Has anybody else been through this? It wasn't a big outfit but we was active but over the past few months members have left for other games and now the outfit has gone :-( Reasons? Some said crappy performance and crappy EU servers loggin issue. Is this the way things are going? What's your experience?
The leaders weren't investing into member retention or recruitment. Players found the game AND the outfit unsatisfactory, and left. Quality of outfit play stagnated, therefore the outfit wasn't impressing members enough to stop them from getting tired with the game. Solution: Do more as a leader to create an enjoyable playing experience for your members that will last. Get involved in alliances, run events 3-4 times a week, and try something different once in a while to renew the experience. Lastly, enthusiasm and motivation are important. If you aren't both of these, good luck leading an outfit where you need to get the members enthusiastic about the game, to feel more motivated when playing, and hold a high morale for when fights got ******.
You can hardly blame anyone for getting bored of what is still after 16 months from release a giant TDM with no other objectives or strategy to talk of. How long can any one person be interested in a F2P game that is developing on a geological timescale? The WDS holds no interest for me to come back after trying it out on day 1, so good luck on that. And if you go on Steam - ignoring all the non-Steam F2P as well - there are deluges of F2P games available, why I myself spent 8 hours on Mighty Quest for Epic Loot just this weekend before abandoning that as it was F2P and not up to it. F2P = disposable gaming Throw in the mad quality of most of the Humble Bundles and PS2 is up against extremely stiff competition for anyone's gaming time. It is beyond me why anyone still bothers with this game in the state it is still in, and no, the argument that there is nothing like it, i.e. a giant TDM, doesn't wash with me from all the other things it is lacking.
It's not just PS2, having an outfit/army/guild/ect fall apart is part all of MMOs.(unless you get lucky or are a good leader yourself) Either find someone to lead what you have left and pick up the pieces with a recruitment drive, or merge with another outfit, or disband and all go your separate ways.
UHU might help getting it back together? Exactly, clans, guilds, outfits its all the same, they can go from big to small very quickly. Not everyone has the balls to be a good leader and if the head doesnt act like they want to be there the group fades fast till only a small core remain, half bound by loyalty and half frustrated stuck in limbo as a partly functioning, partly dead group. Its not just about the people groups either, leaders usually hold some kind of rights over the group and without them to change things up life gets stale quickly. If I was the OP id leave for better skies now, with or without the others, otherwise spend another month or half year in purgatory waiting for the same outcome. Fortunately PS has many busy and committed outfits and its easy to find one if you have no tag, people randovite to outfits all the time but personally Id just join some pub platoons for a week and then choose who seems to be the most organised without being too stressy.
Outfits don't fall apart because of the game. they fall apart when key persons stop playing. My Outfit (Vanus Revenge/Miller) went trough 4 leaders after launch. the first (toca) left because of real life issues, the seond (ShockATC) left because he had a chance for a better job. the third (Xxotic) just dissappeared from one day to another, we still have no idea what happened with him and then we got our current Leader, Artorius. all of these were people that knew what they wanted to do. What can also hurt player retention is the skill of the leader. if there is a bunch of players that have more skill (tactical skill weighs more than technical skill, but both are important) than the respect for your leader will suffer. I can't really remember toca and Shock (thats more than a year since they left) but Xxotic was one of the best tacticans this game ever had and a genius in teamplay (and still a nice guy you could always have a talk with) and Artorius... well look at the leaderboards... (he gets a bit angry from time to time but he is reasonable) ofcourse having a nice but competent guy as a leader also helps if you change lead. BCP had a lot of followeres who felt special when he was shouting at them, but his outfit immediatly went extinct when he left.
Some idiots from my outfit not-so-graciously left to form thier own outfit in order to satisfy thier own egos. If they had just cut ties and left it at that, i would have been content to let them be. But no, after they left [TFDN] they continued trying to poach members from our ranks, and began harassing the leadership when they were told to piss off. But before i could be bothered to do anything seriously, thier outfit imploded. One of the idiots joined another major outfit on VS Ceres, and the other idiot is now trying to pull the one-man outfit gig. Neither had the balls to fess up and say they were being childish. Thats because most of his outfit followed him to whatever MMO BCP is now terrorising. There were no randoms in The Enclave.
Outfits come and go I'm afraid. The ones that stay together either have a large membership, or are a small group who have formed bonds of friendship. My own experience as the outfit leader of MOX is that of a small group of players who all get along very well, will stay together when others will fall apart. Good leading qualities are important, but social skills are just as important to keep your players together and enjoying the experience.
FU is still going and will continue to do so for a long time - Since its not a PS2 only community, we play lots of other games together. It will always be that way, outfits die if they dont recruit new members and keep the already recruited interested. But as lots of people say, a lot of outfits die if they have 1 main leader that suddenly leaves. If you have a larger group of admins that all carry their load, it will not hurt the fit as much when/if one leaves.
Naturally outfits are going to fall apart, they always do in games like this. The game is marketed as some sort of grand warfare game where in reality, it's just a bunch of random players forcibly attracted to certain areas. When it's 48+ vs 48+, don't fool yourself into believing that your outfit is making a difference. It probably isn't. When it's 48+ vs 1-12, don't fool yourself into thinking you are special forces doing something useful for the team... You're just wasting your time. When you're the 48+ against the 1-12, don't fool yourself into thinking you are a great army because quite frankly, you're wasting your time again and not really showing off any qualities. Reminds me of BWC on Mattherson. 'The Efficient Military Outfit', in reality... They make no difference in large fights and in small fights it just kills the fun of the game for the opposition. I'm speaking as a TR of course. Outfits are pointless in planetside 2. Being flexible and a large wallet to cover all problems is where the fun in Planetside 2 is.
Outcasters held up for more than 8 years on PS1. One year after the release of PS2, the outfit is only a pale shadow of what it once was. If you think this has nothing to do with game mechanics or SOE's business model in PS2, you are deluding yourselves. Micropayments, Lackluster weaponry and lack of empire identification, lack of continent variety, no cave fights. No deploy zones?! The list goes on. PS2 is full of half-cocked, artificial feeling game mechanics dross, that makes playing tedious. There is no sense of accomplishment or purpose, not in the base designs (who in their right minds would separate the spawn points from the Generators and stuff like that). There is NO strategic depth in this game. It had potential when the lattice was absent, one could flank, make deep attacks or surprising swings. None of that is possible anymore when the game got dumbed down to appease the twitch crowd. PS1 was like chess with people. PS2 is a dumb shooter. Why would anyone with a strategic mind waste their time with this ****?
My guild in WOW fell apart, so obviously it's WOW's fault and the game will die soon. Although, that was 5 years ago...
Only 2 ppl in my outfit, and I don't think either one of us will care/even notice if the other disappears
Outifts come and outfits go. Very few last; this is why its important to pick the right one, and bail when you realize you picked the wrong one. People that blame the game for leaving are doing you a favor. They were no good for the unit anyway.
Yeah, my outfit has been together since December of 2012... I've lost count of the outfits that fell apart, that were associated with my group. It happens. Reason my group has held together as long as we have, is because we transitioned into a gaming community and started recruiting from other games, and we regularly purge inactive people when they have not given us a reason that they were gone. Honestly, people have already said all the good advice: run regular events, try to make a name for yourself, find a niche... doing these things will attract people to you and make your members stick around. Further, if you can make your group, a tight knit group who play with each other, even outside of PS2, you get longer lasting members. There are probably a good 15 people that I met in PS2, that I still play with or talk to now on TS, because even though they don't play Planetside anymore, they still play with our group. It's really just the nature of Outfits/guilds/clans, it's got nothing to do with the game itself.
Games come and go, Outfits/clans/corporations/etc come and go ... reasons are as many as the people involved. World of warcraft I played for 8 years in a same guild that managed to hardcore raid vanilla,tbc,lk and part of cata till turning to "normal" raiding. Many dramas were had but thanks to stable key members the storms were weathered. In the end ... IRL choices had to be made and it started to dwindle down. Same happens in Planetside 2 and every other game out there, priorities and time consumed on a hobby changes. If it that happens to hit a key person in an outfit, its dire times where someone else suitable has to step up or its belly up time. I am happy to be a part of an outfit with alot of talented and motivated people. Tasks and intrests change but the machine keeps going.
If nothing works make your own outfit. 3utt The Vanu Butt inspectation squad is growing, soon the Stickybutt will take over. Stickybutt is love. Stickybutt is life. Take in the Stickybutt
