I’ll say it once, the roadmap on construction bases is a step in the wrong direction. It’s new maps and content that draw people back in to check things out. Ok Oshur and Esamir were mistakes, keep moving forward. Planetside 1 had far more maps than this and why stop at vehicles, your not done yet making new ones. NSO is a half finished job with no where near the weapon choices or vehicle armaments of the other empires, finish the project. Even cosmetic choices are lackluster. The Dervish needs more work, the Chimera needs something as a tank to make it unique. 4 seats, why not add 4 seats to all MBTs and 2 seats to lightnings while we are at it.
Maps arent going to fix anything. All you’ll do is introduce more maps with the same systemic problems that the current maps already have. And every change so far was bad. Hossin, Esamir, Oshur. And even if one was good what would happen? People would have a preference for one map over the others and leave faster when those maps arent on. What would work better is more ways to use all the bases and unused terrain the game already has available, ways for people to have substantial fights in regions they now rarely see, without having to Zerg there and not having a good fight once they reach the less frequented area’s. That would already do more for the game than adding another map.
Reworking maps and shuffling the lanes does nothing. It’s been exhibited in bad releases like BF2042. The map reworks did not bring people back neither did the reworking into a class system. The only thing marketingwise that brings numbers is new content. Escalation for PS was a great example, as horrible as Bastion Carriers were, people came in droves upon release to check things out. No one comes back for map reworks.
If they made it so the game would not be 99% zergs avoiding each other, that'd be a swell start. How to do that? 1) Make defending equally valuable to attacking, by awarding defense points equal to capture points. The same for outfit resources. 2) Make it so bases can change outfit ownership depending on who defended them the most, but I'd limit that to 24+ fights so there's no incentive to have someone relog and attack jsut to defend it with 1 guy and get the base for your outfit. 3) Make engineers and medics count for the capture/defense score again. Their score being "farmable" is a bizarre argument, it's not like reviving teamkills nets you points. Okay, keep ammo drop XP locked out, whatever. Those can be farmed, but the rest really can't. 4) Outer spawns that activate when the defenders are locked into the spawnroom, reo reinfocements are not also stuck in a camped spawn. Those should be random so they can't be camped (say, people spawning there will be dropped in a pod somewhere within 150 m of the middle of the base). Technically this can also be done by smart leaders with Galaxy drops, Steel Rain and rapid Sunderer deployment, but these days unthinking zerging is encouraged, so I guess we gotta work under the assumption any group bigger than 20 is led by a napkin if anything is to be achieved beyond them complaining they now have to think.
Of course it's boring, the devs come from a design philosophy of "every player has a 50:50 chance of winning in a 1 vs 1 engagement regardless of the situation".
But they do STAY for map reworks. The Escalation had the marketing for people to come back. In fact they promised much of what I’m proposing: make all territory more valuable and make players have a stake in territory. All tied with promises to fix some problems like the non-existent teamwork and rewarding players for it. Ofcourse that all failed and players left again because it did not live up to its promise. The solution? First solve the systemic problems that plague the game. Like how much territory is only ever seen when Zergs pass it by or when the devs decide to make defending territory virtually impossible just to get movement on the map. Or how spawnrooms are death traps rather than the perfect place to start retaking the base. Or how vehicles have little in the way of achievable goals except killing most of the time. Fixing those things increases player retention. Or how every base functions much the same (CTF could have easily solved that if bases randomly changed between KotH and CTF gameplay) etc etc. Then you make a big content update with all the marketing bells and whistles. “Look at us, we just added X and Y!”. People come back and they won’t be staying until the shine rubs off the update, they’ll stay as they’ll find all the problems from before were fixed. They’ll be able to have fun without constantly running against problems with the game.
I don't understand why they make new content - then bin it. Esamir for example - during the shattered warpgate campaign, we got some new gameplay mechanics, including new resources to gather (the plants) and the ability to salvage enemy vehicles. Why where these gameplay mechanics not extended to other continents to add some variety? The seasonal events too are much worse. What happened to collecting pumpkin seeds, random cosmetic drops or those crazy grenades. The problem with most of the new content added to PS2, is that it's only available to Vets and outfits. Things like Orbital strike, colossus, bastion, ASP etc are all things that noobs suffer at the hands of - but cannot take advantage of themselves. Even things like implants are not easy to get into. There is very little to attract the new, low BR or casual player.
If I were to suggest the roadmap. 1) Would be New player experience 2.0 live mode, not a tutorial zone, yet a arrow marker voice navigation mode suited for helping new players learn the game during 48vs48vs48 mid region fights. 2) Have Oshur, Esamir, & Hossin even more entertaining for Vet Infantry fights. 3) Then rework the alert system so only half the alerts are for territory ninjas & zergs. So the new alert win would have something that brings fights to the least played regions. Brings people to campaign quests. Else brings players to trench and jungle fights. 4) I'd suggest giving pub platoons class crash modes, so pub leaders have the option to get all their players as one class. " All infil pubs " " All engi pubs " With ui help. 5) Then market ps2 for YT some more, & look for ps3 sponsers. 6) & lastly fix construction way after Oshur is better for infantry fights, way after Oshur has its water fights fixed, & after Esamir has shattered warpgate jungles returned. Infantry jungles with spawn rooms, similar to how Pommel Gardens is a boulder maze & has a spawn room, so not with silo spawn tubes for jungle fights. As running miles to the shattered warp purple tree fight from a spawn tube wasn't what we wanted. We wanted a real spawn room near the purple trees. So yes have construction have a few more items given to Ant's. Yet rework Ant gameplay far after making more infantry bases for Oshur, Esamir, & Hossin. Then tree jungle infantry fights as well, purple tree vietnam for infantry. Altho before all that, the player numbers are dropping last I heard, so they have to make a 2.0 new player experience first & tutorial zones aren't good enough for that. Yet 2023 is gonna be a odd year for gaming, as I'm pretty sure the entire world is getting ready to throw a revolution verse late stage capitalism. & I myself am returning to nature festivals. So besides Blue Protocol & some anime shows, a few MTG arena daily's, kinda spending less time with the pc myself, after 4 years of games. Either way some of the " best free pc game lists of 2023 " for youtube have videos featuring PS2, so ps2 still is going to get mentioned for 2023, as their really isn't many fps, free or otherwise, that are as sweet feature wise. Also not many fantasy mmo's either. So if you quit WoW long ago, and don't play Path of Exile anymore, theirs really not much out right now. While Blue Protocol looks above average, Ashes of Creation isn't that revolutionary, so the future hasn't shown anything that is going to overthrow anything else. So just enjoy whatever hobby you want till the system isn't just about street jobs.
10 years and 5 maps is really bad, PS-1 which was an older engine had double the maps with caverns. Add Cyssor, Solsar, Ceryshen, Forseral and caverns. There are tons of things they can still port from the original version. Even the tower fights were decent, They can do so much more for content - Assault Buggies, WASP, Deliverer Variants, better AMS's, Switchblade, Phantasm, Sunderers were never popular in PS1 and PS2 forced them as AMS's, sheer horror driving those things. Advanced Combat engineering, implant terminals, medical bays, cloakers actually hacking vehicles, emp grenades that actually jammed vehicles. A cargo bay in the Galaxy, I can go on and on. Instead of kicking the can down the road. Containments sites was a noble idea but a dismal failure as a base design. Time to go back to basics making more maps with the basics and going back to old base designs. Forget capture point construction bases. They can do plenty of maps with traditional bases and crank it out.
I find containment sites entertaining, just they have the run flanks to be shorter and better areas to park sunderers. Elevators, something.
