There is a link between the rise of "infantryside" and the downfall of the games popularity

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Scr1nRusher, Jul 26, 2016.

  1. ColonelChingles


    To understand that, you need to understand what happens when you take a combined arms game and turn it into an infantry-centric game.

    It was my understanding that PS2 started as and was advertised as a massive war game. Unlike other games like CoD or BF, it would model the entire range of warfighting, including aircraft, tanks, and infantry. That sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? It opens up a whole new genre (well okay, so populated by ARMA but that's about it).

    [IMG]

    Then imagine what would happen if later on the tanks and aircraft simply disappeared. Now you have a drastically different game, where its all essentially infantry fights all the time. It's just bullets to the face.

    [IMG]

    This gives a very different feeling to the game. It's not a war game anymore, it's just a fairly lackluster FPS game. No more aircraft zooming across the skies, no more tanks barreling across an open field. Just redeploy, kill, redeploy, kill, etc.

    And why play PS2 if that's the game you're after? There are many other games which do it far, far better.

    Taking away explosions made PS2 less interesting, even to those people who weren't launching explosions. The general irrelevance of vehicles turns PS2 into an arena shooter instead of a war game.
    • Up x 3
  2. Riksos

    As a PC player of 4 years who switched to PS4 over the last 2, I can tell you that the PS4 has a large number of vehicles every day during primetime. I can't speak about what happens when I'm at work during the day.
  3. Scr1nRusher



    This is exactly why I made my thread.


    "Infantryside" has destroyed Planetside, and more people need to wake the **** up about it.
    • Up x 1
  4. Beerbeerbeer

    Ah, I do kind of miss HE farming sunderers. I wouldn't even aim for the sunderer, in fact, I use to hate the idiots that destroyed the sunderer, depriving me of my farming festival.

    Ah, but the spawn room HE farming was epic as well.

    Ah the rage. I schadenfreude the crap out that epoch. Fun times.
  5. Lemposs

    Except that hasn't happened whatsoever, unless you and I play very different server or very different times. Vehicles are still very much in play and still play a very important role in actually taking bases (ffs the sundy is must no matter what).
    Now, I can understand if you just sit around trying to get the occasional kill in the spawnroom or something like that. But for those of us who roam and work in groups of vehicles, they are still vastly more important and vastly outperforms infantry in securing bases or defending them.

    But I don't actually expect much anymore, people want the game to either bend or break people into what they want, **** doing anything or promoting something themselves. Let's return the ******* lolpods as well to their best performance, people ******* loved that **** destroying entire ******* squads, best ******* thing in the game ever :rolleyes:
  6. Beerbeerbeer

    And yeah, vehicle use hasn't dropped any as far as I can tell. Just look around, especially in the Zerg-on-Zerg action. Christ, they're everywhere.
  7. Scr1nRusher



    Hamstering to think people want broken stuff and not well balanced & viable stuff..
  8. Lemposs

    Because vehicles are so damn under-performing and unbalanced :rolleyes:

    I am done, either people are ******* spastic ******* that no amount buffs can help perform better or I just moved up into the top 0.01 % vehicle pilots.
  9. Scr1nRusher



    Holy ****, you are triggered.
  10. Beerbeerbeer

    I love broken stuff. Anything the devs create in their fishbowl, there are many smart people out there that will take advantage of it beyond what they think it should do. Assymetrically apply a weapon that is balanced around symmetrical "fantasy lands."

    Like their early vision and implementation of vehicles.

    Good god, if that crap was still around, no one would be playing this game. Considering how old this game is, it's fairly healthy.

    What is so combined arms about having nothing but vehicles outside of bases? Today, the mix is good. Yesterday, getting nuked by a prowler you can't even see 200 yards away was not fun, but it was fun doing it.
  11. Lemposs

    Of course I am, I spend a quarter of my play time in them, and vastly outperform most people. The problem isn't the tool it is tools that use them. I stand to gain far more from this, and yet I am against it, that should be rather telling.
  12. Scr1nRusher


    So you are against balance? Where no aspect of combined arms dominates eachother, but all can be used effectively.
  13. Beerbeerbeer

    The only people against balance is you, rusher, and the other cohorts. What are you blind, vehicles are everywhere, just because you can't wipe out twenty people with a few clicks of your mouse from 200 yards away doesn't mean it's not balanced.

    A few tanks, sunderers and libs will still lock down a base and force an equal amount of infantry into the spawn room. How is that not balanced enough for you?
  14. Lemposs

    It already does...
  15. Scr1nRusher


    Yet thats not the case if you followed balance histories & metas.


    Are those vehicles been effective? Or are they "just around"?
  16. Beerbeerbeer

    I don't know? Are you a dumb troll or just around?
  17. Scr1nRusher


    Honest question. Do you know how to quote/reply to posts?
    • Up x 1
  18. LaughingDead

    Welp, often there will be infantry right next to a door, around a rock or using cover to not get shot, this creates a no go zone for infantry. Think about every single time you ever start in a populated biolab fight, there is always a spawn camper right out of the door unless your team is pushed up. Every fight starts with a team trying to get out of 2-3 doors and maintain a presence on each point. An AI tank would be specialized in damaging infantry by shelling the side of a wall and damaging every unit within it's aoe or killing them, creating an opportunity for your team to move in, secondary function would also be to force the infantry in the building in clustered or disadvantageous positions for people to move in.

    But as it stands, the HE is garbage, unless the infantry is standing within 1 meter of the door (or if they have flak then none of the damage will kill them) then they laugh it off and regen from the medic's shield field (should also state that almost no one will stand right in front of the door unless you have a shotgun, even then it's stupid to be right next to it). The reload is also garbage for such a small payload, 4 seconds for the 5 meter tickle field gives the tank a lot of down time for a suppression tool, these traits are why you rarely see it on anything but a prowler, even then uncommon at best. The better damage per shot along with the fury copy and an ability that increases RoF along with reload speed and the increased total shell damage (per mag) makes it a better AI tank. The worst canidate for AI tanks would be the vanguard. Slow, not very manueverable, slow payload with the annoying exact 1000 damage AoE makes it so that anyone with flak 1 (or aux shield which increases hp by 50) will survive the shot. The reason I state only the AoE is that if you're doing direct shot anyways, you might as well run AP.
  19. FigM

    I think the core of gaming is character/player progression: if player is gradually improving something within the game, then there's strong incentive to continue.

    There are 2 basic types of progression: (1) character power increase - leveling, gear power. (2) player skill improvement - mastering of tactics, maps, equipment.

    Both of those progression types lead to competitive gameplay, cause players compete over relative progression levels.
    Game like Planetside doesn't have strong elements of character progression - there is little benefit for gaining levels - earning certs is good, but mostly important for early game. There is no random gear for your character - just a bunch of guns, which aren't random. Random gear is one of the strongest elements of games based on character progression. But that's not what Planetside is about

    Planetside relies heavily on player skill progression rather than character progression. The game offers many distinct play styles, with major categories being infantry, ground vehicle, air vehicle. Each of those categories has more divisions in sub groups. And every type of possible gameplay has a concept of skill ceiling - this is the important part. Playstyles with low skill ceilings have limited scope of player progression and thus get boring / pointless quickly. Things with high skill ceilings offer the most player progression and thus the most interesting and competitive gameplay.

    Play styles that require high skill ceilings are key to long term game longevity. That doesn't mean that everything in the game should be difficult and hard to master - that would just tire most people out. But there should always be options for easy and hard playstyles.

    Over the years, this game has tried to increase falling popularity by appealing more to casual player - by reducing skill ceilings of hard playstyles, and boosting the importance of low skill playstyles. Maybe this works for short term boost in player satisfaction, but in the long term, the loss of potential progress leads to reduced competitiveness and reduced interest
  20. fumz

    dude... "released on November 20, 2012"... it's a 4 year old game that's always been plagued by performance problems. nothing you wrote changes this.