Progression is to extreme in PS2 and friends first impression.

This is not a suggestions, just going to share my thought and feedback from me and friends.

So I mange to make my friends play PS2 again, for a day. All 3 uninstalled it next day.

I really do believe that progression in this game is to brutally unfair for newcomers.
I listen to their feedback, overall, they thought the game itself is fun, and have some awesome intense actions, I told them never join the meat grinder in the front and this time they actually listen this time. (what I mean is, spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die.)

But a new friend starts researching around the progression in this game, for what it takes to actually takes to get anything, he just flips the table, “nope, not having this ****!”
To be honest, I don’t think he’s wrong.

I have about 900 steam hours, and all that time I haven’t even progress that much, I play technically NC infiltrator rank 47, and TR infiltrator rank 60, I have mange to farm for a 100% full geared infiltrator on TR side… but that’s it… I have paid numbers times for monthly premium ships, I have bought all weapons for TR infiltrators, literally cheated my way to the top.

I don’t even want know how much money I have spent on this game, probably a whole new computer…

So conclusion.
I think is time to bring this subject to the table, for you devs of course.
People should not have to grind this brutally hardcore to just obtain a few gears, and weapons.
Planetside 2 is to good to die, and I think we all can see it future where it is going…

People are often willingly to spend some economy sooner or later on a game where they can feel there some actually progression in the game. Also, Damnit make more awesome cosmetic armor set btw!!!

I hope for the PS2 future and the best, I don’t want this game to wither away.
Make PS2 more attractive.
This is a letter and not a debate. Thank you for reading.

100% agree. Buff the membership rewards for starters. Half the real life money cost of things. And possibly double the base cert gain.

****Just a comment, not debating****

100 % disagree.

o7

Half the money! Is that a joke?

Personally, I've never felt the game had too steep of a progression curve. If anything, many issues players complain about boil down to a lack of proper perspective about the game in some form, some valid, some born of misunderstanding or obsession.

The problem of this approach is that progression in this game doesn't really mean that much.

For the first 1500 certs that you get with your first 15 BRs what is it so important to get first? New weapon? With sidegrade concept of weapons it won't be that better than starter weapon. Nanoweave? Basic levels cost dimes. Any kind of suits and stuff costs dimes. And further progression is not important. For example I do not want to max out flak armor just because it protects against Anti Material rifle.

Starter certs are enough to fill the gaps that you're lacking at first.

Also, as I said long ago and will say again - free players should suffer. If they don't wish to suffer they could pay the sub. Yet I don't agree that new players should suffer from the start, otherwise they won't get hooked to pay for the game. But that's what starter certs are for. For everything else - MasterCard.

Brutally unfair for newcomers? Is that a joke?
Yesterday I've been killed by a BR6 at least 3 times.
The only advantage I had on him was a better knowledge of the base layout and general game mechanics.

Imo very few games are so fair as ps2.

Don't use BR as a metric, use directives.

Depending on the character, I'd argue even Directive points can be a meaningless unit of measure when it comes to progress.

For example, my original-original character had stagnant Directive progression because he already had gotten the maximum level in everything that I was doing with him and I wasn't planning in expanding him beyond that. Even were I to go back to that character at some point, I don't see much reason to expand his features too much beyond the current/last ones. I would argue, however, that beyond materialistic gains, I'm still far more advanced in my tactics now than when I last played him that even with his limited feature set I could accomplish more than back when I first played with him.

It's not a bad idea to speed up progression late in a game's lifespan so that newcomers can catch up easier. For all its failures, this was done in Dust 514 and the community didn't explode over it (and it was a very salty community).

I joined in 2013 and have become more active in the last 2 years or so. Yet I've only been given enough certs to focus on one or two infantry classes with a couple level 1 vehicle upgrades here and there. And yes, I make sure not to buy new weapons unless it opens up a new playstyle or I've Aurax'd the current one.

Now before I get shouted down for not having a membership: why would I pay money just to have "normal" progression speed? Do you see how much of a strategic error it is to appeal to human perception with a relative "punishment" for not paying? I dunno about you guys, but for me: carrot > stick.

Warframe for example, is something I've dumped so much of my time into. Even though it's absolutely a game of grinding. This is probably because the game does a good job of keeping the player feel rewarded. Thus, I did not feel coerced into spending and felt comfortable dropping $25.

Granted, I don't have a PS2 membership for other reasons:
-It's expensive (regardless of how much I get out of it)
-I'm waiting for them to solve my pet issues (ADAD/crouch spam, heavies, air/ground relationship, etc)

No. What's a set of armor these days? $10 or something? They've got some cool stuff that I'd buy if it didn't cost $200 to trick out all my classes and vehicles. I don't think a single thing they sell is worth it if you don't play this game like an addict. But they have the numbers, so I'm not the one to say what's best. I can just throw in my 2 cents that I'll never buy any cosmetics.

What I meant is he was saying a br3 killed him over and over. If I made a new character for low br my directives carry over. so even if you have a low 300-600 directive it would be telling that you're not a new player. That's all, not that they mean anything massive, maybe I didn't portray that properly when I first mentioned it.

Only way to bypass that to have a low br and seem to slaughter (which this is not a mlg game so smurfing is pointless) is to make a new account. I have had people try to pull a fast one with their br level while having more directives then I do.

TBH the starter HA other than in implants is on an equal playing field to a BR 120 HA.
I made a new character on emerald and was competitive against the best players on there killing the quite often. So no I don’t think it’s a case of too long of a grind, but the huge skill gap between skilled an pc new players that needs to be narrowed a bit.

It might seem daunting because there is so much to unlock, but you really can make it easier for them by telling them which upgrades are "meta", and by telling them to not buy weapons with certs, at least until they've completed basic certs for each class.

For example, Nanoweave armor is the meta for all infantry classes. C4 and Medkits are both viable options for the tool slot.

Playing support classes like Engineer and especially Medic are fast and easy ways to make certs. Be sure to tell them the first things they should max out for those classes are the Repair kit and Res/Regen tool.

Lastly, if they quit because some BR 100+ killed them, in all likelihood it wasn't because they just had "better gear". All guns are sidegrades, and most gear progression has already been rebalanced so the first three levels of Nanoweave are enough to make a new player competitive with a BR100. It probably came down to not being able to land headshots (which I still struggle with), and not who is more advanced in the progression tree.

OP friends lack skill,and are lazy and make great meat making material on the battlefield.

to bad they left again (

I mean... that probably would help more than anything else, especially more than buying Weapons. ...but only so long as it was CPU meant to run over 4.4 Ghz natively and had a total overkill in its Cache Size & Speed.

There are dozens of infantry weapons each with their own characteristics regarding recoil, bloom, damage, etc. Furthermore, vehicular tactics is vastly different from infantry fighting, learning to flank with a tank, avoiding C4 fairies, hover fighting, etc. Getting used to a single weapon or vehicle takes much more than a day and it takes even longer to become really good at it. Therefore there is no need to have everything unlocked. Your friends story is just a bad excuse for lacking skills.

This feels like outdated advise, I would tell them not to buy nanoweave (unless unlock all the free directives and don't unlock symbiote), if I was a bad player I'd probably spend my first 10 hours in the game just base building, it's good yield of certs if you compare it to infantry players who don't kill many people. Buy a good bolt action sniper rifle (this mitigates any gear advantages they have over you generally speaking because nanoweaves and such aren't of great effect into OHK sniper rifles. Then I would upgrade my sensor darts.

Generally speaking medic might be my transitional class but my next upgrades still would be grenade bandoolier with revive grenade, generally speaking buying med kits actually has very little utility on infiltrator and medic as the boon to health from the passive slot utility reduces the amount of guns that will 1/2 hit kill you by a fractional amount and medics can use their ability to self heal so it is not necessary.

Then when you get decent heavy assault/light assault/vehical upgrades. Essential things in general, spawn beacons, sundy deploy etc...

Not sure what it is your doing wrong I have 2 battle ranks 80s and one nearing 100 and couple 30s and I don't even think I past the 500 hour mark. Getting certs seems fine enough to me most of the time maybe its due to skill reasons ? I mean to not be that person but if you are not doing enough to earn "points" meaning getting kills or supporting team mates then yes it will seem like a huge grind...

When I first started with the base weapons I had they worked well enough for me till I got most of my gear certed out then I geared out the base weapons with mods to further my development then branched to other weapons and vehicle gear/weapon. Maybe you didn't find that one weapon you where fine enough using ? If you do infl. a lot stalker cloaking is a good way to get xp.

I think he confuses what he wishes with what he needs.

PS2 does many things wrong, but in terms of weapons the default ones are excellent, plus each class get something maxed in terms of equipment. The progression from BR1 to BR15 is quick. You get 100 certs each level + XP certs and several novice implant packs along the way.

There is really nothing one needs. There are tons of things one may want to have, but that's another issue.