Is Planetside heading for worse or for better?

[Lartnev]

I personally think we're approaching the top of the first rollercoaster hill.

To build on a game you must first make sure that your foundation is strong, which is why the devs seem to concentrate on meaningless things (in the views of some on the official forums) and balance issues instead of flooding them with new content.

[Liquidtide]

By the current state of lag I mean back to the point where reloading takes a few seconds, all the enemies aren't drawing fast enough. I run a solid 60+fps (pre new patch) now I'm still running around 60 but every once in a while I will dip to under 20FPS stutter and then back to 60....

[SecondRaven]

Planetside is getting better day by day IMO and ill always play it

[Kikinchikin]

I was shocked when I saw the poll results. No way is Planetside heading for the better.

The game has become a complete zerg fest. There are NO organized operations anymore. This is partly because there are no working alliances still in play and because the influx of noobs to this game is atrocious. There are very few organized outfits left, the lag continues to get worse and many players are capping out and leaving.

Granted, the idea of capitol buildings seems fun, but it will wear off soon after it is implemented. (remember the LLU?)

Surgile was never an exploit, and SOE is angering more players who could end up reducing their play time significantly or just leaving the game all together, than they are pleasing players.

Third person view being taken out is even worse. How in the world are we going to drive our prowlers now? You do realize how wide those things are right? Vehicle driving is going to suck horribly.

I was going to vote no change, but that was not an option, so I voted worse I'm going to cancel. I think Planetside will mostly stay the same for a while, until more people either leave or come in. If more noobs leave the game will improve as lag will be less and hopefully more experienced players will come back/lead more operations like the good old days. If more noobs come in, the zergfest will get worse as will the lag and what is already a small amount of tactics will completely be vaporized in favor of one minded rushes.

Perhaps my view on the game is skewed for two reasons. One that I'm a veteran who's been playing since last March (beta) and I know there were better times for PS (summer and other times), and two that I'm a TR on Emerald and whenever I've been on we've been getting pounded so bad I don't suppose we could start any kind of organized op/raid. But these reasons are minor and in my opinion the game is not heading for better any time soon.

[Dharkbayne]

Surge being killed = Good. It should be for tactical use, not combat. Like I said before, 1 enemy soldier behind you is alot deadlier than 5 rushing towards you.

Capitals are good, they are going to add new models for bases soon.

3rd person, I didn't hear anything about that, I would like to see it NOT useable inside buildings.

[Lonehunter]

If SOE keeps adding content instaed of fixing the content they got, then it will go down hill

[SecondRaven]

Originally Posted by Dharkbayne

Surge being killed = Good. It should be for tactical use, not combat. Like I said before, 1 enemy soldier behind you is alot deadlier than 5 rushing towards you.

Capitals are good, they are going to add new models for bases soon.

3rd person, I didn't hear anything about that, I would like to see it NOT useable inside buildings.

I totally agree with that, you can take away 3rd person infantry when out doors but don�t take away 3rd person for vehicles or infantry that are indoors

[Krinsath]

Originally Posted by Lilbird2431

The game has become a complete zerg fest. There are NO organized operations anymore. This is partly because there are no working alliances still in play and because the influx of noobs to this game is atrocious. There are very few organized outfits left, the lag continues to get worse and many players are capping out and leaving.

There are still plenty of organized ops, it's just that few CRs get on the same page to actually coordinate real operations. I was on Emerald last night with the NC and I was quite surprised to see the NC holding 5 continents. I went to do a /who teams to see why there was such dominance and was floored by what I saw: TR-36%, VS-33%, NC - 31%. The Empire with the smallest population was holding half the world. I thought that perhaps the Surgiles had returned in force until I saw that the CRs were actually leading and getting troops to the right places to blunt invasions. Didn't matter how hard the enemy tried, there was a force there to repel them. Since the VS (and I'm assuming the TR as well) didn't organize themselves, they kept losing out to the better organized NC. Organized armies > disorderly mobs any day of the week.

Originally Posted by Lilbird2431

Granted, the idea of capitol buildings seems fun, but it will wear off soon after it is implemented. (remember the LLU?)

Maybe I'm unusual, but I still find an LLU base a refreshing change from sitting at an empty base for an arbitrary amount of time. Capitol buildings, broadcast WGs and the Dominion system added a LOT of changes on a fundamental level. Until players have had more time to adapt to it, I'd say that's another reason you can't get organized ops going readily. Too many people trying to figure the new stuff out.

Originally Posted by Lilbird2431

Surgile was never an exploit, and SOE is angering more players who could end up reducing their play time significantly or just leaving the game all together, than they are pleasing players.

Using Surge as an Agile is not an exploit. Using Surge as an Agile because you know it makes you warp and harder to hit and you can therefore rack up more kills because you've removed the possibility of being hit *is* an exploit. Had the Surgiles not abused it grievously, the Devs would not have reached this point. Are they going to piss of more people than they please? Maybe, but a lot of that has to do with the hundreds of players that already left because they DIDN'T do anything.

Originally Posted by Lilbird2431

Third person view being taken out is even worse. How in the world are we going to drive our prowlers now? You do realize how wide those things are right? Vehicle driving is going to suck horribly.

Dude, read the thread. Smoke was considering it, but has decided that it will probably stay. He was only thinking about it because of it's attachment to Surgile abusers, but since there are many people who use it for productive reasons (other than a cheap way to find cloakers), it will probably be unchanged. I don't think there was ever a chance of it being removed from vehicle drivers at a minimum. At first I was against infantry being able to use it, but then again the point that it represents that awareness (hearing, smelling, intuition) that you can't really put things in to represent...seems to be a valid point, even if I don't use it indoors.

Originally Posted by Lilbird2431

Perhaps my view on the game is skewed for two reasons. One that I'm a veteran who's been playing since last March (beta) and I know there were better times for PS (summer and other times), and two that I'm a TR on Emerald and whenever I've been on we've been getting pounded so bad I don't suppose we could start any kind of organized op/raid. But these reasons are minor and in my opinion the game is not heading for better any time soon.

During beta, there was no lattice, hence no front lines, hence no real "army" size formations. Now there are such things. Should there be a reason for the zerg to spread out (such as more than bases on the lattice)? Yes...but until things settle, another major upheaval in gameplay probably isn't smart.

I'm TR on Emerald too, and I've seen my outfit run tons of organized ops (nothing beats Prowler platoons). CDL undoubtedly runs tons of organized ops. Many other outfits do, you're confusing the fact that people deserted the TR during Lasher 2.5 (or whatever version number applies to the bugged one) and the massive change in the way that the game is played with this last patch. If your definition of zerg fest is 60 people on either side hammering away at each other, then I'm afraid you've missed the entire point of Planetside. It's about big battles...and big battles require you to get lots of people in the same place at the same time.

[EarlyDawn]

Better. The game is getting more depth. Upper level continental strategy was introduced by the BCWGs, and capitols are the core of the continent, the one place you've gotta capture for the edge.

More vehicles, new weapons and MAXes will be good, but the top two things I want to see are the Elite abilities, because they'll hopefully make players different, and enhanced command features like Hayoo's idea.

[Lartnev]

I don't honestly mind the zerg. It provides for massive fights which I enjoy every minute of. But inside that zerg you do have organised ops and outfits and they are the ones that make all the difference. In agreement with Krinsath, pre-lattace links you'd never get a build up of forces. Squads would simply drop on an empty base, camp it for 15 minutes (while all the other squads were doing similar things at bases and so you'd wouldn't see anyone else) and then find a new base. Good example was this one time I was in a burster. In an entire base drop I was the only person to kill anyone, because I happened to be outside and destroyed a Reaver.

I think the problem isn't so much of the zerg, as the fact that you don't get two zergs colliding very often. So the weight of numbers begins rolling over the defenders. They tend to sometimes tend to collide at bridges because the zerg is held up away from bases and neither side has the advantage (and strength in numbers is broken up by the bottleneck of crossing the bridge) which makes bridge fights some of the most enjoyable in the game.

[Electrofreak]

See, some people are saying SOE is spending too much time adding new features and not enough time fixing problems. But if they spend more time fixing problems then people will leave because they are bored because of the lack of new features. So, the devs are trying to play it safe by going with a "middle ground" strategy. In case you haven't noticed, the patches have been coming out in an order. Fix patch, new features patch, fix patch, new features patch. This is how the Devs are trying to keep the players who want fixes happy as well as the players who want new stuff happy. EVERY patch, the other group is going to bitch about how "the devs should be FIXING stuff not adding more!" or "stop screwing with shit and give us new material!"

In all seriousness, what are they supposed to do? Exactly as they are doing right now. Do their best to keep each group happy in turn.

[Queensidecastle]

My whole outfit which used to be one of the best on Emerald has all but disintegrated. While the Core combat changes were good, it wasnt enough to keep them around. I agree with Lilbird2431. It seems like the Devs are just dumbing down the game. Taking out the requirement to reload, surge nerf, third person view..etc

[teratravp]

Seems alright. I'm buying a 1 mo subscription when my current trial is up.

dev priorities need to be as others have said:

1. Optimize and finalize graphics code- get this beast running tighter then UT2k4 There's not many shaders in this game so graphically it should really fn fly on any reasonable mid to high system - and it certainly has run much better at times so we all know it can happen - to even play right now I had to tweak tons of shit, otherwise I wouldn't be able to

2. Finalize weapons. as in FINAL. IZE. hehe. No seriously this game might as well have just launched if they keep changing weapons at the rate they do. And that is of course seriously messing up the steadiness of the empires and playerbase.

3. Say it with me now *NEW* features. I said NEW. Not a vehicle. Not a weapon. Not an expansion with vehicles and weapons. I'm talking features here - more stuff at sanc - more functional stuff to play with in bases, towers... more stuff to do in the gameworld in general. This is vanilla PS still, same as it was a year ago. NON mmog have made bigger feature additions through patches then this game, cmon now.


That said there is an assload of fun to be found in PS. For some the fun lasts, for some comes and goes, and some can take a month of playing a year or so then wait another year. There is nothing necessarily bad about this design. It IS plenty of fun and wholly original. When I make suggestions I'm not doing it in the vein of DO THIS NOW OR THE GAME DIES@!!@!, these are just ideas, plain and simple.

See you all on the barrel end of my weps.

[JakeLogan]

Well besides the fact that my FPS Lag is the worse it's been since Beta. It's for the better. (I just need more RAM)

[Krinsath]

One of the upcoming changes I really liked to hear was some of the sanctuary improvements they'd like to make. Some of the things mentioned:

-Race tracks to practice driving. Or holding ANT races when you can't get anywhere with poplocks.

-Aerial obstacle courses and targets for pilot practice.

-Grief-free combat arenas where outfits could scrimmage and fight against rival outfits in the same empire. Also for training of new players.

Of course, that's after the alter the data structures to make the maps a bit more changeable...so summer at the earliest probably.