News: Firing Line PlanetSide 2 Concerns

[Lonehunter]

In PS1 a continent could be taken in a day even with heavy resistance.

I imagine we'll see less of that in PS2 but I don't see it taking weeks, or even one week.

Graywolves makes a great point. People have been winning and losing in Planetside for years, it's just not acknowledged in such a way. We cap bases, towers, now outposts, territories, but it's still not a large scale victory.

Too many people are assuming "Victory" also means a map reset, or a timer, or some type of "match reset". It could just be Winning Conditions.

A very simple way for them to test something like this is with territories. Once an empire gets to a certain point they get bonuses like Stardouser mentioned

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

I don't agree; a round of Battlefield takes 30 minutes.

But because I don't have the benefit of your experience with PS1, I have to ask: How long does it typically take to drive an empire deep into its own territory? If it's a matter of 12 hours, then I am forced to agree that it's no better than Battlefield. But if the game world was designed such that it takes weeks to happen, that's different.

This is why I love my idea about having a sufficiently large game world and limiting the number of people and vehicles who can spawn at any individual base(ie, spawn 50 people at one base, so if you want a 200 man raid, you need to pull people from 4 bases). You can't steamroll the enemy that quickly because of those factors. But if the game world is going to be relatively small, then you can't have that kind of limit. I know the devs want to keep the number of inactive areas behind the lines minimized but maybe that's just not going to be possible for a proper campaign.

It depended on the amount of bases the empire had to start with, but I'd say an empire could probably go from a world lock to being sanc-locked (no based) within 12 hours...Certainly 24.

I just want to clarify (more for Gray than you), I'm not advocating a "win condition" by any means. I'm purely advocating a progression of the war...In the same way the persistence of your character only matters because of it's progression (levels, certs, implants, achieves etc.), the persistence of the world and the war needs progression too.

[Trolltaxi]

What could be the prize for the victory? It's easy to express feelings against something but without giving options to change that mechanic is not wise - the debate can easily turn pointless.

While I'm against a shiny "You are Victorious!" popup, I could imagine some small rewards for winning (well, we could have a good debate on what victory means at all in a game like PS, but let's save it for later).

But I don't have an idea what these small rewards could be.

[Whalenator]

Originally Posted by Trolltaxi

What could be the prize for the victory? It's easy to express feelings against something but without giving options to change that mechanic is not wise - the debate can easily turn pointless.

While I'm against a shiny "You are Victorious!" popup, I could imagine some small rewards for winning (well, we could have a good debate on what victory means at all in a game like PS, but let's save it for later).

But I don't have an idea what these small rewards could be.

The experience is the reward.

[DDSHADE]

I love the animations in PS and was sad to hear they wouldn't be in PS2 at launch, but was under the impression they'd be crazy not to add them in post launch or during beta.

It adds a level of depth in which the player sees their character in the 3rd person, which is also going to be missing from the game. I feel MMORPG players find deeper connections to their characters because the games are all in the 3rd person. Whenever I wasn't in combat in PS1 I would have 3rd person on to run around. It just made the game feel unique, and would be awesome to see return AT LEAST in vehicle enter/exit animations. They could make them faster, or happen as the vehicle starts moving.
Like the liberator gunner spots - you could lift off while someone is still climbing into that bomber hatch.

It looked freakin' bad ass.

And as for the point of locking a continent, I don't think that they could put that into PS2 just yet seeing as the game will ship with only 3 of the 10 continents. SO the devs could implement a DIFFERENT long term goal system to keep veteran players, and ones who need an end goal, happy.

The resources system sounds great, but the game needs to reward players for capturing ALL enemy zones that do X or even managing to push them back to their 'cont sanctuaries' and locking them in there. There should be a way to push them back to that and then win "A Point" towards something. Anything. But get something to acknowledge the overall effort of your empire.

These points could add up to something, like a faction unlock that doesn't add imbalance, but is a cool reward for everyone. Maybe a little amount of in game cash for players to spend. Maybe a new ES vehicle or weapon mod etc.. Just give the players something to fight towards in the long run.

To me, in PS1 the 'long run goal' was to capture to enemy home continents, giving your empire access to their vehicles. Why can't that happen, only in a different way?

Let players have access to enemy vehicles/weapons for capturing X amount of enemy vehicle depots or armory's.

PS2 devs - we NEED something to strive towards, even if you add it post launch, remember it would only add good things to the game!

[sylphaen]

I mentioned the idea a few times with almost no echo.

People have different meanings for victory:
1. total elimination of enemy empires:
Think about it, it is not a valid option in for 3-factions game MMO.

2. a victory condition:
Many variations are possible, some which would involve a reset and others keep the game running.


I am against resets so I believe a decent solution is to set-up a fair victory condition that is difficult to achieve and even more difficult to maintain once reached.

Those victories would be tracked and timed so they can be ranked in a Hall of fame. Any player of the winning empire online during the victory would get a merit for that specific victory.

We would thus be able to show-off who brought the victory condition alive, how long it lasted and who helped to make it last.
____________

There you go, that's how I see how a "superior long-term objective you are winning !" can be implemented in PS. Of course, you would truly win only if you participated in the best victory of all empires on your server.

There you go ! It's possible to have "you win" pop-ups along with an even harder goal: achieving the longest, most dominant victory on your server ! (and being able to say you were there)

As I say, think about solutions, their potential pitfalls and share where you get. It's always useful to see how others view things and I am pretty sure most of us would agree together on the best solution (or at least, which ones are the worst).

[Captain B]

An easy fix to the winning would just be to have a post on their upcoming interactive web content whenever an empire takes all the continents, showing the ebb and flow of the war over a series of hours/days, and how it was taken, by which outfits, MVPs, and of course the "SUCK IT TR" fanfare when NC does capture all the conts. Then you could go back and see "How many times has this empire 'won'?" See when, and look back and see all the battles that took place. Maybe let there be some social media application to it (which the devs said they wanted) where you can post comments at each site like war tales.

[KALU]

COME ON GUYS! forget the exit and entry animations!

I do agree on long term goals and long term skill trees but animations on the entry exit are just bells and whistles allot more important things are at stake!

I say lets get it out sooner and start the testing.

[ringring]

OK, how about Battle Honours?

In the British Forces a Battle Honour is awarded to a unit (e.g. Regiment) if that unit took a significant part in a major battle. for Instance the Coldstream Guards were awarded a Battle Honour for their fighting at the Battle of Talavera (1809).

As you would expect great pride is taken in these,

In PS2 Outfits and Individuals could be awarded Battle Honours for individual battles. These would be awarded automatically based on a formula which would include for an Outfit Battle Honour: size of battle (number of people involved/duration), xp won by outfit members (only those within outfit squads), squad/platoon/outfit kills, etc. etc.

The statistics for these would I think be captured in any case by SoE, all they'd need to do is run an analysis every 12 hours, say, and announce on the PS2 Website

"The following outfits have been awarded a Battle Honour for the Battle of Anu 25th March 2012) .... list......"
"The following characters have been awarded a Battle Honour for the Battle of Anu 25th March 2012) .... list......"

Outfits could pick up their Battle Honours via a web feed to display on their own outfit website.

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by KALU

COME ON GUYS! forget the exit and entry animations!

I do agree on long term goals and long term skill trees but animations on the entry exit are just bells and whistles allot more important things are at stake!

I say lets get it out sooner and start the testing.

It's a lot about the non-instant vehicle entry/exit, more than the animations.

Animations were incredibly awesome to feel you are in PS but are definitely not required.
Instant entry into vehicles, however, is very cheesy and steps should be taken to prevent it.

When PS1 was designed, choices were taken on issues such as holstering and vehicle entry mechanisms (I am not talking about animations, this is art design - I am talking about PS1 choice of instant entry into vehicles with activation time before the vehicle is active). Those choices are important parts of a larger design and how a game is played.

Thus, I totally agree with you: the game needs to be tested at once !


EDIT:

Originally Posted by Captain B

[...] whenever an empire takes all the continents [...]

As far as I know, this never happened in PS1 during the context of normal gameplay. Working as intended.

[ThGlump]

Originally Posted by KALU

COME ON GUYS! forget the exit and entry animations!

I do agree on long term goals and long term skill trees but animations on the entry exit are just bells and whistles allot more important things are at stake!

I say lets get it out sooner and start the testing.

I dont need animations. I just want that mechanics that animations provided.

• Able to to react/prepare to that somebody enter/leave vehicle.
• Enter/exit vehicle when its still (not jumping into tank at full speed)
• Specific spot to enter vehicle, for drivers, gunners etc.

Anything that provide this will be enough. I dont need proper animations with vehicle interior. Some form of teleportation similar to entering switchblade/cave turrets.

[BorisBlade]

The win condition in ps1 on the larger scale (beyond bases and towers etc) was the cont cap. if you capped that, you won. Thats what really the win condition in ps1. Bases and towers etc were not a win condition they were objectives to get that win. Your goal was to cap the cont. PS2 is just a clusterfuck round robin circle fest. Everyone just keeps constantly fighting on the same cont and moving around each other. Its LITERALLY intentionally designed to keep you from capping the entier cont. You will never get that meaningful continent capture. Even if they put in some lame resource number to get to, who cares, it changes nothing since it wont reset the map, you just keep doin the same boring circle around each other.

This is probably the most massive gameplay problem and since they dont have lattices nor do they have enough conts to do teh cont cap scenario, this will be tricky to fix.

What the cont caps provided in ps1 was a win condition, a chance to take a break from your multihour session, a chance to regroup, a chance to breathe an consider what to do next, or a natural stopping point if needed. It was perfect as a win condition. PS2 however wont have that, even if its a resource number that you get to and says "you win", it does nothing to change whats actually goin on and its meaningless, if you lost a cont in ps1 you generally regrouped and moved on. There was a finality to it, may not be forever but its long enough for me to think that we won that cont.

With their intentionally zergy and spread out design, and other systems, how do you even make a meaningful win condition? And I swear if they put up a daily resource count for a win then im gonna drive over and punch some SOE guy in his nuts. Thats idiotic, boring, meaningless, and would be just plain lazy on their part.

[Ruwyn]

Originally Posted by WildVS

I don't believe they are gearing this game for multi-hour playstyles. 30 minutes might be more like it. Hop in blow some stuff up, check my stats maybe buy a hat or a new shirt and come back tomorrow.

lame...

[Bags]

imo the game doesn't need a meaningful victory outside of cont/bases to be fun~

[Stardouser]

Everquest is one of the best MMOs for having variable content servers. It its golden era, it had 3 pvp servers ,it has a roleplaying server that also has all tradeable loot, and it has started at least 4 progression servers so that people can do it all over again.

Perhaps Planetside should take a cue from the guys on the other side of the office and have one of the servers be a Victory server. Those that want to play there, can do so.