I remember a while back there was a bundle type thing new characters used to get or be able to earn for each faction that made you do a survey on your playstyle, then awarded you a gun and a camo(Cells Camo, I still have it)depending on what you answered or gave you a choice between them. Why was this stopped? That's a greedy *** move. I think they're needs to be as many things like this for newer players to ensure the longevity of this game and their pay checks. So either A. The DBG team developing planetside 2 actually makes no business decisions such as pricing and distribution of priced items. or B. They are Greedy Bastards lol. A or B?
What's the point? Those 'surveys' did nothing for new players. It gave them a useless cells camo and an equally useless 250 cert weapon. Nowadays, you can make up that ground in about 2-3 hours of gameplay.
It's something. What exactly is it hurting by having it? I remember the NC Heavy Assault one gave you the EM6 I think, nobody can say they're concerned about a new player having an EM6 for free. It's actually an incentive for newer players to keep playing and possibly spend MORE of their money. The only reason I would think that it would be removed is greed, they'd rather them spend 5 or 10 bucks for some DBG cash and buy it. But the only thing they are doing is risking more people to leave because they just spent 5-10 bucks on dbg cash for the gun they thought looked cool and a camo and that gun turns out to be the worst gun in it's category, and that camo doesn't really look great in game. To make money they should go for keeping people as long term customers, they make less money if they're blatantly trying to squeeze money out of anyone who plays planetside 2 to boost their profits.
The cells got moved to basic training directive I think. The weapon is gone though, but with those 1500 br 1-15 certs I guess it gives you more freedom than what it was.
Yeah the 1500 certs isn''t anywhere near enough for a fresh new player to be even remotely capable as a geared experienced player. There is ZERO reason to remove it besides greediness and desire to raise the profit margin. It's almost insulting to me that they would try to justify it with 1500 1-15 certs and ability to grind the camo with a directive. As I said, you don't keep anyone playing or bring anyone new to the game by treating your customers like they're idiots. Definitely makes me want to spend less on the game than I do now. A new player will want a weapon the most, so there goes 1000. that leaves enough for 1-3 ranks of a suit slot, maybe 1-2 ranks 1-3 attachments for said gun and thats pretty much all your certs. I suggest bringing that survey thing back and do a vehicle one too, so a new player would get 1 weapon(a 325 cert gun like the em6 etc), 1 camo. 1 Vehicle weapon(Armor or Aircraft) and 1 Vehicle only Camo on top of the 1500 1-15 certs. Give it to them at BR 20. This is what a fair incentive to keep playing looks like.
Not all of them were 250certs, T5 AMC is 650 certs and far from useless. The only reason to use cells is if you want to stand out but don't want to spend a dime to do it.
A couple of nitpicks and then to my main point. Firstly your going to have more than 1500 certs by then the 1500 are just free bonus. Second i doubt its greediness i think your highly overestimating how much they sell those weapons if at all. Why would you be insulted or feel like youve been treated like an idiot? For starters if you already participated and unlocked that stuff with the survey while it was around you got to keep your stuff. The old system didnt do what they wanted so they replaced it 1500 certs may not be perfect for the new player experience but its better than take this survey ok heres this specific gun that doesnt even do what you were hoping i took it and got a close quarters bolt action sniper i wanted something for medium to long range. With 1500 Certs you can at least choose any weapon you want then you still have a little left over or if your happy with the default weapons because believe it or not they are actually good you can mostly cert out the class of your choice and they also if you dont like what you did you can refund your suit slots and stuff when your 15 so you can switch classes if you liked one but certed partially into another. -And for the obligatory forumside insult- Your post sounds like a baby that had his broken toy car replaced by a slightly bigger new one and is crying because you wanted both. The server and devs dont need both systems and the bugs and server strain that comes with them they cant even manage to iron out all the bugs in the game we already have.
Then theres very little reason to keep it as a directive reward is it's tactically useless. The question for DBG is, how do you want to create your revenue? Do you want to be like the blatant cash grabbing F2P model games riddling the FPS market, that would not even consider making a decision like giving someone an infantry(and vehicle) gun and a camo because it'd be giving them something free? Or do you want to do it the right and honest way and show appreciation to customers with things like this. And realize that 1500 certs isn't enough to make this game worth playing very long and spend money on it.
I guess you need clarification. I have everything I want in this game on my VS and my TR alt lol, I don't want these things myself nor do I want more certs, any thing I've wanted I've got. . I'm speaking in terms of preserving the longevity of the game, removing something harmless like a survey, with a free gun and camo reward can only point to greed. That dinky little survey and reward didn't strain the highly expensive state of the art servers in their server centers, if you honestly think that you are a special kind of special.
Just a different way to give new players a little freebie - used to be a weapon and camo for the survey (I got the EM1 and I liked it even before the buff - no, really) but now you get 1500 free certs at level 15 instead. It's still a free gift whichever way you look at it. I have a subscription account but also a new F2P account for trying out new class/role combos. I'm learning stalker infil and at level 11 F2P I have level 3 cloak, a couple of medkits and a suppressed pistol plus 220 certs in the bank. I am sure I will have at least level 4 cloak and some banked certs by the time I get my free 1500 certs, which will let me max out the cloak and get some AI mines, no doubt. Not bad at all in my book, seeing as I don't spend any money on that particular account. And there are other freebies as well..........I got an NS11C carbine dropped and a then a 100 cert award on one of the other two characters which I am using to learn how not to be totally pathetic as an LA, I've also had 10 additional certs (when I got a couple of medals on my pistol). Another take on "free" stuff - I pull a Sundy to drive to the battlefield in Koltyr (rather than the iconic Flash) then dump it and deploy it somewhere to go off and do my stalky stuff. I've now got two medals and quite a few certs for AMS support just by abandoning the bus, as allies spawn at it on occasion. Of course, sometimes it is just a free kill for a wandering Lightning but hey, the resource points come back after a while.
I dont think you understood that they replaced the survey with certs. Replaced. Replacing a bad deal with a great one is the opposite of greedy. The survey gave you a 250-650 cert weapon. They replaced the survey with 1500 free certs that you can spend on whatever you want instead. I dont care if you think people are entitled to both the survey and certs. Removing the survey so people could get 1500 certs instead is not a greedy move.
They replaced? No you mean they justified the removal of something given to new players totally for free by giving them 1500 certs they have to play 1-15 for and should have got without the survey bundle being removed to justify it. What do you not understand about this? It's not unheard of companies being bought out then new management minimizing freebies to increase revenue and profits. It makes sense from a business point of view but it's a greedy move.
It was an EM1. If it'd been the EM6 then that would've been fantastic. Each to their own, obviously, but imo the EM1 is pants. I'd say that the cert bonus is probably better all round as early days you need armour more than you need another gun. Though.. obviously, SAW is still a tough MyFirstGun(TM) for true newbies.
The point was we dont know the requirements to maintain it or if one was built out of the other and the first one simply doesnt exist anymore or the first one causes bugs for the second one and removing it was the easiest option to get the thing out the gate as soon as they could were not developers you can guess all you want you dont know how it works. Now i get your argument is why not both but at the same time why cant we just be glad we got something still you might be missing the point of it was a reward from a SURVEY which i dont know if your aware tend to have ends the fact that we got a better system when it ended is amazing which will not only cost them money in allowing you to choose any weapon you want instead of giving you the other ones and still allowing you to have some extra on the side but also cost them money in development time.
Exactly, and the orion isn't exactly a gun everyone enjoys when they play with it. Either way it just gives people options over having to immediately spend a small amount of money to get a lower performing weapon and a cosmetic. I'd see it as a starter pack type of thing. PS2 has enough weapons and things to buy at this point where you need to give new players capability and not be the Low BR cannon fodder that they are now. One thing I noticed from when I stopped playing from 2013-2014 until now is an increase in newer players, and a decrease in people that played the game 2012-2013 when I played alot. As of the past few months I notice alot more brand new players, I can tell they are not just from their low BR but because of how they play, I kill handfuls of them like gnats
Yeah we just don't know if that group of giant fridge sized servers in that industrial sized server farm has the requirements to maintain the reward survey. Are you hearing yourself? Because we as consumers have to keep the bar raised otherwise they lower it while we're not looking and we end up being suckers. It's human nature.
OP and other guys I have to remind you how was. DBG added a starter pack for new chars containing 250 CP* weapon (ES; selectable for any class), a poor ES camo and a 1-day XP boost. THEN they changed BOTH starter reward AND SC-DB/CP weapon prices making most of the weapons a bit cheaper in SC-DB and more expencive if you unlock it with certs. T5 AMC, Pulsar-C, TSAR-42, Ghost, EM-1 - all these were 250 CP weapons, now they cost 650 (not sure about all of them). At the same time, you receive 1400 bonus certs - by 100f or reaching each BR from 2 to 15 - so if you actually play the game more or less successively it's better IMO, especially for those who's more interested in vehicles or as example C4/tank mines/abilities.
