I've been following this game since its launch, and I've genuinely been hoping for the game to succeed. However, in spite of its massive achievements in terms of player count, combined with very respectable graphical fidelity, the game seems to have fallen off the radar. I especially notice this when people discuss their next-gen console of choice, and how Planetside 2 is rarely mentioned as a reason for picking the PS4. So why exactly does SOE want to mirror the PC-version as much as possible? I mean, with the PS4 version they have a chance to try out new approaches to large-scale, combined-arms warfare. They don't have an audience that demands the game to be extremely similar to Planetside 1. This is a console crowd, the majority of which have never played Planetside 1. They don't have the same expectations. It would be nice to see SOE be bold with this opportunity. Here are just a few suggestions on what they could do: Add a scoreboard for each zone. Have a scoreboard that resets every time a zone changes hands. Allow players to filter the scoreboard based on time. Battles aren't timed in PS2, therefore it would be nice to see who has performed the best over the past 10, 20, 30 minutes. This gives players something to aspire to, and someone to be in awe of. It also gives the game-designers a tool by which they can shape the behaviour of players. Integrate more game modes into the game! The game can become repetitive and tiresome if it is always the same linear process that you use to capture bases Game modes that could easily be incorporated could be capture the flag and escort (BF4: Obliteration) Overall unit mechanic and balance changes What happens if you limit MAXs to Warpgates and tech-plants? The focus shifts towards the more standard classes, sure, but perhaps there would be a greater incentive for Galaxy pilots to exist, since MAXs are, slow, but very valuable assets. What happens if you do the same with Sunderers? Abundant spawn points might be convenient, but it does it really help create rewarding scenarios? What happens if you split the ESF into two vehicles? A slow, but manueverable hovercraft that is powerful against ground targets, but is also vulnerable to ground units. And a fast, A2A oriented jet that keeps the skies clear. There is a fine line between massive battles that players can extract some sort of meaning from, and an endless and pointless zerg. And unfortunately, the game seems to have evolved into the latter. What do you guys think? Should they stick to the current formula and hope for the best, or should they try to make some significant changes, which, if they work, could be transferred back to the PC version?
I think PS2 really is fine for what it has for the console market. Whatever tweaks that could be made for the console as an "experiment" would be equally as desirable for the PC in most cases I'm sure. And what's everyone's beef with MAXes? Shoot them. They're the bruisers of the herd, which make for a nice change of pace and a necessary switch up in tactics.
What SOE can do is very much limited by what already exists. I'm not asking them to make enormous changes, all I'm saying is that they have the option of making larger changes to the console version than they can with the PC version. "Radical" changes aren't possible on the PC version, only marginal ones. As for the MAXs, they lose their tactical value if they can spammed. They're supposed to be the big guns that break and otherwise unbreakable line of defence; they have to be the cavalry that you bring in, otherwise you end up with this feedback loop whereby everyone chooses to spawn as a MAX in Biolabs for instance. Also, if MAXs are more rare, the chance that people will support MAXs increases, because they become the focus of an assault.
You do realize that if the console game is different, then they can't support BOTH games right? I mean they JUST laid off part of their staff a couple months back. How do you propose they support TWO very different versions at the same time?
With lock ons how they currently are a hovercraft kind of attack vehicle would get blown out of the skies very easily.
There you have an example of why this couldn't be done on PC, without making even more alterations. If they nerfed the lock-on there would be a uproar of people complaining that they wasted their certs.
There's a lot of mechanics missing from this game, mostly of which are sitting idly on the Roadmap. We've been derailed from having a good game due to too much bug creation, bad optimization, money-chasing cosmetics, and eSports/MLG over-simplification of the game mechanics. If anything, it's the PC players that deserve and could handle the more complex game mechanics, and the console players that would assimilate better with a vanilla version as it stands now. I'm still waiting for this game to turn more MMO. As someone else pointed out, supported two different versions of this game is not a good idea staff-wise, unless they have a separate PS4 staff to handle it.
Yeah, I couldn't believe them when they said that one of their main priorities was eSports. The game has not had the time to evolve into something that has the potential become an eSport, nor is there any depth to the combat to make it interesting for an eSports-crowd. I've never been in favor of it, but if it had to become an eSport, I think it would have to have a range of objectives that could allow players to make interesting tactical choices. As of right now, all they have is domination, which is a simply, but boring gamemode that favors numbers over tactics. I guess we'll just have to cross our fingers that by launching on the PS4, SOE gets enough resources to make some serious additions to the game, otherwise I think the game is going to die out quite quickly...
I was more referring to how players react to them, not to their deployment onto the field. Frankly, Planetside 2 is better off because the MAX exists. That's one defining feature that shakes up the FPS aspect so that PS2 isn't another CoD/BF clone with larger numbers of players. People just get upset because they don't like meeting something they can't kill right away, likely because the height of their tactical genius is "see it, shoot it" regardless if the latter is really the right thing to do as the second step. I can't get behind making it a real PITA to get MAXes to the front line, they're already rare enough as is, and always a welcome encounter that isn't yet another heavy assault dude with a bottomless magazine, double the hp of any other soldier, access to medkits to keep it topped off, and a rocket launcher that coincidentally makes mince meat of MAXes (as if the LMGs weren't already formidable at this.) We'd have better far reaching results looking into the heavy assault's place on the battlefield and among the other classes. If you want to talk about limiting spam, look no further than the most self-sufficient soldier on the battlefield. I dropped my medic some time ago to main an HA for a reason, like a lot of other people.
It's not like console players are the only ones who'd appreciate a functional, working scoreboard as described by the OP. They should fix the scoreboard we have now so that the only time it resets is when the base changes hands, and also have it avoid tracking score bonuses so it will actually function as a scoreboard and not a "who hasn't cashed in their daily ribbons yet" board. It's pretty frustrated for simple, obvious things like that to stay broken for so long.
