Nerf this, buff that, give everything to large outfits, leaving the rest to be cannon fodder. What an ugly mess Planetside has devolved to. Vehicles camp in large numbers with no ability to repel. Infiltrators are now the frontline fighters and cloaking is the only thing that matters. Sitting with uneven fights in spawn tubes and farming for kills is not my idea of fun, fair, skillful gameplay. To add icing on the cake, nothing ever get's addressed in terms of long standing bugs from horrible perfomance, even worst looking graphics since the implementation of DX11 and chronic sound bugs. The list can go on. I know there is a struggle to reel in new players and make profit. Somewhere along the line, the developers have lost sight of the most important factor of all of this, fun.
Fun should definitely be the focus. I think they should focus on the following core principles: - refocus on achieving goals instead of kills. Directives, certs, medals and the prominent KD all focus on killing infantry to gain it. Achieving a hard victory on a chokepoint is much less rewarding for most of the game's reward systems than farming people with a big gun. Focus on rewarding player achievements as a team, focus on rewarding players for achieving specific tasks, goals and challenges (say killing MAX's and vehicles over infantry). - focus on making underdogs feel good. While the above would already help a lot, having more ways for the underdog to feel rewarded and enjoy himself (not counting masogists) is also important. That means that even if a Zerg outpops you with 10:1 odds that the average player* can still enjoy it. This can be done through shifting mechanics that take the population disparity into account and give access to abilities like ANVIL's to gain access to vehicles without the need for an easily camped vehicle pad. Or making spawnrooms that actually let you mount a solid counter offensive instead of working as a chokepoint against the defenders. - a focus on MMOFPS rather than capturing territory The current focus from alerts, resources and Outfit Wars focuses players on avoiding fights and making fights completely one-sided. This is the anthisesis of what PS2 was created for. The game should reward players and outfits more for fighting hard battles than for easy ghostcaps or zergdrops.
God yes! Every freaking login my first 1 ~ 5 deaths are from stalkers. Have complained but nothing is being done. Then there seems to be certain groups of players, don't know if it's hacking or what, who are extremely hard to kill. Two days ago, a base on Amerish. There was a single player, not gonna mention their name because I don't know if it was a hacker or not, who mowed down 8 people like it was nothing, who were all shooting him at point blank range and he would not go down. Myself, 5 feet away, from behind, head and back shots, getting no indication of 'hits'(the red x) at all. Is this hacking, server lag, what???? Thing being, it's happening more and more every day. Unloading a clip into a player, they don't go down, they turn, bang bang YOU are dead. WTH??!! Won't even get into the weapons nerfing. Ya have a weapon that works, you spent 1000 certs on it, certain people cry that it's working, weapon is nerfed into obscurity. Rocket launcher 'lock on's' are a perfect example. You've hit the nail on the head here and player numbers, one would think, should be waking someone up to take action. But no. I remember a time where 2 continents were always open. Lately there's barely enough player to make one continent fun.
The whole game is a mess, all it takes to kill it would be a good Battlefield like F2P shooter to pop up. - Gun mechanics are way too wonky, especially the automatic weapons lack a lot of punch compared to everything else. - Faction balance is way off in all fields. - Balance overall is practically non-excistent - FPS rates are very unstable even on modern hardware One of the biggest selling points is even the most dissapointing one, as big battles are the least fun thing in this game due to the 4 points above. Personally theory: The only thing that kept Planetside running was the purchase from Enad Global 7 to get the IP of DC Universe and Everquest - Planetside was just within the package and got dragged along with those two properties
I have to disagree with all of this. For example we found out that PS2 had its earnings re-routed to support Everquests and other IP's, stalling PS2's further development and maintenance. It was quite literally PS2 keeping the other IP's aloft. PS2's gun mechanics are overall pretty well done. The only thing that could be done better is TR getting more horizontal recoil than other factions even on weapons that are almost the same. Overall they let players be masters of different aspects (controlling recoil and controlling COF are different masteries and most games just have one or the other). The biggest downfall would be that CQC weapons lose much more power at range than ranged weapons lose in CQC on top of some accurate weapons eclipsing COF mastery so much its nigh useless at higher skill levels. My theory for why PS2 still exists is that its unique. Its the only MMOFPS title currently out there. The big battles are the biggest and main attraction (while things like Alerts and Outfit goals try to murder this). PS2 has survived many many other games, even Halo infinite is dying already because its both failing at its gameplay and doesnt have something unique like PS2 has. The devs should focus on that MMOFPS aspect. Alerts and Outfits should be focused on creating big somewhat balanced fights and try to win those over choking any fight to death for quick wins. The rewards all need to be altered to focus on the team instead of the individual, like rewarding the breaking through a chokepoint (either the attackers managing to break through or the defenders managing to push the attackers far enough that the chokepoint isnt necessary anymore) or reward the completion of overloads and point captures as a communal achievement, the guy guarding a doorway nearby can be instrumental to your success and not be rewarded for it at all currently.
The press releases from EG7 after the purchase never mentioned Planetside, they made clear that they want to get hold on DC and Everquest primarily The last thing the TR needs would be even more horizontal recoil as that is already the problem behind the faction balance. It's the hardest to compensate recoil, unlike the NC that just has to pull the mouse downwards a TR player has to estimate correctly when the direction change happens within milliseconds, move the mouse to the opposite side for the next milliseconds and already make an estimation about the next direction change - all that within less than a second. Or do the most reasonable thing and manually shoot in bursts, which makes the higher RoF trait redundant in return. NC and VS guns are still effective with full auto fire and do kill the TR player between the second and third burst. There is a reason why the guns considered the best in the TR arsenal are the ones that are copied from the other factions. A general problem with MGs is that their range bracket overlaps too much with shotguns on the lower end and Scoutrifles on the higher end of the scale. At the distances a shotgun stops to be a serious threat the MGs also lose a lot of damage, making them inefficient in dropping an enemy. Scoutrifles like the Warden or AMR are capable of winning on every distance against automatics due to better control (lower RoF) and higher damage output per shot. A lack of competition doesn't make a good game, and a lot of failed games had unique features as well. Planetside holds the world record for the highest amount of players on one map and no other game comes close to those battles, but that's nothing more than a marketing point if it's not fun to take part in such battles. There are a lot of gamedesign choices that don't carry the concept of the game, such as: - TTKs for the most common weapons that promote duels with dodging and such, impossible with huge amounts of other players around - Weapon stats that promote CQC encounters - Maps not made for supporting the gunplay, cramped corridors or open plains and routes to flank with flanking being not a viable tactic.(Zerging from different directions not included) - No effective counters between infantry and vehicles in high player numbers (high TTKs and weapon stats again at fault) Ironically Planetside would be an A+ grade arena shooter with 16 vs 16 matches on enclosed maps, simply because it works very well for duels and small team encounters, but in the bigger battles all the things that make small encounters great handicap the game a lot. There is neither enough time nor room for individual duels, switching from one target to another is highly ineffective and in the end it all depends on who can bring the most guns (zerging). I even would go and say that Planetside Arena could had been a success if it would have been a small scale Planetside 2 experience instead of trying to jump on the battle royal train. Comparing Planetside to Halo is quite off though, as Halo is an arena shooter and Planetside a class shooter like Battlefield with combined arms. Halo failed because of the way too high TTKs, lack of mode selection and a stupid progression system, but it kept the established design rules for an arena shooter. What drags Planetside down is the choice of making a class shooter but implementing arena shooter gun- and combat mechanics into it. Just giving the weapons more range, a bit more accuracy and slightly more punch in terms of damage would straighten out the arena shooter feeling and make the famous big battles more dynamic. That could be fixed with the point above, making the gameplay more dynamic like current day warfare rather than the 18th century line infantry approach we have now in the game would actually support the team aspect. Currently it's a deathwish to leave the own flock of teammates to engage the enemy or protect a flank as the enemies can easily win through sheer numbers. With the changed gunplay it would be way more viable for smaller groups to spread out or a single player making a daring move. Initiatives like holding a doorway, trying to protect a reactor or such without having a big group of teammates around are oppressed by the way the game is currently designed, as the chances of failing are way to high. WIth a higher chance of success or at least still having a good outcome of a failure we would see way more effort in doing stuff that helps the team
Planetside has always been a numbers game. Many stalemates until one team gains a temporary numerical superiority in one battleground. There is/was a way to deal with protecting flanks. It was called having a competent field commander in the field in charge of a platoon of responsive players. One who could get the message of the enemy hitting a flank hard and redirect his entire platoon to that one focus point to repel the attack. Now, given the mixed bag of Daybreak pursuing the COD crowd plus a player community (particularly on reddit) who have a visceral hatred of anyone who uses their free time to try to train and lead players into combat, should it be any surprise the condition your beloved game has become?
yes exactly. While PS2 was earning them money they pumped that money in Everquest and DC because they didn't care about PS2. I understand your confusion the way I wrote it. I meant "TR gets more recoil and that could be done better by equalizing it to the other factions". Otherwise I would be asking for weapons that are similar on the TR/VS/NC to be worse for the TR by default, which is the opposite of what I want. Although there is a caveat there: higher damage tier lower ROF weapons are at a disadvantage overall as they are punished more for misses. But looking at the COF per damage point the higher damage tier weapons don't have superior accuracy. So having more horizontal recoil for all high ROF weapons (of the same weapon group) regardless of faction would be a good way to balance this. That's not correct. Compared to a shotgun and a Scout Rifle the MG has far less range where it's not as effective. That's the whole advantage of MG's, they aren't too specialized and can be used in a far larger amount of situations without being disadvantaged too much compared to shotguns/scout rifles. I didn't say that PS2 was great just because it's unique, I said that despite it's flaws its still played all these years later where more successful games have already perished because it is unique in the market. So the goal should be for PS2 to focus on that uniqueness and make it more fun. Also fighting big fights is the best thing in PS2. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean the rest doesn't like it as well. - TTK is a slippery slope as it depends on a lot more factors how much it matters, like size of the models, the average speed players move at, movement capabilities (walking, driving, flight, wallrunning etc), accuracy of the weapons, modifiers to accuracy, size of the simulated bullets etc. As an example imagine if we gave infantry the weapons and health of tanks and let them 1v1, those battles would be a world apart from vehicle vs vehicle battles despite giving infantry almost the same weapon sets and health. PS2 TTK could be improved, but it's not bad for large-scale warfare. In fact it does rather well: Not such a high TTK that it's a pure DPS battle and not so low that a single player flanking can wipe out an entire squad in a few seconds. - weapon stats promote midrange encounters. The default weapon people carry is not a CQC weapon. In fact CQC weapons are some of the least used in the game. That's because a midrange weapon is still sub-second TTK in CQC while a CQC weapon at midrange is at a far larger disadvantage requiring more skill and cover to just equalize with the opposition. - What? With every class I play my focus is on flanking. How the hell is that not a viable playstyle? - Again, what? In high player numbers infantry finally DO have the numbers to actually defeat vehicles. The comparison was of a modern game which failed because of it's flaws and the fact that it wasn't unique compared to PS2 with it's flaws suriving because it was unique. Also even from Halo CE the TTK's were high. How can you claim that Halo Infinite bombed despite having the high TTK model that the series started with and became successful with? Hell I would love more high TTK arena shooters, as it emphasises skill over time rather than single move successes. Imagine a game where even a sniper rifle would need 3 headshots to kill an opponent. You can't just turn a corner and headshot someone, you have to headshot them, then still have all the skills necessary to avoid damage from your opponent while landing the next shots. That means that a high-octane fight wouldn't be over in the first shot but would last longer and have more ups and downs in just that one moment. I would play a short TTK game on the side because having both would be far superior than just short TTK arena shooters. that would homogenise it rather than make it more unique. As every weapon would become more the same rather than have it's unique ranges where it can be effective at. Also Arena shooters trend towards having high-accuracy weapons, this goes so far that some arena shooters don't even have a COF. The devs should actually focus more on diversifying the weapons and adding more utility type weapons. You really read what you just wrote? The line infantry approach was the pinnacle of teamwork. Everyone had to stick together, fire together, listen to orders to a T. In modern warfare people have a far higher amount of initiative of themselves. Which is why instead of line infantry you now have fireteams and stuff. It's gotten smaller with people more spread out rather than big battles. You are quite literally arguing for the opposite of big battles to take place. Nah, I already do that. My basic gameplay is "don't go to the giant cauldron of friendlies, go to the flank alone, pick off enemies and then wade through them if the opportunity arises in order to give my allies an opening to rush in". The gunplay isn't the problem, the goals and objectives are. For most objectives and average skill players it's far more useful to have either health and a big gun (HA) or avoid enemies seeing you first and shooting them first (Infil). Through simple player-made objectives this can easily change. Give the Medic the Forwards Station (200 nanites) it was supposed to receive and the Medic becomes valuable in maintaining spawns, creating alternative attack routes and preventing spawncamps while the ability to sneak, flank and scout become more important for finding and destroying both the Forwards Station and the Medics placing them. Make multiple such objectives that are valuable for the players to place, defend and for the opposition to find and destroy and you can shift away from the "bad" shooting mechanics and give each type of class and gunplay a more specific value in the overall battle. Yes! And everything you name has less to do with the gunplay mechanics and more to do with the actual mechanics, goals and objectives the game gives us!
It's also annoying that some outfits keep spamming orbitals. It disrupts the ground/infantry fights and the fun we get. Either give everyone orbital war assets, or remove them and don't allow zergfits to overuse it.
My impression is just that the MGs can't bring down enemeis fast enough to counter those. Outgunning a scoutrifle on long range isn't a thing we need, but even on the effective range they leave too much of a time window for getting sniped by the enemy. Pistols like the Pilot or the Comissioner also can outgun MGs fairly easy. A similiar problem is that people with shotguns or even knives have time enough to get through the MG fire into their lethal range. When I played the the weapon directives for scout rifles and shotguns I quite often was surprised that I survived a direct firefight against somebody with a carbine or assault rifle when I shouldn't had. Not being fun is a bit of an exaggeration to be fair, but for people that want to play a shooter they can be getting boring. A common thing I've read from people not enjoying them is the point that it's mainly standing around, firing a few shots and waiting for one side to overrun the other. I refer back to the MGs here - 7 Bodyshots up to 15 meter on average and an additional one for the ranges above that (4 headshots up to high range). I mean are 10 - 15 meter really midrange? And when it comes to headshots on ranges above that it gets wonky with the stats of bullet drop, muzzle velocity and accuracy. The real mid range weapons are the scoutrifles. In short: The automatic guns are underperforming a bit too much for a fluid gameplay in bigger battles on an individual level. It`s the amount of people and the resulting volley of bullets that drives the combat. Sure, but there are massive columns of tanks in bigger battles as well - let`s say it takes 3 HAs to effectivley destroy a tank but there are 10+ vehicles present at the battle. The amount of manpower necessary to fight one tank (or aircraft as well) seems feasible to get together, but the chances to effectivley fight back decreases exponentialy with the amount of vehicles present at the battle. The premise of the game seems to be that a mass of people aim at a single target instead of individually have a impact in big fights, both when it comes to infantry and vehicle combat. I know how it was meant, but those are two different genre of shooters. Halo wasn't a competition in terms of tactical class-shooters like a Battlefield title would be, and having a fanbase that formed 20 years ago is also quite a factor. What makes Planetside unique is that nobody did something similiar so far despite the technology having evolved enough to support the idea , the trend of the past few years were Battle Royals or Hero-Shooters. Being more modern doesn't say a lot though, as it always boils down to the user experience, the key is positive progression. A Planetside 3 that adresses the current problems with 2 would sell better than the same stuff just in a modernized form. They were indeed high, but Infinite took it to ridiculous levels. It`s not that high TTKs are an issue in an arena shooter, but dropping an enemy in a sensible timeframe is important for any multiplayer combat game. Long firefights while dodge dancing break the game flow so to say. Like i said, Planetside has the perfect balance between TTK and single move success when it comes to small scale combat (aside from cloakers and their bolt rifles). As match based shooter with team A against team B it would be on the top of F2P games. It`s just that this balance doesn't scale upwards with increasing battle sizes as there is too much disruption from other players involved. + Map design in some bases isn`t really intended either for supporting lots of players at once I think having carbines and assault rifles having a bit more punch would bring them more in line with all the other types of weapons but not homogenise them. A scoutrifle still would have superior precision and damage preservation on range and a shotgun would still be more lethal in close combat. It would even diferrence them more from SMGs as automatic close combat solution. As ingame example i would say that the NC guns come closest to an improved weapon design. The game lacks some mechanics to promote weapon differences in my opinion. For example there is no effect on weapon size, which means a bullpup rifle wouldn't get a bonus on the more compact design (better movement) and a malus like slower reload for example. The main reason for line infantry was to concentrate the fire of low accuracy, slow firing guns to create a shotgun effect. In Planetside this approach seems very artifiical but that`s literally what big battles look like ingame - groups of players throwing shots at each other in hope to get one or two enemies Giving everyone slow bolt rifles could be a fun event though. And modern warfare is highly team orianted as well in larger operations, without each group being coordinated with the others it would end extremely badly. I think attacking or defending a base would be way more fun if the small group approach would be more effective as combat would spread more around other locations like generators instead of just a few strays trying to blow it up and 1 or 2 guys lurking around them. Without the need to have the majority of players defending the main line there are more players that can go to secondary targets. I do that, too as really nobody ever covers their flanks in this game, but in big battles it's really not a gamechanger. And that boils down to the gunplay in the way that you may take out 1, 2 or with luck 3 people in a large group without really weakening the enemy enough before getting shot. I think I only had one flanking move that really made a difference, but that was just taking out a Mana turret and 2 guys camping in a doorway. I mean this more as individual archievement rather than ingame rewards. Holding off 3 from 4 people that want to blow up a reactor all alone is satisfying, despite failing the task or preventing an infiltrator from slipping through the back door. In big battles there rarely are such moments as it takes quite long to deal with a single enemy out of a group before another one can be engaged.
