Why Are Logistics Being Eradicated Instead Of Embraced?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by MrJengles, May 28, 2014.

  1. doombro

    Unfortunately, the people playing it are a very small fraction of the community. Most players who played this game for months, and really wanted to love this game, valued members of the community, have quit. Quite frankly you can't blame them. It just doesn't live up to its ambition, and in its current direction, it never will. Instead of pandering as hard as possible to the few people who remain (a lot of whom are just still hopeful for something better and already on the verge of leaving, myself included), we should be trying to get back the tens of thousands of people who left.

    The overwhelming majority of PS2's players are now gone, and more disappear with every update. Clearly, we're not doing something right here.
    • Up x 4
  2. zaspacer

    But players have never asked for Logistics and for it to not feel like an FPS.

    They complained about OP Vehicles that SOE let run out of control for months on end: lolpods, Prowler splash, Striker, Zoe, Harasser, etc.

    They complained about changes to Instant Action and having to do Re-Deploy hops and it it taking longer and longer to get into battle. But SOE made and kept those changes anyway.

    They complained about single Factions becoming dominant with runaway populations on different servers. About Alerts being won over and over by Faction hoping "4th Faction". About a Resources system that gave more to the most dominant factions. They asked for transfer tokens. But SOE either didn't know how to fix it (my belief) or they didn't care.

    They complained about tons of bugs that stayed in game for months and never had any reply on their status of acknowledgement from SOE.

    They complained about rampant Zergs ghostcapping or steamrolling barely defended bases and sitting around spawn camping and waiting for the point to cap. But SOE either didn't know how to fix it or didn't care.

    They complained over and over about the Air game and its terrible balance. The difficult learning curve for Air, and how so few players could get into it. SOE did nothing.

    Solo players complained about the edge that Squads get with Spawn Beacons, etc.

    They complained about a Roadmap with stuff getting pushed back or stuff getting permanently frozen.

    They complained about terribly balanced units and weapons and Certs in terms of which to use for each unit/class. But still horrible balance exists on so many options that in many cases there is only 1 or a few choices for most players and many items are never used. PS2 "sidegrade" being BS.

    They complained about purchasing an item that was allowed to enter the game OP, and then having that item nerfed after it was purchased.

    They complained about different visibility on different settings. Which to see an Infiltrator, which to see your own bullets best as an ESF.

    They complained about the New Player experience.

    They complained about TKing, which SOE made even worse more recently by allowing it in WarpGates.

    They complained about better camos being restricted to premium customers, player rewards, etc.

    They complained about the lack of action against blatant cheaters.

    They complained about weapons being labeled wrong in their text (Dalton not listed as A2A, etc.).

    They complained about no stick support for Air.

    These and more are the long lists of things that players have very strongly spoken about over and over. Stuff that had the game hemorrhage more and more players. You can scroll back through the forums and read all the posts... most SOE never did. Players were NOT crying out about the lack of hardcore Logistics and how the game shouldn't play like an FPS.
  3. that_darn_lurker

    Sorry OP, but SOE basically has no choice but to make spawning easier now. Player driven logistics aren't rewarded. Its funny, that SOE claimed EVE was an inspiration, but they failed to reward the community driven behavior that leads to a truly player driven experience. Its like they took the completely wrong lessons from EVE, and thought the players really wanted a tedious, masochistic experience, and ignored the only saving grace of EVE which is the player driven world.
  4. doombro

    That is wholly untrue. People have been asking for ANTs since long before the game even launched. And the logistics concepts presented in the resource revamp roadmap thread have been heavily demanded.
    • Up x 6
  5. zaspacer

    I did a search on ANTs in these forums. There have been some posts/threads that mentioned them, many of those were positive about them or looked forward to them.

    The resource revamp Roadmap has 10 pages to it. And there is a lot of discussion of logistics in it.

    Both show healthy and ongoing interest on the subject, but it has never been one of the major topics in the forums.

    I am a little scared, but I look forward to the Resource Roadmap in ~August and most the other Roadmaps. I am also scared of the Continent Locking and the Valkyrie. And I am completely dreading the Outfit Progression.
  6. doombro

    I have to agree with you on outfit progression. What we need is more tools to put our outfits out there, not an arbitrary robot of judgment. It will be very difficult, to the point of not being worth pursuing, to create this sort of thing without creating a bias toward certain outfit types.
  7. zaspacer

    Yeah, I really don't like the Animal Farm "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
  8. Raka Maru

    Hi zaspacer,

    Read my first line
    It's hard to explain. I can teleport anywhere and be in the fight I want instantly. I don't always play like this, but it's the lowest common denominator. You don't have to try to guess my motives. Anyone can play like this with any class.
  9. zaspacer

    Hi Raka Maru :)

    So you farm Certs when you are bored. Is it because it's easy and takes little effort? Is it because it's productive on a farming level? Is it because you enjoy it or enjoy repeating a process?

    I dunno, I tend not to play like you. I grind Certs only when I need them for something or there are some very easy ones at hand that will only take a few moments to pick up. Other than that, I go out and look for "fun" fights. Typically bases I like or encounter types I like, or maybe even certain units I want to take on. Why don't you do the same?

    Are you saying you want the game to force you into having to jump through more required hoops in order to farm Certs? Are you fixated on doing the easiest and most prosperous farming?
    • Up x 1
  10. Makora

    I have to completely agree with the OP.
    My biggest concerns right now, however, is the ease at which you can deploy and supply an entire armor column at any large base. That is just wrong. And to top it off. You can do it in the ENEMY base too!
    Don't get me wrong. I LOVED the days when you could go into Hvar tech plant when the front was still three hexes away (no connection) and just disable the base completely. Blow all the generators (SCU included), hack all the terminals and turrets. But I just wish that you had limitations on what you could pull from a hacked terminal. Sunderers there should not have access to AMS nor Lightnings. (standard tank terminals are a bit iffy)

    But I digress. I understand the direction and reason for these changes. People play to fight. Everyone wants to feel like the hero. The guy who turned the tide. You can't be that guy when you're two clicks away, admiring the inside of a vehicle driver seat. You cater to people who want to fight and you have more people playing (and buying stuff).
    I'm holding out final judgement on if SOE ever implements logistics when/if the resource revamp goes online and what gets added to that in a month or two after the fact.
    Maybe they have a grand scheme here and we just need to be patient. Not holding my breath, but lets see where it goes.
  11. Bloodlet

    We want a war simulator. You want COD.
    • Up x 3
  12. starstriker1

    Spot on. Really getting tired of the logistics side of things getting neutered. I understand the importance of keeping things reasonable for solo or casual players, because they're an important audience if the game is ever to succeed and it's understandable that many people won't be interested in wasting limited playtime moving from point to point. However, losing the logistics side of the game in order to satisfy that part of the audience is a huge mistake, because in many ways the logistics elements of the game are part of what makes Planetside what it is. I remember when an armour column or galaxy drop arriving felt like a "big damn hero" moment, or when big operations were being set up in the warpgate prior to moving out in awe inspiring numbers, but the current mechanics discourage that and sadly it has been a long time since I've really seen anything like those.

    I'm not sure I agree with the details of your proposed implementation, MrJengles, but I can see where you're going with it. Might I suggest an alternative solution?
    1. Implement reinforcements needed spawns for offense, using local Sunderers, to make things even between offense and defense. (This also puts both spawns in a common category that can be treated differently).
    2. Implement a queue for every reinforcements needed spawn. Keep it fairly short, say 3s per player.
    3. Disable squad spawning, beacon placement, and squad vehicle spawning for 5 minutes for any player who uses a reinforcements needed spawn, even if they aren't currently a squad lead or squad member.
    4. Bonus points: if the enemy force has a big queue on their reinforcements needed spawn for the area, your forces get a notification that the enemy population is surging, to provide better visibility and readability and giving them time to brace for impact or get reinforcements of their own.
    The idea is to make the RN spawns an attractive option for solo players just looking for a fight while making it unattractive for moving large groups of people around. Solo players arrive at fights in a more distributed fashion, so they're unlikely to get hit too hard on the queue, but it would take 36s to move a squad's worth of people that way, or 2m24s to move a platoon. Those numbers are big enough that most squads and platoons would be better served arriving in vehicles, ESPECIALLY when a large population movement is needed or juggling timers is the intent. Point three is a mandatory addition to prevent exploitation by just sending a squad leader to change the location of the squad spawn, set a beacon, or even sending a regular squad and having them sit in a Sunderer. Those convenience spawns synergize with RN spawns a little too well.
    Of course, the core assumptions behind my proposed setup is that solo/casual players wouldn't generate much of a queue on their own, and that large groups would be smart enough not to bother. If either of those were false, there'd be potential for a platoon or two to try and use the spawn and just end up denying everybody else the ability to get there.
    • Up x 3
  13. Hoki

    Probably because this game has always had a air-farming problem of one form or another.

    ESFs are finally starting to equip something other than lolpods, so vehicles with a walker can chase most of them away. The ESFs that don't fuel-pod, or coyote are quickly farmed by an A2A ESF. AI-nosegun + coyote can be chased off with a walker.

    After the liberator buff, that never needed a buff, its liberatorside. And no matter what happens liberators always show up and end the fight.

    And now since there is no counter to liberators except liberators, we're in the worse case of air-farming we've ever been in, even worse than when every ESF was lolpodding.
  14. Axehilt


    This is almost always a bad decision.

    If you release Game A, then one month after launch the players who like Game A are the ones still around and the rest have gone. Changing to be Game B won't magically bring back the players interested in Game B.

    The most spectacular failure being Star Wars Galaxies.

    This doesn't mean you can't release some features that might appeal to those other players, but if you rock the core gameplay (like eliminating logistics from a Planetside game) then that starts to shun the core audience (and also puts PS2 on dangerously similar feature footing with other games, by minimizing its own differentiating features that keep some of us playing it.)
  15. doombro

    What they're advertising is Game B. What people are after is Game B. What's listed on the roadmap is Game B. The only thing keeping this game sustained is hype for their plan to make Game B happen. What we have is Game A. This is bad.
    • Up x 1
  16. Axehilt


    If people were after B and this game was A, they wouldn't be playing PS2. Nobody sticks around playing a game they're not having a ton of fun in.
  17. LibertyRevolution

    You want planetside 1... so go play planetside1, its free.

    I want planetside 2, I just want to be able to spawn at any base my empire owns.
    If the game can take my dead body, reconstruct it in space, and then drop in a drop pod, why can't it send me down the lattice??
    We already do it now.. we just have to redeploy, redeploy, redeploy, redeploy, redeploy. Why make the player do this?
  18. Bloodlet

    You want COD so go play COD. See how I can play that stupid semantics game too?

    Planetside 2 is supposed to be an updated version of PS1, not space COD. The use of the word "Planetside" in the name gives it away. So my vision of what it should be is closer than yours is.
    • Up x 3
  19. LibertyRevolution


    First off, this is nothing like CoD... if you think this is space CoD, you need to go install CoD so you can gain some perspective.
    Sequels are not updated versions.. They are normally new games just set in the same universe..

    A player can already spawn at any base their faction owns... so logistics never existed in planetside2.. if you think it did, your wrong.
    A player can already spawn at any deployed sunderer.. all you have to do is redeploy hop to get within 1000m of it..
    I just want them to make it so I don't have to redeploy 4 times in a row to do it...

    The timer to deploy to a base should be 15secs, no matter where the base is, if I was in a platoon I could deploy there in 15secs.

    There is a fundamental problem with how this game treats lone wolf players. It treats us like second class citizens.
    It should not make me wait longer, or redeploy hop 4 times, just because I am not part of the platoon that is attacking a that base.
    Anyone in that platoon can redeploy there from anywhere on the map in 15secs.. all I want is for them to make the game fair.
  20. doombro

    Yeah. That's where 90% of the pop went.

    See what I'm getting at, here?