this game is too confusing for beginners

It's a good game but man is it confusing !!! I still don't know how to go upper levels where A, B or C targets are in Mani for example. I asked in in game chat but nobody answers my question. And it's pretty much silly **** like this that drags down this game. Give me a waypoint system to navigate to higher levels of a base GOD DAMN IT. Make it an option where you can toggle it on or off untill you learn every ******* base on 3 continents. Why do I have to literally spend 15-20 mins just trying to find my way around. I still don't know how to disable those force fields or what to do first to even start capturing a base. All I hear is these announcements like power regenerator is up or down 20 ******* times which I have no clue what they are and If it's better for my team when it's down or up. I'm not even sure if that warnings are for me or for enemy team hahahha...Anyways people ignoring these type of questions are also not helping with my frustration. I wanna go upstairs and kick some butt FFs.

Wait, let me get this straight, you can't figure out how to get to A B or C in a base? Is this what you are trying to tell me?

Well, as a starting player I'd just follow the flow of other players. Eventually you'll understand the hows of each base, both defending and attacking.

Bio lab bases tend to be the most confusing, since they don't have any obvious entrances. Look for cluster of buildings around them with a big satelite dome on one of them. That building houses a teleporter that ports you right into the dome. You'll need to take control of those buildings (they are like a mini base) and then use the teleportation pod to transport yourself up.

Tech labs have force shields on all three sides and two rear entrances on the back.

Amp stations are probably the easiest in terms of layout. They are like fortresses with outer walls and doors and an inner forcefield and doorway.

...

Generators are the shield icons you see in your screen, once they break a wrench icon appears on top of them so people can tell it's broken. Breaking generators bring down the shields of the base.

SO if you hear the message that generator is broken = bad news


You can see the distance to A,B,C etc just by looking at them so u can easily navigate towards them. Biolabs are propably harder to navigate cause all the capturezones are inside the lab so u have to find a route there first.

I've got 3 friends starting to play this but i had to literally hold their hands with doing even the most "basic" of functions that are just second nature to me now.

- Where's the rest of my guns?
- How do i change classes/vehicles/guns?
- How do i unlock things?
- Where am i? How do i get to where you're at?

+ a hundred more questions and that's the starter experience.


The game could really use a "mock base" tutorial, walking the player through the basic things like terminal use, certifications and capturing points at the very least.

if you've played the beta or even planetside 1, you take for granted just how much there is in this game until friends are playing ask a hundred questions.

this game is horrid for new players. I was lost for about 2 days until i started to learn the ways in and out. Don't feel bad, there are still alot of players that dont know where to go or what's going on. In alot of ways this game still feels like it should be beta.

Sad sad affair on modern gaming, too much hand-holding turns people lazy and stoopid.

This is what you get when people are used to google'ing quests .

I believe he's referring to points A, B and C in the Bio labs as they're on the raised platform in the centre of the base.

To get to these you generally have to either find one of those anti-gravity lift things which are usually in the small buildings around the perimeter of the base, these will take you up to the aircraft landing pads and you can run inside from there OR you can ask another player in a Liberator or Galaxy (if there's one nearby) to airlift you to the landing pad.

There is also a teleporter in the side basses which will teleport you directly into the base,I wish they would put more cover on the landing pad because it just becomes a choke point where the defending side has a major advantage.The usually take over the pad preventing anyone from jumping up so you have no choice to get in a fighter and clear the pad.

Over the christmas period player numbers on Planetside 2 are going to decline in favour of the Call of Duty tripe. I think we need to encourage new players to stick with this game (maybe invite them to our outfits and train them up) and show them that the PS2 community is friendly, welcoming and helpful to new players and not some intolerant, racist spunk saturated spotty teenagers. Then even if they do play that **** over christmas, those without short attention spans will see that PS2 has much more depth and longevity to the gameplay and will come back.

The complaint about bio labs is valid for both new and old players.

I understand the game and can play it but rarely bother with biolabs as not only are they confusing they are defender bottle necks that are just going to get you killed. A lot.

Stick with the more open bases and just go somewhere else if you find yourself at a biolab.

OP has a point, it took me months in beta to figure out all the base lay-outs, capture mechanics and objective whereabouts.

That is a wonderful idea and I am amazed that is not how SOE starts the newcomers. They should get a "basic training" tutorial which could have some fun faction-flavor for each alliance.

The point, after all, is to encourage people, not dissuade them. Sink or swim is not necessarily the best way to teach something.

It took me also 1-2 days to understand most of the actual mechanics, figuring out that there are jump pads and teleporters into biolabs etc. The game does a really bad job documenting itself. The fact that the "press E to overload generator" only appears after a interval of standing right in front of the thing made me miss that entirely in the beginning. Also the "hold Q" menu doesn't seem to be documented in any accessible location at all. It took me quite some googling to figure out how to use the squad objectives thing etc.

Edit: also a "offline test base" would be nice. Like in Tribes Ascend where you can spawn on a map with a bunch of dumb NPCs standing/walking around and where you can try out equipment without spending certs. I was really frustrated with my first cert unlocks since I was essentially unlocking blindly just going by the small descriptions which often are misleading imho.

Would be nice to get more tutorials going for newer players, but when it comes down to it, if you pay attention and focus your time into the game, you'll eventually get the flow of things. Only took me a few days in the Beta to get the essentials locked down and a bit of time after to get some of the more detailed aspects hammered down. It definitely has a decently steep learning curve, but if you play around with it and keep with it, people will eventually get the flow of what's going on. And if not, they can always ask people. There are tons of people around who I've seen are always willing to help out each other with questions, even if they're not in the same faction.

While I would agree that it is very confusing to start with I personally wouldn't want it to be changed at all.

I will freely admit that when I first started playing I was basically a free kill to anyone who even breathed in my direction (NC & TR have really bad breath .) However, I did what I always do in these situations, stuck with it, followed people and died a lot. I also learned the maps, the guns and what will get me killed. So these days someone would have to cough heavily in my direction to kill me but I may have a chance to kill them too if I am lucky ..... oh I forgot I also had a lot of fun while doing all this and that to me is what makes me stick around. Just my opinion ymmv

No, it's not. Use your head for once and think. We don't need a game to tell us what to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8FpigqfcvlM#t=72s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=o-NNWW_qVJY#t=123s

It is quite unfriendly to new users but I don't really see the problem. I started playing last night, wasn't just a meatshield. Was finishing with just over a 1.00 k/d ratio and helping capturing the bases and stuff. It's just about following the flow of the game. Yea there's still plenty I don't really understand but I'm hoping the more I play the more I'll learn rather than the standard cod/battlefield experience that everybody knows and it's just "respawn, sprint, shoot, die, repeat". I'm quite happy that I actually have to use my initiative.