First off, I want to say I love this game and I have spent 90$ on SC. (Weapons and a few cosmetics) The balance in this game is frankly, about the same as a single player RPG. You just UPGRADE, FOREVER! The main problem that I see is when you put more time into the game, it's not in practice getting better, it's in trying to farm&grind all the certs possible. Some try "Subterranean Nanite Analysis" and spam grenades all day, others just get a squad of engineers and skyguards and camp a few territories away from a warpgate, Both are because this game is more LEVEL BASED then SKILL BASED. (Sadly) Now for weapons the prices are insanely high (1,000 certs? Holy @&*$% ) But their balance isn't that bad. (mostly) But for certifications in abilities/suit slot... the balance is (Like I said) that of a single player RPG. Here's an example, "Kinetic armor" for Max class, it EFFECTIVELY DOUBLES YOUR HEALTH on highest level, and takes 2,500 certs to upgrade. You can more then halve the time it takes to earn it by buying a membership and a boost, so that seems rather "P2W" since the items progressively get better. Of course most of you are familiar with the system, so I don't need to go into any more detail. My idea is to "un-level" the game, making only 1-2 levels per item, I'll explain with an example. LIGHT ASSAULT Free Items: -Suit Slot item(s) (Sprint boost/Grenade Bandolier / Nanoweave or Flak Armor / Advanced Shield Capacator) -Jump Jets -Starter Weapons Purchasable Items: -Drifter Jump Jets (200-350 certs) -Suit Slot item(s) (50-300 certs) -Weapons (100-750 certs) HEAVY ASSAULT. Free Items: -Nanite Mesh Generator. -Suit Slot Item(s) (or Nanoweave and/or Flak armor / Munitions pouch) -Starter Weapons Purchasable Items: -Adrenaline Shield (450-600 certs) -Resist Shield (300 certs) -Suit Slot Certifications (50-300 certs) -Weapons (100-750 Certs) COMBAT MEDIC Free Items: -Nano Regen Device -Suit Slot item(s) (Flak or Nanoweave Armor / Ammunition belt or advanced shield capacitor) -Starter Weapons Purchasable Items: -Unreleased medic ability(s) (150-500 certs) -Suit Slot Certifications (50 - 300 certs) -Weapons (100-750 certs) Of course each ability would be a single purchase, but would also have the option to be tried prior to purchase. And some Suit Slot certifications could have 2 levels (One cheap, one expensive) THIS WOULD MAKE THIS GAME 3x - 4x TIMES BETTER. And my post about fixing spawn room camping would help immensely as well (https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...r-and-spawn-room-camping.179200/#post-2601267) Also, this probably won't be done. :L Just throwin' it out there.
I don't ever expect a free 2 play shooter to be balanced. At the end of the day, a shooter is always about domination - and people will pay to dominate more & faster. I have played some very unbalanced f2p shooters where p2w guns are a lot better than stock and free guns. Planetside 2 is a pretty balanced f2p shooter. Most of the weapons are sidegrades, while certable upgrades give players an edge but don't make them overpowered.
Reducing the amount of farm it takes to get some classes or vehicles to competitive level would generally help. However, I do not agree that it's as much of a 'pay to win' rather than 'pay AND then farm a lot to access' thing. Tanks and esf, for example, are barely playable without huge cert investments, as well as the MAX. Worst thing is, MAX vs infantry balance is based around having kinetic 5, while MAX vs vehicle balance is tailored to having flak 5. This just renders novice maxes little more than meatbags, and having crappy starter/easily affordable weapons does not help this in any respect. Classes like medic or HA or LA can be brought to a competitive level with little investments, although a really good build would still cost you a lot. However, the investments required just to start playing vehicles or max and be of any use are too damn high for a starting player. Something has to be done about it, since the inability of novice players not even to enjoy, but at least try and feel useful in those aspects of the game tends to drive ppl off.
It works like this. Serious players should sub. Casual players play free. If you're serious, you're here to win. If you're casual, you're here to kick back and shoot things. You have to ask yourself, "Am I serious, or am I casual?" If you're serious about playing this game on a competitive level. You should elect to budget the cost of this game's sub into your finances. Its like tomorrow (after posting this), I'm going to the range to fire my new .357 revolver. It costs $9/hr in range fees ($18 for all day), and I have to use my own ammo which is like $24 a box. As I plan to use two boxes thats going to cost me $57 to spend about an hour shooting. Not to mention the price of the gun itself, handgun permits, concealed carry (class and permit as required by law), ect. To say the least, the $14.99 a month is Cheap compared to other hobbies. Paintball, Golf, and other things I like to do are even more expensive. I understand peeps have wives, kids, rent, whatever. Yeah we got it. It means you have priorities outside the game that make you casual. Thats life. There's nothing wrong with casual. Hell the only reason I have a sub is for EQ, EQ2, and Landmark/Next. It just carries over to PS2 which is a bonus. But I play casually and I have a ton of fun. I don't mind that some people have junk that they bought. I use most of my SC for the other games. So I'm kinda in the same boat. Cept a slightly higher class of accommodations due to exp/resource bonuses. Its not P2W. P2W implies that someone who spent money will beat someone who didn't all the time. This is P2BS pay to be serious. When you buy stuff, you get options. When you buy stuff you look cool and stand out. When you buy stuff, your freaking sundie sounds like a train. Yeah someone with a sub levels faster than one who doesn't. But the casual player non-subber can run with those of us who are and doesn't drag us down. The other side does the same thing. It all averages out in the end. This game isn't 1v1 all the time. Those situations are rare unless you lone wolf it. But lone wolves are just farm bait. Nothing more. Don't be farm bait. Run with a zerg or better yet, some pugglings. If you're good, you might get into one of those good outfits.
Disagree completely. Level means nothing. I tried another faction as Br1 and got about the same K/D as with my main. I am also regularly killed be low BR players. It is only the vehicles that need a high cert investments to be viable, infantry is viable right away.
Vehicles do not need to be cheaper cert-wise, there are already too many of them. And base vehicles are still effective in the right situation, eg. pull a Lightning to help kill enemy sunderer.
I haven't spent any money on this game and I've never felt myself at an unfair disadvantage - sure you can get an edge on others once you've poured some certs into a character, but a lot of the pricier stuff feels more like it expands your options rather than outright increasing your power. I can understand that this experience probably differs depending on playstyle and character type though.
Balance in upgrading? You are clueless, this is an FPS where you get best weapons for free as stock, few of them: Orion,t9-CARV GaussSAW, af-9 mercenary, trac-5, solstice, gauss rifle, cycler AR(kills faster than gauss rifle), then you have like solid 100cert weapons for every class, but default weapons are the best. Main force of this game is infantry because they capture and cost no resources to spawn. Vehicles and air is specialisation pretty much, to add variation to the game. figure this game is pay to win only in one aspect, MAXes if you are premium subscriber, you get 50percent more resources, so you can spawn them 2x more than normal non-paying player, but it will change with resource rewamp. FPS skill goes to infantry, Vehicles and Air is mostly experience, and you get default weapons for infantry classes which are superior to other options which are 1000 certs so not pay to win at all also you can upgrade your suit NW slot in first hour of gameplay to lv3 at least which is almost enough if you arent extremely bad at FPS.
See, the whole power balance of PS2 relies on one thing: "It's not that bad" Basically, you have straight upgrades that cost up to a thousand certs. BR100s will indeed be more powerful than newer players. But since the returns are dimnishing for the cert cost, it's not that bad. The low ammount of players who certed their classes to 100% just flies under the radar. Just like the fact that Auraxium membership can actually grant you more than twice the normal resource income; it's a drop in the ocean.
The dissonance grows from the fact the game is using 3 conflicting system in unison. The way their strung together is nothing short of amazing, but the collective effect is hard to ignore. Essentially they are building a progression system, underneath a parallel balance framework, underneath a diversity frame work. The expectation for each tend to directly conflict with the other 2, and players who aren't aware enough to that far down into the design methodology only see "This is holding me back" as a bad thing. The 4th factor that controls the degree of impact is the game Pacing. One thing anyone whose played since beta should had noticed is that the slower the game's pacing became, the more significant the conflicts started becoming. There was a point just before the ES specialty weapons were announced that infantry combat was more or less balanced in terms of equipment. Granted there was less diversity overall, but combat still ran more like typical match shooter then a tactical shooter. HOWEVER.... there was a divide between players with developed skill sets, and players who lacked any skill sets. Twitch players had a playstyle they could be good at, as were flankers, supporters, and especially group players. But the typical lone wolf who had no developed skill sets, often coupled with incomplete load outs, had a hard time finding a situation where they could be competitive..... and so they looked to explosives. Fast forward to now, and all the low input, high output strategies effectively plugged, the emphasis on pure statistical performance is further highlighting some of the poorly arranged suit slots or attachments. A while back, the issue wasn't that "only level 5 nanoweave" was broken, but the entire concept itself broke performance thresholds. The Irony now is that only Kinetic armor remains as an unbalancing factor, but necessary as MAXs as whole are too susceptible to small arms fire without it.
Seriously a BR 1 can still get a sniper rifle and head shot a BR100. If PS2 was p2w and the BR100 had paid, he/she would have something much better that you could only buy and not acquire in game like a helmet that would let you survive multiple head shots or buying "cosmetic" armor that actually gave you a boost to damage reduction %. Or the BR 1 could pay and get 2x damage bullets with SC only. That would be P2W. I don't know why people don't understand that p2w involves something that is only available to those who pay $$. If you can acquire the same item in game somehow it is NOT p2w. Like every other one of the p2w threads out there, it is more like Pay to Skip Grind. In addition, this game is way more skill based than level based. I've seen BR100s getting killed by lower level BR. If it were level based, a BR 1 should not be able to stand a chance to a BR 50+, but that is absolutely not the case.
this thread is nonsense. This game is not Pay2win. If it was, SOE wouldn't be annoying the community so much with signs. Sorry.
This right here. the only thing i truly missed was my c-4. i see no problem in playing a few hours to earn it. In fact, when i played my BR1 alt i was jealous of the stock weapon! I have also bought a few guns, and honestly ONLY the pistol felt like a real improvement. I still go back to the default every now and then because its the most balanced.
I SAID INFANTRY WAS MOSTLY BALANCED. I am talking about the max suit, because you can EFFECTIVELY DOUBLE YOUR HEALTH. Also the only change I want to see is less scaling for Max kinetic armor, and Max Flak armor, maybe 85% default 87% Highest, instead of 81% default 87% Highest. And maybe have suit slot certs SHARED for each class. Of course my original post was just listing the IDEAL balance of a game. Where there are no flat out upgrades (Emulating "Tribes Ascend") ALSO I NEVER SAID THE GAME WAS "PAY TO WIN" I SAID THAT MASSIVELY INCREASING THE RATE OF ACQUIRING SUCH AN OVER POWERED ITEM (MAX KINETIC ARMOR) COULD BE VIEWED AS PAY TO WIN.
