Fixing PS in 1 move

[TimberWolf2K]

(I posted this on the planetside.com forum, but I thought you might like to read it too)

PS took 3 years to get to where it is now and it still has some of the most basic of FPS problems game designers solved years before PS

1) The Zerg force, and unstoppable rush of players 30 - 40 going from one base to the next, capping and moving on. Not really fighting anything, just causing lots of lag and TKing eachother for fun.

2) Time sinks; PS as it stands is a time sink. You spawn at your sanc and if your lucky there is some kind of frontline / battle / enemy base 1 jump away, if not then your in for a 10 min fly / run / drive to the next conotent.
Then you got shot and killed, its a FPS, it is the nature of the beast, but PS handles this in the most ridiculous manor. Forcing you to spawn on 1 or 2 areas, sometimes miles away from where you died or your team is. (Even if your faction owns 10 bases you can only spawn on 1 or 2 of them. bull shit!)
In PS it takes FAR too long to do anything its not a fun FPS

3) Its more of a bane than a boon to be a vehicle user, a) if you wish to take part in a battle (if you can find one) you must drive from the closest base from the battle because you can�t spawn anything from a hacked base. b) a 5 min timer on vehicles, wtf? if I die (remember FPS) I need to sit around the Vpad for 5 mins and wait for a new tank. Battles happen in and around bases, therefore you wont be traveling very far before you meet some hostiles or get blown up 5 mins is bullshit.

Couple problem 3 with problem 2 and you soon see that it�s not worth it owning a tank or any form of ground vehicle

4) Tumble weed, the sheer lack of any fighting that happens in PS. I've had PS for 2 days and I have never been so frustrated with a game before. its a FPS with 2000+ people but it seems like they are all running around in a clockwise direction around the world capping bases while the next faction comes in behind and caps. no real combat happens PS needs rules ( I�ll get to that soon )

How to fix PS

The player base for PS needs guidance. They mill around searching for action, getting frustrated.
SoE wanted something original, a persistent world, a never ending war, something semi realistic to a real war.
They seem to have the bases of this but have no way of guiding players to each other in order to have fights.

My idea. �Dynamic Play Fields�

Split each continent into smaller play fields of 2 bases and 2 - 3 towers. These will be like your standard FPS maps. You will join these maps from the sanc (warping straight to the spawn tube of your factions base, no waiting ). From the map screen you can see the number of friendly and enemy players in the map.
The lattice system can stay in place, if your faction owns a base that links to the enemy base a Play Field will be created and players can warp in.

"But TimberWolf you noob this just means that everyone will warp in and zerg the bases and it will be easy to cap a base!!1!"
Fair point, but this is the beauty of the Play Field system, there will be a player cap in place, just like a normal FPS. no more than saayyyy 32 players can join a 2 base map (maybe more if the devs find that 15 a side is spread too thin).

This gives 15 Soldiers and 1 commander per side.
The Commander can split his 15 troops up into teams and give them orders as s/he sees fit. It�s up to this commander and his team to insure the survival of his base or the capture of the enemy base!
There can be a minimum player cap too, sayyy ummm 6 players per side or there is a full weapons lock until more join (play fields without enough plays can be shown in red on the mission board)

Lets say, The VS own Kaang on Cyssor and the NC own Gunuku (Map Here) a Wall, like a warp gate field will be built surrounding the 2 bases and the 2 towers closest to them ( making a dynamic field of play ) only NC or VS can warp into this field of play until it is full. So the even sided battle wages, 15 vs 15 with each commander safely hidden away giving orders After 30 mins the VS make the last push and take control of the Gunuku tower, then its only a few minutes before a cloaker sneaks in and hacks the CC. lets say that the NC have 60 secs after the hack is made to counter hack or the base is lost (I�m unsure if an instant hack n� cap would cause matches to be over too fast)

So the VS hack Gunuku and win the match, the NC have no where to spawn so they lose.
The Field around Gunuku and Kaang dissipates and is reformed around Gunuku and Honsi.
A server wide messaged goes out that announcing Commander VanuScum has led his forces to victory at Gunuku!

The players can a) choose to warp to the Honsi vs Gunuku play field b) warp back to the sanc and choose a new play field or c) stay at Gunuku

I�m not trying to change the Dev�s vision, I�m just trying to give them an idea of how they could �round up� enough players to have an even sided non-Zerg battle and make PS fun.

Squads and the New playfield system

The way squads work as it is would change a little. You wouldn�t need to sit around in the sanc waiting for a squad. All you would do it go to the �Mission Board� look for a battle with room in it. Select that playfield and warp in. WHAMMO! Instant action that works and isn�t a zergfest

I believe that this new system will bring squads and outfits closer together. They will all know the mission, they know if they fail their empire will lose precious ground and they will be trodden under the purple heels of their enemy. If they succeed then they have made a difference

So that�s my idea to fix 90% of PSs problems. I have to admit I had high expectations for this game, but I cast those aside when I first played it, now all I expect is Fun.

I�m hoping the Devs read this and at least realize that PS these problems

Thank you for your timeHere

[kid klash]

dude, dont mean to squash your idea or anything...but that just ruins one of the main points of Planetside. the sheer immensity of it. if you want a small-time experience like that, then go play unreal tournament or something like that.

[TimberWolf2K]

There is a fine line between an immense playfield and wasted space. PS has so much wasted space its not funny. People are so spread out it ruins the game.

Hmm yeah maybe your right, I should just go back to Playing Unreal or something. Hell at least you can find something to shoot at in other FPS�s :P

[Gener21839]

Good point TimberWolf... I pay for a Mass Multi-Player First Person Shooter... Not some friggen "beat the rat by urself adventure" from Everquest. I wanna see paced, but exihlerating action, which btw I only see at certain periods of the day. I can only make 1 very blunt suggestion and it's basically to try to keep the action within a certain area (a fairly large one mind you), while keeping the "spy" aspect of our cloakers going around or even through the battles, now thats a battle I want. Problem is, that its always at a base, never an actual "Battle Field"... Hmm it's a tough problem, but hopefully theres a lot of inspiring minds out there. And hey maybe that new capture system might actually solve this problem, and I've truly been looking foward to it.

[Gener21839]

One thing that'd really be cool to see one day is, a true inside battle from something outta Command & Conquer, I mean something a lot like renegade style, but with actual people building stuff around... well thats what I was looking foward to 3 years ago. Not that its prolly gonna happen anytime soon.

[Happy lil Elf]

I don't mean to sound negative but this is the worst idea I've ever heard. Basically what you propose is to turn Planetside into Tribes but with the maps quasi-connected. The whole idea behind Planetside is massive combat. Fights where 100 people can easily be involved. If I want to play a 16 vs 16 capture and hold map I can go play Tribes 2. While that is fun, it's not what I want from Planetside.

[gonnagetyou]

I understand where you're coming from, but your idea simply turns PS into a typical style FPS with individual maps and even teams. 2 days playing PS isn't really enough time to come to grips with the game and figure everything out.

I've been playing since Beta and I have no problem finding any type of battle I want any time of the day. After a while you learn to read the flow of things and you can drop down into the thick of it or go for the smaller skirmishes. New guys always have a hard time reading the map and picking out the sweet spots. Just takes time and experience.

Every base or tower capture is no different than a map change for any other FPS. At least in PS you don't have to wait for the map to load every 30 min.

The 5 min timer on vehicles is just fine. If you can't keep your vehicle alive longer than that then you're just not experienced or you just got unlucky and someone jumped you early. With the Engineering Cert I can keep my Lightning in the field for 30min or longer typically.

Without the timer, vehicles would have too much of an influence on the outcome of a lot of battles. It would simply be too easy to get them. Plus it forces players to play smarter. Cautious players who don't want to lose their vehicles too early tend to be more tactically minded. In my opinion that's a good thing.

[Kaltagesta]

www.ego-chimp.tk looooook, click on the poster!

We don't wake up late for lunch, but we all each captain crunch,
we don't smoke we don't chew, we watch captain kangaroo.

sorry, the thread was getting too heavy for my liknig.

[TheRegurgitator]

that takes out all the strategy!

[BigTexas]

Originally posted by Call-The-Gestap
www.ego-chimp.tk looooook, click on the poster!

We don't wake up late for lunch, but we all each captain crunch,
we don't smoke we don't chew, we watch captain kangaroo.

That was... disturbing to say the least.

[Jagd]

I agree with the others, try and wait until you've got a few BRs under your belt before you complain about dying too much (personally, it wasn't until BR10 that I started to feel competent). Just because you have twitch skillz from playing Rocket Arena doesn't mean you have what it takes to succeed in Planetside. This is far closer to what a real war is like-- there are thousands of enemies, they are relentless, they are ruthless, and they will attack from all directions. <- Key difference between PS and cheesy laser-tag style death match is the lack of obnoxiously repetitive battles over the same two choke points.

Try behaving like a real soldier; duck, hide behind things, wait for your teammates to catch up before advancing, stop thinking you're a hero all the time, have some patience and for godsakes man stop sprinting in a beeline from spawn tube to hotspot and wondering why you are nothing but fragbait.

On second thought, keep playing it like deathmatch-- more XP for the rest of us.

[kidriot]

1 move?

share exp in a squad dont split it

[Celedon]

Agreed, all bad ideas. No soup for you. Next.

[Madcow]

Originally posted by kidriot
1 move?

share exp in a squad dont split it

Great idea for kills, I don't want to see 50,000 xp for base caps though.

[Celedon]

Originally posted by Madcow
Great idea for kills, I don't want to see 50,000 xp for base caps though.

They need to keep 5.000 point cap, but stop dividing the soi experience among squads. It should be easier for a full squad to get the 5,000 for a cap than a solo guy. This encourages team and squad play, and allows for members of the squad to leave the SOI on missions (ant runs, tower caps, vehicle acquisition, etc...) without damaging the team. As it stands now, the players outside the soi, do not accumulate exp for the enemies inside SOI, so when it comes time to divide among the squad a squad will generally do worse than the individual.

Now that I've had the xp system explained so nicely (thx whoever contributed to that thread), I can bust out 5,000 point caps solo so quickly, it's sick. A squad should be able to do at least what a solo can in xp if not more. This is not the case as it stands now.