The state of PS2 and what I feel must change.

They could use the left over servers from merges and... wait for it... USE A FEW AS TEST SERVERS! But that probably makes too much sense, lol.

He'd have to clean up his image, and I don't see that happening.

Unfortunately, the best solution (a single universe system a la Eve Online) is well beyond the technical reach. So, perhaps a server per continent? There has to be a better way to organize the players to create more meaning, integrate the server setup with the game world and mitigate low populations.

So why not redesign bases to be more efficient in terms of mitigating the flow of attackers to each point? Instead of attacking this from the top by taking the current flawed bases and fixing them with a bandaid like no-deploy, as you said in a different post it is time to look at revising bases (even on conts like Amerish there are still the same flawed base layouts.) Game Designers perhaps time to take a critcal view on how battle flows around a base and advise on how to redesign for more proper assault/gameplay functionality.

Oh god... While not a bad idea, a single test server isn't a magical solution to every problem. You certainly wouldn't be able to get the population necessary to stress test certain things. Now you're proposing multiple test servers? No, that makes no sense at all.

Many games have multiple test servers. You think people on the east coast will be able to deal with ping caused my playing on a server on the west coast?

Also, test servers are used for much more than just stress tests. GU2 and it's plethora of issues is a perfect example of why a test server is important.

Many games either don't need large groups of players on a single server to test certain changes or have a large enough population to sustain reasonable testing groups on multiple servers.

oh lawd

Every single point he's made is both excellent and helpful. If SOE were to use this post as a roadmap, we'd see membership increase, guaranteed.

Oh and the game would KICK AZZ INTO INFINITY.

Bumpcutpsycho.

/signed

A brilliant discussion on the state of the game and what needs to change. Prioritize this over MAX or LA revamps.

I'd say it's not that there isn't battlelines. Just more that almost nobody knows where they are. I could care less about who controls which territory. The important information is where the bulk of the enemy and friendlies are and where they are moving. With the current map this is almost impossible to tell.

Players need a simple and effective way to tell where the fights have been, where they are, and where they will be. It should show allied movement across the map and enemy movement in allied territory.

It'd be as simple as adding a filter that shows large concentrations of people as blobs on the map. Every 5 minutes or so the blob is updated and the older blobs dims out a little. If this done several times it creates a movement trail showing which way the blob is moving. It'd be easy to program, easy to implement, and gives the player more information thats less confusing than all this flashing all over the map.

I don't completely agree with all the suggestions but a majority of them would go a long way to extending the longevity of the game. I hope at least some of these suggestions end up making it through.

I particularly like the instant action change suggestion.

What about EU? Pinging Miller I have 200ms ping. This is exacerbated by client side hit detection. Still think that an international game should have just one test server?

Wrong. It's their base to defend.

Really liked the posts. Read the whole thing while making dinner. Hope your dev buddy Malorn does too.
I think a lot of us want similar things and if they implement even a third of your thoughts we will have a better experience.

I find it kind of comforting knowing that Buzz has Malorn as an asset.

^bump

Again population is the real problem.

Making the game more linear, not the solution.

Otherstuff, just heavily biased to infantry combat, say this as a junior commander in a airborne unit.

My posts are like back on page 20ish. Most of my points stand.

The lattice system only worked because you had focused fights in PS1 with two empires. At any given time, there were two fights open on the continent, and the 133 pop cap was spread between them. 3-way fights were rare, and you didn't have to worry about losing a whole bunch of territory by focusing a target.

Planetside 2 is fundamentally different. Each continent is an eternal 3 way and you have 600+ popcap. You still only have two fights open during primetime, and you have to distribute population between them. The reason the front line fluctuates so much is because it's very easy to identify where the other Zergs are and just attack somewhere they aren't. TR can make an assault onto a VS base, and if the VS defends from it with equal numbers, they get crushed by the NC zerg that sweeps in and takes 10 territories before anyone can react.

This happened on Cyssor constantly, and was probably my biggest gripe about that continent. When the VS came into Cyssor, it required NC and TR to drive them out before anyone could take the continent, otherwise it became a grind at the Gunuku/Kang/Itan triangle. This is a problem with 3-way fights, not the territory system. Esamir and Amerish are quite fun with just a TR/VS fight.

Anything more than 60 players on a side is a grind. Objects (buildings, bases, doorways) in this game are designed for 20-30 players, not 100+. The game slows to a crawl and tanks rule the day with splash damage. You've whined about this before.

Why spend time creating things that the game does for you and take that effort and time away from creating things that the players can do. This game cannot get an Eve style emergent gameplay right now, but adding features and items to get that should be top ******* priority, not gimicks like a pain field killing people in their spawn rooms.

Just because the pain fields clear out spawn rooms doesn't make this game more enjoyable, and that one feature wont bring everyone back.

Structure didn't make PS1 great. Player choice and emerging gameplay strategies are what made PS1 great. Being able to clear out a base was actually the worst part of the game, usually because you had to wait out a 15 minute timer before you could leave.

In conjunction with clearing out spawn rooms and SCUs at every base, making timers longer would make this game incredibly boring. The fight is usually over when you take the point, and really really over when the SCU goes down. Why draw out the process if not to intentionally make people sit around and wait for a timer. Sure, it slows down the zerg, but that doesn't benefit the game. The main complaint about PS1 was how long you had to wait to get into a fight, and that was a direct result of longer, static capture timers.

As much as ghost capping sucks, Waiting for a capture timer after the fight has completely concluded is even worse. Ghost cappers sign up for waiting on a timer, Zergs just want to shoot guns and keep moving. Stopping the zerg will bring out a ton of whining.[/quote][/quote]