Why didnt PS make it big?

DviddLeff · 2009-12-10, 01:47 PM

PS quite simply never made it, it almost did as it certainly had some decent reviews at release and all of them were talking about the potential the game had to develop.

From my experience many people tried the game, but left after a few months and the retention of players was poor due to the shoddy Core Combat expansion followed by the BFR disaster, not to mention the lack of content bar the Skyguard and Liberator, and then recently the Gal Gunship, Phantasm and engineering certs, which were 4 years in the making.

I believe that SOE thought it would be much bigger at release; we had 5 servers which never got filled even at launch and following that they slashed any development funds as the game had not made the impact they had hoped.

But why didn't it make it initially? I think it boils down to a few reasons:

1. Graphics were sub standard for the time, not by much, but enough to discourage the FPS market that it was aiming for. This is however a sacrifice that must be made to allow the massive scale of battles.

2. Game play was substandard when compared to its nearest rival, Battlefield 1942, which was released a year earlier but had a proper recoil system, head shots, decent flight physics, etc. Again this is a sacrifice that seemed to be made at the time due to the network demands, however many of it now seems to be due to poor design choices (BFRs had multiple hit boxes, so why cant players?).

3. FPS players are not used to subscribing, which was a massive turn off for many. Yet Guild Wars has proved that a different method can work, and PS has now proved that there is a core that will subscribe for an FPS.

4. Too much competition. SWG and EVE were both launched in 2003 along with PS, with SWG drawing many bored MMO players into the fold.

5. Not enough variety. Bases, towers are always the same, 5 different base layouts is no where near enough, making people bored very quickly.

6. Too much downtime; 15 minutes for an uncontested base hack is way too long to sit around defending, as is spending 10 minutes travelling just to be killed by a tank; back at launch there were very few AMS drivers (or drivers at all) so it was a long way to travel every time you got killed.

Those are the main issues I see that need addressing, in addition to the obvious like lack of post release development and support, and disappointing expansions.

JackEarthrider · 2009-12-10, 02:00 PM

I would say thats part of the reason battlefront never took off as a shooter. I was great fun and all to play, but eventually the lack of distinct objectives or variable victory methods made it boring (after about 6 months, lol).

I personally don't know what would make PS "better" but I think many of the suggestions on these forums would be a good start.

DviddLeff · 2009-12-10, 03:32 PM

They key is making it appeal to a wider audience, as it was PS was very much a niche game.

JackEarthrider · 2009-12-11, 12:02 PM

Well ya, but it is hard to make shooters have a lasting attraction. The longest I ever played a shooter was about 4 months (battle front 2). Most of the rest of the time it gets boring after you've done all the missions and killed all of your friends in multi a few dozen times.

Basically what I'm saying here is you have to give them a Big Picture reason to play, and not just making the whole map their color, you have to give them something cool to work towards.
(part of the reason warhammer flopped is because the end game was borked)

DviddLeff · 2009-12-11, 12:14 PM

I dunno, CounterStrike has lasted for almost a decade... and those games are over in 5 minutes.

Its having short term objectives, but mixing them in with longer term ones that actually mean something. PS manages short term (capturing a base, although base fights can last for hours) and mid term (capturing a continent) but there is no long term goal for any of the conflict.

The game needs to cater for those that want to pick up and play the game for 10-15 minutes, as well as for longer stretches, so there should be more short term goals that can be achieved in that time; instant action fills some of this aspect, but its not as rewarding as a quick round of CSS or MW2.

JackEarthrider · 2009-12-11, 03:58 PM

Maybe if there were more targets that you needed to destroy instead of capture (blowing up towers, blowing up vehicle terminals, and of course blowing up AMS's)

That way people who don't want to wait around all day for a capture can still have a short term (guarded) objective to accomplish, then move on.

I'm not saying this should be easy, quite the contrary, it always needs to be challenging.

Also I think the towers need to be more diverse than they are, instead of just having 3 variants of towers they should be different field outposts. One should be like a field gun, another could be like a field vehicle terminal/rearm station, another should be like a radar tower.
(instead of the concrete tower for protection you could mix that up too, one could be tower, another could be in a big bunker, another could be surrounded by trenches or be in a big trench, etc etc.)

That way the mobile areas provide more than just an area to respawn and become a Target of the enemy instead of just another random obstacle. Know what I mean?

Kumoblade · 2009-12-12, 04:41 AM

The answer is really simple as for why PlanetSide didn't success. No Lasting Appeal. There's no reason to fight whatsoever. Shooting people and capturing bases can be done elsewhere in other games that have a stronger standing and without 15/month. Its not like you could conquer an enemy Sanctuary. With only what, 6 bases per continent, theres really no reason to fight as they're all essentially the same maps with a different color theme.

Then came the in game advertisements. Welcome to the Future! Enjoy this new movie coming out! Then came core combat. Then came BFRs. It was 1 bad decision after another after another.

Smedley says he loves PlanetSide like no other. If that were the case, I don't think he would have wiped his ass with it the way he did. The great battles are still fresh in my mind from the old hay-day and i'd love to relive them, however theres nothing really to relive. Like eating the same Sandwich everyday, its gotten old, and it needs a bit of a new spice.

Theres hundreds of things that could have been done right to PlanetSide, and SOE managed to miss all of them.

However, I also think its partially the players fault for PlanetSide's lack of success. People are always trying to cut corners/take cheap ways out of things or try to accomplish the most with minimal effort.

One of the things that really made planetside weren't the fights in the bases, but the journey to the bases while fighting the whole time. Fighting to gain ground on a bridge, etc.. etc.. It was those fights that were truly incredible.

Then overtime, just like in WoW, people want to cut out the journey and get to the end game content. The base. So skip all this in between stuff and go straight at the base. And thats where we stand right now it seems. Just zerging bases back and forth and cutting out the heart of what made the experience so grand.

DviddLeff · 2009-12-12, 11:46 AM

Very true about people just racing straight to bases to get the job done; particularly in air cav that can simply strike in a group and you are pretty much certain to land probably 80% of your group on the target ready to fight.

If combat vehicles could only be piloted by standard armour (rename it to "pilot suit" and make people spawn in agile armour) it would make those who strike in this way bypassing the outdoor fight incredibly easy to kill, and would discourage it, while still giving them the same effectiveness in the air. This would then make air and ground transports much more appealing as they would be able to transfer troops with combat armour on, rather than everyone just travelling in combat vehicles to the bases and then fighting in agile.

JackEarthrider · 2009-12-12, 03:54 PM

I don't know if a agree with that. On the one hand your right that the field fighting gets really interesting and is probably one of the better features of PS; however, sometimes people end up field fighting because a ground of entrenched people sticks to their base and waits for the attackers to splash against their defenses.

In cases like that you need air cavalry in order to circumvent their heavy defenses and drop on top of them; the fighting is by no means easy at that point and probably 80% of them end up failing hard anyway.

I think if you want to increase the intrigue of the game you need more base like objects to deploy in the field (id say the only thing that's missing is vehicle terminals). That way people can set up their outpost and fight from a ridge, hill, valley, whatever. But at the same time without the big walls and underground sections they cant camp their own outpost while under attack for very long.

I think also that if they made less bases, but made them larger and more complicated that would be better. Large enough that they are not easy to defend, but small enough that they are still manageable.

Just some thoughts

DviddLeff · 2009-12-12, 04:39 PM

Field battles are often centred around destroying AMSs, and unless the enemy is stupid they quickly send air cav/tanks to wipe it out, as infantry on their own have little chance against vehicles.

Perhaps in addition to a deployable vehicle term (alter the Lodestar to do the job?) there should be a heavier AMS that can supply MAX armour?

Kumoblade · 2009-12-12, 07:41 PM

The big problem is that all the combat is localized to the bases. The bases have everything in them and don't extend out past their walls.

There needs to be more objectives out in the field. Like a Defensive Anti-Air outpost that eliminates any chance of Air Cavalry getting into the base and making it a higher priority to take before directly attacking the base.

This could be applied to many things. having the airfield set apart from the Main base would mean you have to hitch a ride on a ground transport to get there to get some air off the ground. This would make it a high priority to defend as well as take.

Everything is just so centralized around the bases that it restricts what kind of gameplay you can experience.

If they made bases damn near impossible to directly assault without fulfilling several objectives first (such as taking out enemy air field and Defensive turrets), you'd get to experience a much more rewarding challenge than waves just crashing against each other.

This would also require a LOT more variety in the terrain to be successful.

JackEarthrider · 2009-12-13, 01:31 PM

Thats a good point, the bases and field facilities (towers) need to fulfill much more roles than they do now.

Also I wouldn't mind seeing some small towns or city sections mixed into the map so that infantry have a definite advantage against vehicles.

Kumoblade · 2009-12-15, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by JackEarthrider

Thats a good point, the bases and field facilities (towers) need to fulfill much more roles than they do now.

Also I wouldn't mind seeing some small towns or city sections mixed into the map so that infantry have a definite advantage against vehicles.

I hope to see sprawling Multi-sectional/Multi-Level Metropolises as well as beautiful alien jungle scenery.

Be it Desecrated or in great condition, Urban combat could be incredible and give Infantry a fair chance against vehicles.

DviddLeff · 2009-12-15, 11:10 AM

In urban combat infantry should have the advantage, as they would have plenty of opportunity to set up ambushes and once they strike, if the do not have the advantage then they can fall back to areas vehicles cant go.

Sifer2 · 2009-12-15, 06:28 PM

Yeah like was already mentioned in the other topic the core of it was the game was just the same thing over an over. Much like any FPS. Though for 15 dollars a month one expects more from it. That's why I think if SOE either cant come up with something better or isn't willing to invest the resources for it then Planetside Next had better have free to play options if its to succeed.

But yes ideally the game needs to cater to a wide variety of people. Cool weapons,vehicles for the Unreal Tourny/Halo crowd. Headshots an tactical crouches,leaning an such for the Counterstrike/Battlefield crowd. And more persistant elements for your character an the game world itself for the MMO crowd. It needs to do all that plus update at least every 2 months IMO if they want to do subscription fees.