News: Game Update 10 Notes

[Gatekeeper]

Originally Posted by RANDOMpercent

The only thing I don't like is the health bar range. It makes sense for infantry but not vehicles. It also messes with VR where you'd really like to see vehicle health to help decide what anti vehicle weapon you want.

Yeah, that's a pretty strange addition - I don't recall any demand for it, and there doesn't seem to be any particular balance/gameplay reason for introducing it.

I guess Ruffdog may be right, and this is paving the way for an Advanced Targeting implant? Unless there's some kind of performance hit involved with displaying health bars?

[TartarosCZ]

I'd like to hear the reason for the health bar change.
It seems totally random to me and an unneeded ninja buff to infantry.

"Paving the way for" whatever is not a proper reason. If you can't actually get the implant, it's just an annoying change serving nothing good.

[JohnnyRicardo]

I have tried to log in five times now, but i always get stuck at the first loadingscreen. Cant get past 98%. Anyone else experiencing this problem?

[Lonehunter]

Originally Posted by TartarosCZ

I'd like to hear the reason for the health bar change.
It seems totally random to me and an unneeded ninja buff to infantry.

How many FPS have you played with health bars?

Even with them in, it's extra unnecessary screen clutter. It's also too much tactical info to give. The big advantage of enhanced targeting in PS1 was that it showed healthbars, you could easily spot the low health guys for kills.

In PS2 that's just default :/
I can however see it causing problems in VR

Originally Posted by Rbstr

Bullets should come from the guns that fired them, not the aether

They they shouldn't have designed some gun barrels to be so far away from our cross hairs. Like the Rotary on the Reaver and I imagine the Prowler

(and touche on usage of the word aether )

[TartarosCZ]

Originally Posted by Lonehunter

How many FPS have you played with health bars?

How does that matter? The only remotely similar game to PS2 is PS1, and there it was. Yes you needed the implant, 90% people had it.
I thought the "let's make PS2 like some other random FPS games such as BF3" phase was over, as it turned out to be the wrong way to go and a mistake from the very start.

[NoblesseOblige]

Originally Posted by TartarosCZ

How does that matter? The only remotely similar game to PS2 is PS1, and there it was. Yes you needed the implant, 90% people had it.
I thought the "let's make PS2 like some other random FPS games such as BF3" phase was over, as it turned out to be the wrong way to go and a mistake from the very start.

Honestly, the BF3 comparisons are starting to get a little trite now. Sorry if you don't like it, but games are an iterative medium and they've been borrowing ideas from each other for a long, long time. I mean by this 'it's a ripoff' logic, just about every FPS with ADS is a CoD ripoff and every FPS with competitive multiplayer is a bloody Quake ripoff. Yeah PS2 has similarities to BF3, but PS1 had similarities to Tribes. Games aren't made in a vacuum. Deal with it.

That said, I am a little confused about the removal of health bars in spotting at range. I suppose I can see some logic behind it (and a possible foreshadowing to an Advanced Targeting implant) but I've never really felt that health bars were really all that unbalancing. I've never really felt more at a disadvantage than I should when I know I've been spotted.

Excited for new weapon models. I agree that too many weapons in this game look kind of the same (ffs, the Piston looks like a Gauss Rifle...) Though I am a little worried about the visual changes to the Carnage. I like the little knobs on the sides and I hope they don't remove those. It makes me feel like I'm firing some kind of experimental steampunk rifle. :P

[TartarosCZ]

Originally Posted by NoblesseOblige

Honestly, the BF3 comparisons are starting to get a little trite now. Sorry if you don't like it, but games are an iterative medium and they've been borrowing ideas from each other for a long, long time. I mean by this 'it's a ripoff' logic, just about every FPS with ADS is a CoD ripoff and every FPS with competitive multiplayer is a bloody Quake ripoff. Yeah PS2 has similarities to BF3, but PS1 had similarities to Tribes. Games aren't made in a vacuum. Deal with it.

Deal with what exactly? I don't care what is ripping off what, as long as it makes sense.
This means, among other things, that I simply don't accept the "did you see hp bars in other FPS games" wanna-be argument. I did or didn't see a lof things in a lot of various games. So what?
This is Planetside 2. When advocating for something in Planetside 2, use arguments relevant for Planetside 2.

[Fishy]

"Enemy Health Bar Change
Enemies farther than ten meters away will no longer display health bars when spotted; this applies to both infantry and vehicles."

WHAT THE HELL??

[NoblesseOblige]

Originally Posted by TartarosCZ

Deal with what exactly? I don't care what is ripping off what, as long as it makes sense.
This means, among other things, that I simply don't accept the "did you see hp bars in other FPS games" wanna-be argument. I did or didn't see a lof things in a lot of various games. So what?

So, my point is that the MO for forumside is writing off everything they don't like as "too much like BF3" which makes about as much sense as "too much like Quake." I mean, ffs, I knew people who quit the Beta and refused to play on release because in the capture mechanics you don't pull out a REK and start hacking a terminal. It was "too much like BF3," even though BF3 doesn't have a monopoly on capture points and weren't even the first ones to do it. It's just the zeitgeist of multiplayer shooters, so it's easy to draw comparisons to practically everything.

This is why I bring up that games are an iterative medium and that they are not made in a vacuum. Because you can draw comparisons to everything ever in this industry. Hell, most developers don't make their own engines from scratch, because it's cheaper to use already developed technology. You can't honestly expect every new game to reinvent the wheel. I think part of the problem is everyone has this unrealistic ideal of Planetside 1. The truth is it was trying to market itself based on the atmosphere of online gaming of that era, just like Planetside 2. You can spot and ADS and sprint? Cool, so does every shooter ever today because that's some of the building blocks of modern FPS game design.

What I'm getting at is "no health bars when spotting is too much like BF3" is a weird thing to be hung up on. It just strikes me as another excuse for the community to complain about some idle BS because it wasn't exactly how they envisioned it in their mind.

This is Planetside 2. When advocating for something in Planetside 2, use arguments relevant for Planetside 2.

Sure, if you want to completely ignore the state of games. By that logic, if I can't counterpoint your comparisons to BF3, you can't make comparisons to BF3.

[TartarosCZ]

Originally Posted by NoblesseOblige

It's just the zeitgeist of multiplayer shooters, so it's easy to draw comparisons to practically everything.

It's not just "zeitgeist" when you take PS1, PS2 (beta/release) and BF3, and you see that PS2 only retained colors and names from 1, and everything else is BF3 carbon copy. Everything. Classes, unlocks, flight model, pilot/gunner model, etc etc, you name it.
Is that necessarily wrong? Not really. But it's also not all good.
I'm not shedding tears over REK, but I'm outraged at lessons having been learnt in PS1 ages ago, only to be forgotten and le-learnt the hard way in PS2. All because the model game was BF3, which simply does not translate to the PS2 scale.

Originally Posted by NoblesseOblige

Sure, if you want to completely ignore the state of games. By that logic, if I can't counterpoint your comparisons to BF3, you can't make comparisons to BF3.

This is making no sense. Never did I say I want to ignore anything.
But is it too much to ask for Planetside 2 to not ignore Planetside 1? That's all I want.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by NoblesseOblige

So, my point is that the MO for forumside is writing off everything they don't like as "too much like BF3" which makes about as much sense as "too much like Quake." I mean, ffs, I knew people who quit the Beta and refused to play on release because in the capture mechanics you don't pull out a REK and start hacking a terminal. It was "too much like BF3," even though BF3 doesn't have a monopoly on capture points and weren't even the first ones to do it. It's just the zeitgeist of multiplayer shooters, so it's easy to draw comparisons to practically everything.

it´s not the point that it is like bf3! the point is, it is like bf3 where it should be like ps1.

a lot of innovative things from ps1 had been scrapped in favor for inferior bf3-like mechanics. bf3 just stands for any modern shooter with dumbed down mechanics. it was not the first game who uses them, but it is the most common known actual game that uses them and is used as reference because of that. what enrages the vets is, that soe "fixed" too many things that were not broken.

[NoblesseOblige]

Originally Posted by Shogun

a lot of innovative things from ps1 had been scrapped in favor for inferior bf3-like mechanics. bf3 just stands for any modern shooter with dumbed down mechanics. it was not the first game who uses them, but it is the most common known actual game that uses them and is used as reference because of that. what enrages the vets is, that soe "fixed" too many things that were not broken.

Sure, I'll agree with that. There are things in PS1 that I wish were in PS2. Though I think the class system is not how I would have designed Planetside 2, I also think it's somewhat unfair to put that all at BF3's feet. I think it's just kind of popular to hate on that game because of the influx of morons in that community.

I think the unfortunate reality (and don't get me wrong, I don't like admitting this) is that a lot of this has to do with marketing. If we're all being completely honest here, I think its safe to say that some of PS1's mechanics were a little clunky. Not bad, but inefficient. I really don't think PS1 with better graphics (idealistically, the game most of us want) would do as well as the system we have now because that's the state of games today and I expect that to change again in another 10 years or so. Planetside 1 is my favorite game of all time and I wish we could exist in this static reality where that kind of game would really fly today, but sadly we don't.

[TartarosCZ]

Some of PS1 mechanics might be clunky, but so are some of PS2'
The one thing not based on BF3 I guess, but made up from scratch, is the design of bases, and it's still mostly a failure.

[NoblesseOblige]

Originally Posted by TartarosCZ

Some of PS1 mechanics might be clunky, but so are some of PS2'
The one thing not based on BF3 I guess, but made up from scratch, is the design of bases, and it's still mostly a failure.

I would call it more of an arduous process than a failure. Planetside (as an overall franchise) is in a unique position. It's hard to test how features like base structure and battle flow work in an MMOFPS, because there isn't really much of a basis for comparison. Hex based adjacency is kind of a nightmare, but lessons have been learned and I believe the lattice on Indar has much better "game feel" than hex on Indar. Not to mention, we are already getting base redesigns in addtion to testing those dome shields on Esamir. I'm still on the fence about those, but I'm glad they are at least willing to try different things. At least Sony seems to care about Planetside these days.

[VaderDSL]

The Phoenix got the static at explosion of missile stage changed, reduced in length by maybe a second or half a second? And the static effect was toned down, seems perfect now in terms of length and effect, i.e. my eye no longer bleed