Discourage farming new players

Then it's a 50-50 chance, while a lesser opponent is 10-90 or better odds.

As well, spotting someone and it mystically saying "This person is an easy kill" is just as bad as "Mob this person since they got a kill"

Bounties at least don't state capabilities, and benefit the user they are placed on.
Your system benefits farmers for easy kills, and screws over new players whom now can be identified easily.

If you don't think that player behavior is a direct result of the rules and rewards of the game, then I don't know what to tell you.

Most players group up casually (aka play alongside but not actively coordinating through Squad/Speech with others) through joining a zerg. Is that what you mean by Team Game? Cause if it isn't, you need to check yourself in with the Dinosaurs.

That makes no sense. That's just denial talking. Anyone still playing this game is doing so for their own reasons. And for many of them, Deaths and KDR are very important.

80%+ of the players who played this game have walked away, Higby and Smed and this game's founding leadership have walked away, even the founding owners have walked away. Any claims that their vision and formal objectives still matter is purely a personal standard. For every other remaining player, meaning in the game is what they choose (or accept/believe/make/etc.) it to be.

I don't know when you started. PS2 has been terrible for New Players for years.

It was best for New Players at (and shortly after) launch. Notably, it has the best reviews from New Players during this time... and also much of the design, gameplay, and Dev focus/empathy factors were weighted (much more) toward them during this era.

I'm by no means arguing today is worse for New Players than other periods over the years where the game has also been terrible for New Players. But I am saying that the current game is terrible for New Players. Terrible New Players experience as the game matures is also kinda an SOE/Sigil/etc. staple, and a high disregard for and disconnect to New Players (once the game starts to mature) is a cultural staple inside SOE/Sigil/etc.

To the Devs and many players, it *seems* sufficient to address a bad New Player experience by throwing time, budget, features, etc. at it. Just like it *seems* sufficient to fix balance by throwing time, budget, features, etc. at it. But none of that really makes the difference if the changes being made are by people who (1) don't really understand the problems, (2) can't really conceptualize/ampathize with those facing the problems, and (3) who ultimately don't care about he problem or those facing it, other than throw some time/features at it to get some higher up or community monkey off their back.

I worked at Sigil. They culturally struggled to relate, understand, or care about broader player demographics, including New Players when they themselves or the elite playerbase were not also New Players.

Blaming Dev lack of time on balance is silly.

Devs have not shown the ability to balance the game, other than to nerf-into-the-ground anything they deem too OP. The rest is just things emerging as bad or good in the meta, and them leaving that alone, or them putting something in with some random impact and then leaving that alone.

You're just another person claiming their way is the best, whining that others want something different, and then whining that others are whining.

Poor Management is far too broad, that could include pretty much everything in the game.

Advertising is important, but it's a death trap for a game that has a terrible New Player experience. It will just get (more) famous for being a terrible game to pick up for the average player.

Sticking to hard rules on what should or shouldn't be done just dooms the game to any pitfalls that the narrow minded plan steers them into. Including massive ones that sabotage the game.

Absolute idealism is for the young, simple, inexperienced, and naive. Others should not mess with it.

It is a largely a casual Faction game. Teams are the exception.

The game is too convoluted and non-intuitive for most New Players. And the reliably accessible structure for most New Players to work-and-learn the non-intuitive ropes does not exist. And Devs and most vets do not care about (and many cannot conceive of) a New Player experience that is functionally good for New Players.

If you do not have the best skill, and even if you do, it's best to travel at least with a buddy.
You know, like a medic, engineer, LA, infil, Heavy, anyone really - Solo's are the easiest targets.
The difference between survival & death can be simply having one more gun at the right time.

KDR; Kills to death Ratio, as an peice of information, is more encouraging of counter-productive actions rather than something useful.
High KDR does not provide more certs, nor EXP, nor do anything useful but drive idiots to not take any risk at all even with medics.

At launch, a single ESF could unload the real Lol-pods, nuking entire squads in a second.
The Dalton could clear out entire groups, and eliminate any vehicle in nearly a single shot.
HE from tanks could barely miss, and covered the entire area in-front of spawn rooms with fatal damage.
Infilitrators for allies & enemies looked identical while cloaked.
There was no cross-hair IFF indicator.
At launch, You had no free attachments, no max-rank slot items, no implants, no free EXP, no free certs, no Aux Shield, no Koltyr, and quite literally had glorious issues with survival.
Right now, New players have an entire safe zone to learn, Free certs for ranking up, an Aux shield to help them live, free implants from the directives, Free attachments, an fully maxed slot item per bloody class, and a ton of encouraging bonuses for vets to help newer players outs.
Weapons aren't even as lethal now as they were then, and it's harder for new players now? What in hell are you smoking.

Like dear ******* lord.

This game is literally described as a team game.
It is even in the tool-tips on the loading screens.
Same with "You will die often"

Where in hell is this world, where New players are so hard done by today with all the new things for them specifically?
As I can tell you, the original new players, and those prior to Koltyr (let alone before Lol-pod rebalance) were literally ******.

If you want me to itemize:

Having fun.

They did this during the age of Beta Crown. Players like bases that they can actually defend.

Already gave this my two cents.

Does he need to push some other position, is the question you should be asking.

And what's wrong with that? The Sunderer going down could mean an otherwise single-minded opfor has to redirect themselves back to the previous base, at least, and that could jeopardize the ally team securing the place while no one is paying attention.

You assume the worst in every listed situation. The reality is that players are the perversion of the rules that you decry. You can set up this game to have whatever kind of reward system you want - players will play the way they want to, the way they enjoy themselves. If the mechanics of the game is "kill each other," then the most effective methods will still be selected if the goal is efficiency. You want to create a rule to dissuade the player who doesn't care about points or capturing points but just wants to mow down other players, be my guest trying without disenfranchising the rest of us.

Agreed.

Numbers (as well as other stuff) factor in much of this game (though notably there are many cases numbers don't matter until they are extreme).

One of the best strategies for player survival is to join the zerg or join the elite squad. You will be playing easy mode, but you will get better results.

Agreed on a personal opinion level. But others will disagree on their own personal opinion level. Many players focus on KDR. Devs too. Some to extreme levels. Some as the most important stat/thing.

As I already mentioned...
1) I think most the playerbase would freak out if K/D tracking was removed or otherwise nerfed.
2) I think PS2 Devs place a high value on gameplay focused on K/D (it's one of the few stats they as a company publicly track, they showcase it, and even recent game changes support it like the Engineer auto-regen change in ESFs to discourage people using LAs and doing Bail Assaults)

The quality of the new player experience is not about how potentially difficult or easy it is. It's about whether that experience is fun or not for New Players, whether they feel they are getting to play the same game other people are, and whether or not they feel like they understand what to do in the game and how to go about getting the stuff they need to get better.

The reason why New Players raved about the game when it launched was because the New Player experience made sense, almost everyone else was in the same boat, and players had a good idea (pretty quickly) about what they needed to do. Most people had the same gear, Instant Action worked, most people could just go to the Crown and find what they felt was a fun fight, lots less gear and map icons and no Lattice and no Continent Locks and no Hossin, etc. Devs were doing lots of media and communicating with the community and even had a Roadmap on the forum. The graphics were more in-date. No game info was outdated and wrong. Camos and visible Faction colors made sense (mostly). (Almost) Nobody was doing confusing Medkit/ADAD/etc. K-Style stuff. New Players felt included, and that they were taking part in the core game.

The reason New Players hate the current game is because it doesn't make any sense to them, they feel like everyone else is playing a different game with different rules and that the core game is locked away from them, and they have no idea how to begin to understand what to do or how how to improve their situation.

Experienced players (who pay attention and have empathy for New Players) know that New Players are facing gameplay and tools that are totally unintuitive and with no updated learning info easy to find (most 3rd party data is dead or outdated or hard to find, Devs provide limited data that is not enough and often outdated), noobs farmed by vets, noobs locked out of tons of gear (and faced with Cert decisions that will likely get them to waste their Certs on worthless things), a confusing and frustrating air game (that actually is confusing and frustrating for most experienced players too, but at least the experienced players know to expect this), what a good group vs. bad group is and what to expect and what to do to find what group you want (and when you want one or don't), when you can't fight the zerg, when you are being farmed, etc.

Lots of experienced players act like throwing New Players specific bones that the experienced players value will make the New Player experience not terrible. Kinda like parents who think giving their kids presents makes up for ignoring their kids with actual time spent with them. And it doesn't work like that. Current New Players are not happy, most leave the game. New Players were the happiest at and around launch, you can read it in the old reviews. Most New Players don't like the game today, you can read it in their posts/reviews and the stories of people who failed to get their friend to like the game.

Now I can appreciate if you vets don't *care* that the New Player experience is terrible. If you say "I don't care about New Players". Fine. But when you say "Oh, it's much better for New Players now", you're just being incorrect and that motivates me to respond (New Player feedback from different eras shows what the New Player quality of experience was during each of those times). Now if you're just trying to Troll Bait me, fine, you got me. If you're just trying to be political and claim it's all fixed so as to keep the issue (and possible gameplay nerf changes you don't want) off the table, fine. But if you genuinely believe New Player experience isn't terrible or is worse than launch, you are inaccurate AND (given how much has now been covered in terms of this topic) in denial or not really looking at the issue.

At this point, Dev descriptions and statements and stated objectives about the game are largely taken as fluff (or players will pick and choose which ones to spotlight and embrace or decry). Devs ultimately do have the keys to control the change of things, but lots of players don't think they are in touch or reflect common community interests, and they operate more as a rogue mod team.

As I mentioned...
Any claims that the Dev's vision and formal objectives still matter is purely a personal standard. For every other remaining player, meaning in the game is what they choose (or accept/believe/make/etc.) it to be.

Okay, this post is in two parts, if You want my solution to your 'problem', Scroll to "Section 2" beside a big line.
If you want to read my rebuttal, read the below, which is before section 2.

That's not new player experience.
That's the experience of a newly released game.
If you try to balance the experience, or rather focus it on... quite literally people being novices, you stifle gameplay.
You stifle learning.
You stifle adapting.
And literally if a "Experienced" player kills 5 "newer" players whom tried to mob them but fail, why exactly must they be punished for succeeding while the mob reaps the full reward?

Those who do better get better results, and apparently must be costed for that efficiency unless against an equally matched player, whom regardless if matching that criteria can use any of a thousand ways to kill said "better" player.

Balancing a game of side-grade of weapons, with everyone only having default gear leaving everyone in lacking of different specialties literally just dilutes the proper experience, and undermines proper use of weaponry for the player's own task.
You have a shotgun, you get close.
You have a weapon designed for range, you keep a distance.
Your gun is built for rewarding accuracy - So you must achieve it, or get horrid results.

As well, Do you know NC's starter LMG is the Gauss Saw?
The one without attachment of any kind.
Against the Carv & Orion.
I bet those new players at even the start loved that...
Did you know NC got boxed in, due to horrid placement of NC's warpgate on Indar, so that they rarely got out of the hell hole?

Every single gun on the battlefield is a sidegrade of the Default guns in the hands of the new players.
If they are outside of Koltyr, why exactly must they be pampered if they left the training zone?
At battle rank 15, there is a refund, if you didn't know.


The new players of Today, have more tools, a safe place to learn, free certs to help them along, guides from players, and more for them.
The originals, had nothing but death at every corner.
The concept of Everyone being a novice isn't a new-player-experience you should think of in practical terms.
This isn't a match-making round game, there even is a place just for New players; Koltyr, which didn't originally exist.
You can't find Aces, Elites or similar there , unless they try-harded to pointlessly get in - and they'd only have knowledge there.

Launch's New player experience isn't the same as the "First players of the Game" Experience which every idiot seems to think it is, given that relying on everyone not touching 2\3rds of the game & everyone being a complete Novice only lasts for around... 10 seconds to 3 days.
After that, someone touched a vehicle raining down oblivion.
Or learned how to aim.
And no one who wasn't at the start could compete with those who played even a day ahead: You had nothing.
They had already the experience advantage, the Cert advantage, and New players had no where to go, and no means to get certs beyond wining against such people.

That, that experience is the launch's New-player-experience.
Every sod with a day more than you, or can fly an aircraft or drive a tank, is Your almighty Vengeful god of war compared to you.
Unless you manage to kill them & others just as screwed as you, you wouldn't gain certs.
You'd have to buy every attachment for your basic weapon, You'd have to buy the basic slot items.
Nanoweave is a game changer; A new player at Launch, didn't have that. Every sod however beyond them, certainly did.
Your new player's gun is now less effective.

In today's game, a new player has max ranked nano weave on their heavy assault by default.
Back then, You had nothing, and the enemy could be 1-5 ranks of it, rendering you at a steep disadvantage even as the same class.
Better experience my bloody ***.
--------------------------------# Section 2


Here's how you discourage new players being farmed.
Lock them the hell out of everything but Koltyr until they are BR15 on one character at least.
The normal directive lock-out, ofc still applies.
(Directive score is saved between characters, this locks you out of Koltyr at present, after a set amount)

If they can't stay in Koltyr, they have no reason to complain that a better player wisely took advantage of their mistakes.
Anyone bright should do such - less opponents means less opponents to kill you, regardless if they can't hit a barn.
As enough of those, and you will die by a thousand cuts.
And of course, since they are the most risk-free to kill, locking them to Koltyr means less farming of said sods for awhile.
Unless they can't learn basic concepts by BR15.
But that's a user-created-problem, not a game issue.

Starting this game as a new player can be a bit troublesome, especially for people from "typical", arena based FPS games when they have an illusion of matchmaking, limited play zone and fairly balanced numbers on both sides. PS2 is much different and it is what makes this game so great.

Seriously, this is game is often defined as MMORPGFPS. Mind RPG part, play your part and not try to be Rambo. If you played a typical MMORPG you wouldn't go with a wooden sword, leather armor and basic spells to high level zone, would you? You would stay in newb zone doing quests, getting money, gear, level and EXPERIENCE. Heck, most RPGs wouldn't let you to go to higher zones without proper gear or level. I really don't get what (some) new players are expecting to happen. As LordKrelas mentioned above they do get A LOT of free stuff and while this stuff may be a bit random (implants) or not so offensively oriented (Aux Shield) it is helping them to stay alive for longer.

Core problems are, in my opinion, the lack of proper info in tutorial and Join Combat button/directive. If somehow a newb presses it before finishing tutorial they may not even know how to go back to Koltyr or if they really should do it. I strongly believe that if a new player was forced to finish tutorial (as bad as it may be) it would be much, much easier for them later. If they were forced to stay in Koltyr by doing some stuff like 10 kills, capping point, overloading the generator they would learn quite a few important things.

Yet, I see that many new players don't bother with tutorial/Koltyr. Yesterday, again, I stabbed a guy repeatedly in a base. He was BR1 trying different classes obviously and eventually he ragequitted. I bet he didn't even know what hit him. Seriously, a base with 96+/96+ fight is NOT a place where you can try/learn different classes, loadouts or see what a vehicle terminal has to offer FFS! IMO we loosing more players coz of that cursed Join Combat directive than coz of anything else.

Another, quite vocal, part are people who are just unwilling or unable to learn and expect special treatment. Can't say anything to them except 'git gud' - we all were noobs, some of us (like me) started this game 4 years after launch and had to learn everything the hard way.

PS2 is, in a nutshell, just a large scale/shallow multi-player FPS since there are neither scenario evolution/endgame (get a base, loose a base, lock a territory, unlock a territory endlesssly), nor individual character evolution (buy some more equipment and sideweapons).

What is left is the kill-die-respawn cycle where even weapons and equipment play a minor role and experience/SA is everything.

You can't introduce a mechanism that prevent/reduce the only thing you can do in the game (killing).

However (and that's where PS2 fails miserably) you can prepare newbies to being farmed AT LEAST explaining with tutorials what NOT to do. Examples:

- never stop moving/ballooning
- not engage unless you can kill
- understand the limits of the cloak
-don't silhouette when sniping
-don't stand in front of the forcefield like a moron
-don't engage a tank with a rocket launcher alone
-don't reload after shooting a single round with a Gauss SAW
-learn to move when rezzing
...

Newbies will die countlessly many times anyway, but at least let's help them NOT to die for obvious and avoidable mistakes and then ragequit (or leave the game forever).

I know all the hard-core/+BR100/4 years veterans will say
" Hold on, WE learned the hard way so why newbies should be helped and pampered?"

Well pals, look at the graph of PS2 population and think just a little bit. Unless a way is found to get and retain new players, soon there will be not enough moving targets (aka newbies) to farm and rack kills and not enough population to keep servers active.

Let's go beyond the" Git Gud" macho-man stereotype . It doesn't work.

there's nothing wrong with improving new player experience and there is everything wrong with punishing vets for being vets fighting against newbies.

the whole premise of this thread is suggesting vets be punished for killing newbies in an FPS.

come up with ideas to improve new player experience without punishing vets for being vets.

Do Devs really have to explain to noobs "Hey, bruh, don't stand still in the middle of a road. You may be hurt by a truck. Take care !!" and other stuff of common sense ? Like "don't stand still while reloading", "stop licking spawn shields when the spawn room is full of opponents",. "Don't forget to move and to take cover. Because remember : you'll rage quit after acting in dumb ways because you're a bit too lazy..."

Tutorials are always skipped by the great majority of players. They install the game, skip tutorials, enter in the action then ask "HEy, what should I do ? I dunno, crap game".
There is (or was) a tutorial in PS2. Most people skipped it.

The Net is full of tutorials, vids, fanmade websites about Ps2 and about other Fps'.Official forums are made for helping newbies.

In game, you'll meet people acting in dumb ways. Start to talk to them and those people will always answer with the same words "It's a game, I'm here for having fun. That's all" @ Idontwanttothink. They act in dumb ways and don't want to change their state of mind.

Same for newbies. On those forums, there are a few threads dealing with "Do you feel bad when killing a very low level player ?" . Vets often said that "yes", they feel a bit bad about it. I do too.
But "old players" often add that they tried to whisper the newbies in order to give them advices. And guess what ? The neewbies kept on doing the same stupid thing again and again and again. And they didn'tt answer to /Tells. And they kept on getting farmed again and again and again...
They are "just here for fun.".They don't want to spend time at gatherering informations. Some of them will prefer to ragequit, then to play to another cool-trendy game with shinier rewards and an easier gameplay. Others will keep on trying, will look for advices on forums and in game. Those will keep on playing to PS2 and will reach higher Brs.

How's that crying? TR and Vanu suck. They, literally, need each other - I merely stated fact. I don't mind punking you both in the same battle.. it means I have to travel less. I'm not a basement dweller so, when I play, I don't have much time to waste traveling to put a boot in your ***.

Furthermore, this game takes 10 seconds to figure out.. E for everything.. Point, Click, Shoot.. if a new player can't figure that out - this isn't the game for them. Being locked into a tutorial when starting a game makes me turn it off.. it's an insult to players who have capacity for common sense.

Last I checked.. the only way to identify noobs was plugging the nearest Purple and Red players with a shotgun slug.. I'm sorry but if I don't plug as many as possible - then there's nothing left to this game. Screw their feelings.. they are literally re-animated for my enjoyment.

I'm going to kill an enemy in my LOS whether they have a noob tag or not. Your change will change nothing.

The game needs leadership/command rank that gives veterans something to gain by helping newer players learn the game.

Ooorah! We got ourselves a real chairborne ranger here. Look dude, what you wrote is pure BS in its most common Forumside variety. "Double-teamed", "woe is me", "******** much", I'm good and you suck" and I called you on it, to which you respond by posting another salt-ridden paragraph. I can see where this is going, so I'll just leave you to it.

Who said woe? I clearly said I don't mind punking both inferior factions in the same battle - all those tutorials your mom posted on youtube showed me how it's done.

Don't tip your rolley chair over while egressing.. that's always embarrassing. If the TR Tutorial didn't inform you depress the "B" key to deploy the stabilizers.

How old (mentally, not physically) are you? 12? Vanu bless you son but no wonder new players flee PS2 with such community members...

No, they flee planetside because they're avid gaming socialists crying for skill to be a factor removed from the game. These kids are growing up being triggered by someone else having an advantage. The name of this thread is "Discourage farming new players"; this is a game where the SOLE PURPOSE is to.. ahem.. FARM PLAYERS. Personally, i'm more motivated to kill someone with a streak because of the additional XP and the thrill of snacking on someone's mojo.. that and killing freshly spawned players at the spawn point is as dull as farming cortium on double xp weekends.

Just about everything y'all complain about on these forums I parody in all of my posts.. which are trolls.. if you can't tell.

Everyone, put your guns on tickle.. The Vanu are showing up to play foursquare in the road.. don't drive your tanks over them.. get out of here with that noise.

Don't want to be farmed? Don't be a potato!
And that Vanu mess is why you're weak.

Despite your blasphemy against Vanu yes , I agree. Sadly PS2 has failed to create a game concept extending beyond KPS, farming, nerf/buff endlessly weapons, instagib and "git gud" above all.

Faction trolling, and 12yo personality, aside my KDR sucks.. (I only started in December, haven't played any games since Guildwars 1 before GuildWars2 dropped and it died).

It was a few weeks trying to farm kills as an unskilled sniper/stalker-infil or dying left and right as a noob rambo heavy before I found out that Support/Logistics were the soul of the long term cert game and base defense/offense. I don't think I've actively attempted to engage in direct kinetic combat as a primary mission since.. Lard_Avatar's Varhad up there only has about 1.3kxp per hour on me at his superior BR100 to my BR61. That's not that great considering the higher KDR - that's approximately two sunderer/magrider kill's per hour.. you could trip over a shoelace and do that.

That's part of the overall experience.. finding the playstyle that makes sense for you. If you're still figuring out WASD, or don't understand FPS mechanics you're going to be a potato in any game you choose.

1v1 I'm fine but the XP is slowish and unless your dropping organized death squads or population zerging on the point I'm at with my pickup group the game plays well and appears balanced. I really don't understand the fuss.

My son plays overwatch - hates planetside2 - and I think Overwatch is a twitch game for ADHD suffering mountain dew snorters who can't find keys on the keyboard. it's a personal preference, really. The only time I have a bad time playing is when my sunderer is blown up by teleporting (i swear they do! ;]) C4 fairies time and time again.. but that's not the game's fault that blueberry's don't defend the sunderer they spawned at.

https://www.planetside2.com/players#!/5428549186545053505

True that, but that's due to how I play. Lots of cigarette breaks and waiting for half an hour while logged in for a good fight to pop up.