Direly! So I finally got back into planetside 2, my computer was on the frits for what seemed like forever and just got it working again. In coming back the game seems to have definitely changed for the greater, the game is more optimized so no more need to do a 4.2 ghz overclock on the processor. More guns, the bastion fleet carrier and the colossus look amazing, an ns robot faction looks cool, and missions look neat. Truly the game still feels the same as its been since when I last played it some years ago and the whole feel of the epicness of a large player battle is still achieved beautifully and even better then before with the added optimization. Now this is going to be essentially a suggestion thread put to what has been hundred into thousand of these types of posts before so either stop reading here or take care to tldr as pure usual. 1. More Guns! The game could definitely use more guns specifically put to what is more gun manufacturers that achieve beyond what is the core niche function of empire guns and N gunsS. As it stands each faction achieves a niche core function put to the empire specific with hints of flavoring here or there. NS guns are supposed to be a proper equalizer into these niched guns yet ultimately feel like a hybrid between an NC and TR weapon, generally speaking. The presented idea is to introduce more gun manufacturers that act as an alternative to what is just NS solely, to achieve either empire niche or beyond mechanics in alternate manufacturers , maybe something like actual laser guns, reverse engineered vanu guns, electro magnetic acceleration guns (properly done!), ultimately guns that go beyond heavy hitting, rapid fire function, and accuracy while still adding into the legitimacy of these niches. 2. NPC faction! Presented since forever ago by numerous player , planetside 2 feels like it would be truly one of the best games on the market to date if it implemented a 4th faction npc empire that was challenging and rewarding to deal with. Core legitimacy of the 4th faction would call for an actual never ending battle front that would have enemy forces based on the actual player count further adding into the grandeur of large scale battles. This 4th faction would be hostile towards all factions forcing the player base to potentially do cross empire alliances to deal with what could be a proper threat on the battle field. The actual enemy could be another alien race not based in the vanu or some offshoot of the core empires or something like a sentient-AI-gone-rogue faction having taken over an array of robotics and nanite systems giving more value to NS operatives as they could further niche operate in combating this 4th faction. 3. Espionage! Spy tactics in planetside 2 would be phenomenal, going beyond just the basics of what infiltrators can do. Essentially, add an empire cloak mechanism to infiltrators that camouflages the player as either opposing faction allowing for spy grade recon. This would also allow infiltrators to properly "infiltrate" enemy lines and hit the enemy where its more direly needed while also offering an alternative to just basic cloaking. This would definitely lead to more friendly fire but would necessitate a real emphasis on squad and outfit play in keeping a core integral structure on the battle field not just erupting into chaos. Infiltrators could further be outfitted with proper equipment specifically meant for counteracting these espionage tactics (ex. a counter infiltrator recon detection gun that specifically calls out camouflaged units, ect) 4. Weather Effects! Proper snow and rain, overcast, partly cloudy ect. Extreme weather events as well. 5. Naval and Space combat. If planetside 2 expanded the core of the main game to incluede naval combat it would truelly be a proper war sim. Space combat put to star fighter combat and infiltrating capital ships / frigates would defniatley make the game way more interesting and achieve a fuller feel of sci fi game. TLDR More gun manufacturers then just empire and NS for each faction that offer more niche gun play NPC 4th faction Expand infiltrator capabilities to be able to camouflage as enemy units. Weather effects. Naval and Space Combat.
Great Post! 1. As Axel Foley once said in Beverly Hills Cop “you can never have enough firepower”. Americans love there guns, you can’t have enough high tech guns, more attachments for them, more customization, even sound changes with different barrels. It’s limitless if you really look at it, just look at Call of Duty. 2. It would add a interesting twist, aliens or sentient life forms. 3. Long overdue for special operations units and not enough tools for them. Most of what is done by cloakers is sniping, knifing or submachinegunning. 4. Weather and terrain effects long overdue, they had the storm in Shattered Warpgate but it was overkill. Occasional sandstorms disrupting air vehicles, forcing more infantry fights, rain causing vehicles to have less visibility as well as less sniping, mud, snow causing areas to be harder travelled for vehicles. 5. We all want new places to fight - maps. 4 is inadequate.
Welcome back! I'm glad to see enthusiasm from a returning player. 1. Yes, always more guns. We did just get a genuinely new launcher for the heavy, but most of the new guns have been reskins lately, and almost exclusively NS. Balance complaints be damned, I want more destinction between the factions! Changing factions doesn't change the game enough. 2. NPC faction? Uh, what? No thanks. There are plenty enough single player shooters out there, I play multi player to play with and against people. 3. Interesting concpet, but I'm not sure PS2 is the game for this. Also, the infil is probaly the least in need of new toys right now. I don't mean that to hate on infils in any broad sense, but every other class + the whole of the game outside of infantry play are all more in need of attention than infils. 4. I would sing praise for adding weather effects from atop of the Crown if not...for...the Wrel storm. Even though I do want weather effects in the game, we now know all too well what Wrel thinks weather is and...never, please, never again! 5. Naval and space combat aren't really compatible with the core of this game, and bastions are probably the closest we will get. Again, welcome back!
The spying and recon things should be easy and basically what Infiltrators and cloaked flashes are best at. This is something I really want to see and it would benefit literally every class. The fix should be easy enough: basically (basically) remove redeploying. Refocus redeploying for getting out of bad spots, such as cracks and glitched spots that are too steep to get out of without 60 FPS. Why would this work? Right now, you don't need to spy. You don't need recon. You aren't rewarded for it anyways. If you can't redeploy, you need to drive everywhere. That means more vehicles roaming around, more players transporting others (add a taxi bonus per 500m or so to give some incentive for this), hopefully more squadplay centered around armor convoys and air squadrons. It'd be the safest way to travel anyways, and its how squads would naturally move. Right now we have more of "alright everyone, redeploy into the galaxy and we will drop on this base, kill everyone, redeploy out before we finish cleaning up, and repeat" type of gameplay, and thats not fun. We have vehicles. We have a giant map. What is the point of not having loading zones from one part of the map to the other if we never use them? What is the point of us being given free reign to drive if we can't do it? So force us to. If this happens, you'll need people watching enemy vehicle convoys. I suggest giving Infiltrators a new bonus (although some people feel like they don't need any help, it'll give them a better role in teamplay), letting them listen in to enemy comms when close enough, and the enemies are alerted of an Infiltrator presence. If the Infiltrator continues to listen in, it'll start to triangulate a position on the map, maybe taking 10 seconds or so. This works even while an Infiltrator is on a Flash. Grant xp either for an Infiltrator listening into comms or for being within X meters of an enemy for X amount of time. You might as well do that for any class. Meanwhile, lets grant new roles for every other class to fulfill. This post is getting long, so I don't really want to give much on it right now.
1: yes more unique guns that don't rely on just the bullets is good. 2: no. A proper AI is one of the hardest and most challenging feats in "normal" games. But in PS2 that is impossible period. You would need an entire seperate server to manage the AI behaviour, this is what another smaller PvE focused MMOFPS needed to do. In fact they would need seperate AI servers to do different parts of a single area and needed an intricate communication system to properly hand off AI between these regions. You would need to heavily restrict movement between bases as pathing is one of the most resource-eating things in any game as it's exponential with distance. Just one AI unit pathing a distance of 1000m in game would be more resource consuming than 1000 AI pathing 10m, and that is already something a server would likely struggle with on continents as large as PS2. would need to construct a grid across every continent that follows possible routes, and then another one for AI that can fly or jumpjet. This is impossible even if you used a barely functional AI. Look at the buggy mess that is the Spitfire, half the time it fires in a different direction than it's looking. 3: no absolutely not. I don't see any value in it as all it does is force a bad communication system that is already strained when leaders shout "everybody go there" to do intricate communication that it was never designed for. On top of that it is more "teamwork" based on squads and outfits rather than letting random players work with each other regardless of their squad/platoon/outfit status. 4: this would need to be a client-based effect, but you would need to gain both advantages and disadvantages from it otherwise people just turn it off again. 5: yes! Let's also combine all continents into one seamless world! And make it a 3D world with destructable buildings and ground! And let players dig into the ground for resources like space engineers! And let players build and design their own vehicles like Space Engineers but far more detailed! And let players shoot pieces of vehicles off rather than give them one chunk of health! While we are at it add an infinite render range and life-like Graphics that magically even a potato PC can still handle! Yeah!
Well it was mentioned a while back by the team that there would be a horde of super challenging NPC players that would swoop in to wipe out everyone from a continent after certain alerts for example, and the factions would basically have to defend themselves/warpgates from being sieged. Speculative idea but it didn't sound too bad if it's at the end of some alerts, and not all the time. Agreed it shouldn't be a priority though. Not really. Again it's something that was announced a while back but never materialized, however I believe it was hinted again this year. Oshur was supposed to offer us a new naval vehicle. There were also plans to expand the a2a fights at least into space (mostly revolving around bastions I think).
If this game added space battles where units still move like aircraft I'm pretty sure the laws of physics would break down and cry.
???? As if the laws of physics were the game's problem. Flashes and harassers flip tanks. Even a pebble or slight incline can completely flip a main battle tank. Magriders, javelins. Vanu with no bullet drop and plasma fireball weapons. Vehicles kill you instantly if you stand on them and they move. C4 warp bug. Implants. Warpgates. Nanites. Re-spawning. Reviving. Cloack. Overshield. Infinite ammo. Heat nade. Orbital strikes. Citadel shields. Bastions. Dude the whole lore of the game is that Auraxis is a space colony cut off from earth resulting of a collapsed wormhole. Pretty sure a few spaceships flying around in space combat would be one of the most realistic aspects of the game. It's a sci-fi game who cares. The game's never abided by the laws of physics.
Ok, first of all, I think you may have overreacted to joke. Second, I know that this game's physicals are already...problematic. Anyways, space battles wouldn't have any dog fighting, because that style of maneuvering a craft requires air to be passing over the wings. The only on screen depiction I've seen that's at all close to correct is in "The Expanse" with flip & burn maneuvering, leading to battles which can occur in a second or less in what boils down to a jousting match. If anyone else is aware of good and realistic space battles in entertainment I'd be happy to hear viewing suggestions. Goodness knows I have plenty of time on my hands what with the current state of the world.
Naval combat with boats not ships would be interesting maybe ships as some of the bases you capture. It also would be similar to existing vehicles. Landing craft would serve the same roll as sunder. Jet skis as flashes. Small patrol boats/armed speed boats as harassers. Large patrol boats could be a multi user attack platform, or AA. Mini subs could serve rolls similar to ESF and Valkyries, but down instead of up. (issue with needing weapons to counter them.) Return the amphibious gun trucks from PS 1. Need to add swimming. Need weapons capable of hitting under water targets both vehicles and personal. Need sonar for tracking underwater targets. Attack hover craft could add more amphibious options. (I could see hover vehicles being amphibious but TR and NC would need a way to counter VS tanks on water.) I could see a map that combines water and land combat adding to the game. However creating 5 + vehicles and dozens of weapons would be a huge investment from the staff. Likely bigger than the NSO update they are working on. -So while possible and fun not sure we will see it. Space combat would be a air focused map. While fun for pilots it would be hard to make it work for non pilots. Basses would be space stations or ships. Once inside they would likely be farm fights like biolabs. The issue would be creating a way to get boots from base to base that would not eliminate space fight. So I do not see it being easy to implement.
Forgot the assault rafts that could be crewed like a Valkyrie. Large ships as basses could be- Aircraft carrier- spawns ground and air vehicles, similar affect for water as tech plants for land. 3 control points -deck, bridge, hull. Destroyer-allows platoon leaders to call in a artillery strike 5 minute cool down, map version of a flail strike. 1 control point bridge Cruiser-Shoots a missile that can bring down bastions. 2 control points bridge and deck. But it all would require water and boat mechanics
The movement of space craft could be done with thrusters, and some of the maneuvers air vehicles use in game are nothing like vehicles that actually require air flowing over their wings. The limit to of tight moves in space combat is not the ships thrusters but the high G effect high speeds turns create. While a unmanned craft might easily be able to do a spin and attack such a sharp turn with a pilot would bounce his brain off his skull, cause whip lash or him to pass out. More extended rounded turns like fighter craft is more likely dog fighting in space. The fighters in Babalon 5 had the ability to rotate in any direction but flew paths like fighters in dog fights because of physics of high speed turns. Basically physics of a centrifuge create a high G effect even in the lack of gravity. In addition just flipping a 360 makes your movement predictable if that is all you do, you need to move in a irregular pattern to make it harder for an enemy to hit you.
I stopped reading after you said the game was optimized, because it's not. It still runs like hot trash on new CPUs and GPUs. Good luck with weather effects. I've been asking for that since 2012.
