[Guide] The PS2 population is now down to bellow what it was before Escalation.

Almost half as much, to be precise, 1.2k now instead of 2k. Then.

But that's not all. As you can see from the graph, the dowhill trend isn't slowing down, or at least, not yet.

Of particular interest, the numbers and chart for the Max population of players which, as you can see bellow, is reducing a lot faster than the average pop. That is significant because it (mostly) represent the population at prime time.

(I say mostly because these figures englobe all PS2 servers across the world. And prime time on EU servers won't be the same as prime time on NA servers. So the max population doesn't technically show prime time figures, because when it's prime time in NA it isn't in EU etc. You can look at it more like an "Prime Time Average" I guess.)








EDIT ---> source : https://ps2.fisu.pw/population/

Game went downhill since late 2016.
Most of the vets left and balance was thrown to ****.

(and graphics downgraded)

obvious really, game is in the worst state its ever been, with spam orbitals and bastions ruining fights,
even as someone whos stuck around through all of the bad ideas i sometimes wonder why i keep logging in,
they've deliberately created a zerg-only meta, and its just full of spam explosions.

Can still be fun to play with friends, at least that's my personal reason.

yep i'm not saying it cant be fun, but there are A LOT more things that ruin fun now.
the forced zerg meta makes finding fun fights a lot more difficult, its all zerg or get zerged.
and when you do find an even fight there is a good chance it'll get ruined by a farming bastion or orbital strikes.

the same fun game is still there underneath, but Wrel is trying his hardest to ruin it.

The Bastion is great at breaking Stalemates. The Orbital Strikes are great at breaking entrenchments. I love the mechanics personally. However, you guys are going to kill this game with all your suggestions just like SWG. SWG listened to many of the player suggestions, finally did a massive Combat Patch and the game was dead within a year because they forgot about all those people that weren't voicing opinions.

I mean they're getting rid of the spitfire turrets and replacing it with a **** stain dampener for level 1 flak damage because of idiots that are voicing all these opinions, but there's a lot more that aren't.

Come over to the PS4 version. We don't have that flying bad idea and we don't have bob the builder either. Matter of fact we don't even get updates. It takes no time to level up. Plenty of BR 10's with a bettleguse. Offensive name, no problem over here. We run this $&@! over here. Not DBG.

P.s. Yes I have a PC toon but quit playing when they decided to be a third person builder instead of a third person shooter.

It is no secret that PS2 has a terribly steep learning curve.

It is also no secret that a new player today faces 6 years veterans.

So it is completely pointless to make updates targeted to groups/veterans/well organized players (Bastion, Colossus,... ).

RPG should make updates targeted to new players instead to make them join and stay.

Only thing bastion is used for is hovering over fights between the other 2 factions,
somewhere they have no reason to be, and then they farm HUNDREDS of kills.
600 player killstreaks with zero effort.
And you're like "yep I like it, good addition to the game."
Same with spitfire spam, what is the appeal or enjoyment of having a room filled with AI that plays the game for you?
And pocket OS makes spawn routers obsolete, why bother going through all of the trouble of setting up a router when any idiot can just right click the map and nuke the whole base...
oh and oneshot all of the maxes at the same time, through the ceiling.
This crap doesn't belong in PS2

I think we need to differentiate a bit between intention and (ab-)use. I do not believe the Bastion was created to do that, but since it is possible it was unavoidable that some people (I think the correct term for them is "a-holes") would abuse the brick to do just that.
A-holes will ALWAYS find a way to abuse stuff to annoy others for their own abusement and/or stat-padding. They do it with normal air as well, it's just that with a Bastion you have something very lethal and very resilient.

you're right, they're Aholes for doing it, but i honestly don't even blame them,
Wrel shoved a nigh invincible nuke spamming abomination into the game.
the use of it to farm hundreds of kills far away from its own faction territory was inevitable.

and colossus isn't going to stop it, the only thing that will stop them from farming fights
between the other factions is to let the guys on the ground actually damage it, directly.
let em try hovering over a TR and NC fight when they're getting shelled by MBTs,
walkers, rangers, burster maxes and everything else from both factions.

they should give it the appropriate health that it can linger around for some time at fights that only one enemy faction is at,
but make em think twice about going into double enemy faction territory where they don't belong.

or they could just remove the damn thing and implement it properly, but that'll never happen.
(like as part of an event,
or keep it summonable but as purely a FLEET CARRIER, let anyone on the faction spawn there,
discounted air vehicles, no/minimal A2G weapons, its a carrier not a warship.)

Just my experience: spitfires everywhere are annoying and destroy nice flanks. Bastions my outfits never pull them or engage them all they do is force redeploy, good luck if you pulled a vehicle of any type. Pocket OS is really frustrating and interrupts lots of effort (routers, defenses, maxes, vehicles, etc.) with a click.

Perhaps fixing the game bugs, such as infantry abilities not toggling reliably, frame stuttering, scythes that keep flipping themselves on landing, auto-firing bug, medic tool tethering delays, game voice channel not working, audio priority (maxes or tanks should always take priority nearby), 'show mission objective' bug, and so on would help more than introducing spam interrupting good gameplay.

As I see it, there are SOOOOO MANY things to be improved, from structural, fundamental things like balance or how the spawn system works, to tiny little things that don't really matter but shouldn't be this way.

I personally think that the biggest issue is balance, on all levels, whether it's snipers one shotting at melee range, or whether it's the balance between the different play-styles that coexist within the game. The whole game, on so many levels, from so many angles, is out of balance.

Appart from that though, I feel that something important is being overlooked and has been overlooked for a long time, for years.

And that is the tiny little things that don't really matter. But there are so many of them.

It's very common, not only in gaming, in whatever business or group activity, that the small things be left out, because they are small, because "we" are busy and have more important things to deal with. In fact, in my experience, it's what seperates the pros from the amateurs. The pros pay attention to detail. The pros provide a polished product.

I call this polishing, and it feels like this game hasn't been polished in many many years.

Example :

WHY DO I GET A MESSAGE THAT THE SUNDY I SPAWNED AT IS UNDER ATTACK BUT WHEN I OWN THE SUNDY I DON'T GET THAT MESSAGE? WHY CAN I NOT GET A MESSAGE WHEN MY OWN SUNDY IS UNDER ATTACK? WOULD THAT BE TOO MUCH TO ASK? We used to..

Or nerf the ******* Harrassers already, they are a ******* joke, nerf the ******* Liberators too, they are a ******* joke as well, and many people won't like this, but nerf the ******* infiltrator already, they've had it coming for years now.

Lastly, the game needs improvements, new stuff, new content, something to nourrish the pvp, something to help *double wink wink* player retention, but I won't get into that here.

Whatever, I'll stop now, just realised how long my post was, sorry.

Bastions, OS spam and the beep-pocalypse are a pain in the ***, but I don't think they are causing the drop in player count. OS spam sucks for us long timers but for a newbie they're a great spectacle. "Woah" factor if you will.

I think the biggest reason for why we lost players were the in-game comms being down and the objective markers not working. Yes, both issues can be fixed by toggling the voice comms/show mission boxes in the settings menu, but good luck trying to explain it to every single new guy during a massive influx of new players.

New player drops in, gets invited into a squad but can't hear anyone because comms are down. There's a big arrow on the map though so he decides to follow it. He arrives at a base and goes on a point and it goes from blue to red. I guess we won? Nope, you need that point to stay red for 4 minutes but you don't know that because the objective marker won't update. Then the blue people return and the objective is blue again. But by the time you spawn back in it's turned back into red. Wtf is going on. Who is winning, how does winning even work, what is the point? New guy tries asking on voice chat, people respond to him but he can't hear them because comms are down. New guy uninstalls.

My 2 cents.

Plus OS have been / will be nerfed , particularly to infantry, dropping an OS on the A point doesn't kill everyone anymore. That and when droping one on a construction base, it'll basically only kill the sky shield (if I read that correctly).

It'll take a little while for people to catch on, but as soon as they do, they won't be spamming them so much anymore, cause there will be no point anymore.

voice chat bug being the main issue, for the rest the game is very nice.

It still killes vehicles and MAXes, even through 4 roofs (like air towers), completely ridiculous.

for real.

They either need to implement stuff properly or change in-game descriptions.

wishful thinking 2.0.

This dude got pissed at a lightning. A SINGLE LIGHTNING. He dropped an outfit nuke on it. And there's also the classic "drop 2 nukes on the spawn" once the base is lost. Not to mention bombarding deployed sunderers.


It's still just ridiculous cancerous garbage, that has no place in the game.

No new continent, instead they introduce Wrel's over powered gimmicks into the game. It's not new players leaving, it's the Vets brah.