The Reddit Q&A Makes Me Nervous

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by ItsTheSheppy

You might wanna go back a few pages and read through more of my posts. You will find a big deal with me is a concept called 'customer retention'.

You can say "It's like Battlefield!" and snag a few thousand players, sure. Let's be generous and say you snag 20,000 players this way.

How many are going to stay when they realize that it's NOT like Battlefield? It doesn't look as good, the fights aren't as reliable as just choosing a 32v32 and hitting 'go', there's all this RPG stuff many modern-day shooter fans have no patience for. Throw in the EVE leveling system that takes away the instant-gratification many of those players crave and you end up with a potentially disastrous situation.

It doesn't matter if you grab the attention of 20,000 players if only 500 of them are left after three months.

Planetside needs to generate a following on its own merits, not my mimicking and cribbing from other, well-established properties. Otherwise all you're going to capture are the minority of players who fall into the overlap in the Venn Diagram between MMO-enthusiasts and Battlefield-enthusiasts. And I'm guessing its a small overlap. I've played with Battlefield players. They're not... deep thinkers, by and large.

We'll see, but a lot of Battlefield vets are interested for the very reason that it's not Battlefield. We want a game that feels like BF but has a longer TTK, etc. Bigger maps and higher player counts is one of the biggest issues, and you can see how PS2 plays directly into that one.

[cellinaire]

Thinking about it,

Despite the way ItsTheSheppy wrote things, the disgruntled manner in his reply and the fact that he simply extremely underestimated new things the dev team already added or will add in PS2(all of which "PS1" didn't have, not other games in the market), I have to agree in several points he made.

What I'm trying to say is, I'm afraid if PS2 will lose both the 'evolution' and 'revolution'

(yeah I've long been one of these "let's wait 'till Beta and see what we can find" guy myself, but now I just wish they have firm post-launch development plans to slowly include the 'missing parts' that royal fans of the original PS have been asking)

Well, just my 2 cents



(** but I guess PS2 won't share the same fate as Vanguard or Matrix Online. When a game is F2P, some people are more likely to return later and more likely to give a game another shot because of the low barrier to entry, even when the first impression they got from a game wasn't that pleasant. So, I'd say they earned their time by making PS2 F2P. All in all, every MMOs can be described as 'unending Beta')

[Checowsky]

Quick, there must be no down time in our game lest people get bored, forget the fact that if theres no down time there is no up times as you just flat line.

I don't like this thinking, it brought us the text squeeze on TV and thats so bloody stupid. This has brought us on cont sancs that can't be captured, so the fight always goes on, but this also means theres no breathing space.

Yes PS had to much down time, but that would be fixed by more pops to an extent.

[dsi]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

We'll see, but a lot of Battlefield vets are interested for the very reason that it's not Battlefield. We want a game that feels like BF but has a longer TTK, etc. Bigger maps and higher player counts is one of the biggest issues, and you can see how PS2 plays directly into that one.

So BF vets want a sequel to BF2 instead of BC2?

Go to DICE for that please, let SOE develop Planetside, not Battlefield: Auraxis.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by dsi

So BF vets want a sequel to BF2 instead of BC2?

Go to DICE for that please, let SOE develop Planetside, not Battlefield: Auraxis.

The fight for Battlefield is dead and buried. Going to DICE for anything at this point is a lost cause.

And as far as avoiding Battlefield Auraxis - it looks like that's already happening, insofar as the shooter mechanics are going to be modernized. The key is to take the experience of BF3's lost cause and know that if things like too fast TTK(for example) arise, it's important to speak out against it early, and often.

Fighting against undesirable features such as a too low TTK isn't the same as asking for Battlefield Auraxis. PS1 had a longer TTK itself, so that would be no worse than standing with the PS vets.

[Marsgrim]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

The fight for Battlefield is dead and buried. Going to DICE for anything at this point is a lost cause.

And as far as avoiding Battlefield Auraxis - it looks like that's already happening, insofar as the shooter mechanics are going to be modernized. The key is to take the experience of BF3's lost cause and know that if things like too fast TTK(for example) arise, it's important to speak out against it early, and often.

Fighting against undesirable features such as a too low TTK isn't the same as asking for Battlefield Auraxis. PS1 had a longer TTK itself, so that would be no worse than standing with the PS vets.

I'm a champion of a longer TTK than the videos currently seem to indicate. Largely because when 100 people are defending an area and you're going through a chokepoint, the chances are you'll be dead as soon as you become visible on the lane of fire.

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by Marsgrim

I'm a champion of a longer TTK than the videos currently seem to indicate. Largely because when 100 people are defending an area and you're going through a chokepoint, the chances are you'll be dead as soon as you become visible on the lane of fire.

Why is this a problem? If you don't want to die, why don't you go where there is no shooting?

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Why is this a problem? If you don't want to die, why don't you go where there is no shooting?

It's not about not dying, it's about not dying faster than is balanced. In BC2, for example, they have this thing called "tapfiring". The game has recoil, but if you fire one shot at a time instead of holding down the trigger, the game autoresets your aim between shots as if there were no recoil at all. That means if you put your sight on something and mash the fire button serparately, no matter how fast you do it, they are all separate shots and will hit nearly the exact same spot.

Anyway, the point of that is, that system provides an extreme low TTK. let's just say you decide to stand in a window. Cover is 6 inches away. Under a normal situation where there's recoil, the enemy would have to fire in slow bursts and you'd often be able to move 6 inches to cover before you die. This is not the case with tapfiring, it lowers the TTK so much that it's nearly instant death.

This is a game that should have a middle ground balance in this regard, if someone is shooting at you with an assault rifle 50m or more away and you are 6 inches from cover, you ought to be able to get to cover half the time.

[ThGlump]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Why is this a problem? If you don't want to die, why don't you go where there is no shooting?

That was problem in ps1 too. Ppl were scared to rush inside, even when they had clear advantage. If you did go inside nobody followed, just waiting outside blocking doors. Was so annoyed with that, without outfits was so hard to do anything.
With faster TTK this will be even worse, as nobody would want to die so fast.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by ThGlump

That was problem in ps1 too. Ppl were scared to rush inside, even when they had clear advantage. If you did go inside nobody followed, just waiting outside blocking doors. Was so annoyed with that, without outfits was so hard to do anything.
With faster TTK this will be even worse, as nobody would want to die so fast.

and following on ... if there's are spam weapons such as thumper ... attackers would be on one side spamming away : defenders on the other doing likewise. The result is instead of speeding up the game it has slowed down.

Personally ..... ps1 ttk is fine by me but I am willing to see how the increase feels in practise.

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

It's not about not dying, it's about not dying faster than is balanced. In BC2, for example, they have this thing called "tapfiring". The game has recoil, but if you fire one shot at a time instead of holding down the trigger, the game autoresets your aim between shots as if there were no recoil at all. That means if you put your sight on something and mash the fire button serparately, no matter how fast you do it, they are all separate shots and will hit nearly the exact same spot.

Anyway, the point of that is, that system provides an extreme low TTK. let's just say you decide to stand in a window. Cover is 6 inches away. Under a normal situation where there's recoil, the enemy would have to fire in slow bursts and you'd often be able to move 6 inches to cover before you die. This is not the case with tapfiring, it lowers the TTK so much that it's nearly instant death.

This is a game that should have a middle ground balance in this regard, if someone is shooting at you with an assault rifle 50m or more away and you are 6 inches from cover, you ought to be able to get to cover half the time.

Your point doesn't really show that a low TTK is bad. It's just bad when exploits are used.

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by ThGlump

That was problem in ps1 too. Ppl were scared to rush inside, even when they had clear advantage. If you did go inside nobody followed, just waiting outside blocking doors. Was so annoyed with that, without outfits was so hard to do anything.
With faster TTK this will be even worse, as nobody would want to die so fast.

I don't really blame them. Why would I try to lemming inside where everyone is sitting on a balcony and spamming the door.

There were only so many ways to get in the base but you could avoid the cluster fuck and go up top through the walls. But for the zerg it took to long to walk from the AMS up.

It seems this issue is more a problem with base design then low ttk. Because it still happened in a system with an very high ttk.

[Aurmanite]

High TTK is why it was so hard to bust in. Facility design as well.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Your point doesn't really show that a low TTK is bad. It's just bad when exploits are used.

That was an example. What if Planetside doesn't use recoil, or not enough, or no cone of fire, etc? It will be the same result, you spray and pray at someone and the fire is so accurate people can't even move 6 feet.

Otherwise, why don't we just make all weapons 1 hit kill?

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

That was an example. What if Planetside doesn't use recoil, or not enough, or no cone of fire, etc? It will be the same result, you spray and pray at someone and the fire is so accurate people can't even move 6 feet.

We've seen what PS2's gunplay system is like and the TTK for the light assault class with gauss rifles. There isn't much "What if?" there. The videos released from GDC seems to show good gameplay to me as far as TTK and pace go. Some people would like more, but I will wait to cry for it when we see more of the other classes and weapons.

Don't be dense.