Problems with PlanetSide 2 as I see them.

Completely agree.

And I'd point to ps1 for the fairly obvious solutions to these issues.

Great post Buzz, the vehicle vs infantry dynamic you mentioned is something that I've never even thought about, but after reading your post it makes way too much sense to be overlooked.

Good post but you should practice what you preach buddy. Don't know how many times I've seen you farming a spawn point from your liberator. Calling you out. The main problem with this game are the people playing it. Doesn't matter how much you refine and shape the game into what it is meant to be. People are always going to cheese it up.

If ever there was a TLR, this is it. This Omni Post would be a lot better broken up into several threads so each can be discussed better or better yet, contributed to threads about the topics which are already going into the subjects with great analysis.

Why? Its really hard to disagree with any of the points made with out seeming like one is disagreeing with the whole damn thing. And which things that need discussion because Buzz is not correct in all their assumptions get drowned out as topics talk over each other.

In before you think I just want to slag on Buzz's post(s) / dissertation: There is a lot to agree with there too. And if anyone curious looks around, they will see I have brought up similar points in other threads that specifically tackle the broad range of topics Buzz highlights.

Yeah great post, unfortunately we'll have to wait forever to see some fairly straightforward changes.

I agree, I love infantry fights, I remember in PS1 how much more my gun was used than my rocket launcher.

i'm... suprised

i read that whole thing, without checking who the poster was, untill the very end.

imagine my suprise that such a well written series of enhancements to the game would be posted by one of the biggest killwhores in the game.

it also twitches my suspicions circuits.

did you already hit br 100, and now want everything you did to gain exp/certs nerfed so others cant use the exact same tactics you used?

i dunno. a lot of those are just plain common sense, and it makes me wonder why the developers havent thought of these.

I agree with everything you have written, especially the vehicle part since I'm a pretty big tank ***** because I noticed those very same things before everyone else did, but my experiences with multiple SOE games in the past only depresses me because I know that all of that would be better for the game but all you have accomplished is given us a false sense of security that "someone else knows feels the same way" when SOE does their own thing which.....is usually very questionable at best and downright stupid at worst.

I look at SOE games as a temporary thing now and have learned not to invest very much in them. I don't mean to be so negative, but I read your post and think it would be amazing and then experience kicks me in the head and tells me I am stupid for getting my hopes up.

I'm not much a fan of Buzz but he makes great points. Ad Hominem on him just because he makes sense and you can't find something personally wrong with his criticism isn't the way to go. If you want to debate him try actually attacking his argument instead of some guy who plays this game a lot and is a bit of a tryhard.

Good post Buzz. Pretty much agree with everything you said.

I agree with a lot of this, though, KDR is not as big of a problem as everyone making it out to be. It's a measure of individual skill, not team wide success.

As for cert unlocks, I would not give C4 to every single class. Thats just asking for a lot of trouble. Because then you'll have medics spending more time blowing things up than healing team mates. Trust me on this.

In battlefield 2, which i'll draw my comparisons. Only the Spec Ops class had access to the C4. This was so that at least one clas had an active reason to destroy enemy assets. As a mechanic, this worked reasonably well as it encouraged the player to choose this class if something needed blowing up, but rocket launchers or grenade launchers could not achieve easily.

Now in PS2, both the HA and LA, for example can use the C4. This is actually a problem, because the HA should be the one supressing enemies and destroying vehicles, and while you can argue that C4 does exactly that, it encourages the wrong kind of player behavior by allowing the HA to "rambo" at vehicles with C4 in hand, and dying, where he could have simply used his launcher on them.

The LA is a more reasonable choice to wield C4 with, but still the wrong one in my opinion. The LA is mobile, and versatile and can reach more places quickly and more easily than they other classes can, so it seems like it makes sense for them to have it. But if you take into account the placement of destructible object in the game, giving C4 to a class that has access to a lot of places other classes do not gives it an extra advantage already on what it has.

Therefore, it's my conclusion that the Recon class, much like the Spec Ops class from BF2 should have sole possession of the C4. They posses the least durability of most of the classes, they're meant for exactly the type of work C4 is made for. and their cloak should be prohibitive of them discharging a pack while active.

I agree with pretty much all of the points. I would disagree only with removing KDR altogether. While I agree it should be displayed less prominently, removing it entirely would upset a large demographic.

Even if you did see all this stuff, no one would care. Playing to win in PS2 is pointless and doesn't do anything. By extension the "objectives" do nothing.

Every single thing in your KDR section is something that'd be fixed with an actual metagame.

Even still...

This is idealistic and wrong. Killing people in FPS games is and always has been objective #1. It's no different in this game. If the enemies are alive, you can't win the game. Let's be honest, 'supporting' in PS2 takes absolutely 0 skill, even less so than killing people in a vehicle. You don't have to aim your medigun or engineer gun, it doesn't take skill to drive up and deploy a Sunderer and then sit there repairing, it doesn't take skill to drop ammo and then rake in the certs. Support classes are the last bastion of those who can't aim or play smartly.

In addition the value of these roles is grossly overstated by people who must be playing a game that isn't PS2.

Great post, loads of valid points and sensible solutions.

Speaking from the perspective of someone who really enjoys land vehicle to vehicle combat and engineer support; there really isn't any incentive to fit the AP or normal MBT weapons, by fitting HE I'm so much better equipped to deal with infantry and still do respectable (i.e not bad) damage to other vehicles that it definitely needs changing.

The suppression idea mentioned isn't bad, but you'd still get a lot of XP from critical assists, and it actually doesn't really perform the role that you spend certs to excel in, which is killing infantry.

The morality of it is probably one for another post, but I do think that the game needs to have a vehicle based anti infantry solution, the result is increased teamwork on the opposing faction to take the vehicles down, be it in the form of anti armour infantry or calling in an air strike.

The change that needs to happen is for the HE shells to do ZERO/minor damage to armoured targets, including maxes.

It's not balanced that the AP rounds have no blast radius, making them useless against anything other than land or air armour yet HE shells can hold their own against whatever rolls over that hill.

I couldn't agree more with every one of these points.

I can't speak for everyone but as much as I obsess over my K/D, I really do wish it was removed so I can play the game more dynamically instead of just trying to rack up kills and be efficient. I don't shy away from dangerous situations that will hurt it but at the end of the day I also won't be doing someone stupid like running up crossroads hill into 5 magriders relentlessly until they capture it the way NC does or protect a heavily sieged sunderer.

It's very detrimental to team play and only serves for ego padding. At the end of the day you should be saying "We won and took Indar from the TR!" not "Oh man, we lost, but I went 300/1 and got a ton of certs". This game is about conquering land not your own personal record.

As long as this stat exists I have a very hard time ignoring it. It's a very love/hate relationship.

Agreed on all points. Very nice article stating what is actually wrong with the game. While I enjoy playing the game because of the scale the base layouts are atrocious. Why leave my vehicle if I can shoot into almost every important part of a major or minor base?

Even go more in-depth. They put a 5 min deconstruct on most vehicles in the game... Why in the world would I leave my killing machine to capture a point if there is a chance I won't make it back into it to reset the timer? Other than having a few people on the points to capture it faster there is no reason anyone should leave their vehicle since they can actually attack/defend points from inside a vehicle.

I love tanks, bombers, and such and they should be a powerful force. I just wish we had actual defendable bases that were decided by infantry fights not who has the most tanks and bombers outside of my multi-floor patio/balcony base.

While I find it hilarious that Mr. Buzz Tacticool got a bunch of his own clan members to support and bump his thread, he is surprisingly right on most points-minus the shield recharge rate/medics, which are surprisingly casual things to support from such an infamous tryhard. Getting hard to control your mindless buzzdrones, eh? Hard to convince the lowest common denominator to throw away his life I see.

I've been advocating the removal of KDR in teamwork-based shooters for years now. It should be entirely replaced by "Score per death," a much more viable stat that takes into account a much larger variety of roles apart from killing.

Agree with all of it, especially removal of KDR.

Incredible post Buzz! you hit the nail on the head of everything, I mean literally every change you suggested I agree with and find would greatly increase the game play value. Your suggestions seam reasonable to do also, they adapt a planet side 1 style of play using the planet side 2 engine of certs and classes, thus the developers don't have to reinvent anything or start from scratch. I hope the dev team frequently asks you for advise to improve the game. Even as a Vanu player I must tip my hat to a prestigious TR outfit.

I've been an avid planetside player since it came out in 2003 and played Vanu ever since, this isn't a bad game and I do enjoy it but I find myself very frustrated atm and often burn out quite quickly from frustration. Here's to hoping SOE sees your post and responds / listens to it. I've seen your stream and with your play time and outfit reputation you are obviously well qualified to provide top quality feed back and advise.

*EDIT* Also the part about resources really rang a bell, it feels like people are paying Bison dollars for vehicles, unless your on a continent you own nothing of you have an over abundance of useless currency. Even when I pull Magriders and Lightnings on cool down my mechanical metal is almost always capped at 750.