ReachCast Community Question #70 - "If you were John Smedley and you were making..."

[Deringer]

This week's ReachCast Community question is ...

“If you were John Smedley and you were making a top 3 list of items your Dev Team needed done ASAP what would they be?”

As always, respond here or e-mail us at [email protected] or call us at (415)787-3224!

[fierce deity]

Resource Revamp
Hossin
Continent Locking/Continental Lattice

[bpostal]

Resource Revamp
Hossin
Continent Locking/Continental Lattice


That about sums it up. To me # 3 falls under 'core gameplay' while #2 is needed to get that gameplay working and #1 is just plain handy.

So while I'd switch the numbers around, these are all top priorities (In my mind).

[ShadoViper]

Resource Revamp
Hossin
Continent Locking/Continental Lattice


This

[Timealude]

I had some time to think about it and while I agree that both the Resource Revamp and Hossin need to come first, I honestly think we need Vehicle Zoning before we have Continental Lattice or some sort of way to deploy to which Continent the fighting will take place on. I can imagine it being very annoying to pull a Vehicle to get across the home Continent only to abandon it when you need to change warp gates even without a timer.

[Luperza]

This week's ReachCast Community question is ...

“If you were John Smedley and you were making a top 3 list of items your Dev Team needed done ASAP what would they be?”

As always, respond here or e-mail us at [email protected] or call us at (415)787-3224!

Love this week's question! Can't wait to hear the call ins. :D

[BlaxicanX]

1. Amerish Lattice
2. Hossin
3. Resource Revamp

[Mox]

1. Hossin
2. Cont. Lock/Intercont. Lattice
3. Searhus

( Ressource Revamp isnt that important atm imo. The ressource system is crap i agree but i am able to ignore it as it is by now. )

[camycamera]

Resource Revamp
Hossin
Continent Locking/Continental Lattice


what he said, in that exact order with 1 being first to implement.

Hossin second so we can get a fully functioning continental lattice, which is last.

[Mastachief]

1. Hossin
2. Searhus
3. Oshur

[Emperor Newt]

1. New player experience
2. New player experience
3. Continental lattice

[Chefkoch]

1. Planetside 1 on Steam
2. Ressource Revamp
3. Vehicle Enter / Exit Animations

[wolfkrone]

Hi Reachcast. I listen every week and really enjoy the feel of the show. Its supportive without being blind to problems like so many podcasts out there, As long as you keep making them i'll keep listening.

1. Inter-cont lattice bridged by nexus possibly. I'm tired of fights like quartz ridge all the time. I want fights to be pushed onto different conts maybe for the whole weekend.

2. Some sort of new player experience. I'm not sure whats being suggested. People need to be helped into outfits for definite. Maybe new players should be flagged up to outfit officers that want to help or something.

3. More attempts to remove spawn camping. The new amp station is a definite improvement, i've had some amazing fights there. Unfortunately I was at a 50/50% pop fight there yesterday and it was still a camp. Part of the problem is organisation. How do you get people to break out of there.

p.s . I am not really sure why resource revamp is so desperate. I know that it sucks to be warpgate locked and no resources coming in, is that about the size of it?

[Rahabib]

Resource Revamp
Hossin
Continent Locking/Continental Lattice


same. In that order as well.

[ringring]

Resource Revamp
Hossin
Continent Locking/Continental Lattice

Same .. my only comment would be that working warpgates have to be there soonafter.

[Boildown]

Resource Revamp

I get the feeling people want to keep spamming out their vehicles and maxes no matter how much they lose them. What's so bad about the current resources? I don't mind a resource revamp as long as it increases how long you have to wait after losing your vehicle and/or max, not decreases.

Here's my list:

Amerish Lattice
Hossin
Continent Locking/Continental Lattice

[AuntLou]

1. Hossin
2. New player experience (Outfit listings etc.)
3. Veteran player experience (New achievements, pilot/driver achievements, post BR 100 content)

Tommy's answer:
1. NOT SHUT DOWN FREE REALMS
2. NOT SHUT DOWN FREE REALMS
3. NOT SHUT DOWN FREE REALMS

[Timealude]

I get the feeling people want to keep spamming out their vehicles and maxes no matter how much they lose them. What's so bad about the current resources? I don't mind a resource revamp as long as it increases how long you have to wait after losing your vehicle and/or max, not decreases.


I dont its that people want to spam vehicles and more that the resource revamp punishes you for doing that by draining a lot of power from your base, it also will adds more logistics to the game which we need badly.

[ZeroDefex]

1. Fixing the damn laser sight mounting on the Blitz. It floats almost below the weapon! Put it on the freaking rail!

(Ok, here is the important stuff.)

1. Resource revamp. Tanks, aircraft, and MAXes need to be costly to lose. We need a resource logistics system.

2. Make the galaxy note useful. Give it proximity repair, ammo dispenser, and platoon only AMS.

3. Inter continental lattice system. This needs to be a world wide war. Right now, it's a simultaneous series of separate continental wars. Continent locking is a must to make this feel the loss of Continent more than just the new announcements.

[basti]

Assuming Amerish lattice comes out first:

1. New Resource System
2. Hossin, Battle Islands
3. Global Lattice.

[Calista]

I agree with what others have said but I think more focus on new player experience (especially with the pending PS4 launch) is important so.

1) Directives
2) Mission system
3) Mentoring or just something or someone that can help newbies find their way quickly

[Deringer]

Hi Reachcast. I listen every week and really enjoy the feel of the show. Its supportive without being blind to problems like so many podcasts out there, As long as you keep making them i'll keep listening.

Thanks wolf!

[Deringer]

Tommy's answer:
1. NOT SHUT DOWN FREE REALMS
2. NOT SHUT DOWN FREE REALMS
3. NOT SHUT DOWN FREE REALMS

Listen tonight live for a special Tribute to Tommy. Bring a hankie.

[NewSith]

0. Amerish Lattice
1. Continent Locking/Continental Lattice
2. Resource Revamp
3. Benefits Revamp


I'm not mentioning continents, because that kind of content should be in "always high priority" list. What scares me though is that I believe adding lattice onto continents is going to be traditionally screwed up by SOE, with their unexplainable desire to simplify the game to dust.


As for benefits revamp - if resource revamp is to take place, some significant changes will have to be done to Base and Continental benefits. Discounts don't work with three types of resources, how do you think they're going to behave with one?

Lastly, I should point out that continental lattice will bring me back to PlanetSide 2, and I will stop pushing people away from it, like I already did with 3 potential PS2 players.

[Edfishy]

1. Help out the newbies (mission system, directives, etc)
2. Stop the continent hopping when your outfit starts to lose (continental lattice)
3. ANTS to give an alternative strategy to ending a fight (resource revamp / ants)

Basically, make it easier for newer players to play (Everyone I talk to says, "Cool game; had no clue what I was supposed to do though), and then retain them by making sure there's "fronts" for them to clearly want to take. Playing in an outfit and just jumping between Esamir, Amerish and Indar depending on if we're winning/losing a current fight feels ridiculous.

[Mordelicius]

This week's ReachCast Community question is ...

“If you were John Smedley and you were making a top 3 list of items your Dev Team needed done ASAP what would they be?”

As always, respond here or e-mail us at [email protected] or call us at (415)787-3224!

1) Priority on faction and gameplay balance as much as possible. Examples: Nerf that %^&*( AV Mana Turret range already. The .75 movement weapons still being abused to mess up hit registration.

2) Aggressive ban against hackers, exploiters and griefers (Examples: Fifth Column ***holes who use their alt character or accounts to team-kill and sabotage vehicles. Or scumbags pretending to 'repair' your Sundy, drop AV Mines while their friends from the other side C4 it simultaneously).

But then again these ***holes are predictable from the onset like from this old thread from August 2012:
I'm not saying FF should be removed. It should be monitored closely and the ALTS should be tracked to their main account and have them all banned.
-There will be players using multiple accounts with multiple computers
-There will be players using big transports only to fly all over then crash it
-There will be players infiltrating factions and basically sabotage operations
-There will be players giving out wrong information on purpose
-There will be players "leading" mission with the intention for it to fail.
-There will be players rolling alt guilds just to clog up the other faction's numbers
etc. etc. I've seen all that the last year on PS2, except for alt guilds clogging faction numbers because there's not really much players to do that.

3) Remove the No-Deploy-Zone or replace it with a Sunderer spawn jammer that once deployed can jam spawn Sundies from spawning players.

Perish any further gameplay interference mechanics from the Devs. The Developers are supposed to give us tools to fight and counter each other. Players have no interaction whatsoever with the NDZ. It's just there, magically. It's the invisible hands of the Devs that have no place in-game.

If they gave us Spawn Jammer Sunderers, we'll park them to block theirs.

They will have to blow it up if they want to keep respawning or
They will have to use other Sunderers as backup.

But here, you got added gameplay depth (thrust and parry, back and forth fights, measures and countermeasures).That's a whole lot better than arbitrarily marking the ground with circular no parking zones.

[likwidneo]

1) Resource Revamp
2) Amerish Lattice and Optimization
3) Hossin

and while off the question:

4) Battle Islands

These need to be done before you can even worry about

5)Cont Lock and Intercontinental Lattice

[ubermenchen]

1-3 ) put a stop to the hackers

[Zadexin]

I agree with what others have said but I think more focus on new player experience (especially with the pending PS4 launch) is important so.

1) Directives
2) Mission system


No no NO! this is the exact OPPOSITE of what this game needs. The game needs LESS interference from the Devs and more tools to allow players to set up their OWN events. The alert system is terrible, period. It essentially ruins any kind of user based co-ordinated gameplay. After about 10 minutes a huge number of players just 4th faction over to the winning side for the free certs. It needs to be killed with fire!

What they need to do right now:
1) FINISH THE LATTICE! FFS its been almost a year since we have had lattice forced* on us on 2 out of 3 continents. Just freaking finish it already! Every ounce of manpower should be put into this. Frankly its an embarrassment to have 2/3 of a completed game going into its second year. *(lattice would not have been necessary if the game was designed properly. ie. Multiple decaying cap points so 1 infiltrator couldn't cap a whole amp station solo. But that ship has sailed)

2) Hossin. they can't do continent lattice or anything else meaningful with 3 land masses. The only solution is to make another one. Its been sitting on the test server now for something like 9 months. finish it!

3) Resources. As they are now, they are a joke. If you are a paying player you pretty much never have to worry about resources. If you are totally F2P they run out way too fast. In all cases, they are irrelevant. They need to matter or they need to be removed, otherwise its just a secondary vehicle timer wall.

BONUS
4) Don't balance the game by taking away player choices. This isn't something they need to do. Its something they need to stop doing. Prime example, the proposed floating shield over some bases. Thank god they didn't implement that because it would have been horrible. That is the exact opposite of good game design. If your bases were designed properly you wouldn't have to resort to this. We already have to live with lattice because they were too lazy to fix the hex system. don't dumb it down anymore.