The state of PS2 and what I feel must change.

Planetside 2 continues to be a fundamentally good game, It still has problems which prevent it from being truly great. This post is going to be long but I would really appreciate it if you read it, commented on it and offered your opinions and support.

BATTLE FLOW - WHERE IS IT?

The big problems which must be addressed are the how battles flow across a continent, universal player annoyances which detract from the game play, and when you’re fighting over a base in Planetside 2, the big problem right now lies in the aftermath of the actual fighting when the attacker begins camping the defender inside the spawn rooms. This creates a situation with guys outside the shield and the guys inside the shield, both waiting to just snag some cheesy kills. The giant problem with this is that there can be just one guy inside that invulnerable spawn room and the attackers still must camp it; after all, that one defender can repair the SCU and the generator as soon as the attackers leave to actually do something productive. It’s not that the attackers want to camp him, it’s that they have to camp him.

My suggestion here is to implement a “pain field” once the SCU gets destroyed. Specifically, with the destruction of the SCU, a pain field would turn on inside the spawn room and push any remaining defenders out of it. No more motivation for the defenders to get cheesy kills while the capture timer slowly runs down. The reason it is essential to kick defenders out of the cheesy spawn room camp is actually two fold; in addition to ending the unproductive requirement for attackers to camp the spawn, it contributes to the overall flow of battle when combined with my next suggestion. To set the scenario up, the SCU gets destroyed, the pain fields turn on and kicks the defenders out, but then what happens?

In the current game, the defenders are dispersed all over the continent by virtue of the fact that they have a plethora of redeployment options to choose from. This seemingly positive example of improved player choice actually contributes to the flow of battle and thus the overall player experience. Planetside 2 is a game about big battles, and players want to be in a big battle as often as possible. When the defenders are allowed to disperse all over the continent, they destroy the flow because there are too many options to have a centralized fall back point where a new defense can be mounted.

Whenever a large defending force is destroyed, the attackers win both the facility and a large degree of momentum. The defenders, on the other hand, are thrown all over the place and unable to mount an effective defense, or an effective attempt at a re-secure, from another territory.

I would like to clarify what I mean by momentum actually. Momentum, as I see it exhibited in this game, is gained by the attackers because the defenders continually get dispersed by each territory they lose due to the current deployment mechanics. Thus, as the defenders continue to lose in increasing magnitude, they end up abandoning the idea of defending altogether. To put it simply, it’s a failure spiral for them because there are less defenders available in the relevant territories each time due to the dispersion effect I just described. Eventually, the attackers not only don’t get the big fights they want, but it gets as bad as being relegated to ghost hacking an empty territory.

My suggestion for this is to change the deployment options to only adjacent territories which you are physically connected to via the map plus the warp gate. The reason for this is simple: it will create a more focused fall back point for the defense and a clear avenue of attack which even a new or casual player will be able to easily identify. As an example, let’s say you are TR attacking Quartz Ridge and push the NC defenders out. The NC will have the option to re-spawn at Indar Comm Array, Indar Excavation site, or the warp gate. This will help to create a real front, but we’re not done just yet.

In order to help facilitate both the death of the boring spawn room camp, and the creation of the front I just described, we must install SCU’s in every facility in the game. As it stands now, small outposts do not have SCU’s; once again, you are forced to camp the enemy inside the spawn rooms, promoting that cheesy gameplay which isn’t fun for anyone.

My suggestion would function the same way as it does in a big base: pain fields would activate and kick defenders out upon the SCU’s destruction. Keep in mind, SCU’s do not have to overload quickly. Some of us probably remember back in the early days of beta when every outpost had an SCU when they were destroyed by simple gunfire. The reason they were removed back then was because they were destroyed too quickly; they changed the system, however, and the current overload system for SCU’s and generators works great in the current game.

With SCU’s added to every facility in the game and utilizing the current, effective overload system, a secondary objective will be created at every facility which encourages more tiered and focused gameplay. Secondary objectives are incredibly important for this game, especially with regards to facilities.

Secondary objectives are extremely important for fun. We joke around about the “spawn camp metagame” as the only current objective for an attacker is to push defenders into the spawn room and camp them there. While the defenders are waiting for cheap kills, they’re not falling back and setting up defenses; this goes back to the dispersion and flow problems.

Let me give another example to highlight how I envision this unfolding. Let’s say the TR are attacking the VS at Feldspar Canyon. The TR push, end up assaulting the SCU, and finally destroy it. Painfields activate in the tower and the defenders are pushed out and have to choose where to spawn. As the only friendly territory connected with Feldspar Canyon is Old Auraxium mines; this means the VS have the option to spawn at Old Auraxium Mines or the warp gate.

What this does is promote a direction, a flow, to the battle. The TR will know that the VS are at Old Auraxium Mines and the VS will know that the TR are coming to Old Auraxium Mines. Both sides know they will get their fight at Old Auraxium Mines.

This is still not enough, however. We want battles to last, but we also want them to be stable. What this means is, having random factors, such as the influence system in its current implementation, suddenly and for reasons a player fighting inside a territory cannot fathom, suddenly swing the capture timer in one direction or another is bad for the game. The biggest culprit in a base capturing too quickly is the influence system.

THE INFLUENCE SYSTEM - IT HAS TO GO

The influence system serves an archaic purpose which no longer has any meaning in Planetside 2. In the older days of Planetside 2, you could capture any territory on the continent; the only thing stopping this from getting completely out of hand was the influence system. Basically, it made territories on the other end of the continent take too much time to capture. Nobody liked this system so in an attempt to create a front line hex adjacency was added. Due to this there is a marked lack of need for the influence system.

The influence system creates uncertainty; too many variables involved in base capture time hurt game play. In order for there to be a proper defense of a facility, there needs to be a static time to act. My suggestion for this is simple: I would remove influence affecting time to capture. In addition, I would remove the current “2 of 2” and “6 of 6” mechanic for point capture. Every facility needs a flat time to capture; this cannot be stressed enough.

Having a standardized capture time allows the defenders to know how much time they have for reinforcements; it gives them a countdown with which to gather a counter attack and push out.

Having a standardized capture time allows the attackers to know how much time they have left with which to take the facility.

Having a standardized capture time allows the players back in the warp gate to know if they have a shot to fly out and join the battle, to join the attack or the defense, or if they are just wasting their time.

These four changes of pain fields, adjacency spawning, SCU’s for every facility, and standardized capture times will go a long way towards creating a semblance of a “front line” in Planetside 2, but we’re not done yet. The front line is important, especially for new players, which brings me to getting those new players into the fight as quickly as possible.

INSTANT ACTION, GETTING INTO THE FIGHT - JOE CASUAL IS THE FRONT LINE

Right now, the biggest problem for a new player is obvious to everyone: they can’t find fights. A new player just wants to log in, find a fight, and get stuck in with the rest of the guys with as little effort as possible.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to do this; instant action is on a 15 minute cool down and is like a roulette: sometimes it takes you to a good fight and sometimes it takes you to absolutely nowhere and then you’re stuck with it on cool down for 15 minutes.

My solution for this is simple: take the cool down off of instant action. Yes, I’m saying instant action should have no cool down.

Imagine an instant action with no cool down, but the player is unable to pick where he or she will go. The system will check where the player is needed and drop them there.

Let me reiterate this: instant action should put you where you are needed, not where you want to go. You should be placed wherever the system puts you, and that should always be into a fight. That’s not all either; a personal way point should automatically be placed on an objective (shield generator, SCU, .etc) which directs the new or casual player to a place where he or she can make a difference.

After all, the point of instant action should be for the new, casual, or solo player to easily get into a fight and enjoy the game. Outfits, like my own, should never be able to coordinate by abusing the instant action button (like we currently do). Squads and platoons are able to organize and form up for transport; instant action is not for them.

Let’s sketch the scenario out with all the elements I’ve outlined so far so as to detail what a new player experiences.

A player presses instant action.

That player is instantly dropped into a fight as a defender for a facility.

After a period of fighting the attackers finally take down the SCU, the pain fields go on, and the new player is moved with the rest of the defenders to the next defensible location.

Having the system come together like this enables a new player to clearly see a vision of where the front lines are even as they shift. Basically, too many options are confusing and create uncertainty, especially for the new player.

Getting new players, casual, and solo players into the fight is pivotal in retaining players in this game. Everyone knows that it’s too hard to find and stay in a fight, but this will ensure a player can always find a fight.

Going back to what I hinted at earlier, your casual players are your front line. It needs to be very simple for them to get into a fight and stay in a fight. That’s why the casual player plays; he won’t be concerned with the eventual metagame or trash talk going on between outfits. He just wants to get stuck in and have a good time and instant action needs to be a tool for helping him accomplish that every time he presses that button.

I will return to drop pods later, but insofar as instant action is concerned, the primary thing here is to make sure players get stuck in as soon as possible.

INDARSIDE - BEING STUCK ON THE WORST CONTINENT SUCKS

The main plague here is Indar. The entire continent of Indar is a mess. Indar was the very first continent in Planetside 2, but it was a failed experiment. There are too many hexes, no flow, and, consequently, tons of territory where combat is never seen. The base design is poor, the map design itself is poor; simply, everything about Indar is terrible right now.

To make matters worse, we’re stuck on Indar 7 nights a week.

While the necessary changes to Indar might warrant their own book, I will focus on few particularly onerous problems.

First of all, the Crown needs to be destroyed. Well, not removed, but its current implementation needs to be obliterated. It must be easier to attack; it’s too much of a productivity vacuum for every faction involved in attacking or defending it. Perversely, despite the fact that every faction naturally rushes to it, the faction holding it is doomed to lose the entire continent. Meanwhile, attackers who assault it are doomed to be farmed. When two empires are thus engaged, the remaining empire is sentenced to attack empty hexes. Therefore, the only time a faction captures a continent is when the other two are at the Crown.

The Crown was fun for the first few months, but right now it is the biggest hurdle to establishing Indar as a fun continent to wage war on.

I have a couple of suggestions for the Crown which borrow from what I was saying about facilities earlier. Most importantly, we need to add an SCU into the Crown. If you have an SCU, you can Gal Drop, create an organized push towards the SCU and either destroy it or at least pull defenders back from the front line to defend it. If you can’t stop people from spawning at the Crown, you will never take it from a non-trivial defense. In other words, the only time the Crown is captured now is when it’s empty or when the attackers attack with such a large number of players that it’s incredibly inefficient.

The Crown only started to become an issue when SCU’s were removed from outposts; if we put SCU’s back into the Crown in the manner I described previously, it will solve a lot of its issues. Move that SCU north of the Charlie point building and move the spawn room all the way on to the east side and we’re done. Currently, that spawn room deploys the defenders right where they die at the entrance; you have to give them a run time.

The Crown was a good design, but it was too good. Split Peak Pass on Amerish, however, is a better design. Split Peak has a northern side with secondary objectives and a southern side with vehicle terminals and the spawn room. The attackers can fortify the northern side and begin a great battle for both the attackers and defenders.

Split Peak Pass is hard to take, but it can be done without overwhelming force. The Crown, on the other hand, demands so many players that the rest of the continent must be virtually abandoned in order to take it.

To wrap the Crown up, it needs to be able to be captured by the average player so the population can move on to other points. Remember, the casual is the front line, and if the entire front line is vortexed into the crown, the front never moves.

Leaving the Crown behind, let’s talk about Indar’s hexes very briefly. Indar has a lot of hexes which make no sense. In fact, you could remove the entire upper canyon portion on the lower east and no one would notice. There is very little fighting in this and other parts of Indar.

As a matter of fact, ask yourself: when was the last time you fought a real battle over NS Refinery? Spec Ops Training Camp? Skydocks? How about that massive bridge leading to Reagent Rock Garrison? I'm talking serious fights, not silly events or skirmishes.

The better question to perhaps ask is: why would you fight there at all? There is no flow which leads players there and there is no point. Those territories should be combined into a bigger hex or just flat out removed.

Keeping with this theme of hex removal, the tiny hexes at the southwest gate need to also be removed; Arc Bio Engineering and NS Salvage also must be mercy’d. There is no point to them other than as a “last stand point” for when a faction is about to be warp-gated. The entire faction then proceeds to cram into one of those tiny hexes for their last stand causing the server to struggle for everyone on the continent.

Those are a few changes I think will go a long way towards helping Indar, but I don’t think anything short of a complete overhaul will save it. The continent needs to be taken down, completely reworked, and then put back on. In its current form, I don’t think anyone would miss not being able to play on Indar ever again.

If Indar is an example of what a continent should never be, then Amerish is an example of what every other continent could learn from. Change Indar to be more like Amerish and it will be saved.

MERGERS NOT TRANSFERS - THIS IS ESSENTIAL TO THE SURVIVAL OF PLANETSIDE

I’m not going to pretend to know the business side of merging; whatever downsides there are from an investor’s, financial point of view are things which I admit complete ignorance to.

From a player point of view however, I couldn’t want anything more than server mergers.

In Planetside 2, the content is the players. Because of this, the game is not enjoyable with a low population.

Unlike other MMO’s where developers slave away at designing scripted encounters with plot and AI for players to quickly sweep through, Planetside 2’s appeal is that the players make all the content and you can never really exhaust that content as long as they are there.

Each continent can hold 2000 people; in essence, they are a server unto themselves. We have three continents, which mean 6000 players per listed server. With the continents in mind, that means we essentially have 42 servers in the game.

That’s far too much for the game’s current population to support; in fact, it was too much for the game to even launch with!

My suggestion here, as a player and keeping in mind that I do not pretend to know the technical or financial aspects, is that you need to merge servers as soon as possible. Make it one per coast and just let it go.

New players aren’t going to stay when they log in and see a ghost town. If you are worried about growth, keep in mind that this game doesn’t have the capability to grow exponentially like, for example, League of Legends. In fact, everyone points to League of Legends in these discussions so let’s compare it here.

League of Legends can essentially run on a Tandy; it’s a simple MOBA style game that’s easy for everyone to pick up and play. Planetside 2, on the other hand, cannot run on low-end machines from 5 years ago at all and is hard both for new players to pick up and simply comprehend.

Because of this dichotomy, you will not see the exponential growth enjoyed in Planetside 2 that League of Legends enjoys. Worse, if you do not make haste to merge the servers, you will not see any growth at all. You will exacerbate the problem of low population and cause it to spiral further.

Let me paint a picture of how I personally evaluate a new MMO.

When I start a new MMO, I join the high population servers; I don’t join low population servers, or even medium population. When I see 15 servers at low population, I see a dead game. Yet, when I see 4 servers all at high population, I see a game which is alive, vibrant, and worth my time.

If I’m new to a game, log in and see an empty server, I say, “Why should I play this game? No one else is playing!” and promptly log off, uninstall, and never play again. Again, if I see 4 servers and they’re all full of players, I’m probably going to play the game.

Now, server transfer tokens can happen, but they can’t happen unless you already have servers that are high or full. If you do it now, you will create a brand new problem with the game.

For example, what about the guys who roll their characters on Genudine? They spent money on their characters, but their purchases are only good for one character per server. The money they spent on that character is now worthless because no one plays on Genudine. Even assuming purchases are expanded to account-wide, you’re going to ask them to pay more money just to move to their certed character to a server where they can play the game? That’s ridiculous! It’s not their fault that they created characters on a server which would become a ghost town; there were too many servers at launch.

Worse, if I get transfer tokens made available to me, I’m going to wonder: is my server going to die too? Are people going to begin an exodus to another server? What if I use these tokens and choose incorrectly? Am I going to be playing “musical server” with my cash?

With all of this, you must also keep in mind that it was revealed by Mr. Smedley in a PC Gamer article that only 10% of the Planetside 2 player base actually pays money to play this game. Diehard players like myself will pay to get to where the action is, but the 90% of players who do not pay and may be hurt by this will simply stop playing the game altogether. Players are the content and, thus, they are the most valuable commodity in this game.

You must mercy the servers one by one; merge them and only then offer transfer tokens. As a player and not as a business analyst, I say that merged servers are absolutely vital for the life of this game.

AMS NO DEPLOY ZONES AS WELL AS CLOAKING FIELDS - THEY'RE ESSENTIAL

Recently, the road map had a suggestion about no-deploy zones; it was down-voted on the part of poor presentation of whoever posted it, but no-deploy zones are vitally important to the flow of battle I was talking about earlier.

Planetside 1 didn’t need no-deploy zones because, even though you could deploy an AMS directly in the courtyard, you still had to get out and go inside the actual base to get to the objective. In Planetside 2, you can park an AMS directly on top of an objective; this gives the attackers too much of an easy numerical advantage by virtue of simple logistics; it takes the defender longer to get to the defensive position than the attacker when instead the reverse should be true.

A lot of what people complain about is that there are too many attackers and numbers count for too much for the defenders to make a real difference, but the real culprit here is the fact that an attacking force can vomit attackers directly onto an objective. This grossly amplifies the advantage they have in numbers. Instead of deploying 100 meters out and running those 100 meters to the objective, the attackers only need 0 meters.
Basically, distance acts as a natural filter to zerging. A platoon running across a field is easier to defend against than a platoon spawning directly on top of an objective like a shield generator. In fact, it’s more entertaining for both the attackers and defenders if there has to be a grand charge towards an objective. People lust for those infantry pushes they see on TV to be replicated in game; they’re fun. Because of this and because of how they add depth and extend otherwise short battles, no-deploy zones are absolutely essential to the game and should be added to every base.

Let me give an example of how things work now and how they would work with a no-deploy zone. As it stands in the game now, we get a Sunderer, load it up, drive it out to the objective, and deploy it right on top of the shield generator. Now, I have my guys spawning right where the fighting is at; literally on top of the critical point. In order to stop our attack, the defenders have to travel more territory than we, the attackers, do every time they respawn.

Instead, a no-deploy zone would mean that I would not be able to deploy 50 meters, at a minimum, next to an objective (shield generator, SCU, .etc). There has to be a front line both in terms of the overall continent and the facilities themselves. We have to be able to know the general direction of where our opponents are coming from. Right now, numbers provide too much of an advantage; far more than they should. No-deploy zones would go a long way towards thinning out the effect of numbers on a battle.

If such a mechanic is implemented, the basic no-deploy zone around a deployed AMS should be shortened from a 175 to a 125 meter radius. Defensive AMS’s would not be affected by no-deploy zones. A defensive AMS is something a defender sets up in case an SCU goes down or to quickly reinforce a lagging area critical to the facility’s defense.

The idea behind defensive AMS’s being immune to the no-deploy zone is that they provide an additional layer of fun and strategy to the game; it’s another objective for the attacker to take out. In the current game when you attack a Tech Plant, you attack the shield for the garage; 99% of the time, there is a defensive AMS parked inside. It’s good for the game because the players themselves set them up and dictate the strategy all through their placement. Player agency is important.

Again, as an attacker, my primary goal after those shields go down is to remove that defensive AMS, and that’s fun. As a defender, my goal is to remove the attacker’s AMS units, but unfortunately, that’s too easy right now. They die quickly, which is fine, but they need to have cloaking bubbles to make up for it.

That’s right, an AMS should have a cloaking bubble equipped as standard in order to make the “AMS hunt” more engaging.

The opposite suggestion, to make an AMS harder to kill by making it tougher is something we’ve already seen in Planetside 2. Back in Beta, the Galaxy was the AMS and it could take a hell of a beating. The only way for a small force to destroy it was to HART pod suicide it; otherwise, it never died.

You might say, “That’s good! It would be hard to kill in a huge zerg battle!” but what about small battles? You would need multiple squads to kill a toughened-up AMS and that would be GG for the defenders in a small battle.
A cloaking bubble, on the other hand, allows it to be defensible. You could blow it up, just as before, but you actually would have to send elements out to find it. This fosters coordination and adds a layer of fun to the tactical game of assaulting and defending a base.

Right now, you just see the AMS and C4 it; AMS dead, fight over. The cloaking bubble is an elegant solution precisely because it scales so well to both large and small battles. No longer is an AMS left out in the open, ripe for some random ESF to blow it up who just happens to be flying over. Being able to hide an AMS like this will create an interesting dynamic to the battle which all sides will be able to enjoy.

As much as I hate being killed by your nighthawk all night. (You've killed me multiple times in a row as we trashed talked each other. ) I've got to agree with you.

RANDOM ANNOYANCES - THESE PROBLEMS ARE SIMPLE FIXES THAT WOULD GO A LONG WAY

There are too many random things that can annoy you in this game. One of which is the randomness; this is because there is no front line. Tying into what I was saying earlier, if you had a front line, you would have a sense of where people are coming from.

An example of the randomness is the drop pod; people can use them to spawn virtually from everywhere. There are too many random directions where people can show up because there is no front. Drop pods, such as those utilized by the improved Instant Action system I outlined earlier, should never deploy players inside a base. Instead, they should deploy players at the outskirts of the territory, such as in the direction of the friendly force’s push, to stop single players from randomly showing up from behind without them actually making the coordinated effort to do so (infiltrators, gal drops, .etc). It is already easy enough to capture a base we don't need pods coming in and putting soldiers right inside your base.

Let’s briefly talk about two mechanics which should be toned down or outright removed: screen shake and flinch.

In the case of the former, you have one grenade going off and it’s like the San Andreas fault exploded: the shake is so ridiculous that it rivals actual earthquakes. Every now and then, the shake is fine, but in the current game it is almost constant. Tone it down.

In the case of flinch, it’s a ridiculous mechanic which no one truly supports. It puts players with low rate of fire weapons at a huge disadvantage against players with high rate of fire weapons. It also gives too much of an advantage to the player who shoots first. The only advantage the person who shoots first should get is actually shooting first not keeping your opponent in the FPS equivalent of a stun lock.

Another annoyance is the slow recharge time on shield generators compared to the fast TTK (time to kill) of Planetside 2. In this game, your shields are your life. You are in trouble when your shields are down and are encouraged to stay away from combat in order to be effective 10 seconds later after the recharge.

So, what this means is, get hit by a sniper once and you have to wait 10 agonizingly long seconds to get back to the business of playing the game.

Some might suggest that players which do not enjoy spending 10 seconds doing absolutely nothing should invest in the shield capacitor suit modification, but that’s wrong-headed as you are pigeon holed into playing this game with flak armor. Instead, the current shields should work like the shield capacitor and the shield capacitor should further speed that new time up. You can’t have a game with a fast TTK and a very slow recharge time; it just frustrates players who want to get stuck in and play.

Speaking of how the flak armor upgrade is essential in order to be effective in this game, the absolutely mandatory certs in this game are ridiculous. Have you ever tried playing a different class which doesn’t have its flak suit fully certed up? You die instantly to the myriad of explosive options which populate this game’s battlefields at all times.

Grenade: dead.

HE Shell: dead.

Zephyr: dead.

Get it? Ordinance flat out kills too fast unless you have flak.

Whenever I have flak fully certed out, on the other hand, it feels right. You still die to ordinance, but it’s not instant; you have a chance to survive.

With that in mind, flak armor, as it is now fully certed, should be default to everyone. If a player then wants to be further impervious, investing in a flak armor suit modification would further increase his or her resistances to ordinance

Things such as flak armor are too overbearing; they’re too necessary. You have to suffer through the game, constantly dying instantly, to until you can get flak fully certed. That’s not a good experience for new players.

Speaking of Certification points, there is currently too much of a certification grind to this game. Certifications need to be streamlined; we can do this by adding more universal certifications to the game. Right now, if you want to cert out a character you must do so in a very clumsy way.

For example, if I buy Flak Armor on my Heavy Assault class, I cannot wear it on my Medic
unless I also cert for it there. Why is that? Why must I grind it on every class for every piece
of armor? That’s not fun and it’s boring. The answer is obvious: if you get it for one class, you
should get it for all of them.

To name just a few examples here, C4, Flak Armor, Grenade Bandoliers, all of these should
be universal and work across all classes. If I unlock C4 on my Heavy Assault, it only makes
sense that I should have it unlocked on my Medic. It already works this way on carbines across
Engineers and Light Assaults; pointless grinding should similarly be removed for all classes.

In fact, vehicle weapons suffer the same fate right now. Let’s say you are driving a Sunderer
with a front and rear Fury; you have to unlock the upgrades for the weapons separately! No one
is going to enjoy grinding the same Fury over and over again. This applies to a lot of weapons
across a lot of vehicles; a bulldog unlocked on a galaxy should be unlocked on the liberator as
well. Naturally, this logic should apply to the certs you apply to those weapons.

I’ve blasted a lot of the annoyances about suits for a while, but I want to move to turrets. For a long time, I was really against the concept of automated turrets, but now I realize that they are absolutely necessary for the game.

AUTOMATED TURRETS & BASE BENEFITS - HINDER GHOST HACKING, MAKE ME CARE ABOUT A BASE

I see a turret now and I laugh as I grab my free experience from blowing it up. A turret needs to be something you care about; they should, no they need, to be an important aspect of base assault and defense. Even now, the first things to die in a base assault are turrets and they don’t even do anything of worth. By making them automated, you could both give the defenders a little more of an edge in base defense, something they truly need in this game, and make turrets relevant.

While I wouldn’t ever allow turrets to lock on to infantry, tanks and aircraft should have to worry about them when approaching a base or facility. While whatever damage they are able to deal shouldn’t be able to do anything but deter players, they must still respect them as a credible threat.

This would create more of a “combined arms” mentality when attacking a base than exists now. Infantry would have to go in and then deal with the turrets so that the sieging vehicles could then approach.

A manned turret, on the other hand, needs to be upgraded significantly. With the cost of being stationary needs to come significant firepower and survivability when manned. Increase the amount of time it takes to overheat and decrease the amount of time it takes to cool down; the idea here is to make turrets a more important element of base defense. After the base satellites (towers, .etc) they should be the first target for the attackers.

Speaking of turrets and their heat, let’s talk about the benefits gained by owning a facility. Everyone is familiar with how pointless the advantage associated with owning an Amp station is. No one cares about turret heat reduction and no one ever will; they’re a tiny part of the game.

The only base benefit that almost matters is the tech plant’s, and that doesn’t even mean all that much. It only matters on continents like Esamir but nobody fights there anymore because this is IndarSide.

Instead, have all combat vehicles (not Sunderers, Galaxies, .etc) cost less resources across the board. Hinging upon this is a resource system that actually matters, but assuming vehicles cost twice as much as they do now, having a 50% reduction from owning a tech plant would be just one example.

I feel this is superior because, unlike right now, it doesn’t punish you or remove your ability to spawn your vehicle. If you lose one, it essentially makes it count as two combat vehicles instead of one.

The reason why you can’t restrict Sunderers is that they are the lifeblood of battle; they create battles and they cost more than a tank already.

Going back to Amp stations, have them give over shields to vehicles. If you are in a friendly hex out of combat, an amp station would allow you to recharge the over shield; this would apply to all vehicles.

Now, Biolabs. The benefit is so tiny that you never notice it. Make the current benefit be built into the game as default health regeneration and instead have the Biolab reduce the resources infantry need for their expendables.

(And since I just touched on resources for infantry, non-lethal options should cost less than the lethal options. For example, a frag grenade needs to cost less than a revive grenade.)

RESTRICTION IS GOOD - YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE UNTIL IT'S GONE

If there’s no restriction on something, people take it for granted. I go through tanks like nothing right now. If I run out of resources, I just go to another continent for 5 minutes and wait for them to replenish.

The word “restriction” has a negative connotation to it and I want to address that as restrictions are actually important to the game; this is extremely relevant to the entire concept of resources.

Restrictions are in fact good for the game. The main strategy in an RTS (real time strategy game) is to deprive your enemy of resources. In fact, it’s not just a crucial part of gaming, it’s also a crucial part of real life warfare. Thus, and especially because it has proven to be fun in gaming, it should be a major part of Planetside 2.

For anybody to care about something, it needs to be taken away from them. This is basic human nature.
If I want to care about resources, they need to be matter. They need to be able to be removed, to be taken away from me in order to care. If I don’t care, I’m never going to consider resources in the equation of where I look for fights.

A player should care about his tanks and, similarly, should care about his tanks getting taken away due to other player’s action. Let me give an example.

Let’s say I’m an air cav player; I really like pulling my Mosquitoes.

Let’s say the Skydock gives me a whole lot of resources to assist me in that endeavor; it lets me pull Mosquitoes at a pretty frequent rate (assuming resources matter).

Let’s say another player is sick and tired of getting rocket spammed by my buddies and I and our Mosquitoes. He or she gets a bunch of people together and try to take Skydock from us.

Since my source of frequent Mosquito pulling is threatened, I gather a bunch of my buddies and try and stop them. From there, the conflict could very well escalate; more people could get drawn in and suddenly we have a huge fight over a territory no one ever fights over all because some people wanted to stop the rocket spam and had a way to do it. As a result, a huge battle erupts which may engulf adjacent territories which nobody ever sees and everyone has a great time.

Once again this all hinges on a resource system that matters because right now it's a joke.

OUTFIT PLAY & COMMUNITY GROWTH - HELP US HELP YOU

Outfit leaders need better tools, recruitment options, and abilities to foster teamwork within the game. Solo play is fun and of course should be fun; it’s absolutely essential. Like I said earlier, the casual player should be the front line of the game. Really though, a casual player will eventually want something more. He’ll want to be a part of the organized operations he watches on streams and he should be given an easier way to find outfits which may provide him that.

As a leader, I would love a way to reach out to such individuals. As just one example, a bulletin board could be implemented; almost like a classified section in a newspaper. A player could open it up within the game’s interface and might see an ad, and just using my outfit as an example, saying, “The Enclave: Looking for Team Oriented Players!” He or she could then click on it, bringing up (within the game’s UI) a page with more details, such as showing the player what the outfit is about and ways to get into contact with us.

While outfit leaders would be able to passively recruit this way, we also need the ability to actively pursue players so that our outfits can grow. As an example, a way for players who want to be found could be by tagging themselves. This tag would enable outfit leaders to find and contact them directly.

This is more important than just allowing outfits to grow: communities are the lifeblood of games like this. In fact, a lot of players play video games just for the communities that they’ve integrated themselves into as a result of playing games.

Look at World of Warcraft, for example. It’s a stale game, but it’s populated even today because of the community. Even I continued to play World of Warcraft for a long time, well past when it was dead to me, all of because of the connections I made to people in-game.

In Planetside 2, however, it’s different. You have to be a part of an organized outfit in order to make a difference and connect with people. In fact, let me tell you about my experience in Planetside 1.

I logged into the game, got my certs, my rexo armor, my cycler, my AV, and responded to a guy who was looking for squad members to go assault a tower; he was a completely random guy who was not part of any outfit.
Also, keep in mind, all of this was done entirely through text without any of the advanced features (such as voice chat) which Planetside 2 currently offers.

When the guy picked me up to join the squad, I explained that I was completely new to the game. He proceeded to show me the ropes by telling me what we were doing, why it was relevant, and what I should do to be effective. We then proceeded to assault the tower; that was my first gal drop and I had a blast. I want to repeat, I learned how to play the game entirely by chance because some random guy, all through text, was willing to show me the ropes. It was my first Planetside experience and that experience, 9 years ago, led me to create the Enclave.

There are lots of people like that guy from back then willing to show new players the ropes, but they need more tools with which to do it. Tools are better now, but not good enough. Keep in mind, if I had not gone through that experience, I might not be playing today. It is absolutely essential that players have the tools they need to get players into that level of experience and hook them on the game.

Remember what I said earlier, players are the content. Why not utilize them as the tutorial as well when they are more than happy to do so?

Give a public squad leader a way to advertise his or her squad specifically for players to get into the game.
Additionally we need easier controls. I run what I call “stream team” which is targeted towards playing with people who watch my game stream. I would run it more if I could make turning my squad into a platoon easier. For example, I should be able to open up my social menu, name a platoon, make the criteria, and allow it to just fill up. It needs to be simple to create, simple to join.

The acronym to live by here is K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).

To get new players into Planetside 2, our culture, our community as a whole, we need to have more tools.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with veteran players teaching new players how to play the game; in fact, that’s ideal. It’s the best way to get players into the game. Back in the old days, I would “pay it forward” by finding new players in VR training. I would walk them through the terminal system, how to make a “class” (such as they existed in Planetside), and how to play the game effectively all while recruiting them into the outfit. It was fun, it was something to do.

I would do the same in Planetside 2, but I don’t have the tools necessary to do it.
The community can do the heavy lifting here and foster new players, if we have the tools.

THE LATTICE SYSTEM - PLANETSIDE 2 NEEDS IT

This is the final part of my post but also the most important. A lot of the battle flow that I and so many other players so strongly desire could be accomplished by the reintroduction of the lattice system. It’s a quick and easy implementation that can be put in to accomplish what so many players in PS2 truly want and that’s structure. Players want structure, players want focus and players want a visual representation of their actions to be seen. Players also want a clear line of attack and defense. As you have probably gathered from this massive post PS2 is completely lacking in structure. It has no foundation and without foundation it can’t possibly grow. Continental conquest, a meaningful metagame, a dynamic and moving front line and everything else can’t possibly be achieved in PS2 without the structure provided by the lattice system.

The hex system has been tweaked, redone, reworked, rehashed and regurgitated and it is still a confusing mess. The hex system was a worthy effort but it is time for it to go and for us to return to the lattice system. What unique territory do players actually fight over in PS2? How many times do players fight over those tiny outposts in the middle of nowhere? They don’t. Most players view those little hexes to be an annoyance to capture and to defend so they won’t be missed since they’re already being ignored. The whole idea of the hex system was supposed to bring fights to every single outpost in the game but the reality is that not every outpost in the game is worth fighting over nor should they be made worth fighting over. Players naturally gravitate towards major facilities and large outposts and as a result of this the lattice system should further improve upon that and encourage such actions. If you provide us with a path of attack and line of defense you will see much more action, much less confusion on where to find the fight and a much better experience for players both new and old. Add structure and improve upon that structure and you’ll be able to make PS2 something more and make it the game it truly deserves to be.

I hope you enjoyed reading my post. Please add feedback and discuss it here. I feel that we, the community along with the developers of PS2 can turn this game into something amazing.

Holy **** this is legittttttt.

I'll tweet this to the PS2 Devs!

Well, this is gonna be a good read.

If only I got to play on Amerish more. Alas, it is ghost town on Ceres

I agree with all your points. I hope we'll be seeing some changes as soon as GU3 but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Merging some hexes would be interesting I think. It should create some nice wide battles where even the zerg would spread itself around.

Just wanted to point this out - if we can give indar some flow, problems with buzzcuts front line idea (being scattered into 3 diffrent bases isnt much of an improvement) would pretty much evaporate. In the quartz ridge camp example, combine that entire valley into 1 capture point instead of 4, and flow would massively improve.

I mean really, why do we need 4 capture points for a single, pointless valley?

We need to keep this front page and keep the conversation going for 20 plus pages for this to be truly considered I think.

Great post. One of the few I actually took the time to read.

Developers need to take some notes.

+1

If everyone wants to be in big battles why do you think they disperse? if they wanted to keep defending they would all spawn at the closest or most defensible base right?? im not saying your wrong just nit picking i guess

I know from personal experience when TE drops 8 galaxy loads of troops on the vanu archives my FPS goes to **** and i die and spawn somewhere else. but then again i need a better processor.

/edit aww the quote thing kinda messed up sorry. hope you still understand what i mean

These changes plus new continents will help keep the game alive.