It's not bugs or balance that is the downfall of PS2. It's that there is no metagame whatsoever. It's just a big deathmatch and no real objectives. Have you EVER heard someone in command chat say "we need to attack xxxx facility because we'll get 2 more vehicles resources every 5 minutes"? Of course not. The only facilities that anyone gives even the smallest care about are tech plants, that's it. That's literally the ONLY thing in the game that really affects play at all. Yes we have the alerts, but all that does is give some XP. Whooptedoo. Let's contrast that to PS1 where we had: Continent locking that gave benefits worth getting Ability to lock empire home continents to gain access to their vehicles (huge incentive and big fights) Drain a base to make it go neutral and disrupt lattice links Organize and escort ANTs to refill the base under seige Destroy a generator to disrupt lattice link (and some epic holds from even small outfits) Battle over a cave to give huge bonuses to 4 other continents Battle in the cave to retrieve and install modules at key base locations Cloakers able to (with great cunning and skill) destroy a generator to turn the tide of a battle Ability for a small outfit to load in a galaxy and drop on a facility with a chance to resecure it Engineers have access to many tools when placed in skillful locations to slow and stall attacks much much more... None of that exists in PS2. Bases mean nothing (besides tech plants). Resources are meaningless too (no one facility is of greater importance to any other one). Infiltrators don't have anything to "infiltrate" and nothing to do but snipe. Engineers can place all of 3 mines (only 2 types of mines). I was still learning things about PS1 years later. You can pretty much learn all of PS2 in a few hours. Some might say that's good, but I think it was the depth of PS1 that kept it interesting and successful. In PS1 you actually had outfits talking to each other to coordinate attacks. One would hold a generator or disrupt the lattice link while the other one attacks. Or one outfit would provide escort for that ever-so-important ANT refill. There's not the same level of communication at all in PS2. Everyone does their own thing because it doesn't really matter and there's no metagame for organization to really benefit. PS2 is just progressing WAY too slowly. We're finally seeing some talk of metagame, but it's far too little, and I fear it's too late as well. There should have been a focus on the metagame in the beginning, as pretty much every PS1 vet was telling the devs. Nothing has really changed in 6 months.
SOE: "Continent locks have been added in the game, now when all bases have been captured the warpgate will be vulnereable to attack, when you lose that you will be kicked from the continent. We have also added sanctuaries for when you lose your last warpgate." Forumside 2: "ZOMG, WHY CAN'T I PLAY ON MY FAVOURITE CONTINENT ANYMORE? STUPID CHANGE REVERT OR I QUIT! I BUY NO MORE SMEDBUX! FIRE HIGHBY! ZDJAIDJSPD!" See, I can flawlesly predict the future.
They do actually. They have objectives (for the non DM modes). But you are comparing apples to oranges. I think BF is popular largely because of the realism and graphics and not necessarily gameplay. MMO games can't have the best graphics in the business because of scale, so gameplay has to be more important.
More because they persist on making oversized continents, thus pushing back continent locking along inter continental network that would greatly add potential to the gameplay. Im not saying making everything the size of a cod map but at least adding medium and small sized continent, with more variety in term of environnement and bases would be really sweet. And not only these, but oversized map make it painful to capture a continent, So please SOE, make smaller sized continents, with unique topology and base layout.
I wouldn't call those objectives metagame but I do see your point. Planetside needs to capitalize on good gameplay and strategy. Good metagame would require some creativity and innovation, unfortunately thats not what the big game studios are known for. I imagine they base their game design on other financially successful and proven shooters such as Battlefield and must not deviate from that too much as it would be financially risky. Thats why I think metagame is progressing so slowly. There isn't anything like it on the market that worked and that devs could copy.
I havent played PS2 for months now, I just logged in to see if there had been any significant changes to the game lately. Your post definetly rings true for me. The problems with the game have been here since launch, and it seems that PS2 is a good example of why I dont like f2p games. - Bases still have no value. - Capping a cont is still pointless - Base design is still terrible - Endless buff/nerfs largely because of terrible base design. - Power creep with constant introduction of new weapons (the classic f2p problem). - Very little variation in what to do. (Look at ps1's ant runs, combat engineers, cloakers etc.) Basically there is no metagame, and they still cant balance vehicle/infantry combat because they wont redesign the terrible bases. Instead we get a few more pointless weapons and weapon tweaks. Its been 8 months since release and there has been no real significant changes to the game. It still feels like a game in the early beta stages. It certainly isnt anywhere near as fun as ps1 was.
Sad to say the state of gaming is this. Developers need to stop trying to cater to the entire market because that results in mediocre and generic games. This is why the next generation of Kickstarter games like Star Citizen and Camelot Unchained will be amazing.
They should quit focusing on this MLG crap and get the game into position where it actually deserves to be there. Everything the OP said I agree 1000%, we need that, all of it some of those things should already be in the game. This game is not worthy of a full release and should still be in beta
I love this game. But I do agree that there needs to be more stuff to do and more meaningful objectives. It's an MMO but it doesn't feel that way until your frame rates drop to single digits. I never played PS1. But I kind of get the feeling that it's suffering from the Diablo 3 syndrome. Where the original game sets the bar in terms of game play and depth and the sequel simply has trouble living up do to simplified mechanics. I really hope this is not the case!! But more strategy, objectives, depth, and meaning would be great! I just wanna see this game be the best!
There is no metagame other than what you make. There is no metagame to be made out of a team deathmatch.
They're round based thus have a built in "metagame". Every game there is a winner and a loser. Planetside 2 never ends. The closest thing to a "metagame" in Planetside is the alert system. All those doodads (like continent locking) from Planetside 1 are just more complex game mechanics. While welcome, they won't scratch the itch that people are really looking for.
I guess it's a bit of a vocabulary problem. When I say "metagame" I mean "objectives to work toward". The objective must have a meaningful reward to be worth pursuing. I don't count the alert system as a real objective, because it doesn't affect gameplay after the fact. All it does is reward players with XP. Continent locking, on the other hand, gives some lasting effect. For example, owning the Oshur benefit in PS1 had far reaching consequences to future battles, as vehicles could repair without exiting, etc. In PS2, locking a continent gives you 10% off certain purchases, which doesn't affect gameplay much at all.
So for you metagame means clearly defined match with clear starting conditions and clear victory conditions? I share you sentiment with the alert system and continent lock. What would scratch the itch in your opinion?
What do you think about continent-specific vehicles as a reward? I'm unsure about giving any kind of game influencing rewards for continent lock other than XP. Reason for this is that you are already too dependent on your team. If your team(faction) sucks then continent lock rewards will only make things worse.
A large amount of people have poor taste. That's why. That's also why this pandering to the lowest common denominator is going to ruin PS2. The game was fun when I started playing. After eight months or whatever it's been, the game sucks. Tanks and vehicles are still fragile and glitchy, so sometimes you'll touch something with a tank and blow up for no reason, and with GU11, you're completely screwed when that happens. I'm not talking about mines either. I'm talking about collision glitches. Now, this game IS basically CoD in space. Except the controls for aiming still suck, so it's a sluggish, laggy, glitchy CoD in space.
Wow you said caves..... Bar far one of the worst thing I remember from PS1, After the nerfed BFR's and no one wanted to get there qualifiers for them they were a ghost town. And they were just god awful anyway's. Cloakers able to (with great cunning and skill) destroy a generator to turn the tide of a battle With there perma-cloak they spent most of there time knifing snipers in the back or dropping mines on vehicles.
