Is cert gain driving away new players?

I got a few of my coworkers into he game recently and all of them remarked on how slow the certification points were earned, they thought it was ridiculous.

I understand cert gain is supposed to reflect the the long production road this game is on, but I just have to disagree with the idea.

Unlocks shouldn't be driving source of player satisfaction. I think players should come back because they like the gameplay and are confident that new content will be added every now and again.
Players want a quality game that offers a working xp system currently.

It's so broken I don't know where to start.

Why do we even differentiate between XP and certs? Why don't we just use XP as a spendable substance?

i dont think i will ever understand this problem. my biggest problem is finding places to put my certs. i get so many, so easily and im afraid to spend them in fear of choosing the wrong option. i have a near fully certed LA, engi, vangaurd, and lib. I have a ton of certs in the flash, sundy, lighting and ESF as well as a few hundred in medic and HA. I get that weapons are expensive as hell, but honestly, people cant complain about slow cert gain when the game itself is free. either cough up the $50 on a triple SC day, and get all the weapons you want, or accept the fact that buying weapons will take you ALONG TIME. thats how SOE makes money.

My brother in law just quit. It is a mix of cheaters, cert gain being too slow, and the lack of goals in the game.

Personally I think they should cut the price of upgrades by 25-30% and keep the cert price to buy the weapon the same.

but considering I don't think PS2 can stand on the game play alone, I doubt this game will change the cost of certs or cert gain.

I do see it has some issues. FateJH pointed out a good fact: Having 1 Cert=250xp is meaningless (particularly since medals just award flat certs). Having a 2x boost stacked with double xp events (effectively giving you 300% xp) helps quite a bit, but if you have framerate issues or poor reflexes it can be pretty slow.

I don't mind the guns costing 1000 certs, its obvious they're meant to be purchased with station cash (the cheaper weapons are more of an either-or type deal). And obviously they need to make the top 'tier' of upgrades high because if you play long enough you're gonna reach it even if you are a mediocre player. So softening the skill caps isn't a good idea because it'll just mean people will max stuff out too fast and and get bored.

I think what needs to be looked at is scaling- some is good, armor for instance upgrades at like 1/10/50/100/etc this is reasonable to me. Some of the stuff, though, starts CRAZY expensive and just gets bonkers from there!

I think the solution is an optional tutorial mode that throws the newbie player some certs (maybe even limiting where he can put them, just for balance sake) so you not only figure out what the hell you are doing (ie equip MANA turret and press 'b' to get an ammobox) but they have a starting off point to really get in the game. When you're getting pounded by Daltons in Liberators spewing flares, it can be a little frustrating. I'm not saying to nerf that, but to give new players a bit of a leg up. As the game matures, this is going to be more important because a higher % of players will be pretty kitted out 1 year into the game.

You actually are the problem.

Did you even read what he wrote?

Not someone with countless hours put into the game, but a NEW PLAYER. Someone that comes in for the first day and notices he barely gets 20 certs an hour of play, then notices he isn't even able to purchase sights for his standard gun with that one hour of play, then notices how other guns tend to cost hundreds, up to a thousand certs, works out the progression math and goes "**** it", never to be seen in game again.

I have started the game recently, and I love it, slowness and all (i'm even a premium player already, like the game THAT much), but in trying to convince my buddies to play, this is one of the issues that comes up EVERY TIME.

I have spent a lot of crappy certifications in my early days of playing this game, i thought they were upgrades and never thought equipping them ever existed, so i spent a lot of them that appears to be certifications of the same slot. The slow earning is not the problem, it's the refunding system that's not available *yet.

Give a new account a week long 50% boost, get them used to boosted XP and let them see what a difference a sub or purchasing a boost would be like in the future. It also allows them to generate enough starter XP to specialize a bit to be on a more even course with the rest of the playing field.

If you look at other F2P games, you end up spending 1-2 hours a day play just to KEEP the gun you're renting/repairing each day. Most F2P games require a LOT of hours to get the decent equipment that will make it playable. This is what the producers are banking on, you not having HOURS to spend playing and instead buy in-game currency.

Slow compared to what preference? There's nothing unusual with XP/cert gain in this game compared to unlocks based on progress in other games like BF3.

cert gain is cool.

My cat was playing Planetside but quit out of disgust. Why should guns be so expensive? 700 SC for a new rifle that my cat read on the forum is better than the one I have? My cat has. Had. 1000 certs is an outrage for new weapons, they should be atm like 250 like some are right now and those should be even less.

I get that SOE needs to make money but my cat isn't going to live for very long. So its time is precious. My cat was only making 40 certs in an hour of play. That's not even enough to fully cert out a tank. It would take, like, three weeks of casual play to do that. Three full weeks. That's, like, 24 cat weeks I think.

6 cat months to cert out a tank is absurd. Get your **** together SOE.

People also need to think about long-term. If you play (even casually) for a year, how many certs do you think you will accumulate? You get 12 a day just for logging on every day. If it were too easy, everything would get maxed out really fast and it would get boring quick.

I jumped on the bandwagon and got a Wal Mart Station Cash card, 15 bucks plus 500 bonus cash. Cashed it out during the triple station cash sale, then sat on those smedbux for sales. For guns, this is the best way to go. Camo/armor, you got no choice, smedbux or nuthin. But straight upgrades, save your certs for em)

Agree w/OP, no one is going to care about the long term if the short term sucks so bad they quit. Weapon cert costs are simply ridiculous and you can't defend this with the "sidegrade" argument as for one, it's simply not true, and even if it was different players have different playstyles and each class only has one gun option to start with. The infil class is the best example, having to sink 1k certs to perform the CQC role that..base infiltration really requires. Otherwise they get a sniper, and in VS/TR case it's a terrible one they have to spend 100 certs to replace ASAP.

The other common argument is "they want you to spend SC on weapons". But let's be honest many players are playing the game because it's free. It's okay for them to be disadvantaged but if they feel like they're complete fodder and that they can't do anything until they sing days worth of play time they're not likely to stick around.

I'd go with just certs as it sounds more...military and less gamey. But agree, it's pointless having both.

Kar, have you considered that i was a new player to at one point? its like your a teen telling me (the adult) that i dont understand his life because ive never been there. Sorry, but ive been there! I know how hard the lerning curve in this game is (laughably simple), and i know how long it takes to get good at earning certs (never learned it. I actually suck at earning certs cause im purely supportive).

I dont dump ungodly amounts of hours into this game. I dont use boosts, and I dont farm XP either. i play now, the same way a new player might play. Im, by most definition, a casual player. the difference is that the cert requirements may seem daunting, but they add up quick, and if you play to have fun, instead of playing for certs, you end up with hundreds of certs before you know it.

Also, I am not the problem. Were it up to me, unlocks would never be introduced into a game. its a horrible concept IMO. and yes I did read your post, and will dont understand your friends griping. its a free game. trial it for however long you like, and if you like it, dump $50 (same as a retail game W/O the trial) during a triple station cash day and you will be able to unlock all the weapons you want. then the certs are purley upgrades.

I didn't mean that you were the problem literally, sorry about that. I meant that the attitude you displayed is indeed the problem (the attitude of basically "everything's fine, I can work with it, so should you").

Are you telling me that from day ONE you thought cert gain was ok? You had no problems with it? If so, you're a better man than I, I'll readily admit that.

I have to reiterate, I love the game, been playing it like a madman. What I am concerned about is the fact that three of my friends tried it out and ALL THREE had the same complaint, the slowness of xping up. I've already spent some cash to get weapon unlocks I thought would be unrealistic in terms of hours put into the game (those pesky 1000 cert weapons), and I've already unlocked a few weapons by certs (specifically the base bolt-actions for the VS and TR - whose idea was it to make their standard snipers ****** anyway?), but only the 100 cert ones.

To make a long story short, for a player that LOVES the game as I do, the cert costs and slowness of getting said certs makes me want to spend money in the game. For people that may be on the fence, or that are approaching the game from a utilitarian perspective, the same thing generates frustration, and quitting.

That is the essence of the matter in my view.

Couldn't hurt to up the gain rate. I personally love it, there's enough variety as it is once you start playing. I didn't even unlock anything with my certs until I hit the 30 hour mark. Out of three friends I invited, two disapproved of the grindfest it is to get a new gun, but I guess that's why people can spend money if they are impatient. Help the game out and get the pixels that you want so bad.

i disagree, the only thing that is broken is how fast you gain BR, its way to easy to level up

cert gain is just right... it causes people to be addicted to the game, even many who other wise would not play the game anymore

and we do need cannon fodder

besides what would other wise motivate you to pay for weapons and xp boosters, or membership

Stale tactics/gameplay is what drove me away.

Said this in 2006, I'll say it again: Doing frontal assault gets boring after a while, so when bored of playing frontal assault I like playing defense. Can't play defense without the AMS (PS1 cloaking one), and can't play defense without effective CE. Get rid of the Orbital Strike, it's a nerf to the AMS. Get rid of the CUD EMP blast, it's a nerf to CE.

I agree. We had multiple people in our outfit quit because for them it felt too much of a grind.
From talking to them I think the problem has several reasons:

1) The completely arbitrary increase of cert costs of certain weapons. I'm okay that there are may be two tiers of weapons, like older and newer ones. So make one tier of weapons cost 300 certs, the other ones 700. I really don't get why we need several tiers of weapons and especially not why there are 1000 cert weapons. Especially when they are supposed to be sidegrades. Which clearly many aren't, but that's another topic, although related.

2.1) Not able to buy certifications with SC. I know many people dislike the idea but wha't the differense between buying a Saron for your Mag or C4 for your LA? Both are flat out upgrades. Also 2.2.

2.2) People with less time are still required to "grind". In a F2P you habe the idea that you can skip ingame time by spending money. In PS2 you can only partially do it because you are still required to spend those cert points you cannot get otherwise. If you are only playing one or two nights a week, you need to play for months go get those weapon attachments and C4 for your LA. For one single class. People just don't want to do this if their time is limited.
Of course SOE wants people to pay money. But you are not going to spend money this way. A free2play user is NOT going to spend money if he has the feeling that IF he spends money, he is still required to "grind". That's only going to work on people who are highly into the game. Not the "causal" you require to fill a F2P game with. Who only plays a little now and then.

3) Too many options to spend certs. IF you had to decide which route your infantry build wants to go and which vehicle you want to cert in this would be less of a problem. But PS2 "requires" you to be able to use everything so people start to put certs into everything and have none left to get the "good stuff". Especially since there are upgrades everywhere. If your standard Lib wasn't that ******, compared to other wepons you can get, people wouldn't feel the need to also cert into it. Only dedicated Lib pilots.

4) WAY to much difference in personal cert gain. Especially in the beginning there were rocket pods, Libs and HE tanks who ranked up certs like crazy. People on the recieving end were basically screwed. While people with those weapons ranked up thousands of certs, others on the ground got nothing. It got better, but it's still nowhere near fixed. It's not uncommon to have a 5k score/hour in one playsession, while other in oyur platton go up to 20k.
The game rewards personal playstyle way too much. DON'T get me wrong: I still want to see good players to be rewarded. But the game does not only reward the better player, if rewards the player to exploit the currrent way of farming the most xp. The game needs a better and more flattened cert gain rate. Of course good players should always come out on top with a bonus, but when there are several thousands points difference in score/hour because of your playstyle, then something is wrong with the game.
Also take jobs like securing a territory with your squad while the rest of the platoon takes the next one. It's an important job, but it yields almost no xp. So of course nobody want's to do it and if we wouldn't rotate our squads to do it people would get frustrated a lot more then they already would get from ghost capping if you do not want to roll with the zerg.

The game's "focus" (creating it artifiially by the points above) on either farming xp or getting them the easy way has a large impact on how people play and percieve the game and it's mechanics. In my oppinion this is hurting the game more then any lack of "metagame". Your metagame will still be broken if the game does not rewarding playing the game, but farming xp. It's a broken game design, and I say design because I hope that this is a not a game philosophy.

And it really rubs me the wrong way that this is not addressed in any of the 6 months roadmap plans...

P.S: One thing I want to add for the "if you have unlocked everything it will get boring faction"; if this is the case, in any game, the games is just flat out bad. And nobody should be playing it anyway.