Do I Count as a Veteran? Well I've been playing the game regularly for about 8 years now, so I think it counts. Been in my outfit for nearly all of it, and have played regularly every Saturday almost religiously. So yeah, I think I count as what constitutes a veteran of the game. Foreword As a player, I would say I'm a vehicle main, with construction also being in my wheelhouse since I've been using it since it was introduced. I do play some Infantry and will make use of it based on the situation, but given the choice I'll pull a vehicle first. This is in part due to my poor reflexes for shooting but great calculative ability for leading shots. When I do play infantry, I like Engineer, Heavy Assault, and Infiltrators, but I'm comfortable with all the other classes too. I'm the sort of player that has run out of things to spend Certs on. I'm primarily a Vanu player, but I have alts on other factions; something about space guns, spandex memes, and hover tanks really feels like the coolest thing ever. Main Article So if someone were to ask me what I think of Planetside 2 today, I would say it's not great, but it's ok. I feel as though the game has become entirely too infantry-focused, and that every other mode of play has been nerfed or gimped in some fashion to make way for infantry play. I don't like to point fingers, normally, but I have to say it: Wrel was an infantry main, and likely had a rather significant impact on the game's development and balance changes over time. The end result? The game has become a stagnant 1-dimensional experience that gets boring real quick, and punishes solo players due to the tactics frequently used by outfits and platoons. Some of the tactics I'm talking about include but are not limited too: Pop-dumping on a base so that 1 faction has a 70%+ overpop, effectively ending the fight. Zerging, a tactic involving using a large chunk population to push a lane really hard, that is nearly impossible to stop. Its boring for the defenders and most of the attackers because there is barely any fight to be had. Using Steel Rain, Galaxy drops and beacon spam instead of Sunderers for starting and ending fights, making it hard for randoms to get to and stay in fights. With these tactics in place, they definitely get results, but the experience on ground kind of stinks for everyone else. There is a seriously lack of gameplay and "tug of war combat", and battlefield persistence. I have found the best fights to be in are what I called "Tug of war combat", not because the fight ends, but because the fight continues and encourages involvement with all parts of the game, not just infantry. As for the Armor and Air experience, I feel like often there's nothing to shoot at, unless you play A2G vs, infantry; a controversial playstyle to be sure. Also, it feels like I have no significant impact on my faction winning, especially for air, because there is no win condition for vehicles when it comes to taking territory. This is really noticeable on Oshur in particular; a topic I'll cover in a bit. For Construction, I experience a lot of frustration and annoyance. I refer to the "Fortification" update as actually the "Demolition" update. This because the changes to Construction actually made them weaker, and worse at being defensive; the very thing Construction is suppose to be for. The loss of the AI module screwed over any sense of passive deterrence from encroaching armor. They gave a bridge model to place, but because there is not a way to adjust its scale, there is seldom a good place to actually use the darn thing. The module system, while interesting, ultimately made defense worse because it takes more micromanagement to not only build but also to maintain the modules if you're being invaded. It used to be that you could place the module down and it would affect components in a radius, not only easier to contest for attackers, but also made construction much simpler. All those changes were done to make Construction more accessible for Infantry, according to the notes. But Construction was never meant to be anything other than defensive. Outside of the Fortification update, some other complaints about Construction include: The accursed "No-Construction Zones" and the fact there are these massive circles around each warpgate occupying multiple hexes. The one major reason to love Oshur: there are almost none of these on the continent. Building on hills, why can't we adjust Construction objects to be placed on slight grades? Something to wish for. The Flail: the fact you cannot fire into no Construction zones, not even manual fire. The lack of logic beyond game design feels crappy. Why do trees, rocks, and the damn vegetation on Hossin block from placing a construction object!? Thanks rendering the Construction Orbital pointless by introducing a better version that you can fire anywhere, with no setup, and no warning beyond the initial windup of the blast! Lets talk Oshur, or as I call it: "The Frankenstein Continent". I think Oshur was meant for vehicles and Construction, but the problem is territory control relies on infantry captures. So you built a continent meant for one way (vehicles) but never made any mechanics of territory capture for that way. Is it any wonder Oshur is not loved by many? Also Construction is innately defensive, it's not meant to be fun to attack. Having bases rely on Construction for the capture point design is bad. And why capture points!? It works for infantry, yes, but why not something different like a kill count or facility activation? capture points don't work with Vehicles. Underwater combat feels unfinished. What I was hoping for and maybe expecting: Submarines, torpedoes and aquatic vehicle combat, maybe with low visibility. Subterranean underwater bases, maybe they have weird hex connections that are connected via the Trident bases. Maybe a secret underwater research base as a theme. Proper infantry support. Feels like whoever designed infantry combat in water was a Light Assault main. No Heavy Assault Shield or Rockets, no Infiltrator Cloak, no Engineer Tools, no medic tools. Yeah feels rigged. Boats (yeah we have 1), maybe the boat equivalent of a Colossus for Outfit Arsenals, like maybe a mini-Destroyer. I agree with the sentiment of a lot of players, concerning Oshur. It needs a rework, and disabling it until that rework is not a terrible idea. I'm all for making it a Vehicle continent, but let's not stop at 1/2 measures, let's do it properly. So you're all probably wondering, why do I still play? Part of it is definitely the sunk cost, but it's also because I love the game. I love what it's been, and what it can be. And frankly, there really isn’t any other game that can scratch the itch it does. I want the game to be good. But in order for that to happen, in my opinion, we need to make the game have a more diverse pool of win conditions. It needs to have more choices for viable gameplay. It needs to not place too much emphasis on a singular mode of play. Finally feedback, the thing that really ticks me off most about Wrel is it felt like he never listened to the community and just did his own thing. As the face of the dev team, I feel like he didn’t do his job as well as he should. And the game suffered for it. My 2 cents are all well and good, but I implore the devs to take feedback from the community, whether you choose to do so via survey, forums, reddit, PTS, or pigeon mail delivery; SOMETHING is better than nothing. This may be a shocking notion, but we the players have a vested interest in making the game good too. I suspect many of us would love to contribute to making the experience better. Please, I implore you, try something. Anyways, that's the end of my rant, post, or conversation. Feel free to comment, but let's have constructive conversation, folks. I think we all would love to see the game get better.
Why focus Infantry? Infantry vets didn't like Oshur. So still till this day they still need to impress Infantry players. The Arsenal update impressed infantry with items, just not base design wise. Interlinks and Tridents didn't please infantry players enough. It's not just a Wrel thing. Also new players play medics and light assualt skirmisher. Some times of the day for some factions, you'd yell at 48+ guys, and they don't pull a single vehicle for a few hours. The solution to 48+ enemy pop zergs. Is to send 3 squads to ninja 3 other regions of the enemy who is zerging you. However usually the faction I play is the underdog faction and they are lazy amatuers at ninja. I.E. they aren't vs who have ninja pros. The other methods of redeployment galaxy drops, steele rain, and beacons, isn't bad, I'd vote for even more options of mandatory redeployment of these noob medics. Also theirs plenty of times sunderers are parked. If you want more enemy vehicles to shoot at then you'll have to play the faction that uses vehicles the least. NC for US East. As for Air I wouldn't know. After 2k hours, only started to fly more often last week. Weekends def have plenty air to shoot at with multiple bastions. Theirs open A point fields for Land Vehicles. Maybe their should just be some Air open A points too. For one region per map. With some clouds for that location. - AI modules were more entertaining for infantry to shoot. - Ai modules provided more interesting skyshields. - As of now the skyshield isn't able to be built at small zones. So every tiny ravine base you build gets flailed by the enemy. - The new AI system has some perks, more options, buffed regen. - Auto turrets gone is fine, seeing as they were too much of a deterrent at times. Even tho Auto turrets were weak verse vets, they were op verse noobs. - Yes Auto turrets are semi needed to build behind enemy lines solo. Yet them auto shooting every noob sunderer who tries to drive roads wasn't good for new players. - Yet x2 to x4 easier to find allies to help you defend then use to. Harvest team. Theirs just more ant's generally speaking. - With the new module system turrets are x2 stronger and I prefer that over auto turrets. The auto turrets died x2 faster it was no joke. - Running the modules is too tedious seeing as some Infil when your gone just strips all your modules. The fix is simple. Allow people to carry 2 to 3 modules at a time. - Well no AI module makes your base seem less solo defendable behind enemy lines. Yet allies are manning turrets more often if they are nearby. - You got more walls. Even the bridge is a wall. Everything is a wall. Tall Walls. & the walls got more hp + regen. Even max regen module with timer. If you're building solo with environment behind you, then that's a lot of walls. - The new spawn tube building. Even tho too wide. Is still very strong. I had one on the road from Crown to Crossroads. It survived solo 24vs24 for 6 mins. With just the fortress shield module. With enemy prowlers nearby. - Silo build for hills? sure. Yet rather they spend features to edit new medium sized maps. - I don't know bout the construction os statement you said. Yet the new dart system has me getting killed a ton more often, as a stalker. Which is a good thing, meaning people kill os users more often. Just the os dart laser box gets bugged to the screen sometimes. Oshur requires a whole new topic to talk of. & even then wouldn't be worth it. Besides making the mid more entertaining still, that's fine. I'd still rather have them toss Koltyr 2.0 & Nexus 2.0 to the players, gives PS2 a sweet trailer, and all they have to do is minor edit 2 maps they already have. Maps that don't have water for bad reviews and are only medium size to edit the 2. The issue with Oshur is the land lanes are too narrow & the water requires galaxies to be flown which new players are never going to do. So Oshur is not worth saving. It was a experiment. Everyone learned. Move to Koltyr + Nexus Oshur is saved only by making mid field more entertaining then a sniper kill zone with no cover & one tiny garage as the main stage. Here's the most important part; Having Pommel Gardens not hidden behind a enemy silo system. With no link to get there. Making Astira a entertaining DM warehouse fight instead of some abstract ghost town base. I'm not sure what a vehicle cont is. Seeing as Koltyr requires no MBT's so that battle bus gets to be a thing so that's a take away from vehicle fighting to add something else to vehicle fighting. Seeing as battle bus won't exist with MBT's killing them left and right. So Koltyr worked for that. Seeing as Battle Busses are able to fight Lightnings fairly. Yet Koltyr would be more for Rock bridges, warehouse fights, and boulder path mazes for infantry. Nexus I've only fought there one time for outfit wars so I wouldn't know how that is for vehicles, reason to make that map to alert, and not OW. Yet I'd hope for Shattered Warpgate style tree forests added to the sides of that map, with A points, and hidden jungle spawn bunkers for infantry. Desolation for vehicles? Kinda wanted a map for mountains and hills for infantry. A mountain map designed for infantry to fight amongst just mountains. So doubt that'd be good for vehicles. I'd just make Esamir for vehicles. & give everyone that tool to thaw out vehicles from the snow. Making low lvl people more likely to get vehicles.
problem is the game was catered too much to infantry players complaints. over the years every nerf or change that was made was due to some infantry player crying about it "killing the game" just like theyre using that excuse for infiltrators currently. this game died long ago from ever becoming big not because of infils, or any other mechanic in the game, it died back then because battlefield 3 and COD black ops became a thing, with battlefield taking the cake for shooter 11years. i was there so i know because i played both and planetside 2. the base of the game wasn't designed to be the way the game is now which is why you see majority of the continent deadzones with only 2-4 regions with actual fights. the all out random chaos was much more fun. the game shoulda just went the mass fight playstyle, everything strong, didnt matter what you got killed by because whatever your using is strong too. we coulda had lots of cool things added to the game such as mechs, tons of new vehicles, tons of new aircraft, classes, changes to actual bases to have some sort of super weapon/ artillary use once captured. but nope cry about everything to get it nerfed and now were left with a game that plays like a one dimensional battlefield that is plauged by latencyside and the remaining playerbase still hasnt got the message yet on why the majority of players left. because they took out the actual fun things in this game to cater to the balance nerds who have ruined this game with their one dimensional gameplay. my biggest laugh this game has made was with artillery having a "notification" that your going to be hit. that just expresses to me how horribly bad ps2 players are to be crying about artillery killing them all the while they sit in place and expect everything to be fed to them with a golden spoon.
Nah this ain't it. PS2 has core issues that having nothing to do with nerfing overpowered ("fun" in your view) weapons/vehicles Everyone except maybe 5 max mains loved the max revive nerf. It's also laughable that you are defending the flail as well . Just shoot a flail dart at enemies spawns and you'll rack up ez kills with no effort. The flail is what feeds low skill players kills with a "golden spoon" . You probably would've also defended the noobtubes and prepatch model 1887 in MW2 because "fun".
I have been playing since launch - and many decisions taken in this game make zero sense. Why was Max charge removed? Why hasn't Zoe been reworked into something useful Why were EMP nades nerfed and their ability to decloak infils taken away (especially given all the complainst about infils). Why do we still not have a second AA option for Max Why has AV combat on Oshur been completely overlooked. Why were all the unique mechanisms programmed for the shattered warpgate campaign just dropped (like salvaging enemy vehicles). There are too many issued dating back years that havent been fixed (base design, poor game mechanics, blatant cheats etc). Most of the new stuff that has been added to this game only benefits vets and outfits - and even then - only some of them. For example - I have never fired an OS. New players and casual players seem completely overlooked.
Thank you for your perspective as a veteran player, it's clear that Planetside 2 is grappling with significant challenges. The game's evolution towards an infantry-centric approach has marginalized vehicles and construction, diluting the gameplay. This shift, possibly influenced by key developers, has led to a less diverse and engaging experience, particularly affecting solo players confronted by overwhelming tactics from large outfits, such as zerging and rapid redeployments. These tactics have simplified combat, undermining the game's strategic depth and making encounters predictable and less satisfying. Additionally, the role of vehicles and air support feels diminished, with little influence on the broader outcomes of territory control.There must be a balance though to allow new players to constructively and effectively engage in all aspects of the game, not just for veteran players though. A crucial step for keeping the player base going. Your experiences with the construction feature, especially after the "Fortification" update, suggest it has been weakened, moving away from its intended defensive role. Issues like restrictive "No-Construction Zones" and limitations on terrain adaptability have further constrained its effectiveness. The introduction of underwater combat and the partial integration of new gameplay elements point to missed opportunities for enriching the game's diversity. Specifically, your critique of Oshur's design intentions versus its execution and the call for more varied win conditions highlight the need for a wider strategic vision. I entirely agree, the critical importance of developer engagement with community feedback. The perceived neglect of player insights, especially regarding gameplay balance and updates, underscores the necessity for a more open and cooperative development process. Many suggestions, requests, bug request fixes, and game changes appear to be made outside of official channels or even with any community feedback. A start for the developers is to pose the problems facing the community and crowd source a solution on the forums to address it. We appreciate your position and reconsideration of Planetside 2's current direction, urging for a game that values strategic diversity and actively engages with its community to refine and expand the gameplay experience.
