Do you think that the devs are devoid of the actual gameplay?

I have these thoughts for a long time now. Their thinking doesn't make sense.
It seems that they jump in for one hour a week and base their decisions on their impressions. I'm talking about actual gameplay on the live servers. Their solutions and design decisions are also pretty half ***** and devoid of the main problems in the gameplay. I know that management and suit guys are involved in the decisions but a good design director should see what is going wrong. The answers, solutions and reasons that Higby gives in the "Command Center" for upcoming design changes are very weak.

I mean continental lattice, continent locking, ressource revamp and new base/map designs are really needed. They are not in the category "It's a cool addition to the game" but more "It is needed for the core gameplay."

What do you think about this? Should decisions be based of a deep understanding of the actual game or personal assumptions?

No offenses, i think it is more of a problem in the development process.

I think the main problem is the forumites don't know what goes into the development process, or how long it takes to implement something, and tend to forget that at the end of the day they need to make money and major decisions are made in order to further that goal.

Just because you don't see them actively updating you with up to the minute news about something doesn't mean they aren't working on it.

The continental lattice is for metagame, it is not core gameplay - which is the infantry and vehicle combat.

I know that it takes time to implement stuff, but imo the priorities are wrong. Imo you make more money with these important additions at this stage of the game. But again, i can't see the finances. The layoffs are because of EQnext. SOE uses a shifting work force since some years now. Saves money.

Ooooooooh, you don't wanna start it, don't you?

Importance is a subjective opinion. Just because you want it doesn't mean it's the best thing they can do to increase revenue. Important updates are ones that bring in new players and work to keep those new players. Lattice and continent locking is for the vets.

While true, there are glaring signs of a lack of design understanding of their own game. I blame this at least partially on the fact that the talent is currently shifted to work on EQNext. More blame still rests on the designers responsible for monitoring and figuring out balance issues.....

Every single Empire specific weapon that debuted on the Test Server was given massive feedback from the players, and all of that advise was ignored as they moved to the Live server. The Max abilities, the Rocket launchers, even the MBT secondaries revamp. The community accurately predicted the impact on the live server, and even warned them when something was insanely over powered (see Day 1 Phoenix and the Striker) and suggestions on how to bring it in line. Some time later the devs then overcompensate on the nerfs, until theres no reason to use it.

Someone had told me its because they only look at raw stats collected off the live server, but never do enough practical testing when they implement changes or new weapons. Some of it can't be tested properly until it hits live (like base redesign), but the weapons have no reason to hit the live servers in the state they are introduced....

There is also a huge bias toward TR and VS among the Dev team. This is not some conspiracy, most of them are actually fans of TR and VS. As much as I am a supporter of the Higby and the original Dev team, I can't condone the QA failures that started about 8 months after launch.

Higby is getting Auraxium medals on his ALT TR character...

I'd say he gets in some pretty good playtime.

Luperza streams, outside of FNO (which is like 4 hours of playing every Friday) several times a week (for 1-6 hours) on her own time... or did until EGN:L launch, though I'm sure she'll return and split her time after the initial new game hype wears off a bit.

Malorn was a PS2 (and PS1) fanatic before he was hired... sure he still plays.

So yes, they DO play their own game.

And no, Lattice, locking, resource revamp are crucial to the meta game. CORE gameplay is the gun and vehicle mechanics, which are all pretty solid.

#1: No PS2 devs moved to EQN... that's a wholly separate team... Unless you're talking about Smedley, who is Pres over all of SOE.

#2: ES Secondary revamp was in preparation for Harassers (IMO they should have just left ES weapons off the harassers but w/e). ESRL's are still fine, just not the "I'm going to equip this every spawn" launcher as they were never intended to be.

#3: Bias against the NC? Explain PU02 then. NC also maintains the best anti-tank tank.

Because of this i said Imo("in my opinion"). And over "lattice and continent locking is for vets" we can fight.

There's no question continent lattice and locking is for vets. New players don't know and likely don't care about the meta game until they've learned the core game, and casuals just want to get into the game, find a good fight, and shoot people. Getting new players and keeping them is more important than catering to the die hards.

The "core gameplay" is pretty solid despite some minor issues (when looking at the game as a whole). I know there are problems but the game is not broken. There may be annoying bugs, glitches, imbalances here and there but the game isn't broken. It's fun and very playable.
Also, they do play Planetside 2 alot... A lot! They even live stream it.

If you work on a game, you never have time to play it. To be honest the SOE guys behind Planetside seem a lot closer to the community than most games I've seen, and they actually play quite a bit.

“Higby on MLG:
"We have our core gameplay in Planetside 2."”

Diablo3:

Everything is A-OK.

I'm really at the point personally where I'm seriously giving up on this game (already cancelled my subscription after 1.2 years). There are so few good fights going on whenever I log in it's almost not worth playing anymore. The rate of development on things that actually matter (fun content) has been far to slow to justify continuing to put money into the game. The only time I really enjoy it is playing with my outfit and even that runs into the same problems.

So much truth in one small post. I love you Tuco, keep em coming. PS2 community + devs need to face reality.

Whoever it was that finalized the fatal decision to disallow players to ADS while in jump-pad transit AND the STUPID and I mean really STUPID idea to force players to go in and out of ADS 4 times a second if they are standing on the slightest uneven terrain is one of these suit-wearing SOE clowns who once or twice a week actually plays the game. Pointless, fun-breaking nerfs.

Honestly, you kids miss one big issue. Just look at how many servers + players there are. That speaks volumes to this core gameplay.

All these newbies who never played PS1 don't understand why the vets keep asking for the GOOD things from PS1 to be put into PS2. PS2 is a sequel, as a sequel it should have some of the same foundations as the previous game but with an enhanced and revamped experience.

PS2 is an entirely new game that just kept the old colours from the 3 factions.

And no, "continent locking" is by no means purely meta, the lattice system sure (partly) but not pure meta. Though if you are telling me that the core to the game is just shooting and capping bases endlessly, well then I foresee a problem in the future for gamer loyalty. New COD's and BF's are coming out, which means players will just go play those. Why stay when there's better games to run around and shoot people endlessly. At least in those games you can actually WIN a round. There's an end goal/objective in those games.

You cannot call just shooting people "core". That is a mechanic of the game by which you complete CORE OBJECTIVES. But honestly, which core objectives do we really have? Herp derp endless base capping.

Taking objectives has no inherent gameplay value. Taking objectives is a meta game which helps give meaning and direction to the core gameplay of infantry/vehicle combat.

The capping zerg Ouroboros shortly after release is what happens when the capping meta game overwhelms and distracts from the core gameplay rather than supporting it.

Can someone define Metagame for me? Because i've seen it so much on these forums that i've forgotten the true meaning of it.

short trip to wikipedia would answer your question.
Metagame proper is the emergent part of the game, outside the explicit rules, ie 'how to play the game and why'. Lines drawn on the map is explicit rules, hence lattice itself is not meta, capping rules are not meta. Meta is what you do with these rules, meta is what squad composition you consider optimal, meta is players spontaneously deciding that the crown 1.0 was worth fighting for.
A rule of thumb: if it comes from the developers, it's not meta. They can only provide enough building blocks for it to emerge with depth.