What differentiates this game from other FPS now that the focus is all on infantry?

BF3 has teamplay, it's just that the other 31 dudes on my side doesn't appear to play for the same team as I do...

PS1 beat that long ago.

Instead of having 32 vs 32 maps or 64 vs 64 maps, you have the possibility of 2000 players... ummm..

broken up into 32 vs 32 or 64 vs 64 team deathmatches.
Thats it.

What he means is he can't roll up on bases and farm infantry anymore. Armor is very useful in stopping advancing forces on bases. Now it just takes a little more effort and coordination to become effective with armor. Which I like.

It now forces people who sit in tanks the whole time to NUT UP and help take a cap point instead of pointing their guns at the spawn room door and pressing the left mouse button over and over.

I stopped reading at "Armor is useless on Esamir." Because I try not to actively engage with weapons grade derp.

OP has a point. The game is moving away from the great combined arms feeling it had on launch and putting it more in direct competition with infantry-based games that offer features PS thus far can't compete with, such as destructible terrain and actual water. At this rate, it's going to loose more players this fall than it needs to. It's sad.

Enlighten me as to how it is moving away from combined arms. What you mean is it's moving away from letting tanks and air farm infantry. Armor and air play a vital role in stopping advancing forces moving in to take a point.

Play the game, then you will realize.
And vehicle battles are still going on all over Esimer.. I haven't really had to get out of a vehicle while in that continent...

Hmmm. This is an incredibly dumb comment you've posted.

I assume that you're stupidly trying to imply that because PS2 can be played for free, it does not deserve to be held up to the same scrutiny as other games. You are completely and utterly wrong. F2P is just another revenue model. They adopted it because it's by far the most profitable way for an MMO to do business. It does not mean that the game is some sort of non-profit charity that it is unfair to scrutinise, as you would imply. This is business, regardless of how the company behind it goes about making it profitable, so the product should be treated as any other.

Oh, and the fact that I did not buy this game off a shelf does not remove my right to criticise it. I am still a customer and an asset of SOE's, just by populating their servers (which is what makes their game work) and doing them the favour of choosing to spend my time playing their game instead of someone else's. Not to mention the fact that I have actually bought a little bit of Station Cash.

I KNOW RIGHT?!

I keep running up to walls in other games holding the space bar expecting to get over them. I killed myself the other day on Borderlands 2 trying to jetpack across a drop off in the level.

Numbers and spammier combat that is no longer abouy combined arms combat and more about throwing more bodies at each other in unsatisfying zerg fests.

people did and still do what the game compells/enables them to do. Trying to blame the players is stupid.

this does happen occasionally. Just not every day and the number difference is not too obvious usually

I have to agree with OP. The "infantryside 2" push is not what I signed up for, and once it fully spreads to all continents and the new direction is implemented I likely won't be able to justify spending much time in game anymore. Its already happening and has been for a while.
I've come to the realization though, that they did it (or are doing it) to be more popular, which I can't fault them for. They tried the combined arms cold world harsh war environment, and didn't get or keep the numbers they wanted. Too much rage quit. So the new focus is "infantry shouldn't have to worry about vehicles" because that is what people are used to having in a FPS, and it is certainly what is required for consoles.
I'm sure it will work out for them, because players like myself who enjoy being part of laying siege to a base, or defending against overwhelming combined arms even though it is completely hopeless, or people who find that they accidentally get killed just looking in awe at all the action of a genuine army tearing stuff up, are few and far between. Certainly not the majority of what could be the playerbase. I've come to accept the facts finally. All I can do now is be grateful for the fun I had in game late 2012 and early 2013, it was a heck of an experience and I feel bad for those who didn't get to enjoy it.
Part of me knew it wouldn't last though, even so, getting a good 6 months or so out of a free to play is nothing to scoff at.

I also still have hope for some kind of competition for this game, that someone will make a massive combined arms combat experience similar to this (or true to the original vision) sometime in the near future, as technology advances and it becomes easier to do so.
Fingers crossed anyway.

I think by combined arms, he means that it's no longer about infantry trying to sort out whose arm belongs to whom after getting shelled by a tank while in the middle of a base.

This game moved away from combined arms when tanks were turned into land battleships with their armor buff. Battleships kill other battleships. Aircraft kill battleships. Infantry don't kill battleships so well unless it's with c4 which will sink anything. In real warfare with real tanks rocket launchers will destroy tanks without the need for 7+ direct impacts. The motivation for the armor buff was rocket podding. So instead of giving tanks resistance to rocket podding they buffed their armor turning them into land battleships and destroying combined arms. Hence tank zergs. The counter to tank zergs are liberator zergs but liberators fly in 3 dimensional space where as tanks sit in two dimensional space and as a result tanks tend to pile up in a zerg when moving from base to base while liberators kind of float where ever since they aren't constrained by terrain. Liberators usually require two people to use effectively as well so they would generally have half the numbers. Also liberators decimate infantry spawns and infantry areas which is no fun so if they ever did naturally pile up infantry combat would go down the crapper. If tanks were given a 'dug-in' feature to increase their armor instead of a straight up armor buff then there might be something along the lines of combined arms. As is it's Hitler's blitzkrieg and garrisons.

In real life, a tank MIGHT be destroyed by less than 7 rockets, and that is a big MIGHT. RL tanks are hardcore killing machines that can take a huge beating, so those less than 7 rockets better be damn powerful rockets. Plus not every single infantry in RL packs a giant AV punch(ie rockets, c4, mines, turrets, ect)

But we are talking about a video game anyway. So in this video game, if I start dieing because 1 lucky HA shot his standard issue rocket at my tank, I would no longer have an incentive to drive my tank.

You gripe about vehicle combat, but your idea of vehicle combat seems to be placing a bunch of cert boxes on the map that blow up when the slightest wind flys by.

I am explaining the difference between tanks and land battleships in a combined arms context and why in has turned the game into one that is more infantry focused. In RL I believe there is a beretta antitank sniper rifle that pierces a tanks armor and either detonates the fuel tank or the magazine. That aside the game is more infantry focused because infantry has been separated from tanks because tanks are land battleships. If you could pull tanks with the old armor value and old resource cost + extra protection against rocket podding you would probably see more combined arms fights. If you can bail out of a tank before it explodes and it's cheap why not pull one?

Really sorry Tar, but I don't know how this relates in any way to what I said. Mis-post maybe?
I'm pretty sure I didn't blame anyone at all, nor judge anyones playstyle. Just observed and noted what I'd seen, and on occasion, done.

esamir changes were a good thing
imo its pretty much been infantryside from the beginning apart from tanks swarming and spamming bases which i was also very much against

- all bases in the game should have been similar to esamir bases

- vehicles should have been certable from the beginning (as in you cant pull one unless you "unlock" it with certs) which would have stopped or at least slowed down the vehicle spam

- MBT's should have been separate driver and separate gunners from the beginning (again to slow down the spam of them requiring them to need a gunner to be useful)

- more distance in between bases outdoors making it almost impossible for infantry to run from base to base like they do now and require vehicle transport to get from base to base (making transport vehicles more useful)

- 5 minute timer when getting out of vehicles should not have ever been in (it stops vehicle drivers from getting out of their vehicles at a base and going inside and fighting)

- the resource price of them should not have changed like they did a few updates ago (so dedicated vehicle players can still play their playstyle without having to wait at the Vterm for enough resources when they lose a tank)

- rocket damage should be slightly lower

- lock on infantry weapons shouldnt be able to shoot such long distances and be so powerful

- squad deploy and squad spawn beacon timer should be increased


i expect nobody to agree with me (especially infantry specialists) except maybe dedicated vehicle drivers from PS1, they know how much fun the vehicle gameplay was in that game
requiring vehicles in between bases and not having to always concentrate on infantry outdoors (either running or shooting at them because of them being a higher threat than most other vehicles) was much more fun than the vehicle system we have now

im not delusional - i know none of these things will ever happen in PS2, im just saying its how it should have been from the beginning and now vehicle specialist are suffering from SOE making wrong decisions from the start in regards to vehicle gameplay

flamesuit on - im ready for the hate