High SKILLCAP in planetside 2? Yay or Nay? [Asking The Community][Video]

Here is the original Reddit link for referral on the arguments made.

you forgot the old ZOE

yeah that was disastrous

I totally agree op, it's the Skilless Mechanic that ruins competitive plays in Planetside 2.

Honestly I'm against it as a player who is simply bad. And yeah, I admit Im total garbage at this game. Without skillless kills I wouldn't get kills and have to go play something else. And before you pull out arguments like "git gud kid" I've tried and failed. I simply will never be good at this game regardless of the effort I put in. And I suspect there are a lot of other players like me.

Now Im not saying this game should just have only cheap kills. We need a balance and if you want a larger population to fill out the huge continents we have you need to appeal to the larger audience. You can either dangle a carrot in front of someone face and give them the false promise that maybe some day they'll hit the pro-circuit (which this game doesn't have), or you can market the game as a fun casual environment where you can play in big fights. PS2 is marketing to the casuals and I agree with it.

Team Fortress 2 is also wildly popular and the skill ceiling on all the classes in that game are very low. I suspect you didn't mention it because it doesn't fit the narrative you're peddling. TF2 is very fun, the TTK is very long, and even if you can't hit a wall if you tried you can still build a turret and a teleporter or play medic and get in a heavy's pocket. It appeals to a wider audience, and because Planetside 2 doesn't have a pro scene that people can aspire to be part of I think the casual appeal is the only real appeal the game can capitalize on.

Here's that Straw Poll link mentioned, if anyone cares.

A tl;dr of the argument goes - Planetside popularity defined by its Twitch and Youtube viewship channels compared to other games that have such popular channels and that mechanics without skill should be curbed to foster these channels that highlight said high-skilled, fast-paced envirnonments. To put it another way, the only Infantry skills he mentions are ESF Decimator shots and quick scoping; the rest are Air-based combat, with a mention of AP shooting ESFs.

Actually i would prefer if it would stay as it is, a laggy sandbox for a little bit of fun in the evening.
If i want to proof my epeen to somebody else i wouldn't choose a mmo with a ping/hit detection out of hell. Granted, my view is probably a bit skewed due to my ****** pc that only offers me 15-30 fps in battles but from what i have heard dying behind a corner is a pretty normal thing.

Playing quake with 2000 people and a 300 ping sounds fun and all but I would rather have a diverse mmo with a variety of different tools to play with that encourage the player to specialize in a specific role and play as a team, be it the HE infantry farmer, antiair, close airsupport with rocketpods etc. sure they can be annoying sometimes but that's just the nature of combined arms and asymmetrical classes, sometimes you just end up pulling the short stick even if you are the better player.

Sure if you want to make heroic videos on youtube ps2 probably doesn't have much to offer but in my humble opinion an epic battle with hundreds of rockets and shells flying over your head beats any bf4 mlg pro video any day, no matter how much linkin park he is playing.

I think that the game should offer equal levels of skill ceiling as well as floor for most weaponry, with much less difference between the different groups and classes.
As much as I dislike it, the real popular shooters with millions of players usually have low TTK's and easy-to-wield weapons which hardly require any skill to use. This means that any player, with or without skill, can get kills. This means that even low-skilled players can achieve the satisfaction of getting killstreaks, and you have a larger player base retention as more people enjoy the game. It also means that in all probability the high-skilled players will leave for a game that does reward them for it.

So from my point of view, some weapons should have a lower skill-floor to accommodate lower-skilled players. Any weapon with such a lower skill-floor is easier to use and gets kills more easily for lower-skilled players, but it's skill ceiling is also lower, meaning you can't get as good with them as with high skill-floor & high skill-ceiling weapons.
High skill weapons will accomodate the higher skilled players. They are harder to learn to use but when learned will be more powerful. An example would be the Gauss SAW, hard to learn for beginners but can definitely pay off when you know how to use it.

For some reason people think that a lower TTK means more skill required to stay in the game. I always thought it the other way around: the higher the TTK the more skill required to be a master and be able to win battles from multiple guys. Anyone can kill 5 people in a row in a low TTK game simply by attacking from the right direction and having a big enough bullet hose. It takes skill to pull it off if you have a longer TTK.

I would also like the skill between different groups to be equalized. It's ridiculous that Aircraft can reach the incredible skill-ceiling while no single ground vehicle can reach similar heights. The only way ground vehicles can really get similar killstreaks and destruction possible is mostly farming without much skill, the killingstreaks that you do pull off with skill are also based a ton on luck of not meeting the wrong enemies, such as AV Aircraft or a tank accidentally or intentionally appearing behind you.
So somehow the skill-ceiling for vehicles needs to go up and/or aircraft skill-ceiling needs to go down.

Also, wouldn't the game become more vibrant if a good meta-game is developed? This is a game without much equal fights, someone is always underpopped or outgunned, which makes any comparison to games like COD or Battlefield mute. By introducing a meta-game and many "close call" moments where players can still achieve something while outmanned and outgunned you can create an exciting game that rewards high-skilled players by pulling it off, and low-skilled players can still play the current game and feel important in the battle.

I think these guys have made a good case for not going for a high-skill-only approach to gaming. (Check 2:00 if you don't feel like watching the whole thing.)


For a more in-depth example of balancing for skill, I would strongly recommend watching this:

(Before anyone writes something to the effect of a Mario Kart item having nothing to do with PS2, just watch the episode. You might learn something.)

"If we don't make video games more accessible to the spectator, pro gaming is never going to grow much past what it is today." (4:04) The same principle applies to Planetside 2 generating gameplay videos that would appeal to people who don't play the game.


So now we come to the part where I'm supposed to say what I personally think: as wonderful as it is to imagine a high-skill-only build of PS2, it just isn't practical. Take a moment to remember what it was like to get your *** kicked all the time when you first started out on this game (with the occasional "Learn to play, n00b!" from the kind of player who likes to add insult to injury). Can anyone here honestly say that experience was as fun as you're having now as an experienced tanker/MAX/pilot? Why in the world would we want to make it even harder for new players?

Perhaps some here resent being killed by a new player. If you do, I can't imagine why. So a new guy got a lucky shot. So what? Maybe that new player has been playing for like three hours without a kill. Maybe killing you and seeing you're a BR90+ kept him/her from quitting the game entirely. Maybe that player will eventually become a worthy opponent. As long as this game is properly balanced for skill, being occasionally killed by a newbie shouldn't offend anyone.

Sure there are some mechanics that can provide too high of a reward relatively to the invested effort, like MAXes and AI vehicle farming, and they deserve to be taken down a couple notches.

But the simple truth is that it's not black and white. You can't just divide everything into being skilled or skil-less.
There's always room for improvement.

With lock ons, for example, skill is the ability to find positions and timings where you're likely to get multiple hits on an enemy aircraft before it escapes.

Greatly rewarding skill is one of those things that sounds good but in most cases just turns out bad.

Like all the times I have seen people who wanted to start a Minecraft server: they all say they want it to be in survival because "they want a challenge" but they quickly get bored once they get a home established, as they have to grind for hours and hours simply to get the materials to build what they want so they quit. If they just admitted they just wanted to build stuff and played in creative they would have actually made something they could show off as opposed to a dirt hovel with a chest full of rocks.

TLDR, players saying what they want and what they actually want are two different things.

Nobody with that kind of XP\min is skilless in PS2.Dont let the headshot hunting nerds fool you.Let them be massacred by the ally you re supporting or your vehicle, or else they can go play some CS or crossfire or COD or other BS!

or other BS? What is this? Did you just call other FPS bull because they highly rely on your aiming skills (which PS2 does too by the way)?

One problem I have with this is that positions and timing is effective with almost any weapon. The fact that you can almost only use positioning to improve your skill shows how little skill-ceiling is there to improve your AA game. One of the reasons I think I'm near the top of Skyguard players is because I take risks and position myself near air-routes and resupply pads to take out unaware and already damage aircraft rather than try to protect a base or column by standing somewhere and temporarily scaring them away. But my skill in aiming rarely gives any advantage over other AA players because there's hardly any skill required, unless your target is at long range and you need to lead, but at those ranges the amount of hits you'll get due to COF is so low that you can only kill heavily damaged aircraft, not to mention that whenever your target is for 100% in your COF when it hits the leading spot, it doesn't matter anymore to improve your aim as there's an equal chance the flak will hit or not compared to a worse player who still has the target 100% in the COF.

BS is my subjective opinion on them compared to PS2.

Yeah... opinions... everyone can have them. But opinions are not the same. Particularly yours, it's just bs itself.

Being a fan of lock-ons, I want to go on record in stating I'm not 16 years old anymore. Skills decline, I can't go toe-to-toe with a punk-azz kid time after time. Daddy needs some rest time. Balance.

as someone whos just got done auraxing 5 shotguns i whole heartedly disagree with you calling them skillless.

the amount of times i felt such envy for the million other guys with their long range automatics,
me there trying to get in to spitting distance of them, while they can simply spam bullets in my direction and watch me die 60m away.
and if you finally reach them, you only have a CHANCE that you'll kill them before they hipfire you down,
the TTKs are very similar between SMGs/LMGs and shotties.

its so refreshing getting back to using an LMG, screw getting 10m away from the target for a chance of killing them!
grab your LMG, see them, shoot them, they die!