Top cause of players leaving PS2 (2014) - Page 5

BlaxicanX · 2014-08-10, 12:55 AM

What claim have I made that you want me to provide data for? Asking me for evidence without specifying what claim you want me to substantiate makes it look like you don't actually understand what those concepts mean.

My criteria for objective is "backed up with empirical evidence".

Frydac · 2014-08-10, 04:11 AM

Without surveying the players who left, and analysis of that data in a statistically justified way, we nor SOE can't come to any real conclusion whatsoever..

So we can't do more than have our guesses and hope for the best.

Figment · 2014-08-10, 02:40 PM

@discussion going on a few pages back: Other games have headshots and low TTKs, because there's at most a couple out of all the 64 players sniping. But when I play CoD with someone who isn't familiar with the game, it's just impossible for them to practice duels and aiming because by the time they see me - if they even do - they're already dead. In PS2, they really won't see people coming. And small groups and loners just don't know where to look first.

Here you could have 30 snipers on one ridge. One of them will hit.

For instance, you may recall how in PS1 Thunderers could NOT hit an aircraft reliably? At all? But would do great damage if they would? We ran 9 Thunderers once. BFRs and aircraft alike would get instagibbed simply because of the volume of fire.

PS2 has more zerg. So to then lower the TTK and provide more area of effect one shot kills vehicles per capita is simply asking new players to be raped.

Especially in combination with this base design stuff. It is very intimidating to then get spawncamped too and just don't know how to get out of this situation - if it is possible at all (yes, you can spawn back a base, we had those insane discussions where defense was not allowed by some players and people were told to just leave and not fight instead because clearly that's why people play this game: to leave and not fight whenever they meet enemies of whatever numbers...).

It's simply impossible to stop large groups with a lot of volume of fire, that don't have any natural attrition because of medics and engineers having infinite ammo, heal and revive, which are all so fast you don't really get any window of opportunity to exploit.

Compare to PS1, where large groups could be bogged down, and taken out, picking them off one at a time or starved from ammo and medkits. In PS1, I and many others often single handedly defended a base against 8-15 players. Or at least stalled them. Although that took a lot of effort to do, BUT, it was possible. In PS2, you can't even leave the spawnroom in some of the buildings. Luckily the newer buildings have more cover, but too many simply don't provide any basic defense options. Just having pop-shacks isn't a defense.

Figment · 2014-08-10, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by Crator

I know right. I feel a resource nerf coming... Either they up the cost of things that use resources, they reduce the amount of resources you get, and/or they increase the tick-rate (amount of time) you get resources.

I still maintain what I said in Alpha that a timer and forcing the use of team-vehicles by not having many solo units be very powerful is more than enough.

Resources sounds nice at first, until you realise that you can't really campaign for resources and whatever empire is "lucky" to have more resources and thus expansion power, gets "more lucky". It's a bit of a domino-stacking effect.

Something from the previous page: Making changes to say Lightning speed won't stop traffic jams, since the tanks are played solo. Thus they're nothing more than mobile turrets. A mobile turret causes a traffic jam when it stops to fire.

It's as simple as that. It stands still. A lot.

Give a vehicle a dedicated driver and that driver will keep it moving because it got little else to do, unless it's camping. In which case you should make sure that a large stationary target is not only easily hit, it should suffer from attrition. So you shouldn't give its occupants super-fast, infinite repair...

Figment · 2014-08-10, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

Sure, but why is the "OSK" part of it significant? The TTK in this game is so incredibly low that there's almost no difference between a one-shot kill and simply being shot to death, in most cases.

You never over-simplify things, do you?

Instant death (coming from all directions) means there's no actual dueling time, at all.

Do you remember how much people enjoyed the Flail in PS1?

People expect a kill on them to take effort. Skill. If all it takes is you popping your head out for a second, then they don't perceive this as skill, but as the game doing the killing for you(r opponent). Thus it's boring.

There is no chance for tension to built up. No chance for adrenaline to start pumping. When I was in a firefight in PS1, my blood was pumping, I was using my brain to seek the best cover, the best timing. Every option to turn it into a win in those few seconds you got.

If you get no seconds, that entire process is just not there, you just sit there "oh". And people don't like to just sit somewhere going "oh" and having to run all the way to somewhere distant (say up a 240m cliff) again, just to be instantly killed, again. It's boring.

So what you need to do, is ensure people, even those new to the game get into firefights that last long enough for them to feel they've done something or had a chance to do something.

Who enters a lottery where you know you're probably going to lose?

MaxDamage · 2014-08-10, 08:16 PM

I think the real answer you're looking for is Potassium.

Too many people eating bananas for every one of their "five a day".

They're not even that great for you, you should mix it up.. all that potassium might help to prevent cramp during a workout but when you're playing Planetside 2, it goes straight to your head.

ringring · 2014-08-11, 04:24 AM

Another way to look at the resource thing is, how do you react when you have too little being supplied on the continent you're fighting on.

Do you either:-
a) campaign to win territories to gain more supplies?
b) leave to fight on a different continent where supply is greater
c) go to the warpgate on a different continent for 5 - 10 minutes to stock up again

The hardest and least likely is 'a'. I recall someone in beta writing a post that referenced the book Freakonomics which if I recall correctly said that players won't do what is 'best for the game' they'll do what is best for them and if those two don't coincide then tough.

Resources have never worked and I don't believe they ever will except for providing a reason to sell a boost which necessary in a ftp game. They will not add to the game experience for players.

Crator · 2014-08-11, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

Resources sounds nice at first, until you realise that you can't really campaign for resources and whatever empire is "lucky" to have more resources and thus expansion power, gets "more lucky". It's a bit of a domino-stacking effect.

No doubt, and I agree... But SOE has this free-to-play system they must maintain...

Figment · 2014-08-11, 09:46 AM

People just get overloaded with information and the map changes too fast to really campaign for it on top of the effect being hardly noticeable or only noticeable over time.

Facility benefits (provides tank tech, etc) are much easier to work with. :/

Babyfark McGeez · 2014-08-11, 03:56 PM

One thing i never understood and it really hit me again when i was watching angry joe and friends "getting their shit pushed back in" on hossin; Why aren't resources global?

Because imo the best way to go about resources is to make the amount of territory matter (like the old system but unlike the current one), but have it global so you can't get "starved" on one continent and have to go elsewhere to resupply. One would think this would be obvious and really easy to implement.

As for basically selling more frequent access to tanks/air/maxes via resource boosts/membership, well...atm it doesn't seem to matter since it's "Phase-one-side" all over again. But once the resource system works properly i see this as a much more slippery slope than selling attachments, guns or implants.
After all, with this new system you can no longer affect your resource gain by your personal performance. Boosts are the only way to do that now. Not particulary good.

And please don't come up with this "SOE has to make money" BS, that is pretty much a bad joke by now.
Where is my purple fro, my selection of different character and face models, my server/name/sex change tokens or any other form of basic merchandising hm?

As long as i don't see any of that i call BS on any "Oh us poor, poor SOE, we just can't help but put price tags on game mechanics to survive" excuses. They are just fucking lazy when it comes to monetization, probably in no small part due to the godawful "rush it rush it" way of developing this game, but that is their problem and the dead horse continuing to rear its ugly, dead head since they announced their silly 20th november 2012 release date.
It's the gift that keeps on giving, we also owe "Phase-one-side" to it.

Maybe they will actually learn the lesson behind this for future projects, but i have my doubts about that.

ringring · 2014-08-11, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by Babyfark McGeez

One thing i never understood and it really hit me again when i was watching angry joe and friends "getting their shit pushed back in" on hossin; Why aren't resources global?

Because, I imagine, because of the whole the rich get richer and the poor get poorer thing.

If the territory division means that one empire is starved then they're starved everywhere, you can't change continent to get more resources and if that happens you start asking what purpose does resources play at all.

Mind you, the problem with resources is indicative of many flawed systems. They should have designed this game from the top down rather than the bottom up.

Mordelicius · 2014-08-12, 10:11 PM

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

What claim have I made that you want me to provide data for? Asking me for evidence without specifying what claim you want me to substantiate makes it look like you don't actually understand what those concepts mean.

My criteria for objective is "backed up with empirical evidence".

You had zero argument whatsoever from the start. I made a long argument/point with 5 examples. You came up with a nonargument to coax me to argue with myself, without you providing any counterargument or counterexample. This is a common trap, trickery and logical fallacy that's took me a couple seconds to see (there's even a term for this, but it escape me atm).

So I simply turned around these 'sources' and 'data' question of yours to show that these phantom 'source' or 'data' is no reason for rebuttal since that would mean I would be just debating myself.

I gave you these two easy outs and yet you still want to weasel out of it by accusing me of being not 'objective'. But I know that's another bluff since it would be impossible for you to list a criteria of being objective without proving me right or proving yourself wrong.

Do you really expect me to compare and contrast my points to these unrealistic, nonexistent 'sources' and 'data'? You've foisted up these psuedo-strawmen argument yourself in the first place, that's because you have no conterarguments or counterexamples at all.

Mordelicius · 2014-08-12, 10:32 PM

And yet another fresh example to show the pattern I've been arguing for:

6) Adversarial Alert replaces the old Free-For-All Alert - The old alert system was fine and stable since it was implemented last year. The current Adversarial alert - already calibrated to 51% trigger with 65% to win for the attacker and 50% for defenders - is just plain boring. It's like there's nothing is going on at all.

There is literally no push and pull action going on. There's no sense of urgency belying its own title: Alert!

Gone are the last minute pushes and resecures. Gone are the match-changing base linebreaks. Gone are the poking and parrying.

The old Alerts were the source of exciting gameplay amidst 3 factions. The new Adversarial alert is a source of yawns.

The old Alerts weren't broken. They 'fixed' it and now we got these senseless alerts that doesn't rise above the normal gameplay that it's supposed to enhance.

BlaxicanX · 2014-08-12, 11:21 PM

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

You had zero argument whatsoever from the start. I made a long argument/point with 5 examples. You came up with a nonargument to coax me to argue with myself, without you providing any counterargument or counterexample. This is a common trap, trickery and logical fallacy that's took me a couple seconds to see (there's even a term for this, but it escape me atm).

So I simply turned around these 'sources' and 'data' question of yours to show that these phantom 'source' or 'data' is no reason for rebuttal since that would mean I would be just debating myself.

I gave you these two easy outs and yet you still want to weasel out of it by accusing me of being not 'objective'. But I know that's another bluff since it would be impossible for you to list a criteria of being objective without proving me right or proving yourself wrong.

Do you really expect me to compare and contrast my points to these unrealistic, nonexistent 'sources' and 'data'? You've foisted up these psuedo-strawmen argument yourself in the first place, that's because you have no conterarguments or counterexamples at all.

So you admit that I proposed no argument, but ask me to provide evidence to support this non-existent argument anyway?

Basically, you tried to promote your thread as having objective merit rather than being merely your opinion on some balance mechanics, and now you're upset because by asking you to provide evidence to support your assertions, I've exposed how baseless your claims really are. Okay.

Trying to paint the situation as me having some kind of secret personal hard-on for you is flattering, but inaccurate. You're not nearly interesting enough of a person to warrant "trapping" into an argument, to be honest. There are more interesting, and seemingly more capable posters on this forum for me to engage in discussion, and in fact by this point I'm mostly just responding to you out of obligation- you've already conceded that your arguments are based on nothing more than personal sentiments, so there's no point left for me to make.

In short, calm your tits.

Originally Posted by Figment

You never over-simplify things, do you?

Instant death (coming from all directions) means there's no actual dueling time, at all.

Do you remember how much people enjoyed the Flail in PS1?

People expect a kill on them to take effort. Skill. If all it takes is you popping your head out for a second, then they don't perceive this as skill, but as the game doing the killing for you(r opponent). Thus it's boring.

There is no chance for tension to built up. No chance for adrenaline to start pumping. When I was in a firefight in PS1, my blood was pumping, I was using my brain to seek the best cover, the best timing. Every option to turn it into a win in those few seconds you got.

If you get no seconds, that entire process is just not there, you just sit there "oh". And people don't like to just sit somewhere going "oh" and having to run all the way to somewhere distant (say up a 240m cliff) again, just to be instantly killed, again. It's boring.

So what you need to do, is ensure people, even those new to the game get into firefights that last long enough for them to feel they've done something or had a chance to do something.

Who enters a lottery where you know you're probably going to lose?

I think we're on the same page, though for different reasons. Coming from a Call of Duty/Battlefield background, I don't mind the twitch/split-second mechanics of the game. As an avid Halo player I recognize the fun of dueling, but I don't know if raising the TTK to the point where that could be viable would work in this game- keep in mind that this game operates on a much larger scale than its predecessor. There are a lot more players on the field at one time, and having higher TTK could potentially make defensive play even harder.

But I do still support raising the overall TTK of the game, primarily because the current situation is proving to make it very difficult to balance weapons. The range between "low damage" and "high damage" is too small, which is why we're seeing the constant fluctuation of damage output from vehicles, with them being repeatedly buffed and nerfed.

I'm also of the opinion that NC have the worst guns in the game- or at the very least the most inconsistent- and I think that the game's low TTK threshold has a lot to do with that. NC's guns are supposed to be the hardest hitting in exchange for low clip sizes and shit accuracy, but because of how low the TTK is, they can only make them so strong without turning them into basically OSK guns. As a result the difference in damage between them and VS/TR guns isn't that drastic, so the NC's main advantage is mitigated. Raising the TTK would allow the devs to raise the amount of damage that NC guns do without making them overpowered.

That's a bit of a tangent, though. To focus back on sniper rifles, I support the idea of OSK head-shots because it's the only way for bolt action rifles to really be useful. Even if they still took away like 99% of a character's health per shot, meaning a guaranteed kill on already hurt players, that's still a role that a semi-auto rifle could perform better. The only notable advantage bolt-actions have over semi-autos is their ability to OSK. Being more accurate and having longer range is nice, but again without the ability to instantly kill a target those advantages are rather useless, because if an opponent is so far away that a semi-auto can't be used, chances are they'll also have full health, meaning you won't kill them with that one shot. Once they get hit, and survive, any player that isn't mentally impaired will easily be able to dart behind cover or zig-zag around in the time it takes you to re-chamber another shot, account for bullet drop and squeeze off another shot.

So in short, while I wouldn't mind seeing headshots be taken away from all the normal guns and even semi-auto rifles, I think that they're a necessary component for bolt-actions. As far as "skill", I'd posit that it takes a lot more skill to headshot someone from 200 meters away with a bolt-action rifle than it does to mow them down with an LMG at 20. That might not be the type of skill some players appreciate, but it's still skill. Being a sniper isn't as easy as their victims would assert.

Gatekeeper · 2014-08-13, 03:33 AM

Regarding sniper rifles and OSKs - in PS1 no sniper rifle was capable of a OSK, and the bolt-action rifles were still powerful and useful, it's just a matter of balancing them right.

PS1 sniping was less about getting a lot of kills, and more about suppression - you forced wounded enemies to fall back or dive for cover, and so reduced the opposing force's ability to fight back. That's not to say you didn't get kills through sniping, but it was more a matter of cat-and-mouse, or teamwork, to get kills and less of a lone-wolf multi-kill thing.

Honestly I'm all in favour of a longer TTK all around. I don't think it should be as slow as PS1, but I don't think less OSKs will hurt the game at all - and it'll certainly help to retain new players, which is good for everyone in the end.