Originally Posted by dm Akolyte
More players in no way equals more tactical. Absolutely not. I think you'd be better served by the term "strategic."
Even then I don't think throwing more players into a game is going to make it magically more strategic.
The key to PlanetSide was *persistance.* Capturing territory actually meant something--it didn't just reset at the end of the round. That sort of gameplay necessitates a large number of players.
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These issues are symbiotic. A game world the size of Planetside cannot exist without persistence, nor would it make sense to be persistent if it weren't that size. A lot of the equipment that can be given to players in a large, persistent game world cannot be done in a small game world. Artillery, for example(even though it looks like they'll be making the sad decision not have any artillery as of right now). Anyway, that equipment that you don't have in smaller nonpersistent worlds enables a world of new tactics with it. Another example is Galaxies, BF3 doesn't have that. And while PS2 isn't going to have AMS, that, and other support roles don't make sense. From the point of view of the individual person driving these things, they are tactics.
But the real key, as you say, is strategy. Even BF2 maps had that compared to BF3, but Planetside dwarfs them both. In the context of Battlefield 3, they put almost all of the vehicles into the uncaps, and all the flags therefore have no strategic value. In MOST CASES, you can't decide that you are going to capture the tank spawn, or the airfield, or whatever, for example. Nor can you even try to steal these assets either due to the out of bounds.