Freaking Bored

Most of the bases feel boring because most of the time the battle comes down to who can spam the armor or air units.

Making the game revolve around farming was a big mistake. The huge deploy radius around sunderers effectively limits the number of safe spots around a base to a handful, which in turn makes them less safe because veteran players know where to check. I'd much rather have sunderer spam than no places to spawn.

More engineer deployables would definitely allow players to add some flavor to defenses and battles would feel different.

I agree with OP. The amazing thing to me is how incredible some of the other SOE titles are! Been watching Landmark vids lately and it looks like so much fun. Just checked out Dragon Prophet, EQ1,2. All of these games seems to have a depth that makes replay extremely satisfying. I realize I can play these games, but would like to have a similar experience incorporated into PS2.
Given what they offer in their other games, I'm not sure why it's been difficult to incorporate some of the replayabiliity into PS2 that they obviously have with other games.
A member for a year and a half, I've been waiting for something new and exciting. Instead, I get 3 horrible Lib weapons (which I saved 6000certs for). There have been a lot of interesting suggestions but it appears that SOE is trying to re-create PS1 with better graphics. Given PS1 was a successful business model (I'm guessing it paid for it's production costs), maybe they are not trying to "re-invent" the genre but just "update" it. I seriously hope that is not the case. This game has such potential!

Well, I'm not sure how to say this but I will be taking a break for awhile. An opportunity to play ArmA 3 with some of my MEU buddies presented itself just a few minutes ago and I have accepted. I haven't seen or heard from some of these guys in some time and it's kind of like a reunion of sorts.

I didn't mean to hijack your thread EasyDuzit. I'm sorry. I didn't want to make a post for this.

I understand your frustrations and I hope things change for you in a positive way. My only advice is to have fun and get enjoyment from what you play. If not here then....you know what I'm saying. There are other options.

It was a tough call but I gave the nod to ArmA. I still love Planetside but the realism with ArmA and being able to play with my Marine Corps friends was too much to pass up. Lots of luck to everyone and I wish all of you well. Semper Fi and keep your sticks on the ice. Godspeed.

please elaborate. its been what, 1 1/2 years since launch? how long was the game in development for? I dont know the ins and outs of the dev teams resources, or even the details on what it takes to make a game like this, but unless you know something i do not, time, really doesnt seem to be the issue here.

BEsides all of that, my biggest contention is the broken promises. The road map, AFTER the dev apologies, and attempts to be more realistic, is riddled with items that were unscheduled last minute, and more that are only half complete, or completely lazy method of "trying" to give us more ( i would like to point out the lob update which gave us about a 1/4 of the stuff in the actual roadmap post, and of that, most of it was simply re-work of existing items such as the hyena missiles and the zephyr 2.0)

To me, the Amerish revamp helped with what you described. Even tho one single base will obviously be the same each time, the fact that each base is significantly different really helps making the game way more interesting.

I only play a few times a week, and with how PlanetSide 2 works, there are still many bases I haven't played on and that I'm discovering. Two days ago I played for the first time on The Ascent, the base with one huge *** cavern with big cristals and I was like "woaaaah dude, this is awesome" and I got killed while admiring the view.

On Esamir and on Indar, only a few bases can give that feel, but most of them are just copy and paste of the same thing. And since most of the player play on Indar, it's true that the global feel of diversity is really low.

I guess it also depends on how much you play. I work a lot (I'm at work right now... I check these forums when I have a little bit of free time) and I spend way less time playing than I did. But every time I play, I'm pumped. Would I be pumped if I played 1 hour and a half every night like I used to ? I don't know. But playing about one hour every two or three days is really all I need right now to enjoy the hell out of this game.

the biggest problem was that this game was the first on the brand new game engine
im not white knighting here either i want new content badly the locking system and implants in place development has been slow and people are getting bored the game is as a hole a zerg fest with no ultimate goal

that will change and the idar aside battles will stop because no one will want to get locked out of a map and hossen looks like a troopers paradise

You can get bored with the most amazing game.

Get a break, play something else for a while.

Lets be honest, no new content seems to be on the way except money grab/borderline p2w stuff (aka implants). Hossin was stated at another 8 months last I heard to be finally complete. Performance is sub par for many. Balance is consistently screwed up (aka lib update) and air/ground balance is stupid. Population balance is a consistent and major issue regardless of who's 'turn' it is to be over populated. The game has largely degenerated to spawn room spam and zerging. Major bugs such as, points flipping on their own, no damage, drop pod bouncing, etc. And much more I am sure.

So here's the real question, what do they appear to have planned that will change any of this?

Lets say they release implants, hossin, and new air vehicle. My guess is Hossin would be new for a month similar to amerish and then forgotten, or its favored and indar is forgotten, implants will just give vets more advantage over new players, and vehicle will get spammed much like everything else int he game so far. So the game still degrades to spawn room spam, zerg, cap random point, rinse and repeat. What is there to keep people playing long term?

Things that might help (in my opinion) but show no signs of ever being done:
Better new player tutorial, instructions, guidance, anything. (new blood brings new ideas/tactics/enthusiasm into battles)
Different objectives, things to do, alerts, ways to effect battle, support.
Population balance mechanics for dear god.
Random events, GM run things, have different things always going on (say meteor shower, earthquake, solar flare, bug invasion).
Anti zerg mechanics or punishments (50 v 2 is stupid/boring and a waste of people).

Look, I get SOE has to make money, and is geared towards making new things that people will buy. But, perhaps it may be better instead of trying to milk a small or shrinking customer base, to instead grow that customer base, earn fans and get money from those more people. But the reality is nothing is likely to change, enjoy the game for what it is but don't over invest, and move on when the time comes for you.

Well, during alpha/beta you can do a whole lot more in terms of mechanics and such without having the pressure of keeping it super well balanced. Once you release, you have everything from servers to revamps and a whole slew of other things they will need to fix. Longer alpha/beta periods are overall better for game development. PS1 had 3 years whilst the PS2 devs only had 18 months. If they had taken 18 extra months they would have accomplished more and we likely would have had a resource system and possibly more continents.

Point is, they were kinda rushed as 18 months is hilariously short for just normal game development, especially so for an MMOFPS.

How many games out there let you have 800 meter tank duels, along with some high ground speed maneuvering, with 2X zoom optics, as a combined arms game (other than wwiionline)? None.

Which continents allow you to have 800 meter tank duels, along with some high ground speed maneuvering, without being mercilessly molested by C4 fairies and aircraft? Only one---> Indar. Hossin is not going to be played, unless we're forced there by global lattice.

That is def SOEs fault, they listen to who they choose to listen to.

Get a job...sounds like you play way to much.

I'm not so sure about that. I think they definitely listen to the demographic that is more likely to quit the game if it becomes too difficult. I believe that same demographic is the one spending the most money.

Simple economics, at the expense of gaming evolution.

That I completely agree with. They certainly rushed the official release.

You should join another outfit if you are not having fun. Explore other playstyles not just roles; play with a sniper rifle in CQC or something.

personal opinion, the devs need to stop thinking of shoving more unoriginal full auto weapons down our throat and focus more on unique class abilities (off the top of my head, deployable gravity pads for LA, AoE shield boost for HA, long-range healing dart for Medic, deployable energy walls/bubbles for engineer, minimap jammer for Infintrator), unique missions (also top of my head, kill sundie at X, wipe out MAX suits, etc), different alerts (escort computer controlled convoy to X while the others try to destroy it) and guns that aren't just copies with altered stats (grenade launcher for clearing out turtles, anti-material snipers for MAXes and to an extent armor, targeting lasor for a minimal orbital strike).

As for the bases, that's our fault for sticking to Indar for so long. Amerish is gorgeous and super fun but who cares when the only fights are 1-12 and there's a farm going on at Quartz Ridge (love that base in particular, just want to fight somewhere else for a change)

EDIT: I almost forgot, ZoranTheBear made a video about how the game is possibly dying, but he brought an excellent idea to the table: creating bite-sized continents that are quick for the devs to make and fun little fights for us. Hell, SOE can even make them locked until a specific alert for them is called up or even make them an instance continent to keep consistent fighting

What game am I dreaming of right now ?

A Planetside that would play out on a continent that would be periodically (once a week?) and RANDOMLY generated.

THAT would really satisfy the EXPLORER ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test ) in me.

No more attack/defense that always plays out the same...

i agree with everything but Implants as they are right now its a pay2win and not even good pay2win its pay to gamble and win for how ever long your "battery" lasts its sad really my whole outfit just laughed it off cause its gonna suck for anyone who trys to use it.
I take it back its not pay2win its pay2whine cause people won't get what they want.

So, just like every other FPS game you have quit playing, PS2 has also become stagnant for you.

My only suggestion is to move on to a new game.

you want Day Z or mine craft cause it would be one massive ghost cap with light fights every 30-45 mins..... id rather not i play planetside 2 for what it is a team based Cluster **** of blue purple and red if you don't like big fights leave the game and learning to attack a base is good. i have never seen a base fight go the same way ive seen them use the same tactics in different places but welcome to any game ever even real wars have that for gods sake.