Why new players leave PS2? - Discussion- and Gameplay-video

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by JamZam, Mar 3, 2015.

  1. JamZam

    Hey guys!

    I made a thread on here a day or two back asking what you guys in the community feel is the biggest reasons for new players leaving Planetside 2 early on, and also what might be the best sollutions for said problem. I spent quite a while reading through all the suggestions and compiled a list of what seems to be the biggest problems, and the most popular suggestions for improving the situation. Check it out if you like, let me know what you think of both the discussed subject and about the video in general (I'm new to this youtube thing, feedback is welcomed), and hopefully we can help the devs out a bit with this!

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  2. Foxirus

    Thats a simple one. Most new people are overwhelmed when they join a game and learn that you can die in .4 seconds.

    Planetside 2 has some of the lowest TTK's I have ever seen. For those who try to say otherwise? You can be killed before your client has even been told you are taking damage.
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  3. JamZam


    Lol, most people that's mentioned TTK has said the straight opposite. Maybe it's simply different for different classes (I'm looking at you, Heavy Assault).
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  4. AssaultPig

    criticism of the tutorial stuff is mostly pointless; the tutorial is fine at what it does, it's just that what it does is irrelevant. 99% of players who pick up an FPS are familiar with basic FPS gameplay already and don't need a tutorial to explain how to ADS, throw a grenade, find an ammo pack etc.

    the problem is that until you acquire some fairly advanced meta-knowledge of how battles move around the map it can be hard to find a competitive battle. Despite improvements instant action remains pretty terrible at picking a hex that's even populated, nevermind one where you'll find a good fight. New players don't get that they should pull a ESF taxi, or join squads until they find one near where they want to be, etc. Repeatedly getting dropped on an empty base or in front of an enemy steamroll isn't going to encourage people to stay around.

    The problem is that it's hard to see a way to really correct that; I think maybe refining the map to do a better job of showing where fights are (I'd like to see a better top level indicator of where members of player's faction actually are, rather than just a bunch of flashing bubbles) and making more spawn points available. I realize people are afraid that redeploying strategically will become more common than it already is, but in practice organized outfits can already do that all the time with minimal effort. Extending the ability to pubbies wouldn't be so bad.

    It might also be a good idea to extend subscriber-level resource gains to new players (like, those under BR15 or so) so that they can pull more vehicles and move around the map more easily.
  5. ReconTeemo

    I remember my newbie days, first time playing ps2. There was no tutorial back then, I drop podded out of nowhere and didn't know where to go. Started as Vanu, I was running around an empty territory thinking where the fk is everyone at!. Second time I used Instant Action, there was an enemy lightning behind me GG. After deploying to random base, enemy lib was camping above the spawn room. I said to myself, "You know what eff this I'm switching faction". lol jaeger
  6. JamZam


    Lol that sounds horrible, how they released the game like that is beyond me... personally I couldn't play the game at all with my PC at the time when PS2 was new, took me a year to save up money for a PC good enough.
  7. Andy04

    The main reason is.... The game pretty much sucks. It has been dragged through update and performance hell over the last 2 years and scrapping at the bottom of good content and gameplay that it has became a bit of a cluster muck.

    Time to start a new version learn from the mistakes and put this dieing donkey down.
  8. HerpTheDerp

    PS2's TTK is about twice as long as Battlefield 4's.
    • Up x 1
  9. Demigan

    I remember when I started at launch. No tutorial, I chose NC, got dropped, saw about 11 TR dudes and 2 NC, thought the TR were friendlies (why drop me smack-dab in the middle of enemies as new player, right?), and got gunned down like a little *****.

    I think there's a lot to say about a tutorial not being adequate enough. Most games follow the same formula, and it doesn't matter where or how you spawn, you just know where to run. Due to Planetside's MMO style you need a much better idea of where to go, how to get there, and where enemies are atm. Normally you know where enemies will spawn and know how to avoid them, maps aren't big and you can't get lost as easily. But in Planetside a Sunderer can be placed anywhere, you need to know the map layouts to know where you are safe and where not. If you don't know the map layout, you run a huge chance of simply running into a bunch of enemies who are aiming down the hallway expecting difficult enemies, and will tear you apart before you even raised your weapon.

    I would also say that the game needs a bigger meta. We need better combined arms through communication and signals. Any ground unit, in a squad, platoon or lone-wolfing, needs to be able to alert aircraft for a good airstrike opportunity. Aircraft should be able to designate targets as well.
    Just imagine that tank that hops behind cover whenever it gets hit below 40% health. Now you can designate him as an airstrike target and aircraft will hopefully finish the job! Tanks can ask for anti-infantry support against a large group of MAX's or Heavies, or infantry can ask for AA or AV support against certain targets.

    The game needs also those "nick of time" moments. Right now you have them occasionally, but 99% of the time when the timer is about to reach zero on a base, you just stand no chance of winning due to other players leaving for other battles etc. Which is another thing they need to add: reasons to get yourself killed in the line of duty. Too many times I've asked a squad of randoms to follow me as I charge in first, only to see two other guys follow and the rest follows hesitantly later in small portions. Or I C4 some MAX's, kill everyone except one medic, only to find that the allies who were held back by them were too scared to make a move until the medic revived most of them already. People should charge in! They should have almost as much fun dieing as they do when they survive!
  10. oumajgadxoxo

    Im playing for around 1,5 year and there is still 2 things that makes me alt+f4 every now and then. MAXes and NC when playing against them. Both are simply stupid by definition. 200 dmg weapons? Really? I can't count the times I died to SAW hipfiring noob shooting at me from 10-15 meters just because he scored 2 lucky headshots in a row. No to mention accuracy on NC weapons.
    MAX. All kinds and all forms. As new player I simply didn't saw a smallest ammount logic in designing 3 meter high walking tank with weapons that are one shotting everything (yes, Im talking about You scatmaxes). Enemy rolled tanks? Lets go to the terminal, switch weapons to almost sniper rifle precison AV rockets os lazors and ADAD them into oblivion. After more than a year I still can't understand this. "Skillsuit" - this word perfectly describes what is their purpose in this game.

    New player don't see shortages in meta game, design flaws etc. They see that they are dying to the guy that is virtually immune to their weaponry. New player can understand being oneshotted by tanks, planes or HSed by snipers. But that walking steel mountain chasing You inside the base is beyond comprehension.
  11. andy_m

    Nice and well made video.

    As I have said in other similar topics, as soon as you think you will be staying with this game I feel it is necessary to subscribe, if you can afford it. Trying to earn enough Certs as a new player without the membership bonuses is really hard work.

    Boosts are also a great way to help you up the Cert tree. Coupled with member only double XP events and what have you, you can really make quick improvements to your many character slots.

    By the time you hit BR80+ you can pretty much drop your subscription and continue with as F2P. At BR100 you start to struggle to think what to Cert up next, unless you are a good all-round player who is reasonably adept at driving and flying.

    More in-game help might be one way to go, but I preferred to spend my in-game time actually playing. I was really helped along by the Outfit I am in, at the time when I was picking up the game. But I also spent a lot of time reading the wiki pages and watching the multitude of videos.

    One thing I think about is, from my own point of view, why did I stick with this game. I went through all the pain of not knowing what on earth was going on. I was managing to get one kill in 20, on a good day. I was farmed by much better players, MAX suits, tanks and ESF's, but something about this game made me stick at it and learn more about all the different ways you can help your team.

    I agree, more in-game help content would be great, but I reckon that peeps would still pass that by and just want to jump straight in there and then wonder what on earth just happened.

    One thing I do take from my experiences, while in-game, is that it is a great place to be. I am still having a load of fun, despite the various issues, and most of those around me, of all factions, are too.
  12. Thovargh

    New players are overwhelmed by the scale of the game and unaware what this means.
    In most FPS games there are few 'death zones' where you'll get shot by several people as soon as you move outside of a door, in Planetside this happens constantly. 1vs1 battles are the norm in other games but here they are the rare exception, you need a while to get used to that and most people just quit before they reach the point of understanding the basics of an mmofps
  13. Leondre

    As a solo player 99% of the time I don't really think squads/platoons/outfits really need to be emphasized that much. They've probably partied up in other games they've played, so it's not rocket science. And if they can't figure out how to have fun by themselves they probably won't enjoy the game in the long run.

    The most important thing the tutorial needs to teach at this point in time is how to read the map and how to redeploy. A global help chat channel would also be a good start.
  14. Crashsplash

    I certainly don't think they're as important in ps2 as they were in ps1.
  15. Fatal_Finn

    I don't know which server you are playing on but on EU Cobalt there's almost no toxic behaviour. Also the forumside has one of the best communities for fps games imo. I honestly think the community of PS2 is quite mature.

    I agree that new players should be shown the way map to understand the scale. And then let them choose where to fight.

    What I noticed when I watched my friend streaming his first gameplay on PS2 is that new players tend to stand still too long and in wrong places. If the tutorial taught more about survival than how to aim I think the first experience would be much more enjoyable. Even showing a slideshow of pictures would be a good start.
  16. Noktaj


    You have seen very few multiplayer FPS then.

    PS2 TTK infantrywise is one of the higher I have ever seen :p 6-7 bodyshots to kill a guy point blank? Seriously? That's fast for you?

    If you put tanks an mosquitoes into the equation, that's another story though.
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  17. Slamz

    * Slow starts.

    Newbies don't earn much at first and it can be disheartening. Not sure what the solution here is since this is free to play and we can't just encourage people to create new accounts as a means of trying new things but maybe there should be a general reduction in the XP required for the first 1000 skill points?

    * Station Cash. PS2 actually has a nice system of "pay for diversity" rather than "pay to win" and I think people don't understand quickly enough that throwing $20 - $40 at the game can be a quick way to make the game more fun. I don't know how to promote this though because any attempt to make people buy station cash is going to fall flat. We need a marketing genius. One of the first things I work on with guildmates who try this game is how good of an idea it is to spend a little cash, once you know what you want.

    * Instant Action needs an overhaul.

    It pretty much always sucks. I have no idea what its criteria is. What I would make it be is:
    - Drop you in defense areas where the battle is fairly close with less than 50 total players and your side is slightly underpop. Like 25 NC fighting 20 TR is a perfect place to drop an instant action TR player.

    - Drop you in offense areas where the battle is fairly close with less than 50 total players and your side has at least 1 deployed AMS.

    As it stands, Instant Action drops me into a totally $#^$#@ stupid situation 9 times out of 10. I still hit it sometimes just as a means of quick travel into a general area of fighting but the actual drop itself is almost never good.
  18. TerminalT6

    I haven't played the Tutorial in a while, but I think one part of it should be handing the player a cert, and making them go through the process of buying the first rank of an ability slot, the one that's given to you for free. That way, they know that the skills they have can get better if they put more certs into them.
  19. Pikachu

    I couldnt play at all either because... the server was full, with 2000 players on all 3 continents. Thats like the total sum of players today.
  20. axiom537

    I think new players should be given starter buffs. Sure most players hoping into PS2 know how to play an FPS, but they do not know how to play PS2 and unlike most other games, **** comes at you from every direction and it can be really over whelming.

    I would give new player account wide buffs, that gradually fall off as the player gains levels or hits certain achievements. Here is a list of some of the buffs that I think ever new player should get....
    - Sensor Shield - Hides the player from showing up on the mini map.
    - Enhanced Shield - increased shield strength and regen rate.
    - Enhanced Health - add 25% to the health pool.
    These are just a few buffs that I think would really help new player survive a little longer vs veteran players. We could also give new players and even veteran players an XP boost if they are in a squad or platoon.

    I would then set these buffs to fall off the players account as they start leveling their characters. for instance; I would reduce the effectiveness of the Enhanced shield and Enhanced Health buff by 33% for every 5 levels, that way by level 15 all buffs will be removed. We could also set these buffs to diminish when achievements are reached such as after 100, 300 and 500 kills.

    I would also give new players a taste of membership benefits, which would last for 10 days or up to lvl 10, which would give them accelerated XP and resource gain for that time frame. I would also modify the trial system for new players, we should give them the ability to trial multiple items,

    Personally I think we need to give new players as many benefits as we can with out making it too exploitable or breaking the game. The trick is we want their experience to be as good as we can make it, so that they have a good time and become hooked.