Locking continents makes a fun game boring!

That's where PVP comes in. If I know I can get you and your friends to logoff. I will lock Indar and Esamir. It means I have less enemy to fight while you're logged off. You not liking something enough to logoff gives me a tool to use.

And then I would Blame Daybreak if they got rid of the system, as would others. Basically putting them into a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. So they can either appease me, or appease you. I guess it comes down to who's more proftiable to keep.

Sorry to say, but the systems been in place for a while, the ones like you are are a vocal minority. Or enough in your camp that don't care enough and will simply endure it.

Remember when it was always Indar? All day every day? #rosyglasses

Locking those continents will also cause as many from the other faction to log out so not much of tool as far as winning goes.

Totally agree with you on the can't please everyone since some of the things different people want are mutually exclusive.

The systems been in place for a while, about as long as the game has been losing players as a means to make up for lost players.
I'd rather see them try and make the game better so the number of players increase instead of just trying to keep a sinking ship afloat for a little while longer which is pretty much what they are doing now.

First of all, if you only like 2 out of 4 continents enough to even play, maybe this game is not really for you?

Secondly, that still means that you have one of the two continent you like available for half the time. Statistically 12 hours out of every 24 hours (and yes, of course there are RL time constraints applying to gaming so you can't play freely at all times).

Thirdly, hardfought and tight continent-locking sessions make players stay online longer (than intended), which leads to many logging off when the continent finally locks. Amerish (on Miller) was straight out glorious today, the factions went up and down (occasionally reaching 13-14 points) but no-one could get the lock, after the last alert the situation was actually 10-10-10. When it finally locked (after midnight), around half of the players left the (very effective) platoon I was in. This had absolutely nothing to do with the two continents then open, but with fighting on way, way longer than initially planned (something that regularly came up through the voicechat, along the lines: "I am f*****ng NOT going to bed until we lock Amerish!"). This is quite natural behavior for competitive players.

I don't like Hossin that much, and think Esamir is somewhat monotone in that the lanes get fixed into the same positions almost every time. But I've had great sessions on both, and nowadays I consider Hossin as a sort of a lost gem. The whole idea of Hossin was to get something different, but when the design actually succeeded at that many felt it was too hard to learn and too different. So did I. So, at least on Miller, Hossin is usually the lowest pop, which is a shame. The low-pop reputation then feeds itself by keeping players away, which leads to platoons generally being so OP that it becomes boring, which in turn keeps them away. Which. as I said, is a shame. It has quite different tactical options (and demands) than the other three, and some really nifty base designs.

I think it would ruin Planetside to split it into four different sub-games, each running on forever on it's own continent. That, if anything, would make me play a lot less, since there would be a lot less worth playing for (something that is hard enough in a game where nobody ever really wins). After all, if all the four continents were always open, there wouldn't actually be any continent-locking anymore.

What I think could be done is switching the continent bonuses around in a round-robin fashion, so that the four bonuses would apply to different continents (jumping to the next every week?). This would be sure to put a new spin on things, since the bonuses actually are an incentive for a some of the players (especially half-price vehicles and air).

These sound like the complaints of a solo player who just wants to hop around to big fights and farm certs...

Excuse me for not caring about the complaints of a solo player just looking for a farm... Last I checked, this was a team game, and one that encouraged strategy and cooperation. I dont think it should cater to the individual goals over the team goals. There are other games for solo players.

If you were a team player, you would be coming out of the continent locks loading up with a team and heading towards an objective, as teams always do... You wouldnt be playing redeploy-side sitting in your map screen looking for a big fight to go farm at...

Continent locks are the ONLY thing that create reasons for teamplay. GOALS. Whether they be winning an alert, warpgating the enemy, capturing all 3 of a certain base, or building and destroying hives... These things are all things that are made important by locking continents and the bonuses they achieve for your team.

This game died because it had no strategical value. A teambased strategy shooter that had no strategy and catered to the solo-fighting players it didnt interest in the first place.

#Learn2TeamPlay

I like Indar the least of the 4, and it would suck being stuck on it the whole time I have to play.

I was kinda wondering that myself. The continents make up like all of the game pretty much. One thing I'll add is I don't quite understand the hate/dislike/love for certain continents. They all have the same biolabs, techplants, and amp stations. Towers are usually similar and small bases capture too fast to notice. There's actually very few unique bases outside of Hossin.

All the 'bad' things about Hossin I hear about could easily be mitigated by sticking to inside play. As I hear very little complaint about the bases, some, but most are the lanes, trees, and shrubs that block stuff.

The fact that this happens still is proof of what I said earlier. People DO enjoy locking continents. It gives them a sense of accomplishment. They can say, 'that sh-t's mine!' as they log off. Sure it will be gone by the time they come back. But they get to go to bed knowing its theirs. Its about the little victories.

Hossin is actually my favorite continent for the reason its different. The base design is superb. It really is. It reminds me of Tribes 2 base assaults. I have my complaints about Hossin. But I doubt anyone likes any continent 100%. But I chalk those up as part of the game. I don't like getting killed by carbines, but hey, no one complains about that.

I agree. Even when a general community likes a given map. A game WILL die if the community gets to decide to just sit on that map. That's what happened to BF2142. Everyone wanted to play that one map Camp Gibraltar over and over. Eventually all the servers just had that one running all the time. No more Verdun, Minsk or expansion maps. Game died not too long after. Even before it was shut down there was only like 2-3 populated servers.

I could agree with that. However.. I think they're working on some sort of cross realm thing where you're not limited to just playing on the server your character was created on. So it might be a bit premature to try to do something like this. Obviously to avoid Indar open servers from being swamped they'll need to find a way to work it.

I MUCH rather play on my least favorite continent sometimes than never play nothing else than Indar Crown or Battlefield metro.
If PLanetside removes continent locking, OP comes back to complain how his favorite continent is always empty becouse everyone is on other continents. Or that he can never fight anywhere else besides X.
Continent locking is one of best things added to Planetside 2, it means you never are stuck on playing at 1 continent all the time while rest of the continents are empty. In Battlefield or huge bunch of other games, there are always huge number of maps where nobody plays on. No so in Planetside 2

Lol too complicated for the average PS2er.
No offense intended to anyone, but these days FPS games just cant be that complex if they want to make money.
Sad, sad situation.

What is your 'Battlefield Metro' metaphor comparing to?
I thought it was funny but cannot correlate?

Yes last night on Amerish was an excellent fight.

I dont think the locking mechanic is a problem, it is intended to do just what you describe, make fights meaningful, but i do feel that sometimes its too easy to lock continents, or that they lock with too much frequency.
I think they should remove the VP bonuses for 'having the most active HIVEs' and 'Having all 7 active cores', far too easy to kill an enemy HIVE or build one of your own to lock a cont.
Id also suggest reducing the amount of VPs gained for winning an alert, 5 seems way too much, or they could reduce the alert count and keep the points the same.

God such an example of the entitlement age we are living in. God forbid you have to play on a continent you dont like. I dont like all the continents either but I enjoy shooting, throwing grenades, blowing sh*t up. I enjoy healing tanks, placing mines and gunning for a good MBT driver. I enjoy being in a squad and rushing spawn points. I enjoy flying my Mesquito and getting my as* blown out of the sky cuss I suck at it.

If the continent stops you from having fun in this game you need to go back to WoW and leave the game to the adults.

Thanks!

For me the problems with all of the continents besides indar is the boring sameness everywhere.And Amerish and hossin are a nightmare to drive vehicles on.

It totally sucks to be having great fights and then all of the sudden something happens and the continent is closed.

We need new continents.

Continents that arent just the same everywhere, but have different regions like indar has so that you feel like you are in a real place.

I prefered the game before locking. Alerts got most people to move to other continents.

Besides, as sick as i am of Indar like a lot of people, i would still rather play there than Esamir or Amerish. Blinding white, or dull green-grey, everywhere the same, bleh.

And yeah, like the guy said, in the middle of a rocking good fight, having a great time and then the continent locks just sucks balls. Doesnt matter which continent it is either, it just kills the game, half the people log and the fights just go away. It doesnt seem smart to me.

If you must have locking go back to a system where you had to take over a certain amount of territory, that way at least, if one team takes a whole map it makes sense to lock. This arbitrary point system is annoying and bad for the game.

I think its better to incentivize fighting on other continents. Rather than locking, you have alerts and award the current victory bonus like half the nanite cost on vehicles or planes etc to the winner of the alert. Win the alert on Indar and you get the bonus until the next alert on Indar starts.

To get people to play on other continents, especially hossin where no one ever plays on connery which sucks cause i love shooting heads there, increase EXP. 50% bonus for fighting on the alert continent? Maybe 25% nanite cost reduction on everything? 10% more ammo in your gun? Who knows, they could think of lots of fun ways to get people to play on other continents without locking.

It would make sense perhaps if we had many continents and they were linked in some way so you had to go through this one to get to that one, but this locking is bad.

With my system fights would continue to their conclusion and then people would naturally switch to the alert continent. It would be seamless. And people who just like one continent, whichever it may be can always play there. Solving all problems and making everyone happy.

In Battlefield 3 there were maybe 20 maps. Everyone played everyone at first, but very very soon after launch 95% of servers used map called Metro. When expansions were released they added more maps, but since only portion of people bought them they were played much less - soon everyone went back to playing metro.
That means 90% of maps were not played at all, making them entirely useless. In Planetside 2 though, 100% of maps are used. Every map can be improved and there is far more variety. Players don`t have to conguer crown all the time, instead they can go on cold plains of Esamir or swamps of Hossin.
Do you rather want everyone to play only at Indar and only at crown again, or do you want to play everywhere. That sadly is choice until new mechanic is developed. And since this mechanic works well, that won`t be done.

I don't care about some abstract concept of "winning" in PS2. I'd rather be able to play in good fights. If my side locks the Continent that stinks, it's a loss for me.

And I (and many others) have no desire to play on a Continent with bad fights or a Continent we don't like. Just like we don't want to play games we don't like. So I check for good fights on Continent I like on either of the 2 Servers I have Characters one, then I log of if I can't find anything.

Yeah, cause DBG really wants more people to quit. Great sales pitch there. This is a "mass audience" game, it will die if it drives off (more) players.

I like only some shows on a channel, doesn't mean the channel is not for me. Just means I watch what I want and then change channels or do something else.

Now i fully understand, thnx for explaining.
Played BF games for about 50 mins total, boring limited games imo.