Creation of Planetside 2 Meta Game Disclaimer: long post directed at the development team; please don't post TLDR. I'm trying to help this game get a meta going so please be constructive/ T-UP or T-DOWN if you read it. First of all I gotta say that I really like PS2, the large battles, and the combat gameplay in PS2. In the end though it seems inevitably pointless as the game seems to revolve around zerging an opposing factions base where you take it more or less easily (because there is no significant reason to defend) after which it gets counter zerged by the other team because it is now at least worth certs to them, but the original attackers have already left to zerg the next base because why defend? Anyways, My Goal with this suggestion piece is to provide a means to create a new Meta Game which could be rapidly implemented in a basic form, which could then be developed into greatness (all the while providing new founts for cash flow for the SOE team [$]). Things that the Meta game should to look improve: Create reason to defend, Boost faction loyalty/pride, Boost Outfit pride/loyalty, Generation of Income for SOE. The Meta: Reintroduce concept of 4 resources Auraxium: Obtained via auraxium meteors/nodes Alloys: +1 Resource Gained hourly on tech plant control [+50-100 resources/Hour for faction explained later] Powercores: +1 resource gained hourly on amp station control [+50-100 resources/Hour for faction] Biologics: +1 resource gained hourly on bio dome control [+50-100 resources/hour for faction] Alloys, Powercores, Biologics: are based on large facility retention (tech labs, amp stations, bio domes respectively) which produce resources every hour globally to the faction that retains the facility. A new bar or notification indicating the time required for the next faction wide bonus to be obtained from the facility appears whenever entering a resource producing zone. These resources are globally tallied up at the end of each day and given to every player (provided they have played in the past 24hour period) as well as to the faction pool for that server (faction pool receives ~50-100x the player amount). Additionally, Continent control doubles the resource gain of a certain type of resource produced on that continent. Ex: you control Indar now biodomes produce x2 the resources. Faction Pool purpose: When releasing new weapons/vehicle/upgrade content the new content can only initially be purchased SC[$] until your faction “unlocks” the new weapons for their side, allowing it to be purchased with certs (and maybe the new resources). The idea here is that factions controlling more big bases <may> have access to content faster. This would now encourage large base defense as well as faction pride as you gained cert access to the upgrade first. Ex: New quad-pod infantry rocket launcher is released. Once your faction pool acquires 100,000 biologics, 75,000 power cores and 75,000 alloys it now becomes purchasable via certs. Outfit usage: Outfits may now charge their members a weekly amount of these new resources (based on days played). These are collected and put into the outfit’s coffers to be spent on the needs of the outfit. Large donations by Outfits to the faction pool results in the Outfit receiving a certain amount of the new content given to their coffers which can be given to members of the outfit as the leaders see fit (say new content is a tank gun and the outfit donated 10% of total resources therefore it receives something like x2 the %given(rounded up) so it gets 20 tank cannons to give to its members after the content is unlocked. Additionally Outfits may now create “tags” for buildings/vehicles under their factions control with their Logo at the cost of the above resources. These have standard placement spots on vehicles or are placed on facility walls by the outfit leaders at their discretion (placed like placing turret on a flat wall surface). These may also be bought with SC[$] and outfits have a SC coffer you may donate to. Auraxium meteors/mineral nodes: Faction controlling auraxium detection station (Crown, tech plant on Esamir, The Ascent) can learn the location of next meteor/node event at a terminal there. Meteors/node can appear anywhere on the map (once every 1-3hours or randomish every 30-180min) [create special events: meteorshowers=multiple meteor drops or higher frequency drops] Auraxium is harvested at the node/meteor and can only be harvested once every 5min by an individual and is depleted after a certain amount of harvests(100-500 depending on the site) Auraxium is different from the other 3 resources and allows for smaller outfits and groups be effective as they can defend the node. Auraxium creates interesting conflicts as the node may appear in the oppositions territory (without their knowledge since they don’t control the point) creating battles where you least expect it (WTF WHY ARE THERE 5 TR GALS AT ARC BIOENGINEERING). Auraxium is not part of faction-wide bonuses, but instead is more for individual upgrades/ a means to purchase skins without SC. Auraxium may be converted into certs(Thinking 1-1). Auraxium may be bought with SC[$]. Auraxium is tradable with 3-1 conversion of the other 3 resources (1 of each = 1 auraxium) Team killing near Auraxium node adds 5 mins to harvest timer (prevent greifers). Auraxium Resource is going to be the most complicated to balance and what I’ve put above would likely need some tweaking after testing. Synopsis of implementation: Create reason to defend large bases Faction Pride generated over being the first one to obtain weapons/new upgrades Outfit Pride over defending/assaulting large bases. Vanity tags on buildings. Small group missions for Auraxium harvesting / reason to capture crown then leave it. Creation of a more diverse resource system other than certs and money. SOE Money [$] generation from: early access weapon sales, outfit vanity, auraxium sales. This is just a potential means to create a meta-game in PS2 that I feel could be quickly implemented in basic form (w/o Auraxium) to start to creating a more comprehensive Meta game feel that PS2 needs without trying to re-make PS1. I have some further ideas on the direction you could take this kind of meta and further ways to monetize it, but I’ll save that write-up if you choose do something like this. Anyways, Happy Holidays and I hope you find a way to create a more captivating meta game soon! I’d hate to see Planetside 2 lose its user base too fast so I figured I'd do my part to help get the juices flowing. (I got 3 of my friends to play this great game and they’ve already stopped stating “whats the point”... lets get them back!). Cheers, Whet
I like the idea of gaining ressources for the faction. But somehow this forces SOE to make new weapons / vehicles and stuff very regulary and with the high cert costs of equipment I'm not sure if people would get sad because they can't update their arsenal fast enough. And how did you imagine does a faction buy a new weapon / vehicle / whatever? I mean who decides? Maybe let everyone in some kind a catalog decide what he wants and which item has most votes will be purchased? What I would also like, if SOE makes this: When we have more continents and water between them, plus seabattles, make it neccessary that the factions earn ressources to construct huge battleships. I'm not sure of this should me made for the whole faction or if each outfit can gather ressources and build it's own battleship. The last one would also make a friendly competition which outfit can earn the most ressources and build the strongest ship. Or instead of battleships let us build own bases. I think they announced something like this, that we will get empty continents we will be able to build our own bases on. Make these bases very expensive, so the faction as a whole has to decide where to put a mining facility or fortress. Or let outfits build own bases, that provide ressources to the whole faction but the ones who built it will get a little extra for ther efforts. This would also encourage people to defend. Noone would want the enemy to "steal" the base you worked for so hard. Thing is: Making ressources important could be the key to some kind of metagame.
Ooo, I like the idea of creating bases/resource centers with the new resources by outfits perhaps scalable base enhancement with tiers (destructible doors near gens/ better turrets / more resource generation). This would make you want hold your upgraded bases more, and cause more damage when you take your enemy's stronghold. The faction does not necessarily "buy" the new content it is unlocked over time as the whole faction pool gains resources daily (I suggested 50-100x the rate 1 person receives, but I dunno what would be balanced) this means that everyone will get access eventually, but the side that is "winning" will get it first and thusly can be proud of the work they have done. I'm not thinking that there could really be a "catalog" here of new stuff because that would require a lot of rapid content Creation, rather 1 thing at a time would be worked upon until you discover it. If SOE starts pumping out content then maybe there could be some sort of voting system as to what order things get que'd to be discovered. I agree it could be hard to manage some of the new content additions since the pattern has been to introduce guns with different characteristics for each faction (but then again isn't that the point?) but this could work for the universal weapons/upgrades such as the NS-11A or making new ammo types. I just want more than SC and Certs to matter to me, and dont tell me vehicle resources matter in this game.
