Hello, This post is not entirely perfect, but this was brought up in my outfit forum [TRAF] on Jaeger, and I figured it would be something worth sharing. It's good education and insight for people new to the Planetside Universe. This post is redonkulously huge, but the way I laid it down was righteous. I'll separate the posting of individual people using dashes. fe. -------------------------------- My thread title was "Problems with Planetside2, imo" (I should have named it "The Problems with Planetside2, imo") __________________ My post - Begin -------------------------------- A post I made on PS2.com forums. http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/agn-planetside-2-instant-action-meta-game-concerns.72015/#post-903071 Here is the direct link to the Youtube Vid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dYq-WdzQoao -1337Mode __________________ My post - End -------------------------------- "Burning Times" post - Begin -------------------------------- Just give an xp penalty/bonus for zerging/fighting a zerg. The more disparate the population, the bigger the modifier. Also, he forgot to mention deleting all the 1-shot kill sniper rifles. They need to get on that. There is no meta game with snipers, no counter play. They just don't belong in Planetside 2. -------------------------------- "Burning Times" post - End -------------------------------- A few posts later, and I reply... __________________ My post - Begin -------------------------------- I do not know how many of you understand the purpose of the infiltrator. It began in PS1 (ofc) and was influenced to be what it is now (duh), and I'll explain with minimal effort. Just 1 comment/opinion I would like to put out there - This game is being played incorrectly by the majority of players in PS2, and with the wrong mindset. {DISCLOSURE} A majority of the below information is intended to qualify myself to answer this thread, to render any future reply irrelevant. In PlanetSide, the were no classes. Instead, there was the Inventory System (I miss it so much). There were certifications (certs) and those certs limited your folder of abilities/attributes. Some abilities/attributes, such as suits (HA, Inf, MAX, etc) had limitations on how many items and/or what kind of items were allowed to be equipped. You acquired certs based on your experience points (XP). XP in a way equaled Certifications. Each level gave a specific number of certifications points, but for the sake of being unique & simple, each level was called Battle Rank (BR). Command Rank (CR) was the Squad/Platoon Leader level rank. Infiltrator - Hacking Tool: In Planetside, hacking was universally useful. Anyone with the certs invested into "Hacking" was able to hack almost anything that required faction/player specific access. The hacking tool used in the game allowed player to hack doors, lockers, terminals, base terminal (to cap a base), and even enemy (NME) air/ground vehicles. Once an item was hacked, it transferred ownership to the hacker or faction. Suits - The infiltrator suit allowed only 5-7 items to be carried at all times. Two of the items typically included a handgun and a hacking tool; and possibly an ammo box. Infiltrators could not hold any weapon greater than a bomb (mines, prox. mines, turrets, etc), grenades, or a handgun. Assault rifles, shotguns, and Sniper Rifles were not optional. The infiltrator suit transparency was so good that an infiltrator while stationary was literally 100% transparent unless taking damage. In combination with the Inventory System, the infiltrator suit/class was literally a low HP player to NEVER take lightly. A base battle could go on between minutes up to a couple days. And because all XP earned in Planetside was based on the quality and time spent as opposed to a based number. For example, if you frag a BR 1 player, you will earn about 2 XP (depending on what he was wearing). If a player frags a BR 25, you'll get between 400 to 1500 XP, which is more than can be earned on a free base cap. The quality of a player - stats, BR, and CR - affected the amount of XP that a player was worth per frag. Hacking a base required a minimum of 15 minutes. A free base cap would be <200 XP. An ez base cap (>15 mins, but < 30 mins) was between 200 to 400 XP; not including frags. A base cap, if you ever been in 1 one, lasting between 2 hours up to a couple days can be anywhere between 2000 XP to 50,000 XP or more (GL being awake for 2 days straight). I am not sure if there was a cap to XP earned for a base in Planetside1. Now imagine if a few infiltrators (<5 out of ~500 players) walked behind enemy lines and hacked all the enemy terminals and lockers (all in 1 room), switched to a MAXes and took out everyone in the spawn room which includes destroying the spawn tubes (which would take up to 3 minutes on average). That would end that battle if the infiltrator's faction (outside of the base) knew this was planned by the infiltrator(s). I would go further on what would happen, but that says enough for now. With that said, the inventory system as well as the infiltrator was changed completely to be as it is now in Planetside2. Instead of the Inventory System, we have Roles. The inventory system was changed to roles because the Inventory System allowed any player, despite what suit they were wearing, to be a One Man Army. And because it was a common desire of snipers and infiltrators to be merged, we in PS2 have infiltrators who have a sniper rifle... but at great cost, no one has hacking. At least, not the hacking we used to have in PS1. So now, the infiltrator can snipe, but no one can hack. The only thing that can be hacked is a terminal. That's it. The trade-off here SUBSTANTIALLY nerfs the qualities of PS1 for the sake of the new generation of gaming which came off of games like (but not limited to, respectively) BF3, World of Tanks, Tribes, and w/e else PS2 can be compared to. The purpose of the combination of attributes from different games was to attract players from other games to PS2, because PS2 was a great success for the same reason PS1 was... massive warfare on an epic scale while using the format of commonly played games. The infitlrator class is now as only - a class to serve the common desire of the fusion of 2 certification/attributes which produces an invisible killing machine. And joke of a comparison to what is was, the hacking ability... is only there for 1 reason... to remind PS1 vets that hacking doesn't exist anymore. *tears* To answer the complaint about disallowing infiltrators to 1-shot players (headshots w/ bolt rifles) is to say that you're zerging (running in a str8 line from point A to Point B), and not being mindful of your surroundings. Yes, I understand that the game is so big that you can never know when you're going to get shot despite looking around all the time, but this is Planetside not COD. Welcome. You cannot control whether you die or not, everything is random. But you CAN earn a ****-ton of frags based on the proper intel and decisions made. I'm not being a *****, though I like to be, but I am teaching you based on my experience of playing Planetside for over 7+ years. Again, welcome to Planetside... noob. -1337Mode __________________ My post - End -------------------------------- Give your honest opinion. I'm sure this thread will be a great influence in the future. As much as I would like to continue editting this post, I'll bbl. -1337Mode aka wtfcharles
You say the game is being played incorrectly, but this comes with the tone of an accusation, as if we are somehow to blame for sniping as the class which is only good at doing just that. I want to infiltrate, more than anything else in this game, but I have absolutely nothing to let me do so. A cloak which isn't effective at hiding me within the range of my opponent's weapons and the ability to hack only terminals, with absolutely no anti-vehicle capability and the worst possible selection of close quarters weapons, not to mention lower base shields than everyone else, and I'm playing the class wrong for keeping my distance? Give me a break. To answer the thread properly, removing OSK sniper rifles wouldn't do anything but increase the difficulty of sniping and highlight even further just how weak the Infiltrator is in comparison to every other class in the game. If you guarantee every sniping victim a chance to retaliate or get to cover, it might reduce the enormous power that we have during infantry zerg standoffs, but at a heavy cost to our performance elsewhere. There are enough clues already to help pinpoint a sniper's location - getting shot doesn't need to be one of them. Also, as an aside, I'm familiar with the TRAF. I only wish the Vanu on Jaeger were so well-versed in zerging the Crown while it's unoccupied by its controlling faction. Perhaps then I could actually enjoy fighting on Indar for a brief moment.
One shoot snipers you say? Like every sniper in existence? That someone takes the time to learn how to use the rifle, get into position and aim for your head he is to be punished when you can respawn in far less time? The most "powerful" sniper IE the NC bolt action is perhaps the best example of why snipers who go for one hit kill should get more props. Let me explain. If you go for a body shoot with the bolt action... There is no follow up shoot and you might just have lost a kill. If you used the automatic snipers however you can just try again... and again... and again... Where you hit almost ceases to be a factor and people spend far less time aiming for the one hit kill headshoot since they know they can just try again. To recap. The sniper sacrifices allot more of his time and effort then you lose by dying and respawning. The bolt-action sniper is a barrier keeping snipers from just spamming and actually go for time consuming headshoots. The only way a sniper can truly be useful for his team is if the time he waste shooting you or hacking your consoles can be capitalized by others. Otherwise he is just a giant waste of everyone's (including himself in the largest degree) time.
If you can't counter a one headshot sniper rifle you are just bad. Games shouldn't be balanced around noobs. All you have to do is not stand still for more than a second.
I suspect this 'thoughtful' post was done after a rage quit. It's simple really: One-shot kills only happen on headshots, which happen to be one of the smallest hitboxes. It's only possible with bolt-action rifles, which means you better get that one-shot right. If you're complaining about the only advantage that a class has that is one of the most difficult things to achieve in the game, and is VERY easy to counter (i.e. don't stand still!), then you, sir, are misinformed.
Only had to read the title of this thread to know the links were most likely rubbish so didn't bother reading them. I will respond to the thread title A sniper can only kill other Infantry, has to actually aim, and is vulnerable to everything else in the game, which is vastly more balanced than many other units that can one shot kill or their TTK is so fast it might as well be one shot. So, no your suggestion is just bad.
The only time I get one shot by a sniper is when I am either trying to snipe myself, or do something that involves me not moving at all. If I am moving, then I usually get body shots on me, and then I usually flank behind and kill the sniper myself. The times I do get sniped in one shot, I just pull my infiltrator and return the favor. Infiltrator is my primary class when I am on foot, but I rarely ever snipe. I play the infiltrator, close in, taking terminals, killing people from 5 feet away. But when I do snipe, I can get a lot of OSK's...because players just love to sit on top of a spawn room or tower, and shoot for 10-15 seconds and not bother to move at all. They are asking for it. The zerg also makes it easy. When you have 50 players zerging your position, they tend to get to comfortable, and don't play as smart and make them selves an easier target. As for the rest of your post, I agree. This game needs to be more like PS1 in terms of game mechanics, meta game, and it really needs to STOP PROMOTING the zerg and start PROMOTING strategic gameplay and rewarding players based on their own individual skill, rather then rewarding them with fat XP because they took a base using a zerg of 50 tanks and 100 infantry all the while discouraging players from defending because its not rewarding enough for XP(even though it makes the most strategic sense)
Not that it really matters but shotguns without the slug can also osk at <5 meters(estimated) on a head-shot to all but shielded heavies. So there are 2 weapons capable of that dmg.
It appears this thread has went completely sideways, and I doubt anyone has visited any of the links provided or read the whole thing. Therefore, this thread is full of people talking out of their ***. Sigh. -1337Mode aka wtfcharles
"the only thing that can be hacked is the terminal" You can also hack turrets, which can be a seriously great boom in an assault. You really don't want removal of the sniper rifle, you want the hacking side to better (alternatively, you want this to be planetside 1. That game is still there, isn't it? No-one will miss you if you return to it with an attitude like that). I can sympathise with wanting hacking to be better (I spend most of my offensive time as an INF doing exactly that) but the topic title seems seriously misleading to me.
There should be two separate classes, an sniper and a cqc infiltrator But there isn't. Just a sniper with lousy infiltrating. And if you take away 1-shot kills then it's a dead class. Plain and simple. If you're dying from snipers headshotting you it's your own damn fault.
Just because people don't unanimously agree with you doesn't mean that they didn't actually read your entire post or check out any of the links. I looked at all of it, and a vast majority wasn't even relevant to the singular statement of this thread. Do I want the Infiltrator to live up to its name and actually have the ability to get places and sabotage things? Of course I do, but that has no relation to sniping because the two aspects of the class have virtually no overlap. One of them is functional, the other is not, and you're saying that the former shouldn't be, as if it's somehow getting in the latter's way. Even if I agreed with you, what you're asking is never going to happen. It would require SOE to remove existing content from their game purely for balance reasons, which would warrant a complete refund of certs and station cash to everyone who owned that content, and it would leave one class severely lacking in primary weapon options in the process, which would require more development time to fill the gap. It would also draw even more attention towards how wholly inadequate the close-quarters Infiltrator setup really is, as if absolutely everyone doesn't already know, and put more pressure on them to fix the class as it would no longer be effective at anything at all.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The King of the Internet has spoken! I can say with 100% honesty and good intent that you should seriously think about why that is. I'll give you a hint: it's not because you're 100% right and everyone else is 100% wrong. (The links you provided are nothing to do with sniper rifles, btw.) You don't say? Also: I play CQ infi most of the time. Trust me, turrets can be hacked. Could infiltration & hacking be deeper? Yes. Does that have anything to do with removing the ability to kill stationary targets with a single headshot? No.
I would agree to getting rid of one shot sniper rifles if other classes ALSO got rid of their ability to also 1 shot kill infantry. This means; HA Rockets, LA C4, Medic C4, and also Infiltrator Prox/Betty/Claymore mines. Oh wait, that's gimping the Infiltrator class in two ways....what would they be good for again?
Sentinels in Tribes Ascend (which are hands down weaker than the original Sniper rifles in the 2nd game) .... actually take on average -- 3-4 shots in what's often roughly 8-15 seconds to kill even the lightest classes in the game. Yet somehow the massively overwhelming opinion of everyone on their forums (and a few vocal tryhards in-game) is that it's still the most OP thing in the game despite receiving more nerfs than any other class (other than Raider), while already having the absolute lowest skill-floor on KPM's. And on top of all that, they want it nerfed even further and the Devs are planning to do exactly that... There's plenty of other Snipers (auto-snipers in CSS comes to mind as well) in other games that typically contribute nothing to their team even when they can OHK.... but that's usually because of their tunnel-vision issues and dis-incentives towards mobility. I'm not sure yet where PS2's Infiltrator's rank on this metric... ...I think we'll get a better picture of them once this game's FPS & DrawDists are properly Optimized
Before we can worry about one hit kills, we need to worry about fixing the draw distance so that long-distance sniping is actually possible. But it's my opinion that if a sniper is a good enough shot to make a headshot at sniping distance, he deserves the kill. As long as there's not an entire platoon of people sitting in bushes and doing absolutely nothing, I don't have a problem with the Infiltrator's play style. Pick off targets of opportunity.
Do you know why the snipers in tribes ascend is called OP? Because they can reach out and touch you without having to move. Having a good sniper on your team basically means they can never take your flag without major teamwork. Its a waste of time to try compare Tribes ascends sniper with anything on the market. It is such a unique game. Snipers are one of the most dreadful things in competitive CS. They will toast your *** so fast that you will actually never see them. But again CS is not like Planetside 2 since killing people is almost the main objective. In Planetside 2 death is almost pointless.
No it's not.... We're designed to "reach out and touch" everyone here too. The Terrain is a bit more "Wrinkley" for obvious reasons but at the same time (Esamir especially, aka: "Edmonton in January") you have even longer periods of line of sight directly to their heads in this game. And if you DON'T, then it's because you're not Flanking them fast enough. If this wasn't the case then Magriders wouldn't NEARLY as effective as they currently are at longer ranges. (huge collision hulls on their Saran particles, tiny fast & evasive teenage-boobies shaped hitboxes for their bodies). What you mean to say as the big difference between them, is that T:A uses hitscan on theirs while ours use sub-sonic rounds (yes this has actually been tested .... our bullet speeds are LESS than the speed of sound for some reason .... not sure if that's an engine limitation though, or the fact that the Devs obviously just hate snipers too)
I don't even agree with the idea of removing OSK snipers, but how can you in good conscience even use Tribes: Ascend as a point of comparison to this game? Tribes: Ascend is a game where the terrain is a means to accelerate to ludicrous speeds, not take cover behind. If you're ever not going faster than 150 km/h, you're not going to arrive at your destination for quite a long time. Everyone is, at all times, flying through the air in extremely predictable parabolic arcs just to ramp off the next hillside and go even higher, and Sentinels have an infinite range hitscan weapon to plink away at them with. Even if a Sentinel gets spotted, their opposition has access to nothing but slow traveling explosive projectiles and fast traveling limited-range bullets, neither of which will ever even come close to reaching a distant sniper, especially if shot while moving. The ability to consistently harm a player from a limitless distance, regardless of how fast they're going and in spite of any of their attempts to stop you (except to slow down and take cover, which really is a fate worse than death in T:A), is absolutely OP. In this game, it's hard to headshot someone sprinting perpendicular to your screen, and they are most assuredly going to be capable of returning fire and killing you, especially with the rendering distance being what it is.
