Can Daybreak make Planetside 2 great?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by jettblakk, Nov 11, 2017.

  1. jettblakk

    Not my video, but a lot of truth.
    • Up x 5
  2. FateJH

    To be fair about "Lore," that's kinda the point and always has been.

    There is no path going forward for any of the three factions. The TR pretty much have a comfortable spot by holding the line but it is just holding the line; the NC just have a substandard decadence to try to strive towards; the VS don't really seem to do research on the Ancients anymore or, rather, they've hit a deadend and don't know where to go with it but also won't admit it; and, everyone else is fighting a pointless conflict. The rebirthing system means only the minute conflict achieves any tension and the fact that we're stuck in a closed loop of environments where the terminus (warp gate) aren't a thing that can be pushed into or pushed through or can push past means that all progress is fixed. The less said about "continent rotation" the better. PlanetSide Classic even went beyond these, suggesting that the people of the rebirthing system were stranded permanently tethered to the nanite cloud produced by the warp gates, and at the mercy of som algorithm can shift the goal posts. Hence, PlanetSide.

    Those people on Hossin who supposedly were the first actual deaths since the war started, as they died outside of the range of an activated rebirthing system, does anyone even care about them? Anyone knew them in game? Of course not, as they existed just to tell a short amusing story, a handwave. And now what happened there is meaningless, as the rebirth system has extended over Hossin for the rest of our benefits.
    • Up x 2
  3. pnkdth

    I think he's treating PS2 as a bigger title than it is. However, I do not think he's wrong.

    Initially they wanted the MLG gamers and competitive crowd but implemented NOTHING to facilitate that. Server Smash and Lane Smash and all kinds of smash was done on the PTS and 100% community driven. The PTS was finicky and simply arranging matches were a real pain... Forget fostering a competitive community.

    They had a road map but again failed to live up to it. Worse, it made a lot of players feel there were zero direction... Then despite votes and whatever things which the devs felt were more important were focused on anyways so it was just window dressing. So in addition the MLG failure they also failed their open-world FPS gamers.

    Sometimes I wished they'd simply made a simple trailer of massive battles and making it all very clear that EVERYTHING you see here is in game. No cinematic trailers here, when you play you play the cinematic moments. Honestly, if you run a decent rig and put everything into ultra this game is a real sight to behold. If you on top of that have a decent sound system the game is even.

    I will never understand why this wasn't the focus of their marketing. I mean, they had every chance of going in with a smirk and say, "Yeah, that trailer sure was cinematic... Our entire game is like that" and show it happening. I played during beta and there were tons and tons of epic battles they could have used.

    The best part is they don't even need much budget to actually make something out of things. They just need a dedicated team to do it. Stop making NS weapons and stuff like that. We need a new surge of players. Put people on the hype machine, do a big promotion like the Alpha Squad deal. Cycle "Implant of the month" where you get to test out a max level implant(yes for free players too...) for the duration of that month. Why? Because you want people to feel like they can compete and to lessen the feeling of that grind towards the top. I mean, I have most stuff I want. I don't care if someone get it for cheaper. I want them to feel good playing. I don't want them to feel like they are a million years behind.
    • Up x 3
  4. TR5L4Y3R

    If they stop making ns weapons or purchaseable stuff like cosmetics they run the risk of running on a thinner and thinner budget ...
    Anything that goes into ballance or fixing or even as far as making new content such as continents or new alerts or modes won't get them money and most of it is a greater risk for spending resources on something that may not give them revenue longterm ...

    CAI was quite the big update ... how much did it help them getting revenue vs what they spend resouces on it ?
    how much resources do they even have compared to what they may need?
  5. Hajakizol

    Its the old addage.. "You must spend money to make money." The CAI was a step in the right direction in that they changed SOMETHING. Weather or not you agree with the changes they were batter than nothing. The next thing i feel that need adressing is they may want to hammer out FACTION identity. I mean really. NS weapons crap all over faction identity.
    • Up x 3
  6. adamts01

    I think he nailed a lot about the game. Big combined arms battles is the only thing this game has going for it, and it only floats along on life support because there's nothing else like it. I understand they have a small budget, and I understand balance is difficult, but they have a small budget and terrible balance because they don't interact AT ALL with the community, and seem to have zero clue about how their game actually plays. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
    • Up x 1
  7. Hajakizol

    A bunch of little tweaks would go along way. Even a few % here and there would at least give people some hope that things are being addressed. Id say most players wont expect a patch to fix everything but there should be follow up stuff as to why and adjustments along the way.
  8. OgreMarkX

    No. They cannot. That stinks. :(

    Why? I will speak of corporate level issues more than specific Planetside 2 issues because the former creates the latter.

    -- SOE/DBG's overall corporate culture is one that cant maintain focus on any one game's CORE GAMEPLAY. They simply don't know what they are and why. They lack a cohesive and maintained plan for any game...spinning in circles chasing the next shiny new penny, never completing anything well and creating a mess that detracts from any attempt to get back on track. Before they know it, they have a mess of a code base and feature set that doesnt work. Then they spend more time bailing out the boat than in sailing the boat.

    -- SOE/DBG became CASH SHOP focused. This meant, MONETIZE FIRST, QUALITY GAME SECOND (which is the exact OPPOSITE of what they needed to do to grow). I believe this was Smedley's (former SOE/DBG president) early doing. Customers told him it would fail. Others may claim "But it kept games alive!" I beg to differ...I say it took the games OFF FOCUS. It stunted their growth and success. SOE was a subscription based company and when they tried to become a F2P company they started to fail at both models.

    -- Too many games at once. Before SOE's collapse, they not only couldn't maintain focus on any one game, they had too many games at once. Nothing got done well. Then they started to starve one game to feed another, both in budget and employee assignments. This created a domino effect of failure. And to top it off, often their games cannibalized players from each other (EQ and EQ2).

    -- After PS2's release the designers and devs were more interested in their reddit/twitter presence than in the work itself

    -- SOE's early focus on MLG gameplay. What...The.. F.... This relates to my first point about core gameplay. If I saw one more post from the first PS2 design lead about a trip to some TWITCH/MLG BS convention I was gunna blow up. Again, this is a SOE/DBG corporate culture problem in general...anyone who followed Everquest Next knows this....how many times were we treated to 3 developers huddled around one monitor OO'ing and Ahh'ing about VOXELS and MINECRAFT BS...lordy...it was like a high end resort contracting with a team to put in a luxury five star pool and all that team did was to dig a hole, let the rain fill it up and then ogle the frogs exclaiming how much fun people would have with the frogs.

    -- Budget and focus, all of the above meant pulling away money and developers from the core gameplay. Meanwhile, the player base got annoyed. I sure did. After long standing bugs and OP items were left in game for A YEAR, I got fed up.

    -- Schedule. DBG team has NO schedule. No sense of urgency. I think they went nearly a year with almost no updates to PS2, then they dared called some things updates that ... well nevermind...it was maddening.

    --And as touched on in Cyrious video, community relations has always been bad. Your customers aren't SALTY. They are RIGHT.

    Lastly, CAI was a success. Definitely a big step in the right direction. But I don't think DBG has the staff and budget to "make the game great again".

    I am sure DBG has great people, all companies do. But after nearly 30 yrs in the business I guarantee you that the MAIN problem with SOE/DBG games lies above the developer level, and above the PS2 team level. Such problems invariably narrow down to one or two people and the culture they create.
    • Up x 1
  9. adamts01

    I can't agree with you here, not when you log on and literally can't play the game because you're stuck in VR for up to an hour. Not when air isn't capable of any meaningful contribution against TR ground fights, or any fight with a single Ranger. ISO is so hard to come by that outfits split between factions to take turns throwing alerts for the other faction. Not when players who spent considerable real money on past implants and who lost at the new lottery feel cheated. CAI had some great ideas which were terribly implemented. The game is considerably worse than before Critical Mass, and even worse than before Construction.
    • Up x 2
  10. iPervy

    I'd like to say theres still hope for them to turn the game around, and honestly compared to how the game was post release it has improved quite a lot though more in terms of efficiency via getting certs and finding battles.

    That said though i have a hard time seeing the game get much better as besides Wrel I dont think most of the devs even play the game regularly. So, of course they wont really know what best to fix in terms of nuances and emphasizing with the players, and I highly doubt they even read the forums and plan to incorporate any ideas said good or bad due to that same reason.

    Love the game and its one of a kind for a reason as it is hard to balance and develop for. Also feel its unfair to compare the game to warframe as balancing a primarily pve game is far easier than a game like planetside. Every thing you do to make one thing better means others are going to die more, and since weapons are faction based unlike say cod/battlefield you cant use those same weapons that killed you to even the balance. Also due to this warframe is far easier to incorporate new features or items as since one buff helps everyone as its pve and not pvp. So the better your buddy does the better you do instead of the teetertottering of ps2.
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  11. Lucidius134


    I agree with most of your other points. I didn't really agree with the cinematic trailor being what it is for how much it could have been. Saying they needed to 'simply' make a trailor with in game footage and massive battles? I feel like part of the issue was they did that so much that there isn't just A singular definitive trailer video for planetside 2. They had SO many trailers. So much so that people miraculously forgot about or never saw them. They even had official videos showcasing some outfits.




    (there are more but I dont need to post them all)
    I never considered the Death is no Excuse trailer (CG) to be planetside 2's official trailer, and if memory serves it was previewed at SOE Live during beta. You'll find that on their YT channel it's posted even before Esamir was previewed.The trailer that game out with the game's official release was gameplay strictly. I don't know why people consider this THE trailer when all of the E3 trailers and such are all about the gameplay? Even the alpha trailer reveal is gameplay. Maybe it's because i played and was hooked before the teaser for the CG trailer even came out.


    They (SOE) know they ddint need much of a budget. Look at how they turned the optimization patch into a marketing promo (O:MFG).
  12. OgreMarkX

    "They (SOE) know they ddint need much of a budget. Look at how they turned the optimization patch into a marketing promo (O:MFG)."

    It's not marketing to sell to existing buyers.
    • Up x 1
  13. Lucidius134

    Subtle

    Post aside, O:MFG was an attempt to win the graces of those who quit because of the performance. It also was to keep people from quitting, as you stated. I know plenty of people who didn't even give ps2 a try once they got into a fight because of the performance or reports of the performance.

    Also wouldn't be a big deal if it was like, 6 entire videos and a big series and carried over to all of their streams.
  14. OneShadowWarrior

    They already have with the Critical Mass Update and even the weapons they have introduced like the NS and NSX Series are fun.
  15. Killer Medic

    Definitely agree with you on this one.
    +1