Finally read the roadmap - no meta game?

[Malorn]

The important takeaway is that "metagame" is too ambiguous. Even the community can't agree on what it means, as evidenced by the wide variety of ideas on the metagame design idea project from Reddit (I read all of those, btw, thanks to all who contributed!). If you want inter-continental warfare, say that instead of "metagame." Just be more specific.

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The important takeaway is that "metagame" is too ambiguous. Even the community can't agree on what it means, as evidenced by the wide variety of ideas on the metagame design idea project from Reddit (I read all of those, btw, thanks to all who contributed!). If you want inter-continental warfare, say that instead of "metagame." Just be more specific.

Personally, I want buggy racing on Amerish, Tommi Makinen style.

[Stanis]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The important takeaway is that "metagame" is too ambiguous. Even the community can't agree on what it means, as evidenced by the wide variety of ideas on the metagame design idea project from Reddit (I read all of those, btw, thanks to all who contributed!). If you want inter-continental warfare, say that instead of "metagame." Just be more specific.

• I'd like a continental warfare where we can reinvigorate the Amerish-Solsar-Searhus strategy.
• I'd like seamless immersion in the game world: Warpgate traversal.
• I'd like continental conflict to reward the player as much for achieving territorial dominance as kills. (Currently its K/D for certs)
• I'd like those battles to stay 'won' based on the intercontinental warfare, without a cheese lockout timer.
• I'd like conflict to have meaning - a circular fights over 3 bases that is finally broken after hours or days are the epic firefights of PS1. Currently they are an hourly circle over allatum/hvar/quartz for example and far from epic in scale.
• I'd like viable objectives for single squads to hold, defend, take and divert. Right now where the zerg turns up is about the only place to fight. There is no benefit, link or consequence to losing any individual territory with the exception of tech plants .. and that feels 'meh'.

In short .. the spirit of PS1 that made for great battles sometimes lasting days to fight for you empire and territory rather than a KD cert fest.
This is where a metagame unique to PS2 will develop from.

[NapalmEnima]

Originally Posted by Mox

Intercontinental Warfare is the metagame in planetside. Everything else are simple game mechanics.
There is no icw on the roadmap. Therefore it sucks!

Err, wha?! So dropping gens to sever links doesn't count? Draining the NTUs from a base in the back field to make it cappable doesn't count? Deciding which lattice link to follow next and why doesn't count?

Plus that whole caves/overworld interaction thing. Modules and such. Continent lock benefits. Moar facility benefits, though the tech plant took the cake in the Good Old Days too.

Admittedly, PS2 has some of the "decide which adjacent thing to attack next", but with hex adjacency rather than lattice links.

[Soothsayer]

The concept I want that gets folded into the term metagame is the concept of persistence.

I want a build up over time to an event (not in the sense of a PR event) that has significance in the history of PS2. I want a moment that can be pointed at, saying, "This happened and we all recognize that it was important. We all took part and we all had a role to play in making that moment something that was really cool and worth our efforts in achieving it."

[Rockit]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The important takeaway is that "metagame" is too ambiguous. Even the community can't agree on what it means, as evidenced by the wide variety of ideas on the metagame design idea project from Reddit (I read all of those, btw, thanks to all who contributed!). If you want inter-continental warfare, say that instead of "metagame." Just be more specific.

Well my friend you know from early beta and even prior, before you were SOE what we are referring to. Metagame to me is giving meaning to the game beyond just the moment to moment shooting each other. Basically an answer to this question "What the hell are we fighting for?". Planeside mantra dictates... "For Land, For Power, Forever". Facilitate that and we will get somewhere.

[moosepoop]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The important takeaway is that "metagame" is too ambiguous. Even the community can't agree on what it means, as evidenced by the wide variety of ideas on the metagame design idea project from Reddit (I read all of those, btw, thanks to all who contributed!). If you want inter-continental warfare, say that instead of "metagame." Just be more specific.

anything that adds depth to mindless shooting, and adds planning and strategy to taking bases.

[EVILoHOMER]

I just feel like by the time the content that should have been there at launch has been added in I wont care. I mean with the PS4 probably coming this year, the mass of games like Bioshock, GTA5, probably some sort of Battlefield, Dayz SA, ArmA 3, Tomb Raider, The Last of Us.... I could go on and on and on, it's going to be a busy year! I'm busy with Ni No Kuni already and that will last me a month and there will be like 20 other amazing games launched by March by the looks of it I'd probably have forgotten all about Planetside 2.

It doesn't help that all my friends tried the game, some played Planetside, some haven't and none of them liked it for reasons that are constantly brought up and many on the 6 month road map. However none of my friends mention the game any more, most people never give a game a second chance and this is something SOE never learn. I loved Planetside to bits, I'll never forget my time with it until everyone quit around the time BFRs were released. However If I never played Planetside 2 again, I wouldn't feel much of a loss. That is the exact opposite of how I feel about say waiting for Dayz SA right now, I'm dead excited for that and the fixes it'll bring. With Planetside 2 however, even if the fixes come in that I wanted from beta... I don't think I'm going to care too much.

I feel like SOE had their chance to hook me in with Planetside 2 during the fall of last year where there wasn't really much exciting going on as it all got delayed till 2013. I dunno what the servers are like now but they died down dramatically to the point where you didn't find the massive battles there once was at launch. Most of the time the servers were empty and you could only play during a certain time of day for big battles. A game like Planetside 2 you need big battles or you might as well play something else because that is what you login to Planetside 2 for. Planetside suffered from the same issue and I don't understand why they didn't make the game serverless on the player side so the population was always focused.

+ I'm still waiting for the underslung MCG to get on the store and for SOE to realize you don't take cover with a MCG, you run and gun. There are lots of other generic bland weapons in game to take cover with, I don't want to, I want the proper MCG back and not the shit that is in there now.

[Rivenshield]

Originally Posted by EVILoHOMER

It doesn't help that all my friends tried the game, some played Planetside, some haven't and none of them liked it for reasons that are constantly brought up and many on the 6 month road map.

Yeah. I know that feel. None of the RL or Internet friends I've induced to try are still playing. Not interested.

I just logged in for the first time in a week and dropped into the middle of a biolab fight. It was next to a buncha TR hexes, so I figured I could meet up with *somebody* there... but no, it was the smurfs and barneys hammering each other. I died on impact.

After five minutes worth of clicking and running, I finally found the Terran zerg parked outside an enemy base. There were a few minutes of ducking through the gate shields and trying to get to the gens and dying randomly to people I couldn't see, then apparently someone blew it up. The tanks poured in. The usual complete slaughter of the defenders took place. They were boxed into the spawn room and farmed mercilessly until the base flipped. I didn't quite muster the patience to sit around and wait. I logged. Frig it.

Where are the hackers? Where is the derring-do with boomers, trying to sneak in and *blow* the gen? Where's the minefields you have to creep around? Where is the fierce joy of gunning the defenders in their tubes? Where's the menu of defensive and offensive options that besieger and besieged can fence with? Why, nine times in ten that I can recall, is the only freaking fight on Connery in or around The Crown -- and why does it get less fun once it moves away (like tonight?) Why is Planetside 2 an arid desert of gameplay where you either run and gun or join a vehicle zerg? (And where's the music by Don Ferrone? Boy did we get gypped on that one.)

I recall bridge battles on Cyssor better than my ten-fifteen minutes of pointless gameplay tonight. Tunnels -- multiple egresses from spawn-outhouses that are invulnerable on the one hand and death traps on the other, and which never should have been placed outside to begin with -- aren't going to fix any of this. They aren't even a palliative.

The ebb and flow of battle in this game simply isn't *fun*. Much less memorable.

Malorn.... save us.

/slumps

[Roark]

theres not much of a personal investment into your empire and its progress.

why would i bother going to amerish to stop vanu from conquering it, when i know that im first of all greatly outpopped (a separate issue but connected), and second that i will not be penalized for failing to prevent the conquest.

its odd that there is actually NO incentive at all, i mean think about basic human emotion. what really drives people to achieve things. are you going to be able to make people love their empire through and through? i hope not haha, but even just tallying up the conquests will tap into peoples pride enough for them to say "f**k this i am not losing amerish again to those vanu scumbags."

ideally though conquest should be very difficult, and the reward of managing to finally wrestle a continent under your empires control should be memorable and leave the player feeling like they played a distinct role and like they contributed to something larger than himself (is that not the point of empires?). it should take days and weeks to consolidate a continent... not a nighttime zerg-fest.

plus if factions could be driven entirely off continents. fighting for survival is a great motivator... id probably take a day off work if i knew my empire was facing near extinction

fix the resource management so that territories are hard to conquer, mean a lot to an empire, and take a LOT longer to cap. leave the quicker capping for auxiliary hexes. honestly i believe that the majority of issues players have with this game stem from the resource system, and that by fixing the system, a whole bunch of seemingly non-associated issues will be resolved.

ie. fixing resource management = less vehicle zerg = prolonged sieges/more distinct front lines = less spawn camping = more gratification for successful missions = happier players = higher pop = more money

woo

[EVILoHOMER]

Originally Posted by Rivenshield

Lots of text.

Yeah in Planetside it's easy to tell where the forces were and where your team was because base capture was more linear. In Planetside 2 you can go round capturing anything and I find the map lacks the information to tell you what is happening on each hex. You can see a coloured in part of the map saying you own it and no indication there is an enemy zerg there what so ever. I often go to them towers that are on my colour faction hexes to find out they're owned by the enemy but nothing on the map gives you any indication of that.

The gameplay just isn't fun in the end though, mostly down to the poor level design though, especially the bases which look huge at first but feel so small because there is no infantry area to them, they're all mostly outside. Like why did they need to build this big of a building and not have any indoors to it?