The Reddit Q&A Makes Me Nervous

Marsgrim · 2012-03-25, 10:46 AM

This game is beginning to look more and more like a Battlefield copy, and it's distinctly worrying.

When I read things like the continents not being interlinked, that there is no way to take a continent, that tanks are gunned by the driver and no co-operative vehicles, it begins to make me think that the developers have lost sight of the gameplay aspects that made Planetside fun and kept a lot of us subscribed for 10 years.

Although rare, it was possible in PS for one empire to own all the continents and sanc lock the others. Winning a continent and keeping it and the associated benefit was what the game became about. As far as I can see now, there is no win condition at all in Planetside 2, there's no point in committing to the game because there is nothing to commit for. Look at how APB turned out, it looked cool and had endless customisation but it was also an endless repeat of the same missions and that's where PS2 is heading.

It's all very well being F2P, but the reason that BF and COD are successful game series is because they do allow a map to be won and the fight to move on somewhere else. Further to this, they enable easy league and cup play at a competitive level and that is why they are successful, long lived games. They carry a huge competitive edge.

What is PS2 offering for competitive players, or as a reason to play? At the moment I can see nothing that will make people want to log on over the long term, and worse than this as soon as a new BF/COD game is launched it will lose out because those competitive players are going to go back to those. There's a chance in those games for players to win something within that game community, PS2 is offering nothing - it doesn't seem to even have the small win conditions that PS had that made taking a base worth while.

Why even bother taking a base in PS2? It may give resources but it's not going to get your empire moving forward because it's impossible to push the other empires off a continent.

PS2 seems to have completely lost the strategic aspect of gameplay that PS had, the ability to move empire fights by opening one of their locked/home continents, the ability to drive one enemy empire onto the other which I cannot see how it can be maintained in a never ending 3-way fight with no way to push an empire off a continent.

The developers are trumpeting in interviews that it's massive scale combat, but massive scale with no sense of purpose will quickly leave most FPS players going elsewhere. The psychology of FPS games is to win, yet there is no meaningful win in PS2 as far as I can see. Although games are played for enjoyment, the purpose is to win the game, how is this done in PS2?

There is no point in trumpeting a 3 sided game when the dynamic of a third faction interaction at a strategic level (global and continent) has been lost.

Further to this, the sense of team play and freedom of PS is in danger of being lost. The certification system was perfect, the problem was that SOE took the battle ranks beyond the ability of the certification system to balance, resulting in the one man armies. There were no one man armies when the maximum battle rank was 20 and certifications were balanced accordingly, even when BR25 was introduced the additional 3 certification points were within reason given the new Engineering and Hacking skills.

We now seem to have a copy of the Battlefield class system, developed somewhat along EVE/RPG lines, a copy of the vehicle system, a copy of the game play style via iron sights and pace of game/TTK, a copy of the spawning system and a dumbing down of any strategic play what so ever.

Planetside offered a strategic and tactical game that directed the FPS action, limited resources are going to mean nothing if there is no way to use the resource battle to win against the other two factions.

Please do not turn this game into a 3 faction copy of a massive BF3 map/game that never ends. People will lose interest and stop playing.

DOUBLEXBAUGH · 2012-03-25, 10:52 AM

This is exactly what I have been saying since Fan Faire!

Stardouser · 2012-03-25, 10:56 AM

Not ALL copying from Battlefield is bad, but things like killcam, 3D spotting, and things like that that rob skill from the skilled and give to the unskilled are BAD.

And I know that the current plan is not to have a revenge cam handicapcam killcam, that's just an example.

I don't think there's anything wrong with copying things like class system but...I share your worries in that if you have no purpose for the fighting, people won't fight hard. I understand the sentiments against a victory system but there's got to be some kind of motivation.

There will be a stat collection system, yes? It should SHOWCASE things like TEAM ACTIONS: Hacking terminals, capturing bases, medic revives, and while it shold still show KDR, it should downplay it.

basti · 2012-03-25, 10:58 AM

Do not worry. Most of us share your views, and we will melt faces in beta once it turns out to not work.

DviddLeff · 2012-03-25, 11:14 AM

My main concern at the moment is what happens when an empire is pushed back to their uncapturable base? Does the fight just continue on the outskirts until the attackers get bored, like we saw around warpgates before?

Stardouser · 2012-03-25, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

My main concern at the moment is what happens when an empire is pushed back to their uncapturable base? Does the fight just continue on the outskirts until the attackers get bored, like we saw around warpgates before?

Well, how often is that going to happen, as huge as the game world is? That's one thing PS2 is NOT copying from Battlefield 3 - tiny maps.

Skitrel · 2012-03-25, 11:24 AM

Wait til beta, see what works and what doesn't, watch it get changed as the community screams about it.

We are nowhere near launch, large swathes of changes WILL occur during beta, huge amounts. Do not worry too much just yet.

YaJackWagon · 2012-03-25, 11:24 AM

The whole reason Battlefield veterans are coming to this game is to get away from the dumbing down of the Battlefield franchise into "just another CoD shooter."

We want consequences for being outplayed. It makes it a much more frantic fight if we're in danger of being driven into the sea.

We want real rewards for outplaying an enemy. It makes it all the more epic to storm the beaches and conquer the enemy domain.

We don't want our hands held. It's much more satisfying to shoot a murderous being than to fire at brightly colored floating arrows. It's much more satisfying to take vengeance upon your killer if you used cunning to track him down and not a movie showing you his next moves.

This isn't a rebuke to the OP. This is what real gamers want: a challenge. We don't want to play a point&click arcade shooter, we want to outsmart and overcome.
Don't fall to greed and laziness SOE. Make something that is unique to the FPS genre. Make something that is unique in the MMO world. Don't make something to compete on Battlefield and CoD's level; make something to outclass them in every way.

TooFresh · 2012-03-25, 11:25 AM

Another thing that I was unsure about and unhappy to have confirmed by the reddit AMA is the fact that every vehicle and class is unlocked to everyone. How are we supposed to have "RPG-style character progression" when you don't have to actually spec into anything?

Isn't the fact that the game is Free To Play enough to make it accessible? Its like they are trying to go for accessibility overload.

If its free and they said no limit on characters then why not make it so you have to spec into classes in addition to spending certs to "sidegrade/upgrade".

Bazilx · 2012-03-25, 11:26 AM

I agree with the sentiment that being able to take over continents adds a very important sense of purpose. I hadn't actually realized or thought about it before I read this thread but it's a very valid argument.

*Hops firmly aboard the "Let's have continent-locking"-bandwagon.*

TheSHiFT · 2012-03-25, 11:36 AM

I much rather have the sanctuarys back over a foothold. Just so locks are possible and there is some feeling of a victory. Base swapping becomes hollow pretty quick.

TooFresh · 2012-03-25, 11:39 AM

Another thing about continents and the "sanc warp gates" that was touched on in other threads is:

If the 3 warpgates are static on the continent, then the frontlines wouldn't shift very drastically so, in theory, you'd be fighting for the territories that are more or less in the middle of 2 warp gates pretty much exclusively.

ringring · 2012-03-25, 11:54 AM

I agree. I hope this worry is unfounded but I still worry anyway.

In PS1 the overall aim was global domination. Granted it very rarely happened but what happened, rarely but more frequently was for an empire to be zero based.

What happened pretty often that an empire was under threat of being zero-based and countering that threat often provided motivation to fight hard. And this was the whole point of the meta game.

basti · 2012-03-25, 12:03 PM

Lets get into details then:

Continents. Yes, we all agree we want the sancs back, no footholds, and links between continents. But, theres a problem: There need to be a bunch of continents to make this work. And as it seems, there wont be as much continents around for launch, would mean that getting a meaningful lattience together would be kinda hard. Yet, with more continents, this would be totally possible, and something that simply HAS to be done. Higby answered what they want to happen in the AMAA:

2) How will you keep fights intense throught the day through changes in population through prime time, late night, early morning, etc.

We'll spool up fewer server generated missions with lower population. I'm hoping what will happen is there will be fewer simultaneous battles, but the battles will be just as intense.

To be fair, he has no idea. Yes, there will be fewer simultaneous battles, and they may be just as intense, but a rather large problem pops up during off hours: Ghost hacks. They where annoying as fuck sometimes, but with the territory system, i see them getting much whorse. Not just that, during off hours, when the pop is low, its likley that pop imbalance happens. The Basic formula is that the higher the overall population is, the closer it gets to 33% for each faction. During off hours, especially early morning, you would see empires having 40% or even more pop, global. On top of that, most would try to go to the big battle, means one continent may get a pop lock, but the others are left in the dark, makes them targets for happy ghost hackers. This could lead to situations where you log off after an intense evening on Cyssor, with each empire holding about 33% of the continent, and log on the next moring to see one empire holding most, if not all, of cyssor, just because the late night pop went to Indar, and the overpopped empire just ghosted Cyssor, because they can.

This needs to be adressed. But how? Well, this is how:
Obviously Ghost hacking needs to stay in game, as it is a vital thing. It replaces the Tech plant Gen holds of old. But there needs to be a way to to stop late night continent ghost hacks, or at least make them hard, without adding artificial game systems.
Sanctuarys, and therefore the ability to lock a continent and a lattience between conts, would fix the issue mostly. To put it simple, you cannot hack into every territory on a locked cont, you can only hack the territory next to a warpgate that leads to a continent where you own the territory next to the warpgate. Or in other words, exactly the same as in planetside right now: You can only hack Dagda on Forseral, if you own the base that is conneted to it via the warpgate. Once you have a single territory, feel free to hack any other territory on the continent, but the same rules apply as always (the more territory you have conneted to the territory you hack, the faster the hack goes).
This wouldnt prevent ghost hacks, but it makes them only possible if you have a link. To get back to the eariler example of Cyssor and Indar: The same could still happen, means the night pop goes to Indar and one empire just ghosts Cyssor. BUT, after that, they cant just head everywhere else and repeat for the rest of the night, they only have a small list of targets they can go to. A list small enough that makes it possible to defend them. This makes it much more likley that those guys who just got cyssor head for the big fight on indar for the rest of the night, with only a handful of ghost hackers roaming around.

Enough words? Or should i type some more?

Gandhi · 2012-03-25, 12:12 PM

What was broken with the old system of sanctuaries and interconnected continents? Sure it could have used some improvements especially in how the sanctuaries work, but I don't understand why the whole system was thrown out in favor of these new uncaptureable footholds and totally isolated continents.

I'd love to see a short breakdown about it that goes something like "Here's the problems we identified with the old system, here's the solutions we came up with and here's what we hope to have in the end".