Hey guys, I'm Arenblade (Emerald NC) and I've been a reaver pilot for about a year now. Just this past month I've been running on the ground and having fun with the different classes and I have to say WOW! SOE put a lot of thought in to the maps to accommodate all the classes. I can tell a lot of thought was put into making the maps lite-assault accessible while still adding things to block one's view so they can't easily kill everything from the rooftops (not all the time anyway). Just 1 continent has as many "mini" maps and battles as about 10 regular FPS games combined. I've thought about a lot of different games that have interesting maps, and one thing that Planetside 2 excels beyond them is that there are 1,000's of unique battles that can occur in any area. You never have the same exact fight twice. It is really fun and amazing! Thank you SOE and keep up the great work! Happy Holidays!
If you saw planetside 1's 10 unique continents and 6 core-combat caverns from 2003, the 4 planetside 2 continents quickly loose "awesomeness". They look prettier and are more detailed though, but then again ps1 was over 11 years ago and would probably look close to ps2 if it was remade today.. Except with more emphasis on open ground battles around bridges, chokepoints and water.
Disregarding the vehicle camping possibilities and the distances between outposts that are too short for open field fighting and the removal of cap points from towers making them too easy and the general lack of defence possibilities with too easy capture and I may agree with you.
Maybe SOE should I don't know import the old planetside 1 maps into their map maker or convert them into a format and then do that with changes made so to cope with the newer (inferior) bases, player count and vehicles. Why should all the maps be square at max size?
Very hit and miss. The camping nature of bases is very bad. There needs to be more exits from spawns. I also feel if there were a few less bases, but bigger bases instead the game would be better. The game is designed for 48+ v 48+ yet we have numerous bases barely suitable for a 12 v 12. I also dislike that main bases like tech plants and Bio Labs have the exact same layout. Same spawn location, same vehicle locations, same exit locations etc etc
Planetside 1's maps worked around within a different system. And they can't just import them. PS1's maps and bases use totally different assets. And Planetside 1 had awful terrain. If Planetside 1 had Planetside 2's vehicle physics, I don't think there would even be a Planetside 2. You wouldn't be able to drive 20 feet without flipping over or spinning out.
the landscape looks and plays pretty terrific. too bad most battles happen in and around bases though and their design is rather mediocre at best: sterile bland hallways, heavily repeating building patterns and assets, no real individual bases (they all look the same), chokepoint-heavy horizontal gameplay, not enough vertical gameplay (except maybe in techplants), overall boring visuals in bases, badly placed control points/teleporters/spawnrooms, not enough emphasis on combined-arms, etc.
I like the maps but as in planetside one when defending I find myself angry at my teammates who know an attack is coming and yet refuse to use the walls to defend.
I say we combine clusters of bases into one base and combine the original capture points. This would make bases feel very large and fun.
i just think esamir needed more different zones. like more glacials only zone with canyons and stuff (like the battle island) and more tundra zones with more trees like some little forests. but anyway you're right.
Even if they could somehow magically port these bases and continents onto PS2, the bases and continents really are not that great. The only thing worth noting is that they weren't square. Other than that, the terrain was uninteresting, the base design is even more repetitive, and the flow of a lot of these bases would NOT mesh well with a lower TTK system. They mostly consisted of a few rooms and a bunch of thin hallways/stairways that would just be pure meatgrinder in PS2. The PS2 bases, on the other hand, are actually half decent. At least a fair amount of them. But Klypto sums it up perfectly. They don't support large battles that well. They also don't utilize a lot of the awesome terrain on some maps at all. Hossin would have an obscene amount of infantry, infantry/armor, armor/air, and infantry/armor/air playspace if things weren't so centered on bases that can't gracefully hold what most players consider medium to large battles.
PS2 lost its way a long time ago. Too many people jammed into small bases far too close together strung along a lattice or flow chart. The devs version of "epic" fights involves packing massive amounts of people into a little room all shooting at each other. Combine this with a broken, meaningless resource system and well, here we are. It's a recipe for ridiculousness and frustration. There isn't any strategy, rarely room for tactics and devolves into pajama clad spammy, bouncy fights designed with the "farmville" player in mind. Drop-in, spam fire, get your kill quota, earn a ribbon, check your "score" and log off. What's frustrating is that the game is so close to being something else entirely. I applaud the devs who try hard and want the game to be more than it is right now, but the game is two years on and I don't see much changing.
the maps are great if you dont take in to consideration some of the base designs and how close they are how ever since the patch and the increased infantry render distances ive found my self in more and more large, spread out battles in the open terrain where the game really shines
For base design, I personnaly think there are absolutely great bases in Hossin and Amerish, with much variety, verticality and fun ; pretty cool for infantry gunfights (at least they fit my taste) when you don't have tanks that come to spoil the fun. I don't speak here of size, and his adequation with the number of players, just the concept. Most of these bases are also very nice. Most of these bases need also several playing sessions to reveal their full potential, and some bases that aren't outstanding the first time you see them can in fact be really great. I've recently "discovered" how nice and cool is "Four fingers" ; too bad this base is too close of the Warpgate and almost never played. But speaking of terrain / landscape / surroundings / exterior, which is probably what the OP had in mind, I must say that it's even better ! I'm always amazed by the variety, beauty (I play with all graphics on Ultra just to see the beauty) and tactical possibilities of the terrains. And when you have a fight between two bases, and far from them, it's almost always very cool and fun. I deploy a lot of sunderers, and I tend to put more and more of them far from bases now : at the turn of the tide (as said Gandalf in The two towers ), when the defenders strike back and chase the attackers outside, if you have a sundy in the wilderness where the defenders can respawn and regroup, you can have a really cool spot to fight, be it on the swamps or jungle or on a mountain's slope. The landscape is far superior of PS1's one, and of many other FPS : all those rocks, trees, hills... You have no identical spot, and they gave real opportunities of good gunfights.
Is this a troll post ? Because they really did not do much to make the maps lol clean your glasses and have another look lol
Some areas are great and enjoyable to play at but the game also has bases like this: Which make me think that they didn't pay any attention to the terrain around a base. (Though I do believe that they're working on improving the layout which is great) My personal opinion about it would be that it's 50/50, depending on where you're playing at the map design can be great or horrible.
