Observation of the current state - few ideas - love letter to wrel - long text

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by changeusdtoreal, Mar 4, 2021.

  1. changeusdtoreal

    Here is an observation from somebody who made an account for ps2 in 2013, playing in the years 2013 to 2014, 2016-2017 a bit during 2018 and 2020 and now returned because the corona lockdown measures gave me too much free time, have roughly 1400 hours of playtime in total. So far i spend once 20€ for a construction bundle in 2018 I believe and just recently another 30€ for the Arnie voice pack, the cowboy hat and the NC MAX fatboy helmet. I am a factionist, asp br 45 NC and have two test toons on the other both factions, just for each of their faction specific stuff for VR testing. I am a solo player, not using voice chat, am in my own solo outfit just for the resources, sometimes joining random squads/platoons.

    Usually you don't get to know much from lurkers and the like. As, I see this game now for what it is, a giant sandbox fps, with oldschool MMORPG grinding aspects, like in rune escape or WoW. My playstyle depends on mood and the current situation of the map, switching classes, guns, vehicles to what seems most fun to me at the time, or even building either a flail base to destroy a enemy OS base, building an OS base myself, or making a quick Air vehicle + Silo to pull a few reavers. Usually I don't care about the directive score, but just recently I unlocked the godsaw, the first part of my LMG directive was completed in 2013, 10 SAW kills or so, now in 2021 I actually got it done. I just wanted it for the select fire mode to damage vehicles, it's not even good and I don't actually like playing as HA most of the times.

    Devs must understand that players like this, like me, exist. I love the randomness of this game, the uniqueness. The way how you can approach things and blow them up. Afterall, it's a sandbox, you can play in there with your toys, you can build a sandcastle together with your friends or stomp the castle of the other guys you don't like. I made a huge list with each aspect of planetside 2 in categories, consisting of issues, be it mechanic or bad design from my perspective, the lone wolf.

    Infantry

    Camo:

    First of all, one major thing that is still confusing is the way how camo can make your character appear to be „factionless“. All camos which are not consisting of atleast 90% of the faction main colour blue/red/purple in the same brightness spectrum (looking at you VS dark purple which makes you impossible to see during night on Hossin) should be made to affect only guns. I dare you to disable ingame icons and try to dicern between friend and foe. Once you can't aim for those doritos you will see how this is complete ********, now imagine if you're totally new to this game, all while friendly fire exists. Personally I use the white camo on everything, I'm still calling for a fix to this. I understand that most will say: „but it's too late for that to change.“ Is it?

    Time to kill:

    The ohk 1337 epic „I use smoke and have the infravision implant“ knifes must be reworked. After somewhat 200 kills with my Carver I felt bad. There were disadvantous situations I came out winning, just because of that stupid knife. Get jumped, run behind a corner, equip melee slot, press the activate button and just hit mouse 1 once. There shouldnt be ohk infantry vs infantry weapons atall IMO. But again, is it too late to change?

    Small Bug:

    Still happening, after each relog, or continent change, the Warden unequips from each character slot and you have the class' starting weapon, for infil the bolter, for HA the SAW.

    Character or Weapon camo unequipping itself to no camo, yet you have it actually on you, fairly unimportant.

    Wraith flash

    I love using the wraith flash with the buzzard or the renegade. It's fun. It's cheap. And it's totally unfair. You simply must increase the delay from beeing able to cloak after firing. And you must increase the nanite cost to something so it can't be pulled faster than the pull timer affecting it. Find a balance for it, as of now, roadkilling a 450 Nanite MAX with a 50 Nanite Flash is just ********. Roadkilling with a cloaked ANT is BS too, but I admit it's also fun.

    Small Bug:

    Deploying with a vehicle from the map, sometimes it just refuses to work, saying the terminals are hacked, which they aren't. Or you've to sometimes click a different vehicle, then reclick the one vehicle + the loadout you actually wanted to make it work.

    ESF

    Im not a bad pilot, neither a good one. I always appreciate more empire specific stuff. But the one thing I wish was on a truly equal level for all 3 (4 with NSO) factions is ESF dogfighting. I know I could simply find somebody from my faction and duel him. But that's not playing the game right. There should be a new NS fighter. Containing all the best parts of each ESF, hitbox smaller than a scythe, thrust and speed of a reaver and whatever mossis are best at, other than ganking. It would only have non AI noseguns and either equippable afterburner, standard, extended, or quick. Do devs know how ESF dogfighting works? There are saltknights patroling the air who can shred you in seconds. Flight mechanics are truly unique to this game and should be kept as they are.

    Small Bug: same as pulling ground vehicle from the map

    Construction

    Nothing much to add here IMO. I've the gold construction directive. Things like saying the flail are useless or should be able to shoot into no construction zones are just wrong. The flail is great as it is, a measure to destroy other bases. Construction is fun. Only thing I'd like to change is, you should be able to mine cortium a bit faster and structures/walls should have an outer soft spot on them which lets you clip into each other. Oh and please make the pillbox be able to house the elysium spawn tube consistingly in the middle, with 2 modules in it, as of now, the sundy garage beats it by far beeing able to place 4 modules, a pain spire and the tube in it on flat ground. Placing constructions can be tedious, but once you got the hang of it you'll make it work out faster. There should also be a locking mechanism, like, you try placements, as soon as it turns green all movement stops and you place it now, that'd be such a time saver.

    Outfit

    Ok now, I'm asking. Is this intended? I have zero interest in beeing in an outfit. But after seeing how only outfits get their special resources and exclusive perks, like getting merit, the outfit OS, citadel shield and colossus. I've to ask, do you want all solo players to make meme solo fits, just to get access to those things? Depending on the situation, I list two examples, it's easy to get auraxium and synthium, if you have enough of those you can get polystellarite with the expedition thing, always use the longest one if you want highest yield. Example one, enemy bases get cut off from the lettuce, they can't spawn there anymore, those bases are of low interest, go there quick, cap the point, overload generators if there are some and if you were fast enough, with a bit luck you can cap that base for your outfit. Example two, there are few non base vehicle hexes you can solo cap, timer is one minute, if nobody showes up it's yours, they always give the blue stuff. Hard to defend solo tho, good to build a base there if no enemies showes up. All this outfit exclusive stuff feels somewhat unfair, yet it's easy to get it yourself. The biggest ******** from this is, I can solo farm for pocket OSes, then during prime time go to a 96+ enemy vs enemy fight as stalker infil with a racer + scout reaver, scan the area shortly and drop one or two OS on the cap points or armour coloumn. Then continue to spam /y with memes. Is this intended? I've done so a few times just for the lulz. This brings me to another point, the bastion.

    The bastion is cool, I gunned in one once a bit for drunken dogs in their open platoon. Also I was in one of the most epic battles I've seen so far, between drunken dogs' bastion and a VS bastion, both sides engaging eachother actively, skyguards on the ground and massive airballs flying around, with repair gals near each other bastion. But you know what you can also do with a bastion? You can fly it to enemy vs enemy zones and just annoy both sides at the same time. This has to be the absolute biggest ******** in the entire game. Luckily you don't see that often anymore, since bastions get pulled less often appareantly. Yet there must a be a fix to this, like, bastions can't fly for too long into deep enemy terretory or something up to zero experience from gunning in those scenarios.

    Mission/Currencies

    Currently, there are too many different currencies. I read that devs wanted to get away from certs for new rewards, so vets have to grind again. This is a horrible solution for a horrible problem.

    250xp = 1 Cert which you need for almost everything

    ISO4 for implants, only from missions, alerts and recycling duplicate implants (500 iso for a rare duplicate is a ******* joke)

    A7 for ?, ive almost all A7 buyable things except the harasser/flash meme air frame, you used to get that easily from alerts, now it can only be obtained from missions and finding those rare orbs nobody cares for

    Merit, which you only get for beeing in an outfit, doesnt even matter if it's a zergfit, leetfit, memefit or solofit. You need it for the useful merit slot things, like the spitfi... ordanance dampener etc., to level up your colossus (which you easily can get in a solo outfit for 15 purple stuff) and some cosmetics. Oh yes I'm so loyal to my outfit, better reward me with merit everytime I defend a biolab.

    The new campaign currency which name I can't remember, you've to buy into the campaing with certs, depending on how high your BR is? Then you rp a bit and get that currency to buy different thumper ammo.

    Why this system? It's stupid, it's confusing. This is a game about shooting mans, not larping as orb hunter or weather analyst. Please remove it, never talk about it again like other failed projects. Can't you see why ppl play ps2? It's because it's totally unique. If there was a better massive fps game with the same scale, I'd be playing that. Stop trying to implement ******** role playing ffs. If I wanted to be an adventourus dwarf roaming foreign lands for exotic beasts to tame, I'd be playing WoW. Even if you are going to add RP, then where is Vanu? Where is the NC rebellion, where is this TR brass guy I hear so much about, why is he impressed? Add that. Add battle frames. Add naval warfare. Add space warfare right next to the sanctum. PS2 has lore, PS1 had lore, built upon that. I guess eventually, make Planetside 3.

    Well this has been long, here are few more

    Ideas

    Make a survey, in multiple languages, not just english. Everyone who has a PS2 account gets an invitation to it. Important, reward it, with something like the analyist helmet, a platinum weapon nobody buys and some 1day xp boost. Ask, why are you not playing anymore? What needs to change, what needs to come back? Make 1 to 5 questions if you don't care enough. I personally want to know how much of the active and inactive playerbase currently cares about outfit wars.

    Here a terrible idea, make the NSO the true 4th faction, balancing the pop out to 33 / 33 / 33. With actual bots, just stupid bots that move from base to base until they perfectly capped 33% on each faction. So you can shoot something at all times. I mean, the NSO are already bots, no? But I suggested that in the past, nobody likes this idea.

    Make it possible to gift vehicles. You know when you have 750 nanites but currently you don't need 'em? Theoretically you could pull a equipped MBT for a newcomer via squad/platoon mechanics. Why not make a new window, where ppl can „donate“ their vehicles on the current continent. Like this, I have a well equipped MBT, I spend the 450 nanites and put it on a „common war effort“ window thing. Somebody new with a **** default tank sees the „donated“ tanks next to his vehicles he can pull from the terminal. Categorize it, like empire wide, squad/platoon and ofc outfit. Put some restrainer on it, like you can only donate 5 or such of each vehicle type and only on the current continent, maybe they expire in half an hour. Reward gifting, but please god, not with a nother new currency like „Auraxium share points“. Tell me why this is a bad idea? Oh yea right, new guys have to go trough the insane grinding just to find out they don't like playing with MBTs. Look at WoW today, you simply can't justify grinding anymore. They had the same solution in the past, new raids had their new own token for better gear. So you always had to grind after each new raid. That's what you're trying to get at, with A7, Merit and campaign currencies and eventually future currencies. Devs please, don't invent the wheel anew, add more fun, less frustration.

    One last thing

    and this is directly for wrel. Please understand this, PS2 is and never will be a real competetive shooter it's in it's own very nature so, you must remove all empire specific traits and create totally equal bases, approaches, a complete confined and controlled enviournment before you can say it's truly esport ready competetive. 2 factions teaming up and stomping the third, guess what, thats ps2. How can you say you will punish both those factions for it? This happens almost always on live ps2 during alerts. Are you going to punish each participant complicit to this behaviour after each alert? Yes I wrote that you can solo farm outfit OSes and use it against both factions at once, you won't even geat teamkills this way, or that thing with the bastion. But common man. Wrel you were a guy you recomend to new commers. „Hey dude r u new?“ „haha yes man, how does this **** even work?“ „ye just check wrel on yt“ „ok thx m8 will do“ „np“. It used to be this. I don't even have a acc on yt for „liking and subscribing“

    I believe your personnality isn't fit for beeing in dev position. A good user is eventually not a good creator. A good musician is eventually not a good instrument builder. A good swordman is eventually not a good blacksmith. He can be, eventually. And eventually not. Maybe even never. You probably have a vision, YOUR vision, for what Planetside 2 should be. Ask yourself, how many truly care about outfit wars? Infact, make a giant survey asking those questions. Is this all about epeen measuring? Was your K/D ratio not enough? I'm not bringing up old stuff.

    Wrel are you a VS main? Why did the coldheart implant get into the game? It's only good for VS and their heat mechanic weapons. Didn't we have empire favours with higby, towards NC? Understandable that NC MAX slugs for the AI weapons had to go. Maybe some other inbalances which are too good to be empire specific must be reworked too.

    This is a game about random explosions, MAX crashes, zerging and ghostcapping. It's endless, mindless war. You think you can make sense of it with outfit strategies, you think you can have control over the flow how zergs move about during prime time. NO! You can't! Because random mofos like me drop a pocket OS on that capture point.

    TL;DR I love thise game, it's unqiue, don't try to make it become something else
    • Up x 1
  2. ZDarkShadowsZ

    The camo has been a long-standing one. I remember years ago when they finally made all armour have specific areas where the colours of one's faction were permanent. For me, the issue isn't necessarily the camo itself, but the armour. Some armour like the PS:A armour are accessible by all factions. You literally can't tell whom you're fighting because everybody looks the same. Not only that, sometimes the dorito gets bugged and disappears, causing me to TK people by accident. Further emphasising your point. Without the dorito or friendlies shown on the minimap I would have ended up unintentionally TKing more.

    Also, why should an implant have to extend the IFF range? The dorito should be present at all ranges regardless. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's fired at an aircraft that turns out to be friendly.

    The flash does need some changes. So far the only way to prevent being roadkilled is to equip an implant and have damage reduced by about 40%. As much as I enjoy flattening enemy MAX, it's not very nice to the poor sap who just forked out a ton of nanites, gets pancaked and a friendly can't even be bothered to take 2 seconds to switch to medic and pick them up. As for the ANT, I think it's perfectly fine. Unlike the flash who gets permanent cloak for free, the ANT has to work for it. I think it should be entitled to roadkill somebody while cloaked.

    In terms of construction, I'm a firm believer that many buildings should have pre-set module attachment slots. Not only is it frustrating trying to place pimples all around your base that are both protected and logically sound, but it's overall just annoying. The garage as you mentioned, can store a lot of things in it. It was meant for a Sunderer but who uses it for that? It should be remodelled a bit to allow modules to snap-attach to it. Not only would it save space but it makes it easier to build with.

    There are way too many currencies in the game. They changed the original system into nanites for this very reason. There used to be infantry, vehicle, and air resources. They were changed into just nanites. Yet now we have a zillion and one currencies. A7 at the moment is practically useless if you have everything from the black market. My A7 is just sat there collecting dust. I can't do anything with it. Merit isn't a bad idea. I can see what they're trying to do with it. After I bought all the extra helmets/armours and schematics from the vendor I just buy an inordinate amount of resource and xp boosts. They're way more useful than buying 1-day or whatever boosts. I can activate a couple and enjoy half an hour, or activate another two as soon as the others run out. They won't keep going after I exit the game and I like it. And they were free.

    In relation to the Cold Heart... it's very clear that should have been a VS-only implant. Yes it works on all factions but it works far better for VS. They are the only faction with multiple heat mechanic weapons. Even after it was changed, how many Engineers are honestly going to run with it over Sweeper HUD and Ammo Printer for example? Either remove it for the time being, or give TR/NC their own implants that work best for them, too.
  3. changeusdtoreal

    yea remember the infantry, ground/air vehicle nanites, also, there used to be a cooldown timer on those things. I could 've sworn that you could only pull an ESF every 5 minutes.

    I pulled my second solo colossus an hour ago, asked a few min prior in a random platoon if somebody wanted to gun for me. Got only one reply, colossus blown up in seconds. Was my fault for pulling one with no friendly armour zerg around and lacking the logistic expert implant. That got me thinking again. As of now it doesn't feel like the empires matter, NC, TR, VS, NSO, who cares? It's about factions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'd pull a solo bastion, I would need to have ppl in my outfit to man up the turrets, right? Simply beeing in a squad wouldn't let my squadmates join? I was only once in a bastion from drunken dogs, I believe I was part of their outfit for a short time.

    Why can' t it be an empire wide asset? I've read some few similiar posts just now. The more I think about it, the more it seems like factions are bad for the empires, as they fraction or shatter if you will all aspects of the game. Ofc ppl want to team up with friends, have reserved gunner spots and so on. But why can't it be avaliable to random ppl? Like beeing able to spawn into sundies/gals, use spawn beacons. If anything that should be standard, having empire wide access (keeping spawn overpop rules in mind) to those aspects, while squads/platoons/outfits can only limit their very own assets to be used only by them. I just realize that everytime you squad lock a sundy that you're actually the antisocial one, not the one refusing to team up with toxic outfits who spew drama on discord all day, since that guy has his sundy open to all (unless its a cloak sundy in a really sweet spot)

    Then again, it's called Outfit wars, not empire wars. This truly is no longer Planetside 2 as I knew it.

    2 more things I just remembered

    One. I hate playing in squads and more so in platoons, because the icons clutter the map, minimap and sometimes even your vision. There should be easy to implement settings for this, waypoints fading out better, not showing number icons for squad/platoonembers, instead they have only doritos in another colour scheme.

    Second. Am I the only one with brightness issuss? I've constantly to adjust ingame brightness, day/night, infravision, even the storm in esamir can acffect it severely. I've constantly to find a good brightness. Usually going from 0 - 25 - 50 - 75 and 100% for the darkest nights on hosin.
  4. Ak69

    Here are the reasons why the game keeps going into the sewers.

    - Remove Redeployment ( so many defenders of this when they haven't seen the good impact it will have )
    - Nobody cares about outfits or squad play, fix and focus on solo player as the star, nobody has respect for outfits because all they do is use fairy tactics by teleporting around then labeling that organized. Outfits should be the civil engineers providing for the solo players.
    - Bases need to be important, require resources and much harder to siege, attackers have the art of surprize, defenders should be a hard to penetrate bulwark.
    - Remove ugly base walls, make the game attractive again and allow constructors to build modular upgradable defences
    - Bases need Cortium to function correctly.
    - There is a never end supply of infantry players, these guys come from all games, they install, get their sugar hit then leave a few weeks later when bored. You must not cater to these guys for player retention.
    - There needs to be a dedicated 3 way contested meat grinder at all times espcially for low pop times for a special resource to help bases. Put that infantry mindlessness to use.
    - Game needs to harden up and take some ambitious changes, the people who want to keep things how they are, are hamstringing growth and have been for a long time.
    - No body cares about pro play not until you're smashing 10k + players daily, you're not special.
  5. Ak69

    Also who was the dunce that thought it was a good idea to have outfit resources, who was the person responsible for this and which year was it added, what a total botch up.
  6. changeusdtoreal

    Well I think the outfit things are cool, the bastion, the colossus, the citadel shield, less so the pocket OS, but you can only have 2. What I don't think is cool is, how it's locked to beeing in an outfit and the way to obtain it. There must be an empire wide access to that. You farmed enough to pull a bastion, then you should be able to have everyone on the continent be able to spawn into it. But again the way to obtain outfit resources is dumb, not properly worked out. You can get teamkilled or want to teamkill in situations were overloading a generator means capping the base for your outfit. Or you don't want to defend a base, since it doesn't generate resources for you, rather let it be capped by the enemy and try a recap yourself.

    See how antisocial this makes outfits now? That's even worse than getting team ganked by a toxic outfit who simply want to blow up your deployed sundy, to places theirs, or trying to grieve a OS base spot. Instead of it beeing loyal to the empire, its beeing loyal to your outfit. Do devs want it to be this way? Opposing fractions inside each empire?

    Strength in unity
    Vanu smiles upon you
    I'm NC you idiot
  7. Ak69

    Before i get on my soapbox I'm watching some outfit war that nobody cares about lol. This is what the devs think grows player numbers.

    I agree with you , and also agree that the outfit "toys" are cool but not the actual outfits. The outfits need to take a backseat to everything else, the moment this takes the focus you're aiding the games death. They should be working for the solo players, period, that's if you actually care about player growth.

    Let me repeat what most people won't tell you, nobody cares about your pathetic little outfit, you have no respect even the strongest outfits are a complete laughing stock, there is one thing that has never changed in planetside 2 from release. The focus on squad and outfit play. Make this less important and design the game around the solo player and growth will start.

    Outfit players are the worst. You see them chasing squad markers completely oblivious to anything else that is happening around them with their blinkers on, they've been told to do something and because they are socially bound to do so, their decision making goes into the toilet and their success is not derived from actual skill and perception but numbers. This is outside them blowing up allied resources because they think they know better.

    This is what outfits and squads bring, power in numbers and they call redeployment a strategy. They have this mentality of "let the pubbies complete it" not knowing they are the actual cancer on the game by warping around. They are the reason there is no player growth in the game, no player who just installed wants to have anything to do with this, they are told to join an outfit then if they stick around they become part of the problem.

    Dismantle these zombies who have crushed the game from the start. Squad play should be the natural progression towards team work after the core solo gameplay has been honed, but the moment you make it the core aspect of what determines success, most players who realize what it actually involves say something like "Well hang on, that's kind of lame, why would I want to engage in that monstrosity" and those that reluctantly do so have been told to because it's plastered everywhere that you must join a squad/outfit and since it involves teleporting around and zerging, they see it works and continue this behaviour,
    it's a circle of destruction and keeps the current meta in place, it needs to be completely obliterated and someone on the dev team needs to grow a pair and make the changes. The players who still play want the game to do well, they would be willing to give up a lot of what they have in order to see the game gain more players.

    If someone actually thinks redeploying around like a fairy is something players want to engage in they are the issue. It's been the same since release and the game is still not growing. The only thing that has not been tried is removing redeployment because of no ambition to step out of a comfort zone and the response of "players won't be able to have instant fights" Well you have instant fights right now and you're killing the game. If you give the players, the solo players a reason to do something that is rewarding they will do it and far more efficiently than a squad or an outfit, because when an outfit is not online, they are yet again useless.

    Remove redeploy, make taking bases harder, focus more on bases, so when zergs do show up players have a response to defend them, not by teleporting there instantly but by using the work that has been put into the base by the players.

    Let me repeat, outfits are the issue, do not join them, do not engage with these people, don't join their squads or their zergs, avoid them, play solo before you ever go around with them.

    PLAY SOLO - It's more rewarding, it's hard mode and you'll be actively fighting against the games death by trying to end these zombie outfits.