December 14, 2023 - PTS Update

Any of these coming to console???

The main thing about Planetside was the scale of the battles.
With the introduction of CTF, players were asked to switch to the pettiness of fights. As if trying to grab an audience from "rambow six" and "fortnite". Why do we need ground-based air and water-based vehicle when capturing flags?
Even in "Unreal tournament 2004", these types of vehicle were woven into CTF mode at a large location. This mode is a relic of old shooters, even players made rocket jumps for faster flag delivery (the same Quake 3). "Unreal tournament 2004"died out over time, as did "Quake 3", since the planetside meat grinder calmly demonstrated large-scale battles without this CTF mode.

but 15sec is too slow, takes at least this time to get a flag, without resistance

Forwarding this post from another thread.

Infantry players have complained that Sunderers are easy to destroy. Yes, this update is very nice and appetizing for people who play infantry.

But I think a few other things that ruin wars need to be fixed.

1: Multiple Galaxies come together and destroy wars by destroying all vehicles on the map with their "anti-lock-on and proximity repair system".

2: There is also a different group that does the same thing with Sunderer convoys and armored and proximity repair system.

3: NC heavy assault guided rocket launchers launched from a safe spawn point also destroy Sunderers. At least prevent it from being sent through the base, have to go outside the shield to throw it, or remove that stupid weapon. You can also replace it with a different update, just like you did with Striker in TR

4: The NC battle tank is quite strong compared to other empire tanks. "While it has the existing shield feature, you also added a damage absorbing feature to it" and it is an unfair strengthening compared to other tanks.

5: The climbing ability of the TR battle tank is really terrible, I doubt if the people who made these improvements tested them. Although the NC tank is bulkier than the TR tank, it can go back to most places many times and climb with acceleration or slide down and explode. It's ridiculous that a tracked tank slides down from where it came out like a truck with broken brakes

6: Prevent VS battle tanks from going above the high mountains, especially Hossin. Yes, it is a technology independent of gravity, but it cannot be that ridiculous. As if it wasn't enough to destroy all the fighters from here, they shoot down the passing planes and kill the mass infantry fighting below. In short, block vehicles going to the top of the mountain or close the viewing angles on the fronts of these mountains overlooking the battlefields.

7: Dont add new items, packages, etc. to the game. Instead of adding items, First please focus on optimization issues and make improvements.

For example; Server performance is very bad. I've been playing this game for 11 years and server side performance has been pretty bad lately. There are tears in the maps and this often causes the game to freeze and FPS drops. An update to the maps that will prevent these tears and falls is absolutely necessary.

8: And finally, you are aware of how far behind an 11-year-old game is compared to today's games. With PlanetSide Arena, you lost all your capital and the game became a nightmare. That's why PS3 dreams also fell through. But this should not be the end of anything.

Nowadays, REMASTERED modes of many games are released after 5-10 years and have "graphics, sound, etc." We have witnessed many times that it has become great with updates. In short, maybe you don't have enough capital for PS3, but you should give this game a chance for REMASTERED. Because the decrease in players on EU servers lately is quite sad. Such a great game shouldn't have turned into this after 11 years.

I hope you will put aside bringing new items and making money from people and fix these problems in this game first. Afterwards, be sure that you will earn much more than your current earnings

Our eyes bleed when we switch from a different game to this game

What a coincidence, I had planned to talk about flags before the CtC rework was announced. Thanks for giving me more material to work with.



This is the script, it may contain a sentence or two that I have ultimately cut from the video, but otherwise it's exact match:

Hello Planetmans,
Today we'll talk about flags. I'll approach the topic from three perspectives. The first one is the historical perspective, Planetside is not the first game to introduce capture the flag mechanics, but it's not particularly successful, so why did it work better in other games? The second perspective is comparison of the current conduit mechanics with capture point mechanics, how does the gamplay change if you convert a base? The third perspective is the currently proposed changes to conduits that are available on the test server as of shooting of this video. What do they fix and what do they break?


Historical Perspective


Unreal Tournament is one of classic arena shooters that included a CTF mode. It's different in many ways but Planetside retains many of the old school flag carrying mechanics. You can pick up an enemy flag, if you die you drop it. The enemy can return their dropped flag by touching it. Your side can pick up a dropped enemy flag again. If nobody picks up a flag for a while, it returns on its own. This allows the game to continue even if a flag ends up in an unreachable location. In Planetside, the flag also returns if carried for a long time, this prevents bad actors from breaking the game. In a lobby arena shooter, you just vote kick a person like that In some games, including Planetside, you can drop or throw the flag without dying. In Unreal you drop the flag if you use the translocator, but server settings may disallow translocators.

Arena shooters disagree how carrying a flag limits the player's abilities. Most games allow flag carriers to shoot. Most Halos made you hold the flag with both hands, just like Planetside, so you couldn't fire any weapon, but you could drop it. That said, I have watched a few Halo CTF videos and flag carriers almost never tried to fight back. It doesn't happen much in Planetside either, because even if you win 1v1 with the odds stacked against you, that still gives other enemies an opportunity catch up. Halo 4 finally allowed flag carriers to hold the flag in one hand and a sidearm in the other, but it imposed other limits. The Halo series actually experimented with the rules quite a bit. For example in Halo 4, you can't return a dropped flag, you have to prevent enemies from touching it until it times out. Eventually, Halo Infinite made flag carriers hold the flag with both hands again.

Most games also don't reveal the flag carrier on the minimap. At least some Halos do show sprinting flag carriers and dropped flag on the minimap.

All the mentioned games so far implemented only the original mirror match style of CTF – both teams own a flag and are trying to steal the enemy flag while defending their own. Even Team Fortress 2, often objective-based asymmetric game, opted for mirror match CTF.

But I do know one game that pulled off asymmetric attack/defend type CTF quite successfully. Return to Castle Wolfenstein and it's free follow up Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Enemy Territory shipped only with objective-based attack/defend maps. Attackers would have limited time to achieve the objective and secure victory. Defenders just had to delay them and run out of the clock. Two of the original maps included an objective to steal a flag-equivalent items. Since the defender victory condition is always to run out of the clock, there was no need to invent a repository-like game mechanic. The map just designates a drop-off location and the attackers can focus on stealing the objective, they don't need to split their force to hold the repo at the same time. In a server-based game with forced team balance, putting additional defense burden on attackers would make the map too defensible, which is basically what we see in Planetside.

I have not found any other asymmetric CTF games similar to Planetside 2. I have probably missed some, so that's one way you can use the comment section of this video. Call of Duty Black Ops 4 includes a heist game mode, but it's symmetric- both teams can steal the cash, and you don't respawn so it has very different dynamics.

Capture-point comparison

The difference between conduit and capture point gameplay, in the current iteration, depends a lot on how many objectives are in the base. A single capture point, is a single objective to hold. CTF involves at minimum two objectives, a Conduit and a repository. This means that if you convert a single capture point base into conduit base, you likely split the attacker force and make them vulnerable to defeat in detail. But the placement of the objectives also matters, so if the repo is moved to a more attacker-friendly location and the conduit podium isn't too defensible it may, it MAY, just barely... work. Spoiler alert, it doesn't.

But when we consider three or more capture point bases, it somewhat reverses the difference between capture point and CTF. With the exception of Oshur's Excavion, attackers need to hold all capture points in order to have a reasonable capture time. But with flags, they need just one repository and then steal the conduits. Attackers may theoretically be able to out-maneuver defenders with equal population, provided that, again, the conduit podiums are not too defensible for defenders. Spoiler alert, they usually are too defensible.

PTS conduit changes

The PTS changes shift conduits into hybrid CTF/control point mode. The repositories act as control points in respect to the capture timer, but repositories held by the home faction may only by flipped by delivering a conduit. Neutral repositories or those held by attackers can be flipped just like any other capture point. The flip progress is much slower, probably to prevent a single infil from ruining your base capture. Conduits can also be delivered to flipped repositories to accelerate the capture by fixed duration.

In bases with single conduit and single repository, the attackers can focus their force now – initially on the conduit and then transition to the repository. Since attacks usually start with overwhelming force on the attacker side, this essentially boils down to a point hold, albeit with longer capture timer than usual. If attackers maintain overpop, they may accelerate it by stealing more conduits. If the defenders liberate the repository, then it's mostly over since attackers probably can't mount a successful push for conduit at that point. But given how long it takes to flip a repository, it would be over in a capture point base just as well.

Overall, this seems to be a good change to me, though it renders conduits somewhat secondary... pointless.

In bases with multiple repositories, we end up with entirely different dynamics. Even in the face of slight overpop, defenders are usually able to concentrate on a single point and liberate it. In a capture point base, it tends to turn in to a whack-a-mole. But in a CTF base, the attackers have to steal a conduit to flip a repository, so in a whack-a-mole scenario, they have significantly harder task, especially considering where conduit podiums tend to be placed.

Simply put, attackers have to go through a lot more trouble to capture a conduit large base with the proposed changes compared to a control point large base. That's not good considering large control point bases are usually quite defensible to begin with.

I can think of one way to improve this. The repository capture timer math could be modified to make defender repositories count only if the defenders hold all of them. So if attackers holds one repository out of three, the the timer woud advance at 1/3 speed in their favor. If they hold two, then it would advance at 2/3 speed. ( Regardless of whether the remaining repositories are neutral or held by the defenders. ) This way nothing would change for single repository bases.

Repository placement

I think the biggest issue with CTF is that it requires much more careful base design. If you give Planetmans a spawn solution and a point to hold in a building, then they will do a decent job. But holding multiple points is an entirely different beast. The conduit podium locations tend to be defensible buildings and therefore they will be held... by someone. This essentially adds another location to hold. Such arrangement may work classic arena shooters, because it's a mirror match and you just won't see many points scored. It works in enemy territory because the attackers can focus their force and players are surprisingly mobile (that game has more in common with Quake than with COD).

For Planetside, I think conduit podiums should be placed in a no-man's land impassable for vehicles. I want to see tactical use of smoke and infiltrator's sacrificing themselves to push the flag three steps toward the repository. Not gonna lie, I just want to see a lot of dead infiltrators.

Perhaps my most profound realization is that it's very tough to design good bases when you don't have reliable feedback. In a lobby-based game it doesn't matter that some maps are bad as long as they don't drown out the good ones. Devs can then just check which maps are popular. But in Planetside lattice greatly limits the options and for some commanders ambition has priority over fun. Circumstances like population magnitude, population balance, attack direction, player characteristics, etc. also greatly affect the results. I think the devs should allow players rate each battle and collect not only the votes but also the circumstances.

Conduit Carriers

Most games allow flag carriers to defend themselves and do not reveal them on minimap. They also reward them adequately – absent persistent progression, just knowing you have meaningfully, if not majorly, contributed to your team's performance is a reward enough. But in Planetside, there is persistent progression and you get measly 100xp. Anyone who pushed a flag toward the repo should get a share of at least 500xp, you get 750 for a generator destruction which is often times irrelevant to base capture. If Fcs are disarmed and revealed on the minimap, they deserve more, but I'd unnerf them instead. The game already has a decent intelligence system, particularly the spotting feature.


That's all I have. Hopefully the flag update will fix a major pain point of the game. I guess I'll see you next time... yeah this paper is full of topics.

I have also noticed a display bug where the progress bar does not render correctly - I had to switch the faction to flip the repository back and forth. NC, then TR, then NC, it was the final NC trip when the bug manifested.

1 and 2: Yes, that is annoing as hell.
3: It is so boring to fire -> guide ->reload, fire -> guide ->reload, fire -> guide ->reload... pleas give us some more demending, and fun weapon.
6: It needs to be affecteg by gravity. I can aunderstant that it is like hoovercraft but it still brakes my phisics. Basicly without the tracktion force it should have even worse climebing ability then traditional vehicles. Fine, lets keep their ability to reach whierd places with trickjumps on turbo thust, but as it is said above it is frustrating, and ruins the battles when Magrider on a top of the mountain (whitch additionaly looks like prepered especjally for him) kills you over and over, dont let you spawn any vehicle, being almost unable to hit. Even when you take MTB fton other point there is no way to destroy Magrider, because, after one, or even two simultaneous hits it can move back, and repair not disturbed by anyone. Except chaters that is the biggest issue in gameplay in my oppinion.