Planetside 2: Thoughts and feelings so far?

[minus0ne]

Sorry if that previous post sounded angry somehow, it wasn't, but it might've been the disillusion that I will have to wait some time before experiencing something like Starsiege: Tribes or Tribes 2 again. I have yet to really try out Tribes Ascend but from the few hours I played on my previous computer it felt more deathmatch-oriented than I care for in a Tribes game (it may have been my playing at 20fps more than anything else though, I'll have to try again when time allows).

The problem for me with Planetside 2 wasn't that I got my ass handed to me though (obviously the first few hours running around familiarizing myself I did die a lot but that's to be expected). After that I stuck with a group mostly and tried out various roles and died a lot less (I also tried a little solo exploration, but it's not that fun or rewarding). No, the problem I have with these games is the pervasive feeling that the game is having more fun with me than I am with it. I don't really feel like I'm playing a game, but rather feel like I'm getting played. Not in an interesting way, mind you, but in a real "fuck you, pay me" kind of way.

I should maybe have added that I don't feel there's that much difference between having to play 100 hours or pay 10$ for an unlock, and it seems sadly that this is now the basic philosophy of most free-to-play games. If we're discussing pay-to-win it helps to recognize the fact that time can equal money, because SOE certainly does. And I completely understand that this game needs to make money, but it's quite a shock for me to go from games where you know you're paying to have a fun challenge, to a sort of game where the objective of game is no longer to have fun or be competitive, but rather the game is designed to get players to buy it, subscribe, or spend more real cash. In a game like Starsiege Tribes everything was just there, and the fun of the game was getting better at everything and learning (to make use of) the environments, whereas here, I will have to put in some 40 hours before even discovering if this game is for me or not, if it offers the sort of complexity I thought it offered. I'm not sure this makes it a skill-based game, it seems more important to just put in time than to discover new ways of playing (obviously you discover more ways of playing as you put in more time, but a major part of the incentive seems lost). Personally I would much rather spend those 40 hours of discovery on actually having fun with other games I have yet to play, instead of gradually falling out with the game's mechanical qualities. To compound matters I think the environments can look stunning, but as you'll find out when using a jetpack (or even any bouncy land-based vehicle), they're more form than function at the moment.

The more of these types of games I play ("MMOs" by which I really mean compulsive games, which is different than games so fun or interesting they're addictive), the more I'm seeing that while free-to-play makes (a lot of) sense from a business and revenue point of view, it can conflict with and mess up gameplay in really serious and jarring ways. And really that sentence is just a nice and euphemistic way of saying that compulsive gaming is probably one of the most lucrative and completely unchecked ways of capitalist enterprise. Hey, of course, it totally beats people getting addicted to heroine but that's in all likelihood one of the very few good things there is to say about it, I think.

In story-based games this usually means content-lockout (as in, not all of the story is accessible) but in competitive and cooperative games like PS2, free-to-play shifts the focus of the game from "getting better at it" to "playing more to unlock more so you can play more and spend more" (all the while hopefully finding out if the game is up your alley). Consequently, "getting better at it" doesn't really matter that much any more, or at least plays second fiddle. It used to be; if a game is fun, you enjoy playing it. Now with this it's more like; play the game to discover that it might be fun if you spend a lot more time and a little money on it. I haven't played many free-to-play games, but I'm beginning to understand the grievances people seem to have with the mechanics it usually brings to the table. I guess also I might just be getting old in my twenties.

Long story short, this game is not for me, and it's almost the polar opposite of what I hoped it'd be from reading RPS. I also have some other irks with it; the "flight-model" is non-existent (and ground vehicles aren't any better, in fact vehicles are fairly horrible) the occasionally beautiful environments are mostly for show, everything feels like an amalgamation of stuff I've played before (but had fun with) like Tribes, Unreal Tournament, Battlezone etc. but without a cohesive core. It doesn't help that it's effectively all a big circle-jerk, there's no feeling of reward in victory (or defeat or anything in between) but the apathetic sigh of perpetual battle simulation where players chase XP. I wish I'd have found a redeeming quality but the only thing that comes to mind is; different people, different strokes. Though if compulsive games rub you the wrong way, this perhaps isn't for you. It's easy enough to try out so don't let this post stop you.

[Cooper]

Sinister, pay2win doesn't mean people with 'free' gear can't ever (or even routinely) beat people who spend money buying things, it means you need to spend money to get decidedly better stuff.

All of the "decidedly better stuff" is available thorugh in-game means. The -only- stuff entirely behind a pay wall is cosmetic.

Whatsmore, the stuff you can unlock / pay for is almost entirely side-grades. Take the skyguard for the lightning: It turns your tank into a decent AA platform. Very useful in tank colums. It makes you utterly useless against other tanks though.

[Timofee]

After a rocky start I'm thoroughly enjoying it, yet at the back of my mind I feel it could still be so much more.

So what's working? Well the scale of the battles is awesome and hugely atmospheric. The constantly shifting battle lines is entertaining and the deliberate design balance to allow both infantry and vehicle combat to be viable is impressive.

Similarly the fact that the unlocks are generally sidegrades is agreeable and the class design thoughtfully segmented to foster cooperation. And lets be honest its generally a bunch of fun to play with some friends.

However, and its a pretty big however, there's a huge amount of room for improvement.

Biggest gripes so far:
- The shooting is rubbish
It just feels too spammy and with little skill involved, often devolving into who pressed the trigger first. I can kind of see why it's this way as in a game like CS where a couple of bullets can kill you'll often complain about 'reg' (perceived or actual) when you're not getting hits. Upping the bullet counts helps disguise this issue as inevitably a game this big will suffer from lag and reg problems. However there's other things they could have done because at the moment it boils down to: move crosshair to head > hold fire button > repeat

For example, they could adjust the recoil to be more 'upwards' based rather than an ever expanding cone. That would allow for some skill in recoil control, similarly it doesn't do enough to reward firing in tight bursts or assuming a better firing position - running full pelt at the enemy should not be a viable tactic 90% of the time.

- Non cap spawn rooms that actively encourage spawn camping
This is a tricky one as there is a clear need to allow defenders somewhere to spawn without it being too overpowered that they are undefeatable, however its implementation at the moment is idiotic when we can have dozens of tanks outside and infantry roaming around while enemies pop rounds out of their spawn. All of whom have to sit there for 5 minutes before it deactivates.

I'd suggest if the weightings toward one player group hit a certain level within the radius of the spawn then it should shut down, alternatively they could have it move or revert to drop pod deployment, so it was impossible to camp. This would encourage players to lock down the cap points rather than the spawns.

- Cap points take waaay too long to cap
When there is nothing happening it should cap faster, say if there's no enemies within a certain distance. Sitting around with 6 buddies for 5 minutes doing nothing is not very entertaining

- Sound design
The sound design is average. I would pay money to see the DICE sound designers brought over. It could increase, what is already an atmospheric game, five fold.

- Vehicle spawns
I mean, really?! Drive me off with zero control practically guaranteeing a team kill? Worse still it'll kill OTHER VEHICLES, rather than oh I dunno, push them out of the way. It just seems like lazy programming - "cba to fixed this, just kill anything in the way." I can think of a dozen less idiotic solutions so I despair that they haven't bothered to address this - presumably people moaned in the beta?

These are the worst offenders but there's plenty of minor gripes such hot dropping you into action the first time you start the game, some fairly poor graphical errors and hiding things away in a thoroughly unintuitive menu system.

[evilbobthebob]

The recoil in-game was completely redesigned from beta where it was almost entirely cone of fire blooming. NC guns have a lot of vertical recoil and some horizontal; TR have almost entirely vertical recoil (and not much of that) and the VS have quite low vertical and horizontal recoils that are roughly equivalent, making them seem like they have mostly cone of fire bloom.

[sinister agent]

I think the fire rate and recoil stuff was done that way for balancing purposes for the most part - it'd be tricky to make big changes to the way it works without the advantage going to certain classes (high recoil would make heavy assault machine guns pretty much useless for suppression, their main purpose, f'instance. It'd also make infiltrators practically invulnerable at long range). However, the weapons do vary. The NC guns certainly benefit from controlled fire, with the light assault in particular being highly accurate at long range, but useless within two shots if you just spray everywhere.

It's not the best game for gunplay though, I'll give you that. And the spawncamp grind is incredibly tedious for both sides. They could perhaps consider a voice over message to the defenders when it's obviously hopeless. "Vanu thinks you're a useless cock", maybe.

[Cooper]

- Non cap spawn rooms that actively encourage spawn camping
This is a tricky one as there is a clear need to allow defenders somewhere to spawn without it being too overpowered that they are undefeatable, however its implementation at the moment is idiotic when we can have dozens of tanks outside and infantry roaming around while enemies pop rounds out of their spawn. All of whom have to sit there for 5 minutes before it deactivates.

I'd suggest if the weightings toward one player group hit a certain level within the radius of the spawn then it should shut down, alternatively they could have it move or revert to drop pod deployment, so it was impossible to camp. This would encourage players to lock down the cap points rather than the spawns.

Leave.

There's a whole bloody continent to chose from. That locked down spawn room isn't the only spawn room.

I get a feeling there's an odd mentality left over from map-based FPS games. It's the "spawn room" so you try to push out from it. Hence it feeling like unfair spawn camping.

Leave. Spawn at another base, defend there or gather your forces to push back out and meet those who were just camping that spawn room on the road.

Whenever I'm PL, I try to call fallback positions the moment it looks like we're getting over-run. Grinding out the last few minutes of a capture when the spawn room is locked down is just no fun. And pointless.

[Timofee]

The recoil in-game was completely redesigned from beta where it was almost entirely cone of fire blooming. NC guns have a lot of vertical recoil and some horizontal; TR have almost entirely vertical recoil (and not much of that) and the VS have quite low vertical and horizontal recoils that are roughly equivalent, making them seem like they have mostly cone of fire bloom.

Interesting, that may explain why I prefer the TR to NC. Sadly it doesn't stop it still feeling very spammy but I would struggle to come up with a solution to that

Leave.

There's a whole bloody continent to chose from. That locked down spawn room isn't the only spawn room.

I get a feeling there's an odd mentality left over from map-based FPS games. It's the "spawn room" so you try to push out from it. Hence it feeling like unfair spawn camping.

Leave. Spawn at another base, defend there or gather your forces to push back out and meet those who were just camping that spawn room on the road.

Whenever I'm PL, I try to call fallback positions the moment it looks like we're getting over-run. Grinding out the last few minutes of a capture when the spawn room is locked down is just no fun. And pointless.

I think you've misunderstood; I'm coming at this from an attackers point of view.

There are inevitably some people who wont leave, so the game needs to force them. The attackers can't leave otherwise the cap wont go through, and while they could stay on the point and let the defenders come to them - which may be more entertaining - they won't because its not the most efficient way.

[Arona Daal]

Played as Vau a few Hours.This is what i think:

Horrible unoptimized.

Communication: horrible.
VOIP in-game doesnt work.(Does this Game support Mumble with localized Audio and auto-Serverselection?)
I had to ask others to even get Squad Textchat working as there seems to be no direct Key for it.

Menus: Meh.
GUIs and Teamforming is supoptimal but acceptable.

Gunplay: So lala.
Guns are okayish if more of the Pew pew Variety (Inaccurate and weak compared to Hp).

Maps: Nice
Maps are pretty and Big,if a bit sparse on Vegetation and Unique Buildings.
Day/Nightcycles are sweet.

Vehicles: Argh!
Aircraft feel like hovering Bricks.

Ground Vehicles handle okay.
Tank Rounds are weak, slow and drop like a stone.
Apcs are can be spawncamped easily, as they cannot fire against close Range Infantry.

Infantry: okay
MAX are sweet,if pretty useless on Long Distance.
Medics? Just respawn.Dying has no Penalty ,like for Example Ticket Loss,or increased respawn Times.
The usual Classes (Medic/Assault/Engi/Heavy)
Sadly no possibility to go Prone,but its intended to be Run & gun & colorful Pew Pew,so thats okay.

I myself play a lot of Project Reality which makes several Things better (Comms,especially Vehicles & AT Inf,Spawn Mechanics) .But i could use a largescale more fastpaced Fps like this.

All in all its okayish, and i could see myself coming back to it , if they get it optimized.But i sure as Hell will never drive those lame Toy Tanks.

[Axler]

I'm really enjoying it although I am NC unlike you purple loving degenerates.

On the Pay2Win discussion there are only 2 weapons which are undoubtedly better than the default; Rocket Pods and A2A missiles for the ESF's everything other than those two is just variations on a theme.

[Herkimer]

Communication: horrible.
VOIP in-game doesnt work.(Does this Game support Mumble with localized Audio and auto-Serverselection?)
I had to ask others to even get Squad Textchat working as there seems to be no direct Key for it.

In-game VOIP does work, but the default transmit and receive levels are set really low, for some reasons. If you haven't gone into the settings and cranked them already, do that. IMO other than that it's the best in-game VOIP I've come across, actually.

[JayTee]

(high recoil would make heavy assault machine guns pretty much useless for suppression, their main purpose, f'instance. It'd also make infiltrators practically invulnerable at long range).

Suppression in this game is laughable. There's no/minimal penalty to dieing, you die incredibly quickly anyway, and with the lack of prone/bipod it's hard to set yourself up with a decent firing platform. I don't see how the LMGs are setup for suppression, they seem to be more setup for the Heavy Assault to pop shield, jump out and mow down 3ish players before needing to reload, rather than for the Heavy Assault to lay down covering fire.

I'm enjoying the game a lot, but I totally agree this is not the best game for gunplay. BF3 has far better gunplay, but PS2 has the better 'combined arms' stuff.

I also miss destructible cover from BF3, it's amazing how much that has spoiled me. But I guess it wouldn't really work in this sort of game; the entire continent would be flat within days

[One Pigeon]

It's a common theme for everyone at the moment but those rocket pods on ESF's are starting to get a little frustrating. It sometimes seems like the fighters are a better ground attack tool than the Liberator whereas it should surely be the other way round.

On the upside I managed to take two Reavers down with a drop pod earlier today while playing with some of the Outfit.
I hit one and it smashed into the other, destroying them both to my rather smug and immense satisfaction. Somehow I survived the landing! Is this usual? God I hope so. Looking forward to trying it again, maybe on a full Galaxy.

[Vicious]

Depends on who you talk to, really. Pay to win means if you pay you have an unfair advantage and will likely win. Hence the name.

Huh, it's nothing about unfair advantage, it's about spending real money to get something better that you wouldn't otherwise have earned (e.g. in WoT people buy Premium Tanks that aren't any better than normal tanks but lets them skip many hundreds, if not thousands of hours). That's an advantage they've gained by paying money, rather than earning it.

Either way, even by your definition, it's not pay to win. The expensive stuff isn't better across the board - it's just more specialised, at the cost of effectiveness somewhere else. Want that high damage sniper rifle? Go for it! But be sure you hit first time, because the rate of fire is terrible, and any grunt with a basic gun will finish you off.

There are an awful lot of weapons that are definitively and quantifiably better that require certs/SC to earn. Besides that, better armour, vehicle weapons (huge upgrades), night vision etc all offer tangible benefits over standard.

And you don't have to pay to get it anyway. Calling it one of the most pay to win games ever" is beyond daft.

No-one called it one of the most pay to win games ever.

I'm getting around 40-50 certs per hour, looking at some of the upgrades I'd really rather like, it would take me around 60 hours just to get one infantry weapon, a vehicle turret and some misc upgrades (like the aforementioned night vision). Or else I could spend a modest enough amount of money and just buy them. It's quite clear that the cert and unlock system was designed from the ground up to encourage people to buy with real money for the most part, rather than earn through in-game actions.

That's fine and there's no problem with the game being designed like that, but please stop pretending it isn't designed that way and getting all offended by people pointing that out.

[sinister agent]

I think this is one of the most hideously pay-to-win games I've ever played

And upgrades can be earned through playing anyway. I've had about 700 points since the game released, paying nothing. That'd be enough to give me a better shield or whatever, but even then the difference is slight. I don't mind if I lose out to someone with 10% more armour, to be honest. If the fight was that close I was probably doing something wrong anyway, and I'm playing this excellent game for nothing. Two years ago it would have been subscription only, and I'd never have played a second of it. If someone can get a marginally better chance by supporting the developers, I can live with it the way they've set this one up. Honestly, there's no need to condescendingly accuse me of being "offended" or denying how the game's designed. It's just not that big an advantage to pay. Either that or I'm just a fantastic player who's better at the game than people who've splashed out and played it for months, which is laughably unlikely.

If you want the extra stuff, you're better off paying for it, sure. But you don't need it to be competitive. If anything, it's one of the least pay to win games I've ever seen.

Suppression in this game is laughable. There's no/minimal penalty to dieing, you die incredibly quickly anyway, and with the lack of prone/bipod it's hard to set yourself up with a decent firing platform. I don't see how the LMGs are setup for suppression, they seem to be more setup for the Heavy Assault to pop shield, jump out and mow down 3ish players before needing to reload, rather than for the Heavy Assault to lay down covering fire.

You might be surprised. Just last night I fought a team of terrans, who managed to pin down an area full of dozens of players with just three players taking turns to suppress. I was actually quite impressed; I'd not seen their weapons used so effectively before. If stepping outside means getting sprayed with bullets, people won't step outside. That's suppression, and it works. Use of rockets and the shield just makes them even better at it. Yeah, they can also storm and charge the enemy, that's fine and useful, but they have other uses, just as the infiltrator can be a boring sniper, a behind-the-lines commando, or a skirmisher.

[RIDEBIRD]

I love this game so much. I really don't agree with it being pay to win. More so it's pay 2 be impatient, as I've found myself "oooh I want that NOW" over a lot of stuff. I generally like spending money in games this way however..

I think the cert cost for most weapons is a bit ridiculous though. 1000 certs is way too much. 500 would be enough really. Thing is though, you generally kill just as well with the starter weapons. In fact the starter weapons for some classes is the best there is (HA Vanu for one).

Overall though this game is just glorious. Being organized, communicating and just having it out in massive, massive, mind-blowing battles is so goddamn fun. The only real gripe I have is how ridiculous it can get when you're fighting over a tech plant or something else. It can just be several hours worth of shitty grind for a not very huge reward. I think you should get a lot of XP and certs for slugging it out til you cap, so there's a larger reward in the end.

[ambing1]

After watching thisclip from gamearena, I realized Planetside 2 has improved quite significantlyover its predecessor.
It's not everyday thatwe encounter the groundbreaking features from the original Planetsidegame--distinct empires to rally around, massive multiplayer battles (ofcourse), as well as huge continents hosting air and ground combat. Planetside 2is brimming with features that modern gamers are expecting from FPS and MMOgenres of late. It's good to know that the developers have incorporated a lotof improvements to make Planetside 2 a lot better. Needless to say, this gameuses advanced technology, new SOE proprietary MMO game engice calledForgelight™, as well as offers a very impressive and visceral FPS experiencewith massive customization.
I'm not big on thisgenre but it's good to know that I can customize my soldier, vehicles, andweapons to match my play-style. I can't believe how awesome the skill treesare, giving me options to grow my character laterally by unlocking attachments,weapons, and other equipment.
I don't plan to spendhours on this game but it's also good to join battles that lasts for days, oreven weeks, making alliances extremely important.
Specializing combatoutfits is also critical to take on long-term strategies, especially thatbattles are fought in two dimensions, air and ground.

[One Pigeon]

Following on from that I think they have done a decent overall job as the netcode must be something special when I barely get any lag in some high population areas. Ok, there's definitely some optimization needed particularly in regards to fps dropping significantly but things can only get better right?

What is annoying me a little is actually a lot of the playerbase moaning about the unlock system and the amount of time it takes to acquire items.

This game has been out for only a few weeks! You can't expect to own everything immediately surely? Then even if you pay for weapon unlocks a hell of a lot of the upgrades/soldier optimization is only available through spending certs.
There was a (fairly optimistic) suggestion that the game would run all the way until 2025. You'd lose a lot of fun and sense of progression if you were endowed with every toy within the first month.

[JayTee]

Free 170 SC

No not a spam link, a referral or anything, just need to login to 2 SOE games and your account will be credited with 170 SC. Easy Peasy.

[DeVadder]

Huh, it's nothing about unfair advantage, it's about spending real money to get something better that you wouldn't otherwise have earned (e.g. in WoT people buy Premium Tanks that aren't any better than normal tanks but lets them skip many hundreds, if not thousands of hours). That's an advantage they've gained by paying money, rather than earning it.

I think we disagree at this very point: The words. Shortcutting to stuff realistically available for free people later (or equal to such stuff) is often not considered Pay 2 Win but a very normal Free 2 Play model. It is reasoned with that you can either spend your time, or if you have less time at hand, your money.
World of Tanks however is Pay 2 Win but because of gold ammo, not because of premium tanks (well, there premium tanks capable of stuff free tanks are not, so that might be argued). But having access to gold ammo will allways give a paying player an advantage over a free player of the same level (wether that level has been reached by money or grind).
Another term is 'Freemium' what mostly means, that you can either play for free or pay a fixed amount of money to get all available advantage (several of the browser games of old like OGame had this). Gold ammo is not even freemium as there is no upper limit to how many gold ammo you can buy. And you need to buy more and more if you want to retain your advantage.
The only redeeming thing about gold ammo is, that it is not very powerful and that there is a upper limit to how much gold ammo you can use in every single fight (one bullet per shot ^^).
So a person paying 50$ for one fight does not have any further advantage (BF:H does not have this limitation with some of their consumables).
Anyways, in my little world, PS2 can not really be called Pay 2 Win but standard Free 2 Play. Of course it has incentives to pay money and it would be suicide to not have to.

There are an awful lot of weapons that are definitively and quantifiably better that require certs/SC to earn. Besides that, better armour, vehicle weapons (huge upgrades), night vision etc all offer tangible benefits over standard.

So far i have only stumbled across the likes of the Solstice SF when it comes to infantry that are plain better. They have the same stats but offer more upgrades (those upgrades have only very small drawbacks to be fair). Better armor and night vision can not be archieved through SC. I am not sure why you have mentioned them here, i think everybody agrees that a player who has earned a lot of Certs has a significant advantage over someone who did not. That is probably the MMO part.
I do agree on vehicle guns. Especially the rocket pods. But there are others as well, that are certainly more than side grades.

(...)
It's quite clear that the cert and unlock system was designed from the ground up to encourage people to buy with real money for the most part, rather than earn through in-game actions.

That's fine and there's no problem with the game being designed like that, but please stop pretending it isn't designed that way and getting all offended by people pointing that out.

No one was pretending the system is not about encouraging people to pay. If anyone is offended, than it probably was the guy who who called it the most hideously designed Pay 2 Win game when there are so many examples of worse games. And for some people the term 'Pay 2 Win' does not even apply for PS2.

[President Weasel]

The rocket pods in particular are noticeably cheaper for station cash than they are for certs; they also make a massive difference to the effectiveness of a scythe (or other light aircraft) and increase your chances of generating certs while flying the thing. They do appear to be specifically designed to draw players into buying some station cash (it worked on me, and on several others on mumble last night).
However you can have a perfectly enjoyable game of planetside and never climb into a plane, and with enough patience you can cert your way there (1000 certs/700SC iirc) - I believe someone on mumble last night said they intended to cert their way to the rocket pods specifically because they were "supposed to" buy them with SC, which is delightfully bloody minded.

There are free to play games which give paid players definite advantages like more actions per day, and, as has been mentioned, better ammo which gives you a head-to-head, pay-to-win, money-over-skills advantage. On the other hand there are games like EVE which let you choose to spend money or spend time to get a fancy ship. So far I feel PS2 is a lot closer to the latter: there's nothing you need in order to be competitive that you can't earn by spending time instead of money.