PS Vs DoD/CS/SOFII My revalations; Long Post

[MrVicchio]

Dear PSU Members,

I have been absent from PS playing for about 2 weeks now. This is due to a Credit Card my wife overwent on the limit..... Working on that, so I took this as an oppurtunity to, well try a little experiment. I have not played any of my old fav games like CS or DoD or even SOFII since PS launched, so I went back to these games. I learned some very very valuable things.

1. PS is lacking in the direction department. Tell me again WHAT the point of capturing each base was? When you play around of CS you hcave a goal, Taking the terrorist out, or the Cops, its really simple, with several formats, Bomb missions, VIP escape missions, Hostages.... but still, there is a 5 minute "goal" that you judge pass or fail. DoD is more a game of land control, can your team secure the capture points, take out the objectives or stop the bad guys from crossing the line? Same concept as CS, but set in WWII and longer rounds. SOFII has CTF, Demolition and infilitration....

Now what does all that mean? Well, I realized that one of the reasons I seem to lose my focus in PS is the lack of.... reason for it all. Granted CS/DoD/SoFII can get monatonous PS at times just seems mindlessly runnign from base to base with very little point. I mean, in the other games, the bad guys HAVE to defend to win, in PS IF you charge on a base, or a point... more often then not, the other side just.... leaves. LAME.

2. When I am playing the other three games, I don't server hop. I find a friendly cheater free (or as close as I can find) server and stay there. I am a full admin for my clans joint CS Server, Hackers don't stay long. The reason I do this, is because I prefer to know the guys I am both playing with, and against. There is something very satisfing about going after JoeXSniper your long time buddy then killing "Joe-anaymous" in PS. There is a lack of... well to be straight up, I LIKE knowing the person I just waxed for the 5th time in 2 minutes, and he knowing not only me, but that it WAS I who ruined his day. Thats another fthing PS sorely lacks.

3. PS Maps, RULE! All the other games, well they seem stuffy now in terms of size, and what one can do on them. Ya know what I mean? PS has Size where it counts.

4. Continuity, PS has this in ******. My stats stand testament to my skill for months not minutes or weeks. Thats good too.

5. Player Size, There is ALWAYS somene to fight, even if they often leave.


My conclusion from this? PS has all the right logistical support for a great FPS, but the two areas I mentiones... they really hurt the over all "fun factor" ya know? As soon as I get paid and my check clears the bank I will be back playing PS, but I would like to know if others sense this or along the same lines sort fo lacking, and construtive ways to correct this issue.

[DDSHADE]

id like to say that i agree that planetside needs more of a point like thing to make it have an extra spice like a certain base you need to plant a bomb in or better yet you need to plant a bomb in a bases generator and stop NME's from disarming it it would be the same as hacking a facility only it goes BOOM at the end!!!

you made a good point





[IMG][/IMG]

[SumYungGui]

I'm not too terribly good at crawling into other people's minds, but it's always seemed to me that the point of view of people saying 'planetside has no point to it!' is the problem. if you took counterstrike, set up all the maps next to each other in one gigantic 'world' then let them play 24/7 with hordes and hordes of people online you'd get planetside. each base, tower, ANT run, continent, mechanized armor squad, solo infiltrator insertion, etc. etc. is a 'map' of counter strike, but you're setting your own goals instead of having the map say 'get the bomb'.

meh, feel free to tell me I'm wrong. it won't surprise me. I just cannot honestly fault planetside for not 'having a point' after spending years playing Tribes 1-2 for essentially no reason at all.

[CrazyCrazy]

true, what they need is way to make all the small objectives tie into one larger, empire objective. It's all been said before, but when a continent gets locked, you should not be able to enter it, unless your empire has a continent locked that is linked to it. Then the empire goal to take over the planet would be acheivable. Insted of being a month, which was suggested by some people, it really only needs to be a week or less before it resets( or when one empire wins). There is a more elaborate version of this somewhere on this forum.

[MrVicchio]

An overall point? No there is no "over reaching point to any of the games, but there is a micro point to them. PS lacks both micro and macro level reasons to fight aside... jsut to fight you know what I mean?

All the other games had micro level reasons to play... but that was compelling enough that CS has been around for 3 years plus now and went retail from the Mod world.... Same with DoD a simple Mod turned retail....

[EarlyDawn]

Indeed Mr.V, an honest assessment.

One thing people bring up is how you can play the same old FPS in a non-persistant world and not get bored, but get bored with PS. My issue is that real FPSes, END! You are told which side won, who had the highest kills, who was the greatest medic, ect.

Very good summary.

[Nixon]

A very balanced assessment that takes into account both the pros and cons of CS when compared to these other titles. You're quite right - in almost all FPSs there's a sense of closure with there being the end of a round, with one team losing and another winning.

Granted, PS becomes a bit more fun when your squad sets a goal of doing something, whether it be as simple as pushing an opposing faction right back to their warp gate. But most people don't do that, and it turns instead into looking at the global map, first looking for hot spots, and then viewing continents in detail starting with your home ones to see if there're any caps in progress.

The fact that an enemy can retreat is something those other games don't have, and it shouldn't be considered a downside of PS. It makes it more realistic when an enemy can pull back against overwhelming numbers, and very valiant when they refuse to give up during such odds.

The most obvious means of adding any incentive to holding a continent is an easier means to lock it down... totally, so that something very difficult must be done before the enemy can get in it. It'd give incentive for you to grab continents, and incentive for your enemies to keep you from doing so. Right now, locked continents only serve as a glowing beacon that you'll meet no resistance entering said continent since all other forces are looking for action elsewhere.

Even if there are no links, some squads will HART in on a dead continent, start blowing generators and take the bases. Yeah, it sounds realistic that you can employ such tactics... but in the real world, rather then logging off or searching for a fight, squads would stay and defend their bases from enemy attack... but who wants to wait hours at a time just for the sake of realism?

Outfit-owned bases... a good push. It'll be a point of honor to drop your bags and go defend your base. To that end, I almost wish there was more of a reason to defend it... like perhaps you gain outfit points if you take the base, get a few more per hour that its yours, and lose some if the base is lost. I don't know what they'll do to keep some jackass friendly or enemy from jumping in, blowing the generator and letting it run neutral just because one of your guys ran them over three weeks ago.

The current experience system, which is unique to PS, encourages you to go pick a fight... but not to defend. Once again, you don't lose anything for running away. Even if the impossible happens and you let another empire take over most of the world, they're going to go to bed and by the time they wake up another empire will now control most of it. It happens on a daily basis and demoralizes anyone who put forth effort to take it.

CS, BF, SOFII, DoD, AA, and countless other titles are small in scale... short rounds, small victories. PS is very large in scale, and is capable of having both nonexistent rounds and extremely long ones. But there is no real victory... too much incentive is placed on gaining rank rather then actually winning.

The game needs to take into account that there won't always be people around to defend in the middle of nowhere. There is the potential that three empires could go in circles around the world taking things over without barely seeing each other.

Although it would encourage the Zerg, I wouldn't mind being able to see just how many troops are on each continent for all the empires. Lately, I've been avoiding the zerg battles and looking for small fights... squad vs. squad and the like, but you literally have to go around and look for that sort of fight whereas a Zerg battle only requires you to drop on a hot spot. I'd love to duel with a sniper... but it's a bit hard to do with reavers pouring rockets on both of you and tanks blindly running people over while your frame rates just go to crap.

Round-based games also add pressure... especially when you know you're the last one there. In PS, it's more a matter of running back to the tower or AMS and waiting for your squad to respawn.

Yeah, PS is a FPS... but it doesn't have to be a planet-wide Deathmatch. There's a reason why those round-based games became popular because of the incentive they gave.

PS just needs to find its own form of incentive... something other then that next promotion.

[Bad Mojo]

Originally posted by MrVicchio
An overall point? No there is no "over reaching point to any of the games, but there is a micro point to them. PS lacks both micro and macro level reasons to fight aside... jsut to fight you know what I mean?

The micro point is to capture a base. Or maybe lock a continent. But, that's my viewpoint.

The "meaning" of any online game (massively multiplayer or not) is not determined by the game, but by the player. I find a round of CS to be meaningless. But capturing a base in PS is full of meaning and incentive to me.

[Lise]

Originally posted by Bad Mojo

The "meaning" of any online game (massively multiplayer or not) is not determined by the game, but by the player.

Thank you, someone said it. This is a game where you're not just handed an objective on a platter and told to defend/attack it. In PS you have to choose your own objectives (or have your squad leader choose them for you.) You could go base-capping, you could go around crippling bases by destroying their terminals, you could even just go looking for some guys to kill. It's entirely in your hands. And that is what makes PS so fun - despite the bugs, despite the horrendous lag on my 56K, despite the occasional fucktard - despite all that, I'm master of my own destiny in PS. And I love it.

[MrVicchio]

I KNOW THAT guys, that YOU make the objective, but thats very abstract for a lot of gamers yes?

[Bad Mojo]

Originally posted by MrVicchio
I KNOW THAT guys, that YOU make the objective, but thats very abstract for a lot of gamers yes?

This type of "feature" in PS should never be set on a pedistal as a problem with PS. It's an attribute. Some people like it. Other's don't "get it". That's fine. That's why there are other games out there to play.

No game out there is perfect, and when you find one, the moment you join a server, it's not perfect. Them's the breaks.

[Hamma]

I love when the majority of my staff bashes the game that PSU IS A FANSITE FOR

[MrVicchio]

I WASNT BASHING ASKFJKASDJFASD


I was pointing out a difference between the two and asked for constructive comments on how to improve the "micro level" game dynamics...



Bah, no one understands me.

[SumYungGui]

's ok vicchio, most geniuses are misunderstood and thought of as madmen when they're alive. of course some just ARE madmen...