PS2 requires level grind?

[Shadows]

Maybe this information has been posted somewhere else already, and I just missed it in my search? If not:

How much do we know about the equipment specialization? Say i spend X amount of points/currency/whatever to heavily upgrade a weapon, then decide I don't like it. I stop using it and start using something else instead. If i choose to, can i drop all the upgrades on the previous weapon and use all those points to upgrade my new weapon? Sort of like how in ps1 you'd get a refund on your cert points when you drop a vehicle or weapon, and can then use those points to pick up something else. Or will PS2 require everyone to start fresh and grind through every upgrade for every piece of gear that we use?

[Atheosim]

No, certs are final.

[Sephirex]

You buy it, you keep it. This is pretty typical for an unlimited skill point game. See Eve, Secret World.

[Shadowrath]

You buy it, you keep it. This is pretty typical for an unlimited skill point game. See Eve, Secret World.

Sums it up and also don't you earn cert points or something like that over time?

[Rat]

Thr bigg diff in planetside 2 is you never stop gaining cert points..they have hinted at something like 1 cert point per 10 mins of play time....at higher levels things could cost a hundred points.

[ShowNoMercy]

I would implore you to invest in skills that improve the class overall and not just the equipment (especially weapons since they can switched within a class).

[Arovien]

Yes, certs are gained overtime, even when offline!

[Shadowrath]

Thr bigg diff in planetside 2 is you never stop gaining cert points..they have hinted at something like 1 cert point per 10 mins of play time....at higher levels things could cost a hundred points.

Also, I assume they'll add cash shop stuff to increase the amount of cert points you get in a certain time frame.

[Dart]

Yes, they've already confirmed EXP boosters! Thread closed - awaiting move to New Player Questions section.

[EisenKreutzer]

I believe they have discussed doing some form of cert "respec," at some point, but I don't know anything concrete. It sort of doesn't matter, since you get an unlimited amount of certs over time, but time will tell if it becomes a feature or not.

[SFJake]

Problem I have is that they said it would pretty much take 3 years to get everything.

Which to me, means unlocking things will take quite a lot of time... which means I'm scared boosters will pretty much be a necessity and will probably boost the speed you get things up -excessively-. Which is something I despise in F2P games. Annoying incentives for a FREE game which makes you spend more than a normal one.

And I doubt they would pass yet another opportunity for a way with CASH to respend your points. *sigh*

[Fenrys]

20% more damage or some other benefit worth as much as 20% damage

Play for a year and put all your points into a single tech tree, and that's the bonus you'll get using that tech.

For example, a fully-specced mine laying engineer's mines will deal 20% more damage than an uncerted engineer.

[Rivenshield]

I believe they have discussed doing some form of cert "respec," at some point, but I don't know anything concrete. It sort of doesn't matter, since you get an unlimited amount of certs over time, but time will tell if it becomes a feature or not.

That bothers me a little. In two-three years' time everybody will be able to do everything, and exotic abilities and orbital strikes (ugh) will be common as mud. Why not put a cap on it? and let people repec over time to try New Things? That will keep the game fresh and exciting over the long haul.

Or am I full of it?

[Shadows]

TL;DR: is this new system of "level grind every gun, vehicle, skill, etc to be able to unlock its full potential" really better than the old cert system where every item was available with 100% functionality up front? Why penalize people who don't have play for 8 hours a day?





So the PS1 system of accessing anything in the game by picking up and dropping certifications is completely gone? And it's been replaced by a system requiring X amount of use to unlock ANY piece of equipment's full functionality?

In ps1 if i wanted to use gun X or vehicle Y, i could simply sacrifice something else and gain the certification for that item immediately, with no further requirements to use everything it had to offer. We didn't pick up the liberator and get told, "Congratulations on the purchase of 1/20th of your Air Support certification! Now all you is need 10,000 XP to unlock the tailgun, 25,000 for tankbuster bombs, 50,000 for air tower rearm/repair, 100,000 for the bomb camera, 300,000 for amp station shields, etc.

Even at low rank, you still had access to everything, just not everything all at one time. And if you wanted to use a tank or a bomber but your low level character didn't have the point for it - or you just didn't want to give up your primary roles - you just made an alternate character. 2 minutes later you had a dedicated lib / prowler driver and your main character was unaffected.

In ps2, i'm forced to spend a significant amount of time leveling up whatever gear I want to use - even if only to try it out and see what it does - just to acquire its full functionality. Many of these are labeled as "sidegrades" but unlocks like countermeasures, extra armor, extra speed, and AA turrets all seem pretty damn significant to me. Regardless of whether or not the player is forced to give something up in order to use these upgrades, they should be available to everyone up front. A one year year player shouldn't have exponentially more options than the a week player.

Say I'm a dedicated grunt player, but I want to fly lib or mosquito, is there any point in making alt chars for this now? You have to start from the bottom of the specialization tree and grind all the way up regardless of what character you're playing, right?

Rewarding players in this way for time spent playing seems too much like an RPG. Joe Casual shouldn't cert a vehicle and then be punished for not spending as much time using it as John Basementdweller.

I understand that this game being marketed to the CoD / BF crowd, and I think that's a great idea. In 2003 i stood in awe of the sheer scale of planetside. Incredible feats that were unimaginable in any other game, were a regular occurrence. Much of this effect started to fade as the server population dropped. I do agree with some of the elitist nerds on here when I hear them crying over how the game is being "dumbed down for the masses" in one way or another. I don't care for low TTK, vehicle seat swapping, zebra stripe paintjobs, lack of inventory, restrictive class system (not saying i want BR23+ supersoldier), or a few other things we've seen so far. But I realize PS2 has to appeal to a broader audience or it will suffer the same fate as PS1.

This new cert system...I don't see it really helping bring new players into the game. It can be discouraging to newcomers when they see higher level people using equipment X, knowing they won't be able to touch it for 6 months. Sure, there are elements of this in BF and CoD already, but is this really the better way? Who wants to be limited because you have a job, girlfriend, family, friends, etc and don;t have as much time to play as others might?

Maybe i'm just overreacting, but i don't think "calm down....wait till beta" really addresses something as fundamental as this.

[Shadowrath]

TL;DR: is this new system of "level grind every gun, vehicle, skill, etc to be able to unlock its full potential" really better than the old cert system where every item was available with 100% functionality up front? Why penalize people who don't have play for 8 hours a day?





So the PS1 system of accessing anything in the game by picking up and dropping certifications is completely gone? And it's been replaced by a system requiring X amount of use to unlock ANY piece of equipment's full functionality?

In ps1 if i wanted to use gun X or vehicle Y, i could simply sacrifice something else and gain the certification for that item immediately, with no further requirements to use everything it had to offer. We didn't pick up the liberator and get told, "Congratulations on the purchase of 1/20th of your Air Support certification! Now all you is need 10,000 XP to unlock the tailgun, 25,000 for tankbuster bombs, 50,000 for air tower rearm/repair, 100,000 for the bomb camera, 300,000 for amp station shields, etc.

Even at low rank, you still had access to everything, just not everything all at one time. And if you wanted to use a tank or a bomber but your low level character didn't have the point for it - or you just didn't want to give up your primary roles - you just made an alternate character. 2 minutes later you had a dedicated lib / prowler driver and your main character was unaffected.

In ps2, i'm forced to spend a significant amount of time leveling up whatever gear I want to use - even if only to try it out and see what it does - just to acquire its full functionality. Many of these are labeled as "sidegrades" but unlocks like countermeasures, extra armor, extra speed, and AA turrets all seem pretty damn significant to me. Regardless of whether or not the player is forced to give something up in order to use these upgrades, they should be available to everyone up front. A one year year player shouldn't have exponentially more options than the a week player.

Say I'm a dedicated grunt player, but I want to fly lib or mosquito, is there any point in making alt chars for this now? You have to start from the bottom of the specialization tree and grind all the way up regardless of what character you're playing, right?

Rewarding players in this way for time spent playing seems too much like an RPG. Joe Casual shouldn't cert a vehicle and then be punished for not spending as much time using it as John Basementdweller.

I understand that this game being marketed to the CoD / BF crowd, and I think that's a great idea. In 2003 i stood in awe of the sheer scale of planetside. Incredible feats that were unimaginable in any other game, were a regular occurrence. Much of this effect started to fade as the server population dropped. I do agree with some of the elitist nerds on here when I hear them crying over how the game is being "dumbed down for the masses" in one way or another. I don't care for low TTK, vehicle seat swapping, zebra stripe paintjobs, lack of inventory, restrictive class system (not saying i want BR23+ supersoldier), or a few other things we've seen so far. But I realize PS2 has to appeal to a broader audience or it will suffer the same fate as PS1.

This new cert system...I don't see it really helping bring new players into the game. It can be discouraging to newcomers when they see higher level people using equipment X, knowing they won't be able to touch it for 6 months. Sure, there are elements of this in BF and CoD already, but is this really the better way? Who wants to be limited because you have a job, girlfriend, family, friends, etc and don;t have as much time to play as others might?

Maybe i'm just overreacting, but i don't think "calm down....wait till beta" really addresses something as fundamental as this.

I'm scared of that as well. I'm hoping a few months into the game the advantages of said certs won't be so overwhelming to discourage newcomers.

[IgloGlass]

With things like they are right now you need 100 points in the squad leader cert tree to start working on the last cert, so a bit more than 100 but let's work with that number.

100 points times 1/10 mins make 1000 minutes = 100 cert points.

1000 / 60 is roughly 17 hours. So what can we make of this? The thoughest cert tree that I know of will only require a bit more than 17 hours to fully upgrade. Doesn't sound too bad if you ask me.

[Sephirex]

Higby's stated actual power won't vary more then 20% for a fully certed vet and a no cert noob, in whatever respective tree they go in.
PS1 was more unfriendly to noobs if anything, since you started with absolutely nothing, and couldn't kill a fully loaded vet in a firefight even if they got the drop on him. .
PS2 will have lower TTKS, and access to the all classes and vehicles right from the get-go.
Also, the class system mixed with the sidegrade system allows the developers to force players into somewhat consistent roles and power levels. Example, a noob anti-air max will always be able to help clear the skies, no matter the certs on the aircraft.

[Shadowrath]

With things like they are right now you need 100 points in the squad leader cert tree to start working on the last cert, so a bit more than 100 but let's work with that number.

100 points times 1/10 mins make 1000 minutes = 100 cert points.

1000 / 60 is roughly 17 hours. So what can we make of this? The thoughest cert tree that I know of will only require a bit more than 17 hours to fully upgrade. Doesn't sound too bad if you ask me.

That seems a little easy. :o

Higby's stated actual power won't vary more then 20% for a fully certed vet and a no cert noob, in whatever respective tree they go in.
PS1 was more unfriendly to noobs if anything, since you started with absolutely nothing, and couldn't kill a fully loaded vet in a firefight even if they got the drop on him. .
PS2 will have lower TTKS, and access to the all classes and vehicles right from the get-go.
Also, the class system mixed with the sidegrade system allows the developers to force players into somewhat consistent roles and power levels. Example, a noob anti-air max will always be able to help clear the skies, no matter the certs on the aircraft.

That's at least good to hear.

[polywomple]

PS2 will be much easier on the newcomers...

... When I first played PS1... holy crap that game was relentless to me. Plenty of 2/18 k/d ratios back then.

[EisenKreutzer]

With things like they are right now you need 100 points in the squad leader cert tree to start working on the last cert, so a bit more than 100 but let's work with that number.

100 points times 1/10 mins make 1000 minutes = 100 cert points.

1000 / 60 is roughly 17 hours. So what can we make of this? The thoughest cert tree that I know of will only require a bit more than 17 hours to fully upgrade. Doesn't sound too bad if you ask me.

We don't know wether this rate of cert aquisition will last through the beta, though. Plus, Higby himself said there were literally years worth of certifications, so I don't think you can aquire a whole cert tree that easily.

[QuantumMechanic]

Yes, certs are gained overtime, even when offline!

Just FYI. The last I heard about about this (I don't remember the source) they were suggesting that this might be functionality for premium subscribers / cash shop item only. Not free for everybody.

It makes sense, as they've already stated that XP boosters will be cash shop items.

[RoninOni]

I think some weapons are cross class...

It seems to me Light Assault, Medics, and Engineers all use the same carbine weapons.
Infiltrator gets pistols and sniper
Heavy gets LMG + Rocket

I believe they have discussed doing some form of cert "respec," at some point, but I don't know anything concrete. It sort of doesn't matter, since you get an unlimited amount of certs over time, but time will tell if it becomes a feature or not.

Possibly... though it would be a paid feature without question.

As would server transfers.

We don't know wether this rate of cert aquisition will last through the beta, though. Plus, Higby himself said there were literally years worth of certifications, so I don't think you can aquire a whole cert tree that easily.
Quite frankly, they aren't even sure we get to keep our unlocks from beta to live.

Purge and server refresh is a likely event right before push Live.

They were talking in an interview about possibly opening the store before Live, and refunding all Station Cash used (So if you spend $20 during beta... you'll have $20 back on your account when they go live... and your character, unlocks, purchases will all be removed along with everyone elses)

Otherwise... beta players would have a massive advantage over day1 launch players... MASSIVE advantage. We already will have significant advantage what with having experience and map knowledge

[TheApoc]

i think & i could be wrong that Higby also said that 20% advantage also included squad & platoon bonuses

[EisenKreutzer]

And remember, that 20% is the absolute maximum power difference between a fully certed veteran with hudreds of hours of game time and a dude who downloaded the game three minutes ago.

[IgloGlass]

And remember, that 20% is the absolute maximum power difference between a fully certed veteran with hudreds of hours of game time and a dude who downloaded the game three minutes ago.

Sure in a 1 on 1 fight but fully certed veterans like you say, would be able to use not only squad spawning for example, but other features such as the mobile device drone strike etc.

But yeah when you actually face someone the difference will only be minor.

[Shadowrath]

And remember, that 20% is the absolute maximum power difference between a fully certed veteran with hudreds of hours of game time and a dude who downloaded the game three minutes ago.

There is hope for the noobs ! ! ! :)

[Sledgecrushr]

Unlimited Skill progression..totally awesome

[SixShooter]

TL;DR: is this new system of "level grind every gun, vehicle, skill, etc to be able to unlock its full potential" really better than the old cert system where every item was available with 100% functionality up front? Why penalize people who don't have play for 8 hours a day?





So the PS1 system of accessing anything in the game by picking up and dropping certifications is completely gone? And it's been replaced by a system requiring X amount of use to unlock ANY piece of equipment's full functionality?

In ps1 if i wanted to use gun X or vehicle Y, i could simply sacrifice something else and gain the certification for that item immediately, with no further requirements to use everything it had to offer. We didn't pick up the liberator and get told, "Congratulations on the purchase of 1/20th of your Air Support certification! Now all you is need 10,000 XP to unlock the tailgun, 25,000 for tankbuster bombs, 50,000 for air tower rearm/repair, 100,000 for the bomb camera, 300,000 for amp station shields, etc.

Even at low rank, you still had access to everything, just not everything all at one time. And if you wanted to use a tank or a bomber but your low level character didn't have the point for it - or you just didn't want to give up your primary roles - you just made an alternate character. 2 minutes later you had a dedicated lib / prowler driver and your main character was unaffected.

In ps2, i'm forced to spend a significant amount of time leveling up whatever gear I want to use - even if only to try it out and see what it does - just to acquire its full functionality. Many of these are labeled as "sidegrades" but unlocks like countermeasures, extra armor, extra speed, and AA turrets all seem pretty damn significant to me. Regardless of whether or not the player is forced to give something up in order to use these upgrades, they should be available to everyone up front. A one year year player shouldn't have exponentially more options than the a week player.

Say I'm a dedicated grunt player, but I want to fly lib or mosquito, is there any point in making alt chars for this now? You have to start from the bottom of the specialization tree and grind all the way up regardless of what character you're playing, right?

Rewarding players in this way for time spent playing seems too much like an RPG. Joe Casual shouldn't cert a vehicle and then be punished for not spending as much time using it as John Basementdweller.

I understand that this game being marketed to the CoD / BF crowd, and I think that's a great idea. In 2003 i stood in awe of the sheer scale of planetside. Incredible feats that were unimaginable in any other game, were a regular occurrence. Much of this effect started to fade as the server population dropped. I do agree with some of the elitist nerds on here when I hear them crying over how the game is being "dumbed down for the masses" in one way or another. I don't care for low TTK, vehicle seat swapping, zebra stripe paintjobs, lack of inventory, restrictive class system (not saying i want BR23+ supersoldier), or a few other things we've seen so far. But I realize PS2 has to appeal to a broader audience or it will suffer the same fate as PS1.

This new cert system...I don't see it really helping bring new players into the game. It can be discouraging to newcomers when they see higher level people using equipment X, knowing they won't be able to touch it for 6 months. Sure, there are elements of this in BF and CoD already, but is this really the better way? Who wants to be limited because you have a job, girlfriend, family, friends, etc and don;t have as much time to play as others might?

Maybe i'm just overreacting, but i don't think "calm down....wait till beta" really addresses something as fundamental as this.

I really don't see any of this as a problem. I plan to max everything out while stll being married with children, working full time, writing and recording music and playing other games as well.

I really don't feel like "grind" is the right term for this type of game. It's not the way that you "grind" to level up in other MMO's. You'll be free to pick and choose the things that you sink your cert points into and if there is a wepon that you don't like you should be able to tell before you start spending cert points.

There is also the point that no matter how many cert trees that you max out, it's not going to make you over powered compared to a new player. All that it will do is give you more options to fit your play style.

PS1 was a lot more restrictive for lower BR players compared to PS2, especially at the begining when you could only uncert something every 24 hours. Wepons and vehicles are much more accessible this time around and I really don't feel like I'm going to limited in my gamepley just because I have a limited amount of time to play.

[Shadows]

PS1 was more unfriendly to noobs if anything, since you started with absolutely nothing, and couldn't kill a fully loaded vet in a firefight even if they got the drop on him.

Can't agree with that. I had the same luck on my BR5 alt characters as i did on any of my high level characters. I was limited in how much gear I could use at once, but as for 1v1 fights, that was determined by the player's actions rather than their ranks.


And remember, that 20% is the absolute maximum power difference between a fully certed veteran with hudreds of hours of game time and a dude who downloaded the game three minutes ago.

20% boost in power can be more influential than you realize.

The accuracy of an average FPS player is, if i recall, around 20%. So for an average player, they will score one hit for every 5 shots they fire. If a vet has 20% more power on his gun, that could mean one less hit to kill an enemy. Not to mention any other upgrades he's accumlulated on his weapon over the months / years he's been playing.

With typical, mediocre accuracy, that's 5 less shots the veteran player has to fire to get that kill. Now keep in mind those final shots are always the hardest to land. The player under fire will often be trying to evade and/or return fire, as well as your gun's CoF / recoil will have already been increasing rapidly. It's not as simple as "oh well my gun only takes one more shot to kill than his does". It's one more hit....and that last one can be difficult.

Games like CoD have closer range encounters with hit-scan projectiles that have zero travel time. PS2 requires us to lead a moving target. The game will be full vehicle battles, forcing players to make long range shots on fast moving targets, further hindering one's ability to hit a target reliably. An extra 20% power boost could be even more of a factor there.

[IgloGlass]

Can't agree with that. I had the same luck on my BR5 alt characters as i did on any of my high level characters. I was limited in how much gear I could use at once, but as for 1v1 fights, that was determined by the player's actions rather than their ranks.




20% boost in power can be more influential than you realize.

The accuracy of an average FPS player is, if i recall, around 20%. So for an average player, they will score one hit for every 5 shots they fire. If a vet has 20% more power on his gun, that could mean one less hit to kill an enemy. Not to mention any other upgrades he's accumlulated on his weapon over the months / years he's been playing.

With typical, mediocre accuracy, that's 5 less shots the veteran player has to fire to get that kill. Now keep in mind those final shots are always the hardest to land. The player under fire will often be trying to evade and/or return fire, as well as your gun's CoF / recoil will have already been increasing rapidly. It's not as simple as "oh well my gun only takes one more shot to kill than his does". It's one more hit....and that last one can be difficult.

Games like CoD have closer range encounters with hit-scan projectiles that have zero travel time. PS2 requires us to lead a moving target. The game will be full vehicle battles, forcing players to make long range shots on fast moving targets, further hindering one's ability to hit a target reliably. An extra 20% power boost could be even more of a factor there.

Well the thing is that there will be 75 weapons available for each faction at launch if I recall correctly. Divided amongst the classes that still makes up for alot of weapons, however, if you know what you like, then you'll quickly be able to cert that to maximum in just a few hours (at least by the looks of it right now) and that's not so bad. Sure you won't be so versatile but you could do the thing you really like the most from start and be quite good at it.

Now if you like to do more than for example place tank mines with a certain gun, armor and etc. as an engineer well then you'll just have to play more I guess :groovy:

[EisenKreutzer]

20% boost in power can be more influential than you realize.

Oh no I agree, 20% is massive. But considering this is between a superpimp and a total newb, it's very low.
Compare it to Call of Duty, where during the first 20 or so levels, a player with a level advantage will absolutely slaughter you with better kill streaks, better weapons, better attachments and better perks.

[Accuser]

I believe they have discussed doing some form of cert "respec," at some point, but I don't know anything concrete. It sort of doesn't matter, since you get an unlimited amount of certs over time, but time will tell if it becomes a feature or not.

Actually, Higby has said on several occasions that there would not be any kind of cert respec in PS2. However, I fully expect that to chance once SoE realizes how much money people would pay for the service...

[WorldOfForms]

A beginning PS1 player could easily cert REXO and HA, putting them on an even playing field with high-level players. The only real difference would be with Personal Shield, but that crappy implant is its own debate.

Also, at some point PS1 had an update that gave new characters a full week where they could recert at will, essentially giving you every cert you could want as long as you went to a recert terminal. So no, new players did not have any significant disadvantage, and with free recerts had an advantage over any player that wasn't BR40.

[SFJake]

Just FYI. The last I heard about about this (I don't remember the source) they were suggesting that this might be functionality for premium subscribers / cash shop item only. Not free for everybody.

It makes sense, as they've already stated that XP boosters will be cash shop items.

Are you kidding me?

If it just needs me to have spent money on the game, I'd happily give 60$ in, get that benefit and other bonuses.

If I need to pay a subscription to get something that just makes the game less tedious and doesn't require me to waste my life on it, thats bullshit.

[GreatMazinkaise]

Are you kidding me?

If it just needs me to have spent money on the game, I'd happily give 60$ in, get that benefit and other bonuses.

If I need to pay a subscription to get something that just makes the game less tedious and doesn't require me to waste my life on it, thats bullshit.

That's "buy the box" thinking... doesn't apply well to a sub game that got an F2P sequel. This is not to say that a +% xp increase for having spent some money on the game (like Tribes:Ascend). Continuous monetization is the goal, after all.

[Rat]

Try to look at that 20% in eve terms....say you are specing bullet penitration...the vet player has that spec up to lvl 5 for the full 20%....Mr. noob will be initially be un speced...but should be able to train it to lvl 3 in a matter of a cpl hours...bringing the power diff down to only 8%....to get to lvl 4 or 5 would take some dedication, but it wont take too much to reduce that 20%.
This is the way I envision it anyway.

[SgtExo]

The hundred off specs that you can get is more about playstyle than power. So it should not take too long to get the equipment you like and that you are good with, what will take allot of time is unlocking alternate ways off playing. You could start off focusing on infantry combat for the first week, then start spec into a vehicle that you like the week after. Then if you have found a group of ppl that you like playing with, you start to spec into the leadership trees. And because everything is piece meal and just playstyle options, it wont be a big xp sink to try out the first lvl of whatever you feel like playing at the moment. This is why I approve what SOE is doing with the character customization with PS2.

[GreatMazinkaise]

The hundred off specs that you can get is more about playstyle than power. So it should not take too long to get the equipment you like and that you are good with, what will take allot of time is unlocking alternate ways off playing. You could start off focusing on infantry combat for the first week, then start spec into a vehicle that you like the week after. Then if you have found a group of ppl that you like playing with, you start to spec into the leadership trees. And because everything is piece meal and just playstyle options, it wont be a big xp sink to try out the first lvl of whatever you feel like playing at the moment. This is why I approve what SOE is doing with the character customization with PS2.

There is a place where power comes in... unless stock toons come with newb weapon attachments and beginner certs to put into all those customization slots then a character that has unlocked stuff for all those slots will be inherently better than a stock toon. How much better remains to be seen...

[SgtExo]

There is a place where power comes in... unless stock toons come with newb weapon attachments and beginner certs to put into all those customization slots then a character that has unlocked stuff for all those slots will be inherently better than a stock toon. How much better remains to be seen...

It is true that a fully certed tree will be more powerful then a uncerted newb, but the way I understand it is that certing 1 tree wont take too much time. The thing that will take allot of time is getting all the different playstyles that you like to play. And with the ability to gain certs while logged off, the difference between someone that plays 2 and 10 hours a day will not be that different. I hope the certs work like that because I usually become bored before I reach the end the skill trees in MMOs or multiplayer games with lvls because the grind at high lvls.

[Vydofnir]

Problem I have is that they said it would pretty much take 3 years to get everything.

Which to me, means unlocking things will take quite a lot of time... which means I'm scared boosters will pretty much be a necessity and will probably boost the speed you get things up -excessively-. Which is something I despise in F2P games. Annoying incentives for a FREE game which makes you spend more than a normal one.

And I doubt they would pass yet another opportunity for a way with CASH to respend your points. *sigh*

When they say it would take 3 years to unlock every cert, I think that they are referring more to the number of certs, rather than the length of time it takes to unlock a single cert. They have stated on multiple occasions that player progression is much more about versatility than power, so I doubt that there will bee too many certs that require an excessively long time to unlock.

The thing that I find most intriguing about PS2, is that SOE seems to have adopted the philosophy that more players equate to more content. If that is indeed their take on the F2P model, it would be in their best interest to make sure that all players are having as much fun as possible, even those that aren't paying for anything. Forcing players to grind seems to undermine this.

[Noivad]

1. There is no grind - Everyone can train certs 24 hrs a day, even when you are not playing. You just need to make sure you have something in the Training que to get trained so the training does not stop.

2. There will be a training bonus for people who actually play in that they will get certs a bit faster as a reward for actively playing. Not stated how much yet.

3. If work, family or other Real Life events prevent you from playing as much as you want to, you can buy an xp time bonus to speed up your time to get certs. 2x, 3x 4x or more. who knows till we actually see it as it is not stated yet.

4. We have been told cert system was modeled on eve. Eve has certs that take only 8 mins, and some that take 30 days to achieve. It was stated it might take a year to fully spec out a galaxy.

5. You can only cert/spec one thing at one time in one class at a time. So you must choose wisley. Eve does NOT have respecing. Once you train it its forever.

6. In other games I have played with similar systems, for a rifle as an example you might cert the following - Barrel, sights, triger, front hand grip, left rail, right rail, stock, with different selections for each one that change things like accuracy, spread, recoil, triger pull, sights, ect. You don't get to try before you cert it, and once certed you have it for keeps. Up to you if you use it or change it to something else.

7. In eve as an example you have missles, and there are 5 or 6 launchers that effect missle flight, and there are several different missles, all with their own set of specs. In eve there is a market that you can sell if you don't like something but there is no player market in Planetside 2.

So in BETA try everything and find out what you like, so at release when all things get reset back to zero, you know what you want to cert right off the bat.

PS. I have been playing eve online now for over 5 years and will never have everything trained because they keep adding new stuff to get. I suspect PS 2 will be the same.

[Arcticus]

I've seen the word "grind" used in two different contexts:

1). Where the normal gameplay yields infrequent/insufficient character progression. The main problem of an --FPS--

2). Where there is the expectation of doing boring tasks in order to get a semblance of character progression. The main problem of an --MMO--

Regarding item #1 (insufficient progression), it looks as if SOE is aware of the need for people to see progression and are going all out trying to make an extensive certification & class system. Which is the main discussion of this thread.

Regarding item #2 (boring tasks), we don't need to do repetitive fed ex/kill 10 thistle pigs quests. We each have the choice of playing mindlessly, tactically, or strategically. The interdependencies between the various classes are excellent.

What the game asks us to do repeatedly is to kill enemy players, which is what we find fun and exciting. The thing is that there's a thousand ways to skin an enemy in this game....including being a human cannonball (drop pod).

Will the battlefield get boring? The landscape seems varied and beautifully immersive. The bases are huge. Hopefully the capture mechanism doesn't get old. Maybe we could use a few additional base types but at least there will be variety even among bases of the same type.

I'm thinking this won't feel like a grind.