Planetside 2 Opinions from a PS1 Vet. Partially Satisfied yet not fully engaged.

Gonefshn · 2013-01-20, 01:58 AM

Hello all.

My name is Gonefshn.

I played the original Planetside since very early on. I remember when BFRs were released in fact I even bought the core combat expansion in retail box form. Also note I have been with the outfit Ghosts of The Revolution through most of this time.

I'll try to keep this as short as possible.

I believe Planetside 2 has done many things correctly.

1. The FPS or "gunplay" mechanics are much better than PS1.
I am a fan of the new TTK and weapon mechanics, I enjoy that aspect of the game. I think they have done a very good job creating a modern FPS style game in an MMO space.

2. Planetside 2 has a fantastic FTP model. Almost every major media outlet has praised PS2 for doing a great job with F2P making it so free players can still enjoy the game while paying players have benefits worth paying for.

3. Art style. Despite criticism I love how they evolved the Planetside and brought the art style to a new generation of gamers kudos to the devs.

Now lets talk about issues.
First off lets just say I enjoy the game very much, but lets not lie there are many issues.

1. Metagame.
We need more continents, plain and simple this is the biggest issue that seperates PS1 from PS2. What made the conquest meaningful in PS1 was the ability to conquer a continent and move on to another one. Right now it is lame to fight on the same continent all the time. SOE seems to think that a continent that is not being fought over is wasted space. this is not true. Continents that are not being fought over that are controlled by a certain empire provide a very tangible view of ownership for an empire. We need more continents more than we need any balance issues fixed. I think they have done a great job balancing overall (yes there are some things that need fixing) and this is a small issue.

Being able to capture a continent and lock it out to the other empires is the heart and soul of Planetside. This is the biggest thing we are missing. With more continents and a Lattice that allows Global conquest so many meta issues will be solved.

2. Outfits.
Right now outfits feel very unnecasary to the average player. unlike an MMORPG this game doesnt require an outfit to experience all of the content. However, this is only a view of the public. In Planetside the content is not raids, dungeons and bosses, it is experiences. If you are not in an outfit then you are missing 50 percent of the content. More attention needs to be paid to outfit participation.
With that said an outfit of any size needs tangible goals they can achieve. My outift GOTR is very large yet still very organized. With our size we can make a difference in any situation but I still feel like smaller outfit needs things to work towards. We need more Objectives in Planetside 2. Right now it is so basic.

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Obviously there are many more issues than these atm and also many more stengths to the game. I will end now with a concluding statement.

I enjoy Planetside 2.
The moment to moment gameplay is a HUGE improvement over Planetside 1.
The game can still bring the same warm fuzzy feelings that planetside 1 could bring when it comes to huge coordinated teamplay. Because I am in a bigger outfit, I feel like Planetside 2 delivers on the feel of the original in terms of bringing huge combined arms gameplay. Also it matches planetside 1 in its persistant rivaly. This is not an opinion its a fact. No other game pits you against the same enemies every single time you log in and sets you up with the exact same team mates every single time. In BF3 or COD you are put in a random match with random people. In Planetside 2 just like planetside 1 you play with the same people against the same people every moment you play. This rivalry and persistence cannot be matched.

Planetside 2 is missing the content Planetside 1 had. Because of higher graphics and detail we lose out in the amount of content. Planetside 2 is missing the content of PS1.

We need more continents. We need Continental domination.
Planetside 2 does everything better than Planetside 1 in terms of moment to moments gameplay but it suffers in its lack of content.

Nothing is more important than bringing more coninents and more conquest to this game. We need to be able to control and have ownership over larger spaces.

Owning X amount of a map means nothing. Controlling X amounts of continents out of 10 or whatever number is much more compelling.

I love Planetside 2's gameplay, it just lacks the conquest of PS1.

Bring back the true feeling of domination and conquest SOE.

Let me know what you guys think of my thoughts. I know this has mostly been said before but the more people that speak out the more likely we are to be heard!

PS2 has done many things very very well but has also failed to see many things that made PS1 so many peoples number 1 game of all time (including mine)

Let's discuss.
(lol alcohol makes you say shit you always wanted to say)

Illtempered · 2013-01-20, 02:26 AM

*sign

psijaka · 2013-01-20, 03:33 AM

Excellent balanced post.

I never played PS1 but do feel there is somethign a bit lacking in the Metagame; I like to see the map "blue" but that is as far as it goes; don't care about whether a certain base gives more resources. Doesn't stop me enjoying the game immensely but there could be a bit more to it.

PredatorFour · 2013-01-20, 06:53 AM

Well said i agree completely. Content-wise PS 2 is severely lacking to PS 1. Its like Planetside is the successor to Planetside 2 when you compare the two games depth.

Phantomdestiny · 2013-01-20, 07:06 AM

tbh i think this is just a question of time . we'll see on friday with the release of the 6 month plan and the community dev meeting on saturday

Zerotrigger · 2013-01-20, 08:14 AM

Originally Posted by Gonefshn

Being able to capture a continent and lock it out to the other empires is the heart and soul of Planetside.

This needs to hammered home to the devs until they realize how important it is. HAMMERED HOME!!!

hashish · 2013-01-20, 08:43 AM

I agree, ps1 in terms of content and gameplay was much much more advanced and thorough. I enjoyed that game alot back in the day and i do really enjoy planetside 2 but the absence of metagame, and increase in simplicity is what i really do NOT like. It kills the game, makes it feel like Battlefield instead of the MMO-FPS/RPG we all remember..

Also i really dont like the fact that these devs in particular are not very transparent. We never get any regular info from them. Only Big Big updates..

For now im relaxing playing guildwars 2 until ps2 is properly ready

right now it sucks for any ps1 vet, the battlefield players will LOVE it tho !

RovingDeath · 2013-01-20, 09:33 AM

Well said, sir. I believe by adding new continents, then removing this "permanent foothold" thing and giving us "home continents" we will see much better fights. Combining continent locks and some sort of lattice system (at least inter-continental) will hopefully make people feel more obliged to participate in important battles. While they're at it, it would be nice to see a way to cut off benefits ala special operations, as we did in PS1. Want holding territory to mean something? There it is.

Hamma · 2013-01-20, 10:44 AM

Excellent post sir - great constructive post.

Rolfski · 2013-01-20, 01:46 PM

Agreed

Emperor Newt · 2013-01-20, 01:55 PM

Nice post and I agree with most what you said. Only thing I would voice differently is the ttk. For a combined arms game with hundrets to thousands players I think it's too low. Surely it should be nothing like PS1, but it's currently more suited for a arena shooter not a game of the scale of PS2.

Palerion · 2013-01-20, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by Emperor Newt

Nice post and I agree with most what you said. Only thing I would voice differently is the ttk. For a combined arms game with hundrets to thousands players I think it's too low. Surely it should be nothing like PS1, but it's currently more suited for a arena shooter not a game of the scale of PS2.

I've been struggling back and forth with the high or low TTK argument. I can't seem to decide for myself if high or low is best. If you wouldn't mind explaining in a little bit more depth how the high time to kill would work better for such a massive-scale shooter, I would appreciate it. Personally I would be worried about players being almost invincible to make stupid decisions and run out in the open with high time to kill, and I think low time to kill forces the player to be smarter and more conscious about his exposition to the enemy. I think it also allows the player to take out groups of unaware enemies if the situation presents itself, which is good, since power should not derive sheerly from numbers.

Aaron · 2013-01-20, 02:14 PM

Yeah, this is a big one, but the devs will do it. They'll remove those footholds, get those warpgates working like they should, add more continents, and allow for real conquest. At least if we hammer this home they will.

camycamera · 2013-01-21, 05:58 AM

they are putting in moar continents over time

and people have speculated that PS2 is adopting and implementing the PS1 features that worked over time in the course of PS2's development.

http://themittani.com/features/how-e...side-2s-future

RedPower · 2013-01-21, 09:25 AM

Ps1 >>> bfol2