Planetside 2 Opinions from a PS1 Vet. Partially Satisfied yet not fully engaged.

[Gonefshn]

Hello all.

My name is Gonefshn.

I played the original Planetside since very early on. I remember when BFRs were released in fact I even bought the core combat expansion in retail box form. Also note I have been with the outfit Ghosts of The Revolution through most of this time.

I'll try to keep this as short as possible.

I believe Planetside 2 has done many things correctly.

1. The FPS or "gunplay" mechanics are much better than PS1.
I am a fan of the new TTK and weapon mechanics, I enjoy that aspect of the game. I think they have done a very good job creating a modern FPS style game in an MMO space.

2. Planetside 2 has a fantastic FTP model. Almost every major media outlet has praised PS2 for doing a great job with F2P making it so free players can still enjoy the game while paying players have benefits worth paying for.

3. Art style. Despite criticism I love how they evolved the Planetside and brought the art style to a new generation of gamers kudos to the devs.

Now lets talk about issues.
First off lets just say I enjoy the game very much, but lets not lie there are many issues.

1. Metagame.
We need more continents, plain and simple this is the biggest issue that seperates PS1 from PS2. What made the conquest meaningful in PS1 was the ability to conquer a continent and move on to another one. Right now it is lame to fight on the same continent all the time. SOE seems to think that a continent that is not being fought over is wasted space. this is not true. Continents that are not being fought over that are controlled by a certain empire provide a very tangible view of ownership for an empire. We need more continents more than we need any balance issues fixed. I think they have done a great job balancing overall (yes there are some things that need fixing) and this is a small issue.

Being able to capture a continent and lock it out to the other empires is the heart and soul of Planetside. This is the biggest thing we are missing. With more continents and a Lattice that allows Global conquest so many meta issues will be solved.

2. Outfits.
Right now outfits feel very unnecasary to the average player. unlike an MMORPG this game doesnt require an outfit to experience all of the content. However, this is only a view of the public. In Planetside the content is not raids, dungeons and bosses, it is experiences. If you are not in an outfit then you are missing 50 percent of the content. More attention needs to be paid to outfit participation.
With that said an outfit of any size needs tangible goals they can achieve. My outift GOTR is very large yet still very organized. With our size we can make a difference in any situation but I still feel like smaller outfit needs things to work towards. We need more Objectives in Planetside 2. Right now it is so basic.

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Obviously there are many more issues than these atm and also many more stengths to the game. I will end now with a concluding statement.

I enjoy Planetside 2.
The moment to moment gameplay is a HUGE improvement over Planetside 1.
The game can still bring the same warm fuzzy feelings that planetside 1 could bring when it comes to huge coordinated teamplay. Because I am in a bigger outfit, I feel like Planetside 2 delivers on the feel of the original in terms of bringing huge combined arms gameplay. Also it matches planetside 1 in its persistant rivaly. This is not an opinion its a fact. No other game pits you against the same enemies every single time you log in and sets you up with the exact same team mates every single time. In BF3 or COD you are put in a random match with random people. In Planetside 2 just like planetside 1 you play with the same people against the same people every moment you play. This rivalry and persistence cannot be matched.

Planetside 2 is missing the content Planetside 1 had. Because of higher graphics and detail we lose out in the amount of content. Planetside 2 is missing the content of PS1.

We need more continents. We need Continental domination.
Planetside 2 does everything better than Planetside 1 in terms of moment to moments gameplay but it suffers in its lack of content.

Nothing is more important than bringing more coninents and more conquest to this game. We need to be able to control and have ownership over larger spaces.

Owning X amount of a map means nothing. Controlling X amounts of continents out of 10 or whatever number is much more compelling.

I love Planetside 2's gameplay, it just lacks the conquest of PS1.

Bring back the true feeling of domination and conquest SOE.

Let me know what you guys think of my thoughts. I know this has mostly been said before but the more people that speak out the more likely we are to be heard!

PS2 has done many things very very well but has also failed to see many things that made PS1 so many peoples number 1 game of all time (including mine)

Let's discuss.
(lol alcohol makes you say shit you always wanted to say)

[Illtempered]

*sign

[psijaka]

Excellent balanced post.

I never played PS1 but do feel there is somethign a bit lacking in the Metagame; I like to see the map "blue" but that is as far as it goes; don't care about whether a certain base gives more resources. Doesn't stop me enjoying the game immensely but there could be a bit more to it.

[PredatorFour]

Well said i agree completely. Content-wise PS 2 is severely lacking to PS 1. Its like Planetside is the successor to Planetside 2 when you compare the two games depth.

[Phantomdestiny]

tbh i think this is just a question of time . we'll see on friday with the release of the 6 month plan and the community dev meeting on saturday

[Zerotrigger]

Being able to capture a continent and lock it out to the other empires is the heart and soul of Planetside.

This needs to hammered home to the devs until they realize how important it is. HAMMERED HOME!!!

[hashish]

I agree, ps1 in terms of content and gameplay was much much more advanced and thorough. I enjoyed that game alot back in the day and i do really enjoy planetside 2 but the absence of metagame, and increase in simplicity is what i really do NOT like. It kills the game, makes it feel like Battlefield instead of the MMO-FPS/RPG we all remember..

Also i really dont like the fact that these devs in particular are not very transparent. We never get any regular info from them. Only Big Big updates..

For now im relaxing playing guildwars 2 until ps2 is properly ready :) right now it sucks for any ps1 vet, the battlefield players will LOVE it tho ! :p

[RovingDeath]

Well said, sir. I believe by adding new continents, then removing this "permanent foothold" thing and giving us "home continents" we will see much better fights. Combining continent locks and some sort of lattice system (at least inter-continental) will hopefully make people feel more obliged to participate in important battles. While they're at it, it would be nice to see a way to cut off benefits ala special operations, as we did in PS1. Want holding territory to mean something? There it is.

[Hamma]

Excellent post sir - great constructive post.

[Rolfski]

Agreed

[Emperor Newt]

Nice post and I agree with most what you said. Only thing I would voice differently is the ttk. For a combined arms game with hundrets to thousands players I think it's too low. Surely it should be nothing like PS1, but it's currently more suited for a arena shooter not a game of the scale of PS2.

[Palerion]

Nice post and I agree with most what you said. Only thing I would voice differently is the ttk. For a combined arms game with hundrets to thousands players I think it's too low. Surely it should be nothing like PS1, but it's currently more suited for a arena shooter not a game of the scale of PS2.

I've been struggling back and forth with the high or low TTK argument. I can't seem to decide for myself if high or low is best. If you wouldn't mind explaining in a little bit more depth how the high time to kill would work better for such a massive-scale shooter, I would appreciate it. Personally I would be worried about players being almost invincible to make stupid decisions and run out in the open with high time to kill, and I think low time to kill forces the player to be smarter and more conscious about his exposition to the enemy. I think it also allows the player to take out groups of unaware enemies if the situation presents itself, which is good, since power should not derive sheerly from numbers.

[Aaron]

Yeah, this is a big one, but the devs will do it. They'll remove those footholds, get those warpgates working like they should, add more continents, and allow for real conquest. At least if we hammer this home they will.

[camycamera]

they are putting in moar continents over time :D

and people have speculated that PS2 is adopting and implementing the PS1 features that worked over time in the course of PS2's development.

http://themittani.com/features/how-eve-online-secured-planetside-2s-future

[RedPower]

Ps1 >>> bfol2

[Emperor Newt]

I've been struggling back and forth with the high or low TTK argument. I can't seem to decide for myself if high or low is best. If you wouldn't mind explaining in a little bit more depth how the high time to kill would work better for such a massive-scale shooter, I would appreciate it. Personally I would be worried about players being almost invincible to make stupid decisions and run out in the open with high time to kill, and I think low time to kill forces the player to be smarter and more conscious about his exposition to the enemy. I think it also allows the player to take out groups of unaware enemies if the situation presents itself, which is good, since power should not derive sheerly from numbers.

Well, I dont know ;) Of course it's a fine balance with pros and cons on both sides. The issue I see with the current implementation is that in huge engagements required pushes towards the enemy do not happen because people are afraid to die. Also many engagements lack infantry because people prefer to sit in their tanks, simply because they won't die as fast in it (and rank up more xp). And one cannot really blame them for that, as the game requires you to stay alive to get those certs and infantry dies incredibly quickly, especially to vehicles (which are over abundant in numbers).

But I don't think that is is actually related all too much to ttk, although I would say infantry should be able to take one or two additional bullets (especially the personal shield, to give emp more of a use). Maybe it's more of a problem related to the counter system of the game, like some AV weapons also being highly effective against infantry.
Also the are other related issues like the current ttk in combination with the screen shaking when hit highly favors weapons with high rate of fire, making slower firing weapons often weaker then their high-rof counterparts (like with shotguns).
So in the end I don't think it's not a problem that would be fixed just by increasing the ttk.
Before anything can be adjusted here other gameplay mechanics like the counter-system for AV/AI (and others) need to be improved. It's not a singular issue, it's connected to a lot of the problems PS2 still has. Including vehicle spam and the amount of aoe weaponry.

[Calisai]

I've found myself playing less and less over time. I think it's got a lot to do with the lack of metagame. Capping a continent is fine, but it doesn't give the same sense of accomplishment as it did in PS1.

I think the rotation of the warpgates and other changes will help short-term, but they really need to push forward for as many new continents as possible. Even with only 5 conts, they could start imposing a timed locks (even if it was only like 15-20 minutes) that would push the majority of the fighting from the locked cont to another cont, mixing things up and giving you a feeling of... hell yeah... we just screwed the other two factions from being able to play on Indar... (etc, etc)

[Calisai]

Well, I dont know ;) Of course it's a fine balance with pros and cons on both sides.

To be honest, I didn't like the short TTK very much at first. It was a big change from PS1. Now that i've gotten used to it, it doesn't bother me anymore. It does require a little more situational awareness and rewards those that get the drop on someone more, and gives less of a cushion to those caught off-guard.

One thing I have noticed due to the shorter TTK... it seems like you need more players to accomplish a goal than you did in PS1. I think it rewards a larger force (with more medics, etc) and hurts the smaller single squad groups. Teamwork can overcome some of this, but can only due so much. (solo players are probably mostly unaffected by it)

I think the short/long TTK argument has a lot to do with personal play styles more than actual impact to the game. There were always people in PS1 sitting in tanks outside a big infantry push spamming doorways... and PS1 probably had one of the longest TTKs of all the FPS's.

I think aggressiveness comes down to risk/reward... A lot of players will take the easiest way to get XP/Kills/Caps (whatever they are focused on) and therefore things like ability to camp spawns, spreading out of goals, metagame.. needs to be tweaked with that in mind.

[Crator]

I think the rotation of the warpgates and other changes will help short-term, but they really need to push forward for as many new continents as possible.

They did rotate the empire footholds during beta. For the life of me I can't remember why they did that though. I thought it was to give the players more variety of game-play (a chance to see more of the continent). I like the idea you propose of bringing that back for the short term until they add more continents and a proper cont lock system.

Even with only 5 conts, they could start imposing a timed locks (even if it was only like 15-20 minutes) that would push the majority of the fighting from the locked cont to another cont, mixing things up and giving you a feeling of... hell yeah... we just screwed the other two factions from being able to play on Indar... (etc, etc)

I don't think this is necessary... It wasn't really needed in PS1 using the inter-continent lattice system. I just think locking a cont is too restrictive...

[Crator]

I think the rotation of the warpgates and other changes will help short-term, but they really need to push forward for as many new continents as possible.

They did rotate the empire footholds during beta. For the life of me I can't remember why they did that though. I thought it was to give the players more variety of game-play (a chance to see more of the continent). I like the idea you propose of bringing that back for the short term until they add more continents and a proper cont lock system.

Even with only 5 conts, they could start imposing a timed locks (even if it was only like 15-20 minutes) that would push the majority of the fighting from the locked cont to another cont, mixing things up and giving you a feeling of... hell yeah... we just screwed the other two factions from being able to play on Indar... (etc, etc)

I don't think this is necessary... It wasn't really needed in PS1 using the inter-continent lattice system. I just think locking a cont is too restrictive...

[Calisai]

They did rotate the empire footholds during beta. For the life of me I can't remember why they did that though. I thought it was to give the players more variety of game-play (a chance to see more of the continent). I like the idea you propose of bringing that back for the short term until they add more continents and a proper cont lock system.


They rotated Indar to give a little variety for those that were there during tech test, and probably to test that the sides were balanced. Which I think they kinda are... to a point. I think the north is intended to have a lot of territory, but be hard to keep it, while the two southern sides are an east/west back-forth push. The map looked the same when the VS was in the north, we had everything up to the middle ridge pretty consistently and the NC/TR would back and forth over the south.

I've never added up the resources, but i'm betting they are pretty equal, even though the north has vast amount of space/resource... and the south is more compressed.


I don't think this is necessary... It wasn't really needed in PS1 using the inter-continent lattice system. I just think locking a cont is too restrictive...

As it is right now, 10% pop keeps a good amount of the conquering zerg sitting there at the warpgate farming kills.

I'm thinking the lock should be around to be an incentive to move the zerglings to another continent as reward. I would also say that it should be a short-term lock... allowing for the move back to the cont reasonably soon thereafter. I would also say that you could only lock 1 cont at a time. So, if one cont is locked, then a second... the first automatically unlocks. (at least with the small amount of conts we have now).


These are my thoughts only because we won't have 10 conts open in the short term. It's just not going to happen. So, I'd rather try and figure out how to enhance the short/middle term while they work towards the long term. I would have preferred them to open up with the same amount as PS1 did, but that was probably not feasible.

[JojoTheSlayer]

Adding a actual mmo persistent planet via warpgates and thereby removing constant 3 ways and adding a bit more strategy is the long term game breaker for me.


The seperte islands and faction warpgates feels so Guild Wars 1 to me.
Its not what I really picture a mmofps universe to be.

[Gonefshn]

Sorry to revive a thread many pages deep but I never replied to my own thread I had been busy.

Thanks for the feedback.

I just believe that people are taking planetside 2 and breaking it down so much into a ton of micro issues when it all adds up to one main problem.

I'm not saying smaller issues are irrelevant but let me point out one thing.

The FPS mechanics and empire to empire balance was never perfect for PS1.
Just like Planetside 2 they changed things over and over and over, nerf this, buff that, over and over. one day air was too good, then it sucked, tanks are too good, now they are too weak.

The same simple issues always existed just like in Planetside 2. Yet, despite this Planetside 1 was always more compelling. To me this is because in such a broad scale game little balance issues are minimal parts of the whole experience. It never mattered if the jackhammer was better than the lasher or the magrider was OP on bridge battles because PLAYERS found a way to deal with it and could still enjoy the game for what it offered.... HUGE intercontinental warfare, massive territory domination, huge battles and massive coordination.

Planetside 2 has massive coordination, planetside 2 has huge battles.
It's missing true conquest and ownership.

This is the biggest issue. And yes I know more continents are coming I'm just saying it should be the #1 priority over any sort of MLG partnerships, new weapons/vehicles, external apps, customizations, even the mission system. Planetside never had a mission system. Why does planetside 2 need one? well... because in its current state we need to be told what to do because there is no clear objective such as the ever simple, lock the continent.

Bring us continents, bring us sanctuaries. Priority #1. Glad many of you agree.

Stop spending so much time trying to get so nitty gritty about the minor issues they mostly have nailed down. No one is going to leave PS2 because the magrider is too powerful, but they will because of a lack of motivation to play.

[ThirtyMartinsen]

Thank you gonefshn for point out that the game as it currently is is amazing. I too played PS1 and I see no reason to be discontent - what we have is very good! Too many use forums and chat to complain - there is noe experience in gaming like PS2 battles so enjoy what you have!

That said, I doo agree on the big one. Remember looking at the PS1 continent map while at work (when will they bring that back?) and planning yet another attack on half-blue Solsar which was 100% red when I quit the previous night :)

[Gonefshn]

I never really said it was amazing, I mentioned there are some balance issues etc. I just meant to say these adjustments are not what is truly driving and/or hurting the player experience.

However, thanks for the positive feedback my friend.

I'd say what we have so far is good, as in a good start.
But I feel like it's a beautiful body without the soul.

For it to be amazing we need that True conquest gameplay. SOE wants to make a true War FPS but a big battle that never ends isn't really much of a war. What made Planetside 1 feel like a war was continent locking.

[Ghoest9]

Basically I like the current game.

-We definitely need more areas that favor infantry.

-Most of the devs plan is good.

-Changes in XP could be be used to alter game play

[Rockit]

I don't quite know what it is but PS2 just isn't immersive for me. When I first started PS1 I was hooked into it for the long haul. Couldn't wait to get home from work everyday to login for at least 4 hours and this went on for years. PS2? I could care less now and this happened after only a short period of time. PS1 was more of a cohesive world where you really felt attached to your character, maybe because it wasn't some canned class but one that was unique to you. PS2 (and I think by design) is a series of BF maps all hodgepodged together and the conts are too separated. This will change over time of course but for now, I can take it or leave it... mostly leave it.

[Badjuju]

This is the biggest issue. And yes I know more continents are coming I'm just saying it should be the #1 priority over any sort of MLG partnerships, new weapons/vehicles, external apps, customizations, even the mission system. Planetside never had a mission system. Why does planetside 2 need one? well... because in its current state we need to be told what to do because there is no clear objective such as the ever simple, lock the continent.

Bring us continents, bring us sanctuaries. Priority #1. Glad many of you agree.



I agree with you completely but continents are something they are working on and we need to wait on. They have stated that they understand the need and have a team dedicated to it. I recall during beta in an interview they said it takes them six months to create a continent. This may not be the case now that the game is out as they may be able to dedicate more resources to the task, but still I would imagine this being a big job. Good post though.