Problems with PlanetSide 2 as I see them.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by BuzzCutPsycho, Dec 30, 2012.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Admiral

    SOE should take these suggestions seriously, they would go a long way to making this game worthy of the planetside name.
  2. Almost

    Only thing missing is a remark about driver = gunner
    and about vehicles capturing points without having to exit.
  3. Flharfh

    Add on to these something to address hacking and griefing and we've got a pretty great game.
  4. innociv

    I agree with just about everything except for two things:

    Closing windows -
    This isn't the problem really. The problem is that buildings are tiny. Look at areas like Tawrich tech, that is an example of some good buildings near the SCU.
    There are big towers covering the windows from range, there are large buildings, and vehicles that get in there are pretty death trapped unless they have lots of infantry to support.

    And even better example is on Amerish, Lithcorp Secure Mine and Splitpeak pass.
    Again, these areas can be gotten to be Vehicles, but only through 1 or 2 routes, where infantry are shooting down and have lots of cover.
    Now, if some windows were 1-way sheilds, that might be cool. But really what is needed is fences around buildings, smaller buildings around central ones, so on.

    Zephyr and Dalton-
    The Zephyr is too good at what it does, yeah. But I think you miss why this is so good. It's so good because even against good ground-to-air coverage it can go in, do a pass of 6 shots, repair, repeat. The Dalton is okay(though not as good) against infantry, yet isn't strong against good AA cover because it only gets 1 or 2 shots off for a lot less kills. The way the clip works with the zephyr makes it so strong even against good AA cover.

    I think the easy fix is to swap these weapons around. The strength of Dalton against infantry is pretty well balanced. One really close hit without flak armor/nanoweave kills them, but otherwise they live and they can find cover before another shot hits.

    Just reduce the Dalton direct hit damage so its less good against vehicles, and reduce the indirect damage of the Zephyr to like 300 and the inner splash radius to half similar to have happened with rocketpods, and the Dalton becomes a balanced anti-infantry weapon and zephyr would be for vehicles.
  5. remnantSiX

  6. FightingFirst

    A point you missed about the defensibility of buildings is that quite a lot of the buildings are surrounded by higher ground.
    Case in point Saerro Listening post. It is surrounded by hills allowing the attackers to shoot down on the defenders. This is very poor building placement. If you want to make something defensible then it needs to occupy the high ground.
    [IMG]
    The black arrow shows where I would move the old base from to the top of the hill. This immediately gives the defenders the high ground. Where the blue arrows are the hills should be flattened slightly to allow a greater field of view for the defence. I would then put teleporters from the main base to the red arrow (where I have put a building) to allow the defence to move across the mountain with ease, this could also be a point the attackers could cap to allow for a foothold to attack the main tower from. Point A would be next to the bridge to encourage actually defending a choke point (as of now the defence usually stay near the main base). Head on over the bridge would be rather challenging for the attackers but they can still utilise the path ways indicated by the pink arrows. Lastly, point B would be within the tower as it is already. I believe these changes would make it much easier for smaller number of defenders to stall a larger zerg instead of just getting steam rolled. Base position really does need to adhere more closely to the principles of defence because as of now most bases do not making playing on the defence often a one sided affair which is not satisfying for either team imo.

    Also with regards to windows in buildings there is another solution that doesnt involve removing them. Make them like arrow slits in European Medieval castles:
    [IMG]
    This would allow defenders much greater protection to shoot out whilst making it very hard for the attackers to shoot in. You could also add cover inside the building to limit blast damage of any shots that do make it in. Furthermore, you will notice the opening widens on the defenders side but if you were to look around at the side that the attackers see it would still be narrow. This also gives the defenders a massive field of view advantage for when firing out.

    Also at the moment PS2 only has a single layer of walls this could be revamped to help out the defence:
    Firstly, you will notice that there are only outer walls on fortification on PS2. This means that once the defenders have lost the walls they have no second line to fall back to. Once the walls have fallen the enemy are free to run amok inside the base. Furthermore the walls have a pretty large circumference requiring a large force just to man effectively and to add further to the difficulty of defending the the base the buildings inside the wall are placed in such a way that they allow attackers to reach the main building with a lot of cover hampering the defenders chances.
    Below I have revamped the amp station (forgive my paint skills)
    [IMG]
    Firstly I have moved the actual Ampstation on top of a hill rather than surrounded by them. Secondly I have added an inner and outer wall so defenders have something to fall back on and a smaller number of defenders can defend against a larger force as it will take less men to properly man the inner walls. To do this the amp station has been made smaller as to allow it to fit within a smaller second wall. The first shield gen is kept within the base with the inner wall having a clear view over it. The second shield gen for the gates is within a tower to encourage guarding of the walls. And the actual capture point is well within all the ampstations defences. Whilst I havent put any buildings in my amp station there should be a reduced amount near the gates as to allow clear channels of fire for the defence, and a high number of buildings on the North side of the base (where vehicles could not go) to allow for a sort of infantry only area.
    Towers should also be revamped. At the moment they are too open, defenders should have more cover and the number of weapons emplacement should be doubled. Also ontop of the tower and on the walls there should be top cover so as to protect the defenders from aircraft which would in turn encourage the use of infantry when defending. Thirdly, the first set of gates should have walk ways over the top of them allowing infantry to shoot at vehicles approaching and going under the gate (if it has been disabled).

    The only thing I do not agree with is the decrease in shield recharge time.

    FF
    • Up x 7
  7. Xuerian

    I really wish people would think about these kinds of things, especially if they're having problems with vehicles interrupting their infantry combat - the map is to blame for a lot of this, with defenses of large bases reduced to match smaller bases instead of smaller bases being increased to match larger bases - and thus spreading out conflict, giving more infantry combat opportunities, but not making irrational complaints about armor which should be doing a lot of damage in open conditions.

    Thanks for the post.
  8. NoXousX

    Buzzcut as much as I'd like to bash your post, I can't.

    Having said that, this was a very nice writeup. Good job. Thanks for taking the time to do this..
  9. K-On

    Dude SoE has 0 creativity, same gun models, 1 armor etc etc don't want to go on. Only few bases are really good to defend the rest are like just there for looks lol. For me once they can keep tanks and aircraft from coming "inside" bases and camp. 1-2 tank or lib/aircraft with about 10-15 people can out number 25 people defending those small bases. As simple as it sounds to shoot a rocket at the tank it can be repair and people will shoot u down before u do lol.
  10. Dazamin

    Nice post, good sensible ideas on some of the main issues we're seeing in game
  11. Natir

    Buzz and the rest of us have been saying what was in the OP since tech test. Problem is SOE just is not listening. I should say, if they are listening, they are doing a poor job at communicating then..

    I would disagree with a large demographic being upset. This game is not supposed to be about KDR. If people are only playing this game for KDR, in about a month they would be moving on to a better game as this will be boring to them.
  12. SKYHEX

    Very good summarization. While I openly admit that I hold great anipathy towards you as a person Buzz, you do have my respect for your gaming ability and insight into this problematic. Although it would be much more compelling if you tried to source at least few of the ideas/solutions you posted, since they do not represent your point of view entirely. I have already seen many of these solutions on the forums here and PSU as well previously.
  13. 3dfx

    Read it before I realized who wrote it; a nice surprise.

    KDR and Stats:
    I'm mixed on it and have trouble backing either side up.

    Encourage Fighting and Discourage Ghost Capping:
    Haha, I get a little sad when someone kills an enemy sunderer or flips an outpost. I agree defending needs reworking. An exact solution would need more think tank power.

    Capture Mechanics:
    You would think someone with 1200+ captures would be able to predict how long a base takes to cap, but I don't have a clue. While I'm not against a static timer, I think just less variation would suffice and definitely a timer.

    Base design needs a complete rework. I agree on the amp station pads. Tech plant and biolab defensibility will change with redesigns, but I agree on their current status. As for smaller bases I agree again: they need to be reworked. Playing "find where the tank cant hit" isn't a fun game. I think I like the no deploy zone idea.

    Weapons
    I would need to see the damage profile of HE before I decided what to do with it. I'm inclined to say that the damage in the middle and outside areas of the blast radius need a slight nerf. Or possibly halve the blast radius on the side closest the tank (to help with spamming against building walls). I also want it to do zero damage to MBT.

    I never understood why the Zephyr has 6 rounds. I think I prefer the idea of a 2 round clip with 3 hits to kill. It's sort of nice to be able to distinguish the weapons from the amount of rounds being fired. Agree on the Dalton; SOE seems to hate single role weapons.

    I align very much so with you on vehicle resource and timers. The entire resource system needs a rework, although I haven't come up with any solutions. I do know MBT and Lib costs need to be significantly higher (50%-75%). My thought on acquisition was to remove upgrades 6-10 and rescale 1-5 for MBT and libs so the rescaled level 5 is 3 minutes longer than the current one.

    I posted this on reddit earlier, but I think air's power = -log(AAcount/thecrown). Meaning, air is immortal against low amounts of AA but ultimately becomes useless once enough AA has been reached. I think the average amount of AA around needs to increase more so than a G2A buff is needed. I think giving XP for just hitting air targets will help increase the average active AA. Additionally, I think AA has been P2W up to this point. I'm a 100% F2P BR55 and just bought my left burster today (still no SG/AA rocket). The F2P community will likely have more AA options in the coming weeks which will further help decrease air's power. As an aside, I wish rocket pods had a detrimental effect on some aspect of mobility.

    I like EMP, but would want to see its implementation before hand as I can see it being too strong.

    Defensible Structures
    Agree on too many windows. I don't think most places have too many entrances, most have 2-3 (if you ignore the windows).

    Grenade Spam
    Yeah, the price of frags needs to go up while non-lethal go down (except revive grenade).

    Certifications
    As a F2P player, I have no issues with having to buy unlocks for classes repeatedly; though level 5 flak/nanoweave and C4 stings. The only argument I have for sharing vehicle weapons is that the weapons that are shared are generally not the primary weapons. Buying 4 A30 Walkers just so people in your vehicles can enjoy them seems like a bit much.

    Combat Downtime
    I think the shield timer is fairly good. If you get a bullet lead on someone you have time to reload and hunt them down without losing your edge. While I haven't played with it much, I do think the advanced shield capacitor needs a buff.

    Agree with revive HP. I think the range increasing with level is also fine.
  14. Ghstmarauder

    I feel dirty agreeing with this post.

    I feel your Pet Peeve with windows and Vehicles Spam too. Another Pet Peeve of mine is Spawn Room placement, when you have Spawnrooms outside the base proper, or have windows or open areas where vehicles can shoot at the exits, it just promotes Vehicle Spam and continuing to farm. In Tech Plants now, why focus on the capture point, when you can just wait at their spawn building with vehicles. Its silly honestly, at least in Planetside the Spawn Rooms were out of reach of Vehiciular Weapons.
    • Up x 1
  15. Sargicus

    I almost want to be surprised that this post came from who it is. However, I've seen a very similar argument from him late in Beta. It seems like SOE is burying their head in the sand on this issue, and although Buzz is typically rather annoying, this is something SOE needs to listen to. If they did, this would be a far better game.
    • Up x 1
  16. SavageB

    For once in my life, I agree with buzz.
  17. Dvinn

  18. Kuraudo

    They were listening to us in Beta; a lot of the way the game runs right now is thanks to our input during the Beta period. The game has a long way to go, but it's also come a long way too. Remember when adjacency didn't even matter? That was hellish, but it's just one example of a major change we clamored for and got.

    Right now, I keep hearing the devs are on vacation; when they come back in January, I bet we'll see a lot of interaction again. Perhaps we'll even see these issues being addressed directly.
  19. Dreadnaut

    Have been saying this since day 1 of tech test. The death statistic does nothing but promote K:D and that makes people play the game and entirely different way. The death stat does not promote teamplay.
  20. Tenzin

    Wow, you covered pretty much everything, good read.

    +1

    Something to add about capture mechanics: I don't think the final cap bar should fill completely (and therefore flip the base) unless you hold all the capture points. Because of this situation that occurred yesterday:

    While defending Crossroads watchtower, surrounded by Magriders on one side, Vangaurds on another, and enemy infantry, VS managed to take and hold B and C and start the capture ticker. Why is this a problem? Because VS never actually captured the tower(A), despite their overwhelming number of Magriders sniping on the hill. After half an hour of TR keeping the Magriders at bay with a SKEPs/rocket launchers(which was **** XP by the way, seeing as how they can boost away and repair, or strafe behind the conveniently placed trees) the base flipped to VS, without them ever taking A.

    Sure, they held 2/3 points but IMO that was a BS way to end a battle. Before someone says " you could've taken back B/C", firstly the Magrider spam made that nearly impossible, and secondly it was difficult to get near there anyway because of how far away these points are from the tower. To take The Crossroads watchtower, you don't even need the tower. Who knew.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.