Prologue (skip if you wish) Lately I've been playing less and less Planetside. There are many reasons, but mainly I'm repelled by its inconsistency. Strangely, the big world of unending conflict (the diversing feature of PS2) is also its problem. I like big, epic fights. I enjoy when I can turn the tide of the battle by bringing down enemy sunderer or bypassing enemy defences to cap a point to distract enemies from killing my comrades, and then ambush incoming cappers. I like big infantry battles. Infantry side of this game is very good, featuring nice balance. But all this fades, when number of players exceedes certain limit, when enemy armored assault turns into unstoppable zerg, when all defences are being crushed by rocket pod shelling or cocky Lightning that abuse their speed to run over infantry, one-shotting the whole groups of them with .HE shells. I may sound like a bitter, sour loser who's been feeding enemy pilots with exp, and who wakes up in a middle of a night, screaming, because he saw a Liberator in his dream. Perhaps I am. But I don't hate tanks and aircraft that much, it's just that game becomes unbearable when their count exceed certain limit. So where was I? Oh right, inconsistency. Gaming expirience depends too much on current number of players online, and it's very hard to find figths with *just right* number of participants. If online is low it's hard to find a fight anywhere besides The Crown. If online is high then most big fights tend to turn in zerg derp tank pod fest, and one humble infantryman like me becomes lost. I just feel helpless, unable to do anything to help my team prevail. Like I said, the diversifying feature of this game is freedom. You can go anywhere you want, using any vehicle you like, at any time. But it's also it's flaw. One tank or one ESF doesn't equal one infantry man (would be strange if it did, duh?), and there is no limit to a number of available vehicles (would be bad because of AFKers and griefers). It's a problem that any guy at any time can ride a tank into battle. This is a main reason for so many threads crying for infantry vs vehicles (or ground vs air) balance. Another problem is it's hard to know when to stop and say: that's it, I've done good, I've brought a victory for my empire. Any captured facility can be recaptured instantly. So when do you say to yourself: "I've won!"? Well, I think I've got a solution to all this. New game modes: Battleground and Arena If you've ever played into any objective-based team vs team game, than you already know what I mean. This new mode would have a fixed number of players for each battleground. The basic one, I guess, would be Squad vs Squad (12 vs 12). The most basic variant of the battleground would be: 1) take randomly any two connected zones (hexes) on the map 2) instance them 3) place team A on one base, team B on another one 4) team who captures opponents base first wins. This game mode would make this game higly competitive, as it is now, all *elitism* in this game has been reduced to one Empire Showdown. With Battlegrounds system every player could participate in ranked matches. Everyone would have his own matchmaking rating and blah blah blah, if you've seen one, you've seen it all (Heroes of Newerth, DOTA2, World of Warcraft Arena and Battlegrounds and thousands of them more). All technical details, like how many vehicles are available, or if respawn is unlimited, are insignificant, and can be worked out. They don't matter at this stage, as I haven't seen anything remotely close to this in the Roadmap. Arena would be the same thing, but, I guess, with no/very limited vehicles, win criteria would be number of frags and all fighting would occur within the limits of one base/territory. The main attraction of this is in that nothing would be taken away from current gameplay. Free roam and world pvp would remain the same, but there will be more possibilities for those who desire more. So, tell me, what do you thing? I'm goind to double this post into general section, because I'm attention seeking forever alone guy.
Sounds like you are upset because you lose, and you lose because you are ultimately out gunned or out maneuvered. If your in an outfit, pick a different outfit. Because if you are engaging the main zerg and not opposing platoons regularly then your outfit is failing to do it's job really. Usually when I run with my outfit, there are 3 or 4 random people running around sometimes. It's usually just our 1 or 2 platoons that are active in the area and we run into enemy platoons all the time while attempting to out maneuver the zergs. Battlegrounds and Arenas are methods used by PvE games to try and create a working PvP system to counter their currently failing system. PS2 is about a war, and war is rarely a fair fight between evenly matched forces. If you see an enemy armor column, your platoon lead's first option should always be pull back to the nearest tower and pull armor to oppose the column. Unless the base you are defending has a serious choke point where HA can reign fire down on the column from relatively safe vantage points.
I like the idea, and I understand where you are coming from. As the battles get larger and larger, you feel as if you have less and less impact. I personally would enjoy an outside game ranked system that allowed the most elite platoon from my Outfit to fight the most elite platoon from another. However, a lot more of your problem is that the game is not designed for people like you, who want to feel as if they can solo change the tide of large scale engagements. This is a game built entirely around team play, and there are very few things offered to players who want to solo, and that isn't a bad thing. This is a game where 2,000 players are simultaniously fighting for victory, and if ANY single person, no matter how skilled they were, could have a big enough impact on that many players for him to feel the accomplishment you are wanting and getting from small engagements, then the game would be just horrendously terrible. There is really no place for players who want to go solo and feel like they have accomplished something like taking a critical point without others help. It simply won't happen in engagements that huge. I would suggest finding an outfit that agrees with you, small or large, and working with them to achieve great things. If you don't want to do that, and the game continues to dissatisfy you, try another game more rewarding of solo players.
I am a casual player with no outfit. You both are right, but also wrong. It's not that I am an aggressive solo player that wants to defeat whole armies by himself. Woflwood, you say this is about war. But all wars end eventually, until another one starts. There is no end in PS, even tiny one. I'd like battles that mean something. We lost that facility? Pff, we're not really LOST it, it's not like we've been defeated. We'll just roll back when the enemy is gone. I lust for victories that are finite, countable. Currently players are diversified by their stats: KD and Battlerank, which are all farmable by vehicles and other gimmicks. But if certain matchmaking system would exist, there would be a personal rating, which would be determined by how well does this player shows himself in battlegrounds. You say teamwork is the key. But everyone's job is nobody's job. When sides are comprised of gray mass of 2000 players it's impossible to be organised. However in squad vs squad situations, I think, teamwork becomes much more important. And manageable. War is not fair, I agree. But is it fun? Real war, with battles 3 to 1? 20 to 1? This brings victory. It's arguable that victory in itself is fun, but to me it's not, if enemy had no fighting chance. When I see an armored column of allied troops I turn away in disgust. It'll bring victory, but it won't be fun. I'm upset, it's true. But not because I lose at the fights, but because I lose at finding battles to have fun in. This is our zerg, capturing an empty base. This is enemy zerg, capturing our base. This is a lone Liberator/ESF farming exp in odd places. And one in ten fights will lead to long, fun base capture/defence, with around equal number of defenders and attackers, which, by strange luck, won't have 9000 engis farming exp in vehicles. You said matchmaking is for failing PVE games. Well, this game also fails. Currently the two most important stats to general population are BR and KD. The easiest by far way to get them is to use vehicles. But this ruins the game for infantry. We can't simply remove vehicles from this game, this would be odd. Also, I believe there's a tiny amount of people who actually pilot vehicles for piloting's sake. Whaddayodo, this guy always dreamt to pilot a tank. Well my another aggressive solution is to remove all exp from vehicle kills. Or make it 10% of current amount. There, everybody's happy. Also, what about them very popular online infantry games, like Team Fortress, Battlefield and Call of Duty? Don't they have matchmaking system? I haven't played those, but I believe they have exactly that. I don't play them cuz PS2 is cool, I like the classes and Jetpacks.
I don't think this game needs arenas. I wouldn't mind a continent that limits vehicles though. Say one with a lot of large skyscrapers like a megalopolis. There are a few things I wish would get changed on vehicles. Some are happening in the next game update. The one change I'd really like is make liberators more vulnerable to ground fire. They are still a bit to strong IMO. They should not be airborne battering rams. They should die to 4 lock on rockets. Their accuracy when moving needs to be reduced as well similar to MBT accuracy. I do agree armor zergs can be ridiculous as well. I think vehicles in general need to cost more resources. Their cost now is trivial. A player shouldn't be able to sit in a tank until it gets destroyed and then just go hop in the other tank basically ping ponging between lightning and MBT (or ESF and lib). One thing that does look promising is the lattice system that was posted to improve the meta game and reduce ghost capping. I hope SOE makes this happen soon.
I see. Well, looks like this game won't be fun for me any time soon. I don't care one bit if my empire takes down the continent, I just wish to have some fun fighting, not capturing empty base with 9000 tanks or defending from 9000 tanks in a platoon. Too bad. Is CoD any fun?..
All typical outlooks of a solo player honestly. Join an outfit Iridar, find a good strong one that regularly has full platoons running. Your opinions of the game will change dramatically, I guarantee it. You'll cap bases and outposts and incite enemy outfits into action against you, those are where the REAL fights are. It tends to get annoying have to relocate from continent to continent after a few good fights, but it's a lot more fun then zerging from base to base wildly while ignoring the meta game completely.
So you're saying I shouldn't expect that fair fights would appear by themselves, instead I should try to organise them myself. I'll think about what you said, perhaps I'll even join a proper outfit. Still, I think it's bad game design. I want matches, with start and end, not chaos and anarchy of PvP in an open world. I want tactics, not strategy. Perhaps I'm too wishful, or am expecting from elephant to lay eggs..
This won't happen. It doesn't have anything to do with the idea, it's just not what SOE wants Planetside to be. It also splits the playerbase.
No, it´s not bad game design. Many like this system, and if i knew PS1 before i heard of PS2 i´d surely played it earlier. If you really mean that sentence that´s just not the right game for you. But you should really try to find an outfit first. It´s an completly different game if you actually comunnicate with your allies. Trust me.
And keep in mind every outfit is different. I'm with Edge-Gamers on Waterson (at least it was Waterson) and they have a near full platoon running every day I log in, 800+ members strong just for PS2, makes a huge difference. They also have very competent and capable commanding officers who take platoon lead which is where you find the real difference in game play. And I hold to my opinion that arenas and such are methods used by developers to fix bad PvP design, they aren't needed in PS2 because that is what the game is about. Join the right outfit and have a single squad hold off an entire platoon at a dinky outpost some time, you'll realize just how small a part numbers can play in this game.
Different game isn't it? Trust me I was in your shoes not a month ago. Felt like the game was dragging on, no real purpose other then to log in and spam my weapon at random people. Stopped playing for a week or two strait. Then I joined an outfit that actually had members! Who were on! Now every time I log in I have a platoon to join and a task to accomplish. Makes a huge difference.
Actually, even in Outfits, I think the base system has that small problem. Where if alone you're helpless, in an Outfit you're sitting on a hill in squadstrength and swat droves of tanks with Annihilators. Because if you have no fun fighting the tank Zerg, they'd better have no fun, either. Reason I'll never buy that gun.^^ It's a valid point that if people do what grants them points, instead of what furthers their factions cause, then points are awarded for the wrong reasons. Obviously, making arenas for that would be making a different game, but saying their are no problems if you fix them yourselves is not really removing the issue. Also, PS1's lattice system, which I do not want to come back, might have not solved the zerg problem, but it certainly prevented the circle-ghost capping that is so effective right now.
Ghost capping isn't much of an issue. It's actually a tool. My outfit uses it to draw the enemy out into a smaller fight and then crush them as we press on. We force enemy platoons away from the main zerg fight so they come deal with us or they end up having huge chunks of their territory being completely cut off from their warp gate. When they come deal with us we continue to press on them and take territory. It becomes a lot like kneading dough. You'll never have a perfect system because no 2 people have a clear idea of what a perfect system would be. I'd personally like to see tank spawns be more prevalent then sunderer spawn points on maps like Esamir where tank battles can be epic and awesome. At the same time I'd rather see lightnings be available at every vehicle terminal then sunderers. I think sunderers are far too common and you lose the need for real convoys and "supply" lines for replacement vehicles. Lost a sunderer? no problem, the nearest vehicle terminal can spawn a new one. It's the single most valuable vehicle in the game and yet it's also the most easily accessed. I understand why the DEVs did it, I just think they caved too easily to player demand on that one. Sometimes you lose fights because you CAN'T get the support you need to where you need it.
In Beta, you could only draw Flashes from those Outpost Terminals. I think that was when Galaxies had AMS, though. Might have been overcompensated. As for drawing out enemies, I've had my share of "fights" where several squads would can a row of bases while the opponent did the same in out back. In the end, both factions have half their territory cut off, and everybody loses. It's probably a great strategy game, as a shooter, it was... well, we had relaxing chats. There is no point incentive to turn a hard battle, yes, it's satisfying, but the majority of players rather grind at the crown. Winning against overwhelming odds is personally satisfying, but the game just scowls at you for that. Generally, I think some small adjustments would go a long way, like no streak bonus if your in a vehicle, and fighting in sectors where you are outnumbered. Maybe even things like a cap-lock of large bases for a short time once they are taken. The quest system will probably also allow for a nice change, allowing far-sighted outfit commanders to order randoms to protect an otherwise rather boring base, like Crossroads; If you lack that base, when coming from the south east, you're always fighting uphill. Still, this is probably the wrong subforum for this discussion.
