[Suggestion] Ten simple features that made Planetside great.

I've played the Planetside franchise since 2004. I would still be playing Planetside 1 to this day if it had a player-base and a dev team to ban the hackers. It's very disappointing to see how few servers are left on Planetside 2 and they are all perpetually stuck on medium-low population. Here is a short list of 10 features that, in my humble opinion, made Planetside so great to begin with and didn't seem to translate very well to Planetside 2 or make the cut at all:

1) Sanctuary:
noun: sanctuary; plural noun: sanctuaries
I. a place of refuge or safety.
II. a place to organize your platoon/outfit ops away from the prying eyes of enemies waiting right outside your warpgate.
Obviously this means you would need to implement the long-overdue vehicle warping function.

2) Empire lockout timers: Want to hop on another faction real quick to spy? That'll be 24 hours please.
Or you could just create a second account for free...start charging $10 to create accounts.

3) True Espionage: Jacking vehicles, disabling vehicles, disabling linked benefits**(see #4), stealth recon with command uplink

4) True Strategic Importance: Real benefits to capturing and holding a particular objective. If you want to pull a galaxy or liberator you either do it from the sanctuary or capture a dropship facility on the continent. I'm sure you've forgotten about the other roles by now so here they are:
Amp station: vehicle shields
Bio lab: faster respawn**(see #5)
Tech plant: unlock next tier vehicles and weapons such as vangaurd, prowler, reaver etc etc.
Dropship facility: ability to pull galaxies and liberators on continent. Enable vehicle/airpad repair functionality

5) Scaling Respawn Timers - infantry:
Did you die twice in 1 minute? No problem, we'll get you back out there. You're just going to have to wait 30 seconds instead of 10. The average lifespan of infantry makes this laughable now.

6) Universal Cooldown Timers - vehicles: Zero cooldown is not long enough; 15 minutes is comically long. Nothing should increase or decrease a universal timer; not even your corporate greed.

7) Automated Repair Functionality: Medical pads, air pads, and vehicle repair bays. This is especially painful for MAXs. Look, I get it, you want it to seem like you're inducing teamwork by not having any automated functionality and I support that. The reality is this: I have to run around like a chump practically begging for someone to repair my max; usually for 5-7 minutes in small-midsize battles, if at all.

8) Cloaked spawn points: I love the sunderer, but it's an assault vehicle and not a strategic mobile respawn point. Bring back the unarmed, one-man, cloaked AMS.

9) True Resources: Not an abstract passive-gain solo resource. The warpgates have infinite energy instilled into them by a superior race. Harvest the energy and deposit it into the facilities if you want to keep pulling vehicles and respawning. This is the entire meta-purpose of warpgates to begin with.

10) Defined Roles for Vehicles: Stop nerfing vehicles. Vehicles and infantry have very defined roles. Vehicles clear a path and suppress structures/other vehicles while infantry capture and hold objectives; very similar to real warfare.

Well said.

This game needs more depth... and less CPU dependence.

The warpgate is (was) a safe haven. Invulnerability will be fixed eventually.

Terrible idea. Does it occur to you that not everybody is a spy, and just wants to try something else?

That was okay. It worked with 100 people on the server, it might not work with 100 people in a single battle. 1 guy shouldn't shift the tide of war.

Most of those made pointless since you could just spawn anything at the sanctuary anyways.

Teamkilling AI max camping your own spawn tubes? Oh well, he won't be penalized, but you will.

I don't remember a timer. It seemed I could chain-pull any amount of vehicles without waiting, by the time you died the cooldown was long over. You didn't need resources since everything is free.

This would promote zerging, and make support useless. If nobody will repair you, maybe you're playing with the wrong group.

The sunderer is a mobile spawn point. Being able to actually defend itself is better than an easily-visible bubble. There are a lot of lighting effects and refractions in PS2, a giant shimmering cloak bubble would be useless. It worked in PS1 because everybody had low quality.

There was no meta in it. 1 guy drives an ANT from the warpgate and suddenly every ally on the planet is being supported. That's not strategy, that's a random guy who drove around for free xp. That'd be pretty dull in a game with the scale PS2 has.

Vehicles have defined roles in PS2. In PS1 they slap an EMP on a bus or make it magically float and people think "Hey look, a brand-new, original vehicle!" Or they swap a weapon on a buggy, "OMG Totally different vehicle!"

I was a little late to Planetside 1, but this is how I view it.

I agree with OP 100%. PS1 was a far superior game. I would still play it today if it had a larger player base, and ps2's gunplay.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond. It sounds like you may have been more than just a little late to PS1.

The warpgate is very far from a safe haven even with invulnerability. It is but a protective bubble amidst the chaotic uncertainty of war. The enemy knows exactly where you're going to be coming from, can easily see your appraoch, and even worse, knows that you're coming at all. Squads/platoons/outfits should be able to mobilize in their own territory and then deploy to warpgates of their choosing all at once.

If you can just switch arbitrarily from empire to empire why WOULDN'T you? NC not doing well? Who cares! Just go play TR for a while and abandon your post. If that doesn't work out then just hop on VS and snipe for an hour. This type of mindset totally compromises the integrity of team play. Why bother choosing a faction at all if you can just switch on a whim? Just make it an option at the respawn screen like counter-strike.

PS1 had a very intuitive "grief" system for managing friendly fire. Once you got 1000 grief points you were locked out. There's nothing to stop teamkilling AI maxes here either. Your response is actually a criticism of the grief system and doesn't really apply.

We agree here. This is exactly the type of feature I'm talking about. You get rewarded for survivability (living long enough to not notice the cooldown) and punished for being reckless (cooldown just long enough to modify your behavior next time, but not long enough to say "Man this timer is really stupid"). And yes, there absolutely were cooldown timers. Additionally, to pull vehicles you needed a base with power, power comes from warpgates and ANTs, pulling vehicles depletes (slowly) the available power at the base. Ergo, vehicles are not free.

Support is arguably useless already. There is more incentive to having a rifle out and tossing mines than using a repair or medic gun. I hear what you're saying, but this is a criticism of the support mechanics and doesn't really apply.

Do you ever get tired of assaulting The Crown for hours upon hours knowing that the only way you can win is if your enemy forces diminish, or in this case, log out or get bored? The reason for that is because there are no consequences to holding on to a useless objective for an infinite amount of time. Eventually the bases resources should drain completely to where people cannot spawn anymore or pull vehicles.

Not really. When a continent is poplocked you're more than welcome to pull from the sanctuary if you want to wait in the queue to get back in. Facilities provided other strategic benefits besides the ability to spawn certain vehicles which I kindly listed. The only one I left out was the Interlink facility which provided proximity radar.

Yes!

Agree with all of them except for point 2. I don't switch factions to spy and see what they're doing, I switch factions because I don't feel like playing on my main at that time. The thing that I hate the most is how they just put a galaxy terminal at every watchtower now. Before you had to bring them from a tech plant or the warpgate, now you can spawn them almost everywhere. It's way too easy to pull things like MBT's and larger aircraft. They should only be available at major bases.

Thanks for the replies. I elaborated on #2 in a reply to better reflect my stance on faction-hopping.

You only responded to points you had an answer to, I see what you're up to

Rename: Ten Simple Features That Will Not Make It Into Planetside 2 In This Decade.

LOL! Sorry I intentionally only responded to the few that I thought REALLY needed further explanation! While I do have 10 perfectly good answers -ALL- of these features were already in Planetside 1 and are obvious not my original ideas. We could debate and discuss all day but the reality is is that they're tried and true features that I fully believe none of the developers had any real understanding of when they made Planetside 2. Sure, there are probably some down sides that people will argue are clouded by nostalgia, but for the love of Christ don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Take what was already good and make it better instead of starting from scratch.

You can take whatever position you want but SOMETHING has to change drastically to stop the slow player exodus. Sorry but new guns and vehicles are just superficial add-ons that won't impart any substance long-term. I'm tired of seeing medium-low populations.

Yeppp. If it had more population I definitely would be playing Planetside 1 over this. So much more content and actually a reasonable finished and working game.

About nr 7; repairing maxes.
I mostly play engineer and only repair maxes when I feel we really need to win a certain fight over a base. Just because I want to win that particular fight. You can spam I need repairs all you want but why should I halt my gameplay to stand there like an idiot holding a button? All the while being fodder.
You want your one man death machine? Get a friend to repair you and don't bother me. This is team death match without objectives.

Says it's team death match. Doesn't play as a team. GG.

He's absolutely right this is a very large scale TDM although with current pops it's really not -that- large anymore. I'm sure this has been discussed ad nauseam but like I said earlier the incentive to hold a rifle and toss grenades/mines far outweighs any support incentive whatsoever.

Because it is team deathmatch without objectives.
The only objectives are the ones I make up myself.
So when I really think those #%$&*@ purple #**%@ basterds don't deserve a base THEN I will repair all the maxes I see.

PS2 is too fast paced for another zone. Players entering continents en masse will face queues. Warpgates serve as Sanctuaries on a more local level. Easier to deploy from enmasse and everyone is already there so no queues during primetime.

I already have 3-4 SOE accounts. So 24 hour lockouts or 24,000,000 hour lockout means nothing. I can even login all at the same time. IP blocking doesn't stop since I have more than one IP available. Now.. charging to play, now you're on to something. $60 retail box and 14.99 a month sub to play would filter alot alot more of the riffraff.

Vehicles are just cert farming machines and without a role, I don't see the point in this.

I think the current base abilities are fine. What we really need is more base types and more abilities then just four. Stuff that stacks with each other. Make the continent and how you cap it give dynamic benefits depending on the route you go. Though we have to be honest with ourselves. This is too advanced for the typical cert farming zergling player.

Sorry, I'm here to play a game, not stare at a respawn screen. Especially since I'm a member paying a sub cost. Apply this to freebies if anyone at all.

Again, make it a 60 dollar game off the shelf/steam with a sub cost. Then everyone can be equal. Just be glad you get vehicles and certs over a certain amount. In Everquest 1 and 2, you're restricted in what you can have based on being a member or not.

I'd like this, but only for Warpgates. Out in the field, its why we have engineers.

Maps in PS1 were flat and featureless. The cloaked AMS was a bandaid fix to prevent spawns from being instagibbed from the base defenders. We have terrain and hills and buildings in PS2. This wouldn't add anything. The only way I'd personally like to see this implemented is if there was a 500M restricted area around bases that prevented it. So its a field deploy thing only. Not an assault tool.

We're in phase 1 of resources. Next phases bring this.

Vehicles do need roles. As I've said before, we have them for cert farming and nothing else. Only the Galaxy and Sunderer serve a role as troop transports. Tanks need walls to bust down. Aircraft need ceilings to bombard for insertions. Fast vehicles like Flashes and Harassers need to have emergent threats to deal with.

Imagine a Biolab fight just went wrong. Instead of going for the SCU gen, someone flipped a point and opened up the Biolab to the entire enemy faction to deploy to. Its now a stalemate. But you have ESF's and Liberators overhead. They can attack portions of the dome and destroy it, giving a hole (that can be repaired by engineers). This hole can be used by awaiting Galaxies to drop in and throw off the defenders. Perhaps the hole is right over the SCU gen room. Attackers can now spawn in teleporter rooms, use jumppads from sundies, or Gal drop from above. Course.. defenders can Gal drop through that Hole too.

AmpStations are well known for their walls. You have limited entrances to get in through. However near the vehicle gens are doors in the walls that defenders can use to get outside in different areas to harass the attackers. However these doors are double edged swords. They can be blown through by vehicle weapons. The blown doors allow attackers to pour in and assault the generators. They are still too small for tanks to get through, but tanks can fire in to provide limited support. Flashes and Harassers can fit through however and run circles around the base to keep defenders tied up.

Techplants and large bases could also benefit from small wall destruction and blast doors. Of course I would limit it to heavy tank rounds. And not allow 5 heavies with RLs getting through. The idea is that tanks have a role in base capture. But their role is to make it easier and not really required.

Point being, is Vehicles need more roles then killing stuff. They need to crack open bases, give faster transport to time critical objectives and the like. I mean how useful if the flash in objectives? Currently it isn't. But it could be. Something that you need to get into in order to get to a place in time. Either because it will shut, close, shield, or defenders will reinforce.

Well, you'd be wrong in assuming this... They are working on a cloak bubble for the PS2 Sundy... IMO, the AMS should be a separate vehicle from the Sundy with less armor, no weapons, smaller frame profile, and better mobility.

and yet we don't get groups 'forming up' in WGs like we did in PS1, to the same extent anyway, maybe 50% or more of any empires population moving 'en masse' and not entirely 'zerg'-like when opening a new cont as actual thought went into what was being taken(lodestars for ammo replen, armour, AA, AMS's, almost everything was needed) is something to behold, and adds so much to the atmosphere they say they want of a grand scale 'war' game.

do want. but with more 'substance'.

they've taken very nicely to the spawn camping 'role',
wouldn't it be nice to jack a spawn camper out of his ride, kill him and his friends with his own weapon, then decon it?(or just drive round laughing)........ poetic justice in my book.
steal a vehicle to keep your own resources(when it matters more)

agree on all points

this only applies if you are stupid enough to KEEP running into overwhelming fire, or as it's more commonly known 'a camp'. redeploy, be more effective soldier! then your timer won't be compromised. if you do this anyway you will see no change. 'dying' stupidly alot should have a cost or it's no disincentive. the goal is to make the OTHER soldier die for HIS empire

it's not unreasonable to have minor medical and repair facilities IN a 'base' though. could make it cost personal 'resources' (and/or eventually 'base' resources)too discourage use, but would be nice to have the option though.

don't disagree that was the initial reason, but it would certainly add new tactical options to the game anyway. especially if 'binding' was introduced and redeploy 'wherever' removed.

no issue with adding more stuff to do for vehicles but it's the 'redeploy' and short 'run' between most bases that kills any vehicle game atm. personally i'd drop the base amount on each cont to 20-30 max mostly 'facilities', add binding and redeploy at WG or nearest(through the lattice) base/sunderer only(unless 'bound' then you get 2 sunderer/base spawn options).

to some extent, the things in PS1 that could be considered boring or a chore led to there being more co-ordinated movement generally (maybe not empire-wide all the time but anything's a bonus in PS2 atm) just having doors and not everyone having rek led to 'randoms' bunching up before entering, 15 minute hacks(10 would be good now) allowed for a force to reasonably form up for a counter attack via 'transports'.
made the whole game feel and actually play more team oriented. i want that back. i can get 'everyone for themselves "team" deathmatchs' anywhere