[Suggestion] What PS2 forgot about PS1 along the way.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Amador, Aug 13, 2021.

  1. Amador

    These are some notes that I jotted down, after returning to play the game after several months/years. There's a great deal of things that I am constantly reminded of which were aspects of Planetside 1 that were wholly abandoned erroneously in Planetside 2.

    It is not my interest to get involved deeply into the weaponry or combat of Planetside 2 as it is a completely different "animal" than that of Planetside 1. However, it is my interest to extend the more brilliant and interesting aspects of PS1 into PS2 that would've made it a better game if they were merely included as they should've been.

    Do understand that there are far more things than this to be mentioned or make reservations of. However, this is what I wished to speak about. For whatever it's worth. Though I am skeptical anything will change or improve - I would rather game redesign, than to have some menial "Campaign" storyline.

    TL;DR Planetside 1 - Base Information / General Overview ramblings

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    PLANETSIDE 1 BASES:
    • Amp Station - A power facility for faster shield recharge, vehicle overshields and gate shields.
    • Bio Laboratory - A medical facility, which would enable a slight health regen for the defenders.
    • Dropship Center - A large facility, allowing the acquisition of Galaxy and Lodestar aircraft for support.
    • Interlink Facility - A radar facility where enemy units, ground and air appear on the radar consistently.
    • Tech Plant - Allowed repair, rearm and the acquisition of main battle tanks and ground attack aircraft.

      (Note: Please keep in mind that exact recollection of details may be rusty after all these years. Yet even then, these are all plausible and meaningful functions that PS2 should've incorporated deeper.)
    BASES & DESIGN:
    • Major Base Variety - There is a significant lack of major base variety. "Amp Station", "Bio Lab" and "Tech Plant" are the three you'll ever know in Planetside 2. As omitted from Planetside 1, there should have also been the inclusion of the "Interlink Facility", "Dropship Center" and possibly more. Regrettably, there was no developmental inspiration to include these bases in the game. In lieu of this, it appears there were numerous "satellite" or "filler" territorial locales added into the game to simply take up space.

    • Amp Station Design - A major base that is surrounded by numerous high walls and energy shields that you'd swear it was protecting something valuable. Ironically despite all the fortifications, it is strategically inferior to the nigh-impenetrable Bio Lab. Amp Stations have layers, like an onion - and gives you as much of a headache to be in proximity to it while trying to peel it open.

    • Bio Lab Design - A major base that is as much of an eyesore externally as it is internally. While observing the internals, you are struck by the bland monotone colors of the internal structures that has no visible difference to the rock aesthetics nearby. In Planetside 1, "Bio Laboratories" were originally medical facilities with "Med Terminals" that would heal a player if they stood on it for several seconds. In Planetside 2, they somehow devolved into pseudo-terrariums within a domed office space.

    • Tech Plant Design - Formerly one of the most critically valuable major bases in Planetside 1, it is now little more than a convenient place to grab a main battle tank without having to return to the warp gate in some circumstances. Apparently there's a "Turret Deck" on the top floor - that's if anyone bothers to go up there anymore after you've ran a mile from the spawn room. Now the only important location is the inside balcony overlooking the capture point.

    • Capitol Base - In Planetside 1, certain continents would have a "Capitol Base" located roughly the center of the continent. This "Capitol Base" would have a "Capitol Shield". This shield would make the base impervious to attack until at least 2 of the surrounding bases were captured by the enemy - which would lower the shield and enable it for assault. But of course... how would you implement a Capitol Base in PS2, knowing that you never defend a continent that you formerly 100% captured? Yet another aspect of PS1, lost to PS2.

    • Fortifications and Walls - Originally in Planetside 1, base walls were paramount in the defense of a base and they were designed correctly and functioned correctly, with suitable stairway access afforded to the defenders. Whereas in Planetside 2, many fortifications and walls are designed incorrectly and stairway access is only available at the corner towers. Too often are there nearby walls or structures that allow explosives to cause "splash damage" upon infantry, causing them to feel unsafe. Additionally, infantry are not inclined to maintain defensive positions or to "dig in" because of splash damage, and the possibility of being one-shot by snipers while in that defensive position. This has essentially forced players to always remain mobile and to often abandon what would have been a tactically advantageous defensive location.

    • Capture the Flag (LLU) - Another aspect of Planetside 1 lost to Planetside 2, was a capture the flag mechanic for bases that had an "LLU". The "LLU" stood for "Logic Lattice Unit" - simply put, a flag in the form of a sphere. The base would be attacked, which would enable the "LLU" to be collected. From which the "LLU" would have to be picked up at the base by a player, and transported by foot or ground vehicle to an equivalent nearby base. Because Planetside has no "CC" (my memory is rusty, I believe the "CC" was the control center at the heart of the facility) it may be difficult to know where to bring the flag to in PS2, due to missing game features.
    CONTINENTS:
    • Continent 3-Way - Orignally in Planetside 1, continents were usually one attacking faction versus one defending faction. Meaning that having all 3 factions on a single continent was a rarity. The drawback to engaging in a 3-way fight, is that continents originally required 100% control to capture the continent.

    • Capturing a Continent - In Planetside 2, the duration of an Alert is set to fixed 1.5 hours and a simple territorial percentile majority is all that is required in Planetside 2. The truth of the matter is, you never actually experience the true thrill of conqueroring the entire continent with 100% control as you did in Planetside 1 which could take hours to achieve.
    MAX UNITS:
    • MAX Travel Mode - In Planetside 1, MAX's had the ability to engage "Autorun" or what was referred to as "Travel Mode". This allowed MAX units the ability to run at high speeds, almost as fast as an ANT. However, this feature was not instantaineous. It would take several seconds for a MAX to enter "Travel Mode" and it would also take several seconds to exit and slow down. During this timeframe the MAX was unable to fire their weapons at all - it merely allowed the MAX to travel at fast speeds. It would also greatly assist MAX's when fighting in open environments outside the protection of a base structure. This is where the "MAX Crash" term was coined.
    INFANTRY:
    • Combat Engineers - A mere memory of Planetside 1, Combat Engineers were one of the most fun utility certifications to have. It allowed you to deploy up to, 10 Spitfire Turrets, 20 Mines and 20 Motion Sensors. These assets would remain in the world until they were destroyed, regardless if you logged out. Acting as your silent defenders at strategic locations where necessary. It was not unusual for Combat Engineers to leave mines on bridges, and motion sensors or spitfire turrets around a base which was likely to be attacked first. These assets could easily be countered by stun/EMP grenades - another almost entirely lost item in the game.
    WEAPONS:
    • Stun/EMP Grenades - These were by far some of the most useful grenades in game. It would prevent turrets from firing at you, and would cause disruption to tracking devices. Perhaps one of their most important roles, was when you threw a Stun/EMP Grenade at a vehicle, it would lock the weapons of the vehicle and prevent the operators from firing at you for about 10 seconds. This would help infantry defend against vehicles and would easily make any vehicle operator reconsider an attempt to rush at infantry in open terrain.
    VEHICLES:
    • Wraith ATV - In Planetside 1, there was the Basilisk ATV (Armed) and the Wraith ATV (Unarmed). They were two different ATV's entirely. The Wraith ATV which could cloak was always unarmed and could always remain cloaked. I have no idea how Planetside 2 ever allowed an ATV to be armed and cloaked at the same time.
    COMMAND RANK:
    • Command Rank 5 (CR5) - In Planetside 1, we actually had players who represented faction leadership - unlike what takes place in Planetside 2 and what is now stictly between outfit cooperation. Originally there was a "Command Rank" structure, and it offered "CEP" (Command Experience Points) instead of "EXP" (Experience Points). CEP was a whole different leveling system, which allowed players to go up in rank. As they captured territory as a squad or platoon leader, they would get CEP which would give them access to abilities. Such as "Reveal Friendlies", "Reveal Enemies", "EMP Blast", and "Orbital Strike". These features would be enabled by a "CUD" (Command Uplink Device) which was a handheld item used to activate your Command Rank abilities. As you went up in rank, you would have access to more abilities. A CR4 Orbital Strike was smaller than a CR5 Orbital Strike - which was completely irrelevant to Planetside 2's construction/base building.
    PS1 is like a Snickers bar. PS2 is like a Snickers bar without the peanut nougat. It's time to fix that while we can, because we know there is no PS3 coming. Enjoy it while it lasts.
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  2. Demigan

    Oh dear another one. Nostalgia does not make for good gameplay.

    Bases&design:
    First off, Some of the AMP stations are pretty much the best designed bases in PS2. They require the most tactics and knowledge to pass through while allowing the defenders an actual chance to exit the spawnroom without being spawncamped very easily. If that is a headache to you then perhaps we should turn each base into a long hallway and allow spawncamping with a single dude.

    Major base variety you just say that they should add 2 more base designs, even though they wouldn't make sense in PS2's setup and we have a bunch of other non-standard large bases, which is good since bases like AMP stations and techplants have the same overall layout with a few alterations most of the time.
    You also use negative language to try and get your points across but fail to explain why things would be good or bad. Why is having 2 more standard large bases a good thing, but having a bunch of sattelite/"filler" bases a bad thing? Personally there are enough reasons to consolidate small bases into larger ones but you have to show us why you think they are bad.
    Although the way you've handled it so far my suspicion is that you'll just insult anyone disagreeing with you rather than give solid arguments.

    Your description of the bases is one trip of opinions. You don't like the aesthetics, that's it? Oh you want tactical advantages to them? But the only tactical advantage of the PS1 biolab seems to have been rgeneration pads inside the biolab while PS2 biolabs actually provide a benefit for the defenders? You can't even be consistent in your own ideals for game design.

    Fortifications aren't like you describe at all? Or are you quite literally standing a centimeter from a wall while getting shelled and sitting still behind every piece of cover without being aware of possible sniper positions? People do hold fortifications all the time, hell most of my playstyle is designed specifically to catch people in their habits. Snipers are some of the easiest, find the highest easily accessible point and 9 times out of 10 you'll find a sniper there. Kill them a few times until they decide to do something else.

    A CTF style gameplay is good, but the LLU would not fit PS2. The attacker is almost guaranteed to have vehicle superiority and control the outside of the base. The moment an LLU got outside the base perimiter it would almost automatically be game over. You would have to reverse the process, bring the LLU to the enemy base instead, for it to make a bit more sense. Again nostalgia means you don't think of how it might fit in PS2.

    Requiring 100% of a continent is not exactly the only way to set up captures. It also means that you hypercharge the idea of zergs, capturing defenseless territory and only picking easy fights, not exactly the "thrill" I am looking for in a game. We already see it since the outfit update how outfits will even pull out of fights that offers resistance in order to pick on a fight that can't resist. Having a 2-way "capture everything" contest would not be a good idea for PS2 unless we completely change the gameplay to encourage hard-fought battles for the fastest continent capture over easy one's.

    MAX travel mode would be useful, but is not going to make the relatively short-ranged MAX's a great option for outdoors fights.

    One of the best parts of PS2 used to be that every single bullet fired and every single death was caused by a player. I absolutely love that they cut the Combat Engineer's ludicrous amount of deployables out of the game. Now don't get me wrong I think the game could benefit from a system of deployables to help hold ground or modify the battlefield, but at no point should the deployables themselves be the lethal weapon. I think that even PS2 mines should never OHK so that you have to watch over mines rather than deploy in the hopes of a cheap kill.

    I do want a version of stun/EMP grenades against vehicles, but an outright 10 seconds weapon lock goes way too far. Add COF's, slow down the vehicle, reduce turret rotation speeds, reduce their visibility etc should be the way for giving infantry a better fighting chance. Even better is that they don't need to be grenades, but can be in rocketlaunchers, darts, mines etc.

    The cloak Flash only requires changes to its cloaking/decloaking mechanism to become a fair and balanced system.

    Faction leadership? Well i didn't vote for them! Just the idea that players are locked out of teamplay enhancements until they grinded their CEP out is a ludicrously archaic and bad method to handle leadership. It also makes players feel superior, and we already see how in PS2 that such superiority makes players feel that even their wet farts are gold and should be obeyed and taught to the children of the nation. We don't need a system that almost only offers negatives except for the player feeling grand about himself.

    PS1 is like original coke. It has actual cocain inside and can cause some serious problems, but people who used to take it still think come back for more if they could. PS2 has many many problems, but you seem all to willing to add more to it by shoehorning PS1 mechanics in without considering that we can design better systems now with the added knowledge of almost 2 decades more game experience.
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  3. Amador

    One of the most amusing aspects of PS2 history was when the original developers were vehemently defending the "territory hex system" - a flawed system that allowed for "whack-a-mole" tactics where players would fly behind enemy lines with an aircraft to initiate a ghost cap. Many ghost caps... I was there to witness how annoying it was first-hand at that time.

    The developers scratched and clawed to keep the PS2 "hex system" but only to concede to a hybrid version of the former PS1 "lattice system". The developers were wrong then. And they were proven wrong by veteran players. Because we understood that the "lattice system" would essentially create a front-line system, just as it were in PS1.

    When you play an MMO FPS the whole aspect of the game is about war. And war is a large-scale operation. What made Planetside as memorable as it is, was due to its massive scale. A system that facilitates a front-line style conflict is fundamental to keeping the fight focused and to ensure players are always headed right for each other in conflict.

    We pushed for a lattice system, and we proved the developers wrong and they had to accept their fault and to correct the error. The lattice system is a cornerstone of PS1's game design.

    It is difficult to explain something to a generation of players that likely never experienced, nor can relate to the predecessor of a game. Even though PS1's weapon handling did not weather time well, however other aspects of gameplay did. And many more of them have not been recognized or implemented correctly.

    It is an objective fact that PS1's lattice system had a massive positive impact on PS2's gameplay when players knew where to go to find the fight. And to this day the reintroduction of the "lattice system" into PS2 is all thanks to the "nostalgic" veteran players who knew what made the game work and put the pressure on.

    So when people speak with half-hearted skepticism, I just consider it as indecisiveness.

    When I say PS2's futuristic architecture is far more aesthetic than functional, I mean it. It looks cooler than it is useful and is responsible for the headache of poorly designed bases, which negatively impacts combat. Kinda like how people barely ever bother to use the warp-tunnels beneath bases anymore, because for the useful places where they do go - you'll die in less than two seconds when you pop out the other side.
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  4. Demigan

    So your unverifiable argument is "some veterans were right in the past so everything we say now has to be true". Unfortunately for you I was one of the advocates of adding a lattice system too, and some of the people on the "keep/supercharge the hex system" side were the very PS1 fanatics you claim can do no wrong.

    Veterans of older games tend to romanticise old gameplay regardless of how well it stood against the test of time. For the time PS1 was made it was a great game, but for todays standards its a broken mess. Stairways of doom, limiting players on leadership capabilities just because they haven't grinded enough, bad balance etc.

    You are the old grandpa that tells people "it was better in the olden days" but does not realize that on the other end of the conversation someone of similar age is sitting. You try to pass me off as a clueless younger generation, but I may actually be older than you. I don't just say "ah but X gameplay from Renegade was good there so it can be shoehorned in anywhere", and I recognize that for all its absolutely immense gameplay value it was a deeply flawed game. Just like almost all old games were flawed but simply taught us more on game design while creating their franchises.

    A perfect example of how easily the PS1 vets go wrong is the "we had more continents in PS1!" Argument. Yes you did, much lower populated by bases and terrain features. The argument also ignores efficiency. It is an immense undertaking to build PS2 continents, even if you dress them down. But those continents will suffer the same gameplay issues PS2 already suffers, and much of the continent will never be in use unless a Zerg passes by.
    An efficient use of dev resources would be changes to the gameplay and its flow to make bases and terrain that sees little use now more often visited, to add more capture mechanics that can be rotated among bases after each continent lock for more variety, to make some parts of the game less dominatingly opressive, to add more basic necessities for teamplay rather than keep the PS1 based "only leaders can do teamplay" structure.

    Stop assuming that nostalgia justifies any idea you come up with.
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  5. Amador

    Well you see, there was once a massive TR outfit with a leader whom publicly stated that his sole inspiration was to only stream PS2 and to enjoy it with his several thousand members. When the gameplay failed to improve as the developers fought against their own interests, that outfit abandoned the game - an action that left a particular faction crippled (perhaps even the game) years thereafter.

    This is a kind of publicity and fanbase that some companies would strive to ensure their customers are pleased to maintain or grow in popularity. But somehow the original developers said "no" to the veterans and shot themselves in the foot. Then the CEO responsible stepped down, and with several company reacquisitions later, here we are.

    I'm sure everything is fine here as some make it out to be.

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    As for the continents? Well, the only worthwhile continents are Indar and Esamir currently. Amerish and Hossin on the other hand have been a disaster. Amerish being a rock-climbing simulator where I'd estimate 25% of the terrain cannot be traversed. Whereas Hossin is probably about 70% swamp - anything but how it was.

    Be sure to inspect the picture below closely. The "dark green" areas on Hossin were the only region that had swamps, the rest was a mostly temperate climate with traditional hills and trees. Also observe the lack of symmetry in the continents. Each continent had its own terrain and base placements.

    Amerish was a dismal choice for developers as it wasn't truly "unique" in geography, if anything it was one of the most "plain" territories. If they were smart, they should've re-envisioned Searhus - a continent with a massive central volcano with exposed lava pools to pose as lethal environmental hazards.

    Should also point out how Planetside 1 actually had weather. Like rain. And snow. Fighting in poor weather was always an interesting experience which would come and go at random and over time.

    Where's the weather feature in PS2? Are you sure you're getting the full experience of what a modern game should've been delivering? Are you satisfied? Are you sure about that, now knowing what you've been missing? What about bodies of water? Lakes? Rivers? Bridges that span them?

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    One of the most "infamous" bases was on Solsar with the LLU run between Acan and Bitol on the east side of the continent, which would take a great deal of coordination to deliver the flag. This was the kind of challenge that would make any modern PS2 player ragequit knowing what it took to achieve 100% total capture of a continent before claiming it as your own territory. Yet it's what we had to deal with while playing Planetside 1 on the norm.

    The fundamental flaw is that PS2 is set to be a permanent 3-way, meaning that continent design is obligated to be symmetrical because all 3 factions are always present and cannot be removed from the continent in PS2. If it were anything other than symmetrical the PS2 playerbase will bray into the sky about how "unfair" one particular warp-gate is over the others rather than overcoming the challenge.

    Due to the lack of adequate playerbase numbers to even fully populate two continents simultaneously, I digress from the topic of "world conquest" as PS1 once knew. However I am willing to accept the "Alert System" and an appropriate re-design of Amerish and Hossin, and/or the introduction of the Searhus continent which at least has a unique volcanic feature.

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    ... And make sure the design/redesign isn't symmetrical. Indar is an excellent example of regional environmental and geographic differences that should've been incorporated into more maps. This poses unique challenges and prevents the map from feeling "the same" no matter where you go.
    • Hossin should have one warp-gate that's mostly low-lying swamps. Another warp-gate should have been mostly jungle and dense tree cover. Another warp-gate could've been a more average temperate area, perhaps with flowing water that discharges into the swamps. Keep this in mind.

    • Amerish should have one warp-gate that's high in the mountains, or on a plateau, perhaps even with a light sprinkling of snow for aesthetics. Another warp-gate should have the low-lands with open terrain and rolling green hills. Another warp-gate should have been a heavily forested area with lumber camps and such.
    That's my feedback on how to fix bland continents.
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  6. Moises J.Ramos

    Planetside 2 has been doomed from the start. Im surprise the game is still active, but im pretty sure not getting much revenue. Planetside 1 was just so ahead of time compare to Planetside 2. The only bad thing about ps1 was the gunplay. But you know "mah higby and mah Planetfield game"
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  7. Demigan

    One word: pathetic.

    You pretend that the veterans were almost all the population. You pretend that a single one-faction veteran youtubing or failing at it broke the game. You pretend that I said the game was fine even though I said it wasn't, but that your idea's wouldn't improve it. At least not without modifications.

    So: pathetic.

    Your only justification so far is "the devs were wrong which makes me right" and "I'll put anyone who disagrees in a bad light by outright lying about his words which makes me right". Both are insultingly bad arguments.

    the rest of your arguments are just as bad. "Continents aren't the same as before". Well whoop dee do! What a ringer of an argument!
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  8. Figment

    Sooooo, posting for the first time in years.

    FigmentOfYerImagination, Werner NC CR5. Some may remember me as one of the leadership characters in PS1 and with... a bit of influence on PS2 (among which Smedley considering making a sequel in the first place). I'm for instance responsible for convincing the dev team to make changes to the Sunderer-AMS design (scrapping Galaxies as spawns, introducing a deployed appearance), created concepts for most the PS2 base fortifications like turret side protection, roofing over doors, shielding, getting them to place spawnrooms indoors and protected, tunnels in bases (though they did it differently from what I meant because they had limited resources), teaching combined arms multi-layered defensive level design to Higby and Arclegger, integrating the chat into the menus, coming up with the idea for the player contributor system on cosmetics...

    I mean... Nothing much on my repsheet as a PS2 contributor, right? ;)




    And yes, as all PS1 veterans, we were all very much aware of PS1 not being perfect in every aspect. Many critiques were shared.

    But, just because it is older doesn't mean it didn't get things more right than PS2. And we're not so dumb as to just dump in arbritrary design things into a random game. Well, not all of us anyway, I'm sure there were some as some PS1 players thought the Galaxy Gunship was a bright idea and wanted an outfit cruiser... Oh hey, PS2 Bastion spawn camping. Yay... Never warned against that sort of thing since, oh I dunno, 2007, 2008...



    Let me school you a bit Demigan, about how much PS1 design already saved PS2 design, because initial PS2 design was blatantly inferior.


    PS1 had very suitable gameplay mechanics and concepts that would work perfectly fine in PS2, if not were essential. You may not realise it but a lot of PS2 base and map design was like the most hated part of PS1 base design: the Core Combat Caves (very campable spawns, disconnected structures, large height differences, teleport pads). Basically everything the playerbase loathed and why 95% of combat was outside of the caves.

    It took years for SOE to adress even basic spawncamping with painfields. Oh hey, another feature that PS2 got out of PS1 out of sheer necessity to stop the far worse spawncamping in PS2 (in PS1 people would disable the enemy spawns and with some luck blow up any friendly MAX spawncampers "by accident", but couldn't do so in the caves - like in PS2 - and thus you had more spawncamping there). Since the spawns in the caves also immediately lead to the outdoors and control consoles were only accessible through the outside, you'd get vehicle sieges on the rooms that held spawns, vehicle console or control console, making defense near impossible.

    Furthermore, there was no coherent frontline because the maps were filled with clutter and random pathing. We regularly found firing squadrons at teleport pads, or if you gave chase to someone you'd have to move across a zipline to a predictable point to land or go through a teleport pad where the other one would wait with a shotgun from a different angle than you'd face getting out of the pad and reorienting.

    That sort of camping and fixed point farming remind you of any other game? One from 2012 perhaps? PS2 Bio Labs as the worst offender maybe through its massive disconnect between ground level and base entry points? There's a reason these were farmed as hell defensively.




    In contrast, PS1 had walled enclosures at bases with just a few entry points to the courtyard and inner base, some only accessible by a parachuting attack or destructable Router teleport. That made them defensible, but not unbreakable. Jetpacks in PS2 made walls obsolete and bases permanently indefensible. The jetpack was a horrible mechanic to implement in PS2, but hey. In PS2 the only ones with a jetpack (VS MAXes) were made entirely dependent on other players to even open doors. You traded off power for something else. No doors in PS2 still I presume. The friendly fire shields however were a PS1 player suggestion as alternative.

    The Sunderer AMS replaced the Galaxy AMS for a very good reason: if you can fly, you can ignore any frontline. You'll create a logistical nightmare to anyone trying to make a coherent front advance. You have to connect spawning to the frontline in order for both defense and offense to connect naturally for viable gameplay. Combined with the lattice you get a much more consistent frontline effort, thus larger fights with smaller fight options without as much ghost hacking.

    Map design in PS1 had wider terrain chokepoints, despite having fewer players per map. Yet it already steered combat very well without ever creating a traffic jam, as became too usual in PS2, particularly in the beginning.

    How? For one, the lattice. Second, assymetric base proximity incentizing certain directions of conquest combined with the tendency of people to go in a straight line from A to B on the shortest route (to a fight, even if this means running into a farm). Long bridges (unless you brought amphibious vehicles like the Thunderer or Magrider) would lead to troop build ups on either side and major outdoor combat. In PS2, you can ignore most terrain features except the tallest of cliffs and canyons when in a vehicle, but since the height difference in PS2 is often so severe, you disconnect the fighting to the point people don't even bother. The only spot you had that in PS1 was the Ceryshen bridge which was often impossible to cross. But bypassable.

    Third, very importantly, PS1 forced players to group up into vehicles, reducing the number of vehicles, reducing the pressure on infantry and preventing traffic jams in confined spaces like base court yards (unless I hosted a Sunderer event, ofc). But most importantly, creating player interdependency, creating a bond between people sharing a vehicle and ensuring people would come along with one another to the same objective. PS2 in contrast was a free for all and people lose track of each other more easily. Everyone in PS2 can afford their own high firepower vehicle which they could man independently from others without major efficiency losses as any loss in mobility by splitting up would be compensated for with firepower and hitpoints. Plus you can just switch guns at the click of a button, whereas in PS1 players could get a chance to siege lone players in vehicles and take them out when they'd get out. The only two reasons PS2 went with personal vehicles, was catering to lone wolves and because Battlefield 2 did it too. Shoehorning arbitrary BF2 concepts into PS2 is okay, but "shoehorning" PS1 combined arms concepts in a PlanetSide 2 combined arms setting isn't? Sounds like a double standard.

    Not everyone could afford a spawn vehicle in PS1. In PS2 they can. Outfits cannot define themselves as specialists, because their members can do everything. There's far less identity creation in PS2 as a consequence and making a name for oneself as being good at something, or being the to-go-to person or outfit for certain operations, is therefore much harder. Especially since there's so many more names to recollect in PS2 due to the amount of players. It makes it less interesting to remember individual players and their gamestyle and skillsets.

    Strategically there was more depth and variety to PS1, because of the above, but also because there were more diverse ways of capturing bases, as posted above with unique challenges due to lattice lay-out on top of assymetric map design. The Lattice Logistics Unit (LLU) runs could be crazy convoy runs chased by enemy aircraft. A quick, surgical strike could capture such a LLU before the more sluggish zergs could react. No such thing in PS2, much easier to redeploy where you want in PS2.

    A small force doesn't stand a chance against a larger foe because the smaller force cannot wage a war of attrition on a bigger group where everyone can be a medic or MAX. After all, it is already easier for a bigger group to bring a larger variety of specialisms, but when you can change to any class and bring any weapon, then it's even easier for the bigger group to attack and maintain initiative. In contrast, in PS1 you could strategically and surgically remove the larger group's key players to make the group implode (kill adv. medics, MAXes and wittle them down as the attacking side had longer paths than defenders. In PS2, the defenders often have to take the longer route from spawn to controle console). A far inferior design choice as it leaves fewer options and renders player cert and specific inventory choices largely irrelevant, since you'll just get what you need next spawn.

    The inventory system was also well ahead of its time, where PS2 went with the older class design, not because it was best for PS2, but because CoD: Modern Warfare and Battlefield 2 used it. I talked extensively to Higby about this and it was really just about hoping to lure those players in by offering something familiar, it had nothing to do with being best for the game in combination with other game mechanics. But those are small map, mostly infantry skirmish games with limitedly available vehicles at fixed spawn points on a map, and not meant for long term siege warfare where everyone can bring their own stuff.

    PS2 design is therefore inferior in quite a few ways, simply because it shoehorned in popular game mechanics from games with a completely different scope and purpose than PlanetSide. And that's the problem a lot of PS1 veterans have with PS2 and why so many quit: every time they'd come across a bad design decision that reinvented the wheel for no reason other than stealing features from popular games to be more like those games, without ever asking whether it fit PS2.

    That doesn't mean PS2 has a lot of good things going for it though, even if many things were a long time waiting to get there. But the above are all examples of things implementable in PS2 and would only improve the game and not based on nostalgia, but based on experience of how it would function.


    You might want to be a tad bit less disrespectful to people with experience, Demigan. Even if you disagree, you're actually the one acting on emotion rather than logic. You're heavily relying on strawmanning and worse, you're pathetically doing the very thing you accuse him off:

    - You make no arguments, just ad hominems to undermine his character. And based on lies too.
    - You strawman his points. He states how continents were different and why that made them function differently by offering more diverse challenges, better combat flows and more variation, less stalemates and the option to expand for world conquest, which you reduce to "they were different", which is such a blatant lie by oversimplification. You should just admit you don't get it and need a bit more explanation. Instead, you move to dismiss, which is horribly arrogant and pedantic.

    In short Demigan, you should earn some respect by both showing some respect and getting at least somewhat good at debating. You may want to start by actually wanting to debate, rather than try to shutdown opinions you just don't want to hear or give credit to.
    • Up x 1
  9. Demigan

    Figments is the right word.

    I can't check if the low-hanging fruit of walls around turrets, shields, "roofing over doors" or any other stuff is actually true. But you teaching them combined arms multi-layered defensive design is the way I know you are full of it. There is virtually none, the type of multi-layered defense there is is simplistic at best and the "layers" are often easily bypassable. Only AMP stations have any real multi-layer defense, and that is still a bare-bones multi-layer defense. As for "combined arms" the game never has had any. The "combined arms" is so badly designed that the devs had to add walls and segregate everyone from one another to make sure vehicles didnt dominate infantry. Thats right, the game has anti-combined-arms. Because infantry and tanks aren't designed to work together or provide advantages to one another beyond "we fire at the same target".

    As for my own "repsheet as PS2 contributor":
    - lattice lanes. Sure I wasn't the only one unlike the rest if the things listed below, but the value of limiting players to pick only fights they are winning was good.
    - class-specific underbarrel grenades to enhance class-specificness and add more versatility to weapons (instead became a single SMG).
    - ANVIL's as a way to help balance out outnumbered defenders and give them access to vehicle spawns that can't easily be camped. (Became a throwaway outfit lure).
    - the Forwards Station for Medics as a way to make fights more dynamic and allow defenders to avoid being spawncamped. (Was already being implemented in a much less useful state and was then transformed last-minute into the Router to keep construction somewhat relevant with the removal of HIVE's).
    - the Ambusher jet (although mine had some downsides and multiple charges).
    - 2 topgun designs that were almost added to the game, just to the wrong factions. Was taken off the PTS for unknown reasons.
    - many more that I can't remember at the moment, and those are just the ones that were added in one way or another. I have many more idea's that would do more for the game than everything you supposedly did so far combined.

    You pretend that you don't want the PS1 things rammed into PS2 but then you basically suggest just that. Just like all PS1 lovers. Just in this rant alone you glorify the idea that defenders should get basically a timer before their defense becomes impossible, rather than give them a solid spawnbunker to retake the base from.
    The reason I'm "disrespectful" is because you PS1 lovers are disrespectful to any opposition to your insanity. I've tried to work with you people, read this thread and see how I suggested to modify the LLU idea to fit into PS2, yet that got no response. just look at the guy that made this post. He's justifying everything with "there's something not right with PS2 therefore PS1 needs to take over". You do the exact same, by implying that just because some parts of PS1 had a positive effect, just about everything you name from PS1 would automatically have a positive effect.

    Take the inventory system. Without limits all you see is one-size-fits-all loadouts. Oh sure some snowflake would try something else once in a while, but that doesn't mean the overall gameplay wasn't diminished. The restrictions based on classes as PS2 did is superior for variety. Sure they could have had a class-specific inventory system instead which would have been the best of both worlds if done correctly, but otherwise the inventory system isn't automatically superior.

    You are the one who is disrespectful. You have the same disregard for any critical thinking if PS1 idea's and the same "but one thing of PS1 worked so everything I liked from PS1 must work!" As Amador has. You also fail to see the value of anything you dislike. The LA class with jetpacks is a wonderful addition because of the weapon restrictions it has. It means players don't have to continuously beat their face against a wall as they can flank or bypass chokepoints, it has many tactical values that aren't OP due to the limitations already build into the class. Yet you treat it as if its anathema to any strategy or the game.

    Instead if "schooling" me by disrespecting me, reminiscing about old times and saying "this thing worked so everything else would too!" Could you perhaps be critical about your own thinking?

    Here's a thought: write down 2 PS1 features that you really want in PS2. But instead of pointing to other idea's from PS1 that made it to PS2 or claiming it just works, provide us all with a detailed idea of how it should be added to PS2, how it would fit, what it would do to the playerbase and how it will increase the enjoyment of all players.
    If you can't do that there is no point in "discussing" your monologues.
    • Up x 1
  10. Figment

    But you teaching them combined arms multi-layered defensive design is the way I know you are full of it.[/quote]

    Actually you can, since Arclegger posted in my threads thanking for the assistance at times... Some of the threads been removed sadly (including the one in my sig). But you can find Arclegger on Twitter, go and ask him if he had any use for my input. You want evidence, right? Go ask the people in question.

    Still got Higby on LinkedIn. He's also on Twitter I think, go ask if he recalls FigmentOfYerImagination and what he thought of my stuff.

    Hell, Smedley once said on SOE's facebook page after I posted some concept art that I should work for them. I politely declined. ;)
  11. Demigan

    Is this backwards world? You should be trying to prove your own statements, I should not have to go and look for proof of your statements. I am not going to look on facebook unless you provide the link. It would be the cheapest way to waste my time to falsely claim it and when I can't find it say "ah but it is/was there you just didn't look well enough".

    Also considering the state of the game in the SOE era and some of the mistakes they made its not exactly great to say "ah but they listened to me!".


    Now if you had a hand in some of the convenience things like walls for turrets, great! But that does not mean that everything you say or do is great or should be added.

    And again, what combined arms? PS2's design has been one of active segregation. The balance of power between the 3 arms is so off that its just sad. The very fact that aircraft were made their own best counter and all ground-based AA just deterrents is proof enough of that. Worse still is that even within the aircraft the ESF is the jack-of-all-trades that best destroys other aircraft while the rest is almost exclusively a one-trick-pony. Only slightly remedied by the addition of the Dervish.
    PS2's combined arms worked so well that the devs had to place walls on every single base to prevent vehicles from dominating it. Again: the devs had to actively segregate infantry and vehicles to give them a semblance of gameplay. The fact that the gameplay flow also disallows defenders from rebuilding their vehicle force without requiring a lot more coordination and effort than the attackers also means that the attackers would mostly be able to do any combined arms while the defenders would be without.

    Just adding the original idea for ANVIL's and expanding on the Q-spot radial menu to include enemies with a few easy orders to signal an AV/AI/AA attack using one of the 3 arms would do more for combined arms and teamplay than everything already in the game, and both wouldn't even be very hard to add since they are quite literally already in the game just not expanded in the way they should!


    Again instead of trying to prove yourself by making me look for proof of dubious connections, why don't you give a detailed account of 2 things that you think the game sorely needs and how they would change the game? The best proof of the pudding is in the eating, not the references to who may or mah not have tried your pudding several years ago. You apparently made a thread about it before, so why not do so again? The devs of today might often miss their intended goal but at least they are trying and adding a lot to the game for better and for worse, as evidenced by a lot of the things I suggested making it in (despite being mutilated and pushed into a different purpose than intended just to sell a shiny). so let them know what you want to add?
    • Up x 1
  12. Figment

    You clearly haven't seen the original outposts then. Most outposts didn't have walls, there was no scaffolding so the walls protected an attacker's advance and couldn't be used for defensive fire to fire back at attackers. The ones Arclegger designed were hailed as the only proper bases among them.

    I don't think they overhauled all bases completely, but they overhauled a whole lot of them to add defensive features. It wasn't enough.

    Main bases were barely touched aside from the tunnel additions (which weren't what I meant), but they closed off a lot of walls with barriers so jetpacks had fewer entry points for instance. A lot of early bases only had the main structure and HALF a courtyard or less. Walls had some roofing, but nothing to hide behind. All wall sections were equally open, no slots to fire through, just open sides, which made spamming the walls really easy. Scaling the walls was and is too easy. With maps as they were they couldn't fix everything, but they fixed a lot. If you think it is bad now, you should have seen it then.

    They were positive their decentralized objective play was good though, never could get them to move generators and ALL control points indoors. Never could get them to redesign the internal bases to be more sprawling complexes, in large part because they were invested in existing designs. However, after my instructions they moved spawns under ground, created multiple spots to get out of some spawnrooms (including into main structures), added shielding that had to be disabled and added AA cover and friendly fire shielding that could be used to clean up the immediate area around spawns (I'd have gone a bit further than they did though.

    Guess who taught them to separate and create transition zones between indoor and outdoor combat so infantry had a bit of a playground without being spammed to death with vehicles blasting into the spawnrooms?

    As for there not being any combined arms... Do aircraft and vehicles and infantry run outside together during combat? Yes? Okay! So much for it not being there... Whether it's properly designed and balanced is a different question.

    What you're complaining about, is balance issues that have persisted since PS2 alpha, because, you guessed it, they shoehorned in Call of Duty style weapons and TTKs. Even had a top player from Counterstrike - I think it was CS anyway - come in to handle weapon balance and tuning. Which meant they were going to have really short TTKs, because that's what you get in that sort of infantry skirmish game: quick often random respawns, close to the action, have to keep moving deathmatching. That's not suited for a combined arms siege game, where rock-paper-scissors balancing ought to have been more important than insta-kills with any explosives for example.

    Some of these issues were to some degree present in PS1 as well, but rather than learn from it and mitigate those issues, they made things way worse and never got even on par. It was, way, way worse though.

    And yes, a lot of PS1 veterans called for longer Time To Kills, next to reducing the amount of vehicles by consolidating players into fewer vehicles (separate driver from being a gunner for one), so that vehicles, particularly in zergs, wouldn't dominate and overwhelm so much outside and infantry gameplay would be more viable and more fun by reducing the sheer amount of fast TTK threats, particularly the armoured ones.

    Sorry. No... No, you really didn't. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you've made your contributions. :/ But if you think any of those things like grenade launchers between classes matches scrapping the Galaxy AMS and especially the Spawn-inside-flying-Galaxy in favour of a ground one, eh...

    Those defensive features? They made it possible to at the very least come out of the buildings and return fire... To make a defensive stand. At that point, most doors had NO shielding structures in front of them or over them. EVERY window in every sub-building could be used by jetpackers (window blockers did not exist). You could not repair a turret, because you would be completely exposed. You could not stand inside a tower without being shot at by vehicles, because there were neither walls or internal walls. Overlapping wall segments for cover didn't exist either. When there were walls, they were unusable by defenders and boxed them in, rather than support them. If anything, most the times because of the way PS2 walls were and in some cases are designed, they were/are more useful to attackers than defenders. But it used to be worse.

    Wow, that's a VERY specific claim. Quote please? You sure you're not putting words in my mouth? Where did I mention a timer?

    And of course I'm talking about PS1 things, because the response called for examples of positive PS1 contributions to PS2... I'm not here cramming in the bad stuff from PS1, because there was plenty of that too. I'm also not here to provide examples from other games that would improve PS2 (and that I fought for in the past ), simply because this isn't the thread for that. But hey, you do your selective reading and interpretations, great.

    You're a fool. Just because someone proposes X amount of features from PlanetSide 1, doesn't mean they're asking for a carbon copy. Only a fool would want a carbon copy. What PS1 players have always wanted is a game that took the core principles of PS1 that were good, remove all the bad stuff and improve on the rest. Which is of course subjective, but to most PS1 players what was good and bad was pretty much self-evident, which is why people were aghast that many of the core basics were scrapped in favour of things that did not fit in the PS2 concept, but "new" people, not knowing the difference, assumed to be the One And Only Way because what came before "Must Be Bad".

    Are there nostalgics involved? For some people for some things yes, but for PS1 players with nostalgia we're talking mostly cosmetic things, like the soundtrack of the NC being "all wrong", or the appearance of units and suits. Those who wanted third person restored often had playstyle preferences, but often times it'd be about the situational awareness they missed that provided a lot of important decision making information that enhanced their experience and reduced frustration by being able to make more informed decisions and plays. Particularly when faced with overwhelming odds, vehicle campers, etc.

    When systems and combinations of mechanics are discussed, there's a very distinct reason to do so, because their PS2 experience was inferior to what they knew. Nostalgia would suggest the only reason of disliking is "change". But a number of changes were very much welcomed by the PS1 community. Just that the devs failed to understand PS gameplay to such a grave extend, those likes were easily drawned out by the dislikes and the failure to understand replacing something that worked fine by designs that conflicted with each other and often hurted gameplay.

    A lot of the design decisions at the start of PS2 were uninformed and from inexperience with how such a game works. There's no nostalgia involved there, it's frustration with being stuck with inferior design due to ignorance and inexperience (and personal preferences/convictions) on part of the dev team of the time at least. You can't dumb that down to saying "you just don't like change", when there's explicit reasons to do things differently and in some cases that meant having to introduce supportive or interacting mechanics or other design considerations. And yes, those would often come from PS1, but I've also seen plenty veterans propose combining those with mechanics and design from other games, whether MMO or not.

    You cannot argue that it's just a nostalgic conideration.

    Do realise you consider disagreement with your personal view and proposing an alternative from another game disrespectful.

    You sling insults and expect respect in return? You indicating such hatred and grudges that you're unwilling to even consider someone's statements objectively, you're only out to undermine them. You only met me just now and you're already grouping me, putting words in my mouth, insulting me and all because I dare oppose your view. Pot? You're the kettle too.

    And? Thus you can stereotype "you people" as all the same and all sharing the same opinions? Dude, if you had ever been in PS1 forums, you'd know that everyone had their own opinion about everything small or large. HOWEVER, there's a HUGE concensus among PS1 fans on a lot of PS1 things that never made it to PS2 and that's for good reason. Because some things were beyond questioning as they functioned very, very well and would fit in this game as core principles. The problem was that the devs who started work on PS2 had no idea how PS1 worked, never played it (their noobishness was painful to watch when they came into PS1 for an event after PS2 beta - they mucked about without any idea what they were doing). These devs took what they knew, BF2 and other shooters and tried to copy that into a larger world without understanding the consequences and what would and would not work on a 64km2 map, let alone the logistics of defending bases of 1km2.

    You on the other hand are automatically against stuff because of ageist prejudice that something that came before must therefore be worse or inappropriate, or even obsolete.

    You're putting words in people's mouths again... Man, you're impossible to talk to and therefore work with. You should take a good look at your prejudiced attitude, because you claim you're openminded, but you're as narrowminded and self-absorbed as they come.

    I named a list of PS1 things that would have had a positive impact. The actual list is about 50x longer, but these are some of the more important ones. The stuff that wouldn't fit well is also about 50x longer, but why should I mention those when discussing things that would be good for PS2? I mean, you don't even realise that one only talks about things one considers a boon for the game and naturally not the stuff you don't want in.

    In fact, you may not have noticed, but I mentioned a number things I wouldn't want in from PS1 that did make it in. But hey, who conveniently ignored that?

    Maybe you should have tried the inventory system before suggesting everything would be the same for everyone. Especially considering specializations in PS1 meant you couldn't even put the same stuff in as someone else.

    Here's something you can't do in PS2: some outfits used MAXes on raids for bringing stuff for OTHER players and acting as intelligent storage boxes with medical supplies, engineering supplies, ammo and equipment to repair base consoles so those with less inventory could focus on bringing enough ammo, hacking tools and healing equipment.

    What you miss is that the inventory system created trade-offs. Bring A and perform X longer or B so you can do Y? With the same inventory size, people would have 3-5 different setups for various situations, but most would be different from their peers as those would have different certifications available. Yes, ammo boxes were the same so you could loot ammo from allies and enemies if you had a compatible weapon.

    In PS2 this is dumbed down to an engineer spamming infinite ammo resupplies. It's a weak solution that ignores attrition aspects of combat.

    You know me so well after one post. I'll roll my eyes in the meantime.

    Wow... You think weapon restrictions (which existed in the inventory system too with size slots and would therefore affect all classes) is on par with the tactical benefit (and detriment to the game) of ignoring any defensive structures? And where exactly have I stated it is BAD that there are weapon restrictions to classes?

    Oh btw, giving cloaked infiltrators long range one shot kill weapons and accurate, spammy medium range weapons. Brilliant idea for balance... Not.

    You can have bypassing moves in many other ways that don't create abusive high ground camping, that do not make a defense impossible, rather than hard, but possible. This is largely down to map design and available classes and skills, such as sabotage. Sabotage is a largely overlooked aspect of PS2, there is some to it, but it's simplistic, crude and generally stupid. On the one hand it's not limited properly, often too easy to do and also doesn't have the impact it should have. The effort/reward/impact balance is off by a lot.

    It's funny because you completely missed the point. The point was that you were going "you just want shoehorned in for no reason", where I posted examples of "shoehorned in" PS1 concepts that saved the game from an early death because the initial design was so hopelessly bad.


    lol. You really have no idea who you're talking to. You should have looked at some threads of mine. Those that still exist since it seems there's a whole development and feedback forum gone missing.
  13. Figment

    You really should have seen how bad it was. Mind, I've never been happy with PS2 base design, especially the big ones. I've made ample redesign threads about most base types that wern't picked up on.

    I never say that and I always provide a rational and demand c&c (comment and critique) on whatever is suggested. I'm an industrial designer and aerospace engineer. I don't go over a single night of ice and weigh all pros and cons, particularly in relation to potential abuse and combinations and interactions with other systems. I'd have made much more sweeping changes, but at the least it made a lot of the game playable. It really wasn't remotely sustainable before that because their design waseven more taxing and exhausting on players, particularly any defense attempts. People just left when they were attacked, there was no fighting on anywhere near equal footing. The only (way over-)contested bit was that one tower in the middle of the continent, again because of bad map and lattice design and excessive terrain features.

    The power balance has been a PS1 player complaint from the start.

    When last I played there a few outposts and towers had somewhat proper vehicle pad protection, at least roofed. Courtyards were problematic. In PS1 we had a design issue with the protection of vehicle pads as well, you could spam it with Flail artillery (instantly kill anyone waiting in a 8m radius of it). It'd also be a prime target of orbital strikes, Galaxy Gunships and bombers. That should have been adressed when the Flail was introduced. It never was.

    The Vehicle Pad in caves was worse: it was inside (vehicles) and on top (light air) of a different building, so basically served the sieging force once you couldn't get out of the spawns. Basically what you got in PS2 most the time.

    The only vehicle pads players liked were the Tech Plant's, which had a 50m access tunnel from deep within the base for vehicles and two airpads accessible from indoors at the top of the base. You could use this corridor to fight your way out, for instance by letting a Sunderer go out first to disable any minefields. The indoor pad's consoles was on a raised level over the entrance door, providing a defensive choke point with high ground advantage for the defender. That's the kind of thing we'd ask for but not get and get desillusioned with as what we often got was the worst of both worlds (spammable air/vpads).

    But there's more issues in PS2. The way the hacking of consoles works for instance takes over individual consoles completely, changes their faction one by one. In PS1 it'd be temporary access that wasn't openly noticable by the enemy (only whenone lost the control console would terminal access be denied - until hacked open). The defender always owned it however. Far too much annoying micromanagement in PS2 having to recapture each console. Things like how this worked didn't need to be revamped, but the devs designing it simply didn't know how it worked in PS1 and started from scratch, often making similar decisions to stuff from early PS1 that was changed based on player feedback.

    You have to realise that PS1 too has gone through a lot of iterations, particularly in the launching days, where different mechanics were tested until a good combination was found. And those systemic designs were pretty intricate, interacting with other systems and had far reaching consequences, often passive. Hence why so often you'll see "packages" of PS1 implementations being suggested. That may sound like just wanting PS1 back, but it's specific sections of mechanics that interact in a particular way that made it work so well symbiotically.

    What would also have helped would have been the PS1 voice macro communication tool that was intuitive, expansive and extremely useful in directing people during combat (and also to taunt or communicate with enemies :) ).

    Just two? :/ I got hundreds of things to do differently. But I'll pick two, see at the bottom.


    Devs always miss their goals. I don't blame them as long as they're willing to learn and improve. They're human after all. Don't know who the current ones are, been away far too long.

    Problem is if I'd start overhauling this game, for balance and small vs large teamplay sake I'd have to take away a lot from players who are used to certain power and certification combinations. A lot of people are used to being overpowered for almost a decade, since they're the ones who could stomach that design.



    If I were to start with changing anything to PS2, the most important one would still be how vehicles are operated. I'd move it away from the Battlefield 2 mechanics and back to a system where you'd have to get out to change seats (so you can be engaged while doing so and can't instantly start spamming in the most advantageous weapon, giving time to respond to a newly arrived threat). I'd change it to where few drivers in multi-crew vehicles have access to an offensive weapon. And if a driver gets one it would be the weakest on the multi-crew unit. So dedicated drivers and gunners. Multi-crew vehicles would be approximately 2.5x stronger than low cost solo units with a similar role. Note that a majority of players on forum agreed with this, even players who came in from different games (I had extensive enquiries and the fast majority of enquiry respondents came over from other games than PS1 - yet agreed with PS1 veterans).

    This would promote teamwork and grouping people in the same vehicle, creating stronger bonds between players sharing the same combat experiences and due to a strong reliance on one another would get more of a comradry feeling. As a gameplay consequence, it'd reduce vehicle spam significantly, reduce vehicle camping, especially by solo vehicles (and when they'd be there they'd be easier to counter as solo driven tanks would be stationary more often) and thus increase the ability of infantry to fight in the field at the same time.


    The other thing I worked on a lot then that was very popularly received and was soorly missed from PS1 was an intercontinental lattice, so you could fight through a warpgate. Threeways quickly become stale and boring. I had suggested making placeholder copies of maps until such time that new maps would become available. I'd also introduce sanctuary continents as secret staging grounds.

    This would mean on all maps a faction could fight their way to a warpgate and through it to the next continent and blocking access through that warpgate, until control would be broken. Would not apply if said warpgate would lead to a faction's sanctuary. It also would ensure that combat wouldn't always be in the same areas for a faction until a warpgate exchange (which would be triggered by a global domination). make warpgate structures inactive until you had conquered certain linked lattice facilities on both sides of the warpgate, to create a logistical burden on the continent invader and provide strategic objectives to enhance or undermine a continental campaign by a faction.

    There's a lot of other things I would do, not all strictly PS1, so ask me about those too, since the above are clearly PS1 inspired (and improved)
  14. Demigan

    I have seen it. What makes you think I didn't? Better yet: What makes you assume that I didn't and say it as if I am clueless?

    The reason it was "way over contested" was that it offered players exactly what they wanted: A large-scale 3-way battle that lasted. The gameplay flow of capturing bases has never been satisfying and should have changed from the start. It has too many lulls in the fighting, too much waiting and too many points of time where one side is simply incapable of doing anything else than wait. This is why the Escalation update which supercharged the capture-the-continent gameplay hurt the game badly. It promotes only fighting easy fights, leaving when a fight seems tough and even promotes letting allied territory fall so you can capture it and get it's benefits.

    We need more bases like the old Crown and TI Alloys, not less. It is what PS2 was build for and should amplify rather than destroy like the devs are doing and you are basically promoting by saying it was overcontested.

    The power balance has gone through many iterations, that does not mean it's automatically the best choice. The package deals being suggested by all PS1 players without alterations are a symptom that should be fought tooth and nail to get a good and fitting situation out of it. Great examples are the LLU, which players want but fail to realize that with the current gameplay flow it would be too easy for attackers to get away with it once they have it. So you would have to turn it around and bring the LLU towards the base you want to attack instead. This could also give PMB's at least one task to complete for the main game by shortening the distance an LLU player has to move. Another great example is the ANT runs to resupply the defenders. It just puts a timer on the defenders in PS2 and with how attackers are virtually guaranteed to have vehicle superiority it means that resupplying that base is almost impossible. It also means the attackers don't have to worry about bringing in ANT resources, which even if they did have to would be a chore and much easier for them to complete. It would also limit the size of fights as a large fight would deplete defender resource much more rapidly. So as always: The PS1 idea's need much consideration before dumping it into PS2.

    Just looked it up. It would not be bad, but it would still be limited in how easy it is to keep information in check. If in a 96+ battle many players are using this system it becomes impossible to keep track of who said what or who does what. It is a self-limiting system in that sense. You could improve it by adding visual markers on the map. You can see a request (Disable their Generator!) and who accepted it (mouse-over and you see SexyBearNSO). Even that would have it's kinks, as multiple players trying to achieve the same goal would quickly make the system bloated.

    A very bad idea.
    Let's use a real-world psychological concept used in gymnastics for children. Let's say the teacher organizes a non-American football match. If all children were active footballers with a reasonable amount of skill it wouldn't be a problem, but because all of them are of different skill levels it presents a psychological feedback loop. The players who are good will get the ball the most and be playing the most, they will enjoy themselves and will be more active at sports. However the players who aren't as good will not enjoy themselves and have less desire to participate. To remedy this a good teacher will add a second ball. The most skilled children will play against one another, but they can only vie for one ball at a time leaving the second ball for the less skilled children.
    Your idea is great for players who are already invested, but will punish anyone learning or not as skilled for trying the vehicle game. They will require more effort to get players together to get a vehicle up and running each time they die while they are less skilled. This creates a cycle where the good players who already learned vehicles and have players to cooperate with will enjoy more and be more encouraged to play vehicles while newer players or players without specific friends to play with are discouraged to play vehicles. Not a good outcome at all as it would also discourage anyone not already invested in teamplay to do teamplay. Again, you and others might be loving it to bits, but it will be discouraging many many others from doing it.
    Then there's how fights progress. One side wins the vehicle battle and is able to become the attackers, placing Sunderers at the next base. The defenders already have a much higher requirement for gathering new vehicles to combat the attackers, that just increased.
    The only balancing factor would be boredom. We already see today that when a base cannot be fired into by vehicles that many topgunners and even their drivers will leave the vehicles behind. Having a situation where the most vehicles are taken out of commission because their drivers and gunners have nothing to do is not good for the game either.

    Taking away from vehicle players to force them to work together just so infantry has a chance is not a good method. SOE had been going down the nerf road for years already and it never went well. How about we look into giving infantry a chance to fight back instead of nerfing vehicles?

    Also every time this kind of thing was brought up the majority also said "and then we boost vehicle firepower back up to annihilate entire rooms with a single shot". Not exactly encouraging. Something about the majority being always wrong right?

    Of all the things the intercontinental lattice is probably one of the worst from PS1. 3-way battles are the best, and if you look at the good old bases like TI Alloys and The Crown then you can see that you are actually in the minority. Best part is that it does not prevent players who prefer a 2-way from doing so. Since you can simply pick a fight at the sides of the continent rather than the center. You are actively looking to destroy the gameplay of others for your own gain, without regard that not all players enjoy your gameplay.
    The intercontinental lattice is fraught with problems, some that can be overcome. For example you have to find a way to switch starting continents to prevent players from burning out. Fighting on Hossin for example is hated by many, imagine the poor faction that has their main warpgate on it. This in turn could also be their defense, as any opposing factions might not want to move there to fight once they have the opportunity. The middle continent would also see the most fights, burning people out faster as they see the same bases on the same area's. So unless some kind of method is devised to swap continents regularly this is already a problem.
    More problems come from the gameplay flow around capturing bases. Currently the average fight will take place around halfway each continent. When another warpgate is reached it is as a Zerg or ghost cappers. The intercontinental lattice would just encourage the same cheap gameplay that the Escalation update did to win the continents. We don't need more, not unless we have an actual good gameplay flow for capturing bases and moving to the next base in a way that is enjoyable for both defenders and attackers.
    And even more problems is with player counts. You promoted the lattice system since it would not be a clusterfornication of simply choosing a base to capture, and then bring that right back with the intercontinental lattice. You would spread players over a much larger area at any one time, not a good idea with a game already going lower and lower on player counts.

    Again you are essentially breaking down the game for many players for your own enjoyment. You are actively looking to destroy the obviously popular 3-way fights in favor of a system you enjoyed, but that would not really be good for PS2 at this point in time.
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