News: Community Q&A With Higby

[Hamma]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/n...higby-2745.htm

Special thanks to MgFalcon for doing this! Came out great.

[Magpie]

Awesome!!

[NewSith]

I say wait for beta on the ticket thing, but, I'd rather had good old CCs and REKs...

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Higby

Well Aircraft it’s really important to get situational awareness - like how high am I off the ground, how far am I from hitting this object, we’re gonna make it really hard for you to aim and shoot in 3rd person in the vehicle. It’s more for if you’re purely flying, or dogfighting trying to escape, or something like that you might want to switch to 3rd person to be able to go through obstacles. But it's not something you’re going to be using while you’re strafing and killing guys because the camera is going to be dynamic and won’t show crosshairs so you won't know where you’re aiming very well. You won’t even be able to put a post-it note on the middle of your screen and have that work either, because the camera is gonna shift around a little bit - so it won’t always be perfect.

Higby, its pretty important for vehicles too. Nobody ever gunned from third person in tanks/atvs/lightnings/etc, it was just beneficial for driving through trees and avoiding squishing friendlies in a base. And popping out with a vehicle is nowhere near as effective with infantry, since vehicles have actual inertia and acceleration times, something infantry lacks.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Feels like there's too much against back line operations. I don't see where you could pull an effective gen hold anymore.

[SkitzoSniper]

I like the information he gave on outfit stuff. Now that outfitmothership could be interesting, espcially if other outfits can attack it and destroy it. that will make it very interesting

[Stardouser]

Higby: I've read a lot of these threads and seen a lot of people who say these guys are trying to make a game for the millions of FPS players out there and that's true. I mean we don't want to make a 2003 FPS experience because that's too hardcore and the reason the FPS genre was small back then was because it was too hardcore. Making it a little more mainstream with features like spotting is just a way to help new players with the game that’s already so crazy in terms of the amount of stuff going on. It’s gonna be hard for somebody new to be able to adopt and have fun with. I don't consider that stuff to be dumbing down really either it’s just a different tool; another tool you have access to use. So in a way it’s making it more complicated because now I have another tool I'm aware of and as a player running around I have to be aware that I can be getting spotted right now. And if I am getting spotted other players can shoot at me and I might not necessarily see them... there's a lot of strategy to that. And I've talked a lot about the kill cam too, I mean the kill cam we had a GDC isn't what our killcam is gonna look like - it won't reveal positions in the final version.

1. Helping new players is admirable and all, Higby, but new players stop being new after a while, yet the casualized features remain even when everyone is vets. If this is truly your reason, then these features should cease to be available to a player who has 50+ hours. Catering to new players isn't mainstream, it's casualized, it's an extreme. Whereas a realism sim with no spotting would be the opposite extreme. Mainstream would be middle ground, something between.

Or even better, how about when servers reach a certain maturity level, the crutches are turned off, and special Newbie servers are created where people that need the crutches have them? Or simply have server options to begin with? It looks like casual players aren't going to give up the fight for friendly fire off, so you might as well cater to the ENTIRE community by having some servers with FF off, 3D spot on, etc, and other servers with FF on, 3D spot off, etc.

Let me assure you that there is a large section of the Battlefield community that doesn't want this, either. There IS DEFINITELY enough demand to justify making special servers with FF on and 3D spot off. And SOE has a precedent for this as well. Everquest has PvP servers, a server where all loot is tradeable, progression servers, LOTS of specialty servers. I call upon SOE to serve their community in the same way with respect to these things.

2. Calling it strategy is a smokescreen, 3D spotting is stealth-ruining. As a result, it takes away as many strategies as it offers. If one guys sees you and is able to broadcast your exact location in 3D to 200 other guys nearby, that's stealth ruining and defeats the purpose of even attempting to flank or do anything but charge straight ahead. In open areas, 3D spotting also increases the game's killing pace and causes people to run 500 yards out of their way to get kills instead of proceeding to the objective.

There's also the idea of making 3D spotting Squad Only(NOT empire-wide). That would be helpful as well and encourage squadding up.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

1. Helping new players is admirable and all, Higby, but new players stop being new after a while, yet the casualized features remain even when everyone is vets. If this is truly your reason, then these features should cease to be available to a player who has 50+ hours. Catering to new players isn't mainstream, it's casualized, it's an extreme. Whereas a realism sim with no spotting would be the opposite extreme. Mainstream would be middle ground, something between.

Or even better, how about when servers reach a certain maturity level, the crutches are turned off, and special Newbie servers are created where people that need the crutches have them? Or simply have server options to begin with? It looks like casual players aren't going to give up the fight for friendly fire off, so you might as well cater to the ENTIRE community by having some servers with FF off, 3D spot on, etc, and other servers with FF on, 3D spot off, etc.

Let me assure you that there is a large section of the Battlefield community that doesn't want this, either. There IS DEFINITELY enough demand to justify making special servers with FF on and 3D spot off. And SOE has a precedent for this as well. Everquest has PvP servers, a server where all loot is tradeable, progression servers, LOTS of specialty servers. I call upon SOE to serve their community in the same way with respect to these things.

2. Calling it strategy is a smokescreen, 3D spotting is stealth-ruining. As a result, it takes away as many strategies as it offers. If one guys sees you and is able to broadcast your exact location in 3D to 200 other guys nearby, that's stealth ruining and defeats the purpose of even attempting to flank or do anything but charge straight ahead. In open areas, 3D spotting also increases the game's killing pace and causes people to run 500 yards out of their way to get kills instead of proceeding to the objective.

There's also the idea of making 3D spotting Squad Only(NOT empire-wide). That would be helpful as well and encourage squadding up.

Not that I want to have exactly the same conversation with you again Star, we've been through this enough times now and undoubtedly SOE have read absolutely everything we've all been saying, all that can be done is to wait and see precisely how they've decided to implement it in beta. They know the concerns.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Not that I want to have exactly the same conversation with you again Star, we've been through this enough times now and undoubtedly SOE have read absolutely everything we've all been saying, all that can be done is to wait and see precisely how they've decided to implement it in beta. They know the concerns.

True enough...but now that it looks like they like 3D spotting no matter how many people complain about it(much like DICE), I think it's important to switch gears and ask for specialty servers without it. That might be the best we can get, I think. Unlike many other companies, it IS true the SOE has been known to provide specialty servers with alternate rulesets. Just putting in the request now

[Zulthus]

God forbid players actually have to look around the screen to find players. I hate 3d spotting. I have a grudge against it. That's what VOIP/macros are for.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

True enough...but now that it looks like they like 3D spotting no matter how many people complain about it(much like DICE), I think it's important to switch gears and ask for specialty servers without it. That might be the best we can get, I think. Unlike many other companies, it IS true the SOE has been known to provide specialty servers with alternate rulesets. Just putting in the request now

Well it looked like it was implemented like BF3 in the GDC footage and el capitano higgles said that was NOT how they were going to be implementing it, so I hold out that it's going to be different, much like the killcam.

Why hasn't anybody directly asked the question of exactly how they intend to implement as opposed to the vague "Are you implementing 3D spotting" type questions? It's pretty imperative to find out exactly how SOE want to implement first before really delving into whether we agree with it's implementation or not, for all we know it could be a glorious method of implementation that solves everything we've discussed much like the overreaction to killcams, I have no doubt internal discussions brought up many of the same thoughts we've had discussing it here. Everything we've discussed about it so far has been purely speculation. Really all we've discussed is how BF3's version could be made better, as opposed to whether Planetside's version is agreeable or not.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Well it looked like it was implemented like BF3 in the GDC footage and el capitano higgles said that was NOT how they were going to be implementing it, so I hold out that it's going to be different, much like the killcam.

Why hasn't anybody directly asked the question of exactly how they intend to implement as opposed to the vague "Are you implementing 3D spotting" type questions? It's pretty imperative to find out exactly how SOE want to implement first before really delving into whether we agree with it's implementation or not, for all we know it could be a glorious method of implementation that solves everything we've discussed much like the overreaction to killcams, I have no doubt internal discussions brought up many of the same thoughts we've had discussing it here. Everything we've discussed about it so far has been purely speculation. Really all we've discussed is how BF3's version could be made better, as opposed to whether Planetside's version is agreeable or not.

I wish I shared your optimism, but I and many at Mordor have been fighting against 3D spotting since the day BF3's development was announced, long before DICE was willing to talk about details. Even with an early start, it didn't do any good, it wasn't limited to squad only, the only limitation was that they removed the wallhack aspect from BC2, but that proved not to be enough. As it stands, I find SOE devs' attitudes about listening to the community quite refreshing, that's why it's all the more important to get an early start in lobbying, that way they have something to listen to. Although I have to say, I was content to let the results of our discussions in the 3D spotting thread lie dormant for a while, I am not really trying to reignite the discussion, but I feel I must respond to Higby's comments in the Q&A.

I would ask how they intend to implement it, but they obviously aren't ready to say yet. If they were, they would have jumped in on one of the threads here or especially he could have said how they would do it as part of his Q&A response.

[PantherModern]

Great interview! Answered a lot of my questions, especially about the medic. It sounds like we will be getting bubble shields and heal grenades, which makes me very happy.

[Sirisian]

Hmm, not the questions I would have picked. Was hoping for at least 1 resource question that people asked.

[mr sandman]

i have never played planetside and i was wondering if it would still be worthit to get the first planetside.