Player Organized Gameplay - The Best "Meta Game" Possible

[Tatwi]

As I was drifting off to sleep the other night, my mind wandered onto the topic of players being banned for stat padding while engaging in organized game play. All of a sudden, like a freight train hurling through my temples, I thought to myself, "Holly hell, is this the Twilight Zone?".

The issue I am referring to is, of course, being discussed on that Reddit thing here and started with a quote from that Twitter thing,

After a couple of replies on my view of the topic on the official forums (pity me for going there...), I finally formulated what I believe is the thrust of my initial thoughts on the matter here. I shall quote,

I Wrote:

Cheating and organizing games with your friends are entirely different concepts, which is what SOE fails to understand. Organized play in PS2 is only cheating, because SOE chooses to put a stats database ahead of player's ability to control their environment and organize themselves.

Think of it terms of a sports league and you'll see how crazy SOE is being by lumping people who want to "game the system" together with people who just want to play the game in an enjoyable manner. If sports teams didn't organize players and schedule events, the whole ecosystem of their game would be chaotic and unsuccessful. If leagues were only able to organize their own team and never schedule events with other teams, simply waiting around on the field for random times when another team might show up, then neither the league nor its fan would stick around very long.

Organized multi faction events are pretty much the best "meta game" that could ever happen in Planetside 2. If the stats and battle rank systems are getting in the way of that, then the stats and battle ranks should be removed, not the player organized game play.

I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone when SOE and some players come out with this stuff, like punishing people for playing the game together...

Seriously, I ... I just don't know what to say at this point, I am astoundingly flabbergasted by SOE's approach to this topic. If anything should be encouraged in Planetside 2, it should be the epic amount of community building that happens with player run events! 100% of the content in Planetside 2 is "other people" and making the game fun for people is hands down the best way to hammer home how and why the game is amazing and unique in the market.

I just don't get it. Is SOE that in love with their MLG stats pro gamer esports stuff that they're willing to actively punish players for playing the game together? That's a sad thing, right? I'm not crazy for thinking so, am I?

Like... "what the actual fuck?", as the kids would say these days.

[Fazed]

So the link between stat padding and organized player is that you'll end up killing the same people more often which may look like stat padding ?

Or you just let two medics ress everyone after a 5 on 5 go on ?

Please enlighten me.

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by Fazed

So the link between stat padding and organized player is that you'll end up killing the same people more often which may look like stat padding ?

Yes, sorry I didn't do a good job of clarifying that is the problem.

SOE is lumping cross faction organized players (who will obviously kill each other more often, because they are having a match with each other) in with cheaters (who are kill trading), using an automated system that issues bans and battle rank resets, "because stats".

If there weren't any stats, much like there weren't really an stats in the original Planetside, then who cares how people choose to play the game? If they aren't hacking/griefing/exploiting, then more power to them for finding what they enjoy - hopefully when they come back they'll bring more friends!

----

At this point in the story of Planetside 2, I just can't believe how right I was about the need to put community building at the for front of game development, when I posted about it back on the PS1 forums. The most important aspect of this particular game was building a strong, large, and stable community, yet SOE has had consistent failures in this regard, from day one. I didn't post this as an "I told you so", but looking back on it, I really did tell them so right off the bat, just as they got the ball rolling on the project. And I reiterated it many times since then as well. I'm not trying to crap on SOE for making "PR mistake" game play changes, failing to make a game than would actually run acceptably for most people who tried it (two other important factors that pushed players away), failing to achieve many road map items, and failing to put the community building first. I'm just looking back on how this stuff happened and pointing out that some of it was avoidable.

And to clarify to the SOE Community Team: I am not referring you guys at all. You did a fantastic job at your part of the equation! The community building failures are in the game and game play itself, as exemplified by the plethora of "kill streak" videos and small number of "fun times with my outfit" videos you'll find on youtube.

All it takes is a look a SWGEmu to see how making a game with strong community building game play systems will create the person to person bonds that are required to weather even the worst issues the game itself can throw at the players. So many people, myself included, are still working on and playing Star Wars Galaxies, despite the extremely annoying and convoluted work required to complete or add content to it and the ever present bugs and lack of completion in the emulator project(s) when playing it. A few thousand people still play, because they made a bond with each other and the game. That's the "smoking gun" for the success of an online game.

The thing with Planetside 2 is that, as far as shooter games go, folks have a lot of options out there already. PS2 needed, desperately, for PEOPLE to bond with each other to grow the player base, revenue, and game. It didn't happen, save for probably a couple hundred die hards and their transient associates. That's a bummer.

Anyhow, it's hard to believe this anti-player generated content mind set is happening, when PS2 was supposed to be all about player generated content and SOE is heavy into EQ Landmark, which is almost entirely player generated content... Again, I don't "get" where this disconnect came from. I'd love to hear Smed's thoughts on it too, because he was really gungho about player generate content for PS2 in the lead up to beta.

[Skittles]

Not sure what is more comical here:

The fact that SOE NOW thinks that stats padding is to such an epidemic proportion that it must be BR1/ban-able 2 years into its game.

Or,

The fact that people are worried about being banned for stat padding to this game this late in its life.

Both carry with them a chuckle in my heart.

[ringring]

tbh I think stat padding is distinguishable from scrimmaging. I don't see the issue.

If you think there's any danger do your event on PTS which is what most people do when they don't have access to jaeger.

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by ringring

tbh I think stat padding is distinguishable from scrimmaging. I don't see the issue.

If you think there's any danger do your event on PTS which is what most people do when they don't have access to jaeger.

One would think so, but here is SOE's response to a ticket submitted by andy_m on the official forums.

SOE Wrote:
"We would not consider using one weapon to be stat padding as long as you are playing the game normally. If you would like to organize a fight with another player or outfit I would recommend doing so on the test server, as we do consider kill trading to be Stat Padding and in violation of our Code of Conduct. Although the intention may be to have a fair fight between two groups of players, it is better do this on the test server to avoid any confusion. If there are any further questions or concerns we can address please feel free to contact us.”

Yeah, so I have woken up in Bizzaroworld, where SOE thinks it's a good idea to tell people who want to play with their friends that they can only do it on the junky, purposely buggy, test server.

Smed... wth man. Is this really all you've got? You can do better than this.

[BlaxicanX]

I honestly don't even see why anyone gives a shit about stat-padding.

"Billy got on his TR toon and his best friend Joel got on his Vanu toon, and they met in the middle of Amerish on Connery with sunderers, deployed them and took turns killing each other for 6 hours. They now both have a K/D ratio of 900.

Who cares? How does this objectively hurt the game or the community in any way?

[Stardouser]

So while EQN (currently Landmark) is ALL about player generated content, SOE is creating, and/or through bureaucratic apathy allowing to exist, an anti-player generated content atmosphere in Planetside 2. Is that about right?

I guess we can understand that their automatic system tracking sees multiple traded kills and flags it, but you'd really like to see a better customer service response than simply what amounts to do this on Test or risk wipe or ban.

It may be time they split the game and offered people the ability to rent private servers with map sections designed for 64-128 players, ala Battlefield. Example - a map that includes TI Alloys, Crown, and Crossroads. Granted there would be some stuff to work out (such as, it'd likely only work for 2 empires), but I'd say the demand is there.