Is this FPS too hardcore and should higher lvls be given a handicap?

Planetside 2 has to be considered one of the most hardcore FPS shooters out there at this time. When you have 1333 enemies per map able to shoot at you from all angles in multiple different classes and vehicles it must be extremely overwhelming for a new player. I mean come on, what other game out there has invisible enemies that can one hit kill you, guys jump jetting around that can one hit kill you, guys with over extra shields that can one hit kill you, tanks that can one hit kill you in buildings, bombers that can one hit kill you, ESFs that pop out of nowhere and lolpod you. It is a very frustrating game to the uninitiated. Is it any wonder that SOE wants to help ease the pain of the newbie?

Many of us who are veterans of PS1 knew that the game was awesome but needed a chance. Of those 6 million players who tried PS2, the community that we have now is what remains. The people who really gave the game a chance know it is a great game. Now if only those other 5.9 million players would only have given it a real chance. I for one support the implementation of a death screen for newbies to help them get a feel for the game and really start to understand the tactics and gameplay involved. Throwing a lvl 1 into a 2000 player map against players who have been playing over a year has to be a hard lesson in humility for any new player. SOE is right to try to hold their hand and give them some sort of chance against the veterans.

So here is the problem: Dumbing down the game to make it less hardcore is not what most of us 2% that stayed with PS2 and like it in hardcore mode signed up for. We like it the way it is. It is a tough game but that is what makes it so rewarding. However, we want new players to join us and become one of us but they need to be hand held to get them to appreciate the game.

So here is the question: Should the death screen map be only given to newbie players as a tool to help them understand what PS2 is really all about and should that death screen be taken away from veterans who have figured the game out? Is it really fair to handicap the high lvl players so the low level players have a chance to enjoy what we have?

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experienced players don't really need it.

I don't see the big deal. 4/5 times an experienced player already knows where they were killed from with deductive reasoning.

IMO you can only really consider this to be one of the most hardcore FPS games out there right now because the others are just too easy. This game really isn't hard at all once you acquire situational awareness.

I think giving the death screen map to new players only is a good idea. Make players lose it after BR 40 or so.

This game has been watered down so bad that it is far from hardcore. In the world of hardcore PS2 is triple-G rated.

Try on Red Orchestra 1 for hardcore.

RO would never work on this kind of scale.

Know how BA tanks are in RO? Ok, yeah, now imagine a column of 30 of those effing things

The scale of Planetside requires a longer TTK and more situational awareness UI features.

Ghost Recon was hardcore. Planetside 2 a horde-mode with players instead of NPCs (I kill five Vanu, ten more show up, I kill those ten, twenty appear with tanks/gunships, etc.)

Ronin, he did not say PS2 should be like RO, he said RO is what a HARDCORE fps is; read carefully.

I think OP is throwing hardcore around much differently that what I would consider hardcore. Those pure twitch games of the late 90s and early 2000s like Quake, Unreal, those were hardcore and games like RO that are brutally punishing regarding TTK, etc, that is hardcore to me. PS2 is on par with the Battlefield series just PS2 is a bigger scale. In fact, I'd say the infantry combat is a lot "harder" & more dynamic in BF3/4.

Regarding the OP: Many of us have suggested the deathscreen locator should only be for newbies maybe up to BattleRank 10; after it would not show anymore. Higby said the #1 complaint for PS2 is that you die "randomly". So it's understandable that they added this. But it should just be for newbies.

This isn't a hardcore FPS, it's all spray and pray. Aiming slightly helps but really almost all weapons reward holding down the trigger

I was going to mention Red Orchestra 2, but I've never played the first one.

Want a learning curve and nightmarish newbie eviroment try eve-online. Not FPS but as long as hardcore goes takes the cake.

Because you don't hold down the trigger in any other shooter... Somehow telekinetically you make your mouse "fire". Now that's skill.

I wouldn't call this game hardcore. I would think of Arma or counter strike. But this game is harder than cod or bf. If anything because of its scale. It's easier on the smaller maps with less players of cod to figure out who killed you from where.

I think the idea for this games new kill cam being for new players only is a good one.

I understand that... but what I am saying is that the scale of PS2 gives it somewhat of a "Hardcore" feel in that you can die in the blink of an eye to god knows what.

Though yes, I support the minimap on death screen to only work for <BR20 or something. That said, I still don't think it affects experienced players much.

as for stealth gameplay... I said this somewhere else, but it only affects camping stealth players.

A stealth player on the move constantly won't be there long enough for it to matter much.

I mean, if you get killed by an infil with an SMG or XBow , you'd already be telling your squad "HEY! There's an infil in our line!"

Their exact positioning at time of kill is irrelevant since by the time you see the death screen they should have already moved.

I wouldn't say it only affects camping stealth players. I enjoy being in base fights where there's only at most 10 people going back and forth on it. The cone-of-contact or quadrants even if not spotted is still a pretty big sized chunk of area if you're defending a spot. I almost never play inf, mainly 90% HA, but I put on suppressor for a reason and this negates that reason. On those really small base engagements, positioning is quite important; especially on Amerish where several buildings encircle a control point. That isn't necessarily the same as some Inf camping sniping people 150m out.

But on bigger fights, it doesn't matter, I agree on that. I don't even use a suppressor on those though.

It has been suggested by many people already, to do exactly this. Give it to players up to a certain BR then remove it. All the other session stats can be optional for those that want it. Experienced players just do not need or want the death cam. This approach is the most logical in that it serves the stated purpose of helping new players, but isn't there for experienced players. Everybody is happy.

What annoys players even more about all this, is the fact it was thrown on the test server and then 3 days later its live. It was clearly a very contentious issue and SOE should have been more willing to listen and work with the community over a comprise that everyone could be happy with. It wouldn't even have taken muh work, because the solution you and others have mentioned is so ******** obvious, its the instant and automatic 'first' idea that totally jumps out at you when you hear SOE's stated goals for the death cam.

On that basis two questions arise

(a) Why is removing it after a certain BR not an option

and more worryingly

(b) If it is an option, why did the devs not think of this first, especially knowing how hard it was down voted in the road map from veteran players, and how obvious a solution this is.

I would even go further with the deathcam for BR 1 - 10 players. I would give them a TF2 style death cam...one that zooms right to your killer showing what they are, exactly where they are, and what they killed you with. From BR 11 - 20 I would give them the current death cam and from BR 21 nothing, other that what we had before.

Personally I never like it when I get a kill and see its a BR 1 - 10, hell if I could actually tell they were a BR 1 - 10 'before' I opened fire, I wouldn't even fire at them...unless it was obvious it was an alt. I suspect that is how the vast majority of us vets feel, so noone begrudges helping the new players, we are all with SOE on that one. SOE's method of implementing this however, (test server for 3 days then live), and the level of discussion with the community totally sucks, and is certainly not a good way to maintain a healthy relationship with the playerbase.

Completely not true. Its one of the few games that require you hone those types of skills on a continuous basis. Where the game is still kind of lacking is how it uses what it has. A lot of that is directly due to how the maps are designed.... But with each iteration of the maps are released, its creating more opportunity for a more diverse set of equipment. Since the current set of equipment is very straight forward, mobility rather limited overall, and maps mostly designed to funnel players into choke points, a small sub set of weapons could easily be considered statistically better then the others.

As strategies are opened up by the map improvements, so is the need for natural situational awareness. In a game with so much information that needs to be processed, what you don't want to do is overload the senses or overly expand the awareness bubble through artificial queues. In all honestly, the gun play is way too arcadey for what the rest of the game would suggest. I could go on for pages on individual subjects of the matter, but what your suggesting about awareness would exacerbate some key problems we have right now.

This game isn't hardcore anymore. Back in my day, new players were drop-podded into a random fight as a Light Assault with no explanation or a chance to rebind our keys, and we liked it.

Yes, it was on the PTS for three days but the client wouldn't stop crashing on one of those days, so we basically had two days to test. My game stayed stable enough to equip the new Lib weapons just to see what they looked like. I couldn't even get into combat to see the death screen.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry, I think I just pissed my pants. Planetside? Hardcore?

Let me explain to you how it was back in my day. You'd join a Quake or Unreal server, and if you were the worst player in there you got your *** handed to you over and over and over again. If your ego was bruised the only option was to find another server, but many in that situation would stick around. Why? Because that was the best way to improve.

PS2 on the other hand offers more crutches for baddies and new players to lean on the any fps in history. That pesky br100 killed you? No problem... don't learn from the encounter or try to get better, rather...grab a max, use a shotgun, rocket primary, C4, lay some prox mines, cloak smg, snipe from 300m, hop in a lightning, tank, lib, gal or esf and spawn camp him, and if all of that fails, join a zerg where you can outnumber him and his friends by a 10-1 margin.

Planetside took the "every kid gets a trophy" mantra from CoD and took it to a whole new level: now every kid gets to win regardless of how well they play.

This is on point.

Planetside? Hardcore? You what?

It's the most casual shooter there is atm.