Most Memorable Planetside Moment (to be recreated in Planetside 2)

inigma · 2012-01-16, 04:12 PM

What is the most memorable moment of Planetside 1 that you hope can be re-created in Planetside 2?

Mine is when I partnered with two other outfit mates in a small squad of mossies patrolling the south east airspace on Cyssor. Two enemy libs came up from behind us having managed to sneak in a run on our base and were retreating north. We looped around them only to meet up with their three mossie escort.

The dogfight between the islands was intense as no one wanted to bail out over water. We blew up one mossie in mid air, and the one guy I shot down bailed... high over water yet he sank under the weight of his armor and later died of drowning (in ps there is no swimming)! 10 seconds later we lost one of our guys to combined liberator back gunner fire and the remaining enemy mossy. We looped some more and manage to damage the last mossie until it bugged out of the fight back to mamma. My wingman and I decided to finish off the liberators as now the flight path had taken the dogfight into the middle of the water between the islands. My wingman took one lib which he chewed up in mid-air, its crew dead in the explosion. They were the lucky ones. It was then I got a brilliant idea. I took on the other lib and while its gunner was frantically trying to take me down, I popped off just enough shots to see it smoke quite a bit to where I knew it was damaged to where it was going down and their bailing mechanisms were jammed. I told my wingman not to bother finishing them off (as that would be too merciful), as we watched it go down, down, down into the cold waters below.

As expected, the downed enemy liberator didn't explode on impact with the surface of the water. It sunk! Shortly after this another pair of enemy mossies and a reaver showed up to spoil the show, but then two more friendlies came in from behind us to take care of that fight. I circled back around to the downed liberator, and watched as two of the crew got out of the downed liberator (yes they got out underwater) and tried running in a hopeless attempt to reach land. The third apparently stayed in the sunk bird. It was with great satisfaction that I saw each of them perish minutes later one by one as they went out in a slow, agonizing death by drowning.

A dogfight over the water always added an extra dimension of danger and a reason to fight to the death or bug out since you never wanted to bail out as you could never be certain you'd make it to land in time to breathe and retreat back to base. It made for more intense fight or flight dogfighting at times, and the kills just that much more rewarding as bailers would soon find out their bail was futile.

Greatest Moment Summary:
In a single dogfight I got to make two enemy pilots and two air crew members either bail or sink to await their long deaths by drowning before they could even wait to respawn.

Heh...if only the drownings would have contributed to my K/D, it would have been a perfect memory.

Raymac · 2012-01-16, 04:48 PM

I always like reading people's war stories. So many times, game designers try to create moments like this with AI, but in Planetside they just happen organically. Really is brilliant. I love these dogfight stories too because I always find it cool that amid the chaos of those fights, the clarity with which you can remember the details. There was 1 dogfight I had where I was hugely outnumbered and even though it was years ago, I still remember it like it was this morning. (I detailed it in a thread in the PS1 Discussion so I won't repeat it here)

As for what I'd like to see recreated, it would have to be the moment I fell in love with the game. To this day, I refer to it as the Battle for Cetan even though I've captured and lost that base dozens if not hundreds of times since that long day in 2003.

It was hours of back and forth battling in the lightly forested field between Cetan and Ikanam. At times, it felt like WW1 style trench warfare where you fight inch by inch, tree by tree. After literally battling all day and trying every maneuver, be it a flank or a blitz up the middle, we were finally able to push the TR back and take Cetan.

You want to talk about "win conditions", I felt more a sense of true victory after taking Cetan that day than I had in all my games of Counterstrike combined. And experiencing the fight with all those soldiers on that battlefield, all the tank rushes and air strikes, it was then I truely understood how epic Planetside was compared to anything else.

I have looked for other games that could offer that experience, but the only one will be Planetside 2 which is why I am anticipating this game more than anything ever.

DxC · 2012-01-16, 04:48 PM

Mine would be bridge battles I Rember the one on Cyssor the huge long one between Leaza? Its been a while!

NC where hammering the VS defence from the other side we had a tower and a few tanks from the other base only advantage was our tanks could float I rember trying my hand at sniping at the time must of been at least 10 - 15 Vanguards on the other side making there way over slowly shooting off the shells watching that was awesome not so good for the VS and anything the shells acutely hit - we thought they would get over then out of nowhere we had Reavers Mozzies and a few libs just turn the bridge into a tank graveyard I got a fair few kills from that fight alone and that lasted a good few hours before the VS finally made it over the bridge.

So I hope to see some epic bridge battles with all hope is lost reinforcements coming to save the day.. kinda like the end of the Helms deep battle except with Plains / tanks and not a crap load of horses.

Raymac · 2012-01-16, 04:51 PM

I think there are a few people here that wouldn't mind adding ponies to the game.

NewSith · 2012-01-16, 05:02 PM

My most memorable moment was bound to LLU so there's no way to recreate it in PS2.

DxC · 2012-01-16, 05:08 PM

there isnt another one you can think of?

Shogun · 2012-01-16, 05:49 PM

there were so many special ps moments!

one of my favorite was when i was able to sneak into an enemy base while we were still fighting to take the courtyard. hordes and hordes of enemys and i was cloaked sneaking right between them, always trying to stand still when someone was looking my way.
that was pure adrenalin, especially when maxunits came dashing up the stairs.
i finally managed to hack a locker and filled the yet unguarded genroom with boomers.
when i finally jammered it to hell the resulting chaos gave our army the opportunity to gash into the base and a maxcrush came in just at the right time to slaughter the engineers who were trying to repair the gen.
now that felt like my work helped my empire! and it felt so good because the empire concicts of fellow players and not just some ai controlled bots.

the other great moments mostly circle around full platoon hotdrops where i used to repair and ress the teammembers who didn´t make it into the doors fast enough. making a specops plan and accomplish this mission with a tactical team where everybody got his own role was always awsome! and i loved every moment of it from boarding the gals, holding stupid pep speeches on chat during the flight, dropping together and seeing all those soldiers jumping into the firefight, to entrenching somewhere in the base or set up teleport shortcuts or CEing the entrances with hate generators ;-)

i would love to see all that againin ps2.

too bad that deploying and maintaining ams and teleporter shortcuts will propably make no return. bailing over an enemy base and directly hacking out an ams was also a great adrenalin generator! it was hard to finda good moment to hack it out and a good spot for the ams to deploy fast enough before the enemy realises what´s going on. and since the danger was so high, that it had been spotted, defending it was a fun game as well at least until literally everybody had orbital strikes.

Zulthus · 2012-01-16, 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by inigmatus

It was then I got a brilliant idea. I took on the other lib and while its gunner was frantically trying to take me down, I popped off just enough shots to see it smoke quite a bit to where I knew it was damaged to where it was going down and their bailing mechanisms were jammed. I told my wingman not to bother finishing them off (as that would be too merciful), as we watched it go down, down, down into the cold waters below.

As expected, the downed enemy liberator didn't explode on impact with the surface of the water. It sunk!

Cool story, but I don't think an aircraft falls out of the sky when low on health. Or am I missing something

NewSith · 2012-01-16, 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by DxC

there isnt another one you can think of?

Well, I'll just tell the LLU story.

It took place when I was a part of DoW. I don't remember which continent that happened on, nor names of the bases, I only remember continent had green trees. Odds had not been in our favor, but with 40% VS against 60% TR, Vanu managed to pull off a hack on some LLU AMP station. This is where I stepped in. I have a very odd habit of surging in to grab the LLU independently of how guarded it is. So I managed to fly in, take it and get outside. There we had 2 AMSes and my outfitmate named SkivEG waiting in his Thresher. Without hesitation we went for the base the LLU was linked to. It wasn't long after we left off that we had craploads of airclaft clinging to our asses. Supposedly those were hotdroppers that ran into us and decided to change their course. I fired the Flux like crazy, taking down a mozzie, a reaver, another reaver... Judging from TS speech the AMSes were gone and we were losing the upper hand in that bloody base. But those bastards just kept coming. I should give credit to Skiv for his excellent driving, if not for him the LLU would've been lost straight away.

We had 2 mozzies on our backs again and TR Reaver was approaching. Suddenly a VS mozzie popped out right infront of us, engaging one mozzie in a dogfight and forcing the other, badly damaged one, to retreat. It was the Reaver and us, Thresher had been barely alive as we managed to get to the biolab backdoor. When the distance was like 70 meters, Skiv screamed "BAIL THE FUCK OUT!" almost hysterically, and just as I bailed the final rocketpod launch tore the poor vehicle and its driver to shreds.

You know that strange feeling, when you realise that the success of the operation depends entirely on you? Hell, to say that I was nervous would be to say nothing. I turned on Surge and rushed off to the door, dancing like crazy, dodging missiles fired at me. I finally managed to make it. Surge ended, my HP was low, I almost ran out of stamina. Just as entered the second hall, CENT1233 (our OL) stated that they lost the CC. The enemy was ADV rehacking. Freaking hell, I started counting. 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 (1 CC door opens), 8 (2nd CC door opens, friendly cloaker is guarding the room), 7 (TAPPING USE BUTTON), 6... TS EXPLODES: "NICE!", "WOOHOO SITHY!", "Good work", - says CENT. The sense of accomplishment was so great, I couldn't really say anything straight away.

Of course those few minutes were nothing in the PS persistence, but those were MY minutes.

inigma · 2012-01-16, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Cool story, but I don't think an aircraft falls out of the sky when low on health. Or am I missing something

Back in the day. This fight was in 2004 (I played until 2005). Not sure if game air vehicle damage mechanics have changed much since then. I remember getting damaged enough several times in my mossie to where the controls would jam up with the aircraft falling uncontrollably, and I couldn't bail. I got the message "ejection control jammed" or something in red, and I would literally die in my mossie on impact with the ground, that is as long as my pursuer didn't get one last shot and finish me off in an air explosion first.

If I remember right, the damage first prevented you from ejecting, but you could still fly the plane to land and get out. Any more damage and you literally fell out of the sky in an unejectable aircraft (I can't remember if the failing ejection was random or not), unless your pursuer decided to finish you off in the sky. I used this to my advantage in downing several aircraft over water this way unless the pilots bailed first. Lots of fun.

Hmr85 · 2012-01-16, 06:05 PM

"The Rolling column of Death is what I always called it"

One of my most memorable moments from PS was back in early 2004. Back when the NC still approached from the north on Cyssor. We had just taken Faro after a bloody 4 hour long fight outside its walls. We had just claimed our tech plant and all the officers in outfit chat said its time to get the Armor column rolling. My father (Jamman) plays this game also so he always gunned while I drove the Vanguard. We make one hell of a team. I have never seen a better gunner in all my years playing PS. Back to the story.

We where able to assemble a fair size armor column of about 12 Vanguards with the outfit mates we had online. From there we pushed south just annihilating the TR coming up from Gunuku. We where able to claim the tower just south of Faro and the bridge with ease. This is when things got interesting. Just as we where able to get across the bridge and where rolling on the tower just north of Gunuku. I heard a outfit mate yell out across TS "Incoming Prowlers. Ahh shit there is 10 of them."

The TR where able to assemble a fair size armor column themselves. The fight between us and the TR lasted for what seem like a eternity. But I found out later it was only about 10 minutes. To this day I always wondered what the TR where thinking when they saw us. The volley of fire coming from both sides was enormous. Shells where flying everywhere. The sound of the Vanguards 150mm cannons firing was epic.

We kept having to run into the trees to the west of the tower north of Gunuku to repair. My pops always carried a full engineer load out when we rolled a vanguard so he would place a motion sensor and a turret down behind us while we did repairs.*Note we did kill a cloaker while we where repairing. Turret FTW. The fight raged on with us only taking 3 losses but annihilating the entire TR Armor column. We then commenced our run on Gunuku sweeping the CY clean and claiming the base inside of 30 minutes.

I got so many kills that day inside of such a short period I couldn't believe it. I never lost my Vanguard that entire fight and by the time it was all said and done I had right around 85+ confirmed kills 13 of them prowlers with 0 deaths. All this from the fight from Faro down to taking Gunuku. (Shameless note. There where so many TR out in the field about 50 to 60 of those kills where from me running them down. The rest where from fights in and around the towers and base.) I have a screenshot of my pops and myself repairing the Vanguard in the woods just outside of Gunuku. The thing was shot to hell and back. So many bullet holes. I'll see if I can dig it up out of my boxes in my basement and put it on here.

Its moments like this that make me all the more excited for PS2. My pops is making a return so I'll have my trusty gunner back. Yes I love the Vanguard as you should notice by my Avatar. All around just best tank in the game IMO. I pulled one whenever I could and boy could that thing take a beating and keep on going. That cannon on it was oh so nice. 150mm of pure joy!!

texico · 2012-01-16, 08:12 PM

There are probably hundreds of great moments.

But there is one that always seems to come back to me when I think of a classic example of the PlanetSide experience.

It must have only been a few months after I joined. I was in a squad was and we were on Ceryshen. I'm pretty sure we were trying to take Tootega, but it might have been Pinga. I know it's not the most popular, but Ceryshen does have a wonderful atmosphere with its crystal ice and snow and deep canyons that stop it feeling so open and exposed. As NC we were spawning from an AMS tucked in a forest with plenty of cover from the trees, but which were sparse enough to see the action around, and trying to push back the VS and take the facility.

Anyway, we basically must have spent 3 hours gradually advancing, inch by inch with a slightly smaller population. It was one of the most organic fights I've ever been in, the way it flowed and how key moments (gaining control of a strategically placed pack of tees for example) were influencing who had the advantage and who were getting pushed back. It was almost purely an infantry fight except for maybe small ground vehicles pulled by the VS. The NC were incredibly well organized too - Snipers over here, infantry through the center, AMS well covered, deployables in all the key locations. In the end we managed to out-do them tactically and got into the base.

Basically if we had lost the fight we would have lost the continent, because the TR's link to Cery was coming up as we capped the based and they were going to enter, so we would have been fighting on two fronts with a smaller population. But we got there in the end, and then managed to keep the TR out. I've probably never played so well, I was SO determined for the NC to force that fight.

I know the plan is to speed the pace of PS2 up, but I hope fights like that can still exist. The pace WAS there, we were spawning straight in the middle of a battle of epic proportions. Long-lasting, on-the-knife-edge fights where the front line is moving slowly doesn't mean the actual pace of combat is slow.

Warborn · 2012-01-22, 03:22 AM

The Enclave bombing that in-game funeral was pretty memorable.

FastAndFree · 2012-01-22, 04:04 AM

Originally Posted by Raymac

I think there are a few people here that wouldn't mind adding ponies to the game.

YES!

ringring · 2012-01-22, 06:19 AM

Akna under siege, us forming a full platoon prowler column in sanc then rolling out to cery past pinga and up the mountain road.

Mjane, in Akna calling out on global for help and me replying, "we're on our way, be there in 3 minutes".

Then when we get to akna the VS have a lot of armour too and a huge fight erupts.

Another time, we were in Orisha and assembled all our armour in the courtyard, plus some random prowlers that attached to us. Headed out to pamba and again a huge armour fight took place, this time again the NC. I receive lots of tells from friends an enemies after that saying what a great fight it had been.