Whats the purpose in this game? - Page 5

Xyntech · 2012-05-03, 05:22 PM

There has never been a total win scenario in Planetside. Even locking all continents isn't really a win, just another temporary victory.

Planetside 2 isn't devoid of victory conditions as we currently understand it. Taking a base or other piece of territory is exactly the same as winning a round in any other FPS, except that it persists as yours until someone else takes control of it.

Aside from being more difficult to do and maintain, taking every territory on all 3 continents will be exactly the same amount of "win" as locking the world in the first game. More of an accomplishment in some ways, due to how difficult it will be.

I'm all for lots of various objectives, big and small, but don't get carried away. There will always be ways of measuring winning and losing and there will never be a total victory scenario.

It's much more productive to toss around ideas for small and large objectives and victory scenarios, spit ball them and get feedback from other members, than it is to just complain about some perceived lack of purpose to the game.

It's a fictional war that, for the sake of ongoing gameplay, can never be won. There is no real purpose other than to have fun. If you want more purpose, come up with more ways of having fun. We'd all love to hear about them/pick them apart/contribute to them.

Kipper · 2012-05-03, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by Xyntech

I'm all for lots of various objectives, big and small, but don't get carried away. There will always be ways of measuring winning and losing and there will never be a total victory scenario.

This is what I don't get about the "whats the point?" argument.

In a deathmatch/round based FPS - you win a set piece battle with a limited number of vehicles and sometimes even classes, you get some kills, maybe rank up and get a medal, perhaps even unlock a new weapon.... And then you start another round.

In Planetside 2, as far as we can see - you win a battle which, although maybe on a map hex you've been to before, will probably not play out the same as before given that the you could be fighting a different faction with a different composition of vehicles and weapons entirely. You get some kills, maybe rank up and get a medal, perhaps unlock a new weapon/sidegrade... and then you advance, and keep fighting.

Everything that you can achieve in deathmatch you can achieve in PS2, except the match doesn't end when the last flag is captured.

Immigrant · 2012-05-03, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by SniperSteve

I can foresee TR claiming a continent for a week and refusing to fight anywhere else except that continent, and just preventing any other empire from leaving the footholds.

What's so wrong with being territorial? Anyway I thought we're going for all of them. One simply isn't enough for TR.

Aveox · 2012-05-03, 05:57 PM

I think we do need the ability to lock a continent. Without it you can drive the enemy all the way back to their foothold, but you know that the second you turn your back they'll recapture it straightaway. It will make it even more meaningless then the battles in PS were.

As well as adding a higher goal to the whole game, locking a continent also moves the action around the planet and prevents people getting stuck in the same 3-way stalemate on the same continent all evening. If you lock a continent for an hour you force people to move and change the balance on the other continents as a result. That ebb and flow in the global battle is really needed to shake things up from time to time and keep it interesting.

As some people already mentioned, there are some issues with locking a continent with the current population caps. I'd say that with continent locking in place the max server population would ideally be 4000 instead of 6000. That allows one continent to be locked without denying anybody the ability to play.
In case a second continent should become locked, then the first one could unlock earlier (maybe with a 10 minute timer on it or something). That should allow for PS-style continent locking without actually locking players out of the game.

Raymac · 2012-05-03, 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by WildVS

You guys ever been in an outfit with 300+ active members (all played within 2 weeks) and rolled 70+ members on an avg night in organized ops? You think capping a base or a hex is good enough to sustain the interest of that type organization? That type of highly organized structure needs far larger objectives and once upon a time that goal was a cont lock. And the higher the odds stacked against you the better. This is where I think PS2 falls short. It is designed too much (at least as from all that I have heard and seen to this point) for small squad type ops (not platoons, not outfits) so as to mimic CoD or BF.

Bullshit.

You can still have larger goals without having a "cont lock". i.e. holding and sustaining all of a continent's hexes when the enemy can attack any hex, not just the area adjacent to the warpgate like in PS1.

Also, you can't simply ignore that locking people out of a continent just doesn't work when you only have 3 continents in the game.

Get over it. Move on. And quit it with the "mimic COD" garbage.

SKYeXile · 2012-05-03, 06:11 PM

Originally Posted by WildVS

You guys ever been in an outfit with 300+ active members (all played within 2 weeks) and rolled 70+ members on an avg night in organized ops? You think capping a base or a hex is good enough to sustain the interest of that type organization? That type of highly organized structure needs far larger objectives and once upon a time that goal was a cont lock. And the higher the odds stacked against you the better. This is where I think PS2 falls short. It is designed too much (at least as from all that I have heard and seen to this point) for small squad type ops (not platoons, not outfits) so as to mimic CoD or BF.

Try not zerging it up then and roll with 5-20 people. Odds are stacked against you even more. Very fun when HT send a MAX and then some for every man you have.

Xyntech · 2012-05-03, 06:41 PM

Wait, so as a large group you enjoy having bigger challenges... So what would be the problem with taking every territory on a continent? Sure it would be a little harder without that cont lock at the end to mop up for you, but you like a challenge, right?

How is taking every territory on a continent so different than getting a continent lock? Jesus Christ, I don't even understand where some of you people are coming from.

As I've said before, I'd like the various objectives and ways of feeling of victorious to be extensive and constantly be added to, but Planetside 2 really isn't shaping up to be any worse off than the first game that way. In fact, the dynamic nature of the hex system, along with Forgelights modifiability should provide ample room for the game to expand on this nicely over the coming years.

The biggest difficulty for Planetside 2 in this regard will be having only 3 continents at launch. Hopefully that wont be too large a problem, and better yet, hopefully it won't even be the case for long. I'd love to see them add 3 or 4 more continents during the first year of the game if at all possible. At least a semiannual release would be nice.

Considering that this entire topic relates to the game and objectives becoming stale, regularly adding new territory (along with new types of objectives to go along with it) will probably be able to solve this long before the initial 3 continents become tiresome.

SKYeXile · 2012-05-03, 06:48 PM

A win condition just gives people more of a reason to stop playing anyway, "oh we won/lost, time to quit this game/logout then"

It was one of the inherent problems with warhammer, you capture a keep/city and turned everyhting in a zone your colour, people then moved on, switched zones and had to find another fight. it was also a problem in planetside when you got pushed out of a zone and had to backhack your way back to a good fight, that shit was boring, people logged out because they're loosing or they logged out because they just captured a continent and won.

In PS2 the fight wont stop, there wont be any winning, there will just be WAR, it will keep people playing longer than any win condition ever will.

Continents will be packed all the time, a server can only hold 6000 people, it means there's constant fights going on every content all the time. Until they add more contents, there wont be a continent lock or rotation/win condition.

Xyntech · 2012-05-03, 06:59 PM

Yeah. Keeping people interested in the game long term is certainly a valid concern, but that doesn't mean a win condition is the way to do it.

F2P, or more specifically having no mandatory subscription, will probably be the biggest part of keeping players coming back. There are countless B2P games that I've frequently dropped and gone back to over the years, and most of those weren't getting frequent content updates to keep them fresh.

Quite a few people on the forums seem to have an aversion to 3 way clusterfuck battles, or to having to play mop up on smaller battles after winning the larger fights. Maybe this is due to PS1 having bred a lot of players who are more interested in the commander meta game as the years passed?

I don't want to be in a 3 way battle every single fight, but they were always a blast. Never very productive, but a blast. Sometimes I would log in, fight for a few hours, and log out without any territory having changed hands, and I left happy. Victories are good, but the fights are better.

SKYeXile · 2012-05-03, 07:06 PM

It is actually a concern with this game with the indar map the way it is, i think you will find that fights very often breakout in 3 ways. The lattice kinda prevented 3 ways with the bases very spread out in relation to eachother andgenerally you were cut off from another faction and you couldn't attack them directly but from this looks like its going to be a cluster fuck.

Raymac · 2012-05-03, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by WildVS

You know what the difference between you and me is? You just shake your head up and down like any good old fanboi at anything SOE is offering and I offer constructive criticism and alternatives. If you could read my previous posts without those rose colored glasses on you might see that . Yeah you are right. Time to move on from this site and it's constant fanboi attitude. I hope you all get exactly what you think you are getting and come back here to cry about it later. Which I am certain you will.

Maybe I am a fanboi. So what. I still have enough critical thinking skills to realize denying people access 1/3 - 2/3 of the game is a freaking terrible idea.

Honestly, what is the big difference between PS1 cont lock, and capturing all the hexes in PS2? It's a bit of comparing apples to oranges because of hexes vs. the lattice, but when you look at it, it's the same damn thing. During a PS1 cont lock, you could still quickly capture a tower or 2, and you still had access through the WG.

After some time, and they add some more continents, then it might be a good idea to revisit cont locking. But while we only have 3, let the "big win" come from taking all the hexes, or at least all the vital resources. It will likely be hard, but not impossible.

EDIT: And anytime someone plays that "COD / BF clone" card, yeah, just take that stupid bullshit somewhere else. It's a shooter, so might as well call it a Goldeneye clone.

Raymac · 2012-05-03, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by WildVS

It would be impossible to capture every region the way the timers are so brief for capping adjacent areas. A more likely approach would be to move the entire group deep behind the lines. Cap regions in the rear to pull troops back but that isnt a real "win".

Look I am resigned to the fact with just 3 conts it's gonna get stale and any sort of victory's will be brief, repetitive and somewhat unrewarding. But until more conts are released how do you give more victory conditions. Events? Lower server pop limit to give more freedom of movement? Reward weekly overall empire real estate capture victors with station cash/resources/other items? Give outfit that had most resource totals for the week a special skin?

Yeah. Sure. Those could work. You can have a big win without kicking players off a map. Plus, as you've said, in a persistant world, you are NEVER going to have a real win. If you do, the persistance ends right then and there. Or to use your terminology, having a winner and resetting the map mimics COD / BF.

While you say it's "impossible" to capture all the hexes, if Planetside has taught us anything it's that nothing is impossible. Will it be difficult? Sure. But I certainly see it as a strong possibility. Hell, just look at the recent "Burn Jita" event in EVE. That was waaayyyy harder in comparison.

Plus, if it is more difficult, then it will be that much more rewarding for those large organized outfits, no? Bottom line for me, cont locks are a bad idea, at least for now.

FPClark · 2012-05-03, 08:56 PM

Hey guys what’s the point of skydiving? I mean you are just falling right? What about racing cars? I mean yeah sure you can win but really aren’t you just driving?

I mean if you break everything down to its core you can make pretty much anything seem uninteresting and uncompelling. I think it’s a little early to be trying to figure out what to do when the 'honeymoon phase' of the game has rubbed off.

No one is going to force you (or anyone) to play the game if it becomes stale and boring...The devs know this and it’s their job to keep that from happening.

I think the best part about a game without a clear and defined 'win condition' is the ability to set your own. Having the words "WINNER!" pop up on the screen may be gratifying but in the end the real satisfaction is going to come from creating a 'win condition' out of whatever dynamic scenario is going on at a time and figuring out how to accomplish that.

(Excuse the ramblings im pretty sleep deprived)

RawketLawnchair · 2012-05-03, 08:59 PM

Originally Posted by FPClark

Hey guys what’s the point of skydiving? I mean you are just falling right? What about racing cars? I mean yeah sure you can win but really aren’t you just driving?

I mean if you break everything down to its core you can make pretty much anything seem uninteresting and uncompelling. I think it’s a little early to be trying to figure out what to do when the 'honeymoon phase' of the game has rubbed off.

No one is going to force you (or anyone) to play the game if it becomes stale and boring...The devs know this and it’s their job to keep that from happening.

I think the best part about a game without a clear and defined 'win condition' is the ability to set your own. Having the words "WINNER!" pop up on the screen may be gratifying but in the end the real satisfaction is going to come from creating a 'win condition' out of whatever dynamic scenario is going on at a time and figuring out how to accomplish that.

(Excuse the ramblings im pretty sleep deprived)

Actually, it was well put, and I couldn't agree more.

And I definitely don't want another crap host based COD rinse and repeat fps where the only thing that matters is your K/DR...

Corax · 2012-05-03, 09:31 PM

There are going to be many levels of win conditions in this game. Starting at the basic kill the other team for the solo player. Then Squad/Platoon missions that are made by players to help focus a fight. After that there will be empire goals to acquire territories for specific resources to help drive the fight overall as well as moving to defend your own resources. After that there is the overarching goal of forcing the enemy empires to hole up in their footholds.

This will then be applied to 3 separate conts. at launch. There will be plenty to do as the fights see-saw back and forth. It will be a constant tug of war over the land.

As for the battles you will see everything from 1v1 to 1000+. Your going to be constantly in the middle of some fight somewhere. As there are no round timers you are going to be constantly moving forwards. When you have no limitations or boundaries then there is always something more to do.

And with the amount of people both veteran and beginning players, it is going to be nearly impossible to force an empire all the way back to their footholds. And if/when it does happen it wont remain long.

If a fight keeps on happening you are less inclined to get bored with it and leave. Ask any PS1 Vet how long they have stayed in the middle of a fight.

You will be able to WIN. Heck the game will even have shiny letters and messages that announce your victory at a base along with a nice bonus of XP (watch GDC vids).

With ps2 we are getting the best of both worlds here. We get a constant never ending war and fights across a variety of terrain and objectives. And we get the "You Win!" letters across your screen.

You get to WIN and keep fighting....