Discussion: the state of the game

[bonkers]

Out of interest and without sounding offensive, what types of FPS do they like? Because although they're all shooty man shooters, there's a world of difference between something like CoD and Battlefield and ArmA and Planetside.

It varies what they play today. But I know them all for playing BF2 with them. So they should kinda be into the combined arms and "organized" play idea of PS2 (although on a smaller scale). Dunno if they all played ArmA when it was released, but at least of them still plays it on a more or less regular basis. The others.. depends. Most of them play or have played BF3, two of them currently mainly play Tibes Ascend. It's a mix of everything.

Maybe that's kind of the problem. PS2 also often gives me the impression that it tries to be a wild mix of everything, to appeal to everybody, and by that actually puts itself into a niche instead of standing out. If those "modern military shooters" players don't enjoy the game I don't know where SOE is planning on taking new players from one or two years down the line.

[Boris]

I don't know if they can do. People with shitty CPUs will get another frame bump and go scream about the updates making the game worse on the forums.

Imo fix AMD optimization issues, rendering distance air vs infantry, and decrease burster damage by 25% while also bumping Skyguard damage by 25%. That wouldn't be a Blizzard nerf/buff right? You're just transferring roles really.

The idea is good, but the numbers are too severe IMO. Also, in addition to increasing Skyguard damage, tighten its cone of fire up, increase the projectile speed and for the love of god stabilize that turret. Skyguards would be way more awesome if they could drive and shoot accurately.

[Jesus_Phish]

The idea is good, but the numbers are too severe IMO. Also, in addition to increasing Skyguard damage, tighten its cone of fire up, increase the projectile speed and for the love of god stabilize that turret. Skyguards would be way more awesome if they could drive and shoot accurately.

I don't think Skyguards should really be able to shoot accurately while moving. They need more bite in them for sure, but I don't like the idea of one man tanks that can roll around the ground and maintain steady accuracy as if they were stationary.

[RIDEBIRD]

Yeah, don't make them that moveable. And I really do belive that bursters need at least a 25% nerf - if a burster gets eyes on with one ESF at the exact same time as the ESF gets eyes on the burster, the burster is VERY likely to win. It does more DPS in that time then for example pods (well maybe not the TRs OP super ROF pods but hey it's TR so that's what they do) and the ESF will likely die.

Add even one more burster in that equation and it's quite unlikely you even get away if they rendered in.

[Jesus_Phish]

It sounds like you think a ESF and a burster should be equal to each other. I like that a burster is better than an ESF (lets ignore rendering distance and assume it's the same for everyone). The burster counters the ESF who in turn counters the majority of ground.

Do you think one on one an ESF should be able to beat a dedicated AA, assuming equal skill on both players?

[RIDEBIRD]

If the ESF outmaneuvers some of the burster/skyguard fire - hell yes. A burster is 90 infantry resources. An ESF is 200 air. Of course it should be able to take a burster head on or at least survive an encounter with a few and get away. I think AAs role should primarily be as deterrent, not like now when effective killzones for air are very, very easily established - quite cheap as well. If you have like 4-5 bursters you have created a zone where no aircraft can enter without dying. To counter it you need infantry or way, way more then for example 4-5 ESFs. More like 3+ libs and 5+ ESFs so that the bursters have to many targets to take out.

And I think render distance needs to be nerfed for infantry vs air if they can't fix it the other way around. If I can get shot at I should be able to shoot it - that is not the case today. You can fly at 800m with a lib and see the burster shooting you - that is hitting you - and shoot at it without hitting anything. They made burster rendering better, but they didn't fix it.

Air is so weak regardless (tank drivers that die to one round of rockets in the butt are just bad and should pay more attention, pods are not OP) and AA is so strong and cheap right now. AA should be detering air so they can never camp ground, and air should be able to make short, effective, bombing runs and escape with their life, having to repair and here creating downtime. For actually killing air - well this should be the ESFs main role. It is not today.

[Jesus_Phish]

I don't like using how much something costs in resource points as a judgement for it's effectiveness. Otherwise you might as well start saying the MBTs cost the most and thus should be best. ground < MAX < ESF < MBT.

A burster max isn't very useful against MBTs or Lightnings or foot soliders. The game isn't about one on one fights, but the whole point of a burster max is indeed as you said to create a kill zone or at least a deterrent against ESFs coming in and ripping ground apart. A good ESF pilot can still dart in to do some damage and get out again without being taken down by a burster.

[RIDEBIRD]

Against ONE burster - yes. Against several - no. They will render in too late and when you realize you are being shot at, it's too late if it's 3+. There's no way to get out - with composite armor 3 you might do it I guess.

Lightnings should be the main AA vehicle since it's single purpose, can't switch weapons, is expensive, costs ground resources and needs support of other tanks to survive in a battle. They also require a tank spawn. Skyguards should be quite deadly - like a burster now - and bursters should be deterrents but deadly in groups of 3-4-5, where an ESF still should be able to see the bursters and be able to get out.

Bursters are now main AA and that's just a bit dumb.

[qaz]

Air is so weak regardless (tank drivers that die to one round of rockets in the butt are just bad and should pay more attention, pods are not OP)

ha ... you bastard! as a matter of fact, i can't do a thing against rocketpods to the bum in my tank. ESF with stealth can just sneak up and instagib a tank (besides ... i have zero situational awareness), and the elevation restrictions prevent returning the fire (if one can evade the rockets, that is). two ways to fix this: change the bumshot mechanic for esf (i.e., they need to be below 25 degree, not 45), or increase the elevation of the mag guns to TR levels.

While I'd say that AA is slightly too strong atm, pure deterrence is not the solution. First of all, bursters should lose 10-15% dmg. For skyguards, i'd like to see a tighter COF ... that's all, really. The problem with deterrence (pre-gu1) as you describe it is that using ESF to kill air as a means to protect ground ops just doesn't work. This isn't because our pilots are bad, but because of the mechanics. ESF always have to chase other stuff to actually kill it. Depending on the number of friendly/hostile esf and skill this can take anywhere from 1s to a minute or so. While our pilots are chasing and killing hostiles, the ground forces are pretty much unprotected. Only way to get around that is to pull even more AA on the ground, or bring 1-2 squads of ESF. And with this, we're back to ground forces having to spend an unreasonable amount of effort to protect their ops.

So .. yes, 5 bursters or skyguards absolutely should create a no-fly bubble for anything but an equal or greater amount of air.

[Jesus_Phish]

I agree that Skyguards should be king of mobile AA, but I don't think that calls for a Burster nerf, rather just skyguard buff.

And of course they need to fix rendering or put in some other fix, like massive projectile drop off for bursters once the projectile goes a set distance.

[MrEclectic]

Some excellent statistics about Planetside 2:
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...tistics.97979/

http://https://docs.google.com/sprea...UdTJpM1E&gid=0

The second to last spreadsheet is alarming. And it shows that the terrible roll out of GU2 really hurt the game.

[RIDEBIRD]

Well Jesus, then we just disagree. More AA is the worst possible development (just buffing Skyguard) right now and would create even less situations where air is effective.

Regarding the stats I don't know if it's that worrying. The VS activity is though..

[BasicPauly]

It varies what they play today. But I know them all for playing BF2 with them. So they should kinda be into the combined arms and "organized" play idea of PS2 (although on a smaller scale). Dunno if they all played ArmA when it was released, but at least of them still plays it on a more or less regular basis. The others.. depends. Most of them play or have played BF3, two of them currently mainly play Tibes Ascend. It's a mix of everything.

Maybe that's kind of the problem. PS2 also often gives me the impression that it tries to be a wild mix of everything, to appeal to everybody, and by that actually puts itself into a niche instead of standing out. If those "modern military shooters" players don't enjoy the game I don't know where SOE is planning on taking new players from one or two years down the line.

I can understand why they might not stick with it, because its a very different kind of game. Its a persistant online shooter, rather than your standard fps. Personally, im a big fan of the battlefield series. Ive played every game to death, and still love them. For me, planetside is totally different, because its about having a MASSIVE battle where you dont necessarily know what is happening everywhere in minute detail.

Planetside offers a different experience for me, but I would still say the BF games are more fun/varied over all and certainly easier to pick up and play. PS2 requires you to stick it out, but also to play with larger groups, because otherwise there is little fun to be had. For most standard fps gamers, I think the things that stick out as being different (often too different) is the fact that scenery is so duplicated, and that upgrades take a longtime/expensive (due to the nature of the free to play microtransaction model that comes with mmos).

From a design perspective, I do see that the PS2 devs are catering to gamers who probably mostly know what they like and what they are getting into. They probably havent catered for casual gamers as much as other games might. That said, its your friends loss for not doing some research in order to understand how more enjoyment could be gleaned from the game.

[bonkers]

That said, its your friends loss for not doing some research in order to understand how more enjoyment could be gleaned from the game.

Well, if research is necessary to enjoy a f2p shooter then I would say that's piss-poor game design. That might be a acceptable thing for something like a management or strategy game but not a free2play title that should be easy to pick up and enjoy by everybody. As a f2p title the game needs all the players it can get and if it looses them because they "didn't do the research" then that's bad. Especially because it sounds like something that could be avoided by changes in game design.

And even if I still wonder why people do not have the interest to actually do the research? In EVE I can see why players do, it's more suitable with a subscription based game where you already have an investment (money) and you want it to pay off. In PS2 you play the game for free for a few hours, it doesn't grab you and you deinstall and never come back. Of course that's my personal little theory but I think that it's actually the f2p model which, in it's current state, hurts the game the most. It relies on a steady new player input but also drives them off by requiring too much of a personal investment when it is way easier to just stop playing and play something else instead.

And I think the new API stats seem also to indicate into that direction. The amount of people who still play the game seem to be pretty high (for a f2p game), about 50% of the initial player base after three months. (Although those are active characters and not unique users)
But the dropping in character creation seems to indicate that the game might have problems getting new players into the game. Of course nobody expects those to be around the nov/dec values but the constant drop seems a bit troubling. Even GU2 didn't seem to bring a noticeable amount of players in or back. It only seemed to have stopped a decline in active characters.

[JimmyGiraffe]

Some excellent statistics about Planetside 2: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...tistics.97979/ http://https://docs.google.com/sprea...UdTJpM1E&gid=0 The second to last spreadsheet is alarming. And it shows that the terrible roll out of GU2 really hurt the game.

It's not so much the GU2, it's just that Vanu don't really have anything going for them. They're the average faction. Bullet drop means practically nothing, since most combat takes place at ranges where it wouldn't really matter. So we're left with an MBT that behaves strangely, but doesn't really pack a punch or have the agility it once had, a fighter which has a decent enough profile to avoid ground AA, but not much else, and weapons that are just.. Uninteresting. You can understand why people are switching to other factions. The worst warpgate on Indar, along with the magrider getting gutted was simply too much of a kicking to be delivered in one patch.

[Rizlar]

Bullet drop means practically nothing, since most combat takes place at ranges where it wouldn't really matter.

Yeah, it feels like, in terms of mechanics, the Vanu weapons are just the ones in the middle. Sure, the plasma looks pretty, which I appreciate, but it doesn't really have much practical effect. No bullet drop really isn't a big deal, most of our vehicle weapons and the bolt action rifles have drop, for the rest of the guns it wouldn't make much difference anyway (and it could be more fun to have to compensate a bit), compared to the greater or lesser rate of fire that TR and NC guns have instead. VS infantry seem to rely on looking way cooler than everyone else to be distinctive.

No idea what effect this might have on pop balance, just something I can relate to.

[Wardancer]

What PS2 needs more of is unique mechanics for weapons. Our magrider is unique in that it can strafe but our guns and rockets work exactly like normal bullets. The old lasher was a perfect "unique" weapon with a constant beam. More stuff like that to actually make our weapons hightech instead of just shiny bullets.

[bonkers]

The look of Vanu infantry surely doesn't help to get people interested. Especially Medic and LA don't look much like soldiers. More like... space pirates in spandex. I can at least see why people might be turned off by this and turn over to the faction with more badass looking avatars.
They looked waaay cooler when they released the first class info. But then all the cool looking stuff for Vanu become vanity items.

[JimmyGiraffe]

The Vanu aesthetic is really appealing to me. I like hexes and unconventional armies, so they've got that, but they don't feel quite as solid as NC, or as unified as the TR. With the Composite armour on, they look much like default troops. The MAX being the exception, going from space crab to space samurai crab. They've got the whole hexagonal/fractal thing going on. I'd love to see additional Armour or weapons taking on those shapes. The Lasher really deserve a unique skin, as well!

[Sir Hoc]

I agree with Jimmy. TR and NC just look... well, like normal soldier goons. Vanu soldiers have, in my opinion, a bit more individuality to them. It feels like it goes well with the Vanu mentality as well. We're fighting for the good of all, by promoting technology. We're not "Loyal until Death", since unquestioned loyalty is, to put it frankly, stupid. We don't fight for some vaguely defined ideal about freedom. We fight for the benefit of all, through logical reasoning. And I think and hope that most of us joined Vanu since these are ideals we believe in, and not because "Purple is awesome" (it is, but that's besides the point).

So I guess that what I'm trying to say with my somewhat ramling analysis of the cores of the factions is that people should choose faction based on what they believe in. And if we lose people because they don't like the look of our brothers and sisters, well, I for one won't really miss them.