Wrel's Video on Aging Communities

agreed, he sites an example thats better supported and doesnt make the connection.. also, if he or Someone came here(the official forum) and engaged in our discussions/banter with us things would remain more civil, but no they show up for moderation only, and rarely at that. "official" post get officially posted on redit .
i will admit he has a few valid points about attitudes but i also agree that most of the tude that gets tossed is a righteous gut reaction to stupid/un-informed ideas. and while we Could be "nicer" about it doesnt make those ides any lessmore valid/old/unneeded When THIS is going on (insert your own this).

but at the same time even those i disagree with mostly on here, i mostly dont dislike, and there is a large list of frequent posters that i could say will honestly discuss things with you and though things will get emotional and we'll get a bit shty with each other sometimes i enjoy the banter and Mostly things dont get to the point mods are needed (imo), and its clear a lot of people really care about the game.

follow warframe's example devs

wrel lead by example and come be a positive voice here HERE not on redit

Warframe is utter garbage...

i dont enjoy it either but for those that do their devs are listening

ark would be another example imo, new content Constantly, though again not my thing

"lost spark, got colder, hard to find useful feedback..."

YES OF COURSE.

Exactly this happens if you ignore the REAL problems and therefore the people posting about it. Still so many major issues within the game, the ones you feel and encounter in every game-session. People get tired and will stop talking about it if you give them zero attention, doesnt mean the problems are gone. Not a single comment or a worthy attempt to change something. Its even worse, we suddenly get NS weapons nobody asked for.
So first you get ignored for months or even years and then you get something completely different and unnecessary. You dont have to be a rocket scientist to say why people stopped trying to change something or to give ideas for improvements.


What about:

-Medkits:
This game has a respawn timer up to 10 seconds, a specialized healing class with optional healing grenades, hex regen benefits, regen implants.
With this you give every other class a better/faster healing option than the medic itself can offer, in a game where it shouldnt be necessary to cheat a death. Its even a balance issue to give classes with more firepower this healing option. By this logic you could give everyone temporary additional shields(HA), cloaking devices(infi), repair kits(engi) and jump boots(LA)... sry but thats stupid, why classes in the first place?
I understand why it got introduced: the lack of variety back then and the overflow of resources.


-Motion Spotter:
The only radar based device in the game that gives you real time information about your enemys; movement and the direction they´re facing, for zero effort. Area of effect not noticeable worse than others.
Impossible to dodge the detection since it shows up after you came too close. In big fights behind enemy lines, unreachable.
Impairs the quality of every good fight because it simply shows too much.
Good option instead of darts to keep a longer detection going on (5 times á 240seconds), but too mighty for just one click and no cost. Even vehicles that have to scarifice a good slot are worse.
Needs interval radar with simple dot detection.


-Drifter Jump Jets:
Zero use for infantry based combat or faster ground travel until today, mby jump pad abuse but mainly only used as LA pilot to be cheesy.
The only thing you do if you bail out is wasting the other pilots time while you spam your redeploy button over a dead area to cheat a death in a game were deaths shouldnt matter. Being killed would let you respawn instantly here without a timer that can be reset by incoming damage. Keep in mind that the other guy already won and could just fly away but doesnt because his ego doesnt allow it, which is comprehensible.
This "variety of gameplay" just replaced the ejection seat system and completely changed the class priority; the class to operate and maintain the vehicles became second choice here.
The same variety brings us uncounterable, unexpected C4´s from altitudes where your vehicle radars cant even detect them. C4 is so mighty because its hard to get so close to blow the most expensive things up in one go - it was always easier with LA, but not as easy as drifting at 300mph through the map for half a minute.


-ESF:

Additionally, unnecessary auto repair and a 25% fire suppression heal. Perfect for every non-engi. Another case of - why do we need classes again?
Changes that led to this terrible air behaviour today.

Unbalanced weapons and perks:
LPPA: big direct damage, 4m AOE, 100% precise , 70 rounds per mag - no skill or reload required, a joke compared to the other AI options other factions have.
Banshee: no more effective AOE but still spread, as effective and fast TTK against AI as every other available nose gun. same range as AH.
AH: OHK pumpgun with perfect synergy on the fastest vehicle in the game. more effective in AvA or AvG than AvI, and it still does a good job in AvI.

Scythe: Flat and unfriendly hitbox profile, stable hover.
Reaver: Fastest vehicle in the game with 348km/h afterburner speed and extended fuel tanks.
Mossi: same straight-lined shape as reaver and still slower with better cruise speed because it shares the same maximum afterburner speed with the scythe. redundant trait. no real improvement or combat related benefit, only direct drawbacks.


-ZOE:
Once broken now UP. Not a single good situation in the game where you could use it. Other available options are still better in every case.


-Lockdown:
Deadliest thing in the entire game is to stand still, which this ability offers.
MAX: 180° field of view restriction and an invitation for rockets and C4, the only real lethal threats for a MAX. So absolutely a no-go.
Prowler: First you give TR the best cruise speed then you lock them down on the spot, Logic? Its a C4 magnet. The cruise speed is again just a number fake here like the mossi, the Magrider is the fastest one with its afterburner and the lowest terrain resistance.


-NC MAX:
OHK´s every infantry. Takes out the enemies before they can react. Fire your rocket and die immediately if you dare to face them.
The balance idea behind that was that pumpguns should be inaccurate over longer distances. Unfortunately automatic chainguns arent that precise either. Indeed slug pumpguns have a better lethal accuracy over longer distances than the chainguns, and yet there still as deadly in close ranges as without slugs.
NC MAX´s can take out two other MAX´s breaching a room with no effort. The shotguns are more deadly and faster than AV weapons of ther MAX´s, making them the best Anti-MAX´s in the game with the same weapons they use for AI. The small base/room layouts and capture mechanics are made for NC MAX´s. Either thats the problem or theyre broken.


-Vanguard Shield:
I-Win shield, be the winner in every 1v1. Once enemys get to close, you win. You can even destroy locked down prowlers in a direct bullet exchange with the push of one button without drawbacks.
Until today a bad and frustrating concept.


-Revolver:
Sidearms which could be primary slug pumpgun´s. You surpassed every other sidearm with the revolvers.
Take the crossbow as guidance for OHK-headshots, bullet velocity, magazine size, bullet drop, effective range... then the revolvers are miles away.


-Fortress bases/Base design:
Still too many bases around that cant be taken without a massive overpop because of a bad base design or because of lattice.


-Striker:
The only faction spezific AA launcher.
With such a unique piece in TR´s aresenal, and only in TR, shouldnt ESF`s and other air vehicles fear TR´s air space more than others? Is it any different than over NC´s or VS´s air space?
Its not, simply because it sucks. Harder than any other ground AA, and they´re already bad. And its not any better against ground vehicles or MAX´s.


-Fractures:
Unguided, bullet drop, low damage and you have to aim over a long period of time with lots of bullets to deliver the damage. If thwew is one combination of stats in the game that sucks, its this.


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The list goes on and on and on.... those topics got posted again and again over the months/years. Now even i stopped here, got tired because i know nothing will happen. In the end, wasted time.

If we've lost Wrel , we've lost Auraxis. It's OUR fault! We all broke the dam.

So this is the first time I bothered to watch a video from Wrel and, judging by other comments, I probably couldn't have chosen a worse video. Every 10-15 seconds he says something I could spend multiple paragraphs on why I disagree, but I'll just talk about the particularly large stuff that annoyed me so much I still remember what I wanted to say even after going to bed:

There seems to be this implication that new players will read through Reddit before trying the game, and quickly conform to Reddit's complaints. (The latter part isn't really a surprise seeing as how Reddit is designed for conformity but anyway.) I can't even begin to wrap my head around the former. Forums of any variety for any game are usually where experienced/veteran players meet up. Forums are always where there's discussion about the mechanics of a game and stuff like DPS, KPH, etc. because that's where experienced players go. Very rarely do people celebrate their first ever kill streak on the forums or talk about what sunderers do, because most people who don't even know if they like a game or not don't go on any forums. (At most, they'll hop in to browse the "new players" section...)

And spoilers: Reddit is just one of many ways to access the community. There's also places like fansites and the "official" forums. But the #1 place to look at how veterans interact with new players in a game is the game itself. Someone who found Planetside 2 by mistake will likely get an impression of the community through /yell or squad communication, which, although there's plenty of complaining to be found in both places there seems to be more optimism and fun being had in those channels than in most games. Someone who was recruited into Planetside 2 is probably getting an impression of the community by their friend, and if their friend wants them to play the game how likely do you think it is that the friend will try to scare them away?

If I recall, Wrel also mentioned something along the lines that when the game was first released everyone was just happy playing all the new stuff but now that there hasn't really been anything new to play with in over a year the community wants the game to change and that's our fault. No but seriously, the idea that everyone was happy and then got used to the game and started to become less happy.

Strangely, here's what I remember from the community before and during the game's release: "What's this class/loadout ********?", "When is the galaxy going to get the lodestar cert line?", "Medics have infinite revives? That's OP", "Engineers can't do a whole lot why even bother playing as one?", "Lol why are small bases as significant as large facilities?", "When can I start prying weapons off the cold, dead hands of my enemies?", etc.

To a new player, some of those certainly do sound like new and exciting ideas, sure. Yet they were actually complaints: People had certain expectations on account of this game having "Planetside" in the name, and aside from PS2 being an MMOFPS it did not meet any of them. People were upset from day one; they wanted a Planetside game to feel like Planetside. Even the most optimistic players could only say that PS2 and PS1 were different games, and that PS2 would end up eventually becoming good in its own way (but it was not yet there.)

After years of wanting to see the game be a proper sequel to the original Planetside and dozens of people suggesting dozens of ways to implement missing features, eventually we got: a lattice system that barely resembles the lattice in PS1 or any way people wanted to see it implemented. Guess what happened when people spent years asking for features that should have been in the game from the start, and eventually got only a single feature that wasn't even done correctly. People gave up hope.

The community didn't age and people didn't just suddenly start disliking the game after becoming used to it. The game has been neglected and the players are tired of waiting and pretending. To say the community (and even the majority of the developers, if they feel disheartened) should be blamed at all for having some negative feelings after having so much energy and effort go to waste because the big 'ol decision makers (particularly in the SOE days) decided to ignore the health of the game is absurd.

(I thought it was worth mentioning the developers at the end there because this isn't some "us vs them" problem. If I'm remembering right, some of the best updates to this game have been added by developers working on it in their spare time with no reward other than getting said update into the game. It's the executive decisions in the past that have been a problem; a development team isn't this homogeneous entity where everyone thinks the exact same way as everyone else and there seems reason to believe there are devs who are as annoyed by what's happened to PS2 as many of the players are. Just like players should not be blamed for becoming sick and tired, neither should those devs.)

Ive seen the salty players hes talking about. But i think there are WAYYYY more casuel n ormies that arent tainted. And I dont really see new players getting turned off much. When i talk to them on voice chat they are usually very excited by the game.

On PS4 i think most stuff could be solved if there was a Global Voice Chat. Maybe a mic up queue system where players can see a countdown for when its their turn to talk for 5 seconds.

Ive seen exactly what hes talking about. New players offering fresh ideas and veterans saying "nah, thats stupid. we need to fix this first" But not in the game. In the game when me and new players pitch ideas most players say "That would be pretty cool" Its just a very loud but small part of the entitled veterans on the websites. Maybe they really ARE entitled because they have paid their due. Not hating on the vets that want THEIR specific change before nooby suggestion changes.

I used to not mind him but that was just obnoxious sanctimonious bœllocks.

I've kinda lost my spark for this game. Haven't really made any new ideas for vehicles, because the Devs have made it pretty clear that this game is primarily about infantry.

-Closing the vehicle forums
-Nerfing vehicle AI and not nerfing infantry AV like they had promised
-Not implementing more diversity in vehicle-based weapons

People make threads on artillery, effective aa, mechs, giant transports, giant tanks, giant airborne battleships because they want those things. But the Devs haven't put any of them in the game (though the last two were at least in the design books), while infantry have gotten far more new toys.

The problem with focusing on infantry play is that you cannot uniquely sell PS2 on infantry play alone. The BF and CoD series have really cornered the market on infantry play, and everything from graphics to gunplay is just tighter. PS1 and what PS2 should focus on is the teamwork element that stems from true combined arms, and for that you need a more even focus on infantry and vehicles.

AKA, Don't be a dick

Seconding this. It's ironic then that the only way to make infantry work with vehicles is if it's safe to assume ALL infantry have an AV option that isn't suicidal. Sure, it's safer to assume there are more Heavy Assaults than any other class on the field at any given moment, but it's still irresponsible to balance around that because the other classes do exist. It can also only be assumed that those heavy assaults have dumb-fires, which are wholly ineffective at actually taking on armor, they simply fly too slowly and have too much of a skill component. In any game with infantry and vehicles in the same space, the infantry man's AV option is usually designed to be reliable (lock-on, usually.) PS2 even screwed that basic fundamental fact up.

And that's what made PS1 work - it went out of its way to mitigate skill components because its team KNEW it had to be a numbers game. Not merely because it sat on a very dated engine as FPS' had recognized head shots, weapon velocities and ordinance drop for a while, but because it was only an FPS in perspective, but it wasn't a real FPS. There were too many people to create it as such. Real PvP FPS' are arena based with carefully picked numbers. CoD didn't stop at 6 per team just because. Counter-Strike's and Rainbow 6's 5v5 isn't an engine limitation. In PS1 with it's incredibly bloated player numbers, Players themselves were treated as resources. 2 pop = one tank. 3 for maximum effectiveness from the Prowler but that made the Prowler the best tank until they nerfed it's MG so that it could hurt BFRs (hope that *** backwards line hints at why "mechs" are so reviled here...)

Every sane infantry man went the standard issue setup of heavy armor (greater damage mitigation, more carrying capacity, more weapon slots, but slower movement speed) an AV or sniper option, and a standard CQC (shotgun, heavy AI weapon) or mid-range option (rifle) with the small repair tool for repairing One's own armor (there was a larger rifle sized one for vehicles and turrets, but since the heaviest armor allowed for closed cockpit vehicles like tanks and aircraft only had one rifle slot...) and the heal tool for healing Oneself. The vast majority of infantry had this setup because it WAS self sustaining, but because their gun only ever did X damage regardless of their twitch reflexes and sharp aim, they STILL relied on back up to make a push. No head shotting a group of guys before they're even aware of what's going on. One either had the right/best gun for the job or they didn't.

In contrast, PS2 and Battlefield play out similarly, except Battlefield can rely on classes with the designated rocket launcher class having a powerful AV option because the number of vehicles on the map is severely limited - only so many will exist at a time. 32 players per team, and each team likely only had 1-2 tanks per. PS2 took the carefully balanced numbers of Battlefield and threw the limitations out the window. Now it's possible to have 200 players in a fight... and 100 of them are in tanks. Since it's a class system, not all 100 of the remainder will be the rocket launcher toting class, so now their rocket launchers NEED to be rendered proportionally more powerful to the standard. The game MUST balance closely for 1v1 to make it work or the core of the game starts to collapse (it will always be an infantry on infantry shooter first at the end of the day, no matter what any developer does.) And PS2 is paying for that necessity, because they built a classic first person shooter experience... without considering the careful balance the classic first person shooter experience hinges upon to make it work.

A cynical video about cynicism.

What we are seeing is not a result of an aging community. What we are seeing is an extension of real life. Entitlement is the way of the world now, and the most needy will cry-bully their way to what they are entitled to; regardless of the consequences.

I like Wrel's vids and appreciate the work he does and product/experience he is trying to build for PS2.

While I can agree that many players are toxic in the community, I don't think this is really a "their fault" kinda thing. You're gonna get a mix of player types, the community that develops is not reliant on getting a "lucky mix" of better types. Rather (1) the leadership in the community from SOE/DBG is terrible (before it was enthusiastic but out-of-touch and prone to spin, now it's absentee landlord crickets and broken street lights), (2) their is no dominant 3rd Party presence/voice with leadership, and (3) the general noise of the community is trumped by the heavy handed control of the game by Devs. (if PS2 was a static game with no content changes, the player community would become the authority, because they actually know the gamplay so much more than Devs; but since Devs mess with the game, they will largely keep leadership control)

Reddit is a venue prone to being toxic. And some of the PS2 Devs (by no means all, some seemed genuine and/or positive) who posted there did so with a swagger/one-way-street that just rubber stamped a toxic breeding ground. I worked at Sigil and know various SOE/DBG peeps, there are a lot of great people, but many of them (and especially many managers) were thuggy and toxic (to each other, enjoying [even excitedly celebrating] griefing players, etc.), with no restraining hand by management. That fuels a toxic culture, and it pervades into the game itself. I don't think Brad is thuggy (though I didn't work with him much). And Smed (in the handful of times I interacted with him) was friendly and not thuggy. But below them?... it got pretty bad (sometimes perma-bad, sometimes just people who could "go there") outside of standouts like McP (who is awesome and genuine and constructive) and various others. The "who is head of HR" at Sigil was a running (thuggy) joke (there was no HR, they joked one of the more thuggy behavior guys was head of it). Nothing implicitly wrong with running a company/project/gang/country with thugginess, it's just a question of what you want the outcomes to be, like if you want your culture to be toxic.

I also play Hearthstone and their forum is terrible, and their in-game player communication is terrible, but this isolation works to keep players from affecting each other and the product is good, Blizzard's leadership is good, and the game is doing well.

I also have been involved with the Super Street Fighter II Turbo and HDR communities. They are *MUCH* smaller, but they are much more positive and group supportive. And they are entirely 3rd Party presence/voice leadership, but it's a group that fosters goodwill and community growth.

There is a lot of focus within this video with regards to the New Player. And PS2 has one of the worst in-game New Player Experiences among current games out there. I used to recommend PS2 to others, now I would have a very hard time justifying it as a recommendation to others. If you ask the community for their feedback on what the New Player Experience is like, almost any response is gonna be dire for community growth on that front.