The Actual Feedback Thread

[FortySe7en]

Before we go on, I would like to ask the mods to keep this particular thread heavily moderated.

Let me start this off my prefacing that I do not start threads hardly ever. That being said, after watching Malorn try his best to dig through all the garbage that has become the "whining about PS2 forums" its time to get things back on track.

What this thread is for is:
Balance Calculations
Flow of Battle issues
Constructive Critiquing

What this thread is not for:
Offering 10,000 ways to fix a problem
Whining about things that AREN'T in PS2

So let me start this thread off with my own opinions of how things are going from my personal experience.

Battle Flow:
Depends on where you are at really. There seems to be a lot of open space on the map that you either have to spend time running across, or its just impossible to get a small squad through. To me this slows things down because depending on where you are able to spawn, its quite the jog to get to the heat of battle. Places like the Crown have its choke points, and I find that the battles there can go on for quite some time because of it.

Loss of direction:
While I understand they are staying away from the lattice system, a lot of times it feels as if people are lost. Once a base is taken, the question is "where to", and this leads to a lot of the separation. This leads to small skirmishes all over the map, and may eventually lead to a bigger battle...maybe.

K/D Ratio:
Being an experienced FPS player who has competed in many games throughout the last decade or so, I can appreciate KDR. The problem is, Planetside 2 doesn't seem designed for it. I find myself staying out of battles (along with other players) to sit back and farm kills, or boost our K/D ratio. I try and force myself to not look at it, but every 2-3 minutes, I tab to see what I'm doing. If I feel I'm falling behind, I drop back and farm some more kills to get to where I want to be. I've talked to many players who feel identical to this.

Weapons:
I don't really need to say to much about this because the developers have all this information. Right now it seems that there are "best in slot" weapons that people rush for. Today alone I've probably run into about 50 infiltrators with shotguns. Another time I was lighting up the back of an NC who happened to turn around and 1 shot me with the JH. Balance is going to be key to keeping battles moving, and not completely one sided.

Spawning:
5 sunderers lined up in a row with no cooldown to spawn timers. This leads to a very large almost undefendable push if you are in a bad position. I do like how in bio labs, you can take the lower points as a spawn point, and it really helps set the giant battle stage.


What I like
A lot of the base layouts. Sure they might implement a choke point here or there, but being able to come at a base from multiple angles really allows people to develop their own style of play. I feel that when battles are actually taking place, it is very intense and I find myself remembering why I love this series.

The terrain. There are multiple ways to attack a base depending on which way you are coming from. There are plenty more ways if you are an LA. So far its been a bit iffy, but I've seen several outfits defend multiple points against this. Sure, there are some bases where you can get absolutely swamped, but the ones with multiple choke points are incredible to fight at.

The warpgates and hex system. I enjoy both of these. To me, the warpgate is just a tiny staging area and it really doesn't break any immersion or change anything to me personally. The hex system I enjoy (when done correctly in some spots) because it gives you a choice, but still focuses you on where to go. This happens in small areas (mostly around the Crown and Allatum), but is quite effective.


- Anyone with thoughts on areas of the game please post. I'm sure anyone reading these would appreciate it if we stayed away from the "I agree" or "This is bad" and instead posted on how we feel things are going. If we can keep this thread civil and informative, it will be an easy spot for the development team to see how things are going from a player perspective. -

[FortySe7en]

Reserved.

[FortySe7en]

You make it sound as a bad thing. PS1's flexibility (BEFORE BR40) was one of dependence in independency, but not overdependence. PS2 took the dependency thing way too far. This is not about actual balance, this is about rock-paper-scissors balance, where you're not allowed to compete at all. If you rely on a single HA in a group of three, then you can just /suicide if you see more than one tank or your HA dies, or your engi dies while the HA runs out of rockets after the first volley. That's not teamwork, that's slaughter. If you can even beat the one tank with your group: if the HA misses (which with dumbfire is absolutely more than common, particularly against Magriders) then no, teamplay fails.

In PS1, your TEAM, note the word TEAM, could help each other take out those bigger threats in a large variety of ways: they could all grab AV , someone could disable the approaching tanks with EMP, giving the others more time, someone could have placed a minefield [IF CERTED] to provide an alternative means of killing, all could at least damage with machine gun fire even if ineffective, someone could use a Rocklet instead [IF CERTED], someone could use a Falcon instead [IF CERTED], someone could grab (you) a vehicle to fight back [IF CERTED], someone could try and jack the vehicle once stationary [IF CERTED]. But at least you could always do something! Currently, EVERYONE can grab you a vehicle, but nobody wants to get in as they'll just get their own: the internal vehicle teamwork element is all but gone. Everyone is looking at others to do a job, while everyone knows that if you want to have something done right, you do it yourself. You can't expect others to always step in where you can't. Knowing you have no means of doing anything in a game once alone makes a player feel helpless. That is a horrendous thing to do to a player.

What's so stupid about PS2 is that they inflict severe role restrictions on the weakest and least mobile of units (infantry), while providing utter independence to the strongest and most mobile of units (vehicles, MBTs in particular). It's the world turned upside down. The advantage of infantry has always been [I]flexibility. That advantage is gone and shifted to MBTs. That's why you currently see people mass solo supposed multicrew tanks everywhere. With it, inter-vehicle balance is gone.


THAT is teamwork as well. It's just not sitting back and waiting for the other guy to beat them because you can't do anything to help. THAT is NOT team play. That is called boring and overdependence, since if your one buddy fails, your entire TEAM fails.

Hooray? Not really. What does this mean? You can't play the game in small groups at all. Even groups of 5, which were very common in PlanetSide are basically told to join a bigger group or get screwed if they encounter a bigger team. I'm sorry, but I don't think this game can be succesful if lone and small group players are being outed. Why?


Because every NEW player is a LONE player. You can't keep them in without forcing them into random squads? They'll leave if they get ganked time and again by numbers without being able to hold their own or play smart to outsmart the larger group.


Sure, PlanetSide is intended to be played primarily as a group effort: squad - platoon - outfit - empire. But before squad comes loner. In PS1 groups of 1-3 players could make a difference, making you feel like the Hero of the Conglomerate. And we're not even per definition talking about a 100/1 K/D. I don't give a rats arse about K/D and happily went with negative K/Ds in order to make that damn difference. I'm talking about having a fighting chance. I'm talking about being able to turn the tide by doing something that disables the enemy or enables your side to turn a fight around. Currently, a single player is a drop in the bucket, sure you might be the one that makes it spill over, but you and others won't actually know that was you. That reduces the satisfaction the game provides tremendously.


Don't come to me with the argument "you should join a good outfit". I LEAD a good outfit. Each of us as individuals can hold their own in their own expertise. As a group, we work well together. However, since we're not a zergfit, we're not able to mass the numbers that make the real difference in PlanetSide 2. Sheer numbers of armour and troops overwhelms you with ease, since everything can get bypassed from 6 directions. You need huge numbers to even hold a single building in PS2 and tbh, that's utter shite.

I'm not asking for PS1, with just 3 entrances to a base. But I am asking for positions where you can multiply smaller numbers by focusing fire and covering fire. That's inexistent right now due to base design and you continuously get shot in the rear. Since the TTK is so low, there's nothing you can do about that either by proper positioning and by the second respawn, you're already spawncamped by a large tank group with no way to hit them first because of the outside angle and explosion radius and TTK being far superior to yours after a respawn.

That makes the game simply boring, because there IS no contest. This game is designed to make zergfits win without breaking a sweat. If that's how you want to play great.


But let me tell you now that more and more of my outfit members can't be bothered to login because there's just no point.



Base design as is, is very poor. Nobody here is asking for carbon copies of PS1, I certainly am not asking for the return of Interlinks in particular. However, I do expect these things:


Force multipliers (more select amount of choke points, more entrances than PS1, less than PS2)
Solid defense perimeter (walls without gaps everywhere if you can already jump over them everywhere)
Lines of defense, meaning you have an outer defense and inner defense and then another inner defense ring (or two) for bigger bases. The removal of Galaxy spawn made the outer defense ring an option.
Defenders being able to deny attackers access to control points, generators and spawn control units, rather than attackers denying defenders even to get out of the spawnroom. That means that your spawn should be connected directly to these things and not separated by the frontline and lines of fire constantly. Outpost design is particularly bad and I'd easily take any camped PS1 tower over camped PS2 outposts, despite of the already meh-design of the PS1 tower (too chokey). Why? Because the PS2 outpost cannot be defended at all unless you outnumber the enemy.
Passive defenses where you can use area denial tools to create your own funnels and cover at least some of your flanks: valid minefields


You can say all you want that PS2 is a different game, that doesn't mean it doesn't need these things or can't have room for these things. Everyone knows they can. Everyone also knows that a class system is NOT a selling point on which they decided to try a game or keep playing it. However, what it can be, is a put-off. Class systems, especially stringent ones, really put me off games. Especially multiplayer games. To make sure people can play, there should be some overlap possible at all times.


To make a class system work for me, classes should have enhanced abilities in a field, probably some exclusive abilities, but not only exclusive abilities in a field and then no abilities outside of that field. Of course specific classes have restrictions for balance sake and role suitability. A cloaker should not carry AV launchers, but they should have access to mines, even if they can't carry as many as others could.

There's never been anything wrong with being able to lay minefields, suddenly instead of say halving the amount of mines you can place due to there being more people in game, the amount is decimated and it is made completely impossible to use mines because minefields only work in quantity (a bullet, being aimed, is based on quantity and quality, a mine is passive and cannot relocate, thus relies solely on quantity).

Those are random and arbitrary, baseless changes. If you want to claim PS2 is a better game than PS1, you can do that, but only on individual elements. In many respects, PS1 still outbalances and outthinks and outplays PS2. Why? Because PS1 is a refined game. PS2 is riddled with child deceases.

The problem is, the patient (and part of its bloodcells) often doesn't know its sick and is ignorant of existing cures and just blames any issues on "novelty". Sorry, but novelty is not an excuse to ignore past lessons.

Some great points brought up by figment

[FortySe7en]

Let's not, however, pretend that what makes PS2 bad is that its too generic. This game just doesn't have any incentives, period. There's no actual driving force in this game, and it desperately needs it. Just tried it again for the first time in a while. Still boring, still no real rewards or incentives, still no meat. PS2 = MMO without questing. Feel how you want about it, but people would shit balls if they woke up one day and wow had no quests. And as for shooters, the natural human competitive instinct takes over in arena games, so non-arena shoters require more innovation outside of mechanics and polish to be remotely interesting. If generic means ditching pretending to be an MMOFPS, then so be it. This game does not. It just does everything, and poorly.

The problem here is that, if you disect it, PS2 is sub-par as a shooter, sub-par as an mmo, and has sub-par design, all tied together with a sub-par metagame. PS2 is not more than the sum of it's parts. It's just an average of them.



More points brought up by OneBig

[FortySe7en]

I am all for doing all of the things you suggested.

I don't want to just accept that all fights should naturally devolve into spawn camping until the base flips, because you're right that it is boring. We all do it any way, because we may as well do something while waiting for the base to cap and it's the most efficient way to quash any internal resistance.

It would be very interesting to see what happens at outposts if:

The hack -> destroy -> useless until base flip issue to turrets and terminals bug was fixed.
Outposts had terminals for Sunderers rather than spawn rooms.
Sunderers had an exclusive deploy radius that prevented other S/G-AMS from being deployed too close (this is already incoming).
Higby's tug-of-war capture system end up being more than just "pile more live bodies into a base than the enemy and wait". No idea how this system actually works, but I am hopeful.


Some thoughts from Tatwi

[DirtyBird]

I'm waiting for The Definitive Feedback Thread.

[CrankyTRex]

As someone who is currently lone-wolfing it because his friends are not in the Beta, I wanted to emphasize the earlier point about not feeling as though you can counter the numbers and feel an individual effort makes a difference.

For example, I was just playing in a battle on Esamir where we (TR) were pushing out from the Warp Gate to try and take back a close base held by the NC. There were a ton of everything, and they were heading right at each other with seemingly no thought to tactics at all.

I found this idiotic, so I drove completely around this fight and came at it from behind, which had a few people followed me would've successfully broken the stalemate, but it's very difficult to get anyone to follow you. I am not sure that is necessarily a PS2 problem or even something that can be fixed because it's sort of the nature of the beast. It just becomes frustrating because there are so many people that trying those "hero" tactics generally results in instant death. Then it's back to sit and wait for a resource timer of some kind.

In another example, we had a tower get completely overwhelmed by an advance that resulted in basically spawn rape for about 15 minutes while we all waited for the point to officially flip and/or gave up and spawned elsewhere. This part could probably be fixed by changing the dynamic of losing a base. This whole "cap points and hold" thing frequently frustrates me because it usually results in one side having total control and then just sitting there doing nothing while they wait to get the points for it, or just spawn camping. If one side owns all the points and has a dominating presence at a base, they effectively own that base, so why does it take so incredibly long to officially switch?

Similarly, as a person who doesn't get to play for long periods of time with any frequency, my cert and auraxium gain is very small. So there's almost no feeling of progress for me, thus leading to a great focus on things like K/D as a way to measure my performance. It's already difficult enough as a singular player to feel like you can contribute in the face of significant numbers, and getting the sense that "if only I had unlocked some goodies I might do more damage" only serves to enhance that feeling of uselessness.

[FortySe7en]

Inclined to disagree. The fundamental gameplay supporting systems such as hacking as an infil (awareness that you can even hack enemy turrets), where you can change gear at an AMS, what different types of grenade do, etc. Those are far more important than explaining what goes boom: you need to know what something is, before you consider saving up for specialisations or specific certs.

Strategy is something that in principle needs to be learned through experience, but it is definitely important to inform new players on how to read a map, where to go and where to expect enemies. A strategy tutorial on map reading wouldn't be a bad thing: they should learn what the influence indicators are, what the different map status mean, what flashing hex groups mean, that you can click on them for more info, etc. How to set waypoints (and what are the cert demands for that etc), how to use voice chat, voice macros and different chat options. All of those are far more important to tutor than how to throw a rock or pull a trigger. It is however important to teach players how to use special abilities and change firemodes and of course how certification can change these things.

There's a lot of things that should have easy to reach tutorials for new players. "Mini" sounds to me like "Go to the map, use instant action, go git 'm soldier!".

The shop, cert info, etc even the menus should have their own explanatory tutorial(s).

A thought on Tutorial from Figment