Completely understand why new players quit early

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Bitterclaw2, Nov 30, 2014.

  1. Grumblefern

    I think you're exaggerating quite a bit. As an experienced player, starting an alt wasn't that bad. I rerolled TR -> VS and while not having high rank nanoweave hurts a bit I'm still able to do about as well as infantry - maybe even better as HA/LA due to my preference for Orion and Pulsar C over TR options.

    Main thing I missed for awhile was C4 on LA, feels like an incomplete class without it. MAX is also takes a ton of certs to get rolling, and of course you might as well not pull MBTs.

    Granted, I started on a 2x XP weekend which took a fair amount of sting out of it.



    For new players though, there's some insult to injury and the perceived imbalance is probably more damaging to retention than the actual imbalance. They're facing players that are in better gear and more experienced, but it's hard for them to know how much difference the gear makes and easy to dismiss the game as P2W when BR 50+ characters are wrecking them with even if it's not as much due to equipment as it is experience.

    There's also the ignorance factor. I knew mostly what to put my certs in and what to wait for later. I knew what guns to get and which to avoid like the plague. My priority list was well informed and I got the most important things for gaining certs to get less important things ASAP. New players aren't going to put them in the right places, and it's a huge cert cost for them to buy even a 250 cert gun as their SPM won't be great. If that 250 cert gun sounds good from the in-game description but actually sucks(as is often the case) that hurts.

    I'd say the main things new players don't have but should is:

    • An SMG. An easy hip-fire weapon is nice while they adjust, plus infils being stuck with semi-auto snipers is just mean.
    • 1 brick of C4 on LA, at least give them some explosive fun.
    • AP for lightning, so they can actually engage in an anti-vehicle role with some effectiveness. No one is going to man their basilisk MBT second seat plus they'll get wrecked regardless. The game should also recommend this over an MBT somewhere so they understand it's a bad idea to roll out packing a 450 resource HEAT/ Basilisk cert pinata combo of absolute failure.
    • A decent pistol: mainly a VS problem but being stuck with a Beamer until I can spend 1k certs on a pistol sucks.
    • Slightly better starter weapons. Not all are bad but some are clearly just not preferred weapons by most players right now and some are quite frankly just too unwieldy for noobs whether they're good or not. TR should start with Lynx or Jaguar. NC should start with GD-22S rather than SAW probably, and Carnage over the Gauss Rifle. VS could get Terminus instead of Pulsar VS1 maybe, and...IDK what I'd replace Solstice with. But you get the idea. All starter weapons should have simple(not angle biased) recoil patterns and be adequate for close ranges.
  2. Targanwolf

    I brought this subject up 2 years ago. SOE knows it cannot RETAIN players....and still does NOTHING.
    • Up x 3
  3. day ofm one

    I recently started two new characters, I am having quite much fun with quite many kills.


    You can take a look at my signature if you are interested in them.
  4. BravoTangoTR

    All but 2 of the 20 or so people I tried to get to play Planetside 2 quit before making BR10. I don't know if that's standard for a FPS game like PS2, but it seems high to me. Biggest complaints are the complexity of the menu screens and length of time it takes to figure out how to find good fights and get to them fairly quickly. All of them were experienced FPS players and had no trouble getting kills with default weapons. If anything, the tutorial needs to be improved to get players to stick around. The 2 that stuck with it really appreciated the uniqueness of the large scale, free-flowing battles and that's why they were willing to tolerate the learning curve.
  5. volth

    Its same in all online games there you buy better weapons and equipment. When you are level 1 you cant do same dmg as a lvl 100 can do because you have not so good weapons and vehicles. So best to do as a new players is to play medic or engi and farm certs to buy more things to your weapon.
    But if you have a good aim you should be able to get kills anyway.
  6. Crator

    This actually brings up a good point... Why not try and start a new character on your home server (same empire too) and see if same experience?
  7. Targanwolf

    DAOC solved the inequity of experienced vs less experienced players 12 years ago. Battle grounds based on players within 5 levels.Every 5 levels a new BG. Players get to learn and try against players close to their own level..
    • Up x 1
  8. Pikachu

    Seems like the problem of this game is that it attracts people who have never played FPS or who are just dumb. Jump into a huge fight and expect not to die quickly and what not. I made a new NC just and playing LA. I played for 10min without spending any cert and it worked fine. My only issue so far is having to use iron sights.
  9. DarkJackal

    I would imagine you play the same way across the ocean and not nearly have to dump a clip into someone on the EU server than compared to US based one. So, how is your Frame rate on the EU server compared to Emerald? I'm on the East Coast and I average already 40 and below for FPS for a probably OK rig that's showing some age, just about hitting its 4 year birthday. Just curious what other folks performance is as I have modified my game play depending how bad it gets.

    From my end, if I want to accomplish anything with 40 FPS or below (Hossin the worst), twitch shooting or playing aggressive like in BF or COD is the least likely thing I can do on a regular basis given the performance averages I experience. So I compensate by trying to position myself in a good spot and dump ammo on where I expect the enemy to be, when I do see the enemy, and even after they appear to leave I still fire where they were and sometimes score a small victory here and there. This means I'm firing off more ammo than I would otherwise need to if it was 60 FPS because I have zero guarantee from my client I will either KO an enemy player or survive a firefight if a frame or two does not go into my favor. So, I have to compensate with lag-shooting and lag-movement enough times in the hopes I will win out which will mean accuracy will go down and COF will go up.
  10. Thornefear

    When I started out as a new player. I had decided I wanted to do something I thought was important.

    I was a dedicated engineer. I spent hours at the perma battle crown feeling epic, because I was (in my eyes) dodging rockets, tank shells, and sniper fire to get those defensive turrets back up. I was at the edge of my seat because this was when certain lib weapons splashed through the shields. I was able to kill rogue infilitrators and LA;s (even with ****** hit detection, where 1/3 bullets seem to land) because I wasn't the only one shooting at them.When I wasn't doing that, I was supplying maxes with ammo and repairing them.
    It felt like the one thing TR was good at was holding the line against overwhelming odds, and that fits my personality and playing style great, it's like being in the trenches until the cavalry comes in, and then we pull together to push a bit, until the enemy regroups with overwhelming numbers again and pushes us back.

    There was a lot of back and forth, and it was fun. I know now that according to a lot of people I shouldn't be engaging in such a foolish endeavor as fun, enough fun to where if I died, I felt like a hero doing something important.

    The point of that story is, it felt like an awesome battle. I was sometimes the only engineer. For a new player, when you feel like you have a functioning role, and are sometimes the lynchpin in a supply line, It's very fulfilling.

    As I moved forward I started following armor columns (which TR seems to have less of on Connery now....) and repairing tanks, while trying to guard them from infantry. I got run over a lot........ about the time I stopped worrying about KDR. Sigh, tanks.

    I had the new player veil over my eyes enough to not see I was being farmed, and helping farm. But the sides and the defensive positions were just even enough that it felt like a good battle. Which is what I thought the game was about. I look at chat now and I see players ******** at newbies for the kind of stuff I did. How dare you support a battle apparently, how do the newbie engage in the only semblance of logistics the game currently has.

    With redeployside and the current state of affairs, it's steamroll or be steamrolled, farm or be farmed. It doesn't feel like in most places you can or should dig in and hold the line. If you have the audacity to do so, you have people ******** at you. At least some TR on connery are still stubborn enough like me to not just go limp, roll over and give free bases up.

    Lacking a player culture the encourages big battles like my first few, I do not know what planetside 2 has in it's current state to enrapture new players.
    • Up x 1
  11. Who Garou

    We do have to take into account what you said about your connection speed and frame-rate. I agree that a new player wouldn't know the difference, but there are people running over 100 FPS and much higher ping rates. It's hard to tell if they weren't already executing moves before they registered on your end.

    I will say that I have run into some players that seem to be cheating on Emerald. I take the connection speed into account. They seem to be able to near instantly come into view and make a headshot (or even make a headshot when they are blocked by a wall). I also have some times in large battles (not all the time) where things are running tight that the game suddenly reloads me like I'm respawning to a new continent - multiple times in succession. And, yes, enemies that appear to have been shot by entire clips or more of ammo, but are not taking damage. These things just seem a little bit odd. (Not to mention Maxes with jump jets - yes, I have seen Maxes flying as if they had jump jets and getting to the tops of building like a light assault that they had no way to get up onto the route that they took without jump jets).
    I can understand being out of synch for a short period of time, and I have definitely been in the land of flying tanks and floating bodies - but there is a point in some instances when it becomes pretty obvious that it isn't just some kind of game wonkiness or connection speed issue.

    I have to ask if you joined a squad and/or if you tried to play with different squads and/or different continents.
    I agree a new player wouldn't know the difference in any of this.

    If new players aren't diligent they probably don't even know all the key binds. It isn't like the tutorial worries about training you to get in and out of vehicles ... some of which are valuable transport!
    Like all the SOE games the in-game documentation is horrible and the tutorials are lacking. You don't have to force players to run tutorials, but having access to tutorials - say in VR (is that really that huge of a leap of logic?) - that players CAN run if they want to in order to learn about different aspects of the game - without going to YouTube and watching a video! - is not such a horrible idea.

    There is the skill versus the unskilled, but you indicate that you have skills in your chosen class already. Perhaps part of it is the play-style between the servers as well. People may be using tactics that you aren't usually exposed to - but, once again, the new player won't know the difference. On some level, a new player will understand that there is a skill level difference between being new to the game and having played it for a while.

    The real issues - that I see - come from adding better equipment and weapons at the high-end of the game (in another game I would call it the end-game). These are only available to players that are most probably past BR 75 and have managed to complete objectives. These items are added to the game as enticements to get long-term players to keep playing. They have to be good enough to make it worth the effort (for some) to keep playing (and perhaps paying to play). This, however, gives them a greater advantage against other players - especially the new player.

    Pay-to-win? Definitely, Planetside 2 is Pay-to-win. Not only can you purchase weapons with real world cash, you can purchase boosters, XP bonuses, etc. A new player that plunks down a couple hundred dollars the first day is going to have a better play experience than one that doesn't.
    (at the same time, a new player that lucks into finding a good outfit the first day to squad-up-with is going to have a better play experience than one that doesn't).

    But skill versus unskilled, better equipment, P2W, and luck with squad mates doesn't seem to address the issues that you were having - unless I'm misunderstanding what you are saying.

    I do understand what you went through was frustrating. I do understand that those conditions will drive some players from the game. I do understand that there is a high deflection level for entering his game and a steep learning curve (which veterans often do not seem to understand)

    It does, however, appear that you have had a better play experience with a server that is closer to your physical location. No one can force a player to select playing on the server that is nearest to them (and in the US, apparently the east coast servers are on the west coast at any rate), but one would hope that most players would understand that they would get better results connecting to a server that is closer to them. (None of this is intended to say that you shouldn't play on whatever servers that you want to play on - regardless of their location).
  12. pnkdth

    How exactly would having a high BR character have changed the fact you had hit detection issues?

    You went on a US server and unsurprisingly noticed worse connectivity. Mind blown. Just because the indicator says "Good" you can have intermittent packet loss, which will cause you to experience hit detection issues.
  13. Taemien

    I've tried out TR before, and my experience is way way different than the OP's.

    I usually pull a 1.5-2.5 session KDR on my NC vet character. When I switch to an uncerted BR1 TR character it jumps to 2.5-3.5... VS goes to 3-4.
    • Up x 1
  14. Typhoeus

    I have no trouble with my low level alts but hits not registering, or emptying a full magazine on a heavy assault and watch them survive it, is probably the most annoying things for brand new players I would guess. That and getting one shot by snipers, shotguns, mines, defense turrets, vehicles, roadkilled (invisible flashes especially rage inducing, even to this experienced player) and then all your uncerted vehicles are pretty much garbage and require an enormous amount of certs to start getting competitive.

    Then there's the general lack of experience. I can't tell you how many nubs just leave my motion sensors alone and have no idea I know exactly where they are heading, because they aren't paying attention to their minimap like all experienced players should be doing. Simple things like that, that they just aren't aware of, is stuff that contributes to their frustration and they most likely don't even know it.

    Best advice I could give a brand new player coming into this, is just play infantry exclusively and focus on certing out the heavy assault class first followed by infiltrator class. Start certing out your weapons first, then suit and ability slots. Then master the redeploy feature. You realize you're in an impossible situation? Redeploy! It will save you from needless deaths, and reduce frustration in the process :D Oh and lastly, get a pc that will run 60fps+ stable and pick a server for your region to reduce latency issues.
    • Up x 1
  15. TammelTR

    This issue is one that stems from greater issues of a bad design philosophy, and while a complete redesign of many systems are required to make this game go the distance, a quick fix would be to grant 300 free certs at br5. It gives newbies enough time to try out the classes, see what they might like and then make a plan to invest in that class. As it is now though ranking up means diddly squat. I remember first starting and feeling like "Oh yay I ranked up, what do I get? nothing... oh :(" So perhaps rewarding new players with 300 certs at br5 and double cert gain up to br12 will help alleviate that feeling of progress meaning nothing.
    • Up x 1
  16. RykerStruvian

    Honestly, I think the new and old player experience sucks. If anything, I don't think things get easier the more you play PS2. I think theres a lot in the game to continue getting frustrated over. The more you play, the more you realize how much there is to get pissed off over.
    • Up x 1
  17. OldMaster80

    And WHAT is happening exactly? I'll tell you: this game requires 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. Some days you can't get a decent K/D not even if you do your best. Because Planetside 2 requires to develop a good "combat awareness", learn weapons, and teamplay a lot. Lonewolves have no easy living here.

    But this has always been an issue, even in Planetside 1. And despite all the effort this game still seriously lacks features that could improve new players experience a lot. For instance the tutorial explains how to jump, crouch and shoot.... WHY? That's the same in all FPS since the days of the first Doom. But the tutorial barely tells you how to "read" the map and the different combat scenarios, to understand when you're being outpopped (that's the biggest issue as you could find yourself steamrolled 20 times in a row just because of population imbalancement). The tutorial does not explain the important things like joining a group and following the orders.
    I still meet noobs that run against my Lightning trying to destroy it with carbine's auto-fire.

    By the way, it's also worth mentioning that missions phase 2 and 3 has been postoponed and that was a dumb move: missions could provide easy targets for new players, giving task to accomplish and giving them the impression they have achieved something (and they could XP for that).
    • Up x 2
  18. TammelTR

    Honestly this pretty much sums up my experience so far. I play for those rare moments where I find a really tight squad(rarely a whole platoon) and we actually feel as though we are making a difference, using tactics, and man it is an amazing amount of fun. This game has the potential to be so much more than it is, but there is this strange dichotomy where SOE is catering to the sort of CoD arena shooter playerbase while trying to have mechanics in place to encourage tactics and the result is a mess.
    • Up x 1
  19. Littleman

    The perceived power imbalance. Newbs don't quite understand that the TRV or the TAR isn't actually more powerful than the T1 Cycler. They have a higher RoF, yes, but also longer reloads and generally greater kick to their shots, so they're mostly suited for CQC. Any half way decent player will tell you the start carbines and rifles will take a player far as they're true general purpose tools with no glaring weaknesses save for the fact they have no real strengths. Newbs won't be convinced until they actually get their hands on a few toys, and even then, it's mostly personal preference (I'm TR and I still prefer the starter guns and NS automatics for example.)

    Lacking experience. Getting blasted from every conceivable angle. Dealing with vertical threats isn't anything new to the shooter space, but the problem is that PS2 isn't built where everyone can get to these vertical spaces. LA's hitting from blind spots. INVISIBLE snipers one-shot head shotting from over 100m away, disappearing before they even fully materialize since on the target client's end, the shot is fired as their assassin is leaving cloak. How fair is that? Then there are the heavies, whom start glowing and become brick walls. At least MAXes look the part and have very strict limitations. HA though?

    And finally, we get to the perceived quality of the game. In shooters, experience will tell anyone that unless the dude they're shooting at is a freaking vehicle or big guy in power armor (MAX) a few rounds = dead guy, right? After all, on the client one hears two thips and they're dropping, so naturally it should only take 2-4 rounds to kill someone, right? Wrong. When you mag dump into someone and they turn around and kill you in two thips, that's a lousy experience. Now imagine a newb having that experience. A newb coming from games like CoD and BF where 2-4 rounds DOES kill someone, reliably, in the same time frame THEY die themselves.

    A lot of the problems lie in new player perception, and a lot lie squarely at SOE's feet for having made bad design choices. Yeah, I get that snipers want one-shot head shot kills - fact is these snipers also have all the tools necessary to make sure NO ONE can sneak up on them (most of them are just that bad though.) There's a unit that can engage everything, has access to tools that can make them near entirely self sustainable (except for ammo) and at the press of a button gets roughly 50-60% more life. This on top of enemies that already seemingly take FOREVER to kill?

    I can't blame them for thinking of PS2 as a shambling wreck and spending their time elsewhere. There are so many things I'd change, and not surprisingly, they'd change to mimic elements of PS1 because it got a lot of things right - like snipers - because there are just some things that don't work in an open world MMOFPS, despite working flawlessly in a standard arena map FPS.
    • Up x 2
  20. Who Garou

    I would have given your post a thumbs up until all of this...

    I agree that "insta deploying" a new player into the middle of enemy Zergs is bad game design.

    Otherwise, Zergs can be avoided if you do not wish to dig in your heels and "battle against all odds".
    When the enemy is all in one place, they can't be any place else.