Why is this game declining?

The game engine has never been smoother, the engine still looks great, the concept is novel and no one else touches this niche in the game market... I blame bad management. Someone doesn't realize what they have on their hands or doesn't care. This franchise could make BANK and should be DOMINATING the FPS market but it doesn't... because the game balance is just not up the par. Everything is balanced around a few individual play styles and the rest gets the finger it feels like.

I understand the need for micro-transactions, the cost vs value received is pathetic for people playing the game for free because it's free. I would NOT pay $15, $13, $9, $5, any amount for this game monthly right now, I will not buy anything from the market as I see no improvements being made down the pipeline. It's a cash cow operation at this point which is so lazy... PS2 flopped for 2 reasons, which SOE is famous for.

Launching a killer game concept with a poorly optimized engine (see: EQ2 for prior example of major flop) and then on top of that a lazy marketing campaign. If you mention Planetside 2 to the average video gamer player (console perhaps?) you'll get "whats that?"

EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW PLANETSIDE!!!! It's too damn unique.

Get a new pair of hands at the helm, your current captain is driving this ship into the ground and could seemingly care less. We haven't seen ANY new meaningful content since SOE threw in the towel. Reskinned weapons with slightly tweaked stats is not "meaningful" to your player base. How about some new vehicles, NEW conts, more balancing, more marketing.

Is there even going to be a Planetside 3 or was this just an cash cow acquisition and then sell off to some nobodies down the road? Planetside 3 could be the biggest game in history with VR coming up. Meh.

/rantoff

Planetside 1 had long range artillery that required a scout to be effective, but you could shell bridge fights from across the cont to break a stalemate. Bridge fights don't exist in PS2

Base fights feel like once the CY is gone, it's allll over. Like people just rush off to the next zergfest rather than defend once they see the CY is gone. Moving around the map is too easy, it makes transport vehicles and team play obsolete.

That's how you know nothing is balanced, there's no stalemates. There were fights you could log out of and come back 24 hours later and literally same fight is raging on.

Up the rewards for defending a base, like 100 certs. Something meaninful.

4 certs! Omg! Thanks...

if people only had infinite money and resources ... and a blizzard sized devteam .. but this is not how reality works ..

If you want people to know about Planetside why not make a few videos on YT or give PS2 as a suggestion to some "famous" youtubers? Of course you WILL get a lot of children like that but at least you have more farm, right? If the company doesn't advertise but the players want new people then maybe the players should start to advertise in their own way? Just my 2 cents.

I'm sure if you love infantry footzerg battlefield style combat, this game is great right now. If you like vehicles though, forget it. It's a joke.

ESF are made of paper. Lib is a flying brick with no firepower. Galaxy is a big "tanks shoot here" target. Valkyrie has 2 useful weapons and needs more hp, otherwise is alright for what it is. Harasser is way too cheap for how much firepower it can pack with agility to out maneuver whatever... if it can take out an MBT quickly it should go down easily given it's going to be moving and tank shells move slow. Projectile speeds are laughable. It's like we are using duds for ammo. The lightning needs a bit more hp and shoudl cost 300 resources. Thats all the vehicles in the game. Short list. How many guns are on the market place that do the same thing with a different skin? Even during its dying days the planetside 1 team found time to make new vehicles. Remember the stealth transport? was actually quite useful. It didn't take an eternity to level a character in planetside 1 either, it was achievable for the average player in a reasonable amount of time.

Everything about the current direction screams -GREED- instead of -FUN-

Spend some money and develop something interesting, not reskinned crap. Tweaking stats is not "development"

ALL SPLASH DAMAGE NEEDS A HUGE BUFF. If it explodes, I expect there to be a radius of damage... right now you are better of just using a machine gun.. it has better DPS. It's like you guys pumped out content and didn't bother to balance any of it before moving on to more "meaningful content" like mining... oh boy.

"Hey guys I know what our players will LOVE. Lets add a gimped minecraft to the game so people can build bases in the middle of nowhere and affect the outcome of people actually playing the game!"
Brilliance.

It's like logic was repeatedly thrown out the window at every opportunity. If your courtyard filled up with vehicles in planetside 1...guess what? It's now an indoor base fight.

If that happens in planetside 2... guess what? They redeploy somewhere else, or just run out and clear everything with c4 because infantry are one man armies.

As soon as the fight gets too big it turns footzerg.

For the love of god... add nonoptional fog of war. I don't want to see Russia from my warpgate, or the other factions warpgate from my warpgate. That feels awkward and makes this "huge" map feel small and vehicles feel slow. Really slow. Why are vehicles so slow?

I'm supposed to advertise for the company that is letting their game die in the name of slowly dwindling micro-transactions? I think I'll pass.

If you are good at your job you get more resources for your projects because you don't pump out garbage content. It wasn't the money that made Blizzard who they are.

I hear ya Fishpoke,

I've been playing for a while and have seen the numbers declining since then. I've mentioned it a few times before, but we don't need new camo, we don't new decals... WE NEED NEW PLAYERS, AND NEED TO KEEP THEM. This game needs to marketed.

From experience, I will say without doubt, that this game has one of the best platforms. It is beautiful, the voice comms work well (most of the time), there are functional vehicles, it's a true open world, the server capacity is the largest I've seen, and it draws a mature crowd. Daybreak has the formula for something unparalleled, but they squander their time on micro-transactions, bling, and tightening the server's belt to force players to fight in the same area; these are all signs of a dying game. This game is so damn awesome that everyone needs to know about it. It's one of the reasons I have a membership, but that's another story.

I'm old and have been gaming since the original doom and half-life deathmatch, and TFC. Out of all these years, the most rewarding time I've spent playing was in competition, and I think that's what this game lacks. Yes, there are factions, outfits, and a ranking system, but for what exactly? To have the best k/d in a game no one knows about? For your outfit to have the most caps for some bragging rights in the forums?

Instead of concentrating on finding new ways for current players to spend money, DB needs to draw the crowds. If I owned a business, I would rather have thousands of customers spending a little, instead of a few spending a lot.

I believe a draw could be meaningful and rewarding competition.. and I mean along the scale of MLG or ELEAGUE. A professional league needs to get involved, or DB needs to develop a league. Stats on the website, in-game standings, battle rank, etc., are all great, but it lacks recognition from the community and devs.

Anywho.. that's my 2 cents.

I check at least weekly for some sort of kickstarter "FPS MMO" or anything that might replace PS2. Like, 5 years so far and no dice lol...

There is a lot of risk making any shooter these days, as so much of the population bases all their opinions in contrast to COD/BF. Beyond that, MMO's are just as risky, if not more so, so combining the two, you can see why companies would be afraid to try it. No one wants to take any risks to begin with.

This game started off great, but many knee jerk reactions to community complaining and a nerf just about daily, drove a lot of people away. I came back 2-3 months ago now after ~2 years or something, where the last time I played was shortly after the initial version of implants released. I had "quit" originally about 1/2 to 1 year after PS2 launched. Mainly because of their inability to balance things and nerf after nerf just made everything not fun to use anymore...

That being said, I came back and got my fix, truly is the only game of its kind and I have been having fun again. However, if there was any half decent alternative, I'd be gone from PS2 so fast. This game is only a fraction of what it used to be.

You want new players so that the game doesn't die and yet DBG doesn't advertise. So why wouldn't you? You are the one discontent with the number of people, DBG seemingly not. So if YOU want more people then why shouldn't YOU try to advertise?

If I'm going to give my time to something, it won't be DBG. Dead franchise, dying company. Was probably an acquisition to milk and kill competition anyways. Why else would you buy it up and then let it rot? haha

This game is a steaming pile of *** in it's current state. Going back to playing other, better supported games with more talented staff.

Prospective players look at a game's forum to see if the community is a good fit for them.

Grow the game- shut down this tear fest.

LOL I don't mean to be quite so sharp, I'm quite sick and just generally grumpy these days. Anyways I'll write up a nice report in a few days outlining how to un**** this game. It is just not balanced right now and needs some serious fine tuning.

It appears it's about 10% of players that spend the most on the market. I feel like this data was exclusively used to dictate development decisions. Example: Every cert expenditure should feel FUN and should have noticeable improvement. You don't feel fun after spending 400 certs for *slight* improvement in vehicle handling, but if it only took you a couple hours to get 400... hey who cares right?

If a player spends a 4-8 hour play session they are expecting some kind of pay off in the form of a new novel ability or massive character improvement of some kind. You don't get that as a free player, I've been both in this game. Life is MUCH easier as a member, the rate is balanced around being a member. Screw the free player experience, right? Well... you cut them off, members die off with them slowly. That's how every MMO before this has / is going.

You need to balance everything around it being fun as **** as a free player, but more convenient as a member (full-time work). If you can't figure out a way to make micro-transactions profitable and cheap... maybe that's just not the way to go. Make micro transactions for novelty items to customize in appearance, not performance, only. I played WoW from vanilla till even it's most recent expansions... why? Blizzard puts out incredible stuff and they damn well know it! Be more like Blizzard. Polish your content until it blinds you.

Start by adding more **** to Indar please, it is almost depressing how barren it is. D:

You don't even need to make Planetside 3 yet, just fix this one and push marketing.

Agree with some things, Fishpoke, but have to disagree with some others.

I took a long break from PS2, just a bit after SOE dumped it. I honestly think it has improved quite a bit since then. I like what they've done with alerts. Perfect? No, but I like that players can affect how and when they start, for example.

A lot of people complain about the building part of the game, but I've seen it used really well at choke points or as additions to existing bases. I think when used creatively and correctly by players, it does add value. If players choose to build at strategically irrelevant places... well, blame the players at least some. How much hand holding does DBG really have to do? I think a lot people would also complain if building sites were more limited.

Speaking of value... sure, 400 certs is a lot. Then again, if you are a member, it isn't really that hard to get(as you said). People who choose not to pay for the game are certainly welcome, the more the merrier, but people who do pay for the game are helping by actually funding the game. Free players seem to forget about that sometimes.

Too many players(of all games) these days are somewhat jaded, expecting to get shinies every 5 minutes. If you're doing a 4-8 hour session, it's because you're having fun. That's the point of playing the game, not a special little prize for having had fun.

We're not rats. We're not here getting reinforced to press little levers... well kind of we are but the social aspect is just as much of the point. Personal performance is just as much of the point. Little shinies are nice, but not needed every 5 minutes.
It again feels like hand holding to me. "Here little player, have a cookie..."

A new map... I mean, sure, who wouldn't love a new map. However, from a development standpoint that is insanely intensive to do and get right.

Guess I just don't think it's quite as bad as all that.

I have noticed a decrease in player numbers very recently but I'm hoping that's the result of people studying for exams or something. I don't really know of any other game like PS2 out there that they would have moved to instead.

Anyway, hope you feel better. Look forward to reading your thoughts on how to improve things going forward.

400 certs isn't hard to get even if you aren't a member, so long as you know how to play the play, that you know what you are doing. You don't need to farm.

Making a F2P game accessible whilst still profiting and catering to Veteran players isnt an easy task to juggle.

I dont think an extra continent would change things..
As a non member, (not a member but ive bought BC once or twice) its not hard to get certs up to purchase goods, but thats probably because i am efficient at it and know what to do to maximise cert income. Takes time to learn that.

Why arent <BR 15 players locked to Koltyr, and why is a BR100 allowed to go and troll there?? The newbies need a place where they can compete on an easy level playing field before jumping in the deep end.

Give them access to all weapons, tools, utilities while still locked to Koltyr. That way they can appreciate and try different weapons and playstyles

Once they hit BR 15 they get booted from Koltyr, weapons get re-locked and they get all their certs they have earned in one heap. By this time they should have an understanding of how the game works without being pawned by higher rankers. They should know what class and what weapons better suit them as well as some insight into the other mechanics of the game.
(pretty much how it was when i started except we werent locked to koltyr).

Is it possible to not have any PVP in Koltyr? I know it sounds stupid but it may be the best way to get newbies used to the systems in the game by versing bots whilst having objectives in place to show them why and what to do.

OR

An adopt a buddy system in Koltyr where BR100 players (or whatever rank) lead a squad? Squad leader would have comms open so he/she can explain what is happening and where to go. For this the squad leaders get XP based on squads success.

Dont know if any of this is any good but its my 2 cents. so yeah.

Well, for sure things are declining. This is data from 2015-2018:



So apart from a little bit in May 2016 (probably from the Construction Update), there hasn't generally been an increase in player count. A little bump in October 2017 from CAI, but as you can see it actually ended up driving away more players than it kept. Keep in mind that this graph doesn't show PS2's higher numbers in 2013 when it was really popular.



This graph shows PS2 player counts as compared to the same time last year (red). So you can see that it isn't just people studying... player counts are about 1k less (~25%) compared to the same time last year (when people also presumably would be studying).



Finally even though PS2 is an old game, it doesn't mean that all old games have to wither away. ARMA III came out roughly the same time, but its player count shows the exact opposite of PS2: whereas PS2 is on a steady decline, ARMA has grown its player count. It's worth pointing out that the absolute numbers aren't that important (by my calculation about 67% of PS2 players use Steam, so you can add another 1/3 to absolute numbers), but the shape of the graph is. And PS2 is in steady decline.

Why that is... well... PS2 should be a unique game. A MMOFPS persistent world combined arms game. Which is by itself in the genre (I believe that WH40K competitor died before release). I would posit, however, that over time most of that was stripped away. The persistent world really doesn't matter as redeploy allows it to essentially become a segmented, instanced series of arena fights. Combined arms in the game is an absolute joke with infantry play dominating all else. And the MMO part is, as shown by the graphs, rapidly in decline.

So in the end, all we're left with is a F2P FPS... which is at this point 5 years old. And there are plenty of contenders for a generic FPS game.

So I'll start a new thread when It's finished but here's the start of the write up. I thought about starting a new project myself, but with my health as it is I just dont have the resources myself to pull that off. Plus you guys have the only true MMOFPS engine. I'd rather just offer some advice. I'll try to incorporate feedback form here for the final draft.

Planetside 2 - Review / Revision / Improve
Fishpoke 04/30/2018

Overview:
This report contains a complete assessment of all facets of the game in it's current incarnation on live. My perspective as a player comes from a life time (27) of gaming on the PC, in particular MMOs are my favorite. I will try to remain as unbiased as possible. I have been involved with MMOs since I got hooked on EQ as a magician running around slaying mobs with fluffy (pet). After discovering EQ I found Planetside and fell in love with the game for many years till about the time of Chinese IIIIIIIIIIIIII hackers. From there I shifted over to the mega-franchise World of Warcraft which I have played since launch through the most recent content, it's all golden! Everything is carefully tested in house and polished until it shines before it sees the light of day. This must be the approach taken with Planetside 2 if it is ever to attain similiar levels of success and profitability.

What makes MMOs special is it adds the missing element any game requires to completely satisify a players evening; social interaction! It's all about connecting players in meaningful ways. People have fun when they work together, when they are all off soloing doing one man army **** the fun factor begins to fade. You've seen this trend with the older game Everquest, as development began to cater to solo player styles the population continued to decline despite the game being made more friendly to lower populations and receiving increased traffic from a steam listing. While I enjoyed slaying monsters, it was the random interactions with people that made things entertaining... whether this was partying with others or chasing down buffs or chatting things up in PoK they all created memorable moments.
Memorable moments make legendary games.

If you do not value your population as the #1 asset within your MMO, your game is going to have a severly reduced shelf life. We are seeing this now presently in Planetside 2 after only 5 years, the game is dying down faster than it ever should have. This game started out fairly balanced, the main issue was the performance for players of all systems (I had to upgrade a few things to enjoy properly). The fix was clientside detection... they might see you and you might not see them, you died to invisible people during the peak of fights. It's like at the height of your favorite song... the music just cuts out because the amp is red lining.

Currently that is how Planetside 2 plays, when it really gets busy it all just falls apart until the fights population disperses. If theres too many players fighting in the same area, you end up fighting invisible people still (though not nearly the issue it was closer to launch). If you don't have that issue, you run into the poor state of the games balance presently. Combat does not have a flow, there is not a guaranteed vehicle field fight prior to a base fight. Typically once a base is secured the majority will redeploy to the nearest fight and continue to footzerg endlessly. Why? It works.

Why wait on resources when you can engage all targets on foot effectively and with less visibility (by a wide margin)? There is an absolute plethora of ways for foot soliders to easily deal with any vehicle (air / ground) rather quickly with little effort on their part. Have you tried killing an infantry with a tank round lately? Or anything meant as AI? It feels LAME! The explosion animation is several times larger than the damage radius itself, and the damage is pathetic! "I waited how long on these resources for this? Why not just use a sniper rifle? Or dumbfire standard missiles at infantry? It'd be just about as effective. This is one minor example of illogical game balance. You might not like vehicles, but you can't ignore half of your game because a small minority buy things on the marketplace. There's other ways to bolster revenue for the game without alienating 90% of your population (#1 asset!!!).


Character Progression:
The sheer amount of time it takes to max out a character in this game, even as a member with all the time in the world on your hands, is nothing short of one of the most daunting grinds I've seen in a game since Everquest introduced AA points (coincidience?). I don't want to buy a membership to boost cert gain because I can't exit a play session feelingh a sense of accomplishment and improvement. I leave feeling frustrated and worn out from grinding towards something that may take days or weeks even in some cases for a marginal improvement I am not likely to notice (the frog in the slowly heating up pot of water doesn't jump out because he doesn't notice the change). Now if I were to hop onto to say, World of Warcraft, it no longer matters how I choose to play the game. I can PvP or PvE my way to max gear / character progression and every single investment of my time gets rewarded with some useful increase in that regard. I have never felt satisfied 100% after logging out of Planetside 2. It's a long long boring grind man. It was fun when I got my first few certs but now its all just minor improvements for massive investments of my time.

Theres no new exciting abilities to chase, its all stat improvements (which is nice to have) but not something anyone enjoys grinding for and then spending hard earned certs on. Getting a magburner is fun, ranking it up is not. Getting a stalker cloak is fun, ranking it up is not. Getting a weapon is fun, equiping it is not. The grind isn't fun, it feels more like work. This is as a member, as a free player its best to just ignore certs and try for nothing becaues it goes so slow. I can't see myself maxing out everything before the life of the game runs out (assuming 10-15 years max) even if I played religiously everyday. Something is wrong with that picture. People should be able to "beat" the game so to speak.

You've added new content for max level players, great! You put out content that possibly 5% of the playerbase will ever experience, let alone come close to it. Nevermind the new players keeping your 5% interested to stay this long, without the new players the 5% will slowly turn to 1% and eventually 0%. Was that a wise investment of development time? I think there's more pressing matters to attend to right now that can net more meaningful results. How many players enjoy base building VS how many could have benefited from a better balanced game? How many were lost that could still be on the player roster vs how many stayed to build bases far removed from any firefight. Even if the content is a good idea on paper, how it's going to translate into benefiting the health of the community is a completely different story. How many players would you fetch had you pumped out a new land vehicle (say mobile shield generator and stealth field gen?) or how about bringing back BFRs that one can find hidden easter egg style within the game? What about a new map? Adding a naval element to the game? (something planetside 1 lacked and was requested ceaselessly)

First make sure everyone will get to acquire every weapon you've created, every character perk you've developed, every implant, etc. If you are going to push out new content catering to the few, don't leave the many behind. Throw them a bone too.
Unlocking the same weapon on different vehicles on different characters on different empires / servers feels SUPER LAME and exmplifies the repeative grind we are presented with. Seriously, that's gotta go. The overall grind if it was all universal to your account is bad enough, separating it into each character just makes it so if my friend starts a different empire on another server... I'm not as likely to want to start over because it's such a huuuuge timesink that doesn't translate over at all. The perspective this gives to a player is the publisher dictated development based on profit margins and protfolio data instead of hiring the right people and just letting them handle it. Ever developed a game? Are you part of the demographic you are selling to? No? You have no place making these decisions. History speaks for itself I think in this case. Learn from it. If it doesn't feel fun, it's no good.

Want to make $? Allow players to sell certs to other players and take a cut of each transaction, just be a platform for people to make money (no one will be getting rich) from the game and you'll ensure a long healthy shelf life. If you sell the certs directly, the population will still die out, if you let players sell them... they now have a reason to stick around indefinitely. I'm not sure of the legal issues this would present, but I'm sure you can figure something out. Perhaps players could sell certs for marketplace cash, but just offering real $ would do much more to bolster populations in the long run which means more $ overall for the life of the game. Leasing out the game engine was a good move, now utilize what you've built.


Combat: (to be continued)
New Content:
Population:
World:
Lore:
Social Media:
Revenue:
Bugs: