...so you turned KOLTYR into hell...

Well, i thought it's obvious to see, why the recent Koltyr changes turn PS2 more into a P2W game, however it's a pleasure for me to clarify my thoughts. To do it better this time, i want to compare the before/after patch situation. Maybe this makes it clearer. Here it goes...

Before the last patch...

• new players (just like me) could play on Koltyr against ememies of maximimum BR15 (as stated before, the BR doesn't say much about capabilties, skills, general knowledge, etc.), so it was ensured, that a fresh BR 1 player NEVER gets there into fights with maximum EQUIPPED players, that have perfect map knowledge, that exercised various engagement tactics many hundred times, that have numerous already heavily upgraded combat vehicles at their disposal and are highly organized in a cooperative squad, connected to each other by voicechat.
• new players could (more or less, depending on luck) easily farm certs by ghostcapping points, hacking terminals, turrets, overloading generators 'n SCUs, etc., but also by getting kills in small skirmishes, ambushes, low level vehicle combat, and simply by reaching the next rank. There always was a chance to gain certs by doing unpredictable actions, outsmarting enemies, or even by brute force, when playing a MAX vs more vulnerable enemies. By gaining certs and rewards for fulfilling objectives successfully, the income of at least the first 1500 certs was achievable in about 2 - 3 hours of playtime on Koltyr, thus enabling the fresh player to upgrade his weapons or even buy a new weapon that fits his role/playstyle/conception better than the stock ones, giving him much better chances in future engagements
• new players also had the chance to take up time for learning the best moment for a multitude of different actions, like when/where deploying a sunderer, when to engage the next area, how to bait enemies, how to make them false assumptions about your next steps, etc.

After the patch...

• new players can get any combination of weapons, attachments, suit items, tools, grenades, consumables, implants, vehicles, vehicle upgrades, etc. so they are able to get the very best loadout imaginable for ALL their classes just to their satisfaction... ...and that's the only good point on this side of the medal, because...
• new players are now forced to play not only against other fresh players, that are on par with them skillwise and by equipment - they are now forced to fight numerous hordes of trolling high ranked players, that abuse the noob's lack of skills to just stomp 'em for lols and giggles.
• new players also no more get ANY certs or rewards for kills or fulfilling objectives on Koltyr - the only reason to play there is trying new loadouts, practicing combat tactics, etc. There is NO other way to get certs than playing on one of the four other big maps - and there they are against the same overskilled, overequipped, overtoxic enemies, but with NONE of all these free weapons of their choice, they had at their disposal on Koltyr, to outweigh their huge equipment disadvantage! - Not even slightly! - Just the crappy stock loadout, that was given a beginner, leaves them with absolute zero chance to gain 1500 certs that easy and quick to upgrade them to at least a totally sub-standart loadout compared to their BR 120 enemies. That's - simply said - against all odds. Period.

So the ONLY way to even out the huge disadvantage of not having ANY sufficient equipment is logically - BUYING a whole loadout with real time money. Otherwise there is no other chance of dying a million times to an endless number of totally superior foes, which count was for sure never greater than now, that the game is over 5 years old, and still running. It is easy to see, that most noobs having this prospect will be forced to rather go the P2W way, than desperately grinding for eternities, since there is even no more inducement by seeing some improvement in a decent time, or worth the description.

I want to point out, that my experience is based on playing mainly the Stalker Infiltrator, which stock loadout is certainly specific weak, because of the fact he can't use a primary, and his stock secondary is (probably apart from the okay Repeater) a VERY weak gun, when it's used against carbines, LMGs, SMGs, Shotguns, or the most NS pistols. I fully understand it HAS to be weak to outweigh the tremendous advantage of being capable to stay all-time cloaked, and choose the right moment/location/opportunity for every single engagement, but - to be honest, even with the total surprise moment, MANY of my engagements with only a stock pistol against full-health enemies were often easily foiled by just endless ADADing enemies, that simply sprayed dozens of rounds into me. I ended up a hundred times dead, with my opponent barely scratched, because the f**kin' Beamer is just too weak to compete. It might be pretty precise, and spammable like s**t, but sure only for players, that consume cocaine all day long, or own a mouse with rapid-autofire macros. Otherwise you can't get enough DPS out of that pistol to outgun anything else. It's just a lousy dummy of a real gun like i.e. the NS-45 Pilot, that hits hard as hell in just a splitsecond.

However, all the good guns costs a fortune of 1000+ certs, and to get these together, now that Koltyr is no longer an option, will take the tenfold time by playing against a swarm of professional outfits, that consistently hinder any noob of gaining the slightest income of certs, and thus improving his loadout in a decent, acceptable time.

Summed up, that was, what i tried to point out here.

De opresso libre.

Back in the day there were not that many BR 120s. There were none actually, as BR 100 was the max you could get. Even then, there were not many of those, I agree.
However, grinding for anything it was harder not easier! We did not get 100 certs every level up to BR15. There were no directive certs (no directives whatsoever). There were no extra kit after filling up some querry.
The only certs you got was from the objectives and kills (possibly multiplied if you had a booster/membership). That's all!

A rate of cert income was about a half of what you get Today.

That's about grinding. Now the real question is, how much fun we had, not having the basic things maxed out. You may be right that there were less people who certed up everything. There were also no implants. So, the overall equipment disparity between veteran and a newcommer was probably smaller.

What I can suggest Today is - join a squad! A good, organized squad. If you play as a group, the individual equipment and skill matters less. It still helps, but is not detrimental. You can still get a good share of kills because others are backing you up. And if you die, you will get that rez momentarily and you will continue enjoying the fight moments later.

Yep. Nice to see, i am not alone with my opinion, dude. Thumbs up!

Uh huh.

Obviously the game is just too hard and you don't have the time, patience or determination to git gud.

That's not exactly true, good sir. I guess most fresh players just don't realise, that they don't HAVE to play on the live continents as beginner - they are only redeployed there, when following the "join combat"-directive, that's all. I found out pretty soon, i can return to Koltyr, and do my job there much more relaxed, than participating as useless cannonfodder on the live continents. I wasn't surprised to see up to estimately 20 players alltogether on Koltyr a few times in the last weeks. However, mostly there were about 6 - 12 players around there.

THIS! - I second that!

Cant quite believe some1 who plays this game, with its ever present decrease of pop, would be trying to get people to leave instead of encouraging them to stay.....makes me sad.

Played this game a long long time. It's not for everyone, or even for most people. I love it. I ******* hate for developers to change a game I love into something its not just to cater to a different playerbase.

Better off to point players to a different game. If the game dies, it dies. It's been a good long run though.

Dude, sure you don't have some kind of mindlike to me? - That's a perfect expression of my thoughts about general unfairness in PS2. I wouldn't want PS2 to be an arena shooter, but just a little bit of skillwise/equipmentwise balance can't be wrong to not scare away beginners.

Man, i like what you said!

No sir. Simply no. If a BR 1 has all the same stuff a BR 120 has - then where is my...

• Nyx
• Commissioner
• Level 5 Stalker Cloak
• level 5 Motion Spotter
• Level 5 Nanomesh Armor
• EMP Grenade
• 2 Proximity Mines
• Wraith Flash with Fury Grenade Launcher, featuring Thread Detection Optics and Scrapper Combat Chassis
• ... well - the wishlist is waayyyyy long ...............

Do you REALLY think, there is absolute NO quantitative difference between a BR 1 and a BR 120???
THAT'S hard to believe...

Good for you, thumbs up......not sure how time played is at all relevant but whatever.

This guys not asking for a change, he is asking for the status quo to remain.
Before the change newbs had a place to improve and learn, now they dont.
So as far as i can tell new players sticking with the game will get lower.

If it dies it dies is a stupid thing to say, quite asinine tbh.
I prefer anti-biotics to euthanasia when i have an infection.

He is right, in VR you have access to everything, you just have to select it, but just dont click to cert it.
Since VR = Koltyr now, a new player can enter the game then warp to VR and use all the equipment.

Good to have some real first hand information. Thx-a-lot for clarifying that! I'm sorry to hear, that grinding was even WORSE once. I guess the devs created Koltyr to make it easier for noobs to get into the game and be able to hold up with the crowd. Well... ...that's history now too, anyway...

About squads - i still have some alt accounts featuring some chracters between BR 15 - BR 21, that i made just for trying out different loadouts in real combat on the live continents, and i usually joined Squads everytime i played there. Sometimes with some good experience, other times not. Got even kicked out of a Galaxy 60 stories high above the ground without a reason one time! Some guys have really a strange behavior... However, in most cases i'll enjoyed squad play. Only problem was - my squad mates were sometimes SO good, they wiped out the whole enemy force, before i even could participate and get more than a single assist, lol! But to be honest - i have still no clue about squad-related advantages or rewards (if there do exist such). I've still gotta learn a TON...

Would you prefer antibiotics if they changed who you are? If saving your life from an infection meant giving up everything that made you YOU. Would you prefer it over dieing then?

Personally I like having a VR battleground. Koltyr is a great little continent that never got used.

Maybe NOT having a segregated lowbie area is a good thing? Instead of introducing players to an extremely complicated game in a boring low pop battle you instead introduce them into the same extremely complicated game but with what makes PS2 so great. Hundreds of players all fighting like crazy in a huge battle. It's huge battles that make PS2. Perhaps Koltyr was more a detriment to new players than a boon.

If you say 3 hours of Koltyr and being level 15 gave you a better shot to deal with high level veterans with thousands of hours of play time I'm never gonna take you seriously again 8)

Hahaha... ...nice try, son. It isn't, because it's just a GAME. About time - i can play a few hours each day. Regarding my patience - i camped a vehicle terminal on Esamir one time for half an hour and totally demoralized a whole bunch of reds by killing 6 of them unnoticed by the other with mines, a silenced Manticore and even the knife, so what? They desperately kept searching the whole area for me with their cursed darklights, and didn't manage to catch me. And about my determination... ...well, i played HAWKEN for 1700+ hours, played with and against some of the very best players there, until i got good enough, to enjoy the teamplay and have fun. After all, that's what counts, nothing else.

...and btw - i never cheated in any game - since i played the first computer games available in my country back in 1981...
...so there's now YOU, telling me something about time, patience and even determination???

Son... hahaha... (shakes head)

But you're crying over how hard the game is now that you can't get 1500 certs ghosting Koltyr and you now HAVE to buy a gun since you can't have it ez mode.

Damn you're hardcore...

Never mind, dude. He's not able to drive me away. However, there are indeed LOTS of really toxic players in this community - never have been taunted ingame so many times since the developement of the first big online FPS games as here in PS2. Despite that, it's really nice to see there are still a lot really friendly guys like you around here. That encourages enough to keep on playing. Thx.

Hahaha... ...Dismissed...

If your asking if id prefer to be alive or dead, then your answer is alive, most definitely alive.

Ive never been to koltyr, the BETA didnt have such a feature.....
Try not to assume what i want or what i need, or even what you want or need. Thats not what im talking about at all.
Im talking about the people who've never played an MMOFPS before, perhaps not even an FPS before.
The people who dont know you need to re-spawn instead of waiting for the next round. The players who cant figure out how to change weapon. Im talking about the players who've literally no ******* idea what theyre doing.
Will they learn how to change to a stalker cloaker? Will they learn only infiltrators carry sniper rifles (infiltration =/= sniping), or how to hack an equip terminal? Will they know how to overload a generator, or how to equip shield defuser on their vehicle?

Give the players who have no idea at all a place to get some idea by having a seperate area for them to go where other players are also figuring things out, not double tapping their head with a blackhand at 200m.

What i feel the devs have done is remove a newbie area, and remove the safe space for people to test weapons in favour of a clusterf... that only helps the players with ADD.

Hint, clicking some1s avatar avoids you mistaking them for some1 whos played less than you....