News: New TotalBiscuit Video on IMPLANTS

[Liwen Diamond]

Originally Posted by Sunrock

If you have wife and kids that hinder you from being online its not my problem its your problem and I should not have to suffer for that in game.

So your saying in order to remain competitive in a video game I should neglect my family, my work and other RL projects to be 100% dedicated to the game to avoid you 'suffering' from not having your straight up play to win upgrade system instead of a play for variety sidegrade system.

If that's the way SOE is taking their game, I cannot consider it a proper competitive environnement and will therefore not treat it as such. Anyone from any outfit anywhere asking me to 'get serious' is going to be anwsered with a casual laughter as I indulge in activities that will bring me the most instant pleasure instead of even trying to play the game competitively, such as dropping my galaxies into the ocean and randomly dogfighting other aircrafts without consideration for objective base gameplay.

Many other people are going to follow suit with me and PS2 will remain a casual plaything. It will likely still be very successful and profitable, just not the game that many people around these forums are wishing for. And all of that because we could not handle the mind crushing nightmare of not having straight up power increases in the game. Obviously we can't be satisfied with simply playing an awesome fun game for the sake of playing an awesome fun game, we must have levels!

[Salad Snake]

Originally Posted by Otleaz

Other than certs(which I mentioned earlier in the thread), those are all player created circumstances. It isn't unfair at all, the ones on the receiving end are just getting out-played.

Unfair is dying because your headshot deviated randomly and the enemy sniper killed you before you could get a second shot off. Unfair is dying because someone crit 3 times in a row. Unfair is someone having even 1% more killing power than you just because they played more or payed money.

EDIT: I unconsciously mistook your "uneven" for "unfair" when writing my post. Regardless, the principle still applies.

Iirc, having more Auraxium is also a player-created condition so your principle is invalid (or rather, just as valid for my argument as yours). Personally, I didn't mind crits in TF2 or random spread in, well, just about any FPS nowadays. To me a game is about an experience and immersion, not just competition, so that competition doesn't have to be perfect, just close. I'm not some sort of e-knight trying to test my edge against another in honorable combat, I'm a guy sitting at my computer trying to enjoy playing a game, and for me playing 100% serious isn't very fun most of the time, feels like work really. I found Sirlin's Playing to Win a bunch of bulls**t.

Honestly, the only "perfectly competitive" game that relies on 0 chance is Quake's instagib mod with railguns. And I found that mode immensely boring and unfun. There's more to game design than simply rewarding skill, and the reward need not always be a perfect 1:1 ratio. These "perks" look so minor that I'm not sure I'd even buy the quick reload even if I have enough. I can handle losing once in a blue moon to so dude because I didn't load out with a chip. A chip, I may add, that probably won't even take that long to afford.

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by Liwen Diamond

So your saying in order to remain competitive in a video game I should neglect my family, my work and other RL projects to be 100% dedicated to the game to avoid you 'suffering' from not having your straight up play to win upgrade system instead of a play for variety sidegrade system.

If that's the way SOE is taking their game, I cannot consider it a proper competitive environnement and will therefore not treat it as such. Anyone from any outfit anywhere asking me to 'get serious' is going to be anwsered with a casual laughter as I indulge in activities that will bring me the most instant pleasure instead of even trying to play the game competitively, such as dropping my galaxies into the ocean and randomly dogfighting other aircrafts without consideration for objective base gameplay.

Many other people are going to follow suit with me and PS2 will remain a casual plaything. It will likely still be very successful and profitable, just not the game that many people around these forums are wishing for. And all of that because we could not handle the mind crushing nightmare of not having straight up power increases in the game. Obviously we can't be satisfied with simply playing an awesome fun game for the sake of playing an awesome fun game, we must have levels!

If you want to play casual and am having fun playing the game casually all the codus to you. But if you do that you should not expect to be able to compete with the most hardcore players. That is all Im saying.

In other words you should never be able to buy things to gain enough of handicap help to compete with the best if you don't but in the same amount of dedication as the best.

I'm not saying that you have to be the best to be able to have fun in a game.

[Scotsh]

Originally Posted by Sunrock

Sure you will be known by the outfit or squad you belong to. But how do you think they will recruit players? What will be the qualifications to get into one of the best outfits? My guess is to show you are a good player. And how do you do that? Of course you can't do that by a stat sheet alone. But it does not help to have a bad one.

Please stop telling me how things roll in PS if you have not played it for a minute while i did for a couple of years.

You will be invited to a squad by pure chance if a squad leader needs members, no one (at least not the good ones) will bother checking online stats before they invite you. If you remain in that squad or might get invited in an associated outfit will soley depend on your ability to work in the squad as a team or simple social skills.

[exLupo]

Originally Posted by Liwen Diamond

And despite all the arguments that can be made such as ''5 years old players are only 20% more powerful than you, you can still contribute to the success of your Empire and have fun.'' it's still going to be unfair until the day I finally catch up, assuming that's even possible.

Coming from EVE where this is exactly the way things work, I can see what you're saying. Also, having played a game that combines this same type of scaling and large, mixed arms scenarios, I can say that it's not a problem. I fly with pilots every day who aren't maxed out but have skilled up through the fast ranks (3 or 4 of 5 total).

Comparing it to PS2, it's like someone with the cheaper ranks of certs and the lv1 or lv2 implants. Specifically thinking about implants, the price scaling is massive. 25, 50, 200. With the assumed Au gain, there's little reason for every dedicated boot to not have a full kit of lv2 implants on a regular basis. Even vehicle specialists should be able to keep lv1 easily enough. That means the gap isn't 0 implants vs lv3 implants, it's lv2 vs lv3 where the lv3 are prohibitively expensive for all but the poopsockers and boost buyers. Is this play-to-win and pay-to-win? Yes. Is it enough that it matters in the long run? No.

EVE has a similar system to the implants. You can get jury-rig mods for ships that increase a specific attribute (rof, damage, armor, whatever) and they come in Tech 1 and Tech 2 variants. The Tech 1 costs but everyone and their dog has them. Tech 2 are -insanely- expensive and almost no PvP active pilots will touch them as there's better places to spend their credits. Do players who trade in PLEX cards (essentially paying for in game cash via legit means) sometimes pony up for T2 rigs? Sure. Does that make them a skosh more powerful? It does. Is the game unbalanced because of it? Technically, yes. Does it matter in the long run? Not even remotely.

While there is technically going to be a mathematical imbalance between pay/grind players and the rest, it won't be enough that twitch, meta or good hardware won't make the difference. There is no such thing as a purely balanced fight when you factor in biology, education and gear. The reality will be that most players will be at 180% base power versus some at 190% and a rare few at 200%.

It won't be balanced but it won't be a wide enough of a gap to matter.

[Otleaz]

Originally Posted by Liwen Diamond

I would like to know more details about this implant system before saying "Omg it's horrible/useless/awesome/whatever".

First, the 24 hours : Are we saying 24 hours of actual RL time, as in, the timer runs down even when you work, sleep or eat, or play other games, etc etc. Or are we saying 24 hours logged into and playing the game proper. This is the first point I want to bring because it's the difference between me using implants or not even bothering with them ever. I usually don't have multiple hours of play available to me each day. I plan on playing this game mostly in short 1-2 hours sessions about 3-4 times a week.

Someone earlier in the thread mentionned you get grab yourself 200-300 Auraxium an hour. Based on that, if I want the tier 3 implants, one or two play sessions is all I need to buy a full set, but given my playing habits, I'll only benefit from that grind of Auraxium for 1-2 hours if the implant timer is based on real time. If you say the ressource is also used to buy permanent gun sidegrades, vehicules, etc, then it's safe to say I'd rather save up my slowly earned Auraxium on these and never bother with implants for ages. However, if the implants are based on logged-in time, then I can see myself using them all the time. Each 3 out of 24 hours chunks of play time would be invested in these implants, while the 21 remaining would be saved up for everything else.

That was the first and most important aspect of the implant system I wanted to discuss.

Second, the impact of implants. I'm not sure I've seen the same video as the rest of you. For example the reload time. With the best implant I've estimated it was 25-35% faster than without implant. I don't see why everyone insist on saying that's a marginal impact. It may not be as extreme as the CoD perk equivalent, but it's still huge. And that's just one out of three possible implants. Combined, I can easely see these giving me a the edge against an implantless soldiers, turning what would otherwise be close calls or death scenarios into easy wins and close calls respectively.

However, I don't see that being a problem, if, and only if, the implant timer is based on logged-in time and acquiring all 3 implant slots can be done within a relatively short amount of play (like the first 20 hours of play). Because the in game ressources needed to acquire these implants can be farmed within a few short hours, a relatively new player who as unlocked his implants slots will seen this disavantage disappear forever soon in is PS2 career and the 5 year veteran players won't have their unfair edge.

Note that I would still prefer such as early play disavantage never existed to begin with. The idea proposed by Otleaz to have a default implant set that is competitive is good. Something along the line of ''Each implant you put into your skull removes like 5% of your health pool would also be cool'' Make implants true sidegrades instead of straight up upgrades. Or heck, fancy this : ''New player with low battlerank have a slightly larger health pool which disappears after they reached Battle rank X, unlocking a implant slot at the same time.''

At the end of the day, it really comes down to this : Classic MMORPGs always treated new players unfairly in PvP situations because a progression system makes older players anywhere from marginally more to ungodly more powerful than newbies. The so called play to win that applied until newbies had grinded away the leveling process and could finally enter the 'endgame' which was deemed the only interesting part of the game by many, because the leveling part suffered from crap like 'OMG this guy is 40 levels higher than me, Run or Die!'' I don't want this for a MMOFPS such as Planetside 2 because PvP is all there is to the game. I don't have 30 to 200 hours of leveling PvE content or level appropriate PvP Battlegrounds to grind away until I'm able to enter the ''real'' game on an even playing field with everyone esle. And despite all the arguments that can be made such as ''5 years old players are only 20% more powerful than you, you can still contribute to the success of your Empire and have fun.'' it's still going to be unfair until the day I finally catch up, assuming that's even possible.

Another argument can be made that it's not going to be unfair because everyone present here right now is likely to play this game from day one of release after the last Beta wipe, but I give you this counter argument in return : I'm going to play about 10 hours a week. How am I suppose to keep up with those that play 10 hours a day? Also think of the poor folks getting into the game later on! Not just your little person.

TL;DR : Read it you lazy ass.

I didn't consider how nicely an in game timer rather than a real time timer would solve the issue. I don't think it is the case however, because if it were that easy the lower tier implants would be pointless.

Also, I will be playing quite a bit, but this issue still affects me. I can't sit comfortably knowing that the people who I am being put up against are weaker than me in game. It completely illegiticizes(I don't care if that isn't a word) any victories I can gain.

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by Scotsh

Please stop telling me how things roll in PS if you have not played it for a minute while i did for a couple of years.

What makes you think that players in PS are so different from other MMOs? Just because its an other game does not mean that the players are different.

[Scotsh]

Having actually played with them

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by Scotsh

Having actually played with them

Oh yes I have never played a game where I have met players that have played PS1. Oh wait I have. So just because you have played with them in PS1 does not mean I dont have played witht them in any other game.

And thinking that players in PS1 is allot different then players in a game X is like saying that people living in New York are allot different then people that are living in Boston for an example.

[Salad Snake]

Honestly, all of this discussion really hinges on just how much 25 Ax really is. I'm hoping it's 15 minutes of play, the price of spawning two vehicles or something for a lvl 1 (which looks like it's nigh-imperceptible since the lvl 3 that Biscuit showed off looked fairly weak itself). It's like challenging a squad with squad perks in BF3 when my squad doesn't have any save for whatever I'm running; yeah I notice it occasionally but it's doesn't feel any tougher to eliminate that squad for me than it would if it was the same squad without the perks. It's still pretty much up to player skill and positioning as to whether they eat bullets or I do.

[Klockan]

Originally Posted by Liwen Diamond

So your saying in order to remain competitive in a video game I should neglect my family, my work and other RL projects to be 100% dedicated to the game to avoid you 'suffering' from not having your straight up play to win upgrade system instead of a play for variety sidegrade system.

If that's the way SOE is taking their game, I cannot consider it a proper competitive environnement and will therefore not treat it as such. Anyone from any outfit anywhere asking me to 'get serious' is going to be anwsered with a casual laughter as I indulge in activities that will bring me the most instant pleasure instead of even trying to play the game competitively, such as dropping my galaxies into the ocean and randomly dogfighting other aircrafts without consideration for objective base gameplay.

Many other people are going to follow suit with me and PS2 will remain a casual plaything. It will likely still be very successful and profitable, just not the game that many people around these forums are wishing for. And all of that because we could not handle the mind crushing nightmare of not having straight up power increases in the game. Obviously we can't be satisfied with simply playing an awesome fun game for the sake of playing an awesome fun game, we must have levels!

What are you smoking? Levels do not make a game serious or casual, a game like PS can't be a serious game though since we have nothing to compete about. A few might try to get to the top of the killboards etc, but overall it is a shallow game where you try to kill the evil guys and capture their land. What do you get for capturing lands? Resources so it is easier to kill evildoers. What do you get for killing evildoers? More ways to kill evildoers. There is no competition in there, you never have any deathmatches or so that you want to win, there are no real leaderboards or so. Instead they do what every singleplayer game in history does that is more advanced than tetris, by playing the game you unlock new ways of playing the game and that is all there is to it, except that now you do it with other players. "Staying competitive" is a worthless expression here since there is no "competition" to speak of.

This is how PS1 was made and this is how PS2 will be made.

[Otleaz]

Originally Posted by Salad Snake

Iirc, having more Auraxium is also a player-created condition so your principle is invalid (or rather, just as valid for my argument as yours). Personally, I didn't mind crits in TF2 or random spread in, well, just about any FPS nowadays. To me a game is about an experience and immersion, not just competition, so that competition doesn't have to be perfect, just close. I'm not some sort of e-knight trying to test my edge against another in honorable combat, I'm a guy sitting at my computer trying to enjoy playing a game, and for me playing 100% serious isn't very fun most of the time, feels like work really. I found Sirlin's Playing to Win a bunch of bulls**t.

Honestly, the only "perfectly competitive" game that relies on 0 chance is Quake's instagib mod with railguns. And I found that mode immensely boring and unfun. There's more to game design than simply rewarding skill, and the reward need not always be a perfect 1:1 ratio. These "perks" look so minor that I'm not sure I'd even buy the quick reload even if I have enough. I can handle losing once in a blue moon to so dude because I didn't load out with a chip. A chip, I may add, that probably won't even take that long to afford.

You are taking things way too black and white. Also, care to explain how auraxium is player driven at all? I have a hunch you meant that they can capture auraxium facilities to increase generation, but I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt.

[exLupo]

Originally Posted by Sunrock

What makes you think that players in PS are so different from other MMOs? Just because its an other game does not mean that the players are different.

The word is "Zergfit". Outfits that would mass invite anyone and keep them unless they were a serious problem. Azure Twilightis a prime example of a group that invited massive numbers of players, pointed them in a direction and got results.

PS1 had its share of badasses and ops teams but, for as much impact as a good gen hold was, nothing could match the power of the zerg. At the end of the day, PS1 was an Ochlocracy. It'll have its share of elite operators, beholden to cert plans, implant reqs and stat minimums but the true power will be in the hands of those who can direct the biggest mass of bodies.

[Otleaz]

Originally Posted by Klockan

What are you smoking? Levels do not make a game serious or casual, a game like PS can't be a serious game though since we have nothing to compete about. A few might try to get to the top of the killboards etc, but overall it is a shallow game where you try to kill the evil guys and capture their land. What do you get for capturing lands? Resources so it is easier to kill evildoers. What do you get for killing evildoers? More ways to kill evildoers. There is no competition in there, you never have any deathmatches or so that you want to win, there are no real leaderboards or so. Instead they do what every singleplayer game in history does that is more advanced than tetris, by playing the game you unlock new ways of playing the game and that is all there is to it, except that now you do it with other players. "Staying competitive" is a worthless expression here since there is no "competition" to speak of.

This is how PS1 was made and this is how PS2 will be made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_%28language_use%29

If you read a bit you would realize that competitive was being used to describe stats. A competitive person in this case would have a loadout completely maxed out. It has nothing to do with them competing with others or participating in a competition.

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by exLupo

The word is "Zergfit". Outfits that would mass invite anyone and keep them unless they were a serious problem. Azure Twilightis a prime example of a group that invited massive numbers of players, pointed them in a direction and got results.

PS1 had its share of badasses and ops teams but, for as much impact as a good gen hold was, nothing could match the power of the zerg. At the end of the day, PS1 was an Ochlocracy. It'll have its share of elite operators, beholden to cert plans, implant reqs and stat minimums but the true power will be in the hands of those who can direct the biggest mass of bodies.

Will in other PvP MMOs I have played you can usually beat a group that is x2 larger then yours if you play better then them. Is this not true in PS2? If not. What are the game mechs behind PS that does not enable that?