Welcome to PS2...BOOM LOLOLOLOL YOU'RE DEAD!

Actually the PS2 community seems to be shrinking faster than PS1 ever did . If PS1 were given the amount of continued and constant development and fixing that we're seeing in PS2, it'd have done better. The problem is that instead of building on PS1, they went a completely different direction. PS1 didn't have a shortage of players/interest in it at the start. One could argue that PS1 had more paying subscribers than PS2 does 4 months after its launch. And one would be right. The difference being that a lot of non-subscribers do spend cash on the game as well as Freemium has become very popular after exploration of the business model on mobile platforms.

There was nothing wrong with the core of PS1 or its design. The problem is that the technology to support it wasn't quite there yet 10 years ago. There is something wrong, however, with you. Don't call me naïve when you know practically nothing about the financial aspect of game development.

So what, how much cert cost is nano 1?
I never said what level required of nano to survive a body shot, even 3 is minimal cert investment, and if anything would cause more strategical choices between flak, shield regen, and nanoweave. Right now nanoweave 3+ actually allows a player to survive a headshot from the strongest bolt actions at any range over 100m.... nanoweave 5 allows them to survive a headshot at over 75m...
Giving the dev team the benefit of the doubt that cannot possibly be intended because it actually takes more skill to land a headshot the father away you are as a sniper, double that if you are using a supressor and 10x that difficulty if the target is moving, AND the hardest hitting bolt actions were advertised as being able to 1hko even nanoweave 5 users on headshot and in the same official advertisement claiming they are intended for long range

So keep nanoweave a counter to snipers without bring stupid about it and keeping the false advertisement, we can switch it up.
Make bolt actions 1hko on body shot unless the target has nanoweave lvl ...we will say 3 for argument sake (which is a really small amount of certs), and all bolt actions 1hko on headshot even if they have nanoweave 5 no matter the range. Then buff the shield regen on the adv shield cert line, and whooalla multiple and viable choices

Whats next .. people whining that this game lacks *w4nk3r-breathing* as the primary healing tool ?

**Edit: SOE Censorship x2

Great post. Another thing I will add is that arena shooters can get away with lower ttk's because most gamers play on the low-ping local clan servers. This makes a HUGE difference in how "tight" the gameplay feels. A low TTK game with high ping will feel more random and loose, this is where PS2 is at because of auto and pump action shotguns.

To each their own, but I don't think low TTK exclusively means no tactics. I'm not trying to draw a parallel between PS2 and RL here, but RL is effectively OHK and humans have developed plenty of tactics to adapt

In the infantry game, OHK is fine and personally I actually prefer it. I'm not a huge fan of unloading entire magazines into people and having them shrug it off. Also it means you can have many flavours of weapons and they're all useful, just visually and audibly distinct. I like this in terms of balance... it generally means no one weapon is the absolute pinnacle and there's room for others. A good comparison here is BF3.. they do this well. There are still top weapons, but the others are still reasonably effective, enough so that you don't have to feel like you need to use any specific one.

In the vehicle game, OHK is still fine but there are differences that PS2 doesn't respect. Again, drawing the dreaded parallel to real life, vehicles are limited resources. In PS2 they are not... anybody can get a vehicle and when that dies, they can get another one. You can keep rotating your cooldowns, having a vehicle up indefinitely. This typically makes it tough to be infantry, facing a constant bombardment of explosives from the ground and air, and making you feel like you haven't contributed much when you take down enemy armor. Now comparing to BF3, they have the same strong vehicle game against infantry, but it's limited... if you take down armor you get a bit of a break from it, so you can push forward. That doesn't exist in PS2, so OHK is a bit annoying here.

Just my thoughts on the topic...

In a game of this scale, especially with all that sully of the Planetside name (and the crap they spewed to the vets during development), it needs to have a slower TTK, But not overall. There just needs to be less of a gap between the super RoF or super high damage per shot infantry weapons and the rest (Sniper rifles excluded from this)
The TTK needs to be more like BF Bad company 1-2, not Bf3 or hardcore mode. Even Bf Bad Company 1 had a "slow" ttk it was just not as slow as PS1 (for infantry weapons).

The only thing from battlefield 3 I would have put in this game is the suppression system, especially how they had it around launch, because it would make A TON more sense in a game with this many players, and it would add a new element shortening that game (as an example a weapon like an LMG could do as designed and be a suppression generator primarily instead of a 100 round mag Carbine).

It is mainly infantry held anti infantry weapons that have a TTK that is out of whack. Sniper rifles, Scout rifles, and Battle rifles should really be the ONLY weapons that should be Overpowered on paper, because in practice they take far more skill to use no matter how you look at it, then any automatic or shotgun weapon in the game. Vehicle weapons, especially MBT main cannons should really vaporize people on direct hit on in splash, but at the same time MBTs should be WAY less spammable.
Just like Liberators should have less armor, etc etc etc

There are 2 huge problems:

- instagibs are not fun and new f2p players will face an increasingly uphill battle, they won't be able to make a move without being oneshotted.

- devs managed to paint themselves into corner with this proliferation of instagib weapons. The game enters the territory of the ridiculous in just few months. What kind of long term strategy they have so the game can have anything resembling longevity? what kind of upgrades can they offer to players when instagibs are already rampant and TTK approaches 0? Miniaturized weapons of mass destruction that vaporize whole squads in a blink of an eye? Psionic powers frying brains of people in sight with no aiming? Negative TTK/time travel?

Agreed, in principle. Rocket pods should be terrifying, instead they're kind of a joke. But it's a necessity when they made ESF's cheap 1-man disposable killing machines.

If, say, an ESF needed a co-pilot, cost twice as much, and resources were gained at half the current rate, then I wouldn't mind seeing them act as a major force multiplier, blasting down crowds of troops with ease. If you managed to shoot one down, the pilot wouldn't just immediately buy another one and go about his force-multiplying business. And if you managed to threaten with a lock-on or some flak, you could make some pilots actually think about risking their ESF.

It's a similar problem as we have now with the MBTs. When you get most of the potential out of a vehicle with one driver, and vehicles are cheap and easy to spam, then it becomes an absolute necessity that vehicles be relatively impotent.

But as it is now, I regularly use ESFs like a Flash. Losing an ESF is nothing--I have never run out of air resources to buy an ESF except when warpgated. If I wanted, I could fly all day and the only limitation would be the short timer (and I'm not a great pilot, I get shot down often and in humiliating fashion). This is a major problem.

Honestly, I'd love to see every vehicle cost get doubled, resource gain get halved, and then all vehicles (including MAXes) buffed to compensate. But I doubt that'll happen.

War is hell.

I love the one hit kill mechanics.
It rewards lazy and foolish with instant death.
I vote no change.

firefall, halo, off the top of my head

Way to make yourself seem like someone's dad. Thank goodness for the last generation, without these nostalgic "the kids were smarter and had more respect back in my day sonny" kind of posts, we wouldn't know what was wrong with us.

You've hit the nail on the head here. I would like to point out one small flaw in an otherwise well though out post.

*facepalm* How can a majority be below average when average is defined as being in the middle of a distribution? I think what you meant to say is that the vast majority of gamers are outclassed in skill by an elite few.

But yeah, when put into an arena where a pro can demonstrate their skill, the newb will lose every time. Like CS, Unreal, or Quake. Problem is, it's bad for business gets so very frustrated from being owned by the same player 50 times in a row. So newer popular multiplayer games have lower skill ceilings where everyone can be a winner some of the time to prevent the frustration of defeat from setting in.

Want a treat? It tastes just like bacon.

Highest TTK of any recent shooter ive played (blops, BF3, crysis 1 & warhead). If you get shelled you should die. IMO they should get rid of HE and refund everyones money, no reason to have HE in the game. Heat it great.

Never heard of firefall but halo is a good example. Its a console fame though and its play style is a direct result of its clunky mechanics and limited look/aim speed and by proxy response time in combat.

The TTK from halo1 through to its current former has been quite consistent though the weapons have been finely tuned over the years. Did you ever have the chance to play halo on the PC? Being able to utilise the (vastly superior) keyboard and mouse combo more or less guaranteed that every contest was decided by a rapid series of head shots and thus the average TTK was halved. On the PC the TTK in halo was pretty much the same as most other popular PC games of the time. Quite short.

Halo is a good example of a game with what is traditionally a high TTK game but it's a console game at heart and not a PC game. Thinking on the Halo scenario on the PC it brings to my attention that it's the hit location mechanism that tends to define the TTK as opposed to the overall damage of all available weapons.

I would suggest a great way to raise this games TTK a bit as well as lowering the overall skill cap thus increasing competitiveness for the "average" player would be to remove hit location mechanics all together. Technically speaking it's a step back in gaming evolution but for this game It would promote good tactics and team strategy over the ability to perform twitch head shots and have a few players virtually functioning as "one man armies".

How would everyone feel about removing hit location mechanics? Perhaps they should be left in for snipers so that bolt action rifles don't become useless but for the rest of us it may be the game play change we need.

agreed it would tops if SOE could buff only my mossy with super high powered weaponry

OP is crazy.

But I like OP.

OP, you are cool and I agree with you.