While there's obviously no way to know what's going on internally at DBG, the more time passes, the more things look like they're just scrambling to keep their head above water, tunnel-visioning onto details to avoid looking at the big picture. This may or may not be true, but it's the impression that I'm getting. For Planetside 2 to succeed, it needs a coherent vision for the game as a whole and, lacking the appearance of one, I'd like to put forward my own vision / hope / dream, whatever you want to call it. I want Planetside 2 to succeed, and I'm sure the devs and most of the players do as well. It's a unique experience, and I'd hate to lose it. Obviously, not everyone's going to agree with everything I have to say, but I hope you'll keep comments constructive and in the spirit of a community we'd all like to be part of. Epic essay / wall of text incoming - You were warned, so don't even bother with the tl'dr comments. If you want a tl'dr, you're not interested enough in this topic anyway. ========================================================================= Part 1 - THE MONEY I know this will probably be unpopular, but the simple facts are that without money, Planetside 2 goes away. It's also pretty clear that DBG isn't getting enough of it. There are all sorts of factors at play, from the potentially niche market limiting the number of players, to development bloat/inefficiency, to F2P players staying pure-free instead of putting small bits of cash in occasionally. Most of these things are, for the time being, beyond pretty much anybody's control. I'd like to focus on those things that aren't. As always, I'd like to pump this dude's video. Please, DBG, please watch it. 1. Memberships Personally, I don't believe memberships deliver enough value for money over F2P. Like, at all. The only reason I've got mine active, is that I'm currently going through a spike in gametime and feel sort of bad that I've only been picking up 500 DBC every month or so for the past while. If people felt memberships were worth it (especially in the F2P age), more of them would buy it. In all honesty, I'm struggling to think of additional benefits that I'd want, that wouldn't push the membership over into P2W territory. I'd far rather see a decrease in subscription prices with (hopefully) a larger number of people choosing to subscribe as the price comes down. Something on the order of £6-7 rather than the current £10. In addition, I'd like to see the membership discount increased to 20%-25%, but no longer stack with other discounts. I think that would provide better balance. Members would have more flexibility over when to buy and instead of waiting for ultra-discounts, they could be choosing between paying 75%-80% now, or 50% later if that-thing-they-want comes on sale. I also see no value in the whole "all access" deal. Dunno about you, but my 15-odd years of experience with MMO's says that few people have the time they want for ONE MMO-type game, let alone 2, 3, 4 etc. of them. Quit giving me stuff I neither want nor need and pretending you've done me a favour. Give me stuff I DO want, and I'll happily throw money at you all day long (or until wallet is empty, or whatever!). 2. Marketplace FIX YOUR GOSHDARNED PRICES! Seriously. £7 for a gun is ludicrous. I bought some of the NS weapons on discount, at pre-hike prices with DBC, purely because then they transfer across characters. I might pick up some of the non-specific vehicle weapons that way too. But I will never buy an empire-specific anything with cash while the prices are as high as they are. This is basic economics, not rocket science! This is also exacerbated by the perceived (possibly real) tendency to release something good, wait for the sales to taper off (and the screaming to get too loud) and then nerf the hell out of it. In addition, make the marketplace relevant. Make it a place people WANT to check every time they log in. Update your bundles for relevance to the current game. Hell, consider personalising the deals around players. If the marketplace was tracking my stats (and it's not like you don't have the info), and said to me "I see you're playing a lot of medic lately... how about a deal on the TAR / Carnage / Corvus?" I would be all over that! You could even possibly use it to boost player's enjoyment of the game. For example, my aim's kinda rubbish. Spray-n-pray is a fairly decent description of my playstyle on a good day. The store could look at my poor accuracy and low HSR and, instead of going "u suck, l2p noob" like most players would, it could go "You seem to be a MOAR DAKKA kinda player... why not try out the TORQ-9... and if you buy it in the next 48 hours, I'll even give you 10% off and a free attachment!" If you were doing stuff like that, I'd probably have to start rationing my Planetside 2 budget, instead of trying to decide whether it's worth spending anything at all! Put in a decent trial system. It's already covered in the video listed above, but it's worth re-mentioning. If people could give stuff a proper trial, and prices were lowered sufficiently that impulse buys were possible, I'd bet that you'll see a LOT more sales happening and a lot more overall income/profit too! ========================================================================= Part 2 - THE META Yada, yada, something about l33t MLG'ers and noob casuals, yadda! I don't think there's any denying that Planetside 2 is badly in need of a decent meta. The average "casual" who puts in 30-40 minutes, 2-3 times a week is an important part of Planetside 2 - they represent a major source of content for the core players (i.e. targets and/or zerglings to exploit for flanking opportunites!). While they will spend far less on average than a core player, their numbers will probably more than make up for it. It's like the best of the F2P market and the Planetside 1 Reserves program all rolled into one! However, this group is subject to boredom, churn and all the other clever industry words and, without the core player to provide structure and direction, will quickly end up moving on to something else. These two groups are interdependent and cannot long survive without the other. Core players need more than just a quick action fix. They ask "why should we fight?" and when they do, DBGhad better have an answer if it plans to keep them! 1. Facilities Facilities need to be more meaningful. Currently, the only one that really makes any substantial difference to the game is the Tech Plant and it's just a binary Yes / Lol on MBT's. The other two facilities are so irrelevant as to be almost meaningless. Firstly, I don't think facilities should be on/off. Denying players access to their toys is "motivational" to only a very limited subset of the players. Usually those classed in the same category as masochists. If an average player just loves his Vanguard, and you're on Esamir and don't have the TP, he's gonna go elsewhere or just log off. Planetside 2 has always been about access to everything, but specialisation (i.e. certs) to make it good. The same sort of mentality should be applied to facilities. The following are merely possible ideas (and would need balance testing). Techplant: All linked Ammo Towers now also provide the same repair benefits as a repair sundy within a small range, and also allow you to respec (but not actually switch) your vehicle. So you could switch your AC Lightning to a SG Lighning, but not into a Flash or something. In addition, all ground vehicles would have a limited vehicle shield (sort of like an always-on heavy overshield). This shield slowly (i.e. something like a full minute) charges up while in proximity to a friendly facility (i.e. close enough that the capture points display shows) and not taking damage, obviously. It should provide maybe 20% additional health and once it's depleted, it's gone, unless you return to a friendly facility (and aren't taking damage!). Amp Station: This would provide a radar benefit similar to the Planetside 1 Interlink. In linked small outposts, all vehicles (except deployed sundies) would always be on radar if within the area that the capture points display shows. In linked large outposts, all vehicles (except deployed sundies) would always be on radar wherever they are. In linked bases, all vehicles (except deployed sundies) and all MAXs and running infantry (excl. cloaked infils) would be on radar. If you don't have a linked amp station, the current radar rules would apply (i.e. only if seen, spotted or firing). Biolabs: All spawn delays would be increased by 5 secs, with an additional 5 secs for spawning outside of a spawn room. Holding a biolab eliminates this increase in all linked territories. Deployed Sundies would have the effect of a full-triage medic at all times. Current passive health regen benefit would remain. It's important to limit these benefits to linked territories, in order to provide the ability to deprive an unwary empire of said benefits if you can isolate blocks of their territory. These changes would make facilities really meaningful and worth capturing (but hopefully not so OP that they cannot be done without), rather than simplythe-next-step-in-the-lattice. 2. The Lattice The lattice is an important part of directing fights / zerg lanes / whatever, and also serves the purpose of limiting the problem of ghost hacks. However, not everything should be connected to the lattice. I'm quite fond of the macro-lattice idea currently hanging around. Something along the lines of "keep bases and most large outposts on the lattice, all small outposts go off". First up, all capture times would increase. Probably on the order of double. These would then be reduced in certain ways in order to encourage and reward tactical play. Small outposts would require adjacency to capture, and the more terrain and infantry presence, the quicker the capture. For example, if outpost capture time was 10 minutes, by controlling 50% of the adjacent territory, you could reduce that to 6 minutes. A full squad in that territory would reduce it to 3 minutes, unless the defenders were also fielding a full squad. Proportionality applies, so if the defenders only fielded half a squad, capture time would be reduced from 6 minutes to 4.5 minutes, rather than 3 minutes. Large outposts would need 12 minutes to capture. Up to 50% adjacency would reduce that down to 8 minutes and up to two infantry squads could reduce that as far as 4 minutes. Bases would need 15 minutes, with 10 minutes for adjacency and 6 minutes for a full platoon. The advantage of this sort of approach is that it would discourage ghost hacks, and would need to be included in a redeployside fix (as mentioned in Balth's video). Sure, one infil could put a hack on. But if he tries it, it'll be 8-odd minutes before it goes through. And if even half a squad comes to stop him, it'll only take them 3/4 minutes to completely reverse, even if they responded only at the last second. If they responded fairly quickly, it could take less than a minute to completely undo the ghost's work. If you seriously want to take a base, you'll have to make a serious attempt at it. 3. Resources This one is hard, and I've seldom seen it done well. On the one hand, you need to reward those who are doing well. On the other, you don't want to be punishing those who are struggling, or as soon as momentum shifts, the current losers will start to bail out. I think it's best to stick with single-pool resources (like the current nanites) to avoid penalising anybody. If you split out resources, then somebody who enjoys one particular playstyle (e.g. vehicles, air or infantry) will get penalised compared to somebody who plays everything. Penalties are bad. Bonuses are good. Everybody should receive some base level of nanites, regardless of territory control. Once your Empire passes 30% territory control, you start receiving nanite bonuses. These cap out (at around 50% over basic values) at 60% territory control. To reward empires that succeed in pushing past the 60% mark, something different (possibly a small 5% xp boost, or ticks towards some sort of domination directive which rewards a free camo or helmet or something) could be given. This way, success is rewarded, but failure doesn't make fighting back impossible. 4. Logistics Logistics is one of the things that truly separated Planetside 1 from the competition and has that same potential in Planetside 2. I could expand on this one virtually indefinitely, but the ideas included in Balth's video (linked at top) would provide a darned good starting point. That's all I'll say on that one for now, but decent logistics and support for leaders is really important. ========================================================================= Part 3 - THE BASICS These are just a few ideas to clear up some of the unfocused-ness (is that even a word?) that appears in Planetside 2. There is no point in specialisation if you then genericise everything, and no point in flexibility if you want to focus on specialisation. Planetside 2 has elected to go with specialised roles, rather than generalised options. I'll admit, I preferred Planetside 1's approach, with inventories et al, but there's no way we're going back to that at this late stage. Ce la vie. I'd also like to see more teamwork being necessary as opposed to the somewhat one-man-army system we have now. I would like to propose the following (admittedly somewhat radical) overhaul: Air Vehicles The air game is currently a very elite segment of the game. If you're a SkyWarrior, kitted out for farming infantry or vehicles, you'll still make mince (almost without trying) against a non-skywarrior in an AA air vehicle. The skill-cap is far too high, and it's basically eliminated most people from even trying to get into it. I'm not saying that a BR100 MLG'er in an A2G mossie should lose to a BR1 nublet in an unfitted A2A scythe, but no matter how good you are, if you're soloing a lib, you should not be out dogfighting A2A fighters unless they're so incompetent they take you on head to head and don't even try to evade incoming fire. 1. ESF's primary role would be anti-air, with bonus damage against air vehicles and taking extra damage from ground-based AA. You can EAT most air vehicles, but you'd better maintain your altitude while doing so! This version of the ESF would have engagement radar as a passive benefit (still needs to be certed into). It would also mean that flying escort would actually be a meaningful role. You can still buy and equip anti-ground stuff, but that would reduce your resistance to air based AA, and increase it against ground. You'd also lose most of your A2A damage potential (meaning that running for your team's ground defences would be the better option if attacked by air). This version of the ESF would have ground radar as a passive benefit (still needs to be certed into). 2. The Valkyrie would continue in it's helicopter/ground support role. It should have good resists against ground damage and medium resists against air damage, but should have no substantial anti-air damage potential. It's ground support. Let your infantry keep those pesky A2A ESF's at bay. 3. The Liberator would primarily be a bomber. Designed to operate at high altitudes, it would have limited mobility and limited ground resists. It would also have fairly good air resists and the third gun should provide decent A2A damage, but not enough to kill multiple A2A ESF's before they've downed you. The days of dogfighting libs and daltoning non-******** ESF's should (and certainly deserve) to be over. With the right gear, the Lib could be retasked to a ground support role similar to the A-10 Warthog. You'd limit your A2A resists and defences and gain a lot of G2A resists. You'd lose the third gun seat (or have it limited to A2G-type weapons) and your second seat would be limited to something like the Shredder. You'd gain a fair bit of mobility, but not nearly enough to be dogfighting. As opposed to high-altitude bombardment, you'd now be making strafing runs. 4. The Galaxy would remain primarily a squad transport. Both A2A and G2A resists would be high, but your A2A damage would be limited and your A2G damage would be virtually nonexistant. Alternatively, you could kit the galaxy out as a gunship. You'd lose all non-gunner seats, both sets of resists would drop to medium, but you'd gain a lot of A2G firepower. In both cases, you'd still maneouvre like a pregnant whale.
Ground Vehicles 1. The Flash would basically remain the same cheap and disposable ground transport. The base version would not have access to weapons, and you would no longer be able to equip weapons on a cloaker flash, but the radar, stealth and mineguard slots would be inherent (but still require certs). For slightly more nanites (say, 100) you could buy a slightly sturdier, weaponised (non-cloaky) flash. 2. The Lightning would now fall between the Flash and the Harrasser. As a one-man scout vehicle, the Lighning would have the effects of vehicle stealth, mine guard and proxy radar by default (but would still require certs). Splash damage on all weapons except the HE would be reduced, but it would gain a small coaxial machine-gun for infantry defence. Cost reduced to around 250-ish. 3. The Harrasser would be renamed the Bloody Nuisance Enforcer (or whatever.) and would now fall between the Lighning and the MBT, with an increased (to around 300) nanite cost. Because of it's mobility and the ability to actually drive while firing, it wouldn't really need any more changes than that. 4. MBT's would now be 2-man required vehicles. Primary weapon control would switch to the second seat, and the driver would gain control of the secondary weapon. I know this would be unpopular, but it would make ground wars so much more dynamic than the usual static slug-fest they are now with people slowly going backwards and forwards, in and out of cover, taking potshots at each other because the vast majority of the terrain makes it a pain-in-the-*** to try to drive and shoot. And if you're that determined, you can still park it on a hill and switch seats! Faction specific abilities would now be inherent rather than taking up a slot, but would still need to be certed into. The Vanguard would lose it's shield, and would gain a variant of the TR anchored mode that boosts resists (front, side, top), reduces rear resists, and takes approximately double the TR's anchor time to implement. 5. The Sunderer would be primarily a troop transport. Mine guard would be a passive system, but would still need to be certed. While undeployed, it's resists and health are lower, and it's weapons are locked. When deployed, it becomes a lot tougher, and it's weapons free, baby! It'll be harder for one-man-army's to kill, especially if guarded, so an effort will have to be made, but it will be substantially easier to kill in transit (so escort your sundies!). Alternatively, you can load up a "Battle-Bus" sundy. This one keeps the normal resists and weapons while moving, loses the mine-guard bonus and is limited to two passengers (in addition to the gunners) and cannot be deployed as an AMS, or equip the support-type utilities. Those nigh-invulnerable blocks of battle-sundies all mutually repairing each other and obliterating anything that looks at them funny can go die in a fire. Infantry For all infantry classes, Ammo Belt and Grenade Bandolier would become passive benefits. They would each have two levels costing around 250/500 certs (for ammo) and 750 / 1,500 certs (for grenades). Each level of ammo belt would provide an additional clip (or equivalent) for your primary and secondary weapons. Each level of Grenade Bandolier would provide one additional grenade. For balance purposes, all base ammo reserves would be reduced by one clip, resupply XP would increase slightly, and grenade splash radius would be slightly decreased. 1. Infiltrators would lose access to frag grenades, but would have the flash grenade as default. They would also gain a secondary passive hacking system that would allow them to hack any unoccupied enemy vehicle (excl. deployed sundies). Hacking a vehicle would immediately lock the vehicle to all players and, after 15 seconds, deconstruct it. If you max rank it, you should be able to hack occupied vehicles, but only to disable their weapons for 15secs or something. It might also be nice if a suitably skilled infiltrator could "hack" an enemy base, eliminating some of the defence benefits (e.g. the amp station radar suggestion above). 2. Light Assault is pretty good as it stands, but I would combine the Drifter and Icarus jumpjets into a single package. Like a gun's fire modes, you'd be able to switch between modes, but could only have one active at a time. The new pack still won't be as flexible or maneouvreable as the base jump jets, but will no longer (especially in the Icarus' case) be quite as situational. 3. Medics are also fairly balanced, but I would still make the following changes: The regen field should become a utility device, and medics should have the healing grenade by default (with the option to cert into frag). The AOE heal should no longer heal the medic (so they'll stop using it as an inferior version of the heavy shield), but the med app should heal the medic whenever used (whether they have a target or not). This will make the choice between C4, Shield regen and healy kits more meaningful, and make the medic harder to kill while healing / rezzing, but slightly easier to kill while fighting. 4. The Engineer (like the heavy below) will come in for some major changes. First up, the repair tool will "heal" the engy's shield while being used, but only while repairing something. In addition, the engy would have to choose between equipping one of the three turrets (defensive) or equipping a rocket launcher (offensive), but would lose access to C4 and all grenades regardless. This would emphasise the engineer's defensive support/anti-vehicle roles. 5. The Heavy Assault will lose access to rocket launchers to focus on their primary role as breachy-meat-shieldydude. They will lose access to shotguns and SMGs, but will be the only class able to carry two sets of grenades. In slot one, they'll choose between concussion grenades (default) and the new anti-armor grenade (which replaces the AVG). This grenade does additional damage to MAX's, but reduced damage to infantry. In the second slot, they'll choose between frag grenades (default) and C4. The bonus grenades from the revised grenade bandolier will apply to both sets of grenades (but not to C4). In addition, the heavy weapons will be adjusted to perform similar roles in slightly different ways. The MCG (limited experience here, so correct me if I'm wrong) currently either runs refire (better at 1v?) or extended mags (suppression). The Lasher would receive a rail slot (plasma converter?) which would eliminate it's splash damage and increase it's bullet velocity for 1v? purposes, or equip the extended mags for the current suppression role. The Jackhammer would receive a complete rework. Instead of extended mags, it would become an auto-shotgun with two different, belt-fed ammo types. ?Flak? ammo would have a wide CoF, very large mag sizes and large pellet numbers, but bullet velocity would be low, damage would be low and would be capped at (for example) 3 pellets per person. This would provide a decent suppression role. The other ammo type, ?pellets? would have a moderate CoF, medium mag sizes, low pellet numbers etc. For pure 1v1, you'd still be better off using an LMG, but if you want to use your flashy heavy gun outside of suppression spam, it'll at least be vaguely reasonable. 6. The MAX. Ahhh... the MAX. Much loved or hated, depending on which side of the guns you are! Can be ridiculously OP in small fights or in large numbers, and almost free certs to a competent player or team in large fights. I'd like to see to the MAX become a proper squad support toole, so the changes I propose are the following: Much, MUCH longer TTK's for MAX's, much more health/resists on MAX's (although a single C4 should still kill, because if you can get that close, you deserve it) and no resurrect or self-healing on MAX suits. The current MAX abilities should be scrapped and replaced with: Defence - increased resists, sets weapon RoF to 50%, lockdown mode. When locked down, RoF returns to 100%. TR get a 25% boost to RoF while locked down. NC get a resist boost. VS get screwed (as they deserve!), I mean, repair boosts. Assault - normal resists, all weapon RoF's are 125%, charge. Skirmish - lower resists, weapons RoF's are 75%, damage is reduced, but accuracy is increased. Movement speed (in all axes) is increased, and they get a VERY limited version of the Planetside 1 VS MAX jump ability. ========================================================================= Part 4 - TEN RANDOM THINGS I'D LOVE TO SEE 1. A NS heavy weapon version of the Thumper from Planetside 1. Go ahead. Put 30 people in that point room instead of assembling some sort of coherent defence. 2. The sunderer variant designed to interfere with enemy spawning. 3. Some version of the Planetside 1 Aegis Shield Generator making it's way into the game. Possibly as a stepping stone between the spawn beacon and the Sundy. 4. The Spitfire turret needs work. A lot of it. Currently it's only good to provide early warning, something to hide behind, and the very, VERY occasional lucky last shot on the dude that just got done killing you! 5. I'd like engy's to receive an AA turret version (to complete the current AI/AV/Auto set) that shoots flak or something. 6. I think it might be quite fun to give Liberators some sort of bomb that can home in on a laser designated target. It could use the same mechanics as lock-on launchers to select the lazed target and lock on before firing. Having stalker infils lazing a stationary enemy for a bombing run just seems really epic to me. 7. Some sort of mobile teleport similar to Planetside 1's Router to be implemented. This would admittedly need some careful balancing to avoid exploitation, but would provide another excellent tactical tool to use / fight against. 8. The ability for a suitably certed squad/platoon leader to draw on the map of those in his squad/platoon to outline plans. I know it's subject to potential dickishness, but if you're in with randoms, you can always leave, and if you're with your outfit, the offending SL/PL can always be reined in by the bosses. 9. Some bases should have novel capture requirements, possibly require something similar to Planetside 1's LLU-runs. Maybe a reverse LLU - i.e. take the point, then bring something from a nearby base to it to complete the cap. 10. Finally, I'd like to see some real goals for high BR players. Not silly stuff like grinding certs to unlock more stuff, or grinding directives for epeen waving or <DBG-forbid> "prestiging" your character or whatever. It would probably be a bit tricky to implement and would probably have to be monitored to avoid exploitation, but I'd love to see some sort of mentorship program for high BR players. A high BR player could "adopt" up to, say, 5 other players at a time who he could then teach stuff too. They spend a bunch of time running around with him... mentorship ticks. They improve their average accuracy by 5%... mentorship ticks. They make their first non-vehicle 10-kill streak... mentorship ticks. They spend 2+ hours together on a class/vehicle they've got <10 hours with... mentorship ticks etc. Basically, anything that could improve a newer player's game experience would earn mentorship points. Perhaps forum mods could occasionally reward points to those who write detailed guides, or create good YouTube stuff (Wrel and Zoran come to mind) etc. Those mentorship points could then be traded in for e.g. exclusive versions of weapons, perhaps, or special cosmetics unobtainable any other way (maybe a backpack like the Planetside 1 CR5 backpack). Or special titles / voice packs. Something special to reward those high rank players who've taken the time to put back in and build/support the Planetside 2 community. ========================================================================= If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed my view of a potential future for Planetside 2, and I look forward to reading your constructive comments!
Wow. Points for effort, if nothing else. I agree completely with most of what you have said in part 1 and in part 2. However, I disagree with pretty much everything else, unfortunately. ESFs -- Personally, I think ESFs should lose almost/all of their A-to-G capabilities. Valkyrie -- I agree with you here. Liberator -- I think that the liberator should have only limited mobility and resists to both air and ground. As of now, they can out-DPS almost any ground-based AA weaponry. They should be afraid of ESFs, and need escorts, as the are primarily bombers, and are not made for dogfighting. Galaxy -- Once again, I think their A-to-G capabilities should be minimal, with moderate AA weaponry and high resists to both ground and air. The would ideally need an escort, and not be used as flying gunboats. Flash -- Sounds OK to me. I'd be fine if changed to this, or nothing at all. Lightning -- Might be OK. Could give it some time to see what happens. MBTs -- I'll leave this to someone more qualified than I. Harrasser -- As of now, harrassers are just fancier, more expensive flashes, unless you're TR and have a Vulcan or something like that. I think that they should be given their old mobility back, before the great nerf that almost wiped them out completely. Though they were quite OP at the time, so I think they should have reduced resistances to both ground and air, and have all weapons get reduced damage, with specific amounts for each weapon. (More than now). 300 nanites sounds OK. Sunnderer -- I think sunnderers are OK as of now. Maybe less health/resistances. Your ideas might be OK though. Infiltrators -- Eh, I don't know. Vehicles come after snipers all the time, and it would be nice to be able to defend against them somehow, but vehicle hacking isn't the answer in my opinion. I'll leave vehicle hacking for someone else to debate. Light Assault -- The jetpacks are pretty OK, but I don't know. I don't think they need to be combined. I think they should not get both C4 and flight though. Pretty OP. Medics -- I think they should lose C4, as that's not really what medics do. I agree that the regeneration field should become a utility instead of an ability. I think the AOE heal should stay the same. It really doesn't ever save them from more than one bullet at a time. Engineer -- Meh. I don't think shield regeneration on the repair tool would really be necessary. On the contrary, I think engineers should be the only class with access to C4, as they would be the only ones with knowledge to use them, and they are suppose to be the anti-vehicle class. Heavy Assault -- I think the HA class is OK for right now. As for the heavy weapons, just plain scrap the Jokehammer and give the NC something that INS'T JUST ANOTHER GODDAMN MOTHER****ING SHOTGUN FOR **** SAKES!!!! MAXes -- I don't think MAXes are really in need of special abilities. They sort of have enough as is. But again, I'll leave that to someone more qualified to debate this than me. I don't think they should be revivable though.
Thanks for the comments, Campagne! The main reason I included most of the alternative options on the vehicles is that people will justifiably be angry if you take their favourite playstyle away. I'm not saying things should remain the same, or that balance and changes aren't needed, but options should never be taken away without very serious thought (at least, imo! ). On the infiltrator changes, I'll admit there's quite a bit of nostalgia on the hacking side. One of my alltime favourite stories from Planetside 1 was the time we were under attack by MASSES of vehicles, mostly MBT's. And every time we managed to damage one enough, he'd just pull back behind the hill to where they had a Lodestar (think repair & rearm galaxy that could carry vehicles) parked. I managed to stealth through the enemy lines, getting through all their tanks and people running around and locate their vehicle. Marking it on the map, I managed to call in and guide indirect fire from my platoon's tanks which were behind shields in the courtyard. Naturally, the Lodie moved.... but then the driver got out to repair it! That Lodie was jacked and deconstructed before he could think twice, and I was calling on my mates to push out of the base! We kept the base.... I just find it such a shame that that sort of thing happens so seldom in PS2! On medics, the primary reason I wanted to remove the heal from the AoE was simply because I didn't want a medic healing himself while still being able to fight. It's fine to heal allies. It's fine to heal yourself while not fighting. But being able to heal and fight etc. just seemed a bit OP to me On HA's, I still think they should lose the rocket launcher. Right now, the best answer to almost any question is HA. 1/2 enemies in a building? Shotty/SMG Heavy. Varying ranges and combined arms? LMG heavy with launcher. MAX's? Heavy. Other heavies? Heavy. I don't want to nerf heavies. They have their place and they SHOULD be tough-as-nails hard to kill, with the potential for decent, sustained damage. They just shouldn't be the default answer to almost everything. Anyways... that's just some of the reasoning behind what I was proposing. Thanks again for the comments and read-through! [edit] Oh, and the Jackhammer has to stay a shotgun. Because reasons! [/edit]
Have the Devs actually read Their OWN forums and posting on them instead of everything on freaking reddit. If anything reddit posts should be clones of ones here and not completely seperate
You have put out some good work here. Unfortunately planetside 2 has passed it's prime time. You can possibly make a new game with the resources it would take to do all these changes.
On this, I'll have to disagree. MMO's can, if the devs make decent decisions live for years before they end up on life support. Unfortunately, most sets of devs have (and continue to) make poor decisions. It's certainly not too late to avoid having to put Planetside 2 on life support. Also, in relation to your comment about the work involved, I'd have to respectfully disagree. Sure, if they try to include my "top 10" list, it would probably take a fair amount of work, but apart from that a great deal of stuff is already ingame / been developed and would merely need to be updated / tweaked. I'm not going to pretend to be an awesome coder, or anything, but I've got some experience. In addition, I've managed quite a large number of projects, so I've got some idea of what would be involved. I would estimate that pretty much everything in Part 1 could be implemented with only a single week of (admittedly hard) work. The vast majority of it would simply be tweaking numbers and data files. The problem would be how much people want to talk about it before they actually get around to doing anything. Most of parts 2.1-2.3 could be done in a month, although it would probably take another 2-3 months to a) put onto PTS, get feedback, tweak, put live, patch bugs, etc. Part 2.4 would probably be a lot of work. Some bits could be implemented in a couple of weeks, some bits we'd only see in 6 months. Most of part 3 could be done in 2 months. With another 2-4 months for beta, patching, updates, fixes etc. Admittedly the bigger changes could take 8-12 months to see the light of day. Part 4 is basically made up of nice-to-haves, and wishful thinking. We'd be unlikely to see these, and if we did, it would be on a one here, one there sort of basis. Still, I believe most of this stuff could be live, in-game in under 6 months. PS4 version has only just been released. Planetside 2 totally still has time!
No. Planetside is simply designed in a wrong manner. Yeah loyal some of us like it. But if u want the crowd this game doesn't give the things it has offered once. And if u manage to change the game enough you can call it planetside 3 as it will be nothing like this
To be fair, there are sales. 50% off an item is typical. Plus the SC/DGC itself can go on sale and 25% off is normal (50% off is considered good). In that way players can essentially pay $1.75 for a 700SC/DBC item (50% off on sale plus 50% DBC sale). The very idea is of basic economics. Some people will (foolishly) pay the full price because they can afford to or don't know better. DBG benefits from these. Other people will buy the same item at 50% discount, and others still at 75% discount. These people are still paying customers, so DBG captures all tiers of the market. I guess you could argue that some people would even want a greater discount than 75%, but there's a certain point at which you just shrug your shoulders and ignore that portion of the market.
I suppose that the point I was trying to make was that because the prices are so high, the vast majority of those who spend any money will usually only spend it on the sales. I know that's pretty much how I've been operating, and I'd be very surprised if you could lay your hands on a non-insignificant number of people (excl. those who're paying with the "free" DBC that comes with membership) who're paying full prices for stuff. To me, that says that the maximum retail prices should be set at around the current discounted prices. Anybody who is gonna buy at that price will still do so. Toss the occasional smaller (say, 25%) discount on, and they'll make even more sales. Since the incremental cost of any of these things is effectively zero, they should be aiming to flog as many of them as they possibly can! Obviously, this isn't something we can "prove" one way or the other. At least, not without DBG handing out all their sales stats (which I think is unlikely! ). It's just the sense I get from talking to people, outfit mates comments, forums etc.
The problem with this is that DBG will lose those sales from customers who do in fact pay the current full price. For example, if someone would have paid $7 for an item but instead has a maximum price of $3.50 to pay, then of course DBG will have lost out on a sale. It is better to have the "premium" price as the default price and to have sales based off of that. In that way you capture all tiers of the market, instead of letting those "premium" payers off the hook. The other problem is that if people expect sales, then payers who otherwise might have paid the "premium" full price will wait for the sale. Let's imagine if every other week DBG had a sale where everything was 50% off. Well in that case you'd have a large number of players who would think to themselves, "gee, waiting another 5 days to save 50% isn't that hard... I'll wait for the sale". Now if we imagined an alternate scenario where DBG had a sale once a year where everything was 50% off... we could easily think that many players would just buy it now for the "premium" price instead of waiting for a sale. So to maximize the number of players who would pay the "premium" price, sales need to be relatively rare and inconvenient. Now you could argue that they will make more money overall if they lower prices because although they make less per unit they make up for it by volume... but that's essentially what the sales are for. Sales are essentially heavily discounted prices available to those who are willing to experience the extra inconvenience for waiting. As it works now, I think the sales model "works" in the sense that it allows DBG to capture as much of the market as they can. The only improvements I would make is how they publicize sales so that people who would purchase at lower price points don't quit the game when they see that initial price tag.
Oh, I know what you're saying, ColChig, but I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Essentially, it's coming down to our perceptions of how well items are selling at various price points and what we believe would happen if things were changed. Without some hard data from DBG (like that'll happen!) it's not really something that can be solved. Still, it was an interesting discussion to have, and I'll admit I was quite surprised to hear an opinion indicating that people were buying weapons and stuff at full price!
A fair enough point. I definitely agree that more thought should be put in to making large changes. Especially so when altering playstyles! That kind of thing would be fun to do/see, but when one infiltrator can change the flow of battle so extremely, it can be quite frustrating for the other side. I don't see why medics couldn't just "shoot" themselves with the healing tool instead. They wouldn't be able to heal themselves in battle with it either! Much better than a regeneration field. I agree that HAs are too versatile. Maybe if they could have either an LMG or a rocket launcher? Shotguns are one of PS2's biggest sins, in my opinion. Thank you for putting in so much thought and effort into this post. It was a pleasure to read.
Weak troll is weak. Go climb back under your bridge. Personally, I'm not bothered by the cert price hike. I'm bothered by the fact that DBG is likely not making enough money. Given my feelings and that of many others I've spoken to, the high cash-prices on the weapons (especially when combined with the seemingly endless nerf/buff/break/fix cycle) is a substantial disincentive to spending money (edit - on weapons). I believe DBG could make a lot more sales, and thus a lot more money, simply by lowering the cash prices.
