Now that Hossin is out, I'm curious how PS2 players would rate the game's four continents, from most to least enjoyable to fight on, and why. For myself, how a continent rates has much to do with my preferred playstyle. I really like ground vehicles, especially the Lightning, enjoy base defenses, and love shooting down aircraft. Thus, it's probably no surprise the continent I rate the highest is... 1) Esamir - It has the relatively flattest terrain and most open skies, perfect for how I like to play. 2) Indar - Diverse topography, but mostly accessible to vehicles. The accessible high places open up interesting tactical play. 3) Amerish - The bases are interesting and fun to defend 4) Hossin - I try to avoid this continent. The bases and topography feel too much like a maze. The flora you can't drive over is particularly annoying. Too many bases radically favor attackers or defenders.
1) Hossin - More diverse base layouts and excellent terrain. 2) Esamir - While I don't like the walls, the mix of open and closed battles is nice. 3) Amerish - Was never to big on it. Don't like the flow between bases all that much and some of those bases still need to be optimized to make them defensible. 4) Indar - Way to many outposts to ghost before finally getting far enough for a response. It was a test continent to begin with, should never have stayed in the game. Maybe they'll have a "bending" and remove it to replace with battle islands, much like Oshur.
1. Amerish- Really good since the revamp (sans a few bases). Like the trees, plains, and mountains and how they change combat. 2. Hossin- The trees and bases somewhat favor LAs, which is great for me. Also the only place the Valk can live longer than a few seconds. 3. Indar- as much as people hate it, Indar has more than a few fun bases and can be rather fun to fight on. 4. Esamir- Its a great continent for MBT combat, but it only has one tech plant. Also the continent doesn't work well with HSNV and thermal scopes.
1) Amerish - I like the base designs. No stupid mile high walls (Esamir), not too open to access (Indar), and not so bottlenecked by surrounding terrain (Hossin). Amerish also has nice terrain, not too cramped full of stuff, not too ridiculous height variation, not too flat, it's goldilocks. Bastion is one of my favorite bases in the game. 2) Hossin - mostly because it's new, but overall I'm somewhat disappointed with the lack of interesting locations. It feels way too homogeneous... swamp everywhere, nothing but swamp. And more swamp. 3) Esamir - almost perfect if it weren't for the base designs. Revamp Esamir's bases to be more like Amerish and Hossin and it'll be awesome. 4) Indar - overplayed and bases are stupidly designed, but apart from that, there's little to complain about Indar.
1- Amerish Love the green grass lands and mountains. Very pretty landscape especially on high settings. The bases are incredible since the revamp. Still could do with some work here and there but it is closest to ideal for me. Just an awesome continent Pretty please make this the NC home continent 2 - Hossin The ambience and atmosphere is awesome. The fog (that some people seem to hate) makes the place feel more alien than any of the other continents. The flora really helps as well to really separate it from what we already have. Also a superb continent if you like LA 3 - Indar Has many issues with old base design that has been out done by Amerish and Hossin. The bases are from a time when the dev team were either playing it too safe or simply not using enough imagination... maybe both. It also has the issue of being the most easy to camp spawn rooms. It also has 3 major battle road blocks in the lattice that need fixing imo What it does have however in it's favor is a more varied landscape in that it has canyons, dessert, scrub land etc as opposed to Amerish which has a similar look all throughout. It also has the best open areas in the game for tanking 4 - Esamir I hate the snow, I hate ice, I hate being cold. Just looking at Esamir irritates me. The walls that many people hate are not an issue to me. They offer a new and different flavor to the continent that the others don't have and I think that is a good thing. Better that than more of the same. This imo is a positive aspect of Esamir I hate the snow, I hate ice, I hate being cold
1) Amerish *amazing* 2) It's either Hossin or Esamir, much comment 3) Indar, It's somewhat situational, most battles turn into boring zergs. It's my favourite continent for using the AP Vanguard/Lightning and Sniper Rifles. As my killboard will tell you.
1. Hossin - I like having LOTS of cover. I do agree that some of the bases are confusing and it needs wider paths for vehicle travel. The "bramble" bushes are more annoying than good cover TBH. 2. Amerish - Second best continent for infantry cover. Trees are nicely done (although their parkour ability could be better). Base layouts are pretty good. 3. Tie Indar/Esamir - I pretty much hate both of these continents. Indar because...well Indarside, and Esamir just because I hate all snow continents. NOTE: I think ALL continents have too many bases on them.
1) Hossin 2) Amerish 3) Indar, in spite of my gripes with it 4) Esamir, I just hate the pure white terrain
1. Esamir - Despite the bad changes I still like it best. Best landscape for sky bug, all skyfiles look good there. 2. Amerish - Still hate some of the changes. 3. Indar - Canyons are an annoyance, has choke points. Too many bases. 4. Hossin - Too restrictive terrain and strange base layouts. I hate the radical changes to the lighting that was done 1 week before release. I want green Hossin back. Too many bases.
1. Indar, people say they hate it, but deep down they love. Still offers everything to everyone in large battles and that's why its still the most populated continent. 2.Hossin, great base designs, great if you have infra red eyesight. 3. Amerish. Designed for Cod players, offers very little for a large proportion of the game - Vehicles. 4. hatemire. Pointless unless your a colour blind dedicated Cod player.
1) indar: most diverse locations, best infantry-to-vehicle-to-air balance 2) esamir: nothing is more relaxing and exciting than driving a magrider over the snowy plains of esamir. and when you've ended up at a location with no friendly or enemy around, jump out the tank, the engine noise gradually fades away, and you look around and just hear the heavy wind blowing, it's like the best feeling in the game for me 3) hossin: bad performance, air overpowered 4) amerish: the mountains suck
1. Indar. Continent with the most open sandbox style gameplay and the best visual design. Downsides are that there are still bases that have no good fighting and it becomes boring just because it is so overplayed and well rehearsed that it feels like the same fight all the time. 2. Esamir. There are some really good base designes on Esamir and generally the quality of bases is fairly consistent although there are some places where the fight seems to get stuck in a frustrating way like snowshear watchtower. The terrain is mostly decent although it can give you the feeling that it is too small especially due to the design of the top lane. The brightness making nv scopes sometimes unusable is a problem for some and sometimes there is a huge amount of fog which can also be annoying. 3. Hossin. This continent is just not finished and it shows with lots of very rough bases, terrain and worse performance. The fog also makes the game very frustrating on some graphics settings. Generally the fog is a very low quality graphics effect that just makes all the hard work put into the continents appearance look bad. Terrain has too many ravines and stuff that only magriders can use. It is hard to tell where you are on the map since everything looks samey. But despite this it has a lot of promise with some nice art assets and bases that are fun to play on. 4. Amerish. The terrain on Amerish is just bad. Too often, especially at night, everything just looks like a muddy blur. The theme for the continent does not seem very strong for me when compared to others. Some of the newer bases like NC arsenal are enjoyable, especially to defend. But other places do not seem so good. Many areas I enjoyed the fights there more before the redesign.
1) Amerish, best base design overall. Good for bases and in-between bases fights. Have some nice ideas like grottos and sub-terranean bases. Decent vehicle battles. 2) Esamir, as a dedicated infantry player those walls are great for me. Bases layout are mostly fun and equilibrated for attackers/defenders. 3) Indar, because I've played it too much 4) Hossin, because the base design is so poor I'm forced to play Light Assault all the time or go mad trying to get anywhere. Bases are usually impossible to take or impossible to defend. And is a marsh. Who loves a marsh?
1) Indar. Its the only continent that feels like a real place. The other continents are too homogeneous to me in comparison. I like how bright indar is without being blinding like Esamir. If i had to build a house anywhere in the game it would be in SW indar. Feels to me the most like a futuristic sci-fi place. 2) I'm going to have to say Hossin. Flying on Hossin is fun. I havent played on the ground there but that looks pretty awful. As a pilot its heavenly. There is always somewhere to break los on flak or locks. 3) Amerish. The big mountain in the middle provides an excellent landmark so that you dont have to constantly consult your map to figure out where you are, and the rocky outcrops provide good cover for dodging flak and ground locks. The infantry fighting on amerish is imo the best, and when i feel like playing infantry its 50/50 with indar. 4) Esamir. Too bright! Even with brightness turned all the way down it gives me a headache during the day. At night Esamir looks amazing almost like some christmas landscape. I dont like all of the copy and pasted rock formations. Looks messy and hastily done. All of the continents have something going for them and its nice that they are all fairly different from one another. Would like to see more geographical diversity on all continents like Indar has.
Indar: The classic, will always be my home on Planetside. Can be difficult to find good infantry battles but is great for vehicle combat, and does have it's moments of great infantry combat. Crown needs un-nerfed, it's far too easy to take now, and isn't any fun imo. BUFF THE CROWN. Amerish: Probably the best continent overall, has great locations for vehicle, combined arms, and infantry segmented gameplay. Wide variety of base layouts. Esamir: Used to be my most hated continent after the wallening. However, since the release of Hossin and the resource revamp, it's quickly grown on me, it seems to fit much better with the new resource system, and if they would just fix IRNV scopes on it, it would probably be a very close contender with Amerish for my favorite continent. Hossin: NOPE. Pain in the *** to see, inaccessible to vehicles for the most part, except for magriders. Hate the fog, hate how dim it is even in day. Some of the base layouts are pretty good, but I just don't like the terrain. My least favorite place to fight.
Hossin - trees for a change and new base designs Indar - most diverse, useful cliffs and mountains Amerish - good base designs and some usefull cliffs Esamir - Close to Amerish but less interesting
Are you looking for more objective measures like how the design complements the player adopted gameplay or just personal preference/spin? For the more boring objective measure - it's not something that can be sensibly generalized over a continent - much like commenting on a faction, with all its intricacies, making a broad statement of this sense really only underpins one's ignorance. Even something a little less categorical, like trying to spot a trend with recent vs legacy base design, it's still not consistent and as such not meaningful. So, as a general commentary - some areas work particularly well, like the lines to/between, for example; Indar Excavation <-> Quartz Ridge (sometimes +coramed) The area around Camp Waterson The Bulwark <-> Ymir Southern Reach Two-Stone -> Yaeger's crossing Both routes to and from NC Arsenal And some bases are almost always fun to fight at, like; Crossroads Quartz Ridge Indar bay point Vanu Archives (though it's been a good year since the last good fight there, not sure why) Saerro Listening Post Jaeger's Crossing Waterson's redemption (or whatever the octagon is called now) Aurora Materials Lab Lithcorp Secure NC Arsenal Bravata PMC That fallen biolab one on hossin The southern ewok base on hossin That base in the middle of hossin (I'm good with names!) Ziggurat And a bunch more... would really like to mention more but I'm losing steam at this point lol Aesthetically all the continents have their charms. Really for me it all comes down to where the fights are and what I want to play and how warmed up I am. There's usually only a few good fights for what I'm interested in across all continents, determined by the players. Most of the time at least one of the continents will have a massive population imbalance with one zerg running unopposed while others ghostcap, so obviously that one's out as there are usually no meaningful fights there at that time. I try and explore and get a good feel for continents in general, but to be honest at the rate they're releasing continents I just don't have time time to get as deep a feel for them as I'd need to really have the required information to pass any judgement. Anyways I know I started with a point in mind and got sidetracked, but basically ranking the continents or preferring certain ones is really tantamount to saying you only entertain a certain genre of movie or music - it's an expression of ignorance that disappears with the development of discrimination and taste. I may prefer a certain continent from time to time for aesthetic reasons of just irrational bias from recent positive experience, but that's bout as far as I could go. Edit: stupid forum posting removing formatting.
1 - Hossin : very beautiful (flora, landscapes, weather), with a great variety of bases that have a really smart design (Naum ravine overpass, Kestral's watch, Hunter's blind, Kessel's antiquated crossing, Cairn station, Nason's defiance, Iron Quay, Roothouse distillery, Rusty bent glaive, Gourney Dam, Hatcher airstation...) and of terrains (jungles, swamps, ravines, moutains...). No tank spam and great for infantry and air. 2 - Amerish : beautiful too, with some of the best bases (Deepcore geolab, Ascent, Rockslide Outlook...). 3 - Indar : good variety of terrains (better than the bases most of the time) and bright during the day. But too dark at night and with a poor base's design that favors tanks zerging. 4 - Esamir : eventually fun with an ESF when there isn't too much AA and no dark night. But lacks of variety and has only a few interesting bases (North point station...).
1. Indar _The first continent I ever fought on, I'll never forget all the times I climbed that massive hill to charge enemy positions. Has the highest potential for the most massive fights. I LOVE YOU. 2. Hossin _Aircraft and vehicles are useless in this place. I LOVE THAT. 3. Esamir _Open fields, and suspiciously the most effective place to use the Flare. I swear, it's as if it gets more controllable over there... Flare= Esamir Labs... COINCIDENCE? 4. Amerish _Aircraft have never been such pests. Pretty good, but no so good. Meh.
