I'd like to suggest a process of iterative change. There have been a couple of posts about gam eplay issues and such and I've seen people asking for entire redesigns and overhauls, offering complex solutions which have no guarantee to work. They are proverbial “moon shots”. The latest one I spent almost an hour reading was this one: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/awful-fights-not-much-fun-bases.207609/ in which there are a lot of great insights but really no guarantee any of them will change anything. I’m also not sure anyone really knows what they want either. I am of the opinion that no one, not SOE, not any single player knows how to fix some of these problems because the problems are caused by people, and people are fickle, unpredictable, and diverse. In other industries, in order to tune an experience across multiple audiences tests are performed. Tests include a control, a variable and an experiment. So how do we test in Planetside2? After some thought, for me the answer is ALERTS. Why not create a series of alerts and change simple aspects of the game play and learn what the player base reacts to. For example, and these are just examples.. I’m not making suggestions here just explaining the process and to get people’s creative juices flowing. Redeployside Test: Redeploy only shows your current hex, any deployed AMS and the warpgate as an option. Resource Crunch Test: Fixed set of resources for the duration of the alert. Max Bain Test: Maxes cannot be selected from a deployed AMS, you’ll need to truck them in for an assault. Rick Grimes Test: No revives near a control point.. if you’re near enough to flip it you can’t be revived. Etc… keeping the changes simple, something that doesn't require adding assets to the game and can be handled with a “IF <insert criteria here> then <ONE thing changes> and learn from the behaviors to find out what makes the community tick. Indicators to watch: Pop percentage per base Pop percentage at time of point flip (any time during battle) Rate of flux (how many people spawn in, or leave over time) Percentage participation AVG BR of participants And anything else that could be relevant. UX: For each alert a description NOT written by a developer will need to be added to the tab screen so folks know what is happening with this alert and what variables have changed as well as the benefit for participating. Obviously in order to get people to participate in these there will need to be some sort of incentive.. doubleXP or whatever.. Again not making suggestions but offering up the process and examples. Goal: Learn what people who currently play the game enjoy and work towards making those things permanent parts of the overall game play. The difference here is that the decisions will be backed by facts and not simply a bunch of posts in a forum from folks who may not be sure what they want but just know they don’t like what they got. I can write more and more but I’ll rest here and see what people think before I invest anymore time into this thought.
If we get a pick of our poison, I'd like a spot in Vault 13 when the great sociology experiment starts.
Sounds like fun I'd be willing to play in such an alert just to see how the game changes, could be interesting.
Vehicle Saturation test? If an empire on a test continent has to many of 1 vehicle, must pull them from WG. I like OPs idea in general. But alas, it requires effort.
