Problems with PlanetSide 2 as I see them.

All ready been said. +1 for op.

Wow wait. Am I dreaming? A Vanu player admitting he's tired of farming infantry as a Magdriver/gunner or Liberator gunner.

There's hope left after all.

I don't think so. I think you're pretty spot on, as an NC playing on Mattherson.

Agree 100%, especially about general game incentives, removal of kill farming and greater reward for defending/attacking territory.

There are major issues with the game ... but there are allso major issues with the players thinking this is big map spacegun version of cod.

KDR means jack **** in terms of being a good productive player and its shame so many dont see this.

I agree there should be something encouraging players to defend map locations .. maybe a passive XP tick for frontline zone taken and held for X amount of time. Bonus for making the frontline zone no longer a frontline zone and ending the tick for the no-longer-frontline zone. This central idea could be altered in many way to make fit the game the best.

Allso a properly significant xp bonus for defensive fighting at a location.

While some great points, I have watched a lot of buzz's live stream . He consistently uses his guild as a farm machine. He checks his kdr, every five minutes and when he gets low he forces guild members on lib runs to farm himself up.
I think team play starts with worrying less about your kdr in the first place. /shrug I dunno, but until the mentally Changes, there will be no team play. Just where can I farm. It's not because of mechanics, it's a choice, you would rather statistically play the game and farm as many cents as you can. Nothing wrong with it, but now that you have your 99 br, lets change the game right?

That's the problem he described: game incentivizes this behavior too much. And he often said that he is not proud of this, but it's how game is designed. It's a simple choice, if you want to do good, then you use what game wants you to use - farm infantry with vehicles, farm certs. But it's not a "free" choice as you describe it. If you want to play without certs, then go on, support your team while they rack up their certs. There are no rewards for playing for objectives, but tons of rewards for farming. That's a problem with the game design, not a "choice".

Plus, you are making a very typical ad hominem fallacy - you are making an argument personally against an opponent instead of against his own argument.

This was a pretty well written post and I almost agree 100%. I clearly see that you want infantry to be buffed while all others should get nerfed. While I agree on most of your points, the game still needs good and powerful vehicles to create dynamic memorable moments.
I mean nobody will remeber the 1000th. basecap or the 700th infantry vs. infantry fight.

I partially agree on the HE on tanks. I think they are fine vs. Infantry! I mean killing infantry is what they are made for. The problem with them is, that they are far too good against armor. The damage they do vs. armor should be drastically nerfed, I mean to around 25% of a HEAT cannon on a frontal hit.

I completely disagree on the Zephyr though. That is the only vehicle that rewards teamplay(in a small scale though). And again, killing infantry is what this gun is made for.
Actually I think the damage against armor is to high, because there is no reason to play the dalton at the moment. Zephyr kills tanks as fast as a dalton if you know how to aim for direct hits.
I would suggest to nerf damage vs. tanks on the Zephyr and give Dalton a reasonable buff.

In the end Liberators should still be the one unit that terrifies the enemy if not dealt with quickly.


In the end the game should be balanced with better game mechanics and base designs over nerfed vehicles. That alone would turn the tide.

Here is my number one change that would make the game 10 times better and more enjoyable for infantry:

Its pretty simple. Add underground gameplay! Add tunnels and connected basements. Add subways and underground passes. This alone would lower the amount of infantry farming vehicles without a single change to them.

One classic example is the amp station. The generators are pretty much indefensible when AI vehicles are around. Why don't you just put one generator under the ground and connect the main building with the generator room via a corridor system?

The same goes for the new TechPlant. Why not put one generator under the ground and actually make it reachable for the defenders. The current layout is a joke.


The key for good map layouts are different ways to reach an objective. In the current state of the game there is only one way to reach an objective, even if you can enter it from an 360° angle. The problem if you go by foot, then you never have a secure way to go. You are almost always exposed to enemy vehicles waiting for the farm.
The only exception are BioLabs and their teleporters. They provide a somewhat safe way to enter a fight with little risk to get farmed by air.


Secondly I would love to see a change to the cert system:

In my opinion its stupid that you have to find a way to farm to max your certs. I mean you HAVE to farm in order to max at least one of your classes. And of course if you found a way to farm you put your certs into the vehicle you use for farming first, to make it even better.

The problem with that is that you have to farm with vehicles to buy infantry certs.

I would add another layer to the cert system. Why not put in a learning by doing system that actually rewards you for playing the game you enjoy it the most.
I haven't thought that out to the end, I have to admit, but why not make a few certs that cannot be unlocked untill you got a certain achievement?
For example your Repair Tool. You should not be able to max the Repair Tool unless you repaired a certain amount of HP.
Same goes for Medic Tool and Hacking devices. This way you ensure that a full time medic is always better than a guy that grabs his farmed tool.
Same goes for the amount of mines. Unlock the second/third mine after a certain amount of kills with this weapon.

The same should go for vehicles of course. Again, this way you could ensure that you can just max something you realy play often and actually enjoy playing.

How can you miss the fact, that he farms the way he does so he can stay on top of the list. You cam have a completely enjoyable game experience at br 35 without running around like a mad man getting your farm on. He decides to use his guild as a farm machine get br. He plays what 5 days a week like its his job, 6 hours. He has burnt himself out.

Like I said he has some good points, but you must take it with a grain of salt. He is not a casual or regular player. He is playing the game likes its second job, first being a correction officer. If you read his post and think he is a regular player, you are making a mistake. Anytime you play that much you have to expect a game is going to loose its appeal.

I think you are kinda wrong. The problem with this game is, that the farm is the number one thing to do. If you don't farm, you fall behind in certs.
Once you stop having fun farming, the game does not offer much else.
They have to redesign the game around teamplay and working with friends. I also lost fun and found myself not playing more than an hour a day anymore.
I played CS1.6 for almost 7 years. There were no certs, no ranks, just the one thing I am missing in PS2: getting better as a team every game. Nobody cares about getting better as a team because nobody cares about teamplay anyways. The "good" players only care about their K/D ratio and about their Score/Hour.
All that is left is the zerg, following them is no fun either. So all I do at the moment is grabbing my scythe and kill stuff and when I am on cooldown, I quit the game -.-

I'm kinda surprised by the number of people trying to call Buzz essentially a hypocrite when he never presented an ethical position against farming but rather discussed the reality of its effects on the game. If somebody recognized that a weapon was overpowered so they used it, yet they also said it should be changed, it wouldn't make them a hypocrite. Using an advantage when you see one is the nature of achieving victory.

Im agree in almos everything but only in the universal certification im not agree. Why i would pay more for a Flak Armour on all Vehicles if i dont gonna use the Ligbt on the Magride? this woul increase the cost of cert with out benefit for me. There is people who use all vehicle but other dont so im not agree with that. In addition maybe the solution is allowed Both option. If you want a universal Flak armor pay x and if you want Flak armor only for your liberator pay x-x(less)

Well said.

+1 OP, Logged in just to bump.

I also logged in just to +1 the OP. I agree with most everything you stated, although I probably don't have quite a big a problem with vehicles as the OP. My opinion is that they pretty much shot themselves in the foot already by making the MBT not require two people working as a team, but that's an old argument. I also think air vehicles (ESF mostly) are still too cheap and powerful for the great advantages they give compared to the small amount of resources it takes to pull them.

I do love to hate and kill you Buzz, but I respect your skill and opinion.

KDR does inhibit players from getting in there to make a difference, rather than hiding and hoping for a kill.
Defending against warpgating on indar is pretty much the only thing that guarantees a good fight atm, imo; the rest is just biolab and crown cert farming.
Ghost capping only became a problem just before launch and continued until now, because they removed the defense cert reward.
It's more likely you would get more certs defending with the 15% bonus, but that is not tangible, psychologically, to most players.
Capture mechanics do need to change, but simply changing influence and defense isn't enough.
We need a reason to fight for a base more than resources.
I like the idea I heard about PS1, where you had to physically bring a power source to a base to defend or attack it.
That would add tactics and make the fight's influence spread farther across the map.
HE rounds are overpowered, we all know it.
It makes us giddy to 'splode infantry as they scurry around like ants under the magnifying glass.
I'm as guilty as the next guy to having become a crack addict to the cert gain as I cackle manically, but it does need a rebalance.
Anything explosive is really king right now, but rather than nerf it to nothing I'd prefer other options get buffed as well.
Listen, I want to stealth and stab, but why try to make what I love most work, when it's so ineffective?
"oh I can one shot with this from far and it kills everything in an area?"
*puts down the knife that you have to use close range and takes two hits to kill one enemy*
Defenders should always have the advantage as I see it in base battles.
Biolabs are getting redesigned, but I hope it stays as difficult to take.
All bases should be that hard to take, or harder, unless they can come up with another way to make me feel like I'm making a difference through added mechanics.
In the end each piece of land should hold meaning to us, and not just be a place to sit around and cap to get an enemy response or to be thrown away like it's nothing.
They should use historic battles and areas of siege warfare as inspiration, to create a living planet, rather than a generic land of meaningless bases.

That's just some random thoughts on what you said overall.
Thanks for taking the time to write that, Buzz.
I hope they see how important it is to us that mechanics be added and reworked after this topic.
See you on Mattherson.

You put some effort into your posting, but I dare to claim that the placement of structures doesn't matter.

If a base can be defended or not depends on safe respawn locations and the ability of the defenders to get back to the capture point alive. Tech Plants could be defended pre-patch, because you could park a spawn-Sunderer at the vehicle terms and/or use the teleporter from the spawn room to get there. Ever since that patch, your respawn Sunderer gets destroyed as soon as the shields go down and you got no chance to get back to that area in one piece. For the same reason you cannot defend the shield-generators. I can somewhat understand that SoE nerfed the concept of the Sunderer at the vehicle terminals, but that they also removed the teleporter to the spawn room is an absolute joke. You don't even have an equipment terminal in the main structure anymore.

In a nutshell: Defense = safe respawn in the area that you have to defend!

We need safe respawn points plus a timer to make sure that every successful defense comes to an end eventually.

I really appreciate the amount of time Mr BuzzCutPsycho put into that analysis.

Here's my take on the subject from the point of view as an "Explosive's Engineer" and overall support type character.

KDR is pointless for how I play the game. I get satisfaction out of supplying ammo, repairing turrets and laying out mines. I will get killed doing those jobs, likely multiple times in each battle. My KDR is terrible as a result. But I'm having fun doing what I do. If KDR continues to be the primary point of Planetside, my fun-factor will likely subside and I'll move on to other games.

Case in point... I've put hundreds, likely thousands of hours into EVE with three accounts. I've worked up my experience and ISK to buy a Freighter, a huge expense. I enjoyed playing EVE as an Industrialist/Miner. Buying low in one market and selling high in another. Manufacturing ships and selling them in out of the way places for a bit of profit. I've recently just walked away from EVE. All three accounts. Simply because it has become fashionable and EASY for roving gangs to destroy Freighters, with no repercussions and no loss of expense on their part. In my opinion, the emphasis on KDR is ruining EVE for the style of gaming I prefer. So as a customer of that game, I stopped being a customer and walked away.

Bottom line. I don't care if 'you' think my opinion is right or wrong about how the game 'should be'. As a customer paying out my few entertainment dollars, I'll walk away from any game I'm not having fun with. I agree with Mr BuzzCutPscho's analysis that KDR is evil as the primary emphasis of the game.

Waldy Angeloak

Please sticky this post - mods. You don't even need to include any of the follow-up comments.

Good post, agree with a lot of it. It's an issue that ought to be at the front and discussed, otherwise this game will die when the next big shooter is around the corner.