Planetside 2's Culture Promotes A Different Behavior

Too many words. People don't have time man. you're talking to the brain surgeons of tomorrow. Don't bother them with your 'intellectual analysis' they've seen it all and done it all. What is this ... school!??!!

...sigh... every day I lose a little more faith in today's generation. and I thought MINE was ####ed

I play for the opportunity to challenge thousands of players to a real time military strategy against thousands of other players. At the same time.

True and unfortunate that many can't seem to figure out how to use the map. So much information there.

It goes beyond not stopping to give a stranded soldier a ride, but actively blowing up his sunderer so you can get the certs instead! Happened to me last night in a large amp station fight well before the shields went down and it's terrible. This game rewards selfish play far too much.

Awesome (and entertaining) post.

You are 100% correct. I would rather be warpgated and farm certs at record numbers than hold every facility on the map. What's the point of holding territory? There is none! All that maters is cert farming, and now with Heroic Boosts it makes it even MORE worth while. www.nopointforteamwork.org/bbq.edu (Don't click this it's not a real link). lolomgbbq.com

TL, DR: The reward system is broken.

I will apologize in advance to all the tl;dr posters for my lengthy reply.

I can empathize with your experience and I think this is a big part of what the OP and others have been trying to point out- having to play the game to unlock items would not feel like as much of a chore if the reward for playing to the objective was greater (i.e. if cert gain for the objectives >> farming behavior). It would feel less like a monotonous cert farm grind if the game rewarded you with a fair amount of certs for simply playing the games objectives- in other words, if certs were earned more organically then earning certs would feel less stale.

Cert farming is almost the definition of monotony- you find a behavior, or relatively limited set of behaviors, that results in a significantly faster cert gain than playing to the objective and you repeat this (or these)- often very specific- behaviors over and over and over. True, you could argue that the capture/defend cycle is also a bit monotonous but IMO the capture/defend cycle is far more dynamic because the specific behaviors you are engaging in at any given time are far more context dependent (e.g. go for the gen, oh no- enemy attack them, okay cover teammates, gen is down, okay they got the other one too, is the SCU still up? I think I see an enemy sunderer, etc. etc.). Whereas cert farming, almost by definition, is a relatively well-defined pattern (e.g. fight at the biolab?, okay they have this outpost so I should sit by this doorway with this loadout and wait for this signal to tell me when to shoot- or- relatively low pop on Amerish?, okay pull a lib with this loadout, scan the hexes for "enemies detected" but not "enemy squads", go to the hex, spam the CP).

If the best way to farm certs was to capture/defend then suddenly all the other related objectives (nearby hex influence, gen's, SCU's, transportation, hacking terminals, etc. and destruction of enemy resources) suddenly have dynamic value depending on the specific situation. Teamwork to achieve the objective becomes preferrable because more teammates means a greater likelihood of success (rather than more competition for the available kills). The only drawback I could see would be that it may encourage more zerg behavior but there may be ways to augment this relationship- e.g. xp is a function of both the number of teammates and the number of enemies in the area over the time it takes to cap or defend. In this way, the greatest reward would also go to the greatest risk such that 1 person ghost capping would not be so wonderful if no one shows up to fight- but if 1 person is trying to ghost cap and they hold off 4-5 enemies then this ratio 1:5 is large and the reward would be as well (depending on how long this 1:5 ratio existed during the flip time). Moreover, a zerg situation where you cap a base with a ratio of teammates to enemies of 10:1 would result in less reward than if it was 5:1, or 2:1, etc. At least in theory, an xp system that resembled something like this would then result in a more authentic risk-reward mentality wherein the emphasis would be on trying to both maximize the probability of success while simultaneously minimizing the numerical advantage. The only way to both maximize the probability of success and minimize the ratio of teammates:enemies would be to develop and execute better strategies and tactics so that ideally you are winning the objective with the fewest teammates possible. Teamwork is still a big part of the reward as this is tied to success but simply having the bigger team is not the minimum solution to the function and so a specific kind of teamwork is emphasized- the most efficient team becomes much more valuable than the largest team. Sure, you may be able to guarantee success with a giant zerg but you will also gaurantee that the success will not be that rewarding- likewise, you may not be able to guarantee success if you are outnumbered but if you do succeed then the reward will be very sweet.

What makes this dynamic is that the function can only be properly understood in terms of the actions of both teammates and enemies. In other words, if there is a large battle that starts to swing in the favor of the attackers then there is incentive to send reinforcements to win back the objective because there is a lot of xp to be spread around and denied from the attackers. However, there is also incentive for the defenders to retreat towards other objectives because this will decrease the reward for the attackers unless they too spread out towards other objectives- thus making a well timed second wave of defensive reinforcements both more viable and more threatening. Moreover, the desirability of one choice over another would at best only be vaguely understood by the participants and would be another area where leadership skills, intuition and intelligence on the battlefield would be rewarded. You would never have an exact idea of how much xp the objective would net but rather you would have a feel for how much reward you may receive based upon the conditions of the battlefield. Is this a large, long lasting and relatively balanced battle or are we just crushing these guys and coasting along?

Stalemates like those that tend to happen at the crown and some other locations would be less attractive because even though the defenders may be outnumbered, say 2:1- this somewhat irrelevant unless the attackers have started to flip the base. Although some may try to "bait" the situation and allow the attackers a moment to start to flip (in order to cash in on the objective's xp) with the intention of easily regaining the base, this would not only be a somewhat risky proposition (can you get the base back after you let them in) but unless the attackers gain a fair amount of control before loosing to the defense then the defenders are not likely to see very much reward.

Finally, somewhat outside the idea outlined above, I still do not understand why xp for certain actions is stepwise such that is comes in chunks rather than being continuous. For instance, if you cause damage to a target above a threshold t then you are reward with x amount of xp- if t is greater than the enemy's remaining HP then you kill them and receive y amount of xp regardless of how much damage this required. You can also look at engineers and medics, they too receive xp in chunks wherein after a threshold t of repair or heal they receive x amount of xp. I'm not the first to make this suggestion, but why not grant continuous xp for these actions? In other words, each minimum increment of damage, repair, or heal that is contributed should result in some minimum increment of xp. For instance, 1 unit damage = 1 unit xp, 1 unit of repair = 1 unit xp, etc. In this case, healing or repairing becomes a continous flow of xp over time rather than occuring like separate drops. With damage, xp would still be somewhat stepwise in that a full damage shot from a 167 damage rifle will net 167 xp but this is different than only rewarding based upon acheiving some threshold. Now, if we want to incentivize certain meaningful thresholds- like shields down or death- then we can simply have an additive bonus xp for the player who's actions met this threshold. This way, everyone is equally motivated to deal damage/repair/heal and there is additional incentive to bring home the kill, destroy the vehicle, top off the repair or health, but overall there would be less incentive to steal kills/repairs/health because the closer the target is to threshold when you engage the lower the overall xp you will receive despite getting the bonus bump. E.g. if player A deals 900 damage to an infantry with 1000HP then they receive 900 xp whereas player B who dealt the last 100 damage will receive only 100 xp plus an additional, say, 250 xp. True, we can argue that player B is still "stealing the kill" but in this scenario that just means they received the bonus for acheiving a meaningful threshold and so long as this bonus is relatively small compared to the total xp necessary to reach that threshold then the distribution of xp will be more evenly distributed across the players involved in obtaining that threshold and hence is likely to be perceived as a more just distribution of rewards. Now, obviously with the numbers I have supplied here they would probably want to augment the xp:cert ratio but that is easy enough to do. While I think we need to move towards a continuous form of xp gain in these kinds of scenarios, IMO there should be much greater xp reward for playing the objective than farming kills/repairs/ammo/heals because over incentivizing these micro-activities makes focusing on the macro-activities of base capture/defense less attractive and you can wind up with people being drawn towards things like squatting on ammo packs to fire/reload rather than being productive in terms of actual gameplay. Outside the context of the macro-activities these micro-activities should be meaningless but since they can result in favorable cert gain they are bestowed with a meaning outside the context of gameplay and therefore cert gain and these micro-activities become both means and ends- consequently the intended gameplay looses both value and meaning.

Everyone thinks that there isn't an easy fix for this when in reality there is. The only problem is implementing it would be like tearing a bandaid made of duct tape off a wound on a hairy patch of skin.

No more EXP for kills.

Sounds cool

*For attackers.

And increase capture/objective XP by 10x
Defense can keep its kill XP.

No one is making you read.

Move along, citizen.

Good read....but I think somewhere between the first and last word I bought a timeshare condo I didn't need and beachfront property in Wyoming.

It is a real pleasure to read a convincing and intelligent post.

PS1:
At Biolab: DON'T BLOW THE GEN!!! FARM IT!!!
Anywhere not an Interlink facility: Interfarm on Fors!!! /abandon whatever you were doing before
etc...

PS1 had some nice strategic layers that PS2 lacks (though, they took awhile to develop) but seriously... there was sooo much XP farming

This is the stated current target demographic of the devs. The willingly have made ps2 more like a bf game as to draw in moar numbers and make moar money then over time to gradually bring in tactical and strategic play instead of the brainless farming and zerging we have now.

It does make sense though as you have to start somewhere and a game needs a solid core of well leveled players once the devs do get around to smartening up the gameplay.

Until then grab yer shotgun and cert up young man!

Is the OP an editor for Cracked.com or something?

If you have something to say say it with words. Those pictures didn't even need to be there. It reminded me of when i was at school and order to pad out an essay you would stick random pictures in. Stop wasting my bandwidth...

Heh, yeah.

Sometimes you gotta tear your work down to make it right from the ground up.

Stop wasting my internet pixels.

Ok.....
*edges away slowly*

I honestly can't agree more, as stated this is an analysis of the major issue holding this game back. But there isn't a solution w/out ruining what the game is. Either they kill what it is and rebuild or they can mess it up and contort the image that it doesn't pander to any audience further.

The new lattice system will be a step in the right direction for the current game dynamics, it will be less about the openness of where to go next and more about seizing and holding territory. It will promote a more zergish mindset but in the end it gives value to the territory and forces the cert farmers to contribute to capturing whether they want to or not. Is it what everyone wants? No it will actually make it harder for small outfits to feel like they are contributing to the progress of their faction on their own but it will put more emphasis on the fights and the territory that you gain. Only time will tell how well it is implemented though and I feel it honestly is to early to really be sure on what will come with the "lattice" system currently in the works, good or bad.

F2P may be the best market atm, but it brings along a lot of undesirable side effects. IMHO I'd rather pay for a niche game monthly then play a F2P game that attempts to pander to many niches and genres. Its hard to feel the game fully appeals to me which further makes it harder to maintain interest in the game itself. To me it feels like the kid back in highschool who attempted to be everyone's friend but ultimately everyone just disliked them. Games have to commit to a certain crowd and we know that the original target audience of PS2 was BF3 players. It was stated early on that the combat was based around how BF3 played, this is a tall order because of the limitation implemented on BF3 as well as the fact that BF3 was built to pander to CoD players over the niche core that had come to love the older games in the series. But as the game continues in its open development, since we obviously know the game was not ready for release back in November, that it continues to move more in a direction akin to what the old PS1 had to offer. Therefore the game itself attempted to hook a mainstream audience (a volatile, short attention spanned one at that) while pandering to other niche audiences and paid for it in player retention. We all know that though the numbers aren't awful atm, they are in comparison to the launch numbers. So many came here looking for more and left with a bad taste in their mouth. There will always be a loyal crowd, every game has these and honestly there isn't much more that can be done to hurt the community other then down right breaking the game so badly that no one can play anymore (which some updates have done, luckily the community is more forgiving and tends to come back).

What needs to happen to give this game some real flavor is that there needs to be incentive for the players to actually play the game the way it was designed, its not designed to be TDM cert farm, its a territory control game. A mix of RTS on the FPS level, we are all meant to feel like the grunts under the boots of generals who lead us to victory or slaughter, but it isn't there... yet. If there was a system that gave you certs per hour based on the territory you controled (across the server) I bet you that this would change how many play the game. You want certs? Earn them by taking territory over kill farming. Less emphasis on killing the enemy, more emphasis on pushing them out of your rightfully earned territory!

TL-DR: Amazing analysis, now for solutions.

We need ideas, we need the DEVs to listen to the ideas and give their input on them as to whether they see them as good or not.

My Idea: Add certs/hr incentive to territory held across the server. More territory held, more certs/hr gain. Lower cert gain respectively from general combat. Push for more combined forces play and less TDM open world play. This is a way that I could see this game taking a step in the right direction for how its advertised and how it would be played.

I'm a very hairy man, so I cringed a lot reading this