Where is the Beef?

Good day all fellow Planetside 2 players,

It's been a few weeks since I logged in but I felt like I needed to post something before diving back into the deep end once more.

Unfortunately when I play PS2 I feel like it's for nothing, sure I might capture a base or hold the enemy of for an hour or so, but ultimately there's something lacking from PS2 and I haven't quite put my finger on it.

I understand that it's supposed to be more about shorter battles, easier drop in/drop out gameplay, but even as someone who has uninstalled and reinstalled this game probably more times than I care to remember since I was in Alpha, I have to say it fills somewhat... aimless.

I don't know what it is exactly, obviously I didn't start playing under the assumption that this was basically Battlefield 3 with less loadtimes... but this is the feeling I've been left with:

I feel like I'm playing a map of Battlefield 3, except instead of a nice summary and round-up of stats and details at the end of a round... it's all been replaced with: Nothing. I spawn, I run, I die. Now, I don't intend this post to be a criticism of running/spawning/dying gameplay per se - many games play in such a way. The problem I have with PS2 is that it all feels like it's all for...

NOTHING.

Yes. Nothing. I have no idea why I'm assaulting a base, I don't communicate with my fellow PS2'ers as to which/why/wherefore we are attacking said base, we just do so. And in addition to that I don't even need any particular skills prior to said assault in order to contribute as much as anyone else, that is to say, nothing in particular. The feeling can be summed up as sort of like a game of hockey, but instead of one team winning and another losing, all teams are winning all the time for no reason in particular. In fact you could drop in either now or seven days from now and the feeling would be exactly the same: You are fighting for nothing. There is no larger purpose, no overarching storyline, no aim, no depth to the gameplay, I simple spawn, I run, I die.

I love this game. I love this game so much. I spend hours playing it.

WHEN IT IS BATTLEFIELD 3.

I do not play Planetside 2 in order to play meatgrinder 5000.

I played PS2 in order to play an MMOFPS that might have a level of depth to it, that I might stick with it for several1years and feel like I'd made a contribution. But no. Instead of that I feel like I'm playing one endless game of ice hockey except no one wins, no one loses, no one is keeping score and ultimately my logging in is only prolonging the torture.

Please, please, someone at SOE fix this game. It has such huge potential, such a huge array of ideas and tactics that could be put into play, but instead of any of this I feel like I'm playing Battlefield 3 Conquest mode on repeat. Needless to say, if I wanted to play Battlefield 3 Conquest mode I would simply playing Battlefield 3 Conquest mode.

This game is disappointing, it is a mile wide but less than an inch deep. Where is the depth? Where is the replayability? I feel like I'm playing the same subpar below-average game of Battlefield where instead of there being a kind of summing up or conclusion at the end of the round at least, I played a game which has all the ingredients of a good FPS but instead of padding it with interesting gameplay and tradeoffs, I played something akin to Doom with less multiplayer and even less team cooperation.

FIX THIS GAME SOE. I want a game. I don't want fluff and filler and ********, I want a game I can actually spend time with and eek results from. Even Planetside 1 had more depth than this. Is this really the progression players were looking for?

I am severe disappoint.

I'm gonna say, if you think that all the changes to this game so far are about making battles shorter then you haven't been paying attention.

Also, there are no 'end of round' stats because it's a persistent game world. There are end of battle stats that can be viewed at the conclusion of every assault or defence by pressing the TAB key... Just like every other FPS game.

Pressing Esc and bringing up your personal profile page also provides a level of statistical detail rarely seen in other games too. Apart from the usual kills, deaths, assists, captures and defence actions it shows some detailed graphs including trending overlays for time periods of your own choosing whether its a day, week, month, year or since the beginning of your play time.

You're trying to say in your post that this game is lacking features that it actually has, and does better than its competitors.

Complaining about your own lack of communication in game is a moot point. Not interacting with your fellow players is a decision you make for yourself.

If you think that class composition and the roles they play have no effect on the battle then there is quite clearly a level of depth to this game you are yet to discover and experience.

If you feel that you have no impact on the course of a battle then you probably don't. When I play this game I know exactly what impact I'm having on the battle, I work towards completion of objectives I set for myself or my squad leaders set for me and I know exactly how those objectives effect the battle.

If you play this game with no greater personal mission than run, kill, die then that's all you're going to get out of it. You might feel like your just a guy running to his death over and over, but I feel like I'm a loyal soldier playing in a world class outfit using strategy, cunning, solid team play and advanced battle tactics to kick *** wherever I roam.

There is more content coming, but most recently optimisation and getting maximum performance out of the game has been the devs primary objective. In the short term, I feel you might not be seeing the forrest for the trees.

Just do whatever you want.

[quote="Sen7rygun, post: 2302130, member: 161801"...then you haven't been paying attention.[/quote]

If you need to be told which end of the sword goes where...

Too bad this camo was denied.

Personally I dislike progression in FPS, when did we start needing reasons to enjoy a game beyond the gameplay? You know what you did after a match of Quake or Counter Strike? You played another one, guess that just doesn't cut it anymore.

Well I think he's saying he gets no special pat on the back after successfully taking a base.

Thpthpthp you put your finger on an interesting point. It's not just about "needing reason to enjoy a game beyond the gameplay". Gameplay is gameplay and fun is fun. I've spent hundreds of hours playing BF3/BF4/CS and yet never left a match feeling somehow ripped off. I guess, sure, that it depends on what kind of mindset with which you went into playing Planetside in the first place. I can totally understand that and I think there's a valid place for most MMO players.

But you know what I DIDN'T play Planetside for? I didn't play Planetside so it could feel like a cheap, dirty, shallow version of Battlefiedl Whatever Edition. No. I'm sorry. The Planetside franchise is better than that, and it could become much better than that to boot.

I don't want to be antagonistic because, like I say, there truly is a place for everyone when it comes to MMOs. But PS2 is such a criminal waste of an opportunity that I have to say something and protest. PS2 could have ten solid years of replayability, and instead of that it's chosen to just become a sub-par match of Battlefield over and over.

Listen: If I wanted to play Battlefield, I would play Battlefield. I would not switch on an MMO, waiting patiently for it to load and update me on the latest goings-on and wonder if the latest patches contributed or detracted from the overall experience, no. No. I would just go and load up a game of CoD or BF.

PS2: Please, please, just play to what your strengths are. For example, what about the ongoing storyline such a context could offer? What about the in-depth skill trees one could invest oneself in? What about the perfect balance of grind/skill that ultimately cumulates in an explosion of awesome items and a desire to continue to fight for something awesome?

But no. The answer I'm getting round now is this: Naw. Nah. Battulfield is phun. Shooting is phun. Pewpew. Bhai.

Planetside as a franchise HAS to do better than this. It's absolutely laughable. Where is the depth here? Where is the beef?? If I wanted run/spawn/die I'd just go and play Battlefield, I wouldn't linger with this stinking corpse of a game that calls itself PS2 despite not earning the name.

You are aware that BF and CoD is their main competitors so in order for them to be competitive they have to copy exactly what those to monstrosities do, right?

Nobody cares about the storyline

Has the potential to be incredibly punishing for new players. Though if you read the Dev Q&A you would have seen that they're planning on expanding player skills.

Sounds like another great way to turn new players off the game.

Viva la Q1DM3!

There are no cows on Auraxis...

Ok, an obscure reference to a phrase from 40k, sorry.

If you believe the PS2 devs the first year has been about building a solid platform for further developements.

I don't know whether I buy this completely, but I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt for a while.

There are serious issues in the game that needed to be handled and one wonders why this was't solved in the Beta. I can understand why this didn't occur to some extent and hopefully once the PS4 version launches we'll see more coming our way as PC users.

Many of the things I'd like to see are structural/depth-faction identiy issues and would take some serious code to implement.

For now, it seems they're content with letting the player base do the content work in player studio.

Hopefully, this'll change and we'll see some neat things coming down the pipe.

Planetside is an MMO and not an FPS. Please remember that.

If you want there to be a Planetside 3, this game needs depth. What Planetside does not need is extra helpings of meaningless Battlefieldness which adds up to nothing, no story, no context, but most importantly of all: No sense of teamplay or import to absolutely anything you do within this game.

PS2 is very disappointing, all of its aims are strictly short-term, ultra short-term. There needs to be some great overarching quest or aim or story as to why people are doing all of this and right now PS2 has none of these things. It is an empty, soulless, characterless meatgrind in the vain of Battlefield but with none of its charm. In short it is a wasted opportunity.

Lol, what?? I think you are confusing what the term MMO means. This is not an RPG with quests and PvE. This is an FPS with lots of players making it a Massively Multiplayer Online game

Cab00se187: At least FPS's are generally fun, Planetside tries to be an FPS, nods weakly at being an MMO, and does neither well.

Do you even know what FPS stands for?

What you really need to do is step away from the game for a while and play something else. Come back in a month or two when you can enjoy yourself again.

Also, this is a *multiplayer* game. Chances are if you're playing alone, your goal is grinding certs. If your goal for a play session is grinding certs, then your goal will always be certs.

Yes, this game is very pointless atm, keeping track of KD is the only thing in this game I feel has any meaning. If it raises means Im improving or just had a good run. I feel somewhat accomplished at the end of it. If I try to cap or defend a base and die 500 times its like, well, that was stupid, pointless, no damn fun and well....meh... If a game is to have fun, I dont find staring at the spawn screen every 30 seconds fun as I try to fruitlessly defend a base.... I dont find sitting around a base waiting for the spawn timer to flip fun either....

Only fun thing in this game is shooting Virtual fother muckers in the face.

I do agree that Battlefield fights have a much more....involved feeling to them, like each players actions contribute more to the win then PS2...PS2 is about who spams the biggest MAX Crash.....

Then to boot, you cap the base, guess what? 30 minutes later the enemy will simply take it back. And its not like there is any reward for taking an entire cont and warpgating the enemy forces.

There are times where I'm defending an area with some randoms when suddenly some tanks / esfs / libs / galaxies / harrasers / you name it show up to spoil the party by farming my fellow soldiers.
When it's air or armor attacking I grab a max and shoot at them, sure I hardly ever get any kills from it as they love hiding behind terrain but it keep them away from my faction's infantry.

I spawn an LA / engineer to attack the enemy's sunderers / tanks, helping my faction's advance. I pull an smg infiltrator even though I hate playing that class but I know that it's something that has to be done in order to kill the medics / engineers that are repairing / reviving the enemy's max / tanks . I even shoot at harassers and esfs with my primary and secondary weapon just to keep them off my guys that are fighting.

I've had medics risk their lifes running into death traps just to revive me, engineers / medics sticking with me not gaining any great amounts of certs for themselves just to make sure that when I do get hit / run out of ammo that they'll be there to help me when I need it. Even had one guy destroy his own lightning just to get my vehicle unstuck.

You say that there's no sense of teamplay or importance to anything, I disagree.

Also the battles are as short as you want them to be. What's stopping you from taking charge and leading a platoon of randoms in an attempt to take over Amerish / Esamir / Indar? With enough motivation and proper strategy you can actually make your platoon achieve things even if it's a platoon made out of random players that just happened to be at the warpgate at that time, all it takes is one person to take charge. I've seen it happen.

I think you're batting out of your league here in using vague platitudes that don't seem to mean what you think they do. "MMO" designates a general interactivity type, including "multiplayer", "singleplayer", "co-op", "competitive", and so on. Except it's distinguished from simply "multiplayer" by supporting many more players being present and able to interact with one another on one "world" or, in this case, continent. If anything, PlanetSide 2 is first and foremost an FPS with a weaker focus around the MMO aspect in its traditional sense of having a more established purpose for so many players to interact with one another in the first place.

As for the rest, you seriously need to read the messages that have already been posted because they do suggest possible reasons why your enjoyment of the game may be much lower than it should be (which is not to say that you have to love the game, but that you are missing out on crucial components). I get the feeling you're reading the first sentence of each and skipping to type your reply. But if that's the case...you'll never read this, anyways.