A few things that Matt Higby needs to realize

[DiabloTigerSix]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uv0JlS5MYgM#t=117s

So we've brought all those modern FPS elements that today triple-A FPS players, people playing Battlefield, people playing Modern Warfare, have come to expect and love and we've put them into the world of planetside.


1. This "modern FPS" has done nothing remarkable worth noting (let alone putting in your game) other than dumbing down the genre in order to make it more accessible for causal players.
NOTE: "Accessible game" is not same thing as "simple game". A properly made game can be complex, yet still accessible to players who want to just jump in for the first time and do something, ignoring the complex bits - this is what the makers of Battefield, DICE, failed to understand, stripping the franchise off its core features.


2. If you're new to FPS, if you have been playing FPS games just for a couple of years, then yes, you may love these modern elements. But if you, like me, have been playing first person shooters for 10 or 15 years, you'll most likely hate them. Dedicated gamers are tired and sick of modern FPS elements. For example, if you're taking elements from Battlefield 3 which adopted 1/2 of its features from CoD, you're basically taking elements from CoD. This is how nearly every developer out there thinks. FPS market nowadays, is full of the same game and lacks originality because everybody said somewhere in mid-process "Well, CoD is successful!. So let's make this bit and those bits like CoD. People will be familiar with that and like it." Seriously, don't you see how contra-productive this can become? Even people who have been playing first person shooters since CoD 4 - the game that spawned many of these elements) are getting tired of the same gameplay over and over again, would sure love to see and welcome something fresh.

Why am I concerned? Well for the start, the gunplay of PS2 shown so far looks awfully like CoD, that means it looks just like in most generic first person shooters and it doesn't stand out. I dare you to do something about that - looking at Battlefield 2 AND BF2 mods instead of Battlefield 3 might be a good place to start.


3. Catering to your core audience is the most important thing to do. If they're happy, then the whole community will be. If your whole community is happy, then they'll be helpful and friendly to newcomers. If they're not, they'll spread hate.

You might think that you're doing "triple-A FPS players" a favour by putting in features and game mechanics they're familiar with. The opposite might be true. Numerous games have failed trying to grab the call of duty audience (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-05-24-sony-onlines-planetside-2-can-it-grab-the-call-of-duty-audience) by mainstrimizing their gameplay (e.g. Homefront, Operation Flashpoint: Red River,...).

To sum up, even those who love Call of Duty, don't starve for another one or anything overly similar. After all, we're just people. We love to learn and experience new things. And there's been enough of Call of Duty elements everywhere. Being another game to implement them is in no way a key to success.

I beg you not to overdo it in this area.


4. All modern FPS have one thing in common - they're all meatgrinders. Personally, I'd like Planetside 2 to have more tactical organized gameplay heavily featuring teamwork, but from what we've learnt so far, it's turning out to be a meatgrinder. Surely, Planetside 2 had huge maps, but then they might not be big enough for 2000 players and I'm saying this as someone who's got years of experience focusing primarily on games with open landscape battles. I've played games which had 4x4km maps, 64-128 players and there's enough action. 2000 might require bigger maps.

I'm especially concerned about infantry gameplay inside bases and run'n'gun gameplay between portals. It might resemble mainstream shooters too much, but with even more players and less control, meaning you can't influence much when you're getting ganked by 30 people at a time.


5. Which brings me to another thing and that's traveling. Matt Higby said in an interview that they wanted reduced pointless travel times and they were going to achieve that by spawning closer to action. Traveling certainly isn't pointless to everyone. Besides the fact the it can be very "romantic" and allows you to enjoy beautiful environments, it brings natural pauses that make the game more teasing, tense and more fun in a long run. It also gives you time to rethink your next move. Fighting in a meatgrinder 24/7 isn't what people enjoy, however they do tend to do it just to rank up faster.


TL;DR:
- taking inspiration from modern fps (mainly BF3 and CoD) = not good. Going further back in time and taking some elements from there = far better.
- maps very likely to be too small for 2000 players => meatgrinder ALERT!!
- traveling essential to provide players with diversion and regular breaks from combat

[Goku]

Just one thing on the maps. There is a bunch of different reports on the actual size of people that will be playing. This can easily be balanced during beta. Really no reason to be complaining about that.

In terms of traveling that is for troop spawning. Not vehicles. Did you play the original PS? You had to depend on human player spawn vehicles you could deploy on your own. Sounds good in theory however not many people had them certed. You have a entire base being assaulted and only have 2 AMSes. Easy enough to blow those out with OSes. Enemy team proceeds to push out attackers and force them to the tower. That was the problem in PS, only one hard spawn for the attackers to go against the base. You are still going to have to go back to bases for vehicles as well. You will see the landscape enough that way. Fights will be very dull having to go back to a base every time you are killed.

[Stardouser]

1. What are some more specific examples of how modern FPS have dumbed the game down? I agree with you but I'm curious as to whether you are against the exact same things as I am.
2. Elaborate on gunplay? I do agree with you that they need to look more to BF2/2142 than BF3.
4,5 together. This is the biggest concern for me. I mean, on the one hand, you do want to eliminate pointless travel time insofar as the 2 mile walk from the closest main base. But I think we should have a system where Galaxies are deployed 750 meters from a target, and once you get closer to the target, squad spawning is the primary respawn method. However, it should be squad leader spawn only, meaning if the SL dies, he has to run the whole 750 meters back- this will help prevent meatgrinding since squads will advance more carefully.

As for the Galaxy at 750m from the target, my vision for an MMOFPS has always been a large game world, with 4-5 miles between bases, and the attacking army is able to set up a forward base no closer than 1 mile to the target base.

Some people will come and say that Galaxies, not squad spawning, should be the primary respawn method. But if that were the case, then Galaxies would have to be a lot closer than 750m from the target base. And from what I have played of PS1, AMSs were usually set 10 feet outside of a base wall under sensor jammers. Certainly not what I'd like to see. Having a Galaxy 750 meters away isn't a HUGE penalty, but it makes wiping out an attacking squad very satisfying, knowing they've got a 45-60 second run back. Also provides a great target for reinforcements coming from elsewhere.

[Goku]

As for the Galaxy at 750m from the target, my vision for an MMOFPS has always been a large game world, with 4-5 miles between bases, and the attacking army is able to set up a forward base no closer than 1 mile to the target base.

There were quite a few wide spread bases in PS. Empires would at first be fighting in between the two bases, but not for long. Once one lost the momentum it would go right to a base fight. There was no reason to stay out in the middle of nowhere, so everyone went right for the base. That is one of the major issues that Higby said they are trying to solve with the hex system. I don't think we know how well this system is going to work until we have a fully populated battle from all three sides going on these maps.

[Gandhi]

I've had all the same concerns at one point or another. I have no doubt that Higby and the team want to make a game that we'll all like, and obviously they want it to be successful in attracting new players too. It just feels like sometimes they're going about it the wrong way; trying to attract people by making it more like what they already know instead of making it into its own thing and then convincing people that it's better.

But on the other hand they've also made some changes to their original plans and kept some possibly controversial things from PS1 in, so it's not all bad. And I have no problem with some changes being introduced, in fact I'm fine with a lot of them.

You have a entire base being assaulted and only have 2 AMSes. Easy enough to blow those out with OSes. Enemy team proceeds to push out attackers and force them to the tower. That was the problem in PS, only one hard spawn for the attackers to go against the base.
But that was the whole point of defending a base, remove their spawn points to kick them out of your SOI. If the enemy can just spawn right outside your walls endlessly then you can never successfully defend a base, it'll always depend on the third empire pulling the enemy away.

But I think they've got this covered anyway. Squad spawning has to be limited in some way and we still have AMS's, they're just Galaxies now. Nothing's changed really.

[SKYeXile]

I agree with all points.

You should also note that travel time play a vital roll because of supply, In ps1 is was ams and ants along with long ranges for resecuires, the all add layers to the tactical meta game.

[Goku]

Gandhi yes thats true. However people never wanted to cert the AMS. I found it lacking so much when I played the last year I actually certed it in order to at least have one at base assaults. This issue was still wide spread when I was playing years ago as well. There shouldn't have to be a total reliance on player made spawns, we should at least have a few more hard spawns around a base. Just consider it a few more towers to retake.

[Stardouser]

But I think they've got this covered anyway. Squad spawning has to be limited in some way and we still have AMS's, they're just Galaxies now. Nothing's changed really.

Squad spawning should be the primary respawn method, because you can wipe out a squad and they have to run all the way back from wherever their Galaxy is, which should not be something short like 50 feet away. The Galaxies should be set far enough back that your squad is mildly punished for advancing too fast, not protecting their squad leader(who should be the only person in the squad you can spawn on) and being all killed.

People think that squad spawning is what will cause meatgrinding. It isn't. I think they've got a chance to develop a great pacing balance here, but you have to understand, PS1 did not have squad spawning, didn't have a lot of things PS2 is about to have. There are ways to balance things, but if they go into Beta with the idea that squad spawning MUST be castratedly limited and nothing else but extreme limitation to it will be considered, then that's tying their hands right off the bat.

There's also the fact that squads want to stick together. If squad spawning is not the primary respawn method, this will be extremely hampered.

[Gandhi]

Gandhi yes thats true. However people never wanted to cert the AMS. I found it lacking so much when I played the last year I actually certed it in order to at least have one at base assaults. This issue was still wide spread when I was playing years ago as well. There shouldn't have to be a total reliance on player made spawns, we should at least have a few more hard spawns around a base. Just consider it a few more towers to retake.
That's true. It seemed like there were times when AMS's were plentiful and others when you literally had nobody bothering to pull one, and lost an attack because of it.

Plenty of times I pulled an AMS and drove it to the target only to find out I couldn't deploy it anywhere because it was already swamped with the things. I think that discouraged a lot of people too, it would have been really nice to be able to see deployed friendly AMS's on the map including the interference zone around them, or even AMS's currently en route somewhere. The whole system was really lacking support in a lot of ways.

[RadarX]

I had a couple of questions I was hoping you could help me with. Recognizing the fact I am not a game designer please indulge me.

You state " A properly made game can be complex, yet still accessible to players who want to just jump in for the first time and do something, ignoring the complex bits - this is what the makers of Battefield, DICE, failed to understand, stripping the franchise off its core features." but this seems a little vague. How do you make a complex and accessible game? I also see you only listed DICE. Does this mean the COD series did better? I honestly found the last COD and BF iterations pretty similar personally.

I have to disagree with you on modern elements however. I would say it's just me but I know so many others that talk about the BF1942 and Quake glory days. We appreciate the fact we can just jump in and pick up an FPS.

I absolutely agree with you it's about hitting the core audience but who do you believe that is?

Statements like this "maps very likely to be too small for 2000 players " however I'm going to ask you to wait for Beta. It just won't be true, but you'll see that in time.

[ItsTheSheppy]

Homefront is actually a very good example of the statement that just putting 'modern' FPS elements into your game does not lead to success and can actually have the opposite effect; it makes the player realize that they are NOT playing the better, original version, and may make them yearn for it.

[Sledgecrushr]

Cod and the bf franchise are doing something right since they have millions of players.

[Kran De Loy]

Squad spawning should be the primary respawn method, because you can wipe out a squad and they have to run all the way back from wherever their Galaxy is, which should not be something short like 50 feet away. The Galaxies should be set far enough back that your squad is mildly punished for advancing too fast, not protecting their squad leader(who should be the only person in the squad you can spawn on) and being all killed.

People think that squad spawning is what will cause meatgrinding. It isn't. I think they've got a chance to develop a great pacing balance here, but you have to understand, PS1 did not have squad spawning, didn't have a lot of things PS2 is about to have. There are ways to balance things, but if they go into Beta with the idea that squad spawning MUST be castratedly limited and nothing else but extreme limitation to it will be considered, then that's tying their hands right off the bat.

There's also the fact that squads want to stick together. If squad spawning is not the primary respawn method, this will be extremely hampered.

Nah, Squad Spawning should be taken out entirely, imo. I'll live with it should it be in.

I mean if you spawn on any Squadmate then killing them all off is like rooting out rats and cockroaches. If you spawn only on the Squad Leader than he's either got to be a real leader or he'll get consistent shit from his squadmates every single time he dies, often times even when he wasn't at fault for it in anyway. If the Squad Spawn timer is actually long enough to allow the whole squad to get killed before you can drop back in on top of a buddy then why not just run from a nearby Tower or Galaxy?

Besides the whole problem is that everyone would be laboring under the same condition.

[Kran De Loy]

Cod and the bf franchise are doing something right since they have millions of players.


Graphics, 'feel', fluid/responsive controls that add to a higher level of immersion as well as they just have more options than any other current generation competition.

PS2 looks like it will match the first, Higby already said they are focusing on the second and third and PS2 itself will blow the fourth out of the water entirely.

[Gandhi]

Homefront is actually a very good example of the statement that just putting 'modern' FPS elements into your game does not lead to success and can actually have the opposite effect; it makes the player realize that they are NOT playing the better, original version, and may make them yearn for it.
Or Far Cry 3. Look at some multiplayer footage from Far Cry 2 and compare it to the multiplayer trailer for 3, it's almost comical.

Squad spawning should be the primary respawn method, because you can wipe out a squad and they have to run all the way back from wherever their Galaxy is
On the other hand you'll end up with situations where you're killing the same group of guys 3, 4, 5, 6 times before you can finally remove them from one area of your base. Or entire squads showing up out of nowhere because a single infiltrator slipped in, which isn't hard to do. Or even squads suiciding just to travel quickly to another part of the battlefield after pulling some of your guys away to deal with them. And the whole concept makes Galaxy hotdrops somewhat redundant, when you can just have your leader bail out of a Mossie and then spawn on him.

I think you can make a case for both systems, so I hope we get to try them both in the beta.

[Levente]

Cod and the bf franchise are doing something right since they have millions of players.

yes they do something right: Lies and some more Lies. Thats how BF3 hype campaign started,DICE promised the BF community that maps are gonna be big in BF3 but yet they are almost the same size as a cod map. Not only that, but they removed all the teamplay tools that worked very good in BF2. Result? result is a shit frustrating game that i cannot play for more then 10 minutes. of coruse theres a whole list of more problems but i dont want to make a list.

[Stardouser]

I have to disagree with you on modern elements however. I would say it's just me but I know so many others that talk about the BF1942 and Quake glory days. We appreciate the fact we can just jump in and pick up an FPS.


I don't understand how anyone can claim that older games were harder to jump into. It's just not true. What has changed is that it's easier to jump into the game and get kills against enemies because of things like killcam and 3D spotting that show you exactly where to go and where to place your aiming sight. But those things don't make the game easier to play, they just fill the new games with Skill Gap Compensators that make it easier to win against others with more experience than you, freeing you of any responsibility to gain that experience for yourself. In a lot of ways, BF3 at least, is more complex, with all the vehicle customizations, 20 different attachments per weapon, etc.

Cod and the bf franchise are doing something right since they have millions of players.

Sales =/= quality or innovation. Both of those games have significant brand loyalty, as well as marketing campaigns. They're definitely doing something right on the marketing part.

They also, as I say, are implementing Skill Gap Compensators in their games so that everyone can get a killstreak now and then without even learning how to be competitive. Hopefully Planetside 2 is planning to allow player skill to be a bit less manipulated than that.

If the Squad Spawn timer is actually long enough to allow the whole squad to get killed before you can drop back in on top of a buddy then why not just run from a nearby Tower or Galaxy?

Besides the whole problem is that everyone would be laboring under the same condition.

Because that Galaxy shouldn't be sitting 10 feet outside the base as happened with PS1. Or, since I only played recently, can you assure me that in the highly populated days of PS1, that attackers were actually forced to deploy AMS farther away? But then, that makes it boring. That is why what I described is a balance of spawning into the combat and getting repulsed completely back to your Galaxy.

[Jinxsey]

Suggesting something sounds like bad game design, without identifying specific issues (film grain effects? kill-streak rewards?) is of limited value.

Any good beta tester will tell you, identify specific issues, identify specific causes, make sure they are repeatable and then call it a problem.

Old games = better, new games = crap, just sounds like nostalgia talking.

Homefront failed because it had sloppy writing, unballanced killstreak rewards, tiny overly cluttered maps and weapons copy-pasted from a dozzen other shooters it was directly competeing with. It did nothing new, and did the old stuff worse. This dosen't tell you that new shooters are rubbish, it tells you that if you don't do something different, or do it better, you're going to fail. Planetside has always been about big maps, big teams and persistent play.

From all the vids I've seen so far, PS2 looks like PS1 with BF3 visuals, that dosen't make me sweat, that makes me grin, because you know what I like about modern FPS games? They're slick and they're gorgeous.

[SGTalon]

I think people are making a big deal about "Not being like BF3 or COD"

There is a reason those games have evolved into a similar gameplay feel, they are becoming more realistic.

When you get down to the point where the games have homogenized into a similar mechanic it is because that is the right way to do it.

Personally i don't have a problem with the actual gameplay and mechanics of BF3/COD. The guns feel right, travel times feel right, overall effects feel right.

Where BF3 and COD lacked was in the things that PS2 is going to deliver on. The round is not going to end, the map is not walled in by arbitrary limits, and the teamwork is going to be required rather than a surprise.

The last thing we want to do is turn the game into an EVE like situation where half the people that try it think it is too complicated to dive into it.

I think that the meta game and development of good tactics are what is going to bring the longevity and complexity into the game for those that want it.

If there is a large percentage of people that are just there for the zerg/meatgrinder, i think that is great, that leaves the important stuff up to guys like us that are there for the bigger picture. We don't have to be part of the meatgrinder that is distracting most of the people from what is really happening.

I have always said that a BF2/3 style game with the Planetside theory of big would be the ultimate game, and it looks like this one is going to be a winner to me.

[Xaine]

Fine, but if we wanted to play CoD or Battlefield, we'd be posting on Cod or Battlefield-universe.com.

Making a game more like CoD or Battlefield isn't what i want. If i wanted to play them, i'd play them. I'm here because of Planetside 1.

Now, those titles being so huge, SoE are going to try and emulate what makes them good. Thats fine, as long as you keep it firmly Planetside, which they are doing.

[Gandhi]

Cod and the bf franchise are doing something right since they have millions of players.
Those games only have to convince you to buy them once to make them successful, which is pretty easy with a huge, aggressive marketing campaign and a lot of brand recognition. Even SWTOR sold over a million copies despite some huge problems, now look at it.

A F2P game has to convince people to put money into it on a constant basis, it's a whole other ballgame. It's far more dependent on replayability and general satisfaction of the community.

[Stardouser]

On the other hand you'll end up with situations where you're killing the same group of guys 3, 4, 5, 6 times before you can finally remove them from one area of your base. Or entire squads showing up out of nowhere because a single infiltrator slipped in, which isn't hard to do. Or even squads suiciding just to travel quickly to another part of the battlefield after pulling some of your guys away to deal with them. And the whole concept makes Galaxy hotdrops somewhat redundant, when you can just have your leader bail out of a Mossie and then spawn on him.

I think you can make a case for both systems, so I hope we get to try them both in the beta.

I can get behind that! Trying both might even lead to some genius coming up with a better way than anyone has heretofore considered.

[MrBloodworth]

Squad spawning should be the primary respawn method

No. It should be removed. AMS's should be brought back.

[Stardouser]

No. It should be removed. AMS's should be brought back.

I described my vision of how quickly people should get back into the battle. Why don't you describe yours? Where would you expect your AMS to be placed, how long is your expected respawn timer system and then the average runback time to the fight/to your squad?

I'm not asking for statements of faith in SOE to do it right, or anything like that; I mean, what is your vision for this?

[Coreldan]

Fine, but if we wanted to play CoD or Battlefield, we'd be posting on Cod or Battlefield-universe.com.

Making a game more like CoD or Battlefield isn't what i want. If i wanted to play them, i'd play them. I'm here because of Planetside 1.

Now, those titles being so huge, SoE are going to try and emulate what makes them good. Thats fine, as long as you keep it firmly Planetside, which they are doing.

But one has to remember that for PS2 to be succesful, it has to attract a FUCKING CRAPLOAD MORE of players than Planetside ever did. Planetside's "commercial failure" comes down to many things, a big part being that most people never even heard about the game, but also many others.

Even if they make all ex-PS players happy but at the same time fail to attract the outsiders, the game already commercially failed.

I'm not saying to take anything and everything from BF3. So far I'm liking the most things. It's also funny that most of the stuff people complain about BF3 are optional server settings. I havn't seen a 3D spot marker in BF3 after my first session.

PS's gunplay was already close of outdated when it came out. If you really think the antique kinda gunplay of PS is what makes Planetside so great for you, I almost feel sorry for you :D

[Immigrant]

First game I played was Wolfenstein so I can't be counted as new to FPS genre yet however I find most new FPS game elements good (I haven't played that much of them tbh, cod4 was the most recent of the before mentioned COD and BF series and I liked it's SP campaign very much). Only thing I would ask is not to make this game too fast (like Tribes i.e.).

[KTNApollo]

Let the developers make the game. When beta starts we can tell them what is unbalanced with the game, or what is buggy, but we are not designers. We do not know how to make a better game than they do, or else we'd all be employed as game designers.

[Kipper]

How do you make a complex and accessible game?

Easy to play, hard to master.... I think you get it right when someone with no experience of your game can get straight in there and start using vehicles and shooting at stuff without anyone having to tell that how to do it, or without some lengthy (usually tedious) tutorial.

But, the more you play it - and for a good while (as long as possible), you should keep on getting eureka moments when you work out that something you're doing is or isn't right, which makes you better - not at twitching (some of us, myself included, will always fail at that) - but at making decisions over what class/vehicle to bring, how to equip it, what to do with it to make it even more effective.

Personally, I like it when a game gives me the tools to get better, but doesn't try to make me better artificially by explicitly telling me how to play them. If I want an experience on rails, I'll watch a movie. A game should be about writing your own script as you go.

A ludicrous example - don't have a popup saying "this looks like a good sniping spot, snipers should go here and do X and Y to get kills". Rather, I want to discover which spots are good and what I need to do by experiencing it or hearing about it from friends experiences.

Anyway, this way, you're accessible because a 5 minute player can get loaded in into a battle and just wants to play a shooter without having to jump through hoops or understand the complexities, but the 5 year player who has taken the time to understand everything else the game has to offer can continue to get new things from it.

[Stardouser]

I'm not saying to take anything and everything from BF3. So far I'm liking the most things. It's also funny that most of the stuff people complain about BF3 are optional server settings. I havn't seen a 3D spot marker in BF3 after my first session.

Do you play Hardcore? My experience with BF3 is that servers who turn 3D spotting off individually, die from lack of population. To explain for those who don't know, BF3 has 3 search modes in the server browser: Normal, Hardcore, and Custom. Hardcore turns off killcam, 3D spotting etc but it also turns off the HUD, and lowers player health. If you individually turn off 3D spotting or killcam your server goes into the Custom settings and you do not receive any quickmatches(aka, Play Now or Instant Action). My experience is that most people either look for hardcore servers if that's what they want, or they just leave it on normal, and custom servers die.

The point of all that is - if you are avoiding 3D spot by playing on Hardcore, that's not a solution that I can accept because the lowered health on Hardcore also lowers TTK. HArdcore is a prepacked mode with many changes; yes it may not have 3D Spot or killcam but that doesn't mean it's worth it.

Why is this relevant to PS2? I have no doubt that even as we speak, the decision whether or not to have 3D spotting or similar things is raging. It's not needed, but if SOE thinks it is I would prefer they just have a few "Casual" or "New Player Friendly" servers that have this, instead of inflicting it on the entire population.

[Meecrob]

Let me play devil's advocate here. I really don't understand all the hate CoD and BF3 are getting so much hate from the community. Let me be clear im not some CoD kiddy, i've played FPS's since Wolfenstein 3D and pretty much everyone of them in between, so i think i have plenty of experience.

CoD and BF3 made great strides when it comes to gun mechanics and fluidity of play. BF2 infantry gunplay, in my opinion, was horrible. (Take note when i say "in my opinion"). I do admit the CoD franchise lost its way after MW2 and they are now just cranking out sequels. But tbh if you look at CoD as an arcade shooter instead of a tactical shooter it kinda makes sense. I think the new CoD's are closer to Unreal Tournament then say counter strike.

I own BF3 and have played it for like 250 hours now. I love everything when it comes to gun mechanics and vehicle mechanics. I do agree it's sad that they cut a couple of the more 'tactical' elements. (like commander mode, atillery strikes etc.) but i do think its a huge step up in the before mentioned mechanics.

Now...when it comes to PS2. How i see it is that they have taken all of the best features of the modern fps and combined this with the more tactical aspects of the past. So i see this as win/win.

In closing i'de like to say, remember that this is your opinion. Many of these posts seem to state that the current changes are horrible as a fact. But do realise that some people think differently about it.

[Rozonus]

Regarding travel time (and waiting in general), a potential problem I've been fearing about players who haven't played PS1 is that because all they're used to are fast paced 'modern FPS' style games, they'll have no patience when it comes to planning and tactics.

I would imagine that if they played PS1, the idea of having to wait for 15 minutes for a base hack to finish would be really boring unless the enemy was constantly trying to recapture the base. Those of us who have played PS1 are used to the slow paced parts of the game but I can see it causing a negative effect for some people.

Saying that, I can still remember the times I kept my Galaxy grounded outside a base waiting for more random people to get in and there would always be some people using the 'Move' emote because they had to wait for more than 5 seconds.

The main good thing about cutting travel time is that it should help to keep more of these people playing the game. They might be annoying, but they'll help keep the game alive.

[MrBloodworth]

I described my vision of how quickly people should get back into the battle. Why don't you describe yours? Where would you expect your AMS to be placed, how long is your expected respawn timer system and then the average runback time to the fight/to your squad?

I'm not asking for statements of faith in SOE to do it right, or anything like that; I mean, what is your vision for this?

How quickly should people be getting back into a battle? As fast as the walk from the closest AMS, Tower, or base spawn room.

I don't need vision. It was already sorted out in PS1. Some of you are talking like it took FOREVER to get back into a battle. It did not. Unless your side was getting stomped, AS IT SHOULD BE. If your side is loosing, be better.

I want Planetside, not an endless spawn cycle. Removal of spawn locations is part of war games.

[Sabrak]

I would imagine that if they played PS1, the idea of having to wait for 15 minutes for a base hack to finish would be really boring unless the enemy was constantly trying to recapture the base. Those of us who have played PS1 are used to the slow paced parts of the game but I can see it causing a negative effect for some people.

I'm sorry, but even if I loved playing PS1, having to wait 15 minutes for a hack to be complete was the most boring thing in the whole game to me.

But I agree with your point, though. You just chose a bad example ;)

Anyway, I think the devs shouldn't have just cut out some parts of PS1 just to "speed up the game", or because they think outsiders won't like it.

Travel times were a big and somewhat interesting part of the game. You never knew when and where you could bump into ennemies and have to engage in a fight (or flee).
And it was just cool to travel as a tank column or mossies/reavers in formation.

[Stardouser]

How quickly should people be getting back into a battle? As fast as the walk from the closest AMS, Tower, or base spawn room.

I don't need vision. It was already sorted out in PS1. Some of you are talking like it took FOREVER to get back into a battle. It did not. Unless your side was getting stomped, AS IT SHOULD BE. If your side is loosing, be better.

I want Planetside, not an endless spawn cycle. Removal of spawn locations is part of war games.

It was sorted out in PS1 just as well as PS1's gunplay was sorted out.

I was hoping you might use respawn timer numbers and such but since you didn't: I simply believe you are asking for a system that will result in mostly PS1 vets being the game population. Sure, there would be a lot of people trying it due to free 2 play, but people outside PS1 vets aren't really looking for every single spawn to be a 30 then 45 second respawn delay and then a walking distance after that.

That's not a better system.

[MrBloodworth]

It was sorted out in PS1 just as well as PS1's gunplay was sorted out.

I was hoping you might use respawn timer numbers and such but since you didn't: I simply believe you are asking for a system that will result in mostly PS1 vets being the game population. Sure, there would be a lot of people trying it due to free 2 play, but people outside PS1 vets aren't really looking for every single spawn to be a 30 then 45 second respawn delay and then a walking distance after that.

That's not a better system.

You should really stop making things up. Gun play/network tech for the day were the issue. Not the spawn system.

I'm sorry, but even if I loved playing PS1, having to wait 15 minutes for a hack to be complete was the most boring thing in the whole game to me.

I really wish people would stop comparing the last few years of Plantside as a start point. When populations were optimal, and before they started introducing all the session based thinking. There was no such thing as standing around for 15 minutes, unless you were back hacking, and no one cared about the location, or a small group was allready on the way to slap you and your 5 friends out of the CC.

Seriously, if you only played with in the last 4 years of the game, please temper your feedback. You did not play Plantside, not they way it was meant to be played.

[Stardouser]

You should really stop making things up. Gun play/network tech for the day were the issue. Not the spawn system.

Seriously, if you only played with in the last 4 years of the game, please temper your feedback. You did not play Plantside, not they way it was meant to be played.

Are you going to debate the issue by discussing actual thoughts on how long respawns should be and the actual time figures you want people to have to endure on getting back to the fight? Telling people that just because they didn't play Planetside in its early years their opinions are invalid, is just sidestepping the need to actually argue your point. And I'm certainly not making anything up.

[CutterJohn]

1. Please define how BF3 is any dumber than quake, unreal, CS, TF, etc. CoD gets the 'dumb' label because it generally devolved into campfests.
2. Do you realize how much PS1 stole from Tribes2?
3. PS1s 'core audience' is tiny.
4. PS was a meatgrinder. Forgotten Dagda already?
5. You'll still have travel. They want to get rid of the pointless stuff, like the HART/Sanctuary. Served no purpose other than to make you wait 5-10 minutes to get to a battle once you booted up the game. They could have easily popped you up to a global view and let you select a base to spawn at.

TL;DR: Things were awesome when I was a kid! The stuff the kids like now is bad, and they shouldn't like it!

[Baron]

on Squad Spawning:

From the bits of game play we've recently seen (thanks TB and Hamma) you can see a drop-pod as a means of spawning into battle. I'd say that THIS is how squad spawning will work and if that is the case, it is very fair...reasons:

1) only works outdoors
2) very visible (Gee, look at all those drop-pods falling from the sky and landing behind that building, I wonder what's over there) :p

[Pozidriv]

You should really stop making things up. Gun play/network tech for the day were the issue. Not the spawn system.




Seriously, if you only played with in the last 4 years of the game, please temper your feedback. You did not play Plantside, not they way it was meant to be played.

Ad Hominem - Attacks the characteristics or authority of the writer without addressing the substance of the argument. Less Ad Hominem and more refuting the central point of the subject please.

Personally id say we need more hardpoints for spawning (outposts and inside bases), this would be a good solution imo because they are known places. If they are held by the enemy you know where they are coming from and can adjust accordingly.

Also i think squad spawn is a viable mechanic, but it needs it's limitations. We have discussed many ways to tone it down, namely cooldown (can only spawn every x minutes), limited to outside only (possibly not inside base SOI) among others.

Btw, the patience of the average Joe has declined rapidly over the years. I somewhat remember reading an article how this has changed over time, if i remember correct the average time a person was willing to wait about 10-15 years ago was 12 minutes, today it was 1-2 minutes. Food for thought.

[MrKWalmsley]

Statements like this "maps very likely to be too small for 2000 players " however I'm going to ask you to wait for Beta. It just won't be true, but you'll see that in time.
You are speaking with certainty there, have you even had a 2000 player test yet? Otherwise I would advise for sake of consistence you having as much scepticism of your own claims as you are asking this person to have of theirs.

[MrBloodworth]

TL;DR: Things were awesome when I was a kid! The stuff the kids like now is bad, and they shouldn't like it!

Not at all. Quite the opposite.

Session based shooters are not war games. They are Battle ( Single ) games. There is a distinction here that must be kept.

Denial of supplies or reinforcements are part of war games. Death means next to nothing in most session based shooters, other than perhaps pride.

Planetsides system had two parts. Time to reinforcement, and location of those reinforcements. They were controlled, locational, known points of contest. With exception of the AMS, that was the wild card.

Session based shooters are designed, increasingly so, to remove interdependence on others, and keep people "in the fight". That's GREAT for a game that lasts 30 minutes, and resets. That's DETRIMENTAL to a war game.

Things like spawn on squad members facilitate this "spawn cycle" system aimed at keeping people in the front lines at all times. Circumventing any effort by the opposition to impeded the reinforcements or access to spawn locations. In War games, you can't magically appear on the front lines, that breaks every single war game in existence, including chess. ( Queen to E-8 bitches! )

Now you may say "Well what about the HART Mr.B!". Well son, the HART was not an independent spawn system with time based on the individual user. It was a cross faction reinforcement timer.

Now, in PS1, if you had a 5 minute walk ahead of you, YOUR EMPIRE IS FAILING THE BATTLE. Someone is not Taking towers, someone is not placing AMS's, Someone is not hacking Vec Terminals. This is not a flaw, this is not something that is a bad thing to happen. This battle is likely over. Of course if you are able to overcome it, the more excitement and worth that comeback. This opens up the possibility for that one AMS driver to change the entire battle. This creates epic moments. This is a war game.

Removing this dynamic so that some users do not loose, even in minor battles ( Of the mind, or the battlefield ), is, well its "silly".

Do not get me started on spawning with full gear. Yet another logistic removed from game play to facilitate more session based thinking.

Materiel logistics and troop movements are keystone to war games.


1. Please define how BF3 is any dumber than quake, unreal, CS, TF, etc. CoD gets the 'dumb' label because it generally devolved into campfests.
2. Do you realize how much PS1 stole from Tribes2?
3. PS1s 'core audience' is tiny.
4. PS was a meatgrinder. Forgotten Dagda already?
5. You'll still have travel. They want to get rid of the pointless stuff, like the HART/Sanctuary. Served no purpose other than to make you wait 5-10 minutes to get to a battle once you booted up the game. They could have easily popped you up to a global view and let you select a base to spawn at.

TL;DR: Things were awesome when I was a kid! The stuff the kids like now is bad, and they shouldn't like it!

You are putting words in my mouth.

The titles you list are fantastic games with their own identity. I have loved each one of them over the years. No where did i say they were dumb. However, that said, They are not Planetside. Nor would I ask that TF2 be changed to be more like Planetside.

#2 Ps Is part of the Tribes line, so yes, yes I do. Stole? That's not the word you are looking for.
#3 Irrelevant. PS1 Main problems were the subscription, the gun play due to sacrifices made for the large scale. Not the mechanics, nor its design as a war game.
#4 Only for the zerg.
#5 I am aware of that, it was not part of my point. You are wrong about the HARTs purpose, And they did have instant action.


This spawn system was exemplified in Section:8. While it was fine for the most part in that game, because it was a single battle, and it rest. There were ZERO front lines, no pushes, no breaking lines. It was simply avoid and leap frog all War like fronts. Instead of organized attacks, flanking ETC.. You got Chaos and combatants from all sides, something not a component of a war game.

The problem I currently have is not with the modernization, that's fine. Its the dilution of the war game to more session based thinking.

[laelgon]

TL;DR: Things were awesome when I was a kid! The stuff the kids like now is bad, and they shouldn't like it!

This pretty much sums up every argument here. I get that some people liked the way things were, but they need to understand that's not where the larger audience is now.

[Serpent]

Though I don't agree with some points, BF3 does definitely allow for drop-shotting, spray and pray, run and gun, etc.

PS2's combat actually has some pretty mediated TTK for infantry, as far as I can tell, the shield is the only real thing that protects the player. Health (if you look at a few videos) gets melted within 3 or 4 bullets.

What they're doing is fine, because this is the future, and games in the future shouldn't be dictated by today's standards by what the OP wants, which from I can tell is...2 hit kills. (That may not be what you want at all, you may just want something different)

Shields are shields, whether or not people like it. If they only take 2 bullets extra, is there any point whatsoever in having them? Machine guns will be extremely powerful, because damage won't matter, just how fast the bullets hit the shield (IF we make the shield have such low protection so that TTK is "realistic.")

[Ieyasu]

This pretty much sums up every argument here. I get that some people liked the way things were, but they need to understand that's not where the larger audience is now.

I couldnt agree with you more on this and have been saying basicly the same thing for awhile now.

I dont say it to be rude, but if the PS2 devs could have 2 choices in front of them; choice A is that 20% of the BF and COD Players of the world come and check out planetside and stay for a time and 0% of old Planetside Players play, or choice B where 0% of BF and COD Players check out Planetside 2 and 100% of old Planetside Players come back. Theyre going to choose A everytime.

Devs arent making Planetside 2 to give old Planetside Vets a trip down memory lane. Theyre making the game for SOE in an effort to turn a profit. Part of that plan is to put out a top quality product that has already been sat down and thought out by a team of people who know what it takes to make a large scale game. By their own admission they are drawing heavily from modern day fps games that have mechanics within that have proven to be quite popular already as evidenced by the tens of millions of copies said franchises have sold over the past few years. I hate to be the bearer of news to some people, but the dev team isnt about to change their already plotted course to accomidate some unknown posters wild and often times unfounded speculation on the game they havent even played for 1 minutes time.

[roguy]

Squad spawning could be seen as such, because it removes the absolute necessity of the AMS, but at this point it seems rather pessimistic to me. We don't know how this feature will open up other strategic possibilities.

It did in BF2 or BF2142, so why would anyone think that it wouldn't in this case?

[Top Sgt]

Homefront is actually a very good example of the statement that just putting 'modern' FPS elements into your game does not lead to success and can actually have the opposite effect; it makes the player realize that they are NOT playing the better, original version, and may make them yearn for it.


Since you brought up homefront.. homefront was actually gameplay wise design a very good model and worked well.

THQ failed with homefront for different reasons from PC to console.

It failed on Console because: Terrible release with not enough servers online for everyone to play.. 2nd part.. Ded Servers were so spread out.. Players like me in the US were constantly put on servers in japan and further with in game pings of more than 300ms.. Which mean't lag fest city.

it failed on PC because of : Anti cheat or lack there off... hackers controlled and ran Homefront from day 1 of release.. Within 3 weeks the game was a ghost town because nothing was done at all about it. Every match had a speed hacker who was 101-0 and just clearing rooms. thus the game was dead within a month.

it's gonna be most important for these devs to control the hacker issue.

[Gandhi]

Devs arent making Planetside 2 to give old Planetside Vets a trip down memory lane. Theyre making the game for SOE in an effort to turn a profit. Part of that plan is to put out a top quality product that has already been sat down and thought out by a team of people who know what it takes to make a large scale game. By their own admission they are drawing heavily from modern day fps games that have mechanics within that have proven to be quite popular already as evidenced by the tens of millions of copies said franchises have sold over the past few years. I hate to be the bearer of news to some people, but the dev team isnt about to change their already plotted course to accomidate some unknown posters wild and often times unfounded speculation on the game they havent even played for 1 minutes time.
That's a gross oversimplification of people's concerns. Hardly anyone is against sprinting, iron sights, the new territory system, resources, sidegrades, customization, skill trees or the new capture mechanics, just to name a few. Most of the rest of the changes are being met with a "wait and see" attitude, things like the removal of sanctuaries, squad spawning, lower TTK, cloaking snipers, class system and so on.

It's only a handful of things that has a lot of the vets worried. So don't equate resistance to those few changes with resistance to all change, or the belief that PS2 needs to be exactly like PS1 to be fun. All we want is for SOE to embrace the good parts of modern shooters and leave out the bad, because they undoubtedly do have some bad parts. Likewise take the good things from PS1 and leave out the bad. And while we may disagree sometimes about what's good and what's bad we all have that same desire, vet or no.

[capiqu]

Planetside has turned 9 years old. I would believe that SOE micht have a pretty good idea about number of players and continental size ratios. In planetside you had almost 400 population on a 6x6 cont Soe has gather so much info on this. That would include how many people would be in action and how many would be re spawning at any given time. Like T-Ray says, We got this.

[Ieyasu]

That's a gross oversimplification of people's concerns. Hardly anyone is against sprinting, iron sights, the new territory system, resources, sidegrades, customization, skill trees or the new capture mechanics, just to name a few. Most of the rest of the changes are being met with a "wait and see" attitude, things like the removal of sanctuaries, squad spawning, lower TTK, cloaking snipers, class system and so on.

It's only a handful of things that has a lot of the vets worried. So don't equate resistance to those few changes with resistance to all change, or the belief that PS2 needs to be exactly like PS1 to be fun. All we want is for SOE to embrace the good parts of modern shooters and leave out the bad, because they undoubtedly do have some bad parts. Likewise take the good things from PS1 and leave out the bad. And while we may disagree sometimes about what's good and what's bad we all have that same desire, vet or no.

yeah and thats cool and all, but like I already mentioned in my previous post, the Devs have already sat down and had the pow wows about what they wanted to do in the game and with it. anyone who was not invited to sit down with them and discuss was not invited for a reason. that reason is they dont care what you have to say about it on the large because they know what they want to do already and that is to copy what they have seen work for other fps games based on sales numbers.

im not much of a fan of the guy, but a Robert Downey Jr Quote seems to fit the situation pretty well imho with regards to what the dev team does with peoples advice given here on PSU Forums.

"Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the F$#K you were going to do anyway."

Cleggs recent twitter post asking what kind of cover people prefered then going on to let everyone know both kinds are going to be in the game (aka theyve already made a design decision regarding it) comes to mind. Asking peoples preference for something thats already been done... Must admit it gives the illusion of a desire for community input, at least for people not able to see through the smoke and mirrors.

[ringring]

Because that Galaxy shouldn't be sitting 10 feet outside the base as happened with PS1. Or, since I only played recently, can you assure me that in the highly populated days of PS1, that attackers were actually forced to deploy AMS farther away? But then, that makes it boring. That is why what I described is a balance of spawning into the combat and getting repulsed completely back to your Galaxy.
In the highly populated days of PS (and excluding gal drops) the initial object would be to advance your amses into the courtyard.
You generally couldn't do that straightaway so instead you advanced your amses upto the line of battle and as your tanks and reavers advanced so you could advance your amses.

You really couldn't do a proper assault to take the base unless your amses were actually inside the courtyard as the travel times would be too long.

Sure amses could and would be OS'd (I'd often call for at least 3 to be deplayed inside a courtyard we were attacking) but how more open to attack are galaxies, I'd say much more.

To the general point about spawning: I really don't get the idea of spawning at a gal. To me the gal is too obvious and will or should be the main target of defenders. Because of this it will have to be parked some distance away from the main fight.

Squad spawning: I don't like the idea that a squad can spawn on a squad leader inside the courtyard of a base simply because he has manged to stay alive. It doesn't sound right. If squad spawning is a replacement for the Hart (which I think is the devs intention) then I am happy with it.

All in all, I don't know how respawns will work in practise, it will be interesting to see in beta.

[Kipper]

If squad spawning takes place a'la BF2142 where you had to spec(cert) it and then deploy a spawning beacon, then for me - it wins.

You counter it because you can see drop pods raining down around it and that squad has to protect their spawn beacon if they want to keep using it... its just another target in a game about eliminating targets.

Once you've cleared the squad spawns out the way, you organise an assault to take down the beast that I believe the deployed galaxy will be....

[Mechzz]

Couple of comments on spawning:

on Squad Spawning:
From the bits of game play we've recently seen (thanks TB and Hamma) you can see a drop-pod as a means of spawning into battle. I'd say that THIS is how squad spawning will work and if that is the case, it is very fair...reasons:

1) only works outdoors
2) very visible (Gee, look at all those drop-pods falling from the sky and landing behind that building, I wonder what's over there) :p

Yes, this needs to be emphasised. Higby had already said that squad spawning will be (rightly) limited in this way and has been shown to be true to his word.


Personally id say we need more hardpoints for spawning (outposts and inside bases), this would be a good solution imo because they are known places. If they are held by the enemy you know where they are coming from and can adjust accordingly.


It has been said that there will be multiple spawn rooms in the new bases (at least in the big ones). So when attacking a base:
1. Deploy a Gal (but it can't be too close or it'll be a goner)
2. Make a spawn a primary target for the assault, maybe feinting on a capture point to draw away defenders.

This mix seems fine to me, never having played the game (PS2, I played plenty of PS1). I have suspicion an AMS-alike might be needed, but I'm not going to whine for it now, I'll wait for beta and see how it plays.

[Ieyasu]

Why are you still here? Leave please. Oops sorry Hamma, forgot about the ignore.

yeah ignore away. I wont lose any sleep over it. Heaven forbid someone like myself comes and supports the devs vision of the game and is willing to trust in their expertise until at least having had a chance to play it for a minute or two.

by all means continue to QQ and ask the devs to change this thing or that as you seem to be so fond of posting in threads which carry that theme. I am happy with the direction they have taken with the game and from what I have seen so far of Planetside 2 it looks like its on its way to be a great game as is sans any help from forum unknowns.

[roguy]

There is one pretty huge and obvious reason why: THEY NEVER PLAYED IT.

I can visualize all sorts of ways in which it can open up possibilities in PS2, but you need to know how it does so before you can judge it properly. I actually used the word "how" in the previous post too; it was there for a reason.

Then show me how PS2 could possibly differ from BF2142 in terms of spawning?

Squad spawning in BF2142 made combat all about squad v squad combat by keeping people together, instead of having people spawn all over the map and get singled out all the time trying to regroup. There were still very viable reasons to use flag spawns (for vehicles, kinda like bases in PS) and squad beacons (AMSes for all intents and purposes).

So far I've heard of nothing that will make the PS2 mechanics different in any fundamental way.

[CuddlyChud]

I feel like video games are the only industry where the consumer feels like he knows more than the producer. I'm not saying people shouldn't post ideas, but this thread is just feels so full of condescension.

[roguy]

I feel like video games are the only industry where the consumer feels like he knows more than the producer. I'm not saying people shouldn't post ideas, but this thread is just feels so full of condescension.

Yeah I'm trying to imagine how the Mona Lisa would have turned out if Leonardo DaVinci had a blog...

"Omg, obvious rip-off of the Madonna!! It's for casuals!!!"

"Wtf you promised us a blonde!! Leo, why do you hate your painting! This is a slap in the FACE!!"

[The Kush]

Hire this man.

Agreed. Modern FPS suck for the strategic, team oriented, and skill driven players.

Why?

Because they are dumbing the game down and making it so dumbasses stand a chance.

Results?

Incredibly boring

[Cam]

i hope they bring some version of the ANT back in. like having to bring up resources to your other base's. this would add a other element to the game. For example if you notice the enemy front line base is low on resources you can have some air boys fly behind enemy lines and take out the supply troops. now that front line base can't spawn any more vehicles . now you can roll over them with heavy tanks

[basti]

15 years of FPS?

Well, then you are like me. My first FPS was Wolfenstein 3D. Played Doom, Duke3D, Quake, Tribes, Unreal and UT (awww, good ol UT :/ ) all that stuff. Pretty much all of them.

And i tell you: They had some very enjoyable elements, but also a crapload of shit in them. The thing is: Humans tend to forget the crap over time, and just keep the good memorys. Its actually a sanity thing, because otherwise we would go insane at about age 20. :>

Now, over time, FPS games had less crap in them, and the fun elements got even better. But then, something happend (Counter-Strike maybe?) and slowly everyone was like "Modern day FPS" and people started to copy elements and just add a little each time, playing it save rather than trying something.

Thats what bugs me the most, no innovation, nothing fresh, nothing new.
And with Planetside 2, the innovation returns.

They do take "Cod style" gunplay, and its a good idea to not go away from that, because its damn hard to figure out how gunplay should be (see Counter-Strike GO, minor things like how the screen reacts when you fire a gun have drastic effects).
But, we got tons of innovation!
Vehicles? BF tried that, but they always took a minor role, because you cant really have a tank collum with 5 tanks.
more than 64 players? Only a few games got that, and i cant actually name any for PC, because its that goddamn uncommon.

And loads of more stuff that i dont really need to write down because all of u know about it already!


Dont fear mate. Whorst case: we see during beta and tell them stuff is crap. And then, they change it, or not. ;)

[wekabear]

I hope that you all realise that the developers have an idea of a team based game in their minds and all planned out somewhere. If something happens that they were not expecting, or they discover that something takes away from the team based element, they can change that, it's what the beta is for.

[roguy]

15 years of FPS?

Well, then you are like me. My first FPS was Wolfenstein 3D. Played Doom, Duke3D, Quake, Tribes, Unreal and UT (awww, good ol UT :/ ) all that stuff. Pretty much all of them.
(...)
Now, over time, FPS games had less crap in them, and the fun elements got even better. But then, something happend (Counter-Strike maybe?) and slowly everyone was like "Modern day FPS" and people started to copy elements and just add a little each time, playing it save rather than trying something.


You're also being guilty of nostalgia.

Wolfeinstein -> Doom: No innovation whatsoever.
Doom -> Duke 3D: interactive environments maybe? Nothing else.
Duke -> Quake: 3d graphics and mouselook.
Quake -> UT: Secondary firing modes and that's it.

All those games were "same old shit/modern day fps" back in their day.

In the 90s the marketed saturated with arena shooters set in the future, the early 2000s with WWII games, late 2000 was modern warfare and now we're going towards futuristic shooters again (new ghost recon, halo 4, black ops 2, BF2143).

[Badjuju]

Suggesting something sounds like bad game design, without identifying specific issues (film grain effects? kill-streak rewards?) is of limited value.

Any good beta tester will tell you, identify specific issues, identify specific causes, make sure they are repeatable and then call it a problem.

Old games = better, new games = crap, just sounds like nostalgia talking.

Homefront failed because it had sloppy writing, unballanced killstreak rewards, tiny overly cluttered maps and weapons copy-pasted from a dozzen other shooters it was directly competeing with. It did nothing new, and did the old stuff worse. This dosen't tell you that new shooters are rubbish, it tells you that if you don't do something different, or do it better, you're going to fail. Planetside has always been about big maps, big teams and persistent play.

From all the vids I've seen so far, PS2 looks like PS1 with BF3 visuals, that dosen't make me sweat, that makes me grin, because you know what I like about modern FPS games? They're slick and they're gorgeous.

This...using mechanics seen in bf3 and cod are to make the game feel more realistic and thus more immersive (at least for me). I don't think these mechanics dumb the game down at all, and I don't think they are what sets the tone of the game. If there are specific features you dislike then name them or this argument will go no where. Personally my only concern at this point is the balance of the ttk, but like most issues it is to early to worry about until we play the beta and see how it fits and how they adjust it.

[Baron]

Yeah immersion will rule the day when we have hello kitty™ skinned Sunderers and an unimaginable variety of masked soldiers running around.

hello kitty is registered trade mark ....I fixed it. Your credit card statement will reflect a charge of $1.99 from Sony Online Entertainment

[Purple]

i little advice for OP. dont go into marketing with an attitude like this nothing you make will do well. you need to take sucessfull elements from others sometimes to make a great product yourslef and get a shot at their consumers as well. PS2 will be competing with COD and BF and they are aiming to win.

[Kaw]

Agreed. Modern FPS suck for the strategic, team oriented, and skill driven players.

Why?

Because they are dumbing the game down and making it so dumbasses stand a chance.

Results?

Incredibly boring

Can you explain how they are dumbing the game down?

If the problem is TTK, Counter Strike had a much shorter TTK and it is lauded as one of the most team oriented, skill driven FPSes out there. From what I've seen, the TTK in PS2 is noticeably longer than in COD.

If the problem is the spawn system, what alternative to squad spawning is there besides running a kilometer to get back into the fight? I never played PS1, but I would stop playing very quickly if every death ment a five minute walk.

Is the problem the ability to aim down sights or to sprint?

Until somebody can elaborate on what "modern fps elements" are, I'm going to find it difficult to agree with the complaints in this thread.

[Atlas]

Was going to post a long reply, but i'll just shorten it down to two bits...

Can those who are doing it stop calling people who play faster paced games dumbasses, stop that crap...It stinks.

And wait until you've got a hands on experience of the game until you start a "I know better than a paid game developer" thread, playing and watching football are very different from each other.

[Ieyasu]

Yeah I'm trying to imagine how the Mona Lisa would have turned out if Leonardo DaVinci had a blog...

"Omg, obvious rip-off of the Madonna!! It's for casuals!!!"

"Wtf you promised us a blonde!! Leo, why do you hate your painting! This is a slap in the FACE!!"

I like the DaVinci Blog idea. I saw it more along the lines of this though:

1. Leonardo announces on his blog that he is beginging a new portrait
2. people post their enthusism for the project and shower him with love
3. he makes rough sketch on canvas and posts picture
4. people say its awesome and applaud
5. he begins to fill in some of the background
6. people applaud but a few people think it would be better to place the background in a evening setting
7. he begins to work on the main subject of the portrait and people are still supportive, but a few think the eyes are too close together or the subjects nose is too long
8. work is coming right along and he posts another picture to update the followers.
9. followers are now up in arms because some think the painting should be set in the evening, others think she should be wearing a hat and still others are saying her flesh tones are not realistic looking
10. Leonardo assures everyone that its a work in progress and that hes not done working on the flesh tones and will look into the evening setting and hat
11. people dont hear back from Leonardo for a week or two and begin to speculate on whats going wrong with the project and offering advice on how Leonardo should be painting his portrait. Based on previous portraits theyve seen done by other artists they are just sure DaVinci is doing it all wrong.

and here is where it can go one of two ways

12(a). Leonardo unveils the Mona Lisa and it is set on the moon with green spacemen sitting on Lisas shoulders. she has blue skin, eye stalks sticking out of her head and is wearing a hat the same shade as her clowns nose.

12(b). Leonardo unveils the Mona Lisa and it is pretty much how he had planned it to look when he started out. He has made a few revisions and changed a couple small things about it, but in the end its remarkably close to what he had planned it to be when he started the project.

I myself prefer (b) in this made up little Davinci Blog Scenario. I know from reading through this thread and the others that have been popping up lately that there are quite a few fans of (a) out there though.

[Purple]

Agreed. Modern FPS suck for the strategic, team oriented, and skill driven players.

Why?

Because they are dumbing the game down and making it so dumbasses stand a chance.

Results?

Incredibly boring

of corse you think that. i know players like you anytime you get killed you will be like that dumbass ran me over this game is broken if someone can do that to a skilled player like me! or the guy killed me by swimging around the building the pussy was scared to face me head on!

dont play games if you can take a loss, it is going to happen alot.

[roguy]

I myself prefer (b) in this made up little Davinci Blog Scenario. I know from reading through this thread and the others that have been popping up lately that there are quite a few fans of (a) out there though.

:lol:

Yup but you can also add (c) He had no bloody internet, he barely asked anyone for their opinions on it since he probably knew better than anyone else anyway and you have the world's most famous and loved painting.

I struggle to find a well-made example of art designed by commitee.

[Biohazard]

Why am I concerned? Well for the start, the gunplay of PS2 shown so far looks awfully like CoD, that means it looks just like in most generic first person shooters and it doesn't stand out.



I'm sorry, but the gunplay mechanics of a shooter is the first thing that stand out to me, and I honestly don't think that Planetside2 even remotely resembles Call of Duty, at all. CoD's gunplay is; close quarters, very low TTK, run-and-gun, arcade, hit scan. The most prominent parts being run-and-gun, hit scan. Where as PS2 looks to be; favoring medium to long range, moderate TTK, aim-down-the-sights, tactical, ballistically-simulated. I say PS2 is tactical, in that I feel that when one runs into a room it will require a small bit of planning, and you will do it to accomplish an objective rather than for the kills. Verses in CoD, where I could play it almost on reflex and muscle memory, usually with kills in mind.

What dose "the gunplay of PS2 shown so far looks awfully like CoD" mean?

[GameCobra]

Scale is the big seller for this game, and Scale is what other games lacked. This game feels more geared towards a BattleField experience, but we want this game to be militaristic, which is what i think Planetside's specialty is: A military game.

[Ieyasu]

Since the release of WOW the average life span of an MMO is 1 year. PS2 will do nothing to increase that average.

this coming from a guy who has told me not to post here in a couple different threads? You seem to lack any confidence in the people working on this games ability to create a winner and SOE ability to back it. FFS we know Smed loves planetside and theyve already said it would be heavily marketed what more are you looking for other than a long list of various changes people have called for in these type of threads? :rolleyes:

You seem to place more value on the opinons of random forum posters that base wild speculation regarding PS2 gameplay on previous games they have played that mean nothing when compared to PS2 (and that includes the original planetside) than you do on a dev team that have based and built their careers in the gaming industry and been able to find meaningful employment doing so.

If you think you have such better ideas on how this game sould be made feel free to round up all your fellow forum friends who call for change without benefit of even having had played the game and fund your own mmofps... the right way.

[LONGFELLA KOJ]

1. Please define how BF3 is any dumber than quake, unreal, CS, TF, etc. CoD gets the 'dumb' label because it generally devolved into campfests.
2. Do you realize how much PS1 stole from Tribes2?
3. PS1s 'core audience' is tiny.
4. PS was a meatgrinder. Forgotten Dagda already?
5. You'll still have travel. They want to get rid of the pointless stuff, like the HART/Sanctuary. Served no purpose other than to make you wait 5-10 minutes to get to a battle once you booted up the game. They could have easily popped you up to a global view and let you select a base to spawn at.

TL;DR: Things were awesome when I was a kid! The stuff the kids like now is bad, and they shouldn't like it!

It's quite humorous that you're a PSU moderator. You seem like you dispise Planetside.

Just a view from outside lookin in bro.

[LONGFELLA KOJ]

If you were to show me a screen shot of any of the last modern FPS that have come out in the last 3 years I couldn't tell you which was which due to the fact they all look like the same dam game. MW,CoD etc.

Except Borderlands.

I say just use the standard answer the people who don't really give a shit use. "Just let them make the game and we'll see what happens". That way if it sucks, you can just do what you always do in 2 months and go buy the next greatest game ever at Gamestop. Oh and don't forget to trade in this one for $5 dollars off!

[roguy]

I agree scale is the potential differentiating factor. You would logically draw the conclusion that higher pop equals larger battles, but they appear to be desiring to break this game down along lengthy fronts to dilute the battles to encourage using the mission system to give CoD/BF guys a more familiar experience. Summarily it lacks innovation.


Have you played Operation Metro or any of the BF3 maps on "Rush"-mode?

Do you even know what you're talking about anymore? :huh:

Saying vehicle changes in PS2 were influenced by COD (wich doesn't even HAVE vehicles), then flaming BF3 for it's lack of bottlenecks is just making you look like an idiot at this point.

[Pozidriv]

If you were to show me a screen shot of any of the last modern FPS that have come out in the last 3 years I couldn't tell you which was which due to the fact they all look like the same dam game. MW,CoD etc.

Except Borderlands.

I say just use the standard answer the people who don't really give a shit use. "Just let them make the game and we'll see what happens". That way if it sucks, you can just do what you always do in 2 months and go buy the next greatest game ever at Gamestop. Oh and don't forget to trade in this one for $5 dollars off!

http://fronttowardsgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Bulletstorm_Hero.jpg

:D.

[Nick]

John Smedley LOVES Battlefield 3. This will fall on deaf ears.

[DviddLeff]

It's quite humorous that you're a PSU moderator. You seem like you dispise Planetside.

Just a view from outside lookin in bro.

He's just saying it like it was - PS was flawed. The PS2 devs are doing everything they can to fix those flaws.

I played PS for a long, long time; running a successful outfit for years before we finally left the game due to the flaws. 15 minute uncontested base hacks, 2 loading screens before getting to a fight, interfarms, aging netcode and archaic game play all contributed, and all the more so once development practically stopped after the first 2 years.

I've played FPS games since their beginnings and you know what, I like iron sights, I like quick knife, I like head shots and I like single button grenade throws.

What I do not prefer is arena play - just like Quake, Unreal and later day CoD games where its just run around and kill people with no real objectives. Battlefield has been my go to franchise since the first (and hell, I saw the potential in the concept playing Codename Eagle) because it gives you those objectives, and as it has evolved I have liked every iteration. PS has scale going for it, but it should not stick to the old mechanical constraints of a game made almost a decade ago.

[Pozidriv]

John Smedley LOVES Battlefield 3. This will fall on deaf ears.

I have seen more enthusiasm for Tribes: Ascend from the devs than BF3. Also can i get something to back that up? Most people from Mordor (Old BF fans) want bigger maps and the action spread out and here it seems you want a BF3 meatgrinder? I say no to Metro 24/7 Conquest 10000 ticket spamfest. Spread out those 2k people.

[roguy]

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::r ofl: WUT?

My time here is done. Good luck guys.


You would logically draw the conclusion that higher pop equals larger battles, but they appear to be desiring to break this game down along lengthy fronts to dilute the battles to encourage using the mission system to give CoD/BF guys a more familiar experience.

So the COD/BF guys are getting a more familiar experience because of the spread out battles or the mission system? Because those 2 games had neither. Like I said, you simply don't have a clue, so don't let the door hit you in the butt.

:doh:

[Purple]

I'm sorry, but the gunplay mechanics of a shooter is the first thing that stand out to me, and I honestly don't think that Planetside2 even remotely resembles Call of Duty, at all. CoD's gunplay is; close quarters, very low TTK, run-and-gun, arcade, hit scan. The most prominent parts being run-and-gun, hit scan. Where as PS2 looks to be; favoring medium to long range, moderate TTK, aim-down-the-sights, tactical, ballistically-simulated. I say PS2 is tactical, in that I feel that when one runs into a room it will require a small bit of planning, and you will do it to accomplish an objective rather than for the kills. Verses in CoD, where I could play it almost on reflex and muscle memory, usually with kills in mind.

What dose "the gunplay of PS2 shown so far looks awfully like CoD" mean?

i think he means we can look down the scope to aim?

Since the release of WOW the average life span of an MMO is 1 year. PS2 will do nothing to increase that average.

ya thats just not true. you shouldent make up numbers to help your argument. 57% of people who do that get struck by lightning.


Guild Wars
EVE
Free Realms
World of Tanks (just older then a year but it still growing strong)

i could make the list longer but i dont want to wast my time anymore then i already am.

[Nick]

I have seen more enthusiasm for Tribes: Ascend from the devs than BF3. Also can i get something to back that up?

9 minutes in

PlanetSide 2 - Developer Q&A Session - With John Smedley & Matt Higby - 7.8.11 - YouTube

[Neurotoxin]

Closed Beta is the time to figure this stuff out. I appreciate the OP, but any issues with balance and pacing and features and soldier longevity will be worked out during Closed Beta.

Matt Higby's a smart fella, but he isn't the entire team or the entire project, and I'm sure the combined knowledge and understanding of games possessed by the entire PS2 team helped shaped decisions that have led to where the game is at now. The entire team knows that Closed Beta is where the balancing begins, I'm sure they are going to be ready for drastic changes to be made.

[maradine]

You're also being guilty of nostalgia.
Wolfeinstein -> Doom: No innovation whatsoever.
Doom -> Duke 3D: interactive environments maybe? Nothing else.
Duke -> Quake: 3d graphics and mouselook.
Quake -> UT: Secondary firing modes and that's it.


Wow.

Leaving the topic of nostalgia to the side for a moment (on that point, I agree with you) let's address the evolutionary assertion.

Wolf to Doom? Introduction of the core weapon mix that drove FPS design for a decade, pseudo 3D based on z-height, arbitrary level geometry. It was a quantum leap at the time, and playing both back to back still illustrates that easily.

Doom to Duke? mouselook (not counting in marathon in this context). Level design with viable alternate routes. LAN play standard. For those of us on actually on networks at the time, that was a huge deal. The birth of "professional gaming".

Duke to Quake? The death of sprites, Trent Reznor, QuakeC, the birth of the modding scene. Rocket jumping and grenade spam. Thresh and celebrity gamers. Ferraris. Truly the hair metal of the genre.

Quake to UT? You speak like secondary fire modes wasn't a big deal. Also, the introduction of the vertical as a heavily leaned upon level element, alternate level physics (who wasn't just blown away by dm-hyperblast?). Game mechanic mutation intrinsic to engine. Oh, and instagib.

The industry hasn't exactly been sitting on its ass.

[Pozidriv]

9 minutes in

PlanetSide 2 - Developer Q&A Session - With John Smedley & Matt Higby - 7.8.11 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3THiEGpSbIU&feature=related)

Oh wow... "When BF3 launches" kinda like me, i was super stoked for BF3 but instead of BF i got CoD. So that comment alone is hardly enough to convince Smed is having a boner over BF3. Also he pretty much stated that he will just jump ship back to PS because it's better.

[Ieyasu]

Oh wow... "When BF3 launches" kinda like me, i was super stoked for BF3 but instead of BF i got CoD. So that comment alone is hardly enough to convince Smed is having a boner over BF3. Also he pretty much stated that he will just jump ship back to PS because it's better.

he does say around 1 minute in that hes a really big BF2 and Bad Company player and likes their spawn system.

[Pozidriv]

he does say around 1 minute in that hes a really big BF2 and Bad Company player and likes their spawn system.

BF2 and BF:BC1 were good games, BC1 was the best BF game on nextgen consoles IMO. (barring BF:MC ofcourse)

[Nick]

I have seen more enthusiasm for Tribes: Ascend from the devs than BF3. Also can i get something to back that up? Most people from Mordor (Old BF fans) want bigger maps and the action spread out and here it seems you want a BF3 meatgrinder? I say no to Metro 24/7 Conquest 10000 ticket spamfest. Spread out those 2k people.

he does say around 1 minute in that hes a really big BF2 and Bad Company player and likes their spawn system.

Oh wow... "When BF3 launches" kinda like me, i was super stoked for BF3 but instead of BF i got CoD. So that comment alone is hardly enough to convince Smed is having a boner over BF3. Also he pretty much stated that he will just jump ship back to PS because it's better.
He will jump ship back to PS because it's like BF:BC2/BF3. Do you see him playing Planetside 1?

[Pozidriv]

Look at the reply below ya. Also, he will jump ship back to PS because it's like BF:BC2/BF3. Do you see him playing Planetside 1?

I even replied to the reply below me. Still doesn't prove PS2 will be BF3, also why not PS1? PS1 is a great game with flaws, kinda like BF3 it's a nice game it's just not BF.

Btw, why would you just ship to another game is like the one you like? CoD does CoD best, you don't make a better CoD by being something else than CoD.

Also, there nothing wrong if PS2 has some BC and BF2 blood innit.

[Elude]

Call of duty does indeed have some pretty fucking terrible gameplay in my opinion but so did PS1, in fact if you wanna know the truth I actually thought it was much worse than call of duties.

If it were not for the persistence and large scale battles I would of passed up PS1 in a heart beat, so long as PS2 stays true to this I am sold!

[roguy]

Wow.

Leaving the topic of nostalgia to the side for a moment (on that point, I agree with you) let's address the evolutionary assertion.

Wolf to Doom? Introduction of the core weapon mix that drove FPS design for a decade, pseudo 3D based on z-height, arbitrary level geometry. It was a quantum leap at the time, and playing both back to back still illustrates that easily.


I'm only taking one of you're examples, because I somewhat agree with you. But so far you've been way more generous than some people in this thread have been with BF3/COD/PS2 comparisons.

Though I'd point out that:
1-)"Introduction of the core weapon mix that drove FPS design for a decade": wasn't a revolution, it was the same-old only done better.
2-)"pseudo 3D based on z-height": barely (if that...) improved gameplay because you didn't even need to aim up, for all intents and purposes you were still fighting on a 2D plane.
3-)"arbitrary level geometry": I have no idea what that is. Could you explain? :)

Understand that I'm only arguing what you've pointed out in the context of people saying COD+BF3+PS2 are exactly the same, and that people who believed that the history of FPS releases in the 90s was a Rollercoaster ride of gaming revolutions instead of a long list of incremental additions and improvements, need a reality check.

But thanks for the reminder, I played all these games at the time of release but only got into FPSes from Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight onwards. You must be way older than me :p

[Nick]

All I'm saying is the combat and vehicle mechanics in Planetside 2 borrow HEAVILY from Battlefield 3. Why? Because John Smedley is a huge fan of that series, and he definitely has a say on the overall feel of the game.

The OP doesn't realize how solid this is set in stone. Sure, you can tweak TTK and damage. But it's not gonna be an ADADAD stafe and track game like Planetside 1 was. It's not gonna be a bunny hop unrealistic physics game like Quake/UT. It's going to have a modern feel, like the newer BF and CoD games. Strafing will be minimal and not as important. You will be aiming down iron sights frequently. Grenades will be more lethal. Vehicles will be more vulnerable.

It's a change that some people like and some people hate. I think it can work, but it all depends on level design. I hate some maps in BF3 because you just get killed by random bullets of some guy halfway across the map camping in some building. Hopefully TTK is a bit higher than BF3. From the video I saw, vehicles die way too fast. Air is going to make tanks almost useless, IMO.

[Coreldan]

All I'm saying is the combat and vehicle mechanics in Planetside 2 borrow HEAVILY from Battlefield 3. Why? Because John Smedley is a huge fan of that series, and he definitely has a say on the overall feel of the game.

The OP doesn't realize how solid this is set in stone. Sure, you can tweak TTK and damage. But it's not gonna be an ADADAD stafe and track game like Planetside 1 was. It's not gonna be a bunny hop unrealistic physics game like Quake/UT. It's going to have a modern feel, like the newer BF and CoD games. Strafing will be minimal and not as important. You will be aiming down iron sights frequently. Grenades will be more lethal. Vehicles will be more vulnerable.

It's a change that some people like and some people hate. I think it can work, but it all depends on level design. I hate some maps in BF3 because you just get killed by random bullets of some guy halfway across the map camping in some building. Hopefully TTK is a bit higher than BF3. From the video I saw, vehicles die way too fast. Air is going to make tanks almost useless, IMO.

Personally, thank God for this.

BF3 has probably the best combat feel (no experience on vehicles, never could get over how mouse sensitivity was quadrupled when entering vehicle lol) I've probably yet to find in any game. It has some small things that irk me (lack of lean for one) but overall it's a really solid combat experience.

So I'm all for them copy pasting the combat of BF3, but adding in to the spots where BF3 falls short (which already the whole point of the game partially fixes).

My biggest gripe with BF3 was always the totally ridicilously crap spawn system and a few other things they removed/dumbed down from the previous games.

EDIT: And before someone tries to stomp on my opinion, I have also played shooters starting from Wolfenstein 3Ds and Dooms, but I do have to say that my background is very strongly in fe. Tom Clancy's tactical shooters and games like America's Army, basically anything fairly realistic'ish damage model shooter. I also only play BF3 on hardcore only, which probably is one reason why I like the game more than many other people :D But still, my BF experience also starts from 1942 + all the expansions.

[Pozidriv]

All I'm saying is the combat and vehicle mechanics in Planetside 2 borrow HEAVILY from Battlefield 3. Why? Because John Smedley is a huge fan of that series, and he definitely has a say on the overall feel of the game.

The OP doesn't realize how solid this is set in stone. Sure, you can tweak TTK and damage. But it's not gonna be an ADADAD stafe and track game like Planetside 1 was. It's not gonna be a bunny hop unrealistic physics game like Quake/UT. It's going to have a modern feel, like the newer BF and CoD games. Strafing will be minimal and not as important. You will be aiming down iron sights frequently. Grenades will be more lethal. Vehicles will be more vulnerable.

It's a change that some people like and some people hate. I think it can work, but it all depends on level design. I hate some maps in BF3 because you just get killed by random bullets of some guy halfway across the map camping in some building. Hopefully TTK is a bit higher than BF3. From the video I saw, vehicles die way too fast. Air is going to make tanks almost useless, IMO.

Ok now i feel stupid, i guess i should have read some posts more thoroughly. I agree with you on this allmost 100%. But i would still like that instead of saying it borrows heavily from BF3 but from the BF series as a whole, you yourself said Smed likes the series.

Also i agree on the fact that since we are more accurate now (ADS and other mechanics) that TTK shouldn't bee too high and the potential spammyness of combat needs to be kept low. Aswell we don't know the effectiveness of AA, air can be powerfull if it can be countered with dedicated units.

[Dreamcast]

How in the hell is making it the game sort of like CoD or Battlefield, dumbing Planetside down?.....I mean srsly?...have u even played planetside?


Planetside was never complicated....Anybody could play that game...It was simple as hell, you can say dumb down.....So I don't understand this dumbing down angle you are talking about.


So their is classes now and Iron sights...Wow the game is so dumb down since I can't A and D to the sides while hip firing....and I can select my Over powered load out...Planetside elitist lol



Planetside was never complicated......

[capiqu]

I guess this is what happens when you get a bunch of new peeps into the community that never have played Planetside before. They try to get their 2 cents in the only way they can. That's by comparing a game that's in alpha to games they are familiar with. Once beta is out they will see Planetside is not BF or COD. I just wish they would get some Planetside gaming experience before they comment. I guess they will realize it when they walk out of a doorway and get spammed by 100 Reavers. Yeah that's a BF experience. So with all the newcomers things will get a bit bumpy around here till the newbies come around. Sit tight.

[p0intman]

Fine, but if we wanted to play CoD or Battlefield, we'd be posting on Cod or Battlefield-universe.com.

Making a game more like CoD or Battlefield isn't what i want. If i wanted to play them, i'd play them. I'm here because of Planetside 1.

Now, those titles being so huge, SoE are going to try and emulate what makes them good. Thats fine, as long as you keep it firmly Planetside, which they are doing.

This. A million times this. Except for the last part. Less COD/BF crap, kthnx.

[Shogun]

i just think we need a higher time to kill. mainly because the great different weapons deserve to show their pros and cons. if every weapon kills everything with 1-5 shots it doesn´t really matter what weapons you chose.

kiddys nowadays are used to having very deadly weapons and may not like to be cought in a situation where their gun was the wrong choice, but that was such a great part of the planetside experience, and ps2 has everything on board to recreate it already. a too low ttk would destroy the whole stone scissor paper tactics and reduces the game to a large arena deathmatch with some cosmetical tactics.

apart from the ttk (and the hopefully resolved driver/gunner thing) i don´t have major problems with the modernization. just don´t dumb down too much and keep the ttk at a tactical meaningful level and the game will be great!

the mapsize seems right. if the maps feel as big as the ps1 maps, i don´t see a problem. those maps would have supported 2000 players at ease. even more if battles would spread to all bases. sometimes there were poplocked continents with big battles at only 3-4 bases. i like intense battles that look like a scripted singleplayer scene with combined arms forces at work on so many levels all around you! again a reason to have a higher ttk.
maximum players at a base and high ttk = fun,teamwork,tactics
maximum players at a base and low ttk = meatgrinder extreme, die and repeat.

[Rbstr]

How in the hell is making it the game sort of like CoD or Battlefield, dumbing Planetside down?.....I mean srsly?...have u even played planetside?
Planetside was never complicated......

"Dumbed down" is just a buzz-term meaning "not the way I like it" for those who can't articulate a real argument.

There is one thing that has been simplified to a meaningful extent: Tank gunner/drivers.
Maybe an argument for inventory removal...but, as I see it, now you've got classes and weapon customization and so on, it's a wash if not more complex from a game-impact standpoint, rather than a "can I arrange boxes" manner.

i just think we need a higher time to kill. mainly because the great different weapons deserve to show their pros and cons. if every weapon kills everything with 1-5 shots it doesn´t really matter what weapons you chose.

You should think more carefully about this argument. 3 shots to kill to 5 is a much bigger difference than going from 9 to 12. There's simply much more to it than how many hits it takes to kill someone.

[Gandhi]

How in the hell is making it the game sort of like CoD or Battlefield, dumbing Planetside down?.....I mean srsly?...have u even played planetside?
'Dumbing it down' is sort of a catch-all phrase for a lot of different things here. It doesn't necessarily have to do with complexity, it's also the changes aimed at the trigger happy ADD riddled children people tend to associate with the CoD fanbase. Things like the flat XP system (FLASH +200 XP for VEHICLE DESTRUCTION FLASH) and Rambo MBTs.

I honestly don't think there's much of that in PS2, thank god. Just saying that phrase "dumbing down" isn't meant to be taken literally.

[Virulence]

I feel like there have only really been two major types of FPS.

We've had unrealistic shooters that are very twitchy with high mobility. In these you spend a large amount of time jumping, strafing, and/or jetpacking around and people usually don't die extremely fast simply by virtue of high mobility, and the environments in these games support this - large, hilly open fields (Tribes), indoor environments with being able to jump off of walls (UT), or maybe you just had very high intrinsic move speed with no cover, and the game forced you to keep moving in order to not die.

The second are "realistic" shooters (mostly derived from Counterstrike) with much more limited mobility where people die really fast. Players can't move very fast. There's often a lot cover within the levels that can be used, and there are often many different routes to take through urban environments that let you get the drop on other players and kill them, which is made possible by low TTKs combined with low mobility.

Planetside was always closer to that second category, but it is defined - and set apart from other games - by the fact that it's a FPS with a persistent world and the capacity for large-scale, coordinated, combined arms operations involving scores of people, not by the moment to moment shooter mechanics. In terms of those mechanics and how they related to the environments players fought in, Planetside was not very good. I loathed so many different aspects of it. What made it unique - the scale - set it apart from everything else and made it memorable.

BF3 has solid mechanics. The gunplay feels good, the vehicles feel pretty good (even if they die really fast), and there's a decent enough basis for squad and teamplay mechanics. I think it's a good place to start looking at for the basic mechanics of Planetside 2. Details like TTK for specific things, squad spawning, capture mechanics, and so on are all things that can be adjusted as needed, and I have no doubt they will be adjusted throughout the ongoing design process. Planetside 2 isn't going to be a new version of Battlefield where you're playing on limited maps and you're just fighting against two enemy teams instead of one. From everything I've seen so far, the impression I have is that Planetside 2 is going to match - or exceed - the scale of Planetside and have solid FPS gameplay with a very rich strategic metagame, and that pleases me.

[ichebu]

I guess this is what happens when you get a bunch of new peeps into the community that never have played Planetside before. They try to get their 2 cents in the only way they can. That's by comparing a game that's in alpha to games they are familiar with. Once beta is out they will see Planetside is not BF or COD. I just wish they would get some Planetside gaming experience before they comment. I guess they will realize it when they walk out of a doorway and get spammed by 100 Reavers. Yeah that's a BF experience. So with all the newcomers things will get a bit bumpy around here till the newbies come around. Sit tight.

I'm new around here, but not new to PS1. I feel the same!

It's alpha and we don't know how it plays yet. To judge a game on a few minutes of gameplay being shown to you by someone else that's playing an alpha seems a bit presumptuous, and to continue arguing your point past reiterating it a couple times seems a bit asinine.

Of course, I'm sure this is all being spurred on by the restlessness of waiting for beta. It just seems like the majority of those being vocal are inflating small concerns into game-breaking ones. If I were in the shoes of the developers, I wouldn't be taking any of what's being said (in any thread) seriously unless the same complaints are present during beta.

[maradine]

kiddys nowadays are used to having very deadly weapons and may not like to be cought in a situation where their gun was the wrong choice, but that was such a great part of the planetside experience,


I can't speak for CoD, but I regularly curse the heavens for being caught out in the wrong kit in BF3. Lower TTK really doesn't marginalize loadout selection in the way you assert.

[Kurtz]

A few things....

#1 When you use a member of the teams' name in the title, at least be polite.
The title of this post is as disrespectful as it is uninformative in regards to its content.

#2 The average lifespan of an MMO vs FPS
The average MMO lifespan is not one year unless its a complete failure. The lifespan of this MMO remains to be seen but I would imagine determining the lifespan will require some tangibles like how long does it take to unlock everything and level up vs. how much new content will be added.

Usually new content and functionality kills MMOs, much like BFRs and Core-Combat ruined PS1.

The biggest challenge for SOE is keeping people in the game after they have unlocked all the skill trees. I'm sure core-combat was a great idea (to distribute the massive amount of people trying to play this game at one time) at the time, but as populations dwindled, you are now splitting up your populations - which is a bad thing.

In regards to time to peak level, I liked the fact that it took forever to get CR5 and I feel this was important to keeping longevity. If they make this game too easy to level up, then the game will last as long as it takes the average player to rank out.

Server based shooters (or session based shooters), however, DO have a 6 month shelf life, BF3 is latest proof of this. The game took over 2 years to develop, but yet no one is playing it ATM but rather everyone is playing Diablo3. This is why I was so surprised EA didn't do a MMOFPS with this franchise. They had to know that they servers would be empty after 6 months and releasing new DLC isn't going to really keep anyone playing.

#3 Marketing sells games, gameplay & content keep subscribers.
Call of Duty 7, Black-ops developed by Treyarch (so this was the offshoot MW2 from IW ) set the entertainment record for sales in both a 5 day period and all-time. Treyarch, fresh off probably the worst FPS ever made, World At War, takes credit for the landmark.

What propelled that game to $360 MILLION in sales over 5 days was ADVERTISING AND MARKETING. JIMMY KIMMEL and KOBE BRYANT in a RL fragfest to the tune of GIMME SHELTER (by the stones) is what sold that game, not the most horrid gameplay in the history of shooters (even COD fanboise hate this game).

So be careful when you say, "well COD is doing something right, look at their sales". This means you want SOE to do a media blitz and spend almost nothing on gameplay. I'd rather they do both.

So, if SOE wants financial success, they'll cleverly advertise this game, but if you want financial success over a long period of time, then you need quality gameplay.

#4 Massive Commercial Success vs. Making this community happy.
There is at most 100 people browsing these forums at any given point. SOE clearly isn't counting on only 100 people to play. That means they are counting on their huge PR push this summer to hook MILLIONS of players in. The only way they will do that is to steal some of the market from BF and COD. IF one looks at PS1 with no ironsights and client side hit detection, they won't even consider PS2. SOE better get that Kobe/Kimmel commercial ready or fans will be looking at PS1 videos on youtube rather than judge PS2 for its own value.

#4 PS1 gameplay 2003-2004 vs PS1 gameplay 2005-2012

This community isn't even necessary speaking about game play from the same perspective. There are many of us that played the game in its peak population and many here who did not. BOTH parties points are valid, however the developers have no clue who is who. So the guy who is used to playing with low pops and thought waiting 15 minutes for a cap was boring is obviously playing more recently, because the guy playing in 2003 never thought a 15 minute timer was too long. STAYING SHARP and ORGANIZED for 15 minutes meant your outfit had discipline. The scrub outfits TKing each other in the courtyard because they had zero attention span were the ones getting raped when an elite outfit dropped in for the <2:00 minute re-secure.

We can help the devs with insight to our POV by citing about when we were playing the game.

If there is any ONE PERSON the devs should listen to in regards to strategies and meta-game in PS1 during its heyday, it would be Malorn. Malorn was one of the originators of the conception of ASS (Amerish, Solsar and Searhus) an acroynym that mean it was easiest to take and defend these three continents because of the amount of Warpgates and access to Tech plants. ASS was huge (no pun intended) and most outfits and CR5's in the know would play to achieve these three continents at any given time.

I don't know anyone other than Warchimp (no longer active on PSU) that played the game more recently that could help the devs tell you what the meta game was like in PS1 after its hey day.

I played from May 2003-May 2005 and periodically here and there afterwards. I was the 5th CR5 for TR on the Emerald Server.

[Purple]

Anybody worth a shit knows this is a matter of fact.

ok i agree your worth a shit. how ever untill you provide me with solid stats i am not going to beleave that an no mmo can last longer then a year. so if you are going to respond to this post please provide facts not insults.

[stargazer093]

And sometimes, people will say, "I heard you say this. I hate that. We don't want that. Change it."

And in some instances, we have. I mean, in some cases we've heard feedback from people and we've said, "Okay, this is something that's just not gonna work and the people who know this game the best, they know how to play an MMOFPS." If they don't like it, then we have to take that seriously, you know.

QFT

[Malorn]

I also agree with the OP.

Especially on map size - the PS2 maps seem small to me for the scale of players that will eventually occupy them. For a team of 25-50 people developing it, the world may seem big - even too big, but when you put a couple thousand people there you will see it's a lot smaller than you think when you can't go anywhere without being shot at by someone.

[Gandhi]

I also agree with the OP.

Especially on map size - the PS2 maps seem small to me for the scale of players that will eventually occupy them. For a team of 25-50 people developing it, the world may seem big - even too big, but when you put a couple thousand people there you will see it's a lot smaller than you think when you can't go anywhere without being shot at by someone.
64 sq km is big, man. Oblivion and Skyrim are both around 40 sq km. Fallout NV is around 50. That's a lot of space considering people will be clustering around a few big fights.

[SgtMAD]

how big is Cyssor?

thats the question,because you would think with 2k ppl on one map it had better be that big or it will be one big clusterfuck.

I do wonder about catering to a playerbase that has shown repeatedly that they will be gone as soon as the next big title is released.its basically the same group buying the FPS's,

I wish that the devs had actually played enough to discover all the fun you could have doing different things in PS so they wouldn't be so quick to throw out some of the great things in PS,the game is in danger of losing it's soul.

I am eager to see what happens in Beta, I still have some hope.

I just did the math and I have spent 83 days guarding hacks in PS

[Sardus]

I just did the math and I have spent 83 days guarding hacks in PS

And it was worth every second. I'd like to think I crashed a few of those parties though (and made it interesting for you :)).

[ringring]

I just did the math and I have spent 83 days guarding hacks in PS
There's a video kicking around of my outfit guarding a hack in an amp station. It's 14 minutes of nothing much happening........ and then ...... NC outfit Fight Club dropped 2 gals of folks on us.... total mayhem!

Happy days. :)

But will it happen again in PS" is the question.

[Dreamcast]

'Dumbing it down' is sort of a catch-all phrase for a lot of different things here. It doesn't necessarily have to do with complexity, it's also the changes aimed at the trigger happy ADD riddled children people tend to associate with the CoD fanbase. Things like the flat XP system (FLASH +200 XP for VEHICLE DESTRUCTION FLASH) and Rambo MBTs.

I honestly don't think there's much of that in PS2, thank god. Just saying that phrase "dumbing down" isn't meant to be taken literally.

Of course is not....Is just meant to slander a game by saying something stupid like "dumbing down"...basically what it means is you don't like it and your an elitist so theirfore is "dumbing down" since you don't like it because the idea is too mainstream or different from when u were a kid or something.

Wow I get +100 xp for killing people...who cares?....Is not a big deal really...BTW COD fanbase is around the same age as Planetside Fanbase.

"Dumbed down" is just a buzz-term meaning "not the way I like it" for those who can't articulate a real argument.

There is one thing that has been simplified to a meaningful extent: Tank gunner/drivers.
Maybe an argument for inventory removal...but, as I see it, now you've got classes and weapon customization and so on, it's a wash if not more complex from a game-impact standpoint, rather than a "can I arrange boxes" manner.



.

I wanted inventory in the game....they took it off...that sucks but is not really dumbing down..

The Planetside Elitist claim that is they took it off because "CoD players can handle putting things in an inventory"...Which is BS, that was so easy to use lol....Only reason they did it was probably balancing issues.

If a was a complex game and the features actually did dumb it down...It will really make sense but as of now, the way they are saying "dumbing down"....well is just stupid IMO

[Hmr85]

There's a video kicking around of my outfit guarding a hack in an amp station. It's 14 minutes of nothing much happening........ and then ...... NC outfit Fight Club dropped 2 gals of folks on us.... total mayhem!

Happy days. :)

But will it happen again in PS" is the question.

For the Resource nodes I would say yes it will be very similar due to there only being one objective. However, with the multiple Objectives SOE has put into bases now it won't quite the same. To many key objectives to guard. If the enemy find's one heavily defended objective they will just move to the other four that have little to no resistance and take the base. You'll need to have a platoon or better to hold hacks behind the lines.

[SgtMAD]

no, the inventory was removed because Higby said "No one wants to play PS Tetris" or something along those lines.

there were shitloads of players that never figured out how to set up a proper backpack load-out,I know because I played with "Elitist Asshole"players and they would loot every backpack they could and when they found a funny one, we all looked,everyone has found the famous "gold ammo" loadouts

[SgtMAD]

For the Resource nodes I would say yes it will be very similar due to there only being one objective. However, with the multiple Objectives SOE has put into bases now it won't quite the same. To many key objectives to guard. If the enemy find's one heavily defended objective they will just move to the other four that have little to no resistance and take the base.

that's why you bring more ppl

[Hmr85]

that's why you bring more ppl

I agree :D, however not many ppl outside of larger outfits will be able to field that type of teamwork.

[SgtMAD]

I agree :D, however not many ppl outside of larger outfits will be able to field that type of teamwork.

subscribe to my command feed in-game LOL

[JHendy]

"Dumbed down" is just a buzz-term meaning "not the way I like it" for those who can't articulate a real argument.

Not exactly. It's perfectly justifiable when it's used in reference to Battlefield 3, for example. In which case, 'dumbed-down' refers to the removal of core franchise features that were deemed to be too complicated for the game's new target audience; in an attempt to lower the game's accessibility threshold.


The Planetside Elitist claim that is they took it off because "CoD players can handle putting things in an inventory"...Which is BS, that was so easy to use lol....Only reason they did it was probably balancing issues.

You're the one spouting BS now, chum. Accessibility is clearly the reason Planetside 2 doesn't have an inventory. They're trying to boost accessibility by making sure that the game's interface is as simple and as familiar as it can be. They want this game to have a distinctly similar overall characteristic to its contemporaries, so an MMO interface/inventory system would feel way out of place.

Higby said it himself. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmWyIMXJEiI#t=1m44.5s)

[SKYeXile]

no, the inventory was removed because Higby said "No one wants to play PS Tetris" or something along those lines.

there were shitloads of players that never figured out how to set up a proper backpack load-out,I know because I played with "Elitist Asshole"players and they would loot every backpack they could and when they found a funny one, we all looked,everyone has found the famous "gold ammo" loadouts

i do think they had to drop that though, its a really outdated concept, i just wish they hadn't gone for a class system. Hopefully they still have a lot of different options we can have for weapons thought and we're not tunnelled into roles too much.

Anyway, I do hope they have some devs in there that ahve played some PvP mmo though, the good and bad ones and they;re capable of deconstructing them and figuring out what made them good and bad, because you cant simply tack whats essentially a battlefield game into a open world and expect it to work.

[ArbitraryDemise]

The title sounds exceedingly arrogant, even if there are good points made in this thread.

1. Features are there to be used, not glossed over because the majority of your player-base could care less about them. A feature can also be needlessly complex, in which case it is better to just simplify it. I have faith that the design decisions being made are being done with logical reasoning, not the arbitrary BS that a good number of people seem to think is going on.

2. If it works, then don't touch it. people don't want something new, they want something intuitive, fun, and that works as advertised. If CoD MW-X got something right, it was smooth, intuitive gun play.

3. If the core audience of PS was large enough to be catered to, then PS would not be dead. As is, the PS2 team does not want to alienate the PS player base, but also wants to create an experience that is not so far off the beaten path that it holds no recognition with other audiences. In this case, as BF 2142 player, I'd say they have my money. Why? Because this has all of the thing that I loved about BF 2142, but on a freaking larger scale.

4. Speculation without basis, we will see what happens in the beta.

5. You play a shooter to shoot, you play a tactical shooter to use tactics while shooting people, and you play a tactical mmofps to use grand-scale tactics while shooting people.

Travelling for more than 15 minutes does not somehow allow a person to have that mystical light-bulb go off, where they've just found some deep insight into how to defeat their opponents.

Tactics often require more time than that, and in PS I suspect that most in-game battles were the result of on-the-fly planning. With the exception of plans that were drawn up outside of the game.

The balance needs to be struck between grand-scale tactics and actually playing the game.

Oh, and lets not forget that we have no clue which design decisions have been motivated by time/financial constraints.

[LegioX]

God i miss the good ol days of COD 1 COD 2 and COD UO. Now those were FPS's. No stupid killstreaks. Just you, ur gun, and the players in the map. My have things changed....and not for the good.

[Figment]

Regarding map size, is 8x8 too small?

So we got 64 square mile of map, or continent spanning from north to south? Let's assume the measurements are taken for the extremities. With the irregular shape of the beach, some of that terrain cannoy be fought on. So let's assume 95% as a generous number.

The grids cover around 90% of that terrain.

So how much of the terrain will actually be fought over? Let's start with the "T"-split that a lot of people imagine right now. That would approximately be 40% of the map. Let's assume there's at all times two or three behind the lines fights going, so another 15%-20%. I'd say 60-75% of the map would be used.

Let's say the terrain itself has a lot of places you can't functionally use, so another 80%.

We then got 0.95*0.9*0.75*0.8*64 ~33 square miles that would be used. Divided by 2000 people, that's about 16 square meters per player on average? Hmm doesn't sound quite right yet.

Alright, so let's assume there's a battlefield area in between two teams of players of around 40% of the remainder. Then we got 6,5 square meters per player in a fight.

Alright so let's assume some people are using the same battle space vertically (building/airborne) and by being in vehicles, that should increase the spacing a bit again. So let's just give a factor 3, maybe 4. Around 20 square meters per player assuming they're not condensed more?

Yeah it might get a bit crowded in a fire fight here and there, it should be enough, but I wouldn't mind seeing some bigger maps. :) Mostly to create more travel time and allow for more covert movement, tbh.

[Saintlycow]

Stardouser forum alt located ;)

[sylphaen]

Stardouser forum alt located ;)

Star joined after Figment, though. Conclusion doubtful.
:p

[SKYeXile]

Is "2000" the amount of players they're aiming for per map, or per server?

per map

[windlord]

I have to say that points 4 and 5 are bang on.

Tempo. You need the journey to appreciate the action. You cannot know happiness without understanding tragedy. The two are interlinked.

Basically build the environment and let the players build the narrative.

As you said once too much control over the game will kill it. Build an environment.

[Serpent]

This is true. Windlord has brought a fantastic point. What is the goal of capturing the facility without fighting for it... meaning is it as fun? Do you feel accomplished? Do you get more certs?...

No. Also, it seems so far to me that the players that played PS and those that are going to play PS2 as newbies (like myself) aren't exactly idiots, so I think we can come up with some interesting battles :)

[JHendy]

I have to say that points 4 and 5 are bang on.

Tempo. You need the journey to appreciate the action. You cannot know happiness without understanding tragedy. The two are interlinked.

Basically build the environment and let the players build the narrative.

As you said once too much control over the game will kill it. Build an environment.

Well put. I absolutely agree. You described the spirit of sandbox gaming perfectly.

[LegioX]

Developers these days do not understand the joy/fun/nervousness of traveling in an open map. I hate using ww2ol all the time, but that was the only true MMO i played. You will be sitting in a truck full of guys going to the front. You look up and see an air battle. You look across the horizon and see the towns/buildings pop up in the screen. Then you see small explosions with tracer fire going off. I mean seriously...who would not like that?

You get that sense of being in something great. You're not just a lone wolf traveling into the fight. You're not just some grunt instant spawning into a contested town. You are part of 100's of players in one area. It feels great.

[Arktype]

I agree with the the 5 points diablotigersix stated. Especially on the strategy aspect as well as traveling.

I used to play WWIIOnline. Traveling is important in this game especially because in this game, 1 bullet kills you. therefore, traveling 10 min before arriving on site where the battle is, give you a rush of adrenalin, simply because you just spent 10 min to travel... so you don t want to get shot in 5 sec by a sniper or something... Like Diablo, I m part of the older generation of gamers who discovered FPS through Quake 1... Half Life 1 etc. This combo ( travel + easy to kill or get killed ) brought a lot more realism than in any other games FPS style i have played. In my 2 years playing this game, i rarely saw Kamikaze people running around to get shot. Team work was much more evolve because people relied on other people, which automatically added more team work than in any other games i have played.

I think Planetside Staff should hire a Military veteran as consultant, to test Strategies in game and have a better view based on the gameplay of the real possibilities 'ingame'

[Kurtz]

Developers these days do not understand the joy/fun/nervousness of traveling in an open map. I hate using ww2ol all the time, but that was the only true MMO i played. You will be sitting in a truck full of guys going to the front. You look up and see an air battle. You look across the horizon and see the towns/buildings pop up in the screen. Then you see small explosions with tracer fire going off. I mean seriously...who would not like that?

You get that sense of being in something great. You're not just a lone wolf traveling into the fight. You're not just some grunt instant spawning into a contested town. You are part of 100's of players in one area. It feels great.

^this. I remember looking out the open laffy otw as a sapper to blow the forward fb. That quiet just before chaos, watching that distant dogfight looking down at chat and seeing guys goofing off. Seconds later insanity.

The closest thing to that was PS1 and hot dropping out of a Gal on a highly contested base or tower.

The only server-based FPS to give that experience was Novalogic's Joint Operations Typhoon Rising which had huge maps and I think 128 players. You could get in a black hawk at night and drop 6 guys behind enemy lines (in shallow water) and sneak up on an enemy outpost with silenced weapons and knives. Also The only game I've ever gibbed someone while they were swimming. good times.

Bottom line, having to organize travel to the front is a must for immersion in an MMO.

[LegioX]

Traveling to a fight (not matter the time it took) was always fun. Shoot the sh*t with the guys on TS or vent while enroute and just overall take a step back and watch the game unfold in a real world type setting.

[Cosmical]

all valid points, but weve had this discussion a hundred times before. Yes we all have those first few FPS games that defined the experience for us, some of us were even lucky enough for it to be the original planetside.

Ide say the main thing that has changed the face of shooters, is faster connections and player skill. Back in the day, games gave you huge health bars to keep the fun levels up while you were lagging and jumping around like a spaz. Whereas nowadays connections are too fast and players too skilled for old jumping about shooters to seem compelling. Take Tribes Ascend, nothing about that game is interesting to me because i have had gritty hunkered down combat pushed onto me by Battlefield 3, and i wouldnt want anything else now, because it works.

My main issue is that vehicles seem too easily destroyed, knowing what we do that they cost resources to. Im thinking how anoying it will be to spend your last bit of cash on a vehicle, only to have it blown in a few seconds by an oncoming force. But, this will be sorted in beta testing. I guess more expensive vehicles, and more armour. Limiting the Battlefield.

[Malorn]

I've seen in a few videos now an aircraft being in a position to see two if not all 3 warp gates in the distance. Since the warp gates are in all corners of the map it makes the world seem rather small. Just watching Total Biscuit's videos it doesn't seem like it takes very long at all for people to fly around Indar.

From what I've seen if I had to estimate, Indar looks roughly the size of Searhus of PS1, which seems small if they're expecting to have ten times the number of players as a pop-locked PS1 continent.

[LegioX]

^this. I remember looking out the open laffy otw as a sapper to blow the forward fb. That quiet just before chaos, watching that distant dogfight looking down at chat and seeing guys goofing off. Seconds later insanity.

The closest thing to that was PS1 and hot dropping out of a Gal on a highly contested base or tower.

The only server-side FPS to give that experience was Novalogic's Joint Operations Typhoon Rising which had huge maps and I think 128 players. You could get in a black hawk at night and drop 6 guys behind enemy lines (in shallow water) and sneak up on an enemy outpost with silenced weapons and knives. Also The only game I've ever gibbed someone while they were swimming.

Omg!! Join Operations Typhoon rising was the sh*t. Man i feel old. I remember playing that game like it was yesturday.

[Graywolves]

Some of the abstract statements such as using recent major FPS titles for inspiration have scared me a little bit too.

But we have to realize what that actually means.


I believe that the dev team is smart enough to only take the good things and to improve upon the shortcomings. I expect them to realize some things like how other FPS titles don't focus on player retention anywhere nearly as much as an MMO absolutely needs to. To know that a strong sense of diversity within the game is what will keep it going.


I could go on but I really think that Higby and the gang know what they are doing. And if there is a mistake made I know for a fact that they are wise enough to listen to the community's feedback and I have faith that they will take that feedback and weigh it carefully.

[LegioX]

What only gives me hope is the devs willingness to communicate with the player base. I'm new to this game and i think i played PS 1 about 1-2 times back in the day. but i still have a bad taste in my mouth on how DICE did a 180 with the playerbase on BF 3. I'm hoping this will be what i have been missing.

[Malorn]

Also on the subject of pacing, I think having more spawn options will help solve this without having to add in quake-stile jump pads.

I didn't like seeing the jump pads across the base. Reminded me of Quake 3 deathmatches with people jumping all over the place. Kinda got that feel with light assault jetpacks too, but they can remove that by changing the jetpack mechanics itself.

If defenders can hop across from one side of a base to another then delivering a few squads via sunderers or galaxies to a weak point loses a lot of value. The value of those vehicles is the localized force, the fact that defenders can't be everywhere at once. This is a good example of balance at a small scale not transitioning well into large scale battles.

I understand why they want that sort of thing, but I believe it's an artifact of only testing with a few dozen people at most at a time. Real PS2 battles will be a lot bigger than that.

If you want transit to scale and allow smaller battles to happen without facilities being too big then scale things designed to make smaller battles more lively (like jump pads) on population. Put cooldowns on them so only one person can use them every few seconds. As more players enter the area, increase the delay increases to the point where it isn't practical to use them to move any significant number of forces around. Or just do that naturally and put several seconds of delay so it is never practical to move half a squad or more that way, but OK for a few soloer's or scouts to move around using them.

I think a bigger challenge is the fact that planetside 2 balance really isn't possible at a small scale. Things that are imbalanced at a small scale can be perfectly balanced at a large scale. Likewise things that seem fine on the small scale may be worthless as you increase the number of players because they take so much more damage. We saw that in PlanetSide. I remember in beta when tanks were ridiculously OP but when they got into a large fight they died so quickly because they had tons of AV shooting at them. That lead to larger tank armor pools, and more AV ammo, but less damage per-shot. The result of this was that tanks were more survivable in larger battles but took a lot of hits to kill in smaller battles.

I don't think it's possible to balance both for small scale and large scale battles. You have to balance around the medium-population and make it so nothing is too obscene at either extreme. Cede the fact that you won't be able to balance it perfectly for all populations and try to find a reasonable middle ground where it is right most of the time and not too far off when it isn't.

I think Jon Weathers pointed that out in his interview with Hamma that at this point all they can do is speculate. As long as they're aware of that I think it's golden. I just hope they don't add too may features into the game that optimize for the small scale dev tests that don't pan out when you start adding in hundreds & thousands of more players.

[SpcFarlen]

all valid points, but weve had this discussion a hundred times before. Yes we all have those first few FPS games that defined the experience for us, some of us were even lucky enough for it to be the original planetside.

Ide say the main thing that has changed the face of shooters, is faster connections and player skill. Back in the day, games gave you huge health bars to keep the fun levels up while you were lagging and jumping around like a spaz. Whereas nowadays connections are too fast and players too skilled for old jumping about shooters to seem compelling. Take Tribes Ascend, nothing about that game is interesting to me because i have had gritty hunkered down combat pushed onto me by Battlefield 3, and i wouldnt want anything else now, because it works.

My main issue is that vehicles seem too easily destroyed, knowing what we do that they cost resources to. Im thinking how anoying it will be to spend your last bit of cash on a vehicle, only to have it blown in a few seconds by an oncoming force. But, this will be sorted in beta testing. I guess more expensive vehicles, and more armour. Limiting the Battlefield.

Ya agreed on vehicles, though since this isnt beta yet, i wouldnt worry too much. Once they have a mass test, damage and durability will be adjusted.

[lawnmower]

PS's gunplay was already close of outdated when it came out. If you really think the antique kinda gunplay of PS is what makes Planetside so great for you, I almost feel sorry for you :D
outdated how

[Fuse]

outdated how

People are acting like we were still playing Quake in 2003. Most shooters when PlanetSide came out included at least some form of ADS, not to mention more than one hitbox. Even the people who made the game say sacrifices were made for scale.

You can bring your game in to the modern world without making a copy of CoD. CoD didn't actually add many new elements to their basic gunplay. Just because most of you apparently didn't play shooters before the Xbox 360 does not mean every game since is a CoD clone because it has guns in it.

[lawnmower]

This pretty much sums up every argument here. I get that some people liked the way things were, but they need to understand that's not where the larger audience is now.
because the casual audience has been gaining extremely quickly in numbers in later years, not because of quality


15 years of FPS?

Well, then you are like me. My first FPS was Wolfenstein 3D. Played Doom, Duke3D, Quake, Tribes, Unreal and UT (awww, good ol UT :/ ) all that stuff. Pretty much all of them.

And i tell you: They had some very enjoyable elements, but also a crapload of shit in them.
ive never heard this, w hat kind of enourmous problems do they have


Wolfeinstein -> Doom: No innovation whatsoever.
Doom -> Duke 3D: interactive environments maybe? Nothing else.
Duke -> Quake: 3d graphics and mouselook.
Quake -> UT: Secondary firing modes and that's it.

lol

[lawnmower]

People are acting like we were still playing Quake in 2003. Most shooters when PlanetSide came out included at least some form of ADS, not to mention more than one hitbox. Even the people who made the game say sacrifices were made for scale.

thats not outdated, that doesent improve the game. hitboxes isnt innately better either, quake would be worse with different boxes so whether a game is better or worse with that is an arguable area



If the problem is TTK, Counter Strike had a much shorter TTK and it is lauded as one of the most team oriented, skill driven FPSes out there. From what I've seen, the TTK in PS2 is noticeably longer than in COD.

thats probably mostly because it got so big , would be more skillful if it wasnt such short ttk



Guild Wars
EVE
Free Realms
World of Tanks (just older then a year but it still growing strong)

i could make the list longer but i dont want to wast my time anymore then i already am.
what, he just said that the average lifespan of a mmo since wow has been 1 year and youlisted four games randomly

[Fuse]

thats not outdated, that doesent improve the game. hitboxes isnt innately better either, quake would be worse with different boxes so whether a game is better or worse with that is an arguable area

I think I can pretty confidently say that a game the style of PlanetSide would not benefit from Quake's shooting mechanics or vice versa. :rolleyes: Yes, for a "tactical" shooter the mechanics are ancient.

[Toppopia]

Something i would find very cool, is a game that is completely realistic, so everything from health to guns to vehicles is absolutely 100% realistic. But then i think, that would be fun for a while, until i started dying randomly or i started going badly, is ARMA 100% realistic or is it mostly realistic? Because it would be awesome if a game did that, but i could imagine the community hating it shortly after to nerf everything. :lol:

[lawnmower]

You should think more carefully about this argument. 3 shots to kill to 5 is a much bigger difference than going from 9 to 12. There's simply much more to it than how many hits it takes to kill someone.
nevermind that you somehow managed to come up with those crazy numbers (,3-5 is a 67% increase and 9-12 is 33% ), there are a lot of situations where thats not true



There is at most 100 people browsing these forums at any given point. SOE clearly isn't counting on only 100 people to play.
uh, where did you get that number from...

Of course is not....Is just meant to slander a game by saying something stupid like "dumbing down"...basically what it means is you don't like it and your an elitist so theirfore is "dumbing down" since you don't like it because the idea is too mainstream or different from when u were a kid or something.

Wow I get +100 xp for killing people...who cares?....Is not a big deal really...BTW COD fanbase is around the same age as Planetside Fanbase.

what it means is that its dumbing it down. making it easier. yes its quite a mainstream thing they have going there

[Jinxsey]

TTK is a big issue, but to break down a few key points.

Firstly, it's important to note that a major factor in TTK is the inherant reticue bloom associated with any given weapon at any give rate of fire over any given range. A game with more accurate weapons will invariably mean those weapons will have to do less damage in they are intending to maintain a static relative TTK with weapons that are less accurate.

TTK is influenced by the ability of players to ablate damage by wearing or equipping armour or mods.

TTK is influenced by the availability of "alerts" to indicate the path or source of incoming damage.

An increase at the low of health end provides a net increase that is much greater than the sum of its parts. Since if you can survive initial contact you can take avoiding action which will increase your survivability.

Games design must take into account the density of terrain in any hypothetical gun battle when balencing TTK.

In a game where you may be engaged in close quarters with upwards of ten or more opponents, any individual players ability to effect the battle becomes a function of their ability to kill others before they themselves are eliminated.

If your TTK is high, and your terrain plentiful, killing fast will rely on focus fire, headshots, or high damage weapons. In this scenario a lone player facing massed opponents could not significantly effect the outcome of the battle.

If your TTK is less than the above example with all other factors remaining similar, the player's ability to kill others is greatly increased. Remember, this is not a linear path, the ability to kill others is a function of many many factors and the reliance on having to focus fire is by far the greatest of them, remove that and an individual player's relative agency in a battle actualy increased as a function of TTK.

Players who are intended to participate in mass battles must be given agency to effect the outcome of the said battle, to do so, the TTK must be such that individual players can fire their weapons or perform their roles with a realistic expectation of sucess even when heavily engaged. This factor will be effected by terrain and skill.

To sum up, a player, even when heavily outnumbered, should be able to use the terrain and his/her inherant class ability to score points to the extent that his skill and build permit with a realistic hope of sucess.

[CutterJohn]

It's quite humorous that you're a PSU moderator. You seem like you dispise Planetside.

Just a view from outside lookin in bro.

Have always had a love/hate relationship with PS. Its comprised of some of the crappiest gameplay mechanics I've ever seen in a game. The gunplay, vehicle handling, physics, etc, were all subpar to laughable compared to its contemporaries. It had horribly designed maps, bad fps combat, bad vehicle combat, and atrocious air combat. It was saved by the amazing scale, scope, and combined arms nature of the game.

For my money, I find the gameplay mechanics of the BF series to be far superior, so I'm pleased as punch with the direction they are going, with a few minor exceptions.

[Jinxsey]

Have always had a love/hate relationship with PS. Its comprised of some of the crappiest gameplay mechanics I've ever seen in a game. The gunplay, vehicle handling, physics, etc, were all subpar to laughable compared to its contemporaries. It had horribly designed maps, bad fps combat, bad vehicle combat, and atrocious air combat. It was saved by the amazing scale, scope, and combined arms nature of the game.

For my money, I find the gameplay mechanics of the BF series to be far superior, so I'm pleased as punch with the direction they are going, with a few minor exceptions.

This.

[kadrin]

Potentially opening another can of worms, but is anyone else concerned about ammo boxes?

I personally think it's just a cop out, giving players infinite ammo. In no FPS I've played where ammo is so easily acquired do I ever run out. That was always a great feature in PS1, actually having to think about how much I'm shooting and if I'll have enough to defend myself while I go back for more, or attempt to scavenge some (which got hard later when backpacks despawned more quickly or even instantly in large combats).

[Bags]

Potentially opening another can of worms, but is anyone else concerned about ammo boxes?

I personally think it's just a cop out, giving players infinite ammo. In no FPS I've played where ammo is so easily acquired do I ever run out. That was always a great feature in PS1, actually having to think about how much I'm shooting and if I'll have enough to defend myself while I go back for more, or attempt to scavenge some (which got hard later when backpacks despawned more quickly or even instantly in large combats).

I rarely if ever ran out of ammo in PS1. Only times I came close were gen holds, but even then it rarely happened. I don't seen them was necessary, really.

[Jinxsey]

Ditto, even when running a dual Cycler MAX during a CC last stand I rarely fired more than 600-800 rounds. Times when I did, I died long before I could have ever thought about reloading.

[Nick]

all valid points, but weve had this discussion a hundred times before. Yes we all have those first few FPS games that defined the experience for us, some of us were even lucky enough for it to be the original planetside.

Ide say the main thing that has changed the face of shooters, is faster connections and player skill. Back in the day, games gave you huge health bars to keep the fun levels up while you were lagging and jumping around like a spaz. Whereas nowadays connections are too fast and players too skilled for old jumping about shooters to seem compelling. Take Tribes Ascend, nothing about that game is interesting to me because i have had gritty hunkered down combat pushed onto me by Battlefield 3, and i wouldnt want anything else now, because it works.

My main issue is that vehicles seem too easily destroyed, knowing what we do that they cost resources to. Im thinking how anoying it will be to spend your last bit of cash on a vehicle, only to have it blown in a few seconds by an oncoming force. But, this will be sorted in beta testing. I guess more expensive vehicles, and more armour. Limiting the Battlefield.

Players are too skilled to play games like Quake and Tribes Ascend? :lol:

You realize those games have much higher skill caps than Battlefield/Call of Duty, yes? Not to mention, 90% of people suck at BF/CoD. Not sure how, an infant could find success playing them.

[kadrin]

I rarely if ever ran out of ammo in PS1. Only times I came close were gen holds, but even then it rarely happened. I don't seen them was necessary, really.

Ditto, even when running a dual Cycler MAX during a CC last stand I rarely fired more than 600-800 rounds. Times when I did, I died long before I could have ever thought about reloading.

No offense to either of you, but it sounds like the vast majority of the time all you did was zerg if you never were concerned about ammo. I'm not saying either of you did that, just what it sounds like.

There were plenty of nights where I would go hours without a single death, add a vehicle into the mix and I could go most, if not all, of the night without one. Needless to say, ammo becomes an issue at that point.

[cellinaire]

Regarding map size, is 8x8 too small?

So we got 64 square mile of map, or continent spanning from north to south? Let's assume the measurements are taken for the extremities. With the irregular shape of the beach, some of that terrain cannoy be fought on. So let's assume 95% as a generous number.

The grids cover around 90% of that terrain.

So how much of the terrain will actually be fought over? Let's start with the "T"-split that a lot of people imagine right now. That would approximately be 40% of the map. Let's assume there's at all times two or three behind the lines fights going, so another 15%-20%. I'd say 60-75% of the map would be used.

Let's say the terrain itself has a lot of places you can't functionally use, so another 80%.

We then got 0.95*0.9*0.75*0.8*64 ~33 square miles that would be used. Divided by 2000 people, that's about 16 square meters per player on average? Hmm doesn't sound quite right yet.

Alright, so let's assume there's a battlefield area in between two teams of players of around 40% of the remainder. Then we got 6,5 square meters per player in a fight.

Alright so let's assume some people are using the same battle space vertically (building/airborne) and by being in vehicles, that should increase the spacing a bit again. So let's just give a factor 3, maybe 4. Around 20 square meters per player assuming they're not condensed more?

Yeah it might get a bit crowded in a fire fight here and there, it should be enough, but I wouldn't mind seeing some bigger maps. :) Mostly to create more travel time and allow for more covert movement, tbh.

Cyssor...? (+ Searhus. my fav continents :groovy: )

[Bags]

No offense to either of you, but it sounds like the vast majority of the time all you did was zerg if you never were concerned about ammo. I'm not saying either of you did that, just what it sounds like.

There were plenty of nights where I would go hours without a single death, add a vehicle into the mix and I could go most, if not all, of the night without one. Needless to say, ammo becomes an issue at that point.

I did rapid response for a year with some small VS outfit. Usually ended up with K/Ds between 2/1 and 5/1 while on foot.

When I played TR with friends all we would do was go to VS/NC continents with 50% xp bonus and run a TOD, never ran out of ammo there either with massively positive K/Ds.

Zerging really has nothing to do with it, it just sounds like you never went to an equipment terminal for some strange reason.


PS: I ran the standard HA/2 Decis + 3/4 boxes of ammo + 3 medkits + Bank + medapp + hack tool that most people did while in rexo. In agile I ran HA + Deci + 2 boxes of ammo + medkits because my friends always handled the hacking/EMPing 90% of the time. Though they never had ammo issues either.

[Graywolves]

No offense to either of you, but it sounds like the vast majority of the time all you did was zerg if you never were concerned about ammo. I'm not saying either of you did that, just what it sounds like.

There were plenty of nights where I would go hours without a single death, add a vehicle into the mix and I could go most, if not all, of the night without one. Needless to say, ammo becomes an issue at that point.

I rarely ran out of ammo as well.

Once or twice if I was foot grunting while repelling a base assualt.

Every vehicle generally needed resupplies.

And Gen/CC Holds.

[Bags]

Anyways if an ammo box goes in I hope it goes to the HA or engineer, doesn't make much sense on the light assault.

[Graywolves]

Anyways if an ammo box goes in I hope it goes to the HA or engineer, doesn't make much sense on the light assault.

Likewise, it seems a little silly. Giving the infantry class that will reach places most people won't be able to the ability to resupply himself and others from such locations.

[Bags]

Exactly my thoughts. Light assault is all about mobility and confusion (smoke grenades), so I don't see how resupplying friendlies fits that at all.

It'd be like if the soldier and demoman in TF2 had the ability to resupply themselves.

[CutterJohn]

Do we know the ammo boxes are infinite? Disregarding that, was anyone concerned that Lodestars gave infinite ammo to vehicles? Or that sunderers will do so in PS2? Same thing.


I'd completely agree it doesn't fit the LA class though. Its definitely an engineer role. Nobody would bat an eye if it was an engineer laying down an ACE for an ammo terminal.

[Bags]

I think it's because it's a lot easier to deploy an ammo box than a Sunderer / lodestar would be.

[Coreldan]

I also think it's a bit weird on the LA. Like.. on HA I would perhaps understand it, but it sorta makes it seem to self sufficient.

I hope theres a chance to effect that still on beta.

[Bags]

Higby said they were considering putting it on HA when I tweeted him about it a month or two ago.

[SKYeXile]

yea i thought it would have been the engi that gets the ammo box...imo it should be a deployable, that needs an ACE or something to deploy though.

[kadrin]

PS: I ran the standard HA/2 Decis + 3/4 boxes of ammo + 3 medkits + Bank + medapp + hack tool that most people did while in rexo. In agile I ran HA + Deci + 2 boxes of ammo + medkits because my friends always handled the hacking/EMPing 90% of the time. Though they never had ammo issues either.

You carried less ammo than I did, I guess I just shot more. I'd take shots on anyone I had a reasonable chance of hitting (assuming stealth was not a concern), just to get them damaged for friendlies, force them into cover, or attempt to make them repair/heal and hopefully get flanked while doing so.

Do we know the ammo boxes are infinite? Disregarding that, was anyone concerned that Lodestars gave infinite ammo to vehicles? Or that sunderers will do so in PS2? Same thing.

I'd completely agree it doesn't fit the LA class though. Its definitely an engineer role. Nobody would bat an eye if it was an engineer laying down an ACE for an ammo terminal.

I'd like to see it as an Engineer deployable, similar to Dispensers in Team Fortress 2 rather than some magic box that classes run around with like Battlefield 3.

And yes, I thought it was silly that Lodestars had infinite ammo and repairs for vehicles, but I think I was one of the few.

[solracseptim]

I see what you guys are saying but as I am sure was stated in some form or another you can borrow things that work without cloning the game the ideas came from. Honestly PS, just on paper is so unique that even if its game play was exactly the same as COD or BF3 its still a drastically different game. They will no doubt meet us in the centre with the changes and there are definitely annoying as all hell things that were in COD that aren't in PS. Also who is to say that the game wont have a different feel from those games, there are so many different factors that contribute to that from art and effects to animations etc.. From what I can see PS2 is essentially a remake so its natural for it to garner worries from the fans who have more then fond memories. Question is, how much of this worry is for the sake of the game's success and how much is just nostalgia.....

[Bags]

snip

Well I can agree that ammo is more scarce in PS2 than in Ammopackfield 3, but I don't think it is nearly as scarce and as tactical as some people like to make it out to be.

[SKYeXile]

its fucking scarce in BF3 anyway, dont give it to a primary combat class, i ran out of ammo all the time...even carrying extra mags around and i have to spam the shit out of people to drop me ammo, pricks never drop it though.

[Toppopia]

its fucking scarce in BF3 anyway, dont give it to a primary combat class, i ran out of ammo all the time...even carrying extra mags around and i have to spam the shit out of people to drop me ammo, pricks never drop it though.

Yip, BF3 people arn't teamwork orientated, or they are deaf. Thats why its only helpful to be with friends. Even in Planetside 2 with ammo boxes, we will have 666*2 people to shoot at, so i think it will even out.

[Coreldan]

Other problem is that Support is/was probably the least played class also.

[SKYeXile]

Other problem is that Support is/was probably the least played class also.

well this is why in BF3 they gave the assault the medpacks/revive so there would be more medics :/

[Malorn]

I agree that ammo giving doesn't quite fit on the light assault, seems to give it too much power. Although from what we've seen it looks to be quite a popular class so it might not be a bad choice if you want to ensure there's plenty of people around with the ability to give it.

I like it better on Heavy Assault or Engineers. I think engineer fits best so you don't have the BFBC2 thing where you have HA's sitting on their own ammo boxes spamming rockets constantly. If its' on the engineer you give them another teamwork ability that isn't just repairing MAX/vehicles but also provide a vital infantry role. It makes engineers a great support choice for a variety of reasons and would help ensure there aren't too many light assault running around.

Although depending on how they do the mechanic it could also fit well on HA.

Conceptually if the LA is intended to be a scout/flanking style class then having them carry the ammo doesn't make much sense if they aren't expected to be with the main part of a squad. Engineers and HA will be there, while Infiltrators and LA have a style that would encourage them to split off or work the flanks while the medics, HA and engis stay near the MAX and support each other.

I would like to see the LA retain an important teamwork aspect that would make them desirable. Ammo was a good fit for that, but it doesn't seem like the right fit. Thoughts on teamwork value for the LA that fits with the nature of the class?

[SKYeXile]

They could be the only class that can see infils eg darklight.
they could place a limited use spawn point or perhaps a teleporter.
some sort of enchanced abilty to scout or spot.

they could certainly be the class to have C4 as we have seen in the video so they would be great for manoeuvring quick and taking out an emplacement, but thats probably more seen as a solo thing and not exactly benefiting a group.

what exactly was the heavy assault going to have again though?

[Red Beard]

its fucking scarce in BF3 anyway, dont give it to a primary combat class, i ran out of ammo all the time...even carrying extra mags around and i have to spam the shit out of people to drop me ammo, pricks never drop it though.

I'm hoping this problem might be alleviated through modest xp rewards for serving friendlies (as per suggestion in latest video). I think in that model it would be a desirable thing, so it could be used to attract numbers to an otherwise understaffed class (and I do agree that ammo for LA doesn't seem very intuitive).

[Dreamcast]

You're the one spouting BS now, chum. Accessibility is clearly the reason Planetside 2 doesn't have an inventory. They're trying to boost accessibility by making sure that the game's interface is as simple and as familiar as it can be. They want this game to have a distinctly similar overall characteristic to its contemporaries, so an MMO interface/inventory system would feel way out of place.

Higby said it himself. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmWyIMXJEiI#t=1m44.5s)

He didnt really talk about the "complex" inventory system:lol:....He just said MMO mechanics.

From what I understood, it seemed like he meant that they want the game to be fast as possible to getting to action.

IMO that means Classes will be fastest instead of doing an inventory with classes.


I don't see why the average human being will have a problem with inventory...Like I said I want an inventory but not having one is not dumbing down, is just different.

[Fuse]

its fucking scarce in BF3 anyway, dont give it to a primary combat class, i ran out of ammo all the time...even carrying extra mags around and i have to spam the shit out of people to drop me ammo, pricks never drop it though.

I'm hoping this problem might be alleviated through modest xp rewards for serving friendlies


I have to wonder if they aren't looking at BF3 and trying to learn from our frustration. They want hundreds of strangers to be able to fight together. As SKY points out, the system in BF3 doesn't work with out a pre-formed team.

There are XP rewards in place, but from my experience this means people only give ammo or health when they are actively seeking XP, not playing the game. These are the guys who will follow you from cover to cover tossing out ammo but never actually return fire or cover you.

Maybe they are choosing to give it to a more common class in hopes that we won't find our selves with empty magazines quite so often. You want to encourage teamwork, but not to the extent that the mechanics detract from your player's enjoyment of the game.

[kadrin]

You want to encourage teamwork, but not to the extent that the mechanics detract from your player's enjoyment of the game.

This right here makes me think it should go to the Engineer. It's already a classed based on teamwork.

[Fuse]

This right here makes me think it should go to the Engineer. It's already a classed based on teamwork.

An engineer isn't going to be as common as an assault on the front lines, and just because the class is far more team oriented does not mean all engineers are going to run from cover to cover doing resupply. You're still going to get guys who think they're Senor Macho Solo with their turret or something.

Basically my theory above is that they want to alleviate the frustrations of most randos not doing their damn job by giving more of them the ability to perform such an essential task.