Why Planetside 2 has been steadily losing players [Archive]

Mordelicius

2013-08-31, 05:22 PM

Planetside 2 has been steadily losing players since launch. And there are several reasons for it. But, first, i'll point out the ones I won't be discussing. And these are already much discussed as you can see:

- Performance
- Griefing/Hacking/Exploiting
- Overpowered Units (used to farm helpless newbs)
- Faction Imbalances leading to server imbalance
- Lack of Metagameplay

However, there is one aspect of PS2 that's fundamentally rotting away the core gameplay and driving away game's population. It's the conflict of conceptual PS2 vs the actual/applied PS2. What does this mean?

Planetside 2 concept: Persistent warfare in a massive scale and map. That is ideally what PS2 is and should be.

Planetside 2 applied: After they lure new players in, they turn around and not foster, support, encourage this kinds of massive fights and in many cases even discourage it (with the new rulesets and mechanics they've been implementing).

All of these swirling points can be distilled in their philosophic approach: The developers much rather limit gameplay than limit cert gain, as opposed to limit cert gain instead of gameplay. Again, what do I mean by that?

I'll explain this by giving many cases and examples of how they tinker with the game mechanics. Obviously they don't want players to farm too much certs easily. You can see this in the first generation bases they've released (and I've noted this before in the forum), which didn't allow chokepoints, turtle and awash many unmitigatable flanks (windows, doors, stairs, etc.).

Examples:

Degrading the Crown - When we were testing the lattice on the PTS, all we're asked was which other bases are too good. They would rather kill a good base than improve the other bases. And so they killed the Crown (iirc it was already changed at that point) rather take the good points off it and apply it to other bases.

Lowering Biolab Cap: Here is another example. They are so averse to Biolab farms that they would lower the cap to 3 minutes. Combined with the new SCU/Shield gen mechanic, resecure/rescue and recovery is screwed.

No Deploy Zone: This is another great example. The NDZ has not done anything good for gameplay but debase it. I call it the WWW (wipe, walk and wait). Attackers will wipe because Sunderers are much harder to hide. Attackers will walk back from the last base and Defenders will wait. That's triple tedium. All this does kill the battleflow.

And what this tells me is they don't want players spawning close to each other and killfarming. Such as in Towers where you can park the Sundy downstairs or on Amp Station/Tech Plants where they park next to A.

Easier Continent Cap/Uncap - They've went too far with this as well. The old rivalries and bragging rights/taunting are gone. I understand one base to farm players over and over again is excessive, but the current Continent capping is moot, because it is utterly pointless to hold it being practically impossible to defend.

All the has been evident since they limited the redeploy/hotdrops to several bases. They simply want to decrease the fights and increase the nonfighting activity like transportation. Now, this overarching concept has completely taken over PS2.

Let's check the other side of the coin: Decrease the cert gain and keep the massive fights. Roll back all the destructive stuff like NDZ, and bring back the good bases such as the Crown.

I also understand they check local/specific hotspots where players get to kill alot and make changes to them. I noticed it small changes in the Biolab rock elevations/cover placements as well as rock covers out in the open map.

Suggestion:

Now, how does PS2 can regulate cert and still have sustained, meatgrinder fights that everyone loves? How can the Devs' disdain for sustained fights be mollified?

This has been discussed before Dynamic XP was implemented. Before Dynamic XP was implemented I was suggesting XP gain cooldown upon death, meaning everytime a player dies, a timer ticks. Until that timer ticks down to zero, that player cannot gain/give xp from kills using a fired/activated weapons (perhaps they can still gain xp from mines).

I've been arguing that the Developers don't want players farming and earning certs at a high rate. The best compromise is to limit the cert gain, allowing them more room to accept and design meatgrinder mechanics. Aside from the lattice system, the Developers are very averse to farms and meatgrinders.

Hence, the Kill XP cooldown upon death.

- Recently killed players cannot gain kill XP until timer cooldown
- Recently killed players cannot give kill Xp until timer cooldown
(not counting suicides as death)

My suggestions is experiment how long is a viable cooldown time. Rather than gain certs for every player just respawning or rescuscitated, increase the xp per kill. Even it's just a minute, so long as we can have our massive meatgrinder fights back. If all you rez, die, rez, die, the fight is still on, but we're more focused to the objective. In addition, they can tinker with base cap XP to reflect the enhanced importance of base capture.

The timer will also condition players to not die all the time if they want to get kill xp and same time not reward spawn and choke campers with free xp and finally allow Devs room to back away from their embrace of artificial-gameplay-limits-as-means-to-regulate-xp-gain. How about do it the other way around, limit cert gain through death xp timer and leave the gameplay untouch and improve upon it rather than rack their brains to find not-so-ingenious means to scale back the fights.

Here are some of my old posts on the subject before Dynamic XP on December 17, 2012 (and i've posted this before having to read/know what the Dynamic XP concept was:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51359

Planetside 2 players overwhelmingly want a meaningful, sustained base fights.

SOE want nonstatic, nonpervasive, elastic, wide-open frontlines to avoid base turtling and in turn kill farming (which in turn will hurt their business, due to high rate of earning Certs).

Here's the practical solution to both: Add a cooldown to kill credit everytime a player dies.

Example:
Player A kills Player B. Gets XP points for the kill.
Player B will not get XP kill credit for the next (say) 2-3 minutes.
Player B will also not be able to give XP everytime he dies the next 2-3 minutes.

Every time Player B dies, the cooldown is reset. What will this mechanic do?

1) It will allow SOE to contruct or reconstruct tighter bases without the fear of xp kill farming.

2) It will prevent kill farmers for the sake of gaining cheap XP. That goes for Air units and even exploiters.

3) It will rewards a community that simply wants great balanced, competitive pvp.

4) Players will still get kill credits but the XP farm simply won't be there. If Player A kills Player B 10x every minute for the next ten minutes. Player A gets XP credit for first kill but still get 10 kills.

5) The onus will be on players not to die and reward strategy to kill and not die repeatedly.

SOE will have to adjust the amount of XP per Certs, including the ones already owned by players, but it will solve the divide between SOE and the players.

I'm sorry but imo SOE will not change their base designs to benefit defenders. In fact the opposite is happening. They are systematically eliminating all the farming hotspots (look at the outrage at the Mesa and Techplants). I think the Biolabs are next. Look at the ramps they added. Pretty soon, they will note the Crown as well.

There's a reason why the bases are so wide open, with no place to turtle. They designed it that way. But you're right on one thing. My suggestion shift the focus on base fights rather than pure kills. But it's no different from what is going on right now. Most base 'fights' are just capping empty bases.

The only places left to fight are really the Crown and Biolabs. If they implement this, they can restructure their base-capping, base defense mechanics around the concept.

I doubt SOE would acquiesce to that because again, they simply don't want base turtling that will evolve to cert farming. What SOE is trying to avoid is easy Cert farming for players.

That will just speed up the demise of the Crown because it would be even more prime area for defense farming. They destroyed the Techplants for that very same reason. I wouldn't be suprised if they add loads of jumppads toward the crown.

It seems I wasn't clear enough why I made this post :D. I made this post after reading so much Base Design threads.

My point is, the only way to convince Sony to change their open-ended Base Design is give up fast XP farming.

The current base design favors attackers not defenders. Hence you have cries of "nobody is defending". You have cries of "Zerging empty bases". You have cries of "where's the fight?" While the suggestions on changing bases are arguably well-meaning, it's all player-centric. Sony's position wasn't even part of the discussion or equation. It means SOE ain't gonna bite because the faster players farm their kill, the less they sell the Certs and XP boosts.

The only way for Sony to bite and change their base design philosphy to allow turtling, camping and heck even kill farming (different from xp farming), is to incorporate a Kill-XP cooldown mechanic. I lifted this mechanic from my favorite MMO where it worked wonders over there, by focusing players unto objectives (The GMs found a way ruin the game in another way but that's another story :( ).

Players prefer:
Defensive Bases (favors defenders) + Easy kill farm

Sony prefer:
Open Bases (favors attackers ) + Slow kills

The current system is a mix of both:
Open Bases (favors attacks) + Easy Kill farm

What I'm suggesting is a reverse. If Sony is to ever make highly defensible base, then the kill farms has to go:

Defensive Bases ( favors defenders ) + Slow kills ( Kill XP cooldown mechanic)

Now that doesn't mean getting XP is now impossible. Sony still has to adjust the XP per Certs ratio. Suppose, put it at 50 XP per certs. This system also shift focus on the objectives themselves. That means the priority is kill for the objective. The current system forces to players to go to a base to farm. It's never about objectives anymore. Also, 2-3 minutes may also a bit too high for this type of gameplay. Perhaps, 1-2 minute cooldown would be better?

Lastly, I still think they are systematically removing all the kill farm zones because it will hurt their Certs and XP boost business.

So yeah, take a pick. But I don't think we will have a defensible base and easy kill farming. Just look at how fast they took down the Techplant. They could have turned the Amp station to an easy version of the Techplant by adding two doors on each side of the main building. Instead, they made Tech plants an easy version of an Amp station.

I think the time is now while they are still constructing the new continents to give out our best suggestions. Because, if not, we'll be stuck with the same ole base concepts.

Root Hade

2013-08-31, 05:44 PM

camycamera

2013-08-31, 06:44 PM

making the cert gain slower is a terrible idea, imo.

it is pretty simple if you want to lessen the farm; REDESIGN THE SPAWN ROOMS.

PS1 people, PS1.

Mordelicius

2013-08-31, 06:53 PM

Seems like an awkward solution honestly, though this reminded me of the cert system SOE was touting before release. Now I'm not even sure if I'm remembering it correctly, it sounds too radical.

A set income of certs online or offline, regardless of your in-game performance.
At least, you understood the gist of the post right? The developers want to lower player xp/cert gain (which is understandable).

But rather than tinker with the actual xp/cert game mechanic, they tinker with the gameplay in a roundabout/indirect fashion.

XP/Cert Gain is a function of gameplay. Hence if they change the gameplay they can change the cert gain.

Example:

Biolab cert gain is a function of Biolab Gameplay.

Changed Biolab SCU/Gen/Cap mechanics/gameplay lowers Biolab Cert gain.

I also have examples above on how to achieve in lowering xp/cert gain.

My point is, leave the gameplay alone and change the cert gain itself.

That is why I was opposed to Dynamic XP in the first place back then, it doesn't change the status quo in base mechanics. And pretty much unrealistic and unsustainable. Again this was my first reaction to Dynamic XP after someone pointed it to my attention:

I doubt SOE would acquiesce to that because again, they simply don't want base turtling that will evolve to cert farming. What SOE is trying to avoid is easy Cert farming for players.

That will just speed up the demise of the Crown because it would be even more prime area for defense farming. They destroyed the Techplants for that very same reason. I wouldn't be suprised if they add loads of jumppads toward the crown.

All what their adventures do in changing the gameplay to lower cert gain is in consequence diminish the battleflow and massive encounters. Leaving less players fighting, and logging on (which is a negative feedback loop: Less fights>Less players logging> less fights).

I much rather have a long fight with the same xp gain than have half walking/driving/looking for a fight and half finding half-baked fights that wipe easily with the same xp gain.

Mordelicius

2013-08-31, 07:00 PM

making the cert gain slower is a terrible idea, imo.

it is pretty simple if you want to lessen the farm; REDESIGN THE SPAWN ROOMS.

PS1 people, PS1.

They are doing it anyway (reread my posts; it's understandable and players really got no say in it). They just do it in a roundabout way (indirectly).

You simply don't notice it because half of the time, you're looking for fights or simply walking or getting wiped easily (No Deploy Zone)

Why do you think they removed the ability to deploy everywhere? lol. Yes, that's right, to make you spend time walking/driving and not fighting (hence lowering your cert gain). :lol:

Babyfark McGeez

2013-08-31, 07:57 PM

The spawn rooms in outposts are still a joke in pretty much all bases they didn't redesign so far and even in several new ones that i played.
What is it with this obsession with tiny huts at some remote corner of the base where defenders allways have to run further than attackers while also having a longer spawntime?
And even if it is a proper spawn "house" there are other mindboggling design choices like having wide open space around the spawn or the cap point being up on a steep hill. Generally there is still way too much open space between the defender and the point in almost all bases.

And that they didn't do anything about the big bases and the retarded one-way sonic-the-hedgehog-tunnels is also disappointing.

HOWEVER, there are some new bases that are really good. My favorite from a pure design perspective is Saurva South Fortress. That is how a base should look like, with tweaks it could serve as a fine blueprint for quickly crapping out non-retarded bases.

Well, sorry for my little offroad trip here. Also i will acknowledge that the devs are apparently constantly adding new things to the bases like additional spawns or teleporters, so who knows, maybe one day all these assortments of huts will truely be "bases".

Uhlan

2013-09-01, 07:05 PM

While I agree that all of the OP's reasons impact the population to some degree, the real reason people leave is that PS2 is NOT the same game they advertise.

Grand scope and massive battle sandbox mode have been wittled down by complaints from very vocal players who come from established FPS's where small team, small map combat is king.

This distillation process continues...

Carbon Copied

2013-09-01, 07:47 PM

@Babyfark

It's kind of amusing how the same topics are repeatedly brought up yet it's never directly tackled or answered by anyone with any creative direction. While it's easy for comments like "well a good idea only takes 5 minutes to think up, it actually takes longer to put it in" to be a response it's just yet another dodge with fingers in the ears hoping the problem will magically go away with a later band aid; what I see at the moment is "I facilitated shit base design, so what I'm going to do is change the mechanics in the hope this fixes the problem the shit design created". While you could say the turtle shell bases just encourage the farming - that's where outstanding base design counters this; there's more options available than "the only door in" or "tight corridors for the farm" (cue better base design).

What I want to see is someone take this game with a firm grip of the balls and say "It's by no means going to be in there tomorrow because it's a lot of work, but we recognize the root problem (bases) this is/isn't going to happen.." there's more than enough valid alteration suggestions out there to potentially fix, improve and build the game up to be something that bit more different and special.

Of course people want it "now", however any reasonable person knows it's not going to be there in an instant, what is important though is that someone with the influence shows abit of character and conviction to see it completed; like a dev team of Smedley's.

Ghoest9

2013-09-01, 11:29 PM

I agree that the last rework of cap timers and SCUs made the game worse not better.

Mordelicius

2013-09-02, 03:21 AM

They want Planetside 2 to be a persistent, massive scale pvp mmo, yet they don't like sustained fights that lead to sustained killing which eventually turn to cert farming. But you can't really separate those two (large scale pvp mmo & sustained pvp). In fact, they are conceptually synonymous.

Hence, the problem of the current system they devised is that has no middle ground. The attack and defense prospects are seated on opposite sides of the spectrum. What do I mean by that? Basically, the current system is set to have short fights.

Attackers get the jump - Hard to resecure, with the current SCU/Generator system and cap times, giving the base essentially to the attackers. Results in no massive, sustained fights.

Defenders get the jump - Hard to get to the base, because of the silly no deploy zone. Sunderers easily explode, attackers get wiped (been asking for Sunderer survivability buff for months to no avail). Results in no massive, sustained fights.

(Both lead to repetitive walking and waiting where you don't earn any certs. In short, they are designed to lower your cert gain).

What is the middle ground? The middle ground is the sustained fight. What you call the meatgrinder. The one they've been (slowly but surely) phasing out the last 9 months :lol:. Where there is a reasonable window for resecure for defenders. And where there is reasonable resistance against wiping if you're attacking. Where attackers spawn at X and Defenders spawn at Y and they meet somewhere in the middle and fight continuously.

But no. The system is set up on opposite sides of the spectrum with no middle ground, designed for the least length/amount of fight possible. It's because they are averse to the meatgrinder because a sustained fight leads to cert farming. And easy, accessible cert farming hurts their business.

That's how I see all this. And this is why, IMO, it is one of the major reasons players leave, because they can't experience the conceptual aspect of Planetside 2. And that is why I'd rather have them change the xp gain system (which I've been suggesting last year), so they can spare the gameplay. Give us back sustained fights and they don't have to worry of players gaining insane amount of certs with it.

Osskscosco

2013-09-02, 06:38 AM

If battlefield 3 not losing players because of the amount of hackers then i don't think that ps2 does lol.

Fenrys

2013-09-02, 12:50 PM

For one thing, I have not been able to log in for 2 weeks - keep getting G99 errors. There are probably many others with the same situation.

One source of lost players is broken code preventing the game from launching.

BlaxicanX

2013-09-02, 02:11 PM

Hackers aren't a big deal. Gunz Online and most of IJJI's shitty games have massive hacking problems- doesn't stop those games from having huge player bases. Counter-Strike is notorious for having a big hacker scene- doesn't stop it from having(had?) a huge playerbase. Hell, even Starcraft 1 had hacking problems. etc etc. Despite what people will have you think, hacking is on the level of the Fourth Empire of things that get blown out of proportion.

Don't think the bugs and lack of optimization is a huge problem either.

The biggest issue with Planetside 2, as I see it, is that it is fucking repetitive. There is no variety to anything- there are no lasting affects to anything.

On a micro-scale, all battles start the same, flow the same, and end the same.There's very little real organization to any fight, even with organized outfits, most battles basically devolve into CoD/Halo style arena-shooters but with tons of players. Battles are very rarely evenly fought, either being straight roll-overs from overwhelming attackers, or repetitive meat-grinders (Biolabs) where your life expectancy after spawn is about 5 seconds. There is no destructible terrain, and most of the bases have the same general design, which makes them boring to look at after awhile.

On a macro-scale, there is no sense of lasting accomplishment after playing for awhile- and nothing you do is actually persistent. Play for a couple hours, take 80% of the map? By the time you wake up the next day, the map will be completely different- all that progress will probably be lost. I spent three hours defending the Octagon from the NC and VS a few weeks ago, and had a hell of a time. Woke up 5 hours later and it was of course taken, with the TR nearly warpgated. Sigh.

The sad part is that so many people are hoping that the continental-lattice will change that. It won't. The continental-lattice only comes into play when you capture a continent. How long does that usually take, though? 6 or 7 hours of straight play? The majority of players in this game probably play for only an hour or two a day, so they won't even experience that reward. So the territory gains stay relatively the same.

TL;DR: Planetside 2 suffers from the map looking different everyday but the situation always staying the same.

Baneblade

2013-09-02, 03:45 PM

I think a cert system based heavily on SWG's (original) skill system would be a good thing. 250 Points total at BR 100, starting with 52 at BR 1 and gaining 2 each BR. Your Basic Mastery Trees could be the same as infantry classes with vehicle trees being specific to a particular vehicle.

Like SWG, you can only truly master two Trees or spread yourself around as more of a generalist.

You'd have the Basic Cert which leads into a 4x4 unlock grid which ends with a Master Cert. Master requiring the entire grid to be certed. Each of the four columns could be something like Shields, Armor, Weapons, and Abilities. Or it could even be a larger grid to be closer to how certs work now. Either way, we need tradeoffs, PS2 letting everything do anything without any sort of limit makes the game too bland and predictable.

Aurmanite

2013-09-02, 05:55 PM

LoliLoveFart

2013-09-02, 07:01 PM

The biggest issue with Planetside 2, as I see it, is that it is fucking repetitive. There is no variety to anything- there are no lasting affects to anything.

This. After close to 10 months of the same fights in the same bases people get bored. The Lattice helped change it up a little bit, but still the same fights in slightly different bases get dull as shit.

SpunkyKuma

2013-09-02, 07:29 PM

I'm sensing a wave of hacks recently, the sudden gameplay difficulty is like a light switch that just got turned on and much harder to stay above 1.0 during sessions. I'm being shot through walls and floors and when trying to get to the squad waypoint in an ESF since there was no squad leader spawn or beacon, a decimator out of nowhere hit my ESF at near max ceiling, very strange.

I don't accuse people of hacks, but lately I've just been /reporting who I think possibly are and let the CSR deal with it. In the meantime, it's very discouraging to even bother play anymore, been playing other games lately.

phungus

2013-09-02, 08:30 PM

In my opinion there are 2 huge flaws in the game that directly impact it's success.

First and primarily is how large groups of players mass up and then roll small groups of players. Most fights on PS2 are in areas where one side outnumbers the other 5 to 1 or better, and that's just boring. Often times you log in and if you can't spawn your ESF you have no where to go to have fun, the only choices of where to spawn are somewhere where you are camping someone, or getting camped. It's awful, it's the main reason I turn off the game.

Second is invisible god mode and how this effects battles, particularly large ones. But I've already rattled on about this enough, and plus I know the devs aren't happy with it, and I'm hoping this is one of the main focuses of "optimization".

So yeah, spawning, and uneven battles are the two biggest issues. I think fixing this would improve gameplay by an order of magnitude. Honestly none of the problems noted by the OP are an issue, especially cheats, I haven't noticed a cheat in a long time, I can't even remember how long.

Mordelicius

2013-09-03, 12:45 AM

I love a man who quotes himself.

The things you didn't discuss are the reasons new players don't stick around. They don't stick around to notice all the other things you don't like. Which, I have to say, I disagree with a lot of. No deploy zones has greatly improved the way bases and defended and taken, for example.

Your suggestions aren't very good either.

"Hay guyz lets completely change the way experience is gained so we can change bases into zergfarms. That will keep the new players playing!"

No. You really have to read the OP again. I put it in the first few lines what I won't discuss (with highlights) and will discuss. Which is the specific subject of the thread. For one, those list are already well covered and if I were to expounded on all of them at once, it will be a scatterbrained post. I wanted to focus on what's not discussed before.

But, feel free to discuss in detail what you believe are the 'reasons why new players don't stick around'. Anything I haven't covered yet.

Secondly, how did the NDZ improved the 'way bases are defended and taken' exactly? The NDZ makes it very easy to wipe Sunderers since the hiding spot choices are limited. It doesn't help that Suderers had 3 minor buffs (anti-c4, mine and extra armor) as opposed to the multitude of Sundy-killers they've released: (Lock on RLs, Tank damage/armor buff, Spear turret buff, AV engie turret, Harassers, Max AV buff, New Max AV, Stealth Flash, ESRL).

The only other choice to stow away your Sundy in a faraway hiding spot. In that case, defenders simply follow the infantry trail all the way to the Sundy and blow it up easily.

If you like wiping (attacker), walking (attacker) and waiting (defender), the NDZ is for you.

As for the zergfarm. What separates Planetside from other games? Answer: Zergfarms. :lol: A 2000-player continent and you're not expecting big fights?

If you simply want small fights, players aren't gonna stick to to PS2 for that. That's what other FPS are for. But this is a MMOFPS.

AThreatToYou

2013-09-03, 01:32 AM

Mordelicius

2013-09-03, 02:00 AM

My response to OP: Maybe. I don't know. There are a lot of reasons that I would rule out as for why people quit. Overpowered units is not one of them. Messy XP gain isn't it either.

I think most people quit PS2 because it fails to deliver. Battles are over too fast, defense is too hard, base design and spawn room mechanics are derpy. The core problems with the game, too many players disagree on so the devs don't make a move.

All of those are really tied together. There's a thin line between fast wipe and easy capture. Sundy wipe, Sundy wipe, Sundy wipe, (o, o, o they got more players now), spawn contained, spawn contained, spawn contained :doh::rofl:

It almost feels like there's a switch between the two. Whatever happened to the middle ground where attackers can spawn just fine from a sunderer and defenders can hold the points just fine without getting easily spawn contained and the actual fights will decide who get the points as opposed who blows up the sundy first or who spawn contains quick enough.

The poor mechanic like the NDZ lead to Sunderer wipes phenomenon. While the Spawn containment arise from bad spawn base design. And with the price increase on Tanks/Harassers, players are more drawn to pulling them than wasting it on Sundy. They badly needed to buff the Sunder and better yet make them cheaper.

As another example, they created all these system of tunnels only to nullify whatever effect they have by lowering base cap times and changing the SCU/Gen mechanic making it almost prohibitive to resecure the base.

One minor thing they could do is make the Amp Station SCU shield blue so the attackers can't just park Harassers and Maxes there and prevent defenders from even reaching A from the SCU tunnel. Because that's all they do.

Qwan

2013-09-03, 08:09 AM

Well I played a little this weekend, had a little fun, but I mostly logged in just to collect my certs for the day and log back out. I think that PS2 is steadily losing players because they are trying to mash MMO with Casual gaming. Guys MMO's are time intensive (consuming) beast which require attention, and time to make the game enjoyable, and I dont mean that for the developer end, I mean that for the player. I mean you tell me of an MMO were you log in play for a couple of hours and your walking around maxed out in lvl and got some awesome gear, it doesnt exist. Developers are trying so hard to develope an MMO around Casual gaming specs that there 1. pissing off the core MMO gamers and 2. pissing off there casual gamers. No offence but an MMO is not a casual game, you cant tell a casual gamer "Hey play this game for a couple of weeks to get good gear, or pay money and get it right away" most will tell you to go fuck yourself and log into BF3 or CoD were the playing field is pretty level and its casual. Then you have the MMO crowd who have the time, and dont mind putting in the work, but to what extent, just to get one shot by a lvl 1 newb who spent SC cash for a shot gun and has been playing for Ooo about 10 mins. And who also has to deal with a game that has no focus, or meta, just mindless killing and alot of lackless content. I think the problem here is that SOE is trying to put two things together like MMO and Casual gaming and its just not working, these are two words that should not be in the same sentence

Stanis

2013-09-03, 12:53 PM

I don't care if I get approximately zero XP for a brilliant fight.
I stopped paying attention to my own Battle Rank a long time ago.

The problem is in the styles of play.
The optimum XP gain is achieved from a good position in or near a big fight that you are not directly involved.
That means you can sit there and snipe/shell/pick off players and keep racking up several kills a minute.

They nerfed the liberator because it did this supremely well.

There is no other long term meaningful objective. There really isn't.
If there is no other objective : you can't measure other forms of success.

I can't conquer the world.
There is no goal after capturing this continent.
There is no grand strategy - we have a game that has huge scope and potential shoehorned into a sandbox of three individual relatively small maps.

The goalposts for continental capture are absurd.
* every continents is a three way.
* a 75% threshold took all sense of achievement out of it.
* population imbalance makes anywhere other than Indar trivial

The lattice we have now is a stepping stone to a larger game.
The continents we have now are a stepping stone to using some of that huge scope PS2 has.

Optimisation is wonderful but we've needed everything that's been put on hold .. we're playing literally half a game.
We got most of a triple A shooter on steroids ... we're completely missing all of the Planetside on crack.

Qwan

2013-09-03, 01:19 PM

@ stanis

you hit the nail on the head.

kubacheski

2013-09-03, 02:38 PM

@stanis and @qwan You both make wonderful points.

I see a ripple effect in all that we're talking about here. Look at it like this:

1) PS2 is a big grinding treadmill for certs.
2) You buy things with certs.
2a) PS2 has a cash shop for things that people would buy with certs.

Now this makes a lot of sense in a typical MMO. You have a level grind that you get more powerful and can kill larger mobs and get better equipment. You progress and earn or buy better equipment.

The problem is that PlanetSide isn't a typical MMO. The selling point is that a BR1 is on a near equal playing field as a BR100. There is only PvP. One guy/gal isn't supposed to be (that much) better than another. There isn't supposed to be better equipment or armor or vehicles, etc. Well in-so-much that "better" isn't supposed to make a huge difference.

Now throw in the persistent mentality vs the e-sports mentality and you're pulling in two different directions for development and gaming style. Short vs long battles. Fast TTk and quicker respawns vs longer TTK and spawns where you're penalized for dying too much.

Completely different concepts. Not to mention too many changes in the past 10 months. To change the XP or cert gain progression for the better now would really throw people who spent real $$$ on things into a ragequit. And then where would SOE be by pissing off the people who are actually paying for the game? The direction they're going seems to indicate that they don't care about the MMO side of things. The MMO-minded players invest the time to earn certs (or weapons unlocked with certs) instead of buying them. What good is that to SOE other than a larger player base? The "whales" that support this game are not typically ones that will invest large amounts of time into a game. If they did, they would have the certs and not need to shell out that much $$$.

As stated before in this thread, you can't be both MMO and Casual.

Varsam

2013-09-03, 02:41 PM

Calista

2013-09-03, 04:19 PM

Would be nice to see a community poll of which thing they believe will boost pops most: optimizations, Hossin, BI's, MLG, better new player experience etc. Just a couple things I can think of but I would be curious about what a poll of these and other things tell us.

Oh and also I found this from Steamcharts. I know not nearly all players use Steam but if you compare Sirisian's chart and a couple things Higby has said in the past it looks like about half do so you do the math...

http://steamcharts.com/app/218230#1y

Wahooo

2013-09-03, 04:36 PM

While PS2 does have its problems, the ones you cited aren't among them. Your suggested solutions are also inelegant and contrived. Your ideal PS2 sounds like 30-40 old Crowns dotting Indar with sundies parked on top of objectives. It means that whoever gets to a base first wins, and it sounds incredibly boring and frustrating.

This very nearly, and quite concisely, says what I was thinking but unable to put into words. Though I would say that many of the problems listed in the OP are spot on, many aren't and yeah, the solutions are not solutions but bad.

Wahooo

2013-09-03, 04:45 PM

Developers are trying so hard to develope an MMO around Casual gaming specs that there 1. pissing off the core MMO gamers and 2. pissing off there casual gamers.

And mix in that it is a pvp shooter to further alienate the tab targeting/questing not liking pvp RPG folks who came to PS2 because of the MMO tag.

The more I see games that advertise FPS/MMO or MMO-Shooter the more I think maybe it is just a niche market that will never make it.

There just seems to be too much RPG for the shooter crowd (Firefall, Global Agenda (after 2.0)) or not enough MMO for the MMO crowd (Warframe) Not enough shooter for the shooter crowd (Firefall) too much shooter for the MMO crowd (Global Agenda) poor implementation of both (Fallen Earth). One way or another the best you can hope for is to piss off one of your key target audiences for the sake of making the other half of the game great, and inevitably losing out due to the low population taking the M out of Mmo.

Is balance really balance if it is trying to not piss off either side rather than make both sides happy? Is it possible to combine the concept in a way that DOES make both sides happy? I'm not sure it is.

Babyfark McGeez

2013-09-03, 05:04 PM

I think the most important thing to get new people into this and others back is to finally add hossin and thus, as i stated it countless times, finally put the planetside into planetside with intercontinental warfare.
Currently this is not planetside. Don't be fooled. It's three giant, disconnected maps with permanent threeways. I could achieve the same thing with a really big unreal tournament map and a server that hosts 2000 people and has no score limit (regardless of techincal limitations). That is not planetside. Planetside is having maps interconnected to achieve a gameplay and feeling of global conquest, which i allways thought would be the actual selling point of this game and thus be brought forth more quickly (read: at "launch").

With that core mechanic added when someone asks you what the goal of the game is you can then finally say "To conquer the whole goddamn planet as vanu intended us to do", instead of "At 75% map control on each of the maps we get a slight reduction to one of the resources". Yeah...not many lined up for that hm?

Optimization would be second on my list.

Edit: Also that steam graph is pretty sad. :L

Sirisian

2013-09-03, 05:35 PM

The biggest issue with Planetside 2, as I see it, is that it is fucking repetitive. There is no variety to anything- there are no lasting affects to anything.

On a micro-scale, all battles start the same, flow the same, and end the same.There's very little real organization to any fight, even with organized outfits, most battles basically devolve into CoD/Halo style arena-shooters but with tons of players. Battles are very rarely evenly fought, either being straight roll-overs from overwhelming attackers, or repetitive meat-grinders (Biolabs) where your life expectancy after spawn is about 5 seconds. There is no destructible terrain, and most of the bases have the same general design, which makes them boring to look at after awhile.

On a macro-scale, there is no sense of lasting accomplishment after playing for awhile- and nothing you do is actually persistent. Play for a couple hours, take 80% of the map? By the time you wake up the next day, the map will be completely different- all that progress will probably be lost. I spent three hours defending the Octagon from the NC and VS a few weeks ago, and had a hell of a time. Woke up 5 hours later and it was of course taken, with the TR nearly warpgated. Sigh.

The sad part is that so many people are hoping that the continental-lattice will change that. It won't. The continental-lattice only comes into play when you capture a continent. How long does that usually take, though? 6 or 7 hours of straight play? The majority of players in this game probably play for only an hour or two a day, so they won't even experience that reward. So the territory gains stay relatively the same.

TL;DR: Planetside 2 suffers from the map looking different everyday but the situation always staying the same.
Someone gets it. The issue though is creating mechanics to create what you want is complicated. I've tried to create relatively "simple" models for micro and macro changes for players (sirisian.com/planetside2/#Territory_and_Resources), but the devs usually view them as too complicated. They've kind of designed themselves into a corner and are looking for small changes to solve large issues. (That said I listed some mechanics that line up with what you're saying in regards to base layouts and allowing more permanent changes to the map).

I think the most important thing to get new people into this and others back is to finally add hossin and thus, as i stated it countless times, finally put the planetside into planetside with intercontinental warfare.
[...]
Optimization would be second on my list.
I can play on Hossin fine, but I've heard for some people they get performance issues even with no one around. I'd be very worried if I was SOE to just release such a complex map and have complaints that people can't play on it because of performance issues. That and the advantages on Hossin when running on the lowest graphics settings are insane. It's like a totally different game (imgur.com/a/RRfHB). (More obvious in certain areas with players running around and especially when flying).

kubacheski

2013-09-03, 08:41 PM

The more I see games that advertise FPS/MMO or MMO-Shooter the more I think maybe it is just a niche market that will never make it.

That's quite a statement. PS1 was the leader of the pack for MMOFPS and it was released in 2003. Nothing has come close to it since. Technology took a backseat to gameplay in PS1. The opposite is true for PS2.

Qwan

2013-09-04, 07:37 AM

I really think that SOE should drop the MMOFPS tag for this game, maybe call it a CFPS or Consistant First Person Shooter. I say this because if you look at the way leveling is set up along with certs its more like a BF or CoD online set up. The game has nothing to do with leveling because with a swip of the visa or master card, BR1 your just as formitable as the BR100, minus most of the side grades because those can only be bought with certs. But when you put a MMO tag on this game it attracts MMO gamers who get a little disapointed when they see that rank means nothing in this game. So I think they should drop MMOFPS and just call it a CFPS this way it better describes the game type, now Planetside 1 was a MMOFPS, you leveled your charactor, spent the certs were you wanted them, medic, infiltrator, heavy, armor, air and even mixed them a little, BR and CR ment somthing. I think most MMO players see the MMOFPS tag, download, log in and play and see that the MMO aspect is not realy a big factor. Its more of a consistant first person shooter which, is fun but after a while gets tedious and repetitious, the fact that there is no actual timed or goal oriented matches makes it consistant.

Whats going to make PS2 stand out:
1. The addition of Hossin, the fourth continent
2. Giving more rewards for Levels (maybe unlock certain equipment)
3. Bring back Command Rank, give the leaders a reason to want to lead.

But Im really hoping Hossin will, which looks awesome by the way, will help bring back some of the regulars. I like the islands idea, gives commanders options, as far as avenues of approach, and tactical advantages. Also having home continents will help alot with the meta game, I for see Hossin is going to be a blood bath. Ill probably start playing more myself when it comes out.

P.S. I got selected for ESO Beta Awwwwwsssooommmeee.

Sledgecrushr

2013-09-04, 09:41 AM

Roderick

2013-09-04, 09:51 AM

One poster hit the nail on the head for the reason why I play less PS 2 and more Battlefield 3. Boredom.

Why am I bored?

- Lack of sustained fights at bases.

- Spawn rooms of certain bases are still camped by vehicle spam. PlanetSide 1 did not have this issue. The spawn room was protected inside the base away from any vehicle interaction, hence committing to true infantry competitiveness.

- No real drive to promote teamwork to reach a goal. I find PlanetSide 2 more of a farm and K/D driven game. Why capture bases for crap rewards when I can gain more experience being a lone wolf farming infantry, ground vehicles, or ESF's for the best experience rewards? [Change this system to make base captures give a nice chunk of experience and also give a nice reward to players for the defense of a base from capture]

- Spawn room design promotes farming and no drive for the player to exit. [maybe change the experience gain to 0 if firing from within the spawn room to make the player leave the safe area]

I could go on and on, but I am sure we have all read this stuff before.

PlanetSide 1 lasted nearly 10 years. I do not see PlanetSide 2 lasting 5 at this rate. Something needs to change and not just optimization.

Carbon Copied

2013-09-04, 11:03 AM

The echo of "this is just team deathmatch" there's very little of what either previous players know as "Planetside" and what was sold in some of the hype leading to release to anyone wanting to take it up. There's no over arching goal, nothing to keep me in game for more than a couple of hours or so; about as long as your generic map per map franchise shooter. This is an MMO, I should want to invest time in the game; its my way to relax but I shouldn't be forced into doing the same repetitive bullshit that isn't what an MMO is about - there should be the option in this supposed "sandbox" to be in the thick of it as much as continuing to contribute while taking a "break" from that side of the game.

When continental and BI linking goes live it's going to be chaos as the bases are not designed (still) to support or accomodate the number of players that will be descending on them; lattice is proving this already even in it's infancy - they can barely support them in a meaningful fight as it currently is (even the redesigned ones). Yet a wall of silence and lack of achknowledgement on these issues ensues. Instead we get "new toys" which I know they need to release but it just feels like an attempt to distract with a new shiny in the meantime.

I saw an advertisement page for PS2 and it's "deep character advancement"; I've yet to see anything deep or meaningfull, I can't extensivley tailor my loadouts/"inventory" in any way shape or form but save for limited to preset "buffs" and limitations. Lacklustre character/class progression and customization.

Model variety is (for a modern game) exceptionally poor, instead we're making do with lazy one-size fits all bolt ons and drip fed cosmetics in what feels like an attempt to make things look different... just not really.

Optimzation is needed but I would like to know how they're going to take advantage of these overhead gains in fixing some if not all of the above.

kubacheski

2013-09-04, 11:53 AM

Qwan you are getting mmo and rpg confused here. Ps2 is most definitely a mmo.

I think i disagree here. The MMO side has a persistent world connotation to it. That's what makes it different from other online games. This is really more of a MoBA in its current state. There are 3 instanced arenas. The reason i say this is that although the instance never ends, there's mutliple instances per server. i.e. continents. There's 3 instances you can choose to play that have no direct interaction. The battle on one cont doesn't affect the other conts. Other than to drain the winning faction's pop from the other conts. e.g. TR is wining on Indar, most TR go to Indar.

Its simply an issue of scale that differentiates this from other online FPS games. There's no PS1 greatness.

PS2 messed up in not transitioning a few core components of PS1 over. A few of these being:

1) limited certification - no universal soldiers- yes BR40 killed that on PS1 but that was after pops went too low. PS2 opens that up from the beginning, thus elimintating any connection to building "your soldier", you're simply an avatar that can do nearly anything and drive anything at BR1. And more if you pay cash.

2) Sphere of Influence - limitations that gave defenders an advantage so that the attackers couldn't just roll up to the door and spawn infinite soldiers. Sound familiar? NDZ is the current way they're trying to do this. Some like some dont, but the point is before it made defensive gameplay near pointless until NDZ was implemented.

3) TTK is much too short for sustained battle. And spawns are too quick to deter people from consistent suicide runs. Make dying a pain. Live a little longer and make returning from the dead progressively longer too. This spawn-die-spawn-die-spawn-die-spawn is mindnumbingly zergish. You want people to stop cert farming, make it take longer to kill the opposition.

4) Some classes are not fully developed. The support classes are not robust enough to be traditional classes. There's simply not enough to do with infils and medics to make it fun to play. Yea it's good, often easy, exp hacking and healing (especially healing), but that's damn boring.

5) Base design is shit. There's no barriers at all and it's all too open. There's no indoor fights in the bowels of a base. Its an arena design and built for e-sports. Where were your funnest fights in PS1? Towers, Tunnels and Bridges. Chokepoints where slaughter could happen. When a LA can jetpack over the tiny building and run right in the backdoor and shoot you in your backdoor, you eliminate these chokepoints that are so damn fun. There are no battles in this game, just a skirmish here and there. A mini-zerg at every base you take.

6) Well you get the point, there's a lot of design for PS2 that went somehow contradictory to the things that made the first and best MMOFSP great.

kubacheski

2013-09-04, 12:01 PM

oops

PredatorFour

2013-09-04, 12:59 PM

PS2 messed up in not transitioning a few core components of PS1 over. A few of these being:

1) limited certification - no universal soldiers- yes BR40 killed that on PS1 but that was after pops went too low. PS2 opens that up from the beginning, thus elimintating any connection to building "your soldier", you're simply an avatar that can do nearly anything and drive anything at BR1. And more if you pay cash.

This reason alone was enough to convince me Higgles never even played PS..

He claimed the class system from battlefield was better because you didn't get 'universal soldiers' like in PS 1. As pointed out above, universal soldiers only came into it with BR 40. When it topped at BR 25 you had to recert to change your playstyle and you couldn't do everything like you can in PS 2. I also find that reasoning highly ironic.

Wahooo

2013-09-04, 01:06 PM

Qwan you are getting mmo and rpg confused here. Ps2 is most definitely a mmo.

MMO and RPG end up being synonymous in many peoples eyes. The utter downfall of Global Agenda was the MMO tag because when people went there for the MMO tag they expected RPG elements. They ended up being the vocal ones and the game moved in that direction, lost the competitive PVP players it was initially designed around, never had enough MMO content to make the RPG types happy and died.

The MMO tag SHOULD mean something, but it just has a different practical meaning and is a bad thing for a game like this frankly. I don't know what should be there instead but simply to too many people MMO=RPG elements.

SolLeks

2013-09-04, 01:11 PM

Varsam

2013-09-04, 01:12 PM

That's quite a statement. PS1 was the leader of the pack for MMOFPS and it was released in 2003. Nothing has come close to it since. Technology took a backseat to gameplay in PS1. The opposite is true for PS2.

Saying PS1 was "leader of the pack" for MMOFPS' is like saying I am the best at being Varsam. Sure, it's true, but it was really the only one of its kind, so winning by default doesn't say much. Also, even if it was the premier MMOFPS back then, it was never anything more than a niche title to begin with. Back then people thought it was just ahead of its time, but now I'm thinking that the experiences it has to offer doesn't cater to the wide number of people we think it does.

typhaon

2013-09-04, 02:22 PM

I think the failure to develop an endgame beyond what you get in every other FPS has really taken the shine off of PS2.

Rivenshield

2013-09-04, 04:31 PM

It's the same game it was a year ago, with many bugs squashed and the lattice added to two-thirds of the terrain we fight on, and no real incentive to fight anywhere except Indar. Base alerts are a joke -- no one even responds to them anymore. No way to achieve final victory. No sanctuaries. No intercontinental lattice. No rotating warp gates. No cooldown times for empire-swapping, for fuck's sake. And Smed is going to shove this half-baked mess at the ADS console crowd in November...? That's going to spike the franchise once and for all.

HEY. SMED. RETARD. YOUR SHRUNKEN DEV TEAM NEEDS ANOTHER SIX MONTHS. SIX MONTHS, YOU DUMB SHIT. SIX MONTHS *MINIMUM*. DO YOU HABEEB IT? Or are you going to run this IP into the ground like you did SWG?

snafus

2013-09-04, 06:42 PM

Total War: Rome 2

Shogun

2013-09-05, 01:55 AM

Levente

2013-09-05, 06:26 AM

long time i didnt play PS1 but i remember it had more depth to it then PS2. the way you costumize your character and loot too and the way you could learn how to certify and it actually made sense. i also loved how the aircrafts came out from a platform with a nice animation. not to mention the entering exit animation although i can live without that. So ps2 compared to ps1 is dumbed down i agree but not so dumbed like comparing Battlefield 2 and BF3.
i still enjoy ps2 im satisfied with it but could be better with those ps1 features.
btw i want HOSSIN

Qwan

2013-09-05, 07:39 AM

Qwan you are getting mmo and rpg confused here. Ps2 is most definitely a mmo.

Your right sledge, but if I walked in a room and said MMO the first thing that comes to peoples mind is a rpg type game. Also we know MMO stands for Massive Multiplayer Online, so how many is massive more than 20, less than 100, so that would put 64 player BF and CoD maps in the same genre. MMO for most players regardless of the RPG, or FPS at the end, means that your playing a game with real players, and your charactor will advance in skills and efficiency as he levels. Well In PS2 :sick: its just not happening, but the way the grind for certs and xp makes it feel like something should be happening everytime I level. I mean at least in BF I get a weapon unlock or somthing, its just this game needs to really look itself in the mirrors, stop fooling itself with this "we got 5 mil people with accounts, and more come each day", yea most are probably hackers, making secondary accounts, or griefers, also casual players, who will probably log in once or twice, and people who saw the game and got bored one friday night. But the accounts that they should be tracking are the accounts with subscriptions. Why dont they put those numbers out.

Assist

2013-09-05, 09:08 AM

ps2 lost me because all the good parts of ps1 were not taken over to ps2.

i don´t want a battlefield 3 on crack, but a real planetside.
went on to support star citizen instead. those guys don´t have to cripple their game because some marketing morons want to target the casual moneythrowers.

Kind of sad, but I pre-order BF4 yesterday in hopes it will be more the type of shooter I'm looking for. I thought PS2 would be oriented around strategic gameplay, rather than spray and pray, but it just hasn't lived up to that for me. If it's going to be a spray and pray game it needs more substantial content, but even that is on hold now. I can't help but feel that their months long campaign at participating in MLG is a major cause for the lack of progress on the game, and I hate to be one of those 'told you so' people. Truth is I didn't tell them so, but a large portion of the community insisted this was a mistake and was completely ignored.

At the very least I know what I'm getting with BF4. It's going to be a remake of BF2/BF2142. I know I won't be getting a rocket to the face around every corner, at least I'll see someone actually using a pistol for more than just the lulz.

kubacheski

2013-09-05, 11:14 AM

This reason alone was enough to convince me Higgles never even played PS..

He claimed the class system from battlefield was better because you didn't get 'universal soldiers' like in PS 1. As pointed out above, universal soldiers only came into it with BR 40. When it topped at BR 25 you had to recert to change your playstyle and you couldn't do everything like you can in PS 2. I also find that reasoning highly ironic.

I've always thought this. I don't remember him, but I was never good and I didn't play much after CC.

Saying PS1 was "leader of the pack" for MMOFPS' is like saying I am the best at being Varsam. Sure, it's true, but it was really the only one of its kind, so winning by default doesn't say much. Also, even if it was the premier MMOFPS back then, it was never anything more than a niche title to begin with. Back then people thought it was just ahead of its time, but now I'm thinking that the experiences it has to offer doesn't cater to the wide number of people we think it does.

Damn, got me there. Maybe it is niche. But it's still the most fun I've had out of any online game. Every kill is some poor soul getting mad about being shot.

MMO and RPG end up being synonymous in many peoples eyes. The utter downfall of Global Agenda was the MMO tag because when people went there for the MMO tag they expected RPG elements. They ended up being the vocal ones and the game moved in that direction, lost the competitive PVP players it was initially designed around, never had enough MMO content to make the RPG types happy and died.

The MMO tag SHOULD mean something, but it just has a different practical meaning and is a bad thing for a game like this frankly. I don't know what should be there instead but simply to too many people MMO=RPG elements.

PS is both in my mind. You have core elements of both FPS and RPG. I say this as obviously it was FPS, but you didn't just get access to everything. You couldn't shoot every gun and pilot every vehicle. Early on, you were a basic soldier. You had to build your role. You had a set number of certs and you had to allocate them to what your playstyle was. The RPG side of it was small, don't get me wrong, but you had to decide what it was, you chose what skills to allocate to your soldier.

Now that sounds simple, but the true genius was that you could de-cert from something you didn't like. Over time you could change your skills completely. there was not locking to a "class". You skilled up by your decisions. Not everyone had both medic and engi certed along with their special assault.

Then pops got low and they introduced BR40 so a single soldier had access to everything. You were limited to what you actually were able to use by what you could carry in a limited inventory. Yea you could hit an equipment terminal at any base since you had advanced hacking, but you couldn't carry one of everything.

To combat this, the decision for PS2 was that everyone got everything and at BR1. Now does that make any sense? They threw out all of the RPG elements and made it strictly a FPS where everyone has everything.

And if I threw down some cash, I could buy damn near any weapon in the game at BR1. Want to see if that's a little bit P2W: You tell me if fire and forget vs lock on missle launchers are sidegrades or upgrades?

It aint no fucking different than the other FPS's out there. But you can run 2000 on a single server, so fucking what. What's the largest fight you've been in lately. 64x64? maybe. but that's usually pushing it. Typically it's less than half of that. look at the map, it's got pop counts for every capture point. Ever seen it in the 300 allies/600 enemies range? didnt' think so. Ever wait in a queue to get onto a continent? some have. recently? if so what time/server. I bet many will change their servers and p-times to experience that.

Hell there were multiple cont locks on the free time on PS1 when SOE got hacked last year. Not bad for a game 10 years old. Yea, she's a bit ugly in the graphics department and she's got some hideous bugs, but damn it sure is a lot more fun than PS2 when it's got decent populations.

Thats why PS2 is losing players. It's not any different than other modern FPS's and it's not as fun as it's decade old namesake.

Calista

2013-09-05, 11:57 AM

Well the creative direction of this game has not been very creative. Just a TDM that happens to advertise 2000 players per "map". No sense of progression other than getting kills to get certs to get guns to get more kills to get more certs etc etc. Very repetitive. Now they are going off on a MLG tangent that only a select group of players will find any interest in and FPS do not make for good MLG games. They involve too many players and too hard to follow and appreciate except for the very hardcore fans. Joe Casual won't find very much entertainment value in it.

PS4 will be a challenge due to the lack of round play which all those console guys are accustomed to. It would be more appealing just to instance out the region fights and let it go from there.

Emperor Newt

2013-09-05, 12:39 PM

Recently from reddit and thought I put it here because it fits the discussion:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1lqdgk/ten_hours_with_planetside_2_trying_to_be_a_noob/

Crator

2013-09-05, 01:45 PM

PS1 is both FPS & RPG in my mind. You have core elements of both FPS and RPG. I say this as obviously it was FPS, but you didn't just get access to everything. You couldn't shoot every gun and pilot every vehicle. Early on, you were a basic soldier. You had to build your role. You had a set number of certs and you had to allocate them to what your playstyle was. The RPG side of it was small, don't get me wrong, but you had to decide what it was, you chose what skills to allocate to your soldier.

PS2 does have a progression of character aspect using the certification system (for things you can't buy with real money). The problem with the cert system is that it's pretty shallow. There are levels, or battle ranks, but they don't offer any RPG elements to character progression, only load-out slots. PS1 even had a cosmetic change to characters with higher battle ranks and command ranks so you could tell approx what BR/CR someone was just by looking at them.

Now that sounds simple, but the true genius was that you could de-cert from something you didn't like. Over time you could change your skills completely. there was not locking to a "class". You skilled up by your decisions. Not everyone had both medic and engi certed along with their special assault.

Then pops got low and they introduced BR40 so a single soldier had access to everything. You were limited to what you actually were able to use by what you could carry in a limited inventory. Yea you could hit an equipment terminal at any base since you had advanced hacking, but you couldn't carry one of everything.

To combat this, the decision for PS2 was that everyone got everything and at BR1. Now does that make any sense? They threw out all of the RPG elements and made it strictly a FPS where everyone has everything.

This isn't the reason they removed the RPG elements from PS2. They did it because of the free-to-play model. As for classes, they did that for balancing purposes imo.

And if I threw down some cash, I could buy damn near any weapon in the game at BR1. Want to see if that's a little bit P2W: You tell me if fire and forget vs lock on missle launchers are sidegrades or upgrades?

Dumb fire launchers do more max damage then lock-on launchers. That is the definition of side-grade, give something in one area but take away something in another area.

It aint no fucking different than the other FPS's out there. But you can run 2000 on a single server, so fucking what. What's the largest fight you've been in lately. 64x64? maybe. but that's usually pushing it. Typically it's less than half of that. look at the map, it's got pop counts for every capture point. Ever seen it in the 300 allies/600 enemies range? didnt' think so. Ever wait in a queue to get onto a continent? some have. recently? if so what time/server. I bet many will change their servers and p-times to experience that.

Pretty large. I didn't know you could see more then 48+ indicator on a single hex when mousing over it on the map. So I'm not certain the exact numbers of players in the battles I've participated in. I typically see continents locked during alerts on Waterson on the weekends. Think I saw one yesterday evening actually.

Thats why PS2 is losing players. It's not any different than other modern FPS's and it's not as fun as it's decade old namesake.

I'm not convinced PS2 is loosing an abnormal amount of players. I play on 3 different servers and they all seem pretty well populated. Not saying that we couldn't use more people on them though. There's just not enough evidence that I've seen to indicate pops are really bad.

Tatwi

2013-09-05, 02:18 PM

Recently from reddit and thought I put it here because it fits the discussion:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1lqdgk/ten_hours_with_planetside_2_trying_to_be_a_noob/This guy really nailed it. He did a 10 hour "play as though I were new" review and wrote a an excellent post about his experience and the problems with the game.

Direct link to his blog post,

http://pressftocutleg.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/ten-hours-with-planetside-2/

CrankyTRex

2013-09-05, 02:24 PM

The thing every person I couldn't get into this game came back to me with was "what's the point?" You can identify specific mechanics failings and technical issues and border line P2W stuff, but ultimately that's what it all boils down to.

The giant battles may be epic to see, but I don't feel like it matters if I was there. My input has little to no bearing on it and I didn't gain anything from it. My character isn't stronger in some epic way and I haven't closed a chapter of a story like an RPG. I also didn't "win" anything like an FPS, since whatever base was taken is never safe for any meaningful length of time, nor do I really have any reason to brag about zerg steamrolling a team into their spawn point and then camping them there.

All the irritations like optimization issues merely serve to emphasize that feeling, until people just leave.

kubacheski

2013-09-05, 02:48 PM

I'm not convinced PS2 is loosing an abnormal amount of players. I play on 3 different servers and they all seem pretty well populated. Not saying that we couldn't use more people on them though. There's just not enough evidence that I've seen to indicate pops are really bad.

I agree with what you've said to all of my post. Especially the F2P model forcing the RPG elements out. This last part was thrown in as a repsonse to the title. PS4 i believe will take even more away from PC pop, but haven't seen any threads about people who will be moving from PC to PS4, tho.

but I can't help but notice you didn't agree nor disagree that PS2 isn't as fun as PS1. Thoughts?

Sirisian

2013-09-05, 03:03 PM

It's important to keep in mind also if this isn't obvious that school started for the kids so they won't be playing as much.

Rivenshield

2013-09-05, 04:49 PM

Well the creative direction of this game has not been very creative. Just a TDM that happens to advertise 2000 players per "map".

Which is bullshit, and we all know it. Even on a busy night on a pop-locked Connery we have two-three fights with 48+ people on either side and two-three squad-sized ones. My best honest guess is that the new, unpublicized population limit is about half that.

Levente

2013-09-05, 05:08 PM

Kind of sad, but I pre-order BF4 yesterday in hopes it will be more the type of shooter I'm looking for. I thought PS2 would be oriented around strategic gameplay, rather than spray and pray, but it just hasn't lived up to that for me. If it's going to be a spray and pray game it needs more substantial content, but even that is on hold now. I can't help but feel that their months long campaign at participating in MLG is a major cause for the lack of progress on the game, and I hate to be one of those 'told you so' people. Truth is I didn't tell them so, but a large portion of the community insisted this was a mistake and was completely ignored.

At the very least I know what I'm getting with BF4. It's going to be a remake of BF2/BF2142. I know I won't be getting a rocket to the face around every corner, at least I'll see someone actually using a pistol for more than just the lulz.

what the hell are you smoking man? BF4 will be just as crap as BF3, its BF3.5 nothing more. sure u have commander mode back but not possible to add move waypointts nothing just attack this and this. still no teamwork tools. wont come close to BF2 depth

Helwyr

2013-09-05, 05:29 PM

I stopped playing as PS2 just wasn't engaging to me after a while. The graphics and gunplay may be better than PS1 but the overall gameplay is not, at least not for me. There's no real Faction loyalty, there's no real character specialization, taking territory and continents is just shy of meaningless. On top of all that there's no real Infiltrator/stealth gameplay which I enjoyed the most from PS1.

Obviously I still casually follow the game as I come to these forums, so I still have some hope the game can turn around... but not much.

Crator

2013-09-05, 06:59 PM

I agree with what you've said to all of my post. Especially the F2P model forcing the RPG elements out. This last part was thrown in as a repsonse to the title. PS4 i believe will take even more away from PC pop, but haven't seen any threads about people who will be moving from PC to PS4, tho.

but I can't help but notice you didn't agree nor disagree that PS2 isn't as fun as PS1. Thoughts?

Oh, don't get me wrong. There are many aspects of PS1 that did certain things right over PS2. I wish there was something more to battle ranks. Something that gives you extra ability to give that feel of level progression, something to strive for. We're also still missing the intercontinental game which includes continent locking and empire home continents (which removes the 3-empire foothold warp-gates). But this is supposed to be added to PS2 eventually or some form of it. I don't know if they've specifically stated that they were going to remove the 3-empire footholds but I don't see how it would work very well otherwise. The constant 3-way fights on each continent right now causes cluster fucks imo. 3-ways on PS1 were typically stalemates and the same is true in PS2 currently.

There's other things I could nit pick at that I wish would have been in PS2. For instance PS1 style combat engineering, AMS cloak bubbles, doors with locks that require a tool to open, hacking certs, routers, and ES-buggies. But I still enjoy PS2. I play almost every day. I didn't play as much until they added the lattice system though.

Wahooo

2013-09-05, 07:03 PM

I can't believe through this entire thread no one has mentioned Kill Cams.
:rofl:

Mordelicius

2013-09-05, 11:11 PM

I remember TRay saying, they developed Planetside 1 for 4-6 years and PS2 for 18 month (something along those lines. I'm not very sure about the exact numbers).

The point is, they are obviously developing this game as they go. And funding the game as they go. So, the lack of anything 'deep' from the get-go is sort of expected. There will be downsides to it, such as the Hex system not panning out, requiring complete overhaul. Designs they do such as the tunnel getting completely nullified by new systems they add such as the Gen/SCU/Low cap time combos.

What's irksome is the lack consistency in even the most basic fights. The basic attacker spawn is not attended to (they easily wipe, lacking Sundy durability and cover). The basic defense respawn is not attended to (alot of factors allow attackers to spawn camp, and it's not just the base designs). Basically, the fight degenerates to who kills the Sunderers first or who spawn contains first. The capture points are an afterthought and after the fact. If you achieve those, the base is yours since the enemies will be isolated from the capture points.

I'm making a list of things that will alleviate the Sundy Wipe and Spawn Containment phenomenon. And I'll put it in new, separate thread. At the very least though, Clegg wrote in Reddit, that he's aware of the Sunderer wipe on at least one base, Quartz Ridge. So that alone is at least one developer aware of it in one particular base from one particular side of the lattice :groovy:

But that leads to the thought that if can't even nail the barebones basics just yet, how can they already go ahead and pursue the even more complex system such as the much touted Resource Revamp and the Intercontinental Lattice. They ought to fix the basics first before they proceed to the more ambitious targets. Instead, they are fixing stuff that aren't even broken (NDZ, SCU/Gen/Cap times, Continental cap/uncap % that are crudely calibrated).

kubacheski

2013-09-06, 02:49 AM

@Mordelicius

Your post really reminds me of my main complaint in that the entire game seems haphazardly thrown together and they keep randomly changing the core systems rapidly. It doesn't seem that they have much consistency to the direction of PS2.

It feels more that they're testing the mechanics of the ForgeLight engine to test the new engine.

Don't get me wrong, PS2 is pretty darn huge, but some game houses will design a (usually) small-ish game to test the various components of their new engine - netcode, graphics, etc. This will get players on the engine without showing the "main game" to the players. The "test game" gets thrown some or all of the core mechanics that the new engine will use as a baseline for the "main game". It simply feels like SOE used their PlanetSide IP as an easy (and non licensed - i.e. SWG) to test out the ForgeLight engine to see what it could handle. The reason for this is, obviously, EQ:Next. The problem with this is the PS1 community doesn't like the "test game" environment as it was pitched as a PS1 sucessor. Simply put, it doesn't live up to the PlanetSide experience. SOE gets their testing done and probably make some profit out of the entire deal, but PS2 isn't the reason that they built and designed the game. It's for the other game that they'll focus on and, most likely will appeal to more players.

Mythos is a prime example of what I'm talking about in a slightly different vein. Mythos was made to test the netcode for Hellgate:London. A simple Diablo Clone that was fun and easy and very playable. Well it turned out that Mythos was so successful that the "test game" actually had more of a following than the "main game" for the engine. It's doubtful that PS2 will have more players than EQ:Next, but I digress.

I simply get the feeling that SOE has been using PS2 as the "test game" for ForgeLight with the full intention of it not being what I'm calling the "main game", and the problem they're running into is that the IP they've chosen as the mule has such a following that they're having trouble using it as a testbed for new stuff when the community knows the old stuff worked and played better.

Does that make sense? Am I off in left field here?

I make this assertion because of the tremendous amount of changes to core mechanics since launch - it's not the same game. Capture mechanics, lattice over hex, resources, etc. have all been changed. Why would you completely change the entire structure of the gameplay in such a short time? Which makes more sense:

1) You were wrong with your measurements and understanding of what "worked" after Alpha and Beta and released a "bad" product, so you revamped everything?
or
2) That you were throwing test scenarios at the new engine to see how it handled it and responded?

Either answer is indicative of PS2 being a throw away game. Which is why I don't buy anything. I don't believe that the main focus for developing and releasing PS2 is PS2. I think its to test ForgeLight for EQ:Next.

Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm a bit drunk. But read the above questions again and answer for yourself. Heck I could be missing something.

Wahooo

2013-09-06, 01:29 PM

I remember TRay saying, they developed Planetside 1 for 4-6 years and PS2 for 18 month (something along those lines. I'm not very sure about the exact numbers).

See, for what many of us would expect of a 1st installment developed for 4-6 years and the second installment 18 months would be a misnomer. Because you would THINK that the second installment would build on the first, learn from the first, carryover what worked and scrap what didn't and in that way a PS2 would actually have been in 'development' for like 10 years.

But they didn't do that. So... yeah... a continuing Beta, that may or may not stick around.

Taramafor

2013-09-07, 02:38 PM

See, it's not the lack of graphics that bother me. It's more of the fact that so many little things are missing. Like the fact that there's no character to vehicle animation whatsoever. Or that spawn rooms are camped. Or that there's next to no indoor fights. Or that there's so many things that happen too quickly because the devs are catering to people with short attention spans. Let's face it, things in PS1 took time and that's what made it great. Now it's a case of zerg, rush, win. I don't think this game will really see greatness 'till it slows down just enough to get on par with other MMO games. 'Cus that's what a game with thousands of people is all about in the end, getting on and getting involved in the grand scheme of things. That's not to say all fights should last entire days, but would that really be so bad? At least then it wouldn't be a simple case of zerging. But overall I feel that there needs to be a middle ground, because this isn't just some other 64 player FPS. It's a MMO with countless people wanting to fight in countless ways and we only have one way so far. The fast way. Unless you're lucky enough to get in a threeway between bases which can lead to a bit of a stalemate, but I don't complain when that happens. It's not zerging, it's a real fight. A fight with pushing back and forth and where thinking is involved. If everyone wasn't in such a rush to get fights over with then perhaps they'd actually enjoy them. But you can still have other fights that don't last so long as well. We just need to duplicate similar results between two empires instead of three and I think the game would be on the right track.

So in short, there needs to be a healthy mix of different fights. The fast, the not so fast and the slow (which is the one PS1 vets as well as myself and others with patience and strategic minds love). Unfortunately, we have more of the fast then any other.

wobblyone

2013-09-07, 04:18 PM

I've got to say I'm loving PS2. I never played PS1 so can't compare.

Until recently my gaming career has been with the Battlefield series, from BF2 onwards.
After around 2500hrs on BF2 along came BFBC2! I thought 'what is this shit' and refused to play it. All my buddies moved across so I went to 2142, which I actually enjoyed more than BF2!
After a year on 2142 I yielded and joined my mates on BC2. Now I have to admit after a while I loved the damn game.
The shit hit the fan when BF3 was released. Most of my buddies hated it and said it was nothing like BF2. Well I think it is exactly like BF2 without the commander role, and looks 10 times better!

Because of constant negativity around the BF series I thought 'fuck it, I'm out'
Along came Planetside2, wow. What a great game. In fact, I think it is the best game I have ever played.
To me it is like 2142 only better. What is all this shit about winning rounds! Christ, I can't go back to that!

Just forget about better SC weapons coming out, and this buffed or that nerfed. Just get on with it. Make the best of what you have got and enjoy the game. What is the alternative?

Helwyr

2013-09-07, 06:26 PM

Does that make sense? Am I off in left field here?

What you said makes sense, but I don't think it's the full story. I really don't think Higby and the other PS2 Devs think of PS2 as a throwaway game mostly to test Forgelight for EQ Next. At the same time I wouldn't doubt there has been some thinking along those lines and PS2 in part got it's green light because it was an IP Sony already owned and would be a good testing ground for the engine.

[...] because the devs are catering to people with short attention spans. Let's face it, things in PS1 took time and that's what made it great.[...]

This IMO is the real reason PS2 is the shallow followup to PS1. It's a common trend with almost all MMOs. There seems to be this idea that in order to appeal to the mass market you've got to make the video game equivalent of fast food... No waiting around, no inconvenience, simple menu of choice, very accessible, uniformity, fancy packaging, but tastes like crap and has little nutritional value.

Perhaps they are correct, but I'm inclined to believe there's a lot of people that given the opportunity (or nudged) to try something else might really change their tastes and habit. Right now it's my observation that most of those genuinely happy with the state of PS2 have only ever tasted the fast food games.. "Hey this Subway (PS2) is way better than than McDonald's (BF) or Kentucky Fried Chicken (CoD)." PS2 is simply a better fast food to them, while many of us were hoping for a real fresh cooked meal.

Put another way is it that the bulk of gamers are lazy and dimwitted and want games to match? Or is it that games designed for lazy dimwitted players have become the norm and have preconditioned those that play them to expect nothing else and in turn become lazy and dimwitted (at least while gaming)?

also.. not holding PS1 up as some amazingly in depth sophisticated game either. Just that it was miles ahead of where PS2 is currently at. Just hoping for some evolution here, not the devolution we've been seeing in this genre overall for many years.

Taramafor

2013-09-07, 06:53 PM

There's already other "fast foods" around the corner with battlefiled 4 coming out. And there's even going to be a battlefront game next year. The twist is that these games are going to be doing things somewhat differently from the past games by the looks of it (bf4 will focus more on team play for one which could be a danger to PS2 as that is PS'2 main strength). I know it sounds harsh but the truth of the matter is that PS2 needs to do something different from these games, something to make everyone feel involved is the fights and feel like they're ALL working together, both on the battlefield and while fighting, helping those in other fights. Right now, I don't think we're getting that feeling. And I don't think we will 'till the game slows down a bit and gets a little more defense at bases.

Either way, unless PS2 does something different from games like battlefield other then simply adding more people and making maps larger, players will end up moving on to other games. The only reason I'm sticking it out with PS2 is because of organized squads and am hoping the game will improve gameplay wise, which I know is going to take time. So I'm reserving final judgment for now.

EVILoHOMER

2013-09-08, 09:33 PM

From my friends opinion they got sick of having to try and find the battles all the time. Really they're doing this because the map is confusing and the base designs suck. None of my friends had a problem with Planetside but Planetside 2 is just not as well designed, the bases are all spawn campfests and no one sticks around for a fight... probably why my friends cannot find one. Myself I hate the bases, there is no sense of accomplishment and I think the weapon design sucks.

In fact what SOE done is made Planetside 2 that is nothing like Planetside... somehow worse even though it's been 10 years.

Snrub

2013-09-10, 03:08 PM

Sledgecrushr

2013-09-10, 03:32 PM

I find great varied fights everytime I log on. To me anyways this is one of the best games Ive ever played.

Wahooo

2013-09-10, 03:37 PM

Honestly, I think it's a chain reaction. People leave, causing the servers to be more empty. This causes people to get frustrated by the difficulty of finding large, long fights, and they end up leaving also, which just makes the problem worse and causes more people to leave.

When I play Planetside, I want massive battles, preferably involving all three factions, that go on for an hour or more. Right now, it's almost impossible to find that.

Basically there are too few players for too large of a territory, and that makes the game not fun. To me it almost seems like there should only be one continent available at any given time, and what continent is available rotates every week. This will force the players into a smaller area and make the fights easier to find and bigger. Also, there probably needs to be another round of server merges.

The game itself is fun, but when I can't find any action or anything other than a 10v10 skirmish that lasts five minutes, I don't see the point of logging in.

Although I disagree with the fights involving all three factions (they are fun when rare and random not all the time) this really explains what happened to the original Planetside. People claiming for years the game was dead, when it still had a few big fights going on all the time, but it reached a critical mass so to speak. At some point it tips, hard to say a hard number but that point when it is less fun than an instanced shooter. People leave because there are not enough people, which causes more people to leave and so on.

bites

2013-09-10, 07:37 PM

I find great varied fights everytime I log on. To me anyways this is one of the best games Ive ever played.

Ditto ... mind you our server is awesomesauce.

Qwan

2013-09-11, 08:03 AM

Along came Planetside2, wow. What a great game. In fact, I think it is the best game I have ever played.
To me it is like 2142 only better. What is all this shit about winning rounds! Christ, I can't go back to that!

Just forget about better SC weapons coming out, and this buffed or that nerfed. Just get on with it. Make the best of what you have got and enjoy the game. What is the alternative?

If you think PS2 is the best game you ever played, then PS1 would be mind blowing for you. I dont mean that graphics whise, I mean more on game play and content. PS1 made team work, and purpose its main focuse. For example, blowing a enemy's tech plant generator, made the difference in whether or not your faction would take a continent, also how long they kept that generator down, was a big factor. PS1 birthed the spec-ops teams, and black ops, outfits worked together passing along information, and making things happen to better help your faction. In PS2 its just not there, its all about certs and your K/D ratio, cause thats all that matters.

derito

2013-09-11, 10:31 AM

Isn't the thing you say PS1 had but PS2 doesn't, simply a good metagame ?

Qwan

2013-09-11, 11:58 AM

I guess you can say yes, I mean PS1 doesnt have all these weapons types, and fancy moving parts on the weapons like PS2, but in PS1 if you logged in and you outfit commander said were going to do a gen bust, or a base drain tonight so we can cut the enemy off and push them off of hossin and lock the continent. First you grabe some chips, a couple of soda's, second tell the wifey your gonna be busy, third put the kids to bed. Cause you knew you were going to be in for a good fight. Also squads were more versitile, you had medic/engineers, heavy that had Air certs, or support certs, snipers/medics. And you know what I miss the most the max load out, extra glue guns and med kits along with ammo stored in the back of the max, it was important because if you were doing a base drain or gen bust, your gonna need all the ammo and juice you can get.

Those days are gone now, bases have no real purpose purpose, well maybe the tech. Using your certs wisely to support you squad, pointless now. Now you have two options when playing PS2, either run with the zerg, or hope your outfit is having a event like tank night, or harraser night, just to make things fun, and this is why i think that PS2 is loosing alot of its core players, who are willing to get subs, and spend a little cash on cosmetics and stuff.

Sunrock

2013-09-11, 06:10 PM

diLLa

2013-09-11, 07:19 PM

OctavianAXFive

2013-09-11, 11:26 PM

Well I haven't been around in over a month now but for my two cents the game has improved in leaps and bounds since launch. I think there are some things that need to be worked out to improve player retention and interest but for the most part I cannot wait to get back to Planetside 2.

Planetside 2 exists in a crowded shooter market and has a niche target audience that it needs to reach through all of the pomp of BF and CoD. I think this game will grow pretty big as the years go on and I think it can reach the same level as Battlefield. Battlefield didn't grow overnight, neither did CoD or Halo or any other shooter. Planetside 2 is a reboot of a niche series and as a reboot it needs time to build and retain a fan base and community. It has the advantage of Planetside Universe and pre-established outfits to help facilitate player retention through community bonding but let's face it this is a new game and is still alive a year after its release. That in of itself is a good sign.

The PS4 launch is HUGE for us. The game is going to get a second wind hopefully and we'll see a universal increase in interest for both platforms as more people learn about it through the Playstation 4.

Lastly, the summer months are slow for all video games and Planetside isn't an exception. People travel or do more outdoorsy things during the summer because they know that during the winter the nights will be long and dark and full of glowing LCD screens.

I haven't played at all in over a month and I doubt things have deteriorated to such lows in that time. When I left the battles were more fun than they had ever been and I was so glad to bounce around Esamir (though to be fair, Indarside was still a thing which caused me to double face palm).

Here's to hoping the police find my computer or the insurance company coughs up enough for a new one.

Qwan

2013-09-12, 07:17 AM

No one is forcing you to run with the zerg. Our outfit is doing just fine avoiding the zerg. And no, we don't need tank nights or harasser nights as you call it.

Well good for you dilla and your outfit, I hope things stay that way for you guys. Currently im on vacation from PS2, but I do log in nightly for certs and to patch, speaking of patches that last one we got was crazy :eek:. But my opinion is just my perspective of the game so far, like OctavianAxFive said its gonna take time for this game to stablize and grow, and good old Qwan40 will still be here logging in and keeping up his sub. :groovy:. I just hope that the battle islands and Hossin improve the meta, and spark some life into the game. I mean the large scale is attractive but with only 3 maps to I guess you could say rotate between it gets stale quick. At least in BF or CoD smaller 64 player maps I get some veriaty, Im just saying.

Taramafor

2013-09-12, 07:46 AM

Lastly, the summer months are slow for all video games and Planetside isn't an exception. People travel or do more outdoorsy things during the summer because they know that during the winter the nights will be long and dark and full of glowing LCD screens.

WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!

... What makes you think people don't make the most of the free time to game the summers away? :p

speaking of patches that last one we got was crazy :eek:.

No shit. it makes scrap float in the air more now. Or does that always happen at Quartz ridge? :huh:

Qwan

2013-09-12, 12:46 PM

I heard that the place was haunted, LOL. I gamed for like a hour with some outfit members, there was no splash damage, grenades all over the place along with mines and such. C-4 blocks stuck all over the place, and just reckage everywere, believe it or not I actually had fun last night.

Carbon Copied

2013-09-12, 01:39 PM

Was just reading an interview on Zam (linked from Reddit here (http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=33030)) and if its anything to go by the number one reason people leave it's because of performance... which seems an interesting skirt around the actual answer because (technically) a game should be playable from launch so whatever the real reasons for leaving are probably numbers 2,3 and 4. Maybe it's to make the whole optimization thing a bigger deal than it actually is - not irrelevant but just sounds like a bullshit PR avoidance answer to me.

Also this worries me:

“We feel we’re at a point now where we’re not feature complete, but the game is in a good enough state where we can sit where we’re at right now and still have a very solid game, and concentrate on optimization. Whereas, at launch, we knew we had some major things to do, like adding a tutorial, adding VR zones, adding more contextual things like vehicle and continent stuff.”

Whilst acknowledging not feature complete how you can then follow up to say it's a solid game is a little confusing to me; or is that just me?

In the meantime I'll wait to see if any actual planet side makes it into PlanetSide 2.

Edit that is mildly off topic: getting real tired of these xp incentive and carrot on the stick mechanic solutions - feels like the single worst thing to make it into an FPS ever at times "oh no one is fighting for them, shall we give them more xp then?" fuck sake make the empire and game worth sticking with instead of these shallow shit boring incentives; do they look at it from the perspective of a player who is BR100 - why the fuck should he care about what xp he is or isn't getting? In my opinion if you have players who don't have a care or need for the current "core incentive" then the solution isn't the right one.

Mordelicius

2013-09-14, 01:02 AM

First of all way do you bunch up griefing with hacking/exploiting? Sure both are equally annoying but that is the olny thing they have in common.

OP units? please.... There are no OP units in this game newbs die allot because they are newbs not because something is OP in the game.

Even if faction imbalance is a problem I don't think it's a big enough problem to drive away players. This problem exist in every open world PvP game ever created.

But performance and lack of metagame is a big enough problem to dirve away a huge amount of players and is 100 times worse then any other problem you can come up with that this game have.
I bunched them up because they are all player caused/related, not game related itself.

As for the OP units, from the beginning has been used to farm newbies until they quit.

Liberators and rocketpods took a long time to tone down/add counter to.
Magriders the same. HE spam, not as long.

Harassers, the current most busted OP unit is being used to farm newbs. I myself don't like to walk anymore since I don't like to give points to the harassers until they are fix.

Lastly, Performance/lack of Meta aren't the only major things as well. As I've mentioned before, the way they calibrate their gameplay to tone down fights and reduce farming is another major one.

In addition to the ones I've already list, i'll add this(!): fresh off the recent hotfix

- Continental facility alert frequency reduced (Biolab, Amp and Tech for a particular continent).
- Duration reduced to half.
- Reward reduced to half.

What exactly is wrong with an continent specific Biolab alert again? To them, I argue, it's the cert farming off the 2-hour kill fest. This has been the crux of my post and they're doing it again right under our noses :rofl:

They want to reduce our cert gain rate (as if they have a target number they have to reach), and they do it by altering gameplay.

Unfortunately, the unintended consequences of those changes makes the fighting dull, messes up battleflow and finally, contradicts what Planetside 2 was supposed to be: Massive Scale PvP MMOFPS. :doh:

Again, if they desperately want to reduce cert game, change the xp gain mechanics, BUT leave the actual, good gameplay intact. All the destructive stuff they imposed has altered PS2 for the worse.

I already pointed out the other examples. The alert change is just part of the litany of 'features' :lol: they are adding all for the sake of cert gain nerf.

Emperor Newt

2013-09-14, 09:56 AM

a the number one reason people leave it's because of performance
Even if it is, I doubt that better performance will help getting more players into the game. I often hear from seasoned players who quit due to performance and fatigue too, but from new players it's very often "this is not fun" and "what the f* is going on?". Better performance, while I appreciate that, is not going to magically fix the many problem newbies have with the game.

Sunrock

2013-09-14, 01:55 PM

I think foot zerging between bases should not be encouraged by any game mech at all. In the real world It has not been a viable strategy sens the Vietnam war. So what the hell should it be in a sci-fi game? It grinds my gear when players want every fucking FPS game to be played equal to WW1 technology and strategy and not 21st century and beyond technology and strategy.

So no the Harassers are not OP. Just learn to play the game and stop thinking foot zerging between bases is the best way to attack. I mean the Germans figured that out already in 1939 so way cant you do that 84 years later?

PS: The Vietnam war was the last war where platoons of infantry was moved around by foot.

Carbon Copied

2013-09-14, 05:40 PM

Even if it is, I doubt that better performance will help getting more players into the game. I often hear from seasoned players who quit due to performance and fatigue too, but from new players it's very often "this is not fun" and "what the f* is going on?". Better performance, while I appreciate that, is not going to magically fix the many problem newbies have with the game.

I don't think you got the point of my post - Higby is telling us the number one reason people leave is performance. Which is why I wanted to know reason 2,3,4 as performance is "technically speaking" not an issue that should exist!

kubacheski

2013-09-16, 09:58 AM

I don't think you got the point of my post - Higby is telling us the number one reason people leave is performance. Which is why I wanted to know reason 2,3,4 as performance is "technically speaking" not an issue that should exist!

True dat. Performance isn't enough of a description for the problem. Performance of what? CPU/GPU Server vs Client issues, what exactly is causing this "performance issue"? Is it crap they've added after launch? Is it caused by new hardware that doesn't have correct driver interaction built into the client? Is it network and the amount of sockets or bandwidth that are being used on the servers? What exactly is the issue?

What are the specifics of the other reasons that people are leaving and are those issues contributing to the "performance issue" that Higby states. Are they treating symptoms and not the cause?

Not that we'll get an answer, but...

Bobby Shaftoe

2013-09-16, 07:51 PM

I think foot zerging between bases should not be encouraged by any game mech at all.

Then they've got about 50 or so outposts/towers to remove so the average distance between contestable objectives is more than 300 metres.

The continents quite simply have too much shit on them.

"We want all territory to be contestable"... whilst at the same time keeping you hemmed in 100+ metres from the 'edges' of the map.

Sunrock

2013-09-16, 08:04 PM

Then they've got about 50 or so outposts/towers to remove so the average distance between contestable objectives is more than 300 metres.

The continents quite simply have too much shit on them.

"We want all territory to be contestable"... whilst at the same time keeping you hemmed in 100+ metres from the 'edges' of the map.

I agree that the open ground between bases are way too short, in fact I would love to see they remove all small bases from the game.... But it's still both safer and faster to pull vehicles to get from point A to B. Also Blitzkrieg tactics are always better then let your men run on foot.

Blitzkreig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzkrieg) means that you have armor spear head enemy lines sported by air then have mechanized infantry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanized_infantry) moping up every thing.

kubacheski

2013-09-19, 09:30 AM

I agree that the open ground between bases are way too short, in fact I would love to see they remove all small bases from the game.... But it's still both safer and faster to pull vehicles to get from point A to B. Also Blitzkrieg tactics are always better then let your men run on foot.

Blitzkreig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzkrieg) means that you have armor spear head enemy lines sported by air then have mechanized infantry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanized_infantry) moping up every thing.

Too short, yes, but the problem is multi-faceted. The maps were designed for the hex system, but they overlayed the lattice on top of it. Armor/Air vehicles are too easy to get (don't have to cert into it). Massive amount of certs makes it too easy to cert to basic level in everything.

The proper setup is to have the major bases linked on the lattice and the minor bases support the major bases and be completely ghost hacked. Very similar to PS1 bases with towers.

Everyone having access to everything sucks the strategy out of movement and troop coordination. Simply alternate between air/ground vehicles to leapfrog from place to place. There's no waiting to get to the next base. You don't need to wait for your gal pilot to come to you, just pull your own and ride on over.

kwskills

2013-09-19, 11:51 AM

test

RagePS

2013-09-19, 06:36 PM

Why is PS2 losing players............pick a reason, there are tons of them. Overly simplified game play to let the kids (12 and under) play, Free to play so anyone with a computer and a modem can play (that why BR4's on your team are shooting you in the back of the head), Sustaining damage while standing in your spawn room, Watching bullets and projectiles coming through the walls, Lattice system taking strategy out of the game (refer to letting kids play), Alerts system that alert even if one faction had 2/3 of whatever it takes to win the alert, Unstable system (remember the VOIP just a couple of weeks ago?), Enticing you with new content that takes forever to deliver, Obvious hackers (not that SOE will fix something that no other software company has been able to fix......no skill is just no skill), Rocket mechanics that make you go "Where the F*** is that going" after shooting at something different. I've played for 53 days in game and cancelled my subscription.............because in 4 months it's gotten worse and not better IMO.

Sirisian

2013-09-19, 09:41 PM

Then they've got about 50 or so outposts/towers to remove so the average distance between contestable objectives is more than 300 metres.

The continents quite simply have too much shit on them.

"We want all territory to be contestable"... whilst at the same time keeping you hemmed in 100+ metres from the 'edges' of the map.
My favorite part is shooting turrets from one objective using turrets from another objective. I have some stats related with PS1 on my site (http://sirisian.com/planetside2/#Territory_and_Resources-Overview_of_Terrain_Goals_and_Current_Problems_to_ be_Solved). Essentially Planetside 1's Cyssor (8x8 km) was 1.6 km^2 per objective and Planetside 2's Indar (8x8 km) is 0.7 km^2 per objective. They essentially wanted to put more people into the same size map and decided shoving in more objectives would help.

Taramafor

2013-09-20, 11:31 AM

Because blowing up a tank and driving through the junk destroys your tank. Grumble grumble...

synkrotron

2013-10-16, 07:53 AM

Interesting read, although I only had an hour so I've skipped some of the pages.

From my perspective, an old, infrequent gamer only recently returned to FPS games, I'd be gutted when PS2 reaches a point where not enough people play anymore.

Such is my love of this game, yeah, I surprise myself really. I've only been playing a month. I'm a "noob" and always will be. I get lost in open terrain AND in the larger facilities. I take ages to build up certs and therefore take ages to make myself more useful to my outfit.

Yeah, I'm in an outfit too FFS. They're a cool bunch of ever so helpful guys that don't mind a bungling noob joining in with them. I've even joined in with another outfit and they've been real nice too.

And I think it is the willingness of others to help that has kept me coming back again and again. My missus thinks I'm nuts, as do most of my RL mates. But I don't care.

Perhaps I've been lucky so far because I've not been the butt of deliberate TKs or any sort of general harassing I've heard peeps talk about.

Anyway, I think one way to get more people to enlist and report for duty is to make it law... Yeah, make it compulsary to spend at least ten hours a week helping your outfit in its efforts to overcome which ever scum it is you are fighting.

This game is just amazing and I'm now going to go full circle by saying I'd be gutted when this war comes to an end.

Thanks for listening

over and out

ringring

2013-10-16, 03:36 PM

I got br100 and I logged out 1 minute later and haven't felt any inclination whatsoever to log back in.

In a nutshell:
Q. In ps2 why do you destroy turrets? A. Because they give xp.
Q. In ps2 why do you repair turrets? A. Because they give xp.

Q In ps1 why do you destroy turrets? A. Because they hurt and represent a danger to tanks, amses, aircraft etc.?
Q In ps1 why do you repair turrets? A. Because they are part of the base defences and if we are not defending yet it may be that we will at some point.

My point is xp and certs are the motivations for doing stuff in ps2.

Sad to say the best thing that has happened in ps2 is events and what is the motivation? Yet more xp. The side effect of making the game xp driven is to boost the empire that usually wins leading player to naturally conclude that if the want to cert up quicker they had better be on the winning side, hence server population imbalances.

What's more, with flat rate xp gain and no inter-continental conquest the re-balancing that should happen with having 3 empires fighting each other is not happening as it should.

I am beginning to agree with those that have said that this game is PS2(beta) and the question that is now running through my mind is how long it will be until PS2(Live) happens.

As an aside. I ran PS2 on high from the start and I never had any performance issues to speak of, certainly not in the last 6 months.

Taramafor

2013-10-16, 04:09 PM

Yea, the way XP works is a bit flawed. The problem is that people want to go to the nearest or biggest fight for the XP. This can easily cause people to just go head long into a fight before hitting softer targets and weakening positions before QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY eradicating them. But what is the point of QUICKLY stomping the other side if a longer fight gives more XP for BOTH sides because it simply lasts longer with no regard for quick and efficient tactics? Perhaps bonus XP should be given the quicker a base is taken to compensate for this. While I was taking a nice stroll through a biolab once and before I know it, the gen and all the points are taken all at the same exact time. The SCU got hacked but it seemed to be harassing tactics and it got repaired. But if the gen had been held by a small force and mopped up the biolab, that to me seems like lots of XP should be given for being so damn efficient. Quick and clean. But the sad truth is, the longer a fight happens, the more XP there is (which is a good thing in itself) with no reward for quicker and more efficient tactics which take more effort (and that would be the bad).

Kirotan

2013-10-16, 07:29 PM

Optimization first. If that doesn't work, here's my idea:

Non-premium players need to get more for paying nothing. Keeping them around just for the simple fact of maintaining a healthy population is paramount in order to keep around those who are willing to pay. Also, it will also get them into the game to the point where it may push them over into subscribing and/or buying station cash.

This argument comes up a lot. "It's just $15 a month or the same for 1500 station cash!" While I agree 100% with this statement, to some people F2P means F2P. It doesn't matter if we PS2 loyalists think they're dumb or cheap; we're not going to change their mind. To these people they believe they should get a relatively even playing field without paying a dollar. If they don't feel that way, they'll leave...but we need them.

1. Faster cert gain until you get to BR20 or so. Get new players "invested" into the game by having them gain more cert points in the beginning. I'm sure a lot of new players have gotten 10-15 cert points per hour, saw that some weapons cost 1000 said "no thanks" and quit without looking back. With 20 ranks and more certs under their belt, they'll be more likely to stay.

2. Give non-premium the ability to unlock a few weapons for FREE. Each character at ranks 20, 25, and 30 get a free unlock, for a total of 3 free unlocks on each character. This is enough to specialize in 1 role, and possibly be flexible in another. The fact that the first of these unlocks don't come until Rank 20 lets a new player learn about the game, make a wise "purchase" and, hopefully by Rank 20, they're "addicted." and stick around longer. "Yes! I'm Rank 20 and I can unlock rocket pods/HEAT/Annihilator! I can't wait to get my next one at 25!"

Three unlocks could potentially be $15 or more, but you will make this money back(and more) in 2 ways: 1) Premium players will stay subscribed longer due to a larger player base, and 2) Getting these new players hooked with free unlocks will likely encourage more of them to buy SC or become a Premium member to see what else the game has to offer.

You have to make this obvious. "Free weapon at Rank 20, 25, and 30!" should be on a banner scrolling on the equipment terminal/map, wherever.

This also solves a major problem F2P players have: Spending precious cert points on class equipment, or saving them for weapons. This is a crippling decision that makes many people feel this game is "Pay to win garbage."

Summary: There will always be enough new items and weapons released to keep a revenue stream coming; SOE needs to give more to those who won't pay in order to maintain a healthy playerbase that keeps around those who are willing to pay.

Kerrec

2013-10-16, 10:13 PM

PS2 just has no permanence. I "took a break" months ago and I feel no desire to return. Yet I keep coming back regularly to see if something drastic has changed. I know about OMBG and that will just appease people with weaker computers. That's nice and all, but they won't stay any more than the people with beefy computers that have left.

I was introduced to the PS franchise with this game. The promise of a meta-game, combined arms, FREE game had me dreaming of a FUN gaming fix for the long term. At first, when I was getting 0.5 KD because I didn't know the game, didn't have the goodies, I was driven to get better. Then I certed into better gear and maxed out my preferred play styles. With earned certs. I played 1000 certs for several weapons. Later on, when my financial situation got better, I bought the equivalent of a off the shelf game worth of SC and spent it on vehicles I rarely ever used. But my favored play style was earned. My KD went from 0.5 to close to 3 if I played serious. Then I ran out of stuff to cert into.

So I don't really care about OMBG. Yay, my KD will go up a bit more, or down because everyone else can suddenly play better. What a false hope that is. Just like all the other "problems" the community drove SOE to fix, whether justified or not. The game has no permanence. Everything you do in the game world can be undone in 15 minutes. Play with an outfit and fight hard to push a front, or now I should say a "lane", and if you log off to go eat it'll all be gone by the time you come back. Given that reality, what else is there to play for besides socializing or grinding certs? Many games today are multiplayer, so socialization is not a problem and why repeat the same gaming experience in the act of grinding, when you can play another game that will give you a new experience?

Nah, the game can run better than any other game out there. SOE can give people 2000 fps in a game with all the bling in the world, but if the gameplay gets boring (and it does), it won't matter.

Empires need a way to WIN. And they need balanced enemies to make it a challenge. Otherwise what's the point?

synkrotron

2013-10-17, 01:21 AM

Is it really like that for everyone? I mean, certs, certs, certs.......

That's a shame.

I don't play this game to cert up. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of getting nice new stuff and increasing my chances of doing more damage or staying alive longer but at the end of the day, the main reason I return to this game is one thing:-

TEAM WORK

Yeah, working in a team and feeling that, as crap as I am, I have contributed and made just a little bit of a difference.

The certs, for me, is a side issue really.

If I tell you I'm a premium member and I've also bought SC you would be right, I suppose, to call me a liar. I need to explain that, although I could have carried on F2P, I felt I needed to become just a bit more useful to my Outfit and being a bit crap, earning only something like 30 XP/Min, it was taking too long. I also don't get to put in the same kind of hours in the game that some of you other peeps do. On top of that, I really do believe that this is the best experience I have had online, ever.

My main game over the last couple of years was Gran Turismo. I really enjoyed that game, but, although there was a great community, you were basically playing for yourself, against everyone else. With BF3, PS2 and other team based FPS games you play as a team... I can't emphasise enough how important that has become to me...

So, all things considered, I bought six months premium membership and some SC, because I think the game, despite its so called "flaws," deserves my support.

ChipMHazard

2013-10-17, 04:26 AM

I think the only reason I'm playing atm. is because of the outfit and PS2 being a solid and fun FPS. Hopefully that will be enough to keep my interest until PS2 becomes something more than just an MMOFPS.

Kirotan

2013-10-17, 08:10 AM

Is it really like that for everyone? I mean, certs, certs, certs.......

That's a shame.

Not everyone. However, not everyone is teamwork quality, and not every outfit is the quality of the one you may be a part of.

People want a carrot to chase. Usually certs or a meta game.

Kerrec

2013-10-17, 08:27 AM

Is it really like that for everyone? I mean, certs, certs, certs.......

That's a shame.

Nah, you're getting me wrong. It's not "the certs" that kept me playing, it was a sense of progression.

I started without an outfit. Played 200+ hours, outfiting the LA class with the best stuff. I played until that got boring, then I joined an outfit and certed up the Medic. Then I certed up the Engineer, the Infiltrator and my Max (although I don't like MAX play, I certed it up for the outfit). That got me to 600+ hours (including some time on alts in VS and NC).

Logging off at night and then back online again the next day, the map(s) looked entirely different. That's a 24 hour period where everything I and my outfit accomplished (or failed to accomplish) was ancient history. For that matter, logging off for an hour to go eat was enough time to have drastic changes to the maps.

There is NO sense of progression beyond certs. That is what I am lamenting. That is what I feel is wrong with this game. There is also no WIN condition. Would you play Chess if every piece on the board was "respawned" after being dead 2 turns and the King was "off limits"? Might be fun for a couple hours, but eventually there just wouldn't be any point to continue playing.

Babyfark McGeez

2013-10-17, 08:31 AM

I think the only reason I'm playing atm. is because of the outfit and PS2 being a solid and fun FPS. Hopefully that will be enough to keep my interest until PS2 becomes a MMOFPS.

Fixed that for you. ;)

DredVS

2013-10-17, 08:49 AM

Believe me that SOE is working on every single one of those things listed.

One of the problems though is that people are getting tired of the speed of the dev team. Updates aren't coming fast enough.

Optimization is the most important and that is coming out first. I believe they will address imbalances next...On Command Center, Higby said that Harassers should get one-shot by AP rounds from tanks.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdBB63LKoR8&feature=youtu.be&t=27m23s

Planetside 2 is getting fixed, though the speed of which it is getting fixed is the issue.

ChipMHazard

2013-10-17, 11:51 AM

Fixed that for you. ;)

Fair enough. Semantics, semantics, semantics.:p I don't really like how they define what makes an MMOFPS just that.
I do consider PS2 as being an MMOFPS: A very, very big and fun FPS with nothing else to it. I'm still hoping for the RPG elements and general feeling of playing in a believeable world to be added to the game. (Bases still don't look like anyone actually works/lives there)
Technically the original is also an MMOFPS, but I would personally define it more of an MMOFPSRPG.

synkrotron

2013-10-18, 01:10 AM

Nah, you're getting me wrong. It's not "the certs" that kept me playing, it was a sense of progression.

Hi Kerrec :)

I wasn't intending to pick on any one individual as such :)
And I guess you're right that, at the end of the day, certs = progression as you use them to improve your weaponry/tools and therefore usefulness.

By the sounds of it, boredom is the biggest killer then, for any game. We can all put up with the usual glitches of a game but once our interest is lost, that can be the end of it.

Emperor Newt

2013-10-18, 05:37 AM

One of the main problems with the progression is that the game is built around the player being able to use everything, but he needs to put a lot of certs into stuff just to be competitive. Medic and Engie tool/ammopack as well as jump jets (as well as a lot of other stuff, extended max magazines for 500 certs each...) require about 60 certs each until they are somewhat competitive with the certed tools other players have. Ever tried getting up on a roof with jump jets 2 or 3? Ever tried to revive someone with a low tier medic gun? This will most likely get you killed in the process. The same with the repair tool and ammo pack. These are just gimped version. It's not like the higher tiers are a bit better, they are the versions you need to do your job. So instead of giving all players a start at about 80-90% effectiveness and rewarding players by giving them a boost to up to 100 or maybe even 110% they decided to start everbody at about 40 percent, get them up to about 70 within about a 100 certs and then let them slowly farm about 15000 certs until they are at about 120%. And that's just outright stupid. Especially when you build your game around the idea that everybody should be able to use everything. It's just not fun to use everything when you get gimped versions and you at least need to put a few hundred certs into each of them until they reach a somewhat competitive level.

The same somewhat applies for vehicles and other infantry certs like suit defense slots. Instead of rewarding players who are invested into a class with slightly better tools and (especially!) additional playstyles they decided to gimp everyone and reward players who know and are able to farm certs. SOE decided to hide a lot of "power" behind a cert wall. Way more then the initial 10 to 20% Higgles claimed it to be before the game was released. What this leads to is the situation we have now: player playing for certs/progression. And those who are unable to farm them get frustrated and quit and those who know how to do it sit on a massive pile of certs, not knowing what to do with them. Unless they completely revamp the cert system this problem wont go away and it will continue to hurt the game/playerbase. But I doubt they will start a "Operation Make A Non Stupid Progression System" anytime soon.

ringring

2013-10-18, 05:41 AM

One of the main problems with the progression is that the game is built around the player being able to use everything, .....snip....

But I doubt they will start a "Operation Make A Non Stupid Progression System" anytime soon.
Absolutely

kubacheski

2013-10-18, 10:23 AM

But I doubt they will start a "Operation Make A Non Stupid Progression System" anytime soon.

But would that be even possible to change the cert/xp system currently in place? Think about how much the current system has been "leveraged" to max out your toon's certs? It'd almost have to be a completely different game (or server at least) to scrap the last year of progression for the current players.

Everyone able to use everything is what made PS1 so fun. Even at lower BR's you could cert deep enough into a single tree to be competitive. And you could change that over time if you wanted to switch your "class" without even gaining another single cert. The current cert system is simply a Smed-bucks generator and isn't making the game "better" by any means. I understand they want to make money, i mean it's a F2P game after all.

The problem is that PS2 is not fun enough to keep people investing repeatedly. The Return on investment isn't there. I suppose you could say that the grind for the average "free" player doesn't give enough certs to be competitive so it's not worth it, and the cash payment for the "paying" player doesn't give enough content and/or fun, so it's not worth it either.

The point SOE made of PS2 being F2P is to have a large population of free players for the paying players to shoot. yea paying customers are going to have more fun, yea free players can too if they invest the time. You're paying one way or another, it's simply a difference in "speed" at which you can have "fun". Reality doesn't pan out that way. The current exp/cert system isn't conducive for anything less than a very dedicated free player (read: casual players need not apply) thus reducing the fun a wide population of players will have. Thus reducing the entire pop, thus reducing the value of paying customers investment. thus getting fewer consistent payers, thus reducing the resources for more content, thus reducing the devs working on the game, thus reducing content and the death spiral begins. The exact same mistake they made with PS1 - fuck up the content (BFR's, balance issues, expansion which divides the pop) and people stop paying, people stop paying, pops go down, not enough people to shoot, people stop paying, pops go down.

SOE learn from your mistakes FFS. Or admit that PS2 is simply a mule to test ForgeLight for EQNext (yea I'm still beating that dead horse) and that you don't care about the future of PS2.

Babyfark McGeez

2013-10-18, 05:02 PM

EQ:Next engine test AND quick cashgrab. That was the "conspiracy theory" :p
(with how things are going i'll leave it up to everyone to decide for themselves how much of that is a conspiracy).

I lately noticed atleast premium isn't really needed though. I bought a couple of weapons like half a year ago and my six months premium ran out two or three months ago and i didn't renew it. Aside from not allways having full 40/40 grenades/c4/mines i didn't notice a damn difference.
The weapons i bought do make a difference though as i would have never been able to get them all with just certs.

Blackburn

2013-10-21, 01:37 PM

I'm glad we pushed away from the crown, and I think no deploy zones are a good thing. As TR are always outnumbered on my server, its good to at least know where the mass of enemy surrenders are not.

kubacheski

2013-10-22, 12:12 PM

I lately noticed atleast premium isn't really needed though. I bought a couple of weapons like half a year ago and my six months premium ran out two or three months ago and i didn't renew it. Aside from not allways having full 40/40 grenades/c4/mines i didn't notice a damn difference.
The weapons i bought do make a difference though as i would have never been able to get them all with just certs.

So what is SOE's gameplan for generating money when people have certed out all that they want to? Why would a high level player need a sub? What benefit does it give beyond the resource bonus? Some people have mentioned that they rotate their play-"focus" (infantry to vehicle to air) when they run low on a single resource type and jump to the next resource while rebuilding stores on the others.

I can see (and some have already said in this forum) high level players dropping their sub and not playing much as the exp grind for certs is meaningless to people who have all they want already certed. I imagine some bought the weapon they wanted with smedbucks and no only have to cert the weapons they dont want. Is that worth the grind?

Sirisian

2013-10-22, 05:41 PM

But I doubt they will start a "Operation Make A Non Stupid Progression System" anytime soon.
But would that be even possible to change the cert/xp system currently in place? Think about how much the current system has been "leveraged" to max out your toon's certs? It'd almost have to be a completely different game (or server at least) to scrap the last year of progression for the current players.

Everyone able to use everything is what made PS1 so fun. Even at lower BR's you could cert deep enough into a single tree to be competitive. And you could change that over time if you wanted to switch your "class" without even gaining another single cert. The current cert system is simply a Smed-bucks generator and isn't making the game "better" by any means. I understand they want to make money, i mean it's a F2P game after all.
There have been a few solutions posted during the metagame discussion a while ago that preserve the cert system (expanding it even) while allowing players to specialize deeply in classes. My favorite design is using the resource system (http://sirisian.com/planetside2/#Territory_and_Resources-Overview_of_Resource_Goals_and_Current_Problems_to _be_Solved) to equip unlocked certs. Creates a simple way to expand certs indefinitely while limiting a player's choices based on how much they want to invest on a respawn. One of the more complex and time consuming implementations, but it's that allows a much deeper cert system since it allows players to use all the level of their certs for different costs rather than simply unlocking the max level and that being the end.

In PS1 there was a similar limitation placed on players by their armor and inherent inventory configruation. It's my hope that in the future SOE will untether the utility items and everything from classes and go back to an armor based system with few limitations. A resource system allows that by applying penalty costs to exclusive items and armors. (Equipping heavy armor would be expensive but equipping the Recon Detect Device would cost significantly more with that armor than with others). Would also allow for new armors to be introduced over time.

That said though the resource revamp looks to be a long ways off ever since it was unscheduled. Starting to think they moved too many people off the game that they ran into what PS1 ran into which was essentially a very small development team that was in maintenance mode.