Quit planetside 2 after 20 hours - or a look of a new player at the game

Those of us that have been playing the game since tech test (almost a year) have been beating this particular drum relentlessly.

I believe it's the single biggest reason for the game shedding so many players in such a short space of time.

A meta game is coming, it's just a shame that so many people have been turned off the game whilst the content has been growing enough for a meta game to even be possible.

Absolutely agree with the costs for a newly starting player. Once you're set up with basic equipment the cert grind isn't a big deal, but at the start it's just daunting.
imo the first purchases for x certs/station cash should be reduced, say by half or something. This will help new players get set up with some equipment in a reasonable time and actually keep them playing.

One big superserver might not be a good idea, unless there is incentive for players to spread out across the different continents. Game is laggy enough as is in big zergs, imagine if they were larger still...
If players would actually have reason to spread out, yeah there could be some more server population to fill all those maps. But they already planning lattice links between continents, so every map filled might not be an option then, we'll see.

Most people don't use and have never used Steam. KOTV, the largest outfit in the game, i think has a majority of members who don't use steam.

As for the costs - well, this is a AAA title. If you purchased it in a shop it would cost £30 (or so). There is no reason why you can't get £30 of station cash and spend it on stuff.

The game is dying and you can deny it all you want.
Summer? Steam sale? People got lives?
Face the truth

There's so much bulls**t in what you've said I don't even know where to begin...

Default guns work just fine all-around, other guns are (in most cases) just sidegrades, hell, Orion is the best LMG the Vanu (and arguably all factions) has, and it comes by default.

Don't forget you don't get one default gun, you get a sniper, a carbine, an assault rifle, an LMG, 3 max guns and a pistol.
That's 8 default guns, not 1. Plenty of variety.
And don't forget all default vehicle guns. It's really more of 20 default guns.

And why are you assuming all weapons cost 1000 certs?
You can get a bolt-action for 100 certs.
You can get a right-hand MAX anti-infantry gun for 250 certs, anti-vehicle for 250 as well.
Rockets on scythe? Yeah, but you need rockets if you want to farm ground, which is technically the liberator's job, if you wish to fly an ESF like it was intended, all you need is a Hailstorm Turbo laser for 250 certs and some practice in dogfighting.


Also don't forget that yearning for something that's hard to unlock adds to the longevity of the game. That's why most games gave achievements. In some sense, in PS2 guns ARE your achievements.

This is coming from someone who played for 9 months, 2-3 hours a day each day after work, I haven't spent a cent, and I have a BR54 TR, BR52 VS, and BR25 NC, I've unlocked more or less everything I needed on VS and TR, now just going for some sidegrades.

For fun, of course, what else? Do you think something is going to change if you capture a facility? You're going to cure AIDS? Reach 1000 facebook likes and feed the children in Africa?
Of course it's an "entertain yourself" game, games are meant for entertainment, that's why they're called GAMES.

I'm going to be a hippy now, but if you want to have an impact, instead on playing games, why don't you download BOINC and help research genetics or astrophysics by contributing computing power? Just a suggestion.

I understand you want metagame and this has been discussed over and over again, but I for one just don't see the point of it. Could just be me.

And squads get spread out if they consist of random people led by random people. Join an outfit platoon and you'll see just how organized squads can be.

There already ARE bonuses for playing in a squad, if you haven't noticed you get "squad heal", "squad repair", "squad resupply", "squad spot" and many other bonuses.

For capturing facilities you get not only exp but also badges. And alerts provide an okay amount of engagement (could be more, but it's okay for now). There will be player generated missions in the future.

Unlock camos by completing objective? Mmm... This is probably the only idea I like! Maybe decals as well as camos.

In major facilities, spawn shields go down when the SCU is destroyed. This is a step in the right direction, and it will hopefully be solved all-around.

Because EVE online doesn't run Forelight engine, silly. It doesn't even come close to it.
There's plenty of huge battles. Server merges have been made before and I don't feel a need to merge anything again, I don't want a clusterduck of players on every corner.

Blablady bla, bla bla, blady blady bla. Bye.

Ppl run the game via steam?

Ehh, the truth is what I have stated....
The game doesn't seem to be dying to me.
There's plenty of fights when I play.

What difference does it make who uses Steam? I mean we have a game with a playerbase of X. Think of Steam like a gallup made for 29500 players out of that playerbase. We know how those players have played the game. More than 75% of them are now gone. With such a large sample we can easily draw the conclusion that the numbers are definitely going down. This is 1-2-3 of statistics.

Unless you can prove that the decline in numbers is caused by Steam itself then this is perfectly valid data.

However, I must say that I would have expected a more steep decline in the numbers due to the game being so freaking boring. The gameplay is almost nothing but camping spawn rooms. It's amazing how people are so tolerant for such repetitive gameplay.

You clearly do not have a clue about stats. Some stats are not better than no stats. For example, you go to a field and set two traps, you then capture 2 animals which you then mark, you set the traps the next night and capture the same two mice, the population is then estimated at 2 (Using the Lincoln-Petersen method), when in actual fact you just happened to capture the same mice twice and the population is much higher! This is why sample sizes have to be so large in science and indeed in business. Taking Steam as your sole source of information is just stupid.

furthermore, you say "uninstalling it myself, because all my play options and things to do are getting nerfed or taken away" are you just but hurt because they nerfed shotguns? and if not what has been "taken away" that you think was a mistake?

Yes. There are actually people out there that play Planetside 2 through Steam. I know, this is a shocking revelation. Please, sit back and take a few deep breaths before continuing.

I, for one, play Planetside 2 through Steam because most of my games are played through Steam.

I think the lack of point and objectives might lead to someone getting more frustrated over dying. If all the game is is a giant game of team death match then farming and being killed become more of an issue. If there was an overall objective for people to work towards people would focus on that instead. Also with everyone working on obj's together new players would be mixed with vets, with vets around enemy vets cant easily farm noobs.

Theres a difference between dead and dying

Well the numbers don't include all players but they are useful maybe in spotting trends.

What we see is PS2 was stable and growing slightly in May, June then game started a fairly rapid decline in July and erased most of all of its gain in July.

Given the constant barrage of quality of life fixes aka nerfs game has seen it does appear that Dev's have succeeded in undoing the population stabilization and minor growth game was experiencing in May, June. That PS2 failed to grow in peak summer month of July should be of concern to SoE.

There's a lot of moronic replies such as "not everyone uses steam blah blah!" Yeah, so what. They are statistics, and can be used as such. It just can't be used as an accurate representation of the games true numbers, but it CAN be used as a trend. When you have such high numbers the laws of averages apply, and here is no different.

Is the game dying? Yes, but then, all games are the moment their released, PS2 is no different. Just as humans are dying the moment they are born. There's a huge difference between dying and dead. Is planetside 2 dead? No, but I would say it's starting to get ill. It hasn't got anything serious like cancer, but it's perhaps got the flu and if untreated, will lead to a more serious illness.

Pay to win is a grey area. I would say it's more, pay to get ahead. A new player is at a disadvantage, but then they are in any other MMO that don't have a cash shop. Perhaps a new player isn't in the old style FPS's, but even newer ones like BF3 still have an unlock system that puts a new player at a disadvantage. Someone who pays for boosts and a new weapon right off the bat get's to spend their certs on upgrading their class, but since you can't buy certs for things like nanoweave then those who pay only achieve it quicker.

With that said, SoE are extremely greedy and put money grabbing far ahead of the important things. They'd rather release a new weapon than fix game breaking bugs that's been in since launch. I believe the game as a whole is balanced across all 3 factions, but I don't believe that certain individual weapons are, and SoE have this trend of releasing over the top weapons that never entered the PTS (and even getting a PTS took a very long time) or if they did, all feedback about the weapon gets completely ignored, not only the shear power of it, but the bugs as well. They purposely release the weapon, fully knowing they will get bought due to it's power, then a few weeks later put it on sale only to nerf it to either uselessness or a completely different weapon to what was purchased.

Fact is, they can get away with it, because the public let them. They come to the forum, defend the weapons with utter bias while crying their eyes out over another factions. There's always stupid excuses for it, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. I've seen a massive drop in players over the months on all 3 servers I play on, but you get the wide eye's brown nosing SoE despite the developers hardly reading the forum anyway, saying everything's fine, not realising when there's no body to shoot at, their the ones it's going to effect, but hey, let them claim everything is fine, let them dig their own grave, this community is by far the most biased whiny community I've ever witnessed in all my time of gaming (especially 1 certain faction), and playing since I was 8 and being in my mid 30's now, and having an old dial up 28k modem, I've seen a lot but with that said, I've not bothered with LoL and I hear that's quite bad, still, this is one of the only F2P games I've bothered with, exactly for that reason, it attracts far too many children.

Despite all this, I can't fully agree with your post. It's not dead and It's not pay to win, but SoE are greedy (I've started to think almost on an EA level) and the prices could be lowered, but ultimately, I've stopped caring, and enjoy watching the players get taken for a ride and actually thank the developers for it.

The one thing I can agree with though, it is pointless, and it shines a giant floodlight on that fact, with no indication of it ever changing.

1. PAY 2 WIN (OR SELL YOUR SOUL 2 WIN)

So you're telling it's a P2W game, and you wine about the high cost of the weapons ?
I'm lvl 76 and I'd be really bored if weapons were not so expensives. And ther is some promos on the weapons, and on the SC, so you can have your 700SC weapons for 1.75$ easily

It isn't COD, it's a game which need you to spend dozens of hours to enjoy it. Also, not all the classes deserve the 1000 certs weapons, sometimes the 100/250 certs are pretty cool. Try the 100 certs sniper for the infiltrator, the 250 certs weapons for the XAM. The rockets pods for the Scythe are a must have, I can't disagree. But in dogfights, having more fuel than your enemy is sometimes helpful.

2. POINTLESS

The games mechanics aren't finished yet, wait a little

When you lock a continent, all the members of your empire benefits of the 10% reduction.
When you win an alert, you win almost 30-40 certs, which is very cool.

3. SPAWN CAMPING / SITTING IN THE SPAWN ROOM.

Once again, this isn't CoD. You need to regroup and to work as a team to push the ennemy back.

4. SPREAD OUT SERVER POPULATION.

Soon, there will be continent lock. And with Hossin, I think we can expect a server merge.

To finish, I think you misunderstood the value and the point of this game. And it's not your own fault, the game is far from clear for new players. I just agree with you with the achivements and some camo as rewards, but not for every alert win. Mayne for each Auraxium medal ?
You need to choose a class, or a vehicle, and spend most of your certs in it. Then, you can choose another, and spend certs in it.
Try medic, put certs in your medical gun, and try to not be killed, and to revive as much as you can your allies.
The certs will fall to you like an unicorn pooping rainbows !

To some point of view i kinda wish SOE would just publish the numbers.......But if its true they doomed themself by admitting it and instantly more will leave.

But it does feel like the game is getting more empty im sorry to say.

with or without stats.

I would not call it a pay2win game.......but you will have more fun if your put some money in it.
And the prices are rather high and cert gain rather slow as a non member.

But this unfortunately will always be a problem of "free2play" model i fear.

And only like a handfull of tripel A games that can keep thouse suscribers..........that being said i personal better liked that model......but its a thing of the past. and pay2win or pay2look is here to stay with all the good and all of the bad as well.

I dont care what you say, and the personal attacks you make; the game is dying.

What do you hope to gain by fanboi'ing and denying facts and testimony from other players?

Then it would seem that every game that has some sort of character persistence with "XP" rewards would fall into that category:

League of Legends: more / better runes on your page, more characters to choose from to fit into more scenarios
WoW: better PVP armor, more / better food / flask / potion buffs.
Guild Wars 2: better PVP armor / weapons, better consumable items

Even in games that don't have character persistence, but have temporary upgrades, you get the same effect.

Natural Selection 1/2: players who have been on longer have more resources to spend / better gear equipped.
Counter-Strike: players who have been in the server longer will, potentially, have more cash and better weapons than a guy who joins half-way through to the next reset.

Yeah, in newer freemium games you can jumpstart the process with cash to get stuff SOONER, but really the only "upgrades" in the game that are SC only are the camos that allow you to blend in a bit better / confused newer players, and that feels largely unintentional. In return a well-off few are supporting a whole cadre of people who will NEVER pay for the game. I know some people for whom never paying for something in the game is a source of pride, and that is possible because some other people didn't want to play for 10 hours to pay for a gun when they could work for 1 hour of real-life time in a job and pay for that gun.

I spent 60 dollars on the game, which is like buying a battlefield or CoD and i still have 4k SC with 9800 certs. Yeah, totally pay2win!!