Simplicity vs Depth

Knightwyvern · 2012-01-02, 08:19 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

1.) I am skeptical on this one also and I thought this was a great piece of PlanetSide 1. Also remember you can span on squad leaders with appropriate skills.

2.) I always thought the ANT mechanic was cool as well. But with the entire resource system now there could easily be another mechanic to replace it - I'd say it will still have depth but we don't know.

3.) I would argue that the class/skill system in this game is in fact depth and not simplicity. The skill system is similar to EVE and you can likely customize your character in any way you want to. Sure you can only play one "class" at a time but the customization options both in terms of visual and skill based customization options will be huge. In that way I'd argue the skills system in PS2 will likely have even more depth than PS1.

4.) Agreed

5.) Jury is out on this one for me I am not sure how I feel on it yet.

SOE needs to strike a balance between casual folks who will just be looking for a COD/BF experience (it has to be fun for them also to pay the bills) and PlanetSide players who are looking for a much deeper game.

It's a tightrope we have yet to see how SOE can walk on

I agree with basically everything here, though I would say on point 2 that I was never happy having to drive an ANT, but having said that, Higby has said before that he has "plans" for the ANT in the future which I'm quite interested in seeing play out. I'm liking the idea of a mobile engineering vehicle myself.

I'm a little worried about the squad spawning and lack of AMS, though when I hear that the squad spawn would require a leader with the appropriate skills I was pretty relieved in that regard. It seems that this focus on more instant action and no down time in PS2, while good from a "kill kill kill" standpoint, does detract a little from the whole feel of logistical, supply line driven gameplay that could be found in PS1. I quite enjoyed that about the original.

I'm really hoping for a cool implementation of field artillery. The flail never really cut it IMO. artillery shouldn't be spammable so much as a support weapon, requiring others to spot for you or some similar mechanic. I feel this would help add a lot of depth without necessarily forcing anyone into something to complex, as I think it is a pretty niche weapon as far as the desire to operate them goes.

Finally I'd say that considering what the Devs have said about kind of working in reverse in comparison to CCP, in there creation of the big sandbox EVE followed by the more focused FPS (Dust 514,) my hunch is PS2 will be more simplistic at launch, and then gain a lot of depth and "sand..boxi..ness" as their post release development moves forward. I'm really excited to see what will happen.