New Esamir facility

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by ican'taim, Nov 21, 2020.

  1. ican'taim

    From the livestream

    [IMG]

    • Coming in Chapter 3
    • This will replace the biolab ruins
    • Will have multiple objectives
    • Has underground areas
    • Will be the first major facility since the Interlink got scrapped from the PTS
    Judging from the looks of it and from what the developers said, this seems to be an infantry-only space. Hopefully, it's not another biolab.
    Thoughts?
  2. Liewec123

    Hopefully it IS. :D
    • Up x 4
  3. Scatterblak


    Thoughts: This post originally went up in November, 2020, and only today received its second comment (this one). Why don't the Powers that Be™ recognize this (and a hundred other things) as indications that the playerbase, largely, doesn't give a **** about this stuff. FIX WHAT'S BROKEN, and stop building content that takes forever to deliver, and even when it does arrive, only a small subset of players will ever see it!

    • Tone down the lattice. You put it together because people were complaining 'Oh, woe is me, there aren't enough large fights!' -- the lattice funnels people together artificially, so all the fights cam only happen in a few areas. 'Oh, this is awful, all the fighting is at TI!' -- Wtf did you think would happen?? -- why don't you try gently scaling resources recovery / XP award / drops, etc the farther people get from the battlefronts, instead of choosing between only the ham-handed lattice or a wide-open continent with no incentive to engage en masse?
    • Re-open TI. This was embarrassing. "Doc, my arm hurts," -- Doctor saws off arm. Here's a clue - Reddit <> focus group.
    • Speaking of Reddit, get off of reddit, and start interacting with your playerbase in your official forums?
    • Where's Oshur? The one piece of content (that everyone was looking forward to), we've been waiting on for more than 3 years now. Nothing. Not even news, updates, anything. Is it gone? Not happening?
    • Esamir. Shattered Warpgate. Awful. All the new gameplay - missions, restoring enemy hardware (fun!), some interesting new flora -- all of that could have come without ruining so many of the bases. Something to consider - the people who know the bases, know the terrain, who know parts of the continents like their own hometown - these are the people who have been here the longest, and a lot of them are paying customers.
    • Outfit Wars. Who thought of this?? "Hey guys, I have an idea - let's leave off working on bugs and a whole new continent that everyone can fight one, and let's focus on building out a new area where only a few players will ever see it. And let's make sure to really go over it in detail everywhere - reddit, facebook, twitch, etc. - except in our own forums. We'll just post patch stuff there." Not a great plan.
    Read your forums, guys. The loudest people don't always speak for the majority. Step 1 would be SELECT * FROM Messages WHERE bPayingMember = 1;

    That's the focus group that matters.
    • Up x 5
  4. DarkStarAnubis

    I know, from very respectable sources, that the new facility was originally conceived by Wrel as an Ice Factory to justify the presence of ice on Esamir but later it was later on decided to turn it into a Mausoleum for Andy Sites who has left.

    It will host a new campaign whose final prize is an helmet with a beard add-on (in honor of Andy) and the title of "Member of Sites Fellowship" as well.
  5. Ak69

    - Remove redeploy
    - Make bases upgradable and hard to take and give builders the role of deciding what to do.
    - Remove outfit wars you peanuts.
    - Focus on solo players
    - Remove outfit resources
    - Get rid of the missions, the directives are good.
    - Stop making campaigns, focus on the core gameplay.

    You are a combined arms game, not an infantry game. What are the 3 main things people do when they log in?

    1, Shoot people in the face
    2, Take bases
    3, Defend bases.

    Forget everything else and focus on making that tight. Grow the solo base, do not focus on outfits, squads or any of that dribble that comes when you actually have growth.

    You know what an outfit player does, logs off and goes and plays solo somewhere. When outfits are offline they are again even more useless.
    • Up x 2
  6. Pelojian

    1) enclosed space.
    2) aside from exits, no vehicle interaction.
    3) no vehicle pads

    it's a 2.0 biolab, built on the top of the old 1.0 biolab spots.
    • Up x 1
  7. DarkQuark

    Agreed 100%. This was put very well.


    And this?

    "the loudest people don't always speak for the majority."

    That's a pearl of wisdom right there.
    • Up x 2
  8. RabidIBM

    Speaking of the loudest people not always representing the majority: Solo players are NOT the foundation of this game. MMO of any kind, be it MMORPG or MMOFPS or whatever else is about the people you play with. Whether they are friends who got you into the game, or friends you met in the game, MMO is about playing with your friends. This is why squads, platoons and outfits exist, to facilitate friends playing together. Armouries to give those groups of friends some extra toys to play with that they built together are a good idea. So to the handful of people on the forum saying that solo players are the foundation and that squads, platoons, and outfits should be done away with, you are the loud people who do not speak for the majority. The devs are right to ignore you.

    To those who will follow up with "I'm a solo player, and I spend money, so they should listen to me", guess what? They already said on one of their streams that the numbers are in, and new players who quickly join an outfit are massively more likely to subscribe. Therefore outfits are the focus among other reasons for the sake of the money. That was said as part of the stream where they announced the creation of armouries.

    -I do agree that the campaign is dumb. It turns MMO into MSO, and is exactly what I would expect from a dev who's real passion is RPGs, and resents the fact that the game he is currently in charge of is not an RPG.
    -I do agree with you guys about that new facility looking like a terrible idea. It completely compartmentalizes the game play of what's meant to be a combined arms game, not a "these guys here and those guys there" game. It is also what I would expect from a biased lead dev who plays all inf all the time.
    -Regarding outfit wars, it is a fun side show to the main game, I'm glad it exists, I'm having fun playing it, but the devs need to remember that it is not the core game, and not to balance anything around it.
    -As for "read your damn forum", well, I agree, however they would have to be reading their forum to notice that comment :)
  9. DarkQuark


    Not sure there is anything to be had from a struggle between solo and outfit players. Not saying you are doing that, just saying it because you kind of eluded to it. We should all work towards the same end of making the game fun for all.

    I am a solo player, always have been. I think that is a part of the game but I do believe the game is more about working together. I essentially play the game wrong, but it's a playstyle I enjoy so I stick with it because it floats my boat.
  10. RabidIBM

    @DarkQuark I agree that there is nothing to be gained by fighting about it. There are however, people on this forum who advocate that their solo play is the only valid play, that squads, platoons and outfits are somehow toxic to the game (because it doesn't make them special?) and should therefore be deleted so that this game can finally be about it's true players: solo players. I know they're there, so I figured I'd get in front of them.
  11. Peebuddy


    What is this "Multiple objectives" nonsense? For 8 years its always been capture the point, until there is another way to capture a facility this is just a buzzword they like using.

    As for the base itself it looks like it will be hell. Multiple level bases didn't work, every one of them were horrible shooting galleries for the attackers for hours on end. Yet they keep trying, maybe THIS one will work.

    I REALLY want different capture methods. Payload push, capture the flag, objective overload, base drain, anything other than go to point X and wait. You could even have it randomised so after every alert bases get different capture methods, it would really change the game up and break the monotony of the lattice system.
    • Up x 1
  12. DarkQuark

    In my mind there is plenty room for both styles. However I do not see how the game could ever be built around 100% solo play. If you removed the outfits and platoons people would quit in droves and those left would clamor for them to come back. It's just human nature to want to work together for a lot of folks. That's no different than WOW or any other game.

    You also have a lot of people who adore the endgame. That would normally happen through working together. If I was super interested in getting ASP and every weapon etc that's what I would look to do. But I personally do not care about those things. I just want to log on , jump into a fight and shoot some people. But I fully understand how the game works and what it's about.
  13. Ak69



    Again, who put this brainwashing into your head, regarding solo play? What do you do when you're friends or team mates are not online? What do you do? You log off, or do you play solo? One of those choices is bad for the game, and the other is epic.

    Nobody is taking away your ability to group with people to form squads, what needs to be destroyed is the squad / outfit culture making it a MUST to able to play effectively. You're shooting yourself in the foot with this very rudimentary dependency.

    The outfits, the squads should all take a backseat, so that even if there was no such thing as squads or oufits the game would play like an epic shooter. An epic shooter that does not need squad play to be fulfilling. This is what should be focused on, you nail that and you're getting both sides. If the game is only good during squad play, you've botched the game to start with.

    Think about it for a second, what do you do when you squad up? or run with an outfit, your just consolidating players in order to have critical mass to overtake bases, there is no large tactical structure at play, there is no strategy, it's just power in numbers.
    • Up x 1
  14. JibbaJabba

    Hell yeah, brother.
    • Up x 1
  15. RabidIBM

    What do I do when they aren't around? Depends on the mood I'm in and how determined I really am to play some Planetside. Sometimes I showed up just for the game itself, sometimes I showed up for the community. With that in mind, I might join a different group than usual to meet more people in the community. If that's no good then I might relog to a different faction to see if there's anyone good to run with over there (btw folks, there are good people on all three factions. I hate the fact that this game has a culture of "people who log into other factions are bad people", but that's a tangent.), and if I can't find any good units on any faction I may just roll solo because I really wanted to play Planetside, or I might log out with intent to log back in later. I only want to play so many hours of Planetside in a day, and don't want to burn myself out before my friends show up.

    "Nobody is taking away your ability to group..." that is a statement which is inconsistent with other posts from solo players on this forum. Solo players on this forum ABSOLUTELY want the whole squad, platoon and outfit system destroyed so the game can be all about themselves, "the true kings of Planetside, the solo players".

    "You're shooting yourself in the foot with this very rudimentary dependency" What dependency? The dependency of playing with friends in an MMO?

    As for your assertion that the only reason to run with a team is to out zerg the other guys, sure, lazily run platoons work that way. But if you actually ever joined a platoon you'd know that much of the comms is about "stop using trickle tactics" and similar things. Platoons determine who is going to bring what kit, how we will win, what ground we will use etc. to beat our opponents with team work. Team work is the foundation of an MMO, and the organizers of said team work are the kings of Planetside. Sorry solo players, you aren't special.
  16. JibbaJabba

    Haha, your outfit SUCKS!!!

    The whole is supposed to be greater than the sum of it's parts, friend.
  17. Ak69

    No idea why you would assume I want to have anything to do with outfits, when I'm probably the biggest proponent against them entirely. So yeah you're right outfits do suck. Thanks.

    Also, lets use your line of thinking for a second. So when a server is less than 50 players strong and all that's left is random people running around that was caused by outfits creating a meta that makes the servers drier than your old ladies lemon, I'm guessing your outfit sucks pretty hard then too right. The game doesn't have the stamina to maintain a full population 24/7. The only game out there that makes combine arms possible and the dev team is focusing on outfit wars where 3 people and his mother are watching. Great use of resources...
  18. CarlAdam

    Problem with multiple level bases is that only people who have played for a long time will know its layout, there should be arrows and lines along the walls showing the way to the different points.
    • Up x 1
  19. Blue_Lion

    Well having to play solo, when you are use to group play is bad for the game. I do not see how leaving the game could be considered epic. I do not see how playing solo would be epic.

    If my outfit is not running something, I join a pick up group, I do not just run around by myself.-So even when my friends and outfit are offline I do not solo play, as I play a MMO to be part of a group of people. If I want to solo play I will play borderlands, or an offline game.

    If you enjoy running around by yourself that is fine, but demanding they remove a system to encourage group play without adding a suggestion for something that would work better is just being salty.
  20. Scatterblak

    Some good ideas, IMHO.

    --- This is easy. Let construction happen at bases. Let it happen anywhere.

    --- Absolutely. What a waste of time and resources.

    --- Meh. Focus on what your playerbase wants, as opposed to trying to dictate what will be Fun™.

    --- We've got too many resources to keep track of as it is. I've got ~72,000 certs, and nothing to spend them on. We need a minimal/tacit economy that creates a desire to spend certs on something worth spending them on. Re: redeploy - first, make certs worth something. Then make redeploy cost something.

    --- Semantics.

    --- YES!

    --- YES again.

    --- If they just focus on the core gameplay, all that other stuff - outfits, squads, etc - all that will come on its own, just like it did so long ago with Quakeworld, the first Team Fortress (pre-Valve), etc.

    And GET RID OF THE FREAKIN' STORM ON ESAMIR!