Prime time on Ceres

Hey all

Introduction
I play NC on CERES for one year and half. BR 95 now. I'm running an outfit, with mates, hardly trying to develop it. I'm leading public platoons, in French my native langage and at the same time in English. I'm a premium member for at least one year.

Well, that said, why that post ? To show SOE how this game is dying ...

Development
There was an alert at prime time from 8PM-10PM : capture tech plants. As usual these days. Not too hard to find good fights then. With my outfit, we managed to find good fights : at least 24+. We concentrate on Eisa Tech. We pushed, get pushed ... Well, it was quite enjoyable. Leading a squad, I was able to deal with troops movements. We were able to overrun or maintain some pushes using tactical strategy.

The alert ended.

We stayed on Eisa. 24+ vs 24+ . Ok, we can deal with this. My computer suddenly lagged, when it wasn't just before. I was warping all around. Ok ... I was monitoring my network bandwith : peaks. Reason ? Dunno, just had PS2 running. I had to logout and come back. Nice when leading people ... No more lag when back.

Ah ? 12+ vs 24+ now ... Damn ... We choose to redeploy. Where ? Amerish ? Empty ... Esamir ? Kinda empty. We were on the only fight of the map ... Wait ? 12+vs 24+ ? ... Wow ... Ok ... Indar.

We redeployed. I had to look for a fight. Ok. Saurva biolab. 1 NC platoon vs 1 SV platoon. Otherwise, 1 NC platoon blocking 1 TR platoon at their warpgate.

Eeeerrrr .... Indar is empty ? .... Damn. It's only 10PM ...

We took a galaxy, to go to Saurva. Damn ... TR are camping our warpgate with AA ... Ok ...

Then ... It wasn't enjoyable at all. Too few players around, SV or NC ... NC managed to cap satellites. We even pushed the VS to their spawn,, taking the SCU. Thanks to our opponents hard will, they managed to push us back.

What then ? Spawn camping in the biolab, even with leaders around trying to coordonate to push in the same direction. In vain ...

Result : every player in my squad asking to change of fight. Ok ... Where ? TR side ? We were overrunned on the only fight. Ghostcap ? So boring ... And I saw people disconnect one by one, not having fun ...

Conclusion
SOE, things below are for you.

- All PUxx benefits are gone. You've lowered TTK, wanting to attract BF4 and COD players. You've succeed at some point. But you've also wiped out your existing player base doing this. You've then created latency problems : playing infantry is horrible and not fun at all anymore. When you don't have to log out to have a decent game experience. And guys, don't tell me about covering, crappy computer, or things like this. I know my stuff.

- You add content people don't care about. Implants ? I don't wanna craft in PS2, I wanna frag ! Craft is maybe cool for EQ2 players, but i don't care at all. My team wanna feel the joy of beeing decisive on a fight. When you will consider that this is the main goal of PS2 players, you'll have understood all. Hossin, Nexus, that would be a huge plus, but ... Ok ...

- You have to merge servers and update them, or go back to previous when they were able to welcome more players. The population issue i point out in this post is recurrent now. I remember the merge of March 2013. We had very enjoyable fights then. When i see population graphs now for Ceres, it's 1200 players at prime time, all disconnecting when the alert ends : http://borderlinetactical.net/rsnc/world-population/?world_id=11&zoom=5 . 800 players at 11PM, do you think the game experience is enjoyable ? ... Answer : no. It's absolutely not. Just ... Where are the "large scale fights" ? Just as a remember. The max population was double from march to may 2013 : 2500 at least at prime time.

- You want me to give you my money ? Give me fun in return. PS2 is a game, and I play a game to have fun. Not less, not more. Then I'll stay a member and buy SC. Otherwise, i'll just stop my sub. The message "helping developpers" near the upgrade button is funny, but it's not for that I sub. I WANT FUN !

Well ... SOE, save your game please.

So your problem is that people logged off after the primetime alert finished?

You do understand that most people have to get up in the morning for trivial matters like school and work, right?

The problem, not mine, is that Ceres is empty at the moment, and declining. When it should be attracting players, or at least retaining them. For me because of the reasons told in the conclusion. I suppose you can tell it's the same thing for other servers, seeing populations graphs. There is a drop of pop since march. http://www.reddit.com/r/PS2Ceres/comments/268la8/ceres_player_drain/

On Ceres, prime time used to be from 7PM to 12PM, with alerts starting at 10-11PM. And, alerts starts when there's a drop of population, trying to make people go for the same goal and concentrate them on places. The fact the alert starts at 8PM is a sign by itself.

Another examples, the server was empty sunday prime time. When you see the biggests outfits NC side only playing with two squads, when they're usually running a full platoon, well ...Monday ? Too much NC, at a moment, we were fighting VS, who were outnumbered. Not fun for us, not fun for you.

Don't tell me that TFDN haven't noticed that ? You're almost the only ones still there SV side. Is it fun having no opponents ? Or too much ? Is it fun to not be able to choose your fight ?

Otherwise, yes, i understand this very well. I work too, like part of my outfit members.

Hi, I am also playing on Ceres, not so much lately for personal reasons unfortunately, and while I share your disappointment at the very low player numbers during the week even during primetime, I see little SOE can do to change that. It's not as if they would like the low player numbers either.

SOE knows the game isn't doing well. The Dev team working on it is small by now and got even smaller, Clegg and Luperza got moved to the new future hopes/projects already. But what shall they do?

IMO they have already put the game in small team development/maintenance mode. They cannot fundamentally change the game anymore, what is coming now is coming too late. Hossin and continental locking finally come now that it is unlikely that the game will rise again.

It's a vicious cycle, less people playing and less new players coming in will drag the game down, and I doubt that Hossin, Continental locking etc. or a miracle balance patch will change anything about that. We know how quickly people abandoned the new Amerish!

IMO PS2 is extremely harsh to new players, none of my friends except one who given the playtime atm quit by now stayed. I personally don't invest as much time into it anymore either. It was great to play during Xmas vacation, but now its back to normal. ProSiebenSat1 is making hings even more unattractive for European players.


It's a pity as I like PS2 a lot more than World of Tanks and War Thunder or Battlefield etc.. It's a pity that gamers nowadays give up so easily. The potential of Planetside 1 and 2 was/is huge, but they never quite made it beyond the treshold of gaining traction with the masses and mass appeal. And there is nothing we or Sony could do about it, I am afraid.



(Slightly off-topic: I would hope for dynamic server capacity assignment and abandoning the server based worlds, Cryptic shows with Neverwinter, Champions Online and Star Trek Online the advantages of the system. Empty servers aren't encouraging players to stay. But PS2 is likely never to get anything like this. Except for another server merge maybe.)

I play on Ceres occasionally, its pretty dead tbh. Although i sort of always thought Ceres was dead but now its extra-dead

I recall logging on a few days ago and only seeing two battles on the map (amerish alert) and indar had no battles

Summer usually has this effect on game populations no?

tl;dr?

Not this much...

Agree a merge is really needed else more people will just quit.
I hate it when games make too many servers, much less and making more when and if required is a better model.

They shoud fix the latency coming from nowhere. And merge servers. That's what should be urgent.

If they've ever been a huge team, gotta say i haven't noticed it.
Let's go back in time.
2013.
January : Nice fights, great game, even if there stil was to say.
March : Population declined. Merge. Hossin planned to be released on june.
May : Harasser released.
June : New Esamir. Pop rised a few. Hossin postponed to september, Nexus annonced : "soon".
September : Hossin and new content postponed to ... when it's ready. Ah ? . PUs planned.
November : PU01. Was annonced to october.
December : PU02.

2014.
January : Hossin for March.
March : New Amerish, as part of the PU. Ok, this map was fun. New population rise ... Hossin coming this summer. Valkyrie annonced for the summer. Yeah yeah ...
April : disastrous patches. Missions. Interest of missions ? ...
May : Medic update. Light, as update...

Well ... I'm not telling devs don't work. But ... Where is all this heading ?

I think they can. They did in March, tweaking nano armor, head size or other stuff, lowering this way TTK. They attracted new players. But like the retention rate is small, three months later there is nobody anymore, and the ones liking the old style left.

They aren't focusing on what will make people stay.
- Outfit ameliorations ? Too long to come. I can tell people are more inclined to play when they are driven to good fights. Hard to implement ? Not that sure.
- Content ? Since the harasser, what's really new in PS2 ? Something that brings a new gameplay ? See below.

True. From what I've read, I'm not even sure this will help. New alerts ? ... Damn ...

True.

A few days ago, a member of my outfit came back IG. He said "well, I'll stick to PS2. I've done all the others FPS. Noone are like PS2, giving that war feeling."

Not off topic at all ! Thanks ! . That could be a solution, if possible of course. Just have to make at least two servers because of latency : one for the US, the other for the EU.

Dead compared to ?

July/August, yes, probably. Last year there was a rise of population in June because of new Esamir. And population dropped during the holidays.

Gotta read what's in orange.

I play on Ceres with my main NC character.

I joined PS2 in September last year and I can't even remember why I joined the Ceres server. I think it just came up as the recommended server at the time. I wasn't introduced to PS2 by friends and I simply stumbled upon it one day while searching youtube for BF3 tips.

So it is interesting to read some of the opinions in this topic. I was hopeless at Battlefield, even when playing in squads with mates. Going lonewolf was out of the question. I got slaughtered every time. So I am always surprised when I see peeps saying that this game is harsh for new players. I actually found this easier to get on with than BF3 to be honest.

But, anyway, back on topic... I agree that it does appear to be a bit quiet at times. I was online from 20:00 to 23:00 last night (rare for me cos I'm normally in bed for 21:30 because I get up at 04:45 for work). I have to admit that I am an Indar fan so I always call in there first, and if there is enough going on then I don't usually bother with Amerish or Esamir (I do like Amerish but don't like Esamir at all).

Indar did have at least one larger fight going on, possible two, and there were a smattering of the odd <12 fights too, generally peeps responding to the ghost cappers (yeah... ghost capping at prime time is a bit worrying I suppose).

There was an alert at some point but it kind of passed me by. I wasn't playing to it. And I wasn't the only one, as the larger fight I kept going back to was nothing to do with the alert.

Over all I think I had a good night. I'm not a prolific killer to be honest, but the game keeps me occupied enough to make it enjoyable, in between the quiet moments. I like sniping best so I tend to teleport all over the map, taking advantage of developing situations or killing careless enemy at a base that has less than two minutes to flip.

So, yeah, there have definitely been better times, but I'm hoping this is just a glitch. In the UK it is a holiday at the moment, so some peeps could be away with their parents/children (depending how old they are). I also expect to not to be on the game as much during the summer as I like to spend some time on my motorbike, or going to motor racing with my camera... I've got plenty of real life hobbies to keep me busy in the summer, and I'm guessing this is the same for almost everyone.

Personally, I hope Planetside lasts a while longer yet. I've not experienced a server merge yet, so there is at least that to, erm... look forward to. I've wondered, over the last couple of months, what would I play instead, and nothing else appeals to me at the moment. I'm not big into computer games, like some you you peeps, so I won't be jumping to "the next big thing," unless it is Planetside 3 of course...


TL;DR

there ain't one, I'm just rambling in my lunch break

Yep, have to agree with that. Outside of prime time Ceres is a ghost town. Literally empty. During prime time there are usually 2 or 3 fights to choose from, with the term "fights" including 1-12 vs 48+ spawncamping fests.

At this point I would've switched servers if I knew for certain which server doesn't have this problem. High BR character with lots of stuff unlocked also weighs me down, not sure if I'm able to abandon it.

... And during prime time, it's TR town. I had a little chat with Pintle about this yesterday, and the both of us agree that having one side stacked with people while the others don't, is boring for both the underpopped and overpopped factions.

I'm going to see if we can get a player run population equalising system up and running, whereby if people notice their faction becoming wildly overpopulated, they'll switch to the side that has the fewest people, and fight for them instead.

I know that I get horribly bored when the faction I'm fighting for has the population advantage. I believe a lot of others feel the same. You may not be able to change the behaviour of others, but you can certainly change your own.

If NC end up overpopulated again I'll play my VS alt during alerts instead. If TR end up with a population disavantage, I'll make myself a TR alt and play for them. I encourage others to do the same. Rather than switching side to the faction that has the advantage, change side to the one with the disadvantage.

That said, last weekend has some excellent fights, even if they were flooded with people in red. The server felt alive for the first time in a while, and that was cool...

But honestly, having played on Miller and Waterson, I can't say it feels like they're much busier.

The thing is, it's not as much boring to be the underpop as it is frustrating.

The weekend did have some great fights, while they were even. It must be even more fun for TR because they get the fun fight, then they use their best tactic (overpopulation) and take or defend the base at the end of it.

VS just end up losing and losing and losing, which isn't how it should be when they've just been giving some great fights. We just don't have the numbers TR always use to ensure victory.

This also breeds the "stay in spawn room" mentality we have on VS now, which is not great for the server.

Good post OP, overall well balanced and not complaining at all, you make reasonable points, I do share your views and pain, yesterday I barely managed to play for a hour or so, the Hit detection aswell is killing me, don't know how other servers are dealing with it.

Back on topic, I already foresee Ceres once Continent locking comes ingame, BKNE ghostcaps Amerish while GETR/TTRO (just saying a couple big TR outfits, no FLAME whatsoever intended) take Esamir, in the end we're still playing Indarside and Hossin when not in queue, quite a future for Ceres let me say it!

A server merge would be AWESOME, but I'm just so sure SOE isn't of the same thinking, they probably think that with Hossin there will be a magic return of players new and veterans altogether, and don't want to overpopulate servers.
I'll keep dreaming though.

Hey hey it's still Spring here! and my sister is still going to school :3

Good point #1. PS2 was utterly brutal when I first started played (not long after release) - god knows why I kept with it, but it proved ultimately rewarding. You need to have a little success and a little fun in order to hook new players. I've said it before - ideally a 'starter World' with limited BR (say <10), just so that people can get into it without instant death. I can only imagine what it's like now for a noob - think that the average life expectancy for a BR1 must be seconds in a battle. Assuming they figure out how to find one.

Good point #'2. I can understand why friends/outfits would want to stay on the same server but at least there should be some options for players ? Picking your server when you sign up is very restrictive, and you don't even realise it at the time. Dynamic is an interesting solution for the casual player but at least we should be able to change servers easily, that way the players would ultimately do the server-merges in a virtual way.

PS2 is pretty amazing in a good way - everything in the works right now MAY attract some old players back but i'm not convinced it will attract new players at all and that is what everyone, especially SOE, needs. Implants have just added more depth to an already deep game. Time needs to be spent developing the accessibility...

Sorry, just distracted by all the bikinis walking around outside, they tend to mess with my thought process....

I hadn't noticed TR surpopulation since you mentioned it. But it's true, we're litterally being wiped out when TR arrived to a base. Today on the Crown, there should be around 200 TR versus 50-70 NC ... It was ... impossible to face.
True for boring, without distinction beeing the underpop or overpop faction.

That said, it's more for the VS that I complain on Ceres. They have very good players, but well, it must be hard for them sometimes ...

Gotta say only for my outfit. We will not be able to do this, because of new players joining us. But in general it's a good idea.

So let's merge them then !!

Unhopefully, I do encounter lots of problems with hit detection too. I'm going medic then...

Same for me. These features will not help, the way they're planned.

Dunno ... I more think they have technical problems because of fast TTK, impacting latency, not allowing them to merge servers. They wouldn't have lowered max population per contintent otherwise. After all, having empty servers is a cost for them. And, last year, they merged quite quickly after the first complains.

But for sure, Hossin won't make people come back.

I want ANTs with a new resource system. I want Hossin. I also want more accessibility to competition with the Nexus Islands. And more strategy and depth to the game with continental locking and lattice.

But when all these things will be released, there will be noone still playing to enjoy them.

Those contents were announced months ago, and like many people I now have no hope to see them one day. But then, I also don't want to leave PS2, because of its awesomeness ! Just, please, give us more fun. Make the zergs fight each others in equality. Make us be able to play continents other than Indar even not during an alert.

GIVE US BACK MORE PEOPLE TO FIGHT AND TO MEET.
As you did in March 2013. I know it's not a good sign that you deliver to the world : "PS2 is dying" will say the news. And so what ? If you do nothing to counter the lack of population, PS2 gonna die anyway. For the recall : each server was originally able to support 6000 players, 2000 per continent.


I'm in the game since 2012. I still love it. But what it has become makes me sad... tears are rolling on my face.