Resource

[phungus]

Resources are an important aspect of planetside 2. They limit available tactics to players by denying access to certain vehicles and items. This is a key component of gameplay and game balance. The problem with resources is that they are entirely tied to team population and to a lesser extent warpgate location. This makes the player powerless over their resources and leaves them in pretty much two different situtations I think is harmful to overall gameplay.

In PS2 the player is either on the team with the higher pop and/or good warpgate location and never lacks for resources and thus becomes overpowered and unabalanced in comparison to his enemies with unlimited access to vehicles and tools that are intended to be limited, or the player is on a team with low population and/or a poorly located wargate and thus never has enough resource income to acquire the needed equipment to fight with. For me and my experience this often means I simply log out and log back into my character with the higher population. I am not the only person who does this, we are encouraged to do so by the game mechanics and how resources are implemented. This positive feedback loop as the effect of even further skewing player balance and makes the resource imbalance situation worse.

I find this to be one of the most destructive aspects of this game. Resources are necessary, players need to be limited on what items and vehicles they can pull. However the current implementation does not accomplish this well; instead with how resources are currently implemented they solely harm the gameplay experience of players on a team with low population.