A few things that Matt Higby needs to realize

[Graywolves]

Some of the abstract statements such as using recent major FPS titles for inspiration have scared me a little bit too.

But we have to realize what that actually means.


I believe that the dev team is smart enough to only take the good things and to improve upon the shortcomings. I expect them to realize some things like how other FPS titles don't focus on player retention anywhere nearly as much as an MMO absolutely needs to. To know that a strong sense of diversity within the game is what will keep it going.


I could go on but I really think that Higby and the gang know what they are doing. And if there is a mistake made I know for a fact that they are wise enough to listen to the community's feedback and I have faith that they will take that feedback and weigh it carefully.

[LegioX]

What only gives me hope is the devs willingness to communicate with the player base. I'm new to this game and i think i played PS 1 about 1-2 times back in the day. but i still have a bad taste in my mouth on how DICE did a 180 with the playerbase on BF 3. I'm hoping this will be what i have been missing.

[Malorn]

Also on the subject of pacing, I think having more spawn options will help solve this without having to add in quake-stile jump pads.

I didn't like seeing the jump pads across the base. Reminded me of Quake 3 deathmatches with people jumping all over the place. Kinda got that feel with light assault jetpacks too, but they can remove that by changing the jetpack mechanics itself.

If defenders can hop across from one side of a base to another then delivering a few squads via sunderers or galaxies to a weak point loses a lot of value. The value of those vehicles is the localized force, the fact that defenders can't be everywhere at once. This is a good example of balance at a small scale not transitioning well into large scale battles.

I understand why they want that sort of thing, but I believe it's an artifact of only testing with a few dozen people at most at a time. Real PS2 battles will be a lot bigger than that.

If you want transit to scale and allow smaller battles to happen without facilities being too big then scale things designed to make smaller battles more lively (like jump pads) on population. Put cooldowns on them so only one person can use them every few seconds. As more players enter the area, increase the delay increases to the point where it isn't practical to use them to move any significant number of forces around. Or just do that naturally and put several seconds of delay so it is never practical to move half a squad or more that way, but OK for a few soloer's or scouts to move around using them.

I think a bigger challenge is the fact that planetside 2 balance really isn't possible at a small scale. Things that are imbalanced at a small scale can be perfectly balanced at a large scale. Likewise things that seem fine on the small scale may be worthless as you increase the number of players because they take so much more damage. We saw that in PlanetSide. I remember in beta when tanks were ridiculously OP but when they got into a large fight they died so quickly because they had tons of AV shooting at them. That lead to larger tank armor pools, and more AV ammo, but less damage per-shot. The result of this was that tanks were more survivable in larger battles but took a lot of hits to kill in smaller battles.

I don't think it's possible to balance both for small scale and large scale battles. You have to balance around the medium-population and make it so nothing is too obscene at either extreme. Cede the fact that you won't be able to balance it perfectly for all populations and try to find a reasonable middle ground where it is right most of the time and not too far off when it isn't.

I think Jon Weathers pointed that out in his interview with Hamma that at this point all they can do is speculate. As long as they're aware of that I think it's golden. I just hope they don't add too may features into the game that optimize for the small scale dev tests that don't pan out when you start adding in hundreds & thousands of more players.

[SpcFarlen]

Originally Posted by Cosmical

all valid points, but weve had this discussion a hundred times before. Yes we all have those first few FPS games that defined the experience for us, some of us were even lucky enough for it to be the original planetside.

Ide say the main thing that has changed the face of shooters, is faster connections and player skill. Back in the day, games gave you huge health bars to keep the fun levels up while you were lagging and jumping around like a spaz. Whereas nowadays connections are too fast and players too skilled for old jumping about shooters to seem compelling. Take Tribes Ascend, nothing about that game is interesting to me because i have had gritty hunkered down combat pushed onto me by Battlefield 3, and i wouldnt want anything else now, because it works.

My main issue is that vehicles seem too easily destroyed, knowing what we do that they cost resources to. Im thinking how anoying it will be to spend your last bit of cash on a vehicle, only to have it blown in a few seconds by an oncoming force. But, this will be sorted in beta testing. I guess more expensive vehicles, and more armour. Limiting the Battlefield.

Ya agreed on vehicles, though since this isnt beta yet, i wouldnt worry too much. Once they have a mass test, damage and durability will be adjusted.

[lawnmower]

Originally Posted by Coreldan

PS's gunplay was already close of outdated when it came out. If you really think the antique kinda gunplay of PS is what makes Planetside so great for you, I almost feel sorry for you

outdated how

[Fuse]

Originally Posted by lawnmower

outdated how

People are acting like we were still playing Quake in 2003. Most shooters when PlanetSide came out included at least some form of ADS, not to mention more than one hitbox. Even the people who made the game say sacrifices were made for scale.

You can bring your game in to the modern world without making a copy of CoD. CoD didn't actually add many new elements to their basic gunplay. Just because most of you apparently didn't play shooters before the Xbox 360 does not mean every game since is a CoD clone because it has guns in it.

[lawnmower]

Originally Posted by laelgon

This pretty much sums up every argument here. I get that some people liked the way things were, but they need to understand that's not where the larger audience is now.

because the casual audience has been gaining extremely quickly in numbers in later years, not because of quality

Originally Posted by basti

15 years of FPS?

Well, then you are like me. My first FPS was Wolfenstein 3D. Played Doom, Duke3D, Quake, Tribes, Unreal and UT (awww, good ol UT :/ ) all that stuff. Pretty much all of them.

And i tell you: They had some very enjoyable elements, but also a crapload of shit in them.

ive never heard this, w hat kind of enourmous problems do they have

Originally Posted by roguy

Wolfeinstein -> Doom: No innovation whatsoever.
Doom -> Duke 3D: interactive environments maybe? Nothing else.
Duke -> Quake: 3d graphics and mouselook.
Quake -> UT: Secondary firing modes and that's it.

lol

[lawnmower]

Originally Posted by Fuse

People are acting like we were still playing Quake in 2003. Most shooters when PlanetSide came out included at least some form of ADS, not to mention more than one hitbox. Even the people who made the game say sacrifices were made for scale.

thats not outdated, that doesent improve the game. hitboxes isnt innately better either, quake would be worse with different boxes so whether a game is better or worse with that is an arguable area

Originally Posted by Kaw

If the problem is TTK, Counter Strike had a much shorter TTK and it is lauded as one of the most team oriented, skill driven FPSes out there. From what I've seen, the TTK in PS2 is noticeably longer than in COD.

thats probably mostly because it got so big , would be more skillful if it wasnt such short ttk

Originally Posted by Purple

Guild Wars
EVE
Free Realms
World of Tanks (just older then a year but it still growing strong)

i could make the list longer but i dont want to wast my time anymore then i already am.

what, he just said that the average lifespan of a mmo since wow has been 1 year and youlisted four games randomly

[Fuse]

Originally Posted by lawnmower

thats not outdated, that doesent improve the game. hitboxes isnt innately better either, quake would be worse with different boxes so whether a game is better or worse with that is an arguable area

I think I can pretty confidently say that a game the style of PlanetSide would not benefit from Quake's shooting mechanics or vice versa. Yes, for a "tactical" shooter the mechanics are ancient.

[Toppopia]

Something i would find very cool, is a game that is completely realistic, so everything from health to guns to vehicles is absolutely 100% realistic. But then i think, that would be fun for a while, until i started dying randomly or i started going badly, is ARMA 100% realistic or is it mostly realistic? Because it would be awesome if a game did that, but i could imagine the community hating it shortly after to nerf everything.

[lawnmower]

Originally Posted by Rbstr

You should think more carefully about this argument. 3 shots to kill to 5 is a much bigger difference than going from 9 to 12. There's simply much more to it than how many hits it takes to kill someone.

nevermind that you somehow managed to come up with those crazy numbers (,3-5 is a 67% increase and 9-12 is 33% ), there are a lot of situations where thats not true

Originally Posted by Kurtz

There is at most 100 people browsing these forums at any given point. SOE clearly isn't counting on only 100 people to play.

uh, where did you get that number from...

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

Of course is not....Is just meant to slander a game by saying something stupid like "dumbing down"...basically what it means is you don't like it and your an elitist so theirfore is "dumbing down" since you don't like it because the idea is too mainstream or different from when u were a kid or something.

Wow I get +100 xp for killing people...who cares?....Is not a big deal really...BTW COD fanbase is around the same age as Planetside Fanbase.

what it means is that its dumbing it down. making it easier. yes its quite a mainstream thing they have going there

[Jinxsey]

TTK is a big issue, but to break down a few key points.

Firstly, it's important to note that a major factor in TTK is the inherant reticue bloom associated with any given weapon at any give rate of fire over any given range. A game with more accurate weapons will invariably mean those weapons will have to do less damage in they are intending to maintain a static relative TTK with weapons that are less accurate.

TTK is influenced by the ability of players to ablate damage by wearing or equipping armour or mods.

TTK is influenced by the availability of "alerts" to indicate the path or source of incoming damage.

An increase at the low of health end provides a net increase that is much greater than the sum of its parts. Since if you can survive initial contact you can take avoiding action which will increase your survivability.

Games design must take into account the density of terrain in any hypothetical gun battle when balencing TTK.

In a game where you may be engaged in close quarters with upwards of ten or more opponents, any individual players ability to effect the battle becomes a function of their ability to kill others before they themselves are eliminated.

If your TTK is high, and your terrain plentiful, killing fast will rely on focus fire, headshots, or high damage weapons. In this scenario a lone player facing massed opponents could not significantly effect the outcome of the battle.

If your TTK is less than the above example with all other factors remaining similar, the player's ability to kill others is greatly increased. Remember, this is not a linear path, the ability to kill others is a function of many many factors and the reliance on having to focus fire is by far the greatest of them, remove that and an individual player's relative agency in a battle actualy increased as a function of TTK.

Players who are intended to participate in mass battles must be given agency to effect the outcome of the said battle, to do so, the TTK must be such that individual players can fire their weapons or perform their roles with a realistic expectation of sucess even when heavily engaged. This factor will be effected by terrain and skill.

To sum up, a player, even when heavily outnumbered, should be able to use the terrain and his/her inherant class ability to score points to the extent that his skill and build permit with a realistic hope of sucess.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by LONGFELLA KOJ

It's quite humorous that you're a PSU moderator. You seem like you dispise Planetside.

Just a view from outside lookin in bro.

Have always had a love/hate relationship with PS. Its comprised of some of the crappiest gameplay mechanics I've ever seen in a game. The gunplay, vehicle handling, physics, etc, were all subpar to laughable compared to its contemporaries. It had horribly designed maps, bad fps combat, bad vehicle combat, and atrocious air combat. It was saved by the amazing scale, scope, and combined arms nature of the game.

For my money, I find the gameplay mechanics of the BF series to be far superior, so I'm pleased as punch with the direction they are going, with a few minor exceptions.

[Jinxsey]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Have always had a love/hate relationship with PS. Its comprised of some of the crappiest gameplay mechanics I've ever seen in a game. The gunplay, vehicle handling, physics, etc, were all subpar to laughable compared to its contemporaries. It had horribly designed maps, bad fps combat, bad vehicle combat, and atrocious air combat. It was saved by the amazing scale, scope, and combined arms nature of the game.

For my money, I find the gameplay mechanics of the BF series to be far superior, so I'm pleased as punch with the direction they are going, with a few minor exceptions.

This.

[kadrin]

Potentially opening another can of worms, but is anyone else concerned about ammo boxes?

I personally think it's just a cop out, giving players infinite ammo. In no FPS I've played where ammo is so easily acquired do I ever run out. That was always a great feature in PS1, actually having to think about how much I'm shooting and if I'll have enough to defend myself while I go back for more, or attempt to scavenge some (which got hard later when backpacks despawned more quickly or even instantly in large combats).