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View Poll Results: What do you think of Power Advancement for Charaters, Weapons, and Vehicles in PS2? | |||
Power advancement is not necessary in PlanetSide 2 | 49 | 39.52% | |
Power advancement is necessary in PlanetSide 2 | 53 | 42.74% | |
Indifferent | 22 | 17.74% | |
Voters: 124. You may not vote on this poll |
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2011-08-01, 02:32 PM | [Ignore Me] #151 | |||
Contributor Major
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If the vets "need something", then give them stuff like a bonus to their faction's influence/ownership of a zone while they are logged in and fighting. So the more vets in a battle, the less time is required to capture an area. That bonus wouldn't put new people off from trying the game and sticking it out for the couple months it might take to get the hang of things, but it would absolutely play into the dynamic of the game in a positive way. Leaders on all sides would actively want to place their vets in the battles where their presence would be most beneficial. That's just one character development concept that would be fun, but is more than simply making the best players able to pwn the worse ones even more efficiently. It is possible to create such systems. |
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2011-08-01, 02:41 PM | [Ignore Me] #152 | ||
The power isn't the issue here as to why the system is in.
Its the customization. Skilling up a weapon to modify via upgrades to suit your playstyle. That's why its in. Right now in PS1 there are a couple cookie cutter loadouts. With this system there may be cookie cutter setups, but it will only be due to the self imposed limitation of copying someone else. More options, more ability to try stuff that's outside of what everybody else is doing. Customization. |
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2011-08-01, 02:44 PM | [Ignore Me] #153 | |||
Lieutenant General
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2011-08-01, 02:46 PM | [Ignore Me] #154 | ||
First Sergeant
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While I agree that there needs to be some sort of holistic balance, what is the problem with having a little unbalance in certain areas?
I mean, I've always thought that NC heavy assault was better at close range, TR heavy assault the best at range and VS better in tight spaces. This is not balanced, in some respect...and it's better that way. I like some aspects of specialization for empire specific things...maybe I missed the entire point of this thread *shrug* |
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2011-08-01, 02:51 PM | [Ignore Me] #155 | ||
Yes, there is a bit of that. I'm still not sold that its a bad thing. As long as its reasonable.
My comment was more reflecting the shift around pg 9 where people were wondering why the system was in place at all if they accepted the explanation that power increase was negligible. |
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2011-08-01, 03:00 PM | [Ignore Me] #156 | |||
Contributor PlanetSide 2
Game Designer |
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2011-08-01, 03:03 PM | [Ignore Me] #157 | |||
Lieutenant General
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Will slight power growth ruin the game? Not likely. Is it needed? Not likely. |
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2011-08-01, 03:10 PM | [Ignore Me] #158 | ||
I never indicated that I felt that power differentiation was a problem. I definitely have stated that tradeoffs are great because it encourages greater diversity in how people set themselves up.
For example, in most modern shooters, I prefer semi-auto rifles that hit hard, have decent accuracy for the first two or three shots and a red dot sight. Would be awesome if I could take the base cycler, remove the option for full auto and take it down to semi auto, while at the same time receiving a bonus to how it operates in one of my preferred rifle styles be it accuracy or range. That is what I envision, that's what I'm arguing for. |
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2011-08-01, 04:36 PM | [Ignore Me] #159 | ||||||||
Contributor Major
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To start out on topic, I answered that I'm indifferent. I won't say that I would have advocated for straight-up power increases (holistic or otherwise) based on knowlege of Planetside's cert system. I didn't find the old system broken, per se, until they started handing out too many battle ranks and consolidating the certs because the populations couldn't support all the vehicle diversity.
On the other hand, I can recognize the reasons to put power increases in, and, given that, believe that Mr. Higby and his team have chosen a good approach (lots of small bonuses that lead up to a holistic maximum to consciously balance around), and have identified what I would estimate to be a reasonable starting ground for that holistic limit. Given that perceived wisdom, I have some faith that they'll be actively analyzing and tuning these things, particularly in beta, to find the most balanced thresholds.
It's because SOE, then the industry giant of the MMO genre, tried it with Planetside 1, and the game couldn't keep a large enough subscription base for other companies to say "wow, that's really profitable, and there's room in the market for us to attack it and steal a slice of that pie -- and still be profitable!" Now, the reasons for this are, I believe, two-fold. MMO was still a pretty small market, all told. As a percentage of gamers, the number of MMORPGers was probably something like 5%. So not a lot of people were used to the idea of paying a subscription fee to play a game. *Especially* not a lot of FPS players. They might've bought the game, tried it for the free month, and then said "okay, that's great, and all, but I can play Counter-Strike for free." The second reason is that Planetside, with its very flat advancement system that promoted diversifying your options rather than becoming more powerful in any one thing, doesn't appeal to role playing gamers. So Planetside didn't draw in the audience that *was* amenable to the notion of paying a subscription fee. Really, what PS did was to appeal to the subset of MMO gamers who were also FPS fans, rather than conquer the FPS market the way they thought they would. As such, I have no problem with offering modest, overcomable power gains if the development team believes that will help to expand the market PS2 appeals to, and ensure that the game has a thriving population to provide a fun and exciting community and play experience for years to come. Could they take the approach that the MMO market is much, much bigger today, and that thus the subset of MMO players who also enjoy FPS is large enough to sustain the game by itself? Probably; except, I suspect, that here in 2011, that's largely irrelevant, because the subscription model of MMO is dying off in favor of microtransaction supported F2P models in various incarnations. If they had tried that 3 or 4 years ago, it probably would have succeeded on its own merits.
Furthermore, this can honestly be seen as limiting power growth, if you think about it. As we've already established, newbies start out without a lot of game knowledge, and with varying degrees of hand-eye coordination, and with no familiarity with the characteristics (fire rate, bloom characteristics, bullet drop/fire arc) of the diverse range of weapons with which they can choose to equip themselves. As shorthand, I'll choose to equate these three factors, as an aggregate, to the simple term, "skill." So we already know that the newbie has a vast "skill" difference compared to a veteran. Whether they have some skill that carries over from outside the game (be it studying wikis to glean maps and statistics for different weapons, having friends recount basic tenets of strategy such as what does and does not represent a favorable engagement based on a given weapon on hand, or carrying over hand-eye coordination from other FPS games), the gulf is likely formidable, and will heavily favor the veteran. Now, two of those three skill factors will carry over regardless of specialization, as the newbie plays the game and slowly becomes a veteran. So he can get a new cert, and, suddenly, is considered significantly more veteran than another newbie who just started the game, despite having similar time devoted to a particular specialization, role, or cert! With a system that builds in power advancement, that veteran does NOT get the full benefit of his play in other areas of specialization, merely by being a veteran of the GAME. Thus, it slows his power advancement down, because he has to earn his veteran status in each SPECIALIZATION he wants to tackle. In other words, a newbie who earns his 20% in a specialization over 6 months (or whatever), can go up against a 3-year veteran who has only been focusing on this specialization for a month, and will be at an advantage! Despite facing somebody with 6 times the game time as himself. That's because the more veteran player's advancement has been, effectively, *slowed* by the system.
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2011-08-01, 07:05 PM | [Ignore Me] #162 | |||
Colonel
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There's so many examples I could list where someone's specialization would actually be beneficial instead of this 20% nothingness. |
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2011-08-01, 07:23 PM | [Ignore Me] #163 | |||||
Contributor Major
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You want to put sights over something and then try to jerk your mouse around to keep it over the head, I'd rather put something in the center of my screen and be conscious of how much of the bloom indicator it's filling and how well I'm controlling my bursts. In addition, I should point out that the placement of a shot within the cone of fire wasn't strictly random. It was weighted to land more often near the center of the crosshairs than near the edge of the cone. And that made for a good system with a lot of character to each of the weapons, as some would start more heavily weighted but "flatten" the probability curve as you fired, which provides a very different feel from a weapon which blooms almost immediately but retains a relatively heavy center-weighting as it does.
I'd rather take a system like that with a little bit of power progression to replace the versatility progression, than one where you have to tell the newbie "Oh, I'm sorry, you chose basilisk, you can't get a tank yet" or "Oh, you wanted to drive a tank, so you've got nothing to fight with now that the fight's moved indoors" or "Oh, well, see, he's got heavy assault AND medic, so despite the good job you did of getting him to 10 hp, you're still screwed because he ducked around the corner and is healing up." Last edited by kaffis; 2011-08-01 at 07:30 PM. |
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2011-08-01, 07:36 PM | [Ignore Me] #164 | ||||
And a heavy-bomber unlock on the regular bomber might have 80% more health, but be 50% slower, for example. Significant side-grades, relatively small up-grades. Or maybe some ship gear would have the same effect. Shifting stats around significantly, but not a flat-out Mega Buff 100/200% bonus There, with no balancing penalty? Hell no. People who want that should head back to WoW. This here is PLANETSIDE. Player skill matters the most. Not cert-based stat bonuses. There have been numerous comments from the devs about "speeding up gameplay" and increased lethality and so forth. If someone with remotely appropriate gear gets the drop on you, you're probably going to die. Period. HOWEVER, if two squads are slugging it out, and their player-skill-levels are about the same, character-skill-levels will matter. "Tactical versatility" can matter A Lot if you can create the right situation, but a couple % one way or the other can make a difference when you're otherwise on an even footing. A 5% smaller cone of fire, 1% more damage, and medics that can heal/revive you a tad faster Can Make A Difference. The stat/skill mods in Global Agenda bugged the hell out of me (what's the point?!) until that concept seeped into my head. I get it now. SMALL power progression has some benefits: 1) It lets people feel they're getting something (psychologically addictive games have that sort of thing designed into them). I get the feeling I'm gonna be Hooked Bad on PS2. Needs me another fix. 2) In Competitive Play, a couple % one way or the other can Actually Matter. 3) Yes, it matters a little more against folks who are untrained, but frankly I think the unlocks (air timed grenades vs impact grenades fer instance) will matter more in those cases. 4) Leave the majority of the importance in the player's hands, not the character's. Addiction & Competitive Play. Probably in that order. You don't want to make the buffs utterly irrelevant, or they'll be seen as utterly irrelevant. No bueno. But you also don't want to have an RPG-grade power boost based on character training/level. The victory is in the hands of the player, not the character. It's a tough line to walk. Pretty damn narrow. Kudos to them if they can manage that particular tight-rope. And being that they Do This For A Living, and have a whole shit-ton of data to mine (from the current version), I think they'll be okay. Last edited by NapalmEnima; 2011-08-01 at 07:46 PM. |
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2011-08-02, 12:53 AM | [Ignore Me] #165 | ||
Contributor PlanetSide 2
Game Designer |
This thread boils down to
...about a third of the participants saying they don't get why there's power progression at all in the game (and not getting answers). ...about a third of the participants arguing that the difference is no big deal and therefore it is OK (and bypassing the whole "why?" question entirely) ...and about a third of the participants saying some combination of dont' care, too soon, etc. I'd really like some concrete rationale as to why this is even being discussed and at least what context under which this power gain is leveraged. The key question boils down to... How is the power progression activated? A) Is it an always-on thing once you train it? As in, once I train assault rifle damage whatever I forever have like 1% more assault rifle damage no matter what I am doing? OR B) do you have a limited set that you custom configure to use at any one time and training the cert unlocks more options? This would be more like the Warhammer Tactics system or the BFBC2 Gadget slots. A is a terrible design. B is absolutely awesome. |
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