Why PlanetSide is whacked

[Happy lil Elf]

Make everything common pool. The empire "flavor" thing is folly. This is a fast action competitive sport like video game. Teams need the same capabilities and equipment to remain even.

What serious sport has such uneven teams? In American Football or Baseball what league allows one team to have more players? What if one team was allowed an unfair advantage like say to be able to run out of bounds and still have the play count while the other team would draw a penalty? The advantaged team would always win and it would quickly become boring.

I actually agree with you on the idea of making everything common pool. I personally would much rather have a Lancer than a Phoenix and I love driving a Magrider over a Vanguard. However the above premise is flawed. Planetside is not a competitive game. There is no goal and thus there is really no way to win. In every competitive sport there is a win condition, or at the very least a ranking system, Planetside lacks that.

Tribes/Tribes 2, UT and various other FPSs are good examples of "fast action competitive sport like video game[s]", Planetside doesn't really fit that description though. Respawn delays, travel time, spawn timers on vehicles/MAXs are contrary to the fast action premise and no ranking system, no way to compete between outfits and the lack of any real goal other than to hope your zerg can bash the zerg they face kills the competitive sports like premise, at least to me.

So then what is Planetside? Well, it's kind of it's own thing. The best label I think I could apply is a "War of Attrition Simulator". Of course killing people is fun so that doesn't really bother me. It's not a competition game though, which is one of the reasons I can't wait for T:V.

[Lartnev]

The notion of "locking" teams at character creation in a FPS game is flawed. Find another FPS game where this is the case? UT? Q3A? RTCW? CS? BF1942?

But they essentially have the same weapons. Whilst of course Terrorists get the AK47 and the counter-terrorists get the M4A1 in Counter-strike for example, the majority of the weapons are the same which means it's not really important whose side you're on. There are also only 2 teams (for the most part) and so it's easier to balance one weapon against the other. Planetside has 3 teams which makes it that much more difficult.

I agree that the current state of play with 2 empires per server was necessary for the server merge, but I think it's time we went back to 1 empire per server. That still enables people to play the different empires but prevents them from joining the "winning" side on the same server.

As for the real and tangable benefits I think the reason they're not massive is because the game technically should never be so badly swinging in favour of any of the empires as it is now. If it has (which it is) then there's something else that is at fault, weapon balance for example (which it is) and that something needs sorting out (which we hope it is). The idea I guess is that the underpopulated empire(s) gets a little boost per player to help them out, which overall amounts to having the same number of players as the other empires.

Planetside doesn't have a win condition but what would it be? Sanctuary strikes could be one thing. But if one empire beats another (say VS invade the TR sanctuary and "wins") what happens to the NC? I mean you can't reset the entire continents like you can reset a small 16 player game of Unreal Tournament or 32 player game of Tribes 2. And you can't stop the TR from doing anything until the NC take down VS or visa versa as that would mean anyone in TR colours is out of the game.

In a sense the way it works is continents are like maps. Achieving continental lock on a continent is like winning a map, like getting the most caps on Katabatic or Coret I suppose. It's not the same I know, perhaps there needs to be victory music and a large message that comes up when you lock a continent I don't know.

[Subterfuge]

This doesnt fix the problem, All it does it make everyone use the same weapon, all the time. No variety what so ever to an even greater extent. Why use a JH when you can use a lasher? Everyone will still be running around with lashers.

I know this is a game, but if some other nation was to develop superior technology then that of yours, you wouldnt complain to them about balance. Now I know you cant invent new technologies in ps , but you can however, create new strategies to counter it.

[WritheNC]

I think we'll just have to get used to the fact that there won't really be balanced empires for any considerable length of time.

I think it really depends on other factors too. For example, there are less vanguards and more air cavalry for Emerald NC now. I don't mean to exaggerate; 3-5% more or less in one cert in any direction is a huge difference when you're talking about a tank with 4500 armor.

I have always felt the VS had it very well off.

The reason the NC pop was always high for a long time was NC weaponry is scaled on pure firepower. Nobody ever looked at the VS and said, "Damn their stuff is versatile! I'm gonna play them. Versatility is awesome!"

Its much easier to be drawn towards a tank initially that can one shot infantry than a tank that can cross water(until you try it).

All I know is I just had pork chops for dinner, and I don't even remember what this thread was originally about, or what the hell I said. So I won't go back and read it. mmm...porkchops.