I've been playing Planetside 2 since May 2021, and I've seen many posts and comments in and out of game remarking how old Esamir was better. Being an old game I'm playing, plus having an interest in the past I want to satisfy my curiosity but I need your help. I would prefer comments from the players that have experienced the pre- and post- iteration of Esamir but even if you are someone like me that only played after the Shattered Warpgate update (1st of October, 2020) Is there something that you see in the past versions of Esamir that the current Esamir could use? Prior to the creation of this thread I've watched gameplay footage on Youtube from years past, browsed the Planetside 2 wiki to identify removed bases, traveled in-game to those bases which once were, and examined past maps of the continent. My investigating has only taken me so far, informing me of what once so enlighten me - Why was old Esamir better? What bases do you miss that have that became snow covered and still are to this day? Would you like if the northeastern warpgate moved to where is now on live but kept the lattice untouched? Was there anything you liked about how the lattice connections used to be?
There is nothing better about esamir since the dumb campaign, everything is worse. And the people that ruined esamir went on to design a new continent from scratch. Look how well that turned out.
I liked the old version and I also like the new one. Esamir is my favourite continent and I also prefer variety over stagnation. Yesterday evening I wanted to play only an hour and then ended up with over four hours, because it was Esamir time. But I can't play Planetside 2 on a regular basis any more, maybe my perspective is limited because of that. What I would like to see is more drastically changing weather / lighting (on all continents) and map mod events like Shattered Warpgate from time to time. How about crashing the two continents Oshur and Hossin into each other? Esamir is not the problematic elephant in the room!
It find it hard to believe that you think there is no redeeming qualities about the current Esamir. There is room for major improvement on Oshur but this isn't the thread for that.
No c*ntainment sites for starters. Biolabs and satellite bases were much better. It may be nostalgia but some of the smaller bases that got removed or altered were great infantry fights, a lot of areas between were very nice for vehicles but that doesn't happen as much today because of low pop. Terrain was mostly flatter and more traversible. And of course, the epic ground battles on bridges and sheets of ice, super fun to play infil and harassers on. The only real issues I had with Esamir pre-SG was : Imbalance of the southwest warpgate having a better position and usually winning alerts because of it Terrain was a tad too open, meaning sundies were very easy to destroy or had predictable deployment spots. If they reused Shattered Warpgate and put it in lattice as a construction base or added a proper dev one, revamped containment sites to have a floor less and encourage fighting outside (ie generators, cap points outdoors ect) and got rid of CTF from Mattherson's, continent would be in much better shape. Ideally we'd also have some old bases like Northpoint Station (instead of Northpoint Ruins), brought back Commander's Rest, reworked the south of the continent and made it so attackers can't use cliffs and surrounding walls to camp defenders in their own base like in Echo Valley, sad to see spawnless ruins where there was a good base once.
Oh, another thing I loved about Esamir, there are lots of jump pads around Biolabs and their satellite bases, you could drift just about anywhere 2 hexes away. Great as a light assault, but probably wasn't the best for vehicle mains.
Giving up so many bases, and getting containment sites in return is something I wouldn't agree to either. Getting to learn the layout of those took a few months for me, and mastering even longer since Esamir is the sole continent that has Containment sites, and because of that, unlike biolabs, I couldn't carry over my experience fighting in containment sites to other continents. Something I noticed with large facility types like Containment Sites during prime time is that they are ignored if possible, unless an organized force plans to take it for its strategic importance,or a mindless zerg of players heads to it next cause its in the lane, and its the only possible base to go to next in the lane. In general they take way too long to capture and will be circumvented like with Ymir Containment Site, or preferably only be capture after its cut off. I don't think these larger facilities would be so ignored so much if held more value to an alert like with the victory points of the past but I'm getting off topic here. I think players really like Biolabs (so do I) cause its protected against all the flying ****ters, HESH hill campers, and other ground vehicles farming infantry, MOVING ON NOW. 1. As I mention in the OP, I believe this was solved for the most part by repositioning it to where it is now. 2. I feel like anyone that has been playing this game for at least a couple years already has an idea of where all the good sunderer spots are already. At somebases they are downright predictable where they going to be parked due to garages. Fighting at an abandoned warpgate would be an amazing set piece. Who knows if it would play out well but its fun to imagine. The Wash as its called now is indeed desolate. I only really see construction bases, and retreating ESFs go there. I had planned to post a thread advocating for reactiviating abandoned bases, like the ones in The Wash, into construction outposts, and updating the lattice to accommodate them but that idea is shelved.
Finally there are a couple of bases, that actually reward all the strategic (= hidden, secret) construction effort! I'm pretty sure the developers had this in mind, when they designed the shattered warpgate area. Honestly, I don't understand why people prefer to endlessly grind at bases like "Nason's Defiance" (Hossin) or "The Crown" (Indar), when Planetside 2 can be so much more. Do you want to play Counter-Strike, well then play Counter-Strike.
Let's be specific. First of all Biolabs are one of the greatest bases in the game for sustaining high intensity infantry fighting. Let's just get that out of the way. Due to jump pads and teleporters biolabs also maintain a unique relationship with their satellite bases. On Esamir this was notably good. The entire Mani "area" was fantastic. The new Mani Fortress is one of the better maps on new Esamir and it utterly sucks compared to the old one. That kinda highlights a thing about the change. They didn't just add new stuff which would have been fine even if it sucked. Instead they removed the old stuff. Echo Valley Substation is the best example of this. EVS is one of the best bases (after tweaking). But the previous EVS was even better! WHY destroy it? Have two bases! Eisa Mountain Pass was on of the best balanced bases in the game. The dual foot bridges, dual sundy spawns made it hard for attackers to spawn suppress, and hard for defenders to wipe the attackers. My God that bases had SO many good fights. Gone. Erased. East River Sky Station. Fun stuff. And then I gotta question the new Containment sites: Why they have not been modified again is just beyond me. A festering bad spot in the game that really kinda takes out a continent, 1/4 of the game. And it's not fixed? Put some teleporters in, something. F'n walking simulator 3000 is what it is. Oh... and there wasn't CTF. To sum it up: They did what DBG does: Destroy good content when making new instead of just making new. It's like someone modifies your favorite music playlist. They want you to be enthusiastic about a song they added for you so they delete a big chunk of your existing playlist so you'll listen to it more.
Of all the Esamir bases, this one was probably my favorite unique base. It allowed armour and air to help, but not dominate. It allowed attackers 2 garages + cliff spawn for LAs. The bridges were pretty balanced to both attack or defend because you could shoot across from both, so you had to hold both or get shot from the other. Double stack buildings are just a good prefab in general. So bummed it got axed.
How would you know? Like you've said, you started playing in 2021 and wanted opinions of vets and got it.
