"Speeding it up"

[The Kush]

For me the fun about an mmo is the times when you have massive coordination and teamwork. This is why planetside stole my heart. The game had some amazing memories of large groups working efficiently and cooperatively together to achieve a common goal. With all this "speeding up" and multiple spawn points and faster kills and more capture points the game is losing what made it so great for me. Maybe I am just crazy, but I don't want this game to "speed up" because the reason I liked it was the time and effort it took to capture a base, kill an enemy, ect. and this is what gave us the amazing teamwork, faction loyalty, and feeling of accomplishment we all loved and desired.

I hope the beta proves me wrong and this game is still centered around teamwork. I know it's kinda early to be worried but it doesn't hurt to point out that speeding the game up too much could potntially hurt the game.

[Bags]

I don't see what any of that has to do with teamwork; moving faster and killing faster doesn't have anything to do with teamwork or faction loyalty or feeling of accomplishment.

[iSpectre]

By "Speeding up" you mean the faster killing?
You mentioned the spreading out of Capture points - Why is that bad?
if anything it means you won't be forced to play in massive swarms or join a random group already in a war.
you'll be able to stick it out with something as small as a group of 8-12 mates and target specific capture points - Which would benefit those that like to coordinate in smaller - specialized groups.

[Shogun]

the TTK looks too fast.

in a game where you can do so many different things and have to face so many enemys at once it sucks to be killed in a second.

it´s ok that the movement or means of deployment were sped up, but the TTK needs to be reduced a little.
the vehicles feel useless if everything can shoot them in seconds. especially those that are supposed to be armored and powerful. a lightning should not be able to kill a main battle tank in seconds!
a longer TTK better displays the differences of the vehicles and soldiers! if everything dies almost from the first shot of any weapon, what´s the point of all the diversity?

in ps1 it really mattered to use the right weapon against specific targets. and only the best specialized weapon would kill its designated target that fast. wrong weapon/target combinations resulted in a harsh and long firefight, sometimes with almost no damage being dealt at all. that was a lot of fun.

[Sabrak]

Originally Posted by Shogun

it´s ok that the movement or means of deployment were sped up, but the TTK needs to be reduced a little.
the vehicles feel useless if everything can shoot them in seconds. especially those that are supposed to be armored and powerful. a lightning should not be able to kill a main battle tank in seconds!
a longer TTK better displays the differences of the vehicles and soldiers! if everything dies almost from the first shot of any weapon, what´s the point of all the diversity?

I agree with that.
A quick TTK is alright when you're in a 32vs32 battle, but what will happen with hundreds of players in?

And when a tank will appear on the battlefield and be taken as a target by some anti vehicle guys? Two/three shots and it's over? Meh...

But all this is balance related, and that's something that will (hopefully) be tweaked in beta if it's really needed.
We shall see in time.

[Mechzz]

Originally Posted by Sabrak

And when a tank will appear on the battlefield and be taken as a target by some anti vehicle guys? Two/three shots and it's over? Meh...

We know Higby is a BF fan, and that is exactly what happens in BF. But it doesn't stop peeps hopping in a tank and having a good time.

And there will be sidegrades to improve the survivability of your vehicle, anti-mine armour etc.

On reflection overnight I will admit to a bit of concern over the "universal" launcher. I'm all in favour of decent hand-held AA/AV for grunts, but you should at least have to change the ammo for AA vs AV. I don't recall TB doing that.

[Sabrak]

Originally Posted by Mechzz

We know Higby is a BF fan, and that is exactly what happens in BF. But it doesn't stop peeps hopping in a tank and having a good time.

Yes, but in BF, there are about 32 ennemies in front of you. And not all of them will have the weapon needed to take you down.

In Planetside 2, with the hundreds of ennemies and all the different weapons/vehicles, 32 isn't even close to the number of threats you'll get for your MBT.
And if only 3 shots can kill you, you won't stay alive for long, which is a problem.

In PS1 a MBT was a threat to almost everyone, and taking cover was a rule if you didn't wanna get in big trouble, even if you had the weapon to destroy it, because the thing was hard to kill.

But again, we need to see it running with hundreds of players first, and get to test it ourselves before being sure of what is good and what isn't.

[Mechzz]

Originally Posted by Sabrak

Yes, but in BF, there are about 32 ennemies in front of you. And not all of them will have the weapon needed to take you down.

In Planetside 2, with the hundreds of ennemies and all the different weapons/vehicles, 32 isn't even close to the number of threats you'll get for your MBT.
And if only 3 shots can kill you, you won't stay alive for long, which is a problem.

In PS1 a MBT was a threat to almost everyone, and taking cover was a rule if you didn't wanna get in big trouble, even if you had the weapon to destroy it, because the thing was hard to kill.

But again, we need to see it running with hundreds of players first, and get to test it ourselves before being sure of what is good and what isn't.

I agree with the concern about vehicle longevity when a massive base fight is in the offing. But for smaller encounters the shorter TTK is fine. And it could be that the new hex and resource system means we have more small battles and the more occasional biggy. And for the biggy, we may need new tactics. There are peeps who enjoy finding new tactics.

All speculation, i know, and I'm more than happy to be proven wrong in beta, cos we should all have maximum fun playing, and if I'm wrong it should mean the "funnest" gameplay won out.

[Sturmhardt]

Originally Posted by Shogun

the TTK looks too fast.

in a game where you can do so many different things and have to face so many enemys at once it sucks to be killed in a second.

it´s ok that the movement or means of deployment were sped up, but the TTK needs to be reduced a little.
the vehicles feel useless if everything can shoot them in seconds. especially those that are supposed to be armored and powerful. a lightning should not be able to kill a main battle tank in seconds!
a longer TTK better displays the differences of the vehicles and soldiers! if everything dies almost from the first shot of any weapon, what´s the point of all the diversity?

in ps1 it really mattered to use the right weapon against specific targets. and only the best specialized weapon would kill its designated target that fast. wrong weapon/target combinations resulted in a harsh and long firefight, sometimes with almost no damage being dealt at all. that was a lot of fun.

I couldn't agree more, the TTK needs to go down, right now kills look very easy. I always liked that about PS1: The best player wins, and not the player who was lucky enough to spot his victim first.

And also if you wanna play a game all night long, you need to be able to relax a little and coordinate with your squadmates.

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by The Kush

For me the fun about an mmo is the times when you have massive coordination and teamwork. This is why planetside stole my heart. The game had some amazing memories of large groups working efficiently and cooperatively together to achieve a common goal. With all this "speeding up" and multiple spawn points and faster kills and more capture points the game is losing what made it so great for me. Maybe I am just crazy, but I don't want this game to "speed up" because the reason I liked it was the time and effort it took to capture a base, kill an enemy, ect. and this is what gave us the amazing teamwork, faction loyalty, and feeling of accomplishment we all loved and desired.

I hope the beta proves me wrong and this game is still centered around teamwork. I know it's kinda early to be worried but it doesn't hurt to point out that speeding the game up too much could potntially hurt the game.

No matter how fast a game is you can still have teamwork? Me and some friends would use teamwork all the time in MW3, so if you can do it in something like MW3 then you can easily do it in Planetside 2.

[Shamrock]

I don't think you should be able to kill an MBT in seconds, PS1 had it just about right. I wouldn't want vehicles like "Unreal tournament" that feel paper thin. As an infantry man when you see an enemy tank you should feel threatened to either run or take cover even if you did have an RPG available in your load out.

[RodenyC]

This is one of those things I really have to see in beta.From videos though,it does indeed look fast.I mean when you have hundreds of people fighting over a base if it takes 3 seconds for one person to kill imagine with hundreds.Same goes for vehicles.It should indeed be hard for infantry to kill a tank and in gameplay videos they die with the snap of a finger.So again I would have to get a fell for and see if it's a twitch reflex game.

[MacXXcaM]

Originally Posted by RodenyC

This is one of those things I really have to see in beta.From videos though,it does indeed look fast.I mean when you have hundreds of people fighting over a base if it takes 3 seconds for one person to kill imagine with hundreds.Same goes for vehicles.It should indeed be hard for infantry to kill a tank and in gameplay videos they die with the snap of a finger.So again I would have to get a fell for and see if it's a twitch reflex game.

Agree.

About speed in general:
I really liked Planetside1 for the fact you had too travel a certain amount of time. Killing people did take some time, too. And that's where teamwork comes in... You have to organize your squad to take down tanks or other infanterists.

I like the CQC in Battlefield 3 but I don't think it will apply in PS2. If everyone will be killed as easy as in BF3, you want see these really huge firefights going on anymore.

[Snipefrag]

If you don't think of it as 'speeding it up' but more as 'removing the slightly annoying tedium of getting around' then I cant see how it can be detrimental to gameplay. I loved PS1 but the FPS elements really suffered because of the massive downtime you would accrue over a play session just trying to get around. Some may say that's part of the journey, but SOE are selling an FPS so that side of things has to be up to scratch.

[Stardouser]

I believe that the game should have a properly balanced pace. That means that infantry should be able to sprint, and have unrestricted squad spawning(to be clear: squad spawning would be restricted to leader spawn only, but you could use it indoors), and of course, you also can respawn on Galaxies. Oh, and vehicles are available to everyone, that makes everyone fast, too. These things make the game faster, and it should be offset by HUGE maps, and a moderate TTK instead of an extreme low TTK.

To be clear, TTK is not just bullet damage, it's also the effects of deviation(cone of fire to you), recoil, weapon rate of fire, effective range, and many other things, including even hit detection. Yes, you heard that right : When technology makes hit detection better, TTK goes down and weapons get deadlier. And so, to the infantry gameplay we saw on TB's video, I would propose it take about 1.5 more bullets to kill, and then there be some meaningful deviation and recoil. Perhaps even look at lowering the rounds per minute slightly. As far as deviation, understand this : Random deviation should be fairly high if you fire while moving or fire from the hip, but if you stop and aim down sight it will be reduced to zero. Understand also that even if you do stop and ADS, you're still going to have recoil.

Under normal circumstances, the huge maps would offset the fast pace caused by sprinting, squad spawning, etc and make the pace perfect. However, we've seen jump pads now...what ELSE are we going to see that will nullify the pace balance that huge maps bring?

Originally Posted by Bags

I don't see what any of that has to do with teamwork; moving faster and killing faster doesn't have anything to do with teamwork or faction loyalty or feeling of accomplishment.

It has everything to do with it. If the game pace is so fast that it's one big meatgrind, then teamwork means nothing.

Battlefield 3 proves this, albeit on a much smaller scale. The TTK and time between kills is so fast that there's no time to even bother with commo rose(voice macro VVV system to you guys) presets. Hell, some people don't even bother with VOIP.

And only the people with superb twitch skills feel like they accomplished much in BF3.

Faction loyalty is of course, meaningless to this.