A way to give people a grand purpose

War Barney · 2014-03-19, 11:00 PM

Its been mentioned before that PS2 lacks purpose a lot of the time, people fight for exp and thats it except during alerts (and even then people fight for the big exp reward).

A good way to solve this issue would be to

A. A short intro explaining your factions history and goals, that way players know what they are fighting for and why instead of *I kill blue and red people cos I'm purple!*. I honestly know NOTHING about the NC, I've played them for almost a year and honestly the only thing I know is they like blue, I have no idea why they care about this planet, I have no idea what this planet is or where, if this is meant to be in our future or a alternate universe NOTHING.

B. A bonus for locking all 3 conts! something big! something fancy! something everybody would constantly strive for!!. Now I'm not saying it would be easy to do or happen often.. but right now cont locking seems to just be for pride, if there is a bonus for it I've never noticed it. Imagine if locking all 3 conts let you chose a free gun? Finally people would have a reason to constantly be fighting to lock them all at once instead of just avoiding the enemy and zerging for exp which is the current style of play.

Belhade · 2014-03-20, 12:27 AM

Yours is not to reason why;
yours is but to do or die.

Well, maybe do and die, then do again.

Dougnifico · 2014-03-20, 04:32 AM

You know... a free unlock of some sort would be a great incentive, Maybe you get 1,000 SC if you are on within 24 hours of a total world conquest? At least once there are more continents (so like... 5 years. lol)

HereticusXZ · 2014-03-20, 06:04 AM

A Grand Purpose is indeed the big question that would solve a great deal of pain surrounding the absence of meta-game.

Where I do think that educating players about Lore is a good thing.... No... that's just not incentive at all, in any way, shape, or form.

Incentive to "me" anyways is tactical relevance of a Facility, if I conquer this base I want it to bring something physically relevant to my Empire like a new vehicle or base defense turret, NOT just a marginally "I probably will never notice" upgrade to whatever I currently have...

If I take this facility away from the enemy I want them to loose any and all production, even Warpgate production of X vehicle or base defense turret.

The same applies to capturing a continent.... If I get a Continent I want to be able to produce some awesome vehicle or dispensable weapon that's available on ALL continents to my Empire.

If the meta-game hinders the new-player experience then so be it. You can't spawn a specific vehicle? Join a Squad or Platoon or Outfit that's organizing to go reclaim the territory needed so you CAN push. NS vehicles that are available everywhere are still just as important as ES.

The ES flavor should be a goal not a given.

Gimpylung · 2014-03-20, 08:35 AM

I have played VS almost exclusively for years. The reason being, I was shown the ropes by a very nice bunch of guys in LFS many years ago.

Belonging, loyalty and purpose starts in good outfits and that then spills over to empire loyalty.

I see so many 'no outfit' types running about these days, no real affiliations, no real bond with the game. Not even the slightest reason to care how their faction is faring coz they are motivated by unlocks and jumping from empire to empire to try 'stuff'

Hopefully the Outfit Update will get more people in outfits and give them a more ingrained sense of belonging and purpose.

My points may seem off topic, but a well lead and structured outfit is a far greater motivator than some transient reward. The game is too unlock and reward orientated as it is, it leads to a sense of entitlement that the game must continue to sate.

There should be more perks and incentive to join outfits, better gameplay will follow.

ringring · 2014-03-20, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by Gimpylung

I have played VS almost exclusively for years. The reason being, I was shown the ropes by a very nice bunch of guys in LFS many years ago.

Belonging, loyalty and purpose starts in good outfits and that then spills over to empire loyalty.

.

I don't know. The joy of being in an outfit comes from achieving something in-game together, work together, use tactics and so on.

There were many times in ps1 when I said something along the lines of 'you know what, I think we actually made a big difference in capturing this continent'.

I can't imagine saying the same in ps2, not because it can't be done but because you have to ask yourself why should you bother?

I think I've only set out to capture a continent once in ps2, that was I think Nov/Dec 2012, it took ourselves+ruffnex+bmc working together but we did it. There was a sense of achievement but I haven't tried since, there's no reason to.

Crator · 2014-03-20, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by ringring

There were many times in ps1 when I said something along the lines of 'you know what, I think we actually made a big difference in capturing this continent'.

I can't imagine saying the same in ps2, not because it can't be done but because you have to ask yourself why should you bother?

This is because PS1 had empire home continents with continent locking and the intercontinental lattice existed. That was the overarching meta-game in PS1 and IMO is what makes Planetside unique from other FPS games. It gives the feeling of war across an entire planet instead of just on individual maps that have no connection to each other.

mrmrmrj · 2014-03-20, 12:49 PM

I think asking the developers to provide reasons for you to play their game is unnecessary. It is fun or it isn't.

What is great about PS2 is that if you get bored as infantry, pull a tank. If you get bored of that, go cloaker. All the various vehicles and classes require different tactics and awareness. That is what makes fighting at the same bases over and over doable.

HereticusXZ · 2014-03-20, 03:21 PM

Originally Posted by mrmrmrj

I think asking the developers to provide reasons for you to play their game is unnecessary. It is fun or it isn't.

What is great about PS2 is that if you get bored as infantry, pull a tank. If you get bored of that, go cloaker. All the various vehicles and classes require different tactics and awareness. That is what makes fighting at the same bases over and over doable.

To a degree that's COD logic "Be content that you have a arena to shoot in with targets and nothing more." Why?

This is PC gaming, This is MMO, This -IS- Planetside 2 where bigger is better not just in armys and battlefields but the grand experience of war and all that it encompasses. We need attrition values, a facility/continent should be worth more to a army then just a glorified paintball arena. Otherwise why the frak are you playing PS2 and not COD, Battlefield, or Titanfall? Army size alone? HAH!

Stagnation is death and PS2 needs meta-game or it will die. We need a grand purpose to the war beyond the warm and fuzzy feeling of shooting or Red v Blue v Purple.

Mightymouser · 2014-03-20, 04:26 PM

To your first point: if what you're looking for is just lore, such a thing exsists (in ****** <- I can't say a suit of cards? Really? With all the crap that's said on these forums that's rather incongruent.):

http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Lore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB9yHmQZmAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EYvzwB28wI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuTbOODUUWc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJEx7OAdRSE

On the other hand, if you are looking for in game objectives and a reason to fight beyond the battle right in front of you, then there's a name for that too; it's called meta-game, and vets have been begging for it since beta. Hopefully we'll see it somewhat increased once Hossin is in, and there a semi-functional contential lattice... but really we need several continents and the ability to lock them before we'll see meaningful meta-game develop.

KesTro · 2014-03-20, 05:23 PM

"Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws, and asks no omen, but his country's cause."

Ruffdog · 2014-03-20, 07:14 PM

The game needs home continents.
In PS1 on logging in, before doing anything else I'd check Ceryshen and Forseral (then later Hossin and Solsar after the warping) to see if anyone had dared invade our land ( oh and Oshur - that was ours too

) and to go kick them in the balls if they had.
There was grand purpose in the persistent old Auraxis. No effing around with warpgate rotations. There was ownership and that gave meaning IMO.

Rivenshield · 2014-03-23, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by Ruffdog

The game needs home continents.
There was grand purpose in the persistent old Auraxis. No effing around with warpgate rotations. There was ownership and that gave meaning IMO.

This.

Of course the concept of home continents implies sanctuaries. I'll just hang that out there in the feeble hope that the devs still peruse this place.

bpostal · 2014-03-23, 03:53 PM

Originally Posted by Crator

This is because PS1 had empire home continents with continent locking and the intercontinental lattice existed. That was the overarching meta-game in PS1 and IMO is what makes Planetside unique from other FPS games. It gives the feeling of war across an entire planet instead of just on individual maps that have no connection to each other.

While those mechanics were what allowed for metagame, for me it was what those mechanics enabled. The strategic shift of population and the application of same. You could put a squad in a gen in the one enemy tech plant on the cont and they would not only be a useful asset (rather than that squad in PS2 who's capping outpost XXX for no discernible strategic reason) but they could be vital to the CR5's plan on a totally different continent.
A poor example: You hold the gen down on the base a link back because you can't directly assault the NC's interfarm while they still have superboosted pain fields. Some of the NC shift back to deal with that while CR5's call for more support on Esamir. This draws enemy reinforcements away from your real objective (assaulting a tech plant to open Amerish) and captures the attention of the leaders.

Fights not only had meaning, but there was a subtle interplay between the continents that I can't really explain.

Also, like Ruff said; Solsar and Hossin were always in danger of getting drained or hacked. Since Solsar and Hossin were 'ours' (in that I only started playing TR after the home cont switch), a lot of us were rather offended when say, PG or LMS, decided to give it a go.

Gimpy's partly right. A good outfit can carry you through some really boring times. God knows I would have quit this game a year ago if I wasn't rolling with BRTD but even that starts to wear thin as burnout sets in and the realization that we'll be waiting much longer than we had hoped for what most of us consider 'core gameplay' to get established. I'm fairly confident that, as an outfit, we've lost well over 50% of all of the Planetside veterans over this last year.

Edfishy · 2014-03-23, 06:30 PM

I for one am for the ability to "Win" Planetside 2.

Make it difficult to accomplish (a one in three/four months kind of thing, possibly only opened up by the devs), and have it just show a static screen saying: "And thus the Vanu won..., etc."