This is what PS2 is like to a new player

Been playing since late June and the game is beginning to shape up a bit more but you really need to take some time to get used to the quirks of the game.

I'm still having issues with things I had issues with when I first started - mainly its very hard for me to tell who is the enemy a lot of the time because the friendly marker is very hard to see and easily gets lost in all the mayhem also some people and vehicles render but still have no friendly marker - this is especially true with air vehicles. Also the plethora of different camos makes it even harder to tell friend from foe. I'm also colourblind but that's my problem not the game's.

Bases seem to be undefendable a lot of the time with control points much too far away from the main part of the base. Also the bases are more or less completely open and unfortified. The base turrets are destroyed with consummate ease and there are no other defences at all within them. Bases are completely open to infiltrators and any enemy that wants in.

I quicky realised if you are spawn camped the base is already lost so pling away for some free kills and redeploy. Its not a major thing I found after a while.

I'm still unable to fly anything with the mouse and keyboard as the controls are so clunky you are easy prey for any average joe with a controller.

Of the three factions I found NC the hardest even before I read on here that a lot of people have the same conclusion. Their guns' recoil just seems to be completely uncontrollable and the bullet drop makes them really hard to use at range. I don't know how the snipers in this game constantly get perfect headshots 1st time every time with a bullet drop as severe as the NC and TR sniper rifles. Even the low BR guys.

VS is a cinch though with hardly any bullet drop and usually where the reticle is pointing is where you will hit. For a newish player these guys are much more fun to play. Though my highest lvl toon is in the TR I found their weapons to be deathly boring as they all look the same in 1st person view and most feel the same when you are playing with them. The minigun is nice though.

I've seen a lot more cheesy tactics start appearing now people know how it all works. Dropping pods on sunderers and using a landed galaxy as an almost invulnerable gunnery platform etc.

Once you get into a big battle though the game is just awesome even with its quirks. I'd keep going just to get the chance to be in a mega firefight.

Too long.
And the NC start out with a bolt action sniper rifle, VS and TR start with useless semi-auto sniper rifles. The VS and TR 100 cert sniper rifle's and the NC's default are all 100% identical(excluding cosmetics and audio of course)

You made a fair point about spawn caping and vehicles(although you don't understand why vehicles are the way they are), but everything you say regarding balanced is based on not understanding that not everything is always effective.

You can't spend 5 hours, or even 100 hours in this game and offer constructive feedback. This game is incredibly broken and only knowing it inside and out can you then offer constructive feedback. Unfortunately the devs have not quite gotten on our level, nor have they learned how to listen to our feedback.

Its so cute when they try to change something, like a little cousin that wants to show you "somthing cool"...

Paladins = defensive WIS fighter | SKs = offensive INT fighter.

In WoW it would be a Protection STA Paladin tank and a Paladin STR Retribution damage dealer, and it can work for both factions (no duplication necessary for faction "variety").

When there was that snap aggro bug in the Shadow Odyssey and Guardians were sidelined as MTs, SKs would fill the MT spot and had an uncanny way of suddenly dying (reminds me of a Holy paladin trying to tank current tier content). Which is why I kept that LoH up because that SK was going to drop faster than any healer could heal (I went deep into the healing line as well).

After burning out on the nth shard run, I went to WoW as they had a full time healing paladin (since I was doing so much healing as a paladin anyway, might as well be a full time healing paladin!).

Came back to EQII a few years back and checked the changes, and went right back to WoW. Wisdom was gone as the main attribute and replaced by STR and heals were so nerfed that it wasn't interesting anymore (the final changes of the Fighter 2.0 revamp). Didn't want to play a Ret in EQII.

At least in WoW the caster aspect is still preserved in the Holy paladin subclass...INT as a main attribute.

As I said above, SKs when they died (because they were HoT healers, not active like paladins) they died suddenly. It was clear then SOE didn't want any other plate class to be MTs but Guardians, and SKs didn't have the taunts either (SKs had to have time to build aggro, only Guardians had the snap aggro. Paladin taunts were tweaked to be #2 to the Guardian too -- that was horrible class design, and worse, the constant nerfs to Amends to force Guardians to be MTs).

I saw more than a few SKs lose to paladins in duels, and it was the paladin that would always be around when the SK, just died.

There's a reason why INT tank existed, they were the paladin 2H class.

Didn't have problems with mana management in EQII, had more than enough to tank+heal not only myself. A good defensive tank can block and mitigate the INT tank's damage. It's like a Prot paladin in WoW fending off a Ret or Arms/Fury warrior.

I miss my old paladin in EQII. Sigh.

Regarding the developers:

• The head developer is "NC"
• The systems designer is "NC"
• The weapons balance developer is "TR"
• The art director is "VS"
• The community representative is "VS"

As you probably understand from the above, in positions that can affect gameplay and balance you won't find VS. The whole deal is mute anyway. I've quoted the empires, because the developers don't really support any one specific in anything beyond teasing each other in public.

In any case, you can check the official twitch.tv channel and you'll see that all developers, regardless of which empire they "support", end up playing with whoever is invited.

Regarding Vanu:
There are numerous misconceptions about Vanu and their weapons, that are perpetuated since launch, usually by people with little experience with the faction. Lets start:

• VS and TR weapons have close to identical recoil in most of their weapons. In some cases like the Carv and Orion, it's completely identical.
• The difference between VS and NC recoil is uniformity and strength. In general, NC weapons have a more uniform, one direction recoil (up and to the left for example), while VS weapons have a weaker but multidirectional recoil. Which is easier is subjective, but the fact remains that one is stronger but more predictable, while the other is weaker but chaotic.
• VS weapons stand roughly in the middle between TR and NC in terms of rate of fire.
• Bullet drop in this game and in the ranges most engagements take place is negligible. The only weapons that need to account for bullet drop are sniper rifles (and everything there is identical for all empires) and silenced weapons, which doesn't make sense to use in ranges where bullet drop becomes an issue.

Generally speaking, the Vanu have historically gone from underpopulated to close to extinction to this day closing the population gap with the other empires (finally). One telling statistic regarding their perceived power, even by brand new players is the fact that the empire is trialed by the biggest amount of people, yet played by the smallest.

In any case, we can talk statistics, but the fact remains that the only thing that stands out for Vanu right now is their MAX empire specific ability. Everything else is either close to perfectly balanced with the other empires or underperforming in some degree.

Regarding hitboxes:
This sounds like a framerate issue. Press alt-F and observe your frame rate. If it dives in fights, this is your reason for the behaviour you're describing and not the hitboxes.

Regarding armor:
As more of a tank than a plane player (I primarily play infantry, but I do like armor combat from time to time), I avoid any and all infantry encounters in numbers bigger than three (which is pretty much all bases). Vehicles in this game are extremely weak against an average concentration of infantry that knows what they are doing.

• AV engineer turrets and all lock on missiles are absolutely devastating at range. The more you add to the mix, the further back to the next hex you push back armor.
• At close range the default missiles are extremely deadly, if you find yourself surrounded by infantry.
• Light assaults dropping C4 to armor from the sky is one of the most common ways for armor to die.
• Mines, while a bit underused lately, are also one way to take down careless vehicles.

Generally speaking, the biggest complain from the armor playing community, is that actual armor combat is rare, since infantry takes out vehicles or interferes in vehicular combat more effectively than the vehicles do themselves.

Regarding grind:
I play this game as if it was an mmo, so I chose to pay a subscription for it (that's 50% more exp than free players). I do not buy guns with SC, only cosmetics. Here is my cert gain for the past month:


I'm playing mostly infantry btw. The difference between a new player and a veteran is mostly on having more options to deal with threats, knowing how to handle different situations or to pull out when it's hopeless and keeping the downtime as close to zero as possible.

I do not play for the certs. I play for the action. The certs come naturally. (I also play a lot, 4+ hours every day)

Regarding classes:
That's where your veterans in your empire come into play. I have a fully certed engineer, medic, heavy, MAX, a moderately certed light assault and a lightly certed infiltrator. If I see the need for repairs, I switch to engineer, for heals to medic and so on. If here is too much armor out, I pull a heavy. If there is too much air, an anti air MAX and so on.

While it makes sense for brand new players to specialise at the beginning, it's up to the veterans to fill the gap in their ranks with any specialisations needed.

In any case, if you choose to stick around, you'll soon find yourself picking what's needed in each encounter. You'll soon find yourself the veteran, the guy that knows what must be done and how (with all the new frustrations that this knowledge may also bring).

I to had a Guardian to 75, I hated him so much. Damage was abysmal, defense was sad as **** and even my taunts seemed to suck. I had atleast adept III on everything. Armor was I think MC72, forgot my shield or weapons, but it wasnt total junk. Or maybe it was, I was amore casual player anyway, not into big raids. Either way, my Guardian was 10x weaker then my SK ever was. In a group, my SK+Defiler+any other healer+AC buffs id get AC almost 7000 to go along wiht my insane damage. He was quite durable overall, in a group buffed and stuff.

My Guardian however, even with adept III Taunts and skills, MC72 armor and I think 72MC weapons still couldnt take more then 1 mob his level, would get waxed by that one mob, had atrocious down time and in a group couldnt keep his aggro to save his life. not to mention the power drain when using his taunts, 2 times through, half my power.

Take my SK, same lvl when he had 72MC and not even my baby epic, I was in one of the TSO zones, no ****, took on about 18 mobs before finally stopping wiht half a bub left. THey were aggroing and aggroing and spawning and I was trying to run and it was hectic, but damn did I win. Used every trick I knew up to that point, HT heal, Super 3K heal necklace heal, heal pots, mad skill heals, I loved that life tap ability applied to all my skills...and I just loved my SK. By far my fav classi n Eq2.

Eq1, it is the Paladin though....awesome class there.

I don't think i've ever seen so many huge responses to one op

Guardians were broken in the Shadow Odyssey. Their snap aggro was bugged, which meant even an SK could hold aggro better, which is why they became the MT during that expansion, except in the undead raids.

Tanks aren't meant for DPSing, they're meant for mitigating damage. My paladin had an AC of around 13k at that time, and went heavy in resists (as the WoE raid really needed it, especially for elemental damage). AC then for a tier 4 raid tank was over 15k.

SKs originally were for MA or OTs as they're an offensive tank, which meant they can't hold out for long without direct heals (they're a HoT self-healing tank, which why they could drop so quickly in a heavy fight and before healers noticed). Guardians ruled before that expansion because of their high mitigation and snap aggro, but had to have full support (Dirge+Defiler and other support classes in the MT group). Paladins were great for undead instances due to class talents and OTing, since they could go OoR of heals to grab trash, and if the Guardian died, could battle rez and sub until the heals and all got him rebuffed. Paladins are designed to be the last standing, and can then rez the healer to get everyone back up again. Did so much healing and rezzing, playing a Holy paladin in WoW just became second nature...lol

Seriously off-topic, but it's a SOE product at least.

I never seriously raided and what not. Hardest thing I ever did was get Baby Sedition for my Sk. Spec'd straight DPS on my dude. And he wrecked stuff pretty well. Highest AC, even in Defense mode was like close to 7K.

So Guardians were screwed up then? It wasnt just my imagination? Cuz I noticed my lack of ability to hold aggro......Pull, taunt, taunt, taunt, taunt cuz I had like 5, boot, shield bash, both gave hatred, and repeat 10s later followed by my entire bar, the little lowly Warden casted like 1 HOT on me or something and bam, Warden gets aggro and nothing ive got gets it off. Then the DPS starts going off and I cant get it off him, or the Defiler who warded me, or the Ranger who shot him, or hte illy who mezzed him.....it was like seriously wtf and that was when I legit rage quit my Guardian. MTing Unrest as my Guard.....first damn mob in the door, those gargoyles on the walls.....radius pulled it, taunted everything I had, double taunted, boot, shield bash and was outta power before that thing was even half dead.....I was like well this isnt even as bad as I remember my guardian......it was down right atrocious.

Gave the game some more time. Possibly against my better judgement. More thoughts for people to ignore.

# If you are a game developer, and you make a game where the average time to kill is measured in milliseconds, and add friendly damage to prevent reaction fire, then **allowing people to change their appearance** is completely idiotic. Red is the Terrans, blue is the Conglomerate, purple is the Sovereignty, and white is the guy that spent a bucket of cash to kill you because you had to waste an extra fraction of a second looking for a triangle over his head. How did this feature even make it out of in-house play testing?

# Having a weapon that is designed to counter a specific kind of enemy vehicle, and then giving that vehicle a specific defense against its nemesis, is pretty silly. How does it make any kind of sense that aircraft can turn off my rocket's homing ability at will when it takes at LEAST two rockets to kill even the most trivial air target but they can kill me more or less instantly if they make the effort?

# Why are anti-tank mines so expensive when they have to be hand placed by a class that can't cloak, can be spotted and neutralized, don't discriminate between high value and low value targets, and take forever to arm?

# Why does Sony hate people with low spec computers? Running low graphics makes infiltrators LITERALLY invisible, not just kinda translucent. I never even knew they were supposed to be slightly visible until after I'd been stabbed in the back a thousand times. Game is slightly less irritating when you can actually see the little gremlins trying to slink around. This has been around long enough to become a widely known bug. So, it's not fixed because....?

# Base defenses confirmed to be massively underpowered. A flak battery can't even win a 1:1 with a heavy fighter craft. Just rolled up, hovered, and confidently DPSed the turret from full to explode while I shot back continuously. It should be a pretty serious sign of something wrong when a vehicle is completely unafraid of a static emplacement that is its specific counter. My first notion was that turrets were simply designed and balanced at a time when only stock vehicles existed but then vehicles got more powerful weapons and defenses while turrets were simply overlooked. But then I remembered that the game has been around for over a year now...

# The big one. This is the only game I've ever played where I can be more or less forced out by other players. Playing during prime time is actually kind of cool. Big battles, lots of people who aren't hyper elite teamspeaking clan dudes. Then you get to late night. That's when the hyper elite teamspeaking clan dudes come out. I haven't got a chance in hell of fighting that and unless you're a masochist it's just not worth trying any more once you get these roving hordes just rolling everything up. (completely useless elitist response in 3...2...1..) The problem is you can't take your ball somewhere else and migrate around the globe to where all the less-rabid players are awake i.e. go looking for a fair fight and ping be damned, because characters are limited to whatever server they're created on. I'm not sure if that was just a gigantic derp on the developer's part or a deliberate "incentive", when coupled with locking newly created characters out of several fundamental game mechanics via cert costs for basic functionality, to spend money on new characters in a pay-to-not-be-underpowered business model. Either way, it's pretty bad.


Some good moments. Lots and lots of mind blowing frustration moments where I die over and over in situations where I had no chance whatsoever. I can see where this game would have been really amazing after that extra year of design and development.

I'll play.

-The factions also have different armor designs, as well as pretty clear indicators of faction all over their body. I suppose this could be confusing to someone new, couldn't tell ya I never had a problem with it, but I can't imagine it not being something you get used to.

- They can't turn it off at will. At the highest level it can be used every 25 seconds, lowest level is 45 seconds, with six seconds of immunity on either. You won't get many kills with lock on rockets against aircraft, but it does force them to relocate or break LOS or take a pretty major hit to their health. If it takes two rockets to kill a plane (remember planes cost resources, rockets do not) that means two people can kill a plane with one rocket. Also, did you buy the lock on launcher? Kinda risky, for a game you say you don't like.

- Fair enough, I think tank mines could use some work. They don't take forever to arm though, they just don't go off when you place them next to stationary targets. Again, what made you decide to buy tank mines over something more useful? An odd choice for a brand new player.

- Low settings used to make infiltrators really easy to spot. I guess near total invisibility was the compromise, without hurting their performance. Not all computers can play PS2, just like not all computers can play modern games. If you must, turn the effects settings up to medium.

- Which one is the heavy fighter craft? If you're talking about the liberator, you have to remember it is a very large, expensive, crewed vehicle. If one flak gun (completely free to use) could solo a liberator, then you'd never see liberators. In fact, this was once the case but was reverted because it made air useless in any fight with more than a couple squads. If you're talking about the fighter, the one man plane, then it's honestly a L2P issue. Not trying to be an elitist, but I'm a decent pilot and even I'm not gonna take on a flak turret unless it's distracted.

- Definitely a design choice made by SOE. Can't say I'm a big fan of it either, but I understand the reason for it (Any weapon purchased with SC is unlocked account wide, so it's not completely for the $$$). If you've ever heard the word '4th faction', those are the players without any server/faction loyalty who hop on to whatever server has the easiest fight. If you let everyone play with their best character on whatever server, then the imbalances will just get worse for every server. Believe it or not, a decently large fraction of the community initially (and still) call for even greater restrictions on what characters you can play and when. Also, as for the guns, none of the default guns, on any of the infantry classes or vehicles are bad. In fact, they're some of the most balanced weapons in the game.

If you're struggling, it's probably because you're playing solo. This is a combined arms game. You can't expect to go toe to toe with every tank by yourself, can you? Find some people who you enjoy playing with (make sure some of them are medics) and it will make all the difference. That's really the only thing (besides the massive battles, persistent world, asymmetric balance) that this game offers that others do not; if you want to, you can meet people you can game with in the future. Working with my outfit and then helping build an alliance for my faction on my server has been one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. It's a shame that SOE doesn't put in more game mechanics to encourage outfit/squad play, but it's still there.

No one asked for it. Pack up your **** and get out. I get the feeling you may be mad because there are no dogs in this game

Regarding frustration & identifying enemies:
I'm a BR100. I've been 100 for some time now. I haven't reached that point by "abusing" the techniques that net more certs (like LIberators when the game was new or Harassers today). I play what I find fun, which is infantry grunt most of time time. I also play a lot.

The game still frustrates me sometimes, for similar but also different reasons.

I'm not young any more, my reflexes are "good" in the sense that I practice everyday, but bad if you compare them to the younger crowd. My only chances of winning rely on situation awareness, positioning and aim, not fast trigger finger. If somebody has all the above plus the trigger finger, I will lose, all the time. Regardless of BR level, weapons or armor modules. There is nothing I can do but sigh and respawn.

Losing an encounter with another player is generally due to a combination of things. Familiarity with the game is one of them and, I suppose, the inability to distinguish between friends and foe due to camos or different helmet designs, is one of them. Perhaps the solution would be to simply have everyone look exactly the same. Would people be satisfied as part of an army of clones with no character customization options?

For me, the easiest way to learn how to distinguish friends from foe, was to train myself through the IRNV scope. The scope has certain positive and negative aspects, but in this case, we are interested in the ability of the scope to erase all colour and leave the silhouette of the enemy and the lack of friendly dorito above his head as a prominent way of identification. Soon enough you will start identifying the differences between each empire figures and also the lack of doritos above their heads.

The other key factor to identifying enemies is the probability of encounter. With the exception of infiltrators, in most encounters the general direction from where the enemy is coming is known and makes things easier. From that point on experience starts to kick in. You start thinking, if I was playing a Light Assault, where would I be hiding in this base? How would I approach this position? If I wanted to flank me, where would I come from? Soon enough, you start covering the angles other people don't expect attacks. But most important, you actively seek the enemy, instead of waiting for him to appear so react to his presence.

Regarding weapon ineffectiveness:
I agree that certain weapons look weak when used individually. Put them however in the hands of a squad and ...

Weapons on that clip have been balanced and rebalanced, but the tactics are still valid and used today.

Regarding tank mines:
I'll skip the reasoning on why the AV mines are what they are today and just stick to what works and what doesn't. So:

• They may called mines, but since you don't have enough to actually make a minefield, people are using them as explosive charges or vehicle traps.
• The arm time is a couple seconds. However, keep in mind that they only detonate when they detect movement. If you throw them at a stationary target, they will not detonate. You can still throw a grenade at them or shoot them to blow them up.
• Since we don't have that many (the top we can carry is 5, which is basically two pairs of two and a spare), you can only trap two places tops. Every extra mine that you place over the number that you carry, deletes the very first you dropped. So if you carry 3, dropping a 4th deletes the 1st one you dropped.
• Changing classes or modules does not erase the mines that are already dropped. Nor changing continents.

The effective spots you can place them are base dependent and you will learn them from experience.

Low quality graphics and infiltrators:
Infiltrators have gone through various stages in low graphics. During a very large period of time they were very visible, while near invisible on the other settings. At this point in time the reverse is true. Since I don't play in low graphics, I don't know how much the optimisation update changed that particular aspect.

Base defenses:
Stationary defenses act as complementary to the other defenses, not as the main line of defense. They are still pretty powerful and getting even more powerful with each iteration of the game. A Magrider for example can't go toe to toe with a AV turret, nor can an ESF. They both need to pick them up from afar and when distracted. LIberators are supposed to be flying armor, but even they will fold if the turret and another source is shooting at them. And in a big base defense those sources are plenty.

The thing is, if you find yourself alone in a tower and you try to kill a Liberator, you're more likely to lose, mostly because he is mobile and can make you miss and you are not.

The big one:
I don't think I have a satisfying answer to this one.

The problem is that numbers muddle the individual skill and on a platoon level, squad coherence and coordination tramples individual skill. On the other hand, when the people are fewer, then the individual quality of each player becomes more prominent. I think you've seen the same in other games as well, materializing in different ways (for example vanilla raid encounters compared to recent 12 people encounters in WoW).

What do you do when you bump into a CoD or BF4 server that has players of so higher skill that are effectively "farming" you?

• Leave the server for somewhere more evenly matched. The equivalent here is to redeploy somewhere else.
• Endure the pain and try to learn from what these high skilled individuals are doing. You'll get farmed, but you'll also get to know how they are doing it, what you are doing wrong, how you can improve and what are the things you can do nothing about.

More pain:
I'll add one more frustration to your list, something that you'll eventually bump into.

Eventually you will have enough experience to tell what needs to be done to counter situations before you. The problem is, you need others to also see things with the same eyes. Whether it is to redeploy to a base down the line and setup a AV nest, pull anti air to counter their air or merely pressure them so their attack loses steam, you need people to assist you.

Most servers have a plethora of veterans at this point. Most of them will think along those same lines and will come to assist you. Some will only be interested in their farm and ignore everything strategic. The majority of people will unfortunately fight the hopeless fight, simply because they don't know better.

Of course, the easiest way to find a group of like minded individuals that want to play at the same strategic level, is to join an outfit. And PS2 has plenty of outfits, from the ultra relaxed, to the hardcore "professional". You merely have to choose your poison.

You seem to have a few misconceptions about the game. Lockons and in fact most ground based anti air aren't exactly there to kill aircraft. The actual purpose of ground aa is actually to make it dangerous for aircraft to linger though if someone does something stupid then yes they will get shot down by ground aa but otherwise they will either hit flares or get out of there before that happens. Now the aa turrets would shred any esf that tried to charge in like that so it would have to have been a liberator not an esf. A liberator is not a heavy fighter that is a bomber. Now that part about the tanks creating a kill zone around the spawn. Once it gets to that point it is pretty much a mindless win however it can take a great deal of fighting to get to that point. I remember one battle where I lead my outfits platoon from the aa guns on mao tech plant directing the other three squads back and forth trying to desperately hold the infantry shield gens for over an hour while under a very determined assault from the tr. It eventually did end up with the spawns shelled like that but that only happened AFTER they had gotten a clear advantage and gave us a lot of certs. If you want a chance to enjoy what this game is really about find an outfit. The good ones will almost always have a platoon or at least a squad or two running and they will be able to give you a great deal of help with understanding the cert system and the tactics of this game.

In practical terms, 6 seconds is more than enough time for an aircraft to set up for a rocket attack. As far as I can see, there is NO way for infantry stop an aircraft on a strafing run. (A wall of maxes and lightnings, yes). As infantry you might kill it on the way out once its flare wears off if enough people have AA missiles, but your sunder is already a smoking crater by then.

>> what made you decide to buy tank mines over something more useful?<<

Where does it say how useless they are? I thought they were like the missile launcher and had ammo that could be refilled at a terminal. They were one of the earlier things I unlocked when I saw how utterly stupid vehicle rushes were. What can you do, game has basically no tutorial.

>> If you must, turn the effects settings up to medium. <<

I did, obviously.

>> (Any weapon purchased with SC is unlocked account wide, so it's not completely for the $$$). <<

I'm not sure why you think that negates my theory. Don't spend money: Be underpowered times how ever many characters you want to have. Spend money: Don't be underpowered. Also, it's not the *guns* that is the problem here. The starter weapons seem fine in my limited experience. The problem is "game changers". You have no med kit, no C4, no guided missiles. The class upgrades themselves can be gamechangers: I upgraded the medic's tool to level 4 and it's a whole new order of magnitude in effectiveness. WTF.

>> Working with my outfit and then helping build an alliance for my faction on my server has been one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. <<

In that case, Sony designed a drop-in game that doesn't encourage drop-in gameplay. I think I mentioned something about the game not actually being fully baked...

No one asked for your negativity, and yet here we are. I think that makes you a hypocrite. Also I get the feeling that you might be insane. What do dogs have to do with...anything?

I am objecting less to the mechanics and more to the cost. These are a very very expensive thing when they amount to a total gamble. Grenades, med kits, etc all have immediately and definable returns when you buy them. Anti tank mines? People see them and shoot them before driving over them, or they get wiped out as collateral damage in the general AOE spam, and that's assuming that anybody even drives over the things when I'm online to collect the XP from it. If, if, if. For being so purely speculative and unreliable, they should be really cheap.

>> The problem is that numbers muddle the individual skill <<

Which is exactly my point. Individual super-elite players matter less and that makes the game less frustrating for everybody else.

>> Leave the server for somewhere more evenly matched. The equivalent here is to redeploy somewhere else. <<

Except, as I pointed out, you can't leave the server or faction because everything is tied to your character. So if there's nothing good happening then you're done. This is what I mean by being forced out. A lot of times, late night boils down to either going 1:1 trying to back-cap or being useless in a 30:30 fight between clans.

Sure, 6 seconds is enough time to get a salvo off, but if they don't get out during those six seconds it's very likely that their ESF will be blown up. Once you flare, you basically have to leave the AO or else you're probably going to get hit by at least one rocket. And no, it takes at least two runs to blow up a sunderer. If you can't repair the sunderer and/or pull AA in the time it takes an ESF to make two runs, you probably didn't deserve to have it deployed. As for AA, one MAX can pretty quickly deter air from making an attack, and one lightning is even more effective. As soon as you are targeted by flak you really must leave the area, or die for nothing. Small arms fire is also pretty effective if you can get 4+ guys to all shoot at it with you. If you're not running with a squad, make the call over proxy chat. You'd be surprised at how many people will heed the call.

They aren't useless, they're just highly situational, especially for a solo player. The description pretty clearly says you get 2 mines at first level, which doesn't really cover all that much ground. To make much use out of tank mines you need other people to be placing them also, so you can cover an area or road. Two tank mines will destroy 1 vehicle. And what, you want them to explain every single weapon option in the tutorial? I imagine people would just skip through most of it anyways. There's plenty of internet around to help you not make poor choices.

Well ****, why are you complaining then?

Again, you can't buy certs, and the cert options are where you get most of your power from. You can buy new guns to give you more options, but they won't significantly outperform the standard weapons except in the areas that they were designed to outperform the standard weapons. Sure, the MAX, the ESF, and the harasser are pretty significantly upgraded by their weapon options, and some of these weapons tend to be expensive cert wise, but all of these take a significant amount of practice to be good with anyways.

So what, you expect to be able to take on teams and experienced players by yourself? I guess if you were getting thrashed in CoD or BF by a team that actually practices you could leave the game and hope the next one has more noobs, but this is an MMO, it does not work like that. The game will always be balanced towards people who play as a team; it makes no sense for it to work otherwise. That said, I spend an equal amount of my game time playing solo as I do playing in a squad or platoon. Yeah, I get **** on by things certain things when I have no options to fight them, but I don't really expect to be killing good tankers as anything but a heavy. I don't expect to win against well coordinated squads by myself. I don't expect to kill enemy air unless I pull AA, or hop in a sundy's basilisk, or AA turret. That's how this game works, and it wouldn't make sense for it to be any other way. You CAN drop in to this game full solo and still kick *** in the right situations, but it's still a team game at it's heart. You cannot balance team play against solo play, nor should you. On the contrary there are tons of outfits you can join, plenty of pub platoons, and if you have the will for it, you can make your own squads, platoons, and outfits at any time. Maybe this game is not for you, but from the sounds of it, if it was, it would not be for me. If you want to see the real game, play around until you find people you like. If you can't find anybody, well, that's on you buddy.

The saving grace of mines is that practically noone (bar certain veterans that lived through the days when mines were as potent as C4) equips their vehicles with mineguard. Which basically means that if you do manage to reach a vehicle, you're pretty much guaranteed a kill. Drop two mines and shoot them and 99% of the vehicles moving around will vaporise instantly.

Edit: An engineer with a high quality repair tool (like my maxed one) can easily out repair one ESF attacking a sunderer. The same engineer can easily out repair a main tank damage and will slightly struggle against two heavies with rockets. The sunderer will fold of course, if attacked by Vulcan.

This is not what PS2 looks like to "new players" - you don't speak for all of them.

This is merely what PS2 looked like to *you*. If you don't like it, fine - door's over there, good luck with your next game experience. Thing is, most of the issues you list here is well known to the vast majority of players and the Devs, many are being looked into for fixes. In spite of that PS2 is vastly better than you give it credit for, and IMHO is utterly unique no equal anywhere. When I started to play, it was far worse than it is today. I've stuck around in spite of the issues because yeah, it's just that good.