You are pushing all the players who thought PS2 was more than a random fight away.

For a few years when I started playing, back in 2013, almost everyone tried to win. Not everyone, but most players.

So those who didn't did whatever no one cared, it had no impact.

But as time went passed, and "Wrel" took over, the balance shifted to the other side.

Now most players couldn't care less.

That has an impact. Cause those who do can't play anymore.

I thought it had stabilised a few years ago, but it's been getting worse, and it's still getting worse.

It's really really getting harder to play for people like me.

This changes according to how much pop is playing, and this is the least visible at prime time, where all the outfits and their special ops are tryharding to win the alert.

Before, like at 4 am, there'd be like one fight, so most people would just hang around there and fight "for fun".

Then, it became 3am, also 6am. And so on until today, I'm playing at 14h, and STILL most people coudlnt' care less.

See it's not just a % of players, it's also the time at which they play.

You could call prime time the heart of the game, the core, and as of yet, it's mostly unaffected by the scourge, but as this change in player behaviour continues to spread outside the off peak hours, and into the peak hours, which range across different time frames (3-5 hours; in Europe, from the UK (gmt) to Moscow (gmt +3 or 4) and different cultures (spanish go to bed late, british eat early etc) you will see it come in the future to prime time.

And as for "player retention" (wink wink), what is happening here is that all the players who play for more than just a random fight are either gone, playing less (like me), or thinking about leaving it.

You're kicking them out. Literally. I mean it's like the marketing team looked at the player profiles and said

"ok guys, most players try to win alerts, try to help their faction win, we want to kick those players out. We don't want those players to play this game anymore."?

So the dev team said : "ok, no problemo, let's start with biolabs"..

I think I'm missing the point you are making regarding biolabs.

Those catered heavily towards the "team deathmatch" style players more than the continent conquering type. The biolab and select other fights drew population into big stagnant battles. The upcoming PTS changes take a heavy axe to those.

So yeah, I think I'm missing what you are saying.

Stagnant battles go both ways? When a steamrolling zerg comes to a halt at the biolab, a counteroffensive is possible. Simply drive a sunderer to the next base and those stuck at the biolab may spawn at it.

i agree with Jibbajabba on this, if anything Wrel is forcing players to focus the objectives at the expense of our fun.
recent changes attest to this:
Merit and outfit resources can only be gained from successful base captures/defense.
which means a lot of the time you'll just be standing around bored in a zerg, waiting for the base cap...(not fun.)
but hey, you'll be rewarded, you won't get this from meatgrinding at TI Alloys.

and next patch he is removing the popular "play for fun" bases from 2 of the continents,
i guess he thinks if he deletes the bases that "we" (the people who just enjoy the big long fights)
will be forced to fight at the others... (again, making annoying changes to push the objective at the expense of fun.)

also next patch he's adding the stupid annoying storm to Esamir, so if ever any of us do get into a big long fight at any base,
there will be an @sshole storm s%%ting all over it, (AGAIN added to discourage our big fun fights and force us to spread.)

so i think its quite clear that he wants to screw over the big epic fights (that he calls "stagnant" but we call FUN)
and instead he wants to force people to spread all around the map and focus on base captures.

I'll have a different theory for you.

For starters the devs have slowly been forcing the capture-the-continent gameplay down our throats for years now. For example Biolabs got lattice lines that allow enemies to pass it without attacking the biolab and cut it off. And lately things like the outfit update and the upcoming anti-Biolab-and-Crown update are definitely aimed at forcing players into the capture-the-continent gameplay.

But instead of players leaving because they dont get more capture-the-continent gameplay like you proclaim, its because they do get the capture-the-continent gameplay that these players are pushed away. Because as the outfit update proved without a doubt once again: playing for the continent effectively is boring as hell. Its a paper-thin, badly executed gameplay element. Its barely more tactical than a game of tic-tac-toe and the best method to achieve it is to avoid or destroy the main gameplay loop of combat against others.

I'll say it again: make it fun. Dont force players into that horribly designed gameplay element that was just invented early in the game to encourage players to find fights and clash over bases. Make it fun enough that players come on their own accord.

I don't like the idea of excluding anyone from this game, not even the subtle cheaters.... but I'm sorta okay with them excluding YOU because you just did the improbable.... you made me agree with JibbaJabba!

Unless I'm mistaken, I think the OP meant removing the Bio Lab isn't the solution since it removes something without fixing existing issues. I mean, they have in a very superficial manner catered to outfits yet each time miss the mark on what outfits and competitive minded players want, namely, a meta and/or end game.

This is why the game has lost virtually all outfits who were excited for PS2. I am sure there are some good outfits out there still but the game during 2012-2015 was a billion timers better. Not because of anything the devs did, nope, but because the entire community kept Live truly alive. Plus, planetsidebattles did one heck of a job with the community events (server smash, for example).

Without Bio Labs (or defensible bases) this game is going to devolve into a zerg ping ponging back and forth across the map. That said, it is probably far too late to do anything about this since a map design on this scale would take a lot of time and manpower. But who knows, maybe they accidentally do something right and things end up jolly good...

yeah, but you heard him, him and his team are constantly following our feedback and suggestions...right?


honestly the next patch is just mutilating one of my favorite continents I might just quit

yeah i just checked out Esamir again on PTS, they've straight-up deleted a third of the bases.
and almost every base they didn't delete but changed (which is most of the remaining)
has became utterly impossible to defend.
walls have been deleted to allow the zerg to drive their vehicles right in,
capture points have been move even further from spawnrooms.
one base even hase a wide open area outside of the spawn room and only 2 narrow exits.
gonna be a god damn farmfest for the zergs.

and that f%%king A hole storm is still in, ready to s%%t on any big fights that might take place.

this is what happens when an idiot youtuber is made lead developer...
and they're pushing this s%%t live in 2 days.

Well in that case, I have a question!...
...did you also pull an ANT to find out if the gigantic red no build circles are still around 98% of the Capturable Hexes??

I gotta ask because when I competed in the Outfit Wars, we had similar bases to Esamir and those No Build zones didn't exist. (and we would have WON our match against Drunk Division if we had built a real constriction base to defend even a single Lattice chunk in our own side of the map ... it was literally a difference of 10 points at the very end)

...if they're not there, then you're blaming the wrong "Youtuber" and you should probably take it up with Cryious instead

i didn't check, but hold on i will.
yep the bases that have been ruined with bad changes still have the stupid big no construct zones around them

the bases that have been deleted/removed from the lattice (like mani fortress and biolabs) don't have no construct zones.

also Cyrious' idea was to make these old bases capturable construction zones,
and the team that caps it gets to keep the structures there, unfortunately this isn't that.
i think Cyrious made that video in response to seeing how much of the map was just being deleted from play.
his idea which actually could have been cool though.

this is just needlessly deleting content from the game (well-designed bases made by ACTUAL devs.)
and instead of making some use out of it just leaving pointless space with no reason to be there.

Okay I see what you mean then... was not looking to be accusatory, just needed to confirm that we were considering the same logistical reality. Thanks for checking!

most of you missed the point;

For many years the balance between players who played to win and players who played for whatever (grind, "just for fun" etc) was hugely in favour of those who played to win.

Over the years this balance has shifted and continues to shift.

Today, the balance between those 2 category of players is hugely in favour of those who don't play to win.

The consequence of this (cause that's just a fact) is that (and I can explain why if you like, but I'm skipping this part to keep it short), players who play to win are finding it increasingly difficult to play at all, and many of them have left the game, are playing less, or are thinking of leaving because of this.

(that's the point, so to be clear, I'll say it again) :

When no one wants to play to win, when players who want to play to win are in a minority, they can't play. Cause if they can't play to win, and playing to win is why they play, well then they can't play.







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PS PS PS PS
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PS. I might speculate that even if the main reason this balance has shifted is because of the game itself, and the work (or lack of work) that the devs have done over the years, I also think that it creates a vicious circle; the more the balance shifts, the more strength it gains and the faster it shifts.


PPS. (this is just opinion). In all the MMOs I played, the vets, the players who played for a long time, for years, were usually the ones who played for more than simply the grind or the stats. The reason for this is because there's always gona come a time when you've maxed it out, and what do you then?

That's when many players leave (or make an alt and start over lol). The ones who stay, even when there's nothing left to grind, are the ones who play for the game itself. And those players are usually the ones (generally speaking) that are the most loyal to the game, that stick around for longer.

And in this case, the irony is, it's those players that you are pushing away.



_______________biolab______________


The biolab (which most of you got obsessed with probably because of the coming changes to Esamir) was just an illustration, cause it embodies this whole argument, it's the empiric evidence..

I think you are both wrong. For starters the outfit update has nothing to do with the contention between capture-the-continent and play-for-fun players. In fact, obtaining outfit resources from base-holding is often counterproductive towards capturing the continent. You are disincentivized from assisting in the truly important battles and will let held facilities be taken by the enemy with the intention of taking it back later. Even in the process of a capturing a single base a lot of bad behaviour occurs: don't bring a sunderer, don't play support classes, destroy generators, turrets, and terminals for points, let points be flipped for the score when reflipping, etc. To capture the continent you will need to capture multiple bases and be willing to proceed to the next base regardless of which outfit tagged a base.

But why do I think you are wrong, discounting the derailment on the outfit update? Well because OP is right, and this has occured since the patch called "Critical Mass", which like "Combined Arms" made a lot of players dissatisfied with the game. Before critical mass the way to capture a continent was by making points on a scoreboard. If players only played for fun, nothing would happen and the continent stay open for 12H straight. If players made sufficient score, the continent would lock. The current meltdown alerts was simply a way to earn score and not the be-end-be-all to continent locking: hold the most terrtiory by the end of 30 minutes and your faction will get 10 points.

If we compare the balance between capture-the-continent and play-for-fun players now and then, we see that before critical mass, capture-the-continent players could stagnate (due to a lack of manpower) and simply wait until enough of the play-for-fun players converted, before making progress, or conversely, convert themselves by redeploying to the play-for-fun base and lose the continent. After critical mass however, all the power resides with the play-for-fun players, they can simply play for fun until there is too little time left of an alert to win in anycase, and capture-the-continent will be forced to play for the last 30 minutes without being able to help their faction win.

I understand what you mean but the way I see it the Outfit update is based on capture-the-continent gameplay, but with encouragements for some extra's in bad behaviour on top of that. At it's core it remains about capturing territory as quickly and efficiently as possible, and in doing so it lays bare the problems with how that efficiency is achieved. Zerging, griefing, making it as little fun as possible for the defenders to even show up and resist.

But that's the point isn't it? Not all players play for fun (in the same way). There was always a group of players that preferred to capture the continent no matter what. It doesn't matter if 90% of the playerbase is holed up in fights for un, if that 10% pushes the rest of the game then yes places get captured.

Almost every time these specific capture-the-continent players were catered to we saw large exodusses in players as the players who were just trying to have fun were fornicated in the rear with it. The latest Outfit update was just those problems on steroids. Back then we saw the same Outfit Zergs crashing down lanes to connect warpgates, capture territory or large facilities. We saw the same Ghost capping and we saw an increasing amount of players stick with Biolabs and other large facilities as they were more and more discouraged to try and defend stuff or play tactically. Why bother if you get out-zerged anyway? Why bother if your enemy will try to make your gameplay the worst possible just so you leave? Remember how HIVE's worked and most of the "tactical" people used them? Murder holes at the edges of the world that discouraged anyone from ever even attempting to defeat it?

No it's the other way around:
The capture-the-continent players make it so little fun for the play-for-fun players that they just give up and stick with the few bases where they know they can get a good fight. A portion of the capture-the-continent players also gets bored or doesn't have the numbers to compete and then leaves or joins the play-for-fun players.

The problem isn't the play-for-fun players, it's the capture-the-continent players that shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly and then scream "Look what you made me do it's your fault!".
And if only we changed it so the most efficient way for capturing the continent was to encourage good, fun gameplay then you could almost overnight get large portions of the playerbase out of those biolab scrums and into the rest of the game proper no problem.


Make.

It.

Fun.

btw, I took a break from the game, for like 2 or 3 weeks.

Crusader Kings 3 came out, and I ******* love that game.

So you know how you never see kids grow up ? If you see them every day, or every week, you don't notice. But when you're away for a year or two or whatever, you see them again and you're like "wow, you've grown".

Well same things for many other things, and more to the point, to this topic; the evolution of the balance between different player profiles.


In short, I've been away for 3 weeks, came back to PS2, and I'm shocked. It's way worse than it was only a few weeks ago. Whatever the continent, players always find a way to open up a biolab fight, and then everyone goes there, like, literally, everyone. 99%;

And that's it. That's all there is left in the game. Literally nothing else.

At least not at those times (like from 24h to 17h my time, it used to be like from 4am-7am or something like that)

Literally nothing left in this game now, at those times, just a biolab fight, that's it, that is all there is to it.

The SOE team must be crying I swear to god. ******* DBG and ******* Rogue Games incompetent ******* low payed interns and ******* youtube wanabees.

_____________________________________


To Wrel and his team of jokers, since I heard they listen to player feedback :


You know what you did? You know what you're doing?

You have no idea do you, there never was a game like PS2. Never. Even today, it's unique. It's been unique since 2012.

This game had depth, it had so much depth, at so many levels, single player, small group play, mass pvp, air, land, a huge map, lots of huge maps, combined arms, it has so much, not even EA Games and all the other big names could ever come close because it wasn't about money, throwing money at the game wouldn't make a game like this, it was about vision, it was about talent, and understanding PvP.

The SOE guys had this, they made a gem, a rough, uncut, un-polished, but precious gem, and you took this game, dragged it through the mud until it couldn't shine anymore, you crushed it, shamed it, until in the end you threw it away and replaced with what we have today. Some ******* sorry excuse for a wanabee pvp game, some cheap ******* free to play that has zero meaning to it, zero depth, zero ******* sense at all, just random ******* horde of zombie players not knowing why they do what they do, not even caring, just a huge messy ******* collection of lunatics running around shooting stuff and that's it.

In a nutshell, that's it, groups of lunatics running around randomly shooting stuff. That's you're achievement.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I swear to god, I hope that the gaming industry will recognise what happened to PS2 and that when you go to your interviews with your shiny ******* resume full of dev this and dev that, when people see that on your resume, when they see what you did, when they recognise you, I hope they look down on you, I hope you never get another ******* job in developping pvp games.

You achieved nothing, only failure, you failed month after month, you failed literally at evey single thing that is important to this game.

And you killed a game that had it all already from the start, you destroyed a gem that just needed a little polishing. All that work they did, all the talent they had, that rare, very rare vision they had, all gone to waste.

You should be ashamed of yourselves. But you're not are you, you don't even know what I'm talking about, instead, you're proud of yourselves aren't you, you feel good about your work. I think that's even worse tbh, being such a failure, such an embarrassment, and yet remaining so clueless arrogantly proud.

I swear I'm turning really cynical, I used to be so optimistic, I had faith, I saw people and their pontial, and I had reason to believe in them, small teams, talented teams, Bethesda, Obsidian, Bioware, all doing stuff that innovated, that was quality, that meant something, and now? Where is the talent? Where are the good devs? As far as I can tell, there's only one left, CD Projekt Red, and even so, I'm half expecting to being dissapointed when Cyberpunk comes out.

So it isn't just the DBG / Rogue Game devs, I just don't see any talent anywhere anymore, I'm not seeing anything that is inspiring, only flat, shallow, short sighted, clueless devs like the ones who turned this beauty of a game into a meaningless, senseless, pointless, random waste of time.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

But your reasoning requires a whole lot of spin, and interpretation.
When the changes being made speak for themselves.
Heavily rewarded merit and resources for zerging over bases, you won't get much/any in the big fight.
The most popular bases for big fights getting deleted,
A sentient A hole storm added which s**ts on any big fights that players might foolishly try to enjoy...
(like a permanent AI bastion)

These aren't changes to allow people to play how they want, these are the ham-handed
Changes of a moron to FORCE players away from the big fun meatgrinder battles.

And while ofcourse they will work (obviously can't enjoy biolabs if they f**king delete them all, bravo Wrel.),
deleting our fun might not be the best idea for the life of the game...
But hey, I'm adamant that Wrel actually wants to see this game burn,
so this is a fantastic step to that end.

It is a sad state of affairs when people defend Bio Labs in PS2. Not because of you enjoying (that's fine!) them or anything, but because they're a TDM experience akin to a Battlefield map that never ends. I struggle to think of a base which is less planetside than Bio Labs. They quite literally function to shield yourself off from the rest of the map and focus on farming.

It has been a problem for a very long time though, and the community certainly have no been silent on this, and that's, 1) Most rewards are based on individual actions thus rewards the lone wolf, 2) Too much emphasis on infantry leading to almost everyone focusing on infantry leading to either vehicles being pointless or overpowered, 3) Outfit goals and rewards in-game also only focus on farming (which is pretty much the opposite of what outfits have asked for). Oh, and of course the laundry list of unfinished content, updates, and obsolete weapons/abilities... etc, etc.

However, it has been nearly 8 years now. Everyone has been hoping and wishing for improvements. It won't happen. At least I got to experience this game at its peak and back then it was pretty damn awesome.

The only problem is when people like Wrel view what we find fun as a problem to be "fixed".
You're right though about why we enjoy biolabs,
we get to fight without getting constantly spammed with banshee A2G s**tters and HESH spammers.
Why is that a problem?

This new LESSamir is going to utterly suck, bases have became utterly indefensible,
the HESH spammers and A2G s**tters are going to love it, well, Atleast until everyone quits.
RIP fun fights, RIP Planetside.

The core problem is that it isn't inline with the vision of planetside. I've already detailed why I don't think they're going about it in the right way but that's the reason, they want PS2 to be 'massive battles on a huge scale' not 'a big battle in an enclosed area.'

From a new player perspective it probably doesn't look so great if every day they log on and see never-ending fights in the same few bases. From a designer's point of view, I'd imagine, it'd look like a failure of design as well. Plus, Bio Labs reinforce the idea and behaviour of farming > everything. Another failure of design is the relationship between vehicles and infantry since it has virtually no link-up play, very rock-paper-scissor fights, and for me personally handling anything other than an ESF, harassers, or Magrider feels like crap. This gets further exacerbated with how air versus ground works. Why they thought it be fun for ground units to DEDICATE their loadout to AA duty yet only function as a deterrent is beyond me.

TL;DR: I can understand why they're doing it but as often been the case, they moved on to this update and left a bunch of half-finished crap behind them. I fully expect the same from this update.