How to improve this game and the underlying flaw

There's a common element and theme to popular, mass-adopted games that is something that SOE completely misses the boat on and that is simplicity, complexity and approachability without sacrificing richness.

I honestly believe this element is a key factor in not retaining players after they first try this game. Say ten people try the game, but only one person sticks around after the first try (just giving an example here). I bet that ratio of people who stay would be a lot higher if this game was more approachable.

For example, take a look at how the CoD series was recently ranked and the comments by the author on the top-ranked version.

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-call-of-duty-series-ranked/

He states, "it wasn't overly-complicated."

Man I agree and I played CoD4 more than any of the others by far and enjoyed it the most.

Take other very successful franchises and that theme is repeated. World of Tanks, which is, by my estimation, successful, is another simple to approach game. It's user interface is easy-to-understand and NOT CLUTTERED, yet still offered the richness and approachability that is crucial to mass adaptation.

I'm not saying design something to the absolute lowest common denominator, but make it so it's simple and intuitive and I'm not talking about just the UI (which is a complex mess IMO), but game elements as well. It can all be made more understandable without making it non-intuitive.

I get the sense that the programmers at SOE always felt that more is better while designing elements for PS2. More, more! The complete opposite of what makes mass-adapted games successful.

Here's another example, unrelated, but a good example nonetheless: the iPod.

There was an article I recently read (forgot the source) where the tech geeks decried that the iPod would be a complete failure, that it was too simple, that it didn't offer the features that people wanted, or so they believed. The iPod went on to be one of the most successful consumer electronic devices in existence for its time.

There's a recurring element in all of this, a lesson. It's not easy bridging simplicity and richness, but it can be done and those developers that can do it have obviously been rewarded.

Are you referring to the UI as in just the menus, or the amount of information that is presented to the player? The UI isn't all that hard to figure out, outside of some of the menus being a bit oddly placed like the voice channel volumes. I have seen many people quit however, because they were having a hard time figuring out where they should go, and where the fights are happening/what the fight there is like.

So what's the problem?

I read the post. I understand what you're trying to say, but you don't even give a single example of what PS2 is doing wrong, what it could do better to reach the goal you are describing, or what the games you mention have that ps2 lacks. Also you didn't make a single example of how PS2 could overcome the simplicity/not overly complicated problem you are trying to describe.

If the point of this thread was that CoD and World of tanks are more popular than PS 2 this thread was a success. Otherwise it's to vague.

The main problem of this game are not the UI, or whatever, the main problem is the playerbase who are mostly too dumb to understand anything. That's at least what annoys me the most in this game. It feels like I'm playing with a bunch of apes mostly, which really doesn't come good in such a team based game.

It really feels like the game was designed for people who really know what they are doing there, but when you play with just average pubs, then the game can get really annoying.

I think you're missing the point entirely and in fact falling into the same flawed and narcissistic thinking that plagues SOE to begin with in regards to what I mentioned.

Ask yourself, why hasn't this game been more widely adopted? It's free? People have obviously tried it because it is free and FPS games are popular, but where are they? Why haven't they stuck around?

I'm merely presenting one possible reason.

I believe you have some good points this game isnt very noob friendly many people will agree with that they added the 100 free certs per level for the first 15 levels is nice but it only lets you mostly flush out 1 class and as a new player youll be trying many as you dont know what really works for you yet. Now the best idea ive seen to combat this and its in other games and has been posted in the forums many times is the ability to swap kits or something simular tailored to work with planetside and a direct copy wouldn't work too well i wont go into detail about the flaws but the basic idea does present itself to solving a few issues the game has.

First it would help new players not feel useless if an ally just gunned down some enemy you could take his kit and play his loadout or your factions equivalent or someting to that degree and you would be able to play as that till you die.

Second it would help the games terrible trial system and VR training issues as they dont give you accurate feel for the weapons but if you get take somones loadout and it give you a weapon you can give it a real world feel.

Third is money some people think a system like this would make people not want to buy things i think it would promote the exact opposite if a new player takes another players loadout then does well with it and enjoys it well hes going to want to play with that same load out and thats likely to make him want to spend reall money on the gun used so he can save certs to get the specific abilities used.

And fourth the above would help with the issue of retaining players.

Now i know theres a ton of issues and flaws in whats proposed here but its meant as a general idea that can be worked out to be an actual functioning part of the game in some form because it would have some great benefits for the game as a whole.

And daybreak knows that. They just haven't been very succesful with their last few attempts such as alerts, missions and whatever else. It seems that most players can't enjoy a game without an objective that feels important. They don't enjoy freedom

Would a player-set objective/bounty make this better? Since most things in this game are already player controled. Examples: "Bounty on south east sunderer of 'current base' for 5 certs", "Get to and help defend 'base name' for 5 certs", "Get to and help capture 'base name' for 'reward'". That way you can still do whatever you want OR a set objective for a better feel of accomplishment. The problem would be adding some more lore/depht to it. "The VS has *****slaped our commanding officer! Make them pay by capturing 'base name'!".

You're never going to make a game like PS2 (and certainly not PS1) that is as simple as COD - it just isn't going to happen.

It is like saying well I want car that had the performance of a Ferrari, the offroad capability of a Landrover and the fuel economy of Smart Car........ which is great, but never likely to happen (or making Dwarf Fortress as simple and user friendly as Angry Birds).


Certainly there's a lot that could be made better with PS2, but to be honest that is as much because PS2 was released in effectively a Beta state, nothing like a genuinely completed game like say PS1 was..... that seems to be the fashion these days though, not just an SOE/DBG issue.




Or to put it another way there's LOADS of things I would have done differently in an idealised world, but equally in reality if I'd been operating under the same day to day contraints as SOE was there's a very good possiblity that PS2 wouldn't have been much different to what it is/was; because businesses generally have to do what they can, not what they wish they could do.

****!NG COD AHHHHHGGHGGHGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most people have an atenchon span of around 5 mins and I'm glad that only the smart and patent pass into the fanbase instead of screaming CoD kids.
Oh god that's a horrible thought!

I never mentioned make this game like CoD, I was merely providing an example.

If you re-read my first post and the example I gave you'll see that amongst the plethora of CoD games, some are more popular than others and the most popular one had an attribute (that the author mentioned) that was and is a contributing factor to why it was the most popular amongst the sea of CoD games.

This game will never experience that high adaptation because it is too complex. There's overkill in everything, especially the underlying components.

They can make improvements, starting with the interface IMO. It's an often forgotten element, especially to those that are use to it, but look at it from a newbie's perspective. That's the first thing they see and it's a cluttered mess with too many submenus and buttons that goes in circles.

That is just one aesthetic example of the many small steps needed to simplify the game. Make it more intuitive, because it is not intuitive at all. You have to start somewhere. Less is more at times.

Heck, even smart people, who enjoy fps games and want to play them without too much thinking, would appreciate these changes. They may start off and get turned off and never to return not because they are dumb, but because they want to enjoy the game, not spend days trying to learn it.

I don't actually think the UI is confusing, to be honest. Everything on it makes sense as long as you tak a second to run through everything you can do - change between items, use your ability, get damaged, change fire modes, pay attention to the level of organization of players around you, etc.. - and see what happens on screen when the previous action takes place. We're operating from the assumption that no one seems capable of doing this, and there's odd evidence that some people can't, so maybe I should feel over-accomplished in that regard. Then again, I favor the distributed unlocking system built into the loadout menus and couldn't stand the blunt nature of the "old certifcation screen," like other players do, so take my aesthetic taste for what you will.

While I am not going to chide you for trying to introduce this into the topic, what you are saying and what the OP is trying to express are rather unrelated points. No, more like "completely unrelated points." While the OP definitely points to (something about) the UI, it's could also be possible to substitute the weapons as a bundle of stats about cone of fire and recoiland decay and everything. Part of me actually hates that we have access to all these numbers and formulas, to be honest; at the same time, I blame SOE's initial depiction of the weapons as stat deprived. Once again, this is neither here nor there as the OP is referring to the UI, not the weapons.

In any case, you really really can't just add "kit swapping" without reworking basic assumptions the game is making, and then the altars of balance and of faction-loyalty must be sacrificied to a dozen times. It really can't be as simple as people say because nothing in this game is programmed to be as simple as it looks like it should be. Everything is root canals, followed by molar extraction, followed by wooden teeth.

The UI was just an example, an obvious one that is simple to fix. But the point being is that there are many (many!) underlying and often overlooked elements that contribute to the greater whole of the complexity issue.

The cluttered map, symbols, colors are another simple and underlying element that can be fixed as well that would push towards that goal of intuitiveness, simplicity and newbie friendliness.

I'm not a game developer so I have no idea the challenges they faced when trying to get all the elements to work properly. I can't fathom another type of UI system that would also support the amount of things that PS2 requires it have.

I think that personalized objectives would go a long way in improving the gameplay.

First of they would instruct noobs what to do.

Second of all they could serve as an personal accomplishment that could replace KDR and score per hour. It could incentivize individualistic players to care about objectives rather than personal stats. I mean individualistic players will still care about personal accomplishment but at least that accomplishment will now benefit the faction much more. (ie "deploy flanking Sunderer and destroy at least one incoming tank" instead of "snipe 60 noobs and don't care about incoming tanks going after your Sunderer")

Problem with implementing that idea is that we need either:
a) Commander interface so commanders can micromanage more easily and issue personal orders
b) Really good AI that will do the job (I don't think this is viable as making good AI is exponentially harder than creating commander user interface)

Did i read this wrong...? not 1 suggestion... Am i stupid?

The game itself IMO still has many issues to fix, bugs, freezes, graphics and system requirements etc, are all quite substantial problems that devs cannot simply ignore. While i do agree this game has a great foundation that can be built on as time progresses, but there are still a lot of problems in general.

But before we can all get to simply "hoping" for a meta, we must first advertise the game or at least help DBG perform that task.

More players = more costumers = more certs for all of us win/win

You're absolutely right.......... I just don't think any of that would add to the games success more than, say having being released with a fully functional lattice system, for example.

Your right , i once showed the game to one of my friend and he didnt liked it he said he never saw an enemy and dindt know whats the point of the game , then i show him how it work and he played for a complet year and hes not a compulsive gamer .

But personnally i dont think less is better i think more is good so we dont always see the same thing over and over (like in you instant action game refference) and simplicity is not essential as long the point of the game is well explained.

I know other title like : skyrim , minecraft , runescape ,zelda (in zelda almost all player had barelly no clue about what they should do and it was really popullar) those game was designed to be complexe and have the more stuff as possible in it , those game have been really succesful .

What i think would be the appropriate solution will be a more complexe tutorial that would , in addition to what it already explain , explain you the point of the game , that you can check your map to see where action is going , explain you how gaining certs and what you can do with it , told you about the key "U" "I" and "P"and show you how to set class/vehicule and equip boost/implant.(maybe some i have mentioned are already in the tutorial i did it years ago ).

So new player will be able to understand and enjoy the game without downgrading it to a lower level.

And in my post "make game more attractive and visible for people who dont play it".
( https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...-and-visible-for-people-who-dont-play.230844/ )
Someone talked about a ingame manual that i resumed into a ingame-wiki , this could be something usefull for new player that want to understand the game.