Question on scale/population

[morf]

So I have a concern about the population/scale of Planetside 2:

In July, after the official announcement, we were told that the game would support "thousand player armies". When asked about how many players a continent would support, the reply was "the plan is thousands". Additionally, early on we were told there would be "at least one continent at launch" - then at one point someone said more than likely only a single continent. This to me would suggest that they were planning on a continent supporting a TON of players.

As time went on, the term "hundreds" started replacing the term "thousands" - also we're now being told that there will definitely be multiple continents at launch, which suggests that the entire playerbase won't fit on one continent. In the most recent interview, Higby mentions that we may see (for instance) a 20 vs. 200 battle. Additionally, he said during the lunch interview that latency is the biggest challenge in building an MMOFPS with this type of scale.

So with all of this in mind, my question is this:

Has the population cap of Planetside 2 continents been scaled back from what was originally intended due to issues with latency or other technical concerns?

[Bags]

Do you really think a SINGLE battle will have thousands of people, on average? They said thousands per continent. I highly doubt thousands of people will be fighting for the same objective often, if ever.

[Traak]

Latency?

Get more and faster servers.

Latency on an individual level?

Get a better internet connection.

I used to joke when playing and seeing the SOI CY lag spike:

Hey, Sony, get AMD servers! (more bang for the buck at the time than the Intel servers, especially in regards to power consumption.)

[cellinaire]

I rather think, by '200 vs 20 fight' he was actually saying about the power-imbalance situation where one faction is out-manned and out-gunned. Why not 100 vs 100, 200 vs 200 or 250 vs 250 when he is trying to say the scale of the game? Weird.

(and I don't know. Maybe the pop-cap have even gone up from what was originally planned(not likely, though. But in Higby's twitter I remember I saw "thousands is still a goal man. We are trying/optimizing really hard to achieve that") or maybe scaled back.

[morf]

Do you really think a SINGLE battle will have thousands of people, on average? They said thousands per continent. I highly doubt thousands of people will be fighting for the same objective often, if ever.

Right. I understand that there can be multiple battles on a continent, but still assuming 4 battles of 220, that's still less than 1000 total, and that's not "thousands", and it's not "thousand player armies". For all we know there could be 10 battles on a continent, so it's hard to say from this example. But my point being that the numbers they're quoting keep getting smaller. So I'm simply asking if the scale has been reeled in from what was originally intended.

And to the guy who said latency, you can check the lunch interview with Higby. He called it the biggest challenge in building an MMOFPS by far. This suggests to me that they might have had some difficulty, hence my speculation and concern.

[Sirisian]

[latency misinformation]
You can't really effect latency by doing those changes. Latency generally is based solely on your network. Bandwidth on the other hand is based more on hardware limitations and processing power. I imagine what Higby meant was either processing power or bandwidth limitations.

On that note I imagine they're hoping people spread out to get rid of any bandwidth issues thus their imagined smaller skirmishes.

The mission system sounds like it'll be used for precisely that. Luring people near targets to go there while sending other squads other places.

[Bags]

Right. I understand that there can be multiple battles on a continent, but still assuming 4 battles of 220, that's still less than 1000 total, and that's not "thousands", and it's not "thousand player armies". For all we know there could be 10 battles on a continent, so it's hard to say from this example. But my point being that the numbers they're quoting keep getting smaller. So I'm simply asking if the scale has been reeled in from what was originally intended.

And to the guy who said latency, you can check the lunch interview with Higby. He called it the biggest challenge in building an MMOFPS by far. This suggests to me that they might have had some difficulty, hence my speculation and concern.

Uh, 4 battles of 220 on each side is 1,760 people, assuming NC vs TR.

[morf]

Uh, 4 battles of 220 on each side is 1,760 people, assuming NC vs TR.

The example he was giving was 200 vs. 20. This is still not a great example to speculate off of, so let's not focus like a laser on it. The point is the verbage being used has slipped from "thousands" to "hundreds" - just wondering if the original plan was too ambitious and whether things were reeled in.

[Bags]

Thousands per continent.

Hundreds per battle.

This isn't rocket science.

[morf]

Thousands per continent.

Hundreds per battle.

This isn't rocket science.

Hope you're right.

Still ambiguous enough to warrant clarification.

[Xyntech]

I share your concern only in as much as the fact that large battles are extremely important to me, however I am not completely shaken by the verbage.

Planetside is about the huge battles, that's to be sure, but it's also about the many different ways that those huge battles manifest themselves. For example, he used a small group of defenders suddenly having to fight a huge group of attackers.

Most multiplayer shooters give you 8 to 32 players on your team, so giving a nice number like 20 is a good example of a team size that many FPS fans can relate to. Fighting against 1000 enemies with 20 team mates sounds impossible and absurd, so it has to be a little smaller than that. 200 is a nice number because a) it's exactly ten to one, b) it will blow your average FPS players mind to be thinking about holding off those kinds of numbers with a more average number of alleys and c) it is actually plausible and seems to be a game balance focus for 20 players to actually be able to slow the advance of 200 zerglings if the 20 players use appropriate tactics.

I would definitely like to see the numbers they describe to go back up, but I'm not too worried about it yet either. We don't even know when beta is coming and it is obviously a huge priority of theirs to make these battles as large as possible.

If I can get Planetside 1 scale battles, the way they were shortly after the game launched, I will be satisfied. Especially if the netcode is vastly superior. If I can get battles that are significantly larger than PS1? Icing on the cake.

The biggest problem with Planetside for me is that the populations have gone away. If they can even match the numbers of the original game and keep those numbers for years to come, I know I'll still be able to get my Planetside fix.

Of course, if they do what I'm hoping with PS2 and dwarf the number of players from the original game, I may wonder how I ever thought PS1 had large battles :D

[Mastachief]

a free to play game of this quality should have no trouble getting 10 times the original planetside release subscribers

As for the pop cap i suspect a continent cap of 1000 players. Server power is just a matter of money.

[Xyntech]

a free to play game of this quality should have no trouble getting 10 times the original planetside release subscribers

As for the pop cap i suspect a continent cap of 1000 players. Server power is just a matter of money.

I just saw in the other thread:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37704&page=13

cellinaire quoting Tony Park stating that it will be 500 vs 500 vs 500, so 1500 player continents.

If they stick to the 10 player PS1 squads, that's 50 squads of players on one empire. Account for a lot of zerglings and that's still 20 to 30 squads.

How many players could Planetside support per continent? 500? That'll be three times larger in PS2. A single empire will be able to have as many players on a continent as all three empires could have combined in PS1.

[Hamma]

I wouldn't worry to much about the specifics of what Higby mentioned, it's just an example of balancing.

[morf]

Guys I realize the 200 vs. 20 is not a great example. You can stop hammering on that 1quote now.


I just saw in the other thread:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37704&page=13

cellinaire quoting Tony Park stating that it will be 500 vs 500 vs 500, so 1500 player continents.

If they stick to the 10 player PS1 squads, that's 50 squads of players on one empire. Account for a lot of zerglings and that's still 20 to 30 squads.

How many players could Planetside support per continent? 500? That'll be three times larger in PS2. A single empire will be able to have as many players on a continent as all three empires could have combined in PS1.

I have no doubt that planetside will be massive, but on what scale?

500 v 500 v 500 isn't what they communicated. They stated "thousands" (with an s) - meaning more than 2000.

500 v 500 v 500 also isn't "thousand player armies" - assuming that they were talking about an army on a single continent - and I think they were since at the time, they were saying likely only 1 continent at launch.

I realize that I'm reading between the lines here, but anyone who says "oh its so easy dude, 100 player battles, 1000 player continents" is also reading between the lines. The statements made by devs have been somewhat vague.

So the question remains: at some point was the pop limit scaled back from what was originally intended due to technical concerns?

[Mastachief]

I just saw in the other thread:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37704&page=13

cellinaire quoting Tony Park stating that it will be 500 vs 500 vs 500, so 1500 player continents.

If they stick to the 10 player PS1 squads, that's 50 squads of players on one empire. Account for a lot of zerglings and that's still 20 to 30 squads.

How many players could Planetside support per continent? 500? That'll be three times larger in PS2. A single empire will be able to have as many players on a continent as all three empires could have combined in PS1.

More players would be epic, but you cant really trust anything from tony park. Aim low and be please at being wrong.

It'd be great if it was 5000 per continent but it wont happen.

[Xyntech]

I'm not saying 1500 players is a sure thing, but it is certainly an example that they are still actively throwing around some pretty large numbers. It isn't as if 200 vs 20 is an indication of a shift towards smaller scale.

As for the promise of "thousands of players." that's pretty vague and I wouldn't take it to serious without them actually saying specifically 2000, 3000 or 5000 players.

We'll just have to wait for some harder numbers, but in the meanwhile I don't feel like they are just tossing out smaller and smaller numbers.

[Raymac]

I'm a firm believer in "if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is", so I'm cautiously optimistic about the actual pop cap numbers we'll see at launch. The game is looking beautiful, but that has to come with a price to performance.

I'm wary, but I have alot of faith in this dev team. We really won't have the number locked down until launch I'm sure, so I'm not going to worry about it until then, but it is still a concern in the back of my mind.

[Xyntech]

If they have smaller populations than Planetside 1, it will be one of the most retarded moves in video game development history. If PS2 has equal population limits to PS1, I will be disappointed but still happy to play it. Anything over double the PS1 populations is more than enough of an increase to make me excited and anything beyond that would be icing on the cake.

Like I said, I'd kill to just have the same experience of the original Planetside again. Why worry too much about leaving it in the dust (in continent populations at least)?

I totally get being wary about it though. No need to get hopes up only to have them dashed. I just don't get the vibe that they are constantly backtracking either.

It's probably safe to just expect PS1 numbers until we know more. The only way we can be disappointed then is if the dev team completely screwed up the game, which is a doomsday scenario anyways and not so likely to occur.

[Sardwyn]

He used the 20v200 to illustrate issues with game balance. He wasn't talking about scale. Keep the faith soldiers :)

[Miir]

I'd really like to know approximately how many people can be in one area of the map fighting before the game takes a performance hit.

That's the only numbers that matter to me.

[Bags]

One person will cause a performance "hit".

[Bags]

How would a person cause more FPS lag than a bot?

[Traak]

Yeah, I don't see how a player would be MORE server load than an AI bot.

[Xyntech]

Yeah, bots should impact frames per second about the same as human players, as long as the bots are doing the same sorts of things as humans are likely to. Shooting guns, causing explosions, emitting smoke, that sort of thing.

Every additional object, texture, or anything else will have an impact on performance, but if they are managing the large scale aspect of the game properly, each individual soldier you add should be a relatively unnoticeable performance hit, at least at longer ranges. At medium or close range, the impact will be larger.

I could see using distant view models at closer range at times when the game needs to balance a larger than expected number of players being near you. The power of modern hardware will allow for a lot more scalability than was possible in the days of PS1.

Obviously network lag will be something that will have to be tweaked and worked on during beta, but that's to be expected.

[SKYeXile]

Latency generally refered to as an issue of dealing with varying pings. most 32 player games have issues handling high pings with that many players, but thats not a problem since servers are everywhere, when planetside 2 servers are located centrally latency is an issue, especialy since they want asmany people as they can playing.


Latency cant simply be solved by getting a better connection, unless somebody somewhere has invented somebothing that can transmit data instantly over any distance. They need to build their game with that i mind like they did the first. Severs went fast enough back then to process data with lag compensation, so PS1 was clientside. Can they make is so PS2 hit detection is serverside with lag compensation? Lets hope so.

[Xyntech]

How effective are the hybrids between client side and server side hit detection? I'd like to see Planetside 2 use the best possible systems to make it feel accurate and fun with a client side component, while actually BEING accurate and less exploitable with a server side component.

[SKYeXile]

How effective are the hybrids between client side and server side hit detection? I'd like to see Planetside 2 use the best possible systems to make it feel accurate and fun with a client side component, while actually BEING accurate and less exploitable with a server side component.

im no coder, but...The typical rule of thumb is, never trust the client if it effects gamplay. if something is done clinetside, it should be varified by the server.

Coloision detection serverside would be annoying from everybodys point of veiw. annoying for the player because of dealys, more strain on the server and rubber banding everywhere, running into stuff thats not there on your screen arg....but for security reason you may want to do that serverside(though secutiry isnot a concern of sonys... :P ). i see it happening clinetside though.

Clinetside with some sort of random sanity checking could work..maybe...eg "How the F did you get travel 5m on foot in .2 seconds?"

but bullet hit detection? Smedly hit VERY heavily its severside "planetside used one hit detection model...PS2 will use the other" weather its using bullet prediction is another thing though, again...I would hope so.