Haven't played for 1.5+ years; need to express the "why"

Hi there !

I've never had that much fun in any other FPS. I've spent a lot of time in PS2, mostly beacause I could roam wherever I wanted to. I've learnt the basics by joining battles by myself, at my own pace. I did wonders on these huge 100+ players battlefields (being called a cheater is always a pleasure ). Or just chill out, away, in some little skirmishes.

I really enjoyed the game. Yet, 2 things appened that ruined all I could enjoy here.
Continent lock + Hossin.

I tried to play on Hossin, and enjoy it too. But no, I really don't. Maybe it's too narrow for me, or whatever the reason actually.
That continent lock is the worst part. Once every 2~3 months, I launch PS2 and try play it. And every time, I stay for less than 5min. I liked to hop from Esamir to Amerish, then Indar, depending on the mood or my goals at the moment.
Now, if I don't take care, the fast respawn won't send me anywhere else than Hossin. Beacause of course, Hossin seems always up.

That's pretty much all I have to say. I'm disappointed, I miss how I could choose what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go.

I might not be the only one feeling this way, and hope something good can be pulled out of this.

See ya' !

Continent locking is map rotation which is needed because PS2 doesn't have enough players for it's playable area.

Admittedly, i haven't played PS2 for some time now, but i never saw Continent locking as a bad thing. As previously mentioned it concentrates players into one area to maintain the exciting battles that i always loved. Secondly it gives everyone else to play on a different continent and try something different. Previously it was indarside and i never bothered to play on any other map as no one else played them. I never really found the interest in Indar itself as i personally found the base designs some of the weakest. Whenever i played Miller even the continent locking wasn;t enough as there would be lots on one continent and the dregs stayed on the other continent and there wasn't enough people. Hell, in some cases, rather then being 2 locked, one or none were ever locked to leach players.

Concerning Hossin, as a predominately infantry player (ie 100%) i found the maps interesting and exciting to player. Admittedly, there are some absolutely duff ones like the construction sites (they were supposed to change weren't they?) and i suspect that Armor and aerial combat was a nightmare because of the trees and such. It wasn't much better for infantry at times when a gal just landed on some inaccessible higher ground deployed an outfit to rain death on a base. But i certainly found some interesting fights on that continent. Ah, good times. Don't miss ps2 that much.

Like wow, if that's your biggest probelm with the game then I don't know what to say...

Continent lock is the primary reason this game finally stopped being Indarside 2.

Indar: The de_dust of Planetside 2.

Hossin would be so much better if they just flattened all the mountains. Whoever heard of a mountainous swamp?

And made yellow pod flowers not collide with vehicles.

Im not sure whats the big deal about Hossin and its probably due to it being the worst contient to build bases on or swarm idk,some BS in my oppinion.
I had some neat times on it, both TR or NC char.

Can't you just manually control your Spawn not to go to Hossin?

I hate Hossin too and won't play there in most cases. So I just choose other Continents, or if they spawn me on Hossin, I just Re-Deploy to another Continent.

I actually don't like Esamir either. So I have 1 Character on each Faction leveled up, on 2 different Servers. So I can look at both Servers and try to find the best battles on Indar or Amerish. If I can't, I typically just log out. Though lately I am not playing PS2 much at all, and I hope that continues.

So all that fun you said you had you purposely gave up simply because you couldn't be bothered to manually choose somewhere other than Hossin to spawn? *scratches head*

I'm sensing a pattern here.

I hope you find a game you enjoy playing enough to have the ambition to at least put forth a modicum of effort to keep enjoying yourself.
Good luck.

On a lighter note:

I play every day though not for long - mybe an hour or so. Every time at least one of the EU servers has one faction that logs into VR training because the two open continents are either max pop lock or max faction lock. If a third continent is open it is always Hossin.

I like big fights and they can be fun on Hossin but they are pretty rare. I do see a lot of undefended bases being capped by 1-12 man units though. It is no wonder I have never seen Hossin either population- or faction locked. Getting around on foot is a major pain unless you are LA and visibility is awful outside of bases even in daytime (I play max graphics setting). It is just no fun for me to play on Hossin outside one of the large bases.

I almost think Hossin was designed to be an LA playground to try to get more people playing that class. Fine by me but my heart sinks when I log in and every one of my seven avatars has no choice but to go there (I don't play much LA at all - mainly support class or infil.......although there is not much point when cloaked to spend ages splashing through water trying to find someone to ambush who hasn't heard you coming or seen the ripples).

haha! I call them "concrete pumpkins". lol Yeah, they should really change that. It's kind of ridiculous.

I would really love to run them over and they would splat all over the area with their glowing... whatever they filled with!

Right, I remember that too. Problem, this now is Hossinside 2. I mean... do you agree on that or am I wrong ?

Planetside 2 is about various character types plus ground and air vehicles mixed in the same battlefields. On Hossin, using a flying seems really difficult. Ground ones have to follow a railroad.
As you mentioned, building bases isn't a strategic choice, beacause railroad. One of the 3 main aspects I liked. You place your sundy good, your faction grab the hand and push foreward. Or in the opposite situation, destroying a well placed well guarded sundy.

The 2 others are tied to the various threats the vehicles represents that could come from everywhere. Driving vehicles isn't really my thing. Mine is to chase them with my trusty MAX / LA. Destroying a ~5 lvl 100 player's Galaxy feels rewarding, you do it good. I can forget it too on Hossin.

What you call BS is killing the core experience to me. If I want regular gunfights, there are plenty of others FPS games (de_dust2 says hi).

Partly beacause of it. The fast respawn is intended to throw you right in the middle of a fight. I used it for its purpose. Al lot. No waste of time, just have to use the keybind.
So yes, before Hossin that I despise, I could go in 10secs in any random places in Essamir/Amerish/Indar and have fun. When now the choice is reduced to only Hossin as it seems (the other opened continent never was an option to the fast respawn for me).

I wish this game was Hossinside now and then, just to get off the other continents from time to time, but no one really goes there. It is very far from being Hossinside.

Since you asked.... my personal opinion is that you are wrong. It is not Hossinside2. Not t all. Simply because so many players avoid it. I admit myself I tend to avoid it at times. I understand where you're coming from when you say Hossin is like playing on a rail. I get that. It certainly does feel that way on foot or in a vehicle at certain points along the lattice.

I still don't understand though why you can't take a few extra seconds to choose somewhere else to go. It's not like all the other continents you liked are all locked and Hossin is the Only place you can go. I just don't understand why you would let all the fun you admitted you had be ruined just because you can't make the effort to take a few extra seconds to Keep Having Fun...(still scratching head)
Best of luck.

Or Toujane of Planetside 2.

I have a lot of fun fights on Hossin playing all 3 empires, its my favorite continent.

Indar and Esamir can get so old and mind numbing sometimes.

Correct on this, and the Indarside assessment. Usually there are only enough to people for good battles on one continent, and some stealth base capping on another.

Thing that is killing the game for me and my friends are the hack users. Nothing like running into a HA warping around three tanks trying to run over/kill him. The when I jump out and start putting a full carbine clip into him, he jumps around and gets two perfect headshots with a Underboss. While taking damage from me and shells landing near him, but showing none on my death screen.

That, and the BR9 with a brand new account (opened July 1st) and an 18/1 K/D. When I call him out, I get chastised.

It's not that hard to stop them. Find out what hack they are using, sandbox it, and figure out how it works. Then set up false files, processes, and executables that log who is using the hacks. Don't ban them right away, otherwise you warn the other ones. Plus, many probably turn it on and off so not to bring attention to themselves, like that BR9 did after I called him out. After a couple of months, you have a good list, then act. Decide how you want to handle the ones that support the game, and the ones that don't. Then make a big deal about how you just caught a bunch. Watch players, with their money, return.

But, I will admit, it may be too late for that.

Gotcha. You're talking about Instant Action and it perma-dumping you on Hossin. Which also hits on the issue of Instant Action yanking you off the Continent you are on, and putting you on a totally different one.

I agree with you. If I'd realized that was your issue, I would have Uped your post from the stat.

Instant Action has been toxic for a while for many reasons, but some of those reasons (like dropping players typically in very hard/suicide fights) don't seem to bother you specifically. (though IA now uses things like Sunderers, which does make dropping into hard fights not as bad for the player, because they're dropping into a ally battlefront now).

Hossin has been a problem for PS2 for a while. Both in its existence as a Continent that many people don't want (but get pushed into because of Continent Lock), and as a auto-send-them-there location that the Devs have setup the game to send players too (in things like Instant Action or Continent dumped onto when loading up a new play session). It's like a car seller pushing people to the car that isn't selling well, instead of pushing people to the bad car that is selling well: it makes for a worse experience all around and a lot more people saying "no thank you", or people try it and get a bad taste of the company because their only experience is with the bad car.