Oh lord, playing PS2 is fucking depressing now

[Gatekeeper]

Population balance is a real problem, definitely. Anything that can be done to either balance out pops, balance them out in an area, or negate the advantage of the zerg will help the game a lot.

Although it pains me as a Medic to say it, I think Stardouser has the right of it - nerfing revives/repairs would help make zergs less totally overwhelming. I think his suggestion of adding 'nanite ammo' for revives that can only be regained at sundies/terminals would make sense. The same logic could be applied to repair tools (though to ease the pain for vehicle crews you could also allow repair nanites to regen automatically at ammo towers/landing platforms).

Slowing spawn speed when one side has higher population (or speeding it up when you have less) could also work. I'd even be interested to see if giving direct combat buffs (extra health? stronger shields?) to the outnumbered side might work. A handful of super-soldiers defending an outpost against an overwhelming horde could actually be pretty fun for both sides.

Also, did I see somewhere that a faction's resources are going to be shared out amongst their players? If so, that would also help to weaken zergs as they end up with a smaller share each.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Gatekeeper

Population balance is a real problem, definitely. Anything that can be done to either balance out pops, balance them out in an area, or negate the advantage of the zerg will help the game a lot.

Although it pains me as a Medic to say it, I think Stardouser has the right of it - nerfing revives/repairs would help make zergs less totally overwhelming. I think his suggestion of adding 'nanite ammo' for revives that can only be regained at sundies/terminals would make sense. The same logic could be applied to repair tools (though to ease the pain for vehicle crews you could also allow repair nanites to regen automatically at ammo towers/landing platforms).

Slowing spawn speed when one side has higher population (or speeding it up when you have less) could also work. I'd even be interested to see if giving direct combat buffs (extra health? stronger shields?) to the outnumbered side might work. A handful of super-soldiers defending an outpost against an overwhelming horde could actually be pretty fun for both sides.

Also, did I see somewhere that a faction's resources are going to be shared out amongst their players? If so, that would also help to weaken zergs as they end up with a smaller share each.

Never happen, it's far too PS1.

I don't know what the devs are thinkning of tbh. They seem to concentrate on developing stuff and redeveloping it. e.g. cloaker redo, lib redo and I hear they will look at the tech plant again.

All of these things are good in themselves but all they can do is to scratch a minor irritation, they won't do anything to retain players over the longer term.

Perhaps they don't see the need to retain players over the long term? Perhaps they see that there will be a natural life-span to the game and are only trying to provide short-term experiences?

There have been criticisms from the start (nothing but a TDM and dumbing down etc etc) which have been pretty much spot on and the devs don't really show any inclination to address them; therefore we can assume, I suppose, that everything is going to plan. - How depressing is that!

[Edfishy]

I don't know what the devs are thinkning of tbh. They seem to concentrate on developing stuff and redeveloping it. e.g. cloaker redo, lib redo and I hear they will look at the tech plant again.

I think it's a matter of their being on a skeleton crew and not having the engineers necessary for massive changes to their engine. Instead they have to work within their means, which means toying around with existing stats.

Sounds like May or so is when they'll be scheduled to have some crew back (from EQ:N or the new zombie game) and can accomplish the lattice changes.

[bpostal]

Babyfark, if you're talking about yesterday's biolab alert I gotta warn ya that there's a lot of people who either log off for a couple hours when those pop or just ignore the whole damn thing entirely.

[Chowley]

Ya Miller pop is pretty awful at the moment. I generally play from 8pm on so my playtime is usually completely dominated by the giant VS air zergs, its seriously getting old.

Although the sundy farming while common, I usually only see when the server is very quiet, late at night or early in the day. When the server is bloody quiet and motivation is low I do not object to ignoring enemy sundies.

The worst thing for me now though is Indarside has made a pretty big return in the last week Indar is pushing me away from the game, along with other issues.

[almalino]

Originally Posted by Chowley

Ya Miller pop is pretty awful at the moment. I generally play from 8pm on so my playtime is usually completely dominated by the giant VS air zergs, its seriously getting old.

Get NC Phoenix and OHK small planes from the air. They usually think they can escape when hit but Phoenix gives no indication and it is OHK.

I often look for such zergs and hunt planes with Phoenix. So much fun. Phoenix is very powerful Anti Air rocket + granted it is very slow.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Well, i logged in shortly tonight to see the new deathscreen (seriously, what's the fuzz about there?) and the pop was completely fucked up again lol (something like 60% vs on indar, 50% tr on esamir and 50% nc on amerish).

I didn't even bother playing, but at this point i have no doubts that if SOE isn't taking this issue seriously and does something about it it will ultimately do the game in. Besides making an absolute horrible impression on new players, i can't imagine even toughened up regulars putting up with this all the time.

And since it isn't consistently imbalanced towards one faction it's affecting nearly every player at one point or another.

I really have to check out other servers sometime to see if it's just miller that's so skewed, but thankfully i don't have any time to play much games (let alone this one) currently.

Man, april can't come fast enough. Personally more time for games then, and generally: PS1!

[BlaxicanX]

Originally Posted by Calista

Imagine what it will be like on PS4 with the running and gunning CoD 4chan yoloswag 420noscoping trollololers.

It'll probably be better. PC Gamers are like 4Chan members; they don't really seem to know how to enjoy games- they just bitch.

The same ADHD sheeple mentality that allows console gamers to swallow shit like annual CoD games is what also makes the atmosphere much more fun and enjoyable.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Countering a generalized assumption with...a generalized assumption. Nice!

Bitchy whiners vs. consumer zombies, we really need a PS4 vs. PC server now.

[War Barney]

Originally Posted by Gatekeeper

Population balance is a real problem, definitely. Anything that can be done to either balance out pops, balance them out in an area, or negate the advantage of the zerg will help the game a lot.

Although it pains me as a Medic to say it, I think Stardouser has the right of it - nerfing revives/repairs would help make zergs less totally overwhelming. I think his suggestion of adding 'nanite ammo' for revives that can only be regained at sundies/terminals would make sense. The same logic could be applied to repair tools (though to ease the pain for vehicle crews you could also allow repair nanites to regen automatically at ammo towers/landing platforms).

Slowing spawn speed when one side has higher population (or speeding it up when you have less) could also work. I'd even be interested to see if giving direct combat buffs (extra health? stronger shields?) to the outnumbered side might work. A handful of super-soldiers defending an outpost against an overwhelming horde could actually be pretty fun for both sides.

Also, did I see somewhere that a faction's resources are going to be shared out amongst their players? If so, that would also help to weaken zergs as they end up with a smaller share each.

I've been suggesting some balance changes to revives for a while now, as much as people might enjoy a never ending supply of revives right now reviving is just insane, each medic can carry 4 revive nades to revives almost a full platoon in cramped spaces, its insane. My suggestion was that there should be a execution you can do to enemies so they can't be revived and it would be nice if MAXs couldn't get revived.
z
Right now mass repairing and reviving really does favour a zerg, people keep trying to say reviving helps smaller groups but small groups often get wiped zergs don't so having a ton of medics to revive everybody on the point makes them very hard to deal with, limitations on revive would make it easier to pick at zergs. And of course nothing makes you feel more worthless than sneaking onto the point killing 5 guys only to die to a medic who revives all of them so in essence you did nothing but farm exp but did nothing to help the fight...

Numbers is the main thing that needs fixing though... the main thing that makes me stop playing is logging in and seeing every fight is a 80-20 fight, even if my side is the 80 I just log off as its just not fun.

[HereticusXZ]

I'm of the opinion that zergs and pop-imballance can be solved by turning the incentive to attack/defend away from XP gain and make it a more practical dependence like....

"Oh no, if I lose this base then I can't spawn X item/vehicle! I better defend it! Or if I take away THIS facility from the enemy at THIS location then they can't spawn any of X Item/Vehicle in other territory's until they res-establish a connecting lattice!"

[BlaxicanX]

^ That won't work because playstyles within the game are too different, and it depends on player empathy for their fellow players.

If I was playing the game and I noticed that we just lost the tech-lab that allows my faction to build ESF's, I wouldn't give a single fuck. Because I don't fly ESF's and I could care less if my factions' pilots have to ground-pound like the rest of us. Similarly, will a pilot care about tankers losing access to their MBT's? Probably not.

There isn't really a way to stop a "zerg" because the entire core concept of the game encourages people to mass up together and roll around the map getting into big fights. Safety and victory both lie in numbers, and even if the game gave you zero exp for taking a base because you did it as part of a zerg, human instinct to follow the herd will set in for most people anyway.

But as far as incentives, an incentive is something that personally benefits you. Thus, something distant like "if you don't keep that base, your factions' pilots can't fly" isn't enough. It has to be something that punishes or rewards everyone on an individual level.

[Mordelicius]

@ OP:

On the population imbalance, it's the WDS Preseason 2. It touched off not just intra-server faction switching or just flat out logging out, but cross server migration.

The "MLG themed" NC competition in Waterson such as NUC and ZAPS has largely evaporated already before WDS even started. In addition, due to the ZOE nerf many hight VS migrated to other servers.

As a result, the VS 'barely' lost the WDS preseason 2 to NC. Had it gone another day, the NC would have lost our razor thin lead. The VS were essentially ignoring alerts and capping continents just to get the lead, resulting to less and less fighting with each faction concentrated on one continent.

On farming. It happens since the alert rewards aren't enough. It rarely happens in NC Waterson, but it can be frustrating when a rogue group would be farming somewhere unimportant during an alert.

I've suggested a different alert reward system a while ago to make it more interesting: http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=55841 (supply crate drops that physically is parachuted! Something concrete that can be fought over after the alert).


On the TR being least populated. In general, the chief reason is the buildup and collapse of insta-win vehicles/fracture max complex, coupled with the OP Strikers. When your whole 'gameplay' was based on strikers decimating vehicles and letting your Anti-infantry Harassers/Max Fracture finish off the remaining infantry for months, losing it almost overnight can be devastating.

In addition, in Waterson, NUC (TR) is not as active/effective as they used to be (which sucks; fighting NUC is one of the best reason to be in Waterson). Waterson TR has been making a comeback lately though.

@ the topic of last couple of patches:

Liberators are currently overpowered. My fully armored Sunderer was destroyed in 3-4 second. They have to fix this crap. Wasn't the Sunderer survivability was just fixed recently allowing attackers to consistently allowed to respawn and not get mass wiped by Sundies blowing left and right?

These Libs are obliterating the spawn Sundies to great effect. Raise Sunderer resistance to the Liberators. Take a pick SOE, make Liberators air glass cannon or weakly destructive tank. They can't be both! They are strong against everything again.

Sniping is overpowered. They say they want to protect the newbies from being farmed (that's what we've been saying on and on and on last year: nerf all the OP stuff pronto) that's why they added the new kill screen yet they ignored warnings that Snipers do not need any buff . Their instakill long range headshots is low risk/high reward. Been saying it all along they didn't need buff. It's like Dev left hand doesn't know the right hand, doing things to nullify each other's functions.

[EVILoHOMER]

Most people have quit because the developers didn't listen, every one I know who played, quit by Dec 2012 and I personally noticed the population halved by Jan 2013.

The game became depressing to play, not only because there was no meta game but because the base designs sucked, the weapons were boring and it just wasn't anywhere near as good as Planetside.

The main issue however was population, it was amazing at launch, giant battles everywhere, all the servers were packed and there were giant battles all day long. Now however the only time you'll get good sized battles is during peak time and even then it is nothing like it used to be.

Game is dead, move on, should know not to have faith in SOE, they've fucked up every game they've ever made.



Just cannot believe it is already coming up to 2 years old :\

[ringring]

Originally Posted by EVILoHOMER

Most people have quit because the developers didn't listen, every one I know who played, quit by Dec 2012 and I personally noticed the population halved by Jan 2013.

The game became depressing to play, not only because there was no meta game but because the base designs sucked, the weapons were boring and it just wasn't anywhere near as good as Planetside.

The main issue however was population, it was amazing at launch, giant battles everywhere, all the servers were packed and there were giant battles all day long. Now however the only time you'll get good sized battles is during peak time and even then it is nothing like it used to be.

Game is dead, move on, should know not to have faith in SOE, they've fucked up every game they've ever made.



Just cannot believe it is already coming up to 2 years old :\

While I agree with your first two sentences your last is more than a wild generalisation it is wrong. There are still pop locks on continents at times.

Your general point though is correct, as I think we're all saying.