Let me start by saying that i try very, VERY hard to enjoy new content. I've enjoyed just about everything like construction, OS's (not the outfit version as that's a bit too much spam but can still be entertaining at times), bastions and so on. I like things that add a bit of chaos to the environment. I liked the idea of the warpgate blowing up as it's new and refreshing, the campaign and missions give people something else to do and an actually story to enjoy. I am truly grateful for the devs hard work. Unfortunately all this has come at the cost of a turning the average fight into a stagnant boring crapfest. Map Changes: You removed some of the best bases the game had, and changed the layout of some others that makes them wide open and difficult to actually play at without being completely exposed, making a lot of bases a vehicle(or long range snipers) delight, because that's what the game needs, more dying from enemies you often don't even get a chance to fight back against. It now feels more about taking advantage of mechanics rather than the players own abilities. Without biolabs to give infantry CQC minded players any kind of refuge, it's the same mess at every base. The map also has fewer options to push and feels almost claustrophobic due to the reduction of lanes and bases to chose from. Storm: Here's one i didn't think i'd be upset about but here we are. The storm in theory is a new and interesting idea but in practice, all it accomplishes is ending attacking armies by crushing all their spawns and weakening people as they push because in every single base, you have to go outside to push into buildings where the points are. Yes this one effects both sides and the examples are limitless on how this can go either way but in my experience this is just helping the defense. Because of this, it doesn't take long for a fight to end when the storm shows up and helping the defense creates far less change in the map than there should be and discourages advances. IE, stagnant maps. Diversity: Esamir never locking has resulted in almost no fights ever happening on any other continent and while i hope this is a self correcting issue as people complete the campaign and see less reason to stay on it, this has still made the game less and less enjoyable because we're at the same place, every, single, day. Warpgate Layout: South warpgate is at a clear disadvantage in participating in the event and often times i've watched either no warpates change at all after an alert or the 2 closest to it just flip flop while leaving the same faction in the south. Why is this a thing? This is just my 2 cents on the matter and since the devs always ask for feedback, here it is. Thank you for your time.
I want to point out that today, It seems that Esamir started locking as it used to once more. The population drops so low that it seems like the game is deader than ever. Perhaps this new content was the only thing bringing older players like me back to the game? It feels like a double-edged blade, but one that will always lead to other continents being left mostly empty. I believe this content update remains truly about the continent of Esamir and their decisions should reflect that as it is a map that got the biggest, most interesting overhaul. Today my gameplay experience was mostly as follow: Login to check if its possible to get started on the campaign, log off after noticing the continent of Esamir is locked. This remains a fact for me as I have other games with interesting content readily available to play and I will not wait for PS2 to let me play the content I want to play. Or in simpler terms; I don't have time to waste. I do share your opinions on the other matters you brought up however.
I never post on here, but this update is so bad so that I must add to you, for different reasons. Spawn in Sanc is annoying as hell. I have no interest in the campaign since the game is still a fraction as fun as PS 1 was. There's an entire userbase that quit playing because, as my boss (AT Work) said "There's a problem when the first one is funner than the next" I don't want a storyline. I want a Bridge Battle. I want to place turrets in archways again to surprise a cloaker. I want to hack vehicles and bases. I want orbital strikes to actually cause enough damage to destroy a sundie and maybe alter the outcome of a fight once. I want to just play, not be automatically added into a squad. I leave every time, and I've played since 2003. I want to take enemy weapons and use a Phoenix when I'm VS. I want fun to return the game. Instead we get this battlefield clone that honestly, BF does a better job of if I wanted a campaign. We don't get to feel surprise anymore. There's no such thing as a massive standstill like at Oshur. Instead you just keep adding things that add to the mass zerg-ing which frankly, doesn't give any satisfaction or sense of doing something unique at all. My favorite thing is to sneak up as a cloaker and just kill people, cowardly, yes... but it's either that or participate in this zerging. It's like we're always winning the lotto... with everyone else... and constantly getting an ROI of 30c on the $. The more work you do on Planetside 2, the more disappointed I am that you've just cloned BF. You know why we play Planetside? Because we DON'T WANT TO PLAY BF. But if you just wanna keep adding CoD features and making a Battlefield clone then guess what, I'll play Battlefield. Someone will add an MMO mod to it and suddenly you'll be obsolete. Whatever happened to the Tribes designer? Why were their ideas scrapped? Tribes wasn't a massive success for no reason.
