The Spirit of the Game

Sportsmanship, chivalry, honour, whatever you want to call it is for fools, and a big reason why England can't win at any sports they've invented. There are a lot of boring Brits who play planetside who always drone on and on about this. Guess what, chivalry never existed at any point in history.

In a game... lulz....

I'm not a very good player, my reflexes show my age, but I still enjoy playing. I never complain how my character is killed, and I will use every tool at my disposal to defeat you, fair play or not. I treat you exactly as I expect you to play the game, win at all cost, if you don't think that's fair, go hug your pillow.

So does anyone else really want to buy air to air missiles after hearing all the pilots complain about them? Because this has to be some of the best ad campaigning for any weapon purchase in the game.

Absence of power is getting to do whatever I want without having to deal with some ******** e-athlete on a power trip? Do tell.

Funny how you say that because you seem to purposely TK people for stupid reasons, like constantly honking horns or Sunderer positioning. Hell, I've seen you TK specific people in other NC outfits (ADK doesn't count) for who knows whatever reason.

I know I'm not a knight in shining armor, but you're the last person who should be talking about being a good sport.

You are testing future PS4 game and pay for it. It will be sportish, tricky or whatever as much as market requires.
Spirit of this game

What ruins it for me is that apparently this game needs to be competitive.

Cos MLG pretenders couldn't play a more robust game designed around smaller scale fights; instead they must pollute an MMOFPS with their elitism.

To be fair sportsmanship isn't really about other peoples behaviour, it's about their own, you can't make people good sports anymore than you can make them nice or a balloon, but that's no reason not to be a good sport if you want to be.


In PS2 there's not much really that's cheap, just exploits (like firing through spawn shields) and some sorts of Air camping.

Well, that is most interesting and, if true, most disappointing also. If there is one thing I do detest about any game it's the peeps who take the "law" into their own hands, by deliberately team killing someone for not playing their way. I'd rather get lolpodded two metres from the spawn room than being killed by an armchair general...

That is surely down to the individual.

I place my BB's in the best place I can to suit a situation and I get as much pleasure from a BB kill that I do from sniping someone from 300 metres away.

Simply put, not everyone is like you.

This game is very competitive no matter how you play. It inspires my competitive spirit every time I play.

As far as weapons/ tactics being frowned upon, I never blame a player for using all the tools available to them.

I usually try to play with a sense of fairness but certain actions from other players turns me into a right royal dick. If I get rocket primaried 3 times in a fight I go ML-7 pro for 10 minutes, as soon as I hear coyotes I go from honorable dogfight (even though I am terrible at it) to let's see if I can ram this jerk and when some jerk locks down smaller scale fights or tanks more than 2 AP shots in his giberator then I am not above pulling a stealth ESF with 3 C4 on the bottom to hunt them down.

Oh and whenever I kill someone trying to employ a cheesy tactic like these or if I actually manage to kill a lib with AP then I am definitely not above sending them a rekt tell

Planetside 2 promised to be a Massively Scaled Combined Arms Sandbox with rich gameplay mechanics at both the tactical and strategic level. That is the "spirit" of the game, deep strategic gameplay mechanics with a diverse set of tools available to the player to achieve whatever goals he or she chooses to set for themselves or with others.

Has the game achieved this spirit? No, though it offers a consistent if pale glimmer of its promise through every day play.

That being said, this is what is WRONG with the "spirit" of a good portion of the playerbase.

This:

And this:

And this:

Before I start, just let me say that I don't know you. You may be a terrific guy for all I know, so I'm not going to throw mud at your face, but I strongly disagree with the intent and content of your post.

Now, let me tell you why I think this.

First of all, my respect for players is not contingent upon the tools they choose to use. I don't care if you spend all your time pressing LMB with a Dalton, or if you live in a Prowler, or if you like your shotguns. Your arbitrary dislike for the tools other players use should not and will not dictate the direction of this game. The rational man choose whatever tool he finds the most effective for himself.

The very fact that you frame the "spirit" of the game in terms of the tools that players choose to use is, in a word, wrong. The problems that face this game don't involve gunz, or tankz or planez. The problems that this game faces involve mechanics.

- Base layouts and capture mechanics
- Lack of natural incentives for holding bases
- Lack of meaningful logistics and the schizophrenic deployment/transport system that causes it
- Lack of meaningful capture mechanics for vehicles

These are just some of the real and actual issues that hold the game back.

Or to quote myself from another thread:

In crying / whining / ******** about the tools players use, people are in effect, standing in a shallow sandbox and declaring that the problem is with the toys in the box rather than the depth of the "sand".

As for your sense of fair competition, well, let me quote myself again:

That's right. We play for war. You leave your sense of fair play at the login screen. If you want to be a buddy buddy, go ahead, no one will stop you. But in a war game, each and every player has every right to use every tool and every means at their disposal, and your regard for how any player chooses to achieve their personal goals in this game is at best irrelevant, and at worst, holding this game back by tying up focus on the nonsensical minutiae of weapon "fairness".

If you want to be a gentleman, treat players with respect by holding your smack talk, by understanding that your having killed someone does not make them a "noob" or a "scrub" or that dying by a weapon that you take offence to personally does not in any way shape or form mean that that weapon does not have its place in the game.

All it means is that you died. Welcome to Planetside.

Full Disclosure: I play MAX, I play NC MAX. I love my big stompy dual-automatic shotgun robot rage machine.

It is most sexy.

I suspect you'd find some infantry only servers, or ones that may only allow sundys and galaxies, since these are what some people want, ie. infantry focused combat.

If you ask me personally - the one thing I'd outlaw on my own private server would be C-4!

Edit - and yes, outlaw them bolt action sniper rifles!

The list would vary depending on each individual as you'd expect.

IMO, the spirit of the game can be summarised in "Kill or be killed."

Well more accurately:


"Kill and be killed (because of lag/clientside hit detection)".

lol, so many internet tough guys. OVER THE INTERNET, PARAGONEXILE IS ABOVE THE LAW!

OT; "The spirit of the game" if having big fights with big guns, everything else is secondary. That being said, going out of your way to abuse clearly broken mechanics just for victory isn't good for the community, as it places you (the individual) in front of others (the many) in an MMOFPS. Selfishly promoting your own advancement at the expense of others, even if it's a game, isn't cool.

I accept your premise of a community driven creed but reject your entire list.
· A2A lock on missiles
· Coyotes
· Vanguard shield
· Dumb-fire missiles vs infantry
· MAX suits
· Shotguns

Those are legit features of the game. You're way off base. Your analogy isn't that great either.

I would rather compare the original Quake (Quakeworld) death match. Nobody in the game was ever like "OMG QUAD DAMAGE SCRUB!" because everyone had equal access to it. What was generally considered unsportsmanlike conduct yet not prevented by game mechanics was 'camping'. That jerk who always stood behind a portal and rocketed everyone who came through. The guy who would rocketjump up to obscure locations and camp there. People would rage over chat and server admins would kick them if they didn't stop.

Honking horns and sunderer positioning? I really don't know what you're talking about, you must have me confused with someone else. Now if you want to have a conversation about a certain outfit initiate of yours who's been team killing me on sight for the last month we can have that chat privately.

Point taken.

You can still receive negative messages for your load-out choice, but no one can change/limit your load-out but you.

Thank you for the long response and keeping it focuses on the content rather than mud slinging...
First I'd like to clarify that this isn't my campaign to rid the game of what some people label "I win" buttons or "noob weapons" or whatever. I'd have to read over everything I've posted again but I've tried to avoid throwing my opinion on top of everything. Objectively speaking, I've read many posts over the last year that complain about one weapon or another ruining their experience. Recently the PAL tournaments started up.. have you read through their rules? They're running a competition in Planetside that just isn't really Planetside (which is totally fine, I have nothing against PAL for the way they run their tournament, I'm just making an observation).

The point being that many players have conflicting views on what is "cheap" to pull out in a fight, and so I posed a question to the forumsiders, for science.

Interesting. Thank you for your input.

I suspected the same, it's quite interesting to imagine what sort of rules there would be on each server. I'm sure there would be all the elements of the game we enjoy now, but split apart... pilots go to server A, organized outfits B, flash races C...
When it comes down to it, that's definitely not the kind of game I'd want to play.

Another question then (anybody chime in )
If you were to set up a 1 vs 1, squad vs squad, platoon vs platoon (whatever size you want)... what would the rules be? Can't use X weapon and Y vehicle? Meet on an open field or just whoever hunts the other down first? No rules?

Ah! This is what has bothered me about the "war is war" response. Clearly weapon/tactic X is there to kill Y effectively, and maybe no one can blame you for pulling it out... but what's best for the game? I think by broken mechanics you're referring to something like the A2A lock on glitch that was in the game for a week or so where you could lock and fire, switch to rotary, and then fire another missile immediately after switching away from rotary? Should every pilot have been abusing that exploit until it was patched? Was there no honor in it?

The list was just some of the more commonly complained about weapons/tools, but I see your point. It's not the weapon that's unsportsmanlike but the way it can be abused? Could you provide an example (such as your Quake example) but in Planetside?