the most familiar part of any map
D) repeat over and over and over and over and over and over ad infiinitum

Oh, and use aimbots.

No, thanks. If you want Battlefield: Unreal Call of Duty Tournament, find another game. Don't ruin Planetside.

Gotta have Coke

[Bags]

It has a mixed health / regen system and it's slower paced in TTK than BF.

TLDR: Alarmist is alarming.

[BorisBlade]

The ttk is obviously somethin to worry about but i think it will be ok for infantry, the regenerating shields will help a bit in that regard. There are much more concerns with them just copying BF such as terrible pilot=gunner junk, squad spawning, and the general "dumbing down" and "rambo" (where you are focused on yourself and solo aspects, and not your team aka pilot=gunner etc.) and other issues.

Having said that, there's still beta to come and things can change. Doesnt mean they will, but until it ships with a crap feature dont get too upset. Just try to keep feedback comin and try to keep it constructive. Explain the reasons you dont like it or why it doesnt fit well with ps, and then maybe add some suggestions or alternatives and try to add why you think those would be better.

[Bags]

Squad spawning has a long timer, only works outdoors, and requires a heavily specced squad leader.

[ikon]

so tired of you guys, comparing to cod/bf everyday

cod is terrible and bf has its own flavor.

i have no doubt that ps2 will have its own style, so much so, that hopefully once beta starts or more video comes out, i will never have to hear this again.

[PsychoXR-20]

We need some sort of sticky informing people about squad spawning, the amount of people who have misinformation, and think it is going to be the primary source of spawning is staggering.

[Bags]

Uh, there's information about it in my sticky. I could add a section specifically about it.

[FIREk]

TL;DR: Alarmist is alarming (C) Bags.

Oh, it's this thread again.

OP, stop being paranoid about stuff you appear to know nothing about and cough up the $20 or so and buy Battlefield: Bad Company 2 so that you do know what you're shitting a brick over. :P

Furthermore, read up about PlanetSide 2. Higby or Smed mentioned early on that the bonus damage from headshots will be based on the weapon - something you're so fond of in UT and TF2. So you're less likely to get random headshots with an MCG, or your bonus damage will be as pathetic as 10%.
Furthermore, the recent Twitter reply ("headshots = headshots") about sniper rifles even points that snipers won't one-shot you, at least under certain curcumstances.

Also, what does "I want Planerside 2 to be Planetside" even mean?
You want it to be ancient, obsolete and unsuccessful, when released among games that are actually fun to play?
Or are you assuming that the pacing and combat in PS1 was somehow original, and not derived from other titles, like Mobile Forces?

I don't know if you've ever played a game with headshots and pacing, but just the fact that you can pop headshots doesn't mean everyone has the skill and opportunity to face-blast you every single time.

Moving on, PlanetSide 2's pacing will be even slower than Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which is, in itself, relatively slow.
After playing Fear Combat and CoD4 and switching to BFBC2, I felt like I was shooting rubber bullets. This means that PS2 will have you shooting paper bullets. :P

With half a dozen successful games in the series, Battlefield is a very polished product that does a lot of stuff right. It is a good start to use it as a basis for game design, and scaling that up to incorporate:
- larger-scale vehicle and infantry combat,
- persistence,
- teamwork.
A good example is the damage model for infantry. BFBC2 uses full health regen (BLOODY SCREEN). PS2 will have shields and persistent health damage - this means Medics are useful, whereas in BFBC2 they're just extras that will sometimes rez you, but aren't necessary all the time..

Using PlanerSide 1's "pacing" as a basis for a modern game that is supposed to be successful would be retarded, plain and simple.

Reinventing the wheel, instead of basing your project on lessons learned by other titles would be even more retarded.

Why not use something good as a basis for something awesome?

[PsychoXR-20]

I mean a single sticky devoted to solely squad spawning.

[BorisBlade]

Squad spawning has a long timer, only works outdoors, and requires a heavily specced squad leader.

Everyone will have the squad spawn cert, what person who leads wouldnt have somethin so insanely powerful, there are no limits to how much you can cert, just time, so eventually everyone will have it. Plus who would want to squad with someone who doesnt have it? I wouldnt.

There is no word on the timer at all, and you can cert the time down. With no AMS, just the galaxy, they are gonna have to let you use the squad spawning alot to make spawning work well. By not putting in the AMS they force themselves to overuse the squad spawning.

And only used outdoors doesnt matter either. Only inside the base or inside the tower is a no go. Most of the map wont have these indoor areas most likely, and you will be capturing them as well, its not just base caps anymore. Plus you can jumpjet up to a roof or hot drop on a roof of a tower or base and then have all your squad spawn on you. Not much better than just spawnin inside when you can skip all the defenses with one guy sneakin past.

Also think of fights in a heavily forrested area. It sounds awesome for a purely infantry fight since vehicles couldnt get thru it well. But with squad spawning you just send your cloaker up to where you need to be, and spawn on him. Or just one monkey from your squad gets up there, you spawn on him. No longer do you need to work as a group and move up and protect your AMS. Just zerg up and spawn at the random squadmate who is up ahead. Death isnt as important since you can just spawn with your group, you dont lose much ground as you would in PS where it took skill and tactics to move up not just a random single guy alive when you are respawning.

Its a terrible mechanic for a game with frontlines based purely on player positions. But if it had say a 30 min timer even fully reduced or somthin high like that, then it wouldnt be so bad. But they wont do that, at highest its gonna be 10mins, and prob reduced to 5. And now that they are definately killing off the AMS its gonna have to be lower than that. And thats just terrible. Thats gonna change the way the game plays more than anything else by far. The gal is gonna be primary spawn for sure but without some ground spawns squad spawn will be much more needed. Hopefully beta will give us the certs we will all have after a few months, so we can play with everyone having the cert who will be leading, then we can see its true impact on gameplay instead of a false impression that few will have it.

Havin said all that, it could change. I dont see the awful idea goin away but we can hope it turns out better than they currently suggest. I for one want the AMS back, would definately curb this prob alot and allow for a good ground based spawn again.

[FIREk]

The I way I understand this is that the timer is supposed to be long enough to make squad spawning a rarely-used alternative to regular spawning. The exact number will be hammered out during beta, based on data mined from thousand of playtesters.

Squad spawning will be important, though, in order to keep the squadmates as close to each other as possible.

You should also keep in mind another thing - since you will be falling in a drop pod, spawning on top of your squad will give out both your position, and theirs, so it's a double-edged sword.

Not to mention squad spawning is pretty much the poor man's reviving, and I don't see anyone complaining that reviving is OP and will break the game. :P

[ThGlump]

Problem is there isnt really any other proper field spawning. Gal spawn is good addition to AMS, but can never replace them. They are unsuitable for covert operations behind enemy lines, they are too huge and will be heavily focused in front lines (they will have to endure much more than in ps1), but mainly there wont be enough of them.
Anybody can drive AMS (and still there was times with only few AMS around), but they are aiming for realistic/complex flight model. How many ppl will be able to flight gal properly to bring some spawning to battle? Gals will be rare, more like 1 gal per 20+ AMS.
Squad spawn will end as main spawning option, with gals as a backup, when whole squad wipe/die inside, or for soloists.


Comparing squad spawn to reviving? Reviving need cooperation if dead isnt right at you. You need to get to him, get covered by rest of squad, think of risk if its worth it to rescue him or you need to finish what you need with fewer ppl. And you comparing that to simple click + hart drop to sqad position?

[Bags]

I mean a single sticky devoted to solely squad spawning.
But we know 2 - 3 lines of text worth about it at max.

[Baron]

I see much comparison/speculation on PS2 TTK vs. a battlefield game however have we considered it will be similar to Halo? Regenerating shields and all ...

I don't think the TTK in Halo is that bad, personally.

[FIREk]

Comparing squad spawn to reviving? Reviving need cooperation if dead isnt right at you. You need to get to him, get covered by rest of squad, think of risk if its worth it to rescue him or you need to finish what you need with fewer ppl. And you comparing that to simple click + hart drop to sqad position?

I was a dedicated medic back when I played PS1. I have the entire medic cross made out of merit commendations, and I can assure you, that even back when there were actually people playing the game, reviving was rarely as dramatic or complicated as you just described it. ;)

Also, if they go the BF2/BFBC2 route, reviving will be instant. Personally I hope not, but it might end up this way. If this were the case, reviving would be a lot more convenient than squad respawning, regardless of the conditions. You would just sprint under fire and click-revive the dead guy along the way.

Personally I still kind of hope that a Gal will be able to land and act as an AMS, with cloak and all the works.

As for Halo, I think the TTK there was pretty long, wasn't it? I'm thinking of Halo 1 for the PC, where you could actually aim right. ;)

[Crator]

We don't know if they didn't put some other static ground spawn mechanic in either. Perhaps a combat engineer will have a deployables that produce spawn points, equipment terminals, repair terms, vehicles terms, cloak fields. Who know.... I want this!

[Brusi]

But with squad spawning you just send your cloaker up to where you need to be, and spawn on him.

There is still no word on how accurate squad spawning will be, or if you can even drop pod onto the roof of enemy facilities.

The concept isn't so bad... i'm certain it can work if it is balanced correctly. That said, i still would love some form of slow moving, ground transport, with deployable spawn capabilities, cloking or not. only problem i can think with that is offering too many spawning options.

[Crator]

Fixable by adding SOIs to the spawn points just like they do with AMS in PS1. If they do this I hope they add an SOI graphic on the map for the equiptment in the field. It always did suck not knowing where to park my AMS.

[sylphaen]

Yup, I put out some (too) long messages in the vehicles thread but my conclusion from thinking about PS2 is that we don't know enough and cannot conclude anything (except that it will be a very different game than PS1).

With almost 10 years of PS1 and forumside experience plus ideas copied from popular games, making a bad game would be quite surprising. SOE cannot afford to fail anyways... PS2 is a hail mary.

Let's be positive, constructive and expect a great game ! If SOE is dedicated to make this work, they will make it work.

Worse thing that happens is that PS2 will not appeal to PS1 players but still be a huge success with the BF/COD/Other FPS crowd. PS2 is the only innovative FPS set to come out in the near future and what we want is the MMOFPS genre to be successful and become the new standard in FPS games !
:)

For that single reason, I hope SOE will succeed.

[FIREk]

That said, i still would love some form of slow moving, ground transport, with deployable spawn capabilities, cloking or not. only problem i can think with that is offering too many spawning options.

Hmm... The Sunderer, deployed with all the capabilities of an AMS, including cloak?

It would make sense - the Gal, an air transport, is used for spawning, and the same goes for its ground-based counterpart...

[Bags]

Not gonna lie, as much as I want PS2 to feel like PS2, if it was BF scaled up I'd probably still play it.

Thankfully it isn't.

[SgtMAD]

Yea I am starting to think that this game is going to be SOE's version of BF/CoD on a MMO scale,the accountants at SOE see the numbers those game hit in sales and get all giggly,SOE needs a big seller and this is what they are betting on.

I don't blame them but I will be shocked if this game is anything like the original by the time it hits release

and I will probably still play and have a blast,thats what SOE is betting on.

[sylphaen]

No more slow transport please...

We do not know how they plan the game but if we do have large maps, slow transport would be painful. Just like a 10 minute HART timer.

If the AMS-Galaxy and the AMS-Sunderer both need an equivalently hard to get cert, both should be comparable in utility unless one is meant to be inferior than the other by the devs (and then lower resource costs would compensate for the inferiority).

Now if the sunderer is plain bad like PS1, we'll need to be forced to use it (ie. only ground ams vehicle) or we will not use it.

In PS1, slow transport with too many other better options killed the ground transport cert.

[Crator]

No more slow transport please...

We do not know how they plan the game but if we do have large maps, slow transport would be painful. Just like a 10 minute HART timer.

I have a feeling the maps (not sure maps is right word since environment will be seamless) aren't going to be quite as large as PS1. I'm just thinking this is the case due to the comments Higby made on the audio from the lunch interview last week.

[sylphaen]

More on slow transport.

In PS1 resecuring was also painful because it was hard for most of the players (ie. the zerg) to redeploy and defend: you mainly had the choice between aircav or thresher or recall/drop or recall/galaxy. For a casual player who is online 30 minutes, why should he bother to spend that time not shooting at something ?

However, in PS1, I think it was meant to be like that though because it was complicated for the attackers to get there too. And there were ways to get there faster if you thought about it in advance (eg: matrixing in a close base). But for the zerg, it was hopeless.

That's why I think mobility is key if they want a faster gameplay. People should spend less time "on the move" and more time "on the trigger". Of course, some strategic value may be lost but there is no reason another type of strategic choices could be offered to squad/platoon leaders.

If you read until this point, thank you !

[FIREk]

Now if the sunderer is plain bad like PS1, we'll need to be forced to use it (ie. only ground ams vehicle) or we will not use it.

According to Higby, the Sunderer is supposed to be super-durable. I think it will be tougher than a tank, which makes a lot of sense.


I have a feeling the maps (not sure maps is right word since environment will be seamless) aren't going to be quite as large as PS1. I'm just thinking this is the case due to the comments Higby made on the audio from the lunch interview last week.

He either said the maps will be bigger, or that, with the new territory control system, there will be a lot more actual contestable real-estate, which may mean that the maps will be slightly smaller. Which might be good in itself, as it would make battle much "denser" and we would "feel" the massive amount of players more.

[PsychoXR-20]

Squad spawn will end as main spawning option, with gals as a backup, when whole squad wipe/die inside, or for soloists.

What part of "It is not meant to be your primary respawn method." don't you understand? If the devs don't want it to be the main source of spawning, the guess what, IT WON'T BE THE MAIN SOURCE OF SPAWNING.

[ThGlump]

Then i hope they have another main spawning source, because gals wont be one. btw when they first said that squad spawning wont be main spawner, they said that main spawn will be AMS. Things change as there is no AMS now and nothing to replace it (that we know about), it hints us that squad spawning was promoted.
But even if squad spawn wont be main spawn, it is still broken and highly abusable (like for instant traveling anytime anywhere on the map - killing any mechanic were traveltime is vital)


As said here before. Things that they take from battlefield (even squad spawn), arent that bad in general, but they are made for small maps, not for game where distance matters and has higher goals than have more kills than enemy side.

[Talek Krell]

Has it ocurred to no one else that maybe people will just pull Gals more often?

[ThGlump]

Thats not true. Ppl will try to pull gals more often, but it wont be as easy, because you will need to learn how to fly properly as they will have more complex flight model. AMS could pull really anybody, gal only those who can fly and from them only those who want to support. Gals numbers will never be even close to what AMS can provide.

[CutterJohn]

Everyone will have the squad spawn cert, what person who leads wouldnt have somethin so insanely powerful, there are no limits to how much you can cert, just time, so eventually everyone will have it. Plus who would want to squad with someone who doesnt have it? I wouldnt.

There is no word on the timer at all, and you can cert the time down. With no AMS, just the galaxy, they are gonna have to let you use the squad spawning alot to make spawning work well. By not putting in the AMS they force themselves to overuse the squad spawning.

And only used outdoors doesnt matter either. Only inside the base or inside the tower is a no go. Most of the map wont have these indoor areas most likely, and you will be capturing them as well, its not just base caps anymore. Plus you can jumpjet up to a roof or hot drop on a roof of a tower or base and then have all your squad spawn on you. Not much better than just spawnin inside when you can skip all the defenses with one guy sneakin past.

Also think of fights in a heavily forrested area. It sounds awesome for a purely infantry fight since vehicles couldnt get thru it well. But with squad spawning you just send your cloaker up to where you need to be, and spawn on him. Or just one monkey from your squad gets up there, you spawn on him. No longer do you need to work as a group and move up and protect your AMS. Just zerg up and spawn at the random squadmate who is up ahead. Death isnt as important since you can just spawn with your group, you dont lose much ground as you would in PS where it took skill and tactics to move up not just a random single guy alive when you are respawning.

Its a terrible mechanic for a game with frontlines based purely on player positions. But if it had say a 30 min timer even fully reduced or somthin high like that, then it wouldnt be so bad. But they wont do that, at highest its gonna be 10mins, and prob reduced to 5. And now that they are definately killing off the AMS its gonna have to be lower than that. And thats just terrible. Thats gonna change the way the game plays more than anything else by far. The gal is gonna be primary spawn for sure but without some ground spawns squad spawn will be much more needed. Hopefully beta will give us the certs we will all have after a few months, so we can play with everyone having the cert who will be leading, then we can see its true impact on gameplay instead of a false impression that few will have it.

They are removing the timer on the HART, so squad spawning is really not that powerful.

And squad spawning means exactly dick if you roll vehicles, something a LOT of people will do when outdoors. Again, becoming not that powerful.

[IceyCold]

Has it ocurred to no one else that maybe people will just pull Gals more often?

They are removing the timer on the HART, so squad spawning is really not that powerful.

And squad spawning means exactly dick if you roll vehicles, something a LOT of people will do when outdoors. Again, becoming not that powerful.

WOAH WOAH WOAH NOW!

This is a topic about pure rage and conjecture on a system we have little to no real information about; you take your logic and GTFO!

No seriously, how dare you suggest any change is anything other than the end of all things.

[Malorn]

Opinions are like....


I love the Battlefield games. They did a lot of things right in that design and have good pacing. They did some not so great too. PS would be well founded on the tried-and-true gameplay mechanics and I think BF games map well to PS when you take the unlock system and put it on steroids and tie it into game objectives (and get the cert system).

When I played BF2142 I thought how in a sense it was like a Planetside sequel. I liked the unlock and class configuration system in 2142 and if PS2 borrows from BFBC2 and BF2142 we'll be in great shape.

Just no prone, it stagnates games and as BFBC2 proved it isn't necessary to have great gameplay.

[Graywolves]

http://memegenerator.net/instance/10101295

[Baron]

Just no prone, it stagnates games and as BFBC2 proved it isn't necessary to have great gameplay.

In one of Bag's google docs tracking developer comments I'm pretty sure I read that prone is not in game. FYI, in case you didn't see it.

[CutterJohn]

When I played BF2142 I thought how in a sense it was like a Planetside sequel. I liked the unlock and class configuration system in 2142 and if PS2 borrows from BFBC2 and BF2142 we'll be in great shape.

I agree. BF2142 was a mighty fine game with interesting mechanics that was, imo, a delightful mix of BF2 and PS. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the designers took quite a lot of inspiration from Planetside.

Gameplay like that would be a mighty fine thing for PS2 in my opinion.