What is wrong with the new resource system, and how to fix it.

Currently, there are some major gameplay issues with the new resource system, and new continent locking. These are:

• Vehicles/MAX can be spawned extremely rapidly and for little cost, making losing one meaningless.
• Costs for vehicles are not balanced, i.e: the extremely low price of the Sunderer.
• Three continents can be locked at once, forcing all players to fight on a single continent.
• A single faction can get up to three continent lock bonuses, giving them a huge advantage and making the game very unfair to the other two factions.
• The removal of the "standard" alerts gives less direction to new players and players who are not in an outfit.

These things combine to create four major effects:

1. Fights are now larger. - Bad for casual and new players
2. Vehicles are dominant, because they can be re-spawned extremely easily. - Bad for infantry focused players.
3. Vehicle balance is broken - No point using a Harasser when facing 10 MBT's, you have to spawn a tank yourself.
4. MAX's are much more common. - Bad for infantry focused players, reducing the infantry game to "spam MAX's"

SUMMARISED: The new resource and continent locking system has made the game worse. It has reduced the variety of combat, made it much more focused on the "force multipliers" like tanks, MAX's and aircraft instead of basic infantry. It has also made it much harder for new players to get into the game.

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How to fix it:


Continent Locking

• Only two continents should be able to be locked at the same time. This gives the option for people to spread out if they want, to be able to play on the "low population" continent. This is needed for casual and new players.
• The continent bonus should be changed to a 10% reduction in price. With no spawn timers, a 50% reduction is far too much, giving the winning faction an immense advantage. This has to be changed, otherwise casual players will simply not play if their faction is getting dominated.
• The "standard" continent locks should be re-introduced. This gave casual players and small outfits something to do, it gave them direction that was otherwise lacking. The fact that "objectives" were added to the game means that SOE realizes that direction is needed. Removing the "standard" alerts removes this incredibly important sense of direction.
• You can have the "adversarial" continent locks as well as the "standard" continent locks. This caters to all player types.

Resource System

• The cost of vehicles needs to be balanced. Example: A Sunderer is capable of easily beating a Lightning in a fight, has much more health, can transport troops, and is a mobile spawn point. Yet a Sunderer only costs 200, while a Lightning costs 350. Suggested new costs for vehicles are:
  • Flash - 120.........................(2 minutes to earn for non-member)
  • Harasser - 300....................(5 minutes to earn for non-member)
  • Lightning - 360....................(6 minutes to earn for non-member)
  • MBT - 600..........................(10 minutes to earn for non-member)
  • Sunderer - 600....................(10 minutes to earn for non-member)
  • ESF - 480...........................(8 minutes to earn for non-member)
  • Liberator - 600.....................(10 minutes to earn for non-member)
  • Galaxy - 600.......................(10 minutes to earn for non-member)
  • MAX - 480..........................(8 minutes to earn for non-member)
• Note that the above times will be shortened by members, who earn resources faster. Because of this, as mentioned before, the continent bonus must only be a 10% reduction in price. Any more than 10%, and it will exponentially favor members over non-members.
• Resource pool reduced from 750 to 600. This will force players to wait till their resources are full before getting the most powerful vehicles, will help stop the best vehicles being so common, and will give a reason to use the "weaker" vehicles.

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And that is it. That should fix the problems.

Anyone at SOE, if you read this, this change is URGENTLY needed. A mate of mine recently started playing again after a massive break. He was really enjoying it, and was thinking of becoming a member. And then the patch hit. Now, he's not going to become a member. I can't summarize it better than that.

(I can get him to post if you don't believe me.)

And I've stopped playing as much too.

This is the kind of thing that these new changes have done, made it very hard for new players to enjoy the game. In order to keep the game alive, these changes or something similar, need to urgently be made. I can't stress that enough.

Don't worry, it's only the first-step of the plan. Phase two will introduce powered bases to lessen everything from tanks to spawns, and Phase Three will introduce Can-o-Nanites for the wallet warriors.

It all sounds about right and the suggestions are reasonable. Not sure how what we have is needed to fit in with the other stages of the revamp but I doubt it would change that much. My only suggestion to consider would be to lower the regen rate of nanites rather then drastically raise change the prices. What this would mean is that if you have saved up or just started for the day you could pull a couple of tanks fast to get into the battle but once those were destroyed you would have to start waiting. It would limit some of the endless spam while maintaining the freedom of choice reasoning behind removing countdown timers in the first place.

Except the Sundy it should cost more maybe slightly less then a MBT.

The problem is that right now, the game is broken.

The longer we wait for these "other phases", the more new players get turned away, and the more old players stop playing. Just looking at my Vanu Outfit, we have had a MASSIVE drop in numbers online over the past week.

It's not good.

The phases can still be brought in later, but we need this fix NOW, before servers start gravestoning.

Nanite reviving grenade 75 nanites.

I stop every medics progress towards reviving grenades. They are way too expensive.

Fluing has own resource pool
Armor has own resource pool
Infantry has own resource pool and now all is gone to only one resource pool. Am I going to fly ever anymore?

Maybe on Briggs...

Maybe 10 other players unsubscribe.

I dont play this game for its Infantry combat. I play it because its everything, and Im not restricted to Infantry for XX minutes just to make you happy.

First part, yes. 100% correct

Second part, I know a joke, but no. "Canned Nanites" will not be in US/EU/AU/SOE servers. Some of the Planetside 2 "resellers" will be able to if they chose to. And secondly, canned nanites still won't get around base power restrictions anyways.

It's not about making me happy. It's about having a game that isn't just vehicles. Because that is what Planetside is now.

Vehicles are supposed to be force multipliers, things that you spend resources on that give your team an edge.

You shouldn't be able to have an infinite supply of vehicles, so that it doesn't matter if you lose one. Because that is what we have now. Right now, the system punishes new and casual players the most, and these are the players that we need to keep in the game.

That was something good with the timers, it meant that you could bring up aircraft and if you lost it switch to a tank. Now, being able to focus all of that "vehicle spawning" ability onto a single vehicle, means that players can just chain-spawn MBT after MBT with very little effort.

So break the system now, completely imbalance gameplay and SOE will like...uh...fix it later...promise.

Um...there are things some of us have been waiting for SOE to fix since the CLOSED BETA. How in the hell does it make sense to totally imbalance the game now and then fix it at some mysterious future point in time? It doesn't.

Thats odd, 'just vehicles' you say. Are we playing the same game?

This IS the Planetside 2 forums, right?

https://www.planetside2.com/players/#!/5428059527811762513/killboard

What does it matter what type of vehicle it is if they can continue pulling vehicles as with the old system? I played Infantry most of the day today and had zero issues getting farmed. Of course, I know how not to get farmed which is why I dont have a garbage KDR. Base surrounded? Probably not a great idea to just charge out and get a faceful of HE. And guess what? If it werent tanks, you'd still be surrounded and outnumbered by rockets and grenades and C4 and mines. You are blaming the wrong thing. Its not tanks. Its population at that specific base - and thats not something that will change.

Use your head and dont run blindly into a stupid fight. Check the map when things start getting 'crazy' and see if maybe, just maybe, they have you outnumbered 2:1. or 3:1. or 4:1. See that little cluster of deaths on my killboard admist all those killstreaks? Yeah thats me playing smart. Fighting even battles, and knowing when Im outnumbered - when its time to leave or wait in the spawn room, check the map and see if reinforcements are coming. If not, let em have it and set up defenses at the next base.

It's not about showing how awesome you are and having a good KDR. It's about making the game good for everyone to play.

Congratulations, you are a good player.

But for people new to the game, and for casual players, the game is worse now.

Now, players who are really good with tanks and aircraft and MAX's can use them all the time. Great for those good players. Bad for everyone else.

If we make the game too elitist, and give too much of a bonus to good players, Planetside wont attract the new players it needs to survive.

Saying the game is "only vehicles" now is just exaggerating to try to push your own agenda.

Yes there are more vehicles out between and at bases, but unless you are playing on indar, the actual base fights are comprised almost entirely of infantry.

The issue with MAX spam IS a valid concern, but even then, it is more of an issue with max balance (weapon damage needs to be brought down as a trade off for extra HP/survivability).

Either way the game is MORE FUN with the new resource system. You can actually go out and play AV tank/Lib/ESF and have enough to keep you in that vehicle for more than a single attack/wipe of the enemy.

Personally, I think not having to wait forever to pull one makes the game much more accessible. It also make Infantry much more important. Yes, having an armor column parked outside of your base is scary--but that's why it's more important to protect the infantries. They are the bread and butter of your army. They are still extremely powerful.

The problem with armor column is ultimately, space. You cam cram 10 infantries into the same space as a single Lightning. 10 HA coordinating their firing can bring down 2 Lightnings in 1 go. See where I'm going with this? If you can smartly use vehicles to escort your infantries into range (Galaxy/charger Sundy ho!), they become a real force to be reckoned with.


New players need coaches to get acclimated to moving from cover to cover, rather than doing circuits like they do in CoD. The game shouldn't change for it--what they need is some good, concise video pointer. That's what SoE needs to do.

Too elitist?

By giving everybody the ability to pull vehicles? Are you mad?

I'd normally just let this sort of thing go, but this same kind of ridiculous 'sky is falling!' rhetoric is getting things changed due to 'feedback'.

You are wrong, and you should feel bad about it.

You're not reading what I'm writing.

Vehicles are a force multiplier. They give you an advantage over NOT having a vehicle. That is why they need to cost resources, so that there is a COST to using them. So that when you spawn one, you want to keep it alive.

Right now, for a good player, there is essentially no cost to a vehicle. A good ESF pilot or a good Tank driver can pull vehicle after vehicle with no cooldown, because they will easily live long enough for their resources to come back. If they have the 50% resource bonus due a continent lock, this becomes even more trivial.

What this means, is that good players constantly have an extra advantage over casual players.

THAT is elitist.

Here is the kicker, you actually can pull MBT/Lib/MAX LESS frequently than you could before. Previously i could pull one every 5 minutes having maxed out my cooldown timer (same for max/lib) (assuming i had just lost one) now it takes 9 minutes to accumulate those resources. Alongside this is the fact that i can no longer swap between MBT/MAX/Lib in short order because all the resources are pooled together which means that overall there are actually less opportunities for people to pull force multipliers.

You cannot imagine my delight that people have chosen to spend their resources on vehicles and air making the vehicle and air game actually worthwhile taking part in.

Everyone can pull vehicles/air/max if you choose not too it is your choice.

Even with a 5 minute spawn timer on a Lib, you still needed to have the resources. It was resource AND time based. Being off cooldown wouldn't help if you didn't have the aircraft points.

Now, with 60 resources a minute you can spawn a MBT every 8 minutes. (60 x 8 = 480. So it's not 9 minutes as you said.)

I am a member. I get 75 nanites a minute. 75 x 3 minutes = 225. 225 is the amount of nanites you need to spawn an MBT when you have a continent lock bonus.

So, right now, with my TR character, I can spawn a MBT every 3 minutes. Even if I die as soon as I spawn, with my 750 nanites I can chain-spawn 3 tanks with no cooldown timer between them. I should not be able to effortlessly earn a MBT every 3 minutes. The fact that this is a continent lock bonus makes it even worse, because it means that my faction has a huge advantage over the other factions.

It means that my side can spam MBT's without needing to worry about them getting destroyed. Go and read the points I put right up on the first post in this thread to see why that is an issue.

Nanite income is 50 per minute as stated on the patch notes 450/50=9, an MBT costs 450 resources out of a pool of 750 leaving 300 resources and requiring 3 minutes to gain enough resources to get another MBT (or 2 minutes if your a member) so even if you are a member it is completely impossible to chain pull a MBT 'Even if I die as soon as I spawn' you would have a minimum of two minutes to wait, then after that assuming you again die as soon as you spawn it, you would then have 9 minutes to wait as a f2p player and 6 minutes as a member.

Stating that having the continent lock bonus halves the resource cost only in reality affects 1/3 of the player base since the other empires do not have that bonus (more reason to fight for or defend that bonus eh?). Even if you do have the bonus you still need a tech plant to pull MBT from anywhere other than the warpgate.

Resource income is being balanced around the F2p players and not members so I ignored the membership resource bonus in my original statement. As a non member (i cancelled some time ago) i never ran out of resources previously to the extent that i could not pull some kind of force multiplier, having separate resource pools meant that at any one time I could pull MBT/Air or MAX at any given time.

Previously with the separate resources you could in fact pull a lot more force multipliers in a shorter period of time and you could chop and change at will, so for example you spawn a MBT, die immediately, you could spawn a max, die immediately, spawn a lib. Now this is no longer possible. At most now you will be able to pull 2 MBT's in a short space of time then you will have to wait a minimum of 6 minutes (for members) which is 1 minute greater than the previous wait with max cooldown certed.

So again the current changes to the resource system prevent you from pulling force multipliers as often as you could previously.