So.. I'm going to SOE Next week. Top Issues? - Page 3

Ritual · 2012-10-08, 09:52 AM

I think the best questions to ask are the simplest.

What do they feel about the meta game?

What do they feel about the base design and base variety, and the combat they are creating? Too vehicle campy? Needs more indoor spaces? Needs more focus on air support for base captures? Too spread out? Not enough walls? Outlying objective buildings too small? Need more base types? More variety within bases of the same type?

What do they feel about the new player experience and adding tutorials?

What do they feel about the strengths and weaknesses of Indar and Esamir? Are new continents going to be more like Esamir or more like Indar? Or somewhere in between?

And of course I always like to hear about what they are working on besides all the "hot topic" stuff. So be sure to ask.

Timealude · 2012-10-08, 10:57 AM

As far as bridge battles go PS1 used to have amazing ones, do they feel that bridges are under utilized in PS2 and if so do they think bringing water or some form of obstacle will add more bridge battles to the game?

**Malorn** · 2012-10-08, 11:38 AM

In this discussion about sancs I saw several more great usability topics Hamma could ask about.

This is an interesting video to watch - brand new player first twenty minutes in PS2.

Interesting things I saw

1) He immediately dismissed the pop-up that gave him an introduction to the game (without reading it). I think internet ads and Windows have trained us to click those things away as soon as possible. We just don't like pop-ups, so I can't blame him for doing that. Though I did find it amusing he dismisses a welcome pop-up and then claims he's confused and doesn't know what to do. Clearly need something more effective there.

2) He never once found Instant Action.

3) It took him about 15 minutes after he got into the game to find a fight. I think there's a good chance many players in our short-attention-span world would not have waited that long. He said after about 3 minutes "I'm bored"

4) Some of his "wow!" moments came when he opened the map and saw how big it was, when he saw the vehicle options at the ground terminal, and when he actually got into the fighting he seemed to enjoy himself. He also admired the graphics of the game, though I don't think he played long enough to realize there was a day/night cycle. He probably would have enjoyed that too.

Could learn a lot from this video as a case study. Its something I consider an important issue to the game. It's key to hooking new players. If you want people to shoot at and a healthy PlanetSide 2 community and a well-funded post-launch project then this should be one of the top concerns. New player retention.

Canaris · 2012-10-08, 12:02 PM

Originally Posted by Timealude

As far as bridge battles go PS1 used to have amazing ones, do they feel that bridges are under utilized in PS2 and if so do they think bringing water or some form of obstacle will add more bridge battles to the game?

the reason why PS2 so far has had no good bridge battles is the fact that you can just drive around them, no water/lava = no reason to go over a bridge if it's tough.
The waterways and latice system of PS1 created choke points that forced players to use the bridges, the ensuing mega battles of them were a by product.

So yes indeedy I do think water would make them more used.

bjorntju1 · 2012-10-08, 02:57 PM

Ask if they are going to increase the cert gain. The way it is right now sucks ass, way to slow and many things are way to expensive.

Also if there are going to be more different bases, and if those (current) bases are getting a full fledged interior as it was in PS1.

Ruffdog · 2012-10-08, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

They hate sanctuaries for some reason so this would fall on deaf ears.

Like I tell my 3 year old daughter: "turn your ears on".

+sanctuaries

PS Sancs felt immersive. When I first joined I wasn't confused or frustrated. I actually liked the uniqueness of a safe zone and the chance to practice in the VR arena when I was an utter noob and get my xp up via missions. Later on it was ace to gather up your outfit in tanks or galaxies, dream up a strategic warp jump and go off to make trouble. Footholds don't feel immersive they feel fake to me. Why can't they be taken? With no resources to mount a hardware-backed defence they are just a pain in the ass. There should be conditions to capture these territories.

Hell the word foothold even sounds temporary

EVILoHOMER · 2012-10-08, 04:15 PM

1. WASD + Arrow keys for flight like Battlefield for those of use that don't want to use the mouse in an aircraft.

2. Make the camera follow the rotation of the aircraft like in first person when you're in third person.

3. Put Fog into the weather system rather than something that is there the whole time making the game look ugly.

4. Allow us to turn off The distance blur, the crazy amounts of bloom and turn on AA and High resolution textures in the game settings.

5. Change the way you move from island to island via a UI pop up when you get inside the warp gate area, rather than the tiny terminals that people struggle to find or fight over.

6. Streamline the UI down to make it more user friendly, right now it is so complex even I still feel lost, it's a big turn off. I love the art to it all, it's just things like the symbols at the bottom don't even have any text on them to tell you what it is. Other things like making where and why you should spawn at a place more obvious, for some reason lots of people I know just keep spawning at the WG.

7. I'd like to see the resource system and over long vehicle timers gone. They stop you from playing how you want to play, I never had this problem in Planetside but in Planetside 2 I find myself running a long way because I don't have any resources or waiting for a 18 min timer........

8. Get rid of the class system, bring back an inventory and have the suits decide what you can and cannot carry. It was a much much flexible system. I thought I'd like classes because it makes each one unique like TF2 or something, instead it has just taken some of the fun away, you cannot combine certain things like you could in Planetside.

9. Bases need to be more enclosed because right now they're impossible to defend and you never have big epic sieges. Most the time it's just people camping inside the base while vehicles rape the door ways.

10. Speaking of door ways, they all need to be protected and windows included so vehicles cannot just camp outside and constantly shoot through. I thought it was a problem in Planetside but it's even more of a problem in Planetside 2.

11. Tone down all the floating icons, at night it gives me seizures, it's all too erratic and and bright, it just drowns everything out. On top of that night time needs to be made brighter, you cannot see anything half the time because the lighting is over powering but also the first thing you see is the triangles....... I don't want to be shooting at enemy I haven't seen. It was stupid in BF3 and that is why most people play the hardcore servers....

12. Make knives equipable, not just quick knife, BF3 does this and it's fun to just run around with a knife.

13. Branching off that can the veterans have a Vanu Glowing force blade as a reward for being a Planetside veteran? It's something all us Vanu loved especially and when it was removed I died a little inside. I've been asking for it to come back for such a long time, it would just be fun for it to be a gift in Planetside 2.

http://images.mmorpg.com/images/gall...a2f70ae0ca.jpg

There is more but that will do for now.

14. Oh yeah and please make the character models on the login screen look sharp instead of blurry.

sylphaen · 2012-10-08, 04:21 PM

Can you interview Malorn ?

EVILoHOMER · 2012-10-08, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

They hate sanctuaries for some reason so this would fall on deaf ears.

I think the Warp Gates are acting like Sancs anyways. I found Sancs to be boring areas that I only ever went to if I got sent there because the cont was taken over when I logged in or because I went through one to get to another cont quickly.

In Planetside 2 you have a home base at the Warp Gate and each gate will lead to every single Island I'm guessing. It's a far better system but it just needs to let you take your vehicles through the warp gate instead of having to run to the terminals.

I just cannot see any people benefiting from Sancs other than people who seemed to like them in the original.

Drakkonan · 2012-10-08, 04:46 PM

I know you're just going to go with the top issues so I'll +1 to Sanctuaries. That being said, if you're desperate for questions, I'm curious if they're done balancing the point system. There seems to be a large discrepancy between points awarded for kills and points awarded for support actions (base caps, heals, revives, resupplies etc...). BF3 had the best distribution, which makes sense because they had been using the same basic standard, and refining it since BF2.

KDR being the top stat along with kills, instead of points is not a good thing. They should know this. Once again, DICE realized this, and were still able to appease the casual no-scope 360 headshot kids.

WildEagle · 2012-10-08, 05:26 PM

Ask them why they're so afraid to build off the foundation that was already laid in PS1 i.e sanctuaries, HART, meta game, etc. instead of trying to be consistent with "modern shooters". I really don't understand how the devs can continually read posts where people complain about the same things over and over again and do nothing about it.

Ace · 2012-10-08, 06:18 PM

Did not read through all posts yet.

But one thing i am dying to find out.
WHY did they decide to steer away from so many good idea from PS1?
Base designs and why no doors(i doubt they are meant to be camped by tanks).
Base capturing, why in the world go for a BF cap design.
While PS1 hack design was 100x better.
Why so few vehicles and continents upon launch.
How many do they even got in development?

I am playing PS2 beta, will play live.
But all this is a big disappointment so far, and they seem to ignore these complaints.

Fanglord · 2012-10-08, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by Exmortius

not being able to load textures and actually play lol win8 is borked right now. i'm sure they will fix it but that is my big issue. i can't even log in to see what works with the newest patch.

I'm on win 8 and havnt had a problem so far, like not a sausage above the usual beta type bugs.

My bug bear to pass along is I have no idea where the 'real' front is half the time, the little combat marker doesn't really give any infor on who/what/where ect.

Dagron · 2012-10-08, 07:53 PM

I'd just like to know how the devs feel about the way the strategic aspect of the game is coming along. Many people seem unhappy with the resource system, with how we mostly see zergs, with hexes, footholds, etc.
It would be nice if they talked about what they've learned so far that does/doesn't work and what they're planning about these things, and how far are they willing to go to improve the situation (i.e. i think it's unlikely they'll scrap the whole resource system, but who knows... would they be willing to if it doesn't start working well soon?).

Oh, and i'd also like to know how soon can we expect to see more weapons, be them melee, shotguns, grenade launchers, chain guns (any heavy weapons really) and even different engineer turrets (AV maybe?).

Baneblade · 2012-10-08, 08:28 PM

Originally Posted by WildEagle

Ask them why they're so afraid to build off the foundation that was already laid in PS1 i.e sanctuaries, HART, meta game, etc. instead of trying to be consistent with "modern shooters". I really don't understand how the devs can continually read posts where people complain about the same things over and over again and do nothing about it.

SOE is the company that fubared SWG. And those players were much more vocal about it.