There is a link between the rise of "infantryside" and the downfall of the games popularity

Notice how this game was created as a "combined arms" game and marketed as such, yet as that factor has been nerfed overtime the games popularity has declined.


I've been in this game dev stuff for a long while now, and I see a clear pattern.

Now some of you will disagree with this assessment and thats fine, but if you deny this & are not willing to research then you are putting your head in the sand about this.

"Infantryside" =/= Planetside

It's not about being vehicle biased, its about understanding that Combined Arms is Planetside, and by nerfing the combined arms ability to fight back, the game is effectively suiciding itself to pander/cater to a small vocal minority of Infantry elitists that more then likely have jumped ship to other games.

Combined Arms is about Infantry,Vehicles & Aircraft all having a place in the combat ecosystem, fighting eachother & helping eachother. Balance between them is certainly important, but its a very delicate relationship.

If one of them becomes significantly stronger over time then the other 2(such as what Infantry has now become), then it creates a imbalance with multiple harmful ripple effects to the game happening.

To those who say "Vehicles/Aircraft killing infantry is bad", let me ask you something.

Why is it that after every vehicle/aircraft AI nerf the games population declines?


The devs bias to infantryside in the past(August 2014 Tank Cannon splash nerfs & the "Phase 1 lethality revamp" cloak and dagger smoke & mirrors BS are a shining example of this) has been increasingly prevalent.

It's almost as if they have no idea how to balance a combined arms game of this scale(It has to be done similar to a RTS lets put it that way).


What attracted players to the game wasn't Infantryside/Medkit elite stats circlejerking, it was the fact that ONLY IN THIS GAME can you see Armies of Infantry,Vehicles & Aircraft fighting it out in large scale combat.

Remember that, and remember this post. Don't ignore the truth, no matter how much you want to crawl back into your safe space "ignorance is bliss" mindstate about this.

To add to this..............

Infantry outnumber vehicles & aircraft significantly.

Also, the biggest killer of infantry is Infantry(who would have guessed right?) not Vehicles/Aircraft.

I am sure if vehicles had stayed in their strongest editions, people would have stayed and we would still have 4 servers per continent, and the frame rate would have been 120 fps even with a 1000 people on screen and PS2 would go down in history as the greatest game in gaming history and world peace would happen.

There is a link between every single personal thing that people dislike and the drop in population in a game. I mean go ask WoW players why the game has dropped players and you'll be off with about 100 different reasons.

Not to mention, we don't know how many people that play infantryside would have stopped playing if vehicles hadn't been nerfed.

And lastly

Pfffffff HAHAhahahahahahahahaahahaahahahahahahhahaahhahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAAAH *gasps* HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAhahah

Discrediting technique/trying to be a sarcastic joker.

Head in the sand trying to ignore what was said/trying to brush things off/diversion.

Strawmaning

Laughing off a true statement about balancing.

There should be more infantry than vehicles, infantry loudouts are free-vehicles cost nanites.

Not only that, vehicles (even MBTs) are essentially support vehicles. Vehicles cannot capture points, which is what gives you victory points and takes territory, which is what wins alerts. Vehicles are to supplement your soldiers on the ground.

Ever heard of the fallacy fallacy?

Anyway, you honestly think that vehicles are weaker than infantry and that is the main contributor to people having left? That stronger editions of vehicles wouldn't have pushed infantry players out of the game?

I said it all out in the OP.

Infantry have became progressively stronger the most Vehicles against Infantry have been nerfed overtime.

When counters can't counter or are not allowed to counter, balance falls apart.


People left the game because the "combined arms" aspect that was the staple of the game franchise & what the game has been advertised by has been progressively destroyed over time.

This is the best combined arms game on the market. People aren't leaving because there aren't enough vehicles.

"Should be", there has always been.

Also interms of basic scaling, infantry always will outnumber vehicles due to cheapness(Practically free) & faster spawns.

Don't forget the vehicles play differently then infantry(and also different from eachother & require alot of investment to be viable compared to infantry.

What you are saying is correct.

But what happens if Vehicles cannot do there roles well anymore?

They can't provide support, they can't supplement, etc etc

(facepalm)

It's not about "not having enough vehicles", its about the balancing of the Combined Arms aspect.

But vehicles are quite strong counters, I mean one only needs to look at most pilots K/D, they **** all over any infantry players. Not to mention, there is still plenty of vehicles around, most pushes are vehicle based and if not, vehicles tend to push the infantry back.

I mean, the last alert on Cobalt, I had to look at five VS repair sundies just **** all over us all the way to the capture point, three bases in a row, because we couldn't take them down (granted that does have something to do with TR lately thinking infiltrators and medics are good counters to vehicles but it still speaks to what vehicles are still capable of).

I think it's a marketing failure. This is the best combined RTS/FPS/MMO game. The only weakness I see is that it makes excessive demands on computing power and people cannot play it on their tablets or even most laptops.

That sounds less of a Vehicle problem and more of a Infantry mindstate problem.

If the infantry pulled counters the Vehicles would be toast.

I disagree that vehicles are imbalanced. I think that changes like the ones done to air are marginal at best in the grand scheme of things. It should be noted that the balance itself and the perception from individuals on the balance itself are independent issues. For example a person could leave the game thinking it's horribly imbalanced based on false pretenses.

Playing this game on a tablet?????????????????????

As I noted. But even if we pulled counters, it would still not just be an effortless fight, five repair sundies supported by infantry against infantry is not a walk in the park. It is one of the strongest pushes that people can do, and it is effective counters or not (except mines perhabs).

At the end of the day, the biggest issue is that infantry are cost-free. You cannot fight anything that resembles a combined arms battle while there is essentially an enemy with unlimited resources.

Vehicles are said to be force multipliers. Generally, this means that a force with vehicles can kill more of the enemy than a force without vehicles. So, an example of a working force multiplier would be that a combined armour/infantry force meets with a pure infantry force. The combined arms force would kill much more of the infantry force than the reverse, meaning that through enemy losses the combined arms force would win. The infantry force would need to withdraw or be destroyed.

But in PS2 that balance breaks down because infantry are free. In fact, the situation is oddly reversed, where it is far easier to replace personnel than equipment. In a hypothetical meeting between a combined arms force and a pure infantry force, that pure infantry force will not actually suffer any losses because everyone can respawn for free. The AV potential of the infantry force will be just as much after 30 minutes of battle as compared to when it just started. The combined arms force, on the other hand, will lose vehicles through attrition, and unlike the infantry these vehicles are not free.

This is why so many fights devolve into infantry meatgrinders. All the vehicles have melted, so all that are left are free, unlimited infantry.

To fix this, the current infantry classes should be seen as "specialists" and should carry a nanite cost to spawn. To compensate, a free "Medium Assault" class will allow for continued play through drained nanites, but the Medium Assault is designed to be easily countered by enemy force multipliers as it has no AV capability whatsoever.

This means that in a combined arms battle, the enemy will eventually run out of HAs, Medics, and Engineers. This would allow the force multipliers of the combined arms team to easily dominate the remaining Medium Assaults, allowing for victory to be assured.

Good to see [PSA] tag abuse is alive and well

Interesting theory. But since the Beta in November 2012. Vehicles have never been able to assist in taking a base. There's always been buildings and walls to keep them from the control points.

Its been infantryside from the start. The only change that happened was to limit the vehicle farming of non-essential infantry. You know.. those people on foot who see vehicles and think they need to be dealt with and run out to be mini cert pinatas.

Well.. that would have died down too eventually. You can only farm so many certs. Its not an endless grind. Eventually you get to the point (around BR60-80 depending on the person) where you've unlocked all that you want. And either the real game, an endgame happens, or you dry out and quit (some don't realize there is more than cert grinding in this game).

From my observation, its the dry out and quitting that's been killing the game. Too many people got wrapped up in a pointless grind and don't know how to do anything else. We're slowly getting left with more and more objectively based players. The only people we have cert farming now are noobs that don't know better yet and eventually will get to the stage where they'll play objectively or leave.

No one actually ever gives a damn about vehicle gameplay unless they need to get certs. Or they're out for a joy ride. When players want to get serious and take something, they get out on foot to do so.

The second biggest reason for PS2's failing is the ridiculous design of bases, which artificially restricts the ability of force multipliers to meaningfully impact the outcome of any battle. I've made a similar post before, but PS2 needs two things: destructible bases and realistic design.

First, there's a very good reason why castles and trenches have given way to mobile warfare in real life. This is because castles can be easily knocked down by cannon, and high explosive artillery makes trenches into deathtraps. No reasonable modern military force would think to hide behind tall walls for very long... walls that would only be valued for concealment, not cover.

But in PS2 of course every single building (or glowy marsh shrub) is completely indestructible. This is a major flaw for proper combined arms, because it negates the heavy weapon aspect of force multipliers, the increased range of force multipliers, and the increased mobility of a combined arms group. This means that it is totally possible for a pure infantry group to simply dig in and completely ignore the shelling outside.

If PS2 were to get destructible everything, this tactic would be asking for defeat. The outside force would just simply shell the occupied buildings into rubble, and then saunter into the point. This would encourage more combined arms.

Second, PS2 bases are designed with very few open spaces. This is generally incorrect, because open spaces allows for an increased danger of being shot and necessitates armoured or mobile transport. Consider these comparisons:

The old Shadespire Farms:


Tanaka Farms:


Far fewer buildings and far more open land in an actual farm.

Vaemar Logging:


Weyerhaeuser Logging:


Granted one might be a logging site instead of a processing site, but the point is that even large buildings have huge, open areas around them for parking lots and transportation.

Spec Ops Training:


Camp Pendleton:


Buildings are much further out in a real training camp, complete with large parking lots. Because almost everything has a large parking lot attached to it nowadays.

Making PS2 bases more reasonably realistic would create large killing fields. It would be hard or impossible for unsupported infantry to move across these fields without being mowed down by highly lethal force multipliers. This would require that force multipliers be used for any defensive or offensive action.