[Suggestion] "ADADADAD" What it is, and how to get rid of it

This. And to add, as much as I hate packet abusing MLG try hard shielded HAs, strafing for the most part isn't bad. Even if the hit boxes are getting messed up, usually in any encounter both sides are strafing so neither gets the upper hand in that regard. It becomes a bit more random as to who wins, but randomness cancels itself out over the long run.

I like how just increasing the CoF would solve these issues while still keeping the core gameplay in tact. Now let's take it a step further. Follow me - I think you're gonna like this.

We already have a movement penalty system that's perfectly usable. For those who aren't familiar, Cone of Fire increases when players are moving, as opposed to still. "Moving" and "Still" are the two motion types in use right now. Let's talk about adding a third motion type to express "ADAD spam".

Below you can see what our CoF system looks like now, and what it could look like with a third motion type:

• Crouch / Crouch Move / [NEW] Crouch Shift
• Standing / Standing Move / [NEW] Standing Shift

"Shift", in our example, triggers when the character changes direction back and forth in quick succession. Teaching the game to recognize this behavior enables Daybreak to moderate it without breaking CoF for other motion types.
Pretty nifty stuff. Readers, what do you think about this idea?

If Daybreak makes the decision in future to make PS2 a "niche audience game" (a smaller and more specific audience), that's fine. But that is not their current goal.

Smed just posted on Reddit:
"Planetside 2 is one of our core franchises. It will be here in ten years and assuming we can make the right choices it can be 10x as big as it is right now (on the PC, not even talking about adding console users)."
source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/3582el/the_way_forward/

PS2 was made with the intent of having a lot of players and making a lot of money. To do that, it needs to be a General Audience Game (a larger and less specific audience). Otherwise, it just can't tap into the number of users it needs to meet its playerbase size goals.

I disagree. The PC version at launch was very General Audience friendly:
1) fewer units
2) no Power Creep
3) short learning curve to be on par with average player
4) Instant Action worked and took you to good battles
5) most players just soloed and used Sunderers
6) New Player experience that was easy to get into (same power level as average player, Instant Action worked, fewer units, follow the masses, everyone else doesn't know anything eaither, low Power Creep, etc.)
7) very few camos in use and most players had easy to see faction colors

After that, PS2 was progressively adjusted to the preference of the Organized Hardcore, and away from General Audience and New Players. And also, elements of Power Creep and Learning Curve kicked in. And also, the games growing complexity was never anchored within an easy to navigate user interface.

You could literally revert PS2 to an early build (the one where players could IA into 1 of 3 choices of good battles) and take out Organized Play-Only crutches (like Squad Beacon), and it would be a General Audience game again.

The problem is not strafing itself but that the engine does not provide enough smooth animations for things like strafing and ducking. The skill should be to improve your tracking aim but targets just seem to jump around sometimes. There is a sort of imbalance where with some weapons you have to "stop and pop" while others are "run and gun" with run and gun weapons with high movement speeds having a clear gameplay advantage in the long run.

What they intend to create and what it actually is are two different things.

PC exclusive FPS games are all niche. They can claim to be general audience all they want, but hardware requirements alone separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak, and PlanetSide was developed from day 1 to be an eSport. That's not general audience.

Let's just examine the 800 pound gorilla in the room: World of Warcraft *groan*

It took off. Millions upon millions of players are playing that game all the time, but the accessibility of WoW is due in large part to its fading hardware requirements: the game is ancient in game years. You can play WoW on a cheap laptop from Walmart these days. Blizzard likes it that way, and they've capitalized on it. All of those "hardcore" features were long ago scaled back to make the game more accessible, to such a point where you can join the game today having never played a day in your life, and get a complimentary level 90 toon.

That's general audience. When you think "general audience" think "as close and accessible as we can get to Candy Crush."

But what about other MMOs? They're struggling. Why? Because, they're simply not as accessible to the general audience, and cheap WoW graphics don't look good at E3. So, right out of the box new MMOs are disqualifying the general audience simply due to hardware specifications. Making the game simple, making the game "Candy Crush" isn't going to attract people who need to spend $800 building on a new gaming rig, or god forbid what it costs to buy one at retail.

The key to success, then, is to work within that niche. If your game requires a GeForce GTX of any kind, and hasn't been developed alongside a main stream console, you're working in a niche, and that niche is highly competitive. They don't want simple. They want depth.

To use another example, Evolve. This game is s***. I wasted $60 on it. Why is it s***? Because, it's a console game with a PC port. I thought, "Hey, maybe the PC version will have a little more depth." Nope. It's a $60 dollar lobby shooter that only supports 5 players per match with absurdly simple mechanics. The guns don't even have recoil. You don't even take damage if you jump off a cliff.

Consolers LOVE it.

That's general audience.

I still see the Salty Evolve Hate Train is still running strong, you starting to run out of things to whine about ?

There's already a third motion type, jumping/falling/jetpacking.

I think it violates the basic principles of FPS.

Ah, you're right about that. Falling isn't documented in gun stats, but it is a motion type. I guess "Shifting" (which expresses ADAD spam, strafe dancing, etc.) would be a fourth type.

So you like strafe dancing, and you think that moderating or penalizing it, even slightly, would betray the core FPS game. Is that right?
I have no problem with strafe dancing in a lagless world, but the rubber band effect caused by packet latency changes the balance of the game - by exploiting a techincal limitation that doesn't apply to everyone. Is rubber banding truly broken? I don't really know - PS2 may already be balanced around it. But if you wanted to moderate it directly, my first response to this thread shows a great way to do that.

So advocate for better netcode, not for turning this into Baby's First FPS® by Fisher-Price. If you're going to get rid of movement you might as well get rid of aiming and just put in MMORPG tab targeting. A 100% lag free environment is only possible on LAN. It's never going to be perfect. It definitely needs improvement though. But that's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I agree with you here - any change to strafe dancing shouldn't remove the challenge from the game. Does that mean we can't touch it at all? I don't think so. Is there room for a 'small' balance tweak? Maybe. I don't think the possibility has been ruled out.

No there's not room for a small balance tweak because skill isn't a weapon statistic. It's not something the concept of balance even applies to. If you're better at dodging and aiming you should win, period. Otherwise the game is basically playing itself. If quick movements are causing bugs the bugs need to be fixed. There's nothing to balance there.

Wait, do are you saying "what they intend" as in "the future version of the game", and the current game are 2 different things?

You used "intend to create" (future state) and "actaully is" (present state).

Please clarify so I can understand and respond correctly.

As far is i know red dot targeting systems, in real life, all work with two red dots that must be lined up. If you don't hold the gun centered, the two dots will move apart from each other giving you a Feeling in wich direction you Need to correct your aim. This is what makes'em so useful.

The sights in PS2 already have some kind of holographic look to them, but it is very subtle and could be used for a better effect.

On the other hand, it is still just an action game. If you want realism there are more suitable games out there like Arma.
For most players movement and aim are a core element of fps games. But changin the very concept of how to Play, lets say from action to sneaking, silent, slow gameplay may as well break the game and empty the servers completely.

I grew up with quake and ut, i correct my aim by strafing, not moving the mouse. It's like an old habit you just cannot quit. The play style in These games is much faster and more focused about movement than the modern ADS-Type Games.
Just imagine: Planetside with high damage hitscan unlimited range weaponry... Like the Kids would cry^^.
The last good game with hitscan weapons was global Agenda, it was epic but died fast.

People need the think before making random requests just because they are not used to a certain playstile. It is not right to dismiss a playstile as wrong, just because you cannot adjust to it...

I don't mind the strafing, but people calling others kids should realize that silly strafing mechanics they are accustomed to, shouldn't be something to brag about. I just think it suits deathmatch arena games better as the mechanic is kinda ridiculous if you truly think about it. I wish I had such a spring in my step.

Oddly I am all for this, I use iron sights often with my carbines and as you stated they do somewhat shift but you do not have to compensate as you would normally. I say oddly becuase although I love this idea it would however make the game more unbarable for me on a personal level because I have a disability which affects the right side of my body including my hand/arm which makes ordinary aiming a hard task for me which is why I sucks so bad at this game so chances are I would just give up if this was put into place :/

Between a rock and hard place.

Intend is future tense because it encompasses the entire state of the game from conception to the foreseeable future. This game was niche before it hit the drawing board. When they sat down around a table and proposed making a sequel (used loosely, we all know it's not actually a sequel, but more of an updated version) of PlanetSide--a game playable exclusively on PC that required and would require steep hardware resources to run well--it ruled out the general audience.

Now, they are trying to capture the general audience with the PS4 version, an idea that was hatched at that same table probably to satisfy Sony brass that has no chance to work because console players are general audience, and SoE/Daybreak is trying to pitch a game designed for a hardcore PC/eSports demographic to a demographic that wants something casual.

That's the appeal of consoles. No hardware to upgrade. No software to worry about. You buy the game, stick it in the box, and it plays. Console players expect things to be what they consider fair, which interprets to lobby shooters where players are organized into matches by their skill level, something you've already pointed out. The typical console player isn't ready for PlanetSide. It's too big for them, and as you've astutely pointed out, it throws new players to the wolves.

So, with that being said, why on Earth should Daybreak care about the general audience?

Gotcha, thanks.

On the one hand, I am super on board with you about the dangers of hardware requirements. It's definitely an issue I've felt strongly about for a long time. Setting a hard limit (system or otherwise) on who can feasibly play your game is going to cost you potential players. And the higher that limit is set (more people it cuts out), the fewer potential players a Dev will have to buy/play their game.

Things like high end graphics or high processor areas/encounters pack other dangers too. On Vanguard, we had to actually remove tons of NPCs from some of the larger cities, because they were too intensive to run already and couldn't handle actually being populated too. So we ended up with pretty but empty cities that were devoid of properly populated content and NPCs: a worse play experience because because we were locked into a tech limit problem by Dev choices.

And I concede that this is a form of niche: high end system owners.

But on the other hand, it's not the niche of players I intended to refer to. Sorry for confusing the issue. So let me be more specific now. I am speaking to the player breakdown of "gameplay preference" and "specific mechanic genre preferences".

Imagine a series of pie charts in a row. Each one labeled for a different way in which players are different: age, system specs, gameplay preference, gender, language, region, income, spending patterns, etc. Each pie will end up having disproportionately sized slices that covers different clumps of users within it. A game Dev should start by looking at those charts and ball parking where they want their game to cover. Then, as they map out their game's details (keeping those charts in mind), they can more thoroughly flesh out those charts, adding in more specific ones as needed for their specific project: specific theme genres preferences, specific mechanic genre preferences,etc.

And here we get to "specific mechanic genre preferences" and "gameplay preferences". And I am saying that PS2 (and SOE historically) have time and again made "specific mechanic genre preferences" and "gameplay preferences" that deliver to a patchwork niche of the game's playerbase (and reasonable potential playerbase) and push out the "general audience" (larger population of reasonable potential playerbase + ever dwindling populations of these players within the game itself) of the playerbase.

It's Hardcore Organized vs. Casual Solo. It's New Player vs. Existing Player. It's high dexterity skill player vs. low dexterity skilled player. In all these areas, PS2 has made choices to specifically cater to one vs. the other, in a game that would have been more successful in getting/keeping more players if it had been sensitive to both (something it was capable of doing: catering to both), or even just focusing on the larger population of the general audience.

Furthermore, I am saying that for DB to make the money they want on PS2, they have to change the game to not push out the "general audience".

Also, for the record, getting DB to budge on "art quality" is a tough task. The artists there (I've worked with some, I know some, I've hung out in their building on a few occasions) mostly don't play the games they work on, and they are very stubborn about compromising (or understanding) what looks "right" for what plays well (function vs. form).

eSports games can be General Audience too. LoL, Dota 2, CS:GO, Hearthstone, etc. currently are in the top of eSports and they have massive General Audiences:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/251222/most-played-pc-games/

Or are you saying that LoL, Dota 2, CS:GO, Hearthstone, etc. would not do well on Console?

I think PS2 at launch is fine for Console (though if they have the PC's current Instant Action and not the casual player friendly version of IA SOE had near PS2 launch, I'm not so sure). Level playing field, not overly complex because Power Creep hasn't set in, etc. But I agree that PS2 will not scale well over time on Console if they just mirror what was done for PC at the same time intervals (just as it has not scaled well over time on PC).

Because not caring about the General Audience is one of their Achilles Heels. Something that is killing them and they would benefit from recognizing and shoring up.

Game Workshop is well known as the company that comes up with great ideas... that others (most notably Blizzard) take and turn into lots of profit. Blizzard is very good at this: Magic vs. Hearthstone, EQ vs. WoW, 40K vs. Starcrach, Warhammer vs. Warcraft, etc.

(NOTE: Games Workshop is no saint here either on the idea hijacking: Dark Future vs. Road Warrior, Warhammer vs. D&D, Space Hulk vs. Aliens, etc.)

But the sticking point is that companies that have a *career* of making the same mistakes (stuff that costs them market share and $) are in a unique position to easily benefit from just looking back on their past and figuring out what stuff they do wrong over and over and over.

For SOE/DB, that's bugs (as the game ages), system requirements, designing for niche audience in terms of "specific mechanic genre preferences" and "gameplay preferences" (as the game ages), new player experience (as the game ages). It's like any sports team that keeps losing for the same reasons... they can take a look at their weak points and shore them up.

Some companies like Games Workshop are in a cumbersome/limited spot (currently) to look at their past and make changes to improve on missed stuff. Largely cause GW doesn't have a Vid Game Dev division (NOTE: their lesson should be to acquire a small one and start getting familiar with it; or make more partner ties-ins, etc. We'll see where their open license thing goes). But many others (Magic/Hasbro, DB) do have a Vid Game Dev division, and they can immediately look back on their misses and start to work on improving in those areas.

TLDR: If you put sh** on your pizza, it doesn't really matter how great the crust is.

You are wrong about how red dot/ reflex sights work. I would just like to point that out. What you describe is basicly just a normal sight. (You complete a sight picture by aligning two things such as posts) a rdled dot uses a single red LED reflected off special optics. This basicly causes the dot to be projected to infinity. It basicly mean if you can see the dot, you are looking down the optical axis of the sight. You dont even need to be looking straight down the sight to get this effect. (But due to optical errors such as parralax having the dot in the center means less "error"

0.75 ADS shouldn't be on any LMG.

When you think/picture a LMG, do you think mobility?