New players demand to learn and grow into a pro. Pros demand to be respected leaders. Leaders demand to be followed. Once followed they want to be left alone. So where do leaders go when there is nowhere higher left to go? They go back to being new players again, to figure out why some players quit the game, or don't understand the things they learned. Planetside 1 and 2 have never been that simple. It has always had that expert side. It is something only/mostly an elite expert can appreciate, but beginners have to get there too. So let's get started by talking about some things that new players possibly experience. Not to say I am the best expert of planetside, but anyone I play with knows I have a nack for the truly strange in this game, which can be both viewed as intelligence as well as strange and/or nerdy/taboo to outsiders. For example, when the continent is captured, some people like to fight it out on the planet for a little last man fun. Like throwing some tank mines off a tower and deploying to the next continent and still receiving a kill right after. I think most new players experience this when they don't want to redeploy. I have even had some experts yell at new players for not hurrying up. Some people probably noticed the MAX units and engineers turning into some kind of mating game, where the MAX unit attempts to sway as many engineers as he can to follow him. Sometimes to the detriment of the team, becoming the alpha MAX and letting other MAX units die from lack of repairs. They even attempt to use exotic paint jobs and armor designs to distinguish themselves from the beginner MAXs. And then Combat Medics are treated kind of like having a fire extinguisher around. I think this is what freaks people out and shys people away from engineer and MAX units. I think it causes extreme envy in Medics. Especially when they start twerking on the capture points to pass the time. Fun, or strange? Not sure what could be done about this though. All that synergy must be needing some gracergy though. Lightning tank flatness makes a good ladder or bridge: Drive to the next point, get the tank a bit up over where you want to go, point the turret up, then get out and walk up your nice ladder, turret and all, with some nice lights to boot, even without the undercarriage it's still nice looking next to a sunderer. But do most people even know where the light button is at? The controls DO flash for a little bit at the start, but not for long. I doubt most people know the usefulness of a stealthy light tank covering for his buddies in the sunderer until a lightning is chasing them in one. But one lightning can destroy at least five enemy sunderers with armor piercing rounds when every one of them are being used only for spawn points with no active turrets. Easily worth more than the price of pulling the lightning in the first place. Sometimes lightnings are even devastating to MBTs if played right. In fact, most of the starter stuff you start with are some of the best stuff in the game, without the need for purchasing Daybreak Cash. And most people are in a hurry to get rid of it, or to not even cert it. Makes you wonder if PlanetSide 2 should just cert stuff for people who don't want to automatically by picking this as an option. Engineer turrets make good cover, especially the MANA. Get in a corner, throw it down, now you have your own cover. Don't use it, just get behind it. It even acts as a traffic stop in roads by haulting tanks. It can even cripple a Galaxy that is trying to run you over. But again, the engineer is one of those expert classes that not everyone understands. Everyone hates Infiltrators but everyone can crouch and pull out a handgun and play exactly like them without even needing a flashlight attachment. They are even louder than normal infantry because of their stealth noises. Their distortions are pretty easy to see when moving slowly like them. In fact, if people would stop sprinting everywhere they go, and just listen and use cover more, using normal run and hip fire, a lot more people would be alive. Never stop zig zagging when out in the open. Stay low or high when possible. In between is always where they look first. Don't stop at rocks unless they cover your entire body. Snipers are everywhere. Everyone knows this in the back of their minds, but for some reason people just stand still and get their headshot detected by the game server by some sniper that has no idea how to aim but targets that don't move at all sure do make good cert points, and the saddest thing of all is that all it takes is one expert sniper to do it. If you are a gunner, it isn't your job to spot the mines. It can help, but it is the driver's, to not drive over the mines. It is that simple. Unless the mines cover the entire road, you can spot the mines with your spot key for the gunner, and even then, you should just get out and shoot them. The gunner has no control over where you drive. They just want to shoot the enemy with the guns. They hate being yelled at by the expert driver, and the beginner driver will just drive into the mines. So it is at no fault to the gunner. Hossin gets pretty dark, I wouldn't fault anybody for hitting mines there. Not even Smooth Drivin' Willy. So what you don't want to happen, is the beginners to quit. The beginners are going from cold to hot, and if a beginner goes cold, well, then the game isn't keeping enough players. And the experts are going from hot to cold, that's good, you don't want experts beating the beginners too much. You want to buff the beginner weapons and nerf the expert ones, so that the experts are on more equal grounds with the beginners. Some experts will whine and complain, but some will join the beginners, and the beginners and experts will be happy and the beginners will become experts. The time will come when they will all grow cold again, the game will empty more and more, unless more beginners come, and the only way to get more in the end is to change things significantly enough or make planetside 3 or change things up and go crazy, produce planetside 2 mods like Chamberts Moon, CTF:X, Twin Peaks, Bug Hunt, Platform Boarding, The Arena, etc from Infantryzone and put in bots. Actually bots are sort of the next biggest thing coming to gaming. Automated gaming is a huge market now with Nintendo Amiibos in Super Smash Brothers Wii U. There will come a time when kid's favorite thing to do is telling their favorite Artificial Intelligence how to play the game. So now I am just gonna go and leave this here.
