Top 10 things I miss most from PS1

I know, fanboy... blah blah, why dont you go play PS1, PS2 is designed different etc etc etc.
If you havent actually played PS1, just take this info as granted.

Also, Im going to point out that I actually like PS2, and obvious to say theres loads PS2 does better than PS1, but thats to be expected. Its 10 years later with current gen tek. I just get the impression having played both that this sequel could be loads loads better than it is, if only SOE had just taken more of an interest in what PS1 did well. I am really hoping that they change / put some of this back in...

IMHO the only reason reason PS2 doesnt have these things is because the dev team did a poor job of critically analysing what was awesome about their first game, and got fogged up with "MASSIVE BATTLE" as the only USP of the franchise.

1. Defensible bases and logical base layouts.
Bases with walls that go all the way around. Chokepoints at the gates. A courtyard killzone for defenders. Auto-turrets that actually made sense from a defenders POV, bases that defended themselves to a small extent preventing ghost caps. A progressive indoor battle. No light assault jetpack abundance to screw the flow of combat. Underground sections you had to fight into/out of. Genholds.

Bases with signage for the newbs. Bases where you can expect the vehicle rearm silo to be roughly where it was in the last base. Bases with a bit of continuity to their design. Stairs. More logical routes of transit around the base. You KNEW in PS1 where the enemy would attack your base, facilitating defence, which is what PS2 lacks right now.

2. Doors
Nuff said. They were buggy I'll give you that, but they were bloody necessary IMHO. Cant take base defence seriously without doors. Enemy can no longer just sprint right into the heart of your base without hackers and teamwork.

3. Combat Engineering done propper.
Not just tagged on, properly thought out. Could make fields of death turrets. Could make ACTUAL MINE FIELDS instead of just dropping a few mines. Players of the same faction could use your stationary turrets. Bubble shields. Rearm stations. Base turret upgrades. Sensors.

4. Hacking done propper.
Not just tagged on, properly thought out. Able to commandeer enemy vehicles adding to the flavour of the battlefront. Able to affect base functionality. Able to upgrade owned bases, and nerf attacking bases.

5. Logistics.
ANTs providing a dynamic moving target of attack/defence. Logistics that actually factored in to a base defence. Resource denial strategies. Another non combat method of earning XP. NTU's being somewhat of a limitation on how much vehcile spam a base can generate. Seige/besiege facilitation.

6. Vehicle Re-arm.
Could rearm/refit your vehicle from bases as easily as you could rearm your infantry classes from terminals.

7. Spawn-room design and placement.
Spawn rooms actually INSIDE THE BASE. No need to push past tanks to get to the important fighting areas. Tower spawn rooms conferred a significant height advantage to the defender. PS2 could do with putting their spawnrooms on stilts, raising the spawning level another storey, it being the tallest building in the complex, and having the spawnroom connect directly to the battlements / walls of the base. Howbout an un-shellable tunnel into adjacent buildings? The combat should not be happening right outside the spawnroom in camp scenarios, the defenders should atleast be able to disperse to the defensible areas before being shot at.
If attackers are going to seal defenders into their spawn room, they should have to work atleast twice as hard to do so. Its way to easy in PS2 itteration.

8. Meaningul bridge battles.
Totally omitted from PS2 map design. Some of the most memorable parts of PS1. Where's the water?

9. Flora
Trees. Forests. Infantry friendly outside areas.

10. Empire Sanctuaries.
Non combat forces could collect and organise off of combat continents, all in the same place. Removed non combat troops from conflict continents. Nobody 'chilled out' in the warpgate of combat continents, no artificial inflation of population because of idle troops sitting in WG. Enabled continent locking. Gave the impression that empires had some permanent foothold in the world of PS.

These are things I hope PS2 will eventually roll into the game.

I completely agree with you. PS2 has no staying power. Not like PS1 does anyway. In a couple of years PS2 will be a ghost town and PS1 will still be chugging along, simply because PS2 has no metagame. People will get bored of an endless war, with almost no variation whatsoever. PS1 has tactics built in, you can starve the enemy out of the base (resources), make a chokepoint for a zerg on a bridge, run supplies to that base under siege. There is none of that in PS2. Just kill here, move back here, spawn camp here. It is so.......monotone. Overall, PS1 is afar better game. Yes, it has it's own problems, but there is so much more to do in it.

I agree with both of you.

Well said.

+1 on op.

I was thinking that.. maybe this glimpse of PS1 was not a good idea for SOE

Meh, I played PS1 for about 80% of its lifespan (until PS2 was launched). I vastly prefer PS2 in almost every way.

I agree with the first two posts. I myself did not play PS1 though I strongly wish I did. I hear alot of good things and also looked alot of stuff up and prefer it to PS2. Though hopefully they will give us a hybrid mix of the two games with PS2. There are some things I like about PS2 but I think if they were both F2P I would be playing PS1 instead of 2.

To the contrary, it's the best thing that could happen to PS2.

So when you quit playing PS1...what game did you go to? Also, do you feel there are no PS1 mechanics that would make PS2 a better game?..like doors, hackable vehicles, better base designs (arguable I know), base siege mechanics.

Add lodestars to the 'logistics' point and we've got a deal.

Honestly, this all reminds me of Battlefield 3. A new set of devs are brought in to make a sequel and they feel they've gotta make their mark on it, something they can say 'I did that'. They're not content to just accept "if it's not broken, don't fix it". Just make PS1 with the fixes we all asked for a million times and some shiny new graphics.

The "I know better than people before me" college boy syndrome is strong with Higby. He is learning though, gotta give him credit for that. The problems is SOE came into PS2 with BF3 on the brain not truly realizing how bad BF3's mechanics are for a non-resetting open world game. The one thing I am thankful for is that Smed kept PS1 open and online, now if we could only get him to spend $$ on it and make us a proper PS1 style sequal.

Only if things change, and i don't see why they would. Its "bad" in the sense people are going to be getting all these ideas from PS1, lots of good things NOT in PS2, and people are going to be disappointed by that and want things from PS1 they are likely to never get, and it will make them unhappy with PS2 as it is compared to some aspects of PS1.

Planetside 2.

The 80% was because a lot of the time I kept my subscriptions up but only played when new content came out as the lattice system had made the game mind-numbingly repetitive. During those times I played pretty much everything else, from RvS/BF/ARMA etc to SWG/Ryzom/Xsyon, SC/Generals/RA2, X2-3. That's just a few randoms from my shelf haha.

I feel that introducing them because they're in PS1 would not improve the game, it would simply make it a graphics overhall of PS1. I -definitely- want to see actual metagame, strategy and tactics rewarded in the game, but I'd prefer to see them find new ways to implement it around the basis that we have than just rehash the old stuff. ANTs and all of that stuff just wouldn't fit the game as I see it, but I do want Logistics. I also don't want CR to come back, but I want an 'end game progression' LIKE CR but fitted out for the PS2 generation instead, if you get me?

Galaxies that could Transport Vehicles as well. Why wont my Load-bay door open up on my galaxy

I logged in so I could upvote the OP. I agree with all points!

ANT runs were awesome. The Feeling you got IF you made it to a Base that was being starved was GrrrrrrEAT! Driving One with skyguards backup or actually having Air transportation (++CERSYHN) Ant runs were all round Awesome.

CR-Grind - It keeps the mindless pukes that now inhabit the NEW and Unimproved Command system out of it. For a Time. You want CR Earn it IMO.

Don't get me wrong, I loved both. But I'd rather see new systems in Planetside 2 than just the same stuff as before. 'Progress' in some games was just annoying (RA2 vs Generals, for example, so many changes were just pointless to put it on the 'starcraft' level), but PS2 has started from a completely different place, almost a different sub-genre than PS1. I'd rather see it work out how to make this sub-genre awesome than just fall into being a prettier PS1. Graphics aren't important to me; they're certainly not why I stopped playing PS1...

They would never let that happen they'd pull the plug on PS1 long before it got that populated just to make sure PS2 looks "populated" and liked even if it meant killing off PS1 for good.

Look what happened to SWG when Old republic got released.

In other news we just had a 30 minute battle on this bridge in PS1.